Day's Headlines: October 2016

Monday, October 31, 2016

Transcending on SCOTUS; Unreformed Pope; Genetic Reveal; Chief Failure; Duterte's Shoal Thing; UN or Occupy; and Unmarked Driverless Cars

Society

5 things to know: Transgender case lands in Supreme Court sfgate

Grimm was allowed to use the boys' restroom at his high school for several weeks in 2014. But after some parents complained, the Gloucester County School Board adopted a policy requiring students to use either the restroom that corresponds with their biological gender or a private, single-stall restroom. Grimm says that policy violates Title IX, a federal law that bars sex discrimination in schools.

Also see US Supreme Court agrees to hear student privacy case adflegal v

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Embracing the Sting; Death by Insurance; Sermons on their Mind; Balfour Repentance; and Seeing Again (One Day)

Suicide

The right to die on one’s own terms: At 94, sick, tired and living alone, ‘Dad got the death he wanted’ news.nationalpost

Richard Brown wanted to die. An elderly widower who lived by himself in the same Vancouver house that he’d owned for decades, he wasn’t terminally ill. He wasn’t immobile. He had coronary heart disease and he’d endured painful episodes of gout. He’d been in hospital frequently.

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Lies Begetting Lies; The Racist Noose; Invoking God and Immigration Control; Russia's Texas-Sized Talk; Shrinking When Hot; and 3D Manufacturing Gallary

Depravity

Slippery slope: Study finds little lies lead to bigger ones sfgate

Neuroscientists at the University College London's Affective Brain Lab affectivebrain put 80 people in scenarios where they could repeatedly lie and get paid more based on the magnitude of their lies. They said they were the first to demonstrate empirically that people's lies grow bolder the more they fib.

The researchers then used brain scans to show that our mind's emotional hot spot — the amygdala — becomes desensitized or used to the growing dishonesty, according to a study published online Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience .

While we take the (early, unverified) conclusions of physical changes in the brain with a grain of salt, the fact that ones conscience becomes desensitized (or hardened/seared) the more we intentionally sin is well attested to in the Bible. We sin naturally but the longer we do it, the "better" we get at suppressing the conscience's warning of our guilt. Just a couple examples include Ephesians 4:17-19 and 1 Timothy 4:1-3. Also consider the source of, and desire to, sin comes from the very core of who we are: Jeremiah 17:9. Finally, take to heart the dire warning of Christ of those who are known for lying (indeed, all who remain unrepentant until the end, with one possible fruit of an unrepentant heart being lying): Revelation 21:7-8

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Third Wall, Second Temple; Auctioning Slab of Commandments; Restricting Conservative Videos; Google DoubleClicks with You; The IOT Revolt; Doing Carter Wheels Around Biology; Fat Flyer; Traffic Smarts; Air Powered Drone; Colombia Skips Venezuela; Policing Loyalty; Birthright Bonanza; and Russia's Nuclear Tip

Archeaology

Evidence unearthed of Jerusalem’s protective ‘Third Wall’ from Second Temple period jpost

Compelling evidence from the breaching of Jerusalem’s so-called “third wall” – which was said to surround the capital during the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 CE – may finally help to conclusively prove its existence.

The historian Josephus, a witness to the war, recorded numerous details about the third wall. In his telling, the wall was designed to protect the new quarter of the capital, then known as Beit Zeita, which extended beyond its boundaries, north of the two existing city walls.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

What Will Obama Do?; Aleppo Crush; Triple Down on Military; Philippines Talks Divorce; Another NK Fail; Ghost War Games; Toxic Springs; Hot Not-Dog; Getting Around Privacy; White Blight; Speak Freely or Graduate; Father Shakes Son's Arm; Air Fuel; ExoMars Phone Home; and Cloudy Pluto

Israel

Netanyahu tells settlers of worries of possible U.S. action at U.N. in.reuters

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday expressed concern that U.S. President Barack Obama, during the final days of his term in office, might take diplomatic steps that could harm the fate of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Obama's strong opposition to settlement building on land Palestinians seek for a future state has also raised speculation in Israel that he might try to define parameters for a final peace agreement that has eluded Israel and the Palestinians since interim deals were signed in the early 1990s.

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Hamas Seas Rocket; Taliban Peace; Norway Build Up; China's Inmate Organ; Jerusalem Lost; Patent Drive; Flying Alone; and Pet Luggage

Hamas

Hamas test-fires long-range rocket into sea off Gaza timesofisrael

The jihadist group regularly fires rockets as it works to improve its rocket range and accuracy, a little over two years after it last fought Israel ict.org. In June, it test-fired dozens of short-range rockets inside Gaza, with Israeli sources estimating that at least 30 projectiles were launched.

Monday’s test comes some 10 days after two projectile strikes in two days from Gaza on nearby Israeli population centers. The first attack — in which a rocket hit a street in the city of Sderot — caused some damage to nearby homes and cars, but no injuries. Three people were hospitalized for anxiety following the strike.

Monday, October 17, 2016

60 Cities Pass Depravity Test; Paris' Quieting March; Banking Against RT; NK Shoots and Fails Again; Energy Magnets; Fiber Inserts; Wrist Control; China's Space; and Heart Caring AI

Society

New survey finds more U.S. cities protecting LGBTQ rights in.reuters

Sixty U.S. cities earned perfect scores on a nationwide ranking of protections for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) people, despite an array of anti-gay efforts by state governments, the Human Rights Campaign said on Monday.

Also see Human Rights Campaign Releases 5th Annual Municipal Equality Index hrc w!

Thousands March in Paris to Repeal Same-Sex Marriage Law nbcnews

About 24,000 people took part in the demonstration, police said, far fewer than the several hundreds of thousands the group "Demo for All" mobilized in 2012 and 2013 in an unexpectedly strong show of opposition from conservatives, especially Roman Catholics.

Saturday, October 15, 2016

The War-Crazy Gambit; Monitoring Russian Warships; Executive Ordering of the Universe; Determining Baby Gender Illegally; Slow Race; Laundry Folder; Learning With Fellow Robots; and Insert Picture, Find Face

Russia

Putin, Syria, and Why Moscow Has Gone War-Crazy newyorker

A viewer of Russian television this week could be forgiven for thinking that the end of the world was imminent, and that it would arrive in the form of grand superpower war with the United States, culminating in a suicidal exchange of nuclear weapons. On one day alone, three separate test firings of intercontinental ballistic missiles were broadcast on state media: two by submarine, one from a launch pad in the Far East. Last weekend, NTV, a channel under effective state control, aired a segment on emergency preparedness that included a tour of a Cold War-era bomb shelter, fortified in case of atomic war, and a mention of the municipal loudspeakers that will sound upon the arrival of “Hour X.” On Sunday, Dmitry Kiselev, the most bombastic and colorful of Kremlin propagandists, warned on his weekly newsmagazine show that “impudent behavior” toward Russia may have “nuclear” consequences.

This is a good read...

Thursday, October 13, 2016

CoverBoy; Sudan Persecution; Pope Advising Lutherans; Seedful; CRISPR Sickle; Instant Vaccines; Graphene Silk; AI Underground; Kill Jobs, Save the World; AI Traffic Cop; China Tops AI; Kobi, My Landscaper; Returning Fire; and Russia's Inflated Military

Society

Meet CoverGirl’s first-ever CoverBoy, James Charles usatoday v

CoverGirl ambassador Katy Perry took to Instagram to break the news that the beauty behemoth had signed the 17-year-old New York-based makeup artist. "Just wrapped another great CoverGirl shoot. Honored to have the pleasure to announce the very first CoverBoy, James Charles!" the pop artist captioned a photo of herself posing alongside Charles in all his contoured glory.

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Closed Liberty; Church Bathrooms; Russia's Regress Begins; Aussies Block (ish) SSM; Drugged Out; Bio-Hacking at the Top; Censoring the Censors; Nod to Pay; Nano Transistor; Spacey Brain; Houthi in the Machine; and Drone Death

Society

Christian-owned bakery in Oregon closes after religious freedom fight results in steep fines christiandaily

On Sept. 29, the Christian-owned bakery Sweet Cakes thanked the people who prayed for and supported the business, but at the same time announced that the bakery has already closed. No explanation was provided on the Facebook statement, Catholic News Agency details.

According to Q13 Fox News, Sweet Cakes' storefront in Oregon has been closed since 2013. However, owners Aaron and Melissa Klein continued to operate their business from their home. Their legal representative Hiram Sasser explained that the bakery was closed "months ago" but the couple still received inquiries for possible orders, thus the Facebook announcement.

Monday, October 10, 2016

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Sloth Attack; Dead End; Mapping an Ancient Battle; Amazon's Minute of Human Interaction; The Spy Base Theory; Threats to Shoot; Afghan's Going AWOL; and Jailed Disturbing Inner Peace

Society

[OPINION] America’s ‘quiet catastrophe’: Millions of idle men washingtonpost

After 88 consecutive months of the economic expansion that began in June 2009, a smaller percentage of American males in the prime working years (ages 25 to 54) are working than were working near the end of the Great Depression illinois.edu in 1940, when the unemployment rate was above 14 percent. If the labor-force participation rate were as high today as it was as recently as 2000, nearly 10 million more Americans would have jobs.

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Yahoo, Watchin' You; Stalled Gender; Killing Wins the Day; Russia is Awesome!; 40 Million Prep for the Bomb; Aleppo is Not the End; Iraq Wants Turkey (Out); U.S. Blasts Israel; Tractoring Around; and Bees Dance Ahola

Privacy

Yahoo 'secretly monitored emails on behalf of the US government' theguardian

The company complied with a classified US government directive, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency (NSA nsa.gov) or FBI fbi.gov, two former employees and a third person who knew about the program told Reuters.

Some surveillance experts said this represents the first known case of a US internet company agreeing to a spy agency’s demand by searching all arriving messages, as opposed to examining stored messages or scanning a small number of accounts in real time.

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Modern's Normalcy; Abolitionist Long Shot; Protesting to Kill; Climate Threshold Met; Burrito Air; Brain Complex; and 12k Suspended Officers

Society

'Modern Family' to feature transgender child actor usatoday

Wednesday's episode will feature transgender actor Jackson Millarker. The 8-year-old Atlanta native will play Tom, a friend of Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons) who comes over for a playdate.

Monday, October 3, 2016

Unsustainably Expensive; Hamilton's Advice; Absorbing and Boiling; Blue Collar Robot; Toyota Baby; Deep and Powerful Learning; Look Ma: No Mans; Duterte is Sorry; Colombian Pieces; and Russia and US Agree to Hate Each Other

Medical

Minnesota Commissioner Slams Obamacare As "Unfair & Unsustainable" As Rates Soar zerohedge

Minnesota Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman posted a letter mn.gov to the state's website saying that the state succeeded in preserving the exchanges for one more year by agreeing to massive rate hikes but warned they are on the "verge of collapse." The letter goes on to describe Minnesota's healthcare rate environment as "unsustainable and unfair" and notes that "middle-class Minnesotans" are being "crushed by the heavy burden of these costs."

Also see ObamaCare rates in MN skyrocket 60% to stave off “collapse” hotair