[Miami Herald] Miami-Dade police may deploy sophisticated aerial surveillance capable of photographing everyone outside for 32 square miles in an effort to track vehicles and individuals involved in crimes.
The proposal, first reported by the Miami New Times, would send a surveillance plane high above high-crime neighborhoods to film everything below, according to Lt. Juan Villalba Jr. Already used in Baltimore, the technology lets police pull footage after a crime occurs and try to recreate where the perpetrators came from on their way to the scene and where they fled to afterward.
"It’s kind of like a DVR," Villalba said, referring to playing back television shows hours after they air. "This will allow us to go back and look at what happened."
Already used in Baltimore and other cities, the technology has helped spark a national debate on civil liberties as it pushes the edge of what’s possible now in mass surveillance. The camera system tracks how the U.S. pursued suicide bombers in Iraq, and the American Civil Liberties Union has called it "terrifying" for the potential to record every citizen’s movement when he or she is visible from the sky."
"This is not the way to adopt public policy -- no system of surveillance should be put into place until it is first established that there is a need which this system addresses, and that there are protections in place for the privacy of the people of Miami-Dade County," the ACLU’s Florida said in a statement Thursday from executive director Howard Simon. "Until these protections for the rights and privacy of the people of Miami-Dade County are put into place, the grant request should be withdrawn."
#1
The camera system tracks how the U.S. pursued suicide bombers in Iraq
Tracked suicide bombers by reversing the tape (after the boom) and watching where the car or truck originated from, if in the field of view (FOV). Some success was achieved.
#2
Open and public places are not protected from 'eyes'. I believe SCOTUS has already ruled in vehicle cases 'clear and open' view.
Just keep in mind that any such video record is public and subject to requests whether it is a police 'incident' or a traffic accident. Can we say another bureaucracy to handle the volume of requests. Could be tempered by charging for 'shipping and handling'.
[FOX2DETROIT] Attorney for Little Caesars said on Friday that a lawsuit that claimed a Detroit-area Muslim man had been served pepperoni pizza instead of halal pepperoni was being dropped. However, the man's attorneys are disputing that assertion. Another Moslem get rich quick scheme.
Little Caesars says after they were made aware of Mohamad Bazzi's lawsuit, they looked into the matter -- as the consumption of pork is strictly forbidden under Muslim law.
They say they found the allegations to be false and presented those results to Bazzi's attorney before heading into court.
"We shared the results of what we learned with Mr. Bazzi's attorney, which caused him to tell us he would dismiss the lawsuit," said Mike Huget from local Detroit law firm Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn.
Attorneys for Bazzi released a statement to FOX 2 saying that claims of the lawsuit being dropped were not accurate. Attorneys claim that they said the planned to dismiss the lawsuit in order to add additional plaintiffs. Read the statement below:
"The allegations that Little Ceasar's Pizza made in its news release needs to be clarified. Yesterday, I met with the attorneys for Little Caesars. I was shown a video of the event of that day. There is nothing in the video that changes the merits of the case. That is my client was served "Pork" pepperoni on two separate occasions...Plaintiff had planned on dismissing the lawsuit to add additional plaintiffs. It appears that Little Caeser's Pizza first lied to its Muslim customers by serving "Pork" pepperoni and now they are lying to the media by mistaking the truth. The truth is my client isn't dismissing the case because it lacks merits, he was hoping to dismiss to have the case filed with additional plaintiffs...which was sent to the attorney for Little Caesar's. "
Bazzi's lawsuit claimed he ordered a halal pizza from the location on Schafer near Warren in Dearborn on March 20.
When he and his wife began to eat, they realized that they were eating pork pepperoni, they had said.
Bazzi went to the Dearborn police to complain. On May 24, he ordered another halal pepperoni pizza -- even checking to ensure the receipt and box's label said "halal," he said.
He said again, he found pork pepperoni.
Bazzi returned to the store and the manager told him that he asked for regular pepperoni and that he "told the employee to put the [halal] sticker" on the box.
According to the lawsuit, Bazzi states Little Caesars does not "provide proper training to employees on the magnitude and emotional distress that is caused by feeding 'pork' to Muslims, under the guise that it is 'halal.'"
The class action lawsuit had been filed for $100 million in economic and punitive damages.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/03/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
They say they found the allegations to be false
#6
It wouldn't seem like there would be a burden on a restaurant to provide halal food anymore than they would have an obligation to provide vegetarian, vegan or kosher. If Little Caesars misrepresented the content, hey, most restaurant food is misrepresented. The muzzy should go to a halal restaurant.
[AolNews] This year, Atlanta PD changed how it reports rapes, following the FBI's gender-neutral definition and allowing male victims and other people who were previously not counted in the data as part of its crime totals. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Atlanta had previously reported rapes, exclusively, as the number of times the assailant was a man and the victim was a woman, which is how the crime is defined under Georgia state rules. Because of the new definition, there's been "a much higher number of cases being classified and reported as rape," Atlanta Police Spokesperson Lisa Bender told the Journal-Constitution.
[Breitbart] A sergeant in the Venezuelan Armed Forces has released a video calling for his fellow soldiers to rise up against dictator Nicolás Maduro and reject orders to attack unarmed civilians, the latest indication that Maduro is losing the support of the military amid a wave of violent crackdowns on dissidents.
First Sergeant Giomar Alexander Flores Ortiz identifies himself with his legal military number in the video before accusing Maduro’s socialist government of being an "illegitimate president" and telling soldiers to "not follow the abusive and unconstitutional orders that our superior give us."
"I consider myself a rightful soldier regarding upholding my duties, with strong values and professional ethics," he said in the video. "I always stick to the rules and regulations of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela."
"In the fulfillment of this function I am at the exclusive service of the country, with absolutely no political partisanship," he asserts. "I hereby ratify my rejection of Nicolás Maduro Moros as an illegitimate president of the republic and I do not accept his dictatorial regime, which does not respect the Constitution and instead defies its principles and disregards human rights."
"My call is to you, my dear comrades in arms. ... We must respect the laws and be on the side of the people, and turn our backs on the tyrant that has so harmed the country. We cannot fear him. We must fulfill our duty to defend our nation against the abhorrent actions committed by these immoral and corrupt officials," he says. (Video at the link)
#1
Last I heard, the average Venezuelan had lost about 19 pounds. I suppose that figure includes men, women and children. There won't be much left to control if Maduro has his way, so I suppose the military has no other choice left than to hang the ba$tard.
Any odds on whether or not he makes it out of the country?
#2
Depends how much he gives the Military to let him go. At least a couple billion to get away, but I'm not sure WHERE he would go. Most of South America at this point hates his guts. Cuba perhaps?
Posted by: Charles ||
06/03/2017 10:52 Comments ||
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#3
...The Cuba option sounds really good because they'd help him keep a low-level insurgency going to drag down whoever get stuck with trying to fix this Charlie Foxtrot...
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/03/2017 13:10 Comments ||
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[AP] SINGAPORE -- U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says the United States regards North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons a "clear and present danger."
In remarks at an international security conference in Singapore, Mattis says the Trump administration is encouraged by China's renewed commitment to ridding North Korea of nuclear weapons.
Mattis also has sharp criticism for China. He says China is showing a disregard for international law by militarizing artificial islands in disputed areas of the South China Sea.
[LA Times] Anthem is the nation’s second-largest health insurer, with thousands of medical professionals on its payroll. Yet its Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia subsidiary has just informed its members that if they show up at the emergency room with a problem that later is deemed to have not been an emergency, their claim won’t be paid.
It’s a new wrinkle in the age-old problem of how to keep patients from showing up at the ER for just anything. But medical experts say the Georgia insurer is playing with fire. By requiring patients to self-diagnose at the risk of being stuck with a big bill, it may discourage even those with genuine emergencies from seeking necessary care. And it’s asking them to take on a task that often confounds even experienced doctors and nurses.
"Patients don’t come with a sticker on their forehead saying what the diagnosis is," said Renee Hsia of the Institute for Health Policy Studies at UC San Francisco, who has studied the difficulty of making snap diagnoses at the ER. "We as physicians can’t always distinguish necessary from unnecessary visits."
#2
ER is horribly overused by folks that 'don't have to pay for it' and come in with very minor aliments or injuries. Apparently they can't (or won't) use the 'Urgent Care' facilities most health care systems have and designed for such situations.
Drains resources for the folks truly needing the ER.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
06/03/2017 7:22 Comments ||
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#3
How does one say "bring your car title" in Spanish ?
#4
If you think you're having a stroke or heart attack wait until you're sure before going to the ER. It is an effective way to make Obamacare fiscally sound, by ridding us of many of the most medically expensive pat of the population.
#5
What No.2 said! It's like those protestors who block roads so emergency vehicles transporting patients are grid locked on the road. In these cases, stuck in the queue line for dangerously extended waits.
#6
My employer faced a similar problem five or six years ago - ER use was skyrocketing. They raised the co-pay for ER visits from $50 to $150 and ER usage plummeted.
When it's somebody else's money, usage goes up.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/03/2017 9:30 Comments ||
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#7
Illegals already have a single payer healthcare plan immediately upon arrival, YOU and local ER! What do you think makes the ER so damn expensive. The people on your healthcare plan bill they forget to list, those who don't pay.
#8
NoMoreBS nails it. Illegals along with assorted other deadbeats and freeloaders use the ER as their own personal general practitioner. They don't pay. We do. But it gets worse. When legitimate patients come to the ER with extreme pain or life threatening conditions they have to wait while the illegals are seen for a case of the sniffles.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
06/03/2017 13:06 Comments ||
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#9
The clinical difference between a simple fainting spell and a cardiac arrest, is that you wake up after a fainting spell.
#10
Apparently they can't (or won't) use the 'Urgent Care' facilities most health care systems have and designed for such situations.
Our local emergency room has an urgent care clinic next door, so they can triage them right out the door at intake. So much easier than asking them to go off to an unknown somewhere on the map.
[DAWN] Residents of Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... remained perplexed by 'strange' smells that pervaded large parts of the city Wednesday evening, with many taking to social media to share their concerns.
Members of the Facebook group Halaat Updates, where Karachiites discuss everything from electricity outages to municipal negligence, wondered what the reason behind the smell could be, with many voicing concerns that it may have a detrimental impact on health.
Residents of several areas in Karachi, including Gulistan-e-Johar, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Nazimabad and parts of the Defence Housing Authority complained of the smell.
Members of the group said the smell was "unbearable" and suggested the use of face masks to cope with it.
While some describe it as the smell of rubber, others say the stench has the odour of an animal carcass.
Several people said the smell prompted their family members to search the house for a dead animal.
Some likened the smell to the stink of a dead rat, while other said it smelled like a "fish truck". One member of the group said it smelled like manure.
Other members of the group offered explanations for the causes of the smell. One member suggested the stench was a result of garbage rotting in Karachi's sweltering heat.
Another member suggested the smell was the result of a "biological attack".
Another Facebook page, Weather Updates PK, claimed that the smell was the result of an easterly shift in the wind and the strong Somalian current over the Arabian Sea.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/03/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Let me guess, the sewer system dates back to the British rule era?
[DAWN] The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday, after a particularly fiery ...a single two-syllable word carrying connotations of both incoherence and viciousness. A fiery delivery implies an audience of rubes and yokels, preferably forming up into a mob... exchange with the attorney general (AG), decided to open a case against PML-N Senator Nehal Hashmi.
Issuing Hashmi a show-cause notice for maligning the judiciary and summoning him again on June 5, the court appointed AG Ashtar Ausaf as prosecutor in the case and ordered him to compile relevant evidence in connection with Hashmi's recent outburst against judiciary.
The chief justice had on Wednesday taken suo motu ...a legal term, from the Latin. Roughly translated it means I saw what you did, you bastard... notice of a video of Hashmi railing against "those investigating" the prime minister's family and threatening them with "consequences".
Senator Nehal Hashmi's now infamous speech. Source: DawnNews
Justice Saqib Nisar had summoned the senator to appear before the special bench overseeing the implementation of the Panama Papers verdict.
"Are you aware of what is going on around you?" the AG, who was present for the hearing, was asked by the bench.
Hashmi's video had stirred up a nationwide controversy after it went 'viral' on social media. In the video, the senator had warned that those conducting the investigation would be "taken to task".
"It seems that the government's self-proclaimed spokespersons let no opportunity for maligning the courts slip by," Justice Ejaz Afzal remarked.
"It is not our custom to bring our children into our fights," Justice Sheikh Azmat chimed in, referring to the senator's threats. "Mr Attorney General, what kind of people involve children in their fights?" he asked.
"The cowardly kind," offered AG Ashtar Ausaf.
"No, not cowards -- it is forces of Evil and the mafia who do such things," responded Justice Azmat.
"Congratulations Mr Attorney General: it seems that your government has joined the Sicilian Mafia," he added wryly.
"We have faced military dictatorships, but even they did not dare threaten our children," Justice Afzal said to the AG. "Our children are being threatened under your government," he observed.
"You stayed quiet for two days after Hashmi's speech and then sprung into action [once it made headlines] fearing the Supreme Court's retribution," he added.
"We constituted the joint investigation team (JIT) and we are not afraid of any type of consequences," Justice Ejaz Afzal said.
"We were the ones who issued instructions to the Supreme Court registrar," he said, responding to a widely-circulated rumour that the heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistain and the State Bank were 'pressured' by a caller -- who identified himself as the Supreme Court registrar -- into submitting the names of two JIT members who have repeatedly been accused of bias by the ruling Sharif family.
"We know who's capable and who can deliver results," he added, observing that some things were being blown out of proportion to present a misleading view of the process.
"Your government has been creating problems for us," he warned, slamming the "misleading campaign" being run in connection with the JIT.
"Strict action will be taken against whoever mocks the judiciary," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/03/2017 00:00 ||
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[phys.org] When scientists at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory focused the full intensity of the world's most powerful X-ray laser on a small molecule, they got a surprise: A single laser pulse stripped all but a few electrons out of the molecule's biggest atom from the inside out, leaving a void that started pulling in electrons from the rest of the molecule, like a black hole gobbling a spiraling disk of matter.
Within 30 femtoseconds - millionths of a billionth of a second - the molecule lost more than 50 electrons, far more than scientists anticipated based on earlier experiments using less intense beams, or isolated atoms. Then it blew up.
The results, published today in Nature, give scientists fundamental insights they need to better plan and interpret experiments using the most intense and energetic X-ray pulses from SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray free-electron laser. Experiments that require these ultrahigh intensities include attempts to image individual biological objects, such as viruses and bacteria, at high resolution. They are also used to study the behavior of matter under extreme conditions, and to better understand charge dynamics in complex molecules for advanced technological applications.
#1
On the molecular level, this could prove useful in the future for some technologies, like medical or metallurgy, for removal of undesirable bits and pieces. Would have to have the way to contain the action before it got out of hand, though. That would be ugly.
This technology also borders on the realm of Lex Luthor or Blofeld stuff if in the wrong hands.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
06/03/2017 7:18 Comments ||
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#2
Relax Mullah, when was the last time a sensational discovery in physics was announced which didn't turn out to be an experimental error?
#5
30 femtoseconds - millionths of a billionth of a second -
A femtosecond is the SI unit of time equal to 10−15 or 1/1,000,000,000,000,000 of a second; that is, one quadrillionth, or one millionth of one billionth, of a second.[1] For context, a femtosecond is to a second as a second is to about 31.71 million years; a ray of light travels approximately 0.3 µm (micrometers) in 1 femtosecond, a distance comparable to the diameter of a virus. - wiki
At what point do you get when there is no distance light can travel in a measure of time?
#9
I had a long explanation, et. al. all written up in response, then I read the actual article Besoeker linked to.
Talk about misleading headline, one word got left off which changed the entire impression.
I deleted most of what I wrote as it's now pointless.
But not to deride the achievement, the takeaway can be summed up in the following: The results, published today in Nature, give scientists fundamental insights they need to better plan and interpret experiments using the most intense and energetic X-ray pulses from SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray free-electron laser. Experiments that require these ultrahigh intensities include attempts to image individual biological objects, such as viruses and bacteria, at high resolution. They are also used to study the behavior of matter under extreme conditions, and to better understand charge dynamics in complex molecules for advanced technological applications.
"For any type of experiment you do that focuses intense X-rays on a sample, you want to understand how it reacts to the X-rays," said Daniel Rolles of Kansas State University. "This paper shows that we can understand and model the radiation damage in small molecules, so now we can predict what damage we will get in other systems."
#10
Oh forgot to add, it's "like a black hole", describing the behavior of electrons moving from outer orbits to inner orbits. Elections are wont to do that, they fill in the innermost orbits first, then fill the rest as additional electrons becomes available. The article never said it was a black hole.
Coyote hunting has officially been taken to the next level by O'Neill Ops using precision rifles and the top thermal scopes from Trijicon EO. This video includes one-of-a-kind night hunting footage of 50 coyote dirt naps filmed directly through the eyepiece of the Trijicon IR Hunter MKIII 60mm, REAP-IR, and the IR Patrol.
#6
Amazing how quickly this line of optics is becoming affordable.
Coyotes are no joke. Someone I know lost a calf within five minutes of leaving it. Came at it through the haunches - took the shot, maybe hit, drove the wounded calf into town but the wound was mortal. Sure the boar hunters have taken note as well.
[FOX] More testing will prove whether the sheer thickening fluid could be used to replace or reduce heavy steel plating on military vehicles, aircraft and first responders; Alicia Acuna has the story for 'Special Report.'
Kiddie choirs. Children’s piano recitals. And a full-on, erotic drag show complete with gyrations, tongue gymnastics and a flashed G-string.
Families at a Manhattan public school talent show got an unexpected lesson in human sexuality when a grown man took the stage in a black, sequined dress and flaming red wig and performed a raunchy drag number where he grinded the stage and spread his legs.
The official public school Learning Expo held May 25 in an auditorium at the Museo del Barrio was billed as a talent show for students from across Manhattan’s District 4 to show off what they learned in school.
But at the end of the two-hour event, parents and kids as young as 5 were shocked when a man identified as Public School 96 Parent Association President Frankie Quinones took the stage and did an explicit lip-synch performance of a song by the campy 1980’s Puerto Rican music sensation Iris Chacón.
"People were horrified," said Raquel Morales, who was at the event with her son, a fifth-grader who attends a public school in District 4. "It looked like a nightclub performance. I’ve been asking for an apology from the district for the last week, and they’ve been ignoring it."
Morales said about 200 families at the evening talent show took in student art and writing exhibits from schools across the district, including Public School 83, River East Elementary School and PS 96.
The parents sat through endearing performances by children who took the stage and played the piano and drums and sang for the student performance portion of the event, which District 4 Superintendent Alexandra Estrella emceed.
Then, parents said, Estrella introduced the final act of the night, billed on the event flyer as a "Special Surprise Performance!" More and pix at link.
[NYPost] Administrators at a Long Island high school forced a student to sign a contract barring her from changing her gender identity because she had switched it twice already, sources told The Post.
Born a girl, the current Valley Stream South High School student, who asked to remain anonymous, said she first asked the school to recognize her as a male with a new name as a sophomore last year.
A school social worker told her that hesitant administrators wanted her to delay the change until this year -- purportedly because the process was lengthy and complicated.
"That wasn’t true and I knew it wasn’t true," the student told The Post. "After I insisted on it, they made the change in a few days."
Formally regarded as a boy last year, the student said her teachers and classmates accepted her new identity and made her feel comfortable. Continues...
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
06/03/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
She wanted to shower in the boy's locker room, until she didn't?
#2
According to the rest of the article, while her parents and friends knew, the rest of the family didn't. Now a younger cousin is moving to the high school, so the only way to keep the grandparents from finding out is to give it up. No doubt she'd also discovered that she wasn't really one of the boys, no matter how accommodating everyone was about it.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Breitbart] A sergeant in the Venezuelan Armed Forces has released a video calling for his fellow soldiers to rise up against dictator Nicolás Maduro and reject orders to attack unarmed civilians, the latest indication that Maduro is losing the support of the military amid a wave of violent crackdowns on dissidents. 
[LA Times] Anthem is the nation’s second-largest health insurer, with thousands of medical professionals on its payroll. Yet its Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia subsidiary has just informed its members that if they show up at the emergency room with a problem that later is deemed to have not been an emergency, their claim won’t be paid.
[DAWN] Residents of 
