Only U.S. Votes Against Resolution to Investigate Latest Round of Israeli Atrocities
July 28th, 2014Via: AP:
The U.N.’s top human rights official demanded Wednesday that all sides in the two-week war in the Gaza Strip refrain from indiscriminate attacks on civilians, warning that violations may amount to war crimes.
The warning by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay came at a special meeting of the U.N.’s top human rights body, which voted 29-1 to authorize an international commission of inquiry to investigate all alleged abuses since mid-June in the Gaza Strip.
Only the United States voted against the resolution championed by Arab nations. Another 17 of the Human Rights Council’s 47 member-states abstained.
Israel said that the council’s decision to investigate Israel’s role in the conflict sent a message to extremist groups around the world that using human shields — which it accuses Hamas of doing — was an “effective strategy.”
U.S. Congress Banned from Editing Wikipedia After Staff Caught Trolling
July 28th, 2014If I had a Humor category…
Via: Guardian:
Wikipedia has been forced to ban users inside the US Congress building from making edits to the collaborative encyclopaedia, after at least one member of staff began trolling the site.
A number of edits, apparently made in jest, have been picked up by the automatic twitter bot Congress Edits, which monitors Wikipedia for changes to the site made by accounts with IP addresses coming from inside the US legislature.
For instance, one such edit changed the Wikipedia page for Reptilians, the lizard people who are the subject of numerous conspiracy theories which say that they control everything from the British monarchy to the American government.
The wag added the line “these allegations are completely unsubstantiated and have no basis in reality,” which was duly tweeted out by the account.
Other edits accused the Cuban government of faking the moon landings, and named the former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld as an alien wizard.
It seems that those edits were the final straw for Wikipedia’s administrators, who implemented a 10-day ban on any changes coming from one particular IP address within the US Congress, “due to disruptive editing originating from that address”.
The French City of Toulouse Saved 1 Million Euro by Migrating Desktops to LibreOffice
July 28th, 2014Via: European Commission:
Toulouse in south-west France is one of the successes of the free software movement, having replaced Microsoft solutions with LibreOffice. Free software and open source in general is now an established part of the city’s comprehensive digital policy, and the open model promotes economic development and employment in the region.
U.S. Can’t Account for 40% of Firearms Sent to Afghan Security Forces
July 28th, 2014Via: Washington Times:
A government oversight agency says the Pentagon has lost track of more than 40 percent of the $626 million in firearms it has provided to Afghanistan’s security forces, prompting officials to contemplate a “carrot and stick” approach to arming the fledgling military.
A Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction report scheduled to be made public Monday says the Pentagon’s two primary information systems that track weapons sent to Afghanistan — the Operational Verification of Reliable Logistics Oversight Database and the Security Cooperation Information Portal — are rife with errors.
U.S. Scientist Finds 300 More Vials After Smallpox Discovery
July 27th, 2014😯
Via: AP:
The same federal scientist who found forgotten vials of smallpox at a federal lab earlier this month also uncovered over 300 additional vials, many bearing the names of highly contagious viruses and bacteria.
Food and Drug Administration officials said Wednesday the undocumented collection contained 327 carefully packaged vials, listing various pathogens, including dengue, influenza and rickettsia. Last week the government only announced that it had recovered six glass vials of smallpox dating from the 1950s.
“The fact that these materials were not discovered until now is unacceptable,” said Karen Midthun, of FDA’s centre for biologics. “However, upon finding these materials our staff did the right thing — they immediately notified the appropriate authorities who secured the materials and determined there was no exposure.”
Britain: Government Accused of Dishonesty Over GM Babies
July 27th, 2014Via: Independent:
The Government has been accused of misleading the public over the introduction of a new in vitro fertilisation (IVF) technique that some experts believe will result in the birth of “genetically modified babies”.
Leading scientists, including Lord Winston, an early pioneer of fertility treatment, have criticised the Department of Health for trying to play down a process that will for the first time allow the alteration of the DNA of future generations.
They argue that the Government has redefined the term “genetic modification” (GM) to exclude specifically a controversial technique that will result in babies inheriting genetic material from three individuals.
The move, buried within a Department of Health document published last week, is designed to take the sting out of hostility towards mitochondrial donation – a process that aims to avoid the certain inherited diseases being passed on by using healthy mitochondria (microscopic structures in the cell) taken from a donor egg or embryo. Opponents believe that using the healthy donor mitochondria will result in “three-parent embryos” and could usher in an era of “designer babies” and “genetically modified children”.
Fox Warner?
July 27th, 2014Via: New York Times:
The much-admired Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black may be rolling in his grave at the prospect of a merger between 21st Century Fox and Time Warner Inc., which would reduce control of the major Hollywood studios to five owners, from six, and major television producers to four, from five.
Government Surveillance and Internet Search Behavior
July 27th, 2014Via: SSRN:
This paper uses data from Google Trends on search terms from before and after the surveillance revelations of June 2013 to analyze whether Google users’ search behavior shifted as a result of an exogenous shock in information about how closely their internet searches were being monitored by the U.S. government. We use data from Google Trends on search volume for 282 search terms across eleven different countries. These search terms were independently rated for their degree of privacy-sensitivity along multiple dimensions. Using panel data, our result suggest that cross-nationally, users were less likely to search using search terms that they believed might get them in trouble with the U. S. government. In the U. S., this was the main subset of search terms that were affected. However, internationally there was also a drop in traffic for search terms that were rated as personally sensitive.
International Flights Spread Ebola
July 27th, 2014Via: Irish Independent:
Nigerian health authorities raced to stop the spread of Ebola after a man sick with one of the world’s deadliest diseases brought it by plane to Lagos.
That the traveller from Liberia could board an international flight also raised new fears that other passengers could take the disease beyond Africa due to weak inspection of passengers and the fact Ebola’s symptoms are similar to other diseases.
Officials in Togo, where the sick man’s flight had a stopover, also went on high alert after learning that Ebola could possibly have spread to a fifth country.
Screening people as they enter the country may help slow the spread of the disease, but it is no guarantee Ebola will not travel by aeroplane, according to Dr Lance Plyler, who heads Ebola medical efforts in Liberia for aid organisation Samaritan’s Purse.
“Unfortunately the initial signs of Ebola imitate other diseases, like malaria or typhoid,” he said.
The aid organisation said yesterday that a US doctor working with Ebola patients in Liberia had tested positive for the deadly virus.
It said Dr Kent Brantly was being treated at a hospital in Monrovia, the capital, where he had been serving as medical director for the organisation’s case management centre.
The Typical Household, Now Worth a Third Less
July 26th, 2014Via: New York Times:
Economic inequality in the United States has been receiving a lot of attention. But it’s not merely an issue of the rich getting richer. The typical American household has been getting poorer, too.
The inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992 in 2003. Ten years later, it was only $56,335, or a 36 percent decline, according to a study financed by the Russell Sage Foundation. Those are the figures for a household at the median point in the wealth distribution — the level at which there are an equal number of households whose worth is higher and lower. But during the same period, the net worth of wealthy households increased substantially.
