Archived threads in /news/ - Current News - 356. page

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/science/space/ninth-planet-solar-system-beyond-pluto.html

>There might be a ninth planet in the solar system after all — and it is not Pluto.

>Two astronomers reported on Wednesday that they had compelling signs of something bigger and farther away — something that would definitely satisfy the current definition of a planet, where Pluto falls short.

>“We are pretty sure there’s one out there,” said Michael E. Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology.

>What Dr. Brown and a fellow Caltech professor, Konstantin Batygin, have not done is actually find that planet, so it would be premature to revise mnemonics of the planets just yet.

>Rather, in a paper published Wednesday in The Astronomical Journal, Dr. Brown and Dr. Batygin lay out a detailed circumstantial argument for the planet’s existence in what astronomers have observed — a half-dozen small bodies in distant, highly elliptical orbits.
Continue reading the main story
>What is striking, the scientists said, is that the orbits of all six loop outward in the same quadrant of the solar system and are tilted at about the same angle. The odds of that happening by chance are about 1 in 14,000, Dr. Batygin said.

...

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Obama policies are ruining our education system there trying to cover it up
http://nypost.com/2016/01/19/racial-bean-counting-is-making-schools-unsafe/

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>Local police chief Nausher Ahmed described how an imam told a gathering at a village mosque that those who love the Prophet Mohammad always say their prayers, then asked who among the crowd had stopped praying.

>Mohammad Anwar, 15, raised his hand by mistake after apparently mishearing the question.

>The crowd swiftly accused him of blasphemy so he went to his house and cut off the hand he had raised, put it on a plate, and presented it to the cleric, the police chief said.

>Ahmed said that he has seen a video in which the boy is greeted by villagers in the street as his parents proclaim their pride.

http://www.france24.com/en/20160115-pakistani-boy-cuts-off-own-hand-after-blasphemy-mistake-police

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http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/ban-nuclear-powerplants-in-california

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/970/411/555/ban-nuclear-power-plants-in-california/

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ban-nuclear-power-plants-in-california

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/ban-nuclear-power-plants-california or http://wh.gov/iw7Em

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_HJSA95Q_8

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-19/davos-robot-eclipses-davos-man-as-gloom-descends-on-world-elite

>Demonstrators, including environmentalists, bird watchers and sportsmen, gather in front the Statehouse to protest against the recent occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon by group of armed activists, Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2016, in Boise, Idaho. More than 100 protesters gathered calling for the arrest and prosecution of the group for taking over public land. (Kimberlee Kruesi/Associated Press)

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/19/dept-of-very-bad-ideas-south-carolina-lawmaker-wants-to-create-registry-for-journalists/

>For political journalists, South Carolina was the center of the universe last week. The state hosted two presidential primary debates and trotted its governor into the national spotlight for a televised response to the president’s State of the Union address.

>But a Republican lawmaker there doesn’t think just anyone calling him or herself a journalist ought to be able to work in South Carolina. Only “responsible” journalists — those who pay to be registered and vetted by the state — should be allowed to cover presidential politics or any other kind of news.

>The Post and Courier of Charleston reported Tuesday afternoon that state Rep. Mike Pitts (R) had introduced a bill called the “South Carolina Responsible Journalism Registry Law.” Reporter Gavin Jackson posted a summary of the bill — which includes “fines and criminal penalties for violation of the chapter” — on Twitter, but wrote that the full text was not yet available.

>The Post and Courier reported that “the bill would create requirements for people wanting to work as a journalist for a media outlet and also before that outlet could hire anyone for a reporting position.” It was not immediately clear what kinds of restrictions might apply to journalists based in other states who might be assigned to cover isolated news events in South Carolina, such as debates and campaign rallies. After Iowa and New Hampshire, South Carolina is next on the Republican primary calendar (the Democratic vote is a week later), making it an important, early-voting state for the presidential candidates and the reporters who cover them.

...

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl2TxL6DGUs

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The campaign to elect Taiwan’s new president saw her appearing as a cute character in a number of anime videos. Along with her cats.

Tsai Ing-wen made international headlines on the weekend when it was announced that she had won the Taiwanese presidential election, making her the first female president of Taiwan. She’s also the first person of aboriginal Taiwanese descent to hold the high-ranking position—and the first to be moe-fied in cute anime form.

As part of her political campaign, videos were released on her Facebook account, depicting the 59-year-old lawyer as a cutely bespectacled anime girl. A lot of work went into designing her character, which included adding her two pet cats for bonus cuteness overload.

A behind-the-scenes look at the process of creating her character shows just how much talent there is in the local industry.

Tsai says anime is a great way to express serious policies in a way that is easy for people to understand. In this video posted to her Facebook account, she outlines her vision for Taiwan’s energy future.

Things don’t always have to be serious, though. In this video made to wish everyone a Happy New Year in 2016, her character does an adorable dance to a cute and catchy vocal music track. Because sometimes the best policy is just to put a smile on people’s faces.

The pluralistic and inclusive nature is part of the appeal of animated messages, and Tsai aims to support future developments in the industry, to help build a better Taiwan and meet the demand that’s out there for all things cute. So watch out, world: anime may soon be Taiwan’s next big export!

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2016/01/19/taiwans-president-elect-tsai-ing-wen-appears-as-cute-moe-anime-girl-in-awesome-campaign-videos/

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Southwestern Law School Professor Catherine Carpenter puts it bluntly in her new research paper, Throwaway Children: The Tragic Consequences of a False Narrative. "Truth be told," she writes, "we are afraid for our children and we are afraid of our children."

Carpenter’s paper explains why it’s wrong to automatically place under-age perpetrators of sex crimes on the sex offender registry. This policy is guided by the mistaken presumption that these kids will become sexually predatory adults, writes Carpenter.

This fear, "is premised on a false narrative that includes flawed studies on recidivism rates and misguided case decisions that embraced these findings,” according to the paper.

Yes, flawed. Recidivism rates—the rates at which juvenile sex offenders re-offend—are so low as to be indistinguishable from the rate that non-offenders offend. But that's not what the public believes. Instead, it believes that juvenile sex "criminals" (including a slew of teens who had consensual sex) can never stop pouncing. From Carpenter’s paper:

The utility of an overly-simplified registration scheme comes with a hefty price tag: the acknowledgement that mandatory lifetime registration captures and shatters the lives of many non-dangerous children. It is a price tag we should no longer be willing to bear.

How bad does it get for kids found guilty of a sex crime?

…fear of our children has prompted legislation that requires children as young as nine years old to register on adult sex offender registries. No matter whether the child’s sexual transgression is voluntary or coerced – and here the mandatory reach of the regime is underscored – many children face lifetime registration. In some jurisdictions, the offense is deemed the equivalent of a comparable adult offense under controlling federal or state law….

https://reason.com/blog/2016/01/18/why-america-puts-9-year-old-kids-on-the

https://archive.is/gQt87

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Islamic State is holding around 3,500 people as slaves in Iraq, according to a United Nations report released on Tuesday. Most of those being detained are women and children from Iraq's Yazidi community.
The report, issued jointly by the UN human rights office and the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, states that an estimated 3,500 people are “currently being held in slavery” by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

“Those being held are predominantly women and children and come primarily from the Yazidi community, but a number are also from other ethnic and religious minority communities," the report says. https://www.rt.com/news/329430-isis-slaves-iraq-un/

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Several Danish nightclubs have imposed strict admission rules requiring guests to prove their ability to speak Danish, German or English, following multiple complaints of harassment from female visitors. https://www.rt.com/news/329411-denmark-clubs-refugees-ban/

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https://www.rt.com/uk/329421-cameron-ban-muslim-veil/

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http://www.weather.com/storms/winter/news/winter-storm-jonas-forecast-blizzard-warning-january-22

Who here is gearing up for the storm?

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http://boingboing.net/2016/01/20/gop-strategist-says-trump-supp.html

>GOP strategist says Trump supporters are "childless single men who masturbate to anime"

>Republican strategist Rick Wilson, appearing on MSNBC, spoke thusly last night of the online contingent of Trump's racist, sexist support base: "childless single men who masturbate to anime".