Friday, August 1, 2014


News Clips For The Day


NFL's Israel Idonije creates comic book series for a good cause
By  ADRIANA DIAZ CBS NEWS July 31, 2014, 8:06 PM

CHICAGO - NFL players are always superheroes to their fans. But a former Chicago Bear is taking that idea to a new level, making a difference off the field too.

Israel Idonije is best known as a lineman for the Bears. Now a free agent, he's self-publishing his own comic books.

Idonije loved comic books when he was a kid, and he thinks they're a great first step in getting kids to crack open a book.

What does he say to critics who say comic books aren't real reading?

"I don't say anything, I body slam them!" he laughed.

Idonije says football enabled him to pursue other dreams, including helping kids get off on the right foot. He runs an after-school program for kids in Chicago and just finished building a school in West Africa.

"It's really about, you know, what you can do with your gifts, with your platform to make the world around out better," he said.

And he believes his "Protectors" comic books, which are now available in all Chicago public libraries, will inspire kids.

"I've watched kids who don't know how to read page by page flip through an entire comic book," he said. "That's the real power of comic books. It allows you to begin reading."

The star of his comic is a football player who fights dark forces to make the world better.

Was the character inspired by Idonije himself?
"You know, possibly a little bit," he said.





Are NFL players limited in their interests and unable to string together a whole sentence in interviews? Football is a very “physical” sport played by men who must be aggressive to succeed, and who, if they have been taking male hormones to help them bulk up especially, may have hair-trigger tempers. Writing children's comic books to help them learn to read is not what I expected, but it is very welcome. Men who have a gentle and creative side without feeling that it is unmasculine are needed in a civilized and peaceful culture. They are great role models for young boys from dangerous and poverty stricken neighborhoods, who are too likely to learn violence at an early age and become a wife beater or a mugger instead of a good citizen. See the following from Idonije's foundation and its work. It is, I think, sure to be helpful to at risk children, supplementing their school lessons with the attitudes and skills to become good students and cooperative among their peers and in society.

The Israel Idonije Foundation website – http://israelidonije.org/. “IIF is committed to impacting underserved communities by providing programs focused on social and emotional life skills. What is Social and Emotion Learning? SEL is a way to help children develop fundamental skills necessary to be effective in life. IIF uses the five tools of SEL to help children develop in the following areas: Self-awareness – Who am I? Social awareness – How I fit into my world. Self-management – What are my goals? Responsible decision making – My decisions affect my goals. Effective communication – How I connect with the world. Social and emotional development results in positive effects on children, as well as adults of all ages. It provides skills that endorse success in multiple areas including academia, general welfare and achieving personal goals.

A meta-analysis of 213 evaluation studies of SEL in schools (Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor & Schellinger, 2011) showed that students receiving quality SEL programming, versus those who do not, would:
•Score an average of 11 percentile points higher on standardized tests;
•Show improved self-esteem and commitment to school;
•Engage in less classroom disruption and delinquent acts; and
•Experience less depression and anxiety

The strength in SEL as a method of learning is compounded when considering its positive correlation with school commitment and completion, which is a realistic predictor of lifetime earnings. Research has found that possession of social and emotional life skills not only benefit children directly, through the development of interpersonal and intrapersonal skills, but also indirectly, by increasing the likelihood they will complete school.

These skills also transfer beyond school. In the workplace, communication skills, problem solving abilities and professionalism are all highly valued. Additionally, people with strong social and emotional skills are more able to contribute to thriving neighborhoods and strong communities.




VA reform bill clears Senate, awaits Obama's signature
By JAKE MILLER CBS NEWS July 31, 2014, 8:46 PM

A bill to reform the beleaguered Veterans Affairs health care system cleared the Senate by a wide bipartisan vote on Thursday evening. The law now heads to President Obama's desk just before lawmakers depart for their August recess.

The $16.3 billion proposal, which passed by a margin of 91-3, includes $10 billion to allow veterans who are unable to receive a timely appointment within the VA system to seek care from outside providers. It also includes $5 billion to allow the VA to hire more doctors and nurses to handle a greater caseload, and approximately $1.3 billion to finance leases for 27 new VA facilities across the country.

The bill was the product of negotiations between the chairmen of the House and Senate veterans affairs committees. It passed the House on Wednesday by a margin of 420-5.

Republicans were pushing to allow veterans to seek care from private or non-profit hospitals outside the VA system, while Democrats were concerned with strengthening the VA's capacity to handle more patients in the future. Both sides ultimately came away with significant progress on those goals.

Lawmakers were spurred to action earlier this year after reports of chronic treatment delays at VA facilities had been linked to the deaths of dozens of veterans. An internal audit of the department's health care facilities determined that officials had used improper scheduling practices, including the falsification of waiting lists, designed to understate the amount of time veterans had been waiting for treatment.

The scandal eventually forced the ouster of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, who'd been on the job since Mr. Obama took office. On Tuesday, the Senate confirmed Bob McDonald, the former CEO of Procter & Gamble, as the next head of the VA.

The president surprised some with his decision to nominate a longtime businessman to head the VA, rather than a former general or politician as other recent VA secretaries have been, but the managerial problems facing the department are steep.

McDonald has pledged to address the department's deficiencies.

"I desperately want this job, because I think I can make a difference," he told lawmakers during his confirmation hearing earlier this month. "There is a lot of work to do to transform the department, and it will not be easy, but it is essential and can be achieved."





“A bill to reform the beleaguered Veterans Affairs health care system cleared the Senate by a wide bipartisan vote on Thursday evening. The law now heads to President Obama's desk just before lawmakers depart for their August recess. The $16.3 billion proposal, which passed by a margin of 91-3, includes $10 billion to allow veterans who are unable to receive a timely appointment within the VA system to seek care from outside providers. It also includes $5 billion to allow the VA to hire more doctors and nurses to handle a greater caseload, and approximately $1.3 billion to finance leases for 27 new VA facilities across the country.... On Tuesday, the Senate confirmed Bob McDonald, the former CEO of Procter & Gamble, as the next head of the VA.”

This bill looks like a creative and practical set of reforms to meet Veterans' needs in a more timely manner. In that it involves building 27 new hospitals, it will even contribute to new jobs for construction and medical workers. Congress has been very unproductive much of the time lately, but this law meets a desperately needed change and involved cooperative work by both parties. Congratulations to the legislature for their success.





Girl Accused in 'Slender Man' Stabbing to Appear in Court for Competency Hearing
ABC News via Good Morning America
August 1, 2014

One of two Wisconsin girls accused of allegedly stabbing their friend so they could meet the fictional Internet character "Slenderman," is scheduled to appear in court today for a competency hearing.

Morgan Geyser had twice been found not competent to stand trial. However, prosecutors requested that she undergo a third evaluation to determine if she has a mental disease or defect that could affect the case.

Geyser and Anissa Weier, both 12, are charged with first degree attempted murder after prosecutors said they lured their friend into the woods and stabbed her 19 times.

Authorities said the girls admitted assaulting their friend on May 31 as a means to please Slender Man, a faceless fictional character.

Geyser and Weier are being tried as adults because Wisconsin law dictates that anyone above the age of 10 charged with first degree murder or attempted murder will not be considered juveniles.

The 12-year-old victim, who has not been identified because of her age, was said to have nearly died from her wounds, but has since been released from hospital and her parents recently released new details about her recovery.

The Slender Man meme began on a Web forum called Something Awful as part of a Photoshop contest in 2009, according to the website KnowYourMeme.com, but it has since grown into a kind of Internet folklore.




These girls do seem to me to be mentally defective or possibly even insane. A twelve year old should be able to detect the fact that the story of the Slender Man is simply not possible. They do need therapy in addition to prison time, or even to be committed to a mental hospital. Luckily their victim survived and called the police.






CIA Apologizes for Searching Senate Intel Committee Computers – ABC
By Luis Martinez
Jul 31, 2014

CIA Director John Brennan has apologized to the leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee after the CIA’s Inspector General determined that agency officials inappropriately searched the stand-alone computer network used by committee staffers in preparing their report on the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program. Earlier this year, Brennan denied the C.I.A. had illegally monitored the committee’s computers calling the suggestions as “just beyond the scope of reason.”

To follow up on the Inspector General’s determination Brennan has ordered the formation of an accountability board to review the incident and make recommendations that could potentially lead to disciplinary action.

The development is the latest twist in a long-running dispute between the CIA and the committee about classified information used to compile the 6,000 page report.  The classified report found that the CIA overstated the success of the program and may have misled members of Congress. A declassified summary of the report could be released in a few weeks,

In order for committee staffers to have access to classified materials about the program an agreement was reached in 2009 that allowed them access to documents at a CIA facility in northern Virginia.  A standalone computer network, called RDINet, was developed so the staffers could access classified computer files.

In January, Brennan informed committee chairman Sen. Dianne Feinstein and vice-chairman Sen. Saxby Chambliss that the CIA had recently performed a “search” of that network and determined that committee staffers had been given access to files that should not have been on the network.  In turn, Feinstein said she believed that the CIA could only have determined that by violating the agreement that the CIA would not have access to the committee’s computer network.

At the time Brennan referred the dispute to the CIA’s Inspector General.

In a statement released today CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said the Inspector General’s investigation had judged “that some CIA employees acted in a manner inconsistent with the common understanding reached between SSCI and the CIA in 2009 regarding access to the RDINet.”

“The Director subsequently informed the SSCI Chairman and Vice Chairman of the findings and apologized to them for such actions by CIA officers as described in the OIG report,” said Boyd.

The statement added that Brennan has ordered the establishment of an Accountability Board to be chaired by former senator Evan Bayh who served on the Senate Intelligence Committee.  ”This Board will review the OIG report, conduct interviews as needed, and provide the Director with recommendations that, depending on its findings, could include potential disciplinary measures and/or steps to address systemic issues,” said Boyd.

The dispute became public in March when Feinstein delivered a lengthy and blistering speech on the Senate floor where she expressed “grave concerns” that the CIA had conducted an unauthorized search of the network that violated the 2009 agreement. She also asked the CIA to apologize and recognize that the computer search was inappropriate.

Appearing at a Washington think tank the same day as Feinstein’s speech, Brennan denied her accusations labeling them “beyond the scope of reason” and that “nothing could be further from the truth.”  ”I mean we wouldn’t do that,” Brennan told the Council on Foreign Relations. “I mean that’s just beyond the scope of reason in terms of what we would do.”

On Thursday, Feinstein called Brennan’s apology and his decision to refer the Inspector General report to an accountability board “positive first steps.”

Other Democratic members of the committee were more critical.   Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) called for Brennan to make a “public apology” and  Senator Mark Udall (D-Colorado) expressed a loss of confidence in Brennan.

“I am concerned about the director’s apparent inability to find any flaws in the agency he leads,” Udall said in a statement.  ”Earlier this year he referred to the chairman’s and my publicly stated concerns about the CIA search as ‘spurious allegations that are wholly unsupported by facts’ and urged us to ‘refrain from outbursts.’ Brennan needs to account for these statements.”  Udall said he wants an independent counsel to look into the matter.

Earlier in July the Justice Department said it had found insufficient evidence to proceed with a criminal probe of the Feinstein and CIA’s separate allegations.





Earlier this year, Brennan denied the C.I.A. had illegally monitored the committee’s computers calling the suggestions as 'just beyond the scope of reason.' To follow up on the Inspector General’s determination Brennan has ordered the formation of an accountability board to review the incident and make recommendations that could potentially lead to disciplinary action....  The classified report found that the CIA overstated the success of the program and may have misled members of Congress. A declassified summary of the report could be released in a few weeks.... On Thursday, Feinstein called Brennan’s apology and his decision to refer the Inspector General report to an accountability board 'positive first steps.' Other Democratic members of the committee were more critical.   Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) called for Brennan to make a 'public apology' and  Senator Mark Udall (D-Colorado) expressed a loss of confidence in Brennan.

So now we have an apology to Feinstein, but not the “public” apology that Wyden wants. If Udall get his way Brennan may be forced to resign. The CIA and NSA have both operated beyond their legal boundaries in a number of cases down through the years, and they haven't been punished. The CIA not only blocked Senate efforts to look into the abusive interrogation practices, but conducted the inhumane questioning sessions themselves. The amount of secrecy involved with these two agencies encourages misbehavior, it seems to me. We are becoming too much like countries such as Russia who are known for their unscrupulous and abusive practices. Some of it is because of the change in the security environment since 9/11, but even before that there were scandals. It's discouraging to me as we are no longer necessarily “the good guys.” It's the old adage “absolute power corrupts absolutely.”




Tribe Emerges From Brazilian Jungle Possibly for First Time – ABC
By MEGHAN KENEALLY
Jul 31, 2014, 2:53 PM ET

A remarkable video shows a group of indigenous people seen for the first time by the outside world as they emerged from a Brazilian jungle while fleeing illegal loggers and drug traffickers, according a Brazilian group that tracks such jungle tribes.

The group of men are believed to be natives of Peru but they were filmed in northern Brazil on the banks of the Envira River which runs near the Peruvian border. The encounter took place within the last two weeks, but the video was released today by the Brazilian indigenous authority FUNAI.

The tribal men are naked except for belts and loincloths and carry different weapons, including bows and arrows and spears in the 8-minute video.

A few of the tribal men are seen with markings on their faces and they all have styled their dark black hair in a similar bowl-cut fashion.

At one point one of the men blatantly steals a machete-type knife while another takes an ax from a settlement, despite shouts of protest by the villagers. Another member of their group grabs a blue material that looks like either a towel or a piece of clothing.

Brazilian authorities have not identified the group, but were able to determine that the dialect of the language that they're speaking is a form of the Panoan linguistic group.

The people they are interacting with are part of the Ashaninka ethnic group who reside in the area where the video was shot.

One Ashaninkan man, seen shirtless with a pair of baggy athletic shorts, wades into the river to hand the tribe members some bananas.

The group is one of about 15 "uncontacted tribal peoples" in Peru and has been forced from their homes in Peru "as a result of the illegal logging and drug trafficking which is rampant in the area," Rebecca Spooner of Survival International told ABC News.

"They weren't an unknown group. People have known about them for years," Spooner said. She said the Brazilian government has been monitoring the movements of the group, which she described as nomadic hunter gatherers.

The group's language barrier made it difficult to communicate, but Spooner said they indicated that their tribal elders had been killed in a confrontation.

"We don't know whether they were shot or how they were killed, but we do know that they were killed by the illegal settlers," Spooner said. "Their houses were set on fire, their elders were killed and they were shot at themselves."

They do not know when exactly this confrontation took place, but believe it was within the last year.

The tribe members seen in the video were part of a group that could be as large as 80 members, she said. They had melted back deep into the Brazilian jungle, but not before several contracted the flu, which Spooner said "could be deadly for the tribe."

She said the tribe members eat fish, hunt jungle game, fruit and plantains.

Spooner said that there is no way of knowing when or if they will reappear again.




Modernization seems to be out to get these tribesmen, between the illegal loggers and the drug lords. Their village has been burned and their tribal elders killed by “illegal settlers.” …. “'The tribe members seen in the video were part of a group that could be as large as 80 members,' she said. “They had melted back deep into the Brazilian jungle, but not before several contracted the flu, which Spooner said 'could be deadly for the tribe.'"

The Brazilian government has been monitoring this group's movements, said Rebecca Spooner of Survival International. They are one of about 15 such hunter-gatherer groups still maintaining their old cultures in the area, with little or no contact with civilization. That may be why they still retain their tribal identity and culture. Some think that missionaries and even anthropologists who go into the jungles to study or “help” such groups are responsible for the decline of tribal languages and folkways, with their people eventually moving into cities and usually living in poverty. In the jungle they have all the resources they need to live, which may be why they haven't modernized before – they didn't have to struggle to survive -- and still continue to use bows and arrows or spears to defend themselves. They aren't mentally inferior, but merely isolated from the mainstream.

Some archaeologists until recently thought that Neanderthal man was less intelligent than Homo Sapiens because they, too, didn't make much in the way of innovations in their tool making and didn't seem to have art or bodily ornaments. Nowadays, though, they say that Neanderthal had a brain that was larger than that of Homo Sapiens, and that after they came into contact with the newcomers they began to modify their tools and make beads for ornaments.

Contact with outsiders and trade for new goods are probably responsible for much of Homo Sapiens' rapid advancement. Genuinely new ideas are pretty rare even among modern humans. Most scientific and technical development comes from an earlier source with the modern people improving on the idea in one or more ways. I thought the steam engine was a revolutionary new idea, but found later that a version of a steam engine was used in ancient Greek temples to move a door aside and display a god figure. It makes me wonder how much human knowledge has been lost over time. That's why I love anthropology and archaeology.







‘Troubling’: Suicide Bomber Hung Out in US After Terror Training – ABC
By LEE FERRAN
Jul 31, 2014

A Florida man who fought with an al Qaeda-linked group in Syria was able to return home, unbeknownst to American security officials, and hang around in the U.S. for months before returning to the Middle East to carry out a deadly suicide bombing there, according to recent testimony before Congress.

Before his violent death, Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha purportedly joined Jabhat al-Nusra, a powerful al Qaeda-linked opposition group in Syria. Social media accounts linked to the group said in late May that Abu-Salha had been part of a four-man suicide bombing against Syrian government forces. U.S. officials later confirmed Abu-Salha’s involvement in the operation.

But almost exactly a year earlier, Abu-Salha was able to travel from Syria back to the U.S., according to Seth Jones, Director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the defense think tank Rand Corporation.

“It is troubling, however, that U.S. citizen Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha traveled to Syria to fight with al Qaeda-affiliated rebels, returned to the U.S. around May 2013 without U.S. officials realizing that he had trained with an al Qaeda-linked group, and traveled back to Syria in November 2013 before blowing himself up in a suicide attack in May 2014,” Jones testified before the House Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence last week, according to prepared remarks. “In short, U.S. officials apparently did not realize that a U.S. citizen who had received terrorist training in Syria was on American soil for approximately six months before returning to Syria to perpetrate a terrorist attack overseas.”

A U.S. intelligence official confirmed Jones' account as accurate and told ABC News that the tracking of Americans and foreign fighters in Syria is a "hard nut to crack."

"We have varying information on these folks," the official said. "It's a complex intelligence issue."

Late Wednesday The New York Times reported Abu-Salha’s trip back to America.

With his death, Abu-Salha joined a tiny group of U.S. citizens that have conducted suicide bombings. Three Americans have participated in suicide attacks on behalf of the al Qaeda affiliate al-Shabab in Somalia since 2009, the first of which sent a “shockwave” through the American counter-terrorism community, senior counter-terrorism officials told ABC News after Abu-Salha’s death.

For months U.S. security officials have said they are very concerned about American and Western passport holders traveling to Syria, receiving paramilitary training and then returning to wreak havoc in the homeland. As ABC News reported in January, the FBI is already watching dozens of fighters who have returned from the Middle Eastern battlefield.

Matthew Olsen, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said last week that more than 12,000 foreign fighters, including more than 1,000 Westerners and around 100 Americans, are fighting in Syria.

“It has become the predominant battleground in terms of extremists,” Olsen told the Aspen Security Forum.

FBI Director James Comey told ABC News in May that his organization aimed to make sure the “coming Syria diaspora” does not turn into a “future 9/11.”

Representatives for the FBI and CIA were not immediately available to respond to requests for comment for this report.




"As ABC News reported in January, the FBI is already watching dozens of fighters who have returned from the Middle Eastern battlefield. Matthew Olsen, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said last week that more than 12,000 foreign fighters, including more than 1,000 Westerners and around 100 Americans, are fighting in Syria.... FBI Director James Comey told ABC News in May that his organization aimed to make sure the 'coming Syria diaspora' does not turn into a 'future 9/11.'”

A certain number of young people, in their “rebellion” phase of life, get a yen for adventure and in some cases to become a part of a group movement to fight real or imagined wrongs. They would have fitted in just fine during the Crusades when there was a constant need for soldiers to fight for Christianity, but there are fewer violent causes now to fight for. It is probably true, too, that some Islamic radicals come here to try to enroll Americans and Europeans for such things as suicide bombings. There are also a number of young people who try out new religions in their exploration, and in some mosques in this country there are radical imams preaching jihad. Hopefully the CIA, FBI and the NSA, with all of their undercover activities, will identify which youths are in danger of joining some radical group and arrest them if they plan a bombing or worse. Abu-Salha was just one of many, I suspect, and the fact that he had US citizenship made it harder to detect and apprehend him.