August 1, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cecil-lion-hunting-trip-guide-zimbabwe-hunt-wrong-from-the-beginning/

Lion hunter's guide: Hunt went "wrong from the beginning"
CBS NEWS
August 1, 2015

Authorities in Zimbabwe say they will seek extradition of Dr. Walter Palmer, the Minnesota dentist who killed Cecil the lion, a well-known animal beloved by tourists and wildlife experts.

Palmer sent an email to patients insisting he did not know Cecil was a protected lion. This comes as the guide who led that hunting trip in Zimbabwe suggests Cecil was not the only animal Palmer wanted to kill, CBS News' David Begnaud reports.

In an exclusive interview with British newspaper The Telegraph, Palmer's guide, Theo Bronkhorst, said the hunt went "wrong from the beginning."

"We were never meant to hunt on the land where this lion was shot," Bronkhorst said.

Bronkhorst said an elephant carcass was "dragged and moved into the long grass and used for bait."

He claims Palmer shot an arrow at Cecil but wasn't sure if the beloved lion was hit. The next morning, the injured animal was found, and Bronkhorst said Palmer finished him off with a second arrow.

Later, Bronkhorst said Palmer asked "If we would find him an elephant larger than 63 pounds ... (the weight of one tusk), which is a very large elephant, but I told him I would not be able to find one so big, so the client left the next day."

Authorities in Zimbabwe said they will hold Palmer "accountable" by seeking his extradition.

"This is the route that we are taking as Zimbabwe," Zimbabwean Minister of Environment, Water and Climate Oppah Muchinguri said. "We are taking the issues very seriously."

The U.S. signed a treaty with Zimbabwe in 1997 which allows someone charged with or convinced of a crime punishable in both countries to be extradited.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said a representative of Palmer has contacted the agency and that "an investigation is ongoing."

The 55-year-old avid hunter has been vilified all week. Demonstrators protested outside his dental office in Bloomington, Minnesota.

Palmer told patients in an email he would resume normal operation as soon as possible. Meanwhile, some of his personal information has been shared on social media, which has turned into a public shaming.

Nick Pinizzotto, CEO of the Sportsmen's Alliance, a pro-hunting group, is troubled by the backlash.

"You see many people putting the lives of human beings behind the lives of animals, and that's a scary proposition for anybody," Pinizzotto said.

International Fund for Animal Welfare Regional Director Jeffrey Flocken said this hunt highlights a global problem.

"While Cecil was iconic and people were very invested in this particular individual, hundreds of lions are killed every year for sport," Flocken said. "So, while this is an incredibly sad situation, it's forcing us to look at what we do right now with other imperiled animals. Not only are lions killed for sport, but so are elephants and rhinos, species that we know are declining, like giraffes and leopards. Why do we allow this to happen?"

As of Saturday morning, almost 200,000 people have petitioned the White House to extradite Palmer to face justice in Zimbabwe. Since the U.S. signed the extradition treaty 15 years ago, no one has been extradited there to face criminal charges.



http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/07/31/428079500/death-of-beloved-lion-heats-up-criticism-of-big-game-hunting

Death Of Beloved Lion Heats Up Criticism Of Big Game Hunting
Jackie Northam
Correspondent, Foreign Affairs
JULY 31, 2015

Photograph -- In this image taken from a November 2012 video, Cecil the lion is shown in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe.
Paula French via AP

The killing of Cecil, a Zimbabwean lion, by a dentist from Minnesota has turned an international spotlight on big game hunting. It's a thriving industry, with more than 1,000 organizations worldwide.

George Hinton is with Hunting Legends in Pennsylvania. The company runs safaris on thousands of acres in South Africa. Its website is filled with pictures of lions, and there's a price list: An elephant can cost you $60,000 plus daily rates. A male lion in its prime goes for $35,000. Hinton says white rhinos are also available.

"Our clients come to us and they tell us what kind of adventure they want to have, and if we can accommodate them, we will," he says. "It's all done legally. We have professional hunters, trackers, skinners, games people. I mean, we employ a lot of people. This industry is huge."

Hinton is seething over how Walter Palmer, the Minnesota dentist, killed Cecil, luring the protected animal out of his habitat even though he was wearing a GPS collar as part of ongoing research by Oxford University. Hinton says it's damaging to big game companies like his.

"We get the proper permits, we do our due diligence to make sure that everything goes the way it's supposed to," he says. "And then this happens and we're thrown into the barrel with this knucklehead. You know, he's not a sportsman."

The International Fund for Animal Welfare said in a 2011 report that more than 18,000 tourists travel to Africa every year to go big game hunting. Hinton says it's damaging to big game companies like his.

"We get the proper permits, we do our due diligence to make sure that everything goes the way it's supposed to," he says. "And then this happens and we're thrown into the barrel with this knucklehead. You know, he's not a sportsman." The White House says it has received a public petition with more than 130,000 signatures calling on the U.S. to extradite Palmer to Zimbabwe. Law enforcement officials at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say they're trying to track him down.

Flocken says the lion's death has shocked the general public. He says the International Fund for Animal Welfare recently polled Americans about big game hunting.

"Over 95 percent were against hunting any endangered species for sport," he says. "Americans don't think this should happen. Most of them don't even know it's happening."

Mike Hoffman, with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, says it's important to distinguish between illegal poaching — which he says is the real driver behind the decline in wildlife numbers — and legal trophy hunting, in which people will pay a high price to hunt elephants, lions and the like.

"When it's well-managed," Hoffman says, "a lot of that income goes back into conservation and into supporting local communities and so on. But of course there is a lot of trophy hunting which is not necessarily well-managed, and that can be extremely detrimental and have a very negative impact on [animal] populations."

Hoffman says some countries have introduced quotas or outright bans. But the rate at which the animal numbers are declining is not sustainable.



CBS -- “Palmer sent an email to patients insisting he did not know Cecil was a protected lion. This comes as the guide who led that hunting trip in Zimbabwe suggests Cecil was not the only animal Palmer wanted to kill, CBS News' David Begnaud reports. …. , Palmer's guide, Theo Bronkhorst, said the hunt went "wrong from the beginning." "We were never meant to hunt on the land where this lion was shot," Bronkhorst said. Bronkhorst said an elephant carcass was "dragged and moved into the long grass and used for bait." …. The U.S. signed a treaty with Zimbabwe in 1997 which allows someone charged with or convinced of a crime punishable in both countries to be extradited. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said a representative of Palmer has contacted the agency and that "an investigation is ongoing." The 55-year-old avid hunter has been vilified all week. Demonstrators protested outside his dental office in Bloomington, Minnesota. Palmer told patients in an email he would resume normal operation as soon as possible. Meanwhile, some of his personal information has been shared on social media, which has turned into a public shaming. …. International Fund for Animal Welfare Regional Director Jeffrey Flocken said this hunt highlights a global problem. "While Cecil was iconic and people were very invested in this particular individual, hundreds of lions are killed every year for sport," Flocken said. "So, while this is an incredibly sad situation, it's forcing us to look at what we do right now with other imperiled animals. Not only are lions killed for sport, but so are elephants and rhinos, species that we know are declining, like giraffes and leopards. Why do we allow this to happen?"


NPR -- . It's a thriving industry, with more than 1,000 organizations worldwide. George Hinton is with Hunting Legends in Pennsylvania. The company runs safaris on thousands of acres in South Africa. Its website is filled with pictures of lions, and there's a price list: An elephant can cost you $60,000 plus daily rates. A male lion in its prime goes for $35,000. Hinton says white rhinos are also available. "Our clients come to us and they tell us what kind of adventure they want to have, and if we can accommodate them, we will," he says. "It's all done legally. We have professional hunters, trackers, skinners, games people. I mean, we employ a lot of people. This industry is huge." …. Hinton says it's damaging to big game companies like his. "We get the proper permits, we do our due diligence to make sure that everything goes the way it's supposed to," he says. "And then this happens and we're thrown into the barrel with this knucklehead. You know, he's not a sportsman." …. Hinton says it's damaging to big game companies like his. "We get the proper permits, we do our due diligence to make sure that everything goes the way it's supposed to," he says. "And then this happens and we're thrown into the barrel with this knucklehead. You know, he's not a sportsman." …. . He says the International Fund for Animal Welfare recently polled Americans about big game hunting. "Over 95 percent were against hunting any endangered species for sport," he says. "Americans don't think this should happen. Most of them don't even know it's happening." …. "When it's well-managed," Hoffman says, "a lot of that income goes back into conservation and into supporting local communities and so on. But of course there is a lot of trophy hunting which is not necessarily well-managed, and that can be extremely detrimental and have a very negative impact on [animal] populations." Hoffman says some countries have introduced quotas or outright bans. But the rate at which the animal numbers are declining is not sustainable.”

This is one of those stories that simply turns my stomach. There was an article during the last two years on the evil relationship – or so it seems to me – between this hunting and some of the main wildlife organizations that claim they protect the animals. Ever since I heard that, I have stopped giving any of them any money. Governments are also involved in the matter, and though it is supposed to bring in megabucks for the preservation of wildlife, it makes even more megabucks for government coffers, I’ll bet, and greedy private citizens the world over. It's like blood diamonds -- big money. A number of African nations have their official preservation of wildlife departments directly linked with the hunting and poaching that goes on, the merchandising of “tiger parts” etc. Some African nations turn a blind eye in poaching cases rather than putting the poachers firmly behind bars. Unfortunately local villages sometimes have much of their income derived from poaching, so they don't back reforms. China was the main nation named. The Chinese people have some very traditional (read ignorant) beliefs about medicines to cure impotency, etc., and tiger parts are high on the list for that. They were also killing black bears in the US for the same reason according to the news several years ago. The Chinese are very bright and often well-educated people, but they have little belief in the value of human or animal life. Things like this are the result.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/company-with-crowds-for-hire-sees-opportunity-in-politics/

Company with crowds for hire sees opportunity in politics
CBS NEWS
August 1, 2015

As the race for the White House heats up with the first Republican debate set for Thursday, there appears to be a growing number of supporters showing up at campaign speeches and appearances. The increasing pressure to gain an edge has some candidates paying actors to be faces in the crowd, CBS News' Carter Evans reports.

When Donald Trump entered the presidential race, spurred on by an energetic crowd, apparently not all were true believers. According to an email obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, actors were offered $50 to wear T-shirts, carry signs and cheer.

Trump denies paying supporters, but if he did, he is hardly alone.

Adam Swart is CEO of Crowds on Demand. His initial clients were minor celebrities looking to get create a buzz. He hired actors to play paparazzi and fans. It wasn't long before politicians came calling.

"You want the world to think that it's really a genuine crowd, and that's what we do," Swart said.

Swart said party affiliation doesn't matter. You want a crowd, he'll give you a crowd to cheer or go negative. He'll even provide protesters for an event.

"We don't trick people," Swart said. "We engage them."

"Obviously what we really want are authentic politicians," University of Southern California public policy professor Elizabeth Currid-Halkett said. "But they know the game, and they know how to get more people to follow is to at least create the illusion that everyone's very interested."

The practice is now so common there is a word for it in the dictionary: astroturfing. Webster's dictionary says astroturfing is the practice of disguising an orchestrated campaign as a spontaneous upwelling of public opinion.

"It's all semantics," Swart said. "What we do is we build grassroots movements."

"I do think that it crosses the line when you are actually swaying public opinion," Currid-Halkett said.

Swart said the only thing he won't do is work with hate groups. Anyone else is fair game. Swart takes pride in creating buzz for an issue that otherwise wouldn't exist.

"I think we want to believe the buzz," Currid-Halkett said. "To be honest with you, if we're rolling into the election so cynical that we don't believe anything that comes out of a politician's mouth and any of the crowd and energy around them, then what's to be excited about? So I think we have to suspend our disbelief until something like a crazy email comes out and we find out that in fact the crowd was rented."

"If we told people it was fake, it would be hard to engage them in the first place," Swart said. "I think having it seem genuine is really critical. If they find out it's fake several years down the line, well fine."

Proving that in politics things aren't always what they seem.




“As the race for the White House heats up with the first Republican debate set for Thursday, there appears to be a growing number of supporters showing up at campaign speeches and appearances. The increasing pressure to gain an edge has some candidates paying actors to be faces in the crowd, CBS News' Carter Evans reports. When Donald Trump entered the presidential race, spurred on by an energetic crowd, apparently not all were true believers. According to an email obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, actors were offered $50 to wear T-shirts, carry signs and cheer. …. Adam Swart is CEO of Crowds on Demand. His initial clients were minor celebrities looking to get create a buzz. He hired actors to play paparazzi and fans. It wasn't long before politicians came calling. "You want the world to think that it's really a genuine crowd, and that's what we do," Swart said. Swart said party affiliation doesn't matter. You want a crowd, he'll give you a crowd to cheer or go negative. He'll even provide protesters for an event. …. . "But they know the game, and they know how to get more people to follow is to at least create the illusion that everyone's very interested." The practice is now so common there is a word for it in the dictionary: astroturfing. Webster's dictionary says astroturfing is the practice of disguising an orchestrated campaign as a spontaneous upwelling of public opinion. ….

“ … astroturfing is the practice of disguising an orchestrated campaign as a spontaneous upwelling of public opinion.” This is the very practice that the USSR used to be criticized for doing, and now it’s us!! For Shame. If I ever find out that one of my Democratic candidates is doing this I will vilify him in my poor humble little blog. Politics is only fun for me unless it is real, and when our candidates don’t end up following Democratic/Progressive policies I will do the same. Obama hasn’t been as progressive in all ways as I would like. He wasn’t in office when the NSA American telephone surveillance program was set up, but he was involved, I understand, in keeping it going once the poor idealistic Edward Snowden uncovered it to the shock of most of the population here. I think he is a hero. I’m sorry if he has to live in Russia for the rest of his life. I think that’s unfair. I suppose he’ll find himself a Russian girl and marry her sometime in the future. If he comes back here, he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison, I’m afraid. He’s such a pleasant, well-spoken and intelligent man, too. I really like him.





http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/07/31/427112786/in-cambodia-rats-are-being-trained-to-sniff-out-land-mines-and-save-lives

In Cambodia, Rats Are Being Trained To Sniff Out Land Mines And Save Lives
MICHAEL SULLIVAN
JULY 31, 2015

Photograph -- Victoria, a 2-year-old rat, sniffs for TNT, sticking her nose high in the air to indicate she's found some. She works her way down a 10-meter line with a handler on either end, and is able to detect the presence of TNT at a distance of approximately half a yard.
Michael Sullivan for NPR
Photograph -- After a few hours of training and sniffing for explosives, Leyla the rat follows her handler. The rats socialize for a bit before retiring to their cages for the rest of the evening.
Michael Sullivan for NPR


It's 5:45 in the morning, and in a training field outside Siem Reap, home of Angkor Wat, Cambodia's demining rats are already hard at work. Their noses are close to the wet grass, darting from side to side, as they try to detect explosives buried just beneath the ground.

Each rat is responsible for clearing a 200-square-meter (239-square-yard) patch of land. Their Cambodian supervisor, Hulsok Heng, says they're good at it.

"They are very good," he says. "You see this 200 square meters? They clear in only 30 minutes or 35 minutes. If you compare that to a deminer, maybe two days or three days. The deminer will pick up all the fragmentation, the metal in the ground, but the rat picks up only the smell of TNT. Not fragmentation or metal or a nail or a piece of crap in the ground."

That's right: Someone using a metal-detecting machine will take a lot longer to detect a land mine than a rat using its nose.

An elephant in South African offers an up-close glimpse of its prodigious instrument. According to Sean Hensman of Adventures with Elephants, trunks like this one could help the U.S. Army develop a better landmine sensor. When Detecting Land Mines, The Nose Knows — Or, In This Case, The Trunk. here's plenty of work for the rats here in Cambodia. The government estimates there are 4 million to 6 million land mines or other pieces of unexploded ordnance — including bombs, shells and grenades — littering the countryside, remnants of decades of conflict.

Neighboring Vietnam and Laos also have unexploded ordnance left over from the Vietnam War. Dozens of people are killed or maimed in the region every year — and there's a financial toll as well, since the presence of these potentially deadly devices decreases the amount of land available to farmers.

Enter the rats. These are not kitchen rats, but African giant pouched rats, also known as Gambian pouched rats, about 2 feet long from head to tail. Their eyesight is terrible. But their sense of smell is extraordinary. The rats can detect the presence of TNT in amounts starting at 29 grams (about 1 ounce).

A Belgian nonprofit called Apopo began harnessing the rodents' olfactory prowess 15 years ago. (The group also trains rats to detect tuberculosis). The organization set up a breeding program and training center in Tanzania and began deploying rats to post-conflict countries, first to Mozambique and Angola. Apopo's Cambodia program began in April, in partnership with the Cambodian Mine Action Center.

"The idea was very strange," says operations coordinator Theap Bunthourn. "Cambodian people kill rats, don't like rats. But they're cost-efficient, they're easy to transport, they're easy to train, and they don't set off the mines because they're too light."

That's an advantage over mine-sniffing dogs, also used in Cambodia. And unlike with dogs, says field supervisor Hulsok Heng, bonding is not an issue. "The rat does not belong to anybody, it can work with anyone, not like [a] dog. If [a] handler is sick, [a] dog cannot work with other people. If the dog does not recognize you, it won't work with you. But rat, no problem."

Fifteen rats arrived in Cambodia from Tanzania in late April. Since it's hotter in Cambodia than in Tanzania, Hulsok says, they're put to work before the sun comes up. By midday, it's too hot for them.

One rat, named Victoria, ambles down a 10-yard stretch of grass, tethered to a line held by handlers on either end.

"She's very good today, very fresh after the rain last night," Hulsok says before showing me the mine planted about 7 yards away. As Victoria gets close, maybe a foot-and-a-half away, she stops, sticks her nose up high in the air and seems to lock on to something. She takes another half-step, then scratches the ground. It's the signal that she's found the mine.

"After the rat pick[s] up the scent and scratches," Hulsok says, "we give her a food reward, like a banana."

No TNT, no banana. The rats learn this through repetition. They also learn not to fall for the tricks the handlers use to try to fool them. These can include "the smell from a battery, oil filter, car filter, tuna fish can that we use to confuse the rat," Hulsok says. "Because if they scratch on another smell, we give no food, no reward. Only reward TNT smell."

Another rat, the rock star of the group, named Pit, has already identified two mines this morning. She is just about to reach the spot where they've planted a decoy, known as a "dummy." Pit isn't fooled by the dummy — not even for an instant. She "smells only TNT," says Hulsok.

What about the other rats? "Sometimes they scratch for the dummy. But we don't give them food," he says. "Then the rats will learn. But some rats are more clever than others. Just like people."

Apopo's James Pursey says it costs about 6,000 euros, or $6,500, to train each rat. They can live from 6 to 8 years in captivity. At the Cambodian Mine Action Center training camp outside Siem Reap, it's a pretty good life. The rats are kept in individual cages in an air-conditioned room "because we want to protect our investment, take care of them," says Theap, the operations manager. "We want to keep them good and healthy all the time, so they can perform [with] more efficiency."

There are still some skeptics, even in the demining community, who won't trust a rat. Hulsok isn't one of them. He's been looking for and clearing mines and other unexploded ordnance for more than 20 years. In the case of certain mines, he says, he'd trust a rat over a metal detector any day.

"One type of mine from Chinese, we call 72 Alpha, the metal is very, very small, very, very small detonator and pin," he says. "But a rat can smell TNT very good, so [it] can pick up that mine. But it's good if we have both. Without [a] mine detector, it's not easy to work."

In other words, the giant African rats are just one tool in the demining kit — not meant to replace dogs and machines, but to augment them, helping make it quicker and easier to deal with the legacy of the country's brutal past.

And what happens to the rats when they've reached the end of their working lives?

"Basically, when nearing the end, we notice that they slow down, and we start keeping a close eye on their accuracy via increased field testing," Pursey says. "Eventually, they decide not to come out of their cages and we leave them there for a while until they pass away or they are in obvious distress — in which case, we humanely euthanize them. In those final weeks, they hang out with their mates in playtime and training if they want to, but they don't go out to the field. Normally, they pass away quite quickly once the process has started."

But that's a long way down the road for Victoria, Pit and the other newly arrived rats. They have a lot of work ahead of them, a lot of lives to help save. Theap hopes they'll be deployed in real minefields by September or October.




Some animals are really very clever, and in this case surprisingly cooperative with people. Dogs are, too, of course, but I’ve come to accept that dogs are highly trainable for all kinds of special tasks. A very interesting show on Animal Planet on cable TV showed German Shepherds and other bright dogs being trained to detect fuel remains at fires which were suspected as arson sites. There was also an ordinary little cocker spaniel on a TV documentary on the Science Network that is highly drawn to a smell that the deadly skin cancer melanoma gives off. The dog is being used in a medical office for its special diagnostic ability, and once the physician realized why a certain lady’s dog kept annoyingly sniffing a spot on her leg, he began to recruit and train some other dogs as well. And of course, dogs as well as pigs can sniff out truffles.





http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/08/01/427416157/coding-camp-to-baltimore-schools-bring-us-your-bored

Coding Camp to Baltimore Schools: Bring Us Your Bored!
Elissa Nadworny
Digital Producer and Editor, NPR Ed
AUGUST 01, 2015

Photograph -- Middle-school boys participate in the Minority Male Makers summer program at Morgan State University in Baltimore.
Elissa Nadworny/NPR
Photograph -- Middle-school boys participate in the Minority Male Makers summer program at Morgan State University in Baltimore.
Elissa Nadworny/NPR


On the second floor of Morgan State University's engineering building, Jacob Walker, 12, is putting the finishing touches on a ruler he's just created.

Not yet an actual ruler. One he's designing on the computer. He just needs to add his initials — then it's time to produce it on a 3-D printer.

Jacob starts seventh grade in the fall and has big dreams. Building this ruler is all part of the plan.

"When I was a child," he says, "I loved to play with Legos, and it inspired me to be an engineer when I get older."

Jacob is one of some 50 boys in this free, four-week camp at Morgan State. It's called the Minority Male Makers Program — paid for by Verizon.

Students learn to code, design apps, create products — even build a business plan. After they design their rulers, they start pitching ideas: a candy-selling business, a website for kids having trouble studying, an app to find your lost keys.

"We knew that they had these types of capabilities," says LaDawn Partlow, a lecturer at Morgan State, who oversees the program. "It just was about providing them the opportunities and the resources and the outlets to bring it out of them."

To find students, Partlow and her team reached out to local middle-school principals and counselors with this simple request: "We want students who seem like they may need more of a challenge, who on a daily basis may seem a little removed from class," she says. "They may be bored."

They aren't now. Partlow says some of these kids know the material better than she does, but they're still young and impressionable. And that matters.

"Why not start with the middle schools," she says. "That's where you want to grab the attention of the students. After that they've pretty much formed their own path."

Another benefit of the program: Current Morgan State students work as teaching aides and mentors. They're not just there to help students with the work. They're role models, showing these kids what's possible: college and a career in engineering, math, or tech.

"I relate a lot to these kids," says mentor Chris Gaines, 26. "There's no limits for them, and that's what I want to share with them."

Gaines is back at Morgan State earning a math degree — after working for several years as an electrical engineer.

"From my experience in the industry, there's not many young men of color," Gaines says. At work, it sometimes got uncomfortable when talk turned to stories of Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown.

"I was the only young black man in my previous job," Gaines says. "I just had to speak up for these young fellows. So they could understand my perspective. Instead of arguing, I said, 'How about I just contribute and do my part?' And that's why I'm here."

Though summer classes wrapped up this week, the program runs for two years.

Jacob Walker and his classmates will come back to campus for several Saturdays throughout the school year. Mentor Chris Gaines says he'll be there to answer questions about engineering, college — and life.




"When I was a child," he says, "I loved to play with Legos, and it inspired me to be an engineer when I get older." Jacob is one of some 50 boys in this free, four-week camp at Morgan State. It's called the Minority Male Makers Program — paid for by Verizon. Students learn to code, design apps, create products — even build a business plan. After they design their rulers, they start pitching ideas: a candy-selling business, a website for kids having trouble studying, an app to find your lost keys. "We knew that they had these types of capabilities," says LaDawn Partlow, a lecturer at Morgan State, who oversees the program. "It just was about providing them the opportunities and the resources and the outlets to bring it out of them."

I’m unhappy to see that this group are all boys. I notice the word “she” is used to apply to one of the instructors. The fact that so many women who have specialized in IT are being mistreated on predominately male work sites in pay, harassment, etc. Part of the reason for that is preferential treatment all the way up. People who are attracted to IT should be encouraged in every way no matter their gender. There seems to be no end to the male-female divide in the US. Every time women are excluded from any field of endeavor it is a problem. I used to feel that perhaps women in the army shouldn’t be sent to the battlefield, but on the news recently there were some female candidates for one of the elite military groups such as the Navy Seals, and one of them was succeeding. Just because not all women can handle such rigorous training, that doesn’t mean that those who can shouldn’t have the chance to try.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/homeland-security-warns-drones-could-be-used-in-attacks/

Homeland Security warns drones could be used in attacks
By JEFF PEGUES CBS NEWS
July 31, 2015

WASHINGTON -- CBS News has learned that the Department of Homeland Security has sent an intelligence assessment to police agencies across the country about drones being used as weapons in an attack.

The bulletin went out Friday and warned that unmanned aircraft systems or drones could be used in the U.S. to advance terrorist and criminal activities. Law enforcement sources say, "emerging adversary use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems present detection and disruption challenges."

According to federal officials, "The rising trend in UAS incidents within the National Airspace System will continue, as UAS gain wider appeal with recreational users and commercial applications."

The bulletin goes on to say, "while many of these encounters are not malicious in nature, they underscore potential security vulnerabilities... that could be used by adversaries to leverage UAS as part of an attack."

Currently, intelligence bulletins are released almost weekly as law enforcement responds to threats from ISIS sympathizers. But the release of a bulletin dedicated to the threat from UAS is unusual. The bulletin does not mention any specific upcoming events authorities are concerned about but points to the overall security challenges drones present.




Of course drones “could be used for attacks” – they already are by our military. It’s a cinch that some terrorist here or just another nut job out to destroy what I consider to be civilized society – militia members, the KKK, etc. are prime candidates. I’ve already thought of that. The moment I saw that cute remake of Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” a commercial of some kind, in which a bunch of business office workers come out of their steel and glass building and someone shouts out, “no fast movements,” just as somebody does start to run anyway and a large tree full of drones fly down to attack everybody. The thought of thousands of spies in the sky is not something I like. Besides, drones have already been colliding with planes. Computer brains are not and never have been perfect. Argument #1 for why I don’t want driverless cars out on the roads.





http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/08/01/428162355/in-germany-asylum-seekers-could-fill-a-chronic-workforce-need

In Germany, Asylum-Seekers Could Fill A Chronic Workforce Need
Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
International Correspondent, Berlin
AUGUST 01, 2015

Photograph -- Refugees line up to apply for asylum at a reception center in Berlin, Germany. Figures released last week showed that about 180,000 asylum applications were filed in the first six months of 2015, more than twice as many as in the same period last year.
Markus Schreiber/AP

For pharmacists in ever-diverse Berlin, communicating with customers requires a variety of languages.

Just ask German pharmacist Julia al-Erian, who tries in English to engage a young Arab man who is trying to buy acne cream. He gives her a blank stare, so she tries explaining in German how the medicated lotion works.

He looks perplexed, says "hold on" in German, then turns to a friend and speaks Arabic.

Recognizing the man's language, Erian calls for Mayssoun Alkhalaif, a Syrian refugee. Alkhalaif is also a pharmacist, with 10 years of experience, who fled to Germany with her husband and daughters from Damascus about 18 months ago.

Alkhalaif explains to the young man in Arabic how to use the acne cream, and he looks relieved. Her German boss is also relieved, because Alkhalaif filled one of her long-standing vacancies.

Erian says she's one of 50 pharmacists in Berlin desperately looking for help. For two years, the position of a pharmaceutical assistant had been vacant. The German pharmacist says she only found Alkhalaif because they have a mutual friend.

German officials have struggled with the arrival of a record number of refugees and asylum-seekers this year who are draining local resources and prompting calls for increased deportations. But German businesses and labor officials see an opportunity in these newcomers to ease a chronic shortage of skilled workers.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel
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In Germany, Voices Against Immigration Grow Louder
A frantic search for hires is common in Germany, says Herbert Brücker, an economist with the Institute for Employment Research in Nuremberg.

"We have shortages in the labor market," Brücker says. "My assessment is that asylum-seekers and refugees might be both an important resource for the labor market in the high-skilled segment as well as in the less-skilled segment, for example, in agriculture, in hotels and restaurants, in health care."

Berlin residents Mareike Geiling (left) and her boyfriend, Jonas Kakoschke, speak with their roommate, a Muslim refugee from Mali. Geiling and Kokoschke helped launch a website that matches Germans willing to share their homes with new arrivals. MUSLIM IDENTITY IN EUROPE -- Germans Open Their Homes To Refugee Roommates.

Brücker says Germany has programs to attract qualified foreign workers, but the hurdles are pretty high, especially for asylum-seekers. He says those who've been in Germany for three months are technically allowed to work, but have to prove there aren't Germans, other European Union citizens or foreigners with work permits who can fill the job.

Brücker says German employers are also reluctant to hire asylum-seekers because it's unclear whether they'll be around long enough to make it worthwhile. The German cabinet this week decided to make it easier for younger asylum-seekers to apply for internships.

Günter Krings of the German Interior Ministry, who was at that meeting, warns against making it too easy for refugees and asylum-seekers to find jobs here. He says if the door is opened too wide, it would encourage even more people to come to Germany and apply for asylum.

Meanwhile, Syrian pharmacist Alkhalaif had an easier time finding a job because she isn't an asylum-seeker.

She says her brother-in-law, a doctor in southern Germany, was able to bring her family and more than a dozen other relatives here by promising he would be responsible for them.




“Just ask German pharmacist Julia al-Erian, who tries in English to engage a young Arab man who is trying to buy acne cream. He gives her a blank stare, so she tries explaining in German how the medicated lotion works. He looks perplexed, says "hold on" in German, then turns to a friend and speaks Arabic. Recognizing the man's language, Erian calls for Mayssoun Alkhalaif, a Syrian refugee. Alkhalaif is also a pharmacist, with 10 years of experience, who fled to Germany with her husband and daughters from Damascus about 18 months ago. Alkhalaif explains to the young man in Arabic how to use the acne cream, and he looks relieved. Her German boss is also relieved, because Alkhalaif filled one of her long-standing vacancies.”

I hate to say it, but this situation reminds me of a comedy scene from my childhood, maybe when Lucy and Desi and the Mertzes went to Paris, or the children’s parlor game “gossip.” Our problem here in this country is the opposite – way too few jobs, of any kind. If you have a high degree of skill in computers you probably could be one of the select few as in this case. Business owners have been cheating the American people, however, by importing Asians to do computer work or worse still, offshoring the business entirely. Lots of humbler factory jobs have ended up where the labor is cheaper by far. If this is “free trade” I really don’t like it. Many of the US population when I was young did factory jobs. It’s now considered low level work, but it housed and fed whole families in the 1950s, and they bought their homes rather than always renting, too. And the news was exciting -- the unions were always out bedeviling the factory owners, which was good – it kept the money flowing and pay scales high. Luckily some union activity is coming back now.

“He says those who've been in Germany for three months are technically allowed to work, but have to prove there aren't Germans, other European Union citizens or foreigners with work permits who can fill the job.” I see Germany is doing something useful that we don’t do here because of our good Republican “free market” views. We will have to get rid of the Tea Party and their ilk in order to enact laws that would allow government controls over who gets to be hired for any job like this one. It’s not free market, I know, but it could bolster the US economy. Having US citizens mostly fully employed would improve the economic situation here tremendously, since we would all go out and buy more things from our businesses, if we hadn’t offshored them all, that is.

“Berlin residents Mareike Geiling (left) and her boyfriend, Jonas Kakoschke, speak with their roommate, a Muslim refugee from Mali. Geiling and Kokoschke helped launch a website that matches Germans willing to share their homes with new arrivals. MUSLIM IDENTITY IN EUROPE -- Germans Open Their Homes To Refugee Roommates.” Germans must be a great deal less snobbish and generally open to differences than we are in the US. Very few people over 40 years old would do this here, unless maybe in a large and crowded city where there is a great need for more housing. Of course, young Americans just starting out do often do this. Newspapers used to advertise group houses. Young people are more open about everything. I did that twice in Washington, DC, and I really enjoyed it. Some people want quietude, absolute control, and everything in its place, but I want interest and entertainment, and did especially when I was young. I viewed housemates as chances for friendship. Hearing about this housing situation in Germany reminds me of my days on Dupont Circle with three other women. It was fun.