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Comment Rather odd timing... (Score 3, Interesting) 146

That makes for rather "odd" timing, don't you think? Just days after Wikileaks leaks pilfered documents revealing NSA spying in France Assange makes an open appeal to be "invited" to France, and throws in everything but the kitchen sink in the appeal?

... In his letter to Hollande, Assange said that the mother of his youngest child is French. He said he is restricted to a space of 5.5 square meters (60 square feet), lacking access to “fresh air, sun as well as any possibility to go to a hospital,” and noted that police say round-the-clock surveillance of him has cost $17.6 million."

"only France now has the ability to offer me the necessary protection against, and exclusively against, the political persecution that I am currently the object of". Such an offer of protection would be a "humanitarian and symbolic gesture" and send a message of encouragement "to journalists and whistleblowers around the world".

It seems that the attempted quid pro quo failed. SInce there are no doubt many French people in solidarity with Wikileaks that have access to secrets I suppose France should brace itself for retaliation by Wikileaks. That could be a much more dangerous game for Assange than what he has played with the Americans. The French state is known to play rough when it feels it is needed in ways that the Americans are very unlikely to match.

Submission + - Noted Star Trek Actor Embroiled In Controversy Doubles Down On Racist Remarks (washingtontimes.com)

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: The Washington Times reports, "Gay activist and former “Star Trek” supporting actor George Takei doubled down on his “clown in blackface” attack on Supreme Court Clarence Thomas on Thursday night and implied that the jurist was a race traitor for not striking down state marriage laws last week. In a Facebook post, Mr. Takei said that blackface is not racist and/or that it is acceptable for an outsider to tell a black man that he is a racist caricature. He also used an analogy that would imply that Justice Thomas is actually white. “‘Blackface’ is a lesser known theatrical term for a white actor who blackens his face to play a black buffoon,” Mr. Takei wrote on his Facebook page Thursday evening. “In traditional theater lingo, and in my view and intent, that is not racist. It is instead part of a racist history in this country.” In addition to being used by white actors, blackface was also sometimes used by black actors on stage and film to look darker than they were and/or to play even-more-racist-than-usual caricatures. Mr. Takei also continued his criticism of Justice Thomas’s dissent in Obergefell vs. Hodges, and added another racial angle to it. In his Thursday night Facebook post, Mr. Takei said this opinion also proved Justice Thomas was no longer really black."

Submission + - Assange Makes Plea For Asylum After Leaking Details Of NSA Spying On French Pols (nypost.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The NY Post reports, "Assange wrote a letter to French President Francois Hollande published in Le Monde on Friday, appealing to France’s history as a beacon for the repressed. He noted that WikiLeaks recently revealed that the US National Security Agency spied on Hollande and his two predecessors and leading French companies. Hollande quickly said “no.” In a statement, his office noted that Assange is under a European arrest warrant and his life is not in imminent danger. ... French Justice Minister Christine Taubira suggested in a televised interview last week that she would be open to the idea. ... Assange has spent three years in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London ... In his letter to Hollande, Assange said that the mother of his youngest child is French. He said he is restricted to a space of 5.5 square meters (60 square feet), lacking access to “fresh air, sun as well as any possibility to go to a hospital,” and noted that police say round-the-clock surveillance of him has cost $17.6 million." — 9News adds, "... In his open letter ... Assange described himself as a "journalist pursued and threatened with death by the United States' authorities as a result of my professional activities" ... "only France now has the ability to offer me the necessary protection against, and exclusively against, the political persecution that I am currently the object of". Such an offer of protection would be a "humanitarian and symbolic gesture" and send a message of encouragement "to journalists and whistleblowers around the world". Assange said in his letter he had not seen his youngest child or the child's mother, who are both French, for five years. "I have had to keep their existence secret up to today in order to protect them," he wrote. " — also noted: "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has denied filing a request for asylum in France "

Submission + - Obama Wants Your Doctor To Teach You About Global Warming

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Michael Bastach reports that the White House wants doctors and other medical professionals to teach Americans about global warming and how climate change could make their health worse. At a summit the White House called to bring together health and medical professionals, academics, and other stakeholders to empower people and communities with the information and tools they need to protect public health in the face of climate change, Obama told medical professionals in a taped address that he needs "doctors, nurses and citizens, like all of you to get to work to raise awareness and organize folks for real change.” The central message: doctors should warn their patients that global warming could make their health worse. “We need to engage medical students themselves,” said Vice Admiral Vivek Murthy, the U.S. Surgeon General, “to demand the curriculum change” to prepare them for a warmer future."

Critics of the White House summit argued the event highlighted the collusion between the Obama administration and activist groups and called out the White house for teaming up with the American Lung Association (ALA) to promote the link between global warming and public health. “The involvement of the ALA in promoting and organizing today’s White House summit on climate change and health is yet another sign that the Obama administration has been co-opted by outside pressure groups, and has politicized the EPA’s decision-making process,” wrote Karen Kerrigan, president of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council."

Submission + - 3-D Ultrasonic Fingerprint Scanning Could Strengthen Smartphone Security (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: Researchers at the University of California, Davis and Berkeley have managed to miniaturize medical ultrasound technology to create a fingerprint sensor that scans your finger in 3D. This low-power technology, which could improve on the robustness of current-generation capacitive scanners, could soon find its way to our smartphones and tablets.

Submission + - "Mr. Sulu" George Takei Goes Racist: Justice Thomas 'a clown in blackface' (washingtontimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Washington Times reports, "Gay rights activist and former “Star Trek” star George Takei recently told a local Fox affiliate in Arizona that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a “clown in blackface.” Mr. Takei told a Phoenix station that the justice was “a disgrace to America” over his Obergefell v. Hodges dissent. The 5-4 ruling prohibits states from banning same-sex marriage. “Human dignity has long been understood in this country to be innate. When the Framers proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that ‘all men are created equal’ and ‘endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,’ they referred to a vision of mankind in which all humans are created in the image of God and therefore of inherent worth. That vision is the foundation upon which this Nation was built,” Justice Thomas wrote in his dissent ... "... The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away,” the justice continued."

Submission + - What happens when it's suddenly illegal to move money out of your country?

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Basic Internet services disappear.

Just as individual Greeks are losing access to Apple's iCloud, as the Athens staff of Bloomberg News recently discovered, so companies are finding themselves cut off from services critical to their ongoing operations.

The problem demonstrates a hidden risk in today's otherwise efficient vertical disintegration. Taking for granted the easy flow of money across borders, system designers never foresaw a situation in which companies with adequate funds would find that they couldn't pay foreign vendors.

"Greek companies are not able at this moment to pay for hosting (Amazon), storage (Dropbox), email services (MailChimp) and many other services," says Jon Vlachogiannis, a Bay Area entrepreneur, in an email. Without these services, otherwise viable businesses are in trouble.

Vlachogiannis and other expats are stepping up to pay the bills from California, rescuing companies with astonishingly small amounts.

Submission + - Paradoxical Crystal Baffles Physicists (quantamagazine.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In a deceptively drab black crystal, physicists have stumbled upon a baffling behavior, one that appears to blur the line between the properties of metals, in which electrons flow freely, and those of insulators, in which electrons are effectively stuck in place. The crystal exhibits hallmarks of both simultaneously.

“This is a big shock,” said Suchitra Sebastian, a condensed matter physicist at the University of Cambridge whose findings appeared today in an advance online edition of the journal Science. Insulators and metals are essentially opposites, she said. “But somehow, it’s a material that’s both. It’s contrary to everything that we know.”

Submission + - Common medications sway moral judgment (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: How many times would you give your neighbor an electric shock to earn a few extra bucks? Your answer could be more malleable than you think. A new study finds that two common drugs—an antidepressant and a treatment for Parkinson’s disease—can influence moral decisions, a discovery that could help unravel specific mechanisms behind aggression and eventually help researchers design treatments for antisocial behavior.

Comment Re:They are looking forward (Score 1) 409

by cold fjord (#50030873) Attached to: Analysis: Iran's Nuclear Program Has Been an Astronomical Waste

Carry wounded and material for depot level repair to maintain the war effort?

It wasn't rail cars coming from the front that carried Jews to the extermination camps, but I trust you already knew that.. The Germans sacrificed some of their ability to supply their troops in order to kill more Jews. It was a vile hatred that came back to bite them. Maybe you should consider that.

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