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Why does the U.S. still let 12-year-olds get married?
Mod journal flamebait!!!
Why does the United States still let 12-year-olds get married?
This is an opinion piece in WaPo written by the founder of a nonprofit. archive.is link because I figured out WaPo has a 5 article/month limit paywall.
While most states set 18 as the minimum marriage age, exceptions in every state allow children younger than 18 to marry, typically with parental consent or judicial approval. How much younger? Laws in 27 states do not specify an age below which a child cannot marry.
Unchained At Last, a nonprofit I founded to help women resist or escape forced marriage in the United States, spent the past year collecting marriage license data from 2000 to 2010, the most recent year for which most states were able to provide information. We learned that in 38 states, more than 167,000 children — almost all of them girls, some as young 12 — were married during that period, mostly to men 18 or older. Twelve states and the District of Columbia were unable to provide information on how many children had married there in that decade. Based on the correlation we identified between state population and child marriage, we estimated that the total number of children wed in America between 2000 and 2010 was nearly 248,000.
Turns out R2D*2pa$tramimacaronomy is doing just fine stateside, for the moment...
Elizabeth Warren Silenced on the Senate Floor
Micron 2017 Roadmap
Micron 2017 Roadmap Detailed: 64-layer 3D NAND, GDDR6 Getting Closer, & CEO Retiring
Worth a look, but not a submission just yet.
Sample Chapter of Book I'm Enjoying
I'm about a third of the way through this book, it's a fantasy/action type deal and I'm finding it does a better than usual job of painting the state of mind of different characters without slowing down the plot.
There's a sample chapter at link below, if you're into this sort of thing.
(Update: Charon pointed out the chapter at that link has formatting issues. https://heartofnightsaga.com/2017/02/02/download-a-free-sample-chapter/
A better version of the sample chapter is at the amazon page:
Incidentally the Kindle version seems to have a longer free sample than the print one.)
Would be interested to hear other people's thoughts. Or else: what are you reading at the moment that you like (preferably something with sample chapter available so I can check it out before buying).
Trudeau avoids poking the "grizzly bear" Trump
Canada's Trudeau decides not to poke U.S. 'grizzly bear' for now
Just play it cool and use Canada's great strength: utter invisibility despite sharing a border with the United States.
Supreme Court: Apprentice Edition
Trump is reportedly going to summon two finalists for the position to the announcement, at 8 PM EST. There can only be one.
2.5 GB/s, 2 TB M.2 SSD
Mushkin Announces Helix SSDs: 2.5 GB/s, 3D MLC NAND, SM2260, 2 TB Capacity
Saliva is dribbling down my shirt.
I don't think this is the first 2 TB SSD in the M.2 form factor, so not really worth a submission, but damn is that one heck of a drive. Note the 3 year warranty.
More stuff:
Crypt keeper wasp is a parasite of a parasite
Physicists patent detonation technique to mass-produce graphene
CRISPR genome engineering research institute expands into agriculture, microbiology
Medical first, children had cancer cured with genetically engineered T-cells from another person
New antibody suppresses spread of HIV-1 in infected individuals
Printed human body parts could be available for human transplants within a few years
Organovo bioprinting human tissue for drug testing and within 6 years for implanting human livers
Evolutionary Biologist to Run for U.S. Senate (CA)
Bernie Madoff Speaks: "Ponzi Supernova"
Bernie Madoff is cornering the prison market on Swiss Miss hot chocolate
“One of the most important things about this story is that it is a mistake to view him as an outlier,” Fishman told MarketWatch. “He profited from the way financial systems work, which is a point most people don’t really grasp. He wasn’t a freak. He was sustained by the system, embraced by it, because it profited from him.”
[...] Madoff’s multidecade scheme unraveled in 2008, when the market collapse in the financial crisis caused a number of his investors to pull their holdings, but Fishman said he “was never really caught.”
“The system never really rejected Bernie,” he explained, noting that Madoff’s 150-year prison sentence only came after he admitted the fraud to his sons, who, on the advice of a lawyer, alerted authorities. When questioned, Madoff confessed.
“It’s clear to me that if he hadn’t confessed there would have been years of expensive work to get him convicted,” Fishman said, referring to the cost of an investigation and a trial. “Who knows, maybe if he had pulled down the gates on his fund, gone out and raised money, he might have been able to continue.”
Never-before-heard Bernie Madoff tapes reveal details of ruinous Ponzi scheme
Fishman, who conducted three hours of interviews with Madoff personally, points out that while the fraudster ruined many lives, roughly half of Madoff’s investors still ended up in the black. “Yeah, he was a criminal talent, with God-given gifts in a sense, but Madoff was Patient Zero,” Fishman said. “What really makes him a pandemic is all the feeder funds [who introduced new clients to Madoff] and the banks,” Fishman told the Guardian. “They take him around the world. They recruit investors, in Latin America and through Europe, and they basically pour gasoline on this dumpster fire. Madoff could have been kind of a local swindler until he meets this massive distribution network.”
[...] When an investigator asked to see a report that a legitimate firm would have on hand in the course of its normal businesses, Madoff’s second-in-command, Frank DiPascali, stalled for time while downstairs others printed out a faked report, put it in the refrigerator so it wouldn’t be obviously warm from the printer, and “played football with it”, Schwartz says – tossing it back and forth across the room like a football to make it look weathered.
Set dressing was also important: on the credenza behind his desk, Madoff displayed a sculpture by the renowned artist Claes Oldenburg of a giant black screw, listing a little to one side. The 1976 sculpture, called Soft Screw, drew nearly $50,000 at Sotheby’s when Madoff’s assets were sold off after his disgrace.
When financial regulators visited his firm’s offices, Madoff put the Soft Screw away.
Secret Service Agent Learns How Not to Use Facebook
Secret Service agent may face disciplinary action over her anti-Trump Facebook posts
A senior official with the U.S. Secret Service may face disciplinary action after posting comments to Facebook suggesting that she would not "take a bullet" for President Trump. [...] O'Grady's comments were made in October, during the height of the presidential campaign and shortly after the release of a tape in which Trump made lewd comments about women. But they only came to light this week.
Great career move.
