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http://www.vice.com/read/oakland-underage-sex-work-scandal

Not so long ago it was possible to point to Oakland as a police reform success story. In the last decade, the cops have gone from conducting an average of 3,000 searches without probable cause every year to 280 in 2015. Officers are now required to wear body cameras. After decades of abuse, violence, and corruption, the police department seemed to finally be changing.

In the last few weeks, though, a scandal has emerged that threatens to tear the department apart. In brief, 14 Oakland police officers are currently under investigation for sleeping with an 18-year-old sex worker—three of them when she was 17, thus allegedly committing rape and sex trafficking under California law. The woman, using the alias Celeste Guap, told the East Bay Express earlier this month that she was having sex with the cops for money and protection; she had been given a friend's arrest history and information about undercover prostitution stings.

Hints of the scandal surfaced last year, after a suicide note written one of the officers involved, Brendan O'Brien, mentioned Guap, prompting an investigation. But the higher-ups allegedly dragged their feet, and the supposed cover-up has only widened the sordid scandal has since expanded. (According to Guap's later comments to the media, she's actually had sex with "more than 30 officers" from multiple agencies around the Bay Area.)

The shocking and salacious events were the catalyst to Oakland appointing four police chiefs in two weeks. Initially, Sean Whent, who was promoted to top cop at the end of a similarly messy 2013 shuffle that saw three new police chiefs in three days, got canned because he allegedly knew about Guap sleeping with Oakland cops but didn't press for a speedy and public investigation.

A funny article I found on NBF:

Do not "blame" life extension for Rupert Murdoch and Fox News, If Murdoch died Fox would still be right wing

Which is a response to: Bonus Level: The World's Most Powerful Humans are Getting Another 10-15 Years on Earth

A common argument against life extension is that it would allow the elites to live indefinitely, accruing more power, wealth, and influence for themselves. To that I say: If you're so worried about it, stop waiting for them to die, and start killing them.

Alabama ACLU and Newspaper Criticize Police for Arresting Citizen Journalist by Bama Camera

The Alabama police department that had a man arrested on a felony charge of jamming up their emergency lines – even though he did not make a single call – is now taking heat from the local ACLU as well as the local newspaper.

But the Wetumpka Police Department is still sticking to its guns, threatening to arrest anybody else who posts their non-emergency phone number of (334) 567-5321.

They claim that by calling that number, it somehow leads turns into a 911 call, which they claim makes it difficult to respond to actual emergencies.

But all they were doing were exercising their First Amendment right to petition for redress of grievances by complaining about how officers ripped a camera out of Keith Golden’s hands for recording the police department from public property.

First Amendment Audit (Wetumpka PD) "I don't care about your 1st Amendment Rights"

Arrest Update by Bama Camera
**UPDATE**FPS-USMS-BAM CAMERA by News Now Houston

Too spicy for Soylent: Norway teaches migrants about Western women

Should Western relationship norms be taught to migrants? The BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme attended a controversial class in Norway that aims to teach asylum seekers how to interact with women.

"When you move to another country, there will be different cultural codes compared to what you are used to," says instructor Margareth Berg. "And that will be codes that are not written or spoken about. Somebody has got to tell them what is normal behaviour."

In 2009, a spate of rapes by migrant men in Norway prompted the introduction of the controversial classes for refugees. Incidents of mass sexual assault by gangs of men in the German city of Cologne at the new year shone a light on this approach. Now, other European countries are thinking of introducing similar training.

The class in Haugesund, in west Norway, is no longer just about rape prevention. Now, it includes discussions around communicating with the opposite sex, boundaries, domestic violence, and what to do if you witness a sexual assault. Public awareness videos about rape are also shown.

It lasts four hours, and is not compulsory - although many refugees take it as part of a series of courses offered to new arrivals, including language courses and help with finding work. In this class, most are Syrian, but there are also some Iraqis and Afghans.

(NSFW) http://www.vice.com/read/theres-now-a-porn-genre-about-how-broke-millennials-are-456

Vice, keeping a hand on the chest to feel the millennial pulse.

I've been interviewed on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio twice, the first time in 2004 for The Infinite Mind, the second for Wiretap.

In both cases they found me through Living with Schizoaffective Disorder. (I was also on CNN in 2010 but that one didn't concern my mental illness.)

Of the two, the Wiretap interview is far more interesting. It's archived online somewhere but I think it's in RealPlayer format, at least it was the last time I looked. Someday I'll dig up the link.

The above page concerns my experience of being interviewed.

The Vancouver Diaries concerns my time just before, during and after my time in Vancouver British Columbia - yes I've lived in both. The American Vancouver with the first, but that's off-topic here.

Vancouver BC is an incredibly beautiful, vibrant city but I was very lonely there as I left Bonita behind to finish art school.

Most of The Vancouver Diaries is offline until I adjust the markup to fit the design of its new location, as well as fix broken links.

Now this is embarrassing.

Just now I discovered quite a serious bug in the software I'm working on.

I'm quite certain the general concept is valid, but my implementation is buggy.

This is something I can fix but that twenty grand I thought I made last week just flew out the window.

I will give you one little taste: in 2001-2002 I worked on a database kernel for a Bahamian hedge fund. It's now a core component of a huge windows executable that trades a basket of 1000 commodities futures on the Chicago Board of Trade. It's consistently able to beat the best funds managers.

My invention isn't trading commodities but it's a conceptually similar program.

(I don't know how they fared with the 2007 subprime meltdown. My guess is that the fund's owner would have known to get out of the market, he's a real shrewd guy.)

My ship isn't at the dock yet but I think it's still headed in my general direction.

In any case I'm doing something more mentally challenging than reloading SN all day long.

I invented something about a year ago, and have been tinkering with it most of the time since.

I abandoned it in November when I concluded that it could not possibly work. But in December I started taking imipramine for my depression.

At first only one other person knew about my invention. I discussed it with him a couple weeks ago: "Which is truth and which is delusion? Will my invention work or not?"

"It seems like a reasonable idea," he replied but even so I was unsure as he is not an expert in this area. He only had my own explanations to go on. However I decided I really had nothing better to do so I continued my development.

I made twenty grand in just the last week.

Starting a week or two from now I confidently expect to make ten grand per day.

I apologize, I really do, but the value of my invention depends on secrecy. If I were to explain it to you, it would be very easy for you to build one. I've often puzzled over why no one else has done this before, eventually to conclude that others already have it, but are keeping a very low profile.

I'm going to donate every last penny of my money to homeless shelters, rescue missions and soup kitchens.

Last October or so, a drop-dead gorgeous woman said to me "That's a really nice shirt you're wearing." My reply?

"I bought it because I sleep under a highway overpass. The dark red doesn't show the dirt."

Hillary Clinton’s Energy Initiative Pressed Countries to Embrace Fracking, New Emails Reveal

BACK IN APRIL, just before the New York primary, Hillary Clinton’s campaign aired a commercial on upstate television stations touting her work as secretary of state forcing “China, India, some of the world’s worst polluters” to make “real change.” She promised to “stand firm with New Yorkers opposing fracking, giving communities the right to say ‘no.'”

The television spot, which was not announced and does not appear on the official campaign YouTube page with most of Clinton’s other ads, implied a history of opposition to fracking, here and abroad. But emails obtained by The Intercept from the Department of State reveal new details of behind-the-scenes efforts by Clinton and her close aides to export American-style hydraulic fracturing — the horizontal drilling technique best known as fracking — to countries all over the world.

My apologies for not posting this sooner.

I was told there was a "Mass" in my right lung. The definition I found online somewhere is that a mass is three centimeters or larger in diameter. A "Nodule" is smaller.

The CT scan tech said she was told it was a nodule.

The diagnostic radiologist sent my doctor a letter that said the nodule was one centimeter in diameter and "appears to be benign". He called it a "calcification".

However I may not yet be completely out of trouble. That my nodule is benign is most likely due to having a smooth surface. Cancer tumours have rough surfaces but the best way to tell the difference is to watch it over some period of time; Cancer grows much faster.

My doctor will order another CT scan in three months, then another after that in six.

However she too appeared confident that it was benign.

"Oh good" I said.

Oddly I was not worried about dying. It's not like I don't know how painful cancer is, I've seen it up close and personal several times.

In part it was because I've survived far worse things than cancer - I once read that "suicidal depression is the worst pain you can feel" - and in part because I have always wanted to leave something behind that is of lasting value.

I have already been able to do that through my writing.

Even so, I'm glad that I'm not likely to die. I still hope to have children. While we haven't discussed kids yet - that would be rather premature at this early stage - the lady I'm seeing likes kids, and she is young enough to bear them.

I feel very bad that I will no longer date women of my own age. I'm 52. It's not like I'm not attracted to them but I want to be with a woman who has at least the possibility of bearing my child.

However were I to fall in love with a women who simply did not want to have children, I would stay with her. That would be hard to accept but accept it I would.