The Speaker Editors

Islamists Kill 2,297, Injure 2,246 This Month In 240 Attacks Globally

by
khaled-al-asaad
Share this
Share

Islamists killed 2,297 people and injured 2,246 in 240 separate attacks in 22 countries around the world in August, according to terrorist watch group The Religion of Peace, which has kept regular statistics on Muslim religiously motivated violence since September 2001.

The attacks took place in Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, USA and Yemen,according to TROP editor Glen Roberts.

The attacks included 36 suicide attacks.

Read more: Islamic terrorists have committed 25,000 separate violent acts worldwide that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths in last 15 years

Worldwide, Muslims have commit an average of five separate acts of religiously motivated violence per day since TROP began its work. Roberts suspects terrorism has increased since the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 when he began.

“Terrorism before 9/11 was bad in Algeria and Kashmir,” Roberts told us. “I think the numbers have been worse since, just in other places — Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria.”

Many PayPal Users Unable To Access Accounts For Past 5 Days

by
paypal
Share this
Share

Many PayPal account holders have been unable to access their PayPal accounts for the past five days. Attempts to access their accounts results in a redirect loop fatal error.

Pages of comments about the ongoing issue with PayPal have been filed on the website downdetector.com. Reports of the “too many redirects” error message began to be posted Aug. 26, and continue Saturday night.

“Day 5 of not being able to access my account. Calling PayPal every day and getting excuses and the runaround is exasperating,” Marilyn Geiszler Huttunen, Vintage Clothing Dealer and Blogger at Finnfemme, tweeted Saturday.

“Me too. Go to Login, and wont send me my phone code to login, bypass this and go through my secruity questions only to have it time out over and over again. Useless…” added Edward RedFox Harding, Owner at Ed&Lisa.

ScreenHunter_6133 Aug. 29 22.47

“Not letting me log in. Tried on PC and mobile,” commented Pam Hurst, of Leith Walk Primary School.

It was reported Friday that PayPal had patched up a cross-scripting security issue, by which it was possible for payments to be stolen. It is not known whether there is any relation between the security issue and the redirect problem that predates the reported fix.

PayPal is a U.S. company that provides electronic funds transfers in 26 currencies across 190 countries. The company was founded in Palo Alto, California in 1998 by Elon Musk and four others. PayPal was acquired by eBay in July 2002, and currently 70 percent of eBay auctions accept PayPal payment and 25 percent of auctions are transacted using the electronic service. Paypal moved a total of $228 billion in 2014.

Sexual Harassment In Paris Still An Enormous Problem – Letter

by
Share this
Share

“I personally experience public intimidation on a daily basis.” – Dutch Parisienne Rachel Wegner

Warning: article contains some graphic language of a sexual nature

Paris — After some days of rain, I could not be happier than to enjoy the sunshine in my favorite park 10 minutes located from my home. As I were tanning in a bikini, I noticed an older men sat down a bit further on the field, facing me while he was continuously staring. As a Dutch woman living in Paris for an amount of time already, I slowly got more used to men staring at me. Walking down the road with me, trying to make conversation even though it is obvious I am not amused. Shouting at me for attention when I ride a bicycle and even Uber drivers use my personal details after driving me, trying to arrange a private ‘rendez-vous’.

The park is apparently the territory of local predators.

I didn’t want to let the man in the park win and adjust my behavior because he is the one who can’t behave. Still I put my clothes back on and turned my head around like I often do. It would be a waste to let such a sunny day get ruined by an old creeper. Not even ten minutes later, I discovered pervert number one wasn’t such a bad guy after all, at least compared to the new predator I got in sight. A man was standing more or less on top of a small hill, staring down at me (I am sure it was me he was looking at, because besides the old man on the other side and me, the field was empty). If the staring wasn’t enough to intimidate me, he also started to touch himself. Maybe he didn’t take his pants of, but with his hand on top of his crotch, he was basically jerking off and the entire time he didn’t let his eyes off me. Again I didn’t want to surrender and allowing a perpetrator to influence my behavior,   but my comfort was more important. So I ignored what I saw and just took off.

Returning home from the park way more early than I initially planned, I realized I don’t even feel safe to go by myself to the park anymore. Because this wasn’t the first time it happened to me. Every single time I go to the park, there is at least always one man all by himself, simply staring at me until I can’t handle the uncomfortable feelings anymore and again take off. I would not be surprised if their only purpose to visit the park is to sexually intimidate young women.

But even at the center of Paris sexual harassment continues

Another example which is even worse than what is written above, was the one time on Sunday afternoon at the center of Paris. As I was waiting at an empty street for my friend to come down, all of a sudden a men appeared next to me with his pants down his legs. While he was treating himself with a hand job as he used me as the subject of his sexual pleasure. Like always, it was me who took off. Waiting down a bigger street with more people walking by informing my friend about my relocating by phone, I got grabbed from behind.  The perpetrator followed me and just took the liberty of grabbing my ass. I was shocked, I was scared. But even more, I got extremely angry. I exploded. I started to yell at him in Dutch, my mind couldn’t remember any other language than my native tongue anymore caused by these emotions, until he finally ran away. Surrounding citizens did do nothing to help me. From the other side of the road he stopped and again continued to make sexual signals focused on me. Also this time it was me taking off.

Even though the law is protecting women, the reality is not! 

What can I do as a young woman in Paris? I can report the (almost daily) incidents at the police station, but would it make a difference? In 2012 the French government adjusted the law regarding sexual intimidation, which defines sexual harassment way better than the unclear definition which was used before and the sanctions are set higher (up to 2 years of imprisonment and a 30.000 euro fine), where I cheer for. But how do these perpetrators finally get what they deserve? These men are all anonymous strangers, I could never recall again. And even if I did, how will we ever locate this particular predator among 2 million other citizens? The new law may be in my favor, but in reality I am still the one losing.

It is not only me suffering, every woman in Paris has to deal with sexual harassment 

Study has shown that a full 100% of 600 surveyed women, from Seine-Saint-Denis and Essonne (two areas in the outer suburbs of Paris), had experienced gender based sexual harassment while taking public transport at least one time in their life’s. It almost seems that sexual harassment more or less got generally accepted as a part of the Parisian lifestyle for the local women. But it is not acceptable that I, as a young 25 year old woman, seriously consider to start wearing a burka in public transport. It is not alright, that I fear when going to the park because I already know sexual intimidation will be inevitable. I am certain most of the Parisian citizens agree with me on this. But we have to stand up for each other. Grab a pervert when you see him ‘Frotteuring’ up on a woman in the metro. We are a majority, so why didn’t we make a unit yet to scare these predators off? Because not women, but the sexual predators are the ones who deserve to experience the fear of public inconvenience!

By Rachel Wegner

Tibetan Woman Dies Of Self Immolation As Chinese Authorities Demolish Houses

by
Share this
Share

A Tibetan woman became the 142nd Tibetan in Tibet to self immolate in protest of the rule and actions of the Chinese government Thursday night.

The woman, Tashi Kyi, whose age is unknown, self immolated in Ngulra, Gansu Province, eastern Tibet. She died later that night.

The self immolation followed the arrival of 150 police and officials in Ngulra who then began demolishing houses there with bulldozers.

One source reported that the reason given by officials was that the houses did not have valid permits. A number of the house-owners protested, with some physically hanging on to the demolition equipment. Ngulra residents believe Tashi Kyi’s self-immolation was motivated by witnessing the destruction of her village.

“Bulldozers are a suitable symbol of China’s rule in Tibet,” commented Free Tibet director Eleanor Byrne-Rosengren.

“Tibetans’ land is no longer their own and land grabs and destruction of Tibetan property by the authorities are common occurrences. They are also a frequent trigger for protests. Local objections rarely deter the authorities from their actions, however, and protests are frequently met with arrests and violence. There are many causes of self-immolation protests but punishing Tibetans for expressing their legitimate grievances is certainly among them.”

Information supplied by Tibet Watch.

Dr. Frederick Banting Made Insulin Free

by
diabetes
Share this
Share

When Canadian Doctor Frederick Banting discovered insulin, he turned down offers from big corporations that would have made him – and them — rich, by making insulin available only to those who could afford it. Instead, Banting said that insulin was his gift to mankind.

Diabetes began to be recognized as a top killer of humans in the early 20th century. A few months was the usual expectation for those diagnosed with the disease.

Many scientists devoted themselves to the search for the cure, but none were able to find anything other than improved diets to prolong life expectancy.

A military surgeon serving in WWI, a war that had diverted funds away from most medical research for years, Frederick Banting followed up on a research paper he read that hypothesized that diabetes was caused by a single substance in the pancreas. The author of the paper, Englishman Sir Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer, dubbed the hormone “insulin.”

Because digestion destroyed insulin, Banting set out to find a way to extract the substance from the healthy pancreases.

Banting worked on his task at his alma mater Toronto University with Dr. J.J.R. Macleod, who believed the experiment Banting wanted to use had an almost 100% chance of failure, so Banting performed the operation while Scotsman Macloed was overseas playing golf.

Banting and his team dispensed with many of previous ideas about how to search for the cure, and went to the slaughter-house and obtained beef and pig pancreases to test. It worked well, but was extremely inconsistent. The team struggled to achieve a solution that would be both pure and nontoxic to humans.

A teenager on his deathbed was given the first human trial of the insulin treatment, which failed and caused an allergic reaction. Biochemist James B. Collip went back to work on the solution. A second dose was administered to the same youth with success, and his health thrived.

However, the medicine could not save the large number of dying diabetics because the challenge of mass production of pure insulin had not yet been met.

At this point, large pharmaceutical companies offered the Banting huge sums of money for the patent to insulin. They proposed an insulin clinic with Banting in charge, and would make the medicine available to all who could pay for it. Banting, however, said that insulin was his gift to mankind, and it would be available to everyone who needed it rather than a commodity for anyone’s profit.

However, mass production was necessary and the process of introducing human insulin production genes into bacteria, then collecting and purifying the product of the bacteria is not a simple task. There would be an inherent production cost to the treatment for diabetes.

The Canadian group teamed with a large American drug company which could provide funding, facilities and supplies, and Lily was soon distributing the drug around North America and saving thousands of lives. Life expectancy for diabetics rose from weeks to tens of years.

The work earned the team the Nobel Prize in 1923. Banting was also knighted, and Canada later honored the scientist by printing his portrait on the $100 bill.

By Andy Scott

Girls Who Have Sex Lose Both Female And Male Friendships, Study Finds; For Males, It’s The Opposite

by
girls who have sex
Share this
Share

Early adolescent males gain friends when they have sex while females lose them, a new study has found. Not only that, males who make out without having sex lose popularity, while females who do the same gain.

The findings of the study will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

“In our sample of early adolescents, girls’ friendship networks shrink significantly after they have sex, whereas boys’ friendship networks expand significantly,” said Derek A. Kreager, the lead author of the study and an associate professor of sociology and criminology at Pennsylvania State University.

“But what really surprised us was that ‘making out’ showed a pattern consistent with a strong reverse sexual double standard, such that girls who ‘make out’ without having sex see significant increases in friendships, and boys who engage in the same behavior see significant decreases in friendships.”

The study was based on information gathered from 921 students in 28 rural communities in Iowa and Pennsylvania states. Data was gathered from students over grades six through nine.

When asked to select their best or closest friend in their grade, students showed a high degree of preference for males who had sex but didn’t just make out and for females who made out but didn’t have sex.

Girls who had sex experienced a 45 percent decrease in peer acceptance. Boys who had sex had an 88 percent increase. Girls who just made out, however, had a 25 percent increase in peer acceptance while boys experienced a 29 percent decrease.

“Our results are consistent with traditional gender scripts,” Kreager said. “Men and boys are expected to act on innate or strong sex drives to initiate heterosexual contacts for the purpose of sex rather than romance and pursue multiple sexual partnerships.

“In contrast, women and girls are expected to desire romance over sex, value monogamy, and ‘gatekeep’ male sexual advances within committed relationships. A sexual double standard then arises because women and girls who violate traditional sexual scripts and have casual and/or multiple sexual partnerships are socially stigmatized, whereas men and boys performing similar behaviors are rewarded for achieving masculine ideals.”

Kreager thinks boys and girls reinforce traditional gender scripts at school.

“[The] pattern suggests that other boys are the peers that police social norms when it comes to masculinity, whereas girls receive strong messages about gender-appropriate sexual behavior from boys and girls,” Kreager explained. “It is not surprising that girls do not punish boys for ‘making out,’ as this behavior is rewarding for girls both socially and physically.

“However, there is somewhat of a paradox for boys stigmatizing girls who have sex because these boys are punishing girls for behavior that benefits boys both socially and sexually. We believe one reason for this is that only a small minority of boys have such sexual access, so those who do not have sex negatively define the girls who are having sex.”

“During early adolescence,” Kreager noted, “peer evaluations of initial sexual behaviors and virginity loss are likely to have large and lasting impacts on later sexual adjustment.”

By Cheryl Bretton

“Female Viagra” Flibanserin Is Completely Different From Male Viagra

by
flibanserin
Share this
Share

Flibanserin requires a whole new understanding of “Viagra” for those who are familiar with the male Viagra sildenafil. While sildenafil acts specifically on the penis, and only acts when a man is aroused — it does nothing to arouse the man itself — flibanserin is completely different.

The “pink pill” does not work on the groin. Although not completely understood, it is thought to work on the brain, increasing desire rather than allowing body parts to function optimally.

Some scientists believe that some individuals who have little or no feelings of sexual desire may have an imbalance of excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters, and so neural activity is not controlled in ways that promote sexual arousal.

Flibanserin increases certain chemicals in the brain while blocking others. This effects an increase in mood chemicals that are considered to be associated with sexual desire.

Another difference between the two drugs is that sildenafil can be taken when needed and lasts 2-4 hours. Flibanserin needs to be taken every day to work.

A third difference is efficacy: men with erectile dysfunction achieve erections 67 – 89 percent of the time with Viagra compared to 27 – 35 percent when taking placebos, and the chance of a man who has taken sildenafil achieving successful sexual intercourse roughly doubles from 35 percent to 69 percent.

The efficacy of flibanserin is only known from tests in which women were found to have an average of one extra sexually satisfying experience every 28 to 56 days (yes, one extra every month or two).

Both drugs have undesirable side effects.

The side-effects of sildenifil can include dizziness, headache, flushing and upset stomach. Also, some men experience increased sensitivity to light, blurred vision, and color blindness to blue and green.

Flibanserin also has several undesirable side-effects: marked sedation, sleepiness and fatigue, which side-effects are made worse if a woman drinks alcohol or takes medication that alters the metabolism of the drug.

By Cheryl Bretton

Herpes Test For $9 Approved By FDA

by
herpes
Share this
Share

The FDA has fast-tracked a new inexpensive finger-stick test for herpes, as well as a processing system for the test.

The FDA cleared the test under its expedited 510(s) regulatory pathway for low- to moderate-risk devices that are similar to products already on the market.

The $9 test was developed by Theranos, a Palo Alto, California company that has a history of making tests at prices lower that Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates, but the herpes test is Theranos’ first FDA cleared device.

Tests of this kind do not generally require FDA approval before being sold, but Theranos submitted its test for premarket review because it “wanted to remain deeply committed to ensuring that [its] systems and … laboratory-developed tests are of the highest quality …” according to Theranos’ CEO Elizabeth Holmes.

Theranos was criticized earlier this year for carrying out “stealth research” — keeping its data under wraps and unavailable for peer-review by journals.

The device, which tests for herpes simplex virus 1, works like most finger-stick tests. The user pricks their finger with a pin attached to a processor which provides a positive or negative reading. The main health benefit of Theranos’ test is one of accessibility: low cost.

Herpes simplex virus 1 is carried by 40 – 60 percent of high socioeconomic populations and 70 – 80 percent of low socioeconomic populations. The most common symptom is blisters that develop on or around the mouth or, less commonly, other areas of the body, which form ulcers when they rupture, during which time the “cold sore” is contagious.

By Cheryl Bretton

Beauty Queen Jailed For Faking Cancer And Receiving Funds Asks Forgiveness, Promises To Pay Money Back

by
Brandi Weaver-Gates
Share this
Share

Despite being incarcerated, former beauty queen Brandi Weaver-Gates now feels free, she says, after asking for forgiveness for faking cancer and receiving money through cancer fundraising, and promising to pay the money back.

Weaver-Gates made her first statement since she was charged last week. The statement came through her lawyer:

“Although Brandi’s incarcerated, she feels free,” said Deb Lux, Weaver-Gates’ public defender.

“She’s liberated from the lies she’s been living. She’s truly sorry. She asks for forgiveness, although she understands many won’t find it in their hearts to do so.”

The 23-year-old former Miss Pennsylvania is currently locked up at the Center County Correctional Facility in leuo of $150,000 bail.

Weaver-Gates recently waved her right to a hearing and intends to continue to cooperate with the legal process underway, according to her lawyer.

Weaver-Gates has promised to pay back all the money she received, the amount of which is currently unknown. One of the four large local fundraisers from which she received funds raised approximately $14,000.

Weaver-Gates’ misdeeds date back to 2013, when she first stated that she had been diagnosed with leukemia. However, when an anonymous tip was received by Pennsylvania state police that the woman could not name any of her doctors, an investigation began.

During the time Weaver-Gates was faking leukemia, she shaved her head twice and made several trips to the hospital with her family. Her family would wait in the reception area while Weaver-Gates would go to another area of the hospital for hours. However, during the police investigation it was found that Weaver-Gates was not listed as a patient in either of the hospitals she visited.

After police checked with hospital staff, Weaver-Gates was arrested for felony counts of theft by deception and receiving stolen property.

By Andy Stern

Kurt Cobain New “Solo Album” Of Unreleased Tracks

by
Kurt Cobain New "Solo Album"
Share this
Share

Over 100 cassettes of Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain, discovered by the director of the recent documentary film “Montage of Heck,” will be the basis for an upcoming Kurt Cobain “solo album.”

Or so it has been dubbed by anticipating fans.

Montage of Heck director Brett Morgen said the upcoming album “feels like you’re in Kurt’s house, watching him create over the course of an afternoon.” The album is meant by the director as a companion work to his documentary, and will be released along with the home-video version of the film in early November.

Morgen said he immersed himself in over 200 hours of recordings made on 107 unmarked cassette tapes made by Cobain.

Morgen will not have the last word in the tracks that will appear on the album — that privilege belongs to Universal Music Group, which is releasing it.

The album will though, according to Morgen, show many sides of the personality and work of the Nirvana singer, and include ragtime and thrash, as well as audio of Cobain talking between tracks.

Among the non-music offerings will be a “comedy sketch routine” performed by Cobain, who voices all the characters.

Morgen said that the album may be different from what many people familiar with the most popular songs of Nirvana might expect. It is lighter — for example, listeners will know when Cobain is smiling at his own playful lyrics, he said.

All the tracks on the album are just Cobain by himself with a guitar.

“These aren’t multi-track, finished songs or work-ups, but they’re extraordinary, and I think they provide a tremendous insight into his [creative] process,” Morgan said. “I think they further our understanding of Kurt, both as a musician and as a man.”

By Andy Stern

Quasicrystal Growth Observed For First Time Under Microscope

by
Quasicrystal
Share this
Share

Quasicrystals in the act of growing have for the first time been recorded by Japanese researchers using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, answering a mechanical dilemma of chemistry with an “error-and-correction” observation.

“For the first time, we succeeded in observing the quasicrystal growth directly,” University of Tokyo’s Dr. Keiichi Edagawa told The Speaker. “By the direct observation, we obtained [a] picture of formation.”

The researchers heated a two-dimensional quasicrystal sample of aluminum, nickel, and cobalt (Al70.8Ni19.7Co9.5) at temperatures between 1123 and 1183 Kelvins.

Using HRTEM, the researchers put together a series of images of the sample as the quasicrystals transformed under heat.

The composite video illustrates the researchers’ main finding:
Quasicrystals, at least in the decagonal phase observed, grow according to an “error-and-correction” pattern.

The team observed a quasicrystal grain growing into the space left by another shrinking quasicrystal grain.

The action takes place in the middle of the growing and shrinking grains — a region known as the “growth front.” There, atomic clusters appear as a row of tiles being flipped, breaking the long-range quasiperiodic order of the lattice and resulting in disorder.

However, as more rearrangements take place over time, the disordered clusters correct, sometimes after several rows have grown incorrectly.

Dr. Keichi Edagawa
Dr. Keiichi Edagawa

“Quasicrystals grow with frequent error-and-repair, where the repair process corresponds to the relaxation of so-called phason strain,” Edagawa told us. “No strict local growth rules are at work, which is somewhat different from the ideal growth models previously proposed theoretically.”

What drives the errors and corrections during growth is still not known. Also unknown remains whether the phenomena observed also takes place in other quasicrystal phases.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brnrZv5o_A0

The report, “Experimental Observation of Quasicrystal Growth,” was completed by University of Tokyo and Tohoku University researchers Drs. Keisuke Nagao, Tomoaki Inuzuka, Kazue Nishimoto, and Keiichi Edagawa, and was published online in APS Physics.