Signs of the Times (September 26,2016)
Here is the latest madness coming from the modern world
WARNING: Sensitive Content
NEW NORMAL? Man who was woman gives birth to baby by woman who was a man
They are the couple who made history last year when the transgender ‘father’ fell pregnant by the trans ‘mother’.And now, four months after giving birth to their first child, Fernando Machado – who was born a woman – and his partner Diane Rodriguez – who was born a man – have revealed they want to expand their brood.
The new parents, from Ecuador,have opened up about life with their new baby after becoming the first transgender couple to fall pregnant in South America. They have not yet announced the name of the newborn baby – but the 16-week-old is affectionately referred to as Caraote – which means ‘the snail’. ‘We are the same as other families. Even though we might not have the same rights, we’re the same,’ Mr Machado, who gave birth in June, told the BBC. READ MORE
Creepy Clowns puts another Alabama school on lockdown
Another Alabama school is on lockdown today after a social media post warned “clowns” might show up at Shades Valley High School on Monday. Irondale police Officer James Lewis, a school resource officer, said a student reported to police that a Facebook post hinted at the possibility of clowns showing up on campus. “There was no threat,” Lewis said.
Similar incidents have taken place throughout Alabama, including Flomaton, Etowah County and Montgomery, and across the southeast. In some instances, children have reported clowns trying to lure them into the woods. In other cases, victims have been messaged by the so-called clowns with vulgar language. READ MORE
Creepy clown spotted in southeastern Kentucky
The wave of creepy clown sightings across the South has apparently reached Kentucky. A photo posted on Facebook Sunday night appears to show someone dressed in clown
garb standing near the Hal Rogers Parkway in London. Jamie Hill, who posted the photo, told WYMT, “It looked like something from a horror movie.” Hill said she did not contact police. READ MORE
Study finds young men are playing video games instead of getting jobs
Danny Izquierdo, a 22-year-old who lives with his parents in Silver Spring, Md., has found little satisfaction in a series of part-time, low-wage jobs he's held since graduating from high school. But the video games he plays, including "FIFA 16" and "Rocket League" on PlayStation and Pokemon Go on his smartphone, are a different story.
"When I play a game, I know if I have a few hours I will be rewarded," he said. "With a job, it's always been up in the air with the amount of work I put in and the reward."
Izquierdo represents a group of video-game-loving Americans who, according to new research, may help explain one of the most alarming aspects of the nation's economic recovery: Even as the unemployment rate has fallen to low levels, an unusually large percentage of able-bodied men, particularly the young and less-educated, are either not working or not working full-time.
Most of the blame for the struggle of male, less-educated workers has been attributed to lingering weakness in the economy, particularly in male-dominated industries such as manufacturing. Yet in the new research, economists from Princeton, the University of Rochester and the University of Chicago say that an additional reason many of these young men — who don't have college degrees — are rejecting work is that they have a better alternative: living at home and enjoying video games. The decision may not even be completely conscious, but surveys suggest that young men are happier for it.
"Happiness has gone up for this group, despite employment percentages having fallen, and the percentage living with parents going up. And that's different than for any other group," says the University of Chicago's Erik Hurst, an economist at the Booth School of Business who helped lead the research.
While young men might temporarily enjoy a life of leisure, the implications could be troubling for them as well as the economy. The young men aren't gaining job experience that will better equip them to work in their 30s and 40s. That, in turn, could lead to a lifetime of decreased wages, limited opportunities and challenges such as depression and drug use — problems that the United States is already seeing in areas hit with heavy job losses.
At the same time, if a historically vibrant portion of the population doesn't feel as much desire to work, this could harm the economy's future and the ability of government to use policy to create jobs. "That's a big chunk of labor that could be used for something, and we're not using it," said Greg Kaplan, an economist at the University of Chicago who was not involved with the new research.
As of last year, 22 percent of men between the ages of 21 and 30 with less than a bachelor's degree reported not working at all in the previous year — up from only 9.5 percent in 2000. Overall, only 88 percent of men between the ages of 25 and 54 are working or looking for work, the third-lowest among 34 developed countries, according to the White House's Council of Economic Advisers.
Young men without college degrees have replaced 75 percent of the time they used to spend working with time on the computer, mostly playing video games, according to the study, which is based on the Census Bureau's time-use surveys. Before the recession, from 2004 to 2007, young, unemployed men without college degrees were spending 3.4 hours per week playing video games. By 2011 to 2014, that time had shot up to 8.6 hours per week on average.
More-educated young men have ratcheted up their gaming time, too — but this group has an easier time finding good jobs, and so their work hours haven't fallen as much. The trends are different for women, who are much more likely to go back to school after leaving the labor force.
The researchers are not merely saying that young men, out of work, are turning to video games. They're saying that increasingly sophisticated video games are luring young men away from the workforce. To determine this, the researchers analyzed changes in how people were allocating their time to leisure, and ran statistical tests that they say show that technological improvements are pushing people to spend much more time playing video games. That, in turn, is changing people's trade-offs about when to work and when to play.
"People have switched so much time, more time than we would have predicted, to computers and video games, and our model attributes that to technological progress," Hurst said.
The paper attributes one-third to one-fifth of the decline in work hours by less-educated young men to the rising use of technology for entertainment — mainly video games. The new study has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, and the researchers say they are continuing to refine the precise figures. But other prominent economists who reviewed it for this story said it raises important questions about why so many young men have abandoned the workforce.
Alan Krueger,
a former chairman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers,
said the research presents "strong evidence that the increase in the
number of less-educated young men who are not working is not entirely a
result of weak demand for their services." He added, "They find evidence
that a portion ... of the decrease in work time of less-educated young
men can be a result of the appeal of video games."
A few decades ago, an unemployed person might be stuck on the couch watching TV, isolated and depressed. Today, cheap or free services such as Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube and Netflix provide seemingly endless entertainment options and an easy connection to the outside world. Video games, in particular, provide a strong community and a sense of achievement that, for some, real-world jobs lack.
Jacob Barry, a 21-year-old from Grosse Point, Mich., who works part-time making sandwiches at a Jimmy John's and dreams of becoming a therapist, says the community — as well as a sense of escape — is what draws him to video games. After logging as many as 40 hours per week playing games, Barry realized that he was using games as a way to avoid the pressures of working life. "Honestly, I realized it was a bad thing when my mom would say things like, 'When are you going to go apply for these jobs? When are you going to go back to school?' And then in the back of my mind I kept hearing fun facts about these games."
A few decades ago, an unemployed person might be stuck on the couch watching TV, isolated and depressed. Today, cheap or free services such as Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube and Netflix provide seemingly endless entertainment options and an easy connection to the outside world. Video games, in particular, provide a strong community and a sense of achievement that, for some, real-world jobs lack.
Jacob Barry, a 21-year-old from Grosse Point, Mich., who works part-time making sandwiches at a Jimmy John's and dreams of becoming a therapist, says the community — as well as a sense of escape — is what draws him to video games. After logging as many as 40 hours per week playing games, Barry realized that he was using games as a way to avoid the pressures of working life. "Honestly, I realized it was a bad thing when my mom would say things like, 'When are you going to go apply for these jobs? When are you going to go back to school?' And then in the back of my mind I kept hearing fun facts about these games."
Barry
dropped out of college because he was not sure the high cost of tuition
would pay off, but he now feels stuck in a minimum-wage food service
job. He wishes he could find a career like his grandfather, who joined
the phone company after high school and worked there for decades. "But
there's no option to do that," he says.
One reason young men are drawn to games is their extremely low cost, after the initial outlay for a computer or gaming system. Barry says he logged thousands of hours on an online battle arena game "and it cost me zero dollars." Recent research has found that households making $25,000 to $35,000 a year spent 92 more minutes a week online than households making $100,000 or more a year.
Young men such as Barry are also helped out economically by living at home. In the United States, nearly two-thirds of nonworking, less-educated young men live with parents or other family members, up from about one-third before the recession. For the first time since the 1930s, in fact, more U.S. men aged 18-34 are living with their parents than with romantic partners, according to the Pew Research Center.
"Not withstanding all these bad labor-market outcomes, this group has found a place to live and things to do," says Kaplan of the University of Chicago.
That situation does not appear to be weighing on their happiness. Data from the General Social Survey, a national survey of several thousand people, shows that young noncollege men actually report being happier than in the early 2000s, with the percentage of men saying they are very or pretty happy rising from 81 percent to 88 percent. In the same period, the reported happiness of other groups remained constant or fell.
For Izquierdo, the 22-year-old in Silver Spring, video games provide a respite from job-market pressures. The son of immigrants from Guatemala, Izquierdo dreams of becoming a graphic designer but has had trouble finding a job that offers sufficient working hours and opportunity for advancement.
"As a young, first-generation male, there's a lot of expectations. So it's kind of cool to pop on a game ... and you will be rewarded for doing small tasks," he says. "They just make me happy."
One reason young men are drawn to games is their extremely low cost, after the initial outlay for a computer or gaming system. Barry says he logged thousands of hours on an online battle arena game "and it cost me zero dollars." Recent research has found that households making $25,000 to $35,000 a year spent 92 more minutes a week online than households making $100,000 or more a year.
Young men such as Barry are also helped out economically by living at home. In the United States, nearly two-thirds of nonworking, less-educated young men live with parents or other family members, up from about one-third before the recession. For the first time since the 1930s, in fact, more U.S. men aged 18-34 are living with their parents than with romantic partners, according to the Pew Research Center.
"Not withstanding all these bad labor-market outcomes, this group has found a place to live and things to do," says Kaplan of the University of Chicago.
That situation does not appear to be weighing on their happiness. Data from the General Social Survey, a national survey of several thousand people, shows that young noncollege men actually report being happier than in the early 2000s, with the percentage of men saying they are very or pretty happy rising from 81 percent to 88 percent. In the same period, the reported happiness of other groups remained constant or fell.
For Izquierdo, the 22-year-old in Silver Spring, video games provide a respite from job-market pressures. The son of immigrants from Guatemala, Izquierdo dreams of becoming a graphic designer but has had trouble finding a job that offers sufficient working hours and opportunity for advancement.
"As a young, first-generation male, there's a lot of expectations. So it's kind of cool to pop on a game ... and you will be rewarded for doing small tasks," he says. "They just make me happy."
DAYS OF LOT -New Alleged Research Reveals Same-Sex Couples Make Best Parents
Deceptive conditioning is accelerating to the masses and it is working well as we are seeing culture transform before our very eyes to a darker time in history. According to a new report, Same-sex couples raise the most open-minded children, a new study has revealed. Children raised by lesbian parents received the highest ‘quality of parenting’, research by the Australian Institute of Family Studies has found.
The study also found that the number of same-sex couple parented families in Australia is growing and that children with lesbian parents were better equipped than other children to deal with issues of equality and diversity. Lesbian mother-of-two Zann Michaels said the biggest plus of having two mums was the double dose of maternal instinct. She told Daily Mail Australia: ‘The easiest way to be a great parent is to want to be a great parent. READ MORE
Nudists could soon be allowed to get naked in Paris
Nudists in Paris will be cheered by a new plan to finally allow them to hang out in a designated open air area, without fear of being arrested.
- 'Get nude or get lost': Nudists fight youths on French beach (30 Aug 16)
- Naked restaurant looks set to open up in Paris (03 Aug 16)
- Brits urged to come to France and get naked (13 Apr 16)
Naturists in Paris have not felt themselves for a long time.
The problem: They've never had anywhere to let it all hang out.
Sure, there is the Roger Le-Gall swimming pool in the 12th
arrondissement that allows nudity on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
evenings, but members say it's getting too cramped there.
"There were 150 of us on Wednesday night," Denis Porquet, a member of the Nudist Association of Paris (ANP), told the 20 Minutes newspaper.
The group's 372 members are forced to look elsewhere for their nudist
outings, hiring out bowling venues, spas, archery clubs, and even
restaurants for private events.
And with French law stating that nudists found baring all can be
slapped with a €15,000 fine or the prospect of one year in prison, it's
no surprise that Paris naturists are keen on the idea of having their
own designated spot to strip off.
And all this could be about to come to fruition, with the Green Party
of Paris set to propose a designated nudist park during a meeting at the
Paris city council on Monday.
The exact proposal for the nudist spot remains unclear, but some nudists have already shared their ideas.
Jacques Frimont, vice president of the Association for the Promotion of
Naturism in Liberty (APNEL), envisions a designated area at the near
the Daumesnil lake in Bois de Vincennes to the east of the city, the
same lake that the government plans to turn into a public swimming zone
by 2019.
Lac Daumesnil in the Bois de Vincennes. Could this be the new nude zone? Photo: Christian Bortes/WikiCommons
He told 20 Minutes newspaper that France was wrong to associate nudity with sexual exhibition.
"We disagree strongly with that. A sexual pervert is someone who spies
on their neighbours or masturbates in public, for example. A just nudist
just wants to get rid of their clothes," he said.
90-year-old Florida man arrested for second time in a week after feeding the homeless again
Not everything has to be regulated. Not everything has to be codified and signed off on by the red tape gurus. Life CAN happen just fine without such interference. And when the government is stopping a man from feeding the hungry, rest assured something is very wrong with the regulations, the codes, and the local bureaucrats.
(From The NY Daily News)Click here for the article.
When 90-year-old Florida resident Arnold Abbott said following his arrest on Sunday that police couldn’t stop him from feeding the homeless, he apparently meant it.
Abbott was charged again on Wednesday night for violating a new city law in Ft. Lauderdale that essentially prevents people from feeding the homeless.
“I expected it” he said in a Sun Sentinel report. “At least this time they let us feed people first.”
Officers lingered in the area for about 45 minutes during which time Abbott and volunteers with the Love Thy Neighbor charity he founded handed out more than 100 plates of hot chicken stew, pasta, cheesy potatoes and fruit salad to homeless men and women.
Scientists Claim Two Men Will Soon Make Baby, No Need for Woman’s Egg
announced that they have developed a method of injecting mouse parthenogenotes with sperm that allows them to become healthy baby mice with a success rate of up to 24 percent. The researchers from the University of Bath say the discovery challenges two centuries of accepted wisdom that egg cells are required for the creation of offspring. “This is first time that full term development has been achieved by injecting sperm into embryos,” molecular embryologist Dr. Tony Perry, senior author of the study published in the journal Nature Communications, said. READ MORE
Ind. man passed over for job accused of mailing dead animals to person chosen
BROWNSTOWN, Ind. -- A southern Indiana man passed over for a coaching and teaching position allegedly mailed four dead skunks and a dead raccoon to the successful applicant, court documents say.
Travis Tarrants, 40, of West Baden Springs was charged Tuesday in Jackson Circuit Court with two counts each of stalking, intimidation and criminal mischief. He was being held without bond.
CBS affiliate WTTV reported that Tarrants allegedly stalked and intimidated a couple because he was not hired as a fourth-grade teacher and basketball coach at an Orange County school.
According to court documents, Tarrants began harassing the man chosen for the positions at the Springs Valley School Corporation in French Lick, and his fiancé.
One of the packages intercepted at a post office contained a dead raccoon and a message that said, “Resign! It Will Not Stop,” documents said.
Investigators also believe that Tarrants placed four phone calls to the Indiana Department of Child Services, making claims that the teacher/coach was having sex with an underage student and was sexually abusing the daughter of an acquaintance.
Letters alleging a sexual relationship with an underage student also were sent to both teacher/coach and his fiancé at their jobs, documents said. One contained a picture of a man’s genitals and the teacher/coach’s telephone number.
Both victims also received voicemail messages threatening to kill the man’s fiancé and her baby. Tarrants also is accused of spray painting “u will die” and an expletive on vehicles belonging to the victims.
Tarrants’ girlfriend told investigators that he had trapped five to seven live skunks in late spring and kept them alive for several days.
Online court records did not list an attorney for Tarrants who might comment on his behalf.
Ex-mayor charged in 4-year-old's rape said girl was a willing participant, records say
A former Ohio mayor indicted on rape charges reportedly confessed that he had sex with a child — a young girl, who, the man claimed, was a willing participant.Court records filed Monday describe conversations in which Richard Keenan — who briefly served as the mayor of Hubbard — talked to several people, including his wife and a pastor, about alleged assaults that occurred over the course of two years, beginning in 2013, when the girl was 4.
The 65-year-old Keenan, who once described himself as a man of faith, was indicted last month on eight counts of gross sexual imposition, eight counts of rape and four counts of attempted rape.
According to court documents filed by Trumbull County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Gabriel Wildman, Keenan’s wife confronted him after the girl talked about the alleged abuse.
“I did it,” Keenan told his wife, according to court records.
Keenan was later admitted to Trumbull Memorial Hospital’s psychiatric ward in Warren, Ohio. He said during group discussions there that he had been sexually abusing a child for two years, according to court records.
He was released from the hospital and admitted to the River Bend Treatment Center, where he told an intake social worker that he was feeling suicidal because of his actions and that the girl willingly participated in the sex acts, according to court records.
Keenan talked in more detail with a local pastor about the alleged abuse, saying it began when the child walked in on him in the bathroom, according to court records. It’s unclear how he and the child knew each other.
In a phone conversation with his brother- and sister-in-law, Keenan said he had gone way over the line, court records say.
According to the court records, the alleged crimes began in September 2013, nearly two years after Keenan left the mayor’s office in Hubbard, a small town in northeastern Ohio. The sexual assaults ended in September 2015, according to prosecutors.
Keenan was indicted and arrested Aug. 18. He was released on bond the same day, online jail records show.
His attorney, J. Gerald Ingram, did not return a call seeking comment.
Wildman, the assistant prosecuting attorney, declined to comment on the case.
Keenan, a Democrat, was sworn in as mayor in January 2010 and served until 2011. He previously served as a council member and a probation officer, according to the Vindicator newspaper. He also worked as a car inspector for the CSX railroad company in New Castle, Pa.
“I care about his town,” Keenan said in a 2010 interview with the Vindicator. “I’m pulled to hear the heart of the people.”
At the time, Keenan said he had dedicated his life to Christ — a decision that he said changed his life.
“Don’t preach it, but live it,” he told the paper.
Keenan pleaded not guilty last month. He’s scheduled for a jury trial in April.
His wife could be called as a witness at the trial. According to the Ohio Rules of Evidence, a defendant’s spouse can be a competent witness if the alleged crime was committed against him or her or their child, or if he or she elects to testify.
If found guilty of rape, Keenan could face life imprisonment.
Italy's supreme court rules masturbation in public is not a criminal offence
Judges overturn three-month jail term for man seen 'practising autoeroticism' in front of students
Masturbating in public is not a crime, the Italian supreme court has
ruled, even if it is done so with the clear aim of being seen by other
members of the public.
Italy’s highest court, La Corte di Cassazione, was asked to rule on the case of a 69-year-old man who had been caught masturbating in the southern city of Catania.
Identified only as Pietro L, the man had been convicted after he was seen “taking out his penis” and “practising autoeroticism” in front of students at the University of Catania campus.
According to the local edition of La Repubblica, the local Prefect of Catania and the Court of Appeal had agreed that the man should be sentenced to three months in prison and fined €3,420.
But supreme court judges said that a recent government reform meant “the act is not included in the law as a crime”.
In doing so, the court has eliminated the criminal aspects of sentencing for obscene acts in public places.
The case of Pietro L will now go back to the Prefect of Catania to be sentenced again. La Corte di Cassazione ruled the man must be given a fine between €5,000 and €30,000, with the exact figure to be determined by the local court.
In taking their decision, the supreme court judges noted the fact that the Italian parliament passed a law last year decriminalising the offence of lurking in places frequented by girls in order to be seen masturbating.
Oklahoma mother, daughter arrested after alleged incestuous marriage
DUNCAN, Okla. – A mother and daughter from Oklahoma are accused of having an incestuous marriage.
Patricia Spann, 43, and Misty Spann, 25, were married in March 2016 in Comanche County, court records show.
Police say Patricia is Misty’s biological mother.
Investigators with the Department of Human Services discovered the illegal relationship in August while investigating the children who were inside the Spanns’ home.
Misty and her two brothers were raised by a grandparent when Patricia lost custody of them, an arrest affidavit states.
The DHS investigator told authorities that Patricia and Misty reunited two years ago.
Patricia told officials she didn’t think she was breaking any laws by marrying Misty because her name is no longer listed on her daughter’s birth certificate.
A warrant was issued for their arrests on Friday.
Since then, Patricia and Misty have both been arrested and booked into the Stephens County Jail for incest, a detective told KFOR.
Bond was set at $10,000 for each of the Spann women. They’re due in court next month.
In Oklahoma, incest is a felony, and if convicted, is punishable up to 10 years in prison.
Court records show this isn’t the first time Patricia has married one of her own children.
She also married one of her sons in 2008.
Tampons coming to men's rooms at Brown University
Viet Nguyen, President of the Undergraduate Council of Students, announced the initiative in a campus-wide email Tuesday, saying he wants to communicate the message that not all people who menstruate are women, according to Newsweek.
“Feminine hygiene products are not a luxury. They’re as essential as toilet paper.”
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“There’s been a lot of conversation about why pads and tampons are a
necessity, not a luxury, but not a lot of action. We wanted to take it
into our own hands,” Nguyen explains in the email, observing that
“low-income students struggle with having the necessary funding for
food, let alone tampons.”By putting menstrual products in women’s, men’s, and gender-inclusive bathrooms, Nguyen aims to “set a tone of trans-inclusivity, and not forget that they’re an important part of the population,” but is under no illusions that the effort will be universally popular.
“I’d be naïve to say there won’t be push back,” he preemptively concedes. “I’ve had questions about why we’re implementing this in male bathrooms as well. It’s an initial confusion, but people generally understand when we explain it.”
Nguyen told Newsweek that menstrual products will be available in approximately 30 to 40 bathrooms across campus for the 2016–2017 school year, financed exclusively by the undergraduate finance board, rather than general university funds.
“Why aren’t these products treated the same way as other products we hand out, like toilet paper?” he pondered in an interview with The Guardian. “It’s a necessity, rather than a luxury, so Brown and other universities should treat them as such.”
“Feminine hygiene products are not a luxury. They’re as essential as toilet paper; just ask anyone who has ever struggled to obtain or afford them,” agreed Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women. “Students’ participation in school should not be hindered by insufficient access to this basic necessity. Universities around the country should follow suit.”
Yuzuka Alaska, a junior at Brown, opined that menstruation is currently a “taboo,” but speculated that “if we can implement this project, that will add to this conversation and make it more of an accessible topic.”
UPDATE: Brian Clark, Brown's Director of News and Editorial Development, praised the students for their "tremendous initiative" in a statement to Campus Reform, saying the school will look forward to observing the results.
"In efforts to work with and support their peers, leaders from the Undergraduate Council of Students take on a number of student-focused efforts each year," he said, clarifying that "these are student-led and independent of the university administration, although we recognize that many important resources on campus today were first idenitified and advocated for by students themselves.
"We expect that UCS will continue to solicit feedback on this new initiative and collect data on the use of these products," he concluded, saying the administration "will be interested to learn what they find as they assess the effectiveness of the program moving forward."
When Is That Comet Coming Again?
