March 29, 2022

Russian Navy Ship That Exploded In Ukrainian Port Seen Totally Destroyed In Satellite Image

A satellite image confirms that a Russian Navy amphibious warfare ship was left destroyed next to the pier where it was moored in the occupied Ukrainian port of Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov. Its demise came after it suffered multiple explosions and massive fire yesterday. Exactly what happened to the Project 1171 Alligator class landing ship Orsk remains murky, but from what we can see now it seems unlikely that Ukrainian forces targeted it with a Tochka-U short-range ballistic missile, as had been reported initially. You can read more about that and other aspects of what is known about the incident in The War Zone's earlier reporting here.

Commercial satellite imagery provider Maxar Technologies released the image of Berdyansk, which was taken today, and @detresfa_, an independent open-source intelligence analyst, has helped The War Zone take a more in-depth look at what it shows. With regards to Orsk itself, there are indications that it may not have fully settled and could still be taking on water a day after the incident, but the ship is a burned-out wreck now either way.

On the adjacent pier itself, a grouping of fuel tanks still appears to be on fire. There is at least some degree of additional damage to other nearby infrastructure, such as the tracks that allow cargo-handling cranes to move from one position to another. However, the four cranes in that section of the pier appear to be free from massive damage.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44925/russian-navy-ship-that-exploded-in-ukrainian-port-seen-totally-destroyed-in-satellite-image
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Lots of pretty pictures!

March 29, 2022

Army missed red flags about civilian leader who led child porn ring

David Frodsham was a top civilian commander at a U.S. air base in Afghanistan when Army commanders ordered him home after investigating multiple complaints of sexual harassment.

"I would not recommend placing him back into a position of authority but rather pursuing disciplinary actions at his home station," wrote one commanding officer when recommending that the Army order Frodsham to leave his post at Bagram Airfield and return to Fort Huachuca, a major Army installation in Arizona, according to a U.S. Army investigative file obtained by The Associated Press.

But when Frodsham returned to his home station in the fall of 2015, he rejoined the Network Enterprise Technology Command, the Army's information technology service provider, where he had served as director of personnel for a global command of 15,000 soldiers and civilians, according to his Army resume.

By spring of the following year, he was arrested in Arizona for leading a child sex abuse ring that included an Army sergeant who was posting child pornography to the internet. The victims included one of Frodsham's adopted sons. Frodsham pleaded guilty to sex abuse charges in 2016 and is serving a 17-year sentence.

But records reviewed by the AP show that the U.S. Army and the state of Arizona missed or ignored several red flags over more than a decade, which allowed Frodsham to allegedly abuse his adopted son and other children for years, practices that made him vulnerable to blackmail.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/david-frodsham-civilian-army-leader-child-porn-ring-risked-us-security/
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It gets worse...

March 29, 2022

Stranger Dangers: The Right's History of Turning Child Abuse Into a Political Weapon

ALI BRELAND

At some point between the ’80s and now, leaving children unattended in public became unthinkable. To let children as old as, say, 10 walk by themselves became grounds to investigate parents for neglect. As a child of the late ’90s and early 2000s, I knew latchkey kids existed, but nearly exclusively from the aging 1980s children’s paperbacks in my elementary school’s library. My friends whose parents worked too late to pick them up from school stayed in the building for a child care program or took a bus to the nearby Boys & Girls Club.

Statistics confirm the decline of the latchkey kid that I witnessed and that continues today. A primary reason for the change was the fear that children were constantly on the cusp of being kidnapped, abused, or taken advantage of, and thus could never be left alone.

Paul Renfro, an assistant professor of history at Florida State University, chronicled in his 2020 book Stranger Danger: Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State, how such a notion became widespread in the ’80s and ’90s. Pictures of missing and abducted children were plastered on milk cartons, as media ramped up coverage of random, isolated incidents of children being abducted in ways that it hadn’t before—even as the number of children who were abducted did not substantially increase.

Critics of this moment often blame the media, who did play a part in elevating these concerns—but there’s more to the story. Their coverage played right into the hands of, and was exacerbated by, a reactionary right-wing movement that was eager to notch culture war wins by conflating the so-called “stranger danger” threat to children with pornography, underage drinking, drugs, teen pregnancy, and the like. Ancillary battles on similar moral fronts hastened a harsher “war on drugs,” and the corresponding mass incarceration policies that disproportionately hurt Black America.

Today, the leveraging of unfounded fears that children are in unprecedented danger toward political ends is animated by QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories. While these are generally too absurd for elected politicians to directly endorse—the few that have, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) have walked back—Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and most recently Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) have tried to tap into the same fear and energy QAnon has harnessed. They want to use it to push a reactionary political project—but without having to say “QAnon” out loud.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/03/ketanji-brown-jackson-pedophila-josh-hawley/

March 28, 2022

Scientists figure out how vampire bats got a taste for blood

Scientists have figured out why vampire bats are the only mammals that can survive on a diet of just blood.

They compared the genome of common vampire bats to 26 other bat species and identified 13 genes that are missing or no longer work in vampire bats. Over the years, those gene tweaks helped them adapt to a blood diet rich in iron and protein but with minimal fats or carbohydrates, the researchers reported Friday in the journal Science Advances.

The bats live in South and Central America and are basically “living Draculas,” said co-author Michael Hiller of Germany’s Max Planck Institute. About 3 inches (8 centimeters) long with a wingspan of 7 inches (18 centimeters), the bats bite and than lap up blood from livestock or other animals at night.

Most mammals couldn’t survive on a low-calorie liquid diet of blood. Only three vampire species of the 1,400 kinds of bats can do that — the others eat mostly insects, fruit, nectar, pollen or meat, such as small frogs and fish

https://apnews.com/article/vampire-bats-blood-diet-313676c715465fd48192fa9f8ce2c39d

March 28, 2022

Alopecia Shouldn't Be A Punchline, But It Should Get More Attention

The biggest moment from the Oscars on Sunday put Jada Pinkett Smith’s alopecia front and center, when Best Actor winner Will Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock after a joke about Pinkett Smith’s shaved head.

Pinkett Smith has spoken openly about her experience with alopecia, recalling the “terrifying” moment she first begin losing “handfuls of hair.” The condition is why she began shaving her head, and still does.

Alopecia is often incredibly misunderstood and underdiscussed, even though it affects millions of people. Here’s everything you need to know:

Alopecia refers generally to hair loss in parts of the body that usually have hair. As the American Academy of Dermatology Association explains, there are generally three types:

Alopecia totalis: When a person loses all hair on the scalp.

Alopecia universalis: When a person loses all hair on their body, which is very rare.

Alopecia areata: When a person develops patchy baldness somewhere on their body, including the scalp, beard area, eyebrows, eyelashes, armpits, inside the nose, or ears. Alopecia areata is an autoimmune disease (more on that below).

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-to-know-alopecia_l_6241b899e4b0ab00739d3b23
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Rep. Ayanna Pressley has alopecia. So does Pittsburgh backup QB Joshua Dobbs. And Arkansas women's basketball player Rylee Langerman, who embraces her baldness to inspire young girls with the condition.

March 28, 2022

What fantasies of a coup in Russia ignore

Rajan Menon

Vladimir Putin’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine aimed at toppling the Kyiv government – based on the preposterous claim that it’s run by “neo-Nazis” – has produced Europe’s worst war in a generation, and it has taken a terrible toll on civilians. The Russian armed forces have hit hospitals, apartment buildings, a shopping center and a theater that was serving as a shelter. The immense suffering has been made worse by sieges, above all the one around Mariupol, large parts of which have also been reduced to rubble.

The war has also forced millions from their homes. The UN high commissioner for refugees reports that more than 3.7 million Ukrainians have fled their homeland and that another 6.7 million have been internally displaced. The two figures together – children account for nearly half the total – comprise 20% of Ukraine’s population.

The shock and outrage at these and other dreadful consequences of Putin’s invasion are understandable, indeed appropriate. Animus toward Putin and the desire to make him pay a steep price, without delay, are running deep in the west, so much so that some believe that war cannot end so long as he remains in power.

Some American foreign policy specialists welcomed the prospects of regime change in Russia, while others opined that it should be the objective of US policy – or said so only to backpedal once critics weighed in. Not one for subtlety, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina declared that the war in Ukraine won’t end until someone in Russia decides to “take this guy out” and followed up by saying that the only solution was for Russians to “rise up” and, referring to the 2011 uprisings in the Arab world, create a “Russian spring”. Carl Bildt, a former prime minister and foreign minister of Sweden, averred that peace in Europe requires regime change in Russia.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/28/vladimir-putin-russia-coup
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A country with no tradition of democracy will have a hard time establishing one.--Michael B. Petrovich

March 28, 2022

Four killed after car crashes into homeless encampment in Salem, Oregon

A driver crashed a car into a homeless encampment in Salem, Oregon, early on Sunday morning, killing four people and injuring three including the driver, authorities said.

Police arrested Enrique Rodriguez Jr, 24, on Sunday evening. He was charged with four counts of first-degree manslaughter, second- and third-degree assault and six counts of reckless endangerment.

In a statement, authorities said Salem police believe “alcohol may have been a contributing factor”. It was not immediately clear if Rodriguez had an attorney.

A witness, Nathan Rose, told the Salem Statesman Journal he and his girlfriend were in their tent when they heard two loud thuds. The car just missed their tent, Rose said.

Rose said he saw friends pinned under the car and called 911. He said he helped pull one person from under the car but witnesses were unable to help the others.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/mar/28/four-killed-car-crashes-homeless-encampment-alem-oregon

March 28, 2022

Community college enrollment is down, but skilled-trades programs are booming

It's a typical school day for Lisa Alaniz — she and her classmates stand in a warehouse-like room, cutting wood and piecing together the rafters of a shed. They're students at Texas State Technical College working toward an associate's degree in construction.

"I did [high school] online because that's when the pandemic hit," says Alaniz, 21. "And I just realized online school is not for me. Like, I'm very, very bad at computer work." Alaniz didn't want to spend her days trapped in an office, either. She wanted to pursue something more hands-on, which is what led her to the program here in Waco, about 100 miles south of Dallas.

Since the pandemic began, more than a million students have held off from going to college, opting to work instead. Two-year public schools have been among the hardest hit — they're down about three-quarters of a million students. Skilled-trades programs are the exception. Across the country, associate's degree programs in fields like HVAC and automotive repair have seen enrollment numbers swell.

Alaniz's program is preparing her for work in a field where details matter. She learns key on-the-job skills each day, and that comes with plenty of mistakes. Today, in framing class, her group has already made a measurement error on the shed they're building. They'll have to fix it before they can proceed.

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/28/1086454046/2-year-skilled-trades-programs-booming
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Even pre-pandemic---one grandson's college plans were derailed and he ended up at the local tech school learning robotics

March 27, 2022

A police chief is hiring female officers to fix 'toxic' policing

Research generally supports the idea that female police officers are better than male officers at finding resolutions without using violence. A 2021 study found that female officers made 7 percent fewer arrests than their male counterparts while using force 28 percent less often. The researchers found the largest disparity centered on the treatment of Black civilians.

Female officers are, on average, more educated than male officers, more likely to engender the perception of fairness in the communities they police, more efficient in carrying out traffic stops that result in drug seizures and more effective in sex assault and domestic violence investigations, other studies show. Experts say female officers are less likely to fire their guns in the line of duty, use excessive force or become the target of successful civil suits.

Still, there are a few studies that found only minor differences in use-of-force incidents among male and female officers. And some research indicates that diversity cannot be a cure-all for departments, especially when traditional training and police culture remain in place. A 2003 look into police killings found that overall department diversity had little impact on outcomes, for example. A 2005 study of a suburban Maryland police department determined the difference between men and women in use of force to be statistically insignificant.

Samantha Simon, an assistant professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, says she is “pessimistic about the usefulness of demographic diversity in police forces.” She has found that success or failure at combat is still valued above all other fields of study at most police academies, regardless of an officer’s gender. Police recruits who struggled in violent confrontations were more likely to be hazed than mentored, she concluded when researching an article and an upcoming book.

“The people who end up being hired and make it to graduation fit a blueprint of who the institution thinks will be a good police officer,” Simon said. “And a lot of that really revolves around the use of violence.”

Bellevue police leadership believes it’s too early to use data to understand what effect the influx of women is having, with the majority of the female officers having been hired in the last year and a half, and several still in training.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/interactive/2022/women-police-nebraska/

March 26, 2022

Texas Mom Charged Over 'Malnourished and Filthy' Kids

A Texas mother abandoned her two young kids in a squalid motel room for weeks on end, leaving them with little food and pulling her 12-year-old daughter from school to care for her 1-year-old brother full-time, according to court filings reviewed by The Daily Beast.

Ashli Rene Lock, 37, is charged with felony child abandonment by authorities after police discovered the children living alone in their own filth at a Quality Inn in Houston.

“Officers noted that both of the children appeared malnourished and filthy,” states a charging document filed Thursday by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. “The one year old was sleeping in a soiled diaper.”

The 12-year-old girl told cops that she had “not left this hotel room in about a month,” the court filing says. She also claimed Lock, who works as a bartender, “has not provided her with adequate food for her baby brother, so she feeds him mac and cheese.”

Officials described the living space as “something resembling a Marvin Zindler inspired nightmare of unsanitary living conditions, with broken bottles on the floor, drugs in plain view, slime in the refrigerator and moldy food haphazardly strewn throughout. To quote the late Mr. Zindler, ‘it's hell to be poor.’ It is even worse to be a poor and neglected child.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/houston-texas-mom-ashli-rene-lock-charged-over-malnourished-and-filthy-kids?ref=home
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Tell us again how "pro-life" you are, Gov. Hot Wheels