Scrolling around...July 15, 2013

A Human-Powered Helicopter Wins the $250,000 Sikorsky Prize

Would the Supreme Court silence pro-lifers?: Screening speech is a way to restrict it
A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court decided to hear a major free-speech case during its next term.

The case, McCullen v. Coakley, concerns a 2007 Massachusetts law that prohibits some speakers from coming within 35 feet of free-standing abortion clinics. In effect, the law bans pro-life advocates from trying to peacefully persuade those entering the clinic to consider alternatives to abortion.

The Supreme Court has dealt with cases at the crossroads of free speech and abortion before. In 2000, the court let stand a Colorado law banning speech within eight feet of anyone near a health care facility. However, in the 13 years since Hill v. Colorado was decided, the membership of the court has changed substantially...

Researchers hack Verizon device, turn it into mobile spy station
Two security experts said they have figured out how to spy on Verizon Wireless mobile phone customers by hacking into devices the U.S. carrier sells to boost wireless signals indoors.

The finding, which the experts demonstrated to Reuters and will further detail at two hacking conferences this summer, comes at a time of intense global debate about electronic privacy, after top-secret U.S. surveillance programs were leaked by a former National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden, last month.

"This is not about how the NSA would attack ordinary people. This is about how ordinary people would attack ordinary people," said Tom Ritter, a senior consultant with the security firm iSEC Partners...

Robert P. George: What ‘Conscience’ Really Means: Toward a reintroduction.
...Authentic conscience is not a writer of permission slips to act on feelings or desires. Rather, in the words of the brilliant 19th-century English intellectual John Henry Newman, “Conscience is a stern monitor.” It is one’s last best judgment — an unsentimentally self-critical judgment — informed by critical reason and reflective faith of one’s strict duties, one’s feelings or desires to the contrary notwithstanding. Authentic conscience governs — passes judgment on — feelings and desires; it is not reducible to them, and it is not in the business of licensing us to act on them. And, as Newman observed, “Conscience has rights because it has duties.” Those moral duties reflect our reasoned judgments of what respect for human dignity and integral human well-being requires...

Three Christian women paraded naked in Pakistan, court orders probe
Over a month after a Muslim landlord allegedly paraded three Christian women naked in Pakistan's Punjab province, a court in Lahore has finally taken notice of the matter and directed a judge to investigate the incident.

The Lahore High Court on Friday ordered the district and sessions judge, Kasur, to probe the matter and submit a report within two weeks.

The three Christian women were allegedly brutally beaten and then paraded naked by armed men of Muhammad Munir, a local landlord said to be having the backing of the ruling PML-N party, in Pattoki area of Kasur district, some 50 kilometres from Lahore...

UK: Islamic extremists threaten to stab inmates who eat pork in front of them at one of Britain's toughest prisons
...The inmate wrote: 'The kitchen is usually occupied by 90 per cent Muslims and we have been told if we cook pork we will be stabbed. There have been incidents here where people have been targeted and pressured and bullied into converting to Islam.

'Young Muslim men are being radicalised in here and one day they may commit acts of terrorism in this country.

'There seems to be nothing being done here to stop it and people are scared to speak out.'...

Rabbinic Outrage Over Muslim Vandalism at Cave of Patriarchs
A leading rabbi in the government has expressed outrage over destruction of Jewish holy articles at the Cave of the Patriarchs by Muslims following their worship at the site on Friday.

Rabbi Eli Ben Dahan, who serves as Deputy Religious Affairs Minister and Supervisor of Holy Sites, visited the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron after receiving reports of the vandalism.’‘

Jewish worshipers who arrived at the site after Muslim prayers on Friday were horrified to find widespread desecration of the holy tomb...

'Modern-Day Mother Teresa' Heads Homeless Church
North Carolina has one of the country’s fastest-growing homeless populations. In Charlotte, one of the largest cities in the state, the most vulnerable people are in desperate need of help.

One grandmother is answering the call seven days a week. Her name is Freddie Power, and her work has led some to call her a modern-day Mother Teresa...

Latest Obamacare Foul-Up Favors Smokers
...Last week the Associated Press reported, “In yet another health care overhaul delay, the administration has quietly notified insurers that a computer system problem will limit penalties that the law says the companies may charge smokers. A fix will take at least a year.” How will this force non-smokers to subsidize smokers? Well, from the perspective of insurance carriers, smokers are high-risk customers. They get sick more often than non-smokers and their maladies are typically serious and expensive. So, if insurance companies want to remain solvent and they can’t charge smokers higher rates, they will have to increase premiums for everyone...

Remark by Obama Complicates Military Sexual Assault Trials
When President Obama proclaimed that those who commit sexual assault in the military should be “prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged,” it had an effect he did not intend: muddying legal cases across the country.

In at least a dozen sexual assault cases since the president’s remarks at the White House in May, judges and defense lawyers have said that Mr. Obama’s words as commander in chief amounted to “unlawful command influence,” tainting trials as a result. Military law experts said that those cases were only the beginning and that the president’s remarks were certain to complicate almost all prosecutions for sexual assault.
      

“Unlawful command influence” refers to actions of commanders that could be interpreted by jurors as an attempt to influence a court-martial, in effect ordering a specific outcome. Mr. Obama, as commander in chief of the armed forces, is considered the most powerful person to wield such influence.

      

The president’s remarks might have seemed innocuous to civilians, but military law experts say defense lawyers will seize on the president’s call for an automatic dishonorable discharge, the most severe discharge available in a court-martial, arguing that his words will affect their cases...