Aftermath News

‘This isn’t conjecture, it’s happening now’

WorldNetDaily | Apr 19, 2008

By Bob Unruh

A doctor at the renowned Children’s Hospital Boston has launched a new program to drug children to delay puberty so they can decide whether they want a male or a female body, according to a report today in the Boston Globe.

Pediatric endocrinologist Norman Spack, 64, says he started the Gender Management Service Clinic because he found himself encountering 20-somethings who were “transgendered” and in good shape socially, “but they were having trouble getting their physique to conform to their identity.

“I knew the 20-somethings could have better chances of passing if they were treated earlier,” he said.

“We don’t think that demonic is too strong a word to describe this,” said a statement from the pro-family Mass Resistance organization. “It brings us thoughts of the Nazi doctors who thought they were doing good things.”

WND has reported previously on some of the controversies prompted by the belief that a man can be born in a woman’s body, or vice versa, including in Montgomery County, Md., where county officials have adopted a law that precludes those who provide public accommodations from discriminating based on that “gender identity.”

Voters there have petitioned to have a vote on that law because they fear men who “decide” they are female walking into women’s restrooms and locker rooms.

“Is this our future?” asked Mass Resistance in a commentary. “Dr. Norman Spack runs a clinic for young children who’ve ‘decided’ they are transgendered. Among other things, the clinic administers powerful hormones to delay (or even stop) puberty in order that the children more easily undergo operations that mutilate their bodies to ‘change’ them to the opposite sex.”

“This is going on at the world-renowned Children’s Hospital in Boston – not some backwater clinic. This is the elite of the medical profession,” the organization said.

In a question-and-answer session with Globe columnist Pagan Kennedy, she starts the apologetic for doing surgery on children by saying, “Little boys sob unless they’re allowed to wear dresses. The girls want to be called Luke, Ted, or James.”

“Until recently, children with cross-gender feelings rarely received modern medical care – and certainly not hormone shots. After all, who would allow a child to redesign his or her body?” she asks.

But Spack, she wrote, has started a clinic that “is one of the few in the world to give children treatments that change their bodies.”

She reports he uses drugs to delay puberty, “granting them a few more years before they develop bodies that are decidedly male or female.”

Spack tells the interviewer he’s seen “preadolescents” who have been dressing in underwear of the opposite sex “for years.”

“The puberty-blocking drugs work best at the beginning of the pubital process, typically age 10 to 12 for a girl and 12 to 14 for a boy,” he said. He’s based some of his work on a Dutch model for sex-change, and said the recommendations there are age 16 for hormones that forever change a child’s body.

But “for others,” he wrote, “you lose opportunities if you wait. [One of my patients, a] transgendered girl from the UK, was destined to be a 6-foot-4 male. With treatment, she’s going to end up 5-foot-10.”

He said such treatments not only change the physical characteristics of the growing children, but also could leave them sterile for life.

“You have to explain to the patients that if they go ahead, they may not be able to have children. … But if you don’t start treatment, they will always have trouble fitting in,” he said.

“This isn’t conjecture,” Mass Resistance’ commentary said. “It’s happening now. And ‘transgenderism’ is being promoted to kids by homosexual/transgender activists in the public schools.”

Children as young as 12 already have been given the treatment.

Meanwhile, LifeSiteNews has reported that Spack previously acknowledged that only about 20 percent of children who claim to have a confusion over their gender hold those feelings in adulthood.

The hospital itself calls the program “unique in the Western hemisphere.”

“This will be the first major program in the country that … [is] also welcoming young people who appear to be transgendered and are considering medical protocols that might help them,” Spack said.

The hand of a child, a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is seen up against the window of a bus members of tje group arrive at the San Angelo Coliseum after being relocated their from Fort Concho National Historic Landmark in San Angelo, Texas, Monday April 14, 2008. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

Mothers of all but those 4 and younger were told they would no longer be allowed to stay with their children

USA Today | Apr 14, 2008

FLDS children moved to sports arena

By William M. Welch, USA TODAY

Hundreds of children in state care following removal from a West Texas polygamy compound were moved Monday to a sports arena, and some were separated from their mothers, for their own safety, a state official said.

The relocation by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services came as a state court grappled with the complexities of one of the nation’s largest child custody cases.

An estimated 416 children were removed last week from the Yearning for Zion Ranch, a 1,691-acre farm and residential community near Eldorado, Texas, and home to members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS).

Until Monday, 139 mothers had been permitted to voluntarily remain with their children in state protective custody at Fort Concho in San Angelo, Texas, about 45 miles from the ranch.

But to relieve crowding, approximately 170 of the children and accompanying mothers were moved to another building, said Marleigh Meisner, spokesman for the state’s Child Protective Services.

When the San Angelo Coliseum became available Monday, children still at the fort were moved to the larger arena, she said.

Mothers of all but those 4 and younger were told they would no longer be allowed to stay with their children, she said. Meisner said some chose to return to their ranch and others accepted the state’s offer of “a safe place” elsewhere.

“Once we moved to the coliseum this afternoon, we notified the mothers who had children 5 years and older that they no longer would be able to stay with their children,” she said.

She said the moves were made for “the safety of the children” and in consultation with the court, mental health professionals and lawyers for some of the children.

Gerald Goldstein, attorney for the FLDS church, did not return a call seeking comment.

The children are being held in state protective custody pending a hearing Thursday in district court. On Monday, Texas District Court Judge Barbara Walther consulted with dozens of lawyers representing or hoping to represent children and other involved parties and said she was still trying to figure out how to manage a case involving perhaps hundreds of lawyers.

Texas officials have accused the sect of physically and sexually abusing children and arranging marriages of adult males with underage girls.

Law enforcement and child-welfare officers moved in on the ranch last week under court orders after a 16-year-old mother telephoned a crisis hotline and described abuse.

Related

Sect mothers lament lost children

AP | Mar 12, 2008

By MARIA CHENG

LONDON - As doctors struggle to eradicate polio worldwide, one of their biggest problems is persuading parents to vaccinate their children. In Belgium, authorities are resorting to an extreme measure: prison sentences.

Two sets of parents in Belgium were recently handed five month prison terms for failing to vaccinate their children against polio. Each parent was also fined 4,100 euros ($8,000).

“It’s a pretty extraordinary case,” said Dr. Ross Upshur, director of the Joint Centre for Bioethics at the University of Toronto.

“The Belgians have a right to take some action against the parents, given the seriousness of polio, but the question is, is a prison sentence disproportionate?”

The parents can still avoid prison — their sentences were delayed to give them a chance to vaccinate their children. But if that deadline also passes without their children receiving the injections, the parents could be put behind bars.

Because of privacy laws, Belgian officials would not talk specifically about the case, such as why the parents refused the vaccine or how much longer they have to vaccinate their children.

The polio vaccine is the only one required by Belgian law. Exceptions are granted only if parents can prove their children might have a bad physical reaction to the vaccine.

“Polio is a very serious disease and has caused great suffering in the past,” said Dr. Victor Lusayu, head of Belgium’s international vaccine centre. “The discovery of the vaccine has eliminated polio from Europe and it is simply the law in Belgium that you have to be vaccinated. … At the end of the day, the law must be respected.”

Some ethicists back the hardline Belgian stance.

“Nobody has the right to unfettered liberty, and people do not have a right to endanger their kids,” said John Harris, a professor of bioethics at the University of Manchester.

“The parents in this case do not have any rights they can appeal to. They have obligations they are not fulfilling.”

Aside from Belgium, only France makes polio vaccinations mandatory by law. In the United States, children must be vaccinated against many diseases including polio, but most states allow children to opt out if their parents have religious or “philosophical” objections.

In the U.S. state of Maryland, prosecutors and school officials in one county threatened truancy charges against parents who failed to vaccinate their children. The measure sharply reduced the number of unvaccinated children although nobody has been charged.

The only other case of mandatory polio vaccines is during the Muslim yearly Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. Pilgrims from polio-endemic countries — Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan — must prove they have been vaccinated. Saudi officials even give them an extra dose upon arrival at the airport.

Since the polio virus can live in the human body for weeks, it jumps borders easily. That makes health officials even in developed countries nervous, since the threat of an outbreak remains as long as the virus is circulating anywhere.

Polio is a highly infectious disease spread through water that mainly strikes children under five. Initial symptoms include fever, headaches, vomiting, stiffness in the neck and fatigue. The polio virus invades the body’s nervous system and can lead to irreversible paralysis within hours. In extreme cases, children can die when their breathing muscles are immobilized.

Incidence has dropped by 99 percent since the World Health Organization and partners began their eradication effort in 1988. But the virus is still entrenched in Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan, and occasionally pops up elsewhere.

For developed countries, imported polio cases could cause chaos in the health system, warned Dr. Steve Cochi, an immunization expert at the United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

He said that unlike other medical problems, in which rejecting treatment only affects the individual, refusing a vaccine for a transmissible disease like polio puts others at risk as well.

“Most of the time, polio outbreaks do spill into the general population,” Cochi said.

Ethicists argue that people who refuse vaccinations are taking advantage of everyone else who has been vaccinated. Once the majority of a population is vaccinated, there are few susceptible people the disease can infect, thus lowering the odds of an outbreak.

People who refuse to be vaccinated are “free riders,” Harris said. “They can only afford to refuse the vaccine because they are surrounded by people who have fulfilled their obligations to the community.”

Health officials doubt that Belgium’s strategy will be useful to countries still battling polio.

“It is up to individual countries to decide their own policies, but we do not feel that imprisonment would help,” said Dr. David Heymann, WHO’s top polio official.

A memorial website was set up within hours of Miss Randall’s death

Police fear internet cult inspires teen suicides driven by a desire to achieve prestige by having a memorial website set up in their name.

Telegraph | Jan 23, 2008

By Nick Britten and Richard Savill

Detectives fear a bizarre suicide craze is sweeping through teenagers in a small town fuelled by chat on social networking sites after seven friends took their own lives.

As well as the deaths during the last 12 months, several more have attempted suicide and police fear they are being driven by a desire to achieve prestige by having a memorial website set up in their name.

Many of the victims had their own web pages on the social networking site Bebo, which they spent hours on each day. After their deaths a special site is set up where friends can leave messages, photographs and videos.

Police have visited the parents of every member of a 20-strong group who they are most worried about warning them to keep a close eye on their children.

The latest victim is Natasha Randall, 17, who was found hanged at her family home last Thursday. Within 24 hours two of her friends had tried to kill themselves. One 15-year-old girl was on a life support machine yesterday while the other, also 15, was recovering after slitting her wrists.

Police, who are investigating a possible suicide chain, fear the teenagers think it is “cool” to have an internet memorial site and are killing themselves to achieve kudos among their peer group.

Within hours of Miss Randall’s death, a tribute site called “R.I.P. Tasha” had sprung up with photos, videos and messages. It has 345 members been viewed more than 2,100 times.

Her death follows those of Gareth Morgan, 27, Liam Clarke, 20, Thomas Davies, 20, David Dilling, 19, Dale Crole, 18, and Zachary Barnes, 17. Like Miss Randall, all lived in and around Bridgend in south Wales and all are being linked.

Miss Randall was in her first year on a Care and Childhood Studies course at Bridgend College. Her stepmother, Katrina, said the teenager spent hours every day on her computer using the name “Wildchild”.

She said: “The police have been and taken Natasha’s computer away to help with their investigation. This has come as a shock to all of us. We’re just too upset to speak about it, her dad especially.”

Thomas Davies’ mother, Melanie, 38, said: “It’s like a craze - a stupid sort of fad. They all seem to be copying each other by wanting to die.

“I think the problem is they do not know how to speak like adults about serious issues like this. They can speak to each other on the computer but do not know how to express their emotions in other ways.

“He did go on Bebo and apparently he had a page on there. He must have discussed his other friends dying on there because it had upset him.

“Like most parents, I have no idea how to get on these sites or what other kids are talking about. But I would warn other parents to beware and to keep a close eye on their children.”

A police source said: “Parents should keep a close watch on what their children are doing on the internet and what they are talking about.

“It’s often easier for them to disclose their real feelings on a computer rather than face to face with an adult or even their friends, and social networking sites are the ideal way to do that.”

Madeleine Moon, Bridgend MP, has met with senior police officers to discuss Bridgend’s alarmingly high suicide rate. The Bridgend and Glamorgan Valleys Coroner, Phillip Walters, has also raised his concerns and a special “task force” has been set up in the town to investigate the problem.

Consultant psychiatrist Tegwyn Williams, director of mental health services for the NHS Trust, said: “Unfortunately there’s a culture where men don’t tend to talk about how they feel. It comes to the point where they can’t see any way out.

“The key is to break down the stigma attached to suicide in the community so that people aren’t afraid to talk to someone of they feel depressed.”

It comes after the deaths of three teenagers in a suicide pact in a small village in Northern Ireland in the summer.

Telegraph | Jan 23, 2008

By Sarah Womack, Social Affairs Correspondent

Heterosexual married couples are no longer regarded as the “norm”, the largest survey of social attitudes in Britain shows today.

Government support for gay couples and single parents, the rise in cohabitation and an official failure to support traditional marriage are said to have resulted in previously unconventional lifestyles becoming widely accepted.

But people hold less tolerant views of family set-ups in which children are involved, it is claimed.

The British Social Attitudes report, by the National Centre for Social Research, is significant because the questions it asks are developed and paid for in collaboration with Government departments to inform social policy.

The survey, based on the views of 3,300 adults, has been running since 1983 and is an important barometer of opinion.

The annual report says marriage - once the bedrock institution of British society - is seen by two thirds of people as virtually indistinguishable from cohabitation.

Only one in four people thinks married couples make better parents than unmarried ones, while a third believe that gay male couples are as capable of being good parents as a man and a woman.

Most people - 61 per cent - also think that single women should be allowed to have a baby as a result of sperm donation.

The survey exposes the decline in the importance of marriage with the finding that most people see weddings as an excuse for a party rather than a public declaration of lifelong commitment.

The average cost of a wedding may have soared to £17,370, but 53 per cent of people regard it simply as a celebration.

Despite a Government-funded media campaign three years ago, half of adults still wrongly believe there is such a thing as “common law marriage”, which gives cohabitants the same rights as married couples.

Simon Duncan, the professor of social policy at Bradford University and co-author of the report, said: “The heterosexual married couple is no longer central as a social norm, but views are more traditional when it comes to bringing up children. Alternative family arrangements are seen as less acceptable.”

While four in 10 people think one parent can bring up a child as well as two parents, a similar proportion, 41 per cent, disagree.

Four in 10 people also disagree with the view that a gay male couple are as capable of being good parents as a man and a woman, compared to 31 per cent who agree.

Almost a third of people think it should be harder for couples with children under 16 to get divorced. The report comes after research showing that divorce and unmarried child-bearing increase the economic vulnerability of children and mothers.

The head of David Cameron’s social justice policy unit, Iain Duncan Smith, identified failing families as a key force in social breakdown.

He claimed that children from broken homes were more likely to fail at school, fall foul of the law or turn to drink or drugs.

Jill Kirby, the director of the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank, said: “Married couples still represent 85 per cent of all couples, so it is still the norm and easily the majority choice at present.

“Most couples are married couples, ’same sex’ couples are a small minority, and cohabitation - while increasingly popular - will often lead to marriage.

“The worry remains that family break-up is more associated with cohabiting couples than married ones and to encourage cohabitation is to risk the security of children. The Government needs to signal its support for marriage.”

Mr Duncan Smith said there was a lack of honesty in the political debate.

“Family breakdown is a major cause of social exclusion,” he said. “For years this debate has been stifled, with Government research papers even excluding marriage as a special family category.

“Small wonder that the cost of family break-up grows, estimated at £20-£24 billion.”

Soul Travel | Nov 16, 2007

by Mike Adams

Children herded like cattle into Maryland courthouse for forced vaccinations as armed police stand guard

Following the State of Maryland’s threats against parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated, children were herded into a Price George County courthouse being guarded by armed personnel with attack dogs. Inside, the children were forcibly vaccinated, many against their will, under orders from the State Attorney General, various State Judges and the local School Board Director, all of whom illegally conspired to threaten parents with imprisonment if they did not submit their children to vaccinations.

The State of Maryland has now turned to Gestapo tactics to force its medical will upon the People, stripping parents of any right to decide how they wish to protect their own children from infectious disease.

Health authorities in Maryland there have already announced their intent to essentially kidnap parents and throw them in jail, removing them from their children for up to thirty days if they continue to refuse to have their children vaccinated.

This will all be conducted at gunpoint, with armed personnel and attack dogs at the ready, making sure nobody steps out of line, and suppressing any attempt at public dissent against the Orwellian vaccination policies.

The entire campaign against these parents is blatantly illegal. There is no law in Maryland requiring the vaccination of children, thus parents who refuse to do so may not be legally charged with violating any law. Instead, Maryland health and school authorities are threatening to charge the parents with child truancy violations, criminalizing them for daring to protect their children from the dangerous chemicals found in vaccines including thimerosal, a chemical additive containing a neurotoxic form of mercury.

The methods of organized medicine is becoming apparent

As more and more parents are becoming informed about the dangers of vaccinations and their link to autism, state health authorities are increasingly turning to “Gunpoint Medicine” to force the People to submit to the poisons of conventional medicine. Parents who attempt to save their children from deadly chemotherapy chemicals are being arrested and having their children kidnapped by Child Protective Services.

The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) announced its strong opposition to the Maryland “Gunpoint Medicine” vaccination campaign. In a press release published Nov. 16, the AAPS states:
“The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons today condemned the “vaccine roundup” executed in Prince George’s county Maryland this week, and promised to do everything it can to support parents who refuse to immunize their children.”

“This power play obliterates informed consent and parental rights,” said Kathryn Serkes, director of policy for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), one of the few national physician groups that refuse corporate funding from pharmaceutical companies. Read the rest of the press release.

Conventional (pharmaceutical) medicine is the only system of medicine in the world that is so unpopular with informed consumers that it must be administered at the barrel of a gun.

At the Nov. 17th event in Maryland, activists Jim Moody and Kelly Ann Davis from SafeMinds were able to get in front of TV news cameras and voice their opposition to the coerced vaccination policy. Yet, amazingly, most parents just lined up like cattle ready to be branded, not bothering to question the sanity or legality of the very system in which they were now agreeing to participate.

A health freedom blog called Center for the Common Interest also covered the event.
What’s next for Gunpoint Medicine?

As the truth continues to emerge about the extreme dangers of vaccinations and pharmaceuticals, “Big Pharma” is becoming increasingly desperate to coerce the public into relying on its products. It is now working closely with state authorities (including Governors of several states) to mandate the use of vaccinations on young children. This results in the criminalization of parents who refuse to subject their children to these dangerous chemicals.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has already criminalized nutritional supplement companies who dare to tell the truth about the health benefits of their supplements.

What’s most interesting about this issue of using the threat of imprisonment to force vaccinations upon children is not necessarily who is speaking out against it, but who has chosen to remain silent?

The American Medical Association, for example, has said nothing in opposition to the policy.

Neither has the Food and Drug Administration.

Where is the outrage from the Maryland Hospital Association?

None of these organizations seem to have a problem with Gunpoint Medicine. All of these organizations are closely tied to “Big Pharma”. They’re all in favor of vaccinations for all, it seems, and I have no doubt that some individuals in these organizations (especially the AMA) are strongly in favor of the Gunpoint Medicine coerced vaccination policy being played out in Maryland right now.

It wasn’t too long ago that Americans would have stood up and rallied against this kind of medical tyranny. People would have been marching in the streets, demanding their health freedom. But today, it’s a different America. The People are drugged up on pharmaceuticals and dosed on fluoride. They’re too intoxicated to think straight.

The “free” America we all once knew is long gone, and it has been replaced with The United States of Corporate America, where police tactics are now used to enforce hazardous public health policies and perform large-scale medical experiments. That’s what modern vaccines are, after all: A grand medical experiment whose effects will only become known after a generation of mass poisoning has come and gone.

Telegraph | Oct 29, 2007

By Sarah Womack

As many as 10 elderly people could die from the cold every hour this winter, according to campaigners who accuse the Government of abandoning a generation of pensioners.

The National Pensioners Convention (NPC), Britain’s biggest organisation representing older people, said 260,000 people had died of cold-related illnesses in the past decade.

The vast majority were over the age of 65.

Today it will warn of many more deaths this year, amid forecasts of a colder winter this year than last, and described the lack of Government help for elderly people faced with soaring fuel bills as a national scandal.

In the winter of 2004-2005 alone, 31,250 people over 65 died from cold-related illnesses in England and Wales.

The NPC said that if that was repeated this year, it would mean the equivalent of 10 pensioners dying per hour

The NPC’s warning comes as the Met Office predicts a colder winter than last year.

A forecaster said: “Although a winter milder than the 1971-2000 average is favoured, temperatures are likely to be lower than those experienced in the very mild winter last year.”

Critics say many elderly people are suffering unnecessarily because the Government has not raised the winter fuel payment — £200 for those aged 60-79 and £300 for the over-80s — for four years, whereas electricity prices have risen by 32 per cent and gas by 48 per cent in that period.

Last week the Department of Health published its tips for the elderly to keep warm including suggestions such as not using a hot water bottle and electric blanket at the same time because “you might electrocute yourself”, and putting on “a good coat, hat, scarf and gloves when you go outside”. Neil Duncan-Jordan, the national officer for the NPC, called the advice insulting and patronising.

Parents slam governor for signing bills that mean children as young as kindergarten-age could be taught homosexuality, transsexuality and other lifestyles.

Terms such as “Mom and Dad” as well as “husband and wife” must now be removed

Infowars.net | Oct 18 , 2007

by Steve Watson

Parents and conservative groups have blasted California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for signing a number of bills, two of them dealing with public schools, which encourage the positive portrayal of various sexual lifestyles in all school instruction and activities.

Supporters of the law, which will come into effect next year, say it will “eliminate “confusion about the state’s responsibility to ensure that all school programs, textbooks, instructional materials and activities are free from unlawful discrimination.”

The bills, backed by the homosexual community, have been dubbed ‘Sexual Indoctrination’ bills by critics however as they ban anything in public schools that could be interpreted as negative toward homosexuality, bisexuality and other alternative lifestyle choices.

The Campaign for California Families (CFF), has hit out at the bills, stating that for a school district to prove that there is no “discriminatory bias” in their textbooks, classroom instruction, and school activities, the district would have to positively portray various sexual lifestyles in all school instruction and activities.

“Because no textbook or instruction in California public schools currently disparages transsexuality, bisexuality, or homosexuality, the practical effect of SB777 will be to require positive portrayals of these sexual lifestyles at every government-operated school,” CCF noted.

Thus terms such as “Mom and Dad” as well as “husband and wife” must now be either removed or offset with other terms that are friendly to “alternative” lifestyles. Furthermore materials that portray marriage as only between a man and woman must be altered and materials that say people are born male or female must also be amended.

Teachers will likely also face punitive action and lawsuits brought by the state’s department of education if they do not present homosexual ?marriage? and sex-change operations, for instance, on the same level as traditional marriage and family.

“Arnold Schwarzenegger has delivered young children into the hands of those who will introduce them to alternative sexual lifestyles,” said Randy Thomasson, president of CFF. “This means children as young as five years old will be mentally molested in school classrooms.”

Schwarzenegger also signed into law a bill prohibiting state funding for programs that do not support alternative sexual practices, which affects churches, day cares, preschools, senior services, and other organizations.

Schwarzenegger himself is no stranger to alternative sexual lifestyles having featured in many gay pornographic magazines during his early career.

More predictive programming for the hive-mind robots of today. You will note that it is always “social scientists”, who are actually social engineers, that are behind so many bizarre social transformations because they are working for the Illuminati to create a race of slaves to serve them. This is saying, “You are a machine, a mere robot, so why not marry and have sex with other robots?” It is to dehumanize and depersonalize you.

Bertrand Russell stated that the future would be engineered scientifically by an elite and that the difference between the masses and the elite would become so extreme that they would appear as different species.

We are having the future designed for us without our input, just as global government is being set up behind closed doors and our freedoms are being whittled away through deception. But still the majority will go along with crap like this because they have been dumbed down so thoroughly and believe it’s “evolution” or “progress” or something of that nature.

PW

. . .

Trends in robotics and shifting attitudes on marriage are likely to result in sophisticated robots that will eventually be seen as suitable marriage partners

United Press International | Oct 11, 2007

MAASTRICHT, Netherlands, Oct. 11 (UPI) — The University of Maastricht in the Netherlands is awarding a doctorate to a researcher who wrote a paper on marriages between humans and robots.

David Levy, a British artificial intelligence researcher at the college, wrote in his thesis, “Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners,” that trends in robotics and shifting attitudes on marriage are likely to result in sophisticated robots that will eventually be seen as suitable marriage partners.

Levy’s conclusion was based on about 450 publications in the fields of psychology, sexology, sociology, robotics, materials science, artificial intelligence, gender studies and computer-human interaction.

The thesis examines human attitudes toward affection, love and sexuality and concluded that the findings are just as applicable to human interaction with robots of the future as they are to the relationships between humans of today.

The Times | Oct 12, 2007

by Tim Reid

Thousands of teenagers sent to American boot camps have suffered horrific abuse and some have paid with their lives, according to a shocking new report by the US Congress.

The report, presented with harrowing testimony from parents of three teenagers who died at boot camps, comes as a Florida manslaughter trial opened into the death of Martin Lee Anderson, 14. He was filmed being beaten by camp guards minutes before he died, footage seen not only inside the courtroom but on television screens across America.

The Government Accountability Office, the US Congress investigative arm, identified 1,619 incidents of child abuse in 33 states in 2005. It selected ten deaths since 1990 for special investigation in boot camps and “wilderness programmes”.

Parents send their children to the privately run camps in the hope that their strict regimes and outdoor pursuits will instil discipline. But the findings suggest that instructors often go too far in trying to teach them good behaviour.

“Examples of abuse include youths being forced to eat their own vomit, denied adequate food, being forced to lie in urine or faeces, being kicked, beaten and thrown to the ground,” Gregory Kutz, a GAO investigator, told a congressional committee.

One teenager, Mr Kutz said, was “forced to use a toothbrush to clean a toilet, then forced to use that toothbrush on their own teeth”. The abuse that preceded the deaths of the ten teenagers was particularly shocking. “If you walked in partway through my presentation you might have assumed I was talking about human rights violations in a Third World country,” Mr Kutz said.

Speaking in front of photographs of his emaciated son an hour before his death, Bob Bacon — the father of Aaron — described how his son had been starved, with his weight falling from 9st 4lb (59kg) to 7st 10lb in three weeks. He said that he and his wife had sent Aaron to the Northstar Expeditions in Escalante, Utah, in the hope that it would get him away from the drugs that he had started dabbling in at school.

A “bloody and battered journal” that Aaron kept contained “an unbelievable account of torture, abuse and neglect”, Mr Bacon said. He said that Aaron spent 14 of 20 days “without any food whatsoever” while having to hike eight to ten miles (13-16km) a day. When he was given food, it consisted of “undercooked lentils, lizards, scorpions, trail mix and a celebrated canned peach on the 13th day”. Aaron died from an untreated perforated ulcer. His father said that he had been beaten “from the top of his head to the tip of his toes” during his month at the camp. “His mother and I will never escape our decision to send our 16-year-old son to his death,” Mr Bacon said.

At the American Buffalo Soldiers boot camp in Arizona, where Anthony Haynes, 14, died in 2001, children were fed an apple for breakfast, a carrot for lunch and a bowl of beans for dinner, the GAO report said. Anthony became dehydrated in a 45C (113F) temperature and vomited soil that he had eaten because of his hunger, according to witnesses. The programme closed and Charles Long, its director, was sentenced in 2005 to six years in prison for manslaughter. The report said that five of the ten programmes where teenagers died are still operating, sometimes under different names. Between 10,000 and 20,000 American children attend the camps every year. Some charge as much as $450 (£225) a day.

Mr Kutz said that the programmes marketed appealing outdoor experiences to “desperate parents”, who are often trying to keep their children out of jail or from getting into deeper trouble.

Paul Lewis said that his son, Ryan, 14, committed suicide six years ago after one week at a West Virginia boot camp. “To turn your son over to someone else and hope they’re going to love and protect your child was naive on my part. We thought \ was an answer to our prayers. It turned out to be a living nightmare.”

Republican and Democrat members of the committee reacted with outrage and dismay at the report and the parents’ often tearful testimony. They called for new laws that would regulate the boot camps, some of which are not even licensed.

In Panama City, Florida, seven guards and a nurse are on trial over Martin Lee Anderson’s death. The opening day was so traumatic for his mother, Gina Jones, that she ran from the courtroom, sobbing and shouting “I cannot take it.”

Prosecutors say that the guards suffocated the boy by covering his mouth, making him inhale ammonia. The guards and nurse each face up to 30 years in jail if convicted.

Boot-camp fatalities

— A 15-year-old girl collapsed of dehydration while hiking in 1990 and lay dead on road for 18 hours

— A 15-year-old boy refused to return to camp in 2000. He was forcibly restrained and died of a severed artery - ruled a homicide

— A 14-year-old boy punished for asking to go home in 2001 was made to sit in the desert, then left in bath to recuperate - later died

— A 14-year-old boy complained of thirst in 2002, was left in sun for an hour and stopped breathing and died. Staff thought he was faking