"Brett Kavanaugh is angry and defiant as he faces accuser Christine Blasey Ford" by Jess Bidgood Globe Staff September 28, 2018
WASHINGTON — A riveting, gut-wrenching spectacle engulfed Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court Thursday during a confirmation hearing where Kavanaugh repeatedly broke down in tears, expressed bitter defiance, and shouted over Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
They were the tears of a bully.
With the makeup of the nation’s highest court hanging in the balance, Christine Blasey Ford delivered her allegations firmly, calmly, and with a degree of credibility even Republicans acknowledged. She testified she was “100 percent’’ certain it was Kavanaugh who, on a summer night in the 1980s, pinned her down on a bed, covered her mouth to prevent her from screaming, and ground his hips against her.
Globe says she was more credible -- which means Kavanaugh also had some?
“I am here today not because I want to be — I am terrified,” said Ford, her voice wavering as she recounted the alleged episode with testimony that left that Capitol, which has been consumed by a partisan furor over the allegations, in utter silence.
When Kavanaugh’s turn to testify arrived later in the day, he read a prepared statement that dripped with outrage and specific denials of Ford’s accusations. The former Republican lawyer wore a blue tie and took aim at the left, the Clintons, and Democrats who he said were out to stop him at all costs.
“You have replaced advice and consent with search and destroy,” Kavanaugh declared, glaring at the senators in the room as his voice rose.
Senate Republicans said the committee will vote Friday morning, followed by procedural votes in the full Senate Saturday and Monday. The final confirmation vote will be Tuesday.
Kavanaugh’s anger was reminiscent of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s defense against Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment 27 years ago, when he said he was a victim of a “high-tech lynching,’’ but Kavanaugh’s performance was far more emotional and amounted to an unprecedented display of raw sentiment for a Supreme Court nominee.
He broke down repeatedly and struggled to compose himself as he reflected on the reputational damage he has endured over the past two weeks and how the allegations have “destroyed’’ his family. He choked up as he recounted that his 10-year-old daughter had suggested the family pray for Ford. Repeatedly taking drinks of water, he described how this episode means he may never be able to teach law school classes again or coach youth basketball.
They crucified him and put a crown off thorns on his head.
“This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit. Fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons, and millions of dollars in money from outside, left-wing opposition groups,” he said. “This is a circus.”
It remained unclear if Kavanaugh’s performance would save his nomination, or sink him. His fate likely rests in the hands of a small group of Republican swing votes, Maine’s Susan Collins, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, and Jeff Flake of Arizona. His testimony seemed geared toward appealing to Trump and Republicans who are angry that Ford’s allegations emerged late in the confirmation process, after Kavanaugh appeared to be on a glide path following confirmation hearings earlier in the month, but Kavanaugh’s extended displays of emotion, and his bitter partisan words, also risked being seen as falling short of a judicial temperament.
So he can't win either way with the Globe. He fights back and he shows a lack of judicial temperament. If he doesn't, he self-indicts himself and his pummeled.
The vote is going to be Flakey either way.
During her testimony, Ford inflected the pain of her memories with human moments, like when she requested caffeine to sustain her through her testimony — first coffee and then a sugary bottle of Coca-Cola. She seemed eager to answer questions forthrightly, leaning into the microphone and repeating that she wanted be “helpful” to the committee.
At one point, she asked Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley if she could address him — an exchange that was rare, because Grassley and the Republicans hired a sex crimes prosecutor, Rachel Mitchell, to ask the questions for them.
“Can I speak to you directly?” she said, during an exchange about the committee’s willingness to send investigators to California to speak to her. “I would have happily hosted you.”
Globe doesn't tell you she was in Delaware at the time.
Ford at times relied on her background as a psychologist, seeming to act as the expert witness buttressing her own testimony. Sometimes, science and emotion converged, as when Senator Patrick Leahy asked her about her most vivid memory from the night of the alleged assault.
OMG!
So she has a background in psychology that could fool us?
She played her assigned role with the "act," huh?
Look, I don't want to minimize sexual violence in any way, maybe something did happen to this woman. It could be mistaken identity, she could even have talked herself into believing it was him and still maintains she identified the right man.
Maybe if she was wearing blue dress.....
Beyond that, we have no one coming to the support of the woman who accused Tom Brokaw, no reports on the current status of Eric Schneiderman, and not a word about Keith Ellison -- never mind how the #MeToo movement has drowned out the domestic violence and child pedophilia issues among the genders and ruling elite.
I'm also wondering where they are when it comes to the women in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, etc, etc, etc. I'm told there is oppression and sexism in those societies, and yet know one talks about the death and destruction being meted out to them, their families, and their communities by these endless wars based on lies.
I know I'm straying far afield here, but I guess some women are to be believed and others not while some women lives are more important than others. That seems to be the tone coming from the Bo$ton Globe these days.
Ford acknowledged under questioning that she could not remember key details of the alleged episode: She did not know the date of the party, the address of the home where it was held, or how she got there and how she got home after the alleged attack.
Sitting in front of the all-male group of Judiciary Republicans, Mitchell largely avoided questions about the alleged assault itself. She appeared more focused on Ford’s motivation, asking her numerous questions about why and how she came forward. Ford said she came forward because of her sense of civic duty, and acknowledged that one of her lawyers was recommended to her by Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein’s team.
Feinstein played her like a pawn.
Despite the partisan charge to the proceedings, some Republicans on the committee struck a respectful tone after Ford’s testimony ended.
They cite Senator John Cornyn of Texas.
Other Republicans drew a harsher conclusion.
That would be "an apoplectic Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican, who heaped sympathy on Kavanaugh as the day wore on."
Both parties on the committee sought to tie the testimony to larger cultural moments, with Democrats evoking the national reckoning over sexual assault that has come with the #MeToo movement.
They mention groper Cory Booker, the New Jersey Democrat, as big supporter!
Democratic senators raised additional allegations that have emerged after Ford’s first surfaced, by a fellow Yale University undergraduate who accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her, and by a woman who said Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge participated in parties during high school where women were drugged, groped, and gang raped. Kavanaugh denied them all.
Democrats repeatedly sought to get Kavanaugh to agree to an FBI investigation of the allegations against him, but he deflected the question, deferring to the Republican majority that runs the committee.
Why did they sit on it and not refer it to the FBI, then leak it to the pre$$?
During his testimony, Kavanaugh repeated his vow not to withdraw from the nomination and tried to boost his bona fides with women by saying he had numerous female friends and had hired many female clerks. Breaking down in tears, he pointed to his high school calendars as signs of his innocence. He had been out of town on the weekends during the summer of 1982, as well as for beach week and a “legendary” basketball camp.
“Judge me by the standard that you would want applied to your father, your husband, your brother, or your son,” Kavanaugh said. “I am innocent of this charge.”
He declared he liked beer in high school and still does, and grew testy under questioning on the subject by Democrats. At one point, when Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota asked if he had ever drank so much he blacked out, he turned it back to her: “Have you?” (He later apologized.)
Kavanaugh also laid directly into Ford’s claims. Three of the people Ford has identified as being present at the party — Mark Judge, Patrick J. Smyth, and a woman named Leland Keyser — have denied knowledge of such an event, but during her testimony, Ford offered up a possible reason why Smyth and Keyser would not have remembered.
“Nothing remarkable happened to them that evening,” she said.....
Maybe nothing did at all.
--more--"
"Judicial ambition and #MeToo collide in a public spectacle" by Annie Linskey Globe Staff September 28, 2018
WASHINGTON — There was the elite private high school. The Ivy League education. The choice White House post. An appeals court judgeship. And finally, the culmination of a brilliant career, a nomination to the country’s highest court.
It does seem like this guy had this goal from the beginning, making it less likely he would risk it. Some people know what they want to be, others fall into jobs. I'm from the latter group, which is how I ended up here.
And on Thursday, faced with the possibility that it might all come crashing down after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct, Brett Kavanaugh launched an emotional and angry response that stunned onlookers.
He brought more heat than light.
It was an uncomfortable and rare sight — a nominee to the highest court in the land crying before a panel of senators — in a performance that seemed tuned as much to defending his honor as to salvaging his nomination.
If he hadn't shown emotion they would have said he was cold and insensitive.
The uncomfortable sight for me was the pain on his wife's face behind him in the few clips I saw.
At the end of the draining testimony, it remained unclear if he would survive to be confirmed, or if he would go down swinging and sniffling.
When Obama cried it was good, human, decent.
“You may defeat me in the vote, but you’ll never get me to quit,” said Kavanaugh. “Never.”
He teared up as he said the confirmation process has “destroyed” his family and could end his teaching career. He pushed his tongue into his cheek, trying to compose himself, as he expressed regret for frat-boy behavior as a young man while still insisting he never crossed the line to sexual misconduct.
Then take him outside, cut off his balls, and eat him.
The defiant testimony came after Senate Republicans attempted, as Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell put it several days earlier, to “plow right through” the Supreme Court confirmation process, but the new allegations, and the GOP insistence to move ahead quickly, further inflamed the roiling #MeToo movement, bringing the national reckoning over male treatment of women into the wood-paneled chamber of the Senate committee.
Yeah, haven't heard a word about the abuse and NDAs under that dome since Conyers and Franken left.
In the days since Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations were first publicized, there’s been a renewed conversation about acceptable behavior, with Americans reexamining episodes from their past. That continued Thursday, as women and men across the country watched and listened to the testimony and shared their own stories.
I don't know what I may have done that offended anyone, but even if I didn't we should all be burned at the stake.
Maybe this November.
Ford, a woman who has never testified before Congress, came across as poised, likable, and, above all, credible. She controlled the emotion in her voice as she recounted chilling new details about the alleged attack 36 years ago.
She's a shrink who would know how to do that, and that could be perceived as an unemotional act.
What still stands out to her all these years later, she said, is the laughter she remembers between Kavanaugh and one of his friends, Mark Judge, the night of a party where she said she was attacked.
“They were laughing with each other,” Ford said. “I was, you know, underneath one of them while the two laughed.”
She added the sounds were of “two friends having a really good time with one another.”
I'm not laughing about any of this.
Later she was asked to detail exactly what she remembered. Ford offered bursts of memories.
“The stairwell,” she said. “The living room. The bedroom. The bed on the right side of the room. The bathroom in close proximity. The laughter, the uproarious laughter. And the multiple attempts to escape and the final ability to do so.”
She spoke with emotion in her voice, but was careful to smile when she addressed Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley, and at times even set aside objections from her lawyers when the Senate Judiciary Committee’s designated questioner, Rachel Mitchell, sought answers that strayed into matters of attorney-client privilege.
That kind of undercuts the seriousness of it all, but fine.
Some Republicans have said that they believe Ford was attacked by someone, but think she is confused about the attacker’s identity.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the panel, tried to clear this up quickly and asked Ford if this could all be a case of mistaken identity. “Absolutely not,” Ford said forcefully.
Later, under questioning from Senator Patrick Leahy, she said she was “100 percent” certain that Kavanaugh was the one who assaulted her.
I thought it was Durbin that asked that.
Between Ford and Kavanaugh, the only two witnesses called, there was a massive chasm — with senators forced to decide whom to believe. That was by design. Grassley refused to subpoena Judge. And the panel declined to subpoena two other potential witnesses. All have said in written statements that they cannot confirm the events. Still, several senators said they wished they had the chance to evaluate the credibility of these additional people. The Republicans opted against an FBI investigation.
The GOP also didn’t allow the other two women who’ve made allegations against Kavanaugh to speak.
Yeah, GOP obstructed, she said. The Democrats handling of all this is beyond reproach.
Deborah Ramirez has alleged that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her while drunk at a party at Yale University. Julie Swetnick has said that Kavanaugh was present at drunken high school parties where girls were gang raped — though she has not said that he participated in those assaults, but aside from one Washington Post article, the country had not heard from Ford, who lives a private life in California.
Globe will look into, right?
She described in great detail how she had told others about the attack, including her therapist, her husband, her friends. Once she saw that Kavanaugh might be appointed to the Supreme Court, she testified, she reached out to her member of Congress and sent a note to The Washington Post’s tip line. Ford described her efforts as her civic duty as a citizen.
Even fierce conservative combatants were impressed.
“Ford seems kind. This doesn’t strike me as partisan,” said Mike Cernovich, a men’s rights conspiracy theorist and a Trump supporter, in a social media posting. “This will be a tough vote.”
You know, if there were disintegration booths that we could all walk into I would run right down to one. The Globe is making me feel like this world would be better off without any of us men around.
He added, before Kavanaugh testified, “Hard to see Kavanaugh gets confirmed after the Ford testimony.”
Republican senators effectively silenced themselves during the first half of the hearing, with Grassley ceding all of the GOP time to Mitchell, who asked questions of the witness. Mitchell was there to avoid the appearance of Republican men grilling the witness (There are six Republican women in the Senate, but none is assigned to the judiciary panel), but the use of Mitchell led to a disjointed hearing. She would ask questions for five minutes and appear to be building toward a point, but her momentum would be broken each time that time expired and Democratic senators got their five-minute turn.
I will be shortly as well.
Mitchell also focused on seemingly minor details: Was Ford really scared of flying, as she’d told committee members? Who recommended her attorney? Who paid for her lie detector test?
Credibility and awareness of your surroundings and faculties is a minor detail.
Though the hearing riveted many people across the country, the immediate audience for those questions, which sought to show a Democratic plot to push Ford’s testimony into the public sphere, was much smaller: President Trump and a handful of undecided Republican senators who will decide the fate of this nomination.
The broader impact, though, could be felt in about six weeks in the midterm elections where a record number of women are on the ballot. Most of them are Democrats.
Yeah, the narrative has been set and I will be adding to it. There is a GOP woman running against my longtime congre$$ional rep.
--more--"
"Ford’s testimony leaves women riveted" by Stephanie Ebbert and Laura Krantz Globe Staff September 28, 2018
Excruciating. Offensive. Heartbreaking. And yet familiar. Many women who watched Christine Blasey Ford testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday about her alleged sexual assault cringed through her questioning and identified with the witness more than they might have expected.
Ford’s late-breaking allegation of a decades-old sexual assault was infuriating to Republicans, who dismissed it as political gamesmanship by liberals intent on derailing the confirmation of conservative Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, but many women were watching the performance with jaws dropped, amazed that a year into the #MeToo movement, after women everywhere began exposing the commonality and enduring secrecy of sexual misconduct, so many committee members showed they are still disinclined to believe women.
Again, evidence means nothing, just supposed to believe.
That's how the pre$$ lied us into wars, remember?
Beyond that, it's only certain women to be believed. Juanita Broderick and Paula Jones are not.
“I have such deep respect for this woman who did not have to come forward, has no motivation to do so, and is shouldering the weight of so many survivors right now,” said Debra J. Robbin, executive director of Jane Doe Inc., a Massachusetts coalition against sexual assault and domestic violence.
“Why,” she asked, “would we not believe this person?”
No evidence or corroboration?
In interviews and on social media, many women raved about Ford’s poise during the high-octane hearing; Kavanaugh, during his testimony, repeatedly choked up or broke down in tears. Many women were relieved that she came across as a credible witness and dismayed that she was described by Senator Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, as an “attractive” witness.
Take heart, ladies, he will be replaced by the very respectful Mitt Romney in January.
Alexis Wolfer, a Harvard Business School MBA candidate and copresident of the Women’s Student Association, was struck by how much time Ford’s supporters on the committee spent talking about her credentials, as if only someone with that education and those accomplishments could be believed. Ford, a professor of psychology at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at Stanford University, peppered her testimony with references to “sequelae” and the hippocampus.
Joan A. Moon, a public policy master’s degree student at the Harvard Kennedy School, said women who lack such credentials could have an even harder time establishing their claims.
“They feel powerless, and it’s because of issues like this where women are constantly asking to be believed,” Moon said.
Some women lauded Ford as a hero, posting a photo of her raising her right hand to swear in for her testimony.
That was what resonated with one Kennedy School master’s student who said she had a similar experience of sexual assault when she was in sixth grade.
At least it wasn't an instructor, right?
The student, who asked to remain anonymous because of potential professional repercussions, said she was given alcohol by an older boy unknowingly and then raped at a small gathering at a home.
It is time to BAN BOOZE!
The way Ford described her own experience rang true with the Harvard student, the way certain details were seared in her mind and others completely forgotten. For Ford, it was the laughter of the boys who attacked her; for this student it was a painting on the wall she stared at as it happened.
“Almost everything she is saying, I can completely parallel that with what I’ve gone through, so to me it feels very credible,” she said.
“From someone who’s been through it, that made complete sense,” she said.
So it took on the quality of an alien abduction?
You know, they all fit a basic pattern.
That is not claiming women are crazy, far from it. The likelihood of abuse is much more than any alien visions or otherwise.
The student said the past week and a half, as the allegations have come out, have been tearful, but she said watching Ford testify before the entire country was empowering.
“I’m so proud of her for doing things I have not,” she said, acknowledging that — like many victims — she never reported her assault.
“I’m hoping that seeing someone on the news giving this kind of testimony gives other people the strength and the courage to speak up, and only by speaking up will these things stop happening,” she said.
For many survivors of sexual assault, the hearings stoked trauma or concern. Some victims’ hot lines were lighting up with callers yesterday, she said, as women who had been victimized reacted to the testimony. C-Span, which was live-streaming the hearing, received calls from women telling of their assaults for their first time.
The most devastating thing now would be for the Senate to confirm Kavanaugh after hearing Ford’s account, said the student survivor of sexual assault.
Then they can't do that, can they?
“We [survivors] are all going to feel really defeated and as far as people coming forward, what is the point?”
--more--"
I'm told that all women have “either been in the situation or know people” who have, and I don't know what to do. I feel so sorry for that so many women had to and go through such things, but aren't being perpetrated by me. I can't change the past to make it as if terrible things never happened to them. The only good thing I feel I can do is go die.
‘I believe Professor Ford,’ Baker says
Ultimately, the nomination has nothing to do with him.
I would suggest his time would be time better spent up at the statehouse investigating the NDAs, and are we expected to believe that there is no malfeasance in his administration?
At rape crisis center, empathy for Kavanaugh’s accuser
By Kevin Cullen
Gee, I sure hope Cullen didn't make them up!
You would think the guy would be discredited and out of a job, but there he is.
Maybe someone can hurl an accusation against him.
So what's next, he is “eating our children?”
I'm sure some day there will be a book about it all.
"Viewers transfixed by wrenching testimony in Kavanaugh hearing" by Brian MacQuarrie, Jerome Campbell, Globe Staff September 27, 2018
I'm curious as to where the Globe went.
On Province Street near Boston Common, tailor Richard Papazian said he had been following Kavanaugh’s confirmation process after he heard about the allegations of sexual misconduct against him. The father of a 32-year-old daughter, Papazian said he needed to show Ford whatever support he could.
“I definitely believe her,” he said. “If this happened to my mom or my daughter, I wouldn’t hesitate to support them.”
He doesn't have a son or brother?
At Club Cafe on Columbus Avenue, the lunch crowd was mostly seated at the bar as the Senate hearing played on 12 televisions at once. Swas Balram called Ford heroic, although he said her testimony was painful to watch.
Are you kidding?
“I feel like she’s reliving trauma,” said Balram, 48, a Wilmington resident who works nearby. “What I don’t understand is what does it take? Why isn’t what she saying valid?”
No one is saying it isn't; we are just asking questions and trying to determine the weight it should be given in regard to the overall.
At The Tam in downtown Boston, bartender Ryan Dalton, 35, said he made sure to get to work on time to watch the hearing. To him, Ford sounded genuine.
Dalton said an inebriated man at the bar called Ford a “liar” and a slur and implied that if the assault did occur, then perhaps she deserved it.
You have to wonder if she didn't just pull a Cullen.
And how does that look for the bar?
They have an inebriated customer in their establishment?
I hope they shut him off.
When it was Kavanaugh’s turn, the bartender at Club Cafe announced: “Here we go, round two.”
Seated at the bar, three friends on a layover from Pittsburgh watched the screen carefully as Kavanaugh delivered his opening statement. Lauren Majernik, 28, said Kavanaugh obviously was angry, but that his tears seemed forced.
“It’s more justification,” Majernik said. “He’s trying to look good.”
Oh, I see. He was puling an acting job.
In a combative opening statement, Kavanaugh denied that he had ever sexually assaulted someone and that “my family and my name have been totally and permanently destroyed by vicious and false accusations.”
How would you react to false charges that are piled on?
What is your breaking point?
Related:
"On the first days of the hearings on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, in early September, Kamala Harris, Richard Blumenthal, and other Democrats behaved disgracefully, childishly, and peevishly. This was followed by embarrassing, inappropriate protests for days. During the questioning of Judge Kavanaugh, it was the Democrats who had a hyper-combative approach to derail the nomination. I was dismayed and embarrassed by the theatrics. I do not recall that the Globe wrote disapprovingly of this process then....."
No, the Globe supported them.
A woman wrote that?
--more--"
You know what the solution is, right?
You make adultery a criminal offense and ban sexist catcalls like the French (of course, they are the same La Libertine group that wanted to set the age for sexual consent at 13, but had to settle on 15 as the minimum age for sexual consent as decide by a judge). Then we resegregate gender settings and dissolve the United States of America. New England becomes it's own nation, the Rust belt, the South, the Rockies, the West Coast, we all become like former Soviet provinces. It's the only way to extricate ourselves from a civil war.
Related:
Trump backs Kavanaugh
That's why he postponed the meeting with Rod Rosenstein.
To find the elusive truth you need to look them in the face:
"Back seat driver? New car cams may soon sense driver fatigue, texting, other distractions" by Hiawatha Bray Globe Staff September 27, 2018
While you keep an eye on the road, your car may soon be keeping an eye on you with a system to study a driver’s face to assess his or her mental state. Affectiva Inc. is running tests with several carmakers of software that analyzes facial expressions.
”It’s not just about emotions. It’s about your state of mind,” said Affectiva cofounder Rana el Kaliouby. “We can take this a step further and go a level deeper.”
The software is based on technology Affectiva has deployed to advertisers to measure emotional responses to TV commercials and movies. The company declined to identify the carmakers testing its new system, and in September, Affectiva teamed up with Burlington-based Nuance Communications Inc., maker of speech-recognition systems used in about 200 million cars worldwide. The two companies are building an integrated system that will help a car’s systems adapt to the emotional and mental state of the driver.
Good thing driverless cars are coming up the road, huh?
“We can make our interaction with the driver more human-like,” said Nils Lenke, director of innovation at Nuance’s automotive group. “There are much more options if you can engage the driver in a dialogue.”
I don't like talking while I'm driving.
Imagine, for instance, that video from a dash-mounted camera shows the driver’s eyes flickering and his head slumping. Affectiva software determines the driver is falling asleep and passes this information to the Nuance system, which can send verbal suggestions, depending on the situation. If the car is idling at a traffic light, it might say, “Hey buddy, you could use a cup of coffee,” in a friendly voice, while turning up the air conditioning to make the car less comfortable. The message might be more urgent if the sleepy driver is rolling down the interstate at 80 miles an hour: “Pull over, right now!” the car might shout.
So it will help coffee sales while keeping us all safe?
Founded in 2009 and based on innovations from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Affectiva trained its artificial intelligence to accurately detect emotional responses by feeding it seven million images of human faces, collected in 87 countries and including men and women of every age and ethnic background.
Did you know they were collecting your picture?
There are limits. Affectiva’s software cannot yet tell whether a driver is drunk. Kaliouby said the software can be taught to recognize inebriation by showing it a great many photos of drunk drivers, but those aren’t easy to come by. The company has begun collecting such images, but “we’d probably need hundreds of thousands of examples of people intoxicated,” said Kaliouby, “and it would have to be done in a safe way. So that’s a challenge.”
There are other challenges, according to Colin Barnden, an analyst at the British electronics research firm Semicast Research Ltd. Barnden said real-time emotion tracking will require a fairly powerful computer, one likely to cost a lot and consume a lot of electricity — major issues for modern cars already stuffed with power-hungry gadgets and fetching hefty price tags.
“It’s not clear to me how you reduce the system to the point where you can include it in a vehicle,” Barnden said.
No one riding shotgun?
Affectiva also has no experience making software for cars, a market with ferociously high reliability standards. Barnden said it usually takes at least three years for a new product to be certified as “automotive-grade,” and that carmakers are very slow to purchase new technology from vendors who have no experience making automotive-grade components.
Kaliouby acknowledged the challenge of landing contracts with the carmakers. That’s one reason her company has also partnered with companies such as Nuance, Veoneer, and Wind River.
Now I remember her!
Related:
Computer Captures My Emotions
Jolted Awake This Morning
Terminator Told The Truth
At least someone did.
“They obviously have a lot of expertise in this area,” she said, but car software isn’t a sideshow for Affectiva; Kaliouby said it will be the company’s primary focus going forward. “Basically, we identified automotive as the next growth opportunity for our company,” she said.
To see why, look overseas. The European New Car Assessment Programme, which sets car safety standards for the European Union, has said that beginning in 2020, only cars with driver-monitoring systems will be eligible for its highest five-star safety rating. Because of Europe’s intensely competitive car market, Kaliouby believes that most new EU cars will monitor their drivers within a few years.
She also figures it’s only a matter of time before the same technology becomes commonplace over here. “Even if we don’t see regulations in the US,” she said, “it’s going to reset consumer expectations.”
They need to create the market first!
Meantime, Kaliouby is eying other customers for Affectiva’s car software. The company wants to look beyond the driver to the faces of passengers, generating data that ride-sharing companies, for example, could use to create custom “ride profiles” for each customer.
You can let me out here.
Imagine a frequent Uber rider who smiles at country music on the radio, whose eyes widen with fear at an abrupt acceleration, or appears bored when the driver gets chatty. Uber could send a message to the driver that if he wants a bigger tip, he should slow down, shut up, and put on Willie Nelson.
Now imagine the day when self-driving Ubers and taxis arrive: The vehicle could simply download and run each passenger’s ride profile. And what about motion sickness? A 2015 study from the University of Michigan found that up to 12 percent of people suffer from it in cars. An Affectiva system could see a passenger getting sick in time for the car to pull over and let him out.
Kaliouby said the company is in early talks with ride-hailing companies, whom she declined to name, about passenger monitoring, and she insisted that any such system would be switched on only with the rider’s permission.....
And if there is a glitch that left it on?
--more--"
Did they know it was a satirical Trump-themed exhibit?
Dr. David Meeker became chief executive of KSQ last October (Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff/file 2015).
How about that face, huh?
Also see:
Alnylam plans to seek FDA approval for second drug
SEC seeks to oust Tesla CEO over tweet
AG, public health agency weigh conditions for Beth Israel-Lahey merger
Busy agenda awaits Massport’s next CEO
BNY Mellon has a simple name for Boston business
It is a “a day of celebration for all of Boston.”
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"EPA to eliminate office that advises agency chief on science" by Coral Davenport New York Times September 28, 2018
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency plans to dissolve its Office of the Science Advisor, a senior post that was created to counsel the EPA administrator on the scientific research underpinning health and environmental regulations, according to a person familiar with the agency’s plans. The person spoke anonymously because the decision had not yet been made public.
The move is the latest among several steps taken by the Trump administration that appear to have diminished the role of scientific research in policy making while the administration pursues an agenda of rolling back regulations.
A spokesman for the EPA did not return e-mails or phone calls requesting comment on the move.
Separately Tuesday, in an unusual move, the EPA placed the head of its Office of Children’s Health, Dr. Ruth Etzel, on administrative leave, while declining to give a reason for the move. Agency officials told Etzel, a respected pediatric epidemiologist, that the move was not disciplinary. As the head of an office that regularly pushed to tighten regulations on pollution, which can affect children more powerfully than adults, Etzel had clashed multiple times with Trump administration appointees who sought to loosen pollution rules.
See: Thursday's Crown of Thorns
The EPA’s science adviser is Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, an expert on the risks of chemicals to human health who has worked at the EPA since 1981, according to the agency’s website.
More bad chemistry.
Orme-Zavaleta did not respond to e-mails and telephone messages requesting a response for comment.
It was unclear whether Orme-Zavaleta would remain at the EPA once the decision takes effect.
The science adviser works across the agency to ensure that the highest quality science is integrated into the agency’s policies and decisions, according to the EPA’s website.
The changes at the two offices, which both report directly to the head of the EPA, come as the agency’s acting administrator, Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, is overseeing a reorganization of the agency.
After dissolving the office of the scientific adviser, Wheeler plans to merge the position into an office that reports to the EPA’s deputy assistant administrator for science.
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Related:
"A Cape Cod tribe filed a federal lawsuit Thursday challenging the Trump administration’s decision not to protect its 300-acre reservation granted by the Obama administration....."
Now that is something Baker can do something about.
Here is the Globe's A2 picture of the day in the wake of Hurricane Florence.
Time to hit the road:
"The deadline for removing New York’s ‘‘I Love NY’’ highway signs is fast approaching, and neither the state nor the federal government seems to be backing down. Without a deal by month’s end on Sunday, New York could lose $14 million in federal highway funding. The big blue signs posted in groups of five along roadways from Long Island to Buffalo were touted by Cuomo as a key component in his effort to boost the state’s $100 billion tourism industry, but the Federal Highway Administration warned state officials that the advertisements didn’t adhere to regulations, contained too much information, and were too distracting to drivers. Cuomo went ahead with the $8 million program anyway....."
The Trump administration is trying to hurt Cuomo's presidential aspirations, aren't they?
"The Jehovah’s Witnesses must pay $35 million to a woman who says the church’s national organization ordered Montana clergy members not to report her sexual abuse as a child at the hands of a congregation member, a jury ruled in a verdict. A judge must review the penalty, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ national organization — Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York — plans to appeal. Still, the 21-year-old woman’s lawyers say Wednesday’s verdict sends a message to the church to report child abuse to outside authorities. The Office of Public Information at the World Headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses responded to the verdict with an unsigned statement. ‘‘Jehovah’s Witnesses abhor child abuse and strive to protect children from such acts. Watchtower is pursuing appellate review,’’ it said. The Montana case is one of dozens that have been filed nationwide over the past decade alleging Jehovah’s Witnesses mismanaged or covered up the sexual abuse of children."
I never answer the door.
Nurse charged with injuring infants at Wisconsin hospital
A male nurse?
No more of those, please.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Maybe it would make the Globe happy if Kavanaugh ended up like this:
"Former state senator Brian Joyce found dead at his home" by Matt Stout and Danny McDonald Globe Correspondent and Globe Staff September 27, 2018
Brian A. Joyce, the former state senator who was awaiting trial on federal corruption charges, was found dead in his Westport home Thursday, according to authorities. He was 56.
Foul play is not suspected, and the state medical examiner is expected to conduct an autopsy in “the coming days” to determine the cause and manner of his death, said Gregg Miliote, a spokesman for the Bristol district attorney’s office.
Yeah, who knows when it will be finished.
Joyce’s wife, Mary, found his body early Thursday afternoon, Miliote said. Joyce was involved in a car crash Wednesday night in Westport, but it was not immediately clear whether it had any connection to his death.
Westport police and town officials did not return requests for comment. Attempts to obtain a copy of any police reports relating to the Wednesday crash were not successful.
State Police did not handle the response to the accident, spokesman David Procopio said Thursday, but State Police investigators would consider any injuries Joyce may have sustained in the crash as well as “any other medical evidence related” to Joyce’s health as part of the investigation, Procopio said.
News of Joyce’s death coursed quickly through Massachusetts political circles, where for decades he served as a lawmaker from Milton and climbed the ranks of leadership in the Senate. A Democrat and former state representative first elected to the Senate in 1997, he was an early proponent of marriage equality and a supporter of public education. He ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2001, losing to Stephen Lynch.
Joyce was charged in December 2017 in a sweeping indictment that accused him of taking bribes and kickbacks that he laundered through his law firm and turning his public office into a criminal enterprise. The accusations followed stories in The Boston Globe examining his mingling of public and personal business. Joyce, who was free on bond, had pleaded not guilty to the 113-count indictment.
Did they drive him to it?
Corruption is much harder to prove these days.
Investigators said they estimated that Joyce, who faced federal charges of mail fraud, corruption, money laundering, and embezzlement, had collected about $1 million since 2010 through various alleged schemes.
Prosecutors said, among other things, he had extorted a Jeep from a Milton developer and collected more than $100,000 in phony legal fees from a Dunkin’ Donuts store owner in exchange for using his influence to help them.
The indictment painted Joyce as using the power of his Senate office to help those who allegedly provided bribes and kickbacks to him. No one else has been charged as part of the case. When defendants die while awaiting trial, the charges against them are typically dismissed.
Attorneys had said they expected to be ready for trial by May 2019, according to a recent court filing.
“We extend our condolences to Mr. Joyce’s family and friends as they grieve his passing,” US Attorney Andrew E. Lelling said in a statement. “We will not have any further comment during this difficult time.”
Max D. Stern, one of Joyce’s attorneys, declined to comment Thursday evening.
“The family has asked that their privacy be respected at this difficult time,” attorney Howard M. Cooper, who also represented Joyce, said in an e-mail.
Senate President Karen E. Spilka was among those who learned of Joyce’s death Thursday afternoon.
“As authorities handle the appropriate investigations, my thoughts are with his family,” she said in a statement.
A spokeswoman for Governor Charlie Baker said he and Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito “extend their deepest condolences to the Joyce family during this difficult time.”
Once the Senate’s assistant majority leader, Joyce had moved from his longtime hometown of Milton after announcing in 2016 that he wouldn’t seek reelection.
The decision to not run again came days after his law office was raided by federal authorities.
Joyce had also agreed to pay nearly $5,000 to charity for various campaign finance violations, including tapping campaign funds for his son’s high school graduation party, under an agreement with the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance.
Joyce aroused suspicions by repeatedly receiving discounted and sometimes free goods and services, often from businesses in his legislative district. For instance, when he was angling for a Senate leadership position in late 2014, he gave his Senate colleagues expensive sunglasses that he got at a significant discount from a company in his district, as well as pounds of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.
The Globe also wrote extensively about Joyce’s relationship with Energi, the Peabody company that was the subject of much of the indictment against the former lawmaker. The company, which sells insurance to the energy industry, hired Joyce and his law firm to do legal work and to handle regulatory matters before the state Division of Insurance. Between 2010 and 2015, the company paid the Joyce Law Group $377,169 in fees, according to the indictment.
Even so, Joyce apparently wanted more legal business and fees in return for his help with a bill promoted by the company. He filed the bill and spoke at a symposium sponsored by Energi promoting the bill — never disclosing his ties to the company. Energi put him on retainer, paying him $5,000 a month for approximately five months.
His indictment last year came amid an already turbulent time for the state Senate. Days earlier, then-Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg had stepped down from his leadership post in the wake of a Globe story, in which four men said his husband, Bryon Hefner, had sexually assaulted and harassed them and had bragged he could influence Senate business.
Rosenberg resigned his seat in May after an ethics investigation found that he had abrogated his leadership responsibilities by giving Hefner essentially unfettered access to the Senate.
What the Hef?
Senator Harriette L. Chandler took the reins as the chamber’s interim president before Spilka emerged from a lengthy leadership fight and officially ascended to the Senate’s top post this summer.
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Related: The Gift of Joyce
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Lawrence family that lost home in explosions files lawsuit against Columbia Gas
Two named to lead search for Boston school chief
They will make sure Boston students come to school ready to learn.
If the get there, that is:
"Authorities say a 13-year-old Rhode Island girl who was riding a bicycle to school because of the Providence school bus drivers’ strike has been struck and injured by a car. A police spokeswoman said the girl, who attends Nathan Bishop Middle School, was using a bike from a bike-sharing service at about 8:30 a.m. Thursday when she was struck. Police say she usually takes the bus to school. She was taken to Hasbro Children’s Hospital with what were described as minor leg injuries. The driver was not charged. The bus drivers went on strike Thursday in a dispute with management over retirement benefits, leaving thousands of students with no way to get to class (AP)."
Looks like a suspension is warranted.
Also see:
"Dartmouth College said it will move a set of racially insensitive murals that offended Native American students to an off-campus storage facility. The four painted scenes — inspired by a college drinking song written in the 1800s — objectify Native Americans and belittle their intellect. They have been kept in a closed room in a campus dining room. The murals will still be available to faculty members who want to use them for research and teaching off-campus, the Valley News reported. Dartmouth president Phil Hanlon said that the murals are ‘‘incompatible’’ with the college’s values. Interim provost David Kotz said the murals continue to have value as teaching tools, but officials recognize they are deeply insulting to Native Americans (AP)."
Proving booze and young people just don't mix!
"The city of Springfield has agreed to pay $885,000 to settle federal civil rights lawsuits brought by four black men who alleged they were beaten by off-duty Springfield police officers outside a popular bar in 2015, and then denied justice because of a police coverup......"
Naaaah!
Related: Springfield police facing civil rights probe
"Boston police arrest suspect in shooting of 15-year-old girl in Mattapan" by Andres Picon and Alyssa Meyers Globe Correspondents September 27, 2018
Boston police arrested a Mattapan man Thursday morning on charges of shooting a 15-year-old girl in the face in July inside a store in Mattapan, police said.
Officers from the Boston Police Fugitive Unit arrested John Jackson, 24, in the Dudley Square area of Roxbury around 10:50 a.m. after a months-long investigation.
He is facing charges of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, discharging a firearm within 500 feet of a dwelling, unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, and carrying a loaded firearm, police said.
The girl’s wounds were not life threatening.
On July 17, Jackson allegedly walked into the bathroom of a store in the area of 998 Blue Hill Ave. and shot a girl in the face, police said.
“Witnesses heard a noise best described as a ‘bang’ in the bathroom and saw the 15-year-old female victim on the floor,” Boston police said in a statement.
A person who was later identified as Jackson then walked out of the store and ran down Blue Hill Avenue toward Callender Street. The girl was taken to a local hospital to be treated, police said.
Jackson was arraigned in Dorchester District Court Thursday afternoon, said Suffolk district attorney spokesman Jake Wark in an e-mail. Jackson was held on $100,000 bail.
If released, Jackson will wear a GPS and agree to a curfew of 9 p.m. the latest, Wark said.
Jackson is next scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 26.
--more--"
Related:
"Boston police are investigating the death of a man found unresponsive in a cell at a police station downtown earlier this month, according to a department spokesman. John Campbell, 45, of Revere, was found shortly after 8 a.m. on Sept. 7 in a cell at the station on Sudbury Street, said police Sergeant John Boyle. There was no indication of foul play, he said. Campbell’s death is being investigated by the Suffolk district attorney’s office and Boston police, as is standard practice when a person dies in custody, Boyle said. The cause and manner of his death are pending, as authorities await a toxicology report, Boyle said. Campbell was placed into police custody in the early afternoon of Sept. 6. He was booked for assault by means of a dangerous weapon, a knife, said Boyle."
Never a good look for the police.
"A man was fatally shot in Mattapan Square Thursday night, the 39th slaying in the city this year, police said. Police responded to 1651 Blue Hill Ave., the heart of the neighborhood, shortly before 8:50 p.m., said Boston police Sergeant John Boyle. The victim was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Boyle said. Police cordoned off a section of the avenue that included a pizza shop, a liquor store, a clothing store, two law offices, and an ATM. Forming a line, least 15 officers with flashlights swept the sidewalk and the half of Blue Hill Avenue that was closed to vehicles with flashlights. No further information as available late Thursday night."
One less problem in the world then.
Also see:
Jamaica Plain store owner replaces bulletproof glass after daylight shooting
Former Mafia don ‘Cadillac Frank’ Salemme files appeal in mob slaying
Vermont man linked to relatives’ deaths wants aunt out as executor
Forbes Under 30 Summit brings big names to Boston next week
Time to head back to the bar:
Manchester, N.H., man allegedly gnaws off part of bouncer’s finger during altercation at local bar
They kicked him out and while he was stumbling home:
Boston man who allegedly defiled flags in Somerville cemetery surrenders
Aaaaaaaaaaaah.
The dyed hair is a sign of mind control, and at least he didn't take a shit.
"Construction of Hanson home for disabled veteran will continue after vandalism" by Travis Andersen Globe Staff September 27, 2018
A veterans charity is forging ahead with plans to build a new home in Hanson for an Army corporal who lost portions of his arm and leg during a combat tour in Iraq, after two juveniles allegedly vandalized the house under construction and caused more than $50,000 in damage.
In a statement posted to Facebook on Wednesday, the nonprofit building the house for Corporal Paul Skarinka and his family thanked Hanson police for apprehending the two suspects Monday night.
“We are of course very upset that this happened, and it’s unfortunate that this incident will cost the foundation time and money but the local community in Hanson has been nothing short of fantastic throughout this entire process,” said the charity, Jared Allen’s Homes for Wounded Warriors, in the posting. “With the help of our amazing partners we will put the pieces back together and get the Skarinka family into their new mortgage-free, handicap-accessible home, in time for the holidays.”
In a separate release, Hanson Police Chief Michael Miksch said the vandalism, which wrecked installed lighting, 24 windows, and three doors, was disheartening. “When a veteran and his family, who have sacrificed so much for our country, become the victim of a senseless crime it hurts us all,” Miksch said.
Does that mean if it were to happen to a civilian it wouldn't hurt as much?
In addition to the Jared Allen’s Homes group, the New England Carpenters Training Fund and Commodore Builders are also providing funds for the project, Hanson police said.
According to the fund-raising appeal, Skarinka “was eight months into his first tour of duty with the US Army when his unit came under enemy fire in Sadr City, just outside of Baghdad.”
I still hold George W. Bush responsible.
The appeal also detailed Skarinka’s injuries.
He “suffered a severed artery and serious damage to his left arm and leg in a rocket-propelled grenade explosion,” the posting said. “After 22 surgeries which included amputation of his left leg below the knee and partial amputation of his left arm, his battle injuries remain a daily issue.”
The appeal says Skarinka and his wife currently own another home, but that residence is “not handicap accessible or conducive to his needs as a recent amputee. There are many stairs and the home is not suitable for wheelchair use. The only shower, which is not handicap accessible, is also located upstairs.”
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Time for me to cut down on blogging.
