Military Bases Breached: Are Pokémon Go Players Going too Far?

July 19, 2016

Pokémon Go, a mobile phone app, has taken the world by storm but are players taking it too far?

The role-playing game uses your phone’s GPS and uses your location and augmented reality to impose Pokémon characters on your screen and overlay them on top of what you see directly in front of you. “The game is centered on the concept of the Pokémon battle, similar to that of the video games,” according to Wikia. “The object of the game is to knock out six of the opponent’s Pokémon.”

The game has taken players from inside their homes and into the streets in huge numbers, all in the name of fun. But some people aren’t laughing or having fun at all with this new game phenomenon. In fact, the phenomenon is creating public safety fears including pedestrians being severely distracted and trespassing that can lead to arrests or worse.

For many gamers there seem to be no personal boundaries as to how far they will go, or onto who’s property they will tread to acquire their next fictional Pokémon character. While playing Pokémon Go a Frenchmen trespassed onto an Indonesian military base and was detained.

The 27 year old, Romain Pierre, was arrested and later let go, when authorities realized he had unintentionally trespassed unto the military base while hunting down Pokémon.

Although many believe the game could boost tourism to the city, according to The Guardian, security officials are very concerned that Pokémon could induce real security threats.

The United States is having their own issues with Pokémon Go. Safety warnings from the U.S. Military Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma, Washington, have been released after the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum saw its fair share of Pokémon Go trespassers.

“DO NOT chase Pokémon into controlled or restricted areas, office buildings, or homes on base.”

As of now, no plans by the Department of Defense have been made to impose game guidelines around the Pentagon but they are asking players to be mindful when crossing roads and parking lots saying, “It’s a good idea to look up, away from your phone and both ways before crossing streets.”

 

Wow, did the Defense Department have to remind adults to be mindful of their surroundings? A new game has suddenly seemed to make the world lose their senses.

At some point the Defense Department may step in to protect its boundaries, and others, from the carelessness actions of Pokémon players if public and military concerns continue.

It will then be Pokémon Gone, game over, in many public areas.

By Lorra B.

The Media Is Keeping Count Of Police Killings And The Government’s Tally Is Way, Way OFF

July 3, 2015

We The People: “There are some allegations and suppositions by the original author that don’t jive with the facts.”

Ah yes, just three of the racially divided Obama years.

LOL: listen to the editorializing of the talking head below as she explains why the white guy was at fault.

It seems to go without saying if one acts civilly he will be treated civilly. 

It makes no sense for thugs of any color to be out all hours of the night terrorizing people in their own neighborhoods.

Rare: by BONNIE KRISTIAN

Take a moment to let this sink in:

That’s a huge disparity. As many as one out of every two people killed by police officers every year has gone uncounted—and even if you take the highly improbable position that each and every one of those deaths was legally and morally justified, it’s troubling that our government can’t be bothered to come up with an accurate tally.

This shockingly casual approach to the value of American lives is made worse when you factor in the evident racial disparities among the deaths. The Guardian reports:

When adjusted to accurately reflect the US population, the totals indicate that black people are being killed by police at more than twice the rate of white and Hispanic or Latino people. Black people killed by police were also significantly more likely to have been unarmed. […] While 31.6% of black people killed were found to be carrying no weapon, that was true for only 16.5% of white people.

That last detail is particularly telling: Black people were killed more often by police even though, by being unarmed, they presented less of a danger to police officers, who are already safer than they have been in years.

Also important to remember: not every violent interaction with police ends in death. There are far more, like the Texas pool party incident, in which no one is killed but the citizens involved are still injured or traumatized. These cases are even more likely than officer-involved killings to go uncounted at the national level, but if other criminal justice trends hold, they also affect black people and other minorities at a disparate rate.

In this light, “it is impossible for African-Americans not to feel like their government is particularly targeting them.” And it is not hard to see why protesters feel it is necessary to declare that #BlackLivesMatter when they suffer government attacks that aren’t even deemed important enough to count.

More at Rare

Disclaimer: This article was not written by Lorra B.

Hillary Clinton’s emails reveal Cherie Blair’s keen lobbying for Qatar’s Mozah

July 2, 2015

The Guardian: (H/T Ace World News)

Email thread offer glimpse of how wife of former British prime minister used her influence to secure meeting between US secretary of state and Qatar’s first lady

At a glance the emails look like the work of a professional lobbyist. The first – sent in May 2009 to Hillary Clinton’s private email account – is marked “confidential”. It seeks to set up a meeting between the US secretary of state and another powerful woman, Sheikha Mozah, the second wife of the then emir of Qatar.

Nothing unusual about this. Until you read to the bottom and catch the name of the lobbyist-in-chief – Cherie Blair. At this point Tony Blair had left Downing Street. Over a four-month period in 2009 Cherie Blair repeatedly emails Clinton – they swap 19 emails in all – urging the then US secretary of state to carve out a space in her busy diary to meet Mozah.

The correspondence offers a tantalising glimpse of how top-level international influence works. It raises questions as to why Cherie Blair would lobby so assiduously on behalf of her “friend”, the extremely rich wife of one of the Gulf’s more conservative rulers. It would be more normal to arrange an appointment with Clinton via regular diplomatic channels. Or the US embassy in Qatar.

The emails also suggest that the relationship between Blair and Clinton is friendly and familiar, but not intimate or warm. The tone is businesslike. Both Clinton and Blair seem to divine – correctly, as it turns out – that their private exchanges might at some point be leaked. Clinton turned over her personal emails voluntarily, with the State Department releasing them this week, after a US judge intervened.

Cherie Blair dispatches her first email to Clinton on 13 May 2009, using her personal BlackBerry account. She addresses Clinton – incorrectly, with one “l”– as “Hilary”:

“You may not know but for the last four years I have been working with the Qatari’s and in particular with Sheika Moser [sic] on disability issues in Qatar and I have built up a good relationship with them.

“Sheika Moser has approached me privately saying they are keen to get their relationship with the USA on a more positive footing and she was hoping for a ’‘woman to woman’ private meeting with you. She is happy to come to Washington if you could make some time available.”

“Is this something you would be prepared to do [?].”

Blair describes Sheikha Mozah – full title Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al-Missned – as “someone who has real influence in Qatar”. She adds that their conversation would not just be about charitable issues but “would be about the US/Qatar relationship generally”.

In 2009 this relationship was good, and in no need of mediation by third parties. Qatar had sought to position itself as a bridge between Iran and the west. According to David Hartwell, a Middle East analyst, key themes included Doha’s diplomatic support for Hamas and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, at that point enjoying a fleeting upswing. All of which made Cherie Blair’s intervention “odd”, Hartwell said.

Odd or not, Blair’s approach is fruitful. Nine days later Clinton – using her unofficial account – emails back. “Cherie – So sorry I’ve been slow in responding but I’m very interested in talking…” Clinton says she would be happy to host Mozah in the US or Europe, and adds: “How do you think I should proceed? All the best, Hillary.”

On Wednesday Cherie Blair’s office said that Blair had had a relationship with Mozah for “a number of years”. They shared an interest in disability issues with Blair co-chairing a disability conference in Qatar, it said, adding: “As the email also makes clear, she was merely acting as a conduit – on a woman to woman basis – between Sheikha Mozah and Hillary Clinton.”

The answer, however, fails to explain fully why Cherie Blair pursued the subject with such keenness. At the time Tony Blair was working as Middle East envoy on behalf of the “Quartet”: the United Nations, EU, US and Russia. Cherie Blair does not refer to Blair’s role trying to broker a regional peace deal. Rather, she appears to be acting directly as a fixer for the Qatari ruling dynasty.

More at The Guardian

Disclaimer: This article was not written by Lorra B.