Monday, November 12, 2018

Toronto criminologist has the world’s most comprehensive database on what makes serial killers tick

“What I’ve learned from organizations that work most effectively is very clear communication; clear guidance about where the organization or the department is going. Share information, give clear direction.”
— Vivian Schiller, CEO of Civil Foundation

Wars over fish increasingly likely as countries use military force to protect ‘critical commodity’ Australian Broadcasting Corporation News


In their own words: Centrelink staff reveal contractor woes

Hot-desking could arrive at another Tax Office building as union fumes 
Premier's pick Felicity Wilson faces defeat in North Shore preselection


Roger Rogerson wanted 'ten million and a jet,' jury hearsRoger Rogerson wanted 'ten million and a jet,' jury hears


When Roger Rogerson was offered between $2 million and $5 million to “deliver a message,” his response was that he wanted ten million and a jet to fly him to Cooma jail to discuss the business on offer.


The UK Government's new commission on architectural design will be chaired by a philosopher— Roger Scruton. In related news, Leon Kass has been appointed Secretary of Ice Cream

Here's a search engine for all you boffins andeggheads that makes it easier to learn science Microsoft co-founder's gift from beyond the grave







Beijing's secret plot to infiltrate UN used Australian insider


Why Would You Write A Book Only For The Future? No On Alive Now Will Read It)


 “When you write a book you have the faith that it will reach out to someone else, to someone who is different from you and it will connect us. That you will be able to transcend the boundaries of the self, that was given to you at birth, that you will be able to touch someone else’s reality.” Yet in 96 years, when the seedlings become trees and the trees are sacrificed to the written word, it is impossible to know whose reality they will touch.


Smithsonian Magazine, November 2018 – Two newly translated diaries by young women murdered in the Holocaust cry out to us about the evils of the past and the dangers of the present: “Never forget. That has always been the idea behind teaching the Holocaust in schools and listening to eyewitness accounts. But as we mark the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht this month and the youngest Holocaust survivors enter their ninth decade, the world is showing dangerous signs of memory loss. In the United States, the number of neo-Nazi groups has been rising, from 99 in 2017 to 122 in 2018, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Fascist groups are brazenly gathering and scoring political victories across Europe, from France and Hungary to Poland and, incredibly, Italy and Germany. Just last year a far-right German politician attacked the very premise of Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, saying, “This laughable policy of coming to terms with the past is crippling us.” We at Smithsonian profoundly disagree. The work of coming to terms with the past and connecting it to the present is essential. The five stories that follow are about recovering lost history and understanding what happens when innocent young people are caught in the machinery of hatred and war.

Our main story is by Renia Spiegel, a spirited Polish teenager who spent her last days hiding from the Nazis. Her gift to us today is her journal, an eloquent account of a young woman’s consciousness blossoming in the midst of unimagined evil. Three-quarters of a century later, Smithsonian has translated her diary into English for the first time and drawn from the whole text to present her voice, her aspirations, her vivid observations, her rich emotional life. It’s a vital new contribution to our collective memory of the historic tragedy that the world seems on the verge of forgetting…” 


Chinese-style ‘digital authoritarianism’ grows globally: study France 24


TSA gives green light to test new technology that can screen passengers from 25 feet away LA Times


Wilfred Owen – A Poet Who Wrote the Great War’s Epitaph Even as It Was Writing His The Wire . One hundred years ago ... Wilfred Owen fell to German machine gun fire. His mother received the news one week later, as bells pealed to celebrate the war’s end.

Jon Bakija (Williams College) presents Would a Bigger Government Hurt the Economy?, in How Big Should Our Government Be? (University of California Press 2016) (with Lane Kenworthy (UC-San Diego), Peter Lindert (UC-Davis) & Jeff Madrick (Bernard L. Schwartz Rediscovering Government Initiative, Century Foundation)) at Pennsylvania today as part of its Tax Law and Policy Workshop Series hosted by Michael Knoll, Chris Sanchirico, and Reed Shuldiner

Medium – Meet the Serial-Killer Whisperer. This woman has the world’s most comprehensive database on what makes serial killers tick
“Reid, a 30-year-old criminologist and developmental psychologist who’s finishing her PhD at the University of Toronto, has been collecting information on missing persons for more than two years. She’s amassed an in-depth database of thousands of them — drawing from official Search and Rescue (SAR) reports, the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) database, collecting tips from crime-beat journalists as well as from friends and family of those missing — in order to obtain the age, ethnicity, demographic, and geographical information of victims. For some of this data collection, she’s delegated research responsibilities to 13 volunteer undergraduates at the University of Toronto. Often, she cross-references this database with another database that she’s been working on for closer to four years — her “serial killer” database — which includes up to 600 variables on the behavioral and psychological development of every known serial killer since the fifteenth century, making it the most complete database on the developmental traits of serial killers in existence…”