What’s interesting in the news today?

1. First up today, a good news story. But it raises some questions as well. If he was aware, how many others in a similar situation are as well? I can’t help but think of Terri Schiavo.

From TheDailyMail  “Martin Pistorius was a happy, healthy boy – until at the age of 12 a mystery illness left him in a virtual coma. Doctors never found the cause of his condition – even his mother gave up hope.”

“My mind began to awaken at about the age of 16. By 19 it was fully intact: I knew who I was and where I was, and understood I’d been robbed of a real life.

I was completely entombed. At first I wanted to fight my fate by leaving some tiny sign to guide people back to me, like the crumbs Hansel and Gretel left to help find their way out of the woods. But my efforts were never enough.

Have you ever seen one of those movies in which someone wakes up as a ghost but they don’t know that they’ve died? That’s how it was, as I realised people were looking through and around me.

However much I tried to beg and plead, shout and scream, I couldn’t make them notice me.

My mind was trapped inside a useless body, my arms and legs weren’t mine to control and my voice was mute. I couldn’t make a sign or a sound to let anyone know I’d become aware again. I was invisible – the ghost boy.”

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2. Boko Haram has tried expanding their territory, and thankfully failed.

From MSN/TheAP  “Cameroon’s government said Tuesday that its military killed 143 militants from the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram, which has been waging war in neighboring Nigeria.

In a statement carried on state television, authorities said hundreds of militants had attacked a Cameroonian military camp in Kolofata the day before after crossing the border from Nigeria.

The fight lasted five hours and left 143 of the militants dead, Cameroonian Information Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary said in the statement.

“It is by far the heaviest toll sustained by the criminal sect Boko Haram since it began launching its barbaric attacks against our land, people and goods,” he said.”

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3. Some uncomfortable truths, and good questions.

From TheAtlantic  “As many as a million people, joined by 40 world leaders, filled the streets of Paris on Sunday in solidarity after two separate terrorist attacks claimed 17 innocent lives last week. The day before, more than 3,000 miles to the south, a girl believed to be around 10 approached the entrance to a crowded market in Maiduguri, a city of some 1 million in Nigeria’s Borno State. As a security guard inspected her, the girl detonated explosives strapped to her body, killing herself and at least 19 others. Dozens more were injured.

Saturday’s suicide bombing elicited little coverage compared to the events in Paris, which have dominated headlines since last Wednesday’s attack on Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper. Why the slaughter of 17 innocents in France receives more attention than the death of roughly the same number of Nigerians is the kind of question that can result in accusations of indifference, racism, and media bias. But the contrast between the attacks in Paris and the suicide bombing in Maiduguri actually reveals something far more sinister: the ravages of state failure.

Boko Haram is waging a ruthless war throughout northeast Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. On Wednesday, Boko Haram militants laid siege to Baga, a city that has resisted them, setting fire to buildings and killing residents indiscriminately. Hundreds of people fled into Lake Chad and attempted to swim to a nearby island. Many drowned along the way. Those who didn’t are now marooned without food and shelter and have no defense against the island’s swarm of malarial mosquitos. The death toll in Baga reportedly exceeds 2,000. Some 20,000 others are now displaced.

The New York Times story on this deadly siege appeared on page A6 of Saturday’s print edition, while the paper’s story of the suicide bombing landed on page A8.

How did the attacks in France so thoroughly bury the atrocities in Nigeria?”

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4. Something to consider if you have tech savvy little ones.

From Forbes  “Most parents would be concerned if their children had significant exposure to lead, chloroform, gasoline fumes, or the pesticide DDT.  The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IRIC), part of the United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO), classifies these and more than 250 other agents as Class 2B Carcinogens – possibly carcinogenic to humans.  Another entry on that same list is radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF/EMF).  The main sources of RF/EMF are radios, televisions, microwave ovens, cell phones, and Wi-Fi devices.

Uh-oh. Not another diatribe about the dangers of our modern communication systems?  Obviously, these devices and the resulting fields are extremely (and increasingly) common in modern society.  Even if we want to, we can’t eliminate our exposure, or our children’s, to RF/EMF.  But, we may need to limit that exposure, when possible.

That was among the conclusions of a report published in the Journal of Microscopy and Ultrastructure entitled “Why children absorb more microwave radiation than adults: The consequences.”  From an analysis of others studies, the authors argue that children and adolescents are at considerable risk from devices that radiate microwaves (and that adults are at a lower, but still significant, risk).”

For more on the specifics, just click the link.

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5. Never let a crisis go to waste, eh Barry?

From TheGuardian  “Barack Obama unveiled new cybersecurity measures on Tuesday amid warnings from privacy campaigners about unnecessarily “broad legal immunity” that could put personal information at risk in the wake of attacks like the Sony Pictures hack.

Just one day after the Pentagon’s own Twitter account was compromised and Obama pushed a 30-day window for consumer security breaches, his administration was hoping the proposed legislation would toughen the response of the private sector by allowing companies to share information with government agencies including the NSA, with which the White House admitted there were “overlapping issues”.

“I’ve got a State of the Union next week,” Obama said after a Tuesday meeting with Republican leaders at the White House. “One of the things we’re going to be talking about is cybersecurity. With the Sony attack that took place, with the Twitter account that was hacked by Islamist jihadist sympathizers yesterday, it just goes to show much more work we need to do both public and private sector to strengthen our cybersecurity.”

The administration believes the legislation is necessary partly to give companies legal immunity for sharing information on attacks so that counter-measures can be coordinated, but the White House has stepped back from suggestions that companies should be allowed to individually retaliate against hackers, fearing such encouragement could lead to an escalation of cyber warfare.”

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6. How can you address the problem when you can’t even admit what the problem is?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=isM6kkNhdLs

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