dropfoot

Today’s piece of historic erotic art is a Roman winged cock pendant from 200-300 AD. This was a talisman for the Roman god Mutinus (better known by his Greek name Priapus) who was invoked by women seeking to bare children. 

REFERENCE / FURTHER READING 

Friends and family sobbed and gasped with horror Monday as they heard graphic details about how five young people at a house party were slain by a man who believed he was killing Medusas and werewolves for the son of God.

Matthew de Grood, 24, admitted in an agreed statement of facts read at the start of his first-degree murder trial that he stabbed his victims. But court heard he told police he didn’t take pleasure in it.

“I stabbed people in the house,” the statement quotes de Grood as telling officers.

“I just want to say that when I stabbed them, I tried to do it mercifully. I aimed for their heart. They put up a struggle which made it hard, but, so you know, it wasn’t sadistic or anything,” he said.

“I didn’t enjoy killing at all. I said sorry, but the son of God was controlling me.”

De Grood’s lawyer, Allan Fay, pleaded not guilty on his client’s behalf. Fay told reporters he plans to argue his client was not criminally responsible for the killings.

The stabbings, in what police have called Calgary’s worst mass killing, happened at a party being held to mark the end of the university school year in April 2014.

Killed were Kaitlin Perras, 23; Lawrence Hong, 27; Josh Hunter, 23; Zackariah Rathwell, 21; and Jordan Segura, 22. Hunter, Hong and Segura all attended the University of Calgary. Perras studied at Mount Royal University and Rathwell was a student at the Alberta College of Art and Design.

Prosecutor Neil Wiberg spent more than an hour reading out the agreed statement of facts that contained details from de Grood’s interview with police. The judge also lifted a publication ban on material submitted by police to obtain search warrants.

The unsealed documents detailed how de Grood, the son of a high-ranking Calgary police officer, was “a good boy, kind and compassionate” until his personality began to change about a month before the stabbings.

Atomic weight and atomic mass are two important concepts in chemistry and physics. Many people use the terms interchangeably, but they don’t actually mean the same thing. Take a look a the difference between atomic weight and atomic mass and understand why most people are confused or don’t care about the distinction. (If you’re taking chemistry class, it could show up on a test, so pay attention!)

Atomic Mass Versus Atomic Weight

Atomic mass (ma) is the mass of an atom. A single atom has a set number of protons and neutrons, so the mass is unequivocal (won’t change) and is the sum of the number of protons and neutrons in the atom. Electrons contribute so little mass that they aren’t counted.

Atomic weight is a weighted average of the mass of all the atoms of an element, based on the abundance of isotopes. The atomic weight can change because it depends on our understanding of how much of each isotope of an element exists.

Both atomic mass and atomic weight rely on the atomic mass unit (amu), which is 1/12th the mass of an atom of carbon-12 in its ground state.

New court documents are shedding more light on the controversial use of mobile phone surveillance technology by Canadian police, the second such case to come to emerge this year.

In the new case, court documents recently filed in a Toronto court show that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) used a device commonly known as a Stingray, or IMSI catcher, during a pair of criminal investigations into organized crime in early 2014. However, lawyers for the accused have argued that police misrepresented the nature of the device when seeking permission for its use by failing to disclose its range, its ability to pinpoint the location of phones, and potential for interference with 911 calls.

In a hearing on Tuesday, the defense will seek more information about the IMSI catcher’s capabilities and operating manual, the device’s effect on non-targeted phones, and a copy of the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) between the RCMP and the device’s manufacturer.

Related: Canadian Police Obtained BlackBerry’s Global Decryption Key

Notably, crown lawyers have argued the NDA prevents the RCMP from disclosing further information about the device, its capabilities, and how it used. “This is despite the fact that the agreement in place — likely akin to the ones in place with American law enforcement agencies — is almost surely unconstitutional,” the defence lawyers write.

The existence of the highly secretive technique has been known in the US for years, but Canadian police have attempted to keep details about the technique secret. It is only in the past few months that information detailing the use of IMSI catchers by police in Canada has come to light.

An IMSI catcher works by disguising itself as a cell phone tower, and forcing all phones in its range to to disconnect from legitimate towers and connect to the imitation tower instead. Police can take advantage of this temporary connection to collect information about nearby phones, track the movements of certain devices over time, intercept communications, and even create and send messages from the target phone, depending on the model of IMSI catcher used.

Indigenous children in Canada are more than twice as likely to live in poverty than non-Aboriginal kids, according to new findings released Tuesday by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

The study, which delves into poverty rates on reserves and in the territories as measured by income, documents the dire conditions being experienced by status First Nations children, including 60 per cent of those who live on reserves.

Poverty rates are highest for First Nations kids on reserves in Manitoba at 76 per cent and Saskatchewan at 69 per cent, the study found.

The rates of poverty on-reserve worsened between 2005 and 2010, the researchers found, citing long-standing barriers such as underfunded schools and child welfare services that stand in the way of kids achieving their full potential.

Senior economist David Macdonald, who co-authored the report, said the figures clearly show deplorable rates of child poverty on reserves in Canada.

How Obese and Anorexic People React Differently to Taste

Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have discovered that women suffering from anorexia nervosa and those who are obese respond differently to taste, a finding that could lead to new treatments for the eating disorders.

The city is exploring the privatization of Toronto Hydro and the Toronto Parking Authority as Mayor John Tory searches for money to pay for better transit and more affordable housing.

Sources with knowledge of the efforts say Toronto Hydro is crafting options for privatization – working on a financial analysis, hiring consultants and conducting polling to gauge public support. The most likely scenario, the sources said, would be to sell 49 per cent or less of the utility on the stock market. Mr. Tory’s administration is monitoring the proposal and has been encouraged by the province in the past to consider it, the sources said.

The mayor’s office is also considering privatizing all or some of the 160 Green P parking lots and 17,500 on-street spaces owned by the city through the parking authority, the sources said.

These moves could net billions of badly needed dollars for infrastructure. But they are also certain to cause a political firestorm. So far, Mr. Tory has not made any final decisions and appears keen to keep some distance from the files. The mayor’s spokeswoman denied that he is actively involved in the discussions or that he supports privatization.

“There is no proposal to sell any city asset currently before the mayor, nor is there active discussion in that regard. Any suggestion otherwise is false,” Amanda Galbraith wrote in an e-mail.

However, the privatization proposals align with Mr. Tory’s goal of finding funding for his ambitious infrastructure projects. After a quiet first year in office, the mayor is determined to make progress on some big files. Transit – including his $8-billion SmartTrack rail line across the city – and social housing are at the top of the list. Mr. Tory is averse to both tax hikes and deep budget cuts.

Mr. Tory’s administration would have to overcome significant obstacles to sell the assets.

The Ontario government’s privatization of Hydro One, which began last year, has provoked a widespread backlash, with unions, the NDP and the Progressive Conservatives all running campaigns against it. And a 2008 parking privatization in Chicago caused public outrage after it led to higher parking fees.

What’s more, Mr. Tory would have to square privatization with his own previous opposition to such a move: When candidate Karen Stintz proposed selling Toronto Hydro during the 2014 mayoral campaign, Mr. Tory dismissed it as a “fire sale.”

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