Mediaboss Marketing

It can feel like there are two Dallases these days: the physical one in which we drive around, go to work, eat our food, and go to sleep each night; and the one that exists on Facebook. Facebook Dallas is a tiny microcosm of the broader internet culture, and so it is typically a bit more fever-pitched, hyper-reactionary, conspiratorial, and vicious than physical Dallas. It is the place where seeming level-headed discourse rears off suddenly into incomprehensible discourses on the morality of state executions of the perpetrators of Target muggings, or where Dallas politics are run by a kleptocratic Illuminati, and things like that.

But just as the collective brain we call the internet spawned Pepe the Frog and Cash me Outside, Dallas Internet serves up its own brand of off-color humor. And so, behold: the Dallas Ebola National Monument.

The page, which seems to have only existed for about a week, has a tagline: Who Remembers? We do. The conceit is an imaginary and massive artistic undertaking: plans for a campus-sized sculptural monument that commemorates Dallas role in stopping the spread of Ebola into the United States. (Remember that? We do.) The joke is that the monument is really a commemoration of everything inept and idiotic about Dallas government. The unstated subtext is that Dallas is truly world class when it is at the center of some kind of national tragedy. Heres a taste that, intentionally or not, carries a whiff of Borges:

The moment you have been waiting for has arrived. It is time to unveil one of the most important monuments to be part of Dallas Ebola National Memorial at Dallas Ebola National Monument Towne Center:

The A.C. Gonzales Cenotaph, also known as the#AC400Monument of Learning!

Plano sculptor Lynda Caucasian crafted this cenotaph to symbolize empty library shelves, because it is impossible to commit to writing all the important lessons AC taught Dallas, as there are so many. Theempty bookshelves dually represent the vacancy in the hearts and minds of Dallas without AC as City Manager, as well as the vacancy of competence that was AC Gonzales.

Hardy har. Its all pretty corny, but its Dallas-specific corniness. Much of the satire is directed at southern Dallas council members, and there are some jabs at tepid, white bread public art and the culture of officialdom that spawns it. At times, its almost funny (the Dallas Parks and Recreation And Spreading RoundUp Department), other times its borderline offensive. But then, that about sums up the internet. Now Dallas has its very own silly, diversional manifestation of a broader contemporary inclination to shrink from the shock of the present via mockery.

Originally posted here:
The Dallas Ebola National Monument Is the City's Newest Internet Inside Joke - D Magazine

GREENSBORO, North Carolina

In an innovative move to attract people interested in becoming crime scene investigators, the Greensboro Police Department is launching a 16-week CSI academy to train new hires on the fundamentals of the profession.

The impetus for the academy arose from a need to fill an increasing number of CSI vacancies, along with the desire to develop skills in people who want to be CSI.

Under the CSI Academy program, GPD is accepting applications now through August 28 for motivated people with an associate's degree or high school diploma/GED. The applicant must also have 1-3 years of local, state, or federal government experience.

We are looking for 10-15 energetic people who are detail-oriented, eager to learn, and naturally inquisitive, explained Kelly Tranter, Director of the Forensic Services Division.

Applicants selected for employment will then receive four weeks of classroom training in the core skills required of a CSI. Topics include: crime scene/evidence documentation protocol, forensic photography/videography, scene diagramming, report writing, testifying in court, etc.

Then, employees will receive 12 weeks of field training with certified CSIs. Investigators. Upon demonstrating proficiency in all the skills, the newly-minted CSIs may begin responding to scenes to identify, gather, and process evidence.

Crime scene investigation is a very popular career field, said Tranter. And it is growing. We must keep up with the demand for field investigators. Our current CSIs are experienced and well-respected in their disciplines. We have all the talent and resources at our fingertips to train a new group of CSI. The Academy is a win-win situation.

CSI coverage is provided throughout the city 24/7. Duty shifts are normally 10-12 hours per day, approximately 40 hours per week. The full salary range for this position is $33,918 to $56,530. The starting salary is fixed at $36,179.

People interested in this opportunity may apply at: https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/greensboronc

See the rest here:
Greensboro Police Department launches CSI Academy to fill vacancies - WXII The Triad

Within the European Union, Romania and Bulgaria have the highest shares of first children births to teenage mothers. In 2015, a total of 12.3 percent of all births of first children in Romania were part of this category. With 11.9 percent, that value is very high in Bulgaria as well.

According to Eurostat, Hungary is next, with 9.0 percent. In comparison, the share of first births to teenage mothers in Italy is only 1.2 percent, in The Netherlands and Slovenia it is 1.3 percent.

In all of the European Union, 47 percent of women gave birth to their first child, when they were between 20 and 29 years old, while 45 percent of first-time mothers were in their thirties, Eurostat said today. All of this applies to 2015.

There were 93,000 births of first children to teenagers in all of the E.U., and 87,000 to women aged 40 or older. Most of the latter cases were registered in Italy and Spain. In those two countries, but also in Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg and Portugal, there were more first births to women in their thirties, than to those in their twenties, as opposed to all other E.U. countries.

On average, women in E.U. countries, who gave birth to their first child, were 29 years old.

comments

See original here:
European Union: Most teenage mothers in Romania and Bulgaria - The Sofia Globe

European Union countries have begun the process of sending migrants who arrived over the last five months via Greece back there to have their asylum applications assessed, resuming a practice that was suspended as Greece struggled to cope with a massive refugee influx.

EU rules oblige migrants to apply for asylum in the country they first entered. But the requirement was put on hold as hundreds of thousands of people, many of them Syrian refugees, reached Greece on boats from Turkey in 2015.

The EU's executive arm recommended in December that member countries gradually resume sending unauthorized migrants who arrived after March 15 back to Greece, which often is the first point of entry to the 28-nation EU.

Some countries have requested permission from Greece to return such people, but none have been transferred since mid-March, Greek officials say.

"Greece has to give assurances that they have adequate reception conditions," European Commission spokeswoman Tove Ernst said Tuesday, adding that the country's services for migrants, overwhelmed a year ago, had improved to the point that the commission felt comfortable making its non-binding recommendation for transfers to resume.

Greece's asylum service says it has received requests to accept more than 400 returned migrants. Seven people, most of them Syrian nationals, have been accepted so far.

A spokesman for the German Interior Ministry confirmed Tuesday that Berlin has asked Athens to take back 392 asylum-seekers.

"So far, no transfers to Greece have taken place yet," Johannes Dimroth told The Associated Press. "However, I can tell you that to date the confirmation from Greek authorities has been received in three cases."

The Greek asylum office put the German request number at 354 asylum seekers.

Austria, Belgium, Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and non-EU countries Norway and Switzerland have also asked to transfer smaller numbers, according to the asylum service.

Greece's migration minister said the returns would involve "tiny numbers."

"We will accept a few dozen people in coming months," Ioannis Mouzalas told private Skai TV Tuesday. "This will be done provided we have the proper conditions to receive them."

Mouzalas said it was a "symbolic move" dictated by Greece's EU obligations.

He added that Greece's EU partners so far have taken in more than 30,000 refugees and migrants under relocation and family reunion programs.

Greece's asylum service said the refugees and migrants returned to Greece under the rules known as the Dublin agreement would be housed in rented accommodations or camps on the mainland. They also will have the option of seeking asylum in Greece, the service said.

Dimroth said it wasn't possible to say when the deportations from Germany would take place, or how many people the country ultimately would seek to send back to Greece. He said it depends on the number of people who request asylum in Germany and fulfill the conditions to receive it.

The number likely to be sent to Greece represents only a tiny fraction of the total number of migrants required to leave Germany.

Germany deported a total of 3,085 people to EU member states Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein in accordance with the Dublin agreement during the period Jan. 1 to June 30 this year. The figure for the same period last year was 1,758.

Under a September 2015 agreement, EU countries committed to take in 160,000 migrants from overburdened Greece and Italy over two years. Fewer than 30,000 people have relocated a month before the scheme expires.

The European Commission is encouraging EU nations "to show solidarity with Greece, in particular by continuing to fulfil their relocation commitments."

Costas Kantouris reported from Thessaloniki, Greece. Frank Jordans and David Rising in Berlin contributed.

Read the original post:
EU nations start process of returning migrants to Greece - ABC News

A video clip shows a coastguard ship travelling slowly in the Mediterranean Sea, off the North African coast.

What sounds like gun fire can then be heard twice in the footage.

The video was published on Twitter by humanitarian organisation MSF and Proactiva Open Arms, a non-governmental organisation from Spain.

The Barcelona-based NGO aims to rescue refugees from the sea that arrive in Europe fleeing wars, persecution or poverty.

TWITTER

Video of Libyan coast guard firing warning shots at Proactiva

Zach Campbell, Barcelona-based freelance jorunalist

The group also re-tweeted Zach Campbell, a freelance journalist from Barcelona, who said the coastguards were being trained and were having gear supplied to by Europe.

He said: Video of Libyan coast guard firing warning shots atProactiva@openarms_fund. The same CG that Europe is training and supplying gear to.

Meanwhile, Proactiva Open Arms said on Tuesday that one of its boats had been barred by Italy and Malta from disembarking migrants rescued two days ago, according to Reuters.

Humanitarian groups have played a growing role in rescuing migrants who pay criminal gangs for passage from Libya.

TWITTER

EXPRESS

1 of 21

Nearly 1,000 migrants leave Libya bound for Europe in just 24 hours

This has led to accusations in Italy that they are facilitating people smuggling and encouraging migration, something which the groups deny.

It was not clear why the Golfo Azzurro, run by Barcelona-based Proactiva Open Arms, was not allowed to dock in Lampedusa. It is now in international waters.

The Italiancoastguardcould not be reached for comment.

European states have squabbled over how to deal with the flow of more than 600,000 migrants to Italy since 2014.

Italy has said the European Union has not given it enough help.

Go here to read the rest:
WATCH: Shocking clip of EU-trained Libyan coastguards 'shooting' at NGO workers - Express.co.uk