Good news/kindness only (please) thread

[O Really]

I found the story a bit strange, particularly given the amount of time she was gone. She seemed relatively unharmed and had apparently been fed. So since there was no attempt at ransom, one has to wonder what the motivation for the abduction was.

[Mr.B]

Although a different situation, I think back of the Susan Smith story...a Black man with a gun.

[Mr.B]

Missing California Mom found alive

"My take.... 2 women with a gun? An indescribable SUV? Restrained, but able to make it to safety? My guess is she went on a fling and the possibly invented story just ain't gonna hold water...I'm hope I'm wrong."

I found the story a bit strange, particularly given the amount of time she was gone. She seemed relatively unharmed and had apparently been fed. So since there was no attempt at ransom, one has to wonder what the motivation for the abduction was.

May the Lord forgive me! I was wrong; so wrong!

That poor woman was beaten, her beautiful hair chopped off, and she was burned and branded!
What possesses someone to do such cruelty to another human being...

I feel so sorry for her and her family; and, I feel so humiliated and ashamed of my judgment of her...

[O Really]

If they'd given out accurate information to start with, a lot of us wouldn't have found it looking so suspicious.

[Mr.B]

Yeah, I know.

Nowadays, they don't say anything for fear of "tainting" a case. Some defense attorney could have a field day with that.

[Mr.B]

[Vrede too]

FYI, guys:
ABC's 20/20 tonight, Friday, 2200.
"A conversation with Keith Papini, husband of the California mom who disappeared on Nov. 2, 2016, and was later found bound and injured 150 miles from her home."

I'll probably wait until there are more facts about the who, what and why of what happened.

[Mr.B]

Thanks.

[Mr.B]

I watched it. Turns out, ABC's build-up for the show was fluff. In all that was said and shown, the only thing I didn't know already was the part about the private investigator. I can understand the young man's desire for privacy, but why get on TV?

When it was first announced she had been found and her captors were Hispanic, it was said that a possible motive for her kidnapping was the fact that she had posted some derogatory(?) or inflaming remarks about immigration on one of the social media sites. I've not heard anything more about that.

I hope the culprits are caught; like the rest of the world, I want to know why.

In the meantime, I wish her a speedy recovery.

[Vrede too]

Cleaner in Saudi Arabia showered with gifts after social media mockery

[Mr.B]

[rstrong]

The Medium: 99 Reasons 2016 Was a Good Year

Read this.

[rstrong]

Vox.com: It may have seemed like the world fell apart in 2016. Steven Pinker is here to tell you it didn’t.

Look at history and data, not headlines. The world continues to improve in just about every way. Extreme poverty, child mortality, illiteracy, and global inequality are at historic lows; vaccinations, basic education, including girls, and democracy are at all-time highs.

War deaths have risen since 2011 because of the Syrian civil war, but are a fraction of the levels of the 1950s through the early 1990s, when megadeath wars and genocides raged all over the world. Colombia’s peace deal marks the end of the last war in the Western Hemisphere, and the last remnant of the Cold War. Homicide rates in the world are falling, and the rate in United States is lower than at any time between 1966 and 2009. Outside of war zones, terrorist deaths are far lower than they were in the heyday of the Weathermen, IRA, and Red Brigades.

[rstrong]

Jalopnik: Tesla's Gigafactory Is Now Actively Cranking Out Batteries

There are not enough lithium-ion batteries being produced anywhere across the world for Tesla to meet its Model 3 sales goal of 500,000 vehicles by next year, let alone the models from other companies. The Gigafactory is a big step towards fixing that, while lowering the cost.

The batteries will also be used for solar roof installations, etc.

There’s also a political upshot here: the incoming president has routinely blasted automakers for producing cars overseas. That’s not the case with Tesla. Bloomberg reports that roughly 95 percent of the Model 3's components will be made in the U.S., and a majority of the company’s employees are based in the country.

[Vrede too]

The Medium: 99 Reasons 2016 Was a Good Year

Read this.

US Cons: 99 Reasons 2016 Was a Terrible Year

[Vrede too]

7-year-old boy shares his favorite foods to help needy families
Young boy and his family asked people to donate foods popular with kids such as mac-and-cheese and pancakes to families in need.



http://macandcheeseandpancakes.com/

[Vrede too]

Clerk catches toddler falling off counter
Feb 17, 2017

Surveillance video shows an employee at a Texas indoor skydiving centre saving a toddler from a nasty fall with a one-handed catch.

"skydiving" I love his mugging for the camera at the end.

[Vrede too]

Could maaaybe be fake, but still . . .



They Gave A Homeless Man A Pizza, see what happens next.

[Mr.B]

[Vrede too]

Meet The Man Who Stopped Thousands Of People Becoming HIV-Positive
“I knew I was doing something of substance, but it’s really overwhelming.” In an exclusive interview with BuzzFeed News, Greg Owen reveals the story behind Britain’s largest ever drop in HIV transmissions.

A few days before Christmas 2016, a phone call took place that no one could have predicted.

One of the world’s most esteemed HIV doctors, Professor Sheena McCormack – whose life’s work as an epidemiologist has been to track and fight the virus – picked up the phone to deliver a message that would make headline news: In the space of 12 months, the number of gay men in London being diagnosed with HIV had dropped by 40%. Across England it was down by a third.

No British doctor has been able to report a fall this steep in more than 35 years of the virus. It is the kind of figure that in medical circles is so large as to look jarring, even false; and yet it was true.

Behind this story lay a series of secret meetings and a network of people with one man at the centre who, unknown to the public, helped change medical history. His name is Greg Owen. He was the man McCormack phoned. Today his story is told in full for the first time....

The man McCormack credited with this unprecedented reduction in HIV transmissions was not a fellow doctor, nor the head of a charity, nor even a politician. Owen is unemployed, a former sex worker, and homeless....