Society's ChildS

Cell Phone

Dumb law: "Burner phones" may require verifiable ID if California bill passes

Mobile phones
© Paulo Whitaker / Reuters
Burner phones, beloved by criminals and TV writers everywhere, could be a thing of the past if a new bill by California lawmakers passes.

The proposed law would require prepaid phone customers to register their personal details before purchasing a burner phone or SIM card.

The Closing of Prepaid Mobile Device Security Gap bill, introduced by Jonestown massacre survivor State Rep Jackie Speier, could make it harder for those hoping to communicate anonymously.

Retailers would be required to verify those details at purchase and keep a record of the details gathered.

Comment: A ridiculous piece of legislation, and it'll prove to be mostly ineffective. Anyone can buy a phone and resell it in a multitude of ways (including Craigslist, eBay, local newspaper, swap shops, etc) and sign up for service online with no ID verification required. All a person usually needs to sign up for phone service online is a working phone, an email address, and a credit card or debit card. Furthermore, most phones support WiFi, so nothing stops people from buying a used phone and using in WiFi-only mode with a variety of openly available instant messaging, chat, and voice chat phone apps in conjunction with open public WiFi hotspots.


No Entry

U.K.: City council launches campaign to stop people giving to the homeless; backlash ensues

begging sign nottingham
A local city council in the U.K. is facing severe backlash as a result of a vile campaign demonizing homelessness. Nottinghamshire City Council's #givesmart campaign was launched in March, with the aim of urging the public not to give money to people begging on the streets. Concerned that money given to those begging is used to feed addictions, the council claims to have launched the campaign to encourage the public to give their cash to homeless charities, instead.

Nottingham's council implemented the campaign by displaying a number of large posters throughout the city that contain bigoted and hateful slogans. Claiming "beggars are not what they seem," they portray a young man in a hat and photographs of cans of 'strong' lager. They contain slogans stating, "Begging: Watch Your Money Go To A Fraud," or "Begging: Watch your money go up in smoke," and even "Begging funds the misuse of drugs."

Comment: Looks like Nottingham took a page out of the Dallas P.D.'s playbook with the same result. Newsflash: Normal people react to the sight of people struggling!

Dallas PD warns people against giving money to the homeless; tactic backfires tremendously


Pistol

NYPD cop kills excited family pet in cold blood as child watches

cops_dogs
© petadviser.com
Excited by activity outside the apartment, Spike rushed out, wagging his tail eagerly to greet whoever stood on the other side of the door โ€” and was promptly executed by an NYPD officer wielding his gun.

Graphic video of the February 13th slaughter of Yvonne Rosado's beloved pit bull has now been released โ€” and it is nothing short of outrageous.

"He was a big Snuffleupagus โ€” a gentle giant," Rosado described Spike to the New York Daily News. "He was a member of the family ... He would wag his tail, letting everyone know he was friendly."

Immediately before the inexplicable shooting, Rosado had been dancing with her dog โ€” a weekly ritual in which Spike stood on his hind legs so she could hold his paws.

2 + 2 = 4

Ohio parents irate over police brutality school assignment that paints police in a bad light

Parents are raising issues with homework for middle schoolers in Hamilton City Schools that many think paints police in a bad light and skews the debate about police brutality.
Police brutality assignment
© NBC

Comment: Reality is a bit too unsettling for these parents. They should be outraged at the blatant brutality, not a teacher raising awareness of it.


The assignment, titled "Vocabulary - Police Brutality Day 4," was handed out to students at Wilson Middle School and included several new words for students to learn: brutality, merely prosecuted, excessive and minority, NBC 4reports.

According to the assignment, "The numbers don't lie; minority people (more so black than Hispanic) experience more violent arrests from police officers than do white people. "The unfortunate thing is that most police officers aren't prosecuted in cases of brutality against them; these cases rarely make it to court and the officers are acquitted of any crime," it reads.

The assignment also offered the author's, presumably the teacher's, commentary on their distorted perception of police brutality. "I don't understand how some people can use such excessive force against another person; that person has to have a lot of anger built up," the assignment read. "I have always tried to be aware of racism; every day, I merely try to be a good person and do the best I can to be fair and open minded."

Concerned parents discussed the assignment on Facebook, flagging the attention of local news outlets and district superintendent Tony Orr, who told KFOR the teacher was attempting to engage students in "critical thinking" about current events.

Orr then rambled on with a politically correct statement about assignment development and other issues that have little relevance to parents' concerns about how police brutality was portrayed by the teacher.

"We have a teacher who is given a topic, and we will continue to work will all our teachers to make sure that that yes, we want a higher level thinking - we want our kids to read and write critically, but in doing that we also need to develop our lesson plans accordingly," he said.

Alarm Clock

Taxi driver who drove Bakraouis to airport now fears for his life - more details

marco
Mostafa Beggar (left), the manager at Transports Figorifiques, with Marco, a taxi driver who helped victims at the scene of terror attacks
The taxi driver who drove the Brussels suicide bombers to the airport is now in hiding and fears for his life, friends say.

Brahim El Bakraoui and two other men ordered a taxi to take them from their hide out in the Schaerbeek district to Zaventem airport on Tuesday morning, before they committed one of the worst terrorist atrocities in Belgium's history.


Comment: The taxi driver, Kim Sengupta (of Moroccan descent), has apparently identified the other two men as Brahim's brother Khalid and Faycal Cheffou (the hatted man in the CCTV footage), who has been arrested and charged with "terrorist murders".


As soon as the driver heard about the attacks, he drove straight to a police station in central Brussels to tell the authorities every detail he could remember about the three men, including their hideout, a 5th floor apartment in Rue Max Roos.


Comment: After receiving the tip from Sengupta, police reportedly raided the apartment (No 4), where they found "an Isis flag, a bomb packed with nails and screws, detonators and enough chemicals to make 15kg of Triacetone Triperoxide (TATP), the explosive used in last November's Paris attacks."


But now the driver fears reprisals from Isis and their sympathisers for handing over such crucial information to the police.

Comment: Latest news: 5 new arrests in Brussels. Further reading: Miraculous passports and trashed laptops: What do 9/11 and the Belgian bombings have in common?


Black Cat 2

Paranoid Banks: US man's payment denied because of his dog's 'terrorist' name

dog walker
© Robert Galbraith / Reuters
Sometimes terrorists move on all fours. That's what Chase Bank apparently decided when it wouldn't clear a payment for a disabled man's dog walker. It was the dog's name that led to the payment being bounced and the Treasury Department being involved.

The nine-year-old service pitbull mongrel acts as a companion and friend to Bruce Francis of San Francisco, who has a rare form of MS and gets around by wheelchair.

According to Fox, Francis was doing his routine payment to his dog walker earlier in March, by using his online account with Chase Bank. He had filled in his dog's name into the memo line of the form. But the dog walker told Francis he hadn't got the check.

TV

1 in 3 U.K. kids spend less time outside than prison inmates

kids playing video game
We all know kids have been spending less and less time outdoors. But children's outdoor time has become so limited these days, even prisoners are shocked.

A new survey funded by laundry detergent brand Persil found 1 in 3 children in the U.K. spend less time outside than inmates in maximum security prisons.

The poll questioned more than 12,000 parents of children between the ages of 5 and 12 years old in 10 different countries. And in the U.K., researchers found almost a third of children play outside for 30 minutes or less on an average day, and 1 in 5 don't venture outdoors at all.

Now, the United Nations' standard minimum guidelines for prisoners require "at least one hour of suitable exercise in open air daily."

Comment:


Binoculars

Texas: U.S. Coast Guard attempts to intercept mini-submarine carrying $200 million in cocaine

cocaine submarine
A mini-submarine carrying more than $200 million worth of cocaine was intercepted by authorities in Texas
A mini-submarine carrying $200 million worth of cocaine was intercepted by authorities in the 'Eastern Pacific Ocean'.

Officials said they intercepted the semi-submersible vessel attempting to bring 12,800 pounds or 5.5 tons of cocaine into the US.

The cocaine was on a mini-sub called a narco-submarine, vessels made of fiberglass that are extremely hard to detect using radar and are commonly used by drug traffickers.

Because much of its structure is made of fiberglass and it travels mainly below the water surface, it is virtually impossible to detect via sonar or radar.

Bomb

Suicide bomber attack kills 26 at soccer match in Iraq

Iraqi mourners
© Haidar Hamdani/AFP/Getty Images
A suicide attacker detonated an explosive belt in a park outside Baghdad on Friday, killing 26 people and wounding 71, said the security head in Babel province where the bomb - claimed by Islamic State - went off.

The blast in Iskandariya, a mixed Sunni and Shi'ite Muslim town 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of the capital, happened around 7:15 p.m. (1615 GMT) at the end of an amateur soccer game, said Falah al-Khafaji.

Islamic State militants, who control swathes of territory in Iraq's north and west, were behind the attack, according to Amaq news agency, which is affiliated with the group

Comment:




Cow

Walmart plans own dairy processing plant to supply 600 stores

Wal-Mart Supercenter
© az204679.vo.msecnd.net
Walmart announced plans to build and operate its own dairy processing plant. The goal is to supply its own line of milk to hundreds of stores in 2017.

Walmart's dairy processing plant will be built in Indiana. The company plans on supplying around 600 Walmart and Sam's Club stores in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Northern Kentucky with Walmart-brand milk.

Tony Airoso, senior vice president of sourcing strategy for Walmart U.S., issued a statement saying the company will be able to reduce operating costs and pass the savings onto customers. This is because the store will be operating its own plan and will work directly with the dairy supply chain in the Midwest.

The move is going to take about a year to complete, and other milk producers may be impacted by it. However, one of the country's largest milk producers, Dean Foods, said Walmart's move won't hurt its sales.

According to Wane, one farmer said the only problem he'd have with Walmart's processing plant is if it receives tax breaks that smaller dairy farmers don't receive. Mark Grieshop, who owns Pasture's Delight, said he has no issue with the plant being built, as long as it's a level playing field.

Indiana is rank 14 in the nation in the production of milk, as well as ranked 2 in ice cream production. The state is also home to 21 dairy processing plants and more than 10 farmstead operations.