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Snakes in Suits

Oxfam: UK's 5 wealthiest families worth more than poorest 20 percent


RT
Tue, 18 Mar 2014 21:49 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Luke MacGregor
The combined fortunes of Britain's five richest families are worth more than the poorest 20 percent of the population, says an Oxfam report. The organization has appealed to the government to take action over the UK's widening wealth gap.

In a report published on Monday entitled "A Tale of Two Britains," the charity revealed the scope of the UK's wealth divide. It calculated that Britain's five richest families have a fortune of £28.2 billion ($46.9 billion), more than the £28.1 billion ($46.7 billion) of the poorest 20 percent of the UK population. The study also said that over the past two decades the richest 0.1 percent of the population has seen its wealth grow almost four times faster than the 90 percent of population who are considered well-off.

In real terms in means the rich have seen their income rise by £24,000 ($40,000) every year.
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Cell Phone

Ten French employees of Orange have committed suicide this year

Peter Allen
Daily Mail, UK
Wed, 19 Mar 2014 14:47 UTC
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Ten people at telecoms firm Orange France have committed suicide in the past three months, and a report says all of the deaths were 'explicitly related to work'
* Ten people at French telecoms firm commit suicide in three months

* Report says all of the deaths were 'explicitly related to work' at Orange

* Staff have complained about 'bullying culture' at Orange France

Ten people working for one of Europe's largest telecom firms in France have committed suicide in the past three months for reasons 'explicitly related' to their jobs, it emerged today.

Orange France, a company also present in the UK, is notorious for its tough approach to customer services as well as their employees.

Staff working in call centres have previously complained about a 'bullying culture' and the firm, including having to ask permission to go to the bathroom.
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Arrow Up

Massachusetts mom lies down as 'speed bump' to save daughters in rolling car

Michael Howard
Yahoo News
Wed, 19 Mar 2014 06:49 UTC
Mindy and Twins
© Mindy Tran
A Lawrence, Mass., woman says she saved the lives of her twin daughters after she used herself as a "speed bump" to stop her car from rolling into traffic.

Mindy Tran, 22, says she had been living in a shelter with twin daughters Saleen and Sydney, and that they had recently moved into their new apartment just days before the incident.

"It felt like I was starting a new life," she told ABC News today from the hospital where she is recovering from a broken leg and dislocated shoulder and hip.

"The girls had started at daycare and we just moved in. It seems like when things are going too well, something bad will happen."

Tran says she is lucky to be alive after she lay on the ground behind her Honda Accord to stop it from rolling into the street with her kids still inside. "I laid down horizontally, using my body as a speed bump to stop the car," she said.

Her 2-year-old daughters were buckled in the back seat when the car started rolling. A neighbor also came to help.

"My neighbor jumped in and he asked what I wanted them to do," she said. "I said make sure my daughter's got out of the car safely."
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Bacon

Big pig: North Carolina man fells 500-pound boar with one shot

Matthew Stucker and Steve Almasy
CNN
Fri, 14 Mar 2014 12:24 UTC

Killing a 500-plus pound boar might sound like a big deal. But for one North Carolina man, it is just how he brings home the bacon.

Jett Webb killed the massive animal last month in eastern North Carolina.When the amazing pictures of the animal and hunter recently circulated on the Internet, Webb started fielding calls from the media. Webb told CNN on Thursday that while many people were astonished by the kill, he shot a boar of a similar size two years ago.

Still, friends and family were in awe. "They were blown away. It's not every day you see something that size," Webb said. "They can't believe something that big is running around the woods of eastern North Carolina."
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Chess

No shots fired, Ukrainian soldiers walk out as Russian forces reclaim Ukraine naval HQ in Crimea


Asharq Al-Awsat
Wed, 19 Mar 2014 12:10 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Vasily Fedosenko
A Ukrainian naval officer, right, passes by armed men, believed to be Russian servicemen, as he leaves the naval headquarters in Sevastopol, March 19, 2014.
Russian troops and unarmed men stormed Ukraine's naval headquarters in the Crimean port of Sevastopol on Wednesday and raised the Russian flag in a tense but peaceful takeover that signals Moscow's intent to neutralize any armed opposition.

Russian soldiers, and so-called "self-defense" units of mainly unarmed volunteers who are supporting them across the Black Sea peninsula, moved in early in the morning and quickly took control.

Shortly after the incident, Ukraine's acting Defense Minister Ihor Tenyukh said in Kiev that the country's forces would not withdraw from Crimea even though Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a treaty to make it part of Russia.
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Padlock

18 yr old spends 13 days in Ohio jail for a pocketknife in EMT medical vest

Dave Urbanski
The Raw Story
Wed, 12 Mar 2014 11:02 UTC
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© WOIO-TV
Jordan Wiser
Enrolled in an Ohio vocational-technical school, Wiser was taking Firefighter 2 and EMT courses to bolster his dream of future public service.

"Last year, I completed the law enforcement course," the 18-year-old told The Huffington Post. "I received several certifications, including the National Terror Defense certification from FEMA, the Terror Recognition certification and (certification as an) Emergency Vehicle Operator."

Wiser also joined the Army, enrolling the Future Soldiers program, and was scheduled to ship out in August. After his planned military service, he figured he'd embark on a career as a police officer or firefighter.

But Wiser's big dreams of public service are on hold. In fact, he's now enduring a nightmare.

It all started Dec. 12 when administrators at Ashtabula County Technical and Career Campus (A-Tech) in Jefferson, Ohio - about 60 miles northeast of Cleveland - questioned Wiser after an alleged tip regarding videos uploaded to Wiser's YouTube account. Among the clips are reviews of video games and merchandise, home defense tactics, and an interview with a local police officer.
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Cloud Grey

Fatal Insanity: Gallup poll shows climate change near the bottom of things Americans worry about

Anthony Watts
Watts Up With That
Wed, 12 Mar 2014 10:03 UTC
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While some people speculate there was a climate bloviage link to the recent loss of a congressional seat in Florida, we have the name calling all nighter clownfest in the Senate last Monday.

Bjørn Lomborg writes on his Facebook page: A new survey from Gallup shows that Americans don't worry all that much about global warming.

This is very similar to the survey showing Europeans worrying a lot more about almost all other issues than global warming, https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152349665523968

This does not mean that global warming is not a problem or something that needs to be addressed. But it does indicate that politicians are vastly overhyping the discussion and likely doing us a great disservice by focusing on short-term fixes like solar and wind that have huge costs but almost no benefits.

It is also encouraging that race relations is the least important worry in the US now.
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Bad Guys

Fourteen American men arrested for operating child-abuse site through Tor


Guardian
Wed, 19 Mar 2014 07:27 UTC
Image
© Alex Wong/Getty Images
US Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson announces the results of the ‘major international operation’
Authorities have arrested 14 men in a secret, members-only child abuse website that involved 251 children, mostly boys, in the United States and five other countries, US officials said on Tuesday.

Some of the men assumed female online personas to connect with the children, who ranged in age from three to 17 years, on popular social networks, officials from the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.

The alleged US victims, who have been identified and contacted by authorities, were from 39 US states. The majority were between 13 and 15 years old and all but a handful were boys. Authorities said 23 of the 251 victims were identified in Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Belgium.
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Family

Seattle teachers boycotted standardized testing - and sparked a nationwide movement

Diane Brooks
Common Dreams
Tue, 18 Mar 2014 17:01 UTC
Image
© Betty Udesen
Kris McBride, Garfield's academic dean and testing coordinator, at left, and Jesse Hagopian, Garfield history teacher and a leader of the school's historic test boycott.
Life felt eerie for teachers at Seattle's Garfield High in the days following their unanimous declaration of rebellion last winter against standardized testing. Their historic press conference, held on a Thursday, had captured the attention of national TV and print media. But by midday Monday, they still hadn't heard a word from their own school district's leadership.

Then an email from Superintendent José Banda hit their in-boxes. Compared with a starker threat issued a week later, with warnings of 10-day unpaid suspensions, this note was softly worded. But its message was clear: a teacher boycott of the district's most-hated test - the MAP, short for Measures of Academic Progress - was intolerable.

Comment: See also: The Untold History of Modern U.S. Education

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Stock Down

Banker suicides baffle and rattle financial world

Michael Gray
NY Post
Tue, 18 Mar 2014 14:27 UTC
Image
© Shutterstock; Linkedin; Zumapress.com
From left: JPMorgan Chase's headquarters in London; Autumn Radtke, the 28-year-old First Meta CEO; the Deutsche Bank entrance on Wall Street.
The financial world has been rattled by a rash of apparent suicides, with some of the best and brightest among the finance workers who have taken their lives since the start of the year.

A majority of the eight suicides of 2014 have been very public demonstrations, which has suicide-prevention experts puzzled.

"Jumping is much less common as a method for suicide in general, so I am struck by the number that have occurred in recent months in this industry," said Dr. Christine Moutier, chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Moutier also discounts the location of the act as being the driver behind the reason for the suicide.

"The suicide-research literature doesn't help very much with the question of why the method of these suicides is so out in the open," she added.
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