Society's ChildS


Horse

'That's horse hockey!': FBI can already unlock iPhone without Apple's help - Snowden

Snowden
© Vincent Kessler / ReutersFormer U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said that the FBI's claim to need Apple to unlock the iPhone a San Bernardino shooter is a sham.

The FBI says that only Apple has the ability to crack the work phone left behind by the San Bernardino terrorists, and last month convinced a federal judge to compel the tech giant to write a custom operating system with intentionally weakened security mechanisms. Apple is refusing to do so, and said that it is willing to take the fight to the Supreme Court.

Comment: See more: The FBI looks silly now — video shows how anyone can unlock an iPhone in 45 seconds


Magnify

Families of MH17 victims frustrated by lack of details from Dutch authorities investigating crash

MH17 crash
© Maxim Zmeyev / ReutersEmergencies Ministry members walk at the site of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash, MH17, near the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region, July 17, 2014
Relatives of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 victims were briefed by the Dutch authorities on Monday on the course of the criminal investigation into the crash. Despite calls to disclose data, prosecutors declined to reveal any details on the ongoing probe.

"It is difficult and complicated that we cannot yet share as much information as we deal with," Fred Westerbeke, the chief Dutch prosecutor investigating the downing of flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine told a press conference on Monday, adding that giving away too much information "could jeopardize the investigation."

Commenting on the much-awaited results of the probe, Westerbeke declined to announce an exact completion date, but promised to finish "as quickly as possible, if only because of the frustration among the families."

A team of 80 policemen operating in Netherlands and Ukraine are currently working on the investigation full time, said Wilbert Paulissen, the head of the Dutch National Crime Squad. In trying to explain why it has taken so much time to come to any definitive conclusions, he said that the investigation involved questioning more than one hundred witnesses and in-depth research into the capabilities of missile systems.


Ambulance

Huge gas explosion in Seattle levels two buildings and blows out windows half a block away

firefighter
© Jonathan Alcorn / Reuters
Nine firefighters were hurt after a natural gas explosion leveled two buildings in a Seattle neighborhood. The explosion could be heard for miles from the site of the blast.

The explosion occurred around 1:45am Pacific time on Wednesday morning in the northern Greenwood neighborhood after fire crews responded to calls of a natural gas leak made 40 minutes earlier. The Seattle Fire Department said that eight firefighters and a battalion chief were taken to the hospital after sustaining minor injuries from a "massive explosion."

The department said that 67 firefighters, commanders and medics were at the scene. Puget Sound Energy spokesperson Andy Wappler said that it shut down control valves that feed gas to the area where the explosion happened. He said there was no reason to believe there were other leaks to worry about, KING reported.

Pirates

Denver police using assets stolen from citizens to pay for public outreach campaign

civil asset forfeiture
A couple of years ago, the Denver Police Department (DPD) was under fire for a spate of excessive force complaints. They wanted to change their image, so they began a massive public relations campaign, ramping up spending from $599 in 2011 to $136,783 in 2013.

The "media affairs unit" is made up of very well-paid employees who push their message in social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Last year the DPD spent $450,000 on six employees in the media team, which is far more than six cops on the beat would make.

However, an investigation by Denver7 ABC found that the DPD has been using funds derived from civil asset forfeiture to pay for much of this propaganda campaign. This may constitute a violation of policy, as those funds are only supposed to be used for equipment and training.
"According to the report more than $120,000 from that fund was used to buy equipment for DPD's media relations unit, including an Apple desktop editing system, a MacBook Pro computer and even spent $22,000 developing an app for iPhone and Android."
That's not all. They spent $2,460 to pay for entries into a local Emmy competition. The funds for this bizarre act were requested under "police training," even though there were no seminars or instructional time.

Comment:


Eye 1

FBI orders teachers to report students who question the government

FBI spying
© inthesetimes.com
New federal guidelines have just been introduced across the country, and what they mandate is quite disturbing to civil libertarians. The FBI has now instructed high schools across the nation to report students who in any way criticize government policies and what the report phrases as "western corruption."

The FBI is interested in determining - as part of some warped "pre-crime" program - who might become potential future terrorists.

The FBI warns in the report that that "anarchist extremists" are no different that ISIS terrorists.

They further caution teachers against young people who are poor, as well as immigrants and others who travel to "suspicious" countries. These, they explain, are teens who are more likely to commit terrorism.

Dollars

Sad state of affairs: College students resorting to prostitution to cover tuition

college students
© AFP Photo / Timothy A. Clary
There's no doubt that the cost of college is one of the biggest issues in America today. Hell, it practically fueled the Occupy movement in 2011, and it has helped propel Bernie Sanders to the national spotlight. You may not agree with either of those movements, but they do reveal how much anger and frustration there is over the cost of tuition.

This is no small matter. We have an entire generation of young adults who followed the rules, and it practically ruined their lives. They were told that going to college was the only way they would amount to anything, so they did what was expected of them. And all they have to show for it is their parent's basement and a mountain of debt that can't be paid off or excused. Financially speaking, we have a lost generation on our hands that is pretty much screwed for life.

Comment: Sugar babies: Female college students are literally selling themselves to cover rising tuition costs


Star

U.S. study: Russia tops the list with highest number of female business leaders

Business woman
© IFC
Russia tops the list of countries with the highest number of female board members, says a new report by a US-based audit firm. While Baltic states show similar stats, in G7 countries some 40 percent of businesses have no women in senior positions at all.

The new report titled Women in Business was published by the firm Grant Thornton on Tuesday. It conducted its research by carrying out surveys at over 5,000 businesses in 36 countries.

In Russia, 45 percent of senior management positions are held by women, according to the report. Japan ranks lowest with only 7 percent of business executive roles held by females.

On a global scale, women are said to hold only a quarter of senior management positions. The issue of male-domination in senior management has long been on the minds of companies.

"Companies across developed nations have talked the talk on diversity in leadership for long enough," Francesca Lagerberg, a global leader for tax services at Grant Thornton International, said in a statement. "It's time to put their promises into practice and deliver results," she added.

In the US and UK, the percentage of senior positions held by women stands at 23 and 21 percent, respectively. "This poor performance seems to be at least partly a result of entrenched societal norms. In the UK and US in particular, there are still plentiful examples of a 'command and control' approach to leadership, which is not necessarily attractive to women," Francesca Lagerberg said.

The percentage of businesses today that do not have any women in senior management at all stands at 33 percent, compared to 32 percent in 2015. Unlike Eastern European countries (such as Estonia, Latvia and Poland), in which over a third of senior positions are held by women, G7 members (Canada, Germany, Italy, France, Japan, Britain and the United States) had no women in senior roles in 39 percent of the cases surveyed.

Comment: Everything Americans think they know about Russia is wrong


Better Earth

SOTT Focus: Post imperialism: A Template for a New Social Order

The 20th century was the century of ideologies and destruction. Communism entered the stage in 1917 and died almost immediately, fascism too disappeared within the concentration camps, a dozen years after its first implementation.

After the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, a single ideology was left, centered in the US empire and affecting the whole world: liberalism along with its corollary dogmas like individualism, materialism, atheism, and nihilism, have brought humanity to the brink of oblivion.

Despite their obvious pro imperial bias, every day the mainstream media provides additional proof of the utter disaster that is going on around our planet and the ongoing disintegration of individuals and societies.

Us troops
© tonyseed.wordpress.comUS troups are present in 156 countries
In previous articles I repeatedly wrote about the nefarious effects of liberalism spread by the US empire: the destruction of beauty, family, gender, identity, moral consciousness, religions, and so forth. Basically, all the features that define our very identity as humans are being systematically twisted, reversed, destroyed.

While it's a necessary exercise to be fully aware of the inanity of imperialism, it remains incomplete. To paraphrase Albert Camus, the revolted man says 'no' to the existing world but he also says yes to something else, to a better world. So, the next natural step is to propose an alternative: a new political and social model that deeply resonates with the human values we all must embrace.

This is an exercise of thought and also an exercise of hope, and there's not much to lose, because no matter how imperfect this sociopolitical model is, it's unlikely to be as destructive as its predecessors, no matter how hard we try!

The idea to write this article came from a discussion on our forum titled "Hope, fear, and the future". One of Joe Quinn's contributions in this thread brought to light a key point:
Life is about growth, but what is "life" if not the relationships we have with other people, and therefore what is growth in life but the growth of our relationships with others. But growth in what way? A combining perhaps, of those formerly unique private worlds, into something greater than the sum of the parts, something that can create or attract a new life or world by the concentration and communalization of those private realities that in themselves do not have the strength or power to do so. In addition, of course, this process would have to involve not just a shared view of reality, but rather one that resonates with an objective reality, or with the greater forces of nature aka broad-scale objective reality creation.
This idea grew further while reading Alexander Dugin's excellent work: "The fourth political theory". There are several similarities between both models. But, unlike Dugin who proposes a strategy to transition from the current liberal world to his fourth political model, we solely focus here on the specifics of our ideal world after transition. That's why our model is called "postimperialism".

Our hypothesis is that the US empire will soon collapse and may bring with it most of the planet. This global catastrophe may be due to intervention of the human and/or cosmic variety. Postimperialism proposes a model of society that could flourish after this major reset.

bilbo house
Bilbo Baggins' house in the Shire
So the task at hand was no less than figuring out the organization of an ideal society. All I could come up with was a rather naive image similar to Bilbo's village in Lord of the Rings. I was certainly aware of many shortcomings of the current system but what were the best ways to remedy it? So, as usual, sitting around the kitchen table, I began to ask about this or that point and others would suggest solutions.

I was surprised to see how much thought all of us had already given to this topic, and how much extra thinking we gave during those conversations. It suggests that indeed there's a deep craving in all of us for a better world, and that it goes beyond a mere unrealistic dream. Indeed, you will find below many very operational and concrete ideas that are definitely worth testing.

So this is the way we came up with the features of our ideal society. This is, by definition, an incomplete work that must evolve in an organic way. It's a first step aimed at planting a seed in the reader's mind and encouraging him/her to think about this ideal world. And let's face it: every great (and not-so great) achievement in this world started with an idea, a flash of imagination or inspiration that informed the process that became the foundation of its realization.

Heart - Black

ISIS uses Nazi regime tactics to train youths to become 'more lethal, brutal, better fighters'

ISIS trained child with gun
© RT
Islamic State jihadists use children, trained as soldiers, executioners and suicide bombers from an early age, to become "more lethal fighters than themselves," a major study has warned. The terrorist group is using Nazi regime tactics.

The organization focuses a large number of its efforts on indoctrinating children through an extremism-based education curriculum, and fostering them to become future terrorists. The current generation of fighters sees these children as better and more lethal fighters than themselves, because rather than being converted into radical ideologies they have been indoctrinated into these extreme values from birth, or a very young age," researchers for Quilliam, a London-based counter-extremism think tank, stated in the report, according to the Guardian.

Attention

Breaking Bad style: Mexico police find human remains stacked in acid barrels

barrels of acid
© Jorge Duenes / Reuters



Human remains have been discovered stacked in barrels filled with acid in a rural area of Puebla State, Mexico, according to the local prosecutor's office. The remains appear to belong to at least three people.

The police discovered 10 barrels and nine bags of human remains, which could belong to at least three people, one of them a man in his 50s.

"It's likely more than three people, we still need to study the contents of the bags," a Puebla prosecution source told AFP on Saturday. The finding was made on Thursday after an anonymous phone tip, the same source said.

The prosecutor's office believes the case might be connected with a shooting in Cuautlancingo that broke out in an illegal cockfight den on Tuesday.