Welcome to Sott.net
Tue, 26 Oct 2021
The World for People who Think

Society's Child
Map

Black Magic

What our soldiers have become

Frances Farmer
12160
Tue, 20 Aug 2013 12:59 UTC
Image
Bales, on his fourth combat deployment, had been drinking and watching a movie with other soldiers at his remote post at Camp Belambay in Kandahar Province when he slipped away before dawn on March 11, 2012. Bales said he had also been taking steroids and snorting Valium.

At one point during his plea hearing, the judge asked Bales why he killed the villagers.

Bales responded: "Sir, as far as why - I've asked that question a million times since then. There's not a good reason in this world for why I did the horrible things I did."

Heartbreaking for all involved. This is who our soldiers HAVE to become to carry out the orders given in this bullshit war on terror. Of course he's fucked in the head. And these soldiers, after several deployments- any expectation that the end product will be anything other than a monster or a irretrievably broken human being should be an insult to all of us.

There are more soldier suicides than service related deaths. The unending testimonies of soldiers never being able to be "normal" again- you have to go out of your way not to hear them. And as much as we'd like to think, this isn't just a few rogue units- it is the operating system from the time they enter theater.
      Read More...
Cult

Indian doctor who campaigned to end superstition in India murdered

Kay Steiger
The Raw Story
Tue, 20 Aug 2013 08:44 UTC
Image
A leading Indian rationalist, who was campaigning for a law to eradicate superstition in a country famed for its mystics and gurus, was shot dead on Tuesday, police said.

Two gunmen on motorbikes fired at Narendra Dabholkar, a medical doctor who had faced accusations of being anti-religion, as he was taking his morning walk in the western city of Pune, its police chief said.

"He was shot dead this morning, our investigations are on," Pune police commissioner Gulabrao Pol told AFP, adding that no suspects have yet been identified.

Dabholkar founded more than two decades ago the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti - the Committee for the Eradication of Blind Faith - that aimed to change mindsets of India's deeply superstitious population.

Dabholkar, known for his campaigns to promote progressive and scientific thought, had for several years been lobbying for Maharashtra state's parliament to pass legislation banning superstition and black magic.

Two years ago, in an interview with AFP, he rejected critics' charges that the bill was anti-religion.

"In the whole of the bill, there's not a single word about God or religion. Nothing like that. The Indian constitution allows freedom of worship and nobody can take that away," he said.

"This is about fraudulent and exploitative practices," he said.
      Read More...
Sheriff

Kids are now being brainwashed into accepting the police state

justinwoolie
Youtube.com
Mon, 19 Aug 2013 00:00 UTC
Now they're brainwashing our KIDS. Kids are now taught to love the SS invasion.

How they're brainwashing your kids into accepting the Police State. Watch this (6 min. school bus 'hijacking' begins around 1:00):

      Read More...
Gold Coins

Surprise! Senators generally represent wealthy constituents while ignoring lower-classes

Eric W. Dolan
The Raw Story
Mon, 19 Aug 2013 16:19 UTC
Image

Members of the U.S. Senate do not respond equally to the views of all their constituents, according to research to be published in Political Research Quarterly next month. Senators overall represent their wealthiest constituents, while those on bottom of the economic rung are neglected.

"The fact that lower income groups seem to be ignored by elected officials, although not a new finding, remains a troubling observation in American politics," Thomas J. Hayes of Trinity University wrote in his study.

The study used data from the 2004 National Annenberg Election Survey to compare constituents' political opinion to the voting behavior of their Senators in the 107th through 111th Congresses. With more than 90,000 respondents, the NAES is the largest public opinion survey conducted during presidential elections.

In all of the five Congresses examined, the voting records of Senators were consistently aligned with the opinions of their wealthiest constituents. The opinions of lower-class constituents, however, never appeared to influence the Senators' voting behavior.

The neglect of lower income groups was a bipartisan affair. Democrats were not any more responsive to the poor than Republicans.
      Read More...
Heart - Black

New York woman whose testimony as a child jailed father for rape now says she lied

Nina Golgowski
New York Daily News
Mon, 19 Aug 2013 16:51 UTC
Chaneya Kelly
© NBC News
Chaneya Kelly says that in 1997, she falsely accused Daryl Kelly, her father, of raping her after pressure and threats from her mother.
Nearly 16 years after a New York man was jailed for raping his 9-year-old daughter, that victim has publicly come forward admitting that she lied all along.

Chaneya Kelly, now 24, says the graphic stories she told about her father that sentenced him to 20-to-40 years in prison were never true.

"I'm 24 years old and I made this mistake when I was 9 years old," she told NBC, "but it's never too late to try and right your wrong."
      Read More...
Bad Guys

Gulf spill sampling questioned

Henry Fountain
The New York Times
Mon, 19 Aug 2013 14:30 UTC
Image
© U.S. Coast Guard, via Reuters
Fireboat crews battling a blaze at the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, off Louisiana, on April 21, 2010, a day after the rig exploded, killing 11 workers and resulting in the blowout of an exploratory well owned by BP. Ultimately, roughly 200 million gallons of crude oil gushed into the gulf.
An analysis of water, sediment and seafood samples taken in 2010 during and after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has found higher contamination levels in some cases than previous studies by federal agencies did, casting doubt on some of the earlier sampling methods.

The lead author, Paul W. Sammarco of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, said that dispersants used to break up the oil might have affected some of the samples. He said that the greater contamination called into question the timing of decisions by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to reopen gulf fisheries after the spill and that "it might be time to review the techniques that are used to determine" such reopenings.

Eleven workers died and roughly 200 million gallons of crude oil gushed into the gulf after a blowout at an exploratory well owned by BP caused the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig to explode on April 20, 2010. Nearly two million gallons of Corexit, a dispersant, were sprayed on the surface or injected into the oil plume near the wellhead.

In all, more than 88,000 square miles of federal waters were closed to commercial and recreational fishing. Some areas were reopened before the well was capped three months after the blowout; the last areas were reopened a year after the disaster.

Comment: For more information on this topic, see The Day the Water Died: Detoxing after the Gulf Oil Spill:
"Whose truth are we talking about, your truth or my truth?" public relations specialist, John Scanlon, retorted to a reporter who had asked him whether he served his clients or the truth. Until science deals with its Achilles' heel of advocacy science,it cannot meet society's needs to protect life and we will continue to pollute our soil, air, and water, ourselves, and other life on this planet. Like lemmings,we are all racing towards the cliff. -Riki Ott, PhD., Sound Truth and Corporate Myth$: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.


      Read More...
V

Pink Floyd star's new Israel boycott letter to "family of Rock and Roll"


The Electronic Intifada
Mon, 19 Aug 2013 14:08 UTC
Image

Roger Waters performs The Wall Live in Barcelona, 2011.
Pink Floyd star Roger Waters has today published a long-awaited open letter calling on his fellow musicians to boycott Israel.

The letter explains that Waters has been part of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for seven years, and has been mulling the letter over for some time.

He condemns Israeli human rights violations and explains the reasons to act:
Given the inability or unwillingness of our governments [to act] ... it falls to civil society and conscientious citizens of the world, to dust off our consciences, shoulder our responsibilities, and act. I write to you now, my brothers and sisters in the family of Rock and Roll, to ask you to join with me, and thousands of other artists around the world, to declare a cultural boycott on Israel ... proclaiming our rejection of Apartheid in Israel and occupied Palestine, by pledging not to perform or exhibit in Israel or accept any award or funding from any institution linked to the government of Israel ...
      Read More...
Newspaper

David Miranda, schedule 7 terror law and the danger that all reporters now face

Alan Rusbridger
The Guardian
Tue, 20 Aug 2013 11:57 UTC
Glenn Greenwald
© Ricardo Moraes/Reuters
Glenn Greenwald, left, with David Miranda, who was held for nine hours at Heathrow under schedule 7 of Britain's terror laws.
As the events in a Heathrow transit lounge - and the Guardian offices - have shown, the threat to journalism is real and growing

In a private viewing cinema in Soho last week I caught myself letting fly with a four-letter expletive at Bill Keller, the former executive editor of the New York Times. It was a confusing moment. The man who was pretending to be me - thanking Keller for "not giving a shit" - used to be Malcolm Tucker, a foul-mouthed Scottish spin doctor who will soon be a 1,000-year-old time lord. And Keller will correct me, but I don't remember ever swearing at him. I do remember saying something to the effect of "we have the thumb drive, you have the first amendment".

The fictional moment occurs at the beginning of the DreamWorks film about WikiLeaks, The Fifth Estate, due for release next month. Peter Capaldi is, I can report, a very plausible Guardian editor.
      Read More...
Pistol

Arizona Minuteman militia member arrested for pointing AR-15 rifle at sheriff's deputy

Eric W. Dolan
The Raw Story
Tue, 20 Aug 2013 11:47 UTC
Richard Malley
© ABC15
Richard Malley
A member of a Minutemen militia was arrested Saturday night for allegedly pointing his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle at a Maricopa County sheriff's deputy.

Richard Malley, 49, and two other group members were patrolling the area along Interstate 8 in search of illegal activity when two deputies approached, according to court documents. The Minutemen watch for unauthorized immigrants and drug smugglers crossing to Arizona from Mexico.

Malley pointed his rifle and flashlight at one of the deputies. He was also armed with a .45 caliber pistol and a fixed-blade knife. The deputy identified himself as a law enforcement officer, but Malley did not lower his weapon. Instead, he demanded that the deputy provide him with identification.
      Read More...
Stock Down

Texas begins replacing paved roads with gravel due to lack of funding

Eric W. Dolan
The Raw Story
Mon, 19 Aug 2013 11:38 UTC
Young Builder
© Shutterstock
Young Builder And Asphalt Spreader During Road Street Repairing Works
The oil and gas boom in Texas has produced an unintended effect: The state plans to covert some roads to gravel to save money.

The oversized vehicles and overweight loads used by energy companies has had a devastating impact on many roads, but the state has not appropriated enough money to fix them.

The Texas Department of Transportation began converting more than 80 miles of paved roads to gravel on Monday, according to the Texas Tribune. The speed limit on the new gravel roads will be reduced to 30 mph.
      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts