Society's ChildS


Umbrella

UCLA campus flooded by broken water main amid worst drought and strict water-use restrictions

UCLA flooding
© Reuters/Danny MoloshokA woman looks up from an underground parking structure outside UCLA's Pauley Pavilion sporting arena as water flows down the stairs from a broken thirty inch water main that was gushing water onto Sunset Boulevard near the UCLA campus in the Westwood section of Los Angeles July 29, 2014
An official at the city's Department of Water and Power, or DWP, was questioned about the delay in stopping the flow of water after an estimated eight to 10 million gallons of water poured out from a ruptured 93-year-old water pipe, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"We had to do research to get to the correct valve," Jim McDaniel, a DWP senior assistant general manager, said, according to the LA Times, adding that the closure of a wrong valve could have left many people without water. The water had been reportedly flowing for more than three hours before the flow was cut off.

Los Angeles Councilman Paul Koretz reportedly said: "Unfortunately, we lost a lot of water, around 35,000 gallons a minute, which is not ideal in the worst drought in the city's history."

Yoda

El Salvador, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Peru recalled ambassadors to protest Israel's operation in Gaza

gaza attack
El Salvador recalled its Israeli ambassador from Tel Aviv on Wednesday to protest the military operation in Gaza, making it the fifth Latin American country to do so.

Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Peru have already recalled their ambassadors.

Yigal Palmor, the spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry, said recalling ambassadors encourages Hamas.

"Israel expresses its deep disappointment with the hasty decision of the governments of El Salvador, Peru and Chile to recall their ambassadors for consultations," said Palmor. "This step constitutes encouragement for Hamas, a group recognized as a terror organization by many countries around the world."

Such countries are handing terrorists a prize, said Palmor.


Comment: That these countries recalled their Israeli envoys as a protest only means that they are able to recognize terrorists - and their actions! - when they see them. You can skip the following paragraph too. More Palmor BS.


Handcuffs

Why it matters that Norman Finkelstein got arrested outside the Israeli consulate in NYC

norman finkelstein arrest
© normanfinkelstein.com
At 12:30 pm today, a few dozen people laid down in the street at the intersection of 43rd Street and Second Avenue, stopping traffic from reaching the 42nd Street block housing the Israeli Consulate. Around them, a hundred or so people chanted from the sidewalks for the end of the occupation and the slaughter in Gaza. The writer Norman Finkelstein, a fierce critic of both Israel and of the BDS movement, had called the protest the day before. "A lot of people feel that going to a demonstration every three days doesn't rise to the occasion, the immensity of the horror," he told me. He noted that the Israeli bombing of Gaza is now in its twenty-first day, "which means it's one day short of Cast Lead," the assault on Gaza that began at the end of 2008. And there is no sign that this war is going to stop anytime soon.

The action didn't last long. After issuing a few warnings for the demonstrators to move, the police swooped in, handcuffing people and carrying those who let their bodies go limp. Traffic was stopped for, at most, twenty minutes. Still, it didn't seem like a futile effort, because this is a moment when it's particularly important to break through the illusion, which pervades our politics, that American support for Israel and its war in Gaza is unshakable.


Hardhat

10,000-seat rendition of Solomon's Temple built in Brazil

São Paulo, Brazil - It occupies an entire block in this teeming megacity: a 10,000-seat rendition of Solomon's Temple.

Towering in sharp relief against the graffiti-splattered tenements nearby, it beckons with monumental walls of stone imported from Israel and the flags of the dozens of countries where its owner, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, is nourishing an evangelical Christian empire.

A helicopter landing pad will allow Edir Macedo, the 69-year-old media magnate who founded the Universal Church in a Rio de Janeiro funeral home in 1977, to drop in for sermons. The sprawling 11-story complex features other flourishes, too, like an oasis of olive trees similar to the garden of Gethsemane near Jerusalem, and more than 30 columns soaring toward the heavens.

solomon temple sao paulo

Red Flag

More than 35 percent of Americans are in debt to collection agencies

Image
© AP Photo/Richard Drew, File
More than 35 percent of Americans have debts and unpaid bills that have been reported to collection agencies, according to a study released Tuesday by the Urban Institute.

These consumers fall behind on credit cards or hospital bills. Their mortgages, auto loans or student debt pile up, unpaid. Even past-due gym membership fees or cellphone contracts can end up with a collection agency, potentially hurting credit scores and job prospects, said Caroline Ratcliffe, a senior fellow at the Washington-based think tank.

"Roughly, every third person you pass on the street is going to have debt in collections," Ratcliffe said. "It can tip employers' hiring decisions, or whether or not you get that apartment."

The study found that 35.1 percent of people with credit records had been reported to collections for debt that averaged $5,178, based on September 2013 records. The study points to a disturbing trend: The share of Americans in collections has remained relatively constant, even as the country as a whole has whittled down the size of its credit card debt since the official end of the Great Recession in the middle of 2009.

Gold Coins

Bye bye petrodollar! Currency wars set to intensify as geopolitical tension supports gold

russia gold reserves
Today's AM fix was USD 1,307.50, EUR 972.84 and GBP 770.39 per ounce.
Yesterday's AM fix was USD 1,305.00, EUR 971.20 and GBP 768.55 per ounce.

Gold climbed $2.30 or 0.18% yesterday to $1,305.10/oz and silver rose $0.12 or 0.58% to $20.62/oz.

Gold rose 0.4% in London this morning after gold in Singapore traded sideways overnight. Futures trading volume continues to increase and was almost double the average for the past 100 days for this time of day, Bloomberg data shows.

Silver for immediate delivery rose 0.8% to $20.73 an ounce in London. Platinum was 0.1% lower at $1,486.82 an ounce. Palladium gained 0.3% to $883.63/oz and remains close to a 13 year nominal high of $889.75.

Geopolitical tension in Europe and in the Middle East is supporting gold. Israel's military pounded targets in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country should prepare for a long conflict in the Palestinian enclave, squashing any hopes of a swift end to 22 days of fighting.

Gaza residents reported heavy Israeli bombing in Gaza City. Israeli aircraft fired a missile at the house of a Hamas Gaza leader and flattened it before dawn. An Israeli military spokeswoman said 70 targets were struck in Gaza through the night. At least 30 people were killed in the assaults from air, land and sea, residents said, after a night of the most widespread attacks so far in the tiny enclave.

The new sanctions are set to inflame relations further. They are on "key sectors" of Russia's economy, U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken said yesterday. Russia also signaled possible retaliation, announcing yesterday that it may ban imports of chicken from the U.S. and fruit from Europe because of concern about contamination.

Heart - Black

Poll: 91% of Israelis love to kill

gaza in ruins
Gaza in ruins...
Ninety-one percent (91%) of Israeli Jews support Israel's campaign against the people of Gaza, according to a survey published Monday - and just 4.2% believe the operation is a "mistake."

The survey also revealed that 85% of respondents would only support a cease-fire agreement if Israel eliminated every Hamas rocket and destroyed the full network of terror tunnels before agreeing to do so.

Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Israeli Jews polled "very strongly support" Operation Protective Edge's airstrikes on Gaza; 17% "support" the airstrikes; and 4.5% had "weak support" for the airstrikes. Just 1.5% of respondents opposed the airstrikes on Gaza.

Similarly, 50% "strongly support" the IDF's ground offensive in Gaza; 28% "support" the ground campaign and 14% have "weak support" for the campaign. By contrast, only 9% of respondents oppose sending ground troops into Gaza.

Eighty-two percent (82%) of respondents "strongly disagree" with the statement "Israel launching Operation Protective Edge was a mistake"; 11% only "slightly disagree." Just 7% of respondents "agree" or "strongly agree" with that statement.

Black Magic

Wolf Blitzer: Shilling for the Israeli "tunnel" propaganda

Image
© UnknownWolf Blitzer - Former AIPAC Employee
The opening was so small that CNN's Wolf Blitzer -- no physical giant -- had to bend down to climb inside one of 30 or so Palestinian tunnels from Gaza to southern Israel.

"I guess the tunnel was built for relatively short people, because if you stand up you're going to hit your head," Blitzer said of the almost two-mile concrete corridor about 45 feet underground where he reported from Monday.

His visit, accompanied by the Israeli military, revealed conditions in the network of tunnels below Gaza that are a key issue in the current violent spasm between Hamas militants in Gaza and Israel.

Originally built to avoid Israeli and Egyptian checkpoints into Gaza, the tunnels have been vital supply lines for Palestinians in Gaza. Now the snaking underground routes increasingly get used for attacks in Israel.


Comment: Says who? Where is the proof?


Comment: More tunnel BS from Israel. They are constantly trying to make Hamas and the Gaza Palestinians look more sophisticated and capable than they really are.


Cult

Puff Piece: Michelle Nunn "Leaked Memos" a distraction from the real corruption in the U.S.A.

Michelle Nunn
© Akili-Casundria Ramsess/APDemocratic candidate for U.S. Senate, Michelle Nunn speaks to her supporters after her primary win was announced at an election-night watch party on May 20, 2014, in Atlanta.
In an embarrassing leak, a detailed memo outlining Georgia Democratic Senate nominee Michelle Nunn's game plan for winning her election surfaced Monday.

National Review reporter Eliana Johnson posted the document, which she wrote came from sources who noticed it was accessible online in December, apparently by accident.

Most of the sections in the 144-page document are unremarkable, if annoying, for a campaign to see aired outside its offices - such as the Nunn campaign's strategies for courting LGBT donors or for winning over gun owners.

But the most passed-around parts concerned what the campaign believed were Nunn's vulnerabilities heading into the election. Once again, many of them were so obvious for a Democrat running in Georgia they barely needed to be written down - the campaign anticipated attacks that Nunn was "too liberal," "a rubber stamp for Democrats," and "not a 'real' Georgian."


Comment: Softball criticisms meant to humanize her. Too liberal is like saying too nice. How about she's a faux liberal shill who will vote whatever way the power elite want her to, regardless of her meaningless party affiliation?


Comment: Operation business as usual. This is just pushing digital wood. The idea that it is on the front page of MSNBC is incredible.


Network

Gaza war on Facebook: Critics of Israel fired after 'unacceptable' comments

gaza war on facebook
© Agence France-Presse/Said Khatib
Several people have reportedly been fired after criticizing the Israeli Gaza offence on social networks, or expressing joy over the deaths of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) troops.

As violent confrontation in the Gaza Strip continues, with the Palestinian death toll already exceeding 1,000 and Israeli deaths being over 50, another battle has broken out on social networks.

Supporters and opponents of both sides have been flooding Facebook, Twitter and YouTube with emotional posts, photos and videos and have even launched a campaign urging an end to the war.

However, being too emotional in the expression of feelings online has cost several people their jobs and scholarship, according to Haaretz.com.

Comment: In other words, these people were fired for having a conscience and opposing the unjustified murder of innocent children and civilians due to the information provided by internet trolls paid heavily by the Israeli government to silence any such expressions of humanity against their psychopathic actions. Word to Bibi: pay as you may, you lost the PR war this time!