Society's Child
1. AVOID CATS
In the past black cats were linked with witches and the devil and so it is still seen as unlucky when a black cat crosses your path in France. Records show that during the Middle Ages cats of all colours were so feared they were gathered together and burnt in villages and especially on Shrove Tuesday and the Fête de la Saint-Jean in June. Black cats in the UK, in contrast, bring good luck. The difference in outlook could be explained by the story that Napoleon saw a black cat before the battle of Waterloo, the outcome showing that it brought luck to the English and was a bad omen for the French.
2. DON'T CARRY CATS ACROSS WATER
It is unlucky to cross a stream with a cat in your arms and the death of a cat will be followed by the death of someone under the same roof.
3. LOOK OUT FOR SNEEZING CATS
On a positive note, if a cat sneezes near a bride on her wedding day the marriage will be a happy one.
4. AS FOR DOGS...
One French superstition, which many might feel difficult to avoid while walking in a town, is stepping in dog dirt. If the left foot is the unfortunate offender that is seemingly all right as it will bring you good luck, but if it is the right foot you are unlucky - in either case you have dog dirt on your shoe.
5. AND HORSES
Horseshoes above the door bring luck in France as in the UK, but many hang them with the points to the bottom, so that the luck and its protective powers will shower down on you.
James Files, 72, has been moved from a high-security jail to a less secure one in Illinois in preparation for his release.
His extraordinary claims in a filmed prison interview have become an internet sensation since being put on the web by Dutch film-maker Wim Dankbaar.
Now the CIA and other US secret agencies are bracing themselves for a fresh wave of conspiracy theories as Files identifies himself as the missing piece of the jigsaw in the Kennedy plot.
Controversially, he says there was collusion between the Mafia and the CIA to kill 46-year-old Kennedy, claims which could lead to him being called to give testimony on oath in Washington.
Livingston (New Jersey) High School Hall of Fame member, Dr. V A Shiva Ayyadurai threw down the gauntlet to the Monsanto Company, claiming it would be next to impossible for the agro-giant to disprove his claim that safety assessment standards for genetically-modified organisms (GMO) are nonexistent.
"If Monsanto can disprove the fact that there are no safety assessment standards for GMOs, the conclusion of our fourth paper, then I will give them my $10 million building," Ayyadurai, also a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, told Patch.
The author of Occupy This Book and Occupy These Photos made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Friday while commenting on a statement by Obama who has denounced Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's plan to use a "deportation force" to deport millions of undocumented immigrants as unrealistic.
"The notion that we're gonna deport 11, 12 million people from this country — first of all, I have no idea where Mr. Trump thinks the money's gonna come from," Obama said on Thursday in an interview with ABC News. "It would cost us hundreds of billions of dollars to execute that."
Comment: A really good guess or he knows this personally because it has already been spent.
"Imagine the images on the screen flashed around the world as we were dragging parents away from their children, and putting them in what, detention centers, and then systematically sending them out," he said."Nobody thinks that that is realistic. But more importantly, that's not who we are as Americans."
Commenting to Press TV, Mickey Z. said, "What's most fascinating to me is the psychological manipulation at play here, because facts don't matter. We're trained to not bother ourselves with how much Trump's alleged plan might cost and to ignore the reality that Obama has 'humanely' deported more human beings than any US president in history," he added.
Comment: The devil you know...isn't much better than the one you don't!
The Laredo Morning Times reported on Monday that two female officers responded to a suicide attempt at around 11 a.m. The department said that the officers opened fire after "repeated commands to the individual who was armed with a handgun." The man was identified as 25-year-old Cesar Cuellar, a Webb County sheriff's deputy.
Cuellar's mother later told KGNS that officers overreacted. "Don't shoot, don't shoot, don't shoot, please, please, please. It's my son," the mother recalled telling the officers, according to a translation provided by the station. "Both of them were pointing at him. My son was like this with the gun pointed down, not saying a word. He was surprised, he was frozen. He didn't say a word. They had scared him."
"They shot him, they shot him once and then it took a while and after another boom again. It wasn't continuous but my son never lifted his gun. Never," she insisted. "They shot him without having to, not one reason." The woman said that her son would not have justice until the Laredo officers had their "guns and badges taken away."
In a statement, Laredo Police Chief Raymond Garner promised that there would be a full investigation into the case. "The Laredo Police Department respectfully sends the family, friends and colleagues of Mr. Cesar Cuellar Jr it's most sincerest condolences," Garner said. "The Laredo Police Department is committed to conducting a thorough investigation into this case."
But a recent study found that less than half of nonprofit hospitals surveyed were telling patients they could be eligible for charity care.
There are nearly 3,000 community hospitals in the United States that qualify for tax-free nonprofit status. In return for that tax break—worth $25 billion in 2011 —hospitals are supposed tell the Internal Revenue Service each year how much care they write off for those who can't pay.
Under the Affordable Care Act, hospitals are supposed to follow several rules, which take full effect next year.

Colorado state Senator Dr. Irene Aguilar, right, who is a physician at Denver Health, helps deliver more than 156,000 signatures to put the ColoradoCare health care question on the 2016 ballot,
Proponents of a single-payer state system gathered enough signatures to put ColoradoCare on the ballot, the secretary of state's office announced Monday.
They needed 98,492 valid signatures to put a state-governed health care system to a vote. After reviewing a 5 percent sample of the 158,831 signatures submitted, the secretary of state projected that the valid total would be 110 percent of the number required — and certified that Initiative 20, the "State Health Care System," will be on the 2016 ballot.
Residents would choose their own health care providers, but ColoradoCare would pay the bills.
The US State Department on Thursday [said] it doesn't consider the new EU rule banning "Made in Israel" tags on goods produced in the occupied West Bank as a boycott of the Zionist regime.
The European Commission "adopted this morning the Interpretative Notice on indication of origin of goods from the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967," Reuters quoted an EU official as saying on Wednesday. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) welcomed the EU rule. PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat referred to the decision as a "significant move toward a total boycott of Israeli settlements, which are built illegally on occupied Palestinian lands."
The Israeli Foreign Ministry called the labeling "a politically motivated and unusual and discriminatory step, that [the European Union] learned from the world of boycotts," referring to the international movement of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, known as BDS.
US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Thursday that American officials "do not believe that labeling the origin of products is equivalent to a boycott. And as you know, we do not consider settlements to be part of Israel. We do not view labeling the origin of products as being from the settlements as a boycott of Israel," Toner added.
Comment: So here's the deal. If the settlements are not legitimately Israeli, then any labeling decision does not imply a boycott of Israel...sneaky semantics. US gets a half point for threading a needle. Unfortunately, this thimble-full message is about as leverage-flimsy as it gets, more a solidarity ploy for the EU and other Palestinian sympathizers. In turn, Israel will demand more US subsidy. Oh yeah, it just did...

German police have so far been unable to question the previous resident of the apartment where the bodies were found.
But the picture of tranquillity is deceptive.
On Monday, the Belgian court gave Facebook 48 hours to stop tracking the online activities of non-users in Belgium unless they have their explicit consent, or face a daily fine of €250,000. "If a surfer doesn't have their own Facebook account, Facebook from now on will have to explicitly solicit consent and provide the needed explanations," the Brussels court of first instance said.
Facebook lawyers said they would appeal the ruling.














Comment: James Files' claims are hardly new. He has been saying for quite a while that he was involved in the JFK assassination. The question is whether he is speaking out to muddy the waters, or was truly involved.