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Father who tried to rent son to paedophile jailed

Aaron
© New Zealand HeraldPaedophile, Aaron John Ellmers.
An Oamaru father who attempted to rent his baby son to a paedophile has been sentenced to nearly nine years imprisonment on a raft of charges.

The 27-year-old father was sentenced today to eight years and 10 months imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of five years after being convicted of charges including sexual violation, indecent assault and making, possessing and distributing an objectionable publication.

The man was arrested as part of a police operation that began last July involving staff across the country including Northland, Auckland City, Eastern, Canterbury and Southern districts.

The operation targeted alleged paedophiles in New Zealand and overseas, including Aaron John Ellmers aged 41, who last month was sentenced to 20 years' preventative detention.

The Oamaru father was charged when police caught him attempting to rent out his 13-month-old son to Ellmers for $500.

As the 40-year-old paedophile jetted into Christchurch to meet the boy's father, police were waiting.

Bizarro Earth

Flashback Hysteria: School says deaf boy's name sign looks too much like a gun

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Hunter Spanjer says his name with a certain special hand gesture, but at just three and a half years old, he may have to change it.

"He's deaf, and his name sign, they say, is a violation of their weapons policy," explained Hunter's father, Brian Spanjer.

Grand Island's "Weapons in Schools" Board Policy 8470 forbids "any instrument...that looks like a weapon," But a three year-old's hands?

"Anybody that I have talked to thinks this is absolutely ridiculous. This is not threatening in any way," said Hunter's grandmother Janet Logue.

"It's a symbol. It's an actual sign, a registered sign, through S.E.E.," Brian Spanjer said.

Bizarro Earth

Online daters do better in the marriage stakes

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© JAKE WYMAN/CORBISCouples who met in online venues โ€” ranging from dating services to chat rooms โ€” had slightly better outcomes in their marital life than those who met in other ways.
Couples in the United States who meet online seem to enjoy at least as much marital bliss as those who meet in more traditional venues, according to the results of an online survey of more than 19,000 people funded by online dating service eHarmony.

The survey's participants consisted of people who married between 2005 and 2012. About 35% reported that they had met their spouse online, more than through introductions by friends, work and school combined. The study revealed that people who used this method to meet their spouses were slightly older, wealthier, more educated and more likely to be employed than those who went with tradition1.

Yet only about 45% of these online meetings took place on a dating site; the rest occurred through social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, as well as chat rooms, online communities, virtual worlds, multi-player games, blogs and discussion boards.

Vader

Marines steamed by loss of hot meal at Afghanistan base

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© Chris Hondros / Getty Images fileA U.S. Marine MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) ration package is seen in a transport vehicle in March 2010 near Khan Neshin, southern Helmand province, Afghanistan.
Marines at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan will lose a key daily meal starting Saturday, causing some to forgo a hot breakfast and others to work six-plus hours without refueling on cooked food, according to Marines at the base and Marine Corps officials.

The midnight ration service - known there as "midrats" - supplies breakfast to Marines on midnight-to-noon shifts and dinner to Marines who are ending noon-to-midnight work periods. It's described as one of the few times the Marines at Leatherneck can be together in one place.

The base, which is located in Afghanistan's southwestern Helmand Province, flanked by Iran and Pakistan, also will remove its 24-hour sandwich bar. It plans to replace the dishes long offered at midnight with pre-packaged MREs, said Marine Corps Lt. Col. Cliff Gilmore, who has been deployed in Afghanistan since February.

The moves, though unpopular with many Marines on the ground and their families back home, are emblematic of the massive drawdown of American troops in Afghanistan and the dismantling of U.S. military facilities. More than 30,000 U.S. service members will leave Afghanistan in coming months as the U.S. prepares to hand responsibility for security to Afghan forces in 2014.

Cow

MSNBC anchor Dylan Ratigan gives up fame and fortune to become a farmer

Dylan Ratigan
© Photo: Snapshot/"The Daily Show"
The dream of trading in the rat race for bucolic farm life is entertained by legions of city slickers. But escaping the grip of urban life and professional success is no easy task, leading many back-to-the-land romantics to settle for a backyard chicken coop and a flock of city hens. (If you can't have the farm, at least you can have the farm-fresh eggs.)

Which is why the story of New York news media star Dylan Ratigan is eliciting so much admiration - and presumably, an equal amount of envy.

After a career spent scaling the dizzying heights of the New York media world - Bloomberg wire-service reporter, anchor at Bloomberg TV and CNBC, a self-titled show on MSNBC, and a bestselling book - Ratigan tossed in the towel last June. He announced that he has taken up residence in sunny Southern California to join forces with a former Marine, Colin Archipley, to create a network of hydroponic greenhouses aimed at employing veterans.

Comment: Dylan Ratigan is famous for his epic rant on the International banking cartel and political corruption.


Che Guevara

Turk-i-yeah! Turkey's main workers' union launches two-day strike in support of protests

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Turkey Occupied: Anti-government protesters demonstrate in central Ankara, the Turkish capital. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan accused the protesters on Monday of 'walking arm-in-arm with terrorism. Not a very smart move.
Turkey's main union federation has launched a two-day strike to protest against the violent police crackdown on anti-government demonstrations.

The Confederation of Public Workers' Unions (KESK), which represents some 240,000 workers, started a two-day strike from Tuesday in support of the protests.

The left-wing union has accused the government of committing "state terror."

"The state terror implemented against entirely peaceful protests is continuing in a way that threatens civilians' life safety," the KESK said in a statement, adding that the crackdown shows the government's "enmity to democracy."

The action will likely affect schools, universities and public offices across Turkey.

Gingerbread

Caricature of Love: Pedophile artist Graham Ovenden gets suspended sentence for sexually abusing young children

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Artist is told 'there can be no doubt' of his sexual interest in children as he is sentenced for offences against former models

An internationally renowned artist has been given a 12-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, after being found guilty of a string of sexual offences against former child models.

Sentencing Graham Ovenden at Plymouth crown court, Judge Graham Cottle told Ovenden: "There can be no doubt that at that time you had a sexual interest in children."

Ovenden, 70, who studied under the pop artist Sir Peter Blake, was convicted of six charges of indecency with girls and one allegation of indecent assault.

During his trial earlier this year Ovenden fiercely denied a sexual interest in children and claimed his images of naked girls were all about celebrating the innocence of childhood.

Red Flag

Anti-immigrant English Defence League was founded by two Irish immigrants

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Stephen Lennon thought if he changed his name to Tommy Robinson he would sound more English and attract groupies
This is the controversial Luton Irishman behind the far right English Defence League who have been protesting against ethnic groups on Britain's streets in the aftermath of last month's Woolwich terrorist attack in London.

Founder Stephen Lennon has mobilised EDL members in violent anti-Islamic protests across the country, which has seen mosques and Muslim communities targeted, in the two weeks since Soldier Lee Rigby was killed.

Lennon had taken to Twitter to threaten to take on 'plastic paddies' at Wembley's England verses Ireland football friendly last Wednesday.

However, the threat was not followed through.

Lennon, who goes by the name Tommy Robinson, was born to a Dublin mother and Scottish father in Luton, where he formed the extremist group in 2009.

Although he classes himself as an Englishman, he has publicly claimed to be 'proud' of his Irish heritage, but messages on his Twitter feed reveal the opposite.

Posts found on Lennon's social networking account, show the second-generation Irishman regularly refutes his heritage and abuses those who claim he is Irish.

He has also posted a string of anti-Irish slurs and remarks.

Nuke

Frightened to return: A Fukushima father's story

Rates of thyroid problems in children near the nuclear plant are high
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Like most fathers, Yoji Fujimoto frets about the health of his young children. In addition to normal parental concerns about the food they eat, the air they breathe and the environment they will inherit, however, he must add one more: the radioactive fallout from a nuclear disaster.

Three days after meltdown began at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on 11 March 2011, Mr Fujimoto moved his two daughters, then aged four and three, to safety hundreds of kilometres away. Last December, the eldest of the two was diagnosed with adenoidal cysts, the prelude to a type of cancer that often strikes the salivary glands. "I was told by the doctor that it's very rare," he says.

Although Mr Fujimoto and his family were in Chiba Prefecture, over 60 miles (100km) from the plant and in the opposite direction from the worst of the fallout, he believes his daughter inhaled enough radiation to cause her illness. "I'm convinced this is because of the Fukushima accident."

The United Nations said last week it did not expect to see elevated rates of cancer from Fukushima, but recommended continued monitoring. The report by the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation said prompt evacuation meant the dose inhaled by most people was low. Tokyo Electric Power Co, operator of the Daiichi plant, estimates the final tally for escaped radiation at 900,000 terabecquerels, about one-fifth the amount released by the Chernobyl accident in 1986. Most was vented in the first three weeks.

The precise impact of this radiation is bitterly contested, but at least one finding from Chernobyl seems consistent - elevated rates of thyroid cancer in children. The Chernobyl Forum, a 2003-05 UN-led study, cited close to 5,000 cases of thyroid cancers among those exposed under the age of 18 in the most affected areas, probably from drinking contaminated milk. Many scientists believe it takes four to five years for the cancers to develop.

Info

Children around the world with their favorite possessions

Tangawizi
© Gabriele GalimbertiTangawizi โ€“ Keekorok, Kenya
Photos taken across the globe by Italian photographer Gabriele Galimberti put life in the modern world into perspective, showing children across the globe with their most beloved toys and other items - the variation of which is truly shocking.

When I saw these photos from Galimberti's 'Toy Stories' project, I felt it was important to share with readers of NaturalSociety for a few very important reasons. It's important to remember that, even with our major struggles against corporate corruption and a food system under attack, the level of comfort that we enjoy in the United States and other first world nations is something that many children (most, in fact) around the world dream of. Children like the ones you will see in the photos below, such as Tangawizi from Kenya, literally live in a clay and wood shelter with a few blankets and a stuffed animal.

What's also interesting is the fact that photographer Galimberti says that there was an extreme difference when it came to sharing and openness. In fact, Galimberti says that poor children were quite open to sharing their toys and allowing him to play with them before the shoot. Richer children, however, were possessive of their toys and were unwilling to share them for quite some time before Galimberti was able to convince them to do so.