Society's ChildS


Heart - Black

Christian charity? Creationist pastor Ray Comfort mocks 'dumb' Hindus injured or killed by falling Ganesh statue

ray comfort
© FacebookRay Comfort exhibits the Christian virtues. Not.
A creationist pastor mocked Hindus who were killed or injured when a religious idol fell on them as they worshiped.

One man was killed and three people were injured when a statue of the elephant god Ganesh collapsed during a worship service last month in India, and a video of the tragedy was circulated and widely reported last week.

Ray Comfort — who is probably best known for arguing that bananas disproved evolution, at least until he learned that they were the products of artificial selection by humans — posted a link to an article about the tragedy and urged his followers to donate to his Living Waters ministry.


Comment: Never miss a chance to rake in some bucks!


"The Bible says that those who worship dumb idols, are just like them," Comfort posted on his Facebook page. "How India needs the gospel! But we don't have to go there to take it to them. We have the Internet."


Comment: Good idea, let's replace one myth with another. This one would be a purported Palestinian preacher who can't be found in the historical record, but came back to life anyway.

Another nail in the coffin for dead man on a stick religion: 'Jesus NEVER existed': Writer finds no mention of Christ in 126 historical texts


Comfort's fans quickly picked up what he was laying down and praised God's wrathful judgment.

Comment: If banana anatomy is the best proof Comfort can come up with for a Creator, Christianity is in serious trouble.


War Whore

Citizen vigilance boosts police killing prosecution rates to highest in decade

police brutality
© Shutterstock
The number of U.S. police officers charged in fatal shootings has hit the highest level in a decade in 2015, new research shows, driven by greater scrutiny over use of deadly force. Public outrage over the deaths of black men at the hands of police in New York, Missouri and elsewhere have spurred prosecutions. Police body cameras and bystanders' videos also have helped bring cases, but even with the upturn, only a small percentage of police killings result in charges, lawyers and analysts say.

A dozen officers have been charged with murder or manslaughter this year resulting from shootings, up from an average of about five a year from 2005 to 2014, said Philip Stinson, an associate professor of criminology at Ohio's Bowling Green State University. He sifted court records and media reports as part of research for the Justice Department on police crimes and arrests.

The 2015 number does not include six Baltimore officers facing trial for the death of Freddie Gray. The 25-year-old black man died in April from a spinal injury after he was arrested and bundled in a transport van. Four of the officers face murder or manslaughter charges. None of the officers has been convicted, and over the previous decade just one in five officers charged was found guilty, said Stinson, a former police officer.

Stinson, attorneys and criminologists say it is too early to tell if the upturn indicates a permanent change or is a statistical fluke. "We can tell for one year, but is that just an anomaly or is it a trend?" said Stinson.

The prosecutions represent only a small fraction of the killings by U.S. police. A Washington Post database last week showed 796 fatal police shootings this year, and one maintained by the Guardian newspaper recorded 927 deaths from all causes.

Comment: The prosecution rate may have gone up but there is a long way to go. The problem is making the charges stick. Then there is the problem that fundamental training of police forces bias them to violence. Where do they learn this bias?


Bad Guys

Palestinian genocide continues, 1,300 people shot in the last 11 days

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© Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesThe Stern Gang and other Zio-nazi's were busy in the early to mid 20th century exterminating and terrorizing Arab and Christian communities.
Netanyahu declared war on Palestine before violent clashes began, instigated by security forces, willful provocations to get Palestinians to respond, blaming them for Israeli crimes. From October 1 through Sunday, soldiers and police shot over 1,300 Palestinians - using live fire, rubber-coated steel bullets and internationally banned dum-dum bullets, able to expand internally and cause far more serious wounds.

Through October 11, 24 Palestinians were murdered in cold blood. Official Israeli policy is shoot first. Ask no questions. Blame victims for increasing numbers of real or fabricated stabbing attempts or incidents used to indiscriminately gun down defenseless Palestinians. Israel considers premeditated cold-blooded murder self-defense.

Daily horrors continue. A 15-year-old Palestinian girl was shot and critically wounded en route home from school with friends, threatening no one. Teenager Mustafa Al-Khatib was assassinated by police. Eyewitnesses refuted false accusations, claiming he tried stabbing an officer. He had no weapon in his possession. He was stopped in his car at East Jerusalem's al-Asbat Gate, ordered to exit his vehicle, then lethally shot 10 times at point blank range.

Incident reports kept changing, initially saying he tried stabbing a settler, then a soldier, then refusing an order to be searched, then attempting to stab a soldier - four statements, all lies. All official Israeli reports about violent incidents lack credibility.

Comment: One of the major trademarks of psychopaths is to blame the victim for their behavior. Another is to accuse them of the very same malicious things that the psychopath does. They're also known for employing a technique called a reversive blockade. This is where you lie so wholly and opposite to the truth that third-party observers think that the 'truth' is 'somewhere in between'. When this technique is employed, the liar always benefits. Here we see all three techniques put into play by the Israeli State and its representative, Netanyahu.

See also: The "Middle Ground Fallacy in Gaza


USA

American culture: A nation of narcissists

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There are so many examples of the US as a nation of narcissists that when I step outside of my own narcissism, it literally leaves me with vertigo. I can see narcissism everywhere. In how Americans drive, as if they're the only car on the road in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I see it in how people walk on sidewalks, as if no one else will ever need space to walk in the opposite direction, or as if everyone wants to walk at a slow, plodding pace. I see it in how we reacted to even minor criticism, as if the comment "this needs revision" equals "you're a lazy, untalented hack of a writer," and deserves a response equally personal and nasty.

One of the better demonstrations of narcissism American style is through our popular culture. From Frank Sinatra to Rick Ross, Mae West to Nicki Minaj, we have a century's worth of pop culture divas as examples of narcissism at the level of prominent American individuals. The narcissism is so normal that we have benign terms for it, like "self-promotion" or "self-love." People, especially in the pop culture world, should promote and love themselves, of course. But at what point is narcissism a self-defeating process of "me as triumphant," "me as the center of the universe," "me for everyone to like/love more and more?"

Comment: Me, me, me! America's 'Narcissism Epidemic'
Is American society becoming more narcissistic?


Airplane

Planes grounded in Scotland due to major technical problems with air traffic control

glasglow airport
Dozens of flights at Scottish airports have been delayed as major technical problems at the regional National Air Traffic Service (NATS) air traffic control centre in Prestwick, Ayrshire grounds planes.

Several flights from Scottish airports to England have been delayed by up to 1 hour and 50 minutes, the Edinburgh Evening News reports.

A spokesman confirmed to the Independent that some flights to and from Northern Ireland have also been affected.

A statement from NATS said there had been overnight interference with the radio frequencies used to speak to aeroplanes.

It said: "It only affects part of Scottish airspace and flights from some Scottish airports this morning may be delayed as a result.

Display

Man binges on The Walking Dead then kills friend, claiming he began 'to change into a zombie'

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A Prewitt, NM man was arrested Thursday afternoon after allegedly beating his friend to death while they were drunk after the man said his friend began "to change into a zombie," according to the Grants Police Department.

The man, identified as 23-year-old Damon Perry, told police he had been binge-watching "The Walking Dead" on Netflix recently.

Grants police originally responded to a Grants apartment complex after 911 callers said a man - later identified as Perry - was running around the complex threatening people with a knife.

When officers arrived, two maintenance workers were holding Perry down. Inside a nearby apartment, an officer found the friend unresponsive with signs of trauma. The friend was pronounced dead at the scene.

Airplane

British Airways jet crash lands in Johannesburg after landing gear breaks

british airways broken jet
A jet flying under British Airways colours has dramatically crash landed in South Africa after part of its landing gear reportedly broke off.
A jet flying under British Airways colours has dramatically crash landed in South Africa after part of its landing gear broke off.

One passenger reported seeing sparks flying as the left wing of the Boeing 737 'scraped across the runway' as it came into land at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg earlier today.

Fire crews rushed to the aircraft, run by the franchise Comair, after it touched down and the 94 people on board used an emergency staircase as they were led to safety.

Passenger Warren Mann told Traveller24 how the pilot informed those on board shortly before landing that the 'left landing gear had broken off'.

He added: 'This caused the plane to hit the runway at an angle. We could see sparks as the left wing and the engines were scraped across the runway. The wing seemed completely broken off.

Stock Down

IMF warns before the storm: Germany should prepare for severe export crisis

Euro symbol
© Flickr/ Chris Goldberg
The oil price shock could soon negatively affect Germany's export economy. The IMF predicts a crisis in the emerging markets, but does not have any recipes to prevent it and Germany should urgently prepare itself for the alarming situation, DWN wrote.

The world economy is experiencing an alarming state of calm before a potentially violent storm. The IMF has warned of significant stability risks associated with the economic slowdown in China and the crisis in the emerging markets, the newspaper reported.
"We are witnessing a classic emerging markets' crisis, which is [currently] forming."

Comment: Is Deutsche Bank about to go down and take Europe with it?


Heart - Black

State of Nevada found guilty of dumping homeless in other states

las vegas homeless
According to a recent court ruling, government programs in the state of Nevada intentionally shipped mentally ill homeless patients to other states and left them there.

The City of San Francisco recently won a lawsuit against the state of Nevada, receiving a $400,000 settlement after they were able to prove the state sent homeless psychiatric patients to their city with the intention of leaving them there.

In the lawsuit, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera accused a Las Vegas area psychiatric hospital of shipping its patients out of the state.

Comment: Unlike in Medicine Hat, the first city to eradicate homlessness, cruelty and callousness towards the homeless is the norm with no improvement in sight.


USA

US reassigns General responsible for unsuccessful Syria rebel training

US Maj. Gen. Michael K. Nagata
© AP Photo/ Carolyn KasterUS Maj. Gen. Michael K. Nagata
After the US' Syrian rebel training program failed and produced only a few dozen fighters instead of the original 15,000 planned, the US is now dismissing US Maj. Gen. Michael K. Nagata who was responsible for the implementation of the program, media reported.

As part of a military training program, Nagata was responsible for training Syrian rebels over a period of three years, after which they were expected to fight against ISIL.

In 2014, the United States allocated $500 million to train and provide 5,400 "moderate Syrian fighters" with military equipment by the end of 2015.