Society's ChildS


Pirates

West Bank: Orphanage dairy factory demolished by Israeli army

Dairy factory destruction
© twitter.comIsraeli forces destroying Arrahma Dairy Factory in Hebron City
Israeli soldiers invaded on Tuesday, at dawn, the southern West Bank city of Hebron, and initiated the destruction of a dairy factory that belongs to the Islamic Charitable Society for Orphans, in the city.

Eyewitnesses said that dozens of soldiers, accompanied by armored bulldozers, broke into the dairy factory in the ar-Rahma neighborhood, east of Hebron, and declared the area a closed military zone, preventing journalists and residents from entering it.

Sheikh Hatem al-Bakri, head of the administrative board of the Islamic Charitable Society, said the factory provides the needed means for caring for the orphans in the Hebron District.
"What is happening is an attack on the orphans themselves: several months ago, the army confiscated various machines with an estimated monetary value of $2 million," al-Bakri told the Maan News Agency. "This factory is essential for the services, and charitable aid we provide."
He added that the society contacted its legal advisor, lawyer Jawad Boulos, who informed them that Israel alleges the factory, and the charitable society are "run by Hamas".

orphans, destruction
© www.maannews.netIsrael targets orphans with acts of terror.
"However, the children, the orphans, are the ones who pay the price for Israel's assaults and allegations," Boulos stated.

The Charitable Society decided to open this factory in order to fund services it provides to the orphans, especially with the rising costs amidst the tough conditions in the Palestinian territories, under Israel's illegitimate occupation.

Comment: If you think Israel targeting Palestinian orphans is new, think again. In 2008, for example, hundreds of Israeli occupation troops stormed a Palestinian orphanage and boarding school in Hebron and looted millions of dollars worth of food, dairy products, clothes, shoes, refrigerators, kitchen equipment, crates of frozen meat, sanitary supplies, sports equipment, blankets and mattresses...used by as many as 7,000 orphans, run by the Islamic Charitable Society. They forced open the main gate and loaded everything on trucks in order to liquidate social and educational infrastructures at the price of innocent children. On this same rampage, Israel confiscated several school buildings, an orphanage, a supermarket, several apartment buildings, school busses and destroyed other businesses - - looting computers, cabinets, furniture, appliances and even taking the windows. This was organized robbery. Gestapo style. Heartless. Pathological.


2 + 2 = 4

The destruction of higher education in 5 basic steps

Higher education is not what it used to be, and that's no accident.
Image
© Cognitiveliberty.net
A few years back, Paul E. Lingenfelter began his report on the defunding of public education by saying,
"In 1920 H.G. Wells wrote, 'History is becoming more and more a race between education and catastrophe.' I think he got it right. Nothing is more important to the future of the United States and the world than the breadth and effectiveness of education, especially of higher education. I say especially higher education, but not because pre- school, elementary, and secondary education are less important. Success at every level of education obviously depends on what has gone before. But for better or worse, the quality of postsecondary education and research affects the quality and effectiveness of education at every level."
In the last few years, conversations have been growing like gathering storm clouds about the ways in which our universities are failing. There is talk about the poor educational outcomes apparent in our graduates, the out-of-control tuition and crippling student loan debt. Attention is finally being paid to the enormous salaries for presidents and sports coaches, and the migrant worker status of the low-wage majority faculty. There are movements to control tuition, to forgive student debt, to create more powerful "assessment" tools, to offer "free" university materials online, to combat adjunct faculty exploitation. But each of these movements focuses on a narrow aspect of a much wider problem, and no amount of "fix" for these aspects individually will address the real reason that universities in America are dying.

Comment:
  • The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America



Bacon

Another two New York school districts drop Michelle Obama's lunch program

Another two bite the dust.
Image
© Mrconservative.com
Central New York's Fayetteville-Manlius and Baldwinsville school districts are the latest to ditch the National School Lunch Program, which was revamped in 2010 under the guidance of First Lady Michelle Obama in an effort to fight childhood obesity.

Strict limits on calories, fat, sugar, carbohydrates, sodium and other aspects of the school lunch imposed by the federal government on schools participating in the free and reduced lunch program has not only increased cafeteria costs, they've resulted in a drastic drop in the number of participating students.

At Fayetteville-Manlius, Baldwinsville, and thousands of other districts the new regulations resulted in a sharp downturn in students who eat school lunch and a sharp increase in food waste. The lost sales are threatening the viability of cafeteria programs in schools across the country, prompting many to do without federal subsidies to serve students food they'll actually buy and eat.

"Grilled cheese and tomato soup was a very popular lunch," Baldwinsville Superintendent David Hamilton told WRVO public media. "We couldn't offer that under the new guidelines of the federal government. Spaghetti and meatballs, we couldn't offer that either."

As a result of last year's school lunch menu high school lunch sales in Baldwinsville plummeted from about 600 to 430 students per day.

Attention

Hospital in Liberia runs out of protective equipment to keep staff safe from Ebola

Image
© AP
The hospital in Liberia where three American aid workers got sick with Ebola has been overwhelmed by a surge in patients and doesn't have enough hazard suits and other supplies to keep doctors and nurses safe, a missionary couple told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The latest infection -- of Rick Sacra, a doctor who wasn't even working in the hospital's Ebola unit -- shows just how critical protective gear is to containing the deadly epidemic, and how charities alone can't handle the response, they said.

Nancy Writebol and her husband, David, called for reinforcements during the AP interview, which followed her first news conference since recovering from Ebola disease. They work for North Carolina-based SIM, the charity that supports the ELWA hospital in Monrovia, Liberia.

About 250 staffers at the hospital use thousands of disposable protective suits each week, but that's not enough to fully protect the doctors and nurses who must screen people entering the emergency room or treat patients outside the 50-bed Ebola isolation unit, they said.

Info

Arizona forces statuary rape victim to pay child support

money
© Reuters / Soe Zeya Tun
A 24-year-old Arizona man is being asked to pay more than $15,000 in child support for a daughter he fathered at the age of 14 - and didn't know existed until two years ago.

The Arizona Republic reported this week that the man, Nick Olivas, is legally a victim of rape since he was younger than 15 when he engaged in a sexual relationship a decade ago with a women who was 20 at the time.

According to the paper, Olivas only learned two years ago that his daughter existed when he was served with legal papers demanding he pay child support for the six years he wasn't around for a daughter he never heard of.

"It was a shock," he told the paper. "I was living my life and enjoying being young. To find out you have a 6-year-old? It's unexplainable. It freaked me out."

The Republic reported that Olivas ignored the paperwork when he was first asked to pay up two years ago, and failed to take a paternity test to confirm his relationship with the daughter. The Arizona Department of Economic Security division of Child Support Services has since tracked him down, however, and now tells the paper he's been compelled to pay around $15,000 in back child support, as well as the hospital bills for his daughter's birth, with 10 percent interest added on top. To collect the funds, the state is now taking $380 each month from his paycheck.

Olivas told the Republic for an article published on Tuesday this week that he has no issue with making payments to help with his daughter moving forward, but doesn't think he should be held accountable for the six years in which he was never told he was a father.

"Anything I do as an adult, I should be responsible for," he said. "But as a teenager? I don't think so."

Laptop

Celebrity nude photos hack turns into child porn case

Kirsten Dunst
© AFP Photo / Carl CourtUS-German actress Kirsten Dunst
Investigations into the hacking of celebrities' iPhone accounts, which resulted in the leak of nude or semi-nude photos of various female personalities, have turned into a child abuse case, as one alleged victim was under 18 when some photos were taken.

Lawyers for US Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney have served a legal demand on porn.com, which has hosted the photos originally released on the online forum 4chan, according to The Guardian.

The demand came even after Maroney denied the pictures were actually of her.

Anyone who owns or shares - this includes all views or downloads - photos of anyone under the age of 18 is subject to prosecution pursuant to US law. The FBI announced Monday that it was "addressing" the leak of around 400 images of about 100 female celebrities.

A vulnerability in Apple iCloud - which backs up photos taken on iPhones - allowed a hacker to access photos in protected celebrity accounts. Apple said Tuesday that "we have discovered that certain celebrity accounts were compromised by a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions, a practice that has become all too common on the internet" and that "we are continuing to work with law enforcement to help identify the criminals involved."

In a message to supporters on Monday, the person who claims to have led the photo hack-and-dump operation said he had to move to a new location to avoid authorities. He asked for bitcoin donations to aid further photo leaks by his group.

People 2

Ex-French First Lady says Hollande detests poor in tell-all book

 Hollande toasts with his partner
© Fred Dufour/AFP via Getty ImagesFrench President François Hollande toasts with his partner Valerie Trierweiler during a state dinner with South African President on Oct. 14, 2013 in Pretoria.
Former French First Lady Valerie Trierweiler tore into President Francois Hollande, saying the Socialist leader despises the poor and calls them "les sans-dents," or "the toothless" in private.

In a 320-page tell-all book entitled "Merci Pour Ce Moment" or "Thanks for the Moment" to be released tomorrow, 49-year-old Trierweiler, who was forced to leave the Elysee presidential palace after Hollande's affair with a French actress, lists what she says are lies told by the president.

"He likes to come across as a man who doesn't like the rich," she writes, according to excerpts published today by the daily Le Monde. "In reality, the president doesn't like the poor. This the man of the Left, calls them in private 'the toothless,' very proud of his brand of humor."

The book's publication and the private comments it shares come as Hollande is sliding again in opinion polls. His popularity has fallen back below 20 percent, near France's historical low for a president. With joblessness rising for three straight years and a government mutiny forcing him to reshuffle his cabinet, revelations about his private life are adding to his political troubles.

Cheeseburger

Having it their way: How Burger King has been screwing American taxpayers

caution
Shutterstock
Over the last week, Burger King has been getting slammed for a scheme to worm out of its U.S. tax obligations, but a new report shows that's just business as usual for the company. (Burger King decided to move its tax base to Canada by acquiring the Ontario-based coffee and donut chain Tim Hortons, which will allow the firm to get out of paying billions in U.S. taxes.)

Reuters just took a look at the fast-food giant's regulatory filings in the U.S. and overseas, and found that Burger King has a sordid history of scamming taxpayers through creative accounting tricks that make profits magically appear in low-tax areas overseas. The company has been so successful at artful dodging that its taxes are among the lowest in the industry (26 percent compared to 31 percent for McDonald's, Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts). In the U.S., the headline federal corporate tax rate is supposed to be 35 percent on profits.

Comment: Burger King is only one corporation in a long line of mega-corporations that evade taxes.
Amazon makes billions from British customers, pays pennies in tax
The tax man cometh...unless you're a big corporation
Taxes are for slaves: Google boss says "I'm very proud of our tax avoidance scheme - it's called capitalism"


Ambulance

Ebola-infected patient escapes quarantine, enters crowded local market in Liberia

Image
© Reuters/Reuters TVHealth workers surround an Ebola patient who escaped from quarantine from Monrovia's Elwa hospital, in the centre of Paynesville in this still image taken from a September 1, 2014 video.
A video has emerged that an Ebola-infected patient has escaped a quarantine zone in Liberian hospital and went to a local crowded market in search of food. He was then pursued by medical staff and returned to hospital.

The man left Elwa hospital facility in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, which is full of Ebola patients. Wearing a tag which indicated that he had tested positive with Ebola, he arrived at a local crowded market in the Paynesville neighborhood, the busiest part of the city.

The crowd is fleeing in fear and shouting angrily at a man wearing red clothes, as shown in the video released on YouTube. When medical staff arrived, the patient began to run and then took a stick and tried to keep them at bay. However, the doctors managed to take him to the ambulance.

A local resident told the media that it is the fifth case in which a patient has escaped the quarantine zone.


Comment: How are they getting out?


"We told the Liberian government from the beginning that we do not want an Ebola camp here. Today makes it the fifth Ebola patient coming outside vomiting," a man who watched the scene, told Reuters.

Comment: 25 Facts about the Ebola outbreak that you should know


Stock Down

'They know there is a problem coming,' says economist

dollar
© unknown
Well known Shadow Stats economist John Williams has warned time and again that the narrative being crafted by government statisticians, elite bankers and politicians is nothing but smoke and mirrors. With an election coming up in just a couple months, it's highly unlikely that they'll come out and tell us right now how fundamentally troubled our financial, economic and monetary systems really are.

But that doesn't change the facts. The reality, as Williams notes in a recent interview with Greg Hunter's USA Watchdog, is that the U.S. economy is in severe trouble and we may be just months away from the beginning of the next leg down, especially for the U.S. Dollar.