Society's ChildS


Stormtrooper

Police expert: War on terror has turned our cops into occupying armies - and we're the enemy

Travis Gettys
Raw Story
Fri, 14 Nov 2014 22:35 UTC
Thomas Nolan
© Thomas Nolan (YouTube)
The war on terror has essentially turned police into occupying armies in some American communities, said a police and criminology expert.

Thomas Nolan, an associate professor of criminology at Merrimack College and former senior policy analyst with the Department of Homeland Security, said the focus of police work had shifted greatly since he was a Boston police officer in the 1980s and 1990s.

"I remember it being drilled into me as a police officer, as a sergeant and then as a lieutenant: partnership, problem-solving, and prevention - the three Ps," Nolan said Wednesday during a panel sponsored by the American Constitution Society.

He said police were heavily trained to form alliances to help them to better serve and protect communities, and he said those relationships clearly don't exist in Ferguson, Missouri.

While the war on drugs is frequently cited as a major factor in the breakdown of civil liberties and police-community relations, Nolan said a more recent shift was largely to blame.

Comment: As Thomas points out, this militarization of the police will only continue as long as people sit idly by and let it happen under the false impression that they will be protected by these goons. Almost 5,000 people have been killed by police since 2003, more than the 4,486 American casualties in the Iraq war.

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Handcuffs

West Virginia: Coal mining CEO indicted for deaths of 29 miners


RT
Fri, 14 Nov 2014 20:22 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Chris KeaneA West Virginia State Police officer stands at the entrance to the Massey's Performance Coal at the scene of an accident where 12 coal miners were killed, at the Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, West Virginia April 6, 2010
Donald Blankenship, former chief executive of Massey Energy Co., was indicted Thursday on charges that he violated mine safety laws ahead of an April 2010 blast that killed 29 miners at the company's Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia.

The US Department of Justice said a federal grand jury charged the former Massey CEO with four criminal counts, including conspiring to violate mine safety standards, conspiring to impede mine safety officials, making false statements to the US Securities and Exchange Commission and securities fraud.

The April 5, 2010 explosion at Upper Big Branch was the worst US mining disaster since 1970. Twenty-nine of the 31 miners at the site died, as the explosion occurred around 1,000 feet underground.

The mine, in Raleigh County, West Virginia, 40 miles south of Charleston, is now closed. Alpha Natural Resources Inc. bought Massey in 2011 for around $7 billion.

Blankenship, Massey CEO from 2000 to 2010, now faces a maximum 31 years in prison. He received $17.8 million of compensation in 2009, according to the indictment.

"Mr. Blankenship is entirely innocent of these charges. He will fight them and he will be acquitted,"said William Taylor, Blankenship's lawyer, in a statement, according to Reuters.
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Eye 2

Hawaii sued by Monsanto and Dow over law banning GMOs


RT
Fri, 14 Nov 2014 18:25 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Mark Blinc
Two biotechnology behemoths have followed through with vows to sue Hawaii's Maui County for passing a law last week that bans the cultivation of genetically modified organisms.

Monsanto Co. and a Dow Chemical Co. unit filed the lawsuit in federal court in Honolulu on Thursday. The agricultural giants are calling on a judge to block the law and to invalidate the voter-approved measure.

Maui County voters approved a temporary ban on GMO crop cultivation in a 50 to 48 percent vote. The state has become a battleground between biotech firms and food activists - it was the country's first ever ballot initiative against global agricultural companies like Monsanto and Dow, which spent $8 million trying to defeat the measure.

According to AP, Monsanto Vice President John Purcell said the law is a violation of state and federal laws that allow for the safe and legal cultivation of GMO products.

The company echoed those sentiments in a statement following last week's vote.

"We believe this referendum is invalid and contrary to long established state and federal laws that support both the safety and lawful testing and planting of GMO plants," Monsanto wrote. "If effective, the referendum will have significant negative consequences for the local economy, Hawaii agriculture and our business on the island. We are committed to ongoing dialogue as we take steps to ask the court to declare that this initiative is legally flawed and cannot be enforced."

Comment: See also:

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Dollar

The Obamacare extortion plan: Bigger penalties this year if you don't comply

Lily Dane
The Daily Sheeple
Thu, 13 Nov 2014 12:03 UTC
obamacare
Oh, yay!

The Obamacare website homepage has an exciting announcement for us!

Here's what it says:
See plans & prices for 2015!
Starting November 15, you can enroll in an affordable health plan that works for you
How about...NO. I'd rather not, thanks.

Like Daisy Luther of The Organic Prepper, I am NOT going to comply with Obamacare. I've said that from the day I first heard about this extortion plan.

The mainstream media is alerting us that UH OH!, the second enrollment season is HERE and if you don't comply like a good citizen, you'll be facing even BIGGER penalties this time around!

Comment: See also:

Obamacare: A Deception

Here's how Obamacare rips off young adults

Obamacare is another private sector rip-off of Americans



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Smiley

Australians bury heads in sand to mock government climate stance


The Guardian
Thu, 13 Nov 2014 11:13 UTC
Aussie Protesters_1
© Mike Bowers More than 400 people buried their heads in the sand at Sydney's Bondi Beach.
More than 400 protesters stuck their heads in the sand on Australia's Bondi Beach on Thursday, mocking the government's reluctance to put climate change on the agenda of a G20 summit this weekend.

Prime minister Tony Abbott's perceived failure to address climate change is all the more galling in the wake of an agreement between the United States and China on Wednesday to limit their carbon emissions, they said.

"Obama's on board, Xi Jinping's on board, everyone's on board except one man," activist Pat Norman, 28, bellowed into a megaphone on the Sydney beach.

"Tony Abbott!" the protesters shouted back.

Parents with babies, school children and working people in business suits dug holes on the beach and stuck their heads in them. The ostrich is said to stick its head in the sand in futile bid to avoid danger.

Ornithologists say the African bird does no such thing but that didn't spoil the protest.
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Eye 1

Vampire-fanged Utah trucker had multiple victims, says prosecutor

Daniel Wallis
Reuters
Thu, 13 Nov 2014 18:33 UTC
Image
© NewsComAu
A Utah truck driver who wore vampire-fang dentures and is charged with sexually abusing and beating two women who he held captive in his vehicle as he traveled the country had four more victims, federal prosecutors have said.

Timothy Jay Vafeades, 54, was arrested in Minnesota late last year after a weigh station officer saw bruises on a 19-year-old hostage's face and intervened. Another woman later came forward to say she, too, was held and abused by the man.

In documents filed in federal court in Utah this week, prosecutors said they now intend to prove that four other women were similarly mistreated in what they called "a pattern of sexual abuse" by the defendant.

Each of the women reported suffering repeated beatings with a belt, being forced into sex, and being warned by Vafeades not to look at nor talk to other people, the court documents said.
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Arrow Up

The true costs of BP's Gulf oil spill

Dahr Jamail
Truthout
Wed, 05 Nov 2014 09:39 UTC
Image
© Unknown
In April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded, causing the single largest marine oil disaster in US history.

While the oil gushed from nearly a mile below the surface, BP promptly began to lowball the daily flow rate.

The US government established the Flow Rate Technical Group (FRTG) led by Marcia McNutt to determine the true amount of oil being injected into the Gulf of Mexico. The FRTG was composed of scientists from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US Geological Survey, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, the US Department of Energy and outside academics.

According to the FRTG, BP's disaster led to at least 4.9 million barrels of oil being injected into the Gulf of Mexico. BP has challenged this calculation for numerous reasons, including asserting that this figure includes 810,000 barrels that was collected before it could enter the Gulf.

Yet a scientist who is part of the FRTG said early on that even the 4.9 million barrel figure, which means an average of roughly 56,000 barrels per day during the 87 days BP's oil flowed, could be nearly three times too low.

"BP's own estimate for a freely flowing pipe in their oil spill response plan was 100,000 to 140,000 barrels per day," Dr. Ira Leifer, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told Truthout at his office. "This is according to the calculations they submitted to the government, as part of their permitting process," which BP said was their worst-case scenario.

Leifer was all over the media while BP's well was gushing, and said he decided to do so because BP was not being forthcoming with data so his team could do their work.

And since BP wasn't being open, Leifer decided to use BP's own figures.

Comment: There is now more than enough data to show how BP's actions before and after the Gulf oil spill are the result of nothing less than gross negligence. But even more, BP's acts are indicative of the thinking of psychopaths in control of large corporations and how their shortsightedness, greed and arrogance can reap so many long-reaching and destructive effects on all life on the planet.

See the following few articles, a small sampling actually, which illustrate how BP took "responsibility" for the disaster:

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Ambulance

Bodo Community in Nigeria suing Shell for devastation of land during 2008 oil spills


RT
Fri, 14 Nov 2014 17:56 UTC
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© Reuters / Akintunde AkinleyeCanoes lie in oil-slicked mud on the shore of the Bodo creek in Ogoniland near Nigeria's oil hub city of Port Harcourt December 4, 2012.
Royal Dutch Shell was aware that its Nigerian pipelines were poorly maintained prior to the 2008 Bodo oil spills, and later underestimated the size of the leaks to avoid paying compensation, Amnesty International reported after studying court documents.

Fifteen-thousand members of the Bodo community are suing Shell in London's High Court, claiming the two oil spills in 2008 devastated an area of up to 90km in Ogoniland, southern Nigeria. The oil giant earned $450 billion in revenues last year.

"The result was an environmental catastrophe for the Bodo Community and the biggest loss of mangrove habitat in the history of oil spills. The 40,000 residents of the Bodo Community primarily relied on fishing and their way of life and source of livelihoods has been destroyed for years to come," said Martyn Day, a senior partner at Leigh Day, which is representing the plaintiffs.

Among the documents obtained by Amnesty from the ongoing case is an internal note written by an employee eight years before the spills, which says "the remaining life of most of the Oil Trunklines [in the area] is more or less non-existent or short, while some sections contain major risk and hazard."

Another internal memo compiled in 2009, after the company was already facing legal pressure for the impact of the accidents, cautions that the company "is corporately exposed as the pipelines in Ogoniland have not been maintained properly or integrity assessed for over 15 years."
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Heart - Black

The KKK is prepared for war against Ferguson 'terrorists'

Arturo Garcia
RawStory
Wed, 12 Nov 2014 15:48 UTC
Image
© MSNBCTraditionalist American Knights of the KKK leader Frank Ancona on 'All In with Chris Hayes' on Nov. 12, 2014
The leader of a Ku Klux Klan group told MSNBC host Chris Hayes on Wednesday that St. Louis-area residents have supported their campaign threatening to use "lethal force" against protesters they feel act violently in the aftermath of the upcoming grand jury decision regarding Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.

"It kind of came about from hundreds of calls we've been getting from residents in St. Louis County concerned with things that they've seen on social media," Traditionalist American Knights of the KKK head Frank Ancona explained. "Random attacks on whites, D.C. sniper-style shootings, police officers being threatened that their wives are gonna be raped, and that they're all targets."

Ancona did not cite specific evidence of any of these alleged threats.

The Riverfront Times reported that Ancona's group has been passing out flyers calling demonstrators "terrorists" and saying, "We will use lethal force as provided under Missouri law to defend ourselves."

Ancona told the Times that the demonstrators, who have been protesting against local law enforcement for not pursuing a case against Wilson for shooting and killing 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9, were "the best recruiters since [President Barack] Obama" for his organization.

Comment: You know it's getting bad when the KKK is starting to gain ground again. And really, the mentality of the police is not much different. Comments from St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson show a concerning lack of understanding when he describes talk about the militarization of the police as 'noise' and needing to take a back seat in a 'dialog'. What he means is that the police have the weapons and the little people need to know there will be no dialog about it. A framed and one-sided discussion is not a dialog!

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Ambulance

Fracking blast kills one Halliburton worker, injures 2 in Weld County, Colorado


The Denver Post
Thu, 13 Nov 2014 19:13 UTC
Halliburton fracking site
© Helen H. Richardson, The Denver PostThe Halliburton fracking site where one person was killed and two others were injured Thursday, Nov. 13, 2014.
Mead - One worker was killed and two were seriously injured Thursday when a frozen, high pressure water line ruptured at a Weld County oil well site.

The workers were trying to thaw the line when the accident occurred, officials said.

The Anadarko Petroleum Corp. well was being hydraulically fractured, or fracked, by the Halliburton Co. and the workers were Halliburton employees.

Anadarko said it was suspending all fracking operations in the area pending a review of the accident.

The area has been the scene of drilling since at least 1979, but this year Anadarko has sunk at least nine, deep horizontal wells, according to state records.

Each of those wells has to be fracked by pumping a mixture of water, sand and trace chemicals into the well at high pressure to crack rock and release oil.

Thomas Sedlmayr, 48, was airlifted to Denver Health and Grant Casey, 28, was taken by ambulance to the Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland. The name of the dead worker has not been released.

"This is a very difficult time for all of us at Halliburton, and we are working with local authorities as they look into the details of this incident," Halliburton said in a statement.

"Out of respect for the families' privacy, we are not releasing any additional information at this time," Houston-based Halliburton said.

Weld County Sheriff's Office deputies are investigating the accident.
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