Society's ChildS


Cell Phone

New Jersey wants to make it illegal to text and walk

texting while walking
A new proposed law in New Jersey would make texting while walking an offense punishable by up to 15 days in jail or a $50 fine.

New Jersey Assemblywoman Pamela R. Lampitt introduced the bill last week, arguing it was intended to keep people safe. "Distracted pedestrians, like distracted drivers, present a potential danger to themselves and drivers on the road," she said. "As people's behaviors change so must our policy." She cited recent data showing increases in the number of pedestrians using cell phones who were injured by automobiles.

The Washington Post summarized some of these growing concerns:

"New Jersey had the 10th highest pedestrian fatality rate nationwide in 2014 — at 1.88 per 100,000 — according to the Governors Highway Safety Association. New Mexico, Florida and Delaware had the highest rates. New Jersey has had 33 pedestrian deaths in 2016, and had 170 in all of 2015.

Comment: What kind of world do we live in when texting zombies face harsher penalties than pedophiles and murderous cops?


Stock Down

Real unemployment numbers: 23% of Americans in their prime working years don't have jobs

unemployment numbers
Did you know that when you take the number of working age Americans that are officially unemployed (8.2 million) and add that number to the number of working age Americans that are considered to be "not in the labor force" (94.3 million), that gives us a grand total of 102.5 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now? I have written about this before, but today I want to focus just on Americans that are in their prime working years. When you look at only Americans that are from age 25 to age 54, 23.2 percent of them are unemployed right now. The following analysis and chart come from the Weekly Standard...
Here's a chart showing those in that age group currently employed (95.6 million) and those who aren't (28.9 million):

"There are 124.5 million Americans in their prime working years (ages 25 - 54). Nearly one-quarter of this group—28.9 million people, or 23.2 percent of the total—is not currently employed. They either became so discouraged that they left the labor force entirely, or they are in the labor force but unemployed.This group of non-employed individuals is more than 3.5 million larger than before the recession began in 2007," writes the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee.

Chart Pie

SOTT Exclusive: Arabs and Africans are still the biggest victims of terrorism

Baghdad bombing ISIS
© AP Photo/Ali Abdul HassanStreet vendors collect their belongings after deadly bombing attacks in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq on Feb. 28, 2016.
Terror attacks from January 1, 2016, to March 22, 2016:

Middle East
  • Countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel & Palestine, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen
  • Attacks: 99
  • Deaths: 1701
Africa
  • Countries: Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, DRCongo, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Libya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia
  • Attacks: 66
  • Deaths: 739
South and Southeast Asia
  • Countries: India, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, Pakistan, Thailand
  • Attacks: 25
  • Deaths: 128
Europe
  • Countries: Belgium, France, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Russia, Sweden
  • Attacks: 9
  • Deaths: 40
North and South America
  • Countries: Canada, Uruguay
  • Attacks: 2
  • Deaths: 1

V

'Greater threat than terrorists': 23k people sign petition to ban David Cameron from UK

David Cameron
© Neil Hall / ReutersBritain's Prime Minister David Cameron (L) and his wife Samantha
More than 23,000 people have signed a petition to stop British Prime Minister David Cameron from re-entering the UK after his Easter holiday in Lanzarote, claiming he presents a "clear and present danger" to the country.

"David Cameron presents a clear and present danger to the short, medium and long term interests of the country. As such, the UK should institute a temporary ban on his return to Britain at the conclusion of his holiday in Lanzarote," says the petition, which is addressed to Home Secretary Theresa May.

At the time of publishing, the petition had received 23,067 signatures.

Many of the petition's signatories commented beneath the document, with supporter Michael Thorpe writing that "David Cameron is a bigger threat to the people of the United Kingdom than any terrorist organisation."

Fire

5 skyscraper infernos in 4 years: Massive fire rips through 2 residential towers in Ajman, Dubai

UAE skyscraper fires
© AFPFire engulfs a tower at a residential cluster in Ajman, in the United Arab Emirates, March 28, 2016.
A massive fire has ripped through at least two residential buildings in the Swan area of the Persian Gulf city of Ajman in the United Arab Emirates. According to local media, citing emergency services, the fire has been brought "under control."

Social media users posted images and footage of the fire late Monday showing bright yellow flames engulfing a building with chunks of burning debris falling to the ground. There have been no reports of casualties so far. Local media reports that residents are being evacuated to safety.


Brigadier Saleh Saeed Al Matroushi, Director of Ajman Civil Defence, told Gulf News that Civil Defence teams are working to put out the flames. After hours of battling the blaze, the fire has been brought "under control." The news outlet also reports that traffic on adjacent roads had virtually ground to a halt, as the area has been cordoned off.

The Ajman One residential cluster consists of 12 towers. Reports suggest the fire mainly damaged Tower 8, but this has not been confirmed by officials.

The operations room received a call about the fire at 9:45pm local time. Civil Defence, rescue and ambulance teams immediately rushed to the scene. The police have also deployed helicopters to monitor the fire.


Comment: Insurance scams, bad luck, or otherwise, we're not the only ones who have noticed that Dubai has a problem with burning skyscrapers...

When Will Dubai Fix Its Burning Skyscraper Problem?


Map

The Badger-Two Medicine area, near Glacier National Park, Montana, too sacred to drill

 Badger-Two Medicine area, Glacier National Park, Montana
© Rich Addicks / New York Times / ReduxAn Anschutz Exploration Corp. drilling site on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation near Browning, Montana, July 20, 2012. Certain parts of the reservation have been opened to drilling.
For more than 10,000 years, the Badger-Two Medicine area near Glacier National Park in Montana has provided strength, subsistence and cultural identity for members of the Blackfeet Nation. The Blackfeet believe that their people were created among the mountains and springs that rise from where Badger Creek and the Two Medicine River trace their headwaters.

But the Blackfeet aren't the only ones who value the region. The oil and gas industry also have their eyes on the area—and for more than 30 years, they've been fighting to drill the hell out of it.

Cell Phone

FBI abandons orders against Apple, says it cracked San Bernardino iPhone

iPhone
© Dado Ruvic / Reuters
The US government is giving up on ordering Apple to create an iPhone hack, saying it was able to access the data on a phone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters, making the company's cooperation no longer necessary.

For the past six weeks, the Department of Justice has been trying to compel the Cupertino, California-based tech company to create a tool that would bypass security on an iPhone issued to Syed Rizwan Farook, citing an 18th century law. Apple has resisted, arguing that the move would compromise the security of all iPhone users.

Comment: See also: 'That's horse hockey!': FBI can already unlock iPhone without Apple's help - Snowden


Book

Dutch duo expose prejudices by reading 'Koran verses' from Bible

Quran and Bible_1
© Dit Is Normaal/YouTube
A Dutch duo came up with an interesting way to judge people's prejudices in the Netherlands. They read passages from the Holy Bible which had been disguised as the Holy Koran to gauge people's reactions, and found some interesting conclusions.

Call them pranksters, call them sociologists, but Alexander Spoor and Sacha Harland certainly knew how to provoke discussion by conducting what they called "The Holy Koran Experiment" on their YouTube channel Dit is Normaal (This is Normal).

"If two men sleep with each other they will both have to be killed," from Leviticus 20:13 was read aloud to some startled passers-by who thought they were hearing verses from the Holy Koran, while in fact it was actually from the Holy Bible.

Pistol

Officer shot at Capital Visitor Center; White House briefly put on lockdown

capitol visitor center
© AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, FileIn this Oct. 7, 2013 file photo, the strairs leading to the Capitol Visitors Center on Capitol Hill in Washington. The U.S. Capitol Police are telling staff in the Capitol complex to shelter in place after a report of gunshots being fired in the Capitol Visitors Center.
A U.S. Capitol Police officer was shot Monday at the Capitol Visitor Center complex, and the shooter was taken into custody, Capitol officials and police said.

The event unfolded with Congress on recess and lawmakers back in their districts. The White House was briefly put on lockdown, but that was soon lifted.

The shooting occurred in the Visitors Center of the sprawling Capitol Complex. Staffers, reporters and others were told to "shelter in place" and not allowed to leave their offices. The police officer who was shot was not believed to be seriously injured.

Chart Pie

Terrorism fear-mongering insures military spending dwarfs that spent on the things more likely to kill you

anti-terrorism spending
The 2016 presidential election, in keeping with the American tradition of a two-party dictatorship, is looking to be a choice between a modern-day fascist and a thoroughly corrupt, lying war monger. As mainstream media cheers on the failure of democracy, the candidates go on telling us how they will spend the money that is taken from us through a convoluted system of taxation rigged to benefit the corporatocracy.

This warped system of revenue collection is complemented by an equally warped system of spending. The practice of lawmakers bringing home pork was highlighted by the infamous "bridge to nowhere," but in terms of how government spends money on saving lives, we find its priorities in a truly backward state.

A statistical analysis found that more than $500 million spent per victim on anti-terrorism efforts, while about $10,000 is spent per victim on cancer research. Indeed, there is a long list of things that kill people at a rate far higher than terrorism—and could benefit from more resources for study and prevention—but get far less funding from lawmakers.

Heart disease, cancer and stroke top the list of killers, taking about 1,356,000 lives every year. In the 21st century, about 3,000 Americans lost their lives to terrorism, averaging out to 200 fatalities per year.