© mattcoats / Instagram
To extinguish the intense fire, firefighters used a ladder pipe attached to an extended ladder to spray water onto the fire from an elevated point.
Society's Child
To extinguish the intense fire, firefighters used a ladder pipe attached to an extended ladder to spray water onto the fire from an elevated point.
© James Robinson/PennLive.com via AP
Saturday, Feb. 13, 2016. The pileup left tractor-trailers, box trucks and cars tangled together across several lanes of traffic and into the snow-covered median.
Saturday, Feb. 13, 2016. The pileup left tractor-trailers, box trucks and cars tangled together across several lanes of traffic and into the snow-covered median.
The names of those killed would be released later in the day, said Trooper Justin Summa of the state police barracks in Lebanon County.
Saturday's crash on Interstate 78 during a snow squall involved 64 vehicles, including a dozen commercial vehicles such as tractor-trailers and box trucks, Summa said. A total of 73 people were taken for treatment at 11 hospitals.
At least one person remained in critical condition with injuries from the crash. Penn State Hershey Medical Center said two others taken to the hospital with critical injuries had improved and most of the 13 people brought to the hospital had been discharged.
The interstate reopened Sunday morning following the pileup, which left tractor-trailers, box trucks and cars tangled together across three traffic lanes and into the snow-covered median about 75 miles northwest of Philadelphia.
If someone were to ask us what year it was, we would probably politely answer that it was 2016, curious to find out whether the inquirer was a) very confused, b) had only recently awoken from a coma and was still unsure of his when-abouts, or c) was a time traveler who got temporarily lost.
In the unlikely case that we should find ourselves unable to remember the year with sufficient precision to ensure a reliable answer, we'd probably consult a calendar. We recently found out that a great many people actually seem to be uncertain about what year it is. Or at least many mainstream media appear to think so, as they have launched an intense awareness campaign.
© sbs.com.au
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to... the circus!
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to... the circus!
I know, I know, it's been said about the boob tube for years that it's a barometer of social decline. To my mind, though, it's gotten worse in the last few years, and it's missing key elements.
Back in the day (don't worry, there won't be snow involved), TV shows rarely showed humanity at its most open or even at its worst, and each television show usually allowed some redemptive arc, that solved all sorts of problems.
Heck, the "Brady Bunch" solved pretty much every Standards and Practices-approved teenage problem in less than 30 minutes. Yes, there weren't any pregnancy- or drug-charged episodes. Yes, it could be construed as being less than an accurate portrayal of real life.
It really wasn't supposed to be. It was supposed to make you think, and feel good, and realize that all is not wrong in the world.
But today's fare is pushing the envelope of tragic."Teenage Mom," "Little Honey Boo Boo," "19 and Counting," "Fear Factor," or any other number of shows of this ilk are making a spectacle of the bottom of the barrel of humanity.
Moreover, it's an example of what happens when you glorify the tragic, and the compounding effect of constant exposure to this kind of fare.
In order to keep the masses in line, Roman emperors put on entertainment — or contests, if you will — of men and women slashing and hacking and killing each other. Kinda kept peoples' minds off of being hungry and poor and generally miserable. As time went on, things escalated, and eventually, ended up serving no purpose other than distraction.
© Levittown Patch
Ashley Reichard
Ashley Reichard
A Levittown woman who authorities say "severely" beat and abused her 11-month-old baby was sentenced Wednesday to six to 12 years in state prison.Ashley Reichard, 27, also lied about having cancer to get sympathy, the Bucks County District Attorney's office said.
According to information provided by the District Attorney's office, the abuse Reichard imposed on her daughter in 2014 during what the deputy district attorney called a "week of hell" was "among the worst" witnessed by a pediatric child abuse expert who testified in court.
During that week, Reichard admitted to authorities that she had slammed her daughter to the floor six times. She also admitted putting the baby unbuckled into a stroller then "forcefully" tipping her forward so the infant fell face-first onto a cement walkway. She also told authorities she smashed her baby's head into the floor. The baby had burns on her legs, authorities said. Reichard never elaborated on how the burns got there.
Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Schorn told the judge the baby's injuries were "horrific" and the child "could have died." As a result of the abuse, the baby suffered multiple skull fractures, an upper leg fractured in two places, fractures on both sides of her jaw, bruising from blows to her face and lower back, a perforated eardrum, a scratched cornea, and second-degree burns on both thighs, the Bucks County District Attorney said.
Reichard did not seek medical help for the baby until forced by others to do so, authorities said. Reichard pleaded guilty but mentally ill on Oct. 6 to felony aggravated assault. "What you did to the child is, quite frankly, unspeakable," Judge Wallace H. Bateman Jr. said in court.
According to the District Attorney's office, the child, now two and a half, has fully recovered from her injuries and lives with her father. Dr. Carla Parkin-Joseph, a pediatrician and child-abuse expert, described the baby's abuse as "probably one of the worst cases I've seen in my experience."
Comment: It's possible this woman is a psychopath. In The Mask of Sanity, Hervey Cleckley writes that the psychopath periodically needs to take vacations into filth and degradation.
From The Psychopath - The Mask Of Sanity - Special Research Project of the Quantum Future School:
One very interesting aspect of the psychopath is his "hidden life" that is sometimes not too well hidden. It seems that the psychopath has a regular need to take a "vacation into filth and degradation" the same way normal people may take a vacation to a resort where they enjoy beautiful surroundings and culture. To get a full feeling for this strange "need" of the psychopath - a need that seems to be evidence that "acting human" is very stressful to the psychopath - read more of The Mask of Sanity, chapters 25 and 26.
After several years of long lines, rationing, and shortages, the socialist country does not have enough food to feed its population, and the opposition government has declared a "nutritional emergency." This is just the most recent nail in the beleaguered country's slow, painful economic collapse.
Many people expect an economic collapse to be shocking, instant, and dramatic, but really, it's far more gradual than that. It looks like empty shelves, long lines, desperate government officials trying to cover their tushes, and hungry people. For the past two years, I've been following the situation in Venezuela as each shocking event has unfolded. Americans who feel that our country would be better served by a socialist government would be wise to take note of this timeline of the collapse.
An explosive is detonated at an A & G Coal Corporation surface mining operation in the Appalachian Mountains, Wise County, Virginia. Critics refer to this type of mining as 'mountaintop removal mining' which has destroyed 500 mountain peaks and at least 1,200 miles of streams while leading to increased flooding
The technique, known as mountaintop mining, practice provides much-needed jobs and the steady supply of coal that America relies on for more than half of its electricity needs.
But residents say they are paying a high price, with the practice destroying forests, polluting streams and flooding communities - and now a new study has backed up their claims.
Scientists have found mountaintop coal mining has made parts of Central Appalachia 40 per cent flatter than they were before excavation.
Comment:
Community Impacts of Mountaintop Removal
Communities near mountaintop removal sites frequently experience contaminated drinking water supplies. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency notes that iron and manganese concentrations surpass drinking water guidelines in at least 40% of wells on the Appalachian Plateau, and in about 70% of the wells near reclaimed surface coal mines of the region.
Coal slurry, the waste left after washing and processing coal with water and chemicals, is highly toxic and can leach into groundwater.
Coal sludge, or slurry, is the toxic byproduct of removing coal from rock, and it contains dangerous heavy metals such as antimony, beryllium, cadmium, chlorine, chromium, cobalt, lead, manganese, nickel, selenium, arsenic and mercury.
The forceful blasting from mountaintop removal often occurs close to homes, and at all times of the day. Drinking water wells and building foundations crack from the sheer force of the explosions, significantly depreciating property values, which is oftentimes a family's most substantial asset. Communities are blanketed in dust, and sometimes pelted by rocks ranging from pebble to boulder size.
Before coal companies remove a mountaintop, they strip the land clean. Without trees on steep mountain slopes, rainfall can quickly accumulate to dangerous levels, subjecting nearby communities to powerful flash floods. Some of the most devastating flash floods occurred in Mingo County in southern West Virginia in May 2009, when rising water forced residents from their homes and prompted then-Governor Joe Manchin to declare a state of emergency. It was the 19th flood in 11 years to hit Mingo County and surrounding areas of southern West Virginia's coalfields.
- U.S. EPA concerned about mountain top removal link to birth defects
- Bees Hurt by Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining
This is in stark contrast to previous claims by tech manufacturers, like PlayStation, who vehemently deny their devices record personal information, despite evidence to the contrary, including news that hackers can gain access to unencrypted streams of credit card information.
The new Samsung controversy stems from the discovery of a single haunting statement in the company's "privacy policy," which states:
Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party.
Comment: Cutting edge technology is not worth losing your privacy.
© Thinkstock/iStock
Trying to change how the world tells time might seem like a crazy idea at first glance, but in a globally connected world, a single time zone has its benefits.
For starters, time zones are political creations, not scientific ones. The world isn't divided into 24 precisely demarcated lines based on sunlight patterns. Instead, there are around 40 different locally observed times created by different nations and regions. Some countries, such as Nepal, Venezuela or North Korea, have 30- or even 45-minute offsets separating their time from their longitudinal neighborhood.
Countries also change their time zones regularly. As the Washington Post mentions in an interview recently with Hanke and Henry, five countries changed theirs last year.
© Jon Mitchell
A fire extinguishing agent is washed out in a storm drain at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa Prefecture on Dec. 4, 2013, in a photo obtained through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act
A fire extinguishing agent is washed out in a storm drain at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa Prefecture on Dec. 4, 2013, in a photo obtained through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act
The internal reports expose a spate of accidents at the base during the past 15 years that have involved at least 21,000 liters of fire extinguishing agents — some of them toxic.
In one incident last May, described by base officials as "vandalism," a drunk U.S. Marine activated a firefighting system. It filled a hangar with more than 1,500 liters of JET-X 2.75 percent — a foam classified by the U.S. government as hazardous. It contains chemicals known to cause cancer, and neurological and reproductive disorders.
Although the agent flowed off the base into nearby waterways and the ocean, military officials decided not to report the accident to Japanese authorities or local residents.
Other incidents at Kadena, the largest U.S. air base in the Pacific, included the escape of approximately 17,000 liters of fire extinguishing agents during a three-day period in 2001, attributed by base officials to mechanical and electronic malfunctions.
Comment: It's little wonder the Japanese are fed-up with the US military presence:
- Okinawa officials file lawsuit to block construction of U.S. Henoko military base
- U.S. troops are stationed in Japan to protect the nation - but to sex workers in Okinawa, they bring fear, not security
- Japan considers cutbacks to funding of US military bases
- Thousands protest in Japan demanding removal of U.S. military base in Okinawa
Comment: Bread and Circuses...American style