Society's ChildS


Pistol

US: Suspect wanted in officer's death is killed

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© UnknownMark Richard Geisenheyner.
Webster, Pennsylvania - A gunman got out of his car during a late-night traffic stop and shot two police officers, one fatally, then spent hours in a standoff with police before he died trading shots with a SWAT team outside his home, state police said Monday.

Eli Franklin Myers was shot and killed by members of a tactical team trying to serve an arrest warrant for him Monday morning, about 10 hours after he killed East Washington police Officer John David Dryer on a highway shoulder, authorities said.

A second officer who was backing up Dryer was wounded in the gunbattle with Myers, authorities said. No other injuries were reported from the gunfire outside Myers' home in Webster, about 25 miles south of Pittsburgh.

Investigators believe Myers, 58, stepped out of his van and opened fire on Dryer and Officer Robert Caldwell after being pulled over shortly before midnight in Interstate 70 in Washington County, Trooper Joseph Christy said.

Caldwell's injury was non-life threatening, authorities said.

Emergency vehicles blocked off roads near Myers' home in Webster, a small town on the east bank of the Monongahela River. The local school district canceled classes while authorities tried to locate Myers.

Cult

Pope Benedict XVI's Health in Serious Decline as 85th Birthday, Christmas Approach

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© Honda/AFP/GettyPope Benedict XVI waves as he leaves Yankee Stadium after saying mass on April 20, 2008 in New York.
A decline has been noted as Benedict prepares for next weekend's grueling Christmas celebrations, which kick off two weeks of intense public appearances.

Pope Benedict XVI seems worn out.

People who have spent time with him recently say they found him weaker than they'd ever seen him, seemingly too tired to engage with what they were saying. He no longer meets individually with visiting bishops. A few weeks ago he started using a moving platform to spare him the long walk down St. Peter's Basilica.

Benedict turns 85 in the new year, so a slowdown is only natural. Expected. And given his age and continued rigorous work schedule, it's remarkable he does as much as he does and is in such good health overall: Just this past week he confirmed he would travel to Mexico and Cuba next spring.

But a decline has been noted as Benedict prepares for next weekend's grueling Christmas celebrations, which kick off two weeks of intense public appearances. And that raises questions about the future of the papacy given that Benedict himself has said popes should resign if they can't do the job.

Wall Street

Götterdämmerung: Hell, Tribulation, and Economic Collapse

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The end of the world may not be coming, but whatever is coming might as well be the end of the world. And as we walk in this twilight, perhaps at the very least, we would do well to enjoy the sunset while it lasts.

As We Traverse Towards Tribulation

MarketWatch's Paul B. Farrell had an interestingarticle Tuesday on how America is on the path for a decade from hell. In Farrell's opinion, this "decade from hell will get worse in 2012". Farrell portends a coming stock market crash, political dysfunctionality, revolution, and various wars that stem from class differences and commodity clashes between countries in the near future.

Farrell compared the stock market crash in 2008 to the one that occurred in 1929, i.e. both were followed by European banking crises. In light of worldwide protests, the collapse of the euro, and income inequality, Farrell suggested that tough times are most likely ahead for Americans. Farrell suggested that throughout next year the world will have to come to terms with "more bad news". By ignoring history, Farrell wrote that we are missing the fundamental economic shift that is occurring owing to factors like excessive debt, unemployment, and world tumult.

Farrell's dire forecasts for the next nine years are quite ominous. Among them include ideas that the "super rich" will continue to spend billions to control Washington culminating in a system where the wealthy have absolute power over everyone else, rising global population will give way to commodity wars throughout the world, class war will spread, and the American form of capitalism will collapse in on itself.

In light of various global commodity wars, the rising global population will have to address a decline in resources. Thus, there will have to be a "total rethinking of the balance between spending to protect against external enemies and a rapid deterioration of domestic programs: employment, education, health care, [and] retirement." According to Farrell, in the end the established order will be turned on its head as the world rejects the wealthy and male leaders in order to effectively rebuild human civilization.

Arrow Down

Our Decade from Hell Will Get Worse in 2012

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© marketwatch.com
Fasten your seat belts: 2011 was far worse than expected. Our earlier predictions for America's Worst Decade just got worse.

As financial historian Niall Ferguson writes in Newsweek: "Double-Dip Depression ... We forget that the Great Depression was like a soccer match, there were two halves." The 1929 crash kicked off the first half. But what "made the depression truly 'great' ...began with the European banking crisis of 1931." Sound familiar?

Yes, huge warnings: But America's deaf. In denial. When we predicted the 2011-2020 "decade from hell" we didn't see the big macro events dead ahead: Arab Spring virus that's now Occupy Wall Street, promising to explode into an even more powerful force in 2012 ... war on the middle class ... widening inequality gap. ... Washington gridlock ... the Super Rich's blind resistance to all new taxes.

As Ferguson puts it: "To understand what has been happening in our own borderline depression, you need to know this history. But hardly anyone does." Get it? America's already in a "borderline depression," and virtually nobody gets it. American leaders are dummies about history. Worse, nobody may be able to stop our depression from turning "great."

Investors beware: Please, protect your assets: "Those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it." We've already forgotten the lessons of the 2008 disaster. No wonder we're doomed to repeat the mistakes of the 1930's triggering the Second Great Depression. Soccer anyone?

Bomb

Blast hits Egypt's gas pipeline to Jordan, Israel

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© Unknown
Cairo: An Egyptian pipeline carrying gas to Israel and Jordan was bombed Sunday, the 10th such attack this year, but no fire erupted because the line that runs through North Sinai was already disabled, a security source said.

The blast took place in an area five km (three miles) south of the Mediterranean coastal town of al-Arish.

"The attack was carried out using remote-controlled explosives by unidentified assailants who arrived at the scene using four-wheel-drive vehicles," the source said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the series of pipeline attacks since a popular uprising toppled Mubarak in February. One attack took place just before he was ousted.

The latest blast broke the pipe, but no flames were seen as gas pumping has been halted since the last attack on November 28.

The government said in November it would tighten security measures along the pipeline by installing alarm devices and recruiting security patrols from Bedouin tribesmen in the area.

Take 2

Angelina Jolie inflames new ethnic emotions in Bosnia with her debut as film director

Angelina Jolie has aroused praise and criticism in Bosnia with her first film as a director, a story of love and war set during the bloody Balkans conflict.


She is Hollywood's highest-paid actress and one half of its most glamorous couple, accustomed to life on the red carpet, her instantly-recognisable face looking out from glossy magazine covers.

This time, however, Angelina Jolie is being feted for her work behind rather than in front of the camera with her directorial debut - a harrowing story of love and war in Bosnia.

Even before the release of In the Land of Blood and Honey, the Oscar-winner garnered her first directing honour, winning the Producers' Guild of America special award for portrayal of social issues.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has just shortlisted the film, which Jolie also wrote, in the best foreign language category for the Golden Globes. And her father, the actor Jon Voight, from whom she was long estranged, joined her for the festivities in a public display of reconciliation.

But in the Balkans, another world from the star-studded American premieres and glitzy after-parties, the film is inflaming old and deeply-held emotions.

Sheriff

Say NO to the Use of the Military in the United States... Is the Use of the Military Designed for the Occupy Movement?

The congress is rushing through S. 1867, the Defense Authorization Bill. It contains a radical change in law - allowing the use of the military inside the United States, against U.S. citizens and residents, allowing their indefinite military detention based merely on suspicion of being engaged in hostilities against the U.S. This amendment, sponsored by Senators Carl Levin and John McCain, was added in the senate after a closed door hearing and has received bi-partisan support on the Senate floor, with very little debate.

At the request of the White House language that exempted American citizens and legal residents from indefinite military detention was removed from the bill passed by the Senate Armed Services Committee, as Senator Levin said on the senate floor.

This is a major shift from a country that forbids the use of the military domestically under the Posse Comitatus Act passed in 1878 during the Reconstruction Era. There have been holes in the domestic use of the military primarily in drug enforcement. Indeed, I worked on one case involving Esequiel Hernandez, an 18 year old high school student killed on the Texas-Mexican border by Marines on drug patrol in 1997. The Hernandez killing shows why the U.S. military is the wrong tool for enforcement inside the United States and raises questions for young soldiers ordered to turn their weapons on Americans.


Vader

Welcome To The United Police States of America, Sponsored By Twitter

Imagine my surprise this morning when, without warning, my shiny new Twitter account (@d_seaman) was suspended and taken offline.

No more tweets for you. You now have 0 followers.

My crime? Talking too much about Occupy Wall Street (I'm not an Occupier, but as a blogger and journalist it strikes me as one of the most important stories out there -- hence the constant coverage), and talking too much about the controversial detainment without trial provisions contained in the FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which would basically shred the Bill of Rights and subject American citizens to military police forces. The same level of civil rights protection that enemy combatants in a cave in Afghanistan receive!

Question

Mystery Kidney Disease in Central America

Mystery Disease
© Anna Maria Barry - Jester
A mysterious epidemic is sweeping Central America - it's the second biggest cause of death among men in El Salvador, and in Nicaragua it's a bigger killer of men than HIV and diabetes combined. It's unexplained but the latest theory is that the victims are literally working themselves to death.

In the western lowlands of Nicaragua, in a region of vast sugar cane fields, sits the tiny community of La Isla.

The small houses are a patchwork of concrete and wood. Pieces of cloth serve as doors.

Maudiel Martinez emerges from his house to greet me. He's pale, and his cheekbones protrude from his face. He hunches over like an old man - but he is only 19 years old.

"The way this sickness is - you see me now, but in a month I could be gone. It can take you down all of a sudden," he says.

Maudiel's kidneys are failing. They do not perform the essential function of filtering waste from his body - he's being poisoned from the inside.

When he got ill two years ago, he was already familiar with this disease and how it might end. "I thought about my father and grandfather," he says. Both died of the same condition. Three of his brothers have it too.

All of them worked in the sugar cane fields.

Cowboy Hat

US: The Fight to End Corporate Personhood Heats Up

Occupy wall street coporate personhood
© dopey, via Flickr
It's been nearly two years since an intensely divided Supreme Court solidified the idea of corporate personhood by ruling that political spending by corporations is protected as a form of free speech under the First Amendment. Since then, that landmark decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Committee has allowed for unrestricted and undisclosed campaign spending by corporations, a concept that we are just starting to see the effects of as the 2012 election draws near.

Since the Occupy Wall Street protests began in September, there has been a lot of attention on the potential for political corruption by powerful corporations and the subsequent gross imbalance of wealth and power it creates. Over the past few weeks, it looks like there is finally some momentum starting to build in efforts to overturn the landmark Citizens United case, cut the ties between corporations and the government, and put an end to the idea that Corporations should enjoy the same rights as people.