Society's ChildS


Family

Number of people relying on food banks tripled in a year

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Food banks have seen a surge in use - "Children are going to school hungry", says Mark Ward, Trussell Trust
The number of people relying on food banks to survive has tripled over the last year, according to new figures.

The Trussell Trust, which runs 400 food banks across the UK, said it handed out supplies to more than 350,000 people between April and September this year.

A third of those being helped were children, and a third needed food following a delay in the payment of benefits.

A cross-party group of MPs has been set up to investigate the surge in demand.

The Labour MP Frank Field, appointed by David Cameron as the government's poverty advisor, will head up the committee along with Conservative Laura Sandys.

Einstein

Best of the Web: Forbes ranks Putin world's most powerful person, downs Obama

Vladimir Putin
© Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AFPUS President Barack Obama (L) and Russia's President Vladimir Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been ranked the most powerful person in the world by Forbes. He topped the list of the 72 world figures that "matter the most," while US President Barack Obama was rated second.

Putin's Syria "chess match" that prevented the US strike, and his having the last word in the diplomatic row over the fugitive NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, didn't go unnoticed with the editorial rating of the influential American business magazine, and were noted among the reasons for his top place.

Comment: With Vladimir Putin's RECENT efforts to avoid another war in the Middle East, it sure seems like he is becoming more of a peacemaker than war waging imperialist. Not bad for a "autocratic leader," "ex-KGB strongman," and "dictator".


Sherlock

Denver police investigating bones found at apparent occult scene

Lakewood police are investigating what they suspect are human and animal remains believed to have been used for occult worship.

Officers were called around 3:30 p.m. on Oct. 17 to the 1200 block of Kline Street where a cleaning crew hired by a realtor made the discovery, said Steve Davis, Lakewood police spokesman.

The bones were found in a shed, along with candles, bottles, chains and a crucifix, Davis said.

The former owner of the home left the country in 1998 and has since died, police said. Investigators talked to people who knew the man, including at least one family member, who indicated he was an occultist, Davis said.

"It's all very strange," Davis said.

The items in question in the shed were extremely soiled, covered in multiple layers of dust and appeared to have been undisturbed for more than 15 years, Davis said.

Snakes in Suits

One-legged beggar 'names and shames' Tory MP who told him to get a job

Mark McGuigan
© Mark RichardsMark McGuigan said he was humiliated and intimidated by the Tory MP’s intervention
A one-legged beggar said he was made to feel small and humiliated by a 6ft 8in Conservative MP who told him to 'get a job'.

Mark McGuigan said ministerial aide Daniel Kawczynski loomed over him outside Westminster Tube station to tell him 'get a job, find some work. Yes, I know it is hard, I have struggled too'.

The 47-year-old former drug addict, confined to a wheelchair after losing a leg to septicaemia from heroin use ten years ago, said he wanted to 'name and shame' the Tory MP over the October 7 incident.

'He told me to stop begging and to get a job. He made me feel really small. He was so sanctimonious,' he told the Daily Mail.

'I can't get a job. I can barely read and write. Look at me, I am missing a leg. I said that to him but he just started getting more and more aggressive. It was horrible.

Magnify

Security check now starts long before you fly

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© Michael Stravato for The New York TimesAbdulla Darrat, an urban planner from Queens, said he has been singled out for repeated searches by airport security.
The Transportation Security Administration is expanding its screening of passengers before they arrive at the airport by searching a wide array of government and private databases that can include records like car registrations and employment information.

While the agency says that the goal is to streamline the security procedures for millions of passengers who pose no risk, the new measures give the government greater authority to use travelers' data for domestic airport screenings. Previously that level of scrutiny applied only to individuals entering the United States.

The prescreening, some of which is already taking place, is described in documents the T.S.A. released to comply with government regulations about the collection and use of individuals' data, but the details of the program have not been publicly announced.

Stormtrooper

5 new ways the T.S.A. searches you before a flight

The blue glove of the T.S.A. may start to reach much further than your carry-on.
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© Getty Images
If you have an upcoming flight, you've probably already been through security -- even if you are nowhere near the airport. The Transportation Security Administration (T.S.A.) will now inspect passengers much more closely, for both domestic and international flights, by surveying a host of different databases.

Here are five new stealthy scans you might unwittingly undergo (well) before boarding your next flight:

Red Flag

Human remains found in Los Angeles water treatment plants

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© Screenshot via CBS Los Angeles
The upper torso of a woman found Monday at a waste treatment plant is believed to be related to the human remains found this weekend at a similar facility in Carson.

The human remains of the woman, who was possibly Hispanic, were found by maintenance workers at a facility operated by the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County in the 1900 block of Workman Mill Road in Bassett, near the 60 and 605 freeways.

The remains were discovered in one of the facility's water reclamation plant pools.

"During a check for a plug in a line, they discovered a human torso," sheriff's Lt. Mike Rosson said. "That human torso appears to be related to...remains that were found in Carson on Saturday morning."


Che Guevara

Naomi Klein: How science is telling us all to revolt

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© Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto/ FlowersWaste land: large-scale irrigation strips nutrients from the soil, scars the landscape and could alter climactic conditions beyond repair.
Is our relentless quest for economic growth killing the planet? Climate scientists have seen the data - and they are coming to some incendiary conclusions.

In December 2012, a pink-haired complex systems researcher named Brad Werner made his way through the throng of 24,000 earth and space scientists at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, held annually in San Francisco. This year's conference had some big-name participants, from Ed Stone of Nasa's Voyager project, explaining a new milestone on the path to interstellar space, to the film-maker James Cameron, discussing his adventures in deep-sea submersibles.

But it was Werner's own session that was attracting much of the buzz. It was titled "Is Earth F**ked?" (full title: "Is Earth F**ked? Dynamical Futility of Global Environmental Management and Possibilities for Sustainability via Direct Action Activism").

Standing at the front of the conference room, the geophysicist from the University of California, San Diego walked the crowd through the advanced computer model he was using to answer that question. He talked about system boundaries, perturbations, dissipation, attractors, bifurcations and a whole bunch of other stuff largely incomprehensible to those of us uninitiated in complex systems theory. But the bottom line was clear enough: global capitalism has made the depletion of resources so rapid, convenient and barrier-free that "earth-human systems" are becoming dangerously unstable in response. When pressed by a journalist for a clear answer on the "are we f**ked" question, Werner set the jargon aside and replied, "More or less."

Eye 2

FBI arrests mother who ripped off boy's genitals, superglued them and sent him to bed

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The FBI arrested Jennifer Marie Vargas, 34, at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston for ripping and partially pulling off her 6-year-old son's genitals. Her reason? Because she was angry with him.

Releasing that she had "gone too far," she then used superglue to try to repair the serious injury, according to court records.

The FBI charged Vargas with "assault within maritime and territorial jurisdiction resulting in serious bodily injury."

Strangely, even with such an outrageous offense, she faces only up to 10 years in prison.

The child father who worked on the Army base, returned home from work September 27 and found the boy crying in an upstairs bedroom.

He saw bloody tissue in his son's underwear and the severe ripping to his genitals. He rushed the boy to the San Antonio Military Medical Center, according to the court affidavit.

Sheriff

Florida cop tasers cuffed girl who became braindead as a result

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A Florida police officer, 267-pound Trooper Daniel Cole, was recently cleared of any wrongdoing by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Questions were raised when he tasered a 20 year old handcuffed girl in the back as she fled. The tasering was caught on video showing officer Cole firing the taser at the handcuffed Danielle Maudsley. Maudsley was a mere 100 pound, while Cole outweighed her at two and a half times her weight. She was clearly no threat to him, unless he expected to die from exhaustion chasing her a few yards.

The encounter took place last September at the FHP Pinellas Park Substation. As Maudsley fled, the tasering prevented her from catching herself as her muscles involuntarily seized up. As a result, she fell to the concrete, and bashed her head. She suffered severe brain damage and has been in a persistent vegetative state ever since.

The video below shows Maudsley fleeing a back door of the substation with officer Cole following closely behind, with absolutely no need to taser her. It is clear that he only did this to inflict physical punishment on the small 20 year old.