Society's ChildS


Question

Strange disappearance: Still no leads in case of missing Calgary boy and his grandparents

Sonja Puzic
CTV
Wed, 02 Jul 2014 16:33 UTC
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Two days after a Calgary boy and his grandparents disappeared under suspicious circumstances, police still don't have any solid leads in the case.

Police have issued an Amber Alert and are asking for the public's help in their search for five-year-old Nathan O'Brien and his maternal grandparents, Kathryn and Alvin Liknes.

The boy's father, Rod O'Brien, has said that the family will offer an award in excess of $100,000 for their safe return.
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Heart - Black

Victim of insurance industry: Nevada woman dies after denial of care while paying premiums

Jennifer Robison
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Tue, 01 Jul 2014 17:42 UTC
Linda Rolain
Linda Rolain
Time ran out for Linda Rolain.

The Las Vegas woman died Monday, less than two weeks after her family went public with details about Nevada Health Link insurance exchange enrollment troubles that kept her from treatment in January for an aggressive brain tumor.

Rolain was one of about 150 Nevadans suing Nevada Health Link contractor Xerox for enrollment mix-ups that left them without the health insurance they paid for.

Rolain is the first to die of complications from an illness said to have gone untreated for lack of coverage. But observers close to her case say she may not be the last.

"We are worried that this is the first of many Nevadans who have life-threatening issues that may end up in such tragic circumstances. We urge all Nevadans to verify that their insurance is active and in place in light of the many problems that hundreds, if not thousands, of Nevadans have gone through," Rolain's law firm, Callister, Immerman and Associates, said in a statement.

Local insurance broker Pat Casale, who in May began to help Rolain with her enrollment issues, said he wouldn't be surprised if there were at least another 100 Nevadans facing both coverage problems and "urgent and emergent" health care needs.
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Family

One million more working Britons plunged into poverty - report


RT
Wed, 02 Jul 2014 16:05 UTC
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© Reuters/Suzanne PlunkettA homeless man sits on the pavement, in central London.
A million more working Britons have been pushed into poverty because of soaring housing costs and stagnant wages. That's according to a new UK government report attacked bitterly by unions and rights groups.

New figures published by the UK government reveal that the number of working Britons below the poverty line has risen by at least 1 million. The government, however, insists the poverty numbers keep shrinking.

A report published by the Department for Work and Pensions shows that the number of working age adults living in "absolute poverty" soared from 7.7 million to 8.7 million between 2010-11 and 2012-13.

The Child Poverty Action group also cited the Department of Work and Pensions' figures saying that children living below the breadline rose from 3.6 million to 4.1 million during the two-year period.

Britain's Trade Union Congress (TUC) savaged the reports' findings, suggesting that the government's policies were causing living standards in the UK to deteriorate.

Comment:
Benefits and child credits squeeze pushes 200,000 children into poverty

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Cloud Lightning

Chris Martenson on the coming economic collapse

Greg Hunter
USAWatchdog.com
Mon, 30 Jun 2014 00:00 UTC
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Chris Martenson

Chris Martenson is an economic researcher and futurist who produced a popular video seminar called "Crash Course." Back in early 2008, he explained the "interconnected forces in the economy, energy and the environment." Now, he has produced a new "Accelerated Crash Course," and this theme is playing out in places like Iraq. Martenson says,
"If you want to understand what is going on in Iraq, you have to understand what is going on with energy in this part of the game. . . .The U.S. media goes out of its way to pretend this is just some random thing that happened. A bunch of crazy people came out of Syria and are causing trouble. . . . The post reconstruction effort in Iraq, if it wasn't designed to fail, it was the biggest bungling job of all of history. We dismantled key institutions, we dismantled their army and left the country a hollowed out shell. Guess what, now that's breaking."
Martenson goes on to point out,
"Here's why it affects us. Oil and oil infrastructure is fragile stuff. A refinery is thousands of moving parts and miles of tubes and pipes. One mortar lobbed in there and that whole refinery gets shut down. . . . The idea we can have full blown Sunni, Shia, Kurd conflict where they're going to duke it out for power, and have all that oil infrastructure remain untouched, I think is a fantasy."
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Brick Wall

All over for Obama? Polls say public has given up on his ability to accomplish anything

Paul Bedard
Washington Examiner
Wed, 02 Jul 2014 08:44 UTC
Obama suffering approval ratings
© AP PhotoPresident Obama is suffering from down in the dumps approval ratings.
President Obama's approval numbers are in the cellar, a new Quinnipiac University survey just dubbed him the worst president in six decades, so maybe it's no surprise that analyst and pollster John Zogby is asking: "Is it all over for him?"

Armed with new numbers that are depressing to an already deflated White House, Zogby on Wednesday found that most don't believe that Obama can lead the country and he compared the president to Bill Clinton following the Democrat's sweeping 1994 Congressional loss and when former White House Correspondent Brit Hume asked if Clinton was even relevant.

"Mr. Obama finds himself in the uncomfortable position where every age group, independents, and whites all agree that the public has given up on his ability to accomplish anything before the end of his term," said Zogby in releasing his latest numbers.

Comment: Perhaps the public is waking up to the fact that Obama's main accomplishments include spreading 'democracy' in the form of regime change around the world which has resulted in the widespread murder of civilians. In addition, he has been consistently lying, violating the constitution, allowing the militarization of the police force and the continuation of economic devastation. All that while presiding over the debacle of Obamacare as well!

Rats nest of concealment and lies behind Obama administration scandals and Obamacare website disaster
Obama lies: Drones Kill the Innocent
President Obama's chief accomplishments: Top10 constitutional violations of 2013
Financial Apocalypse: 25 Horrifying Statistics About the U.S. Economy That Obama Does Not Want You To Know

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Attention

Imperial President: Obama threatens to defy Congress on immigration, infrastructure decisions

Jim Kuhnhenn
Yahoo News
Tue, 01 Jul 2014 14:20 UTC
obama july 1 2014
© AP Photo/Charles DharapakPresident Barack Obama speaks about transportation and the economy, Tuesday, July 1, 2014, at the Georgetown Waterfront Park in Washington. Gridlock in Washington will lead to gridlock across the country if lawmakers can’t quickly agree on how to pay for transportation programs, Obama administration officials warn. States will begin to feel the pain of cutbacks within weeks -- peak summer driving time.
President Barack Obama defiantly dared congressional Republicans on Tuesday to try to block his efforts to act on his own and bypass a divided Congress that has thwarted his policy initiatives.

"So sue me," he taunted on a sweltering day, as he pushed lawmakers to pay for road and bridge repairs. "I'm not going to apologize for trying to do something."

Obama struck an aggressive tone in the face of a lawsuit threat from House Speaker John Boehner and in the wake of two defeats before the Supreme Court, including a unanimous decision from the court that he overreached when he appointed members of the National Labor Relations Board while the Senate was in recess.

His remarks came a day after Obama declared that he would act on his own to address weaknesses in the nation's immigration system after Boehner informed him that the House would not take up an immigration overhaul this year.

He has already taken a series of executive actions, including an order requiring federal contractors to pay a higher minimum wage and initiating steps to to lower carbon emissions in coal-fired power plants.
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USA

Seven reasons US police brutality is systemic, not anecdotal

Bonnie Kristian
The American Conservative
Wed, 02 Jul 2014 06:00 UTC
Police with Batons
© wtfspvm/cc
Darrin Manning's unprovoked "stop and frisk" encounter with the Philadelphia police left him hospitalized with a ruptured testicle. Neykeyia Parker was violently dragged out of her car and aggressively arrested in front of her young child for "trespassing" at her own apartment complex in Houston.

A Georgia toddler was burned when police threw a flash grenade into his playpen during a raid, and the manager of a Chicago tanning salon was confronted by a raiding police officer bellowing that he would kill her and her family, captured on the salon's surveillance. An elderly man in Ohio was left in need of facial reconstructive surgery after police entered his home without a warrant to sort out a dispute about a trailer.

These stories are a small selection of recent police brutality reports, as police misconduct has become a fixture of the news cycle.

But the plural of anecdote is not data, and the media is inevitably drawn toward tales of conflict. Despite the increasing frequency with which we hear of misbehaving cops, many Americans maintain a default respect for the man in uniform. As an NYPD assistant chief put it, "We don't want a few bad apples or a few rogue cops damaging" the police's good name.

This is an attractive proposal, certainly, but unfortunately it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Here are seven reasons why police misconduct is a systemic problem, not "a few bad apples":
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Laptop

Chinese try to cure internet addiction with boot camps


RT
Tue, 01 Jul 2014 14:12 UTC
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Students receive a group punishment during a military-style close-order drill class at the Qide Education Center in Beijing February 19, 2014
Military style boot-camps are flourishing in China in order to break teenagers of their internet addiction. Some 250 camps are now functioning in the country alone - and the idea may spread.

"My parents wanted me to study at home all day, and I was not allowed to play outside," one teenager, who gave only his surname, Wang, told Reuters. He said that resultantly he turned to the Internet to escape the competitive societal pressures.

"As I became addicted to the game, my school grades tumbled. But I gained another feeling of achievement by advancing to the next level in the game," Wang said.

He admitted to once playing for more than three days in a row during which he slept for only one hour.
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Bad Guys

Police animal cruelty: Furious man confronts police after learning they killed his dog


RT
Tue, 01 Jul 2014 02:51 UTC
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Screenshot from RT video
Residents in Salt Lake City, Utah are up in arms after a local police officer shot and killed a man's beloved pet dog last month while responding to a missing child report.

Authorities found the displaced toddler unharmed and sleeping inside its home around 30 minutes after they entered the yard of Sean Kendall on June 18 and killed his 110-pound Weimaraner, "Geist."

The incident has since managed to garner the attention of animal lovers in and out of Salt Lake City after Kendall published on the web a cell phone video he recorded as he accosted the police outside his home moments after learning what had happened.

"About 15 minutes ago, I got a phone call from Utah Animal Control, calling to tell me that an officer had shot and killed my dog," Kendall says in the beginning of the clip. "He was inside my backyard in a fenced-off area. What was the cause for the officer to shoot and kill my dog?"

Comment: Pets are being killed more and more often by police officers, see the following articles:

- Baltimore police officer charged after slitting restrained dog's throat
- The police will kill your dog
- Police Out of Control! Officers fatally shoot family's dog after responding to home's alarm system
- Detroit police kill puppy in couple's backyard while chasing suspect, arrest dog owner when asked questions
- Man calls to report a burglary, police arrive and shoot his dog in the head
- Florida police break into wrong backyard, shoot owner's dog
- Michigan police shoot dog 8 times after barking complaint
- Dog shot and killed by police officer in front of owner and her 2-Year-old son
- Police State: Graphic video shows California police shooting dog during arrest
- Central Texas dog shot by police officer after warrant mix-up
- Austin Police Officer Fatally Shoots Dog After Going To Wrong Address

Also listen in to the latest SOTT Talk Radio Show: Para-military Police State: U.S. cops out of control?

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Bomb

Oops! Ou est la bombe? French cops 'lose explosives' in airport during training and can't find them


RT
Wed, 02 Jul 2014 03:44 UTC
Marseille airport
© AFP Photo / Anne-Christine Poujoulat
French police put a block of explosives at Marseille Airport during training exercises...and forgot where they hid it, says a leaked report. The authorities have been searching for the perilous package for a week to no avail.

The explosives were lost somewhere in the cargo area in Marseille Provence Airport in the second-largest French city, reported French media.

The deadly substance was hidden during exercises in which the local gendarmes were training police dogs to find explosives. However, the sniffer dogs didn't seem to be trained well enough to find the substances. Neither were the officers, who forgot where they put no less than 100 grams of C-4 military explosives.

"All searches to find the material have failed," the police source said. It is yet unclear whether fully-trained police dogs had been used to help find the substances.

A criminal investigation has been launched to find out who is responsible for the incident, said local police, adding that the culprit could be subject to "administrative penalties and lawsuits."

The preliminary inquiry said that "there was a negligent supervision" of the training exercise.
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