Society's ChildS


Heart - Black

Sad state of society: Dolphin dies after beachgoers pass it around taking selfies


Sky News
Thu, 18 Feb 2016 21:06 UTC
dolphin dies selfies
A young dolphin has died after beachgoers took it from the sea to pose for photographs with it. Huge crowds gathered around the small animal on the beach resort at Santa Teresita in Argentina after one man picked it up. But it appears it quickly overheated and died while out of the water.

It was still being passed around by the beachgoers after its death and was later left discarded in the sand. The dolphin was left on the sand after it died.

The dolphin was from the La Plata - also known as the Franciscana - variety, found off the coasts of Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. It is considered a "vulnerable" species because there are only about 30,000 left in the world.
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Red Flag

Ignorance of history: Despite genocide, slave-trading and concentration camps, most Britons are proud of British colonial legacy

Danielle Ryan
RT
Thu, 18 Feb 2016 20:44 UTC
uk city block
© Stringer / Reuters
A recent poll conducted in the UK found that 44 percent of British people are "proud" of the British Empire, while only 21 percent of respondents "regretted" that it existed.

The YouGov poll found 43 percent of respondents felt the empire had been a "good" thing while 19 percent said it was "bad".

At its peak in 1922, the British Empire governed one-fifth of the world's population and one-quarter of the world's land area. Slave-trading, famine, concentration camps, massacres; those all sound like a history that would evoke a sense of shame, not pride.

But this isn't about bashing Britons for being proud of their history and telling them to feel ashamed instead. It's about the fact that they — too many of them — don't actually know their history. The history of the empire is not widely taught in UK schools — and what is taught is a watered-down or varnished version of the truth.

As British-Nigerian historian and writer David Olusoga put it: "The empire has become reduced to the abolition of slavery, the building of the Indian railways and some vague talk about the rule of law, British values and the spread of the English language."
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Attention

MICE-IS on the loose: Brussels blames rodents for eating infrastructure plans


Sputnik
Thu, 18 Feb 2016 20:36 UTC
mouse
© Flickr/ Tara Swann
If you think the old "the dog ate my homework" excuse is bad, wait until you hear what happened to the master plans for roadways in Brussels.

Deteriorating tunnels in the Belgian capital have been in such bad shape that they have been causing roads to shut down, and yet rebuilding plans keep being delayed. Finally, the city announced that the reason behind this is that the major infrastructure plans were likely eaten by rodents.

"They may have been eaten by mice," the former head of the city's infrastructure agency, Christian Debuysscher, told the regional parliament on Wednesday.

Perhaps even stranger is where the plans were being stored. In 1989, when the Brussels region was founded, the transportation department was housed in a temporary office in a hotel. So naturally, the city stored the important tunnel plans inside bridge supports on the side of one of their main highways.

Comment: This is getting serious, folks! The rodents in Brussels are out of control (and so are the mice).

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Sun

Nevada just killed the solar industry with 40% tax hike, derailing the off-the-grid movement

Justin Gardner
Free Thought Project
Fri, 15 Jan 2016 20:18 UTC
Rooftop solar panels
Rooftop solar panels
While Nevadans were celebrating the holidays under solar-powered lights, the Nevada Public Utilities Commission (PUC) voted unanimously to increase a monthly fee on solar customers by 40% while reducing the amount they get paid for excess power sold to the grid. Adding insult to injury, they made the rate changes retroactive, sabotaging consumer investments in solar energy.

This single move by government regulators will effectively kill the solar industry in Nevada and put an end to the surge of people seeking to detach from the grid by harnessing their own energy from the sun. Just as importantly, it serves to protect the profits of Nevada's public utility company, NV Energy.

"It will destroy the rooftop solar industry in one of the states with the most sunshine... There is so much wrong with the decision," said SolarCity CEO Lydon Rive. "The one beneficiary of this decision would be NV Energy, whose monopoly will have been protected."
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Red Flag

Anti-government and hate groups flourished in US during 2015, growing by 14%


RT
Thu, 18 Feb 2016 20:17 UTC
hate groups
© Thomas R. Cordova/Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/AP Photo
An advocacy organization monitoring anti-government and hate groups in the United States released its annual census report showing that extremism flourished around the nation in 2015, growing by 14 percent.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which conducted the survey, called it a year marked by "extraordinary violence from domestic extremists."

Founded in 1971 as a civil rights legal advocacy, the SPLC has published annual reports on "hate groups" since 2001. Critics have accused the organization of targeting and demonizing conservatives and stoking fear in order to get funding. Last year, the group apologized for describing GOP presidential hopeful Ben Carson as an "extremist."

The organization's annual report for 2015, titled "The Year in Hate and Extremism" and released on Wednesday, attributed the rise of hate and anti-government groups to the exploitation of the anger and fear some Americans felt over the country's changing culture, whether through immigration, the legalization of same-sex marriage, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, or the atrocities committed by Islamist terrorists. The group also highlighted anger felt by white, working-class Americans and some middle-class white people, especially the less educated, over economic pressures.

Comment: It is likely that many of the incidents listed above that have fueled the anger, hate, and feelings of disenfranchisement of Americans were either orchestrated or allowed to happen by the government. The government appears to be actively working to get people fighting amongst each other so that they stay divided and don't see the bigger enemy that is pulling all of their strings. If people were able to do that, they would stop fighting with each other and join together to get rid of all the psychopaths in power in the US who go around causing chaos both at home and abroad.

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Heart

When police in Iceland killed a man, they apologized and haven't used firearms since

M. David and Jackson Marciana
Counter Current News
Wed, 17 Feb 2016 19:51 UTC
iceland police
© Ints Kalnins/Reuters
As Americans struggle to get an accurate total of just how many people U.S. police gun down annually, police in Iceland have still not shot a single person since their single fatality in 2013.

The Guardian UK has created a database to track down hundreds of U.S. citizens killed by the police who were sworn to protect them.

Meanwhile, Iceland, has had only one police killing since the nation became independent in 1944. There, when police shoot someone, they apologize.

"The police regret this incident and wishes to extend its condolences to the man's family," national police chief Haraldur Johannessen said. "The nation was in shock. This does not happen in our country," Thora Arnorsdottir, news editor at RUV, the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service said.

Comment: What a concept. The US used to be sort of like this - at least in some areas. Now: Epidemic: Cops killed nearly 4 people a day in January - more deaths a day than most countries kill per year

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Megaphone

Is a Right Sector putsch in Kiev imminent? "Take the machine guns, assault rifles, RPGs and drive Poroshenko out!"

Ollie Richardson (translator)
Fort Russ
Thu, 18 Feb 2016 18:18 UTC
right sector
The Right Sector and UPA announced a march to Kiev after February 20th. This was stated in a joint press conference by one of the members with the callsign 'Sensey'.

According to him, on the 20th of February they will begin the mobilization of nationalists, which will give time for the President to voluntarily resign, otherwise he will be threatened with punishment.
The time will come when we put the weapons into our hands, and we will come and say: "Poroshenko is a traitor, get out of here. You have three days". And then we'll take the assault rifles, submachine guns, RPGs and drive him out of there...
On the 20th February, each of us will leave home and begin to mobilize people. I don't know which way - we are not oligarchs, and have no money. I can say that I am doing this to attract businessmen who are not engaged with this government.
We're going slowly to 10, 20, 30 people to the extent possible, we'll leave here, and claim the position of the impeachment of the President, definitely, the recognition of the ATO in the war, the release of all political prisoners and other issues...
We'll give them three days to leave peacefully without weapons... or one day, and then we will take up arms, which we received in the East, because of them. They have taught us to fight and to kill, and we're going to kill them if they did not understand what is going on.

Comment: Dear Western world, do you remember Right Sector? These are the neo-Nazis who volunteered to kill east Ukrainians indiscriminately. You know, the ones you gave your full support during Kiev's farce of an "anti-terrorist operation". Looks like Kiev may just get a dose of what they've been asking for.

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Laptop

FBI launches lame video game to keep kids from becoming violent extremists

Justin Gardner
The Free Thought Project
Wed, 17 Feb 2016 16:55 UTC
FBI website game
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is expanding its counter-terrorism efforts by launching a propaganda site for children, complete with a comically primitive video game that no kid would want to play.

The stated purpose of the FBI's new program, called "Don't Be A Puppet: Pull Back the Curtain on Violent Extremism," is to "keep young people...from embracing violent extremist ideologies in the first place."

While it is laudable to discourage young people from engaging in violence, the campaign reeks of hypocrisy. As Martin Luther King, Jr. stated, the U.S. government is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.
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Passport

ISIS passport forgers busted in Moscow


RT
Thu, 18 Feb 2016 07:47 UTC
passports
© www.inquisitr.comHave passport, will travel...
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) has arrested 14 suspects from an international criminal group involved in forging passports and other documents for Islamic extremists preparing to go to Syria, and those coming to Russia for terror missions. A joint special FSB and Interior Ministry operation in the Moscow region has exposed an international organized crime network, which was providing forged papers for extremists from Russia and CIS countries.

The gang was busy forging documents for those "illegally heading to Syria to take part in military actions on the side of Islamic State, and also for the militants sent on a mission to Russia by ISIS leaders to conduct terrorist and extremist activities, as well as illegal migrants." The members of the group were arrested after sufficient evidence had been gathered, the FSB reported. Search operations revealed a vast stockpile of forged documents, forms, stamps, special equipment for fake papers' production, as well as extremist literature.

The FSB believes that all members of the criminal ring are now in custody. Secret printing presses and laboratories have been found and sales and distribution channels shut down. The members of the criminal group have been taking extreme precautionary measures. They constantly changed their place of residence and used undercover communications' tools, including software enabling them to hide personal data while surfing the web, the FSB reported.

Comment: Good catch by Russia. Wonder if this savvy ISIS forgery group is operating independently or does it tie back to the 'Leaders of the Pack' (US/Israel, CIA/Mossad)? Given the 'governmentality' of surveillance mechanisms embedded in today's passports, the group would have to have some connections to insider knowledge and know-how...yes? And, if they can do it in one location...where else might they be?

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Gift

UN, ICRC supervise Syrian aid to several towns under siege


RT
Wed, 17 Feb 2016 18:01 UTC
syria aid
© Omar Sanadiki / ReutersA convoy carrying humanitarian goods wait to enter the besieged area of Moudamiya Al Sham in the suburbs of Damascus, Syria February 17, 2016.
Humanitarian relief convoys have entered crisis-stricken Damascus suburbs under the supervision of the Red Crescent and the UN, becoming the first international aid deliveries since world powers agreed on a ceasefire plan starting Friday.

A 35-lorry convoy carrying food and medicine entered Muadamiyat al-Sham, a town 10 kilometers southwest of Damascus, on Wednesday. According to the NGO and an RT Arabic crew on the ground, the lorries are loaded with produce, medical supplies and milk. From Damascus some 100 trucks left to other parts of Syria carrying food, non-food items, medical equipment and medicine.

The UN humanitarian coordinator for Syria, Yacoub El Hillo said that supplies were also sent to Madaya and Zabadani. Ahmad al-Najem, coordinator of field operations at Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) told the state-run Syrian news agency SANA that 59 trucks loaded with 15,600 flour bags and about 4,100 food rations in addition to medicines are on their way there. Muhannad al-Asadi of SARC also told the Syrian agency that that a mobile clinic entered Madaya on Wednesday.

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