Society's Child

Israel is prepared to murder more unarmed protesters in Gaza

Robert Mackey
The Intercept
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 20:17 UTC

© Associated Press/Adel Hana
Palestinian masked protesters carrying tires walk toward the border fence during clashes with Israeli troops along Gaza's border with Israel, east of Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Thursday, April 5, 2018.

Israel's army expects up to 50,000 Palestinians to attend protests in Gaza on Friday, and is prepared to once again use deadly force against unarmed demonstrators, one week after Israeli snipers fired at least 650 bullets at Palestinian civilians, killing 15.

With President Donald Trump apparently ignoring last week's massacre in a phone call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, senior Israeli officials brushed off pleas from human rights groups to rescind orders that permit snipers to open fire on protesters who approach Israel's perimeter fence.

"We have defined the rules of the game clearly and we do not intend to change them," Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said as he toured the frontier on Tuesday. "Anyone trying to approach the fence is putting their lives at risk."

At protest camps near the fence, families of Palestinian refugees originally from towns and cities inside what is now Israel read books and learned first aid as young men stockpiled rubber tires, which they burned to create smokescreens as cover from sniper fire.

Comment:

Zuckerberg tells media of 3-year plan to be able to control information on Facebook - just in time for 2020 election

Allum Bokhari
Breitbart
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 20:36 UTC

In his call with members of the press yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook was "probably a year into a massive three-year push" to fix alleged issues surrounding "fake news," "misinformation," and election interference on the platform.

Zuckerberg's timeline implies that Facebook's goal is to have fundamentally altered their platform by the time of the 2020 presidential elections, and that work on the project started at approximately the same time as the presidential victory of Donald Trump.

That's also when the panic over "fake news" and "misinformation" started, led by the left-wing and corporate media and embraced by Democratic lawmakers. The resultant changes to Facebook have seen conservative media and the official Facebook account of Donald Trump suffer severe hits to their engagement and traffic.

"In 2016 we were behind where we wanted to be," said Zuckerberg. "We had a more traditional view of the security threat. We expected Russia and other countries to try and do phishing and traditional kinds of security exploits, but not necessarily the kind of misinformation campaign that they did. We were behind - that was a really big miss. And now we want to make sure that we're not behind again."

Comment: Whether Zuckerberg is ignorantly reacting or in cahoots with the Deep State, Facebook will soon turn into a thought-policed corner of the web where no idea that is in opposition to the US Empire will be allowed to exist.

South Korea's former president, Park Geun-hye, given 24 years in jail for corruption

RT
Fri, 06 Apr 2018 07:24 UTC

Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye has been found guilty of bribery, abuse of power, and coercion. She was sentenced to 24 years in prison, though prosecutors initially requested 30 years.

Park was accused of colluding with her friend Choi Soon-sil, who had been already sentenced to 20 years, in taking tens of millions of dollars from conglomerates. The high-profile graft scandal led to the president's impeachment in December 2016, and triggered massive protests across South Korea both supporting and condemning Park.

Park, 66, is the daughter of former South Korean military leader Park Chung-hee. She became the third South Korean president convicted of crimes. The others were former military generals involved in a 1979 coup and a 1980 civilian massacre.

Comment: This is what happens in normal human society. In the West, Killary still walks.

John Pilger: The isolation of Julian Assange is the silencing of us all

John Pilger
johnpilger.com
Sun, 01 Apr 2018 00:00 UTC

In this letter, twenty-seven writers, journalists, film-makers, artists, academics, former intelligence officers and democrats call on the government of Ecuador to allow Julian Assange his right of freedom of speech.

If it was ever clear that the case of Julian Assange was never just a legal case, but a struggle for the protection of basic human rights, it is now.

Citing his critical tweets about the recent detention of Catalan president Carles Puidgemont in Germany, and following pressure from the US, Spanish and UK governments, the Ecuadorian government has installed an electronic jammer to stop Assange communicating with the outside world via the internet and phone.

As if ensuring his total isolation, the Ecuadorian government is also refusing to allow him to receive visitors. Despite two UN rulings describing his detention as unlawful and mandating his immediate release, Assange has been effectively imprisoned since he was first placed in isolation in Wandsworth prison in London in December 2010. He has never been charged with a crime. The Swedish case against him collapsed and was withdrawn, while the United States has stepped up efforts to prosecute him. His only "crime" is that of a true journalist -- telling the world the truths that people have a right to know.

Comment: A deafening silence around the world...

Facebook apologizes after blocking image of Jesus on Good Friday

RT
Fri, 06 Apr 2018 19:39 UTC

Is an image of a crucified Jesus 'shocking'? Facebook seemed to think so, and blocked an advertisement by a Franciscan university in the US that featured the image. The social media giant has since apologized for the "error."

The Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio published 10 Facebook advertisements on Good Friday, ahead of Easter. The ads were promoting the Catholic school's master's degree programs in theology, catechetics and evangelization.

However, Facebook rejected the one that depicted the San Damiano Cross, hurting the school's efforts to reach religiously-minded students on the Christian holy day.

The San Damiano cross is particularly important to the Franciscan order. The legend goes that its founder, Saint Francis of Assisi, was praying before that particular crucifix when he heard the voice of God. The Franciscan University of Steubenville displays it prominently across its campus. The original hangs in the Basilica of St. Clare in Assisi, Italy.

Family furious after Alaska Airlines kicks son with Down Syndrome off plane for throwing up

RT
Fri, 06 Apr 2018 19:32 UTC

A family was booted off an Alaska Airlines flight and stranded at the airport after their son with Down syndrome was sick before boarding. The company says he posed a health risk.

The family was traveling to Seattle from St. Louis on Monday after an Easter trip, when Alaska Airline attendants demanded they disembark the plane.

"After boarding the flight, Patrick threw up a little and the airline workers kicked my family off the flight," the boy's sister, Meaghan Hess, a third-year law student, told NBC. She was not traveling with her family when the incident took place.

Propaganda Alert: WaPo writer calls supporters of Laura Ingraham 'Russian bots'

Amanda Erickson
Washington Post
Mon, 02 Apr 2018 19:10 UTC

Embattled Fox News host Laura Ingraham has found some unlikely allies: Russian bots.

Russian-linked Twitter accounts have rallied around the conservative talk-show host, who has come under fire for attacking the young survivors of the Parkland school shooting. According to the website Hamilton 68, which tracks the spread of Russian propaganda on Twitter, the hashtag #IstandwithLaura jumped 2,800 percent in 48 hours this weekend. On Saturday night, it was the top trending hashtag among Russian campaigners.

Comment: "Russian propaganda" has now just become a euphimism the MSM uses for anyone who doesn't toe the US Empire's line on any idea that it is spreading to control the thinking of people. We should all be concerned that if you think differently than the accepted mainstream version of any event, you'll be labeled a 'Russian bot'. Anybody who still thinks for themselves is just a Putin plant now!

The website botcheck.me, which tracks 1,500 "political propaganda bots," found that @ingrahamangle, @davidhogg111 and @foxnews were among the top six Twitter handles tweeted by Russia-linked accounts this weekend. "David Hogg" and "Laura Ingraham" were the top two-word phrases being shared.

Wading into controversy is a key strategy for Russian propaganda bots, which seize on divisive issues online to sow discord in the United States. Since the Feb. 14 Parkland shooting, which claimed 17 lives, Russian bots have flooded Twitter with false information about the massacre.

Facebook admits it violated user privacy by going into their accounts and deleting messages from execs

RT
Fri, 06 Apr 2018 19:03 UTC

As the firestorm surrounding Facebook's handling of user data continues to rage, it's now emerging that the social media site giant reached into people's accounts and deleted messages from CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other executives.

Citing multiple sources, Techcrunch is reporting that people's interactions with Zuckerberg have mysteriously disappeared from their inboxes, although their responses to the media mogul remain. If a user deletes chats on Facebook messenger, they disappear only from their own account, meaning that the company accessed people's accounts to delete messages from its top brass.

Facebook told the tech news site that the messages were deleted for security reasons. "After Sony Pictures' emails were hacked in 2014 we made a number of changes to protect our executives' communications. These included limiting the retention period for Mark's messages in Messenger. We did so in full compliance with our legal obligations to preserve messages," the company said.

Nearly a third of college kids are hungry and homeless

Mará Rose Williams
The Kansas City Star
Fri, 06 Apr 2018 18:59 UTC

© Mará Rose Williams
Like a lot of colleges across the country, the University of Missouri stocks a food pantry near its campus to help the growing number of students who experience food insecurity while they are at school.

Sarah Barrett didn't need a grand study to tell her a bunch of students on Kansas State University's campus had been going without food.

As an assistant dean of students, she had heard enough of them talk about choosing books or housing costs over food to know that the university needed to do something to help its hungry students.

K-State students are not alone. The problem of college students' inability to afford food is common on campuses across the country.

According to a first-of-its-kind survey of two- and four-year private and public schools, 36 percent of students on college campuses in the U.S. do not get enough to eat.

On Wednesday afternoon just after the noon lunch hour, the UMKC Kangaroo Pantry opened its doors to a short line of students needing food. Katie Garey, who manages the pantry, and a student volunteer were busy stuffing plastic bags with nonperishable food items requested by the handful of students who filled out order forms that day.

Comment: See also:

Made in Russia: Food production booming thanks to import substitutions and Western sanctions

Paul
Russia Feed
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 00:00 UTC

A relatively recent phrase is now part of the lexicon of everyday life among Russians, it is "import substitution", or if it were marketed in the USA, it would probably be packaged as "Made in Russia".

Sanctions and similar geopolitical micro-management policies instituted by Western countries, and directed against Russia have added urgency to efforts in transferring key components of agricultural, consumer and industrial business to domestic producers. At the end of the day, it is hoped (by local companies) that Russian ones will replace the majority of foreign goods traditionally imported.

The import substitution projects are considered here to be a temporary phenomenon, a temporary tool for adjusting to the current situation.

According to President Putin. "The idea of import substitution itself is not universal and is not what we should strive for in the long run, because import substitution should not undermine competition. This is an extremely important thing. We should aim at producing products of such quality and price that it is competitive not just on our own, but on the world's markets."

Comment: It's heartening to see how the machinations of the West keep backfiring so splendidly:

Is this not a case of, The pot calling the kettle black.

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Society's Child

Israel is prepared to murder more unarmed protesters in Gaza

Zuckerberg tells media of 3-year plan to be able to control information on Facebook - just in time for 2020 election

South Korea's former president, Park Geun-hye, given 24 years in jail for corruption

John Pilger: The isolation of Julian Assange is the silencing of us all

Facebook apologizes after blocking image of Jesus on Good Friday

Family furious after Alaska Airlines kicks son with Down Syndrome off plane for throwing up

Propaganda Alert: WaPo writer calls supporters of Laura Ingraham 'Russian bots'

Facebook admits it violated user privacy by going into their accounts and deleting messages from execs

Nearly a third of college kids are hungry and homeless

Made in Russia: Food production booming thanks to import substitutions and Western sanctions

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