Society's ChildS


Airplane

Captain Jack Sparrow? Delta pilot reroutes jet back to Detroit due to a bird in a cockpit


RT
Sun, 31 Dec 2017 12:08 UTC
Bird in jet
© Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP
A Delta flight had to reroute and return to Detroit after an unexpected 'feathered' passenger was discovered inside a cockpit. The stowaway - reportedly a tiny sparrow - apparently sneaked inside the flight deck during boarding.

The pilots of Flight 1943 from Detroit to Atlanta saw a small bird that snuck on board shortly after take-off on Saturday, AP reported, citing Delta's statement. The captain decided to turn the jet around and return to Detroit to "avoid a potential distraction" during the flight, Delta said.

The plane landed safely in Detroit, and the unexpected passenger was removed from the cockpit and set free unharmed. While Fox 2 Detroit says it was a sparrow, the captain told ClickOnDetroit.com that the bird looked like a hummingbird.
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Pistol

Kansas: 'Swatting' videogamer hoax results in man shot dead by police in Wichita

Mythili Sampathkumar, Shehab Khan
The Independent
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 12:00 UTC
SWAT team officer
© ShutterstockSWAT team officer


Online gamers accused of making prank calls by the authorities

A man has been arrested after a father-of-two was killed in a "swatting" prank in Kansas.

A Wichita police officer shot and killed Andrew Finch after a prank caller - suspected to be 25-year-old Tyler Barriss - reportedly told authorities Mr Finch had killed his father and was holding hostages inside the man's home.

Authorities later learned that the call was a hoax, known as "swatting," in which people falsely report an emergency to authorities that requires a police response, usually by Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT, teams.

A law enforcement official who earlier confirmed Mr Barriss' arrest said the shooting stemmed from a dispute over the "Call of Duty" video game. The official was not authorised to discuss the investigation publicly, however.


Comment: It is hard to decide what is more shocking: That videogamers think it is ok to send a SWAT team your way as a prank, or that SWAT officers are so eager to pull the trigger when there is clearly no threat.

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Ambulance

Utility workers find two-year-old child wearing only diaper wandering in cold in Massachusetts


Yahoo!
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 00:01 UTC
winter snowy street

Utility workers found a two-year-old girl wearing only a diaper wandering into traffic on a frigid day in Massachusetts.

Comcast Technicians Shawn Bronson and Michael Payne told The Boston Herald they were restoring service to customers in Monson Thursday when they spotted the child heading toward the middle of the road.

The workers scooped up the child and brought her to a store where they waited for police.

Comment: More from USA News:
Workers find child wearing only diaper wandering in cold
Posted on December 31, 2017 by Jessica Harington

"They did the absolute right thing, they saw a situation and reacted, and the company is extremely proud of them." Comcast spokeswoman Elizabeth Walden said. "In a situation like that, you have a gut response, and they did the right thing. Our top priority was getting her to safety," Payne said. "We just wanted to make sure this little girl was taken care of."

Massachusetts child welfare officials have also been notified.

At the time the toddler was found wandering through the small western Massachusetts community, the temperature was hovering around 9 degrees, though the wind chill had it feeling like it was well below zero, according to the National Weather Service. Once the two men and the toddler went inside the store, a clerk who had just given birth rushed to the storage area and brought back a blanket.

According to the National Weather Service, the temperature at the time of the incident in Monson was just 9 degrees. With the wind chill, it felt like well below zero.



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Cut

Two suspects charged in savage murder of 2 women and 2 children in upstate New York

Mark Osborne, Emily Shapiro and Morgan Winsor
ABC News
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 20:53 UTC
Justin Mann and James White
© Troy Police DepartmentJustin Mann (L) and James White (R) were arrested in connection to a quadruple homicide in Troy, N.Y.
Two men have been arrested in connection with the brutal murder of two women and two children in upstate New York.

James White, 38, and Justin Mann, 24, both of Schenectady, New York, were arrested in the Dec. 21 quadruple killing in Troy, New York, according to Troy Police Capt. Dan DeWolf.

White and Mann were arraigned in Troy City Court on Saturday morning and remanded to the Rensselaer County jail. They had both been brought in for questioning by the police Friday night. Each of the men was charged with one count of first-degree murder and four counts of second-degree murder, according to DeWolf.

They pleaded not guilty to the charges. A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for Jan. 4.

At a press conference later Saturday, Troy Police Chief John Tedesco said one of the men was acquainted with one of the victims.

Comment: See also: Police identified 2 young children, same-sex couple 'savagery' killed in upstate New York

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Target

Jewish leader in Germany calls for stronger police protection as acts of anti-semitism grow

Chris Tomlinson
Breitbart
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 00:00 UTC
Palestinian protest
Former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany Charlotte Knobloch claims that Jews are increasingly under threat in public and may require police protection to lead a normal life without harassment and violence.

Ms Knobloch, who is now the President of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, said that Jews are increasingly under threat, Die Welt reports.

"Aggressive anti-Semitism, from verbal hostility on the Internet and in the analogue world to desecration and destruction to physical attacks are commonplace in Germany," she said.

"Jewish life can only take place in public under police protection and the strictest security precautions, or it must be completely cancelled for security reasons," Knobloch added.

Comment: The tragic irony here is that the vociferous call of "never again," and the commensurate acts of brutality that Israel sees as justified in light of this, is exactly what puts Jews in the greatest danger.

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Eye 2

'End of equal rights': Police union chief blasts Berlin's New Year's Eve women's safety area


RT
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 18:19 UTC
Berlin Police
© Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters
The head of Germany's Police Union has slammed the creation of a special safe zone for women at a New Year's Eve celebration at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, saying it implies that women celebrating outside the zone won't be safe.

Rainer Wendt of the German Police Union (DPolG) told the Neuen Osnabrücker Zeitung, a German-language daily, that the planned 'Women's Safety Area' sends a "devastating message" that women who venture outside the designated safe zone will be vulnerable to sexual assault. "It says that there are zones of security and zones of insecurity," Wendt said, adding that the zone marks "the end of equal rights, freedom of movement and self-determination."

The union chief added that the zone has a negative "political dimension" and would reignite fears of sexual attacks two years after hundreds of women reported being assaulted or robbed during New Year's Eve celebrations in Cologne.

Organizers of the event - Germany's largest New Year's Eve party, according to the Berliner Zeitung - say that Berlin police proposed the zone after a similar system was introduced in Munich during the city's annual Oktoberfest. The safe zone will be located in a tent set up by the German Red Cross, where a number of specially-trained staffers will be on hand.

Comment: See also: Berlin will provide women-only 'safe spaces' new year's eve

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Attention

The year of technology

James Corbett
Corbett Report
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 13:35 UTC
Biotech
© Big Think
As you no doubt remember, dear reader, I kicked off 2017 with my customary look at the year ahead. This year's prediction? "2017: The Year of Technocracy." As I observed lo those many months ago:
"I find it more and more difficult to shake the conviction that technological developments will shape the narrative of 2017. If this does turn out to be so, it would hardly be the start of some new, never-before-seen trend. Yet even though it's no longer novel to observe that the pace of technological change is accelerating, there are certain inflection points where those changes stop being so theoretical and start impacting our daily lives. I contend that we are living through one such inflection point right now and that it will manifest in all sorts of ways over the next year."
So how did that prediction fare? Well, if this headline from the loyal propagandists at Bloomberg doesn't tell the story, nothing does:

Warming, indeed.
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Star of David

'Day of Rage': Thousands of Palestinians clash with IDF in anti-Trump demonstration


RT
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 20:41 UTC
Palestinian demonstrator hurls stones
© Mohamad Torokman / ReutersA Palestinian demonstrator hurls stones toward Israeli troops during clashes at a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, near the West Bank city of Nablus, December 29
Scores were injured as thousands of Palestinians clashed with the IDF, which used live ammo, tear gas and rubber bullets on demonstrators throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails in the latest Day of Rage anti-Trump protest.

At least 40 people were injured, four seriously, by gunfire in the Gaza Strip in scuffles between protesters and the Israeli Army, which used live ammunition to break up the protest, according to the Palestinian health officials.

The Israeli military said that it retaliated after around 2,000 protesters amassed in the buffer zone at nine locations along the Israeli border and started throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at the officers, allegedly shouting "death to America, death to Israel, and death to Trump."

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Info

Syrian Muslim creates "Euro-Islam" for migrants - Russian Muslim leader slams the attempt as misguided and ignorant


Pravda.ru
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 18:01 UTC
muslim women
© Hannibal Hanschke / Reuters
Syrian Muslim and Islamic scholar Bassam Tibi developed a new version of Islam - Euro-Islam, an adapted version of Islam for refugees who want to settle in the countries of the European Union, but seem to be unable to integrate into European life because of a number of religious principles.

In particular, Euro-Islam proposes separating religion and politics, rejecting jihad and Sharia law, accepting democracy and tolerance, in which people of different faiths are equal, rather than subordinated to each other. Euro-Islam also envisages renunciation of superiority of Muslims over people practicing other religions.

Only an unbeliever could make such proposals which in general do not hold water, chairman of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, Mufti Khadzhimurad Gatsalov, told Pravda.Ru.

"I believe that only a stupid and sick man could propose this," he said.

"There is no arrogance in Islam - there is tolerance in Islam instead. Islam has all the things that the Western world has been propagandizing for long already. As for the rejection of Sharia - Sharia is the basis of Islam, the legal justification of Islam, this is Islam as it is. There is no Islam without Sharia. Only a non-believer could come up with something like this. I can not give any assessment to this, because those proposals do not hold water.

Comment: Islamists would beg to differ. They represent the "true, genuine Islam". Just ask them. They'll cite chapter and verse to justify their positions on everything - just like every other religious fanatic, whether Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist... That's the problem: religious texts are like massive Rorschach tests. You can read whatever you want into them, and be perfectly justified in doing so. The problem with the true believers is that they can't just say, "Yeah, that bit right there - wrong. Just ignore it." Instead, they force themselves to engage in contorted mental gymnastics, when a rational person would just concede the point. Face it: most religions contain stupid, out-of-date, destructive ideas. As long as they do, and as long as believers are convinced they are the holders of the "genuine, God-given, totally true" ideas and interpretations, there will always be room for crazies to justify just about anything in the name of their religion.

But in the meantime, Mufti Gatsalov's approach at least has the advantage of propagating an interpretation of Islam that not only counters the Islamists, but propagates values that are universal enough that everyone can get along to a reasonable degree. The question is, can it do what Tibi's "Euro-Islam" was designed to do? If not, what is the solution?

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Key

Palm Coast man arrested for trying to electrocute pregnant wife with rigged front door

Seth Robbins
Daytona Beach News-Journal
Fri, 29 Dec 2017 17:46 UTC
Michael Wilson
A Palm Coast man rigged the front door of his home with wiring attached to a car battery charger in an attempt to electrocute his pregnant wife, Flagler County Sheriff's investigators said.

Michael Wilson, 32, is accused of trying to kill his wife after he attached electrical devices to the inside of the deadbolt lock and the door handle of their Palm Coast home, according to a charging affidavit. The ploy, which could have easily led to her death, was to have her insert the house key and then grab the handle, completing the circuit and sending a jolt of electricity through her arm, chest and heart.

Fortunately for Wilson's wife, who was in Knoxville, Tennessee with family at the time, she never took a hold of that door knob. Her stepfather, Jon Flositz, became suspicious after she told him Wilson had warned her not to let a child touch it. Flositz went to examine the house with his wife, Alissa, and they found the word "Hi" and a drawing of two eyes in what appeared to be lipstick on the back sliding door, according to the deputy's report.

He contacted authorities, and when they responded to 110 White Hall Drive on Tuesday, they found the front door was barricaded and locked. Burn marks were seen near the door's handle. A kick to the door sent off a large spark.
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