Society's Child

Texas man arrested for waving a sign warning drivers about a speed trap

Gabrielle Bluestone
Gawker
Thu, 16 Jan 2014 21:49 UTC

A Texas man facing misdemeanor charges for standing in the median of a six lane highway, holding a sign that read, "Police Ahead," says what he did was no different than an official speed limit sign.

Ron Martin, 33, was arrested and charged with "waving a homemade sign" in October in Frisco, Texas, a city that does not allow the waving of homemade signs. Officer Mronzinski busted Martin after noticing that his speed trap honey pot had gone sour.

The officer first had his suspicions that Martin was in the area as he sat in his unmarked police car on Eldorado Parkway in Frisco, Texas.

"I observed a couple of cars drive by traveling westbound waving at us," Mronzinski wrote in his arrest report. "Mr. Martin has a history with the Frisco Police Department Officers in holding signs in the center median of traffic stating 'police ahead.'"

A colleague had also radioed earlier that morning to warn Mronzinski that he had seen Martin in the area.

In his defense, Martin is claiming that his waving, homemade sign is no different than an official speed limit sign.

Forty years of surviving the Siberian wilderness - One family's story of living cut off from all human contact

Mike Dash
Smithsonianmag.com
Mon, 28 Jan 2013 17:19 UTC

Karp Lykov and his daughter Agafia, wearing clothes donated by Soviet geologists not long after their family was rediscovered.

Siberian summers do not last long. The snows linger into May, and the cold weather returns again during September, freezing the taiga into a still life awesome in its desolation: endless miles of straggly pine and birch forests scattered with sleeping bears and hungry wolves; steep-sided mountains; white-water rivers that pour in torrents through the valleys; a hundred thousand icy bogs. This forest is the last and greatest of Earth's wildernesses. It stretches from the furthest tip of Russia's arctic regions as far south as Mongolia, and east from the Urals to the Pacific: five million square miles of nothingness, with a population, outside a handful of towns, that amounts to only a few thousand people.

When the warm days do arrive, though, the taiga blooms, and for a few short months it can seem almost welcoming. It is then that man can see most clearly into this hidden world - not on land, for the taiga can swallow whole armies of explorers, but from the air. Siberia is the source of most of Russia's oil and mineral resources, and, over the years, even its most distant parts have been overflown by oil prospectors and surveyors on their way to backwoods camps where the work of extracting wealth is carried on.

Sacré bleu! Heaping pile of dung dumped outside French National Assembly

News Republic
Thu, 16 Jan 2014 13:57 UTC

French gendarmes gather around a pile of manure which was dumped from a truck in front of the French National Assembly on January 16, 2013 in Paris

A truck dumped a huge pile of manure outside France's National Assembly on Thursday in a protest against the French political elite.

The driver of the truck -- which was marked with the slogan "Out with Hollande and the whole political class!" -- was apprehended by police shortly after releasing his smelly load outside the front gates of the grand Palais Bourbon that hosts the lower house Assembly.

He was taken to a nearby police station and expected to face charges.

It was unclear what was behind the protest, but it comes as President Francois Hollande faces a scandal over revelations he had affair with an actress 18 years his junior.

AFP

Comment: First the Quenelle, now this. Who says the Frenchies don't have a sense of humor?

High strangeness or foul play: Three-year-old goes missing from Edinburgh home

BBC News
Thu, 16 Jan 2014 10:26 UTC

Police have asked people in the north of Edinburgh to look out for a three-year-old boy who has gone missing from his home.

Mikaeel Kular was last seen going to bed in Ferry Gait Crescent at about 21:00 on Wednesday but when his family woke up he was not in the house. Supt Liz McAinsh said anyone who lives and works in the area should "look out for this wee boy".

Mikaeel is 3ft tall and was possibly wearing a beige hooded jacket. Police sources have indicated that an operation in Waterfront Gait, a mile from Mikaeel's home, was not connected with the investigation into the boy's disappearance.

There, officers detained a man as a witness in connection with an "unconnected" inquiry. He may also have on brown shoes, blue jogging bottoms and nightwear.

Supt McAinsh asked local people to check their gardens and outbuildings. She said anyone walking in the area should pay particular attention to places such as public parks.

Mikaeel, who is British with Asian parents, was at home with his mother and four siblings, including his twin sister, last night.

Officers are speaking to "all family members" about the disappearance. Coastguard teams and lifeboats have been searching the shoreline in the Cramond and Drylaw area.

Chelsea Manning awarded Sam Adams integrity prize for 2014

David Swanson
War Is A Crime blog
Thu, 16 Jan 2014 00:00 UTC

Announcement by Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII)

The Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) have voted overwhelmingly to present the 2014 Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence to Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning.

A Nobel Peace Prize nominee, U.S. Army Pvt. Manning is the 25 year-old intelligence analyst who in 2010 provided to WikiLeaks the "Collateral Murder" video - gun barrel footage from a U.S. Apache helicopter, exposing the reckless murder of 12 unarmed civilians, including two Reuters journalists, during the "surge" in Iraq. The Pentagon had repeatedly denied the existence of the "Collateral Murder" video and declined to release it despite a request under the Freedom of Information Act by Reuters, which had sought clarity on the circumstances of its journalists' deaths.

Release of this video and other documents sparked a worldwide dialogue about the importance of government accountability for human rights abuses as well as the dangers of excessive secrecy and over-classification of documents.

On February 19, 2014 Pvt. Manning - currently incarcerated at Leavenworth Prison - will be recognized at a ceremony in absentia at Oxford University's prestigious Oxford Union Society for casting much-needed daylight on the true toll and cause of civilian casualties in Iraq; human rights abuses by U.S. and "coalition" forces, mercenaries, and contractors; and the roles that spying and bribery play in international diplomacy.

From austerity to abundance: Why Ellen Brown is running for California treasurer

Ellen Brown
Web of Debt blog
Wed, 15 Jan 2014 00:00 UTC

Ellen Brown, someone who actually knows what she's talking about when it comes to sound monetary policy

Governor Jerry Brown and his staff are exchanging high-fives over balancing California's budget, but the people on whose backs it was balanced are not rejoicing. The state's high-wire act has been called "the ultimate in austerity budgets."

Welfare payments, health care for the poor, and benefits for the elderly and disabled have been slashed. State workers have been downsized. School districts in need of cash have been reduced to borrowing through "capital appreciation bonds" bearing 300% interest. In one notorious case, the Santa Ana school district actually borrowed at 1,000% interest. And the governor acknowledges that California still faces a "wall of debt" amounting to $28 billion. Some analysts put it much higher than that.

At the end of the 20^th century, California was ranked the sixth largest economy in the world. By 2012, it had slipped to number twelve. It is coming back up, in part because European countries are falling further into recession; but California's poverty rate remains the highest in the country. More than eightmillion Californians struggle to meet their daily needs, and one in four children lives in poverty. Income inequality is higher in the nation's most populous state than in almost any other.

California cannot solve its budget problems by slashing services that have already been cut to the bone or raising sales taxes that hurt the poor far more than the rich. We are fighting over a pie that remains too small. The pie itself needs to be expanded - and it can be.

Comment: Check out our discussion with Ellen Brown on SOTT Talk Radio last year:

Web of Debt: How the banking system controls the world

Cops beat a deaf man for seven minutes because he didn't respond to their yelling

The Free Thought Project
Thu, 16 Jan 2014 08:25 UTC

Pearl Pearson is a 64 year-old diabetic deaf driver who resides in the Oklahoma City area. On the evening of January 3rd, Pearl crossed paths with the wrong cops.

The following is the story according to Pearl Pearson and family of what happened that night:
What's the story? At this time, only limited details can be provided since this case is under investigation.

1. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol pulled Pearl over late in the evening on January 3, 2014. Pearl pulled over as he should.

2. Pearl's driver's license indicates he is Deaf. He also has a placard in his driver's door that says, "Driver is deaf".

3. Pearl pulled over and rolled down his window, expecting an officer to ask for this identification. An officer struck him in the face before Pearl had the chance to do anything. As you can see, he was struck multiple times.

UN panel confronts Vatican on child sex abuse by clergy

BBC News
Thu, 16 Jan 2014 05:44 UTC

© AFP.
The Vatican's UN Ambassador, Monsignor Silvano Tomasi (L), and former Vatican Chief Prosecutor of Clerical Sexual Abuse Charles Scicluna are at the hearing.

The Vatican is being confronted publicly for the first time over the sexual abuse of children by clergy, at a UN hearing in Geneva.

The Church was asked why it continued to describe such abuse as an offense against morals rather than a crime against children.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said such crimes could "never be justified" and every child should be "inviolable".

The Vatican earlier refused a request for data on abuse.

When it argued that such cases should be heard in the countries where they took place, it was accused of responding inadequately to abuse allegations.

This is the first time the Holy See is defending itself in public over its record on sex abuse.

Victims say they hope the hearing, which is being broadcast live, will prompt the Church to end its "secrecy".

Pope Francis announced last month that a Vatican committee would be set up to fight sexual abuse of children in the Church and offer help to victims. He also broadened the definition of crimes against minors to include sexual abuse of children.

The Holy See is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a legally binding instrument which commits it to protecting and nurturing the most vulnerable in society.

Apple Fined $32.5 Million for exploiting children

Amanda Holpuch
guardian
Wed, 15 Jan 2014 00:00 UTC

Apple is set to pay at least $32.5m to consumers to settle a federal complaint about the company's practices that allowed children to make purchases in mobile apps without parents' permission, the government announced on Wednesday.

The Federal Trade Commission said Apple will provide a full refund for in-app purchases made without permission from account holders. The agency said it had received "at least tens of thousands of complaints" about such purchases and one parent said her child spent more than $2,600 in the Tap Pet Hotel app.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the company had been working to refund customers affected by these type of purchases since last year in an emailed memo to employees obtained by 9to5Mac. Cook also criticized the FTC's intervention in the case and said that Wednesday's agreement with the FTC "smacked of double jeopardy" because the case had already been settled.

"However, the consent decree the FTC proposed does not require us to do anything we weren't already going to do, so we decided to accept it rather than take on a long and distracting legal fight," Cook said.

As part of the agreement, Apple must change its purchasing process to ensure consumers give full consent when purchasing items in mobile apps. In-app items can range from 99 cents to $99.99 per item.

Brits under investigation for streaming live child abuse videos

Conal Urquhart
Guardian
Wed, 15 Jan 2014 05:16 UTC

© Corbis
A National Crime Agency operation has netted alleged paedophiles who had live videos of child sexual abuse streamed to them from the Philippines.

More than 100 Britons are under investigation for streaming live child abuse from the Philippines, according to the National Crime Agency.

So far 17 Britons have been arrested in Operation Endeavour, which has spanned 12 countries.

British police have joined forces with Australian and US investigators in a two-year operation focusing on what the UK's National Crime Agency calls "a significant and emerging threat", particularly in developing countries.

Three other investigations are taking place into live streaming of child sex abuse, with 139 Britons among the 733 suspects.

Andy Baker from the National Crime Agency said: "This investigation has identified some extremely dangerous child sexual offenders who believed paying for children to be abused to order was something they could get away with.