Society's ChildS


Evil Rays

California school district implements iris scanners on buses after student's death

Victor Skinner
EAG News
Wed, 23 Sep 2015 16:16 UTC
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© PRNewsFoto/Antelope Valley Schools
The Antelope Valley Schools Transportation Agency is using biometric iris scanners on special needs buses to prevent tragedies like the recent death of an autistic student who was abandoned on his school bus.

Hun Joon "Paul" Lee, a 19-year-old autistic student, was left on a contracted school bus in a district parking lot for hours Sept. 11, when he was found unresponsive laying in the aisle. A substitute driver picked him up at 8:30 a.m. and his parents believe he never got off the bus. Lee's mother realized something was wrong when his bus didn't arrive after school, NBC Los Angeles reports.

The nearby Antelope Valley Transportation Agency, meanwhile, is conducting a pilot program with iris scanners on special needs buses in hopes of preventing a similar tragedy from occurring in that district.

"Students will biometrically (iris) scan identity as the board and exit the school bus," according to a Monday press release. "The IRITRANS system will notify the driver visibly and audibly if the child is about to get on or off at the wrong bus stop. When the bus reaches the end of its daily route, the driver simply ends the route on the IRITRANS mobile device and if all students have not exited the bus, the device will notify the driver both visually and audibly to recheck the bus."

"Lost or sleeping kids. It happens every year in most school districts nationally only we rarely hear about it," IRITRAK president John DeVries said. "Kids left sleeping on a bus is at epidemic proportions nationally."

Comment: Just goes to show, in an overt way, what school really is.

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Life Preserver

Hundreds of NYC workers homeless, more signs of the US economic woes


RT
Wed, 23 Sep 2015 13:29 UTC
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© Zoran Milich / Reuters
Responding to a New York Post report stating that more than 300 New York City municipal employees didn't earn enough to be able to afford a place to live, the mayor has offered to find them permanent housing.

During a press conference on Monday, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio admitted there were people working for the city that were homeless, though he disputed the number initially reported.

"What we're facing now, this is becoming more and more of an economic problem. Meaning people have been displaced from their homes by the high cost of housing, even if they're working," de Blasio said at City Hall.

"We're going to make sure in every case, particularly with working folks, that we look for every opportunity to get them to permanent housing. "

The mayor questioned whether the number of homeless city employees was over 300, with his spokeswoman Ishanee Parikh saying records showed that only 83 shelter residents have identified themselves as city employees.

Comment: The divide between the haves and have nots is growing wider. When you work 40 hrs a week and still can't afford a place to live, then there's a serious problem. Meanwhile bankers and the elite are stacking billions off the backs of American workers.

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Cross

Pope Francis' visit to the U.S. and the controversies surrounding him


RT
Wed, 23 Sep 2015 13:57 UTC
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© Kevin Lamarque / ReutersU.S. President Barack Obama (R) smiles as he welcomes Pope Francis upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington September 22, 2015.
Pope Francis has finally landed in the US for his first-ever visit to the country. The papal swing through the Northeast is guaranteed to captivate Americans, but the popular pontiff is likely to draw praise and criticism on numerous contentious issues.

The Bishop of Rome's arrival comes at a delicate time for the Church in the US, which suffered damaging setbacks after a child sex abuse scandal. Although Catholicism is still the second-largest religion in the US, the number of Catholics in the US has declined and Pope Francis will be searching for ways to rejuvenate his flock.

So far, Pope Francis has defied being categorized on the traditional left-right spectrum of American politics, but his anticipated comments on a range of issues, from gay marriage and abortion to climate change and prison reform, will undoubtedly be seized upon for their political implications. Here are 10 of the most controversial issues surrounding the visit.
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Stock Down

Is Deutsche Bank about to go down and take Europe with it?

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
Mon, 21 Sep 2015 14:00 UTC
euros
Is something about to happen in Germany that will shake the entire world? According to disturbing new intel that I have received, a major financial event in Germany could be imminent. Now when I say imminent, I do not mean to suggest that it will happen tomorrow. But I do believe that we have entered a season of time when another "Lehman Brothers moment" may occur. Most observers tend to regard Germany as the strong hub that is holding the rest of Europe together economically, but the truth is that serious trouble is brewing under the surface. As I write this, the German DAX stock index is down close to 20 percent from the all-time high that was set back in April, and there are lots of signs of turmoil at Germany's largest bank. There are very few banks in the world that are more prestigious or more influential than Deutsche Bank, and it has been making headlines for all of the wrong reasons recently.

Just like we saw with Lehman Brothers, banks that are "too big to fail" don't suddenly collapse overnight. The truth is that there are always warning signs in advance if you look closely enough.
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Heart - Black

Report finds deported Mexicans subject to theft, abuse and separation of family by border agents


RT
Tue, 22 Sep 2015 13:43 UTC
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© Alexandre Meneghini / Reuters
A new report reveals rampant abuse by US Customs and Border Patrol agents towards migrants being deported to Mexico. One in three men and women said they were subjected to some type of abuse, whether verbal or physical, and often robbed.

The report, which was based on first-hand accounts, found that 38.4 percent of Mexican migrants reported abuse, most often verbal, and that two-thirds of migrants had been separated from their immediate family on being deported.

The report argues that the percentage could be even higher, because abuse "can deter [people] from making complaints."

The report, entitled "Migrant Abuse and Family Separation at the Border," was commissioned by the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the US and the Kino Border Initiative, a bi-national organization promoting humane immigration policies.
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Eye 2

Pastor accused of raping 9yo girl on father's grave

Bethania Palma Markus
Raw Story
Wed, 23 Sep 2015 13:38 UTC
Image
© Shutterstock
An Alabama pastor of a conservative congregation is being accused of raping a 9-year-old girl on her father's grave, AL.com reports.

Mack Charles Andrews, a pastor at the heavily conservative United Pentecostal Church is accused of raping "Jane," a pseudonym to conceal the identity of the victim, along with multiple other minors. Andrews allegedly started "grooming" her for sexual abuse when she was only 7.

Jane described how Andrews allegedly terrorized her.

"He told me if I didn't say anything, he would come back and put flowers on the grave," she told AL.com. "If I did, he said demons would come and get me from my bed."
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Magnify

Refugee kicked and tripped by Hungarian camerawoman alleged to be member of Al-Nusra Front


RT
Tue, 22 Sep 2015 00:00 UTC
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© Andrea ComasA / ReutersOsama Abdul Mohsen (C)
A Syrian man who was tripped over by Hungarian camerawoman in a video that went viral has been claimed to be an alleged member of a militant Islamist group that had committed crimes against civilians in his homeland.

Osama Abdul Mohsen was accused of being a member of the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front by the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in a statement released on Friday.

"Osama Abdul joined the rebel groups in 2011 and committed crimes against civilian minorities, including Kurds," the statement says.

It adds that "testimonies... of many Kurds alongside with images obtained [from Mohsen's Facebook page]" provide evidence of his involvement in the Al-Nusra Front's activities.

The PYD also claims that Osama Abdul Mohsen was living in the Syrian town of Tel Abyad and decided to flee ahead of Kurdish forces seizing the city last July "in fear" that his involvement with the militant group would be revealed.
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Attention

Woops! GlaxoSmithKline 'accidentally' dumps live polio virus in Belgian river

David Gutierrez
Natural NewsNatural News
Sat, 19 Sep 2015 22:42 UTC
GSK
Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) dumped 45 liters (12 gallons) of live, concentrated polio virus into a Belgian river on September 2, according to a press release by the country's Federal Public Service Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment's Scientific Institute of Public Health (WIV-ISP).

Poliomyelitis, more commonly known simply as "polio," is a viral disease that is typically transmitted between people via the fecal-oral pathway. In 90 percent of cases, the disease produces no noticeable symptoms. In about 1 percent of cases, the virus spreads into the nervous system and preferentially destroys motor neurons in the spinal cord, brain stem and the brain's motor cortex. This produces the paralysis characteristic of the disease.

Comment: Don't be surprised if there is an outbreak of acute flaccid paralysis (otherwise known as polio) downstream of this "accident".

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Red Flag

Volkswagon embroiled in scandal over emission control tampering


RT
Tue, 22 Sep 2015 21:44 UTC
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© Shannon Stapleton / Reuters
Volkswagen is having a very bad week. A pollution scandal in the US is growing into something much bigger. The German auto major has admitted that 11 million cars worldwide were fitted with pollution control cheating software. France has called for an EU inquiry, and the country's environmental agency said it will be conducting its own investigation. The UK transport secretary has also called for a probe.

"Discrepancies relate to vehicles with Type EA 189 engines, involving some eleven million vehicles worldwide. A noticeable deviation between bench test results and actual road use was established solely for this type of engine. Volkswagen is working intensely to eliminate these deviations through technical measures," the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

The eleven million is more than VW sells in a year.
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Butterfly

Objecting to war: Human conscience versus the US military

Maria Santelli
Other Worlds
Thu, 17 Sep 2015 00:00 UTC
moon and man
© www.luzarcoiris.comFrom whence does this decision come...
Conscientious objection wages an active challenge to war, one soldier at a time.

Affirmation of conscience and support for conscientious objectors, or COs - helping people get out of the military - is an important part of a larger anti-war strategy, and one with real, concrete and measurable results. Military COs give us powerful insight into our own nature, and they can be strong and credible voices for peace, having fixed the opposition to war in their hearts through experiences most people will never have.

As long as there has been war, there have been conscientious objectors. One of the earliest references to conscientious objection is found in Deuteronomy in the Bible. It says, "Officials are instructed to address troops: Is anyone afraid or disheartened? He should go back to his house or he might cause the heart of his comrades to fail like his own." This is not to say, by any means, that conscientious objection is akin to cowardice. Quite the opposite: It takes incredible courage to stand up and resist killing from within a culture that exists for that sole purpose.

Nonetheless, the point of this passage shines through: Conscience is contagious. This is why conscientious objection - affirmation of the human conscience - is so threatening to the US military and government, and why there is a history of attempts to suppress it.

Comment: There is a science of teaching soldiers to kill and it is called killology. It is the science of circumventing the conscience. In order to get an otherwise psychologically healthy individual to kill, US military training has been developed to bypass the conscience and have the act of killing - the act of firing one's weapon with the intent to kill - become reflexive. - The US military and the myth that humanity is predisposed to violence

It is much harder to wage a war if nobody comes.

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