Society's ChildS


Red Flag

Hysteria: Eighth grader charged with felony for changing teacher's desktop background

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© Shutterstock
A middle school student who said he was just trying to play a prank on a teacher he didn't like was charged with a cybercrime Wednesday after authorities said he hacked into his school's secure computer network.

The Pasco County Sheriff's Office has charged Domanik Green, an eighth-grader at Paul R. Smith Middle School, with an offense against a computer system and unauthorized access, a felony. Sheriff Chris Nocco said Thursday that Green logged onto the school's network on March 31 using an administrative-level password without permission. He then changed the background image on a teacher's computer to one showing two men kissing.

One of the computers Green, 14, accessed also had encrypted 2014 FCAT questions stored on it, though the sheriff and Pasco County School District officials said Green did not view or tamper with those files.

"Even though some might say this is just a teenage prank, who knows what this teenager might have done," Nocco said.

Palette

Banksy painting seized by Gaza police after owner is tricked into selling it for $175

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© Reuters/Ibraheem Abu MustafaThe doorway of a destroyed house, which was painted by British street artist Banksy, is seen inside the gallery of a local Palestinian artist after he bought it from the house's owner, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip April 1, 2015.
Palestinian police in Gaza have seized a door with a painting on it by British graffiti artist Banksy after its original owner said he had been tricked into selling it cheap for just $175.

Banksy, a reclusive British street artist from Bristol, visited Gaza this year and is known to have authored several paintings on buildings, some of them in ruins.

The artist visited Gaza in February presumably to draw attention to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and the humanitarian catastrophe for the latter. He also filmed an undercover documentary depicting the real life of ordinary Palestinians. It's called 'Make this the year You discover a new destination', in a satire of the travel advert format.

Comment: It's sad Dardouna was being taken advantage of. What's even sadder is that graffiti is selling for millions these days while Palestinians live in prison. Forget the art, just give Gazans the money they need!


V

Senator Elizabeth Warren: Every law protects the tender fannies of the rich and powerful

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told Jon Stewart that the influence of the wealthy on Washington was so pervasive that many lawmakers had probably stopped noticing.

"The problem we've got is that there is so much money flowing into Washington, so much power (and) so many lobbyists, that it becomes the norm," she said. "I want to say it this way: The wind only blows from one direction - it only blows from the direction of those who have money."

Warren appeared Thursday night on "The Daily Show," where she said the wealthiest Americans had tilted the playing field dramatically in their favor.

"Powerful corporations (and) rich people have figured out that if you can bend the government to help you just a little bit, it's a tremendous payoff," the senator said, "and if you can bend it to help you just a little bit more and a little bit more, the playing field just gets more and more tilted, and the rich and the powerful just do better and better."

The rumored 2016 presidential candidate said their influence went far beyond campaign donations.

"They've invested in Washington in a million other ways," Warren said. "The lobbyists are there every day, every meeting that occurs. They're there in the regulatory agencies, they're all over the town to make sure that the tender fannies of the rich and the powerful are always carefully protected — in every rule that's written, every conversation, in every discussion."


Comment: Elizabeth Warren seems to be one of the few politicians who is willing to talk about what is really happening in politics. She's an anti-big business liberal who sees how Washington works for the lobbyists and pretty much no one else. It's worth watching both parts of her interview with Jon Stewart to hear her talking about fixing the enormous problem of student loans.


Stormtrooper

Prosecutors in Florida dismiss dozens of cases linked to cops who exchanged racist text messages

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Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Frank Adderley (far right) speaks about three of the officers' firings at a press conference in March
More than 50 criminal cases will be dropped after four Florida police officers were fired over their racist text messages and videos.

The Broward State Attorney's Office has already dropped 12 felony cases involving charges of burglary, cocaine possession, and aggravated assault with a firearm,reported the Sun-Sentinel.

They have also dropped 19 misdemeanor cases and one juvenile case involving at least one of the Fort Lauderdale police officers.

About 20 more cases will be dismissed, prosecutors said.

"All the defendants were black," said Ron Ishoy, a spokesman for the state attorney's office. "All the cases were dropped because at least one of the officers was the principal officer involved in the arrest."

The department fired three police officers — Jason Holding, 31, James Wells, 30, and Christopher Sousa, 25 - last month, while a fourth officer, Alex Alvarez, 22, resigned in January.

Sheriff

Sheriffs under investigation after getting caught on video brutally beating suspect

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© KNBC-TVSan Bernardino County sheriff's officials are caught on tape beating 30-year-old Francis Jared Pusok after Tasing him on April 9, 2015
Sheriff's officials in San Bernardino County are under investigation after they were caught by a news helicopter swarming and mauling an unarmed man after he was on the ground, KNBC-TV reported on Thursday.

The attack on 30-year-old Francis Jared Pusok came after Pusok was hit by a Taser and fell face-first. KNBC estimated that in a two-minute span, Pusok was punched 37 times, kicked 17 times and hit four times with a baton.

"I'm disturbed by what I see in the video," Sheriff John McMahon said. "But I don't need to jump to conclusions at this point, until we do a complete and thorough investigation. If our deputy sheriffs did something wrong, they'll be put off work and they'll be dealt with appropriately, all in accordance with the law as well as our department policy."

The apparent beating came at the end of a chase that stretched across unincorporated Apple Valley and the nearby community of Hesperia. Authorities were attempting to serve Pusok with a warrant in an identity theft case when he fled his home and drove off. He later abandoned his vehicle and allegedly stole a horse, riding through rough terrain in a rural area, Bowen Ranch.


Sheeple

Journalist Robert Parry: Media groupthink on Ukraine crisis worst he's seen in 37 years

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Robert Parry
  • Prize winning Robert Parry, who broke the Iran-Contra scandals, Editor of the excellent Consortium News, gives a great speech at the World Russia Forum, held in the Hart Senate office building, Washington DC.
  • Must see TV, especially for people interested in media criticism.
Robert Parry is an American investigative reporter best known for his role in breaking and covering the Iran-Contra story for the Associated Press (AP) and Newsweek, including breaking the Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare (CIA manual provided to the Nicaraguan contras) and the CIA and Contras cocaine trafficking in the US scandal in 1985.

Currently, he is the editor of first web-based investigative magazine, Consortium News, as pointed out by Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor and publisher of the magazine, The Nation. His latest book is America's Stolen Narrative.


Books

College students asked to perform Common Core math

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I don't believe that in engineering classes there is time to do this..."
Hundreds of high school students in the greater-Seattle area are protesting a new Common Core-aligned standardized test, prompting one local reporter to ask college students to complete math questions from the controversial education standard.

Speaking with several engineering and finance students, Kiro 7 reporter Natasha Chen explained how a simple math problem such as 175 minus 79 is no longer solved using tried-and-true methods.

"Now can I show you how they're teaching the kids now with Common Core?" Chen asked before explaining the new convoluted method.

After examining the mandatory use of arrows, dots, crosses and columns, the college students were less than impressed.

"I don't believe that in engineering classes there is time to do this..." one student argued.


Bullseye

BDS victory: Targeted by Palestinian boycott, Veolia sells Israel businesses

Veolia protest
© electronicintifada.netBDS proves to be a winning global strategy.
Palestinian civil society activists have heralded the decision by French corporate giant Veolia to sell off nearly all of its business activity in Israel as a huge victory for the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The sale follows a worldwide campaign against the company's role in illegal Israeli settlements that cost the firm billions of dollars of lost contracts.

The boycott Veolia campaign was launched in Bilbao, the Basque Country, in November 2008, to pressure the company to end its involvement in illegal Israeli projects that serve settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT).

​Under BDS pressure, Veolia has failed to win massive contracts with local authorities across Europe​,​ the US​ and Kuwait​​. City councils across Europe have passed resolutions ​excluding the firm from ​tenders ​due to its involvement in Israeli human rights violations.

Under international law, Israel is prohibited from using occupied land for the sole benefit of its own civilian population. In Resolution 63/201 of 28 January 2009, the UN General Assembly explicitly called upon Israel to cease the dumping of all kinds of waste materials in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan. In mid-August, 2012, Veolia subsidiary YRAV Sherutei Noy 1985 won a contract for waste collection services from the Israeli army bases in the Jordan Valley. According to the Civil Administration, eight Israeli companies hold permits to transfer waste to Tovlan landfill, including Veolia subsidiaries TMM Integrated Recycling Services and YRAV Sherutei Noy. The waste transferred to the landfill consists of municipal solid waste, construction waste, sterilized medical waste and electronic waste. The Civil Administration mentioned that there is no permit for bringing hazardous waste into the site.

Comment: Approximately 50 contracts valuing almost $24B were lost by Veolia and its subsidiaries due to BDS, in the US, UK, France, Netherlands, Sweden, globally, Jerusalem, Ireland, Iran, Spain and Switzerland and the Middle East, not including future contracts. Veolia Environnement Israel provides services to the Israeli ministry of Defence. A subsidiary, Veolia Transdev was contracted to build and operate a light rail project connecting Jerusalem to the settlements. Israeli settlements in the OPT and the annexation of East Jerusalem are illegal under international law. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."

The effectiveness of the BDS movement will, hopefully, continue to rise and signal other companies to abandon their services to illegal Israeli settlements. Replacement companies, such as Oaktree Capital Management LP, will also find themselves subject to BDS, experiencing reputational and economic damage, and in violation of international law and abuses of human rights. Buying into trouble is not a smart move.



Eye 1

Facebook tracks web users who aren't registered to social network

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© Reuters / Dado Ruvic
Facebook says it's begun fixing a bug that tracks web users even when they're not registered on the social network. However, it rejected other accusations presented in a report by Belgian scholars questioning the legality of the revised privacy policy.

The bug led to people who hadn't signed up for Facebook being tracked - through code stored in their browsers - while visiting web pages that integrated certain Facebook technology. The report on the problem was first published in February and came to light a month later

On Thursday, Facebook's European policy chief, Richard Allan, acknowledged in a blog post that the Belgian "researchers did find a bug that may have sent cookies to some people when they weren't on Facebook.

"This was not our intention - a fix for this is already under way," he stressed, adding that the violations were few and they're to be addressed on case by case basis.

But Allan criticized the rest of the report, which found that Facebook's updated terms of use that went into effect on January 31 don't comply with European consumer protection law in a number of ways.

Syringe

California vaccine bill clears first committee after emotional, dramatic hearing

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© Sacramento BeeSteven M. Rubin, PhD. of Portola Valley, left, waits to testify against Senate Bill 277, as Ariel Loop, of Pasadena who testified in favor if SB 277 holds her son Mobius who contracted measles when he was four months old. Wednesday marked the first hearing on the bill in the Senate Health Committee.

The controversial California bill that would make vaccines mandatory passed its first committee on Wednesday with a vote of 6-2 by the Senate Health Committee, according to the Sacramento Bee.

SB277 aims to remove the "personal belief" exception that has allowed thousands of parents to avoid having their children vaccinated against highly infectious diseases such as measles and whooping cough.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, who is also a pediatrician, drew intense reaction from a packed audience that mostly seemed to disagree with the arguments put forth by pro-vaccine legislators.