Society's ChildS


Attention

Massive surprise bio-terror drill conducted in New York City

NYPD
© André Gustavo Stumpf/Flickr
Friday, officials throughout the city conducted the largest unannounced bio-terror drill in U.S. history.

The Rapid Activation for Mass Prophylaxis Exercise (RAMPEx), which had over 1500 participants between 30 locations, was conducted with 13 city agencies as reported by CBS New York.

Supposedly, the drill was for airborne bio-weapons such as Anthrax, however, one must question if the true nature of the drill was based on the recent Ebola outbreak which has already killed over 750 people in West Africa and prompted door-to-door sweeps.

The drill cost about $1.4 million.

Water

State of emergency declared in Ohio after toxins were found in water

Toxins in Water
© Associated Press/John SeewerAundrea Simmons stands next to her minivan with cases of bottled water she bought after Toledo warned residents not to use its water, Saturday, Aug. 2, 2014 in Toledo, Ohio. About 400,000 people in and around Ohio's fourth-largest city were warned not to drink or use its water after tests revealed the presence of a toxin possibly from algae on Lake Erie.

Toledo -- Toxins possibly from algae on Lake Erie fouled the water supply of the state's fourth-largest city Saturday, forcing officials to issue warnings not to drink the water and the governor to declare a state of emergency as worried residents descended on stores, quickly clearing shelves of bottled water.

"It looked like Black Friday," said Aundrea Simmons, who stood in a line of about 50 people at a pharmacy before buying four cases of water. "I have children and elderly parents. They take their medication with water."

The city advised about 400,000 residents in Toledo, most of its suburbs and a few areas in southeastern Michigan not to brush their teeth with or boil the water because that would only increase the toxin's concentration. The mayor also warned that children should not shower or bathe in the water and that it shouldn't be given to pets.

Toledo issued the warning just after midnight after tests at one treatment plant showed two sample readings for microsystin above the standard for consumption.

Algae blooms during the summer have become more frequent and troublesome around the western end of Lake Erie, the shallowest of the five Great Lakes.

The algae growth is fed by phosphorous mainly from farm fertilizer runoff and sewage treatment plants, leaving behind toxins that have contributed to oxygen-deprived dead zones where fish can't survive. The toxins can kill animals and sicken humans.

Scientists had predicted a significant bloom of the blue-green algae this year, but they didn't expect it to peak until early September.

Gov. John Kasich's emergency order issued Saturday allowed the state to begin bringing water into the Toledo area. Large containers were being filled with water at a prison near Columbus and trucked about 130 miles north to Toledo, said Joe Andrews, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Public Safety.

Family

Window into the soulless: French man beats baby, puts picture on Facebook for "a laugh"

Facebook
© AFP Photo / Leon NealThe father reportedly told a police officer that he published the photograph of the child's bruised face on his Facebook page 'pour s'amuser' (for a laugh).
French police have charged a father with child abuse after he allegedly shook and beat his month-old baby because he could not bear the infant's crying - and then posted a photo of the baby's bruised face on Facebook "for a laugh".


Comment: If there's one good thing to say about Facebook, it's that it makes identifying the scum of the earth a lot easier.


In a case that has shocked France, the man reportedly admitted being violent towards the infant, who was taken to hospital where doctors diagnosed possible brain damage.

Police in the town of Tergnier in the Aisne department in Picardy, northern France, were alerted on Monday by one of the couple's friends who saw the child's picture on the father's Facebook account and was concerned at the baby's "abnormal appearance" and bruised face.

Officers summoned the mother for questioning. When she arrived detectives noted the infant's injuries were even worse than in the photograph and alerted the emergency services. The mother allegedly told detectives she was afraid to contact police for fear that her partner would leave her.

The father was arrested on Monday evening. Both parents have been formally put under investigation, the equivalent of being charged, for "violence against a minor causing permanent incapacity".

Comment: From the heights of political power to the lowest petty criminal and abusive parent, psychopathy makes its influence known. It's the reason why things that should be obvious to everyone - basic values like the fact that beating women and children is wrong - are not. Humanity is lost.


Road Cone

Deadly gas-pipeline explosions killed 25 and injured 257 in Taiwan


Deadly explosions caused by a gas leak overnight killed at least 25 people and injured 257 in the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung, according to government officials.

Underground explosions in Taiwan's second-largest city triggered fires that ripped off manhole covers on roads and cratered large boulevards, local television footage showed. Roads exploded with flames, overturning cars and collapsing houses. Many streets were still littered with rubble and impassible by ambulances.

"Around midnight, there was a very strong blast. From my balcony, I saw a huge fireball that was at least 10 floors high. All the furniture at my home rattled a little bit, and it was very, very loud. Then I heard people screaming. Two to three minutes later, another blast occurred," said Johnson Shen, whose apartment is about 200 feet away from the blast area.

Economic Minister Chang Chia-juch said Friday that officials are still unable to determine what caused the blast, though an initial investigation indicated the leak could have occurred in an underground pipeline that transports propane, a highly flammable, nearly odorless petrochemical used for polyesters. Kaohsiung is one of Taiwan's centers of petrochemical production

Magnify

Ebola Update: 729 Dead, over 1,300 infected

ebola
© Abbas Dulleh/APAn employee of the Monrovia City Corporation sprays disinfectant on a street.
This week, Awa Faye added a new feature to her restaurant on a crowded street in Sierra Leone's hilly capital of Freetown: a sign that instructs all patrons to wash their hands in the buckets of chlorinated water positioned outside. "I don't allow anybody inside if they don't wash your hands. We're all trying to protect ourselves from Ebola one way or another," said the 55-year old, who put the sign up after learning that the country's top Ebola doctor had died on Tuesday.

Over in neighbouring Liberia, residents in the capital Monrovia have also been placing "Ebola buckets" outside offices, restaurants and homes. In Guinea, the prices of hand sanitiser and rubber gloves have soared.

Initially focusing battling misinformation and mistrust, the effort to curb the world's biggest outbreak of Ebola, now spread across three nations, has shifted its emphasis to treating the number of cases coming forward, and finding those who have come into contact with victims of the highly contagious virus.

As Sierra Leone and Liberia declared states of emergency this week, a summit between the presidents of all three countries and the World Health Organisation underlined a renewed sense of urgency over the largest ever epidemic of the disease, which has so far claimed 729 lives.


Comment: Another 1,300 are infected and the rate of infection is going up. This outbreak is unlike any previous outbreak of Ebola, and there is evidence that's it's being transmitted via the air.


Comment: Eerily similar to the black death, and they're bringing two infected Americans back to the states.....


Light Saber

More than 7,000 NYC protesters condemn biased US media coverage of Israeli war on Gaza

nyc protest
Thousands of peace activists have held a demonstration in New York City to protest against Israel's crimes in Gaza and the biased coverage they receive in the US media, Press TV reports.

Despite the rain, more than 7,000 people gathered on Friday near Columbus Circle on the upper west side of Manhattan to show solidarity with the oppressed people of Palestine, Press TV's correspondent Caleb Maupin reports from New York.

The protest, which was organized by the International Action Center, began in front of the headquarters of CNN, a news broadcaster that a demonstrator said is functioning almost like a public relations department for Israel.

"The US media is absolutely biased. All we hear is pro-Israel [stuff]. All the leaders we hear from on television are Israelis," Palestinian-American Mohammed Hamad told Press TV.

Cell Phone

Obama signs the cellphone unlocking bill

cell phone art
© www.digitaltrends.comAn unlocking provider "free-for-all." Well, sort of...
President Barack Obama has signed into law a bill making it legal for consumers to "unlock" their cell phones in order to use a different wireless network.

Known as the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act, the law orders the Library of Congress to allow mobile phone owners to unlock their devices - typically tied, or "locked," to a specific service provider like Verizon or Sprint - and use them on competing networks.

Previously, wireless carriers kept phones locked to their networks even after contracts expired in an attempt to keep customers from switching companies. In 2012, the Library of Congress made it illegal to void this technology via cell phone unlocking, meaning those that untied their phones could potentially face legal action and, in some cases, jail time.

After Congress approved of legislation to make the action legal again, President Obama praised the move and said he looked forward to signing it.

"The bill Congress passed today is another step toward giving ordinary Americans more flexibility and choice, so that they can find a cell phone carrier that meets their needs and their budget," he said last week, when the bill cleared Congress.

In a statement to CBS News, the Public Knowledge group also welcomed the bill's passage.

"This bill ensures that consumers will be able to do what they rightfully expect to be able to do with phones they have purchased: use them on whatever network they like," said Laura Moy, one of the group's attorney.

"It protects consumers who unlock their devices from possible criminal and civil liability under an overreaching copyright law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which was designed to protect copyright but has had enormous unintended consequences."

Comment: The Cell-Out of America. It took 19 months, "against powerful, entrenched interests" to pass this bill in congress. Look for the upcoming law in California that requires cell phones to have an anti-theft kill switch to render phones inoperable and impossible to reset if stolen. Here's a thought: Can we opt for a similar Unlocking Consumer Choice Act and kill switch device regarding our non-service providing government?


Stock Down

Russian sanctions and eastern turmoil already taking economic toll on Western businesses

EU flag
© AP Photo/Yves Logghe
According to the newspaper, shares in Adidas, the world's second-largest sportswear group, dropped 15% after company issued profit warning and said it would accelerate the closure of stores in Russia

The sanctions against Russia and Ukrainian crisis are already taking toll on European businesses, The Financial Times reported on Thursday.

"The warnings came as the European Union published its toughest sanctions against Russia since the end of the cold war, targeting Russia's energy, financial and defense sectors," the newspaper's online article says.

Comment: The EU chose to ignore all the warnings against sanctions and instead kow-tow to the US like Pavlov's dog - now the consequences of such shortsightedness are becoming evident.

Senior EU official: EU should avoid economic sanctions against Russia
Boomerang effect! Putin: US sanctions contradict its national interests, will backfire
Is it worth it? Sanctions against Russia affect quarter of German exporters
Association of European Businesses: U.S. sanctions will hurt Europe


Heart - Black

Butchery in Rafah: The dead are kept in vegetable refrigerators

As Gaza stranglehold tightens, full morgues have forced people to store dead bodies in refrigerators
corpses in refrigerators rafah
© Twitter / @FoolowGazaCorpses of the dead stored in a vegetable refrigerator in Rafah
Abu Taha, a farmer in Rafah, opened the refrigerator he normally keeps his potatoes and carrots in. In it were the corpses of children, young men and women lying on top of one another, soaked in blood. Many were impossible to identify and only a few have been placed in white burial shrouds.

Such was the savagery of Israel's bombardment in Rafah, such was the quantity of dead bodies, that there was simply no other option but to use vegetable refrigerators as makeshift morgues. The closure of hospitals which came under bombardment led to a cascade of corpses. It started when medical staff were forced to abandon Rafah's main hospital Abu Yousef al-Najjar which came under constant bombardment by artillery shelling from the east of the city.

They evacuated the injured to Kuwaiti Hospital, a facility totally ill-equipped to deal with major trauma injuries from the extended battlefield that the Gaza Strip has become. Even so, several bodies were left lying on the roads, bleeding for hours without any ambulance crew arriving to rescue them.

Newspaper

Solzhenitsyn praised Putin before his death

Solzhenitsyn
© Sipa Press/Rex FeaturesRussian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn contrasted Vladimir Putin's reign positively against those of Yeltsin and Gorbachev, an embassy cable said.
Four months before his death Alexander Solzhenitsyn offered qualified praise for Vladimir Putin, arguing that he was doing a better job as Russia's leader than Boris Yeltsin or Mikhail Gorbachev.

The US ambassador, William Burns, visited Solzhenitsyn in April 2008 at his dacha outside Moscow. He then sent a cable to Washington giving his impressions of the Nobel-prize winning writer who was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974 and returned to Russia 20 years later.

"Solzhenitsyn, who will turn 90 this December has been in declining health for some time. A stroke has left his left arm paralysed and his hand gnarled, but Solzhenitsyn's legendary energy was undiminished, and he was alert, spoke clearly, and, as the conversation showed, actively engaged with the events of the day," Burns reported in the dispatch released by WikiLeaks.