Society's ChildS


Cut

Best of the Web: Disunited states of America: In Crimea's footsteps, 29 U.S. states want to be independent

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© SXC.hu
Over 300,000 US citizens ,which represent a total of 29 states, have signed petitions for their states to withdraw from the United States of America.

They make references to the Declaration of Independence, whereby a situation may emerge when it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, to ensure security and happiness, the federal media report.

They want to be granted the right to peacefully secede from the United States or allowed the holding of a referendum on such secession. Those who have signed the petition feel that President Obama's economic reforms have proved ineffective. They claim the government has violated the rights and freedoms of Americans in the past two years.

Texas, a state boasting the best economic performance, was the first to start the secession movement. Almost 70,000 Texans had signed the petition on the White House website by Monday. They want Barack Obama to allow their state to peacefully withdraw from the United States of America, or allow them to hold a referendum on secession. They explained to the President that they have been prompted to seek self-determination by the federal authorities' inappropriate policy, weak economic reforms and the obvious violations of Americans' rights. The petitions are signed both by Republicans, the once loyal to Obama African Americans and liberals from 29 states.

Heart - Black

Woman sentenced to 14 years in prison for amassing massive child porn stash on her computer

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© Facebook
She lived in a 4,000-square foot, $1.4 million home and drove a bright green Camaro with vanity plates that read "MY SYN," but prosecutors said grandmother Erika Perdue's opulent lifestyle wasn't her darkest vice.

Perdue, who pleaded guilty to charges of trading and shipping child porn last year, was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison on Monday.

"I lost two granddaughters to this," Perdue said in court Monday, according to the Dallas Morning News.

According to court records, the 43-year-old Dallas socialite downloaded and traded child pornography every day for 13 years while her successful lawyer husband was at work.

The Dallas Morning News reports that the activity only stopped once federal agents raided her home and arrested her in April 2012, finding more than 4,000 illicit images on her computer.

Heart - Black

Woman who had sex with 8-year-old boy 50 times sentenced to just 2 years in prison

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© PETER SUMMERS / NEWSTEAM/PETER SUMMERS / NEWSTEAMLoren Morris, now 21, was sentenced Tuesday to a year in prison after repeatedly sexually abusing a child.
A 21-year-old woman was sentenced to two years in prison for having forced sexual intercourse with an 8-year-old boy 50 times.

Loren Morris, who was 16 when the abuse started five years ago, was given the sentence on Tuesday, a month after she was convicted at trial at Worcester Crown Court in England. The abuse lasted two years and came to light after the child was heard bragging about the encounters at school.

The Daily Mail reports that Judge Robert Juckes QC gave Morris a more lenient sentence because she stopped sexually assaulting the boy after she realized it was "wrong."

"I take into account what has been said to me and the fact that you stopped the activity yourself," Juckes said in open court. "You realized it was wrong rather than being caught and forced to stop."

Health

Woman dies after injecting vaseline into her breasts

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An Argentine woman died after she reportedly injected herself with Vaseline in an attempt to give herself a breast augmentation.

Sonia Perez Llanzon, 39, suffered a pulmonary embolism -- or blot clot in her lungs -- and died several weeks after she reportedly injected herself with the petroleum jelly, according to a Huffington Post translation of La Capital.

In an article dated March 18, the Argentine newspaper reports that Llanzon went to a Santa Rosa hospital after she developed difficulty breathing. Doctors said she initially denied injecting herself, but later admitted that she'd tried to give herself a breast augmentation.

Bizarro Earth

Sixth grader suspended for taking self-harming classmate's razor blade

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© WAVY
We teach kids that honesty is the best policy, but at one Virginia Beach middle school it might be better to keep the truth to yourself.

Last Thursday at Bayside Middle School, sixth grader Adrionna Harris came to the aide of a classmate who was cutting his arm. She faces expulsion for taking a razor from the student, throwing it away and convincing him what he was doing wasn't right. She thought she was doing the right thing, so on Friday she told the school administration what happened. The way school officials responded led to this question: was the school's zero tolerance policy taken too far?

Instead of getting praise from the school administration, Adrionna got a 10 day suspension with recommendation for expulsion. The interesting thing - the only reason Adrionna got suspended was because she admitted what happened. The alleged weapon was thrown away, and it was her word alone that led to her suspension.

"I was shocked and surprised. I was very shocked that a student would get suspended for saving another child," said Rachael Harris, Adrionna's mother. "The school system over-reached absolutely."

The school's own details of the event state Adrionna reported the student had a razor blade. She admitted taking it from the student then throwing the blade away.

Radar

Australian military checking 2 objects in search for missing Malaysian plane

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© Adek Berry/AFP/Getty ImagesIn this file photo, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 737 plane is pictured flying over the Soekarno–Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Indonesia on March 18, 2013.
Four military search planes were dispatched Thursday to determine whether two large objects bobbing in a remote part of the Indian Ocean are debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight.

One of the objects spotted by satellite imagery was 24 meters (almost 80 feet) in length and the other was 5 meters (15 feet). There could be other objects in the area, a four-hour flight from Australia's southwestern coast, said John Young, manager of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority's emergency response division.

"This is a lead, it's probably the best lead we have right now," Young said. He cautioned that the objects could be seaborne debris along a shipping route where containers can fall off cargo vessels, although the larger object is longer than a container.

Young told a news conference in Canberra, Australia's capital, that planes had been sent to the area about 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth to check on the objects. He said satellite images "do not always turn out to be related to the search even if they look good, so we will hold our views on that until they are sighted close-up."

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott earlier told Parliament about the debris, and said Orion search aircraft had been dispatched.

Arrow Down

Too much inequality could lead the West to a Roman Empire-style fall says NASA

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© AFP/Getty Images
Few think Western civilization is on the brink of collapse - but it's also doubtful the Romans and Mesopotamians saw their own demise coming either.

If we're to avoid their fate, we'll need policies to reduce economic inequality and preserve natural resources, according to a NASA-funded study that looked at the collapses of previous societies.

"Two important features seem to appear across societies that have collapsed," reads the study. "The stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity and the economic stratification of society into Elites and Masses."

In unequal societies, researchers said, "collapse is difficult to avoid.... Elites grow and consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society."

Snowflake Cold

Extreme winter weather drives up food prices in U.S.

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Wild winter weather hasn't just had an effect on crops here in the Palmetto State, but all over the country, and that means your wallet could be feeling the chill at your grocery store's checkout aisle.

"It's been wet and rainy everywhere," said IGA manager Keith Skipper. "Then the cold came in."

Skipper says cold weather has hit South Carolina farmers hard, and harsh winters in the Midwest have had a huge effect on beef prices.

"Steers, in cold weather won't eat," he said. "They end up having to take the cow to market before its time."

Across the country and on every grocery item, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates prices have risen 1.4 percent in the past year, and could go as high as 3.5% by the end of the year.

Other items seeing a spike in prices include wheat and coffee, due in part to major drought in parts of the US as well as South America.

Light Saber

Josie the Outlaw: Supporting the Troops

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"Counting Lives Lost, Making Tangible an Abstract Measure of Grief"
How I support the troops.

TV

YouTube using 200 'super flaggers' to hunt down offending content

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With 100 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, it's impossible for the site's employees to keep tabs on the mass of content continuously pouring in. While most of it is innocuous enough, some prohibited material slips through the net, including pornography, gratuitous violence, and abuse of various forms.

In a bid to catch such material more quickly, Google-owned YouTube has hired around 200 individuals and organizations to flag any material they deem to be in contravention of the video-sharing site's guidelines, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

A person with knowledge of the matter told the Journal that most of those in the "flagger program" are individuals, though some are said to be "government agencies or non-governmental organizations such as anti-hate and child-safety groups."

While the site already allows users to report videos containing possibly suspect content, it's likely the material highlighted by those in the flagger program is fast-tracked to the YouTube team for evaluation. In addition, the Web giant has reportedly set up the system so that the flaggers can highlight content "at scale," instead of selecting one video at a time.