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Protesting Ferguson - "I've been doing this since I was a teenager. I didn't think I would have to do it when I was 90."

Steven Hsieh
The Nation
Mon, 18 Aug 2014 08:06 UTC
Hedy Epstein Ferguson
© Steven Hsieh
St. Louis Metropolitan Police officers escort Hedy Epstein, a 90-year-old Holocaust survivor, after arresting her for failure to disperse.
In the second week of protests over the shooting death of Michael Brown by a police officer, St. Louis Metropolitan police on Monday arrested nine protesters for blocking the entrance of a state office building.

Among those arrested was Hedy Epstein, a 90-year-old Holocaust survivor who lives in St. Louis.

Epstein told The Nation, as two officers walked her to a police van. "We need to stand up today so that people won't have to do this when they're 90."

Roughly 125 protesters marched to the entrance of the historic Wainwright Building, which houses Missouri Governor Jay Nixon's downtown office. They demanded Nixon withdraw National Guard troops from Ferguson municipality, where peaceful protests throughout the week were disrupted by late night riots. The protesters also called for a special prosecutor to lead the investigation of Brown's death, as well as an expansion of the Department of Justice's existing investigation to look into patterns of civil rights violations across North St. Louis County.

The crowd kicked off the two-block march singing, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn me 'round." Participants took turns addressing the crowd, using a megaphone. The demonstrators chanted "Hey hey! Ho ho! National Guard has got to go!" and "Hands up! Don't shoot!"
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Smoking

Turbulent situation in the Middle East blamed for drop in Imperial Tobacco sales


RT.com
Tue, 19 Aug 2014 17:44 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo / Ahmad Al-Rubaye
The rise of Islamic extremism in the Middle East has disrupted sales growth at Imperial Tobacco, known around the world for its Davidoff and Gauloises cigarettes.

The world's fourth-largest cigarette company blamed the "turbulent situation in the Middle East" for falling cigarette and tobacco sales in Iraq, one of its key growth markets.

"It is difficult for distributors to get the product on the shelves. Roads are closed, some retailers can't get to their shop to open it," said Simon Evans, press officer at Imperial Tobacco.

"Security concerns are the main problem and affect the logistics of getting the product on the market there," he added. He confirmed that the current conflict in Iraq has had an impact on sales and stressed that they will continue to monitor the situation. Evans did not elaborate which areas have seen significant decreases in sales, as suppliers struggle to deliver cigarettes.

The firm's net tobacco revenue decreased by 1 percent to £4.75bn ($7.95 bn) in the nine months to 30 June.

"In several Middle Eastern markets, sales have been disrupted by the deteriorating security situation," Imperial Tobacco said in a statement.

The rise of the militant Islamic State (IS) group, also known as ISIS and ISIL, caused disruption to supply in the region. Road closures and damage to retail outlets are making it harder for Imperial's distributors to operate in affected areas, especially northern Iraq.
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Lemon

U.S. hysteria: Elderly woman kicked off flight after another passenger reported her for 'looking ill'

Ken Amaro
First Coast News
Tue, 12 Aug 2014 02:56 UTC
Image

If you look sick, sweaty, nervous, worried, or anxious... in short if you look human, you can now be barred from flying, like Suzanne Hays, age 72.
Suzanne Hays, 72, is soft spoken but don't be fooled by her demeanor. On August 5 Hays was traveling from Akron, Ohio to Orlando.

Hays had a flight change in Detroit and that change has become an experience she would like to forget.

"I was begging them not to throw me off the plane," said Hays.

Before Flight 19 would depart from Detroit to Orlando there was a problem. Hays said a passenger who was next to her decided to talk to the airline crew about her looking tired and drowsy.

"Then she came back and said they've moved us because I might be contagious," said Hays. "Contagious with what?" she wondered.

Shortly after that Hays said she was asked to leave the airplane. She said she was devastated.


Comment: For more information, see also:

Disabled man Baraka Kanaan 'forced to crawl off Delta Airlines flight'

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Apple Green

Semantic aphasia: Fighting continues during 'truce' in Gaza, IDF kills 5-year-old girl


RT
Wed, 20 Aug 2014 04:38 UTC
Hamas rockets
© AFP Photo / David Buimovitch
Assuming these are really Hamas rocket launches (photo taken 19 August), it shows the fraudulence of the videos of Iron Dome shooting non-existent 'rockets' out of the air.
Israeli-Palestinian rocket fire resumed on Tuesday after Gaza truce talks broke down. A 5-year-old girl and a woman became the first victims of renewed Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. Hamas launched around 50 rockets at Israel, hitting as far as Tel Aviv.


Comment: 50 rockets? According to whom? The notoriously mendacious Israeli government? Should we trust their numbers, especially when we know that Iron Dome is a total fraud?


Israel launched at least 35 airstrikes on targets in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday. One of the strikes hit a house in Gaza City, killing a woman and a 5-year-old child, according to Palestinian Health Ministry.

Reportedly, one of Israel's targets was Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif, Israeli Channel 10 said.

The three people killed during the Israeli airstrikes included a wife and a child of the Hamas military wing's leader Mohammed Deif, AP cited senior Hamas leader Moussa Abu Marzouk as saying.


Comment: Chances are, Deif's wife and child were the intended targets.

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Pistol

What I did after police killed my son

Michael Bell
Political Magazine
Fri, 15 Aug 2014 00:17 UTC
Image
After police in Kenosha, Wis., shot my 21-year-old son to death outside his house ten years ago - and then immediately cleared themselves of all wrongdoing - an African-American man approached me and said: "If they can shoot a white boy like a dog, imagine what we've been going through."

I could imagine it all too easily, just as the rest of the country has been seeing it all too clearly in the terrible images coming from Ferguson, Mo., in the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown. On Friday, after a week of angry protests, the police in Ferguson finally identified the officer implicated in Brown's shooting, although the circumstances still remain unclear.

I have known the name of the policeman who killed my son, Michael, for ten years. And he is still working on the force in Kenosha.
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Alarm Clock

Emerging solar plants scorch birds in mid-air

Ellen Knickmeyer and John Locher
Associated Press
Mon, 18 Aug 2014 13:13 UTC
array of mirrors
© AP Photo/John Locher
New estimates for the plant near the California-Nevada border say thousands of birds are dying yearly, roasted by the concentrated sun rays from the mirrors.
Ivanpah Dry Lake, Calif. - Workers at a state-of-the-art solar plant in the Mojave Desert have a name for birds that fly through the plant's concentrated sun rays - "streamers," for the smoke plume that comes from birds that ignite in midair.

Federal wildlife investigators who visited the BrightSource Energy plant last year and watched as birds burned and fell, reporting an average of one "streamer" every two minutes, are urging California officials to halt the operator's application to build a still-bigger version.

The investigators want the halt until the full extent of the deaths can be assessed. Estimates per year now range from a low of about a thousand by BrightSource to 28,000 by an expert for the Center for Biological Diversity environmental group.

The deaths are "alarming. It's hard to say whether that's the location or the technology," said Garry George, renewable-energy director for the California chapter of the Audubon Society. "There needs to be some caution."

The bird kills mark the latest instance in which the quest for clean energy sometimes has inadvertent environmental harm. Solar farms have been criticized for their impacts on desert tortoises, and wind farms have killed birds, including numerous raptors.

"We take this issue very seriously," said Jeff Holland, a spokesman for NRG Solar of Carlsbad, California, the second of the three companies behind the plant. The third, Google, deferred comment to its partners.
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Heart - Black

County will not pay medical bills for toddler hurt in Habersham, Georgia raid


WSB - TV
Tue, 19 Aug 2014 20:00 UTC

Habersham County officials say they do not plan to pay for the medical expenses of a toddler seriously injured during a police raid.

Bounkham Phonesavah, affectionately known as "Baby Boo Boo," spent weeks in a burn unit after a SWAT team's flash grenade exploded near his face. The toddler was just 19-months-old and asleep in the early morning hours of May 28. SWAT officers threw the device into his home while executing a search warrant for a drug suspect.

Habersham County officials are defending their decision not to pay, but the child's family isn't giving up.

After weeks of recovery at two different hospitals, Channel 2 Action News was there in July as the little boy walked out of a hospital with his family.

He is doing better, but late Friday afternoon, his family's attorney told said the family's medical bills are mounting.

"But at this point, the county is refusing to pay," said attorney Muwali Davis.

Habersham County's attorney provided the following statement, saying: "The question before the board was whether it is legally permitted to pay these expenses. After consideration of this question following advice of counsel, the board of commissioners has concluded that it would be in violation of the law for it to do so."

The attorney for Boo Boo's family insists that is not good enough.
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Megaphone

Police State USA: Dozens arrested, reporters detained, assembly rights restricted


RT
Tue, 19 Aug 2014 18:15 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo / Getty Images / Scott Olson
Police attempt to control demonstrators protesting the killing of teenager Michael Brown on August 18, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri.
Confrontation resumed on Monday night in Ferguson, Missouri, as police used tear gas to disperse protesters. Live ammo was shot in the altercation, with two people injured. Over 70 people, including a journalist, were reportedly arrested.

Protests over the killing of teenager Michael Brown on August 9 by a police officer continued into their ninth day. Police were telling people not to congregate unless they were in protest-designated areas, a policy needed to protect Ferguson from a "criminal element," it was explained.

Militarized US police face-off with Ferguson protesters LIVE UPDATES
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Pistol

Compton, CA school police allowed to have assault rifles on campus

Rina Palta
SCPR.org
Mon, 18 Aug 2014 16:22 UTC
AR-15 rifles
© wikipedia
AR-15 rifles
As Compton students head back to school Monday, residents are expressing concern about a school board policy passed in July that allows campus police who pass an internal selection process to buy semi-automatic AR-15 rifles and carry them in their patrol car trunks while on duty.

"This is our objective - save lives, bottom line," Compton Unified Police Chief William Wu told the board.

Wu argued officers are woefully underequipped in the event of a terrorist attack or mass shooting, in which shooters increasingly wear body armor, which is not penetrable with standard firearms. He cited a recent FBI study that found that roughly 5 percent of mass shooters have worn such armor. Wu said that while assault-style rifles are more deadly, they're also more accurate.

Comment: Calling AR-15s 'tools' doesn't change reality. They are guns and they are going to be available for use at schools (you know, those buildings where kids hang out all day?). For more on the guns-in-schools madness see:

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Megaphone

Fundraiser to benefit Ferguson cop who killed Michael Brown causes rift within KKK


RT
Tue, 19 Aug 2014 16:33 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Joshua Lott
A top Ku Klux Klan leader has condemned a fundraiser set up by an outsider KKK group for the benefit of Darren Wilson, the police officer who fatally shot unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9.

Imperial Wizard Chuck Murray of the New Empire Knights of the Ku Klux Klan called for donations to the police officer last week in an email obtained by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"We are setting up a reward/fund for the police officer who shot this thug," wrote Murray, whose group is based in South Carolina. "He is a hero! We need more white cops who are anti-Zog and willing to put Jewish controlled black thugs in their place. Most cops are cowards and do nothing while 90% of interracial crime is black (and non-white) on white."

Murray did not offer comment to SPLC.

The email did not sit well with Frank Acona, Imperial Wizard of the Traditionalist American Knights, one of the largest factions of the KKK in the United States.
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