Society's Child

Danish doctors rise against child circumcision

RT
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 17:27 UTC

A doctor's association in Denmark has made calls to ban child circumcision and the country's government has made it obligatory to report circumcision to authorities, starting next year, in a move to tighten restrictions on the currently unregulated practice.

Circumcision must be "an informed, personal choice," and therefore should be postponed until adulthood, the Danish Medical Association said in a press release. It believes the current state of affairs deprives boys of the ability to make their own decisions about their bodies and their cultural and religious beliefs.

"To be circumcised should be an informed, personal choice. It is most consistent with the individual's right to self-determination that parents not be allowed to make this decision but that it is left up to the individual when he has come of age," The Local quoted Lise Moller, the chairwoman of the doctors' association's ethics board, as saying.

Previously-hidden VA medical center quality ratings are alarming - report

RT
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 13:26 UTC

© Larry Downing / Reuters
The sign in the front of the headquarters building at the Department of Veteran Affairs is seen as a man walks past in Washington.

The Department of Veterans Affairs hid quality ratings for nearly 150 of its medical centers, but now USA Today is revealing them for the first time. Despite many facilities receiving just one star, the VA says that the "rating tool" is for internal use only.

According to the VA's rating system, unveiled by USA Today on Wednesday, medical centers receive between one and five stars based on their performance. Texas and Tennessee have most of the lowest-performing medical centers, with VA hospitals in Dallas, El Paso, Nashville, Memphis and Murfreesboro marked with just one star for performance. Many of highest-rated facilities, which scored five out of five stars, are located in the Northeast of the country, clustered in Massachusetts and New York as well as the upper Midwest, in South Dakota and Minnesota.

USA Today managed to obtain the most recent ratings available from June 30, but it says that the VA has refused to provide a list of hospitals that received two, three or four stars.

The agency says its rating system would "hurt" veterans if revealed.

Comment: See also: Veterans in 2016: Backlogs, coverage gaps, and a vague Trump mandate

Aleppo residents: 'Militants held us at gunpoint, withheld food and water'

RT
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 17:11 UTC

An RT crew was among the first to speak to residents of Aleppo evacuated after spending months trapped in militant-held parts of the city. The residents had almost no food or water, and were told by militants they would be killed if they tried to escape.

RT has received first-hand accounts describing the atrocities and suffering Aleppo locals faced after the city fell into the hands of terrorists. People were starving, had no water and were forcefully prevented from running away.

"We've been in a very miserable situation. For four months no bread, no water, we've been treated very badly. But thanks to Allah, when the army came, we've moved here," a resident evacuated from the Old City district in Aleppo told RT.

"We tried to escape twice before, but they [militants] threatened us with weapons and made us go back," he said.

Comment: A revealing look at the rebel positions captured by the Syrian Army (note the vast stores of supplies hoarded by the "rebels", and kept from the civilian population):

Trump's top environmental adviser Myron Ebell says pesticides aren't bad for you

Tom Philpot
Mother Jones
Wed, 16 Nov 2016 16:59 UTC

To lead the transition of the Environmental Protection Agency, President-elect Donald Trump settled on notorious climate change denier Myron Ebell. The decision rattled climate activists—see Julia Lurie's interview with Bill McKibbenand David Roberts and Brad Plumer on Vox. But it isn't just greenhouse gas emissions that are likely to get a free ride under an Ebell-influenced EPA. Farm chemicals, too, would likely flow unabated if Ebell's agenda comes to dominate Trump's EPA.

Ebell directs the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The group runs a website,SafeChemicalPolicy.org, that exists to downplay the health and ecological impacts of chemicals.

FIFA boss Infantino demands 'zero tolerance' of sex abuse in football

RT
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 16:54 UTC

FIFA President Gianni Infantino says there needs to be "zero tolerance" of child abuse in football, promising to investigate how the sport's governing body can prevent it happening.

English football has been rocked by a scandal over accusations of historical pedophile activity within the game, with police forces across the country dealing with an increasing number of claims.

Comment: UK football child sex abuse hotline receives 860 calls in the first hour of operation

Comment: Is it just us, or are stories about child abuse and pedophilia showing up everywhere lately?

3 out of 4 of 'underage' asylum seekers in Denmark are adults, teeth & bone tests show

RT
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 15:55 UTC

The Danish Immigration Service has questioned the age of some 800 asylum seekers who said they are younger than 18. In almost three out of four cases, 'unaccompanied minors' proved to be adults, according to a report.

Experts at the University of Copenhagen's Department of Forensic Medicine have been investigating the age of unaccompanied asylum seekers who arrived in Denmark this year and said they are under 18, Jyllands-Posten daily reported.

The Danish Immigration Service suspected that 800 asylum seekers lied about their real age.

British Columbia teacher fired for having his own opinion

Christie Blatchford
National Post
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 16:17 UTC

A teacher at a posh private school in British Columbia was fired last month after making an innocuous comment about abortion to his Grade 12 law class.

Though there is no way of knowing, since discipline matters are shrouded in secrecy, it may be the first time a Canadian teacher has been fired not amid allegations of impropriety, but for having the wrong opinion.

Certainly, Lori Foote, a spokesperson for the 60,000-member-strong Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, said Wednesday that no one at the association is "aware of anyone being fired" in Ontario in comparable circumstances.

Comment: The situation in Canadian schools is nearly unbelievable, it's so bizarre and nonsensical. Along this same line of happenings you might want to read the following articles:

Colleges see post-election political divide growing more intense

Anemona Hartocollis
The New York Times
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 16:07 UTC

© Brittany Greeson for The New York Times
Amanda Delekta, 20, the political director for the College Republicans at the University of Michigan, in her bedroom near campus in Ann Arbor, Mich., last week.

Amanda Delekta, a sophomore at the University of Michigan and political director of the College Republicans, was ecstatic when her candidate, Donald J. Trump, won the presidential election.

But her mood of celebration quickly faded when students held an evening vigil on campus — to mourn the results — and her biology teacher suspended class on the assumption, Ms. Delekta said, that students would be too upset to focus.

She was outraged. "Nobody has died," Ms. Delekta said. "The United States has not died. Democracy is more alive than ever. Simply put, the American people voted and Trump won."

She circulated an online petition and accused the university president of catering to the liberal majority by suggesting that "their ideology was superior to the ideology of their peers," as she put it, when he sent out an email publicizing the vigil and listing counseling resources for students upset by the election. Three days later, she was invited to meet with the president in his office.

Comment: The Truth Perspective: Radical political correctness, liberal ideologies and the decline of modern civilization

The loss by Hillary Clinton in the U.S. presidential elections, and the surprise win for Donald Trump, rather than exposing the Right's alleged underbelly of racism, bigotry, xenophobia and homophobia, has instead revealed something much more surprising, and potentially catastrophic for Western civilization as we know it: the cult of political correctness, obsession with identities, and a radical Left fringe that has ponerized inclusion and empathy to the point of authoritarianism. Whether it's on the domestic front of gender pronouns, safe spaces, and micro-aggressions, or on the foreign front of humanitarian intervention, human rights and the responsibility to protect, Western liberal values have lost all meaning.

5-yo boy dies in Aleppo hospital that saw 'worst month in 5 years' of rebel attacks

RT
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 16:20 UTC

five-year-old Syrian boy, named Dia died in Aleppo

Dozens, including many children, have been injured and killed in constant rebel shelling over the past month, doctors at Al-Razi Hospital in Aleppo told RT. They also confirmed that a five-year-old boy, who received a heavy head injury last week, didn't make it.

A five-year-old Syrian boy, named Dia, whose fate RT was following after he was hit with shrapnel in the head during rebel shelling, has succumbed to his wounds, the doctors told RT's Lizzie Phelan, who visited the Al-Razi Hospital where the boy was taken on December 2.

The doctors said that Dia underwent a complex surgery, but his injuries were too grave and he passed away, becoming yet another child to have been killed in rebel bombardment.

Flash Mob: People in Ukraine's South singing in unison opposing intolerance that the U.S. backed coup in Kiev helped to impose

The New Cold War
Sat, 03 Dec 2016 00:00 UTC

From the Facebook page of New Cold War.org, Dec 3, 3016

On December 1, 2016, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed a decree entitled 'On priority measures aimed at the strengthening of national unity and the consolidation of the Ukrainian society, the support of civil society initiative in this sphere'. It was published on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the all-Ukrainian referendum on the independence of Ukraine which was held on December 1, 1991.

According to the new decree, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has three months to develop and adopt a comprehensive plan of these 'priority measures' with the active participation of central and local authorities, civil society organizations and national and international experts. After the plan is adopted, local authorities must develop their own plans. Local authorities also have to support the implementation of all-Ukrainian and regional 'grass root initiatives' designed to strengthen national unity and patriotism, restore and preserve national memory, develop national consciousness and interregional cooperation, and popularize the spiritual and cultural heritage of the Ukrainian people.

Comment: See also: People Power: Defying Russophobia - Flash mobs of Ukrainians sing Russian songs

Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to the USA via Sweden where he faced sex offence allegations for which...

JTF Truth

i can imagine a future msnbc commercial airing between cnn's propaganda blurbs: "drones....coming to a neighbourhood near you.... ...this...

life

What an evil person. Pure lies, sticking to the script so she doesn't incur the wrath of her minders. It is time for the human race to stand up.

tekdude

Somewhat misleading to call this a "new water source". It has long been known that the the deeper aquifers contain water that predates atomic...

Rhansen

Hippocrates called Elderberry his Medicine Chest along the way he fought a pandemic.. Coining the word. He didn't call it the medicine chest for...

SpectateSwamp

Society's Child

Danish doctors rise against child circumcision

Previously-hidden VA medical center quality ratings are alarming - report

Aleppo residents: 'Militants held us at gunpoint, withheld food and water'

Trump's top environmental adviser Myron Ebell says pesticides aren't bad for you

FIFA boss Infantino demands 'zero tolerance' of sex abuse in football

3 out of 4 of 'underage' asylum seekers in Denmark are adults, teeth & bone tests show

British Columbia teacher fired for having his own opinion

Colleges see post-election political divide growing more intense

5-yo boy dies in Aleppo hospital that saw 'worst month in 5 years' of rebel attacks

Flash Mob: People in Ukraine's South singing in unison opposing intolerance that the U.S. backed coup in Kiev helped to impose

Latest News

Picture of the Day

Quote of the Day

Recent Comments

Quantum Quirk

Contact Us