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Fire

'The place is going to burn': Suspect in Holy Fire arson sent ominous text

Holy Fire
The man accused of starting a Southern California blaze that forced the evacuation of 20,000 residents sent a text to a volunteer fire chief two weeks ago saying, "The place is going to burn," the chief said Thursday.

The Holy Fire started Monday in the Cleveland National Forest's Holy Jim Canyon and has so far destroyed a dozen structures, according to fire authorities.

Holy Jim Volunteer Fire Department Chief Mike Milligan, 71, says he's known the arson suspect, Forrest Gordon Clark, for decades and has long warned that he posed a danger to the community.

"I've been trying for years to get someone to pay attention and nobody has really had the opportunity to do that until now," he said.

Fire

Inmates paid $2 a day for fighting California wildfires

inmate firefighters
As California firefighters work to contain the largest wildfire in state history, they find themselves working their 24-hour shifts alongside a group of unlikely partners: 3,400 inmates from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The groups work in unison, but while salaried California firefighters earn an annual mean wage of $74,000 plus benefits, inmates earn just $2 per day with an additional $1 per hour when fighting an active fire.

Inmates without histories of arson, sexual crimes, kidnapping, gang-affiliation, escape attempts or facing a life sentence are allowed to volunteer for the firefighting program and are trained for two weeks in fire safety and field conditions before taking a physical exam. Once the exam is passed, prisoners are sent to live in one of 43 low-security field camps throughout the state. Juvenile delinquents are also eligible for the program, at least 58 youth offenders are currently fighting active wildfires.

"In an active fire, Cal Fire makes the determination for all crews based on the conditions, and the safety and security of all firefighters. In other words, inmate firefighters are not treated differently in the work they perform at the camps," Vicky Waters, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation told Newsweek on Tuesday. "I just want to emphasize that we absolutely recognize the incredible job these firefighters are doing, particularly when lives and properties are at stake."

Comment: United Corporations of Amerika: 4,000 PRISONERS - not firefighters - are tasked with putting out raging wildfires in California


USA

Former professor charged with assaulting 7 Trump supporters with a bike lock only gets probation

berkeley attack
© Shuttershot45/YouTube
A former Diablo Valley College professor who used a bike lock to assault seven Trump supporters at a free speech rally last August will only receive three years of probation as part of a plea deal.

Eric Clanton, a former philosophy professor at Diablo Valley College, will receive only a three-year probation for his assault on Trump supporters at a Berkeley Free Speech rally in August 2017. Clanton was captured on video smashing a Trump supporter's head with a bike lock. His victim ultimately fell to the ground, covered in his own blood.

Court documents revealed that Clanton struck at least seven people in the head at the Berkeley free speech rally on April 15, 2017. One of his victims had a head laceration that required five staples to fix. Clanton was initially charged with four counts of felony assault.

During a search of Clanton's home, investigators found documents that linked him to local Antifa groups. Investigators also found bike locks and clothing that were similar to the items used by the assailant in the assault video that was published online. Additionally, cell phone tower data placed Clanton close to the location of the assaults on the date they took place.

Red Flag

U.S. Department of Defense is the world's biggest polluter

military pollution
© AP/Reed Saxon
Spent shell casings from firing practice litter the desert of the U.S. Marine Corps’ Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, California.
Last week, mainstream media outlets gave minimal attention to the news that the U.S. Naval station in Virginia Beach had spilled an estimated 94,000 gallons of jet fuel into a nearby waterway, less than a mile from the Atlantic Ocean.

While the incident was by no means as catastrophic as some other pipeline spills, it underscores an important yet little-known fact-that the U.S. Department of Defense is both the nation's and the world's, largest polluter.

Producing more hazardous waste than the five largest U.S. chemical companies combined, the U.S. Department of Defense has left its toxic legacy throughout the world in the form of depleted uranium, oil, jet fuel, pesticides, defoliants like Agent Orange and lead, among others.

Stock Down

Neoliberalism on steroids: Punishing the victims and rewarding the perpetrators of the 2008 financial crisis

financial economic crisis
© Jo Yong hak / Reuters
The 2008 financial crash should have marked the end of a neoliberal era marked by greed and inequality. But it ushered in even more iniquitous economic policies which have benefited the super-rich at the expense of the majority.

It was the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression of the 1930s. However, unlike then, the crash of 2008 did not lead to the adoption of progressive New Deal-style policies, but the exact opposite. The massive bankers' bailouts that were introduced following the collapse of Lehman Bros were paid for by ordinary taxpayers, who then saw their living standards plummet as governments imposed harsh austerity measures, which led to important public services being cut. Let's look at what happened in Britain.

In the 2010 General Election, the Conservatives, out of office since 1997, promoted themselves as the party most serious about "cutting the deficit." The election was all about 'the deficit'. The 'd' word was everywhere. The Tories scraped home, but could only form a government with the support of the Lib Dems, who, under the leadership of banker's son Nick Clegg, were now enthusiastic neocons.

Comment: All of this has happened before, and it will happen again:




2 + 2 = 4

The new racism: How sociology justifies racism through language

discrimination definition

Editor's note: Part I of
The New Racism can be read here.

The best way to grasp how sociology has managed to make color-blind racism (CBR) seem believable is to study its Newspeak (to continue the Orwell theme).

Comment:


Display

Microsoft threatens to shut down social media site Gab after anti-Semitic posts by random user

Andrew Torba Gab Microsoft


Editor's note: Since the publication of this article, more information has surfaced about the threatening nature of the posts, which seem to be a clear violation of Gab's terms of service. PJ Media condemns violent threats in the strongest possible terms. See update below.


Microsoft Azure, the web hosting provider for Gab, has given the company 48 hours to delete some anti-Semitic posts or face a Big Tech shut-down. Gab is a Twitter alternative that claims to protect the right to free speech. It's not a very good alternative, as the numbers just aren't there to keep it interesting. Most of the time it's just righties and ultra-righties fighting amongst themselves. But Gab's claim to fame is that they won't kick people off for having unpopular views or engaging in insult trading that morons refer to as "hate speech." For some, that's a worthwhile promise.

It should be noted that in America the term "hate speech" is not a legal one, at least according to the Supreme Court. So-called "hate speech," be it racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic or just plain mean, is protected as reaffirmed in Matal v. Tam in 2017. "Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express 'the thought that we hate,'" wrote Justice Alito.

Comment: Nobody likes anti-semites (the real ones). And a lot of people think Alex Jones is a clown. So when these types are shut down not many complain. So the question is, will people be more willing to normalize censorship when more reasonable voices become the target? See also:


Gold Coins

Following the golden rule: Iran and Venezuela prime examples of intrinsic value of money vs. gold

Gold
© Anthony Bradshaw / Getty Images
Once again, gold has proved itself to be the most reliable safe haven as more and more citizens in countries hit by US sanctions are hoarding the metal in an effort to protect their savings from collapsing national currencies.

Rising demand for gold in Iran and Venezuela has sent prices for the precious metal to unprecedented levels while local currencies depreciate daily.

As of the end of July, gold prices in the struggling Latin American state saw a 3.1-million-percent increase against the beginning of the year, with an ounce of the yellow metal surging to 211 million bolivars ($1019,45). Venezuela is currently fighting the worst economic crisis ever, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expecting inflation to reach a colossal one-million percent by the end of 2018. The skyrocketing inflation that is unavoidably dragging down the Venezuelan bolivar is forcing people to buy up gold to keep their savings from disappearing.

Comment: This week has been especially volatile for emerging markets currencies as many saw devaluations such as the Turkey Lira, Argentina's Peso, Russian Ruble, the Rand and Brazil's Real all collapsed plus the Chinese Yuan.


Network

The true victim of social media censorship is personal responsibility

Only the individual is responsible for their consumption of information.
Social media censorship
Between Trump's tirades against alleged "fake news" outlets and the recent banning of Alex Jones from Facebook, Apple, and YouTube, our society appears to be obsessed with trying to silence the opposition by controlling the flow of information. And while the recent Jones prohibition has sparked a national debate over who the First Amendment applies to, there is more to this story than just the issue of state-protected free speech.

To be sure, the Bill of Rights is vital to individual liberty and was written explicitly to restrain the government from infringing upon the rights of the people. And while Facebook may sometimes be more accommodating to the government than many of us would like, the fact remains that it is a private company and it has the right to ban whomever it chooses. The same goes for YouTube and Apple.

Star of David

Wikipedia founder joins the chorus of idiots accusing Corbyn of 'anti-semitism'

Jimmy Wales
© Wikimania
Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Wales the founder of Wikipedia has disappointed a lot of folks in the last day by siding with Israel over the latest exchange of fire between Israel and Gaza, and by essentially accusing British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn of anti-semitism. Here's the Wales's tweet that began it all yesterday:


Wales was promptly called to account and defended his tweet: