Society's ChildS


Blue Planet

Why the Freemans moved To Russia

Rod Dreher
American Conservative
Mon, 04 Mar 2019 15:29 UTC
Russia
Hal Freeman is an American who relocated to Russia with his Russian-born wife, and their children - this, in part to take a Benedict Option of their own. He writes a blog about his experiences there. Recently, he wrote about a post I'd made here, about people who have decided to leave America to live abroad. In his response, Freeman talked about his experience, and about a new book by University of Chicago political theorist John Mearsheimer. Excerpts:
Others, not writing from a Christian perspective, have also noted major changes in American culture and the inability of much of "the public" to change those trends. In his recent book, "The Great Delusion," noted political scientist John Mearsheimer discusses how difficult, nay impossible, it is for people in a liberal culture to agree on what "the good life" is. Mearsheimer is not using the word "liberal" in the way we often do to describe someone who holds to a certain set of political perspectives, e.g., women rights, gay rights, pro-choice, etc. He is using "liberal" to refer to belief in the importance of the individual and individual rights as opposed to, say, a monarchy or some other system that devalues the place of the individual in the political and economic destiny of a nation.

Comment: Also check out this video interview with Hal Freeman:


And for more info on some of the topics touched upon in this interview, see:

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Heart - Black

Baltimore woman's husband and stepdaughter arrested for her murder after initially blaming it on a panhandler

Jessica Anderson, Colin Campbell & Justin Fenton
The Baltimore Sun
Sun, 03 Mar 2019 14:29 UTC
Keith Smith and Jacquelyn Smith
Keith Smith, 52 and Jacquelyn Smith, 54. This photo was taken the day she was killed; the husband and wife had been enjoying an evening at the American Legion.
The story of a woman who was fatally stabbed in December after reportedly giving money to a panhandler - a case that drew national attention and spread fear through Baltimore - was actually a ruse by her husband and stepdaughter, who have been charged in her death, police announced Sunday night.

Keith Smith, 52, and his daughter, Valeria Smith, 28, were arrested by Texas State Police, near the U.S.-Mexico border while trying to flee the country earlier Sunday, acting Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said.

Warrants charging them with first-degree murder in death of Keith Smith's wife, Jacquelyn Smith, were issued, Harrison said.

"The information and evidence points it wasn't a panhandler," Harrison said. "People take advantage of Baltimore. We want to make sure the truth comes out and justice is done."

Jacquelyn Smith, 54, an electrical engineer at Aberdeen Proving Ground, was stabbed to death about 12:30 a.m. on Dec. 1 at North Valley and East Chase streets, according to police.
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Attention

Five killed in ambulance helicopter crash in western Iran


Source
Mon, 04 Mar 2019 13:22 UTC
helicopter crash iran
An ambulance helicopter crashed and killed five people in Iran's Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province, the IRNA news agency reported Monday.

All of the victims were the helicopter's crew, the IRNA news agency said, citing a provincial security official.

According to the news agency ISNA, the helicopter crashed some 19 miles away from the city of Shahr-e Kord several minutes after takeoff.

The helicopter, owned by the National Iranian Drilling Company, was transporting an emergency patient from the Amir Kabir offshore oil platform when it "disappeared half a mile from the oil rig on its way back", Behshahr Governor Khalegh Sajadi stated as quoted by the news agency ISNA.

Comment: While the investigation behind the cause of the crash is ongoing, what is clear is that aircraft crashes have been on the rise in recent years:

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NPC

New Jersey high school restricts limos & luxury cars from prom to 'promote equity'

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Mon, 04 Mar 2019 10:58 UTC
sad prom
What better way to put the fun back into prom night than banning limos, party buses or luxury vehicles?

At least, this was the thought process of one New Jersey high school, which has implemented a new policy to ban such vehicles on prom night as way to deal with social inequality. How, exactly, does that work? We have no idea.

According to a report on NJ 101.5, Lakeland Regional High School superintendent Hugh E. Beattie claimed that the new policy is about safety and "equity". He doesn't want students who can't afford a "snazzy ride" to feel left out. Calling it a "group decision made by the Administrative Team", he says the only way to now arrive at the school's prom - being held at the Rockleigh Country Club - is to take a chaperoned school bus at a cost of $15 per person.
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NPC

Idiotic CNN analyst claims Trump's speech 'sounded like Hitler' but was 'written by Putin'


RT
Mon, 04 Mar 2019 10:58 UTC
CNN Vinograd
A CNN analyst and Biden Institute adviser has raised eyebrows by comparing Donald Trump to Hitler for a turn of phrase once used by Joe Biden himself. But she still has no doubt Trump's speech was 'scripted by Putin'.

Offering her thoughts on the president's speech at the 2019 Conservative Action Conference (CPAC), Sam Vinograd told her CNN colleagues that she was horrified that Trump had spoken about "reclaiming our nation's priceless heritage."

For Vinograd, this was clearly a message lifted straight from Mein Kampf.
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Life Preserver

Jon Stewart comes out in support of Trump DOJ, calls on Congress to step up and help 9/11 victims

Brooke Singman
Fox News
Mon, 04 Mar 2019 10:58 UTC
Jon Stewart
A bipartisan group of lawmakers on Monday introduced a plan to permanently authorize the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund at full level, following the announcement of a funding shortfall revealed earlier this month that would cut rewards to the 9/11 first responders and survivors who have become ill due to exposure to toxins and chemicals.

Comedian Jon Stewart, a prominent advocate for first responders, praised the Trump Justice Department's administration of the fund, saying it was doing "an excellent job."

"The claims are going through faster and the awards are coming through," Stewart said. " ... That's why we're in the problem that we're in, is the program works exactly like it's supposed to. So now it's Congress' job to fund it properly and let these people live in peace."

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Arrow Down

America's trust in mainstream media reaches all-time low

Robert Bridge
Strategic Culture Foundation
Sun, 03 Mar 2019 11:00 UTC
mainstream media
© Flickr
Gone are the days when US consumers looked to the nightly news and print media as a trusted source of information, and especially if they hold conservative views, according to a new poll by the Columbia Journalism Review.

Things are going from bad to worse for the US legacy media as its trust credentials have reached an all-time new low, as if that were possible. It has even achieved a lower trust rating than lawyers and members of Congress.

The introduction to the CJR poll provided the following ominous opening: "For decades, we've known that Americans don't trust the press. What we haven't known is how people view the makings of journalism, from the use of fact checkers and anonymous sources to the question of whether money skews journalistic decision-making. This new national poll for CJR answers those questions, and points to how big the trust gap remains."

Indeed, the cynicism on the street should have every mainstream media purveyor in a state of absolute panic.

In one particular finding, it was revealed that many news consumers believe that reporters, seemingly in an effort to push forward with a political agenda, are too quick to run with a story before knowing all of the facts. This has never been more true before than in the Trump era where anything goes, so long as it trashes conservatives.

Comment: We're not quite there yet unfortunately. But as mainstream media continues its downward spiral, perhaps we'll get there soon enough.
See also: Dissidents must understand the difference between fact and narrative

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Star of David

Two Weeks in Palestine: Miko Peled travels in a land as oppressed as it is beautiful

Miko Peled
Mint Press News
Fri, 01 Mar 2019 00:00 UTC
Village of Shweikeh, near West Bank city of Tulkarem
© Majdi Mohammed | APA Palestinian man examines a house after it was demolished by the Israeli army in the village of Shweikeh, near the West Bank city of Tulkarem, Dec. 17, 2018.
OCCUPIED PALESTINE — The beauty of Palestine in late February and particularly after a few spots of rain is unmatched. Lush green and almond blossoms everywhere, but from Tarshiha near the Lebanese border in the north to Lakia in the Naqab desert in the south, the horrors of a relentless, oppressive regime that shows every sign of becoming more oppressive are everywhere.

Tarshiha

A jewel in the northern Galilee is lush green and beautiful with signs of prosperity all around. In 1948, Tarshiha, which had a minority Christian population, was subjected to a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign but the Christian families were permitted to return. Today, the full name of the town is Ma'alot-Tarshiha because the neighboring Israeli settlement of Ma'alot, which sits on Tarshiha lands, has taken over and the two now comprise a single - yet segregated - town sharing a single municipality. Still, with all the signs of prosperity, families remember the horrors and many are still living in far off refugee camps, unable to return to their homes and their land.

Tarshiha's son, Palestinian actor Ashraf Barhoum, is now working on a documentary film titled, "Tell me Tarshiha." In it, he will tell the stories of the survivors of the 1948 Israeli destruction of Palestine, all born in the 1939's. The movie will document their lives under the British mandate, the Zionist occupation, and their thoughts about the future.

Comment: Mike Peled was interviewed on SOTT in 2014:

Behind the Headlines: Israel massacres Palestinians (again) - Interview with Miko Peled

and this article discusses Israel and Palestine further:

Miko Peled: Son of an IDF General - and a silenced critic of Israel's policy towards Palestinians

..........

SOTT Radio Network has also featured a number of radio talks on the Jewish religion, the Jewish State of Israel, Palestine and the other parts of the Middle East and Europe back dropped with writings from within Israel Shahak's work Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years. These radio shows provide further historical background to this volatile region and its religion's. The talks are also seen through the lens of Andrew M. Lobaczewski's Political Ponorology:

The Truth Perspective: Match Made in Heaven: The Surprising Similarities Between Radical Islam and Talmudic Judaism and The Truth Perspective: How to Numb Your Conscience with Totalitarian Religion



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Russian Flag

Best of the Web: From strength to strength: Russian goods trade surplus up 20% in 2018 to $212bn

Ben Aris
BNE.eu
Sat, 02 Mar 2019 22:40 UTC
shipping containers
Russia's Russia's goods trade surplus up 20% in 2018 to $212bn
goods trade surplus climbed to $212bn, or roughly 12% of GDP. Exports are dominated by hydrocarbons, while the biggest import item is machinery
Russian customs reports that in 2018 the country's goods trade surplus climbed to $212bn, or roughly 12% of GDP. Russia is now running a triple surplus again for the first time in years: trade, current account and federal budget. Both the budget and the current account surpluses are at record levels. The record trade surplus was driven partly by the rise in oil prices in 2018, but falling imports, especially falling food imports, played at least as important a role.

Exports remain heavily weighted towards hydrocarbons, which totalled $260bn in December - more than half of Russia's exports, with minerals and base metals making up another $48.7bn from the total of $461bn.

Imports are half as much as Russia's exports, which has led to the record current account surplus in 2018. Imports are more evenly distributed but the top four items - machinery ($80.7bn), chemicals ($32.4bn), vehicles ($28.4bn), and base metals ($18.5bn) - accounting for 70% of the total imports to Russia.
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Bulb

LA judge orders police misconduct records to be unsealed


The Free Thought Project
Sat, 02 Mar 2019 15:31 UTC
police in front of american flag
© The Free Thought Project
Police unions have been fighting tooth and nail to keep records of their misconduct sealed from the public's view, but all that just changed.

A judge in Southern California lifted a temporary seal on Orange County police misconduct records Thursday, striking another blow to police unions who've argued in courts across the state that unsealing the records violates officers' constitutional rights to privacy.


Comment: While on the job, police officers are effectively employed by the people. If they're involved in misconduct while on the job, then they should be held accountable for that and there's no reasonable argument that can be made that it's a violation of privacy for doing so.


The new California law opens up access to previously shielded internal records on police shootings, complaints of sexual assault by officers and internal records on police misconduct.

Attorneys for the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs sought to stop the release of records, arguing in court papers that state lawmakers were unclear whether they intended for the law - which took effect on Jan. 1 - to apply to all records, including those that cover past incidents.

Comment: As long as police aren't held accountable for their misconduct, corruption will continue.

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