Society's ChildS


Георгиевская ленточка

Unlike US, polls show significant share of Russian citizens feel capable of influencing their nation

Russia Day fireworks
© Iliya Pitalev / SputnikRussia Day festivities on Red Square
Ordinary Russians have started to trust in themselves and their ability to influence the life of their nation, according to recent research by a leading economics university.

On Thursday Russia's Higher School of Economics released the results of the research, entitled 'Volunteer movement and social capital.' According to the study, 37 percent of Russians currently think that they are able to influence the life of the nation. The proportion was even higher for those who felt that they could change the situation in the city where they live - 76 percent. The figure reached 88 percent when researchers inquired about the ability of people to influence life in one particular apartment block.

Family

Pro-migrant group forced to shut down crucial work in Paris due to violence

migrants paris food
© Solidarité Migrants Wilson / FacebookVolunteer group feeding migrants in Paris
Tensions between asylum seekers and police, aggressive drug addicts and government inaction - the volatile atmosphere in a Paris district is forcing a pro-migrant group to cut off their vital volunteer work for newcomers.

Solidarité Migrants Wilson has been distributing food for migrants near Porte de la Chapelle station in Paris' 18th district for 20 months. Yet since August 1 the group has decided to stop their work as they can't cope with the growing level of violence in the area.

"From the beginning our mission was to serve hot drinks and bread and we have done this for 20 months, every day. During the last month though (July), we started questioning our mission, as we don't want our volunteers to be put in danger," Philippe Caro from Solidarité Migrants Wilson explained to RT.

USA

Enraged by Trump bumper sticker, Massachusetts woman rams into man's car

trump_bumper_sticker
© YouTubeCar rammed for having Trump bumper sticker.
A Massachusetts woman is accused of intentionally driving into a man's car Monday after becoming enraged by his Trump bumper sticker. Chloe Wright, 25, has been taken into custody and charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
Chloe Wright
She is also facing charges of vandalizing property and leaving the scene of a hit-and-run with property damage. The incident happened in Hyannis on June 30, the Cape Cod Times reported.

On June 30, a man called the Barnstable Police Department to report the hit-and-run crash, which happened after Wright followed him down the street and began honking her car horn at him as they waited at a red light.

According to the police report, the honking continued as he drove to the next red light, where the motorist started yelling at him.

At this point, the man thought something might be wrong with the back of his car, so he stepped out to have a look at it. That's when the woman started shouting something about his Trump bumper sticker, he told the police. "She said, 'You voted for Trump?'" the man wrote in a statement. "I said yes." He told CBS Boston that she then called him "a racist and a bunch of cuss words."

The man reportedly began recording the woman on his phone while he was outside of his car. The woman proceeded to drive around his car, prompting him to hurry back into the driver's seat, according to the police report. She then allegedly drove toward his car, clipping the open door.

"She bent my door and I had to lean back to avoid getting hit," the man wrote. "She also hit the side of my car."

The woman then sped away, the man told police.
The man's recording of the incident shows the woman's car, a gray Honda Civic, drive around his car and hit the open driver's-side door, according to the report. A statement by the man's girlfriend, who was in the car with him during the incident, confirmed the man's account, the report says.

The video showed the license plate number of the Civic, which police traced to Wright, the report says. The victim identified a license photo of Wright as the woman who had hit his car, according to the report.
State police stopped and arrested Wright on Monday, after a random check of her license plate revealed an open warrant on the charges. She was released on $1,250 bail and ordered to stay away from the victim. Wright reportedly pleaded not guilty and is due back in court Aug. 28 for a pretrial hearing.

Reporter Bill Shields of CBS Boston said the woman appeared to be suffering from "Trump Anxiety Disorder," and questioned whether such an excuse would hold up in court:

The establishment media keeps pushing a phony narrative that Trump supporters are uncivil and unhinged -- but it's Democrats who keep exhibiting dangerously unhinged behavior. Again and again, liberals have displayed symptoms of acute Trump Derangement Syndrome. It's one thing to heckle the dishonest media during a political rally. It's something else entirely to target innocent people with violence -- whether it's vehicular assault, physical assault or even attempted murder -- just because they support the president. That keeps happening and the the fact that the legacy media keeps ignoring it or excusing it is one of the reasons why reporters keep getting heckled at Trump's rallies.

Star of David

Israel boasts about killing 7 suspected Daesh members in Syrian Golan Heights

israel soldiers golan heights
© Reuters / Ronen ZvulunIsraeli soldiers look at the Syrian side of the Israel-Syria border on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Israel July 7, 2018
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are on high alert after the overnight operation in the southern Syrian Golan Heights when an Israeli aircraft fired towards several armed terror operatives.

Last night, an IDF aircraft attacked some armed terror operatives in the southern area of Syrian Golan Heights, killing seven of them, the military reported. According to the army, the eliminated militants were Daesh* fighters who planned to infiltrate Israel to perpetrate terrorist acts.

Following the operation, the IDF said that it was "prepared for a variety of scenarios," while noting that the army would further operate to ensure the security of Israeli nationals.

Comment: A feint by Israel? They've been supporting terrorists along the Golan for a decade: They have no intention of giving up the territory voluntarily:
occupied golan
© dartmouth.eduIllegal Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights



Fire

Natural gas explosions in Texas, 7 injured

fire fighters texas
© Sputnik / Vitaliy Ankov
The blast took place some 20 miles southeast of Midland, in Western Texas, AP reports. According to authorities, the gas pipeline was hit by a row of explosions.

Midland's spokeswoman Elana Ladd told KOSA-TV in Odessa that the number of those injured by a series of explosions on a West Texas natural gas pipeline has risen to seven. Initially, five people were reported wounded, among them a volunteer firefighter and four pipeline staff.

Comment: More from Reuters:
Natural gas pipeline explosion in Texas critically injures five

A series of natural gas pipeline explosions in Midland County, Texas sent five people to hospital with critical burn injuries, and interrupted energy pipeline operations in the area, officials said.

The region is the home to the Permian Basin, the largest U.S. oilfield, and is crisscrossed by oil and gas pipelines. The cause of the explosion and fire were not immediately known.

Five workers with critical injuries were airlifted to University Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas, and were being treated at the center's burn unit, said University Medical Center spokesman Eric Finley.

Pipeline operator Kinder Morgan said on Wednesday it had isolated a portion of its El Paso Natural Gas Pipeline (EPNG) as a precaution, after being alerted to the fire near its line. One of its employees was injured and taken to hospital, spokeswoman Sara Hughes said.

"There was a third-party pipeline involved that also experienced a failure, and preliminary indications are that the third-party line failure occurred before the EPNG line failure," Kinder Morgan's Hughes said in an email.

The company is investigating the cause of the fire and evaluating any damage to its property. Regulatory agencies and customers were notified of the incident, she added.

"Fire Department personnel suppressed the fire, however approximately one hour later a second and third small explosion followed," said Elana Ladd, public information officer for the city of Midland, in emailed comments.

Multiple pipelines are located near the site, Ladd said, adding that first responders were focusing on shutting off pressure and flow to the pipelines at the site.

The pipeline explosion occurred on a rural road, FM 1379, about five miles south of Highway 158 at around 11:30 a.m. local time (1630 GMT), Ladd said, adding that the road had been closed.

No further information on the injured was immediately available.

Ladd identified one of the injured as a firefighter.



Red Flag

Cast of 'Guardians of the Galaxy' statement shows Hollywood still doesn't care about pedophilia

Guardians of the Galaxy cast Comic Con
© Gage_Skidmore
The cast of "Guardians of the Galaxy" released a joint statement demanding the reinstatement of James Gunn as director of the successful Disney movie franchise and explaining why his past pedophile tweets are defensible.

In their open letter, actors Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Michael Rooker, Pom Klementieff, and Sean Gunn revealed that they "were all shocked." No, not because of the disgusting, pedophile tweets of their beloved director and moneymaker James Gunn. They were shocked because Disney couldn't think of any excuses to let the man, who published 10,000 of racist, sexist, and rapist tweets, make another kids' movie.

"Shocked" because, clearly, the movie actors can think of many excuses: The tweets were merely "jokes of many years ago," Gunn has already apologized, and they "believe in the theme of redemption." Further, the Hollywood stars blame Gunn's "character assassination" on the "growing political divide in this country" and "mob mentality." Sounds to me like their support letter for Roseanne Barr is already under development.

Comment: See also:


Heart - Black

Chinese 'true crime' novelist sentenced to death for committing the murders that inspired his work

Liu Mouyi
© mp.weixin.qq.com
A famous crime fiction writer in China's Zhejiang Province has turned out to be a robber with four deaths on his conscience. He and his accomplice were exposed two decades after the crime thanks to new DNA testing technology.

The writer, Liu Mouyi, and a second man, Wang Mouming, were convicted by a court in the city of Huzhou on Monday. They were found guilty of killing and robbing a family of hotel owners, including an elderly couple and their 12-year-old grandson, as well as a guest who was staying for the night.

The crime was committed in 1995, but only after new technology was developed did police identify DNA in saliva on a cigarette butt that was left at the crime scene by one of the robbers. Liu and Wang have been sentenced to capital punishment for the murders, while their property was confiscated to pay compensation to the relatives of their victims.

Comment: Sounds like Liu's only 'remorseful' that he got caught. Someone with true remorse probably wouldn't seek fame and money writing fiction that glorified their heinous crimes.
In the preface to his 2010 novel The Guilty Secret, Liu even described his intention to write a story about a writer who gets away with committing a series of murders.

"I came up with the idea after reading some detective novels and watching crime shows and movies," Liu wrote in the preface. "The working title is: 'The Beautiful Writer Who Killed.'"



Ambulance

'Absolutely awful': Heart attack victim waits 43 minutes before getting to hospital

Chicago ambulance
Minutes count when you are having a heart attack, but it took the Chicago Fire Department more than 40 minutes to get a 56-year-old man to a hospital for help.

As CBS 2 Investigator Pam Zekman reports, it was mostly because once again there were no ambulances available nearby.
Caller: "My Dad's having a heart attack and I need an ambulance right now."
That call was received at 2:09 p.m. on July 3.

Mr. Potato

BBC puts unhinged Assange critic in charge of special on WikiLeaks founder

Assange freedom protest
© Tolga Akmen / AFP
BBC's Newsnight will air a special on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange hosted by journalist John Sweeney, despite what the #FreeAssange campaign say are tweets in "clear breach" of the BBC objectivity standards by the journalist.

"John Sweeney put in charge of tomorrow's Julian Assange special despite (because of?) malicious tweets in clear breach of BBC code," the #FreeAssange campaign tweeted.

The campaign, which has more than 790,000 followers on Twitter published a list of tweets in which the BBC journalist repeatedly mocks and calls the Wikileaks founder a "Russian agent," a "Kremlin asset" and Vladimir Putin's most "useful idiot". But, despite Sweeney's personal feelings about Assange being on full display all over Twitter, he will still host the special on the whistleblower.

Comment: Any talk of 'objectivity standards' at the BBC is public relations, pure and simple.

Further reading: BBC uses their own propaganda to accuse WikiLeaks of being 'Russian propaganda'


Attention

VIPS to Trump: War with Iran could be CATASTROPHIC

As drums beat again for war - this time on Iran--the VIPS' warning is again being disregarded as it was before the Iraq debacle and this time VIPS fear the consequences will be all-caps CATASTROPHIC.

Trump Iran
© Shutterstock
August 1, 2018

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Intelligence on Iran Fails the Smell Test

Mr. President:

As the George W. Bush administration revved up to attack Iraq 15 years ago, we could see no compelling reason for war. We decided, though, to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt on the chance he had been sandbagged by Vice President Dick Cheney and others. We chose to allow for the possibility that he actually believed the "intelligence" that Colin Powell presented to the UN as providing "irrefutable and undeniable" proof of WMD in Iraq and a "sinister nexus" between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

Comment: See also: