Society's ChildS


Christmas Tree

Shocking study finds 131,000 children will be homeless in the UK at Christmas

Homeless person sleeping in a doorway
© CNNA homeless person sleeps in a doorway in London during a cold snap in February 2018.
One in every 103 children in the UK will be homeless this Christmas, a new study has found, further revealing the scale of the country's housing crisis.

A total of 131,000 children are now estimated to be homeless -- around 50,000 more than five years ago, or a rise of 59% -- according to an analysis of government statistics by homelessness charity Shelter.

Compared with the end of 2017, 3,000 more children are believed to be homeless -- as well as the small number of children sleeping rough, this also includes those living in insecure temporary accommodation.

These calculations mean that an average school in Britain now includes five homeless children. In London, where the crisis is at its worst, there is an average of 28 homeless children for every school.

Star of David

Israeli soldiers murder a disabled Palestinian man on International Day of Disabled Persons

Muhammad Ihbali  disabled IDF
© Shadi Jarar'ah/ APAPalestinian mourners march through the streets of Tulkarem holding the body of 22-year-old Muhammad Ihbali
Israel, along with the rest of the world, commemorated International Day of Persons with Disabilities on Monday, December 3rd, by promising greater integration of the country's 1.5 million disabled citizens, and holding different activities in parks across the country to show off it's handicap-accessible pathways and lookout points.

As Monday's activities came to a close, just across the Green Line in the northern occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem, Israeli forces shot and killed a disabled Palestinian man in the back of his head.

It was around 2am when Israeli forces raided Tulkarem city, near the coffee shop where 22-year-old Muhammad Ihbali worked. He usually left work late, after the young men who frequent the shops finished their card games.

Cross

Russian Orthodox Church: ECHR's ruling on Pussy Riot a blow to religious freedom in Europe

Pussy Riot band members
© AFP / Andrej IsakovicPussy Riot band members
The European Court of Human Rights' (ECHR) decision to reject Moscow's appeal against the сompensation to female punk band Pussy Riot has infringed the rights of millions of believers, Russia's Orthodox Church said.

With no further means to challenge the ruling, Russia's Justice Ministry said on Wednesday that the compensation will be paid in full as the country always thoroughly executes all of the ECHR's decisions.

In July, the Strasbourg court ordered Russia to pay the three members of the scandalous band €37,000 in damages as well as €11,760 more for costs and expenses. The judges said that the right to self-expression of the balaclava-wearing artists were violated after they were handed two-year prison sentences for an unsanctioned political protest at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow in 2012.

Comment: Here is the video of what the members of Pussy Riot did at the church in 2012, a rather disgusting desecration of a spiritual and holy center.


Keep in mind that Pussy Riot staged a different kind of protest in 2008, where they joined with another punk group called Voina and decided that their way to protest presidential politics was to undress and join in a group orgy at a Moscow biological museum. Pussy Riot's leader, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, happened to be a few days away from delivering birth that day. Those are the kind of people that the European Court of Human Rights just defended against the Orthodox Church.

Previously: Double standards. ECHR says you can insult Christianity, but not Islam


Black Cat

Florida's election nightmare continues - Brenda Snipes won't go away

brenda Snipes
© Mario Tama/Getty ImagesBrenda Snipes
Were Franz Kafka alive, and an American, he would find his muse in a certain municipal functionary from Florida. Her name is Brenda Snipes, and she is the nightmarishly incompetent, bizarre, and wholly illogical supervisor of elections in Broward County.

Snipes became the subject of the nightly news because she couldn't do what all 65 other election supervisors could. She couldn't follow the rules and count votes by the book.

It almost ruined the election between Gov. Rick Scott and incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson. In one election and one subsequent recount, Snipes broke the law in at least three ways:

Comment: It's beyond comprehension that with such a poor record of discharging her duties, Brenda Snipes was allowed to continue in office. On the other hand, she's been very useful to certain political parties.


Snowflake

SNL writer booted from stage for jokes deemed 'offensive' - group says he violated their 'safe space'

Nimesh Patel SNL comedian
© YouTubeNimesh Patel, 32, was the first Indian-American writer for SNL, and has since been nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing.
Saturday Night Live writer and comedian Nimesh Patel was pulled from the stage by event organizers after telling jokes that were criticized as racist and homophobic during his performance at cultureSHOCK: Reclaim, an event held by Columbia Asian American Alliance on Friday night.

Patel, 32, was the first Indian-American writer for SNL, and has since been nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing. Patel has previously performed on Late Night with Seth Meyers and opened for comedians such as Chris Rock.

During the event, Patel's performance featured commentary on his experience living in a diverse area of New York City - including a joke about a gay, black man in his neighborhood - which AAA officials deemed inappropriate. Patel joked that being gay cannot be a choice because "no one looks in the mirror and thinks, 'this black thing is too easy, let me just add another thing to it.'"

Comment: A safer world is pipe dream. The world is not 'safe' and it never will be. Better to make yourself strong to meet it.




Bulb

I'm a liberal feminist, and even I can see the necessity for Betsy DeVos's Title IX reforms

California State University
© Leonard Ortiz/Digital First Media, via Orange County Register, via Getty ImagesThe campus at California State University at Fullerton. Appeals courts have overturned suspensions of students for sexual assault at two California universities, citing a lack of due process.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos's proposed regulations overhauling how colleges handle sexual assault, which may become law in January, are far from perfect. But there is a big reason to support them: I'm a feminist and a Democrat, and as a lawyer I have seen the troubling racial dynamics at play under the current Title IX system and the lack of due process for the accused. Ms. DeVos's proposals take important steps to fix these problems.

Consider this scenario: A young black man enrolls at a state university in California on an athletic scholarship. He's the first person in his family to go to college. His teammate's white ex-girlfriend matches with him on Tinder, comes to his apartment, has sex with him and, they both agree, returns three days later to have consensual sex.

Weeks later, the young woman, who has reconciled with her boyfriend, claims the Tinder match raped her during the first sexual encounter. The Tinder Match adamantly denies this. Her boyfriend, who is also black, says she is lying. There is no hearing, no chance for the accused to ask her questions.

Comment: Who knew that the fundamental legal requirement of due process that has served as the basis for social cohesion for over 600 years in the West would actually turn out to be a good idea? It might not be perfect, but it is the best we've come up with. It's unfortunate that only way for 'progressive' types to understand this is through identity politics. A bad idea is a bad idea. Law without just rule brings chaos, and it affects everyone no matter the color of their skin.


Christmas Tree

Christmas has become another trigger word to the snowflake nation

"This Christmas season finds us a rather bewildered human race. We have neither peace within nor peace without. Everywhere paralyzing fears harrow people by day and haunt them by night. Our world is sick with war; everywhere we turn we see its ominous possibilities. And yet, my friends, the Christmas hope for peace and goodwill toward all men can no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some utopian. If we don't have goodwill toward men in this world, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own instruments and our own power."- Martin Luther King, Jr., "A Christmas Sermon on Peace"
To a nation of snowflakes, Christmas has become yet another trigger word.
roudolph reindeer war on christmas political correctness
© Fox News
The latest Christmas casualties in the campaign to create one large national safe space are none other than the beloved animated classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (denounced for promoting bullying and homophobia) which first aired on television on December 6, 1964, and the Oscar-winning tune Baby, It's Cold Outside (accused of being a date rape anthem) crooned by everyone from Dean Martin to Will Ferrell and Zooey Deschanel in the movie Elf.

Monkey Wrench

When algorithms rule: Joe Biden, raw chicken and vomiting unicorns are now porn according to Tumblr

Tumblr algorithm
© envatoTumblr's algorithm is struggling to distinguish chicken from pornography.
Social media giants are locked in a never-ending war to get the internet to play nice, but for all of their 'good intentions,' the facepalm-worthy failures are what stand out, including the latest #TooSexyForTumblr trend.

Following a recent child porn controversy on the blogging site, Tumblr administrators decided to clamp down on all Not Safe For Work material on the platform.

The plan was to purge "Photos, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples, and any content-including photos, videos, GIFs and illustrations-that depicts sex acts" from the website by December 17.

But, as always, "the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry," and Tumblr's prudish, porn-policing algorithm is proving more puritanical than even the most hardline conservative, religious fundamentalist could ever hope to be.

In the internet age, these cringe-worthy failures get amplified like never before in human history, as showcased by #TooSexyForTumblr which is spreading like wildfire on Twitter with some truly hilarious (and bizarre) examples.

Comment: They may have a point regarding creepy Uncle Joe Biden...


Cloud Grey

Swedish journalist under fire for saying Sentinelese tribesmen were 'completely rational' in killing Christian missionary

John Allen Chau
© Johnachau/via REUTERSIn the wake of the 2004 tsunami this member of the Sentinelese tribe was photographed firing arrows at a helicopter. Indian Coastguard / Survival International; An American self-styled adventurer and Christian missionary John Allen Chau
A prominent Swedish journalist has sparked a Twitter backlash with a column arguing that the Sentinelese tribesmen who killed a US Christian missionary had acted in a "completely rational" way fending off the evil of "white men."

In the controversial piece published by Aftonbladet, Peter Kadhammar said the death of John Allen Chau, who the tribesmen killed with arrows, was "tragic" but that the residents of the island were acting in a "completely rational" way.

"Let in the white man, and your world is soon wiped out," Kadhammar wrote, arguing that indigenous peoples in Australia, North America and Africa should have done the same thing when European colonizers arrived.

Black Cat 2

Matthew Hedges claims UAE coerced him to give false confession, tried to get him to spy for them

matthew hedges
© AFP
British academic Matthew Hedges has accused investigators from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of subjecting him to psychological torture and forcing him to give a false confession that he is an agent of the British spy agency, MI6.

In an interview with The Times of London, Hedges said that during his more than six months of imprisonment, he suffered sleep deprivation and was forced-fed a combination of tranquilisers and stimulants by his Emirati captors.

"They started getting more and more aggressive and I'd have panic attacks for two or three days in a row. After all that pressure, I said: 'OK, fine, whatever, yeah, sure.'"

Hedges also revealed that at one point during the interrogation, he was offered to become a double-agent for the UAE, even as he was forced to stand for the whole day in ankle cuffs and was interrogated for as long as 15 hours.

"I was so scared and on edge," Hedges said, adding that he was threatened to be sent to a military base to be tortured.


Comment: It's a shame Hedges had to go through that. It's just a good thing he never had to experience the torture tactics used by Alfreda Bikowsky and Gina Haspel at the CIA.


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