Society's ChildS


Attention

San Francisco commuters on edge after third Bay Area Rapid Transit murder in a week

Kalah Siegel
New York Post
Tue, 24 Jul 2018 12:12 UTC
BART Bay Area Rapid Transit
© Getty Images
San Francisco-area straphangers are on edge Tuesday following the third homicide on Bay Area Rapid Transit in less than a week.

"Maybe I should start driving to school, because I don't think I feel safe as a BART commuter anymore. But then again, I'm a woman of color. Am I safe anywhere? My car? On campus? At an event? Walking my dogs?" @keani_yafreak tweeted.

The most recent attack, on Sunday night, left 18-year-old Nia Wilson dead, and her sister, Latifa, seriously injured when a madman attacked them with a knife at the MacArthur Bay Area Rapid Transit station, according to BART officials.

"It was probably one of the most vicious attacks that I've seen," BART Police Chief Carlos Rojas said during a Monday press conference.
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Eye 2

Tech's richest few and their plan for survival

Douglas Rushkoff
Medium
Thu, 05 Jul 2018 11:02 UTC
Future Human 1
© Matt Huynh
Last year, I got invited to a super-deluxe private resort to deliver a keynote speech to what I assumed would be a hundred or so investment bankers. It was by far the largest fee I had ever been offered for a talk - about half my annual professor's salary - all to deliver some insight on the subject of "the future of technology."

I've never liked talking about the future. The Q&A sessions always end up more like parlor games, where I'm asked to opine on the latest technology buzzwords as if they were ticker symbols for potential investments: blockchain, 3D printing, CRISPR. The audiences are rarely interested in learning about these technologies or their potential impacts beyond the binary choice of whether or not to invest in them. But money talks, so I took the gig.

After I arrived, I was ushered into what I thought was the green room. But instead of being wired with a microphone or taken to a stage, I just sat there at a plain round table as my audience was brought to me: five super-wealthy guys - yes, all men - from the upper echelon of the hedge fund world. After a bit of small talk, I realized they had no interest in the information I had prepared about the future of technology. They had come with questions of their own.

They started out innocuously enough. Ethereum or bitcoin? Is quantum computing a real thing? Slowly but surely, however, they edged into their real topics of concern.

Comment: See also:

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House

Southern California housing crash should be a warning sign to the nation

Diana Olick
CNBC
Tue, 24 Jul 2018 23:31 UTC
house sale
© Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesPotential homebuyers exit an open house in Redondo Beach, California.
Southern California home sales hit the brakes in June, falling to the lowest reading for the month in four years. Sales of both new and existing houses and condominiums dropped 11.8 percent year over year, as prices shot up to a record high, according to CoreLogic. The report covers Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties.

Sales fell 1.1 percent compared with May, but the average change from May to June, going back to 1988, is a 6 percent gain.

The weakness was especially apparent in sales of newly built homes, which were 47 percent below the June average. Part of that is that builders are putting up fewer homes, so there is simply less to sell.

Comment: See also:

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Cult

Real anti-semitism: Danish imam charged over call to kill Jews


France 24
Tue, 24 Jul 2018 11:38 UTC
muslims prayer mat
© Reuters
Stockholm (AFP) - Danish prosecutors on Tuesday charged an imam with calling for the killing of Jews in the first case of its kind in the Nordic nation and which sparked political outrage.

Imam Mundhir Abdallah, who preaches in the Copenhagen neighbourhood of Norrebro at the Masjid Al-Faruq mosque, which media have linked to radical Islam, is accused of citing a hadith or koranic narrative calling for Muslims to rise up against Jews.

"Judgement Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them," Abdallah said in a Facebook and YouTube video post in March.

"These are serious statements and I think it's right for the court to now have an opportunity to assess the case," public prosecutor Eva Ronne said in a statement.

This is the first time the prosecution has raised such charges under a criminal code introduced January 1 2017 on religious preaching.

Comment: Although it is not directly related to the issue of anti-semitism, we recommend Pierre Lescaudron's insightful article Immigration, Crime and Propaganda, which deals with the 'clash of civilizations' currently promoted in Europe.

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Mr. Potato

Things only idiots and liars say: 'You can advance both progressivism and Russiagate'

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.com
Wed, 25 Jul 2018 10:51 UTC
Cenk Uygur
Cenk Uygur's gigantic head has been attacking people on the left who express skepticism of the establishment Russia narrative again, this time using blatantly false claims and appallingly sleazy McCarthyite insinuations. Such attacks are nothing new for Uygur; his attack on The Real News' Aaron Maté‏ at the same time as his appearance on Uygur's The Young Turks reeks of the same product perception management he aired about his own staff member Michael Tracey last year for the exact same reason.

The Young Turks, Uygur's popular progressive media outlet, has been consistently running programming to keep its audience in line with the CNN/CIA Russia narrative, up to and including criticizing Donald Trump for being insufficiently hawkish and aggressive toward Moscow. Since TYT's audience spans across the spectrum from actual leftists to casual MSNBC viewers, this behavior often gets pushback from the anti-imperialist left, eventually culminating in public tantrums in which Cenk and his underlings proclaim that it is possible to advance progressive agendas while still fanning the flames of Russia hysteria.

When they do this, they are lying. It is not possible to play along with the "Russia! Russia!" frenzy while still advancing progressive agendas. Know how I know? Because they don't. We're more than halfway done with 2018, and all anyone's still talking about is Russia. It dominates the national conversation and sucks all oxygen out of the room for discussions of Medicare for All, tuition-free college, a living wage, social safety nets, or literally any issues of economic injustice, as well as police brutality, military expansionism, the corruption and election meddling that went on and continues to go on in Democratic primaries, mass surveillance and other important progressive issues.

Comment: Russiagate - a convenient way for Dems to bash on Trump and rally support for their base (who also seems to have gone insane). In the meanwhile, they carry on doing as they've always done - advancing their neocon agendas and screwing over the public.See also: Walter Peretto: "No matter who is in the White House, the foreign policy goals of the elites remain the same"

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Heart - Black

UK's poverty wages, extortionate rents and austerity: Homeless families who work soars 73% in 5 years

May Bulman
Independent
Wed, 25 Jul 2018 08:24 UTC
homeless families uk
© Benjamin YoudMary and her children lived in three temporary homes in two years
Tens of thousands of working households in temporary accommodation because they are unable to pay 'hideously unaffordable' rents, warns Shelter

More than half of homeless families across England are in work but soaring rent and a lack of social housing is pushing more households into temporary accommodation, a charity has warned.

Data obtained by Shelter shows that more than 33,000 families in temporary accommodation are holding down a job despite having nowhere stable to live - a figure that has increased by 73 per cent since 2013, when it was 19,000 families.

One single mother, Mary Smith, who works full-time in a shoe shop, told The Independent she and her three sons had been stuck in a "vicious cycle" of unstable temporary accommodation for two years after being evicted from their private rented property. They have been unable to afford to rent somewhere else.

They are among thousands of working households in low-paid, part-time or contract jobs that are no longer able to afford rents and are therefore being forced into poor and overcrowded temporary accommodation, according to Shelter.

Comment: The UK government continues its failed program of crushing austerity all the while waging illegal wars abroad and keeping the corrupt casino banking system afloat with the public purse:

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Pistol

In the wake of another senseless attack, Toronto wonders if the city is unraveling

Ashifa Kassam
The Guardian
Tue, 24 Jul 2018 21:09 UTC
Toronto shooting memorial
© Cole Burston/Getty ImagesPeople sign a makeshift memorial on Danforth Avenue to honor and remember the victims of Sunday night’s mass shooting on 24 July in Toronto, Canada.

As residents grapple with the latest attack to hit the city in recent months, some are asking whether it was becoming less safe

Detectives in Canada are still seeking a motive for a mass shooting which left three dead - including the gunman - and injured more than a dozen others, as residents of Toronto grapple with the latest in a string of violent incidents to hit Canada's biggest city in recent months.

Federal officials said on Tuesday that there was no terror link to Sunday's attack in which the lone gunman opened fire along a bustling avenue in the city, seemingly shooting at random at pedestrians and into shops and restaurants.

"At this time, there is no national security nexus to the investigation," said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Public Safety.

Comment: What's happening in Toronto is indicative of what's happening allover the world at the moment, as violent attacks on the public are becoming the norm, rather than the exception. It's understandable that residents of Toronto, who have always prided themselves on the safety of their city, are becoming more concerned. But it's unlikely the measures suggested above will have much, if any, noticeable effect. The world is burning, and this is just one of the symptoms.

See also:

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Pistol

LAPD confirms police, not hostage-taker, shot and killed Trader Joe's manager


RT
Wed, 25 Jul 2018 23:27 UTC
LAPD trader joes
© LAPDHQ / Twitter
A Trader Joe's employee who died in a shootout on Saturday during a tense hostage situation at a grocery store in Los Angeles, was actually shot by a police officer, LAPD confirmed Tuesday.

After piecing together the timeline of the tragic events that culminated in a hostage situation at Trader Joe's in the Silver Lake district, Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said he was "sorry to report" that the loss of life was attributed to a round fired by an officer. The manager hit by a stray bullet was named as 27-year-old Melyda Corado. The gunman confronting the police at the scene was identified as Gene Atkins.

"We've now determined through our forensic investigation that one of the officers' rounds struck Ms. Corado as she was exiting the market and was in close proximity to Atkins," Moore said during a media conference, noting that the victim died from the "through-and-through wound to her left arm that then moved into her body."

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Bad Guys

Maine Supreme Court rules Facebook rant violated restraining order


RT
Tue, 24 Jul 2018 23:27 UTC
facebook censor
© Desconocido
Unintended communication through social media may amount to a violation of a restraining order and does not get First Amendment protection, Maine's Supreme Court has ruled, in an appeal case.

Richard Heffron III, 39, of Bath, Maine, was convicted last year for violating a protection order arising from abuse. He did so by posting messages on his Facebook page about his former girlfriend that he was forbidden by state law to contact. In fact, at the time when the threatening rants were posted, the female victim was no longer his Facebook friend and has blocked him from her page.

In Maine, just like in many other states in the US, a person may seek court protection to help stop domestic violence. A restraining order allows the protected person to ask for police intervention if the individual it targets tries to come near or communicate with them.
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Bad Guys

American whose father says was working with FBI arrested for aiding ISIS


RT
Tue, 24 Jul 2018 23:27 UTC
Islamic State terrorist
© Rodi Said
A man from Michigan, recently transferred into US custody after being captured by US-backed militias in Northern Syria, has been charged with providing material support to the terrorist group Islamic State.

The indictment, dated July 19, alleges that US-born Ibraheem Musaibli, 28, "knowingly provided and attempted to provide material support to ISIS [later known as Islamic State, or IS] in the form of personnel and services, knowing that ISIS is a terrorist organization and that ISIS engages in terrorism."

Authorities believe that Musaibli's illegal activity, in which he used a number of aliases, spanned from April 2015 until his capture by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the Middle Euphrates River Valley earlier this month.
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