Society's ChildS


Document

Duh! Oxford 'experts' report Libyans highly suspicious of Britain's motivations for military intervention

man gestures in front of burnt vehicles in a state security building in Tobruk
© Suhaib Salem / ReutersA man gestures in front of burnt vehicles in a state security building in Tobruk, east of Libya February 24, 2011.
Libyans are deeply distrustful of Britain's aims in their country in the wake of the devastating 2011 war which toppled the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, a report has found.

A new study, titled After the Fall: Views from the ground of international military intervention in post-Gadhafi Libya, looks at the outcomes of the UK's covert and overt warfare in the North African state.

Published by the Oxford Research Group and authored by Libya specialist Alison Pargeter, the report covers a range of issues, including how local people view the UK's aims in their country.

House

'Delusional moochers': Forbes' misguided rant against self-reliant homesteaders

homestead
© Anneli Carter-SundqvistNo-good bums live here.
It's always interesting reading when someone smug and sanctimonious writes a clueless diatribe about another group of people being smug and sanctimonious. So when I saw that an economist for Moody's and Forbes had written an op-ed calling self-reliant homesteaders "delusional," I knew I'd be in for some misinformed hilarity.

The article, entitled, "Dear Homesteaders, Self-Reliance Is a Delusion" was published a couple of days ago on the Forbes website. You'll be forewarned that the article won't be deep in the first paragraph, when the author presents his claim to knowledge about self-reliant living comes from the fact that he is "a big fan of shows about doomsday preppers, homesteaders, survivalists, generally people who live off the grid."

And the well-informed opinion of this arbiter of self-reliance?
...there's a central delusion in these shows that is never far from my mind when I'm watching these shows: off the grid people are not self-reliant, but instead are mooching off of the civil society, government, and safety net the rest of us contribute to...

The people in these shows often describe a very romantic vision of the lives they have chosen the ethos underlying it. They describe themselves as fully self-reliant, and criticize the rest of society as being dependent and lacking in this self-reliance. It is morally superior, the story goes, to provide for yourself, take care of your own needs, and often, be prepared to survive if society collapses.

Eye 2

Gruesome discovery: Ohio man kept ex's body in freezer as impostor took over her life

Arturo Novoa, Katrina Layton
© Youngstown police
Police have arrested two people after a body was found stuffed in a freezer at a home near Youngstown in northeastern Ohio. They face charges of abusing a corpse and obstruction of justice.

Arturo Novoa, 31, and Katrina Layton, 34, both appeared before a judge Monday and had bonds set at $1 million each, according to Reuters.

Authorities were alerted to the find Saturday after Novoa allegedly asked a friend to keep a padlocked freezer after losing electricity at his home, according to the Vindicator. Becoming suspicious about its contents, the friend opened the fridge and discovered the remains inside.

The body is thought to be that of Shannon Graves, a 28-year-old Youngstown woman who disappeared in February this year.

Biohazard

New report: US meat producers responsible for 'toxic' Gulf 'Dead Zones' and destroyed prairie lands

Gulf of Mexico
© NOAA's National Ocean Service / FlickrThe Gulf of Mexico
A new major report by a prominent environmental group has accused US industrialized meat producers, particularly market leader Tyson, of devastating the American landscape and "normalizing a no-questions-asked approach to the environment."

"Demand for feed crops is driving widespread water contamination across the country, destroying America's last native prairies, and releasing potent greenhouse gases," says a 16-page report, titled Mystery Meat II, produced by Mighty, a conservation campaign group established by former Congressman Henry Waxman last year.

Comment: It's a sure bet that companies like Cargill and Tyson (and many others) would do little to nothing in the way of stemming the tide of pollution - unless they were singled out. And even then will likely do the bare minimum required of them.


Pistol

Fleeing shoplifter killed after dragging off-duty cop with his car

police line
© Shannon Stapleton / Reuters
A suspected thief was shot and killed after dragging a Baltimore, Maryland police officer more than 100 feet in a vehicle while attempting to flee a supermarket, according to officials.

The incident happened early Tuesday when the off-duty police officer, who worked a second job as a security officer at Giant Food store in Catonsville, Baltimore, was told someone was shoplifting, WBAL reported.

Police said the officer confronted the man, whose names has not been released, as he got into driver's side of vehicle parked outside the store in the parking lot. The car drove off dragging the officer more than 108 feet before the officer shot him.

Moon

City officials brace for eclipse chaos

eclipse
© AP photo/file
The total solar eclipse that will sweep across the entirety of the continental United States on August 21 has the country's emergency services officials bracing for impact.

The celestial event, the first of its kind in nearly a century, has so many stargazers hyped up that disaster-level preparations are being made to ensure that the swarms of travelers expected to concentrate in the prime viewing areas will be safe, Newsweek reported.

The total eclipse will last just two minutes, but it's already being touted as the event of the century. As many as 7.5 million people are predicted to pack into a 70-mile band that stretches from Oregon to South Carolina - the path of the total eclipse's shadow.

Comment: Parades, parties and port-a-potties: Eclipse mania strikes America


Heart - Black

Cop unloads 21 rounds into a car full of teens, killing one, as they beg for their lives

police encounter
The entire dash cam footage was just released showing officer Allan Brown firing eleven shots into a vehicle - pausing only to reload - and fire another ten shots into the vehicle as the teens can be heard begging for their lives. While a snippet of the video was released in May, the entire video, obtained by the Ledger-Enquirer, is disturbing, to say the least.

Christian Redwine, 17, was killed in the shooting and passengers Hunter Tillis and Hanna Wuenschel, two other teens, suffered non-fatal gunshot wounds. It was the first volley, of the 21 total bullets, that struck Redwine in the head and heart that ended his young life, according to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences.

Brown claimed that Redwine tried to use the car to run him over, which caused him fear for his life, and prompted the fatal shots. An attorney representing Wuenschel said Redwine was trying only to back out of a hole. The attorney said Redwine was shot seven times, Wuenschel two or three times, and Tillis at least twice, according to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.

Despite the clearly desperate pleas of mercy from the teens, as Brown unloaded two magazines into their vehicle, a Russell County grand jury found that Brown committed no criminal wrongdoing in the November 6 incident.

Stop

While 34 innocent people are set free, a second video of Baltimore cops planting evidence surfaces

cops planting evidence
A second video showing Baltimore cops manufacturing evidence has been discovered and it's already prompted another dropped case.

After their department gained national shame last week over a video showing an officer plant drugs to frame an innocent man while his fellow cops watched, the Baltimore police department is now under fire again. This time, the Baltimore Public Defender's office has a second video that allegedly "appears to depict multiple officers working together to manufacture evidence."

Last week, it was announced that nearly three dozen people will have their charges dropped after the video of Officer Richard Pinheiro showed him planting drugs while Officers Hovhannes Simonyan and Jamal Brunson stood by and did nothing.

Following the public release of the video, 34 cases were immediately dismissed that relied on the testimony of Pinheiro, Simonyan and Brunson. Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby noted that just 12 of the cases have enough evidence to continue moving forward, while an additional 77 are under review.

Comment: Justice would be locking up these corrupt cops and requiring body cameras to be on during all arrests, with citizens having access to the footage.


Bomb

At least 20 killed, dozens injured in blast at Afghanistan mosque

Crime scene
© Ahmad Masood / Reuters
At least 20 people have been killed and dozens injured in an explosion at a mosque in western Afghanistan, medics confirmed, as cited by AP and local media.

The Jawadia mosque, said to be the site of the blast, is in the Dehr Abad area in Herat city, the regional center of the Herat province, bordering Iran.


Info

But does it work? Pedophile treatment agency proposes child sex dolls to prevent child abuse

sex dolls
© Vincent Kessler / Reuters
Child sex dolls could be used to treat pedophiles in the same way that methadone is used to stop addicts from using heroin, a charity has suggested.

The Specialist Treatment Organization for the Prevention of Sexual Offending (StopSO), Britain's only nationwide agency tasked with offering treatment to pedophiles before they act on their urges, says studies show there are 750,000 men in the UK with a sexual attraction to children. That means 2 percent of the population fit the clinical definition of a pedophile.


Comment: That's 1 in every 50 people. Not very reassuring numbers, to say the absolute least.


StopSO's founder, Juliet Grayson, says child sex dolls could be used in regulated environments to help pedophiles manage their urges in "safe and law-abiding ways" so that they never abuse a real child.

"Perhaps a 'prescription' for the use of a child sex doll could be given, alongside therapy, mentoring and supervision, could help the individual remain law-abiding and fully accountable for their behavior," Grayson told RT.

"If our number one priority is to keep young people safe from sexual harm, then we need to be open to new ways of thinking about how we can help those members of society who are sexually attracted to children to manage their urges in safe and law-abiding ways."