Society's ChildS


Fire

Gas pipeline explosion lights up South Texas sky and shakes homes as far as 60 miles away

Ariel Zilber
Daily Mail (UK)
Wed, 15 Feb 2017 13:56 UTC
Refugio gas explosion
© Michelle AmadorTexas officials say the explosion occurred early Wednesday near Refugio, a rural community north of Corpus Christi, about 15 miles from the Texas Coast
A natural gas pipeline has exploded in South Texas, in a fiery display that lit up the sky and could be seen for miles.

The force of the explosion shook homes as far as 60 miles away, according to KHOU-TV.

Texas Department of Public Safety Sgt. Nathan Brandley says the explosion occurred early Wednesday near Refugio, a rural community north of Corpus Christi, about 15 miles from the Texas Coast.

Brandley says no one was hurt and that there are no refineries or plants nearby.

He says it's too early to know what triggered the explosion.

Brandley says crews are working to close the line and extinguish the flames.

Mishaps with transmission lines are not uncommon.

In the past two decades, the US government has recorded more than 2,000 accidents on gas transmission lines across the country.

Comment: Another natural gas pipeline exploded in Texas on 17th January. Last week a blast occurred at a gas pipeline in Louisiana.

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Stormtrooper

'Forced to strip & pole dance': New details emerge of sadistic abuses at elite German military base


RT
Thu, 16 Feb 2017 00:46 UTC
german military
© Michaela Rehle / Reuters
Female soldiers have been routinely forced to strip and pole dance as part of humiliating "recruitment tests" and "training sessions" at the notorious military base in southern Germany, according to a new internal report obtained by German media.

A report issued by the German Armed Forces, the Bundeswehr, and seen by Der Spiegel and DPA contains testimony of a female soldier identified only as Nicole E, who was sent to the infamous Pfullendorf military base in Baden-Wuertemberg in 2016.

The infamous military facility hit the headlines late January when it was revealed that "sexual abuse and sadistic actions" were"common practice" there.

In her testimony, Nicole E. said instructors at the base forced her to go through a humiliating "recruitment test" that involved a dance against a pole in the soldiers' barracks.
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People

Cincinnati University to host workshop on "White Fragility" and "White Tears"

Raven Clabough
The New American
Tue, 14 Feb 2017 00:00 UTC
white fragility
© Unknown
The University of Cincinnati, a publicly funded facility, is hosting a racially charged "inclusive" workshop on "white tears" and "white fragility."

The workshop, entitled "White Fragility, White Tears, and White Allies: Learning to manage emotion in difficult conversations about race and racism," is one of 21 workshops sponsored by the university's Office of Equity & Inclusion, the Daily Caller reports. This particular workshop will be taught by PhD student Ainsley Lambert of the university's sociology department. The various workshops are being held throughout the year, and the workshop on "white fragility" begins April 3.

Lambert's profile on the school's website ticks off all of the requirements of left-wing professors:

Ainsley is also committed to applying her research expertise to create a more diverse and inclusive campus climate at the University of Cincinnati in which all students, staff, and faculty are able to thrive. She has served as a member of the A&S Diversity and Inclusion Council for three years and has worked on multiple committees charged with making A&S and the university at large a more equitable institution. As a three-time recipient of the Norris Johnson Teaching Fellowship, Ainsley has carried this charge into the classroom by focusing her efforts on creating an inclusive environment where the perspectives of all students are welcome, but particularly those of marginalized groups whose voices are often silenced. By bringing marginalized and diverse perspectives to the forefront, all students are challenged to think more critically about the social world and the lives we lead within it.
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Blackbox

The Iraqi reform center deradicalizing former Daesh members


Sputnik
Wed, 15 Feb 2017 23:09 UTC
Iraqi teenager escorted in Dohuk reform center
© REUTERS/ Azad Lashkar
A facility in Iraq is providing new hope to 54 teenagers, who are suspected of aiding the terror group Daesh (also known as ISIL).

The aim of the reform center, based in the northern Iraqi city of Dohuk, aims to deradicalize youths and women who have helped Daesh, an exclusive Reuters report has revealed. The hope is that through counseling and therapy, the facility will prevent the terror group from brainwashing a new generation of young people and stop them from becoming suicide bombers. The reform center also hopes to tease out intelligence on the terror group.

"We encourage the teenagers and women to choose life and not death," Zaki Saleh Moussa, head of the facility in northern Iraq said in a recent interview with Reuters.
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Airplane

I'll never bring my phone on an international flight again. Neither should you

Quincy Larson
freeCodeCamp
Tue, 14 Feb 2017 20:35 UTC
Airport Security
© UnknownUS Customs and Border Patrol agent in an airport.
A few months ago I wrote about how you can encrypt your entire life in less than an hour. Well, all the security in the world can't save you if someone has physical possession of your phone or laptop, and can intimidate you into giving up your password.

And a few weeks ago, that's precisely what happened to a US citizen returning home from abroad.On January 30th, Sidd Bikkannavar, a US-born scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory flew back to Houston, Texas from Santiago, Chile.

On his way through through the airport, Customs and Border Patrol agents pulled him aside. They searched him, then detained him in a room with a bunch of other people sleeping in cots. They eventually returned and said they'd release him if he told them the password to unlock his phone.
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Bulb

Pope Francis: Indigenous groups must give consent over activities affecting their lands


RT
Wed, 15 Feb 2017 20:50 UTC
Pope Francis
© Tony Gentile / ReutersPope Francis
The pontiff has stated that indigenous groups must give consent for any activity affecting their lands. It comes after President Trump ordered the final construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline to be expedited, despite protests from Native Americans.

Pope Francis met with representatives of indigenous peoples attending a UN agricultural meeting on Wednesday, telling them that "the right to prior and informed consent should always prevail" when it comes to activities on indigenous lands.

"Only then is it possible to guarantee peaceful cooperation between governing authorities and indigenous peoples, overcoming confrontation and conflict," he added, as quoted by AP.

"For governments, this means recognizing that indigenous communities are a part of the population to be appreciated and consulted, and whose full participation should be promoted at the local and national level," Francis said.
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Handcuffs

NY Court of Appeals upholds 75-to-life sentence of cop found guilty of raping a schoolteacher in broad daylight

Matt Agorist
Free Thought Project
Wed, 15 Feb 2017 19:46 UTC
Ex-cop Michael Pena
© Jefferson Siegel/New York Daily NewsEx-cop Michael Pena
A former police officer who raped a New York City schoolteacher in broad daylight drew no sympathy from New York's highest court, which unanimously affirmed his 75-to-life sentence on Valentine's Day.

Michael Pena, now 32, had been off-duty on the morning of Aug. 19, 2011, when he pulled his loaded and police-issued gun on a young woman. The 25-year-old was on her way to her first day of teaching in the Bronx, when Pena pulled her into the courtyard of an Inwood apartment building and raped her.

Prosecutors broke down Pena's assault into three separate offenses in his indictment, with each carrying a 25-year sentence.

Pena appealed to the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, after a lower court upheld his sentence in 2015, rejecting the ex-cop's claim that this punishment was unfairly multiplied.

Pena's lawyer Ephraim Savitt has emphasized that his client's penalty is 63 years longer than the average rape sentence. "If that disparity is not cruel and unusual, then perhaps there's no purpose to having the Eighth Amendment on the books any more," Savitt said in a phone interview on Tuesday.

In unanimously upholding Pena's sentence this morning, the Court of Appeals noted that the Pena's counsel did not invoke alleged violations of U.S. and New York Constitutions.
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Cheeseburger

Thanks to the Obamas, 12.1 million students per day now rely on the government for abominable meals

Victor Skinner
EAG News
Wed, 15 Feb 2017 19:37 UTC
Michelle Obama
© eagnews.com
Dependence on the National School Breakfast Program increased significantly in the 2015-16 school year, a sad reality that the Food and Research Action Center attributes to changes during the Obama administration.

A Community Eligibility Provision added to the national school breakfast and lunch programs during Obama's tenure allows any school or district with at least 40 percent low-income students to offer meals "free" for all, with reimbursements from the federal government.

The Food Research and Action Center reports:
Nationally, on an average day during the 2015 - 2016 school year, 12.1 million students eligible to receive free and reduced-price school meals participated in school breakfast, an increase of 3.7 percent, or nearly 433,000 children from the previous school year. ...

Nationally, on an average school day, 56 low-income children participated in the School Breakfast Program for every 100 participating in the National School Lunch Program, up from 54.3 the previous school year and 50.4 percent in the 2011 - 2012 school year. ...

The Community Eligibility Provision, which rolled out nationally in the 2014 - 2015 school year, also is proving to be an effective strategy for driving growth in school breakfast participation. It allows school meals to be served free of charge to all students at high-poverty schools. By spring 2016, there were more than 18,000 high-poverty schools, serving 8.6 million children, offering breakfast and lunch at no charge to all students.
In other words, the federal government has relieved nearly 433,000 families from making meals, including many who do not necessarily need the help and wouldn't have qualified for the "free" meals without Obama's Community Eligibility Provision.
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Arrow Down

Chinese father of four forced to have vasectomy for violating the country's two-child policy


RT
Wed, 15 Feb 2017 16:29 UTC
chinese man forced vasectomy
© Pascal Lauener / Reuters The man said the procedure was carried out after he refused to pay a fine.
A father of four in China has reportedly been forced to have a vasectomy by local authorities.The 42 year old was visiting his hometown of Luokan in the province of Yunnan when he was allegedly abducted by family planning officials.

The unidentified man, who had three children with his first wife and one with his second, was forced into the sterilization surgery on February 8 for violating the country's two-child policy, reports the South China Morning Post.

The man claims authorities took him from a gathering at a friend's house and brought him, his wife and two-year-old child to a government office, where he was told to pay a fine of 20,000 yuan (US$2,900) for the violation.

"I refused to pay the fine," he told Sixth Tone, believing that because his address wasn't registered in the area, local authorities couldn't lawfully prosecute him.

Comment: At first glance, this story could generally be understood as a part of the Western information campaign that seeks to exploit human rights violations in order to tarnish the good China is working towards in the world. Rational people should understand that a country the size of China cannot be seen in such black and white terms. However, it should also be noted that the sources of this story are from China's own state-sponsored media. The Sixth Tone is a new media project with an aim of targeting corruption and contentious issues within China, which is in line with President Xi's anti-corruption efforts.

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Snowflake

British theatre now issuing 'trigger warnings' to avoid upsetting audience


RT
Wed, 15 Feb 2017 18:48 UTC
Royal Court Britain UK theater
© Valentin Baranovsky / www.globallookpress.com
A major British theatre company is now issuing 'trigger warnings' at its more risqué performances to avoid upsetting audience members.

According to an update on the Royal Court's (RC) website, the theatre now provides special advice to customers wanting to talk about a play's content before watching it, to prevent "extreme distress."

"We don't want to spoil anyone's experience of a new play at the Royal Court and therefore avoid giving too much away when promoting the play," the site's trigger warnings section now reads.
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