Society's ChildS


Candle

Woman who fell into Thames River during London terrorist attack dies in hospital


RT
Fri, 07 Apr 2017 09:58 UTC
Andreea Cristea
© Metropolitan Police via ReutersAndreea Cristea, a victim of the attack on Westminster on March 22, 2017.
A woman who fell into London's River Thames following last month's Westminster attack has died in hospital. Andreea Cristea, 31, was withdrawn from life support on Thursday.

Cristea, who was from Romania, is the fifth victim of the attack that was carried out on March 22. She had been on holiday in London with her boyfriend Andrei Burnaz, reported Reuters.

Comment: See also: Westminster 'Car Terror' Attack Raises Questions

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2 + 2 = 4

Yevtushenko felt alarmed about rising tensions between Russia, US — poet's widow


TASS
Thu, 06 Apr 2017 13:26 UTC
The poet believed that Russia had no future without America, and America did not have a future without Russia

Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko
© Vyacheslav Prokofyev/TASSRussian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko was very concerned about the tensions between Russia and the United States in the last years of his life, his widow Maria Yevtushenko told TASS in an interview.

"When we watched the (presidential campaign) debates, we were disappointed to see such hostility towards Russia. It was very unpleasant to follow the pre-election campaign, it's always easier to find an external enemy and build your policy this way," she noted.

Comment: Legendary Russian poet Yevtushenko dies in US

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Family

Christie Blatchford: The 'inverted justice' of Canada's family courts and how they got this way

Christie Blatchford
National Post
Thu, 06 Apr 2017 12:34 UTC
Divorce
© Getty Images
Their names, or parts of their names depending on how young are their kids and how delicate the reporter, pop up in the mainstream press now and then.

I wrote about one such man last month, Jeramey A., who rigged his truck so that when he drove down an embankment his neck would break.
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Laptop

Poll says 40% of Americans are more cautious about emails after alleged DNC hack


RT
Thu, 06 Apr 2017 03:59 UTC
email
© Jochen Tack / www.globallookpress.com
Forty percent of Americans have become more cautious about what they write in emails since last year's alleged hack into the Democratic National Committee (DNC) during the US presidential campaign, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.

The survey found that 40 percent of Americans had changed some of their online habits following the alleged hacking of DNC emails, which were later published by WikiLeaks.

Some 45 percent of respondents also said they have changed their online passwords since the hacks were reported.

Adherents of both major political parties were equally concerned about online security, with 43 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of Republicans saying they have become more cautious about their personal email since the alleged hacking.

Comment: All good ideas. The government may snoop, but there's no reason to make it easy for them.

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Bullseye

Turning the tables: Duma committee to investigate US media for meddling in Russian elections


RT
Thu, 06 Apr 2017 12:01 UTC
CNN News
© Mike Blake / Reuters
The State Duma Committee for Information Policy, IT and Communications has decided to hold an investigation into the work of Western media outlets in order to examine possible attempts to influence election processes in Russia.

The head of the committee, MP Leonid Levin (Fair Russia) told TASS that he and his colleagues would soon hold a special session with analysts and experts, at which they intend to look into the activities of such mass media organizations as CNN, Radio Liberty and Voice of America.

The idea to launch a probe was proposed by MP Konstantin Zatulin of the majority United Russia party. In an attachment to the protocol letter, the lawmaker described the motion as "preemptive retaliation."
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Clipboard

An open letter to President Donald J. Trump

Adam Garrie
The Duran
Thu, 06 Apr 2017 21:19 UTC
A message of both peace and strength.

Trump
Dear President Trump,

I want to address this letter to you personally. Even if you do not see it, I can assure you that many of your supporters, well wishers and admirers will see it.

I supported your campaign for a number of reasons, but first and foremost, it was your honest, straight forward and pragmatic anti-war/anti-interventionist message that struck a chord with me.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to make America great again and to let the world prosper or fail according to its own virtues, faults and abilities? You said this throughout the campaign and during your beautiful inauguration speech.

I am well aware that you have many political enemies. Not since the Civil War, did an American President face so much, pugnacious, vicious and mean spirited opposition. It is unfair to you, your supporters, the essence of democracy and to the US Constitution.

I realise that at this very moment you may be making the most difficult decision any leader has to make, whether or not to go to war with another nation.

Comment: Trump's remarks on Syria, five possible explanations - Tillerson says regime change back on the table

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Dollars

What we already know: Half of American working families are living paycheck to paycheck

Quentin Fottrell
MarketWatch
Thu, 06 Apr 2017 20:28 UTC
young families
© iStockHalf of employees are fearful about their current financial well-being.
Recession-era debt and stagnant wages are a bad combination

More than seven years after the Great Recession officially ended, there is yet more depressing research that at least half of Americans are vulnerable to financial disaster.

Some 50% of people is woefully unprepared for a financial emergency, new research finds. Nearly 1 in 5 (19%) Americans have nothing set aside to cover an unexpected emergency, while nearly 1 in 3 (31%) Americans don't have at least $500 set aside to cover an unexpected emergency expense, according to a survey released Tuesday by HomeServe USA, a home repair service. A separate survey released Monday by insurance company MetLife found that 49% of employees are "concerned, anxious or fearful about their current financial well-being."

Comment: The problem is that all those statistics are smoke and mirrors. Steps to take to look after yourself and loved ones:

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Question

Mystery deepens as St. Petersburg bomber 'showed no signs of radicalization' - UPDATE


RT
Wed, 05 Apr 2017 19:55 UTC
russia bomber suspect
© vk.com / SputniK Akbarzhon Dzhalilov
Parents, friends, colleagues and neighbors say that St. Petersburg bomber Akbarzhon Dzhalilov showed no signs of radicalization or religious fanaticism, describing him as "average," "intelligent," "a sportsman" and someone who "didn't pray."

The name of Dzhalilov, a 22-year-old Kyrgyz-born Russian citizen, surfaced in Russian and Kyrgyz media on Tuesday morning, when several outlets started released pictures they claimed to have found on social media.


"Kyrgyz security officials: Dzhalilov and his family have not been linked to extremists. Global Look Press ..."


The Russian Investigative Committee later confirmed him to be the prime suspect behind the blast.

Dzhalilov rented an apartment in the north-eastern district of St. Petersburg, some 20km away from the scene of the attack, a month before the blast, after he returned from a trip to his home city of Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan, Reuters reports.

The next day after the attack, security officials raided the apartment Dzhalilov had rented. An Investigative Committee spokeswoman told reporters that investigators found items in the apartment that were similar to the IED parts used in the unexploded device planted at the Ploshchad Vosstaniya station.

Comment: New details:
Djalilov, who was a Russian citizen, went to his home country of Kyrgyzstan in 2015. From there, he had made his way to Turkey and attempted to cross into Syria. He was detained on the Syrian-Turkish border, and on the grounds of his citizenship was deported back to the Russian Federation.

He had been absent from Russia for around two years prior to carrying out the train bombing.

It is estimated that around 4,000 Russian nationals fight for ISIS or Al-Nusra in Syria, and around 5,000 from former Soviet States. (@3.43) The possibility of radicalised individuals being able bring the war home, into Russia, and their growing number, was one of the main components of Russia's decisive air campaign against ISIS in Syria.


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USA

Are you a statist puppet? 4 signs

Gary Z. McGhee
Waking Times
Thu, 06 Apr 2017 16:53 UTC
puppet
"State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies; and this lie slips from its mouth: I, the state am the people" ~Friedrich Nietzsche
Statism is a pandemic religion, a psychosocial disease that has swept the world up in a web of political delusions. It has convinced people, through conditioning and propaganda, to be dependent upon the state. When really it's all just smoke and mirrors thrown up by an entrenched authority so that it can maintain its power and control over the people. And that's the crux: the power dynamic. People should have power over the government, not the other way around. As Alan Moore said, "People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people." Indeed, self-rule is far superior to state-rule. The problem is, most people aren't aware of it.

Amidst this rampant statism stands the mass-man, the ignorant majority, the statist puppet, naïve to the political power swings surrounding him, dumb to the way things actually work. Sadly, statist puppets represent the majority of "we the people." It's not their fault, really. It's simply how the majority of us were culturally conditioned to believe. We were all born into it, to a certain extent. But there comes a time when we must choose: become aware of how power works, or remain ignorant and powerless.

Here are four signs you may be a statist puppet.
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Brick Wall

DHS Kelly tells Senate: Need a wall but not 'from sea to shining sea'


RT
Wed, 05 Apr 2017 20:34 UTC
wall
© Jose Luis Gonzalez / Reuters
President Donald Trump's border wall is unlikely to stretch from one coast to the other, but it needs to be built to ensure the already significant drop in illegal border crossings becomes permanent, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told senators.

"We've seen an absolutely amazing drop" in the number of people attempting to cross the southern border illegally and getting detained by Customs and Border Patrol, Kelly told the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on Wednesday. There were fewer than 17,000 arrests in March, compared to more than 58,000 in December 2016, a decline of 71 percent.

That won't last unless the border wall is built, Kelly said. "It is unlikely we'll build a physical barrier from sea to shining sea," he told the senators at one point, but the border patrol has identified spots where such a barrier is absolutely necessary. "Physical barriers do work if they're put in the right place."

Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general who used to be in charge of the US Southern Command, described the migrants as "overwhelmingly nice people" migrating in search of economic opportunity and to escape "astronomical" rates of violence in places such as Honduras.

Comment: Barrier 'brief': DHS Kelly is alarmingly scant on details in answering the Senate committee questions and when he does, the answers are substantially inadequate.

See also: California closer to becoming a 'sanctuary state'

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