Society's ChildS


Fire

Man set fire to Melbourne bank, injuring at least 27 people


RT
Fri, 18 Nov 2016 15:58 UTC
Australian bank fire
© LiveGlobalNetowrk / YouTube
At least 27 people have been injured after a man set fire to a branch of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in the Melbourne suburb of Springvale, according to local media reports. Police say the man has been hospitalized in serious condition.

Several people who were inside the bank at the time of the incident are being treated for serious burns.

Twenty-one people, including three children, are being treated for smoke inhalation, The Age reported.
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Vader

Michigan tries to block court-ordered water bottle delivery to Flint


RT
Fri, 18 Nov 2016 16:23 UTC
Flint's water, compared to Detroit's water
Flint's water, compared to Detroit's water
Michigan officials are fighting a federal court order to deliver water to the residents of Flint to ease the damage of lead contamination. The state argues the bottle distribution would be unnecessary to ensure residents have safe drinking water.

Earlier this month, US District Court Judge David Lawson issued a preliminary injunction ordering the state to provide bottled water in door-to-door deliveries for Flint residents where authorities couldn't provide functioning water systems. However, on Thursday the state filed a federal court announcing their plans to appeal.


Comment: They're appealing? Do they have any idea who suffers while they throw their tantrum?


"The required injunction far exceeds what is necessary to ensure Flint residents have access to safe drinking water," attorneys for Michigan state wrote in a filing asking that the deliveries should be paused pending their appeal.

The state is claiming that this service will come with a monthly $10.5 million fee and could result in a series of unpleasant side effects, such as overwhelming the recycling system or undermining the state's system of distributing water at specific sites and delivering to senior citizens, Detroit News reported.
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Snakes in Suits

Baltimore teacher fired for calling students 'punk a** n******' who are 'going to get shot'


RT
Fri, 18 Nov 2016 15:46 UTC
racism schools
© THOMAS SODOMIZER / YouTube
A white teacher in Baltimore was fired after crossing a line with an unruly class of 8th graders. A student filmed her losing her temper and calling her black students "punk a** n*****s" who would be shot as a result of not doing their schoolwork.

Parents of students at Harlem Park Elementary and Middle School are livid after a tape surfaced documenting a white teacher using racial epithets to admonish her students. The video shows her growing increasingly frustrated with an uncooperative student and demanding he leave the class.

She then turned her focus to the rest of the class and berated them for not doing their work and called them "idiots," and threatened to give them zeros. She then asked the class if they "want to be punk a** n*****s" who are "gonna get shot...because you're stupid!"
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Handcuffs

Idiotic: 11yo suspended from school for cutting peach with child's butter knife


RT
Fri, 18 Nov 2016 15:34 UTC
peaches
© Leonhard Foeger / Reuters
An 11-year-old girl in Pembroke Pines, Florida has been suspended from school for using a child's knife to cut a peach to share with her friend.

According to the child's family, she was eating lunch in Silver Trail Middle School's cafeteria when her friend asked her for some of her peach. She took a child's butter knife out of her bag and cut the peach in half.

Shortly afterwards, the school informed the family that she was being suspended for six days for violating the school district's weapons policy.
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Ambulance

At least 73 killed as overturned fuel truck explodes in Mozambique


RT
Fri, 18 Nov 2016 11:00 UTC
A badly burned child arrives at the Provincial Hospital in Tete on November 17, 2016
© Amos Zacarias / AFPA badly burned child arrives at the Provincial Hospital in Tete on November 17, 2016
A Mozambique truck delivering petrol overturned and then exploded, claiming lives of at least 73 people. The government said the incident occurred when locals tried to siphon fuel from the overturned vehicle.

WARNING: TWEETS CONTAIN EXTREMELY GRAPHIC IMAGES

Some 110 more people were injured and have been taken the Provincial Hospital of Tete, as well as health centers in Zóbuè and Moatize.
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People

Post election polls: Trump's ratings rise after victory, but still not as popular as Obama


RT
Thu, 17 Nov 2016 00:00 UTC
Trump Obama
© Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
Although President-elect Donald Trump remains unpopular despite his victory, Americans don't have buyer's remorse about voting for him. Half of Americans are more confident in Trump's ability to serve as president than they were on Election Day.

Trump received similar ratings in a Gallup poll as George W. Bush and Bill Clinton did after they were elected, with 51 percent of Americans saying they were "more confident" in Trump's ability to serve as president based on his statements and actions since he was elected. However, he still remains unpopular overall, with a 42 percent favorability rating ‒ far lower than the approval ratings for Bush (59 percent) or Clinton (58 percent) after they were elected.

A large part of that difference is because a far higher percentage of Americans (40 percent) say they are "less confident"about Trump's ability to serve. Fewer Americans said they had "no opinion" or that Trump's actions and statements made "no difference" to how they viewed the president-elect, according to the Gallup poll.
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Snowflake

Precious snowflakes: Universities offer Play-Doh, therapy dogs, coloring books, safe spaces for students hurt by election

Victor Skinner
Education Action Group
Fri, 11 Nov 2016 02:25 UTC
trump precious snowflake therapy
Seriously??
Plymouth State University community advisor Kirsten Elizabeth is doing what she can to help students cope with their emotions following Tuesday's historic election.

"Today during my office hours, 4PM to 7PM, I will be bringing my personal coloring books, crayons, markers and colored pencils for anyone to use in order to de-stress and relax from the election results," she posted to Facebook.

"Please do not hesitate to reach for help, whether it is to me, the rest of the Community Advisor and Residential Life University Apartment staff, the Counseling Center, the Helping Center, your friends and family or your professors," Elizabeth wrote. "None of you are alone."

At least one economics professor at Yale University is also taking it easy on students reeling from Clinton's loss by making their mid-term exam optional, according to a copy of an email he sent to students that Yale Daily News editor Jon Victor posted to Twitter.

"I am getting many heartfelt notes from students who are in shock over the election returns. (Although as I wrote this the election has not been called.) The ones I find most upsetting are those who fear, rightly or wrongly, for their own families," the Econ 115 professor wrote. "Therefore, I am making the exam optional."

At Yale and many other schools students were traumatized and overwhelmed by Trump's win, and university officials have moved to soothe their sensibilities.

Comment: A healthy dose of reality: The Shakening

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Cross

Old-time religion returns: Churches adhering to literal bible interpretation see congregations growing


RT
Thu, 17 Nov 2016 11:30 UTC
bible
© Carlo Allegri / Reuters Evangelical sects that focus on the Gospel and prayer have increasing rates of attendance, while congregations at liberal churches are declining.
Theologically conservative churches that adhere to a literal interpretation of the Bible grow faster than liberal ones that don't, a five-year academic study has revealed.

The Canadian study, which, will be published in next month's Review of Religious Research, found that evangelical sects that focus on the Gospel and prayer have increasing rates of attendance, while churches that skew Christian doctrine to be more liberal are declining.

In churches where attendance is on the rise, 93 percent of the clergy and 83 percent of the worshippers agree with the statement "Jesus rose from the dead with a real flesh-and-blood body leaving behind an empty tomb," compared with 67 percent of worshippers and 56 percent of the clergy from declining churches.
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Archaeology

Russian-Syrian efforts saved Palmyra from ISIS while US-led efforts haven't done the same for Iraq

Adam Garrie
The Duran
Thu, 17 Nov 2016 00:00 UTC
Palmyra

A consolidated Russian-Syrian effort managed to liberate and preserve ancient Palmyra, while US-led efforts haven't done the same in Iraq.

The Battle of Mosul is officially a stalemate. It is clear that the Iraqi forces, the Americans, and the deceptive Turks, all summarily underestimated the strength of ISIS forces in the region. This was folly, as northern Iraq is where the group now known as ISIS first coalesced. A would be 'Battle of Berlin', at least where Iraq is concerned, shouldn't have been organised so poorly.

What's worse, the battle which was supposed to be over in weeks, was in many respects designed to be an election stunt. Had the US allied forces secured something that could be remotely twisted by the press as a victory, there is little doubt that Obama would have used that to vindicate his and Hillary Clinton's Middle East policy.

The patent irresponsibility of using war as a tool for political gain has been predictably ignored by the western mainstream media.

Comment: Russian resolution to restore devastated ancient city of Palmyra approved by UNESCO

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Attention

Best of the Web: You're still crying wolf: Trump is "openly racist", "white supremacist", "literally Hitler" - No, he's not

Scott Alexander
Slate Star Codex
Wed, 16 Nov 2016 21:17 UTC
Trump Präsident
© Reuters
[Content warning: hate crimes, Trump, racism. I have turned off comments to keep out bad people who might be attracted by this sort of thing. Avoid sharing in places where this will attract the wrong kind of attention, as per your best judgment. Please don't interpret anything in this article to mean that Trump is not super terrible]

[Epistemic status: A reduction of a complicated issue to only 8000 words, because nobody would read it if it were longer. I think this is true but incomplete. I will try to discuss missing parts at more length later.]

I.

A New York Times article from last September that went viral only recently: Crying Wolf, Then Confronting Trump. It asks whether Democrats have "cried wolf" so many times that nobody believes them anymore. And so:
When "honorable and decent men" like McCain and Romney "are reflexively dubbed racists simply for opposing Democratic policies, the result is a G.O.P. electorate that doesn't listen to admonitions when the genuine article is in their midst".
I have a different perspective. Back in October 2015, I wrote that the picture of Trump as "the white power candidate" and "the first openly white supremacist candidate to have a shot at the Presidency in the modern era" was overblown. I said that "the media narrative that Trump is doing some kind of special appeal-to-white-voters voodoo is unsupported by any polling data", and predicted that:
If Trump were the Republican nominee, he could probably count on equal or greater support from minorities as Romney or McCain before him.
Now the votes are in, and Trump got greater support from minorities than Romney or McCain before him. You can read the Washington Post article, Trump Got More Votes From People Of Color Than Romney Did, or look at the raw data (source)
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