Society's ChildS


Biohazard

Despite opposition by majority of voters, Maryland fracking ban may be lifted


RT
Thu, 27 Oct 2016 14:20 UTC
fracking, oil drilling
© Andrew Cullen / Reuters
Fracking has been banned in Maryland since last year, but next year's proposed regulations jeopardize the moratorium. While the planned regulations are strict, they would allow fracking - a practice which is opposed by the majority of voters.

Maryland has a year until its moratorium on fracking expires, but voters are already being asked to consider new rules on the controversial practice. Those rules would introduce heavy regulations but leave room for the possibility to allow fracking.

A statewide poll taken by OpinionWorks found that 56 percent of Maryland voters would support a complete, statewide ban on fracking.

Comment: The oil and gas industry is battling tooth and nail to continue fracking as more communities are taking steps to institute bans - and with good reasons:

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Quenelle

Hero of Novorossiya: Honoring the life of Arsen Pavlov aka "Motorola"

Hugo Turner
Sott.net
Thu, 27 Oct 2016 13:01 UTC
Arsen Pavlov Motorola Donbass DPR
Arsen Pavlov, or Motorola, was the leader of the Sparta battalion in the war for Donbass.
The people of Novorossiya (aka the Donbass) have suffered a terrible loss. Arsen Pavlov, better known to the world as Motorola, was assassinated in a brutal terrorist bombing on October 16, 2016. He was a beloved commander and a hero to the people of the Donbass, to Russia, and to people all over the world who oppose the fascist junta in Ukraine and US imperialism. The murder was no doubt ordered by the empire in revenge for Russia's intervention in Syria which one year later appears to have decisively shifted the war. On every front the SAA are making advances and winning new victories especially in the battle to fully liberate Aleppo from NATO's terrorist death squads. Thankfully after the treacherous bombing at Deir Ezzor Russia was in no mood to give in to the empty threats of full-scale nuclear war the empire claimed it was prepared to launch in order to halt the liberation of eastern Aleppo. Slowly the SAA are making gains on multiple fronts in Eastern Ghouta, in Homs, in Aleppo.

Arsen Pavlov was born in the Komi Republic. At 15 he became an orphan and moved in with a grandmother. He joined the Russian Naval Infantry where he gained the callsign Motorola. He joined as a conscript but volunteered to reenlist and served in the 2nd Chechen War where he gained valuable experience, and they say became addicted to war. He was a bit of an adrenaline junky which added to his charisma since he was paradoxically cheerful in the most dangerous situations. He had a great sense of humor which came through even to non-Russian speakers like myself but he was even more beloved in Russia and Ukraine for his hilarious narrations of the war in Ukraine.

Comment: Further reading:
The commander of the Sparta battalion of the Donetsk People's Republic and famous defender of Donbass known by his callsign "Motorola,"Arsen Pavlov, was killed today, October 16th, by a bomb in his apartment building's elevator. The incident has been officially confirmed as an assassination carried out by Ukrainian special forces.

Cowardly Kiev Special Forces Assassinate Novorossiya Hero "Motorola" Arsen Pavlov (UPDATE)


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Document

Ex-Secret Service officer behind Clinton tell-all intends to file defamation suit

Aaniel Halper|
New York Post
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 14:10 UTC
secret service clinto
© Getty Images
A former Secret Service officer who published an explosive tell-all from his days guarding the Bill and Hillary Clinton White House is planning to file a defamation lawsuit against his detractors, The Post has learned.

A lawyer for Gary Byrne, whose book "Crisis of Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experience with Hillary, Bill, and How They Operate," has sent notices to Media Matters for America and David Brock informing them that he intends to file suit.

"Officer Byrne will bring legal action against you, in your personal capacity, and against Media Matters," a lawyer for the former Secret Service officer wrote to Brock, a loyal Clinton ally and the founder of the liberal advocacy group Media Matters.
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Dollar

Slave labor: Prison food contractors funded efforts to combat marijuana legalization

John Vibes
Mint Press News
Tue, 25 Oct 2016 13:50 UTC
prison inmate
An inmate makes a sandwich while working in the employees’ cafeteria at Coxsackie Correctional Facility in Coxsackie, N.Y.
Food Services of America, a subsidiary of Services Group of America is funding efforts to keep marijuana illegal. It makes sense, considering that a vast majority of America's prisoners are locked in prison on marijuana charges, and the company stands to gain a lot of business from the laws staying the same.

Marijuana.com reported that the company donated $80,000 to a campaign committee opposing the legal cannabis measure on Arizona's November ballot.

Services Group of America has been criticized in the past for providing food to prisons that failed to meet basic nutritional requirements.
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Stormtrooper

Watch: Police viciously attack, arrest peaceful protesters at DAPL including children and the elderly

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 13:29 UTC
dapl_police
© The Free Thought Project
Dramatic video from Intercept reporter, Jihan Hafiz, was released this week from the Dakota Access Pipeline protests showing a full on assault by militarized police on peaceful people. The video is from Saturday but took several days to be released as cops confiscated the camera used to film it.

The video was taken as water protectors and reporters covering the protests marched toward the construction site. However, their peaceful walk was swiftly interrupted by militarized shock troops armed with massive cans of pepper spray, batons, rubber bullets, and assault rifles.

According to Hafiz, the march was undertaken in solidarity with several protesters who had chained themselves to bulldozers and pipeline machinery at the construction site. But the marchers never made it to their destination. Instead, they were attacked by police forces who used pepper spray and beat protesters with batons. Dozens of officers, backed by military trucks, police vans, machine guns, and nonlethal weapons, violently approached the group without warning.

"Don't move, everyone is under arrest," a voice says from the military vehicle that appears to be equipped with a Long Range Acoustic Hailing Device, or LRAD.

As protesters attempted to leave, the police surrounded them and began their attack. According to Hafiz, several women were targeted for leading the march and dragged from the crowd to be arrested. Police body slammed one man and another woman's ankle was broken as she ran.

The militarized police then circled the protesters in an apparent move to 'kettle' them — a tactic usually reserved for urban protests in which riot police force large crowds into corners to seemingly provoke them. However, the protesters stayed entirely peaceful.

Police continued their mass arrests even though the people were trying to leave. Some natives were seen running for the hills as the assault began.

Comment: We are just one breath away from an all out massacre!

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Dollar

Dakota Access Pipeline: Environmental Destruction in Service to US Greed and Goal of Containing Russia


Juice News
Thu, 27 Oct 2016 14:46 UTC
The Dakota Access pipeline is a fracked oil pipeline that is part of the Bakken pipeline that will run through North Dakota South Dakota, Idaho and Illinois. In the process, oil will travel beneath the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and across Indian Reservation land. Bulldozers working on the pipeline have already destroyed the graves of the ancestors and relatives the Standing Rock Sioux and other Lakota tribes. Irreplaceable, unique, historic Indian sacred sites have also been destroyed.

The pipeline is part of a concerted effort by the US government to gain "energy independence" and be in a position to supply oil and gas to Europe as an alternative to Russian gas. It is a literal pipe dream in both respects given that the US cannot wean itself off its massive addiction to and greed for oil and energy and the fact that Europe will be dependent on Russia oil and gas for decades to come.

The pipeline not only threatens the environment in the USA including the drinking water supply from the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, but also the American people given that fracking has been implicated in earthquakes.
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Stock Up

Women won't earn the same as men for another two centuries - report


RT
Thu, 27 Oct 2016 11:40 UTC
Woman earning money
© Joshua Lott / Reuters
It will take close to two centuries for women to earn the same as men, according to the World Economic Forum's latest report.

The annual Global Gender Gap Report was released Tuesday and found economic disparity between the sexes is on the rise. When looking at income and employment, we are back to similar levels of inequality seen during the 2008 financial crash.

"At the current rate of change, and given the widening economic gender gap since last year, it will not be closed for another 170 years," the report read.
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Stop

Police threaten eviction 'at any time' as Dakota Access protesters refuse to leave private land


RT
Thu, 27 Oct 2016 03:59 UTC
Pipeline
© Robyn Beck / AFP
Despite officers threatening to clear private land, Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protesters are refusing to leave. As tensions have built up, police handling of the protest has reportedly cost nearly $6 million in just one month.

"We have the resources. We could go down there at any time and we are trying everything we can to not have to do that,"Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney told reporters on Wednesday.

Protesters have been occupying private land known as Cannonball Ranch, which belongs to the Dakota Access Pipeline's developer, the Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners.

Comment: See also: People Power! Natives declare treaty rights, police admit defeat - cite lack of 'manpower' to remove DAPL protesters

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Butterfly

Merkel says Facebook, Google 'distort perception,' demands they 'reveal algorithms'


RT
Thu, 27 Oct 2016 08:47 UTC
droopy eyed merkel
© Francois Lenoir/ReutersGermany's Chancellor Angela Merkel
German Chancellor Angela Merkel launched a broadside at internet media giants, accusing them of "narrowing perspective," and demanding they disclose their privately-developed algorithms. Merkel previously blamed social media for anti-immigrant sentiment and the rise of the far right.


Comment: Obviously it has nothing to do with your immigration policy. Only right wing racists would ever have a problem with that. Right comrades?


"The algorithms must be made public, so that one can inform oneself as an interested citizen on questions like: what influences my behavior on the internet and that of others?" said Merkel during a media conference in Berlin on Tuesday.


Comment: What we have here is a confluence of stupid. Take a politician who doesn't understand technology, give them a microphone, and listen as they embarrass themselves with hyperbolic pronouncements and decrees.


"These algorithms, when they are not transparent, can lead to a distortion of our perception, they narrow our breadth of information."

Google uses an algorithm to decide which search results are first shown to a user, while Facebook arranges the order of the news feed, and decides to include certain posts from a user's liked pages and friends, at the expense of others. Both sites also promote links to news articles, often based on a user's own media interests.
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Che Guevara

People Power! Natives declare treaty rights, police admit defeat - cite lack of 'manpower' to remove DAPL protesters

Jack Burns
Free Though Project
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 23:00 UTC
DAPL protestors
Authorities in North Dakota may be feeling the heat from the international attention the Dakota Access Pipeline is getting. They're now saying they lack the manpower to remove the encampment of protesters located on federal land near the controversial pipeline. The announcement may signal a softening of the treatment the protesters, up until now, have been receiving.

For months now, The Free Thought Project's spotlight has been shining on the, some might say, dark and dirty deeds of law enforcement and their treatment of largely Native American peaceful protesters. Attack dogs were unleashed on the protesters in September, injuring six, and an additional 30 protesters, including children, were sprayed with pepper spray. In all, more than 260 people have reportedly been arrested since the protests began in Morton County — over 100 this weekend alone.

The sheriff's office's announcement comes just two days after The Free Thought Project encouraged readers to contact Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier's office demanding him to allow for peaceful protest, even providing a link to a petition for his removal. Spokeswoman Donnell Preskey told The Associated Press the department doesn't "have the manpower" to remove the more than 100 protesters from the property. "We can't right now," she said.
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