Society's ChildS


Attention

Thousands queue for food parcels in Dublin city centre

Kitty Holland
Irish Times
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 18:47 UTC
About 3,000 people, including elderly people and children, queue for Christmas food parcels at the Capuchin Centre in Dublin
© Nick Bradshaw
About 3,000 people, including elderly people and children, queue for Christmas food parcels at the Capuchin Centre in Dublin
Danny, an elderly man from Fairview in Dublin, will share his food parcel on Christmas Day with a neighbour who also lives alone.

"He has a bad hip so he couldn't come here today. I'll share mine with him," he smiles.

Danny, who doesn't want to give his surname, is one of more than 3,000 people queueing for Christmas food parcels at the Capuchin Centre in Dublin on Thursday.

The queue, which includes elderly people and young children, began about 6am. By 9.30am it stretches from the door of the centre's Bow Street entrance down the street, around the corner and along May Lane reaching Church Street.

Br Kevin Crowley, who runs the centre, believes the queue is "bigger than last year". A number of gardaí, present because of the numbers, are in good humour and chatting with those queueing.

Comment: Meanwhile in the UK they've disbanded the unit for preventing child poverty. Even so, they can lie about the economy and the wars being waged worldwide, but with one in four children in poverty in the UK, and rising, this is one lie the establishment will have trouble covering up:

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Rose

Something to celebrate: Historic Syrian train travels from Damascus marking return to civilian life


Sputnik
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 22:24 UTC
view of damascus
© Hassan Ammar/Associated Press
A historic Syrian train which was built in 1896 left Damascus and traveled to the city's suburbs on Wednesday. The capital was liberated from the terrorists and now after five years, the railroad has been repaired and the locomotive made its journey.

The head of the public institution Hejaz Railway, engineer Husein Muhammed Ali said in an interview with Sputnik Arabic that this locomotive is very special for the Syrians and it is special for the people of Damascus.

The foundation started its work on the launch of the locomotive after the liberation of Kudisa and al-Hama districts to the west of the capital.

According to Husayn Muhammad, 150 residents of the city for the first time in the last 5 years were able to travel 15 kilometers from Damascus to the station of al-Hama.

In the future it is planned to extend the route of the train all the way to the city of ez-Zabadani and Lebanon.


The historic train has only 3 carriages with wooden benches, which are loved by many generations of Syrians.

The gardens of al-Rabwah, the settlement of al-Hama and the oasis of al-Khadra, through which the locomotive passes, are the traditional places of recreation for the citizens of the capital, where they like to go on a picnic.

The whistle of the locomotive, which was heard by the Syrians after many years has become a symbol pointing to the return of civilian life to the country. Children came running outside to greet their old friend as the train made the journey to its destination
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Stock Down

Sorry snowflakes: Killary named one of 2016's 'Least influential people' by GQ


RT
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 19:20 UTC
hillary
© Carlos Barria / Reuters
Hillary Clinton just can't win. Not only did she lose the presidency and come in second as Time's Person of the Year, but she just got added to GQ's "Least Influential People of 2016" list. And Forbes' annual influence ranking doesn't disagree.

Clinton was one of 27 people and groups (plus God and Harambe) included in the sixth annual "comprehensive, anger-fueled list of everyone who ruined our year" compiled by GQ correspondent Drew Magary.

"I hate putting her here, given that liberals turned on her like pit vipers the moment she conceded, and given that nearly three million more people voted for her than her opponent, and given that Russia deliberately hijacked the election cycle," he wrote. "But I have no choice. When you lose an election to Donald Trump, you belong on this list."

The inclusion comes just days after the Electoral College officially named Republican Donald Trump as the winner of the presidential campaign, despite Clinton winning the popular vote by just under 3 million votes. Earlier in December, the former secretary of state also came in second to the president-elect to be Time Magazine's 'Person of the Year'.
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Camera

Best of the Web: What US-inspired freedom looks like: Aleppo, then and now

Joanna Ruck
The Guardian, UK
Wed, 21 Dec 2016 22:47 UTC

Comment: The Guardian prefaces this photo essay with the following: "Aleppo was Syria's most populous city when the civil war arrived in July 2012, but the conflict has taken a huge toll, with Russian airstrikes since September 2015 causing intense devastation, as these before and after images show."

Bollocks. This is what war does to a country. As if Russia, or even Syria for that matter, had any desire to destroy Aleppo. This is what the U.S. does to Middle Eastern countries. It is what the U.S. has done to Syria. The war never would have happened if not for the U.S. policy to radicalize "opposition" to Bashar al-Assad, to move in foreign jihadis to launch a violent revolution to topple the secular government and install a radical Islamist one in its place.

Is it therefore any wonder that the U.S. are so hated around the world?


Aleppo's citadel photographed on 9 August 2010 and 13 December 2016.
aleppo
© Sandra Auger/Omar Sanadiki/Reuters
aleppo
© Sandra Auger/Omar Sanadiki/Reuters
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Gear

Texas woman stabbed, killed by step-son after 'gloating' over Dallas Cowboys win


CBS News - Austin
Wed, 21 Dec 2016 21:07 UTC
Pontrey O'Neal Jones
© Austin Police DepartmentPontrey O'Neal Jones
According to an affidavit, police say the person who stabbed and killed a woman at a South Austin apartment Sunday night was her own step-son, and the incident happened after the victim had been "gloating" about a Dallas Cowboys victory.

It happened at approximately 10:40 p.m. at a complex in the 2700 block of South Congress Avenue. Detectives say Magdalena Ruiz and her husband were at their home sitting on the couch watching television. Also present was her step-son, 20-year-old Pontrey O'Neal Jones.

Jones told officers he had initially decided to break his little sister's neck, but after changing his mind he had "developed a plan against" the victim, stashing a black-handled knife in the living room couch.

Police say Jones' father and the victim watched the Cowboys game on the couch and, when the game was done and Jones had returned from getting fresh air, he noticed the victim was "disrespecting his father and gloating about how the Cowboys won the game."

According to police, that's Jones when retrieved the knife, walked behind the couch, lunged over Ruiz, and stabbed her multiple times. Her husband intervened to stop the attack and Jones then fled the apartment. He was located about 10 minutes later, lying naked in the grass in the 2400 block of South Congress Avenue, where he was taken into custody by police.
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Sheriff

Miami FOP President 'Reprimanded' for Doxxing Innocent Woman Who Made Video of Him Speeding

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 19:11 UTC
Officer Daniel Fonticiella
© Claudia Castillo/YoutubeOfficer Daniel Fonticiella
In late January, Claudia Castillo pulled over Miami Police Lieutenant Javier Ortiz and accused him of speeding. She filmed the encounter and posted it to YouTube, where it went viral.


In response to being caught breaking the law, Ortiz, leader of the Miami FOP, used his police powers to access and post Castillo's personal information and photo online. He had doxxed her.
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Cell Phone

US state police have spent millions on Israeli phone cracking tech

Joseph Cox
Motherboard
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 19:03 UTC
UFED Touch2 Platform
© CellebriteUFED Touch2 Platform
When cops have a phone to break into, they just might pull a small, laptop-sized device out of a rugged briefcase. After plugging the phone in with a cable, and a few taps of a touch-screen, the cops have now bypassed the phone's passcode. Almost like magic, they now have access to call logs, text messages, and in some cases even deleted data.

State police forces and highway patrols in the US have collectively spent millions of dollars on this sort of technology to break into and extract data from mobile phones, according to documents obtained by Motherboard. Over 2,000 pages of invoices, purchase orders, communications, and other documents lay out in unprecedented detail how one company in particular has cornered the trade in mobile phone forensics equipment across the United States.
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Airplane

Agitated snowflake: Two passengers removed from JetBlue flight after harassing Ivanka Trump


RT
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 19:16 UTC
ivanka trump
© Mike Segar / ReutersIvanka Trump, daughter of U.S. President Elect Donald Trump with her husband Jared Kushner
Two New Yorkers were removed from a JetBlue flight after harassing President-elect Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka and her family. The men were identified as a Brooklyn lawyer and his husband, a professor at Hunter College.

The altercation took place on a flight bound for Miami, Florida from New York City's JFK airport. Trump, her husband Jared Kushner and their children were flying coach, when they were approached by a man TMZ identified as Daniel Goldstein, a Brooklyn lawyer.

"Your father is ruining the country," Goldstein said, according to the celebrity gossip site. "Why is she on our flight? She should be flying private." Goldstein yelled.

"You're kicking me off for expressing my opinion?!!" Goldstein shouted as JetBlue staff was removing him and his husband from the plane, TMZ reported.

Comment: Some Twitter reactions to the incident.
Ricky Garza: "Matt Lasner, liberals cry about peace and love but yet they are the ones who do the most bullying."

Rich Algeni: "Matt Lasner, Why are you deleting tweets showing your intolerance?"

Rich Algeni, Jr.: "This moron has a PhD?!? In what? Harassment?"

Halcion: "Lol that's ridiculous, protest Trump if you want but not his family."

Deplorable Trumpster: "Weird Matthew harassed Ivanka and kids. Shameful! Not so tolerant of others. Apologize!"

Naida Darling: "What happen to your tweet bragging your husband harassed and screamed at a woman with her young children, while holding a baby? Irrational and abusive behavior, I fear for the child they're raising. Child services should investigate!"

Kaye d: "ICYMI Matt's husband chases down women and children to harass them."

Matt Ri: "You sir are the deplorable one... harassing another human being is never ok!!!"

JT: "Merry Christmas, Matt. Stop harassing people."

Shelley: "Deleting a tweet of yourself accosting a mother and her children because you don't like her politics says everything about you."

Paul Rimmer‏: "Dan Goldstein and his husband attack Ivanka Trump! Says it all,pair of total cranks who just about sum up the modern Democrats


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Alarm Clock

Disabled & elderly Americans shoved into poverty as Feds drain social security income for student loan debt

Deirdre Fulton
Common Dreams
Wed, 21 Dec 2016 19:05 UTC
Elderly Americans
© Kate Gardiner/flickr/cc
The federal government is garnishing Social Security checks to recoup unpaid student debt, leaving thousands of retired or disabled Americans below the poverty line and setting the stage for an even bigger problem, according to a new report.

The data from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), compiled at the behest of Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), showed that people over the age of 50 are the fastest-growing group with student debt, outpacing younger generations—and compared to younger borrowers, older Americans have "considerably higher rates of default on federal student loans." This leaves them open to having up to 15 percent of their benefit payment withheld, in what's called an "offset."

In 2015, the GAO reported (pdf), the Department of Education collected about $171 million in defaulted student loan debt through Social Security offsets from 114,000 people, the majority of that from borrowers aged 50 or older and receiving disability benefits. About 38,000 were above age 64, and more than three-quarters of older borrowers took out the loans to cover their own education, rather than to pay for their children's schooling. The typical monthly offset was slightly more than $140. And more than 70 percent of the money collected through offsets went toward interest and fees, as opposed to the loan balance.

"This report demonstrates just how draconian these Social Security offsets are and how there seems to be a failure at all sorts of levels of this policy," Persis Yu, the director of the Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project at the Boston-based National Consumer Law Center told MarketWatch.
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War Whore

The Granny Squad: Police in West Virginia form crime fighting G-Unit


RT
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 13:58 UTC
Grannies
© Jennifer Goddard / Facebook
West Virginia's Charleston Police Department has created an unlikely crime fighting unit. Eleven women living at a YWCA with either a history of domestic abuse or elderly abuse were sworn in to protect their communities from violence with love.

This new crime fighting crew may not look like a traditional police force, but that doesn't mean they won't have a mission. On Wednesday, 11 grandmas were officially made members of the Charleston Police Department's Grandma Unit, or as their shirts say: the G-Unit. While they won't be given guns or mace, they hope to reduce crime by spreading love and hugs.

"Sometimes I'm not feeling good or I'm feeling low, and somebody will give me a hug, and I'll feel better, and then I'll share my hug with someone else," Grandma Unit member Karen Smith told WSET. However, that's not to say they're going to skirt their duties. "When we're given something to do we take it seriously, and we keep up with it," Smith added.
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