Society's ChildS


USA

California: Proposed law would require politicians to wear the emblems of their corporate sponsors

Carey Wedler
The Anti Media
Mon, 28 Dec 2015 17:16 UTC
corporate sponsored flag
Popular memes calling for politicians to wear the logos of their corporate sponsors have circulated the Internet for years, but the suggestion may soon be a reality for California legislators. In the next week, a potential ballot measure, submitted to the Office of the Attorney General in October, is expected to receive title and summary for the 2016 election, meaning its advocates will be able to collect signatures in order to secure its official place on the ballot. The proposed law would require legislators and candidates to sport the emblems of groups that donate money to their campaigns.

As the advocacy group that launched the measure, California is Not for Sale, muses:
Imagine this: a California Senator is speaking on the floor and proposes a bill he just drafted that will give oil companies huge tax advantages. Now imagine if on his jacket, he was wearing Chevron, Shell, and BP logos - some of his top ten contributors. Our law will bring this under-the-table-corruption to the surface and expose these politicians who take political contributions in exchange for favors for what they really are: corrupt.

Comment: Great idea, but the system is too broken to be fixed at this point.

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Network

Records of 191 million registered voters leaked online


RT
Tue, 29 Dec 2015 18:17 UTC
hacking
© Kacper Pempel / Reuters
A security researcher has uncovered a publicly-available database containing the personal information of 191 million voters on the internet, but it isn't clear who owns it.

Chris Vickery, who shared his findings on DataBreaches.net, disclosed the trove of voter data, which includes names, home addresses, voter IDs, phone numbers, and birth dates, as well as political affiliations and voting histories since 2000. The database does not contain financial information or Social Security numbers.

The Texas tech support specialist said that he found the database while looking for information exposed on the internet in an attempt to raise awareness of security breaches.

Vickery has since reached out to law enforcement, as well as the California attorney general's office. The database was still online as of Monday.

"When one of their attorneys asked, 'Well how much data are we talking about?' and I read her the list of data fields and told her that we had access to voter records of over 17 million California voters, her response was 'Wow,' and she promptly forwarded the matter to the head of their e-crime division," DataBreaches.net's administrator wrote online.
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Evil Rays

Woman kept murdered victim on couch for two days as "shrine from God"


RT
Tue, 29 Dec 2015 18:13 UTC
anita Braxton
© Maricopa County Sheriff's Officer
Police in Phoenix, Arizona responded to two 911 calls that there was a dead woman covered in a towel lying on suspect Anitra Braxton's couch.

Upon arrival at the murder scene Braxton told officers the unidentified body was a "shrine from God" and, that it was in fact her own body. Later, Braxton said the woman was shot in the eye because she didn't believe in God.

The body is thought have been on her couch for two days. Braxton has been charged with murder.

Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Trent Crump told reporters, "She will not tell us who the victim is. When we ask for the victim's name, she gives her own name. At this point, we're not sure what her thought process is or what type of mental illness she may be suffering from."

Braxton was released from prison in 2013 after serving two years for burglary, forgery and drug violations. Her family say she was mentally ill.

Braxton's neighbour told Fox that she acted erratically and did drugs all night. Another neighbour said she had "run around naked" and that "she could just flip."

Witnesses told police they believed the victim was pregnant. An autopsy will be carried out on Tuesday.
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Water

Expert: City officials allowed lead-contaminated water to flow leading to blood lead levels in children 7 times higher than CDC guidelines


RT
Tue, 29 Dec 2015 18:03 UTC
bottled water
© Rebecca Cook / ReutersMan picks up bottled water from the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan to deliver to a school after elevated lead levels were found in the city's water in Flint, Michigan.
Experts who blew the whistle on lead-contaminated water in Flint, Michigan, and its impact on children said that some kids had blood lead levels far higher than those US health officials consider "elevated" - and the state knew kids were being poisoned.

As Michigan officials scramble to help the affected community, a lead researcher who helped expose the toxicity of the water, Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards, said city and state officials should have known that the Flint River was highly corrosive before they decided to switch from the Detroit water system in 2014. He called the lack of water treatment "unprecedented."

Without phosphate treatment, the corrosive water flowed from the Flint River through the city's lead pipes for 17 months and became contaminated. Failures at multiple levels of government exacerbated the problem and delayed the response to the developing crisis.

There is a "strong correlation" between high lead water levels in Flint and blood lead levels in children, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha said. A pediatrician at the Hurley Medical Center, Hanna-Attisha told to RT that the highest readings that she and the state recorded for elevated blood levels in Flint were 38 micrograms per deciliter.

That is more than seven times higher than the level classified as "elevated" by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (5 micrograms). The CDC states there is no safe blood lead level in children.
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Bullseye

Mumbai Robin Hoods target Indian weddings for food relief to the poor


RT
Tue, 29 Dec 2015 17:06 UTC
India
© Adnan Abidi / Reuters
Food delivery crews of Mumbai are opening a 'Roti' bank - to get food from the rich to the poor. And the leftovers from India's infamous $40bn wedding market could supply the goods.

400 dabbawalas (food carriers), are sourcing leftovers and unwanted food from the edges of the city's massive wedding and catering market. They have partnered with 30 large wedding caterers and planners who have pledged to provide the crucial pick-up info.
"Why should be the food dumped in the bin when it can be shared with those who cannot afford one proper meal a day?" dabbawala union spokesperson, Subhash Talekar said. "We are known for quickly reaching a location and delivering lunch boxes. We want to use the same skills to help the poor."
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Bomb

Turkish terror state: Teens arrested for 'insulting Erdoğan' on Facebook


Hurriyet Daily News
Tue, 29 Dec 2015 14:05 UTC
Sultan Erdogan
© Unknown
A 17-year-old construction worker in the Thracian province of Tekirdağ was arrested on Dec. 28 for "insulting" President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on social media.

Police was informed of a boy identified only by the initials F.E. who "insulted Erdoğan" in a post he shared on his Facebook account. F.E. was detained at this home in the Çorlu district following a police investigation into the post.

Comment: The situation worldwide is devolving fast as the psychos in power act more and more like the monsters they are.

Also see:

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Quenelle

Journalist reveals Erdoğan imprisoned him for exposing Turkey's hand in the 'Syrian conflict'


Today's Zaman
Tue, 29 Dec 2015 13:51 UTC
Can Dundar journalist arrested Turkey
© ReutersCumhuriyet daily Editor-in-Chief Can Dündar
Cumhuriyet Editor-in-Chief Can Dündar, who has been in prison for over a month in a politically motivated case, said President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had him imprisoned after he revealed the "truth" about him and his Syria policies.

"Turkey's regime not only smuggled guns into Syria, it used 'state security' as an excuse to imprison the journalists who reported it," Dündar wrote in an opinion he penned for The Guardian from prison.

Dündar and Cumhuriyet's Ankara representative Erdem Gül were arrested in late November on charges of being members of a terrorist organization, espionage and revealing confidential documents -- charges that could see them spend life in prison. Dündar and Gül were arrested as part of a terrorism investigation that was launched after Cumhuriyet published photos in May of weapons that it said were transferred to Syria in trucks operated by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT).

Comment: What this journalist revealed is only the tip of the iceberg. Also see:

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Airplane

Germany plans random drug tests for pilots after Germanwings crash


ITV News
Sun, 27 Dec 2015 14:13 UTC
A Germanwings plane
© Oliver Berg/DPA/Press Association ImagesA Germanwings plane on the tarmac at Cologne Airport
Germany is considering introducing random drug and alcohol testing for pilots, to reduce the risk of a repeat of the Germanwings crash, according to local media reports.

The plans follow the recommendation of a taskforce set up by the Transport Ministry, after a pilot sealed himself inside the cockpit of a plane and crashed it in the Alps, killing all 150 people on board.

Prosecutors have found evidence the co-pilot, who had suffered severe depression and may have feared losing his job, had researched ways to kill himself and hidden an illness from his employer, sparking a debate on supervision and medical secrecy.


Comment: Germanwings co-pilot character assassination continues - Prosecutors say Andreas Lubitz researched suicide and cockpit door security


German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt told the paper Bild am Sonntag: "I think it's sensible that pilots are checked on a random basis for the consumption of alcohol, drugs and medicines."

He added: "Experts around the world see positive effects from this to boost operational safety in aviation."

Comment: For a run down of the evidence that suggests that we are not being told the whole truth about Germanwings crash, see Joe Quinn's article: Germanwings crash: Not the full story?

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Fire

Polish market stall selling fireworks mysteriously burst into flames


The Telegraph, UK
Mon, 28 Dec 2015 17:05 UTC
Polish fireworks stall blast
© picture-alliance/dpa/M.BielechiFirefighters worked to put out the flames that engulfed the stall

A Polish market stall selling fireworks mysteriously burst into flames, injuring three people and sending knives from a nearby stall "flying through the air"

Three people were injured in the Polish city of Swinoujscie on Sunday when a street stall selling fireworks exploded, local media reported.

Firefighters tackled the blaze for more than an hour, with their job made even more difficult by further fireworks going off and knives from a neighbouring stall being thrown through the air, Polish broadcaster TVN reported.

Police are investigating the cause of the accident, which happened shortly after 2pm local time (1300 GMT).

The explosion is estimated to have caused around £43,000 worth of damage, as neighbouring stalls were also affected by the fire.


Comment: Other fireworks related explosions this year include:

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Heart - Black

Christmas Day in the U.S. saw more gun violence than most countries see in a year


Sputnik
Tue, 29 Dec 2015 03:53 UTC
Guns
© AP Photo/ Jeff Roberson
In further evidence of America's gun violence epidemic, 27 people were shot and killed on Christmas Day - more gun homicides than most countries see in an entire year.

Christmas Day in America. A 73-year-old grandmother in Texas shoots her husband over "marital issues." The parents of a young boy are gunned down in an Ohio parking lot. A barber is shot three times, and left lying on the sidewalk by his shop.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, 27 people were killed in shooting incidents across the United States on Friday. Another 63 were injured, and neither of these figures include self-inflicted gunfire.

Comment: Also see:
America is literally violently ill. This society is feverish on the valorization of violence. Victims of violence - speaking out and demanding accountability for racism (such as in Charleston or Ferguson), or regarding violent sexism (as in Planned Parenthood) - are blamed as the cause. This 'blame culture' is a symptom of America's frankly sick relationship to violence.

No other way to put it: America is mentally ill


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