Society's ChildS


Stock Up

Household wealth bubble in 'scary graph' flashes warning about future U.S. downturn

Rich Miller
Bloomberg
Fri, 22 Jul 2016 15:55 UTC
Household wealth chart
Americans are about as wealthy as they've ever been—and that's a worry?

Yup, say veteran economists Daniel Thornton and Joe Carson. They're concerned that the swelling of wealth could prove unsustainable because it's far outstripped the growth of the economy since the recession's end in 2009.

Thornton, who spent 33 years at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis before retiring in 2014, says in effect that we've seen this picture before. Household net worth ballooned in the late 1990's and the early 2000's; in the first instance pumped up by rising stock prices, in the second by expanding home values. Both cases ended badly, with the economy falling into recession after the bubbles burst.
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Cell Phone

EMS ghouls competed in "selfie war": Paramedics took pix with dozens of incapacitated patients


The Smoking Gun
Fri, 22 Jul 2016 15:42 UTC
Selfies
Two EMS workers were charged yesterday with engaging in a "selfie war" during which they competed to see who could take the best photos with patients that were intubated, unconscious, sedated, or drunk, according to Florida investigators.

The paramedics took dozens of "unprofessional and compromising" photos inside ambulances for "entertainment and amusement purposes," and even showed the images to fellow workers, several of whom subsequently cooperated with law enforcement authorities.

Christopher Wimmer, 33, and Kayla Dubois, 24, are facing felony charges related to their alleged illegal interception and disclosure of oral communications. Wimmer was also hit with a misdemeanor battery count for allegedly holding open the eyelids of a sedated patient with whom he posed for a "selfie."
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Bomb

Twin blasts kill at least 80 and wound over 230 in Kabul protest


Al Jazeera
Sat, 23 Jul 2016 15:47 UTC
kabul bombings
Twin explosions targeting a large demonstration by members of Afghanistan's ethnic Hazara minority in Kabul have killed at least 80 people and wounded more than 230, officials have said.

The attack on Saturday, near one of the most heavily fortified areas of the Afghan capital, was quickly claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), who have previously targeted the Hazara people.

"Two fighters from Islamic State detonated explosive belts at a gathering of Shi'ites in... the city of Kabul in Afghanistan," Amaq, an ISIL-linked website, said.
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Mr. Potato

Pokemon Go insanity: Man impales himself on metal fence spike while hunting Pokemon


The Local (Sweden)
Fri, 22 Jul 2016 15:37 UTC
pokemon go
© Chris Helgren / Reuters
For one Stockholm Pokémon Go enthusiast the chase took a turn for the worse on Friday.

Swedes are certainly not ones to turn down trends, and they have just like the rest of the world got swept up in the sudden Pokémon Go craze in this past week, with users of the gaming app running all around their towns and cities catching the cartoon monsters.

The augmented reality technology allows players to physically walk around their surroundings to search for and 'catch' Pokémon, using their smart phone cameras.

But it has not been uncontroversial. Churches, military cemeteries, Holocaust memorials and restricted areas have all reported being featured in the game. There have also been injuries, and even deaths.

On Friday emergency services were called out to rescue a man who had got his thigh impaled on a metal fence while trying to climb into Stockholm's Stadium just after 1pm to, reportedly, catch a Pokémon.

Comment: Pokémon Go and mass dissociation: Anchoring the frequency of chaos and destruction

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Green Light

'Help me!': Judge gives go-ahead to family lawsuit after inmate dies in Tulsa County Jail


RT
Sat, 23 Jul 2016 03:36 UTC
jail
© Tulsa County Jail
A family's lawsuit against an Oklahoma jail for the death of inmate Elliott Williams can go ahead, a federal judge has ruled. Williams was allegedly left in his cell for five days, where he died after a self-inflicted head injury.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Elliott Williams, a 37-year-old mentally ill and suicidal man, who was arrested in October 2011 after creating a disturbance in an Owasso, Oklahoma hotel.

According to the complaint, Williams, who was charged with a misdemeanor, was taken to the Tulsa County Jail in a state of psychosis. Shortly after being placed in a cell at the jail, Williams rammed his head into the cell door, seriously injuring himself.

Judge John Dowdell, in his ruling, described Williams' cell, where he died, as a "burial crypt."

"A reasonable jury could find that Mr. Williams' needs were obvious to any layperson," stated the ruling by Judge Dowdell of the US District for the Northern District of Oklahoma on Wednesday, according to The Frontier.
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Alarm Clock

Financially anxious: One in three children have 'money worries'

Amelia Murray
The Telegraph
Fri, 22 Jul 2016 15:05 UTC
money worries
© AlamyOne in three children said they worried about money "at least some of the time"
One in three children aged 8 to 15 worry about money "at least sometimes", according to one of the most authoritative regular surveys of children's pocket money.

Children in greater London were revealed as the most financially anxious: more than half (54pc) said they had money concerns some of the time and 12pc said they worried about money all the time.
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Syringe

German govt warns against crypto-Scientologist "say no to drugs" ads


RT
Sat, 23 Jul 2016 18:51 UTC
hamburg scientology
© Morris Mac Matzen / ReutersThe building of the Church of Scientology is seen in Hamburg
Ad stands for rehab facilities with the particular slogan 'Say no to drugs - say yes to life' in Germany are under serious suspicion of being nothing more than a Scientology recruitment scheme, police warn. The sect is illegal in Germany.

The enigmatic group, which believes our human souls have alien beginnings, does not enjoy the same legal status everywhere. In the United States it boasts dozens of Hollywood A-listers among its members and biggest donors.

Not so in Germany, where the religious sect has been deemed "unconstitutional" since 1997 by domestic security, despite its existence there since the 1970s. This has led to a proliferation of masquerading tactics.

The group has already been found operating under different names in Germany, and according to the recent statement from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hamburg residents are being warned about particular ad stands featuring the most common anti-drug slogan of all.

Comment: See also: Scientology, the CIA, and MIVILUDES: Cults of Abuse

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Handcuffs

Bank robbers half eaten burger leads investigators to arrest

Mitchell Armentrout
Chicago Sun Times
Fri, 22 Jul 2016 15:06 UTC
Chicago bank robbery
© Kalamazoo County sheriff's officeSurveillance images of a man who robbed a bank in Oshtemo Township, Mich., on Jan. 8, 2015.
A half-eaten hamburger led authorities to a Chicago man who acted as the getaway driver in a series of bank robberies in western Michigan over the last two years, federal prosecutors said. Dominick T. Johnson, 34, was sentenced Wednesday to 72 years and eight months in prison for the heists he carried out with his 24-year-old half-brother Nathan Benson, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Prosecutors say Johnson was the brain and the wheels behind the three successful bank robberies that happened between May 2014 and January 2015 in Kalamazoo County, about 150 miles northeast of Chicago. In two of the robberies, Johnson listened in on a cellphone from a car while Benson forced employees into bank vaults at gunpoint, prosecutors said. Cellphone tower data placed him near the banks at the time of the crime.

While speeding away from one robbery in Oshtemo Township, Johnson apparently tossed "a partially eaten hamburger" from the vehicle, and investigators were able to pull his DNA from it, prosecutors said. The duo made three other failed bank robbery attempts, twice thwarted by police and once when Johnson crashed their vehicle on the way to the heist, prosecutors said.

Johnson was convicted in January in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids of seven crimes, including conspiracy, bank robbery and weapons charges. Benson was found guilty for his role in the robberies and sentenced to 14 years in March.
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Pistol

The gunman versus 'balcony man': the shocking moment Munich killer argued with brave onlooker in 90-second rant before firing four shots and calmly walking away

Anthony Joseph
The Daily Mail
Fri, 22 Jul 2016 15:10 UTC
Munick rooftop shooter
© Twitter
Munich killer Ali Sonboly was involved in an astonishing shouting match with a man on a balcony just minutes after his shooting spree.

The 90-second exchange, in which Sonboly shouted that he had been bullied for seven years, was captured on camera and immediately uploaded onto social media.

Sonboly, the 18-year-old son of a taxi driver and department store worker, killed nine people during his rampage and injured dozens more.

The Bavarian capital went into lockdown as police hunted him, but Sonboly had walked onto the roof of the Olympic Shopping Centre in the district of Moosach as onlookers watched and began taunting him.
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Wedding Rings

Honey trap: Happy bride and husband photographed yards away from ex-lover's murder location

Chris Greenwood
Daily Mail
Fri, 22 Jul 2016 18:22 UTC
Mahil and groom
© news.anotao.comMundill Mahil and Varinder Singh, 'til death do them part.
Posing against an impressive London skyline, newly-wed Mundill Mahil appears every inch the happy bride. The pretty brunette appears to have the world at her feet as she gazes into the eyes of her handsome young husband, Varinder Singh - a rising Labour Party star.

But the photograph provoked fury last night from the family of the ex-boyfriend she led to a grisly death just five years ago. Mahil - then a medical student - played the honeytrap in the brutal murder of TV executive Gagandip Singh. He was beaten and tied up before being burnt alive in the boot of a car parked just a stone's throw from Greenwich Park in South-East London. Mahil received six years for her part in the plot but was released after three years.

Comment: Oblivious to the past? Or, lingering revenge for the dubious sexual assault? A callous choice at best, all considered.

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