Society's ChildS


Stormtrooper

Chicago police use taser on 8-month pregnant woman over parking ticket comment

M.B. David
Political Blind Spot
Sun, 26 Jan 2014 20:05 UTC
police-chicago
© AFP Photo/Cengiz Yar Jr.
Tiffany Rent is eight-months pregnant, but that didn't stop a Chicago police officer from using a taser on her. The assault and arrest occurred Wednesday morning outside of a drug store on Chicago's South Side.

The Chicago Police Department Superintendent Garry McCarthy said that even though Rent was only a week or two away from giving birth, "you can't always tell whether somebody is pregnant."

Tiffany, however, said it should have been obvious.

"I was standing at the squad car close enough for him to see that I was pregnant," Rent explained to the Chicago Tribune.

The Chicago Police Department, however says that their officers did nothing wrong. Rent, they said, had "attempted to take off" after parking in a handicap space outside of a Walgreens drug store. Why was she parking in a handicap space? Because she was almost ready to give birth and it was severely uncomfortable - even painful - to walk far.

The officer was not moved by her plight. Poor and frustrated with the $350 ticket, Tiffany tore up the citation saying: "I ain't giving you sh#@," according to the police report. In effect, she was tased, for nothing more than saying she wouldn't pay a fine.

Superintendent McCarthy said this is a matter of "upholding the law" and that Rent should have been tased for her comments:

"Well, first of all, you can't always tell whether somebody is pregnant. So, you want to use it where you are overcoming assault or preventing escape. That's what it boils down to."

To make matters worse, Tiffany was pulled out of her car in front of her two young children and her boyfriend, held down to the ground before being tased. Joseph Hobbs tried to stop the assault. Hobbs is the father of the child and said he was afraid the full-term baby would be injured in the assault. He suffered a dislocated elbow as a result.
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Video

Google ordered to remove anti-Islamic YouTube film

Jonathan Stempel and Dan Levine
Yahoo! News
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 15:25 UTC
Image
© Trendingdig
A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday ordered Google Inc to remove from its YouTube video-sharing website an anti-Islamic film that had sparked protests across the Muslim world.

By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Google's assertion that the removal of the film "Innocence of Muslims" amounted to a prior restraint of speech that violated the U.S. Constitution.

The plaintiff, Cindy Lee Garcia, had objected to the film after learning that it incorporated a clip she had made for a different movie, which had been partially dubbed and in which she appeared to be asking: "Is your Mohammed a child molester?"

In a statement, Google said: "We strongly disagree with this ruling and will fight it."

Cris Armenta, a lawyer for Garcia, said she is delighted with the decision.
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Sheriff

Police officers suspended in Texas for contest on who could steal most signs from the homeless

Scott Kaufman
The Raw Story
Thu, 27 Feb 2014 10:24 UTC
Image
© APA homeless woman named Katt in Midland, Texas.
Two police officers in Midland, Texas were reprimanded for a contest to see who could confiscate the most cardboard signs from homeless panhandlers, despite the fact that panhandling is not illegal in the city.

The officers, Derek Hester and Daniel Zoelzer, were suspended for three days without pay and, according to Police Chief Price Robinson, "reminded to respect individual rights and human dignity."

"We want to respect people, no matter who they are - homeless, whatever," he continued. "That situation's been dealt with. Those officers understand."

An attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, Cassandra Champion, said that "the fact that they are making sport out of collecting the personal property of homeless individuals could be seen as them targeting these individuals for discriminatory harassment. Simply holding a sign is absolutely a protected part of our free speech."
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Smoking

EU votes through new draconian anti-smoking rules

David Atherton
BreitBart
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
After three years of tortuous debate, the European Parliament voted and passed the Tobacco Product Directive by 514 votes to 66. Certainly, the sacking by Manuel Barroso of Maltese Health Commissioner John Dalli for allegedly soliciting a bribe of €60 million from a Swedish snus manufacturer did nothing to speed matters up.

The main points of the TPD are:
  • Banning the sale of packs of ten cigarettes and small pouches of tobacco
  • Health warnings to cover 65 percent of the front and back of all packaging
  • Banning of flavours like menthol
  • Minimum sized packets
  • Allows member states to ban internet sales, specifically aimed at electronic cigarettes
  • Regulation of electronic cigarettes
  • Continuing ban on Swedish snus, a tobacco-based alternative to smoking

Comment: Smokers' lungs used in half of transplants: Improves Survival Rate!
Smoking Does Not Cause Lung Cancer (According to WHO/CDC Data)
Air pollution causes lung cancer in non-smokers (erm, can't it cause it in smokers too then?)
Government Suppresses Major Public Health Report
Air pollution leading cause of cancer, World Health Organisation warns
'World No Tobacco Day'? Let's All Light Up!

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Books

Netherlands Immigrants: Learn Dutch or get out!


Time
Thu, 27 Feb 2014 14:56 UTC
France's face veil ban is just the latest controversial law aimed at assimilating new immigrants in Europe. The Netherlands now requires Dutch fluency to become a citizen:
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Eye 2

Talking parrot helps Indian police solve mysterious murder case

Taylor Berman
Gawker
Thu, 27 Feb 2014 11:38 UTC
Parrot
© Shutterstock
First a parrot rats out its owner for a DUI and now this: Last week, a talking parrot helped police solve the mysterious murder of its owner.

On February 20, Neelam Sharma and her pet dog were found murdered in Agra, India.

Police were baffled by the case until they got an tip from Sharma's husband, Vijayy Sharma.

After the murder, Sharma noticed that whenever his nephew Ashutosh visited his home or was mentioned, Hercule the parrot changed his behavior.

"During discussions too, whenever Ashutosh's name was mentioned, the parrot would start screeching. This raised my suspicion and I informed the police," Sharma told the Times of India.

Police detained Ashutosh, who quickly confessed to murdering his aunt and her dog.

"We checked his call details and took him in custody. He accepted his crime and informed us that he was accompanied by an accomplice. They had entered the house with the intention of taking away cash and other valuables," an Agra police spokesperson told the Times.

Ashutosh said he killed his aunt after she recognized him. The dog got the axe because he wouldn't stop barking. Unfortunately for Ashutosh, he didn't see the parrot, who silently witnessed the entire crime, according to police.
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Vader

Unimaginable desolation: Palestinian refugees Israel refuses permission to return to their homeland are desperate and starving under blockade by Western terrorists in Syria

Harriet Sherwood
The Guardian
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 12:52 UTC
Image
© UNRWA/APIt is a scene of unimaginable desolation – a crowd of men, women and children stretching as far as the eye can see into the war-devastated landscape of Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria. This was the queue for aid at a UNRWA distribution point in the capital, Damascus, on 31 January. The UN relief agency has distributed more than 7,000 food parcels in the Palestinian camp, home to about 160,000 people, since 18 January. The UN has reported infant malnutrition in the community, which has been reduced to eating animal feed. As of this week, all aid distributions have been suspended because of security concerns. Chris Gunness, a spokesperson, said UNRWA had received assurances that a deal allowing humanitarian access to Yarmouk would be implemented as soon as possible. He said: “They have suffered enough.”
Huge crowd of Palestinians is photographed waiting for aid in Yarmouk, which has been under blockade for month

It is a vision of unimaginable desolation: a crowd of men, women and children stretching as far as the eye can see into the war-devastated landscape of Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus.

A photograph released on Wednesday by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, shows the scene when thousands of desperate Palestinians trapped inside the camp on the edge of the Syrian capital emerged to besiege aid workers attempting to distribute food parcels.

More than 18,000 people are existing under blockade inside Yarmouk, enduring acute shortages of food, medicines and other essentials. Much of the camp has been destroyed by shelling, and attempts to deliver aid to those inside have been hampered by continued fighting in Syria's three-year-old civil war.

United Nations workers have delivered about 7,000 food parcels over recent weeks, following negotiations between the Syrian government, rebel forces and Palestinian factions within the camp. The most recent delivery, of 450 parcels, was on Wednesday. The UN acknowledges that the level of aid is a "drop in the ocean".

Comment: Don't be fooled by the attempt to pass this off as "very complex". It's actually quite straightforward:

Al Qaeda is blocking aid from reaching starving Syrians, says Palestinian minister

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Bizarro Earth

Senegal farmers protest land grab by multinational corporation


FarmLandGrab.org
Thu, 27 Feb 2014 13:13 UTC
senegal
© Unknown
Farmers and herders from northwestern Senegal have travelled to Europe to demand the scrapping of a land deal that threatens the lives and livelihoods of some 9,000 people. A murky international conglomerate, Senhuile SA, has leased 20,000 hectares of land in the Ndiaël Reserve, land which has been used for decades by residents of some 40 villages in the area. The villagers want the project stopped, saying it will cut off their access to grazing land, water, food and firewood - ultimately forcing them off their homes and land.

Senhuile SA is a joint venture controlled by Italy's Tampieri Financial Group, Senegalese investors, and Agro Bioethanol International, a shell company registered in New York. The herders, along with representatives of the Conseil National de Concertation et de Coopération des Ruraux (CNCR) and the Senegalese non-governmental organisations ENDA Pronat and ActionAid, are in Europe from today to 6 March 2014 to mobilise citizens to call on Tampieri, Senhuile's majority shareholder, to close down the project. The project was initially established in another location, Fanaye, where violence resulting from local opposition led to the death of two villagers and dozens more injured in 2011.
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Light Sabers

With radical nationalists siezing power in Kiev, Autonomous Republic of Crimea sets date for referendum on secession from Ukraine


RT
Thu, 27 Feb 2014 12:54 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Baz RatnerUkrainian police stand guard in front the Crimean parliament building in Simferopol February 27, 2014.
The Supreme Council of Ukraine's Autonomous Republic of Crimea has dismissed the regional government, electing a pro-Russian party leader as its new chair. The MPs have also voted in favor of holding a referendum to decide the future of Crimea on May 25.

Fifty-five out of 64 MPs voted for the government's dissolution. The decision was announced by parliament official Olga Sulnikova.

The decision to dismiss Crimea's Council of Ministers was supported by 55 out of 64 Crimean MPs. The no-confidence motion came as a result of "unsatisfactory" work by the regional government in 2013, Interfax-Ukraine reported.

The Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Anatoly Mogilyov, was also dismissed. The leader of Crimea's Russian Unity party, Sergey Aksyonov, has been voted in as the new chairman, RIA Novosti reports. The pro-Russian politician was supported by a majority of 53 MPs of the Crimean parliament, with 64 MPs taking part in the vote out of 100.
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Syringe

U.S Federal Appeals Court: Judge rips death penalty states for secretive, unproven execution methods - comparable to high school chemistry class


RT
Thu, 27 Feb 2014 03:24 UTC
Image
© ReutersLethal injection room
A federal appeals court judge excoriated states that have resorted to secretive and unproven methods for lethal injections, calling the source of the drug Missouri used Wednesday for an execution as "nothing more than a high school chemistry class."

Judge Kermit Bye, of the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, ripped death penalty states for their increasingly closed approaches in carrying out capital punishments with the aid of anonymous compounding pharmacies that supply drugs.

Bye leveled his disapproval hours before Michael Taylor, 47, was executed for the 1989 murder of a 15-year-old girl in Kansas City. Taylor was put to death using pentobarbital from a pharmacist that the Missouri Department of Corrections will not disclose.

Though the Eighth Circuit did not stay Taylor's execution - nor did the US Supreme Court halt the proceedings - Bye said in his dissent the Eighth Amendment "prohibits the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain through torture, barbarous methods, or methods resulting in a lingering death."

Comment:
FBI review of death penalty cases leads to 27 possible mistaken executions
Connecticut Lawmakers Vote to Repeal Death Penalty
Death penalty suspended in Washington state
35 Years Of Death Penalty Regrets

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