Society's ChildS


Rose

Boston: Woman crushed by drawbridge in horrifying accident


Local 12 Cincinnati
Tue, 31 Dec 2013 21:22 UTC
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The woman was walking across the East Boston bridge about noon on Tuesday when the booth operator did not see her and opened the bridge for a boat to pass. When he heard her screams he started closing the bridge, which inadvertently crushed her.
A woman walking across a Boston drawbridge was crushed to death Tuesday after an operator raising the bridge for a boat to pass heard her screams and lowered it, accidentally trapping her between the two plates, investigators said.

The woman was crossing the bridge around noon when a bridge operator, not aware that she was on the bridge, began raising it for the boat in the Chelsea River. The woman grabbed hold of one of the sides of the bridge and the operator immediately lowered it when he heard her scream, but she became trapped in between the plates and suffered massive trauma, police said.

"I couldn't see her, but I could hear her," witness Waldina Garcia, 47, told the Boston Globe. "She was screaming and screaming and screaming."
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Dollar Gold

Brainwashed by the cult of the super-rich

Priyamvada Gopal
The Guardian
Thu, 25 Dec 2014 14:21 UTC
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© AlamyWe are invited to deceive ourselves into believing we are playing for the same stakes while worshipping the same ideals, a process labelled ­'aspiration'.'
Last week, Tory MP Esther McVey, Iain Duncan Smith's deputy, insisted it was "right" that half a million Britons be dependent on food banks in "tough times". Around the same time, the motor racing heiress Tamara Ecclestone totted up a champagne bill of £30,000 in one evening. A rich teenager in Texas has just got away with probation for drunkenly running over and killing four people because his lawyers argued successfully that he suffered from "affluenza", which rendered him unable to handle a car responsibly. What we've been realising for some time now is that, for all the team sport rhetoric, only two sides are really at play in Britain and beyond: Team Super-Rich and Team Everyone Else.

The rich are not merely different: they've become a cult which drafts us as members. We are invited to deceive ourselves into believing we are playing for the same stakes while worshipping the same ideals, a process labelled "aspiration". Reaching its zenith at this time of year, our participation in cult rituals - buy, consume, accumulate beyond need - helps mute our criticism and diffuse anger at systemic exploitation. That's why we buy into the notion that a £20 Zara necklace worn by the Duchess of Cambridge on a designer gown costing thousands of pounds is evidence that she is like us. We hear that the monarch begrudges police officers who guard her family and her palaces a handful of cashew nuts and interpret it as eccentricity rather than an apt metaphor for the Dickensian meanness of spirit that underlies the selective concentration of wealth. The adulation of royalty is not a harmless anachronism; it is calculated totem worship that only entrenches the bizarre notion that some people are rich simply because they are more deserving but somehow they are still just like us.
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Stock Down

Retirement unlikely for 78 million blue-collar Americans

Emily Wagster Pettus
The Associated Press
Tue, 31 Dec 2013 20:03 UTC
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Tom Edwards grew up in a family that's been cutting trees and hauling timber in the Pacific Northwest for more than a century. The Spanaway, Washington resident says he has worked as a logger since he was a kid - it's just what an able-bodied youngster was expected to do.

Now, at 53, with business in a slump and little money in savings, he's pessimistic about his chances of retiring.

"It's never going to happen. By the time I reach retirement age, there won't be Social Security. There's not going to be any money," Edwards said. "I'll do like my father did: I'll work 'til I die."

Across the U.S., such concerns are common among blue-collar baby boomers - the 78 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964. Many have jobs that provide paltry pensions or none at all, as many companies have been moving toward less generous retirement packages in the past decade.

Many boomers expect to work the rest of their lives because they have little cash put away for their old age and they worry Social Security won't cover their bills. Some hope to move to jobs that are less physically demanding.

The share of U.S. workers who are 55 and older is expected to continue growing, according to the The Oxford Handbook of Retirement 2013. The group comprised 12.4 percent of the workforce in 1998. The share jumped to 18.1 percent in 2008 and is expected to be almost 25 percent by 2018.

The book is edited by Mo Wang, co-director of the Human Resource Research Center at the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business Administration. In an interview, Wang said it's a misconception that lower-wage workers are slackers in preparing for retirement.
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Arrow Down

Michigan says children need to be protected from seeing 'WAR SUX' on a license plate

Ed White
BattleCreekEnquirer
Wed, 01 Jan 2014 11:37 UTC
David DeVarti
© YouTubeDavid DeVarti
DetroitT - The state of Michigan is defending its rejection of an anti-war license plate, saying children riding in cars need to be protected from seeing "WAR SUX."

Attorneys for the secretary of state's office asked a judge this month to dismiss a lawsuit that accuses officials of violating the First Amendment by broadly controlling speech. David DeVarti, a Washtenaw County man, wanted the six-letter plate but was turned down.

In a recent filing in Grand Rapids federal court, the state, among other reasons, said the plate would be offensive to children who amuse themselves by reading plates on passing vehicles.

"And because vehicles often travel in residential neighborhoods, youth may be exposed to license plates from their yards or driveways," said Ann Sherman, an assistant attorney general.
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Eye 1

Sweden: Father bites son's finger off, prisoners escape, rocket injury - New Year's drama


The Local
Wed, 01 Jan 2014 10:56 UTC
new years
© Johan Nilsson/TT Fireworks ring in 2014 at Malmö's Turning Torso.
A man in western Sweden has been arrested on suspicion of biting his son's finger off while in Malmö two prisoners managed to escape a correctional facility on an eventful New Year's Eve for the police.

The authorities had described the countdown to 2014 as initially quiet but as the clocks edged closer towards midnight there were reports of trouble and fires across the country.

In Kristinehamn on Sweden's west coast a 50-year-old man was arrested following a domestic incident in which his adult son's finger was apparently bitten off.

"It was a fight that took place in the home. I don't know what it is that sparked off this incident," Ronny Brattström of the Värmland police told Aftonbladet.
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Blackbox

Colorado marijuana law poses tough questions for Washington lawmakers

Paul Lewis
The Guardian
Tue, 31 Dec 2013 07:48 UTC
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© Brennan Linsley/APThe Medicine Man marijuana dispensary in Denver is to open as a recreational retail outlet at the start of 2014.
Marijuana users lighting up in Colorado on Wednesday, the day on which recreational use of the drug becomes legal in that state, might want to contemplate one pot-related paradox as they do so.

The drug that they will be smoking will have been legally cultivated and sold under state law. And, as far as Colorado is concerned, if they're over 21 they will be able to purchase it lawfully. But by doing so, they will be breaking federal law - namely the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, which makes it illegal for anyone in the US to possess, manufacture or sell the drug.

In other words, Colorado's marijuana recreational users will be law-abiding criminals.

Comment: So while they continue rolling out tobacco bans, the latest trend of which outlaws people smoking in their own vehicles, laws against smoking cannabis/marijuana are being relaxed... given the systematic removal of civil liberties in recent years, does anyone else smell a rat here?

Why are the Powers That Be content for people to smoke one but not the other?

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X

Federal judge dismisses most of remaining Katrina damage lawsuits

Mark Schleifstein
NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
Sat, 27 Dec 2014 05:03 UTC
Hurricane Katrina
© Times-Picayune
A federal judge in New Orleans has dismissed almost all remaining lawsuits against the federal government for damages caused by the failure of levees and floodwalls during Hurricane Katrina, ordering both sides to pay for their own legal expenses.

The clean-up ruling by U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr., filed Dec. 20,marks the end of an unprecedented series of class-action lawsuits aimed at collecting damages from insurance companies or the federal government that could have totaled billions of dollars.

The final ruling was not unexpected. In earlier decisions Duval found the Army Corps of Engineers was immune from damages caused by failures of levees and floodwalls they designed and built, or from failure to maintain the rapidly eroding Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a now-closed shipping channel that helped decimate wetlands east of St. Bernard Parish.

In a ruling in April involving one of those cases, Duval pointed out that he had presided "over this hydra-like 'Katrina Umbrella' litigation for almost eight years. One central theme has been painfully obvious throughout this entire process," he wrote. "Many of the levees protecting New Orleans and the surrounding area were tragically flawed. ...

"However, lamentably, there has been no judicial relief for the hundreds of thousands of people and tens of thousands of businesses impacted," he said. "The Flood Control Act of 1928 as interpreted over the years gives the United States Army Corps of Engineers virtually absolute immunity, no matter how negligent it might have been in designing and overseeing the construction of the levees."
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Question

Mysterious blast in Islamabad causes panic

Munawer Azeem
Source
Thu, 02 Jan 2014 07:53 UTC
A mysterious blast heard near campus of the National Defence University late on Wednesday night created a lot of confusion.

A police team, which reached the site of the blast to seek further information, was told by the naval staff that the explosion was caused by activities during a mock exercise.
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Roses

Civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart granted 'compassionate release' by NY judge

Larry Neumeister
The Republic
Tue, 31 Dec 2013 20:31 UTC
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© UnknownLynne Stewart, suffering from the ravages of evil chemotherapy.
A dying former civil rights lawyer convicted in a terrorism case and sentenced to 10 years in prison was granted compassionate release on Tuesday after prosecutors and the Federal Bureau of Prisons made the recommendation to a judge.

U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl signed the release order after government lawyers filed a letter in Manhattan federal court earlier Tuesday saying 74-year-old Lynne Stewart qualifies for early release because she's suffering from breast cancer that has metastasized to the lungs and bones and has less than 18 months to live.

"The director of the Bureau of Prisons contends, and this court agrees, that the defendant's terminal medical condition and very limited life expectancy constitute extraordinary and compelling reasons that warrant the requested reduction," the judge wrote.

He said Stewart, who has been undergoing treatment at the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, would be released when her medical condition allows for it and travel arraignments can be made.

Stewart's attorney said the news came as a surprise but she could be released as early as Tuesday night and her husband, who had planned to visit her Wednesday, was already en route.

"She's elated," said lawyer Jill Shellow, who spoke with her after the judge's order was signed.

Comment: Lynne Stewart has spent her life defending the poor and battling for civil liberties and human rights. More on her witch-hunt here:
The Persecution of Lynne Stewart
Lynne Stewart's savage jail torment further proof of U.S. totalitarian state
The fascinating case of Lynne Stewart

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Arrow Down

Cleveland celebrates New Year's Eve with full body patdowns on the public square


Police State USA
Wed, 01 Jan 2014 20:21 UTC
Cleveland Public Square
© Mark Horning/CBS ClevelandCleveland Public Square.
Ohio - City officials invited residents to bring in the new year in a hyper-controlled gathering in Cleveland's Public Square. People were told that for visiting the square they would be subjected to a "full inspection of your person" and "a complete pat down."

Checkpoints were conducted to detect a list of prohibited items so long that would make a prison guard blush.

Cleveland New Year Party
© Joshua Gunter/The Plain DealerCleveland party-goers.
During the pat downs, party-goers would be searched for things like tampons, eye drops, food, candy, beverages, flashlights, and pacifiers.

Purses and diaper bags were prohibited, as were chairs and blankets.

The list of prohibitions went on: no stuffed animals, no cameras, no coolers, no balls, no frisbees, no dolls, no stickers, no fliers, and of course, no legal means of self-defense.

"It's going to be a safe event," said Harold Pretel, Commander of Homeland Services.

Despite the 20-degree chill, the attendance was expected to be the biggest in 15 years. All 4 'squares' of Public Square were filled with people.
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