Society's ChildS


Bizarro Earth

Zama City spill: Wastewater leak the largest in recent history


The Huffington Post
Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:33 UTC
Zama City toxic wastewater spill,
© GettyThe Zama City toxic wastewater spill, at over 9.5 million litres, is the biggest of its kind in North America in recent history.
The wastewater spill near Zama City, Alberta, at 9.5 million litres, is North America's biggest in recent history.

The spill, first spotted June 1, has leaked oil, water and other chemicals out of Apache's wastewater pipeline, and is the third major spill in the area, The Globe and Mail reports.

The leak happened less than 100 kilometres from the Northwest Territories border, and 20 kilometres from Zama City, and has affected more than 42 hectares - about the size of 52 CFL fields.

The spill is Alberta's tenth largest "produced water" spill since 1975, Global News reported.

In that time, Apache has been responsible for 949 spills - 517 of which have been produced water spills.
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Bad Guys

Insanity! Helicopter snipers frighten Texan neighbors just for fun and adventure

Heather Manes
Opposing Views
Tue, 11 Jun 2013 00:00 UTC
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Helicopter Sniper Adventure in rural Texas offers gun hobbyists a real-world video game experience, including the chance to shoot at targets while hanging from a helicopter.

Though the customers might be pleased with the adventure, neighbors in the rural Texas town are less than pleased and are growing increasingly worried about stray bullets from overly enthusiastic adventure-goers shooting into their homes.

"The first time they were hovering right over our two acres, shooting at whatever," Denton County, North Texas resident, Michael Lauer, told WFAA. Lauer is one of many homeowners in the area concerned about the dangers the local business poses.

"You really didn't know - were they shooting at me?" Lauer said. "You just know, someday, one of them is going to hit the house or do something."

Helicopter Sniper Adventure offers customers the chance to ride in a helicopter over land and water, all the while shooting at various targets and trying to earn as many points as possible for positive hits. The adventure costs $795 per person, and each participant is given 500 rounds to shoot along the course.
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Bizarro Earth

Another chemical plant explosion in Louisiana!


RT.com
Fri, 14 Jun 2013 20:27 UTC
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A chemical plant has exploded in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, less than two days after a deadly blast in the nearby town of Geismar. At least one person was killed Friday evening, and some eight injured.

Sheriff Jeff Wiley told The Baton Rougue Advocate that an 18-wheeler truck was being loaded with product at CF industries when it exploded. CF Industries is the largest producer of nitrogen in North America, shipping out 5 million tons of the combustible chemical for agricultural and industrial use annually.

At least eight victims were transported from the site of the blast, Wiley said, adding that emergency responders were still on the scene.

On Thursday the Williams Olefins plant in Geismar, Louisiana exploded, killing two people and sending 73 others to hospital. Eight remain in treatment 24 hours later.

CF Industries also produces phosphorous and nitrogen, according to the company's website. The plant stands at the foot of Sunshine Bridge, which was immediately closed following the blast.

Comment: Fire started by an explosion causes multiple injuries at Louisiana chemical plant

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Eye 1

Eyeball-licking fetish leads to pink eye infections

Michael Harper
RedOrbit
Fri, 14 Jun 2013 16:05 UTC
Eyeball Licking
© vita khorzhevska/Shutterstock
Teenagers from every generation will always find a way to behave in a way that completely confounds adults from generations prior. Flagpole sitting, music festivals, planking and others have been curious yet mostly safe ways for kids to act out. Yet there are other dangerous trends out there that teenagers pick up that are more than confusing - many of which can be frightening and dangerous.

A new story this week describes one such trend called "Oculolinctus," or eye-ball licking, which has become all the rage in Japan. Website Naver Matome (translated by Japan Crush) first pointed out this trend earlier this week, as one sixth grade teacher from Japan accidentally discovered why many of his students were showing up to class with eye patches.

The teacher, known only as "Mr. Y," said the faculty at the school wasn't too worried when several students began showing up to class with styes, eye infections and eye patches. When the staff asked some of these students individually why they were wearing these patches or how they had gotten the infections, they indicated that it wasn't a big deal. However, once 10 students from the same class showed up wearing eye patches, the staff demanded answers.

Mr. Y tells the story of how he accidentally stumbled upon the eye-licking kids:

"After class one day, I went into the equipment store in the gymnasium to tidy up. The door had been left open, and when I looked inside, a male pupil and a female pupil had their faces close together and were kind of fumbling around," writes Mr. Y in his account of his experience with oculolinctus.
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Dollars

Termites eat through $65,000 worth of Chinese woman's savings

Lee Moran
New York Daily News
Fri, 14 Jun 2013 11:50 UTC
Termites
© chinapic.people.com.cnTermites feasted on a Chines woman’s cash reserves of 400,000 yuan ($65,000). So far only about $55,000 of it has been able to be verified by bank officials.
A Chinese lady is counting the cost of not keeping her cash in the bank - after termites ate through $65,000 of her savings.

The craving critters devoured 400,000 yuan - gifted from her children six months before - that she'd wrapped in a plastic bag and hidden in a wooden drawer. It was only in April, upon retreiving cash to pay a house decorator, that she saw that the tiny beasts had raided her stash.

People's Daily reports she took the money to an Agricultural Bank of China branch in Guangdong Province. Staff spent several painstaking hours scanning and verifying the bank notes, which had been nibbled and then stuck together by the termites' mucus.

They managed to verify some 340,000 yuan ($55,454). But some 60,000 yuan ($9,786) was lost. Those notes have now been sent off to a People's Bank of China branch to be inspected.
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Attention

Plane crashes into airport hangar - Video


The Telegraph, UK
Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:36 UTC
A plane has crashed into an airport hangar during a mechanical test in Chino, California. Three workers were onboard but were not injured.


A small passenger jet with three people on board has struck a hangar while taxiing at an airport in California.

Authorities in Chino said nobody was hurt in the incident, which is under investigation.

A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said the pilot apparently lost control during an engine test at the Encore Jet Centre.

Local media reported that mechanics were checking the engine and that the plane's tyres were on chocks.

For an unknown reason, the jet came off the chocks, and it crashed into a hangar.

Firefighters shut off electricity because of a concern of leaking fuel, but no leak was confirmed.

Four adjacent hangars and businesses within those hangars were evacuated.
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Pistol

Smith & Wesson gun sales hit an all-time high in year after mass shootings

Dominic Rushe
The Guardian
Fri, 14 Jun 2013 12:57 UTC
At six-month anniversary of Newtown shooting, guns manufacturer reports its sales are up 43% over last year
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© Shawn Thew/EPANancy Pelosi meets with family members of Newtown victims as they visit Capitol Hill on Friday, the six-month anniversary of the shooting.

Gun sales at Smith & Wesson have hit an all-time high during a year marked by some of the most horrific acts of gun violence in US history.

The arms manufacturer reported this week that sales for the year ending 30 April had hit a record $588m, a 43% year-on-year rise.

Smith & Wesson said fourth-quarter sales were up 38% year-on-year to $179m. It told investors it expects its first-quarter financial results to top market expectations and is planning to buy back $100m of its shares.

US gun sales are hard to track, but one of the most reliable figures comes from the number of requests for background checks, an FBI-required precursor to obtaining a gun licence.

Nine of the 10 days with the most daily requests for background checks ever recorded occurred after December's massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school. The week after set a new record for background checks. CBS Connecticut reported that permit applications in Newtown itself more than doubled in the three months following the killings.

Retailers also reported a spike in gun sales after James Holmes shot dead 12 people and injured 58 at a screening of the Dark Knight Rises in a Colorado cinema in July. Sales soared again after Barack Obama's re-election in November as buyers feared a clampdown on sales, especially on assault weapons.
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Eye 1

Barbaric parents who water-boarded their four children and tortured them with whips and iron bars are jailed for ten years in Belgium

Ian Sparks
The Daily Mail, UK
Fri, 14 Jun 2013 12:19 UTC
Sebastien Hardenne and Isabelle Simon kept their children in a locked room

Three girls and a boy were 'fed' excrement-smeared food through a hole

Father urinated in the children's mouths and beat them with an iron bar

Two girls locked in suitcase smeared with dog excrement and swung around

Hardenne and Simon jailed for ten years for 'inflicting inhuman treatment'

A barbaric couple who 'water-boarded' their four children during a decade of captivity and extreme abuse have been jailed for ten years in Belgium.

Parents Sebastien Hardenne and Isabelle Simon kept their three girls and a boy in a locked room at night and 'fed' them excrement-smeared food through a hole in the wall.

The father urinated in the children's mouths, beat them with an iron bar and whips and tortured them with an electric fly swatter.

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Barbaric: A couple who 'water-boarded' their four children during ten years of captivity and extreme abuse have been jailed for ten years in Belgium. The children are now being looked after in Namur, pictured
Two girls were also locked in a suitcase smeared with dog excrement and swung around a room.

Sadistic Hardenne also performed 'water-boarding' torture similar to that allegedly used at America's Guantanamo Bay prison, the court in Marche-en-Famenne was told.

Social services in the town of Biron were alerted by the children's school in 2003 that they were dirty and undernourished, but they were only taken into care once in a decade for two months before being returned to their parents.

The parents were finally arrested earlier this year after an anonymous tip-off to the authorities.
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Blackbox

More exploding houses? Westminster, Colorado house explosion linked to natural gas

Kieran Nicholson
The Denver Post
Fri, 14 Jun 2013 10:58 UTC
Monique Gallegos was inside her Westminster home Thursday when a nearby explosion staggered her. Windows blew out, a ceiling fan was dislodged, crashing into the dining room, and a framed photo or art piece flew off the wall and smashed Gallegos in the back.

"I thought a plane had crashed, or it was a bomb, a terrorist," Gallegos recalled as she waited Thursday afternoon to get the OK to return to her home in the 9200 block of Ingalls Street.
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© Andy Cross, The Denver PostA natural gas explosion in Westminster destroyed four houses June 13, 2013.
Gallegos quickly got her mother, Arleen Gallegos, 70, out of the house, and along with other neighbors, they watched, stunned, as debris, materials from homes - pieces of rooftop shingles, splintered siding, insulation - continued to land in the street.11:35 a.m. a home on the 9300 block of Ingalls Street exploded, reduced to a pile of rubble and making the cul-de-sac it occupied look like part of a war zone. A second home also sustained heavy damage and several surrounding homes, like Gallegos', were damaged, as well.

Westminster firefighter Courtney VanMarter was among the first on the scene. She encountered a house that had been leveled, with lots of debris and blown out windows. She described the scene as reminiscent of a tornado.

"Truly there is not a whole let left in this house," VanMarter said. "It's quite shocking."

Additional Images
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Piggy Bank

Wage cuts for UK workers leading to destitution, hardship and hunger on a large scale


RT.com
Wed, 12 Jun 2013 10:25 UTC
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© AFP Striking public sector workers march in protest through central London
The UK has been going through its deepest recession since World War II, a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies claims. Workers experienced unprecedented pay cuts of 6 per cent over the last five years since the Global Financial Crisis began in 2008.

Between 2010 and 2011, 70 per cent of employees who stayed in the same job fronted real wage cuts, while a third of those workers faced nominal wage freezes or cuts (12 per cent experienced freezes and 21 per cent experienced cuts).

The last time that such a high proportion of workers faced real wage cuts was between 1976 and 1977, when inflation exceeded 15 per cent. The proportions of nominal wage freezes and cuts are said to be the highest since the series of wage cuts began in the mid-1970s, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies latest report.

The period since the recession began in 2008 has seen the longest and deepest loss of output in a century. Real wages have fallen by more than in any comparable five-year period; productivity levels have dropped to an unprecedented degree, the British think tank revealed.
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