Society's ChildS


Crusader

US: Antiabortion Movement Hoping for Electoral Victory in Mississippi

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An antiabortion movement that is gaining momentum nationwide is hoping for its first electoral victory Tuesday, when Mississippi voters will decide whether to designate a fertilized egg as a person and potentially label its destruction an act of murder.

If approved, the nation's first "personhood" amendment could criminalize abortion and limit in-vitro fertilization and some forms of birth control. It also would give a jolt of energy to a national movement that views mainstream antiabortion activists as timid and complacent.

"They've just taken an incremental approach," said Les Riley, the founder of Personhood Mississippi and father of 10 who initiated the state's effort. "We're just going to the heart of the matter, which is: Is this a person or not? God says it is, and science has confirmed it."

"Life-at-conception" ballot initiatives in other parts of the country, including Colorado last year, have failed amid concerns about their far-reaching, and in some cases unforeseeable, implications.

But proponents of the amendment - who were inspired partly by the tea party movement - say they are more confident of victory in Mississippi, a Bible Belt state where antiabortion sentiment runs high and the laws governing the procedure are so strict that just one clinic provides abortions.

Bomb

At least 67 people dead in bombings, shootings in northeast Nigeria claimed by sect

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At least 67 people died in a wave of bombings and shootings carried out in northeast Nigeria overnight, officials said Saturday, as frightened mourners left their homes to begin burying their dead.

A radical Muslim sect known locally as Boko Haram claimed responsibility Saturday for the attacks, which represent the most co-ordinated and wide-ranging assault yet in their increasingly bloody sectarian fight with Nigeria's weak central government. The sect, which wants the strict implementation of Shariah law across the nation of more than 160 million people, promised to carry out more attacks.

The fighting centred around Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state, Nigerian Red Cross official Ibrahim Bulama said. The attack started Friday with a car bomb exploding outside a three-story building used as a military office and barracks in the city, with many uniformed security agents dying in the blast, Bulama said.

Gunmen then went through the town, blowing up a First Bank PLC branch and attacking at least three police stations and some churches, leaving them in rubble, he said. Gunfire continued through the night and gunmen raided the village of Potiskum near the capital as well, witnesses said, leaving at least two people dead there.

On Saturday morning, people began hesitantly leaving their homes, seeing the destruction left behind, including military and police vehicles burned by the gunmen, with the burned corpses of the drivers who died in their seats.

Butterfly

US: Former CBS News Commentator Andy Rooney dies

Andy Rooney
Andy Rooney, the curmudgeonly commentator who pondered everything from shoelaces to the existence of God on CBS's 60 Minutes news show for more than 30 years, died on Friday night at the age of 92, CBS said.

Rooney, a four-time Emmy winner, died one month after he had signed off from 60 Minutes in October, concluding a 33-year run. A statement on CBS News' website said he died in a New York hospital of complications following minor surgery.

Rooney was a fixture on Sunday night television, closing out the 60 Minutes broadcast with a short rant in his "A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney" segment. Sitting in his cluttered office at a desk he made himself, Rooney delivered more than 1,000 such essays, holding hold forth on a range of topics of varying degrees of relevance.

Gear

100,000+ Occupy Oakland, Not 7,000 as Government Reports

Oakland's Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan (a capable and politically smart leader in a tough position) got the Occupy Oakland General Strike crowd count massively wrong: it's not 7,000, but 100,000.

This blogger has been in Oakland since 1974. The largest crowd at Frank Ogama Plaza was for a speech by then-Senator, now President Barack Obama in 2007, and for which was estimated at 18,000. Barack filled the space with people.

The Occupy Oakland General Strike had that many people in the plaza for most of the day, while two huge crowds were outside of it: one marching down Broadway, the other a set of people walking around various parts of downtown Oakland with protest signs.



You can't take a snapshot of an event like this, because of its time length; you have to think of it as a dynamic. In amy population there are births, deaths, in-migration, and out-migration. For the Occupy Oakland General Strike, there were no births, thankfully no deaths, but a lot of in-migration and out-migration.

What was so amazing about the size of the crowd both inside the plaza and just outside of it, then marching to the Port of Oakland, was that it did not decrease in size; it increased. And that was with some people leaving it, and others coming in from BART and from around Oakland via foot or other parts of the Bay by car.

Attention

Scotland: Teachers Will Stage First Nationwide Strike in 25 years

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© ScotsmanFlashback to 1986: teachers' last nationwide strike.
Teachers across Scotland will take part in a nationwide strike for the first time in 25 years, joining millions of public-sector workers across the UK in a protest against pension reform.

The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), Scotland's biggest teaching union, said its members had voted overwhelmingly in favour of joining a UK-wide day of action on 30 November.

The vote means Scottish teachers will take part in a national walk-out for the first time since 1986 and the industrial unrest of the Thatcher government.

The EIS said its members' patience had been exhausted following a "wide-ranging attack" on pay, pensions and education budgets.

Arrow Down

US: Most of the Unemployed No Longer Receive Benefits

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© AP Photo/Paul SancyaA job applicant receives advice on his resume while attending a job fair in Southfield, Mich. Nearly all states provide up to 26 weeks of unemployment benefits.
The jobs crisis has left so many people out of work for so long that most of America's unemployed are no longer receiving unemployment benefits.

Early last year, 75 percent were receiving checks. The figure is now 48 percent - a shift that points to a growing crisis of long-term unemployment. Nearly one-third of America's 14 million unemployed have had no job for a year or more.

Congress is expected to decide by year's end whether to continue providing emergency unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks in the hardest-hit states. If the emergency benefits expire, the proportion of the unemployed receiving aid would fall further.

The ranks of the poor would also rise. The Census Bureau says unemployment benefits kept 3.2 million people from slipping into poverty last year. It defines poverty as annual income below $22,314 for a family of four.

Yet for a growing share of the unemployed, a vote in Congress to extend the benefits to 99 weeks is irrelevant. They've had no job for more than 99 weeks. They're no longer eligible for benefits.

Their options include food stamps or other social programs. Nearly 46 million people received food stamps in August, a record total. That figure could grow as more people lose unemployment benefits.

So could the government's disability rolls. Applications for the disability insurance program have jumped about 50 percent since 2007.

"There's going to be increased hardship," said Wayne Vroman, an economist at the Urban Institute.

Light Saber

US: More Small Businesses Are Pulling Their Accounts Out Of Big Banks

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© APBurn rate: More and more small businesses are switching to small banks.

Even in a tight credit market, David Meinert didn't think he'd have a problem getting funding from his bank. He was a model entrepreneur, with good credit and a profitable business earning $2 million in revenue. But when he applied for a relatively small $50,000 line of credit from Chase in late 2010, he got denied in 12 hours, with no explanation. "It was insulting and made no sense, even to the banker. And there was no one to even talk to about it," Meinert says. "It's frustrating that banks are getting billions of dollars in taxpayers' money and they're sitting on that money and not lending it to small businesses. If you're making less than $10 million, they don't care about you."

Meinert decided to turn his frustration into action. After 12 years with Bank of America and a year with Chase, he's switching all his business accounts to Seattle Bank. Like many small-business owners, he initially joined the big banks for no particular reason other than that they were conveniently located. Bank of America was the closest bank to his office and Chase was the closest bank to his office that wasn't Bank of America. He spent years enduring all the subsequent irritations -- outdated online banking systems, the revolving door of bank employees, increasing fees, a sense that he was more a number than a name -- with little more than an eye roll. But the credit line denial was a breaking point.

The practical incentives were compounded by his philosophical objections. "Occupy Wall Street and Bank Transfer Day really put a highlight on national issues for me," Meinert says. "So it's not just a practical business decision, but also a societal, political decision. I don't want to do business with companies that are risking people's money in a way that can harm our whole country. And the damage that the big banks and so-called Wall Street have done to our economy and our country -- it's a real thing for me. I see it. The people it's damaging are my customers and my peers. Purely as a businessman, I see the destruction of the middle class and the inequality that's being caused in our society as bad for business. But also as a human, outside of being a businessman, I see the damage it does to humans. I realized I needed to be out of that system as much as I can be."

Vader

CPS Seizes Baby From 'Occupy Dallas' Site

A homeless family living at the 'Occupy Dallas' camp said that they will find a new place to stay in order to keep their baby. CBS 11 News was on the scene as officers with the Dallas Police Department and Child Protective Services took custody of the 9-month-old boy on Thursday afternoon.


Brian and Cathy Carpich said that they met with CPS and were told that the camp was, in their words, an unhealthy living environment. The couple cannot get their boy, Zachariah, back until their living situation improves.

There were plenty of tears coming from the family after they returned from a meeting with a woman who they called their CPS caseworker. "It's not against the law," pleaded Brian Carpich. "We've not broken any laws."

Dollar

US: Bank Dumping Days Begin!

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© Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

New York -- Customers are dumping their banks in droves ahead of the nationwide "Move Your Money" and "Bank Transfer Day" movements this Saturday.

Given the recent spotlight on attempts -- and ultimate failures -- by some of the nation's biggest banks to tack on new debit card fees, thousands of disgruntled consumers have already either left or pledged to leave their current bank for a community bank or credit union, which are known for having fewer and/or lower bank account fees.

At least 650,000 consumers have already joined credit unions since Sept. 29, the day Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) announced plans to impose its controversial $5 debit card fee, according to a nationwide survey of credit unions by the Credit Union National Association.

Megaphone

US: New York, Sott Exclusive: Freezing OWS Protester says "Bring It On!"

Just prior to the big Snowstorm at the end of October 2011, the NYPD infiltrated the Occupy Wall Street movement on Liberty Plaza to find out where all the power generators were located, in order to remove them by raid.

All generators, including inflammable, environmentally safe bio-fuel generators were confiscated just before the snow storm hit.

An unconscionable action on the part of the NYPD. But they didn't plan on the creativity of the movement: