Society's ChildS


Pistol

US: Food Dispute Led to Ohio Murder-Suicide

Kantele Franko
The Associated Press
Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© Hocking County Sheriff's Office/The Associated PressPaul Gilkey (top left) shot and killed sister-in-laws Dorothy Cherry (top right) and Barbara Mohler (bottom right) and his son Leroy Gilkey (bottom left) before killing himself, the sheriff says.
A dispute over whether a terminally ill woman should have been given tea and toast or an orange apparently upset her husband so much that he shot and killed two of her sisters and his son before killing himself, a sheriff said Tuesday.

The sick woman, 59-year-old Darlene Gilkey, who's dying of cancer, witnessed the shootings from a hospital bed in her living room but was uninjured, Hocking County Sheriff Lanny North said.

The woman's son, Ralph Sowers III, told a 911 dispatcher he survived when his stepfather, Paul Gilkey, said he was sparing him because he had kids. Sowers said his stepfather repeatedly warned him to get out of the way before putting the gun above his head and shooting his brother, who was hiding behind him.

After the shootings Monday, Paul Gilkey, 63, stepped out onto his front porch, sat down in a chair and shot himself to death, the sheriff said.

Killed inside the home were Darlene Gilkey's sisters, Barbara Mohler, 70, of New Straitsville, and Dorothy Cherry, 63, of New Plymouth. Also killed was Paul Gilkey's son, Leroy Gilkey, 38, of Columbus.
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Pistol

Thieves Pile Rocks into Containers to Hide Theft from Canadian Forces Containers


The Canadian Press
Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© The Associated Press//Rafiq MaqboolIn this Saturday, July 16, 2011 file photo Canadians soldiers load baggage on the back of a truck at Kandahar airbase in Afghanistan. Canada withdrew 2,850 combat forces from Afghanistan this summer
A new report says Canadian military equipment has been stolen from containers being shipped back from Afghanistan and replaced by sand and rocks to mask the larceny.

CBC News says the elaborate theft of Canadian Forces materiel was discovered when the shipping containers were opened in Montreal.

The Department of National Defence is confirming that various military hardware and gear is missing while insisting that none of the breached containers were carrying weapons, munitions or uniforms.

A full investigation into the theft is underway.

Montreal company A.J. Maritime is responsible for shipping goods back to Canada following the shutdown of the Canadian base in Kandahar last November.
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Cookie

British Celebrity Chef Apologizes After Being Caught Shoplifting Food

Gregory Katz
The Associated Press
Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC
Antony Worrall Thompson
© unknownAntony Worrall Thompson
A celebrity chef apologized on his website Monday after he was caught shoplifting from a supermarket.

Antony Worrall Thompson was arrested Friday after reportedly stealing cheese and wine from a Tesco store in the posh riverside town of Henley-on-Thames, west of London.

A Thames Valley Police spokesman who asked not to be identified because of force policy said there had been five separate offences over the Christmas holidays, leading to an arrest Friday.

In a statement on his website, the 60-year-old Worrall Thompson, who has appeared on daytime cookery show Ready Steady Cook, said he was sorry for his misdeeds.
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Question

US, California: What's in That OJ? Tropicana is Sued

Jonathan Stempel
Reuters
Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC
Tropicana
© unknown
A California woman is suing the maker of Tropicana claiming it is squeezing consumers by touting the best-selling U.S. orange juice as "100% pure and natural" when it is not.

In her federal lawsuit, plaintiff Angelena Lewis said Tropicana Products Inc, knowing consumers "want and demand natural products," deceives them in its advertising and packaging for its Pure Premium juice, including cartons featuring an orange with a straw stuck into it.

Lewis said the unit of PepsiCo Inc actually puts the juice through extensive processing, adding aromas and flavors that change its "essential nature" and give it a longer shelf life.

This deception lets Tropicana charge more than rivals and helps fuel more than $5 billion of annual sales worldwide, according to Lewis, who lives in Vacaville, about 55 miles northeast of San Francisco.

"While Tropicana claims that 'making Tropicana orange juice is truly an art' it is far more a science," said the complaint filed on Friday in Sacramento, California. "The resulting product does not taste like fresh squeezed orange juice."
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Bizarro Earth

Hundreds Threaten Suicide At Microsoft Supplier Plant In China


CBS Seattle
Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:21 UTC
A Chinese worker
© STR/AFP/Getty ImagesA Chinese worker is seen walking through the dormitory area of a Foxconn factory in an industrial district of Foshan City, southern China’s Guangdong province on June 17, 2010.
Some 300 Chinese Foxconn employees who manufacture X-box 360 machines said they would throw themselves from their Wuhan, China, plant if demands for lost wages were not met.

China Jasmine Revolution, an activist revolutionary organization with a name borrowed from the Tunisian revolt that set off the Middle East unrest, reported that employees made their demands for a wage increase for 100 employees on Jan. 2.

Management at Foxconn - the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer and a crucial link in the supply chains of Apple, Dell, Nintendo and Song - responded with an ultimatum. Employees could quit with one month's compensation awarded for each year with the plant or go back to working.

Many employees quit, but Foxconn allegedly dishonored the agreement and awarded former employees nothing.

Around 300 workers returned to the plant in an uproar, and staged their protest on the plant's roof on Jan. 3.
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Clock

Best of the Web: Ready for Doomsday: Families Convinced Ancient Calendar Predicts the World Will End in 2012

Tom Leonard
The Telegraph, UK
Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:27 UTC
Aztec Mayan calendar
© AlamyThe end? The Aztec Mayan calendar
Deep inside a secret room buried for eons within an ancient stone temple in Mexico, something dark and terrible has finally stirred.

Or so the doomsayers, with their vivid imaginations, would have you believe.

The sands of time are running out for the world and not even Indiana Jones can save us now.

The astrological alignments and numerological formulae cannot be wrong: on December 21 this year, the apocalypse foretold 5,125 years ago by the ancient Mayans will come to pass and the world will end.

Of course, it's fair to say predictions of Armageddon are two a penny.

Harold Camping, an American radio preacher, got thousands of followers worked up when he predicted the Second Coming of Jesus Christ on May 21 last year.

When that didn't happen, he said the world would end on October 21. And then he quietly retired from his radio show.

But the '2012 phenomenon' - as it is commonly known to its legions of internet followers - is different.

Comment: If more of these people who are worrying about the end of the world would give their attention, time and energy to current events, we wouldn't be facing the End of the World as we know it in political terms. But the same New Agers that are pushing this 2012 nonsense are also keeping people inactive with the "you create your own reality by what you think about" crap. They are aided and abetted by the Fundies who think Jesus will come and haul their buns out of the fire so they don't have to do anything either except maybe help the violence along by agitating for Armageddon. Meanwhile, the PTB are moving ahead with their plans for Total Domination and enslavement of humanity in social/political terms. So, yeah, the world we know is ending, but nobody's gonna ascend or go to heaven like they hope and believe and when the trap slams shut, they'll have no one but themselves to blame for being stupid and credulous.

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Info

Best of the Web: Imminent Destruction? Doomsday Clock Moved 1 Minute Closer to Midnight

Stephanie Pappas
Live Science
Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:07 UTC
Doomsday Clock
© T.W., ShutterstockThe Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has reset the "Doomsday Clock" to 5 minutes before midnight, a minute closer to humanity's imminent destruction, symbolized by "midnight," than last year.

In a sign of pessimism about humanity's future, scientists today set the hands of the infamous "Doomsday Clock" forward one minute from two years ago.

"It is now five minutes to midnight," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) director Kennette Benedict announced today (Jan. 10) at a press conference in Washington, D.C.

That represents a symbolic step closer to doomsday, a change from the clock's previous mark of six minutes to midnight, set in January 2010.

The clock is a symbol of the threat of humanity's imminent destruction from nuclear or biological weapons, climate change and other human-caused disasters. In making their deliberations about how to update the clock's time, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists focused on the current state of nuclear arsenals around the globe, disastrous events such as the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, and biosecurity issues such as the creation of an airborne H5N1 flu strain.

The Doomsday Clock came into being in 1947 as a way for atomic scientists to warn the world of the dangers of nuclear weapons. That year, the Bulletin set the time at seven minutes to midnight, with midnight symbolizing humanity's destruction. By 1949, it was at three minutes to midnight as the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union deteriorated. In 1953, after the first test of the hydrogen bomb, the doomsday clock ticked to two minutes until midnight.

Comment: No mention of the fact that it is corrupt science that has gotten us into this mess.

The past 100 years have witnessed an explosion in knowledge of hundreds - if not thousands - of new subjects, leading to such complexity that it requires an army of specialized scientists and research budgets equal to the national budgets of some countries. Ordinary people, no matter how well-educated, have been left behind, unable to engage the impenetrable cloud of complicated ideas that are intelligible only in parts, and only to the "right experts." If we lived in a world where things were going well, where hunger and resource disparity were not so great, perhaps this wouldn't matter. But we live in a world where the technology developed by so-called scientific progress impacts us every day in our ordinary lives. There are concerns about the toxicity of our food sources, manipulated by genetic engineering. There are concerns about the genetic manipulation of human reproduction. There are concerns about the increasing dominance of the pharmaceutical industry on health. There are concerns about the sociological implications of behavior control via a global dominating mass media. There are concerns that science is in bed with power and is being used to the detriment of humanity at large. And the obvious consequence of these perceptions among the masses of ordinary people is an anti-Science backlash. This reaction is directed not just at governments and multi-national companies that employ the scientists, but against the scientists and Science, itself.

Scientists are generally reluctant to come forward and talk about this; it's as bad for the career as investigating a non-material Cosmos. So, when scientists don't band together and really police their profession and interface with the people they are supposed to be serving, the public is left to the mercies of tabloid hysteria.

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Nuke

Venezuela's Chavez, Iran's Ahmadinejad joke about big atomic bomb


MSNBC
Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:20 UTC
Both leaders dismiss U.S. concerns about Iran's growing ties with Latin America
Image
© Venezuelan presidency/EPAVenezuelan President Hugo Chavez, left, greets Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, on Monday.

Caracas, Venezuela - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez lavished praise on each other on Monday, mocked U.S. disapproval and joked about having an atomic bomb at their disposal.

The fiery anti-U.S. ideologues have forged increasingly close ties between their fellow OPEC nations in recent years, although concrete projects have often lagged behind the rhetoric.

Both leaders dismissed U.S. concerns about Iran's intentions in the Middle East and its growing diplomatic links with Chavez and his allies in Latin America.

"They accuse us of being warmongers," Chavez said during a joint press conference. "They're the threat."

As he often does, the theatrical and provocative Chavez stuck his finger right into the global political sore spot, joking that a bomb was ready under a grassy knoll in front of his Miraflores palace steps.

"That hill will open up and a big atomic bomb will come out," he said, the two men laughing together.

Comment: There is an American Policy to create war with Middle Eastern Nations. It is the opposite of reality.

US: Panetta admits Iran not developing nukes

Western media, and those behind it, are the ones creating hatred, racism, managing perception and causing Middle Eastern and African wars.

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Heart - Black

Iraq: A Country in Shambles

Dahr Jamail
Al Jazeera
Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:05 UTC
Sadr City, Bahgdad
© Dahr Jamail/Al JazeeraIn Sadr City, Bahgdad, the streets are cracked, filled with potholes, and strewn with refuse.
Baghdad, Iraq - As a daily drumbeat of violence continues to reverberate across Iraq, people here continue to struggle to find some sense of normality, a task made increasingly difficult due to ongoing violence and the lack of both water and electricity.

During the build-up to the US-led invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration promised the war would bring Iraqis a better life, and vast improvements in their infrastructure, which had been severely debilitated by nearly 13 years of strangling economic sanctions.

More jobs, improved water availability, more reliable electricity supplies, and major rehabilitation of the medical infrastructure were promised.

But now that the US military has ended its formal military occupation of Iraq, nearly eight years of war has left the promises as little more than a mirage.

Ongoing water shortages

Hashim Hassan is the Deputy Director of the Baghdad Water Authority (BWA), and he admits to an ongoing shortage of clean drinking water for Baghdad's seven million residents.
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People

The Gaza Music School: A Composition in Defiance and Harmony

Donald MacIntrye
The Independent
Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:38 UTC
Children hone their skills at the Gaza Music School
© Saleh Jadallah Children hone their skills at the Gaza Music School, watched by staff.
It was damaged by an Israeli bomb - but the Gaza Music School is quickly becoming a symbol of resilience.

It is late afternoon and in a room darkening by the minute because of an all-too-familiar power cut, Shaden Shabwan, just 10 and a study in concentration, plays a Czech folk tune on an upright Yamaha piano as her teacher wills her to avoid mistakes. It is test day for piano students at the Gaza Music School, where Shaden is in her second year. Across the corridor, her classmate Abdel Aziz Sharek, also 10, is just as focused. Accompanied on ouds and tabla, he dexterously picks out a mesmerising classical longa on the qanun, the zither-like instrument that has been central to Arab music for a millennium or more. Abdel Aziz takes his regular studies as seriously as he evidently does the music. "I want to be a doctor," he explains. "But I will keep playing. I will be in a band at the same time."

Back in the piano room, Sara Akel plays two études by the Austrian composer Carl Czerny and a Bach Polonaise, with such confidence that you would never guess, if you shut your eyes, that she was only 12. Sara prefers music to academic subjects at school. "I really love it here," she says. "The teachers are so nice and talented. I'm really looking to be a professional musician." In Gaza? "Why not?"

It's a fair question. This centre of artistic excellence may conflict with Gaza's popular image. But it is already nurturing a young musical generation worthy of its peers elsewhere. Each of the 52 boys and 73 girls come three times a week after school for two sessions of learning an instrument and one for theory. While many have never touched a musical instrument before, they have all passed competitive tests of ear and rhythm to get in.
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