Society's ChildS


Cut

Americans Just Took a Pay Cut As Inflation Outpaces Wages

John Melloy
CNBC
Fri, 01 Apr 2011 16:17 UTC
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You may not have noticed it when you opened up your paycheck last month, but you just took a pay cut.

Wages in America are flattening as inflation surges, therefore real income growth is actually negative, according to the latest data from the Labor Department.

Average hourly earnings in March were flat compared to the previous month for the second time in a row. On an annual basis, income increased by just 1.7 percent.

Meanwhile, consumer price index data released two weeks from now could show a jump in prices of as much as 2.6 percent year-over-year, according to an estimate from the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.

"Higher gas and food prices are being reflected in headline inflation and we have seen the end of growth in real earnings for some time," said Ellen Beeson Zentner, Senior U.S. Macro Economist at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, in a note after the report release.
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Bizarro Earth

The Japan Nuclear Crisis And The Environment


Save The Environment
Sat, 09 Apr 2011 15:57 UTC
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What in the world is going on over in Japan? The Japan nuclear crisis seems to get worse with each passing day. Right now environmental activists all over the world are beginning to have grave concerns about the lasting damage to the environment that is going to be caused by all of this radiation. Sadly, this crisis has already become worse than Chernobyl. Chernobyl was a nightmare, but it only burned for 10 days. The authorities in Japan are telling us that the nuclear crisis at Fukushima could go on for "weeks" or "months". There is no telling just how many millions of people will have serious health problems as a result of all this. Meanwhile, many environmentalists are seriously proposing that we should build more nuclear plants as a way to "save the environment". It is as if people simply cannot learn.

Now the Japanese authorities are telling us that 11,500 tons of "moderately radioactive" water is going to be purposely released into the Pacific Ocean.

Are they nuts?

Have they completely lost their minds?
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Arrow Down

The Japanese Economy Is In Much Bigger Trouble Than Most People Think


The Economic Collapse
Wed, 06 Apr 2011 15:49 UTC
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Now that nearly a month has gone by since the horrific tsunami in Japan on March 11th, it is starting to become clear just how much economic damage has been done. The truth is that the Japanese economy is in much bigger trouble than most people think. This is almost certainly going to be the most expensive disaster in Japanese history. The tsunami that struck Japan on March 11th swept up to 6 miles inland, destroying virtually everything in the way. Thousands upon thousands of Japanese were killed and entire cities were wiped off the map. Yes, Japan is a resilient nation, but exactly how does a nation that is already drowning in debt replace dozens of cities and towns that are suddenly gone? The truth is that thousands of square miles have been more completely destroyed than if they had been bombed by a foreign military force. The loss of homes, cars, businesses and personal wealth is almost unimaginable. It is going to take many years to rebuild the roads, bridges, rail systems, ports, power lines and water systems that were lost. Nobody is quite sure when the rolling blackouts are going to end, and nobody is quite sure when all of the damaged manufacturing facilities are going to be fully brought back online.

On top of everything else, the nuclear crisis at Fukushima never seems to end. In fact, it seems to get worse with each passing day.

According to the Los Angeles Times, it has now been announced that seawater off the coast of Japan near the Fukushima facility was recently found to contain 7.5 million times the legal limit of radioactive iodine....
The operator of Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear plant said Tuesday that it had found radioactive iodine at 7.5 million times the legal limit in a seawater sample taken near the facility, and government officials imposed a new health limit for radioactivity in fish.
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Cow Skull

Inside report from Fukushima nuclear reactor evacuation zone

videonewscom
YouTube
Wed, 06 Apr 2011 15:41 UTC
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Fukushima, Japan - The Japanese government has issued the evacuation order on March 12 for the residents living within the 20 kilometer radius of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

Since then, residents have left their homes, and the "no man land" has been out of touch with the rest of the world.

A Japanese journalist, Tetsuo Jimbo, ventured through the evacuation zone last Sunday, and filed the following video report.

He says that, inside the evacuation zone, homes,building, roads and bridges, which were torn down by Tsunami, are left completely untouched, and the herd of cattle and pet dogs, left behind by the owners, wonders around the town while the radiation level remains far beyond legal limits.
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Bulb

Germany to phase out nuclear power-deputy minister

Amena Bakr, Stanley Carvalho & Christiaan Hetzner
Reuters
Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:27 UTC
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© UnknownTicking nuclear time bombs?
A German deputy environment minister said the government would phase out all nuclear power in the country before 2020, taking a hard line stance that may not be reflective of the centre-right coalition.

"A decision has been taken to shut down eight plants before the end of this year and they definitely won't be reactivated. And the remaining nine will be shut down by the end of the decade," Juergen Becker told Reuters on Monday.

"Japan has shown that even if there is a miniscule occurrence, the residual risk is too high to justify the continuation of nuclear power (...) It is better to go for other energy services in a civilised country," he said.

A phase out could cost the four big utility companies RWE RWG.DE, E.ON (EONGn.DE: Quote), EnBW (EBKG.DE: Quote) and Vattenfall [VATN.UL] hundreds of millions of euros in lost profits every year.
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Pistol

Netherlands - Gunman Kills Six in Amsterdam Shooting

Harriet Alexander
The Daily Telegraph, UK
Sat, 09 Apr 2011 13:57 UTC
Amsterdam Shooting
© EPAPolicemen arrive at the shopping mall 'De Ridderhof' in Alphen aan den Rijn.

A lone gunman in the Netherlands killed six people after he stormed a shopping centre and opened fire with a machine gun.

Witnesses told how the man, in his mid 20s, began shooting people in the car park before walking calmly through the shopping centre, shooting his victims "in cold blood".

His victims included a woman in a motorised wheelchair, who was shot in the head. A number of children had been shot, but it was unclear whether they were among the dead.

"I saw a woman I know walking at the other side. She wanted to enter a shop when a tall young man approached and shot her in cold blood. He walked calmly and shot through the windows of the shop where I was hiding," said Marjolein Nieuwland.

"I also saw a woman in her motorised wheelchair shot in the head, and at the Albert Heijn (grocery store) there was a young man. Also dead. Later I heard that was the shooter."

The gunman, who was known to local police, later turned a gun on himself. Ten others were wounded in the attack on the Ridderhof mall in the town of Alphen aan den Rijn, 13 miles southwest of Amsterdam.
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Nuke

Poll: Few Confident US Ready for Nuclear Emergency

Matthew Daly
Associated Press
Fri, 08 Apr 2011 12:03 UTC
Fukushima nuclear plant
© APDamaged Fukushima nuclear plant seen from the air
Most Americans doubt the U.S. government is prepared to respond to a nuclear emergency like the one in Japan, a new Associated Press-GfK poll shows. But it also shows few Americans believe such an emergency would occur.

Nevertheless, the disaster has turned more Americans against new nuclear power plants. The poll found that 60 percent of Americans oppose building more nuclear power plants. That's up from 48 percent who opposed it in an AP-Stanford University Poll in November 2009.

The Associated Press-GfK poll comes as Japan continues to struggle with a nuclear crisis caused by a March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant has leaked radiation into the environment and radioactive water gushed into the Pacific Ocean. Japan was rattled by a strong aftershock and tsunami warning Thursday, but officials reported no immediate sign of new problems.
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Nuke

Chernobyl's Tragic Legacy

Caroline Dworin
Huffington Post
Fri, 08 Apr 2011 11:32 UTC
Chernobyl victim
© Paul Fusco/MagnumBELARUS. 1997. Children's Home No. 1, Minsk. An attendant bathes a 4-year-old with multiple sclerosis.
"I want people to see," said photographer Paul Fusco. "For Lida, it has to be as painful as possible." Lida is the mother of Aleysa Beoia, a seventeen-year-old girl who Fusco watched die in 2000, as he was shooting a collection of work called Chernobyl Legacy.

His photographs show horror in black and white: An intelligent, lively four-year-old with almost no lymphatic system, his limbs swollen into monstrous trunks; a toddler whose torso blossoms into a tumor that cannot be removed, since his kidneys are contained within it; a baby born with its brain outside its body; children slithering around the floor, wordless pack animals, groaning and rolling, eating from bowls like dogs.

Fusco spent many months, over three visits, exploring state-run facilities dedicated to taking care of children damaged by radiation. They receive suitable care and affection, but no education. Many were born years after the 1986 accident and handed over at birth by devastated parents.
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Handcuffs

School official defends cops who pepper-sprayed boy


9News.com
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 05:56 UTC

It needed to be done. That was the message from a Jefferson County Schools superintendent Tuesday after 9NEWS reported that police used pepper spray on a second grader.

"He was violent, he was verbal, he was abusive," Community Superintendent Peg Kastberg said. "The police were very thoughtful and thorough about the actions that they took."

A Lakewood Police report details 8-year-old Aidan's violent temper tantrum in a classroom at Glennon Heights Elementary in Lakewood on Feb. 22.

According to the report, Aidan "was climbing the cart and spitting at teachers, he also broke wood trim off the walls and was trying to stab teachers with it."

"I wanted to make something sharp if they came out because I was so mad at them," Aidan said. "I was going to try to whack them with it."

The report goes on to say Aidan "was holding what looked like a sharpened one foot stick and he screamed 'get away from me you f---ers.'"

Lakewood Police officers ordered the 8-year-old to "drop the stick." When he refused, they sprayed him with pepper spray twice until he dropped the piece of wood and was handcuffed.
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Handcuffs

US: Man Stole Judge's Gavel From Courtroom


The Smoking Gun
Fri, 08 Apr 2011 00:00 UTC
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Surveillance camera captured out-of-order thief's pilferage

Earlier this week, Magistrate Daniel Cook, who handles small claims cases in Lorain, Ohio, was on the bench when he reached for his gavel and discovered it was missing. After checking "every possible place it could be," police reported, Cook concluded that someone had actually stolen his gavel.

Court personnel then reviewed surveillance video from days earlier and spotted an unknown male stealing the wooden gavel. The alleged thief, staffers realized, was accompanied by a second man who "was in court on that day trying to get his license back," according to a Lorain Police Department report.

In short order, cops identified the suspect as Christopher Collins, and prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for the 47-year old. Collins, pictured in the mug shot at right, was then arrested at his residence, where he was questioned about the "whereabouts of the gavel."
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