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Bad Guys

Wave of amputations in Gaza shows Israel shoots to maim for life, but sometimes also kill

Alexandra Zavis and Hanah Salah
LA Times
Mon, 11 Jun 2018 14:39 UTC
Palestinian protesters
© AP Photo/Adel Hana
Palestinian protesters evacuate a wounded youth during clashes with Israeli troops along the Gaza Strip.
Baha Abu Ayash winced as a nurse unraveled the bandage around his right ankle. There was a whiff of rotting meat as a gaping bullet wound came into view. A doctor pinched his toes. They were black and cold.

For six days, the 23-year-old and his family had held out hope that his foot might be saved, if only he could be evacuated from the Gaza Strip. But it was too late now, the doctor from Jordan told them. Even if Israel agreed to the transfer, the decision would be the same.

"This patient needs a life-saving amputation," the doctor said. "Gangrene has set in. ... It is very critical."

Still, the family hesitated. Nobody in the family had steady work. Who would support the young man if his foot or leg were removed?

"It's not an easy decision," said Mohammed Abu Ayash, one of his 12 siblings.

The toll of violence during two months of protests along the Gaza Strip's border with Israel is most often measured in deaths: at least 123 Palestinians killed by Israeli gunfire.
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Sheriff

Former cop who solicited child sex retires with full benefits

Jack Burns
The Free Thought Project
Sat, 16 Jun 2018 15:47 UTC
Stephen Robert Deck
A former police lieutenant could be facing a new trial after he was given probation for sending lewd messages and attempting to have sex with a child, and then allowed to quietly retire on taxpayer-funded medical disability.

Former California Highway Patrol lieutenant Stephen Robert Deck was given probation for attempting to have sex with a 13-year-old in 2006. The officer was caught in an undercover sting operation set up by police to catch pedophiles in the act of trying to have sex with kids. Unlike most of the other 12 defendants in the case, who were sentenced to at least one year in prison, Deck was afforded probation simply because he wore a badge.

His attorneys fought his conviction for years, losing twice in appeals, but Deck eventually was granted a mistrial on a technicality. Now, instead of simply allowing the years-old case to go by the wayside, the Orange County District Attorney's Office is preparing for a possible new trial with hearings scheduled on July 16th. The Orange County Weekly described how the officer was able to have his conviction overturned in 2014:
In 2014, however, the Ninth Circuit overturned the conviction for an attempted lewd act upon a child. A non-unanimous panel of judges ruled that Mestman (prosecutor) erred in his closing statement on a technicality about when Deck, who worked at CHP's San Clemente office, intended to commit a lewd act on Amy.
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Bizarro Earth

People with BIID feel urge to maim themselves to feel 'normal'

Tom Fish
Daily Star
Sat, 16 Jun 2018 11:55 UTC
body modification
© Facebook
BODY MODIFICATION: People are voluntarily cutting off their own limbs
Forget extreme plastic surgery, tattoos and piercings - a minority are taking body modification to the next level - by voluntarily cutting off their own limbs.

A body modifier has exclusively revealed how his "extra" limbs feel alien, and has resorted to the drastic measure of self-mutilation - because he actually want to be disabled.

Dr. Michael First, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, has led investigations into this bizarre and extremely rare psychiatric condition which he is calling body integrity identity disorder (BIID).

Also known as amputee identity disorder, it gives people a fierce desire to rid themselves of perfectly healthy limbs.


Comment: Warning: More disturbing images below.


Comment: What drives people to do this to themselves could be many and varied, and as this 'disorder' gets more exposure, one can expect there will be a rise in 'sufferers', even if for some it is genuine. But in the end, shouldn't we be encouraged to make peace with our bodies rather than try to correct what we were given?


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USA

Nine Florida cities are the latest in banning conversion therapy for minors

Kaylee McGhee
Liberty Headlines
Fri, 15 Jun 2018 15:35 UTC
transgender
Licensed professionals who offer counseling and therapy to those experiencing unwanted same-sex attraction are now unwelcome in some Florida cities.

The City of Boca Raton and Palm Beach County have joined more than nine Florida cities in banning "conversion therapy."

The Human Rights Council has worked in Palm Beach County to get City Ordinance 5407 passed for quite some time, labeling these counseling sessions as "extremely dangerous."

The Christian Family Coalition fought against this initiative when the Miami-Dade County Commission passed it in October.

"The ban would have prohibited parents, pastors, and doctors from counseling minors to help them reduce and eliminate unwanted homosexual urges and transsexual confusion," the Coalition wrote on its Facebook page.

Comment: Denying treatment options, no matter how 'controversial', is a blatant intrusion in private life by the government.

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Black Cat

'I wasn't dying today:' Grandmother kills rabid bobcat with her bare hands


RT
Sun, 17 Jun 2018 14:20 UTC
Bobcat
© Mario Anzuoni / Reuters
A grandmother in Georgia says she simply refused to give up and die when suddenly attacked by a rabies-stricken bobcat in her front yard, instead battling the creature to the death with her bare hands.

DeDe Phillips was working outside her home in rural Hart County when the large feline suddenly struck.

"I thought, 'not today'. There was no way I was going to die," she toldthe Athens Banner-Herald, explaining that adrenaline kicked in when she was suddenly thrust into the life-and-death struggle.

The daughter-in-law of a bobcat trapper, Phillips knew what she had to do to protect herself, and grabbed the creature's throat, tackling it to the ground and eventually strangling it. She didn't call out for help until she thought the big cat was dead as she didn't want her young granddaughter to venture out into the vicinity of the wildcat.
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Newspaper

Parkland school guard who ignored shooter investigated for harassing female students

John Vibes
The Free Thought Project
Sat, 16 Jun 2018 15:26 UTC
parkland incident
As we reported extensively in the aftermath of the Parkland school shooting in February, law enforcement failed on multiple levels that day, fumbling numerous opportunities to intervene in the attack. Now, months later it has been revealed that the first line of defense in the shooting, a guard for the school named Andrew Medina, was unfit for his position and should not have been trusted with the lives of children.

Medina has been criticized for not taking proper action during the attack, and many critics say that if he did take action, he could have saved many lives. This week, new details have emerged about Medina's past at the school which gives an ugly glimpse into his character. According to the family of Meadow Pollack, a young girl who died in the shooting, 39-year-old Andrew Medina harassed a number of girls at the school, including Meadow. Medina was reported on two separate occasions, but no action was ever taken against him, despite the seriousness of the allegations and the fact that there were multiple reports.

According to records obtained by the Sun Sentinel, Medina propositioned one student and made a lewd comment to another in February 2017, a year before the attack.

"Both students became so uncomfortable with Mr. Medina's comments and actions, they sought out different routes to their classes in an attempt to avoid him," the report said.
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Arrow Down

2 injured as woman with box cutter attacks people in a southeastern France store, reportedly shouts 'Allahu Akbar'


RT
Sun, 17 Jun 2018 14:27 UTC
Police
© Philippe Wojazer / Reuters
A French policeman in Paris.
A woman reportedly shouting "Allahu Akbar" has attacked and injured two people at a supermarket in La Seyne-sur-Mer, southeastern France. She has been taken into custody and is being checked for terrorist links.

She was detained after assaulting an employee and a customer with a cutter knife at a store in the Var department on Sunday, BFM TV reports, citing a local prosecutor.

It is said that the customer was stabbed in the chest, while the employee was injured in the eye. The attacker, dressed in black and wearing a veil, was stopped by the supermarket staff, BFM TV reports.
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Attention

Suspect dead, 20 injured in Trenton, New Jersey arts festival shooting


RT
Sun, 17 Jun 2018 12:40 UTC
Crime scene
© Jonathan Bachman / Reuters
Twenty people have been injured, some critically, in a shooting at an arts festival in Trenton, New Jersey on Sunday. One person, suspected to be behind the shooting, has been killed according to local officials.

A second suspect is in police custody, according to Mercer County Prosecutor's office. Fifteen of those injured suffered gunshot wounds and a 13 year-old boy is among the casualties.

Local authorities say that several people opened fire inside the venue and multiple weapons were recovered in the scene. The casualties were confirmed by the Mercer County Prosecutor's office.

Police received reports that a man had opened fire inside Roebling Market, where the all-night event took place, shortly before 3 am.
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Bad Guys

Oxfam accuses French police of abuse and detention of migrant children at border


RT
Fri, 15 Jun 2018 19:21 UTC
FILE PHOTO Migrants at a border crossing between Ventimiglia, Italy and Menton, France, September 30, 2015.
© Reuters
FILE PHOTO Migrants at a border crossing between Ventimiglia, Italy and Menton, France, September 30, 2015.
French police are abusing and illegally detaining migrant children who attempt to cross the border from Italy, UK-based humanitarian group Oxfam said. Many intercepted minors have even been left unable to contact their families.

Some 16,500 refugees and migrants are stuck near the small Italian town of Ventimiglia, 7km from the French border, Oxfam's new report, 'Nowhere but out,' calculates. One quarter of these people are children, mostly from Sudan, Eritrea and Afghanistan. The majority of these minors are between 15 and 17, but some are much younger, the group claims.


Comment: This is tricky since it has been shown time and again that some migrants claim to be much younger than they really are.


Since French authorities tightened border controls with Italy back in 2015, it has been hard for asylum seekers to enter the country. Hundreds of them are forced to "sleep rough under a [motorway] flyover" with no access to drinkable water, shelter or heating on the French-Italian border.

Comment: While mistreatment by police should be condemned, local services are heavily strained due a crisis largely caused by the West's illegal wars and economic policies in the Middle East and Africa and made worse by the EU's dictatorial immigration policies - some of which may speed up the already rapid disintegrating Eurozone: Also check out SOTT radio's:


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Propaganda

Anti-Russian propaganda: Russian police ordered not to publish information about crimes during the World Cup

Alec Luhn
The Telegraph
Fri, 15 Jun 2018 17:11 UTC
Yekaterinburg stadium
© Sergei Savostyanov/TASS via Getty Images
Police stand watch outside Yekaterinburg stadium during the Egypt-Uruguay match on Friday
Police have been ordered not to publish any information about crimes during the World Cup as Vladimir Putin attempts to craft an image of Russia as a transgression-free zone.

With fears lingering of a terrorist attack like the bloody underground bombing last year in St Petersburg, near where the England team is based, Moscow has deployed missile launchers and anti-drone jammers at stadiums.

Regional cops have been dragooned to patrol host cities, leaving their home towns complaining of shortages.

The media blackout underlines the push to make the national prestige project a success after Vladimir Putin told police in February that the " image of the nation depends upon the thoroughness of your work".

In a copy of a document seen by The Telegraph, a colonel in Russia's central federal district ordered subordinates to "cease publishing in the mass media information about investigative operations and preventative measures" from June 5 to July 25.

Comment: See also: UK media scaremongers on Russian cities prior to FIFA World Cup

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