Society's Child

Update: 10 reported dead, many injured, after high-speed train derails in northeast France

Sputnik
Sat, 14 Nov 2015 15:32 UTC

At least 10 people have been killed and 32 injured as a train derailed and caught fire in Eckwersheim near Strasbourg in France, according to officials.

A high-speed TGV train derailed in Eckwersheim in the Bas-Rhin department of Alsace in northeastern France mid-afternoon on Saturday.

Officials said that out of the injured, 12 are in serious condition.

Several people have been airlifted from the scene on a helicopter, RTL reports. The train was carrying 49 people, all of whom were employees of SNCF national railways.

Local officials told AFP that the accident was apparently caused by "excessive speed."

The train derailed while on a bridge and the cars fell into the Marne-Rhine canal, according to witness reports. Photos from the scene show smoke coming from the carriages.

The TGV that has derailed in Eckwersheim was a test train on the new TGV line. No passengers on board. (Info SNCF) https://t.co/YVvghuxqQE
— Jillian van Turnhout (@JillianvT) November 14, 2015

Comment: Coincidence or...?

Curiously, the worst terror attack in France until the atrocities committed in Paris on Friday 13th was a train bombing on the Paris-Strasbourg railway line in 1961.

Guards taunt asylum seekers and immigrants engaged in hunger strikes to protest conditions

Al Jazeera
Mint Press News
Sat, 14 Nov 2015 20:46 UTC

A series of mass hunger strikes have rocked for-profit detention centers across the US, as rights groups call for asylum seekers to be released while their cases are pending.

Hundreds of immigrants, including asylum seekers, have participated in the hunger strikes in California, Texas and Louisiana.

At least 26 asylum seekers are on hunger strike in the Adelanto facility, a for-profit detention center in southern California.

They are all that remain of an original 90 hunger strikers who launched the collective fast on November 4.

According to CIVIC, a US-based advocacy group that campaigns for immigrant detainee rights, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has taken punitive measures in a bid to break the hunger strike.

"There has been a lot of intimidation and threats against the hunger strikers to reduce [their] numbers," Victoria Mena, a monitor at CIVIC, told Al Jazeera, adding that guards have "threatened expedited deportation" in some cases.

Comment: The destructiveness of US policy in South America comes home to roost. It's unfortunate that those seeking relief from horrific conditions in their home countries make it to the US only to be victimized again.

Mystery space objects land in Spain

The Local, Spain
Fri, 13 Nov 2015 14:08 UTC

Rocket fuel tanks, chunks of satellites or something else entirely... In just over one week, three mysterious objects have fallen from the sky onto the country's southeast.

The mysterious debris has brought in bomb disposal agents and experts in hazmat suits to rush to examine the finds as puzzled locals looked on.

First up a strange black beehive-like ball was found by shepherds in Mula, a town in the region of Murcia last week.

Then at the weekend, a similar-looking, smaller object was discovered in Calasparra, just 30 kilometres (19 miles) away in the same region.

"In the early morning of the day when the first object was found, witnesses said they saw between six and seven balls of fire falling from the sky," Maria Jose Gomariz, spokeswoman for Calasparra town hall, said on Thursday.

"Maybe there were just two balls of fire and it looked like there were more... or some may have fallen in areas where no one goes."

Police in America kill 1,031 civilians in 317 days: More than 3 per day, every single day in 2015

Brian Sumner
Cop Block
Sat, 14 Nov 2015 00:00 UTC

According to killedbypolice.net an online website that tracks daily statistics of deaths at the hands of police the police in America have killed 1031 people this year. An average of 3.25 people killed by police everyday. Thats roughly a quarter of the number of soldiers who died in the entirety of the Iraq war and a third of the deaths of U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan. According to Icasualties.org 4,814 soldiers died during the Iraq occupation and 3,506 have died during the conflict in Afghanistan.

We used to think that we were 8 times more likely to be killed by police but due to information being released in regards to agencies underreporting their officer involved shootings that number has risen significantly. An investigative report by the Guardian reveals that you are now 55 times more likely to die at the hands of a police officer than you are a terrorist.

Comment: The claim of there being a war on police is complete and utter nonsense, while the number of civilian deaths at the hands of police remains alarmingly high.

SOTT Exclusive: Selective empathy: "Terrorist" attacks rock Paris, and the public response to tragedy is typically disproportionate

Daniel DeLafe
Sott.net
Sun, 15 Nov 2015 05:33 UTC

"Peace for Paris" by Jean Jullien

In light of the Paris terror attack that killed at least 126, I have some observations to share regarding the social media response to such a tragedy. First, I want to share this particular story to help make a point: New evidence emerges showing the US deliberately attacked the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan.

...the Associated Press published a report providing further confirmation that the facility was targeted and bombed by US military personnel with full knowledge that it was a functioning hospital. The attack lasted for an hour, destroying the building and killing 30 people, including at least 13 MSF staff members and 10 patients.
...
The report follows a previous article citing a former intelligence official who said special operations analysts had mapped the entire area and drawn a circle around the hospital.

The new report adds to the growing body of evidence demonstrating that US forces knowingly and deliberately destroyed a hospital that was performing civilian functions, a grave violation of the Geneva Conventions and a violation of the US War Crimes Act. According to the latter, those found guilty of committing such a crime can be subject to life imprisonment or death.

Among the possible motivations for the attack is the fact that the hospital was the only major medical center in northeastern Afghanistan, and it provided aid to all those injured in the escalating conflict between US forces and the Taliban-led insurgency. Beyond those immediately killed, hundreds or even thousands will die as a result of their loss of access to medical care.

In a statement released on October 23, which reported an increase in the death toll from 22 to 30, MSF noted that the destruction of the hospital "will have a huge impact on access to surgical care for hundreds of thousands of people in the region... Last year, more than 22,000 patients received care at the hospital and more than 5,900 surgeries were performed."

This is only one example among countless others I could use (many much worse), but it's recent and I only need one to make this point. Where were all the "prayers" and "thoughts" for any of these people from most of you posting your condolences about what just happened in Paris? I'm sorry if this offends anyone, or if you feel like I'm trying to take attention away from the lives lost and disrespecting those grieving, but that is the opposite of what I'm doing. I'm trying to honor them.

I'm simply trying to get you to think and to feel deeper, and to expand your circle of empathy beyond Paris in order to grasp the bigger picture of why these attacks happen. This opinion piece gets to the core of some of those reasons: The Age of Despair: Reaping the Whirlwind of Western Support for Extremist Violence. A larger game is at work, one we often do not see.

Senator claims Social Security disability payments lead to population decline and drug addiction

Dan Wright
Mint Press News
Fri, 13 Nov 2015 17:47 UTC

On Monday, the right-wing campaign to destroy the Social Security program took an odd turn when Republican US Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas claimed the use of Social Security disability benefits was tied to drug addiction.

In a speech before the Heritage Foundation, Senator Cotton took the standard conservative critique on the dangers of dependency to the next level by saying that communities facing population decline and drug addiction should blame "corrosive" Social Security disability benefits for their problems.

Cotton claimed that when enough people in a given area get Social Security disability benefits there is a "disability tipping point" and living on disability benefits "becomes an acceptable way of life." This dynamic, Senator Cotton alleges, leads employers to leave because people are unwilling to work.

Then, according to Senator Cotton, things get even worse:

Comment: US: Social Security Disability on Verge of Insolvency

New congressional estimates say the trust fund that supports Social Security disability will run out of money by 2017, leaving the program unable to pay full benefits, unless Congress acts. About two decades later, Social Security's much larger retirement fund is projected to run dry as well.

Terrorism is not Islam: World shows solidarity with France as Europe reels from the attacks

Alastair Macdonald and Sonya Hepinstall
Reuters
Sat, 14 Nov 2015 16:20 UTC

World leaders responded to Friday's bloody attacks in Paris with outrage and defiant pledges of solidarity, but several countries said they would tighten security, especially at their borders, and a few urged their citizens not to travel to France.

Islamic State claimed responsibility on Saturday for the coordinated assault by gunmen and bombers that killed 127 people across Paris. President Francois Hollande said the attacks amounted to an act of war against France.

Several countries said they had stepped up their own security in response to the attacks, including Belgium and Switzerland, which border France. France's neighbor to the south, Spain, said it was maintaining its state of alert at level 4 on a five-point scale.

Comment: It's clear that it's the everyday people of the world who are hurt the most in the War on Terror. Terrorist attacks have only increased, refugees have fled war-ravaged lands and lost loved ones all along the way, Europeans are faced with insupportable numbers of immigrants, and these barbaric attacks have struck a devastating blow to the very heart of France, and Europe as a whole. Condolences to all those who are suffering at such a dark point in history.

New Jersey: Cop being sued for assaulting a woman, assaults the same woman again

William N. Grigg
The Free Thought Project
Sat, 14 Nov 2015 16:58 UTC

A woman who filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Bridgeton, New Jersey Police Department was apparently targeted by the officer who is the central defendant in that suit — and the result was a replay of the incident that precipitated the lawsuit.

On March 31 of this year, Marella Lawson was dragged from her car by a scrum of Bridgeton police officers, pepper-sprayed, had her already-crippled right shoulder injured as her arms were wrenched behind her back, and thrown face-down to the pavement. Because the assailants were police officers, Lawson has been charged with two misdemeanors — resisting arrest and harassment - after initially being charged with felonies.

Lawson, who was pulled over on suspicion of driving with a suspended license, recognized the officer who conducted the traffic stop as Bridgeton Patrol Officer Shane Sawyers, the lead defendant in her ongoing civil rights lawsuit. As she explained in a recent interview with the Philadelphia Fox affiliate, Lawson was afraid to roll down her window and interact with Sawyers because of his behavior during an April 2013 arrest in her home, and because of his "aggressive" behavior during the traffic stop nearly two years later.

Comment: This cop is obviously a rabid beast and needs to be taken off of the police force in the interest of community safety.

Witness claims to have seen a woman among Paris attackers

Sputnik News
Sat, 14 Nov 2015 16:37 UTC

The woman was reportedly among those who attacked the Bataclan theatre.

The terrorists who attacked the Bataclan theater in Paris on Friday included a woman, Radio Europe 1 reports citing an eyewitness.

Air travel continues at Paris airports, despite state of emergency

Sputnik News
Sat, 14 Nov 2015 17:30 UTC

There are no flights cancelled to and from Paris airports, according to the press office of Aeroports de Paris, representing Paris-Orly and Paris-Charles de Gaulle.

Flights to and from Paris airports continued on Saturday despite a state of emergency in France, following a series of deadly attacks on Friday night, the local airport authority told Sputnik.

"There are no flights cancelled," the press office of Aeroports de Paris, representing Paris-Orly and Paris-Charles de Gaulle, said.

For some levity in this sad time, a very funny series of text messages from and to some idiot snowflake who can't figure out how to make Ramen...

Rowan Cocoan

We should be taking inspiration from these heroes rather than deleting our past. Those who tried to erase the past always started to erase...

codis

Only the remaining 10% of The Great Jab lottery are supposed to go through the "cold, dark winter".

codis

A Redacted Tonight take on 'Squid Game' [Link]

parzival

High School Allows Kids to Perform Lap Dances For Teachers [Link]

parzival

Society's Child

Update: 10 reported dead, many injured, after high-speed train derails in northeast France

Guards taunt asylum seekers and immigrants engaged in hunger strikes to protest conditions

Mystery space objects land in Spain

Police in America kill 1,031 civilians in 317 days: More than 3 per day, every single day in 2015

SOTT Exclusive: Selective empathy: "Terrorist" attacks rock Paris, and the public response to tragedy is typically disproportionate

Senator claims Social Security disability payments lead to population decline and drug addiction

Terrorism is not Islam: World shows solidarity with France as Europe reels from the attacks

New Jersey: Cop being sued for assaulting a woman, assaults the same woman again

Witness claims to have seen a woman among Paris attackers

Air travel continues at Paris airports, despite state of emergency

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