Society's Child

Burst oil pipeline causes water emergency in Peru, two Amazon rivers contaminated

RT
Tue, 23 Feb 2016 15:15 UTC

Peru is in the midst of an emergency as two rivers in the Amazon basin are now contaminated with 3,000 barrels of crude oil after the country's main pipeline burst. There are plenty of villagers relying on this water who have effectively been cut off.

The Health Ministry has declared a water emergency in five districts in the vicinity.

According to state-owned regional Petroperu, there were two separate breaks in January and early February, which have halted transportation of 5-6,000 barrels of crude per day. According to Petroperu president German Velasquez, the first rupture appears to have been caused by a landslide. The cause of the other is still being worked out.

The oil is now in the Chiriaco and Morona rivers in northwest Peru, Reuters reported OEFA, the national environmental authority, as saying. There are at least eight native-populated villages now under threat, an indigenous leader told the agency. Petroperu has estimated the amount of the spilled oil at 3,000 barrels.

Viral Ron Paul video asks the question, 'has America gone insane?' The answer is yes

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 14:28 UTC

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. -Jiddu Krishnamurti

In America today, police officers kill more people every in a day than most countries kill in years. In America today, parents face being locked in a cage for trying to treat their sick child with a plant. In America today, presidential candidates on both sides of the two-party system are cheered on as they call for an end to your rights.

Has America gone insane? By any rational measure, the answer to that question is yes.

The untold story of two small Syrian towns & their three year struggle against U.S. 'regime change'

Robert Fisk
The Independent
Tue, 23 Feb 2016 12:34 UTC

For 3 and a half years a tiny Shia enclave was besiged by al Qaeda but the West turned a blind eye because the inhabitants stayed loyal to Assad government

© Syria Getty
Syrian rebels attack the headquarters of Assad's regime forces in the villages of Nubul and al-Zahraa in Aleppo

This is the untold story of the three-and-a-half-year siege of two small Shia Muslim villages in northern Syria. Although their recapture by the Syrian army - and by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Iraqi Shia militias - caught headlines for a few hours three weeks ago, the world paid no heed to the suffering of these people, their 1,000 "martyrs", at least half of them civilians, and the 100 children who died of shellfire and starvation.

For these were villages that remained loyal to the Syrian regime and paid the price - and were thus unworthy of our attention, which remained largely fixed on those civilians suffering under siege by government forces elsewhere.

Nubl and Zahra should be an 18-minute drive off the motorway north-east of Aleppo but the war's front lines in the sharp-winded north of Syria have cut so deeply into the landscape that to avoid the men of the Jabhat al-Nusra and Isis, you have to drive for two hours along fields and broken country roads and through villages smashed and groined by the Syrian offensive.

Comment: Thanks to the intervention of the Russian coalition these brave and forgiving people escaped the fate of no doubt many similar towns in Libya, Iraq, Yemen, and Afghanistan.

Also see:

There can be little doubt in Syria - despite Western denials - that the so-called Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL)) jihadists and related Al-Qaeda brigades in Jabhat al-Nusra, Jaish al-Fateh, Ahrar ash-Sham and so on, have been infiltrated, weaponized and deployed for the objective of regime-change by the US and its allies. If that is true for Syria, then it is also true for Yemen. Indeed, the covert connection becomes even more apparent in Yemen.

The Pentagon's guns for hire: Blackwater, Al-Qaeda... what's in the name?

Free-market capitalism: Reducing humans to cash cows

Janet Phelan
New Eastern Outlook
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 00:00 UTC

America is proud of capitalism. Proud of the competition which has produced a dazzling array of inventions and consumer products. Any incursion resulting in government control of the "free market" is generally met with outcries of that old bugaboo: "Communist infiltration!"

The activities of the United States abroad have become redolent of resource grabs. Under the banner of "Making the world safe for democracy," her aggression has resulted in an amalgamation of other countries' resources. Oil and minerals top the list.

Far from protecting her own citizens' property and economic interests, however, the domestic activities of the US increasingly reveal finely honed mechanisms resulting in asset seizure and transfer of wealth. In order to accomplish these aims, certain established checks and balances have been nullified or bought off.

Government regulatory agencies are thus high on capitalism's "Enemies List." Many of these regulatory agencies were rendered largely ineffective under former President George W. Bush. The EPA, the FTC and other agencies pledged to protect the public went under administrative chiefs who were unfriendly to regulation and believed that their best governance would be to subvert the regulatory agencies they were appointed to oversee.

Comment:

No surprise: The life expectancy gap between rich and poor is growing

RT
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 21:07 UTC

While lifespans have been rising over the last 50 years, so has the life expectancy gap between the rich and the poor in the United States, a new study shows.

Lifespans have been steadily lengthening due to advances in technology and public health, but a study released last week by the Brookings Institution revealed that this advancement has been much quicker for wealthy people than for poor people.

In the US, a rich man ‒ defined as someone in the top 10 percent of income earners ‒ who was born in 1920 could expect to live about six years longer than a poor man, in the bottom 10 percent, born in the same year. By 1950, this gap more than doubled in size, as rich men born in that year lived 14 years longer than their poor counterparts.

Women, who generally live longer than men, were subject to a similar trend when looking at the same socioeconomic stratifications. The life expectancy gap between rich and poor women born in 1920 was 3.7 years, but the gap grew to 13 years by 1950.

Comment: And finally:

The pathology of the rich white family

Sorry state of humanity: Peacocks die after being handled for selfies at China zoo

Matthew Clark
Sun Times
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 11:45 UTC

2016 is proving to be a deadly year for animals in photo-ops

Two peacocks that were living in captivity in a Chinese zoo died after visitors manhandled the birds in order to to get photos taken with them.After grabbing the animals, the visitors reportedly plucked feathers from the animals for keepsakes, according to Mashable.

A spokesperson for Yunnan Wild Animal Park reportedly told Huaxi Metropolis Daily that visitors were expressly told not to touch the animals, Mashable says.Vistors reportedly lured the animals with food.

Zoo officials also told the South China Morning Post that they believe at least one peacock died of shock. The publication says that the zoo has more than 10,000 wild animals and 200 different species including pandas, rhinoceros and white tigers.

Photos of two tourists picking up one of the birds has circulated on social media after reports of the incident.

The year has not been a good one for wildlife captured by the attention of tourists. The incident in China comes on the heels of reports that a small dolphin was killed in Argentina after being plucked from the ocean for a series of selfie images. On February 20, a Florida man was captured on video pulling a shark from the ocean to capture a photo with the animal.

Bernie Sanders' feeble position on Israel is a serious progressive problem - and the reason I won't vote for him

Steven Salaita
Salon
Sat, 13 Feb 2016 06:30 UTC

Bernie has run a smart campaign and I admire his economic platform. But his foreign policy lacks moral vision

Bernie Sanders has run a smart and spirited campaign. Even if he eventually loses the Democratic primary, his rise from virtually nowhere to threaten Hillary Clinton from the left offers much-needed optimism in a time of dismal inequality. His invective against Wall Street is accurate and often courageous. He is the rare candidate who doesn't traffic in patriotic or religious platitudes.

But I won't be voting for him.

Sanders has long supported Israeli colonization, including the worst elements of its military occupation. I've had numerous arguments with friends about the extent and character of that support. Is it fair to call Sanders an adamant Zionist? Is he a Zionist at all? Does it even matter? How bad is he, really, in the spectrum of U.S. politics, where kowtowing to Israel has long been a prerequisite for the presidency?

We learn useful things about Sanders's positions on Israel in relation to his competition, but comparison is unnecessary. Sanders periodically comments on Israel-Palestine. Here's what we know: He's not a raging ideologue. He doesn't extol Israel. He hasn't kissed Netanyahu's ring. He recently declined to call himself a Zionist. Last year, though, he yelled at pro-Palestine activists and his platform on Israel-Palestine sounds agreeable but reproduces a failed status quo.

Comment: If Sanders could actually see things clearly, and BE the progressive he purports to be, he would realize that he has NO real chance against the soon to be selected Hillary "I'm a whore for Empire" Clinton and use the attention and platform he is getting to actually say something objective about the State of Israel as it is today. But he is at least two huge steps removed from doing such a thing. And, in any event, the whole U.S. presidential election process is just a huge farce.

Anonymous hacktivist group publishes Cincinnati cops' personal info - revenge for deadly shooting

RT
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 20:52 UTC

After releasing a threatening video, the notorious hacking group Anonymous exposed personal information of 52 Cincinnati Police Department officers in retaliation for the death of an Ohio man at the hands of law enforcement.

In the video posted on Sunday, someone wearing a mask and hood discussed the group's anger over the Cincinnati PD's handling of an officer-involved shooting last Wednesday that resulted in the death of Paul Gaston, a black man.

"Greetings world, we are Anonymous Anon Verdict. The following clip you are about to see are three separate cell phone clips of Cincinnati Police Department murdering a black man named Paul Gaston while he held his hands up on February 17th. With the evidence provided it is quite obvious that he was complying and had his hands in the air," the figure said with a synthesized voice in the three-minute YouTube video.

Florida teen charged with killing his little sister

Chelsea Hoffman
The Inquistr
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 20:45 UTC

Isabella Heffernan

A 16-year-old Florida teen has been arrested and charged in association with the disappearance of his 10-year-old sister. The Daily Mail reports that Frederick Lochridge has been given an open count of murder, which can either be upgraded or downgraded depending on the outcome of the current investigation, or any proceeding trial. The details of this shocking case are still developing.

The parents of 10-year-old Isabella Heffernan reported the little girl missing over the weekend, which sparked an intense — but brief — search for her. The missing child's body was located in a field not far behind her home. The last time she had been seen alive was approximately 16 hours prior to the heartbreaking discovery — at around 10:00 p.m., Saturday night. It wasn't long after the discovery that 16-year-old Frederick Matthew Lochridge was considered their one and only suspect.

Comment: From the Washington Post:

In an arrest affidavit released by the department Monday afternoon, an officer who interviewed the boy wrote that he first told investigators that he shot his sister about 3 a.m. Sunday after mistaking her for a deer. The boy later said he saw someone attack his sister and he accidentally hit her while trying to fire at the attacker. The boy changed his story a third time and said that he accidentally shot his sister while trying to teach her how to shoot his rifle.

Not Russia after all! Gallup poll shows Americans believe terrorism is greatest threat to U.S.

Sputnik
Sun, 21 Feb 2016 04:45 UTC

Obama with its latest statement that Russia is the biggest threat to the US seems to be a far cry from what the rest of his country believes. According to a recent Gallup survey, Americans consider international terrorism and not any particular country as the most critical menace for their nation.

In fact, Russia ranks 12 in the list of the US threats after China's military and economic power, refugee influx and global warming.

American adults were asked what they saw as possible threats to US vital interests over the next decade and 79 percent agreed that international terrorism possesses a crucial threat.

Iran's nuclear deal — touted as a victory for the Obama Administration — doesn't appear to have helped ease fears as Americans still consider nuclear proliferation by Iran as the second most dangerous event that could put the country in turmoil.

Cyberterrorism with its 73 percent response rate has been named for the first time in the list of threats to American, surprisingly ranking third.

The global spread of viruses follow cyberterrorism at 63 percent as respondents believe that Ebola and Zika infectious diseases represent a significant danger for the US.

The conflict in Syria is still in the top five among menaces for the US as 58 percent believe that regional conflict could endanger the position of the country over the upcoming ten years.

Americans consider terrorism the top threat to their nation https://t.co/yFcKodyutU pic.twitter.com/iZdq1MMXyI— Forbes (@Forbes) February 21, 2016

Comment: More Americans concerned US military no longer #1

I've got an idea to help folks like this. Anyone know of any in Central Florida? R.C.

Rowan Cocoan

AA's got a thorough article on this hoaxy shit. The bitch even said she was angry that he broke up with her. The “assault” happened BEFORE she had...

Rowan Cocoan

It's not a guarantee that the natural treatments will work, even with intravenous Vit C. My mom had leukemia and she was getting intravenous...

earthwatcher

"Kurtzer notes that only two other events in the history of the relationship approached that level of tension: Gerald Ford's "reassessment" in...

Winston Smith

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Jibrish

Society's Child

Burst oil pipeline causes water emergency in Peru, two Amazon rivers contaminated

Viral Ron Paul video asks the question, 'has America gone insane?' The answer is yes

The untold story of two small Syrian towns & their three year struggle against U.S. 'regime change'

Free-market capitalism: Reducing humans to cash cows

No surprise: The life expectancy gap between rich and poor is growing

Sorry state of humanity: Peacocks die after being handled for selfies at China zoo

Bernie Sanders' feeble position on Israel is a serious progressive problem - and the reason I won't vote for him

Anonymous hacktivist group publishes Cincinnati cops' personal info - revenge for deadly shooting

Florida teen charged with killing his little sister

Not Russia after all! Gallup poll shows Americans believe terrorism is greatest threat to U.S.

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