Society's ChildS


Dollars

Recreational pot sales in Colorado surpass $5 million in first week


RT
Wed, 08 Jan 2014 16:24 UTC
sample packs of marijuana in Northglenn, Colorado
© Reuters / Rick Wilking
Cheri Hackett, co-owner of BotanaCare, carries bags of the company's sample packs of marijuana in Northglenn, Colorado
The state of Colorado has survived its first week with legal weed, and the verdict is in: people really like marijuana.

Owners of the 37 just-launched dispensaries across Colorado tell the Huffington Post that they've already generated a combined total of roughly $5 million in sales since it became legal there on January 1 for adults to purchase and use marijuana for recreational reasons.

Some of the larger dispensaries unloaded as much as 60 pounds of pot each from their shelves during that first week, HuffPo's Matt Ferner reported on Wednesday, and combined sales on the first of the year alone totaled over $1 million.

"Every day that we've been in business since Jan. 1 has been better than my best day of business ever," Andy Williams, owner of Denver's Medicine Man dispensary, told the website.

Voters in Colorado approved a measure legalizing medicinal marijuana back in 2000, and dispensaries across the state had until just recently been barred from selling to those without a doctor's prescription. Denver's 3D Cannabis Center told the Colorado Springs Gazette that they averaged 25 clients a day in medical marijuana sales before the state's new law went into effect, but on Jan. 1 they served around 450 customers and before long were forced to close down in order to restock.
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Heart - Black

Pregnant, brain-dead woman forced to stay on life support to incubate fetus

Jodie Gummow
AlterNet
Wed, 08 Jan 2014 17:33 UTC
Marlise Munoz
© Unknown
Texas law requires that a pregnant woman be kept alive, regardless of the condition of the baby or her family's wishes.

A brain-dead woman is being kept on life support against hers and her family's wishes so her body can incubate her unborn baby, Huffington Post reported.

33-year-old Marlise Munoz from Fort Worth, Texas was 14 weeks pregnant when she died of a suspected pulmonary embolism, a blood clot to the lungs, the week after Thanksgiving.

Her husband, Erick, found Marlise at their home and performed CPR before she was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth. Electric shocks and drugs started her heart and it continued to beat with mechanical support, but her brain waves were completely flat, with no hope of ever recovering.

As her family planned to say their goodbyes to honor Marlise's wishes not be kept on life support, they were stunned when a doctor told them the hospital would not comply with the directions, NY Times reported.

The hospital plans on keeping Marlise on life support until her baby is delivered based on an arbitrary law of the Texas Advance Directives Act which states that, "a person may not withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment under this subchapter from a pregnant patient."
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Handcuffs

Businessman who slapped crying toddler on Delta flight sentenced to Federal prison


The Smoking Gun
Mon, 06 Jan 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
© Smoking GunJonah Bennett
The businessman who last year slapped a crying toddler in the face on a Delta Air Lines flight--after using a racial slur when demanding that the child's mother silence him--was sentenced today to eight months in federal prison.

Joe Rickey Hundley, 61, was arrested following last February's incident aboard a plane heading from Minnesota to Georgia.

According to an FBI affidavit, Jessica Bennett's 19-month-old son Jonah (seen at right) began to cry as the aircraft began its descent into Atlanta. Bennett told investigators that her child was in distress "due to the altitude change."

Hundley, who appeared intoxicated, was seated next to Bennett (whose son was on her lap). As the child cried, Hundley demanded that Bennett "shut that nigger baby up." He then "turned around and slapped" the toddler in the face, leaving Jonah with a scratch below his right eye.

In October, Hundley pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge. While prosecutors recommended a six-month prison term, a federal magistrate today opted for a harsher sentence due to Hundley's prior conviction for assaulting a girlfriend.
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Che Guevara

French Interior Minister Manuel Valls sent packing by angry crowd doing 'la quenelle' at Rennes train station


BFMTV
Wed, 08 Jan 2014 15:34 UTC
Image
Translated by SOTT.net

Manuel Valls received a warm welcoming committee on Wednesday at a train station in Rennes. While traveling in the Breton city to present, among other things, results in the 'war against burglary', the Minister of the Interior was strongly heckled once he alighted from his train.

"Valls, resign!"

Greeted by shouts of "Valls, resign!", whistles, jeers and 'quenelles', the controversial Dieudonné gesture, were launched at the Minister.

It was quite a provocative demonstration against the man who sent a circular to all Department Prefects on Monday, paving the way for the banning of all performances by the controversial comedian.

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Better Earth

Texas restaurant owner to sell business so teenage waitress can afford surgery on brain tumour

Lizzie Dearden
The Independent, UK
Wed, 08 Jan 2014 14:59 UTC
Brittany
© The Independent, UK
A Texas restaurant owner is selling his business so one of his waitresses can afford surgery on her brain tumour.

Brittany Mathis, 19, was diagnosed with the "ping-pong ball sized" tumour in December but does not have health insurance.

Manager Michael De Beyer told The Courier he will sell the Kaiserhof Restaurant, which he has run for 15 years, if that is what it takes to help her.

He said: "I'm not able to just sit by and let it happen.

"I couldn't live with myself - I would never be happy just earning money from my restaurant knowing that she needs help."

Brittany's mother, Barbara Mathis, who also works at the restaurant alongside older daughter Kay, called him a "blessing" to the family.

Her husband, John Mathis, died from a brain aneurysm caused by a tumour in 2000 aged just 33.

Brittany told The Courier she had not heard back from doctors after the diagnosis and one said the tumour would not affect her for "a few years".
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Cloud Grey

Do we really want to be French? The French 'beauty' myth

Gillian Orr
The Independent
Tue, 07 Jan 2014 14:41 UTC
french women
As a nation, we appear to be endlessly fascinated with how they live across the Channel. But it is particularly the female population that seems to be dazzled by our feisty, Chanel-wearing, red-wine swilling counterparts. Your local library could probably dedicate an entire corner to French lifestyle guides and there still wouldn't be enough room to house every book that advises on how to achieve the Parisian woman's je ne sais quoi. The subject practically deserves its own Dewey Decimal classification.

And now we are awaiting yet another addition to the genre. Mireille Guiliano's French Women Don't Get Facelifts: The Secrets of Ageing with Style and Attitude, published next week, is a sort-of sequel to her best-selling 2006 book, French Women Don't Get Fat.
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X

Amtrak police force American homeless out into polar cold

Wilson Dizard
Al Jazeera America
Tue, 07 Jan 2014 14:29 UTC
New York homeless at Penn Station say officers threaten them with expulsion into deadly weather

homeless NYC
© Wilson Dizard/Al Jazeera AmericaAsa Lowe, 41, and Ray Cosby, 69, keep warm in Penn Station in New York City
As Rachel lay napping in New York City's Penn Station on Tuesday, an Amtrak police officer approached and banged on the wall next to her with his baton, startling her from sleep.

The officer told Rachel to get up from the floor or risk being removed from the station. She stood up and said, "Arrest me. I don't care."

Moving along the wall, the officer woke a homeless man by giving him a prodding kick to his feet, then roused several others.
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Ambulance

Norfolk UK helicopter crash: 4 US dead

Ben Quinn
The Guardian
Wed, 08 Jan 2014 14:11 UTC
Norfolk crash
© USAF/APAn undated image made available by the US air force shows a HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter of the same type as the one that crashed in north Norfolk
Investigation begins after chopper from US base at RAF Lakenheath crashes on low-level training over marshes in east of England

An investigation has begun after four crew members were killed when a US military helicopter crashed on the east coast of England during a training exercise.

A 400m area was cordoned off by police following the incident, which happened at about 6pm on Tuesday near the Norfolk village of Cley-next-the-Sea. Local people were told to stay clear.
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Fish

Japanese fleet slaughters whales inside Southern Ocean sanctuary

Amy Coopes
Agence France-Press
Mon, 06 Jan 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
© NRDC
Militant anti-whaling activists Sea Shepherd said they had zeroed in on a Japanese fleet Monday and captured evidence that four whales had been slaughtered, alleging the ships were found inside a Southern Ocean sanctuary.

Sea Shepherd said it had located all five Japanese vessels and was now in pursuit, forcing the harpooners to cut short their operation and retreat.

The group released footage and photographs showing three minke whales dead on the deck of the factory ship Nisshin Maru and said a fourth, also believed to be a minke, was being slaughtered when Sea Shepherd's helicopter flew overhead.

"There's three carcasses on the ship, a fourth carcass has been cut up. There's blood all over the place, meat being carted around on this factory ship deck, offal and innards being dumped in the ocean," said Sea Shepherd Australia chairman Bob Brown.

"That's just a gruesome, bloody, medieval scene which has no place in this modern world."

When the Nisshin Maru was first spotted from the air, Brown said it was in Antarctica's Ross Dependency, within New Zealand's territorial waters and the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, which he described as a "gross breach of international law".

The commercial hunting of whales is prohibited in the sanctuary, which was designated by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1994, but Japan catches the animals there under a "scientific research" loophole in the moratorium on whaling.
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Document

"Guccifer Files" - Online outlaw's "archive" identifies scores of new high-profile victims


The Smoking Gun
Mon, 06 Jan 2014 12:57 UTC
guccifer
The hacking spree by "Guccifer," the online outlaw who has bedeviled Colin Powell, members of the Bush and Rockefeller families, Obama administration officials, and assorted other public figures, has been far more extensive than previously known, The Smoking Gun has learned.

A large cache of documents reveals that the illegal "Guccifer" incursions have victimized scores of other high-profile victims both in the U.S. and overseas during the past year. The hacker has accessed e-mail correspondence, contact lists, phone records, personal photos, online storage sites, and a wide range of confidential financial documents, including credit card, banking, and investment statements.

Comment:

Hacker begins distributing confidential memos sent to Hillary Clinton on Libya, Benghazi attack
Audacious hack exposes Bush family pictures, e-mail

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