Society's ChildS


Heart - Black

UNICEF declares 2014 a devastating year for children due to global conflicts and disease


Reuters
Mon, 08 Dec 2014 23:23 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Osman Orsal Kurdish refugee girls from the Syrian town of Kobani play in a refugee camp in the Turkish border town of Suruc, Sanliurfa province November 13, 2014.
The United Nations children's agency UNICEF declared 2014 a devastating year for children on Monday with as many as 15 million caught in conflicts in Central African Republic, Iraq, South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and the Palestinian territories.

UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said the high number of crises meant many of them were quickly forgotten or failed to capture global headlines, such as in Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

Globally, UNICEF said some 230 million children were living in countries and regions affected by armed conflict.

"Children have been killed while studying in the classroom and while sleeping in their beds; they have been orphaned, kidnapped, tortured, recruited, raped and even sold as slaves," Lake said in a statement. "Never in recent memory have so many children been subjected to such unspeakable brutality."

Comment: In the daily recounting of the news of war and geopolitics, rarely does the MSM discuss the devastating effects of these conflicts on children. These are the real victims of psychopathic wars of aggression. It's easy for armchair war cheerleaders to voice support for military incursions to 'install democracy' in other countries, but how many actually consider the consequences to the millions of children orphaned, maimed, suffering from PTSD and those who have been forced to become child soldiers?

Jon Snow: The (war on the) children of Gaza

Hundreds of Afghan children killed in U.S. attacks

Iraq's War Disfigured Babies

4 decades after war ended, Agent Orange still ravaging Vietnamese

Children in Conflict: Child Soldiers

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Airplane

Another drone near-miss with passenger plane at Heathrow


RT
Mon, 08 Dec 2014 04:15 UTC
Drone
© AFP Photo/Bertrand Langlois
A passenger airplane almost collided with an unidentified drone near Heathrow marking the first such incident in the biggest UK airline hub's history, British media revealed on Sunday citing a report due to be published next week.

An Airbus A320 which can carry 180 passengers avoided a collision with a drone on July 22 at 2.16 pm flying at an altitude of 700 feet, the Sunday Times reported.

It said that the official report is due to be published on Friday. UK Airprox Board (Ukab), which investigates all cases of reported near-misses, said the incident was of A category - the highest in five ranks assigned by the watchdog.

In its risk level assessments Ukab evaluates A category as "risk of collision: aircraft proximity in which serious risk of collision has existed," according to its website.

The unmanned aerial vehicle did not show on air traffic control radar so investigators were unable to identify it and the case relied on the pilot's testimony, a source told the newspaper.

Comment: The proliferation of small, unauthorized drones that can reach previously unimaginable heights poses an immediate threat to air traffic. In the US, the NASA database suggests that dangerous brushes between drones and passenger aircraft are more common than the FAA acknowledges.

Drones pose serious threat to commercial air traffic! Close encounters with passenger aircraft increasing and FAA unable to handle problem

Drone came within 200 feet of airliner over New York

FAA official: Drone, jetliner nearly collided over Florida

Drone comes within 50 feet of NYPD helicopter, Brooklyn man arrested

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Stormtrooper

Lunatic cop sees graffiti artist "tag" a building, so he runs him over with his car

John Vibes
Free Thought Project
Mon, 08 Dec 2014 23:04 UTC
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Miami, Florida - 21-year-old street artist Delbert Rodriguez Gutierrez is now in critical condition and facing death after a police officer in a patrol car ran him over during a chase. Delbert's artist name is "Demz," and police claim that they caught him tagging a building around 2am on Friday morning, near the intersection of NW 5th Avenue and 24th Street, in Wynwood.

Wynwood is an art district in Miami where graffiti is extremely common, and sometimes artists have agreements set up where they are allowed to tag on buildings. However, it is not clear whether or not Gutierrez had permission to be where he was, and police claim that he fled as soon as he saw the flashing red and blue lights of the police car.

Detective Michael Cadavid chased after the young artist in his unmarked patrol car, eventually running him over. After the incident, Cadavid claimed that Demz jumped out in front of the car and could not be avoided.
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Hourglass

Best of the Web: #ICantBreathe - Comedian Jon Stewart on Eric Garner grand jury decision: 'The idea that we live in a society, much less a post-racial society, is a joke'

Michelle Jaworski
The Daily Dot
Thu, 04 Dec 2014 23:09 UTC
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John Stewart couldn't find anything to laugh about following the grand jury non-indictment of NYPD cops murdering black man Eric Garner
It's part of Jon Stewart's job to make comedy out of the terrible things happening in the world, but even he was unable to find anything to laugh at following a grand jury's decision not to indict the cop who killed Eric Garner.

He only got to covering the situation in Ferguson after being on vacation last week, but at least there was something for him to poke fun at in regards to the Twitter war between the St. Louis Rams and the St. Louis Police Officers Association. The Eric Garner case hit closer to home, just over in Staten Island.

As people began to gather outside to protest the decision in New York City and around the country, Stewart admitted defeat. Despite the footage and the coroner's ruling that Garner's death was a homicide, the grand jury ruled against indictment, just like with Michael Brown.

"I don't know. I honestly don't know what to say. If comedy is tragedy plus time, I need more fucking time. But I would really settle for less fucking tragedy to be honest with you."

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People

San Jose, California: Nation's largest homeless encampment dismantled

Lisa Fernandez and Nanette Miranda
NBC
Sun, 07 Dec 2014 21:28 UTC
NBC homeless clearing
© UnknownPolice and city crews on Thursday began dismantling the nation's largest homeless encampment, notoriously named "The Jungle," in a controversial move that aims to move hundreds of transients from the center of San Jose and find them affordable housing. Peggy Bunker reports.
Video
Police and city crews on Thursday began dismantling the nation's largest homeless encampment, notoriously named "The Jungle," in a controversial move that aims to move hundreds of transients from the center of San Jose and find them affordable housing.

Streams of homeless people wheeled their lives out of the encampment on Story Road, their shopping carts full of their belongings. Some cried they didn't have time or the ability to move everything they own out in time.

Businesses owners surrounding the encampment said the streets filled up with the evacuated homeless looking for somewhere to settle.

"Before they moved them they should've had a place for all of them to go," said Bridgget Tapia, Tap's Keyes Club owner. "Because now we've just scattered them."

Comment: Millions of people in the US don't have Jobs. They can't afford housing. Those who have jobs can't live with their minimum wages. Government vacate the areas where the homeless create their own shelters. Where does this nation expect them to live? There is no common sense in this country.

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Star of David

Poll: 65% Israelis don't want Netanyahu as prime minister


The Times of Israel
Sun, 07 Dec 2014 21:14 UTC
Herzog and Livni stake their claims to top post; Channel 2 survey finds 71% intend to vote in March 2015 elections

Bibi Netanyahu
© Alex Kolomoisky/POOL/FLASH90Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leads the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, on Sunday, November 30, 2014.
Almost two-thirds of Israelis do not want Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lead the next government, a poll published Saturday by Channel 2 found.

The poll was released as the leaders of Israel's center and center-left parties talk of building various alliances to prevent Netanyahu retaining his post after the next elections. The Knesset on Monday is set to pass the second and third readings of a bill to dissolve itself and hold elections on March 17, 2015.

Channel 2 has reported several times this weekend that the elections could still be averted if Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman supports a move to build an alternative coalition in the current parliament, headed by Netanyahu, including the two ultra-Orthodox parties. It said Saturday night that Liberman might be offered the post of defense minister as an incentive. But Liberman's office has denied any prospect of such an arrangement.

Asked whether they want the three-term prime minister to take office again after the March elections, 65 percent of the 500 Israelis polled said they do not want Netanyahu to continue running the country while 30% said they do want him to be prime minister; 5% declined responding to the question.

Comment: It doesn't matter which political leader wins in Israel. The entire Israeli society is pathologically rotten to the core.

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Heart - Black

Really?! Neocon Rich Lowry claims 'forced kissing' isn't sexual assault

David Edwards
Raw Story
Sun, 07 Dec 2014 00:00 UTC
Rich Lowry
© UnknownRich Lowry and Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) appear on ABC News
National Review Editor Rich Lowry on Sunday was schooled by a group of ABC News panelists after he claimed that "attempted forced kissing" should not be considered assault.

During a discussion about recent revelations that Rolling Stone's report about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia was flawed, Lowry asserted that the magazine accepted the young woman's story because "they had an agenda to portray UVA as the bastion of white male privilege, where basically rapists rule the social life."

"And the damage will never be undone," he argued. "And if there's any justice in the world, I think Rolling Stone would have to give up covering music and become the alumni magazine of the University of Virginia."

Comment: Which makes one wonder: just how many women has Rich Lowry (UVA graduate) 'forcibly kissed' in his lifetime? At UVA? Whatever the answer, his mentality is perfectly neocon: rape the world, lie about it, get a away with.

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Calculator

Censorship of police killings inspires crowd-sourced database

D. Brian Burghart
Gawker
Fri, 22 Aug 2014 22:12 UTC
police killings
A few days ago, Deadspin's Kyle Wagner began to compile a list of all police-involved shootings in the U.S. He's not the only one to undertake such a project: D. Brian Burghart, editor of the Reno News & Review, has been attempting a crowdsourced national database of deadly police violence. We asked Brian to write about what he's learned from his project.

It began simply enough. Commuting home from my work at Reno's alt-weekly newspaper, the News & Review, on May 18, 2012, I drove past the aftermath of a police shooting - in this case, that of a man named Jace Herndon. It was a chaotic scene, and I couldn't help but wonder how often it happened.

I went home and grabbed my laptop and a glass of wine and tried to find out. I found nothing - a failure I simply chalked up to incompetent local media.

A few months later I read about the Dec. 6, 2012, killing of a naked and unarmed 18-year-old college student, Gil Collar, by University of South Alabama police. The killing had attracted national coverage - The New York Times, the Associated Press, CNN - but there was still no context being provided - no figures examining how many people are killed by police.

Comment: Some more statistics from Burghart's site: between 3 to 8% of all homicides in the States are committed by police officers. Over the course of 16 months, from May 2013 to September 2014, U.S. police killed 1560 people. As for the murder of the mentally ill, in Nevada 30% of those killed by the police had mental disorders. Still think we don't live in a police state? Still think the U.S. is not just the latest country to succumb to the same disease Nazi Germany succumbed to? Think about it: the people targeted by the police for extrajudicial execution are blacks and the mentally ill.

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Question

Another banker found dead under questionable circumstances

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge
Sun, 07 Dec 2014 00:00 UTC
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Geert Tack Haaltert
52-year-old Belgian Geert Tack - a private banker for ING who managed portfolios for wealthy individuals - was described as 'impeccable', 'sporty', 'cared-for', and 'successful' and so as Vermist reports, after disappearing a month ago, the appearance of his body off the coast of Ostend is surrounded by riddles...

Tack disappeared on November 5th...

Impeccable. Sporty. Cared for. Successful. Just some qualifications that are attributed to the 52-year-old from the Belgian Geert Tack Haaltert.

Geert Tack worked as a private banker for ING and managed portfolios of wealthy clients. The Belgian was much respected in the financial world and was known as an up and top professional. His sudden disappearance had the effect of a bombshell. "If Tack himself was having trouble he has managed to keep it well hidden", colleagues say.

Nobody then could have guessed that the man would not return on Wednesday, November 5th to his wife in their villa Vondelen.

And would be found dead this weekend off the coast of Ostend...

Comment: As the list of banker 'suicides' and questionable deaths continues to grow, many people have espoused theories as to what is behind the phenomenon. Some theorize that corporate insurance policies may be behind some of these, but it is anybody's guess at this point.

Does the trail of dead bankers lead somewhere?

Exposing what lies beneath the bodies of dead bankers and what lies ahead for us

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Dollars

Yet another reason to detest police brutality: Taxpayers bear the burden of damages awarded

Sean Kelly
Opposing Views
Mon, 08 Dec 2014 00:00 UTC
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A UCLA Law Professor has found that in cases of police brutality, damages rewarded in suits against the city of New York are almost entirely paid for by taxpayers, with just a fraction of the cost incurred by officers involved or the NYPD as a whole.

Joanna Schwartz, who has extensive experience studying and analyzing cases of misconduct amongst police nationwide, presented her findings in a paper she wrote recently for the New York University Law Review. In the paper, Schwartz determines that taxpayers "almost always satisfy both compensatory and punitive damages awards entered against their sworn servants."

In the case of Eric Garner, the Staten Island man who was killed after NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo put him in a chokehold in an attempt to arrest him, the grand jury decision not to indict Pantaleo for Garner's death has prompted the victim's family to sue the city of New York for $75 million. Schwartz believes that Pantaleo may have to pay a very small portion of the damages, but it will ultimately be NYC taxpayers who foot the bill.

Comment: So, in addition to living in a police state, where you are terrified to call the cops for any reason, you are also paying for that 'privilege' via taxes to cover damage awards. It's little wonder protests are erupting all over the nation, as people have finally had enough!

#HandsUpWalkOut rallies spread across U.S. in wake of rigged Ferguson decision

Nationwide protests against police brutality in AmeriKKKa: Wilson gets away with murder, Anonymous: #HoodsOff "The war is on!"

Read More...