Society's ChildS


Wolf

Baptist Preacher Pleads Guilty to Child Porn

Michael Alan Crippen
© stopbaptistpredators.orgMichael Alan Crippen

A Baptist preacher from southwest Missouri pleaded guilty yesterday to possession of child porn.

Michael Alan Crippen, was the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Duenweg (just east of Joplin), was arrested last October and charged with having more than 100 pornographic images of children on his home computer, including photos of kids under the age of 10.

According to court documents, Crippen told authorities that he most often viewed pornography early in the mornings before going to work at the church. He would typically download images and then delete them after feeling ashamed at what he'd done. He added that he was praying to God to help him overcome his pornography addiction.

In federal court yesterday Crippen admitted downloading ten images of child pornography from a website in 2009. He also admitted to looking at adult and child pornography for years.

Crippen, 51, could face ten years in prison and fines up to $250,000 when sentenced later this year.

Sherlock

US, Illinois: 'Critical' Clue Unveiled in 1985 Wesselman Murder

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© Bev HorneA photo of a ring was unveiled during a news conference at the DuPage County sheriff's office in Wheaton on Thursday. Kristy Wesselman was wearing a ring very similar to this when she was murdered 26 years ago near Glen Ellyn.
DuPage County sheriff's officials sought to reinvigorate their investigation into one of the suburbs' most haunting unsolved mysteries Thursday by disclosing a "critical" clue - a pearl ring - in the 1985 murder of Kristy Wesselman.

Authorities said they believe the 15-year-old's killer took the antique gold ring from Kristy's left hand after raping and stabbing her 26 years ago this week in a field near her home near Glen Ellyn.

For decades, the family heirloom remained a closely kept secret - one police hoped would eliminate false confessors and ultimately lead to a suspect. But now they're reaching out to the public, asking anyone who may have seen or been given the ring - size 4½ with a chip in the pearl - to come forward.

"At this point, with 26 years since her murder, the benefits outweigh the risks," detective Sgt. Robert Harris, who is lead investigator on the cold case, said of disclosing the evidence for the first time. "We feel that sharing this important information ... is critical to gaining the suspect's identification."

Kristy was killed the afternoon of July 21, 1985, as she walked a path through a field south of a former Jewel store toward her home, after buying a bottle of soda and a chocolate bar she planned to share with her mother.

Bizarro Earth

US: Hypocrisy: TSA agent makes joking reference to OKC bomber Timothy McVeigh

TSA
© Getty ImagesThe TSA's peculiar "sense of humor
Among the Transportation Security Administration's ever-lengthening laundry list of problems is a recently highlighted proclivity among its agents not to practice what they preach.

Earlier this week, a TSA agent cracked a "joke" that, had it come from a passenger, would have resulted in a nude-body scan, a forty-minute enhanced pat-down, and probably a firing squad for good measure.

The incident, reported by The Consumerist, occurred at Boston's Logan Airport and involved a passenger who opted not to pass through one of the airport's new advanced imaging technology (AIT) scanners. The passenger was perhaps aware of reports last month of an increase in cancer cases among TSA personnel at Logan.

Laptop

US: Hacking Groups Say They are Back After FBI Arrests

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© Reuters/Jon NazcaWikiLeaks supporters wear masks of the ''Anonymous'' internet activist group and a mask of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (R) during a demonstration calling for the release of Assange, in Malaga, southern Spain December 11, 2010.
After a brief hiatus and an FBI takedown of several alleged "hacktivists," two groups that have claimed responsibility for a recent wave of cyber vandalism say they are back.

A statement was posted online on Thursday jointly by the groups, Anonymous and Lulz Security, after U.S. authorities arrested 16 people earlier this week for several attacks, most prominently Anonymous' attempt to cripple eBay's PayPal site after it stopped accepting donations to the WikiLeaks organization.

The arrests allowed a peek into the lives of those alleged to be hacker-activists -- cyber-criminals who shut down or break into computer systems to make political points or defy authority, rather than to steal credit card numbers or commit espionage.

Some did not seem to have sophisticated technology-oriented jobs. The group included a former janitor, a landscape foreman and a college student, ranging in age from 20 to 42.

"We are not scared any more. Your threats to arrest us are meaningless to us as you cannot arrest an idea," the hacker groups said in the statement, which could not be independently verified. Lulz Security had previously suggested it was disbanding.

Che Guevara

Australia: 'Up to 100' in Latest Christmas Island Riots

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© Nic EllisProtest at the Phosphate Hill detention facility on Christmas Island.

The Immigration Department says up to 100 people armed with makeshift weapons may have been involved in the latest riot at the Christmas Island Detention Centre overnight.

Between 30 and 40 people were directly involved in the protest, which involved lighting fires at the centre.

The incident was brought to a halt by federal police, but the department said the perimeter fence was not breached.
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Detainees set fire to furniture and rubbish bins and destroyed fences and gates, Social Justice Network spokesman Jamal Daoud said.

Ian Rintoul, from the Refugee Action Coalition, said earlier he had been informed by an asylum seeker that detainees barricaded themselves inside the detention centre's Gold compound.

Propaganda

The Odd Couple: Julian Assange, Rupert Murdoch and Freedom of Information

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© The Associated Press / Getty Images
Both WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and media mogul Rupert Murdoch have come under fire linked to hacking scandals. Taken together these incidents raise interesting questions about what constitutes public knowledge and whether freedom of information can be taken too far.

WikiLeaks had been releasing confidential documents and has been threatened with lawsuits long before it became known for publicizing secret military information related to the U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan. These documents were allegedly obtained by WikiLeaks via the United States Army soldier Bradley Manning, who has still never been formally charged and has been detained for 14 months. Even though Julian Assange did not hack the information and did not even know where it was from, it is still seen as a crime to release these documents because of their nature. Many of them were never used by the U.S. media. But some national security-related documents were picked up by prominent news organizations, including The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel. The New York Times explained why it ran documents such as the Afghanistan dispatches, saying that "there was no question [...] that the Afghanistan dispatches were genuine".

Here, public knowledge prevailed over ethical questions regarding the methods employed to attain that information.

Cow

Japan Bans Radioactive Meat a Little Too Late

radioactive meat
© Chris McGrath / Getty Images

The March 2011 disaster that swept Japan and other parts of the world with radiation from melted down reactors cores at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant continues to spew deadly radiation to this very day.

The Intel Hub has had reports of aerial radiation surveys taking place over the CONUS (Continental United States)due to the Fukushima radiation drift - like a scene out of the TV series Jericho (a must watch).

What is even more appalling is the fact that Japan has now banned the deadly radioactive meat after most of the Japanese populace consumed has it.

The following is an excerpt from the AFP;

Cow

Ex Japanese Nuclear Regulator Blames Radioactive Animal Feed on "Black Rain"

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While many radioactive cattle have been discovered large distances from Fukushima, what is more important is where their feed is coming from.

"It's not only about the radioactive cattle in Fukushima Prefecture; its also about the radioactive straw the cattle eat that was grown elsewhere". Straw found 45 miles from Fukushima is highly contaminated with radioactive cesium, which is an indication that radiation has contaminated large portions of Northern Japan.

More than half a million disintegrations per second in a kilogram of straw are comparable to Chernobyl levels. This proves that the American Nuclear Regulatory Commission was correct when it told Americans to evacuate beyond 50 miles and that the Japanese should have done the same.

An Ex-Secretariat of Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission blames this contamination on "Black Rain". Rather than minimize the information the Japanese people receive, Gundersen suggests minimizing their radiation exposure."

Bell

Best of the Web: Madness: 39 Things That Are Driving Ordinary Americans Absolutely Crazy

Crazy American
© adamshane.com
Have you noticed that almost everyone seems really angry these days? Frustration with the government and with most of the other major institutions in our society seems to grow by the day. According to a brand new ABC News/Washington Post poll, 80 percent of Americans say that they are either dissatisfied or angry with the government. Americans are deeply divided about what the solutions to our problems are, but what almost everyone can agree on is that our problems are getting worse. Watching all of the madness that is going on in Washington D.C. and in our state capitals is almost enough to drive anyone absolutely crazy. Our nation is drowning in an ocean of debt, jobs are being shipped overseas at an alarming rate, thousands of stores are closing, poverty is exploding, greed has become a national pastime and corruption is seemingly everywhere. The American people are incredibly frustrated because the vast majority of our "leaders" appear to be too incompetent or too corrupt to deal with our problems.

If you visit just about any website on the Internet that deals with politics or the economy and spend some time reading the comments that people leave you will quickly see how angry people are becoming. A lot of times people have no other outlets for the intense frustration that they are feeling and so they just let it all come out online. Yes, Americans have always complained about the government, but the madness that we are seeing today is really unprecedented in modern U.S. history. Something has fundamentally changed.

The U.S. government and most of our other major societal institutions are rapidly losing the faith of the American people. But society cannot function without trust.

So what is going to happen once all of the trust is gone?

The following are 39 things that are driving ordinary Americans absolutely crazy right now....

People

Ghana cracks down on gays

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© UnknownGhana

Ghana's Western Region Minister, Paul Evans Aidoo MP has ordered the immediate arrest of all homosexuals in the country's west.

Aidooo has tasked Ghana's Bureau of National Investigations and security forces to round up the country's gay population and has called on landlords and tenants to inform on people they suspect of being homosexuals.

"All efforts are being made to get rid of these people in the society," he said.

The move by the Minister follows months of campaigning by the Christian Council of Ghana which last week called on Ghanaians not to vote for any politician who believes in the rights of homosexuals.

Muslims and Christians in the Western Region have been staging protests ever since a local media report claimed there were around 8000 homosexuals and lesbians in the district.

Comment: This is a response by an individual from Ghana:
I'm a Ghanaian journalist, let me clear a few things.

As the last paragraph says, Ghana's constitution does not outlaw homosexuality in its explicit sense, just an ambiguous statement of "unnatural carnal knowledge".

The first comment here asked how the govt knows of the 8000 gay people in that region. It's because those 8000 people registered themselves into a grouping and a newspaper found out.

Ghana's religious population (christian and muslim) have a powerful voice. And they are against the homosexuals getting recognition. Their favorite quote is "God loves the sinner including the homosexuals but hates sin and homosexuality"

What's the mood like? It will soon get bloody. It's an extremely touchy issue.

Hope this clears things up.