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Australian high court abolishes prenuptial agreements

Frank Chung
News.com.au
Thu, 09 Nov 2017 11:36 UTC
gold
© Leonhard Foeger
IN 2005, Kanye West delivered some sage advice to all wealthy men thinking of entering into marriage with money-hungry women, disparagingly referred to as "gold diggers".

If you "ain't no punk", the rapper warned, "holla we want prenup". A pre-nuptial agreement is "something that you need to have", according to Kanye, because when she "leave yo' ass", she is going to "leave with half".

The song remains a classic, but legal experts say a landmark ruling handed down by the High Court on Wednesday spells the "death knell" of pre-nuptial agreements, known as binding financial agreements in Australia.

The decision in Thorne v Kennedy, in which a young Eastern European woman successfully fought to overturn a prenup she signed on the eve of her marriage to a millionaire property developer twice her age, has sent shockwaves through the family law fraternity and could trigger a wave of lawsuits seeking to overturn existing financial agreements.

From a paltry $50,000 she would have been entitled to under the previous agreement, the woman is now set to become a millionaire in her own right.

"Even the lawyers within my team, the young ones, they don't realise the significance of this yet," said Slater and Gordon family law expert Heather McKinnon. "It's really funny. The High Court doesn't enter our jurisdiction very often - the last [decision] was probably seven or eight years ago - but when it does, it's significant."

Comment: There's certainly gold in them thar hills.

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Eye 2

Disturbing: YouTube begins crack-down on its massive child exploitation problem (once media start asking questions)

Charlie Warzel
Buzzfeed
Wed, 22 Nov 2017 21:06 UTC
Youtube child exploitation
Across YouTube, an unsettling trend has emerged: Accounts are publishing disturbing and exploitative videos aimed at and starring children in compromising, predatory, or creepy situations - and racking up millions of views.

BuzzFeed News has found a number of videos, many of which appear to originate from eastern Europe, that feature young children, often in revealing clothing, placed in vulnerable scenarios. In many instances, they're restrained with ropes or tape and sometimes crying or in visible distress. In other videos, the children are kidnapped, or made to 'play doctor' with an adult. The videos frequently include gross-out themes like injections, eating feces, or needles. Many come from YouTube 'verified' channels and have tens of millions of views. After BuzzFeed News brought these videos to the attention of YouTube, they were removed.

Comment: It's funny that this type of disturbing material, which is clearly exploitive and catering to sickos, is essentially ignored by YouTube until the media start asking questions. Yet Youtube/Google are quite liberal (pun intended) with the censoring of videos that present a political view counter to the liberal MSM. See:

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Snakes in Suits

When will there be a hashtag for #MenToo?

Charlie Peach
The Ghion Journal
Wed, 22 Nov 2017 10:04 UTC
Terry Crews

Terry Crews
The revelations of sexual assaults by Hollywood celebs and A-listers like Kevin Spacey, Terry Crews' allegations of sexual assault, George Takei also accused of sexual assault and Corey Haims' sad story and countless untold others; I'm waiting on the push for a #MenToo's hashtag.
In an excerpt from an interview with The Guardian, various male actors, both gay and straight, allege that Hollywood not only has a problem with males preying on younger men, but that it is rampant.
"It's a very taboo subject," said Alex Winter, who claims to have been sexually abused as a pre-teen child actor. "I don't know of any boys in any pocket of the entertainment industry that do not encounter some form of predatory behavior. ... It's really not a safe environment."

Comment: Indeed, the topic is more complicated than it seems: The Trials of Masculinity, Feminism and the Modern Male

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Network

Building better censorship: Google truth algorithm sees users as "part of the problem"

Eric Worral
Watts Up With That?
Thu, 23 Nov 2017 04:32 UTC
google logo
© flickr.com/ Kristina Alexanderson
Google's efforts to filter out positions which they think are fake news, like climate skeptic posts, have hit an unexpected snag: Google have just noticed large groups of people across the world hold views which differ from the views championed by the Silicon Valley monoculture.

Comment: The author claims Google execs "feel guilty" about imposing their prejudices on their users. There isn't much evidence for this feeling of guilt. It seems, rather, that it's more of about the technical issues of effective censorship algorithms that the article mentions, not that pesky human emotion - guilt.

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Megaphone

The plutocrats are barely even hiding their pursuit of internet censorship

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Thu, 23 Nov 2017 00:01 UTC
social media logos
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum."
~ Noam Chomsky, The Common Good
A few days ago Facebook blocked my account for posting an article about false flag operations around the world, then two days later unblocked me with an apology after I made a big stink about it, saying it was an accident. Things went back to normal, then yesterday something changed and now the only people seeing my posts on that account are Facebook friends I was interacting with back in 2012 and haven't spoken with in years. A number of users have told me that their post visibility has been really weird there the last few days.

Facebook has just announced that it is creating a resource which shows users which Russian propaganda outlets they have liked or followed, in response to consumers' newly manufactured demand to be protected from ideas and information that might make them less patriotic. It is unclear how "Russian propaganda" will be clearly defined and how inaccurate classification will be avoided.

Comment: As the tweet in the above article states, "Unlike other powerful states that restrict access to the internet and control information, the U.S. doesn't need to revert to those forms of crude censorship when the corporations will do it for them, thus maintaining the illusion of a free society." Rather than overtly censoring speech by limiting what people can actually say, it seems the Deep State is employing a more deceptive form of censorship with social media. You can say what you want, but they'll prevent anyone from actually hearing it.

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Question

US Navy and NASA join the hunt for missing Argentine submarine which vanished 250 miles off the coast of Patagonia almost 3 days ago - UPDATES

Darren Boyle
Daily Mail
Sat, 18 Nov 2017 13:47 UTC
The ARA San Juan (pictured in a file photo) last contacted the Argentine navy on Wednesday while 250 miles off the coast of Patagonia and has not been heard from since

The ARA San Juan (pictured in a file photo) last contacted the Argentine navy on Wednesday while 250 miles off the coast of Patagonia and has not been heard from since
The US Navy has deployed one of its high-tech surveillance aircraft to help find a missing Argentine attack submarine which went missing three days ago.

NASA has also sent a surveillance aircraft to the scene, diverting it from a mission studying Antarctic ice.

The ARA San Juan was last in contact with its base on Wednesday when it was almost 270 miles from the coast of Patagonia.

The US Navy diverted one of its P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft to Bahia Blanca, Argentina to help with the search for the missing submarine.

Comment: Update (Nov. 19): Attempts sent on Saturday from San Juan submarine lasted between four and 36 seconds, says defence ministry.
Seven failed satellite calls were detected on Saturday that Argentina's defence ministry believes could be from submarine that went missing in the south Atlantic three days ago with 44 crew on board.

The attempts - which lasted between four and 36 seconds - "indicate that the crew is trying to re-establish contact" after communications were lost on Wednesday said the navy. The defence ministry said it was working on tracing the location of the calls with an unnamed US company that specialised in satellite communications.

It was not immediately clear what type of calls the ARA San Juan submarine might have tried to make but submarines that are stricken underwater can float a location beacon known as an emergency position indicator radio beacon (EPIRB) to the surface that can then emit emergency signals via satellite.
...

Offers for aid have been received also from South Africa and Brazil, as well as other South American nations.

Argentina's foreign minister, Jorge Faurie, tweeted. "I am deeply grateful to all the friendly nations who are collaborating in the humanitarian search we Argentinians are undertaking."


Argentina's president, Mauricio Macri, has moved to the coastal city of Chapadmalal, near Mar del Plata, because of the situation.
Update (Nov. 20): The international search for the missing Argentinian submarine with 44 crew on board is continuing after a naval commander confirmed the vessel did surface to report an electrical malfunction.
The military sub surfaced Wednesday to report an electrical issue and was ordered to go back to its base, according to naval commander Gabriel Galeazzi. "The submarine surfaced and reported a malfunction, which is why its ground command ordered it to return to its naval base at Mar del Plata," Galeazzi told reporters on Monday.

The alarm was raised by the Argentinian navy on Friday after the vessel failed to make contact for 48 hours. The crew was returning from a routine mission to Ushuaia, near the most southern tip of South America, when the German-built diesel-electric submarine lost contact.

Rescuers hoped that satellite calls detected over the weekend were from the missing crew, however a navy spokesman confirmed on Monday that the calls did not come from the vessel.

International air and sea search missions by Brazil, Britain, Chile and the US were hindered by bad weather conditions. Waves were up to six meters when the sub went missing, but rescuers are honing in on a 300km radius surrounding the last point of contact with the vessel.


While it's still unclear exactly what happened, a navy spokesperson said an electrical problem may have suddenly cut off the vessel's communications. One possible scenario is that the submarine's communications malfunctioned, but its navigation remains intact. However, such a theory has lost steam after the crew failed to dock as planned Sunday.
Update (Nov. 23): A "hydro-acoustic anomaly" was detected near where the Argentinian submarine ARA San Juan went missing, three hours after it sent its last communications a week ago, the navy revealed yesterday.
The anomaly occurred at 30 nautical miles north of the last position from where the submarine had communicated with the navy, spokesman Enrique Balbi said.

A US institute detected the anomaly, but only informed Argentina about it now.

Balbi had earlier said it was unlikely the submarine exploded, because an explosion of that magnitude in the sea would not have gone undetected.

The spokesman said three navy vessels were on their way to the area to check whether the submarine was there.

Hopes of rescuing the vessel's 44 crew before its week's supply of oxygen runs out have been repeatedly raised and dashed by false alarms triggered by undersea noises, a lifeboat and flare rockets, all initially thought to have come from the submarine.

"It's a noise. We don't want to speculate" about what caused it, Balbi said of the anomaly.

Family members of the crew meanwhile criticised the rescue effort. "We are really amazed that they are not finding it, it is impossible at this stage that they don't know where it is," Claudio Rodriguez, brother of one of the crew members, said.

"How can you lose a 60-metres long navy vessel, even if it is under water?" Rodriguez told radio Cielo
.
Argentina has accepted help from Russia in the search. President Mauricio Macri said the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, had phoned him to offer to deploy a survey vessel and crew with experience of similar operations.

More than a dozen countries, including the US, are taking part in the search. Brazil, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Peru, South Africa, Uruguay and the UK are among the countries that have sent either ships or planes to help with the search.

The last contact was made at 07:30 local time (10:30 GMT) on Wednesday 15 November. It is not known what happened to the sub after that contact.

Missing Argentinian submarine
© BBC
Why no distress signals?
As baffling as the sub's disappearance is, its apparent failure to use any of a number of distress signals or mechanisms at its disposal is troubling. For starters, the boat's commanders could have released an emergency buoy that would have positioned the sub for searchers with radio SOS signals.

The San Juan also is equipped with an ejectable cylinder that releases green fluid a half mile in diameter once it reaches the surface. Moreover, the vessel has large life rafts that can be released if an abandonment is expected.

Officials have theorized that either searchers have yet to come across any of these distress signals or that the submarine was quickly and devastatingly incapacitated by a cataclysmic event onboard.


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Dollar

Larry Silverstein cashes in again: WTC owner gets payout from airlines in 9/11 damage claim


RT
Wed, 22 Nov 2017 21:58 UTC
911 destruction
© Peter Morgan/Reuters
Insurers for American Airlines and United Airlines will foot part of a $95.2 million damage claim brought by the developers of the World Trade Center, after the buildings were destroyed by two hijacked passenger jets on September 11, 2001.

The iconic pillars of New York's financial district collapsed when hijackers flew two planes belonging to the airlines into the Manhattan island buildings. Around 3,000 people died in the attack.

After a protracted 13-year legal wrangle, American Airlines and United Airlines have reached a multi-million dollar settlement with Silverstein Properties, Reuters reported. Representatives for the airlines declined to comment to RT.com on the settlement.

A spokesperson for Silverstein Properties confirmed the settlement."We are pleased to have finally reached a resolution to this piece of post-9/11 litigation. We are currently devoting our attention to the ongoing construction of 3 World Trade Center, which we will open in the spring, and to the development of 2 World Trade Center," he told RT.com by email.

Comment: See also:

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Handcuffs

Mom charged with a felony for putting a recorder in daughter's backpack to catch her bully

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Wed, 22 Nov 2017 21:46 UTC
schoolyard arrest
For weeks, Sarah Sims said she called and emailed school officials repeatedly to tell them her child was being bullied at school and was never given a response. So, she took matters into her own hands and now she is facing felony charges.

Sims discovered her daughter was being bullied in late September. So, like any parent would do, she reached out to school officials for help. But she received nothing.

"The thing that bothers me the most is that I am yet to get a response from anyone in the administration," Sims added.

After being shrugged off by the school, Sims decided that she would take matters into her own hands and catch her 9-year-old daughter's bully.

"I tried to be fair, but it's not fair," said Sims. "There is nothing fair about this."

She wanted to obtain proof that nothing was being done to help her 4th-grader, so she put a digital recorder in her backpack to capture audio from inside the classroom.

"If I'm not getting an answer from you, what am I left to do?" she asked.
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Caesar

Australian Catholic school covers newly commissioned statue due to its sexual suggestiveness


BBC News
Wed, 22 Nov 2017 21:01 UTC
suggestive statue

The school has covered up the statue and said it will be replaced.
An Australian school has covered a statue from view because of its "potentially suggestive" depiction of a saint handing a loaf of bread to a boy.

The Catholic school in Adelaide apologised on Wednesday for the statue, which was completed recently.

The sculpture, portraying St Martin de Porres, was widely criticised after images of it were posted online.

The unfortunate position of the loaf of bread held by the saint led to some misreading the scene.

Blackfriars Priory School said it had commissioned a new sculptor to "substantially alter" the design.

In a message posted on Facebook, principal Simon Cobiac apologised to the school community for "any concerns and publicity" caused by the statue.
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Ambulance

Meet the Sacklers: The family behind the opioid epidemic

Dr. Mercola
mercola.com
Wed, 22 Nov 2017 20:35 UTC
overdose
The U.S. has a massive opioid addiction problem. According to the U.S. surgeon general, more Americans now use prescription opioids than smoke cigarettes,1 and addiction to narcotic pain relievers now costs the U.S. more than $193 billion each year. The Manchester, New Hampshire, fire department recently said it now responds to more calls for drug overdoses than fires.2 That's not so surprising when you consider that opioids are now the leading cause of death among Americans under the age of 50.3

The following graph by the National Institute on Drug Abuse shows the progressive incline in overdose deaths related to opioid pain relievers between 2002 and 2015.4 This does not include deaths from heroin addiction, which we now know is a common side effect of getting hooked on these powerful prescription narcotics. In all, we're looking at just over 202,600 deaths in this 13-year time frame alone.5
overdose deaths
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