Society's ChildS


Stock Down

Independent study reveals Britain's rapid decline in economic equality and widening gap between rich and poor


RT
Tue, 17 Jun 2014 14:00 UTC
Image
© Getty Images
The poorest 20 percent of UK households earn just $9,530 annually, a dramatically lower rate than in other countries with a similar average income, according to new research.

Few Britons would probably agree with the observation that "life is much worse (in the UK) than it is for the poorest fifth in virtually every other northwest European country," but that is exactly the conclusion the High Pay Centre, an independent British think-tank, has made in a newly released study.

Using figures from the OECD Better Life Index, the report shows that average UK household incomes of $53,785, which makes up the wealthiest 20 percent in the UK, ranked third in EU countries, lagging behind Germany and France.

But that is where the economic similarities between the UK and the EU come to a screeching halt.

The OECD estimates the average income of the bottom 20 percent of UK households at just $9,530, which is significantly lower than the poorest 20 percent in France ($12,653), Germany ($13,381), Belgium ($12,350), the Netherlands ($11,274) and Denmark ($12,183).
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Pistol

Man shoots ex-wife, boyfriend as 100 people watch at Illinois high school reunion

David Edwards
The Raw Story
Mon, 16 Jun 2014 09:15 UTC
Image
© Via facebookLori A. Moore and her boyfriend, Lance E. Griffel
An Illinois man reportedly fatally shot his ex-wife and her new boyfriend at a high school reunion in East Peoria over the weekend before being killed by an off-duty FBI officer.

WEEK reported that 33-year-old Lori A. Moore and her boyfriend, 36-year-old Lance E. Griffel, (pictured, above) were at The Fifth Quarter Sports Bar and Pizzeria on Saturday, when 40-year-old Jason A. Moore walked in and shot them both in the head at pointblank range.

Lori Moore was there to attend her reunion for East Peoria Community High School Class of 1999. More than 100 attendees witnessed the shooting.

According to the New York Daily News, an off-duty FBI officer shot and killed Jason Moore.

"It's very difficult to say. You can play the 'what if' game over and over again, but I think it's pretty clear in his case the presence of this officer and his ability to take very quick and very decisive action prevented a further tragedy," East Peoria Police Chief Ganschow explained.
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Take 2

Famous person George Clooney to reportedly run for California governor


RT
Tue, 17 Jun 2014 13:52 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo / Michael Loccisano
Hollywood actor George Clooney is reportedly planning to run for governor of California within the next four years - an event that, if successful, could ultimately launch a campaign for the presidency.

According to the British tabloid newspaper the Daily Mirror, friends of the 53-year-old blockbuster movie star claim that Clooney is being wooed by Democrats hoping he'll launch a long-speculated political career, with their sights set on the 2018 governor's race. If Clooney agrees, he would likely start planning out the next steps after his September marriage to British human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin.

If Clooney manages to become governor of California, he would be following the same path as actors like Ronald Reagan (governor from 1967-1975) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (2003-2011). Reagan, of course, went on to win the presidency in 1980.

To Clooney's friends, who went unnamed by the Mirror, the move would be a natural fit.
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Battery

Their solution to everything: slavery to the State

Jon Rappoport
Activist Post
Tue, 17 Jun 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
© unknown
Let me clarify that. Slavery to the corporate State. Government and mega-corporations work hand in hand.

The incurably naïve believe the State is beneficent. The government is kind. The government knows what to do. The government will solve society's ills if we let it.

Of course, the government, in the form of NSA, is spying on everybody all the time - but you see, that's not really the government. It's a rogue element.

Sure it is. And rainbows will appear at any moment and the people of Earth will experience a galactic frequency that eradicates all impulses toward conflict.

To put it another way, people see what they want to see.

"Ahem, when I say 'government,' I don't mean the CIA or the Pentagon or the FDA or the President's national security team, or fraudulent federal scientists, or the whole lot of venal people in Congress, or corrupt prosecutors and judges or invasive bureaucrats or paper-pushing money-sucking desk jockeys."
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Alarm Clock

Awakening people power! Donetsk miners threaten to take arms if Kiev continues military operation


Voice of Russia
Wed, 18 Jun 2014 13:23 UTC
Donetsk miners
© RIA Novosti/Aleksandr Kryazhev
"The people of the DPR will fight. First of all the foreign enemy, and then oligarchs' turn will come," TASS cites an official of the self-proclaimed republic as saying.

Miners from the Donetsk Region in eastern Ukraine will take arms if the Kiev authorities do not stop their military operation in the region within two days, a deputy coal industry minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), Konstantin Kuznetsov, said Wednesday.

"Miners have given (the Kiev authorities) two days to stop the so-called antiterrorism operation. Unless that happens, they are taking up arms and are going to defend their land, wives and children," Kuznetsov said.

Commenting on the situation in the Donetsk Region, DPR Prime Minister Alexander Borodai told ITAR-TASS that "it is now absolutely clear to each DPR resident that the Nazi junta is carrying out genocide of the population under the guise of an antiterrorism operation."

Borodai said this is a patriotic war for the region's residents. "The people of the DPR will fight. First of all the foreign enemy, and then oligarchs' turn will come," he said.
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Alarm Clock

Elderly, disabled Philadelphia inmate sets record for being held without trial


RT
Wed, 18 Jun 2014 06:25 UTC
prison
© Justin Sullivan / Getty Images / AFP

A man who was held in Philadelphia's prison system without trial for seven years - the longest-ever such term in the city's jails, it is believed - was moved to a nursing home on Monday, two years after he was deemed not competent to stand trial.

Marvae Dunn, 68, was arrested in April 2007 for shooting his sister-in-law in North Philadelphia, according to Reuters. Weeks after his arrest, he suffered a series of strokes that left him unable to walk or speak.

In May 2012, Dunn was declared unfit to stand trial, court records say.

"As far as I know, nobody has stayed this long in city jails," said Common Pleas Court Judge Benjamin Lerner, who ordered Dunn's transfer.

Lerner said at the time of the order that he would hold "those responsible" in contempt for Dunn's lengthy stay in jail if Dunn was not moved to a psychiatric facility. Yet Dunn stayed in the city jail system for two more years.

One reason Dunn may have slipped through the cracks, Lerner said, was the city's reduction of the number of available beds for prisoners at psychiatric facilities. In addition, Lerner's need for a wheelchair and dialysis likely made finding an adequate nursing home more difficult.

Dunn likely suffered from mental illness before his arrest, Lerner said.

"I'm not sure how anyone decided he was competent for a preliminary hearing," he added.
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Stock Up

ISIS annual reports unveiled, including full "investment highlights"

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Tue, 17 Jun 2014 22:18 UTC
In a day and age in which corporations rule the world, the brutal Al-Qaeda spin off known as ISIS is learning from the best, and as part of its credentialising and image-building has done something only major corporations do at the end of every year: it has issued annual reports for the past 2 years (unaudited, unless Ernst & Young has quietly upgraded from "massaging" the books for Lehman's Repo 105 and, of course, the New York Fed, without our knowledge).

That's right: as the FT reported earlier, "Since 2012 the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, (known as Isis) has issued annual reports, outlining in numerical and geographical detail its operations - the number of bombings, assassinations, checkpoints, suicide missions, cities taken over and even "apostates" converted to the Isis cause."

But while publicly traded corporations focus more on revenues, margins, and profits, ISIS has other key considerations:
In 2013 alone, the group's report claimed nearly 10,000 operations in Iraq: 1,000 assassinations, 4,000 improvised explosive devices planted and hundreds of radical prisoners freed. In the same year it claimed hundreds of "apostates" had been turned.
Wait... are you serious?

Why yes: below are the "investment highlights" pages from ISIS' 2012 and 2013 annual reports:
isis report

Comment: 'Theater of the absurd', indeed:
Mainstream media outlets have been regaling Western audiences with headlines like 'A powerful and merciless force has emerged on the world stage', and 'Black flag of jihad will fly over London', and encouraging us to view 'terrifying execution images' to the point that we start to get the impression that someone, somewhere, really wants to scare us, albeit in a crassly theatrical way.

What we are witnessing in Iraq and Syria today is indeed largely theater, designed and performed by psychopaths for the purpose of terrifying the masses of humanity into accepting the rule of the same psychopaths. While the action plays out in real life in cities and towns, and with real people suffering and dying, the underlying philosophy is similar to that portrayed by the 1950s 'Theater of the Absurd' where stage actors reflected the ponerized world in which they lived by expressing the belief that human existence has no meaning or purpose, with logical argument replaced by irrational and illogical speech and man appearing as a puppet, controlled or menaced by invisible outside forces. Normal human beings today truly are menaced by outside forces, but those forces are not invisible, they just hide behind massive lies and obfuscation and present themselves as 'our leaders to whom we must look to for protection', when the truth that we all must recognize is that they are a fundamentally different species from normal humanity with a fundamentally inhuman and malignant essence.

Psycho 'Reality Creators' open 'gates of hell' in Iraq with proxy Jihadis


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Wreath

Explosion at armory in central China kills 17 soldiers


Voice of Russia
Wed, 18 Jun 2014 02:42 UTC
Hengyang city
© Unknown
The explosion took place at the armory army in the province in central China, 17 soldiers were killed, according to the Xinhua News Agency on Wednesday.

The incident occurred in the city of Hengyang in Hunan Province on Tuesday. It is reported that the explosion thundered at a time when soldiers stockpiled weapons. None of the civilian population has been injured.

Comment: A lot of explosions lately! Pure coincidence, sabotage or is there a cosmic connection?

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Extinguisher

Gas transit pipeline explodes in Ukraine - sabotage not ruled out


RT
Tue, 17 Jun 2014 02:23 UTC
Gas pipeline blast in Ukraine
© Youtube
An explosion has struck a pipeline in the central Ukrainian Poltava region. Witnesses say flames from the blast are up to 200 meter high.

"The explosion occurred at about 14:45 local time in a field," the local police press-service said in a statement. Due to the "flame and the high temperatures," it was "impossible to get closer to the epicenter."

The "Brotherhood" natural gas pipeline (Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod) is about one kilometer away from the nearest settlement. No injuries have been reported from the blast. Fire fighting crews have been deployed to the scene.

The blaze, which according to the Interior Ministry towered 100 meters high, was put out by "between 4 and 5 pm."

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Handcuffs

Globalized slavery: Thai slave labor provides supermarket prawns

Kate Hodal, Chris Kelly & Felicity Lawrence
The Guardian
Wed, 11 Jun 2014 22:27 UTC
Image
Slaves forced to work for no pay for years at a time under threat of extreme violence are being used in Asia in the production of seafood sold by major US, British and other European retailers, the Guardian can reveal.

A six-month investigation has established that large numbers of men bought and sold like animals and held against their will on fishing boats off Thailand are integral to the production of prawns (commonly called shrimp in the US) sold in leading supermarkets around the world, including the top four global retailers: Walmart, Carrefour, Costco and Tesco.

The investigation found that the world's largest prawn farmer, the Thailand-based Charoen Pokphand (CP) Foods, buys fishmeal, which it feeds to its farmed prawns, from some suppliers that own, operate or buy from fishing boats manned with slaves.

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