Society's ChildS


House

Best of the Web: Walk away from your mortgage ?

Les Christie
CNN Money
Tue, 07 Jun 2011 00:00 UTC
Should you keep paying your mortgage on a home that's dwindling in value?

No way, say an increasing number of underwater homeowners who are voluntarily choosing to "walk away" from their home loans, a practice known as "strategic default."

Jon Maddux, CEO of YouWalkAway.com, reports 10% more clients this year to his company, which advises people how best to handle the walk away process.

Charles Gallagher, a real estate attorney in St. Petersburg, Fla., has also seen an uptick.
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Heart - Black

Economic Crisis Will Lead to Civil Unrest


Vodpod
Fri, 10 Jun 2011 19:24 UTC
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Bell

Scientists warn of deadly shellfish in part of Alaska

Yereth Rosen
Reuters.com
Fri, 10 Jun 2011 16:18 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Anchorage, Alaska - Public health officials warned Alaskans to avoid eating shellfish they harvest from the southeastern tip of the state after high concentrations of a poison than can kill humans was found.

State officials said scientists monitoring algae blooms near Ketchikan discovered some of the world's highest-ever recorded levels of toxins that cause paralytic shellfish poisoning -- a potentially fatal ailment that can paralyze vital organs.

The most poisonous shellfish discovered were baby mussels at a dock in Ketchikan with toxin levels of more than 30,000 micrograms per hundred grams of shellfish meat. This is well over the 80-microgram level considered toxic, the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services has warned.

Those levels are so high that a single mussel could kill several people, scientists at the University of Alaska Southeast said in a statement on Thursday.
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Dollar

Many of us won't be able to retire until our 80s

Robert Powell
Marketwatch.com
Thu, 09 Jun 2011 16:09 UTC
You'll probably have to work much longer than you anticipated

We all think it's a panacea. If you don't have enough money saved for retirement, you've got a few ways to close the gap between what you have and what you need in your nest egg: Save more, invest more aggressively, and/or work longer.

Well, it turns out that working longer is indeed an option, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute latest study. The only problem is that the latest research shows that you'll have to work much longer than you anticipated. In fact, many Americans will have to keep on working well into their 70s and 80s to afford retirement, according to the study, titled The Impact of Deferring Retirement Age on Retirement Income Adequacy.

What's more, it's even worse for low-income workers, according Jack VanDerhei, one of the co-authors of the study. Those who earned (on average over the course of their careers) less than $11,700 per year, the lowest income quartile, would need to defer retirement till age 84 before 90% of those households would have just a 50% chance of affording retirement.
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Bizarro Earth

US: Girl, 5, to investigators: I drowned tot 'because he would not stop crying'


Msnbc.msn.com
Fri, 10 Jun 2011 15:44 UTC
Kansas City police originally ruled the death accidental but child later told social workers she had held relative underwater

Missouri - A 5-year-old girl could face murder charges after a toddler was drowned in a bathtub, police said.

Kansas City police are waiting for a medical examiner's report on how 18-month-old Jermane Johnson Jr., died, but have investigated the death as a homicide, spokesman Darin Snapp said Thursday.

"I've been in law enforcement for 20 years, and it's the youngest suspect I can remember," Snapp said. "It's extremely rare."

Johnson was in a Kansas City house on June 3 with other children, but the 16-year-old girl who was supposed to be looking after them fell asleep, Snapp said.

Comment: In a ponerized society, this is how responsibility is handled - it gets placed on those who have little to no ability to defend themselves.

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People

Funny Thing: It's not the end of the world

Bromley Hanford
Hanford Sentinel
Fri, 10 Jun 2011 15:19 UTC
Image
© UnknownBen Bromley
The good news is we aren't dead. The bad news is we will be soon. And that's a real shame, given how close I am to amassing a complete set of Smurfs glasses from Hardee's.

If only I had another year to find a mint-condition Gargamel glass. But sadly, according to doomsday preacher Harold Camping, the world will end Oct. 21, leaving my collection of 1982 fast-food chain giveaways tragically incomplete.

Of course, we've heard it all from Camping before. The California radio host first predicted the apocalypse in 1994, then blamed his folly on a mathematical error. He renewed his prophecy this year, stating 200 million Christians would be taken to heaven May 21, before the Earth was destroyed. But once again, he had forgotten to carry the 1: When the world didn't end, Camping went back to the blackboard and decided the Rapture would occur Oct. 21. He predicts our planet will be consumed by a fireball, so be sure to keep your SPF 80 handy.
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Bulb

Russell Crowe calls Jewish circumcision 'barbaric' and compares it to human sacrifice in Twitter row


UK Telegraph
Fri, 10 Jun 2011 10:35 UTC
crowe
© AFP/GETTYRussell Crowe - talking sense on circumcision
Russell Crowe, the Gladiator star, has sparked outrage after describing circumcision as barbaric in an angry four-letter outburst on the social networking site Twitter.

The Oscar-winning actor laballed the practice "barbaric and stupid" during a row with his Twitter followers, telling them to "f--- off" if they disagreed with him.

The 47-year-old engaged in an angry exchange with one follower, whom he branded a "moron", before imploring Jewish people to "stop cutting your babies".

The debate followed a question by one of his fans called @picknic11 who asked him: "My son is due soon. Do you think I should get him circumstanced? [sic]"

Crowe tweeted: "Circumcision is barbaric and stupid. Who are you to correct nature? Is it real that GOD requires a donation of foreskin? Babies are perfect."

He added: "Many Jewish friends, I love my Jewish friends, I love the apples and the honey and the funny little hats but stop cutting yr babies.

"I will always stand for the perfection of babies, I will always believe in God, not man's interpretation of what God requires.

"Last of it, if u feel it is yr right 2 cut things off yr babies please unfollow and f--- off, I'll take attentive parenting over barbarism."
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Nuke

Mutant rabbit born near Fukushima plant


rt.com
Fri, 03 Jun 2011 07:53 UTC
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The birth of a white rabbit with no ears not far from the damaged Fukushima power plant in Japan has sparked fear in locals.
The animal is a living reminder of the danger that radiation leakages may pose, reports Italian Corriere TV, branch of the newspaper Corriere della Sera.

The Fukushima nuclear power plant was damaged by the powerful earthquake and the subsequent tsunami on March 11. Authorities evacuated all residents within 20 km as the reactors went into meltdown. The exclusion zone was later extended to 30 km.

The mutant rabbit was born in a village just outside the perimeter.

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Mail

UK: Princess Di's Letters May Fetch As Much as $30,000

Katie Kindelan
ABC News
Thu, 09 Jun 2011 00:00 UTC
Image
© Express Newspapers/Getty ImagesPrince Charles and Princess Diana stand on the balcony of Buckingham Palace after their wedding ceremony at St. Paul's Cathedral, London, England, July 29, 1981.
They were the personal letters of a very public princess.

And now a 30-year collection of previously unpublished letters penned by the late Princess Diana has been unveiled for the first time, to be sold to the highest bidder.

"Just a cosy nest for Mr. and Mrs. Wales to roost," the Princess of Wales wrote of Highgrove, the new home she shared with Prince Charles shortly after their lavish royal wedding.

The letters, more than 30 years worth, dating as far back as September 1981, will be sold on June 21 at a Royal Memorabilia auction in England.
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Stop

Canada: Catholic Schools in Ontario Ban Rainbows

Jordan Chittley
The Daily Brew
Thu, 09 Jun 2011 00:00 UTC
Image
While most people may see rainbows as a good sign because the rain is ending, some Catholic schools in Ontario have banned visual references to the iconic colourful arch.

Leanne Iskander, 16, tells Xtra that the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board prevented her group from displaying any rainbows at their information booth during an anti-homophobia event last week.

Iskander is the founder of the unofficial gay-straight alliance at St. Joseph Catholic School in Mississauga.

"We brought signs and posters with rainbows, and we were told we can't put them up," says Iskander to Xtra. "They said rainbows are associated with Pride. There's so many other things that a rainbow could be. It's ridiculous."

But this did not stop the group from showing a rainbow. They baked cupcakes with different colour icing and displayed them on the table so it resembled a rainbow. Better yet, when people bit into the cupcake, there was a rainbow of colours inside.
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