Society's ChildS


Megaphone

Humanitarian agencies launch appeal for Palestinians facing humanitarian emergency

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© AFP Photo / Marco LongariPalestinians stand next to a makeshift shelter erected outside their destroyed house in the devastated neighbourhood of Shejaiya in Gaza City on August 6, 2014.
British aid agencies have launched an emergency appeal to help the thousands of Palestinians caught up in "a humanitarian emergency affecting virtually every man, woman and child in Gaza."

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) said "even before the conflict began the people of Gaza were close to breaking point." They called on the public to make charitable donations to aid those blighted by the conflict.

The appeal is being launched after hundreds of thousands of people fled their homes with many needing not only shelter but food, water, household items and often medical care. There are now 65,000 people in Gaza who have seen their homes severely damaged or destroyed.

Heart - Black

Insurance company pays lawsuit settlement of 21k all in coins to elderly man

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© AFP Photo / Fabrice Coffrini
A small insurance company in California has a thing or two to learn about customer service. Adriana's Insurance Service settled a lawsuit over an employee assaulting an elderly man... and delivered his compensation in buckets full of coins.

Andres Carrasco filed a lawsuit against the company in 2012, claiming he was physically assaulted by an Adriana's Insurance Service employee. The business agreed to settle in June. When it came time for Adriana's to pay up the $21,000 they owed him, however, they didn't just cut a check. Employees ‒ eight of them ‒ arrived at Carrasco's lawyer's office in a van, and proceeded to deliver five-gallon bucket after five-gallon bucket filled with change before leaving.

"There's over 16 buckets of quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies. It's going to take us at least, conservatively, one week to count that whole amount of money," attorney Antonio Gallo told KCBS.

Carrasco, who is 73, just had a hernia operation, and is unable to lift any of the buckets, Gallo said to KNBC. "It's too heavy," the recipient said to KCBS.

Eye 1

Miami to begin randomly drug testing high school students this year

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Students will be randomly tested for drugs this school year, according to a new plan.

On Wednesday, the Miami-Dade County School Board announced plans to test high school students at random for performance enhancing drugs or steroids.

The school board said the pilot program starts this year.

Miami-Dade Public Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said the goal is to stop the use of steroids for athletes and ultimately try to find the dealers preying on kids.

"There is always an adult culprit behind these issues," said Carvalho.

Heart - Black

Christian broadcaster: Ebola could cleanse U.S. of atheists, gay people, and sluts

Rick Wiles
© Unknown
A Christian radio host who enthusiastically looks for signs the world will end welcomed the Ebola virus as a cleansing force.

"This Ebola epidemic could become a global pandemic and that's another name for plague," said broadcaster Rick Wiles on his Trunews program.

"It may be the great attitude adjustment that I believe is coming," Wiles continued. "Ebola could solve America's problems with atheism, homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, pornography, and abortion."

Wiles was enthusiastic Tuesday about the arrival of Ebola, but Right Wing Watch reported that he warned the previous day that President Barack Obama may intentionally spread the deadly virus through a mandatory and mysterious vaccine.

That would somehow then allow Obama to declare martial law and force Americans into FEMA camps, the religious right broadcaster theorized.

"If Ebola becomes a global plague, you better make sure the blood of Jesus is upon you, you better make sure you have been marked by the angels so that you are protected by God," Wiles warned. "If not, you may be a candidate to meet the Grim Reaper."

Sheriff

Guilt by association: Connecticut court rules police can detain you for being near someone being arrested

Gavel
© Shutterstock
Connecticut cops can detain citizens for no other reason than the suspicion they hold for another person, all in the name of "officer safety." According to a recent ruling from the state's highest court, if you are in a public place with a person who the cops want to arrest, they can detain you also - even if they have no reason to suspect you of doing anything wrong. On its face the ruling is not all that grandiose, but in a passionately written dissenting opinion Justice Eveleigh explains why this verdict tramples on citizens' Fourth Amendment rights:

Quenelle

Obama's support of Israel stokes Americans' distrust of government

Obama Netanyahu
© Reuters/Jim YoungU.S. President Barack Obama meets with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office.
Blasting Gaza into rubble has affected the average American in ways that U.S. politicians will learn to regret. The result will be more than simply bleeding hearts for dead Palestinian children (430 at last count). There is a deeper political effect happening, as young and old alike realize for the first time the cancerous lies coursing through the veins of the U.S. media and political system.

The U.S. government's support of Israel - which includes Obama and all 100 senators - further exposes the gigantic clash between the unpopular foreign policy of the U.S. versus the wishes of its residents. The government will be further pushed by corporate interests to pursue these unpopular yet profitable overseas policies, which are teaching millions of people about the reality of their government, consequently undermining the future basis for an elite-driven foreign policy.

Merely glancing at the casualty statistics was enough for most Americans to know their T.V. was lying to them: 1900 Palestinians have died, 10,0000 have been injured - 80% of them civilians. Meanwhile, 3 Israeli citizens have died, zero injured. There is typically more damage from a Super Bowl victory party than Israel has suffered from Hamas' fireworks.

Attention

IDF deliberately shot unarmed civilians, rescue workers

Ambulance in Gaza
© blogs.icrc.org
Reports from the Red Cross and international human rights groups accuse Israeli troops of deliberately shooting and killing unarmed civilians attempting to flee for their lives in Gaza, as well as medical personnel attempting to rescue the injured.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has reported emergency medical workers, ambulances and civilian volunteers have all come under Israeli attack as they attempted to rescue civilians injured during the ferocious month-long air, land and sea bombardment of the densely populated strip.

On July 25, ambulances from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) were attacked by Israeli forces as they attempted to rescue wounded civilians in Beit Hanoun.

The vehicles were clearly marked with the Red Crescent emblem when they were attacked. One medical rescue worker was killed and three others seriously injured in the attack.

Also on July 25, ICRC reported one of its volunteers was fatally wounded while working in Khuza'a. Israeli troops also fired on other volunteers who attempted to rescue him.

The main PRCS hospital and administrative facility in Gaza has also been attacked by Israeli forces, and 40 of its emergency workers have been wounded while on duty. Some 26 ambulances have also been damaged. Many ICRC ambulances have been shot at while attempting to rescue injured civilians.

Doctors, nurses, medical rescue personnel and ambulance drivers described the horrific and dangerous conditions under which they must work, sometimes narrowly avoiding death as they attempt to save others.

Light Sabers

Central Kiev burns anew: Police & activists clash on Maidan

Activists and police have clashed in the Ukrainian capital's center after communal workers tried to dismantle the camp. It follows a months-old conflict over the camp with the city administration.
maidan burns
Camp residents are currently fortifying the old barricades and building new ones, Ria Novosti reported.

Law enforcement officials have been injured in the clashes with activists on the Kiev's Independence square, according to the Interior Ministry press service.

It's not known how many people were injured, ITAR-TASS reports. The majority of injuries were from stones thrown by protesters.

The smoke from burning tires can be smelt all over the city center, witnesses say.

Newspaper

News Flash: Being poor in America has been outlawed

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As they say, you can always judge a society by how they treat their weakest members. So I shudder to think of how future generations will judge our society. We've become a nation that discards our poor like they are trash, and anyone who doesn't "fit in" is segregated from the herd.

The police are now fining homeless folks for any arbitrary offense they can think of, and city councils across the country are making it illegal to sleep in public. They've gone so far as to make it illegal to camp, or even sit or lay down in certain public areas. Worst of all, many cities are making it illegal, or prohibitively expensive to give food to the homeless. According to an interview from The Independent, with a former police chief involved in a charity dedicated to feeding the poor:
The homeless are an embarrassment for the town, said Arnold Abbott, a 90-year-old former police chief from Pennsylvania and director of Love Thy Neighbor, an organization that has been feeding homeless here for over 20 years. Five times the city has tried and failed in court to stop him serving meals each Wednesday on the beach beneath the tourist strip.
The town, he said, really wants the homeless to go away. "They would like to put them in a bus and send them to Miami or Palm Beach. It's very close to ethnic cleansing. But they are not going to succeed."

Comment: Additional examples of the ongoing discrimination against America's homeless:


X

Yoshiki Sasai suicide: Japanese stem cell scientist found dead in Kobe facility

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© ReutersYoshiki Sasai, deputy director of the Riken's Center for Developmental Biology in Japan, attends a news conference in Tokyo April 16, 2014. Sasai, a Japanese researcher at the center of discredited research that was initially hailed as a potential breakthrough for stem cell treatment, killed himself after months of stress and exhaustion, officials said on Tuesday.
A Japanese scientist who was among a team of researchers accused of falsifying the results of two stem cell studies committed suicide Tuesday at a government science institute in western Japan. Yoshiki Sasai, deputy director of the Riken Center for Developmental Biology, was found by a security guard at the Kobe facility with a rope around his neck, the Associated Press reports. Authorities said he had suffered from cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead two hours later.

Sasai, 52, was considered an expert in embryonic stem cell research and co-authored two research papers published in January in the journal Nature that detailed a seemingly groundbreaking method of harvesting stem cells to grow new human tissue. Sasai and lead author Haruko Obokata reported having successfully altered ordinary mouse cells into versatile stem cells by immersing them in a mildly acidic solution. The resulting cells were named stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) cells.