Society's ChildS


House

'Tiny houses': California homelessness gets new $40 solution


RT
Sat, 21 Feb 2015 12:20 UTC
tiny homes - homeless homes project
Image from seenimages.com/homelesshomesproject
An Oakland artist is ingeniously battling homelessness in Oakland, California: he builds small houses out of materials he can find in the streets, with each edifice costing around forty bucks.

The tiny homes are made of pallets, bed boards, washing machine doors, and other bizarre objects that catch Greg Kloehn's attention. Mr Kloehn first noticed that homeless people built shelters from whatever they find in the street, and he wanted to make a house like this.

He jokes that he constructs "illegal homes out of illegal garbage." The cost of one house is "$30 to $40," Kloehn told RT.

tiny homes
Image from seenimages.com/homelesshomesproject
"The real cost is just in the wheels: I buy large casters for the bottom, so that they are mobile, and then nails, and screws, and paintbrushes. But everything else I get for free," he said.

The houses are just comfortable enough to lie down in a warmer place than a cardboard box, and the homeless in Oakland are "so happy," Kloehn told the Independent. "One cried and got on his knees to thank me. They think I should make them bigger and suggest improvements. They like to decorate them themselves."

tiny homes - homeless homes project
Image from seenimages.com/homelesshomesproject

Comment: For more information on the scandal of homelessness, and creative solutions being adopted to counter it, listen to SOTT Radio Network: The Truth Perspective 21 February 2015

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Ambulance

Elderly Indian man temporarily paralyzed after being body slammed by Alabama police for walking on the sidewalk

Moreh B.D.K. and Jackson Marciana
Countercurrentnews.com
Sun, 22 Feb 2015 23:22 UTC
Image
© Sarah Cole/Paul Huggins
An elderly man was recently visiting Alabama from India when he found himself beaten by police who left him paralyzed.

Madison, Alabama police brutalized the 57-year-old Indian citizen who had committed no crime, he was only going for a walk on the sidewalk outside of his son's home. Now, one officer is being charged for leaving Sureshbhai Patel temporarily paralyzed and hospitalized with fused vertebrae, as a result of the severe beating he received from the police.

"He was just walking on the sidewalk as he does all the time," Chirag Patel, the son of Sureshbhai said. "They put him to the ground." No crime had been committed. Madison Police on Monday issued a statement saying the department had suspended the officer and were investigating the use of force in this case. The police statement wished the man a "speedy recovery."

Chirag Patel is an engineer who had just flown his father to America from the small Indian town of Pij. Sureshbhai Patel was trying to help his wife care for Chirag's 17-month-old son, so that Chirag could finish graduate courses for his masters degree in electrical engineering at the University of Alabama. "This is a good neighborhood. I didn't expect anything to happen," Chirag said.

Madison police blamed the elderly man in a statement Monday, saying that they received a call that a man was "looking in garages." "The caller, who lives in the neighborhood did not recognize the subject and thought him to be suspicious," the police statement on the incident stated.

Hank Sherrod, the attorney for the Patel family, said "this is broad daylight, walking down the street. There is nothing suspicious about Mr. Patel other than he has brown skin." Sureshbhai Patel speaks no English. The Madison police acknowledge a "communication barrier." Sherrod explains, however, that Sureshbhai told the police officers "no English" and told them his son's address. But that didn't stop the officers from beating the man to the point of paralysis.

Comment: The police have become more and more violent, especially against people of color. These officers are mimicking our leaders dehumanizing behavior and attitude towards people with dark skin. Our leaders condone and promote such violence and inhumanity, why should these officers treat this man like a human being with rights when Obama doesn't even bother?

New Jersey cop: 'Obama decimated the Constitution, we don't have to' follow it

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Hearts

Muslim anti-anti-Semitism: Norwegian Muslims form human chain around synagogue


RT
Sat, 21 Feb 2015 21:58 UTC
oslo synagogue
© Reuters/Hakon Mosvold Larsen/NTB ScanpixMuslims join hands to form a human shield as they stand outside a synagogue in Oslo February 21, 2015.
Muslims in Oslo formed a human chain around the city's main synagogue, chanting "No to anti-Semitism, no to Islamophobia." Over 1,000 people took part in the rally to show solidarity with Jews just a week after a fatal shooting in a Denmark synagogue.

Muslims in Norway, many young women, formed what they called a ring of peace, as the small Jewish congregation filed out of the synagogue after Shabbat prayers on Saturday.

The Muslim message to the Jews in Norway was simple - they mourn and stand in solidarity with the victims of increasingly instances of violence against Jews in Europe, including the terror attacks in France in January and in neighboring Denmark last week.

"This shows that there are many more peacemakers than war-makers," Zeeshan Abdullah, one of the organizers told the crowd. "There is still hope for humanity, for peace and love across religious differences and background."


Comment: The percentage of crazies is always smaller than the percentage of normal, decent people, in any population. Islamophobic and anti-Semitic propaganda is designed to get people to forget this simple fact. Unfortunately it works.

See also: Remember when Paris Muslims helped Jews escape the Nazis?

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Megaphone

Pedo-nation? 13% increase in UK child kidnappings and abductions in 2014


RT
Sun, 22 Feb 2015 14:23 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Ahmad Masood

Almost 900 child abductions were reported in the UK during 2014 alone. Statistics gathered from police forces indicate the numbers of cases are on the increase.

The study has shown kidnappings and abductions of kids and teenagers under 18 increased by 13 percent between 2012-2013 and 2013-2014. Kidnappings, if taken alone, soared by 18 percent over the same time, according to the research.

The figures were collected from the police and analyzed by the charity Parents and Abducted Children Together (Pact), the Independent reported.

Between 2013 and 2014, 401 were abducted by people other than their parents (for instance, when a stranger lures a child in with sweets), 158 by an aggrieved parent, and 321 children were kidnapped.

Comment: No matter how one slices it, the kidnapping and abduction of children is a sad indication of our society and shockingly continues to rise.

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Snowflake Cold

Three year old found frozen to death in Toronto, locked outside in diaper

Andy Campbell
Huffington Post
Sat, 21 Feb 2015 00:00 UTC

A community is rallying around a Toronto family after their 3-year-old boy -- who wandered into the cold Thursday night, wearing nothing but a diaper, T-shirt and boots -- was found dead near his home.

Elijah Marsh, 3, was pronounced dead shortly after authorities located him. He was reportedly huddled up to an air conditioner unit just 1,000 feet away from where he got locked out of his family's apartment. He may have spent up to six hours in frigid temperatures.

Surveillance footage shows a boy who looks like Elijah leaving the home at about 4:05 a.m.
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Pistol

Will the real killers please stand up?

Rory
The Daily Coin
Wed, 18 Feb 2015 18:58 UTC
police state america
© unknown
Recently I interviewed Rob Richardson from Off Grid Survival. One of the main topics we explored was the out-of-control police state in this country and the impact it is having on our neighborhoods and psyche. In doing the research for that interview I came across several very disturbing articles regarding SWAT attacks perpetrated against citizens. Most of the situations did not call for a SWAT attack. Believe it or not a lot of the alarms were sounded by disgruntled gamers! Yes, one person sitting at home playing a video game and calling the police, telling them a story that may or may not be true and the police's response is to send out a SWAT team to investigate!

It appears the police officers in this country should be held up as the reason for gun control. On the one hand we have Moms demanding gun control like it's the ordinary law abiding citizen that is the problem when they should be, in fact, looking at the local police department and demanding action. The police, as the awake and aware have known for some time, are completely out of control. No need to revisit any of the recent high-profile murders at the hands of the local police. Instead lets review what other criminal, murderous activities the gangs in blue have been conducting.

Comment: Who's the real danger?

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Yoda

Kiev Man says "No" to mobilization order: "Why should I go to war?"

Ivan Karogodin
Fort Russ
Wed, 18 Feb 2015 19:29 UTC
Kiev man refuses conscription
Here is one of the notifications, with obscene commentary. In literary circles, на хуй is usually, for propriety's sake, written на х--.
Translator's note: The columnist leaves the letter-writer anonymous, for obvious reasons, and thus gives us the point of view that any one of the thousands of men aged 25 to 60 might have, who have been given their notification. The jail time prescribed for draft-evasion is five years. On January 24, 2015, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry revealed that 7,500 were facing criminal charges. The author might be one of them -- if they caught him.

I'm just an ordinary Kievan. No draft dodger, and I'm no fan of Putin. A call has come from the War Commissariat. Here is a simple question for the president of Ukraine:

Why should I go to war?
Have we declared war?
No.
Are we at war with Russia?
No.

Are we in an undeclared war with Russia? But then, why are Poroshenko and Putin shaking hands? That is, between the two, all is super, but I, I should sort out it with the separatists, about who gets to come back home, and who doesn't?

Maybe it's a civil war? But then, why is there no declaration? Why no state of war? No state of emergency? Is it because then the IMF wouldn't give any loans?

Well screw this! What is it to me if the loans come in or not? 90% of them will just go to cover the interest on loans already taken. As far as I'm concerned, screw it! Maybe they'll use the loans to buy natural gas? No. Meaning my family is going to freeze this winter while I have to go fight?

Comment: There has been a groundswell of refusal building in Ukraine since this article was originally published. The general population is beginning to see the war (and it is a war, despite the "Anti-terrorist Operation" label) for what it actually is, which is to set up the looting of Ukraine's resources and establishing a NATO presence right on Russia's borders.

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Dollars

Afghan central bank branch employees raid their own bank


The Hindu
Sat, 21 Feb 2015 19:16 UTC
Streets of Kabul
© ReutersPeople walk past a picture of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on a street in Kabul.
Kandhar: Staff at a branch of Afghanistan's central bank in southern Kandahar province may have got away with as much as 81 million Afghanis ($1.4 million) when they robbed their own bank and ran, an official said on Saturday.

Security cameras showed the bank's vault had been cleaned out, but investigators were waiting to gain access before confirming the total missing, he said.

"Yesterday we could only open one of the treasury's doors. We hope to open the next one today," the central bank director for Afghanistan's southwestern region, Fazel Ahmad Azimi, said.

Weak regulation undermines confidence in Afghanistan's fragile banking system, which has yet to fully recover from a 2010 scandal over a bank that collapsed triggering a financial crisis.

An international financial watchdog last year threatened to place Afghanistan on a blacklist and has since warned it needs to do more to enforce laws to regulate its banking sector.

The Kandahar raid is believed to have been carried out by a senior official at the bank, an employee of nine years, with the help of his son and brother-in-law who were also on staff, according to Azimi.

The robbery at the branch in Spin Boldak near the border with Pakistan was discovered on Thursday and investigators believed the group has escaped to Pakistan.

The group had removed CCTV recordings before fleeing to Pakistan, Azimi said, but investigators were hopeful that footage might be recovered from the memory chip of the security cameras.

Source: Reuters
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Cardboard Box

Banksters CAB schemes ensnare school districts and entire generations in un-repayable debt

Ellen Brown
Web of Debt
Fri, 20 Feb 2015 00:00 UTC
Student Debts
© DonkeyHotey

"The fliers touted new ballfields, science labs and modern classrooms. They didn't mention the crushing debt or the investment bank that stood to make millions.
— Melody Peterson, Orange County Register, February 15, 2013
Remember when Goldman Sachs - dubbed by Matt Taibbi the Vampire Squid - sold derivatives to Greece so the government could conceal its debt, then bet against that debt, driving it up? It seems that the ubiquitous investment bank has also put the squeeze on California and its school districts. Not that Goldman was alone in this; but the unscrupulous practices of the bank once called the undisputed king of the municipal bond business epitomize the culture of greed that has ensnared students and future generations in unrepayable debt.

In 2008, after collecting millions of dollars in fees to help California sell its bonds, Goldman urged its bigger clients to place investment bets against those bonds, in order to profit from a financial crisis that was sparked in the first place by irresponsible Wall Street speculation. Alarmed California officials warned that these short sales would jeopardize the state's bond rating and drive up interest rates. But that result also served Goldman, which had sold credit default swaps on the bonds, since the price of the swaps rose along with the risk of default.

Comment: The predatory tactics of these investment bankers and their clients have reduced millions to debt servitude, as there is no way for many to repay. Generations are being impoverished and due to the highly profitable prison industrial complex, a system of debtors prisons has arisen as poverty has become a crime.

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Megaphone

Serbian filmmaker: Where West comes to spread democracy, disaster follows


Sputnik
Sat, 21 Feb 2015 17:03 UTC
Image
© Sputnik/Vladimir AstapkovichEmir Kusturica
Belgian weekly Le Vif spoke with Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica who said that the Ukrainian conflict was staged by the United States and it reminds him of the war in his native Bosnia.

On the occasion of the release of his new collection of short films, Emir Kusturica, a celebrated Serbian filmmaker internationally recognized for a number of acclaimed films, spoke with Belgian weekly Le Vif about the situation in Ukraine, which reminds him of the wars in the former Yugoslavia.

Kusturica blamed the United States for not only breaking the promise given to Mikhail Gorbachev about not expanding NATO to Eastern Europe, but also for staging the conflict in Ukraine by helping to start demonstrations on the Maidan Square. Kusturica said the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict was similar to the start of the Bosnian War, which started in Kusturica's hometown of Sarajevo. In Kiev, demonstrations turned violent when snipers started shooting at the crowd. Initially, the government of Viktor Yanukovych was blamed for shooting at the crowd; however, soon the story became murky, after reports appeared that foreign mercenaries may have been hired to shoot at the crowd on the Maidan. Similar events took place in Bosnia: unknown snipers killed several protesters and everyone accused the Serbs, but in the end nobody really knew who had sent the snipers, Kusturica said.
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