Society's ChildS


Question

Bizarre Chinese forum posts may have predicted doomed AirAsia Flight QZ8501

AirAsia
© Screen Capture/AoL.com
A rambling post two weeks ago to a Chinese forum predicting the downing of an AirAsia flight that was previously ignored has now come back into focus after Flight QZ8501 disappeared Sunday over the Java Sea.

The warning claimed a shadow organization referred to in Chinese as an "international black hand" was responsible for attacks on two Malaysian Airlines flights earlier this year and that an attack on AirAsia was imminent.

The post to Tianya, a Chinese version of Reddit, came two weeks ago and predicted dire consequences for anyone flying AirAsia.

"Black hand has hijacked and shot down MH370 and MH17," wrote the poster, according to a translation posted on Reddit. "Now the black hand are targeting AirAsia to ruin this airline cause it too belong to Malaysia."

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared earlier this year, possibly over the Indian Ocean. It has yet to be found.

Flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine only weeks later and crashed into a large field.

"Given how powerful the black hand are I suggest that all Chinese thinking about traveling to avoid AirAsia, so that you don't disappear like those on MH370," wrote the mysterious poster, who goes by the name "landlord".

"You could be happily vacationing, working, or studying abroad, but if you go on Malaysian airline or AirAsia, you're dead, be careful everyone," landlord insisted, urging people to warn family and friends against flying either airline.

Ambulance

Evacuation complete, 7 dead - Ferry stricken by flames between Greece and Italy evacuated, teams helped "avoid a massacre"

Image
© Reuters
Rescue teams on Monday completed the evacuation of nearly 500 people from a car ferry that caught fire off Greece's Adriatic coast, working through the night and defying high seas and freezing weather in a 36-hour drama.

But seven people were killed in the incident, the Italian coastguard said.

The fire broke out on a vehicle deck of the Norman Atlantic ferry, which was carrying 478 passengers and crew and more than 200 vehicles, early on Sunday. Rescue efforts were immediately complicated by bad weather.

Comment: See also:

Ferry catches fire off Greek coast, 466 passengers and crews are being evacuated


USA

The zombification of America (no, this isn't metaphor)

Zombies
© End of the American Dream
Do you know people that seem like they have had their souls sucked out of them? On dictionary.com, a "zombie" is defined as "the body of a dead person given the semblance of life, but mute and will-less, by a supernatural force, usually for some evil purpose".

And that sounds very much like what has happened to tens of millions of Americans. When you look into their eyes, it doesn't look like anything is even there. That is because who they once were is now dominated and controlled by the overwhelmingly powerful "matrix" that is being constructed all around us.

As I wrote about the other day, virtually all news, information and entertainment that Americans consume is controlled by just six monolithic corporations. And today, Americans are more "plugged in" than ever before. The average person watches 153 hours of television a month in addition to spending countless hours watching movies, playing video games, listening to music, reading books and surfing the Internet. In the end, all of that "programming" turns many of us into virtual zombies, and that is the way that the elite like it.

Just think about it. What was the biggest news story in the entire country over the holiday weekend?

It was the fact that some hackers had taken down the Sony Playstation and Microsoft Xbox networks and millions of kids could not log in and play the video games that they had just received for Christmas.

Sadly, most parents don't even bother to pay attention to what those video games are actually teaching their children.

Boat

Hundreds trapped as ferry catches fire between Greece and Italy

Ferry Disaster
© AP Photo/SKAI TV Station
Ten hours after the fire began, some 131 people had been rescued, leaving 347 on board according to the Italian navy.
Hundreds of people have been stranded for ten hours on the top deck of a burning ferry in the Adriatic sea as strong gales and rough waves hampered attempts to save them.

As the sun set, rescue helicopters had resorted to the slow process of lifting the passengers on board the Norman Atlantic from the top deck in pairs, as a fire blazed around them.

At least two Britons were among the 478 people who were travelling on the car ferry between Patras in Greece and Ancona in northern Italy.

The mother of Nicholas Channing-Williams, a British horse rider who lives in Greece, said she had spoken to her son, but that the line had been cut off.

"People in Greece are saying that their communications have been cut off, so as not to hamper rescue operations which I can fully understand," said Dotty Channing-Williams, to Sky News. "They're keeping me updated via the news coming over the Greek television. But nevertheless it is very, very worrying and very scary.

Attention

Remember Libya? Civil war escalates with govt airstrikes on opposition

libya
© Flickr/ Ben Sutherland
Libya's official government conducted several tactical airstrikes in the vicinity of the town of Misrata Sunday, another episode in the ongoing war between the internationally recognized government of Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni and the coalition of his political opponents known as Libyan Dawn.

According to the official reports, the Libyan air force, controlled by Thinni, hit several targets in the Libyan Dawn controlled city of Misrata, including a sea port, an air force academy near the airfield and a steel mill, the largest in the country, in an attempt to disrupt the town's economic viability. Representatives for Libyan Dawn confirmed the airstrikes, claiming no immediate victims or damage.

Comment: Thanks, America! Thanks, NATO! We need more folks like you spreading democracy and making the world a better place. We can't imagine how much worse things would've been if you hadn't had Gaddafi murdered and destroyed Libya.


Family

Millions of Britons facing malnutrition and relying on food banks

UK food bank
© unknownShocking' figures show that for the first time since the Second World War, the poor cannot afford sufficient calories.
Millions of the poorest people in Britain are struggling to get enough food to maintain their body weight, according to official figures published this month.

The Government's Family Food report reveals that the poorest 10 per cent of the population - some 6.4 million people - ate an average of 1,997 calories a day last year, compared with the average guideline figure of about 2,080 calories. This data covers all age groups.

One expert said the figures were a "powerful marker" that there is a problem with food poverty in Britain and it was clear there were "substantial numbers of people who are going hungry and eating a pretty miserable diet".

Airplane

Indonesian VP not ruling out AirAsia plane crashed -- not confirming either

Image
© REUTERS/ Darren Whiteside
The missing AirAsia plane with 162 people on board might have crashed, according to Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla, Chinese news agency Xinhua reports Sunday.

"We haven't got any information that indicates where the plane crashed," Kalla said during a televised press conference Sunday evening, as quoted by Xinhua.

Previously, it was reported that Kalla was directly in charge of supervising the rescue operation of the missing plane at the headquarters of the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) in Kemayoran, North Jakarta, according to Jakarta Post.

However, rescue teams had to halt the search operation as the night settled in. Indonesia's Transport Ministry said the search operation would resume on Monday morning, as early as 7 a.m. local time (12 a.m. GMT).

Comment: Could this be another MH370, gone without a trace? If nothing is found, it will certainly be suspicious, especially given that the possible crash zone is probably much easier to identify and search than was the case with 370.


Brick Wall

Herded like cattle: The plight of Palestinian workers

Poverty and unemployment in the West Bank - a direct result of the occupation - drive Palestinian laborers to endure the pain and humiliation of working in Israel.
West bank checkpoint
© APJust another day. Palestinians on their way to work go through an army checkpoint near Jenin.
Israelis see them and they don't see them. They are on the scaffold of the building going up next to ours. We see them and we don't see them. We have no idea what they endure and we don't care. The people who build our homes and pave our roads left their own homes at around 2 A.M. last night. They will return in the evening, after a long, exhausting day of work, nearly 24 hours of hard labor, hard traveling and humiliation. Tonight they will again leave their homes for jobs in Israel. While some Israelis come to work bleary-eyed because their baby woke them up two or three times during the night, these people know no day or night.

Comment: Just another example of the psychopathic Israeli system. It's not enough that Palestinians are kept in the world's largest open-air prison, they must be subjected to daily humiliation and oppression that wears on their psyches and breaks them down.


House

Civil asset forfeiture: Only the rich can afford to keep their homes

Image
© Steven M. Falk / Phiv.com Staff PhotographerChristos and Markela Sourovelis at their Somerton home, from which they were ousted because of a son's drug dealing.
Philadelphia prosecutors agreed Thursday to halt efforts to seize the homes of two of the lead plaintiffs in a widely publicized federal suit challenging the city's use of civil forfeiture laws in drug cases.

Philadelphia drops a Civil Asset Forfeiture case to prevent any court from ruling just seizing people's property is unconstitutional. Phily.COM has reported the case of Christos Sourovelis and Doila Welch, who were both caught up in having their homes seized to pay police pensions when the police arrested a relative they claimed was dealing drugs on their properties. Today, you basically have to shun relatives and never pick up a hick-hiker in trouble for if they have any drugs, even marijuana, there goes your assets.

The prosecutors, only after these people with money for lawyers and the press got involved, moved for dismissal in Common Pleas Court. The prosecutor agreed to drop the cases against properties as long as both owners took "reasonable measures" to ensure no further drug crimes occurred there.

Comment: How much more can people take before finally realizing the horror of the situation?


Boat

Ferry catches fire off Greek coast, 466 passengers and crew are being evacuated

Image
© AFP Photo / Philippe Huguen
466 passengers and crew are being evacuated from an Italian car ferry that caught fire near a Greek island on Sunday morning. The evacuation is being complicated by strong winds and lack of places in lifeboats, according to the media.

Fire broke out on an Italian Norman Atlantic car ferry traveling from western Greece to eastern Italy at around 6.00 am local time (0400 GMT), coast guard officials said on Sunday.

"The captain has requested the evacuation of the ship, according to initial information," spokesman Nikos Lagkadianos said.

The international evacuation effort including Italian and Albanian forces is complicated by dangerous weather conditions with strong winds blowing in the area northwest of Corfu.

The ferry has 411 passengers and 55 crew on board, as well as 222 vehicles. An official told Sputnik news agency that within the framework of the rescue operation some 150 people had already been transferred from a lifeboat to a container ship that had been sailing nearby.
Image
© Unknown
A Greek TV station got comments of some passengers, who dramatically described the evacuation.

"They tried to lower some boats, but not all of us could get in. There is no coordination," one said, as cited by Reuters. "It's dark, the bottom of the vessel is on fire. We are on the bridge, we can see a boat approaching... we opened some boxes and got some life vests, we are trying to save ourselves."