Society's ChildS


Bacon

Another two New York school districts drop Michelle Obama's lunch program

Another two bite the dust.
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© Mrconservative.com
Central New York's Fayetteville-Manlius and Baldwinsville school districts are the latest to ditch the National School Lunch Program, which was revamped in 2010 under the guidance of First Lady Michelle Obama in an effort to fight childhood obesity.

Strict limits on calories, fat, sugar, carbohydrates, sodium and other aspects of the school lunch imposed by the federal government on schools participating in the free and reduced lunch program has not only increased cafeteria costs, they've resulted in a drastic drop in the number of participating students.

At Fayetteville-Manlius, Baldwinsville, and thousands of other districts the new regulations resulted in a sharp downturn in students who eat school lunch and a sharp increase in food waste. The lost sales are threatening the viability of cafeteria programs in schools across the country, prompting many to do without federal subsidies to serve students food they'll actually buy and eat.

"Grilled cheese and tomato soup was a very popular lunch," Baldwinsville Superintendent David Hamilton told WRVO public media. "We couldn't offer that under the new guidelines of the federal government. Spaghetti and meatballs, we couldn't offer that either."

As a result of last year's school lunch menu high school lunch sales in Baldwinsville plummeted from about 600 to 430 students per day.

Attention

Hospital in Liberia runs out of protective equipment to keep staff safe from Ebola

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© AP
The hospital in Liberia where three American aid workers got sick with Ebola has been overwhelmed by a surge in patients and doesn't have enough hazard suits and other supplies to keep doctors and nurses safe, a missionary couple told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The latest infection -- of Rick Sacra, a doctor who wasn't even working in the hospital's Ebola unit -- shows just how critical protective gear is to containing the deadly epidemic, and how charities alone can't handle the response, they said.

Nancy Writebol and her husband, David, called for reinforcements during the AP interview, which followed her first news conference since recovering from Ebola disease. They work for North Carolina-based SIM, the charity that supports the ELWA hospital in Monrovia, Liberia.

About 250 staffers at the hospital use thousands of disposable protective suits each week, but that's not enough to fully protect the doctors and nurses who must screen people entering the emergency room or treat patients outside the 50-bed Ebola isolation unit, they said.

Info

Arizona forces statuary rape victim to pay child support

money
© Reuters / Soe Zeya Tun
A 24-year-old Arizona man is being asked to pay more than $15,000 in child support for a daughter he fathered at the age of 14 - and didn't know existed until two years ago.

The Arizona Republic reported this week that the man, Nick Olivas, is legally a victim of rape since he was younger than 15 when he engaged in a sexual relationship a decade ago with a women who was 20 at the time.

According to the paper, Olivas only learned two years ago that his daughter existed when he was served with legal papers demanding he pay child support for the six years he wasn't around for a daughter he never heard of.

"It was a shock," he told the paper. "I was living my life and enjoying being young. To find out you have a 6-year-old? It's unexplainable. It freaked me out."

The Republic reported that Olivas ignored the paperwork when he was first asked to pay up two years ago, and failed to take a paternity test to confirm his relationship with the daughter. The Arizona Department of Economic Security division of Child Support Services has since tracked him down, however, and now tells the paper he's been compelled to pay around $15,000 in back child support, as well as the hospital bills for his daughter's birth, with 10 percent interest added on top. To collect the funds, the state is now taking $380 each month from his paycheck.

Olivas told the Republic for an article published on Tuesday this week that he has no issue with making payments to help with his daughter moving forward, but doesn't think he should be held accountable for the six years in which he was never told he was a father.

"Anything I do as an adult, I should be responsible for," he said. "But as a teenager? I don't think so."

Laptop

Celebrity nude photos hack turns into child porn case

Kirsten Dunst
© AFP Photo / Carl CourtUS-German actress Kirsten Dunst
Investigations into the hacking of celebrities' iPhone accounts, which resulted in the leak of nude or semi-nude photos of various female personalities, have turned into a child abuse case, as one alleged victim was under 18 when some photos were taken.

Lawyers for US Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney have served a legal demand on porn.com, which has hosted the photos originally released on the online forum 4chan, according to The Guardian.

The demand came even after Maroney denied the pictures were actually of her.

Anyone who owns or shares - this includes all views or downloads - photos of anyone under the age of 18 is subject to prosecution pursuant to US law. The FBI announced Monday that it was "addressing" the leak of around 400 images of about 100 female celebrities.

A vulnerability in Apple iCloud - which backs up photos taken on iPhones - allowed a hacker to access photos in protected celebrity accounts. Apple said Tuesday that "we have discovered that certain celebrity accounts were compromised by a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions, a practice that has become all too common on the internet" and that "we are continuing to work with law enforcement to help identify the criminals involved."

In a message to supporters on Monday, the person who claims to have led the photo hack-and-dump operation said he had to move to a new location to avoid authorities. He asked for bitcoin donations to aid further photo leaks by his group.

People 2

Ex-French First Lady says Hollande detests poor in tell-all book

 Hollande toasts with his partner
© Fred Dufour/AFP via Getty ImagesFrench President François Hollande toasts with his partner Valerie Trierweiler during a state dinner with South African President on Oct. 14, 2013 in Pretoria.
Former French First Lady Valerie Trierweiler tore into President Francois Hollande, saying the Socialist leader despises the poor and calls them "les sans-dents," or "the toothless" in private.

In a 320-page tell-all book entitled "Merci Pour Ce Moment" or "Thanks for the Moment" to be released tomorrow, 49-year-old Trierweiler, who was forced to leave the Elysee presidential palace after Hollande's affair with a French actress, lists what she says are lies told by the president.

"He likes to come across as a man who doesn't like the rich," she writes, according to excerpts published today by the daily Le Monde. "In reality, the president doesn't like the poor. This the man of the Left, calls them in private 'the toothless,' very proud of his brand of humor."

The book's publication and the private comments it shares come as Hollande is sliding again in opinion polls. His popularity has fallen back below 20 percent, near France's historical low for a president. With joblessness rising for three straight years and a government mutiny forcing him to reshuffle his cabinet, revelations about his private life are adding to his political troubles.

Cheeseburger

Having it their way: How Burger King has been screwing American taxpayers

caution
Shutterstock
Over the last week, Burger King has been getting slammed for a scheme to worm out of its U.S. tax obligations, but a new report shows that's just business as usual for the company. (Burger King decided to move its tax base to Canada by acquiring the Ontario-based coffee and donut chain Tim Hortons, which will allow the firm to get out of paying billions in U.S. taxes.)

Reuters just took a look at the fast-food giant's regulatory filings in the U.S. and overseas, and found that Burger King has a sordid history of scamming taxpayers through creative accounting tricks that make profits magically appear in low-tax areas overseas. The company has been so successful at artful dodging that its taxes are among the lowest in the industry (26 percent compared to 31 percent for McDonald's, Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts). In the U.S., the headline federal corporate tax rate is supposed to be 35 percent on profits.

Comment: Burger King is only one corporation in a long line of mega-corporations that evade taxes.
Amazon makes billions from British customers, pays pennies in tax
The tax man cometh...unless you're a big corporation
Taxes are for slaves: Google boss says "I'm very proud of our tax avoidance scheme - it's called capitalism"


Ambulance

Ebola-infected patient escapes quarantine, enters crowded local market in Liberia

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© Reuters/Reuters TVHealth workers surround an Ebola patient who escaped from quarantine from Monrovia's Elwa hospital, in the centre of Paynesville in this still image taken from a September 1, 2014 video.
A video has emerged that an Ebola-infected patient has escaped a quarantine zone in Liberian hospital and went to a local crowded market in search of food. He was then pursued by medical staff and returned to hospital.

The man left Elwa hospital facility in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, which is full of Ebola patients. Wearing a tag which indicated that he had tested positive with Ebola, he arrived at a local crowded market in the Paynesville neighborhood, the busiest part of the city.

The crowd is fleeing in fear and shouting angrily at a man wearing red clothes, as shown in the video released on YouTube. When medical staff arrived, the patient began to run and then took a stick and tried to keep them at bay. However, the doctors managed to take him to the ambulance.

A local resident told the media that it is the fifth case in which a patient has escaped the quarantine zone.


Comment: How are they getting out?


"We told the Liberian government from the beginning that we do not want an Ebola camp here. Today makes it the fifth Ebola patient coming outside vomiting," a man who watched the scene, told Reuters.

Comment: 25 Facts about the Ebola outbreak that you should know


Stock Down

'They know there is a problem coming,' says economist

dollar
© unknown
Well known Shadow Stats economist John Williams has warned time and again that the narrative being crafted by government statisticians, elite bankers and politicians is nothing but smoke and mirrors. With an election coming up in just a couple months, it's highly unlikely that they'll come out and tell us right now how fundamentally troubled our financial, economic and monetary systems really are.

But that doesn't change the facts. The reality, as Williams notes in a recent interview with Greg Hunter's USA Watchdog, is that the U.S. economy is in severe trouble and we may be just months away from the beginning of the next leg down, especially for the U.S. Dollar.

Sheriff

Police brutality is nothing new, it's just militarized

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With the recent events in Ferguson, Americans are taking a closer look at the rise of police brutality now run amok nearly everywhere. The real highlight of this sad tragedy is the awareness it has shed on the absurd militarization of the police force. An event predicted by numerous scholars of the New World Order including myself. A roided out militarized police force is always a bad sign that your country is heading in the wrong direction.

While the subject of racist pigs abusing and killing blacks and ethnic minorities in America isn't a new one, in fact it's a time honored tradition- the stark realization that the police are rolling through towns with armored tanks and weapons supplied by the military is new.

Here is a short list of the Hoelice committing acts of brutality against minorities in America

In 1977 the Puerto Rican community of Chicago rebelled against Police violence:

Roots of the uprising

The uprising began on June 12, the day after the very first downtown Día de San Juan parade ever. A cop named Thomas Munyon was chasing 20-year-old Arcelis Cruz and his friend through an alley near Damen and Division. Munyon drew his weapon and fired, hitting Cruz in the leg. This was witnessed by a group of people at the corner who attempted to come to Cruz' aid. When the rest of Munyon's cop squad showed up, they beat the crowd with their nightsticks and even let attack dogs loose on the people. This savage attack by the cops enraged the growing crowd, which began to fight back.

Comment:
  • Human rights activist and international lawyer: U.S. police agencies use same brutal tactics that Israeli police use in Gaza



Book

Donetsk prosecutors put Ukraine punitive battalion commander on police wanted list - hopefully more will be added

Donbass batallion
© ITAR-TASS/ЕРА/IVAN BOBERSKYY Soldier from the Donbass batallion
Prosecutors in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) put the commander of the Donbass punitive battalion, Semyon Semyonchenko, on a police wanted list on Monday.

The Donbass battalion, a voluntary armed unit, was set up in April this year to carry out a security operation against the supporters of the DPR.

Earlier this year, Ukraine's parliament-appointed Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk awarded the Order of Bogdan Khemlnitsky III class to Semyonchenko who appeared at a briefing in Dnipropetrovsk, without wearing his balaclava for the first time, on Monday.

The order, however, did not prevent a failed operation in east Ukraine. "Moreover, it does not rid Semyonchenko of responsibility for his doings," DPR prosecutors said.

Comment: The NAF (Novorussian Armed Forces) recently came into possession of documents listing commanders and troops (and all their personal information, including attack coordinates, orders, and offensive actions) after they were left by a fleeing Ukrainian Army unit. As the video below shows, these documents will hopefully be used in future to prosecute even more war criminals than Semyonchenko.