Welcome to Sott.net
Thu, 04 Nov 2021
The World for People who Think

Society's Child
Map

Airplane

O'Hare airport workers plan strike just in time for Thanksgiving

Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz
Chicago Tribune
Fri, 18 Nov 2016 18:50 UTC
Kisha Rivera
© John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune
Kisha Rivera, an airplane cabin cleaner, is among the group of airport workers based at O'Hare International Airport who have agreed to strike.
Workers at O'Hare International Airport are threatening to strike during the busy Thanksgiving travel week to draw attention to their fight for a $15 hourly wage and what they feel are shoddy working conditions.

Airplane cabin cleaners, baggage handlers, janitors and wheelchair attendants, who are not in a union but are being organized by Service Employees International Union Local 1, took a strike vote over the past two days. Of the 500 votes cast, all but one were in favor of the strike, said union spokeswoman Izabela Miltko-Ivkovich. There are 2,000 workers in those positions at O'Hare, she said.

Details of the potential strike were few, but union officials said they expect "hundreds" of workers to participate and that they expect a strike to happen "in the coming days."

Tom Balanoff, president of SEIU Local 1, said the workers, who plan to picket outside the airport and walk through the terminals, don't expect to shut down the airport, though "it will cause some disruption, no doubt."

Comment:



      Read More...
Arrow Down

Obama refuses to condemn anti-Trump rioters

Katie McHugh
Breitbart
Fri, 18 Nov 2016 18:20 UTC
Trump protests
Outgoing President Obama refused to condemn the disruptive demonstrations erupting across the country against President-Elect Donald Trump and the violent attacks on his supporters.

"I would not advise people who feel strongly or are concerned about some of the issues that have been raised over the course of the campaign, I would not advise them to be silent," he said Thursday.

"I've been the subject of protests during the course of my eight years. And I suspect that there's not a president in our history that hasn't been subject to these protests," he added.

Rioters across the country smashed windows, vandalized cars, set fires, torched American flags, attacked police officers, shut down major freeways, looted businesses, and more after Trump's decisive electoral victory.

Anti-Trump rioters have also violently attacked Americans—some in what appear to be racially-motived assaults—who voted for the Republican presidential nominee.

Comment: Obama refuses to condemn the riots because they are state-approved measures to foment unrest and social division.

      Read More...
Family

Nanny state: French authorities try to prevent couple from giving son a 'terrorist name'


RT
Sat, 19 Nov 2016 18:03 UTC
babies
© Petr Josek Snr/Reuters
French authorities are trying to prevent a couple in Nice from giving their baby the same name as a terrorist who killed seven people, including three children, back in 2012. Officials believe the name would subject the child to prejudice.

In early November, the baby was named Mohamed Nizar Merah, almost the same as that of Al-Qaeda jihadist Mohammed Merah, who killed seven people, including three Jewish children, in the cities of Montauban and Toulouse in the Midi-Pyrénées region of France back in 2012, French media reported. The 23-year-old was killed during a 30-hour siege of his family's apartment in Toulouse.


Comment: More on Mohammed Merah, the alleged terrorist:


Nice Prosecutor Jean-Michel Pretre said that the authorities will launch investigation into the case.

"Everyone knows that Mohamed Merah is the name of the person who in 2012 was behind the terrorist acts in Toulouse and Montauban," he said, as cited by AFP.

Comment: Mohamed (or Mohammed) means 'praised one' in Arabic and is tribute to the Islamic prophet of the same name. Is this legitimate concern over the connection with a patsy terrrorist or more anti-Muslim discrimination?

      Read More...
Camcorder

Facecrime: Facial recognition technology ushers in an Orwellian future

Isaac Davis
Waking Times
Fri, 18 Nov 2016 17:42 UTC
machine cogs
We are fast approaching an era when humanity will be subjugated by a technological tyranny managed by an untouchable organization of elites, bureaucrats and paid public minders hired to monitor our behaviors, emotions and thoughts. In an environment like this, law and justice will be meaningless, as the tools of a technocracy can used to enforce the policies and whims of whoever monitors us, whether it be corporate employees, criminals, or abusive state actors.

Recent developments and roll-outs of advanced facial recognition technology are a hint of the coming ubiquitousness in using biometric, face-scanning, emotion-reading, all-seeing technology to govern every detail of daily life. Consider the following developments:
  • It was recently reported that around half of Americans are already in police facial recognition databases, the vast majority having never been even accused of committing a crime or consenting to being included in the database. [Source]
  • Increasingly, facial recognition is being used to scan concert and festival goers creating permanent databases of partiers. [Source]
  • An experimental town in China is now using facial recognition to grant citizens entry. [Source]
  • Facial recognition is now capable of reading human emotions, opening the door to a new world of possibility in pre-crime detection. [Source]
  • The TSA is using emotion reading facial recognition technology to determine if a traveler is to be treated as a threat. [Source]
  • Police nationwide are using the controversial Stingray system which allows them to listen to anyone's cell phone conversations. [Source]
  • California police are already using a computer system called 'Beware' to predict crime and preemptively stop it. [Source]
  • Microsoft recently conducted a major test during the 2016 Republican and Democratic conventions, using emotion reading facial recognition technology to survey the crowd for threats. [Source]
  • A Russian software developer has released an App that allows you to turn your smart phone into a facial recognition device. [Source]
  • Some U.S. churches are using a consumer version of facial recognition to keep tabs on who is in attendance for Sunday service. [Source]
  • Facial recognition, finger-print reading, and iris scanning is now being included in consumer technologies. [Source]

Comment: See also:

      Read More...
Cross

Kurdish fighters help residents restore Christian church after liberating Iraqi village from ISIS


RT
Sat, 19 Nov 2016 16:31 UTC
christians restore St. George church Iraq
Local residents and Kurdish militia fighters have restored a cross to the top of Saint George's church in the Iraqi town of Bashiqa. The cross was destroyed by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) jihadists after they captured the town two years ago.

The restoration was made possible after Bashiqa and its twin village Bahzani were recaptured by Peshmerga fighters earlier this month.

Comment: The first line of defense': Peshmerga to stay in Iraq's liberated Kurdistan areas

      Read More...
Quenelle

Black female Trump exec - 'I can no longer remain silent' (video)


ETF News
Tue, 03 May 2016 16:35 UTC
trump Lynne Patton
The video, entitled "Lynne Patton "The Trump Family That I Know" - A Black Female Trump Executive Speaks," features audio of Patton reading a personal letter describing her experience with the business mogul's family.

"Today I was compelled to sit down and write this letter," Patton begins. "Not to anyone in particular, maybe even just for myself, but as a black female executive at the Trump organization, I can no longer remain silent about the repeated and reprehensible attempts to align my boss and his family with racist hate-mongering groups, campaigns and messaging."

"The Trump family that I know is, without question, one of the most generous, compassionate and philanthropic families I've ever had the privilege of knowing and the honor to call friends," she says. "They have been incredibly loyal to me and the countless dedicated people they employ around the world - hiring more minority and female executives than any other company for which I've ever worked."
      Read More...
Snakes in Suits

'Not another way': DAPL developer refuses to consider options to reroute pipeline


RT
Sat, 19 Nov 2016 12:08 UTC
DAPL protests
© Stephanie Keith / Reuters
Protesters march along a road during a protest against plans to pass the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, U.S. November 18, 2016
The Dakota Access oil pipeline will not be rerouted, despite mass protests, its developer has said. The Dallas-based company is ready to negotiate with tribal activists, who say that talks won't make a difference.

"There's not another way. We're building at that location," Kelcy Warren, the CEO Energy Transfer Partners, told the Associated Press, despite President Barack Obama's recent indication that the government was looking into alternatives.

Warren told the new agency that he was ready to sit down with Dave Archambault, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, to talk about the $3.8 billion pipeline and ease their concerns.

"We already know what he's going to say — that this is the cleanest, safest pipeline ever," Archambault told AP. "What he doesn't know is that this is still an issue for Standing Rock and all indigenous people."

Comment: Obama considering ways to reroute Dakota Access Pipeline after months of protests

      Read More...
Ambulance

Public health services in Greece on the brink of collapse


defenddemocracy.press
Thu, 17 Nov 2016 15:24 UTC
greece health crisis

Greece health crisis
Employees at Public Hospitals warn: "Greece's Public Health Services are on the brink of collapse" Six years of economic crisis, loan agreements, austerity cuts and freezing of new hiring threaten the primary care health care system. A report published by the Panhellenic Federation of Employees at Public Hospitals (POEDIN) draws a dire picture of the situation and furthermore blames the Health Ministry and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

"They implement the bailout agreements by the book and dramatically shrink expenditure for the Public Health sector, thus awaiting from us to thank them for the nothing they offer instead of humbly apologize," POEDIN stresses in a statement.

"Hospitals, medical centers, EKAV [ambulance services] are in a state of dissolution," the statement warns, adding that the premier and Health Ministry officials will "soon have to answer for the destruction of ESY."
      Read More...
2 + 2 = 4

Low definition in higher education

Lyell Asher
The American Scholar
Sat, 19 Nov 2016 14:59 UTC
When college students are told what to think and what not to say, who suffers in the end?

books
© Sarah Browning/Flickr
Every year for nearly a decade, I've assigned Anna Karenina to students enrolled in my course on the novel. At more than 800 pages, Tolstoy's saga can invite hurried reading, so a lot of class time is spent applying the brakes: "Not so fast." "How do you know that?" "What's it look like from her point of view?" There's a useful speed bump in that famous first line: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." In its own way. Don't assume you know who these people are, Tolstoy cautions, however familiar they may seem.
      Read More...
Penis Pump

Cuckolding fetish relationships: Men wanting partners to sleep with other men reaches new high

Rachel Hosie
Independent
Fri, 18 Nov 2016 14:30 UTC
swapping sex partners
A self-confessed cuckold has revealed how he gives his wife 'points' based on the sexual acts she carries out with other men - one of the thousands of males turned on by one of society's most taboo subjects.

The fetish of cuckolding - where men allow other men to have sexual relationships with their wives - is on the rise.

The cause of the rise isn't clear, but psychologists have suggested everything from repressed male bisexuality to men being proud of their wives' liberated sexuality.

Comment: More about the West's slide into moral decay:

      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts