Society's ChildS


Pistol

Survivor of Columbine school shooting calls for guns in schools

Columbine student
© Getty Images
A Columbine survivor is pushing legislation that would allow guns in Colorado schools.

Colorado State Rep. Patrick Neville (R) says schools should fight gunfire with gunfire. He reintroduced legislation Tuesday that would allow teachers with concealed weapons permits to defend their students at gun point.

"The only thing that is going to stop murderers intent on doing harm is to give good people the legal authority to carry a gun to protect themselves and our children," Neville said in a statement.

Neville, who graduated from Columbine High School, was in school on the day of the horrific shooting in 1999. "More of my friends would still be alive today," if teachers were carrying guns, he said.


Neville's legislation is unlikely to pass in the Democrat-controlled Colorado House. The same bill stalled last year.

"Parents wake up everyday and bring their children to school on blind faith that their kids will return home safe," Neville said. "Unfortunately, the current system continues to leave our children as sitting targets for criminals intent on doing harm."

Colorado state laws currently prohibit teachers from carrying concealed firearms in school.

Comment: There is an underlying tide of fear and anger in society which is at the core of a culture steeped in guns and violence.

See also:
SSRIs: The REAL cause of gun violence


Eye 1

Privileged pedophile: Eton student who sent child porn to undercover cop spared jail despite Britain's 'crackdown'

Lone Child
© Reuters
A former Eton College student who made and shared graphic child pornography images has avoided jail time, despite Britain's promise to crack down on pedophiles.

In January and February 2015, then-17-year-old Andrew Picard sent a message to an undercover officer via Skype which read: "Do you want to see pics of boys and girls your age nude?" The Daily Mail reports.

Police traced Picard's IP address to his computer at the prestigious boarding school which contained more than 2,000 pornographic images and videos of children, some involving rape and beastality.

Particularly disturbing images featured children as young as two being raped and forced to have sex with dogs.

On Thursday, the now-18 year old was sentenced to 10 months in prison, with 18 months suspended, and ordered to seek mental health treatment, the Telegraph reports. Judge Peter Ross said prison would "undo" the extensive counseling Picard has undergone since his arrest.

Some have questioned whether Piccard, the son of a lawyer, would have received such a light sentence if he had not come from a privileged background.

Red Flag

Glorifying Nazis: Ukrainian fashion magazine to tour Europe with exhibition featuring neo-Nazi fighter

Neo-Nazi
© vk.comViktor Vasyanovich
Among the models shot for a photo exhibition of Ukrainian fighters with war disabilities is a 20-year-old man brandishing Nazi tattoos on his naked torso. The exhibition, currently in Kiev, is set to tour in Europe, the US and Canada.

Called 'Winners', the photo exhibition was prepared by the Ukrainian fashion magazine VIVA and television channel TSN, both belonging to the same media holding '1+1', owned by oligarch Igor Kolomoysky. It features as models 18 men and one woman who sustained debilitating injuries while fighting for Kiev against rebel forces in the east and are learning to live with prosthetics.

One of the photos shows a man with a bare torso delivering a kick with his prosthetic leg. Stretching across his chest is a colored tattoo of a skull and a swastika. Not shown in the picture are his other tattoos, including the German Nazi emblem with a black eagle above a wreath with a swastika.

The public demonstration of Nazi symbols during the work on the project was apparently not restricted to tattoos. In an interview with TSN, the fighter-turned-model is wearing a jumpsuit with the insignia of 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf, a Nazi unit infamous for slaughtering 97 British POWs during the Battle for France, among other war crimes.

The man's name is Viktor Vasyanovich and he served in one of the volunteer battalions affiliated with the right-wing Right Sector group. He lost his leg after stepping on a mine in June last year. The Nazi tattoos were inked sometime in August, judging by the photos published on his page in the social network VKontakte (In Contact).

Vasyanovich doesn't bother to hide his sympathies for Nazism in his posts. Images of glamorous girls in Nazi symbols, Nazi memorabilia and historic photos of German officials with attempted humorous comments like "bring me back to my 1939" are mingled with macho stuff like guns, knives and crude sex jokes. His comrades shown in some photos appear to share the attitude.
Female neo-Nazi
© vk.com/Viktor Vasyanovich

Comment: Holocaust 2.0: The ultimate decisions of conscience


Bad Guys

Mind control victim? Moscow police arrest woman holding a child's severed head and shouting terrorist threats near subway station

severed head moscow
A woman dressed all in black and holding what is thought to be a child's severed head has been arrested near a metro station in Moscow. She was shouting, "I am a terrorist," and reportedly threatened to blow herself up.


According to LifeNews, the victim was a girl, identified as Nastya M. After the murder, the female suspect went to a metro station, where she was stopped by a local police officer. She immediately took the severed child's head from her bag and started shouting that she had killed the child. The suspect is currently being detained by police authorities, Russian media reported.

"The end of the world is coming in a second...I'm your death," the woman is heard shouting in the video released online. "I hate democracy. I'm a terrorist."

She is heard shouting that she has been "cursed" and "destroyed" "so many times."

"I'm your suicide bomber... I'm going to die in a second...The end of the world...," she shouted.

Comment: SOTT readers may or may not be familiar with 'The Greenbaum Speech', which is a universally recognized discussion of legitimate mind-control technology that was being used on people. Given the tension between the US and Russia, it's quite possible that this woman was activated in order to send a message as well as remind the public of the 'threat from Islamic terrorists.'


Gear

Not a satire: Saudi Arabia initiates court devoted to protecting human rights

Arab Court of Human Rights

The announcement of the establishment of an Arab Court of Human Rights, indeed any Court devote to Human Rights, should be an internationally welcomed initiative.


The fact that the initiative has come from the Shoura Council of Saudi Arabia, the formal one hundred and fifty strong legislative advisory body, unelected and all appointed by the King, raises many unanswered questions:

The Shoura Council is giving final touches to the draft statute of the Arab Court of Human Rights.

To be based in Bahrain, the court will have independent judges and provisions enforceable in all member states. ...

Comment: You know -- kinda like the U.S. gov't setting up the 911 Commission. Same thing.


X

More anti-refugee violence in Saxony: Gunshots directed at would-be shelter in latest attack

anti-refugee violence
© Beawiharta / Reuters
An office block slated to host refugees in a small town in Saxony, Germany, was hit by multiple gunshots from outside, local media report. The building was previously flooded and stoned, part of a series of violent anti-refugee attacks across the country.

The two-story former office building in Gräfenhainichen, eastern Germany, now a refugee shelter, sustained gunfire by unknown extremists on Saturday night, according to local media.

The gunshots damaged multiple window panes, but no human injuries were reported. Saxony police say the refugee hostel was guarded by a local security firm, but none of the watchmen inside the house was injured.

Attention

Palestinian attacks Israeli guard in West Bank mall with axe; mall bans all Palestinians, including employees

palestinian
© ziv121213 / YouTube
A Palestinian has brutally attacked an Israeli security guard in a shopping mall with something that resembled an ax, a CCTV video shows. The assailant, who was a mall employee, is seen striking the father of four multiple times near an elevator.

The incident took place in Maale Adumim, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, 7km from Jerusalem.

The suspect, later identified as 21-year-old Abu Hammad, approached the guard, Tzvika Cohen, and reportedly asked him to open the elevator door. Cohen wasn't suspecting the attack as he knew Hammad and the pair worked together at the mall, Channel 2 reported.

Hammad attacked the guard without warning, striking him several times with a metal object that resembles an ax, as seen in security camera footage which is circulating online.

Comment: Notice where this mall is: an illegal Israeli settlement on Palestinian land. Back in the 1st century, when the Roman Empire occupied Judea, there was a group of Jews that came to be known as the sicarii (from the Latin word for dagger). These Jewish freedom fighters and resisters of the Roman occupation would conceal daggers in their clothes, mingle in a crowd, then kill their enemies with impunity. Karma?


Bullseye

Activists arrested and detained for bringing a peace offering to Wisconsin drone base

drone protest
Last week, peace activists Brian Terrell and Kathy Kelly were arrested as they attempted to deliver a load of bread and a letter to drone operators working at Volk Field, an air base where drones are launched. On behalf of a group called Creative Nonviolence, Terrell and Kelly were hoping to deliver their peace offering to a few drone operators and hopefully have a conversation.

However, they were quickly arrested for trespassing on the airbase.

Before her arrest, Kathy Kelly said "Living alongside ordinary people who can't escape drone surveillance in places like Iraq, Gaza and Afghanistan and knowing that a drone operator could be ordered to assassinate civilians who have nowhere to turn and nowhere to hide affected my conscience. I wanted to ask drone operators in Volk Field whether they had been asked to target any people for possible assassination that day. I want to ask how the base training manual teaches people to distinguish between civilians and armed combatants. If an operator wants to quit, what does the commander of Volk Field do?"

Red Flag

The death of Concepcion Picciotto's radical message on Zionism and Israel's nukes

Concepcion Picciotto
Concepcion is known — with William Thomas, who died a few years ago — for leading what is apparently the longest protest in U.S. history: Against nuclear weapons in Lafayette Park, in front of the White House. She died last month.

As WTOP — the local news station noted today: "Picciotto's nuke vigil became a permanent fixture across from the White House for five consecutive presidents, including President Barack Obama, but not one of the presidents ever spoke to her."

Tom Hastings, with trembling hands holding the microphone, sobbed "I built nuclear weapons for 23 years" and then that Concepcion "was so unselfish" — as she literally died to the end for peace, with failing health, virtually homeless, continuing the vigil. She was almost like a protester who immolates themselves, but in slow motion.

At the memorial service, the speakers included former CIA man Ray McGovern who noted the Washington Post's apparent proclivity for questioning Concepcion's sanity, and asked who was the mad one here given the Post's apparent view that her desire to prevent nuclear war was at best quaint. Her lawyer, who spoke first and long, did some of the same, but seemed at one point to frame the nuclear threat stemming from the doctrine of MAD, mutually assured destruction, as a relic of the Cold War. He almost echoed a patronizing tone that one might hear from the Post, referring to his arguments with her, barely disguising an eyeroll.

Comment: Thankfully, we do see Concepcion's message being carried forward even if many in her community of activists aren't:

Now it's Israel's turn to open its nuclear program to IAEA inspection, or face sanctions


Handcuffs

About time: Former TEPCO executives indicted over cover-up of Fukushima meltdowns

fukushima
© Koji Sasahara / Reuters
Three former executives of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant have been indicted for allegedly failing to take measures to prevent the nuclear disaster caused by massive tsunami waves striking the complex in 2011, local media reported.

The three top officials of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) were indicted on charges of professional negligence resulting in death and injury, the Kyodo news agency reported on Monday. The officials are Tsunehisa Katsumata, 75, who was chairman of TEPCO in 2011, and two former vice presidents, Sakae Muto, 65; and Ichiro Takekuro, 69, the report added.

Earlier this week, TEPCO admitted that its staff should have reported the meltdowns almost immediately, stressing that the employees had failed to follow damage assessment guidelines.

Comment: