Society's ChildS


USA

Colony of crazies: Israeli settlers attack US diplomats, Israel to investigate

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© AP Photo/ Sebastian Scheiner
Israeli authorities are looking for Jewish settlers in the West Bank who have attacked US diplomats, an official from the US State Department has told Sputnik.

"The Israeli authorities have communicated to us that they acknowledge the seriousness of the incident and are looking to apprehend and take appropriate action against those responsible," the official said Friday.

According to the official, the American side has video evidence of the attack that it is willing to share with the Israeli law enforcement.

Comment: It's almost funny that these pitiful excuses for human beings just can't contain their over-the-top insanity. Not only are they callously inhuman enough to steal and live on other people's land, they systematically torture the people they have displaced, and then are stupid enough to attack US diplomats. But then, that idiom about biting the hand that feeds isn't in their bible.


Boat

Major search off Scottish coast after ship with 'eight people on board' is overturned

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© EPAIt is understood that up to eight people could be on board the vessel, pictured partially-submerged in the sea.
Eight people are missing after their cargo ship overturned in stormy seas.

A major air and sea rescue operation has been mounted after the upturned hull of the vessel was spotted off the north coast of Scotland this afternoon.

But hopes of finding any survivors are rapidly diminishing as weather conditions in the area continue to deteriorate as darkness falls.

The upturned hull of the Cemfjord, a cargo ship registered in Cyprus, was spotted by a passing passenger ferry at 2.30pm today. It is understood that there were eight people onboard.

The 83-metre ship, which was carrying cement from Denmark to Runcorn, Cheshire, is now drifting in freezing waters of the Pentland Firth - 15 miles north-east of Wick.

A spokesperson for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said: 'We have discovered wreckage but, at present, there are no survivors in the immediate vicinity.'

Dollar

Airline sues 22-year-old who Figured out how to get cheaper tickets legally


A young entrepreneur from New York has some enemies in the airline industry. Aktarer Zaman has a website that helps people find cheap airline tickets, but now he's facing a lawsuit.

Comment: Sued cheap-flights site owner: 'It's not illegal'
Zaman founded Skiplagged.com last year as a side project and runs the site alone. It uses a strategy known as "hidden city" to allow a user to book a ticket with a layover in the flyer's actual destination, and the user just skips the last leg of the trip.

He said there is nothing illegal about the strategy and noted that it has been around for a long time. He says he doesn't think it is "ethical for big corporations to suppress this knowledge that is publicly accessible" to consumers. The site does not generate any profit.

United Airlines and Orbitz claim "unfair competition."
...
Zaman explained that "travelers do not break the law when they miss all of their flights so why would it be illegal to miss one leg of a flight?"
Read this article for analysis on the lawsuit.
On the whole, the lawsuit really is ridiculous. Suing this guy for showing accurate information about flight prices seems tremendously questionable. However, the situation is complicated somewhat by Zaman's promises to both companies. No matter what, it's well known that airlines play really obnoxious fare-pricing games, and Zaman was trying to shed some light on it with a simple side project. And, really, if your entire business can supposedly be undermined by a 22-year-old kid in his spare time accurately showing the prices of various flights, perhaps the real problem is with your business model, and not with the kid.



Heart - Black

Deadly New Year 2015: Tragedies mar festivities around the world

Manila slum burning 3
© ReutersA raging fire engulfs houses in Quezon city, metro Manila January 1, 2015.
For many people around the world, New Year was a time of celebration and joy, but for some it was quite the opposite. Stabbings, mortar shelling, massive fires and a fatal stampede all hit seasonal revels, causing havoc and heartbreak.

Stampede 'over fake money' kills dozens

At least 36 people were killed in China's Shanghai on New Year's Eve in a stampede, city authorities said. It was later reported that they rushed to pick up what turned out to be fake US money bills thrown from a building in Chen Yi Square in the city's Bund waterfront district.

Comment: Symbolic beginning to the year?


Red Flag

John Crawford's girlfriend mysteriously dies in car crash

Tasha Thomas
© MSNBC screenshotAttorney Anthony Vannoy and Tasha Thomas during an MSNBC appearance reagrding John Crawford III’s shooting death

Tasha Thomas, 26, the girlfriend of John Crawford was just confirmed as the victim of a fatal car crash, along with 30-year-old Frederick Bailey.

Thomas was with Crawford at the Beavercreek Walmart near Thomas' home, when Beavercreek Police Officer Sean Williams shot and killed the African American father, even though he had not broken any law.

The New Year's Day crash comes as police response to protests and "die ins" at the Beavercreek Walmart and Fairfield Commons Mall have drawn national scrutiny.

Police say that Thomas' vehicle was traveling at nearly 100 miles per hour on a city street at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, when it crashed into a pole and overturned several times.

There is no explanation for why Thomas and Bailey would have been driving at such uncanny speeds on downtown Dayton streets in the middle of the afternoon.

Comment: How convenient her death is for the Beavercreek police.


Red Flag

The holiday spike in domestic abuse

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For Peg Hacskaylo and her team at the District Alliance for Safe Housing in Washington, D.C., the holiday season is an especially hectic time. Working to prevent domestic violence is already a trying profession, she says, but the shelter will "typically always see an uptick in activity right around New Year's Day."

2014 shone a glaring spotlight on violence against women, including the incident with NFL player Ray Rice, the contentious Rolling Stone article profiling an alleged, then retracted, campus gang rape at the University of Virginia, and the "No More" PSAs playing during high-profile television events. In the days after the footage of Ray Rice punching his then-fiancée emerged, calls to the National Domestic Violence Hotline jumped 84 percent, according to Katie Ray Jones, chief executive officer of the National Domestic Violence Hotline.


Comment: It is disheartening to acknowledge the suffering that many families experience during the holiday season, especially when it comes to domestic violence. The following article gives some jaw dropping information about the reality of domestic abuse in the U.S.A: Thirty jaw-dropping U.S. domestic violence statistics
The number of American troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq between 2001 and 2012 was 6,488. The number of American women who were murdered by current or ex male partners during that time was 11,766. That's nearly double the amount of casualties lost during war.

Women are much more likely to be victims of intimate partner violence with 85 percent of domestic abuse victims being women and 15 percent men. Too many women have been held captive by domestic violence -- whether through physical abuse, financial abuse, emotional abuse or a combination of all three.

We are inundated with news stories about domestic violence, from athletes beating their significant others in public elevators or in their own homes to celebrities publicly abusing their girlfriends. This problem is not one that will go away quickly or quietly.

Domestic violence is not a singular incident, it's an insidious problem deeply rooted in our culture -- and these numbers prove that.



Red Flag

Thirteen endangered animals we may have to say goodbye to in 2015

We have only ourselves to blame.

British broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough once asked: "Are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?"

This year marked the 100th anniversary of the death of the last passenger pigeon, Martha, who managed to survive only 14 years in captivity after her species became extinct in the wild. More recently, Angalifu, a 44-year-old northern white rhinoceros, died at the San Diego Zoo, leaving just five other white rhinos worldwide, all in captivity. Chances are our grandchildren will never get to see this remarkable creature.

In fact, the world is losing dozens of species every day in what experts are calling the sixth mass extinction in Earth's history. As many as 30 to 50 percent of all species are moving toward extinction by mid-century - and the blame sits squarely on our shoulders.

"Habitat destruction, pollution or overfishing either kills off wild creatures and plants or leaves them badly weakened," said Derek Tittensor, a marine ecologist at the World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge. "The trouble is that in coming decades, the additional threat of worsening climate change will become more and more pronounced and could then kill off these survivors."

About 190 nations met last month at the United Nations climate talks in Lima, Peru to discuss action needed to curb rising greenhouse gas emissions. It ended with a watered-down agreement that seems unlikely to help much in the battle against global warming.

Corruption and illegal online trafficking also threaten conservation efforts. The illegal wildlife trade is an estimated $10-billion-a-year industry. It's the fifth largest contraband trade after narcotics, fueled by the rising demand for animals as pets, trophies, and ingredients in medicine, food and other products.

There's no doubt that we're facing an uphill battle against mankind's unsustainable greed and consumption, but it's a battle we can't afford to lose.


Comment: Insatiable greed driven by psychopaths and their effect on society.


"The thought of having to explain to my children that there were once tigers - real, wild tigers, out there, in the great forests of the world - but that we let them die out, because we were busy - well, it was bad enough explaining about the Tooth Fairy, and that wasn't even my fault," said English comedian Simon Evans.

Here are a few of the planet's most endangered animals who we may have to say good-bye to in 2015:

1) Amur leopard
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© Sebastien Bozon/AFP/Getty Images

Comment: There is no doubt that the psychopathic, pathologically greedy nature of the world we live in is destroying this planet. That has created significant voids in our ecosystem and we humans have allowed it. These extinctions are about more than just humanity's effect on this planet.
But it is important to us to realize that what happened 13,000 years ago was just the one of many extinction events. If this unbelievably violent cataclysm - in which almost all life on Earth was destroyed - came as a global empire was seeking domination over others, we may need to ask the question: does our living planet, its companions in the solar system, and its parent sun, manifest some sort of consciousness and do they, between them, have the resources to deal with humanity - or any other species - whenever things get 'too hot', so to say? Was Atlantis such an example? Did other destroyed and buried civilizations whose names were completely forgotten for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, become victims of their own hubris in like manner?

The Golden Age, Psychopathy and the Sixth Extinction
Cyclic cataclysms have wiped out the Earth before. Human beings are likely to be the next species to become extinct.

SOTT Talk Radio show #70: Earth changes in an electric universe: Is climate change really man-made?


Airplane

Plane bursts tyre upon landing at Rio de Janeiro airport

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The Boeing 767-300 had just landed safely in Rio de Janeiro when the right landing gear tyres burst
American Airlines plane carrying approximately 200 people bursts a tyre upon landing at Rio de Janeiro airport but drives forward to gate

An American Airlines plane suffered at least one blown tyre when it landed at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil airport this week.

The Boeing 767-300 had just touched down at Rio de Janeiro/Galeao-Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport when the incident happened.

The aircraft continued to taxi towards the gate despite smoke billowing from beneath the plane.


Airplane

Paris to Washington Air France flight makes emergency landing in Montreal

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Flight AF054 was west of Montreal when the flight crew declared an emergency and diverted
An Air France flight was forced to make an emergency landing in Montreal after one of its business class seats overheated and set off an alarm.

The Boeing 777-300 was flying from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris to Washington Dulles International Airport when 'strong heat' was detected within the components of an empty seat, said Air France spokesman Cedric Landais.

He said the flight crew decided to divert to Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport as a precaution.

Airplane

AirAsia flight search continues: 30 victims' bodies recovered, some of them belted into seats

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© Reuters/Darren WhitesideCaskets containing the remains of AirAsia QZ8501 passengers recovered from the sea are carried to a military transport plane before being transported to Surabaya, where the flight originated, at the airport in Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan January 2, 2015.
The bodies of 30 victims of the AirAsia Flight QZ8501 plane crash have been recovered as internationally-backed search operations attempt to locate the remainder of the wreckage amid rough weather conditions.

Five of the victims' bodies which were recovered were still belted into their seats when they were found, Indonesian Navy official Col. Yayan Sofiyan told local channel Metro TV. Twenty-one bodies were found Friday, the majority by a US naval vessel.

Four bodies have been identified so far. Hayati Lutfiah Hamid was identified Sunday by her fingerprints, and three more bodies were found to be those of passengers Kevin Alexander Soetjipto and Grayson Herbert Linaksita, and crewmember Khairunnisa Haidar Fauzi.

Rear Marshal Henry Bambang Soelistyo, head of Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency, has said that bad weather is a concern as his staff attempt to safely conduct the search.

The search is also complicated by the fact that in 1942 one of the largest naval battles of World War II, the Battle of the Java Sea, took place in the area.