Society's ChildS


Bomb

400 richest people control more wealth than every country on Earth except the U.S., China and Japan

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So much money they can afford to light cigars with 100 dollar bills while 10% of people in the world live in extreme poverty.

Comment: As you read the following story keep in mind that there are approximately 7.5 billion people living on Earth today...


Jeff Bezos has edged past Carlos Slim to become the world's fourth-richest person, buoyed by a 113 percent rally this year in Amazon.com Inc.

The 51-year-old founder of the world's largest online retailer passed the Mexican telecommunications tycoon Tuesday after Amazon rose $4.19 by the close of trading in New York. Bezos commands a fortune of $58.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Slim, who was the world's richest person as recently as May 2013, is now ranked fifth with $57.2 billion. He's lost $15.4 billion in 2015, more than any other billionaire on the index.

Bezos has increased his fortune 103.5 percent in 2015 as investors have cheered profits at Amazon and growth in its cloud storage business. His $29.6 billion year-to-date gain is the biggest of any billionaire on the Bloomberg index, a daily ranking of the world's 400 richest people.

Comment: Such gross excessive hording of wealth! Meanwhile an estimated 100 million people in the world are homeless; approximately 795 million do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life; and nearly half the world (3.5 billion people) have less than $2.50 per day to survive and according to UNICEF 22,000 children die every day due to extreme poverty.


Quenelle - Golden

Viva Viggo Mortensen: Bernie Sanders just as hawkish as Hillary Clinton

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Under their skin, Sanders and Clinton are birds of a feather
The increasingly vocal actor Viggo Mortensen, perhaps best known for his leading role in the Lord of the Rings films, sounded off on United States military intervention in a recent HuffPo Live interview. In assessing United States military involvement in the Middle East, he stated that democratic socialist Bernie Sanders is "just as hawkish as Hillary Clinton."

Mortensen was in New York for a dramatic reading of Howard Zinn's Voices of a People's History of the United States, which features new additions, including writings from Chelsea Manning and Glenn Greenwald. Democracy Now's Amy Goodman also participated in the event.

Speaking on the terrible consequences of the Iraq War and United States military intervention in the Middle East, Mortensen said,
"I really don't think Hillary Clinton, who voted for the invasion, is going to be bringing the subject up on her own. Neither would Bernie Sanders, frankly, because he also has voted for every military appropriation. He's just as hawkish as she is."

Comment: Though it is refreshing to hear someone in the public eye say the things that Mortensen is saying (and recently with Quentin Tarantino about police violence), there seems to be, out of so many well known people capable of seeing and speaking out against injustice, precious few who are actually doing it.

On another note, we'd do well to remember that most politicians would not even be considered a viable "selection" for the presidency unless they could be more or less counted on take a hawkish line on things, since that's what the U.S.'s shadow government - the puppet masters - are pushing for.


Bad Guys

Non-GMO crops thriving in India while Monsanto crops decimated by pests

monsantos pesticides india
Monsanto and the biotech industry are relentless in their efforts to push (GM) genetically modified crops on the world, under false pretenses that their products increase yields and reduce the use of chemicals. These claims are not supported by the facts.

The biotech industry has already gained control of the U.S. soybean, corn and cotton market by infiltrating regulatory agencies, providing falsified data, using their patents on life to drive non-GMO farmers out of business, buying off lawmakers and spending millions on propaganda.

Monsanto has also secured a foothold in India, where its patented Bt cotton has come to dominate agricultural fields. This GM crop, which releases a bacterial toxin meant to control pests such as bollworm, was sold as a way to reduce pesticide use. However, as with so many other GM crops, the reality turns out to be opposite.
"But over the years, whiteflies have regularly attacked cotton plants only to be controlled by intensive spraying of chemical pesticides. But this year, despite a new pesticide being introduced and subsidized by the state government, the whitefly attack spun out of control."
As a result of the whiteflies' decimating Punjab's GM cotton crops this year, at least 15 farmers committed suicide. And yes, it was Monsanto crops that were decimated.

Comment: Monsanto is systematically killing independent agricultural sectors all over the world.


Dollars

Legalized robbery: Police admit to using civil asset forfeiture for 'toys for police'

Massachusetts State Police helicopter
© Brian Snyder / ReutersSearching for assets to "seize" (steal)?
Texas leads the US in civil asset forfeiture, the notorious practice of police seizing property from suspects who have not been convicted of any crime, according to a new report. Such programs have skyrocketed since the start of the Great Recession.

In 2012, 26 states and the District of Columbia seized a total of $254 million through forfeiture, a new report by the Institute for Justice has found. Texas alone took in nearly 20 percent of those assets with $46 million, followed closely by Arizona with $43 million. Illinois was third with almost $20 million. Most states have little to no requirement to report civil asset forfeitures, though, and 2012 is the most recent year that consistent data from states was available.

In the report, titled 'Policing for Profit,' the Institute for Justice also graded each state on its forfeiture practices, looking at criteria like the share of forfeited funds that cops get to keep and protections for innocent owners. New Mexico, which reformed its laws on the practice in July, received an A-, the highest grade given. It was followed by Maine, North Carolina, Indiana and Missouri, which all received a B+.

Comment: Robbery, murder, rape; police are more like a gang or the mafia than public servants sworn to protect and serve.


Birthday Cake

War is a racket: Happy birthday, Marines

marine corps birthday
"I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers." -Major General Smedly D. Butler
In 1775, in a Philadelphia bar named Tun Tavern, Commandant Samuel Nicholas held a recruiting drive to enlist the first Marines in the history of the United States.

10 November 1775 was the day when the Second Continental Congress established the Continental Marines with the following decree:

Red Flag

Germany sells out of pepper spray as 'frightened Germans' buy protection from the refugee crises

Pepper spray
Despite occasional videos of angry Germans protesting at what has become the biggest "foreign invasion" of Europe since World War II, the German popular response to the wave of migrants, which is now expected to top 1 million in 2015 has been relatively calm. Fear (and anger), however, are building beneath the otherwise calm surface.

According to a report by Focus, following a 600% surge in sales over the past two months, Germany has run out of pepper spray, and the irritating substance can now only be purchased after weeks of waiting. Focus says that according to pepper spray manufacturers, "frightened Germans" have bought out all the available inventory. The alleged reason, according to the German publication: "die Flüchtlingskrise", or the refugee crisis.

Focus goes on to say that in private, Germans are equipping themselves "massively."

"There is fear" explains Kai Prase, managing director of DEF-TEC Defense Technology GmbH in Frankfurt, one of the major producers of repellents. "For the past six to seven weeks we have been practically sold out."

Info

Billionaire steel magnate plunges to his death as the family business collapses

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Angad Paul and wife Michelle.
A billionaire peer's son who plunged to his death from a luxury penthouse home had been plagued by financial worries over both his steel and film companies.

Angad Paul, 45, suffered catastrophic injuries after plummeting from the eight story property in central London, two weeks after his family's leading steel company was forced into administration.

The Telegraph understands the businessman was also scaling down his investment projects in the film industry.

Comment: Mr. Paul's financial problems must have been more serious than what is reported to have to resort to what appears to be suicide.


Family

Northern Ireland Bloody Sunday massacre: Investigators arrest 66-year-old former soldier

Bloody Sunday protest
© EPAFamilles and friends of those killed on Bloody Sunday in 1972 march in Derry in 2010.
Detectives investigating shootings in Derry in 1972 in which 14 civil rights demonstrators died arrest man in County Antrim

Detectives in Northern Ireland investigating the Bloody Sunday shootings in 1972 have arrested a former British soldier in County Antrim.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland's legacy investigation branch said he was 66 years old. He would have been 23 at the time of the shootings.

It is the first arrest since the events of Bloody Sunday nearly 44 years ago.


Thirteen civil rights demonstrators were killed by members of the Parachute Regiment on the streets of Derry in January 1972. Another victim of the shootings died months later.

The officer leading the investigation, DCI Ian Harrison, said the arrest marked a new phase in the overall inquiry that would continue for some time.

The soldier arrested is understood to be a former member of the Parachute Regiment, who was known during the government-commissioned inquiry undertaken by Lord Saville simply as Lance Corporal J.

He is being questioned specifically about the killings of 15 year old William Nash, Michael McDaid, 20, and John Young, 17, in the 1972 massacre. The retired soldier is also suspected of the attempted killing of William's father Alexander.

The investigation was launched in 2012 after the Saville inquiry found none of the victims posed a threat to soldiers when they were shot. After the publication of Saville's report in 2010, David Cameron apologised for the army's actions, branding them "unjustified and unjustifiable".

Comment: For more, see our SOTT Focus article: On This Day 1972: Bloody Sunday, Derry, N. Ireland


Airplane

Two die as small jet crashes into Akron, Ohio apartment building

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© Via twitter@chrisflanaganTV
A small airplane crashed into a residential area of Akron, Ohio. Many local residents are without power, and the building is on fire.

Two people have died, Akron police told WEWS-TV. It is assumed they were on board the plane as no one was injured inside the apartment building, and all the residents are accounted for, local officials said.

The small jet, identified as a "Hawker H25B," was on approach to Akron Fulton Airport when it clipped a residential building in the area of Mogadore and Skelton roads in eastern Akron, WJV in Cleveland quoted a FAA spokesman.

Ambulances and firefighters are on the site, local media report. The building is "engulfed in flames," according to local officials, and the emergency crews are working to contain the fire.

The fire had spread to a second apartment building, before the emergency crews put it out, WEWS reported.

Officials from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are on the way, and the investigation will be headed by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), according to WJW-TV.

Manufactured between 1983 and 2013, the small jet - officially known as Hawker 800 - has a crew of two and could carry up to 13 passengers.


Comment: There have been several small plane crashes in the last few months:

Update: Reuters is reporting nine passengers were also killed in the crash.


Pistol

LAPD cops shoot, kill man for 'acting bizarrely' and standing in street

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© Mel Melcon/LA TimesLAPD officers near the intersection of Stagg St. and Encino Ave. in Lake Balboa, where an officer-involved shooting occurred.
On Monday, officers from the Los Angeles Police Department took down a man for "acting bizarrely and standing in traffic."

Officers were called to the scene in Lake Balboa shortly after 1:00 PM over reports of the man acting strangely, though no specifics were given other than the fact that he was in the roadway. LAPD Lieutenant John Jenal says a police helicopter flew overhead as officers arrived on the scene and used Tasers on the man "in an effort to de-escalate the situation," before shooting at him with beanbag rounds.

The man, who is described as Latino and in his mid-30s, apparently did not comply, so they shot him to death. The department is now looking into whether he was on drugs, under the influence of alcohol, or had mental health issues. Activists, critics, and residents of Los Angeles have asserted that his mental health is likely something that should have been considered before using lethal force on him.

It was unclear how many shots were fired or whether police were engaged in a struggle before the shooting, Jenal told the Los Angeles Times. None of the officers involved were wearing body cameras, and the incident was reportedly not captured on any surveillance cameras from local businesses.

No officers were severely injured during the incident, and it is unclear whether even minor injuries were sustained, other than perhaps some sore trigger fingers.

Comment: One of many cops who will likely get away with murder leaving the family to suffer the loss.