Society's ChildS


Heart - Black

Tourist kills swan after dragging it from lake for selfie

swan selfie
All for the selfie: The female tourist is seen smiling for the camera as she drags the swan from the lake
This is the moment a female tourist dragged a swan from a lake in Macedonia in order to pose up for a photograph, before leaving it to die on the beach.

The woman, reportedly from Bulgaria, grabbed the unsuspecting swan by the wing and dragged it onto the pebble-strewn shoreline of Lake Ohrid, south-western Macedonia.

When the unidentified tourist had gotten her selfie snap, she abandoned the swan, which later died on the beach of Lake Ohrid, local media reports.

Shocked witnesses have described how the swan did not react to the woman walking up to it, as they are used to the presence of tourists visiting the town of Ohrid, which shares the lake's name.
swan selfie
Cruel: The brazen tourists then left the swan 'motionless' on the shores of Lake Ohrid

Comment: People have truly gone mad. They have lost whatever conscience and empathy they had and replaced it with a vain desire for attention. If you've ever wondered about alien abductions and why they occur, one need only look at the above despicable behavior. Those beings above us do what they want to us for their own selfish gratification without any consideration for the trauma that is being inflicted. And here we seethe maxim - as above, so below - applied. That this behavior is becoming more and more common should be even more cause for concern:


Arrow Down

Oklahoma state bill heads to Senate that will criminalize abortion as first-degree murder

abortion
On Tuesday, the Oklahoma Senate will hear two of the most controversial anti-abortion bills in recent history. One bill would revoke the medical license of any physician who performs an abortion, and the other bill would criminalize abortion as an act of first-degree murder.

This legislation is an unprecedented move by anti-abortion advocates. However, this sentiment is not uncommon. Lawmakers in the past have attempted to arrest, at least, one woman, for murder, after inducing an abortion.

Comment: See also: Not number one: 11 things other countries do way better than America


Eye 2

Government indoctrination: FBI now targeting high school students

spying children
McCarthyism quietly returned in January — repackaged, rebranded, and updated to fit a modern narrative — in an official policy set forth by the FBI that asks high schools to target their students.

"Preventing Violent Extremism in Schools," an unclassified 28-page manifesto for the ostensible purpose of waging the War on Terror in U.S. schools, opens with a brief summary of what we can expect from the latest in governmental indoctrination:
"High school students are ideal targets for recruitment by violent extremists seeking support of their radical ideologies, foreign fighter networks, or conducting acts of targeted violence within our borders. High schools must remain vigilant in educating their students about catalysts that drive violent extremism and the potential consequences of embracing extremist beliefs."
Presented as ostensibly well-intentioned guidelines for identifying an individual's burgeoning extremist ideology, the entire summation, and its accompanying website, are a thinly-veiled excuse to target Muslim-Americans.

But Muslims aren't the only subject of this alarmingly McCarthyistic program.

Eye 1

No prison time in child molestation case, controversial but not uncommon experts say

child moletser no prison sentence 800px
© Indianapolis Metropolitan Police DepartmentJeremy Schwer pleaded guilty to felony child molesting.
The response was immediate, emotional and filled with disgust.

A Marion County judge's decision not to send a convicted child molester to prison drew public ire last week on social media.

Jeremy Schwer was not just another defendant; he is the father of the victim, a then-6-year-old girl diagnosed with cancer. And he is not just her father; he was her caregiver when the crime was committed, when she was sick from chemotherapy.

"I am sickened how this young girl has been failed twice by our judicial system," one IndyStar reader said. The girl was failed not only by her father, she said, but also by the court. Another said Schwer's sentence, which includes 12 years of probation, sends the wrong message to child predators.

But the judge's decision was not all that uncommon, legal experts say, and it demonstrates the difficulties in sentencing someone when punishing the offender also could punish the victim.

Friends and family members argued in letters to the judge that imprisonment of the 41-year-old Indianapolis man could have detrimental economic consequences, not only on the defendant, but more importantly, on his family.

"It's certainly a heinous offense, there's no question about that," said David Finkelhor, director of the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center. "There are three elements that are involved in punishment. There is the protection of the community. There is the deterrence of other possible offenders. And there is the justice for the victim. The question is, 'Does justice for the victim outweigh the other needs?'"

In Schwer's case, the financial consequences to his family outweighed everything else. His now-estranged wife asked the court not to send him to prison so that he could work to support their two young children — an obligation that Schwer's attorney said he will fulfill.

Comment: This is absolutely disgusting! How can any society that claims to stand for democratic ideals not have in place provisions for assisting families in instances such as these?


Heart

Girl writes letter to Putin asking for a dog - Putin delivers

putin girl chihuahua
© Крыминформ ИА / YouTube
An 11-year-old in the city of Sevastopol in Crimea has sent a letter to Vladimir Putin, telling the president she wanted a dog. Now she has become the happy owner of a chihuahua.

"I wrote: 'Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin! Please give me a chihuahua as a present,'" Alina Zykova told local media. The girl had watched the president giving presents to other children on TV, and decided to ask him to make her wish come true too, her mother added.

The family who moved to Sevastopol from the Donetsk region in Ukraine because of the girl's health (doctors recommended her to stay away from coal mines), received a phone call from the local government.
putin girl chihuahua
© Ruptly

Comment: When was the last time one of our Western leaders actually read a letter from a citizen? Hint: the answer is less than 1.


Eye 1

Never again? Anti-immigrant 'Alternative for Germany' scores huge gains in local German elections

Alternative for Germany
© Hannibal Hanschke / ReutersSupporters of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) demonstrate against the German government's new policy for migrants in Berlin, Germany, November 7, 2015
The anti-immigrant right-wing Alternative for Germany party (AfD) scored huge gains in local elections in the German central state of Hessen over the weekend, becoming the third strongest political force in the region amid the ongoing refugee crisis.

The anti-immigrant party garnered on average of 13.2 percent of vote throughout the region, coming in behind only Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), which received 28.2 percent, and the Social Democrats (SPD) with 28 percent, according to preliminary election results, as reported by the German media.

AfD also scored significant gains in Hessen's several major cities, winning 10.3 percent in Frankfurt, 12.2 percent both in Kassel and Darmstadt, as well as enjoying particular success in the regional capital of Wiesbaden, attracting 15.3 percent of the vote.

Comment: Further reading: Anti-refugee rallies in Germany, Netherlands, Swedish mosque arson attack


Hearts

Co-founder of "Dog Tales Rescue and Sanctuary" can't decide which dogs to save- buys entire shelter instead

Dog shelter
© Dog Tales
Danielle Eden is no stranger to hell.

She usually brings a few dogs back from there.

As cofounder of Dog Tales Rescue and Sanctuary, she has visited countless animal shelters throughout the world. And often she would bring dogs in the most dire circumstances back to the rescue's own rolling 50-acre property in King, Ontario.

But she wasn't prepared for what awaited her at a shelter she visited in Israel last January.

Every last dog was in desperate straits.

"This is the worst shelter she had ever seen," Clare Forndran, media director for Dog Tales Rescue and Sanctuary, tells The Dodo.

Comment: Kudos to Dog Tales Rescue and Sanctuary in their mission to save the lives of so many dogs and give them a new lease on life.


Eye 1

Clamp down on cash helps serve the ultimate surveillance state

Cashless society
'Come to us! Yesss, you know you want to!'
The war on cash is more than just a currency war to clamp everyone down on the electric grid. It is also a war on your privacy, and the nail in the coffin for the free market of low level transactions.

Soon, restrictions on cash will become so severe that even spending $100 will arouse suspicion, despite the constant inflation on the value of such a denomination. One day, physical currency may become obsolete.

When that day comes, they will know everything you do.

Conducting transactions in anything but digital creds will be not only increasingly difficult, but seen as outright criminal behavior. It might even make you a terrorist.

Don Quijones argues on Wolf Street:

Stock Up

Willful ignorance: Nestle admits 'possibility' of slave labor in its coffee supply chain

coffee slavery
© Nacho Doce / Reuters A worker walks after picking coffee beans from coffee plants during a harvest at a farm in Esprito Santo do Pinhal, 200 km (124 miles) east of Sao Paulo.
Two of the world's largest coffee companies Nestle and Jacobs Douwe Egberts say beans bought from Brazilian plantations may have been grown using slave labor because they do not know the names of all the plantations that supply them.

This followed an investigation from the Danwatch media and research centre which confronted the two companies with the possible infraction.

"Two coffee giants [together account for 39 percent of the global coffee market - Ed.] admit that coffee from plantations, where working conditions resembled slavery according to the Brazilian authorities, may have ended up in their supply chains," the Denmark-based group said, adding the companies often bought beans from middlemen and exporters in a muddled supply chain.

Comment: For a company which makes billions in profits to acknowledge that "forced labor is an endemic problem" and yet do nothing to actively track and maintain responsible levels of vigilance over its supply chain is sickening. As the track record would suggest, the duty of care is weighted towards share holders not the poor unfortunates they readily make profit from.


Ambulance

Terminal austerity: Ukrainians Dying by the Thousands Due to Lack of Meds, Protesters Blame Yatsenyuk

Ukraine protest
© n/a“I have AIDS, I was written-off by the Cabinet”, say these terminally ill people to PM Yatsenyuk
Terminally ill patients suffering from cancer, AIDS, hepatitis, and tuberculosis protested at the Ukrainian Government Building

They claim that the reduction of the country's medical budget dooms them to untimely death. Their posters say:
"I have cancer, I was written-off by the Cabinet"

"I have AIDS, I was written-off by the Cabinet"
Stumbling upon this video, I remembered that in 2010, the current Prime Minister of the Ukraine, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who is now implementing this austerity policy, ran for the presidency with these pledges:
"The quality of Soviet medicine and education exceeded standards of the most developed countries".

"If we are not able to revive our state medical system, people will be deprived of their future".

"That [Soviet] system had many disadvantages but still it was effective..."

"They [the West] have good educational systems. But it's not for everyone... Not many can afford to send their children to university..."

"The issue of Ukraine entering NATO is irrelevant".

"It's much more important for people to have good relations with Russia than with NATO. People want to improve these relations, including those in Western Ukraine. It's true - I've checked that".
This is not a joke - I kept Yatsenyuk's leaflets.

Comment: So as Ukraine is pillaged via the U.S. backed coup, IMF loans and enforced austerity, as ever it's the most vulnerable who suffer the most. Business as usual for the parasitic financial system and their puppets.