Society's ChildS


Red Flag

Arabic flag proclaiming 'love for all' causes hysterics in Lubbock, Texas; FBI, DHS notified

homeland security police
© Mike Blake / Reuters
A black flag with a red heart and "love for all" in Arabic text was first seen hanging from an abandoned government building the morning after Valentine's Day in Lubbock, Texas. The city then stopped traffic, called the feds, and opened an investigation.

Lubbock Mayor Glen Robertson had City Manager James Loomis and Police Chief Greg Stevens notify the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and the Sheriff's Office about the banner hanging, and the matter is now part of a local investigation into trespassing.

"It is premature to come to conclusions before we can gather more facts but I believe that we must take this situation seriously in light of current national and international events," Robertson said in a public release.

Airplane

Two planes clip wings on the tarmac at Detroit airport

detroit airport
© WikipediaDetroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport Air Control Tower.
An American Airlines plane and a Southwest Airlines jet collided while heading for deicing on a frigid Detroit morning.

At around 6am local time on Wednesday, the wing of an American Airlines Boeing 737 hit the tail of a Southwest Airlines jet at Detroit Metro Airport in Romulus, Michigan. The American Airlines flight, bound for Dallas, was taxiing from the gate for takeoff, but struck a Southwest Airlines plane that was being deiced. The American flight had to return to the gate for inspection. No injuries were reported.

However, passengers were stuck on their planes for almost three hours, and were finally allowed to disembark at about 9am. Several passengers tweeted about the fiasco of being stranded on the tarmac.

Quenelle

Nosy, busybody neighbors call cops on family watching the Walking Dead at high volume

walking dead
Sunday night, a family sat down to watch the mid-season premiere of the show "The Walking Dead," and nearly ended up getting raided by dozens of police officers because their neighbors thought that they heard something suspicious. What they actually heard was the nearby family listening to the show at a high volume, but the neighbors alleged that they heard screaming, and talks of someone "having a gun."

Without checking out the situation for themselves to see if anything truly suspicious was going on, the nosy neighbors instantly called the police, who showed up quickly and in large numbers.

Sgt. Brian McGraw told WFAA that, "We had a whole bunch of guys on that one."

As police began to surround the house, they looked through the window and noticed a family sitting peacefully in their living room and watching The Walking Dead.

Comment: Can society get any dumber?


Heart - Black

Cops kill suicidal man as he lay crying in his bed

danger police sign
We've reported before on how calling the police for help these days in the modern American police state usually ends in less help and more death, pets included.

This time the woman was actually calling for an ambulance and not the cops, but since all first response tech is now integrated, the cops were sent anyway.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports:
Donna Spry called her husband's doctor, crying. Curly Spry was refusing to go to his appointment. He was suicidal, off his medication and had a gun, his wife said.

Call 911, the doctor's staff instructed her.

Comment: Do not call the cops for any reason. They are fully incapable of responding appropriately to the nuances of human suffering.


House

Russian gov offers Siberian resettlement option to Ukraine refugees

Siberia
© Evgeny Biyatov / SputnikLand of opportunity.
The Russian Ministry for Far East Development has supported a plan to offer citizenship and benefits to Ukrainian citizens who want to move to Russia and are willing to settle in remote but rapidly developing areas in eastern regions and Siberia.

The ministry issued an official reply to an initiative put forward by a group of Communist Party lawmakers headed by lower house MP Sergey Obukhov. The proposal suggested offering various incentives to Ukrainian refugees who agree to move to several "territories of priority repopulation." These territories include several regions in Eastern Siberia and the Far East, and the proposed benefits range from simplified naturalization to state-sponsored housing and loans.

The Ministry for Far East Development also said it had contacted the Federal Migration Service in order to further work on the project. It added that the current plan of development of the Far East envisages the creation of up to 50,000 workplaces in the regions mentioned. In August last year, the head of the Federal Migration Service, Konstantin Romodanovsky, told reporters that the total number of people who had moved to Russia from southeast Ukraine since the beginning of the armed conflict in the region had exceeded one million. The official added that about 600,000 of these people decided never to return home.

Russia earlier offered a resettlement program to all foreign citizens with Russian family roots, and according to Romodanovsky about 114,000 of the Ukrainian refugees have taken part in the plan. The benefits offered include material aid and a short track to getting Russian citizenship. In mid-June 2015, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said that in 2014 the influx of Ukrainian citizens seeking refuge on Russian territory put the Russian Federation in first place in the world by number of asylum applications. The official confirmed that the main reason behind this was the military conflict in Ukraine's Donbass region.

Comment: As we have come to expect, Russia has a solid plan in place and will attract the industrious and highly skilled personnel to create self-supporting and productive communities. Compare this to the West.


Alarm Clock

Angry Spanish protesters chase two City Hall security chiefs into a bar

Protesters in Madrid
© Estrella Digital/You Tube
A crowd of protesters chased Madrid City Hall security commissioner and the municipal police chief into a bar where the two took refuge until a National Police riot squad helped them escape, a local paper reported.

Around 500 protesters gathered outside Madrid's security commission building on Tuesday morning demonstrating against the authorities' decision to dissolve the municipal riot squads (UCS), according to El Pais. After the meeting was over, Madrid City Hall security commissioner Jose Javier Barbero and municipal police chief Andres Serrano left the building and were met outside by the protesters who were calling for their resignation.

In an odd coincidence Barbero's car which was supposed to be waiting for him outside failed to show up. The official reportedly decided to walk toward the central Puerta del Sol square as the second vehicle summoned by the bodyguards was also being delayed. As he was walking, protesters tried to stop him while shouting insults.

Barbero and Serrano's first attempt to hide from the mob in a cafe failed - they were told that the business has not opened yet, El Pais reported. So they took refuge in a nearby bar.
They were soon picked up by another car which reached them under the protection of the National Police's riot squad.

A video posted on YouTube shows a crowd of protesters shouting in front of the bar where the two security chief are taking refuge and rocking their car. Meanwhile, some officers on duty supported and praised the actions of the demonstrators, El Pais reported.

The police and supporters were protesting the mayor's December order to reduce the UCS by half to some 80 officers and prohibit them from monitoring people at public demonstrations and home evictions. The special units were created in 2004 in order to disperse violent demonstrations. Officials argued that these units were too costly as each officer was paid a monthly bonus of 300 euros for being part of UCS. However, the decision was slammed by critics who said that 80 riot officers is not a sufficient number for the capital.


Comment: See also:


Mr. Potato

Because America: Jeb Bush tweet failure draws ridicule from Snowden, Twitter

bush america
© JebBush / TwitterThis gun is made of 100% America.
Jeb Bush took to Twitter to gain some support from patriotic gun lovers. The GOP presidential hopeful tweeted out a picture of his gun with the caption, "America." Like many of his recent decisions, it didn't work out the way he hoped.

The tweet itself showcased a handgun with the words "Gov. Jeb Bush" engraved on it.

Reaction online was swift. National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden had already taken one shot at Jeb Bush this week by comparing Kanye West's desperate tweets to Jeb Bush's now infamous "please clap" direction to a less than enthusiastic audience. This time, Snowden was quick to respond with a little bit of advice for Bush.


In what can only be described as a rough week for the former Florida governor, it started with the Bush team letting an unused domain name called JebBush.com expire. Once it expired, it was quickly scooped up by an anonymous prankster who made the URL redirect to - where else? - Donald Trump's website.

Comment: Jeb Bush is turning out to be as much as a clown as his brother.


Eye 1

Your privacy doesn't matter: Downing drones now labeled 'criminal mischief'

drone
As hobby drones continue to proliferate across the United States and commercial applications rise, the rules about drone use remain murky, as do the penalties for downing them if you feel your privacy is being threatened.

So far we have seen a push by the FAA to impose mandatory drone registration that requires owners of any drone weighing more than 250 grams to ID their aircraft and provide personal contact information so that quick action can be taken in the case of violations. However, this is being done mainly to protect government institutions, federal airspace and of course to address the ubiquitous threat of terrorism.

Meanwhile, a range of penalties has been applied to the few individuals who have managed to bring down drones in both public and private space; from jail time in the case of a man who took down a drone with his T-shirt at a California beach, to a 65-year-old Pennsylvania woman who hit her neighbor's drone with a rock, destroying it - she was forced to pay $600 in damages, but was cleared of "criminal mischief." A Kentucky man who took more serious action and used a shotgun to blast his neighbor's drone out of the sky, was arrested, but also was eventually cleared of criminal mischief and first-degree endangerment.

Handcuffs

Former prison supervisor sued for repeatedly raping female inmates

prison
© Saul Loeb / AFP
Three women are suing the former supervisor at an all-female prison in Georgia for civil rights violations, saying he repeatedly raped them during their time as inmates. Now they are pleading for other victims to come forward.

Plaintiff Casey Mincey, 35, was serving three years for identity fraud when she was tasked with cleaning the mental health wing of the Emanuel Women's Facility. That's where Captain Edgar Daniel Johnson, the correctional supervisor of the medium-security women's prison, began interacting with her.

It started innocently, she told reporters Monday. Friendly chats soon moved to compliments, touches, kisses on the head and hugs. Then Johnson slipped his hands down her pants. Eventually ‒ and repeatedly ‒ he raped her, she said. And she is not the only inmate he sexually assaulted.

Comment: This seems to be par for the course in prisons where inmates are exploited and abused financially, through their labor and even physically. Hopefully, the victims will obtain justice.


Stormtrooper

Police brutality: Elderly woman tasered, her arm broken, for not removing her earrings fast enough

taser arm break
© n/a
When 60-year-old Nancy Mason was in the process of being booked into the Hamilton County, Tennessee, jail on theft charges she refused to remove her earrings quickly enough setting off a violent chain of events. For not complying fast enough, Sheriff's Sergeant Rodney Terrell tased her — sending the woman crashing to the ground, landing on and breaking her arm in the fall.

Before being booked, Mason is ordered to remove her jewelry but refuses to do so. "I will report you," she says to Terrell. Terrell, can be heard saying, "Report all you want, I will not keep telling you."

Then he fires his taser.

"You broke my arm," Mason says in video footage, clutching her wrist in disbelief, after recovering from the fall.

"I didn't break your arm, you broke it," the officer retorts.