Society's ChildS


Attention

Best of the Web: Over 120 dead in Homs/Damascus terror attacks - Western media not interested

damascus homs attack
The terror-ravaged neighbourhood of al-Zahra'a, in Homs, has again mercilessly been hit by Western&Saudi-backed terrorists' bombings. Local journalists put the number of murdered at 57 now, some hours after the double-vehicle bombing earlier today.

Khashoof
© Homs News NetworkSaed Mutanus al-Khashoof, from the Christian village of Sadad but living in al-Zahra’a, killed in today’s terrorist explosions.
Russia Today reports:
The explosions at a traffic light at al-Siteen Street in the al-Zahra neighborhood happened within minutes of each other, witnesses said. ...Witnesses said at least one of the two blasts was triggered by a suicide bomber driving a car.

A follow-up bombing after an initial blast is a common terrorist tactic, which allows them to hit first responders, who rush to help victims....
Al-Zahra'a has been repeatedly targeted by western-backed terrorists, with almost no condemnation from the same leaders who cried for Paris.

Comment: 130 people died on a single day in Paris, prompting worldwide outrage, sympathy, military action, new laws, arrests, raids, and more. In coordinated terror attacks in Syria, this happened yesterday. But where is the outrage? Where is the support for official Damascus, for the Syrian people? Nowhere to be found - it's just another day in Syria... And who's to blame? The U.S., Western nations in general. Maybe that's why there is so little response. They don't want to look the devil in the eye, because they fear what they'll really see: themselves.


Dominoes

North Dakota: First state to legalize weaponized drones for cops...create jobs, investment opportunities

police drone
© www.exposingtruth.comN. Dakota law allows weaponized police drones.
Nothing says "police state" quite like unmanned aerial vehicles patrolling the sky ready to deploy 80,000 volts to the nearest protester or dose entire crowds with chemical weapons. The idea of weaponized drones has long been a dystopian, yet fictional idea. However, thanks to House Bill 1328, in North Dakota, this police state hell from above is now a horrid reality. Thanks to a police union lobbyist, the idea of police using drones for "less than lethal" weapons is now written into North Dakota law.

According to the Daily Beast, The bill's stated intent was to require police to obtain a search warrant from a judge in order to use a drone to search for criminal evidence. In fact, the original draft of Rep. Rick Becker's bill would have banned all weapons on police drones. Then Bruce Burkett of North Dakota Peace Officer's Association was allowed by the state house committee to amend HB 1328 and limit the prohibition only to lethal weapons. "Less than lethal" weapons like rubber bullets, pepper spray, tear gas, sound cannons, and Tasers are therefore permitted on police drones.

The term "less than lethal" is thrown around to make tasers, which have been responsible for hundreds of deaths since 2001, seem like they are okay to be deployed on infants. The reality is that "less than lethal" weapons are only slightly less lethal than the real thing. Now that these weapons will be put on drones, entire new safety concerns arise, such as accuracy and the simple issue of a drone falling into a crowd.

After being duped by the police lobby into passing a bill allowing cops to equip drones with weapons, Rep Becker is worried. He spoke up about police deploying these weapons when they aren't near the intended target. "When you're not on the ground, and you're making decisions, you're sort of separate," Becker said. "Depersonalized." One needs only look at the Middle East and the thousands of innocent women and children who've been slaughtered by US drones to imagine the grim reality of such legislation.

Comment: Who is standing up for citizen rights and liberties? Certainly not the politicians, the investors, nor the so-called protectors of the public! There is something so fundamentally wrong, in fact downright predatory, with the making of profits and the ultra-control agencies out-ranking the basic welfare and constitutional rights of the people. "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear"...couldn't be farther from the truth.


Pirates

Professor who exposed Flint water crisis says academic research and scientists no longer deserve public trust

Marc Edwards
"I grew up worshiping at the altar of science, and in my wildest dreams I never thought scientists would behave this way," said Virginia Tech professor, Marc Edwards, whose research helped expose the high levels of lead in municipal waters in both Flint, Michigan, and Washington, D.C.

Marc Edwards is the Virginia Tech civil engineer and professor who helped expose the Flint water crisis, all while Governor Snyder was colluding to keep that information hidden, as shown by the governor's emails.

When interviewed in February by the Chronicle of Higher Education, Edwards said that both Michigan and Washington authorities knew they were poisoning residents with lead-contaminated water.

Comment:



Attention

Burst oil pipeline causes water emergency in Peru, two Amazon rivers contaminated

petroperu spills
© El Comercio / Alessandro Currarino
Peru is in the midst of an emergency as two rivers in the Amazon basin are now contaminated with 3,000 barrels of crude oil after the country's main pipeline burst. There are plenty of villagers relying on this water who have effectively been cut off.

The Health Ministry has declared a water emergency in five districts in the vicinity.

According to state-owned regional Petroperu, there were two separate breaks in January and early February, which have halted transportation of 5-6,000 barrels of crude per day. According to Petroperu president German Velasquez, the first rupture appears to have been caused by a landslide. The cause of the other is still being worked out.

The oil is now in the Chiriaco and Morona rivers in northwest Peru, Reuters reported OEFA, the national environmental authority, as saying. There are at least eight native-populated villages now under threat, an indigenous leader told the agency. Petroperu has estimated the amount of the spilled oil at 3,000 barrels.

Snakes in Suits

Viral Ron Paul video asks the question, 'has America gone insane?' The answer is yes

Insane America
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. -Jiddu Krishnamurti
In America today, police officers kill more people every in a day than most countries kill in years. In America today, parents face being locked in a cage for trying to treat their sick child with a plant. In America today, presidential candidates on both sides of the two-party system are cheered on as they call for an end to your rights.

Has America gone insane? By any rational measure, the answer to that question is yes.

Quenelle - Golden

The untold story of two small Syrian towns & their three year struggle against U.S. 'regime change'

For 3 and a half years a tiny Shia enclave was besiged by al Qaeda but the West turned a blind eye because the inhabitants stayed loyal to Assad government
Syria rebels fighters
© Syria GettySyrian rebels attack the headquarters of Assad's regime forces in the villages of Nubul and al-Zahraa in Aleppo
This is the untold story of the three-and-a-half-year siege of two small Shia Muslim villages in northern Syria. Although their recapture by the Syrian army - and by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Iraqi Shia militias - caught headlines for a few hours three weeks ago, the world paid no heed to the suffering of these people, their 1,000 "martyrs", at least half of them civilians, and the 100 children who died of shellfire and starvation.

For these were villages that remained loyal to the Syrian regime and paid the price - and were thus unworthy of our attention, which remained largely fixed on those civilians suffering under siege by government forces elsewhere.

Nubl and Zahra should be an 18-minute drive off the motorway north-east of Aleppo but the war's front lines in the sharp-winded north of Syria have cut so deeply into the landscape that to avoid the men of the Jabhat al-Nusra and Isis, you have to drive for two hours along fields and broken country roads and through villages smashed and groined by the Syrian offensive.

Comment: Thanks to the intervention of the Russian coalition these brave and forgiving people escaped the fate of no doubt many similar towns in Libya, Iraq, Yemen, and Afghanistan.

Also see:
There can be little doubt in Syria - despite Western denials - that the so-called Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL)) jihadists and related Al-Qaeda brigades in Jabhat al-Nusra, Jaish al-Fateh, Ahrar ash-Sham and so on, have been infiltrated, weaponized and deployed for the objective of regime-change by the US and its allies. If that is true for Syria, then it is also true for Yemen. Indeed, the covert connection becomes even more apparent in Yemen.

The Pentagon's guns for hire: Blackwater, Al-Qaeda... what's in the name?



Heart - Black

Free-market capitalism: Reducing humans to cash cows

capitalism
America is proud of capitalism. Proud of the competition which has produced a dazzling array of inventions and consumer products. Any incursion resulting in government control of the "free market" is generally met with outcries of that old bugaboo: "Communist infiltration!"

The activities of the United States abroad have become redolent of resource grabs. Under the banner of "Making the world safe for democracy," her aggression has resulted in an amalgamation of other countries' resources. Oil and minerals top the list.

Far from protecting her own citizens' property and economic interests, however, the domestic activities of the US increasingly reveal finely honed mechanisms resulting in asset seizure and transfer of wealth. In order to accomplish these aims, certain established checks and balances have been nullified or bought off.

Government regulatory agencies are thus high on capitalism's "Enemies List." Many of these regulatory agencies were rendered largely ineffective under former President George W. Bush. The EPA, the FTC and other agencies pledged to protect the public went under administrative chiefs who were unfriendly to regulation and believed that their best governance would be to subvert the regulatory agencies they were appointed to oversee.

Comment:


Hourglass

No surprise: The life expectancy gap between rich and poor is growing

life expectency wealth gap
© Marcelo del Pozo / Reuters
While lifespans have been rising over the last 50 years, so has the life expectancy gap between the rich and the poor in the United States, a new study shows.

Lifespans have been steadily lengthening due to advances in technology and public health, but a study released last week by the Brookings Institution revealed that this advancement has been much quicker for wealthy people than for poor people.

In the US, a rich man ‒ defined as someone in the top 10 percent of income earners ‒ who was born in 1920 could expect to live about six years longer than a poor man, in the bottom 10 percent, born in the same year. By 1950, this gap more than doubled in size, as rich men born in that year lived 14 years longer than their poor counterparts.

Women, who generally live longer than men, were subject to a similar trend when looking at the same socioeconomic stratifications. The life expectancy gap between rich and poor women born in 1920 was 3.7 years, but the gap grew to 13 years by 1950.

Comment: And finally:

The pathology of the rich white family


Camera

Sorry state of humanity: Peacocks die after being handled for selfies at China zoo

Peacocks
© Lilisun Photography
2016 is proving to be a deadly year for animals in photo-ops

Two peacocks that were living in captivity in a Chinese zoo died after visitors manhandled the birds in order to to get photos taken with them.After grabbing the animals, the visitors reportedly plucked feathers from the animals for keepsakes, according to Mashable.

A spokesperson for Yunnan Wild Animal Park reportedly told Huaxi Metropolis Daily that visitors were expressly told not to touch the animals, Mashable says.Vistors reportedly lured the animals with food.

Zoo officials also told the South China Morning Post that they believe at least one peacock died of shock. The publication says that the zoo has more than 10,000 wild animals and 200 different species including pandas, rhinoceros and white tigers.

Photos of two tourists picking up one of the birds has circulated on social media after reports of the incident.

The year has not been a good one for wildlife captured by the attention of tourists. The incident in China comes on the heels of reports that a small dolphin was killed in Argentina after being plucked from the ocean for a series of selfie images. On February 20, a Florida man was captured on video pulling a shark from the ocean to capture a photo with the animal.

X

Bernie Sanders' feeble position on Israel is a serious progressive problem - and the reason I won't vote for him

Sanders/Netanyahu
© AP/Charlie Neibergall/Debbie Hill/Photo montage by SalonThat's right, Bernie - adjust your vision.

Bernie has run a smart campaign and I admire his economic platform. But his foreign policy lacks moral vision


Bernie Sanders has run a smart and spirited campaign. Even if he eventually loses the Democratic primary, his rise from virtually nowhere to threaten Hillary Clinton from the left offers much-needed optimism in a time of dismal inequality. His invective against Wall Street is accurate and often courageous. He is the rare candidate who doesn't traffic in patriotic or religious platitudes.

But I won't be voting for him.

Sanders has long supported Israeli colonization, including the worst elements of its military occupation. I've had numerous arguments with friends about the extent and character of that support. Is it fair to call Sanders an adamant Zionist? Is he a Zionist at all? Does it even matter? How bad is he, really, in the spectrum of U.S. politics, where kowtowing to Israel has long been a prerequisite for the presidency?

We learn useful things about Sanders's positions on Israel in relation to his competition, but comparison is unnecessary. Sanders periodically comments on Israel-Palestine. Here's what we know: He's not a raging ideologue. He doesn't extol Israel. He hasn't kissed Netanyahu's ring. He recently declined to call himself a Zionist. Last year, though, he yelled at pro-Palestine activists and his platform on Israel-Palestine sounds agreeable but reproduces a failed status quo.

Comment: If Sanders could actually see things clearly, and BE the progressive he purports to be, he would realize that he has NO real chance against the soon to be selected Hillary "I'm a whore for Empire" Clinton and use the attention and platform he is getting to actually say something objective about the State of Israel as it is today. But he is at least two huge steps removed from doing such a thing. And, in any event, the whole U.S. presidential election process is just a huge farce.