Society's ChildS


Attention

North Carolina courthouse put on lockdown after shooting

NC Courthouse
Two men were shot in front of a North Carolina courthouse Tuesday, according to the county's sheriff.
North Carolina officials are responding to a shooting at the courthouse in Nash County, about 45 miles east of Raleigh.

Officials posted on Nash County's website that offices about a block from the courthouse were locked down Tuesday in reaction to the shooting.

State Highway Patrol Lt. Jeff Gordon says he doesn't know how many people were shot and it's believed two suspects escaped the scene on foot.

Sheriff's deputies did not respond to telephone calls and the Nash County manager didn't immediately return messages seeking more information.

Hardhat

Miners trapped by flooding in coal mine, Turkey

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© DHAA team comprising 70 search and rescue personnel is carrying out rescue efforts in the mine where 18 miners were trapped after the flood.
Nineteen workers stuck and 25 saved after water builds up and courses into areas occupied by staff

Nineteen miners have become trapped in a coal mine in southern Turkey which collapsed following a flood, local media reported.

Rescue teams and medics were sent to the mine in the town of Ermenek, in Karaman province - about 70 miles (110km) north of Turkey's Mediterranean coastline.

Media reports said the collapse on Tuesday occurred after water that had built up inside the mine coursed into areas where the workers had been located.

"The water accumulated underground [and] has flooded into the gallery. According to initial reports, 25 workers have been saved while 19 workers remain trapped," Karaman governor Murat Koca was quoted as saying by Turkey's Dogan news agency.

Life Preserver

Russia sends new humanitarian convoy to south-eastern Ukraine

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© Alexei Vityukhovsky/TASS The convoy of 100 trucks carries 1,000 tons of humanitarian cargo, including food, medicines, bottled water and building materials needed to restore the infrastructure in the conflict-hit region
Russia's fourth humanitarian convoy has started its journey from the Moscow Region to south-eastern Ukraine, a TASS correspondent reported on Tuesday.

The convoy of 100 trucks is expected to deliver a total of 1,000 tons of humanitarian cargo, including food, medicines, bottled water and building materials needed to restore the infrastructure in the conflict-hit region.

"We plan that tomorrow evening the convoy will be in Rostov Region in the village of Kovalevka. We will further act in coordination with the Foreign Ministry and the Red Cross," Russian Deputy Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Stepanov told journalists.

A spokesman for Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, Andriy Lysenko, said earlier on Tuesday he has no information on Russia's plans to send humanitarian aid to eastern Ukraine. "The Ukrainian side has received no official information on this issue," he said.

During the week, the Russian Emergency Situations' convoy is due to deliver up to 3,000 tons of humanitarian aid. The cargo will be delivered in 1,000 batches by both trucks and aircraft, he said.

Stepanov explained that on Tuesday three aircraft are to deliver humanitarian aid to Rostov-on-Don, in southern Russia. The cargo, which had been collected from across Russia, will be later shipped to cars there.

The first three convoys delivered to the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions some 6,000 tons of food supplies, power generators, medicines, warm clothes and bottled water.

Galaxy

Pope Francis: 'God is not a divine being or magician' - evolution and Big Bang essential to understanding God

Pope Francis
© AFPPope Francis
The "Big Bang" and evolution are not only consistent with biblical teachings, Pope Francis told a Vatican gathering - they are essential to understanding God.

"When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything - but that is not so," the pope told a plenary assembly of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

"He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfillment," Pope Francis said.

The earth's origins were not chaotic, the pontiff said, but were created from a principle of love, reported Religion News Service.

"He gave autonomy to the beings of the universe at the same time at which he assured them of his continuous presence, giving being to every reality, and so creation continued for centuries and centuries, millennia and millennia, until it became which we know today, precisely because God is not a demiurge or a magician, but the creator who gives being to all things," the pope said.

Comment: Is Pope Francis backpeddling from the intelligent design theory hinted from his predecessor?


Arrow Down

Philly cop threatens teen, brutal harassment caught on video

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© FacebookPhiladelphia officer caught threatening teen
The Philadelphia Police Department said over the weekend that it would discipline an officer who was caught on video threatening to "beat the sh*t" out of a teen.

In a video uploaded to Facebook earlier this month by Damaris Abercrombie, an officer is seen walking beside a group of teens.

"Hey, big man, you got a problem?" the officer asks one of the teens. "Because I notice you keep trying to make eye contact."

Comment: The police state dehumanizes people every single day, using every cruel trick in the book. Being forewarned is forearmed:


Light Saber

Dramatic video shows man refusing to lie down for police, despite guns pointed at him

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© Alejandro Natividad/Youtube
"This is one man talking to another. There is a man behind that badge, be like a man. That is a coward pointing a gun at me"

La Quinta, CA - A powerful video was submitted to the Free Thought Project which shows a dramatic interaction between a man and La Quinta police.

Alejandro Natividad, a resident of Indio pulled out his phone and caught his incredible non-violent resistance on video Sunday as police were pointing guns at him.

Natividad, had committed no crime, yet when police chose to interact with him, guns were drawn and he was told to get face down on the concrete.

Natividad non-violently refused to lay down because he knew he was right, and knew that he committed no crime. But this decision did not go over well with police.

Another officer showed up and drew his pistol as well and pointed it at Natividad. At this point Natividad is incredibly nervous but continues to film and holds his ground, refusing to lay down for doing nothing wrong.

The resultant video is inspiring to say the least.

Sure, many will say he should have just laid down and complied with the officers demands to subject himself to humiliation by laying on the ground for doing nothing wrong. But his reasons for not complying were principled and courageous.

Smiley

Evil clowns harass French civilians

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© AFP Photo/Frederick FlorinPeople dressed as zombie clowns take part in the Zombie Walk on September 13, 2014 in the eastern French city of Strasbourg
A wave of panic sparked by evil clowns stalking French towns has spread to the south of France where police on Saturday night arrested 14 teenagers dressed as the pranksters, carrying pistols, knives and baseball bats. A police source said Sunday the group of teens were arrested in the parking lot of a high school in the Mediterranean port town of Agde, as several other complaints poured in about "armed clowns" in the region over the weekend.

In the nearby city of Montpellier a man disguised as a clown was arrested after beating up a pedestrian with an iron bar, while three motorists in different towns complained about "scary clowns" threatening them. The phenomenon of dressing up as an evil clown and terrifying passers-by -- a trend which has also been seen in the United States and Britain -- cropped up in the north of France in early October.

In the northern French town of Bethune, a 19-year-old received a six-month suspended jail term Monday for threatening passers-by while dressed as a clown. These "clowns" have been "mostly spotted outside schools, but also on public roads, in bushes, in a square. Their targets are often young children or teenagers, but also adults," a police source in northern France told AFP.

Theories abound as to the origin of the trend in a country where the American fear-fest Halloween has yet to take hold. The suggestions include a challenge launched on social networks, a video published on YouTube showing a terrifying clown pranking people -- which has had some 31 million views -- or even a recent episode of the popular TV series American Horror Story featuring Twisty the killer clown.

Comment: Related, California police field reports of creepy clowns


Mr. Potato

Hysterical politcians: Jogger in London bumps into David Cameron, tackled by police and taken to jail


"He goes out for a run and gets taken down like a terrorist"

The jogger who was manhandled to the ground after running into David Cameron, the Prime Minister, has said he had "no idea" why police officers jumped on him.

Dean Farley, a 28-year-old hospital worker from Leeds, questioned the Prime Minister's security arrangements.

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Protect the corrupt politicians at all costs, even from joggers.
He said he had been able to just "run between them" as he headed to a lunchtime appointment with his personal trainer at the gym.

"I had a quick look across the road and ran across the road and all I saw was a bunch of men in suits come out of the side of the Civic Hall," said Mr Farley.

"I could not see any uniformed police as I crossed the road and there was no cordon.

"It begs the question how good is security if I managed to run between them before they stopped me.

"I dodged in and out and around and the next thing I knew I have got half a dozen suited men haranguing me and manhandling me to the floor.

"The whole while I am asking what is going on and 'Who are you?'

Bad Guys

Oklahoma youth pastor arrested for sexual abuse of children in his care

timothy shawn
© KOTVTimothy Shawn Cato is accused of eight counts of sexual abuse (KOTV)
Police in Tulsa, Oklahoma said that they arrested a youth pastor for allegedly sexually abusing children who he was supposed to have been helping.

Court documents obtained by KWTV indicated that 50-year-old Timothy Shawn Cato used his status as a youth pastor and a volunteer at an Oklahoma Department of Human Services children's shelter to gain the trust of children, and then sexually abuse them.

"Some of the victims indicated that they had met him through a program at a church where he was a, what they referred to as a commander of their group, that would do scouting-like activities for boys of a younger age," TPD Sgt. Mike Brown said.

Comment: Sexual predators often take positions where they have easy access to vulnerable children. The best protection that parents and concerned caretakers can offer children is to educate themselves so they may have a better understanding of how these predators operate and learn how to spot them. Read Dr. Anna Salter's book Predators, pedophiles, rapists and other sex offenders.

See also:

SOTT Talk Radio interview with Anna Salter

Sexual predators in the religious scene


Arrow Down

Researchers claim increase in infant deaths due to oil drilling in Utah basin

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Researchers said that over a dozen infant deaths in one Utah basin over the last year may be related to a recent increase in oil drilling.

In a Sunday report, the Denver Post talked to scientists about the possibilities that the dead babies were "victims of air pollution fed by the nearly 12,000 oil and gas wells in one of the most energy-rich areas in the country."

"I suspect it is real - that there is a relationship," University of Missouri School of Medicine researcher Susan Nagel, Ph.D, told the Post.

"Scads of medical studies have concluded that air pollution can harm embryos. Drilling is a documented contributor to that pollution. It is a given that some of the harmful chemicals released in drilling, like benzene, toluene and xylenes, can cross the placental barrier and cause heart, brain and spinal defects," the paper points out

Comment: It has been well documented that fracking chemicals and air pollution from oil drilling have negative consequences on the health of populations and is disastrous for the environment, yet the vast sums of money generated by the industry enables it to buy off politicians and the EPA.

What fracking can do to your health

The Perils of Fracking: Environmental and Health Risks Greater Than Claimed by Gas Industry

Environmental impact of the petroleum industry