Society's Child
In the period between 2001 and early 2012, the stun-gun Taser devices used by law enforcement across America have claimed the lives of 500 people.
Amnesty International, the worldwide advocacy group that condemns torture and human rights violations, delivered the news this week with a report released Wednesday. In it, they reveal that the recent death of a Georgia man who died as a result of a Taser blast puts the body count brought on by the device at 500 in barely a decades' time.
Despite being branded as a non-lethal alternative to firearms, hundreds of Americans have died from Taser blasts.
On Monday this week, law enforcement responded to a call of a drunk and disorderly person in Houston County, Georgia. When they arrived at a bar, the man in question, 43 year old Johnnie Kamahi Warren, was already on the ground. According to the local Dothan Eagle, a sheriff's deputy still deployed blasts from a Taser gun on the man. Twice. He died moments later and now the officer who fired those shots is being investigated, all while on paid administrative leave.
Diane Zambrano says her 4-year-old daughter, Jazlyn, is in the same West Hoke Elementary School class as the little girl whose lunch gained national attention earlier this week. When Zambrano picked Jazlyn up from school late last month, she was told by Jazlyn's teacher that the lunch she had packed that day did not meet the necessary guidelines and that Jazlyn had been sent to the cafeteria.
On Countdown, Mahoney said, "Half the population of this country are women, and we will not be sent back to the Dark Ages, and we will not be denied our rights."
I hate watching this week's news stories about China, knowing most of them ignore the fact that American companies who outsource to China have employee fraud and death built into their business plans.
In the words of the old Bob Seger song: Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then. But I do.
Where the Blame Belongs
China and trade are back in the news, thanks to the trade visit of Chinese Vice President (and future President, by most reports) Xi Jinping. Last week on The Breakdown radio show I interviewed William K. Black, Jr., the former regulator who is now a Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Missouri in Kansas City.
Calling the FTC the "Fuctarded Troglodyte Clusterfuck," hackers chide the government agency for lax enforcement of the national Do Not Call Registry, and for recently allowing search giant Google to merge data-sharing practices between its individual services. They also berated the agency for failing to properly maintain its own websites.
But more than those complaints, the hackers issued a stern warning over the government trade group's support for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Act (ACTA), which essentially extends often-criticized provisions of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act to numerous foreign nations.
What is actually happening in Detroit - and spreading throughout the country - is a devastating growth of poverty, accompanied by a staggering number of households living without heat or light.
Through monthly inquiries to the Michigan Public Services Commission (MPSC), the World Socialist Web Site has uncovered a staggering growth in utility shutoffs in the state, particularly in southeast Michigan. Nearly 400,000 households were disconnected from either their gas, electricity or both this year by the state's largest energy providers, Consumers Energy (CMS Energy) and DTE Energy.
The two companies disconnected 361,113 families in 2009. In 2010 the number dipped slightly to 346,113, and in 2011 it reached a record 363,179. These figures do not include the 24 additional gas or electricity providers in the state, whose additional shutoffs would put the total well above 400,000.

A student is suing a Georgia school district, claiming he is still traumatized after supposedly being strip searched in front of his classmates, which exposed his Superman underwear. He says he was relentlessly taunted afterwards by the kids.
Atlanta - A Georgia middle school student claimed in a lawsuit Wednesday he was humiliated and traumatized when he was brought to a vice principal's office and forced to strip in front of classmates who said he had marijuana.
The student, then in the seventh-grade, said he still suffers from emotional distress because his classmates taunted him by calling him Superman, the underwear he was wearing when he was strip-searched. The student is suing the Clayton County school district for unspecified punitive and compensatory damages.
Clayton County school officials didn't immediately respond to requests for comment about the lawsuit, filed in federal court.
The student, identified in court documents as D.H., said officials at Eddie White Academy initially strip-searched three other students on Feb. 8, 2011, after suspecting they had marijuana. One of them accused D.H. of having drugs, and he was brought to then-vice principal Tyrus McDowell's office.
The couple told police the children -- aged nine, seven and three -- had been ill, which they believed was a sign they were invaded by evil spirits after eating too much on Lunar New Year.
They then cut the children's hair to chase the spirits out and starved them from January 24 until February 2, only allowing them to drink water. Local media reports said the parents had beaten the children with a belt and a fly swatter numerous times.
The pastor, named only by his surname Park, and his wife, Cho, told police they tied the children's arms and legs with stockings. All three died on February 2, the first around 2am, the second at 5am and the third at 7am, according to police in the town of Boseong, more than 186 miles (300 kilometers) south of Seoul.
Government and local officials rushed to the scene at the Chevrolet crossing of Furn al-Shubbak Wednesday morning in an attempt to locate the sewage canal that was dumping the red-colored water but they were unable to locate the source. Accusations were traded among officials from the municipalities of Hadath, Hazmieh, Sin al-Fil, Furn al-Shubbak and Shiyah.
Eyewitnesses working in the area told The Daily Star this was not the first time the river had turned a different color. Several business owners around the Chevrolet crossing said that colored water pours into the river roughly every two months but no one pays attention to it.It was the quantity and brightness of the red liquid that grabbed the attention of many passersby and commuters on different bridges in the city Wednesday.












Comment: To read about the first North Carolina incident, see this Sott link:
US, North Carolina: State Inspectors Searching Children's Lunch Boxes