Society's ChildS


Gold Coins

California legalizes the use of alternative currency, including bitcoins


RT
Sun, 29 Jun 2014 08:52 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Jim Urquhart
California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill making alternative currencies, including bitcoin, lawful in the state.

The bill repeals the provision of the old legislation, which banned the use of "anything but the lawful money of the United States."

Authors of the amendment labeled the old regulatory regime as "stagnant" and lagging behind Californian "growing and innovative payments market."

"This bill makes clarifying changes to current law to ensure that various forms of alternative currency, such as digital currency, points, coupons, or other objects of monetary value do not violate the law when those methods are used for the purchase of goods and services or the transmission of payments," thecomments to the bill read.
Read More...
People

S. Korean 'comfort women' for US military sue state for forced prostitution


RT
Sun, 29 Jun 2014 23:12 UTC
American soldiers 1950
© AFP PhotoAmerican soldiers are on their way to place anti-tank mines on a road, 06 August 1950, to stop the North Koreans from advancing.
A group of South Korean former "comfort women", who worked in state-controlled brothels for the US military after the 1950-53 Korean War, has reportedly filed a suit demanding compensation from the authorities for forced prostitution.

It's the first time that such legal action has been taken regarding the brothels, or "special areas" that were sanctioned by the South Korean government, The Asahi Shimbun media outlet reported.

The women are seeking 10 million won ($9,850) for being made to serve as "US military comfort women" after the Korean War ended in 1953.

The suit, filed on June 25, stated that the South Korean authorities subjugated the women and forced them to provide sex, violating their human rights.

Moreover, the group said that they had been obliged to go through medical check-ups for sexually transmitted diseases.

The plaintiffs also urged the authorities to issue an official apology, revealing the true historical facts.
Read More...
Attention

Fracking - you are not important

Paul Mobbs
The Ecologist
Tue, 24 Jun 2014 15:13 UTC
Image
© mariamuir.com
Why does the fracking lobby refuse to engage in open, public debate? Because, writes Paul Mobbs, it has already got its way, with the uncritical support of all the 'mainstream' media and political parties. You and I simply do not matter. So what are we going to do about that?

You are not important!

I'm sorry if that's an unwelcome reality, but if we look at some recent developments in the battle over fracking in Britain (and/or the USA, Canada, Poland, South Africa, Australia, etc.) we can conclude little else.

In mid-June I took part in a UK-wide series of events entitled, 'We Need to Talk About Fracking'.
Read More...
Brick Wall

The FCC and the pillaging of the web

Rivera Sun
Truth-out.org
Sun, 29 Jun 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
© UnknownLarge ISP's in bed with the FCC? You betcha!

Seething below the surface of citizens' outrage at the FCC proposal to create a tiered, pay-to-play internet structure lays a story people know so well, it could be encoded in our DNA.

The rich and powerful are stealing the commons of the people.

Comcast, Verizon and other telecom giants are the new Lairds of the Highlands, the Marie Antoinettes, the Robber Barons of the 1890s. The Commons are no longer large tracks of land or public grazing grounds or local self-governance - those have already been stolen. The Commons under assault is the internet.

As with every achievement of humanity, individual sectors of the populace try to take credit and ownership of the internet, saying, "I created this" or "I provide the infrastructure for your access." This is akin to saying, "I built the Empire State Building" instead of "thousands of hardworking, impoverished Americans poured the concrete and scaled the steel trusses; countless educators and inventors passed the knowledge of engineering to the designers; and the banks financed the construction with funds from war profiteering that was made on the bloodshed of millions."
Read More...
Pistol

Indiana turns the tables on brutish police and makes it legal to shoot cops in cases of self defense and unlawful trespass


The Free Thought Project
Sun, 29 Jun 2014 14:02 UTC
shooter
© unknown
Finally some rational legislation is passed concerning 'public servants' unlawfully entering another person's property.

All too often, we see examples of cops breaking into the wrong house and shooting the family dog, or worse, killing a member of the family.

Well, Indiana has taken action to "recognize the unique character of a citizen's home and to ensure that a citizen feels secure in his or her own home against unlawful intrusion by another individual or a public servant."
Read More...
Eye 1

Big Brother in healthcare: Hospitals use credit card data to create patient profiles

Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg
Sat, 28 Jun 2014 10:33 UTC
magnifying glass
© unknown
The article below is a great example of the unforeseen dangers of creating gigantic bureaucratic systems into which hundreds of millions of people are forced into involuntarily, i.e., Obamacare.

The moment you create a national system of healthcare is the moment everybody suddenly has this so-called "health responsibility" to everyone else. Which is fascistic and the opposite of freedom. Again, I don't have an issue with human beings voluntarily organizing into whatever kind of systems they want. This brings me back to this idea that we need to move more toward city-states and decentralization as a means of human organization. If the people of Boulder for example want to have a city-wide healthcare system they devise, great. Let the people decide. If you don't want to live under that, you can easily move to another city that does it differently. This idea that one healthcare system should be in place for a gigantic, culturally diverse land of 315 million people is childish, inefficient and, for lack of a better word, stupid.

Comment: Our privacy and civil liberties continue to erode under the guise of protecting our health and safety. Eventually, we won't even be able to pass wind without Big Brother knowing about it.

Read More...
Die

Civil unrest is rising everywhere: 'This won't end pretty' sez economist

Martin Armstrong
Zero Hedge
Sat, 28 Jun 2014 14:40 UTC
Image
© blog.gmfus.org
The greatest problem we have is misinformation. People simply do not comprehend why and how the economic policies of the post-war era are imploding. This whole agenda of socialism has sold a Utopian idea that the State is there for the people yet it is run by lawyers following their own self-interest. The pensions created for those in government drive the cost of government up exponentially with time. The political forces blame the rich and this merely creates a class warfare with no resolution for the future. Even confiscating all the wealth of the so-called rich will not sustain the system. Consequently, we just have to crash and burn and start all over again.

The Guardian reported that some 50,000 people marched in London to protest against austerity. They cried: "Who is really responsible for the mess this country is in? Is it the Polish fruit pickers or the Nigerian nurses? Or is it the bankers who plunged it into economic disaster - or the tax avoiders? It is selective anger."

The exploitation by the bankers has been really a disaster. They have been their own worst enemy and in the end, they have become the symbol that inspires class warfare if not revolution. They are not the representatives of those who produce jobs. They are merely those who wanted to trade with other people's money for free. When they win, it is their's, but any losses are passed to the taxpayers. Bankers should be bankers - not hedge fund managers who keep 100% of the profits using other people's savings.
Read More...
Heart - Black

73-year-old Vietnam vet fired for giving corn muffin to homeless man

Scott Kaufman
The Raw Story
Fri, 27 Jun 2014 14:08 UTC
Image
© Rawstory
A 73-year-old Florida man was fired from his job at Cracker Barrel earlier this week after he gave a corn muffin to a man who looked homeless.

Vietnam veteran Joe Koblenzer had worked as a greeter at Cracker Barrel for three years before he was fired for handing a man who "looked a little needy" the muffin.

The unidentified man came through the door and "asked [if] I had any mayonnaise and some tartar sauce," Koblenzer said. "He said he was going to cook a fish."

"I got it for him. As I walked out I put a corn muffin in" the same bag. Shortly thereafter, the restaurant's general manager called him into his office and said he was fired.

The restaurant released a statement claiming that the general manager fired him because he was a serial offender.

"During the time he was employed, he violated the Company's policies regarding consuming food without paying or giving away free food, on five separate occasions," the statement read. "Mr. Koblenzer received multiple counselings and written warnings reminding him about the company's polices and the consequences associated with violating them. On the fifth occasion, again per Company policy, Mr. Koblenzer was terminated."

Comment: Corporate greed means profits from the sale of food really are more important than a human being having a meal. If you don't agree, you're fired!

Cities all over America are becoming extremely cruel to the homeless

Feeding The Homeless Banned In Major Cities All Over America

Read More...
Heart - Black

Murdered for love: Pakistani couple's throats slit for marrying without family consent


RT
Sat, 28 Jun 2014 10:35 UTC
pakistan
© Reuters/Athar Hussain
A young couple in Pakistan were tied up and had their throats slit by the girl's parents after they married for love, police said on Saturday.

The 31-year old man and the 17-year old girl got married on June 18 in the Punjabi village of Satrah in eastern Pakistan's Punjabi district, without the consent of their families.

The girl's family was embarrassed by the marriage of their daughter, Muafia Hussein, to a man from a less important tribe, police said, according to Reuters.

The girl's mother and father then decided to lure the couple to their house late on Thursday evening with the promise that they would give the marriage a family blessing.

"When the couple reached there, they tied them with ropes. He [the girl's father] cut their throats," said local police official Rana Zashid.

The family has been arrested, but that is no guarantee that they will receive justice.

Pakistani law means that even if a woman's killer is convicted, her family is able to formally forgive the murderer. This means that families are able to nominate a family member to do the killing and then formally forgive them.

Comment: 'Honor' killing? Talk about paramoralism!

Read More...
Black Cat

Surprise! Facebook manipulated users' emotions as part of psychological experiment - study


RT
Sat, 28 Jun 2014 20:06 UTC
Facebook
© AFP Photo / Leon NealThe father reportedly told a police officer that he published the photograph of the child's bruised face on his Facebook page 'pour s'amuser' (for a laugh).
Facebook conducted a psychological experiment on its users by manipulating their emotions without their knowledge, a new study reveals.

Researchers toyed with the feelings of 689,003 randomly selected English-speaking Facebook users by changing the contents of their news feed, according to a paper published in the June edition of the journal 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Scientists' (PNAS).

During a week-long period in January 2012, researchers staged two parallel experiments, reducing the number of positive or negative updates in each user's news feed.
Read More...