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California slaughterhouse to pay $300,000 in settlement


Yahoo! News
Sat, 17 Nov 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times
A security guard watches over empty cattle pens at Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. in Chino.
The owners of a Southern California slaughterhouse whose workers were caught on videotape abusing cattle, leading to one of the nation's biggest beef recalls, have agreed to pay more than $300,000 to settle a lawsuit.

The Los Angeles Times reports Donald Hallmark Sr. and Donald Hallmark Jr. also agreed to a nominal $497-million judgment against the now-defunct Hallmark Meat Packing Co., which will not be collected because the company is bankrupt.

The Hallmarks were two of nine defendants in a federal False Claims Act suit brought by the Humane Society of the United States.

The government recalled 143 million pounds of beef in 2008 after the Humane Society released video from the Chino plant showing cows too sick or injured to stand being dragged with chains and rammed with a forklift.

Source: The Associated Press
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Calendar

Wal-Mart workers' Black Friday strike

Elizabeth Dwoskin
Yahoo! Canada News
Fri, 16 Nov 2012 05:00 UTC
Walmart strike
© OUR Walmart & UNI
America's biggest retailer may be in for an unexpectedly painful holiday season. Protesting low wages, spiking health care premiums, and alleged retaliation from management, Wal-Mart Stores workers have started to walk off the job this week. First, on Wednesday, about a dozen workers in Wal-Mart's distribution warehouses in Southern California walked out, followed the next day by 30 more from six stores in the Seattle area.

The workers, who are part of a union-backed employee coalition called Making Change at Wal-Mart, say this is the beginning of a wave of protests and strikes leading up to next week's Black Friday. A thousand store protests are planned in Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C., the group says.

In a conference call with reporters on Thursday, workers who were either planning to strike or already striking explained their situation. "We have to borrow money from each other just to make it to work," said Colby Harris, who earns $8.90 an hour after having worked at a Wal-Mart in Lancaster, Tex., for three years. "I'm on my lunch break right now, and I have two dollars in my pocket. I'm deciding whether to use it to buy lunch or to hold on to it for next week." He said the deduction from his bimonthly pay check for health-care costs is scheduled to triple in January. In 2013, Wal-Mart plans to scale back its contributions to workers' health-care premiums, which are expected to rise between 8 percent and 36 percent. Many employees will forgo coverage, Reuters reports.
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V

Thousands of Spanish police officers march against austerity


RT News
Sat, 17 Nov 2012 18:17 UTC
police demonstration
© AFP Photo / Dominique Faget
Spanish police officers hold banners of the Unified Police Union (SUP) as they take part in a demonstration against the Spanish government's latest austerity measures in the center of Madrid on November 17, 2012.
Around 5,000 Spanish police officers marched through the streets of Madrid on Saturday to protest government austerity measures, including frozen pensions and the elimination of their Christmas bonuses.

Officers travelled from across Spain to take part in the demonstration which was called by the nation's main policing union.

Protesters blew whistles, shouted slogans, and carried anti-austerity banners as they marched through the city centre to the interior ministry.

"Citizens! Forgive us for not arresting those truly responsible for this crisis: bankers and politicians," read one banner.

The Spanish government has imposed harsh spending cuts aimed at saving 150 billion euros between 2012 and 2014. The move has been met with anger and protests from hundreds of thousands of Spanish citizens.

The austerity measures are in exchange for a rescue loan of up to 100 billion euros from the EU to help the country's stricken banks.

"The problem is they take from us to give to others, like the autonomous regions and the banks," 33-year-old police officer Antonio Perez told AP.

Comment: You can tell that a regime is getting near the end of its days when the discontent spreads to the enforcers. Watch this space!

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Light Saber

People Power! Thousands to videotape TSA pat downs in protest

Scott Packard
cbs42.com
Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:06 UTC

A Birmingham man is among many who say the Transportation Security Administration's tactics are aggressive and invasive.
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Bad Guys

Jeffs FLDS doomsday prophecy and business closures cause concern

John Hollenhorst
Deseret News
Fri, 16 Nov 2012 19:30 UTC
Hildale
© Associated Press
Hildale, Utah sits at the base of red rock cliff mountains with its sister city, Colorado City, Ariz. in the foreground Thursday, April 20, 2006.
There's mystery, worry, and new indications of turmoil among followers of imprisoned polygamist leader Warren Jeffs.

At least three of his followers' most prominent businesses were suddenly closed in the Fundamentalist LDS Church's twin towns of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah. The closures involved the community's only grocery store, the hardware store and a Radio Shack.

"Warren would have told them to do that," said former FLDS follower Isaac Wyler. "They wouldn't do that on their own. They wouldn't dare."

It's not known if the closures are related to a doomsday prophecy Jeffs reportedly issued last weekend.

"It's scaring the hell out of people in the United Order," said private investigator Sam Brower, referring to the most loyal members of Jeffs' church. Brower said FLDS leaders read a statement to followers last Sunday that was purported to be Jeffs' own words from a Texas prison where he's serving a life sentence for rape of a child.

According to Brower, Jeffs' statement said, "If you don't all come clean and confess your sins and wrongs, the Lord will send a scourge of death among the people of the United Order."
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Arrow Up

France bans access to 'end of world' refuge


Agence France-Presse
Fri, 16 Nov 2012 13:35 UTC
Bugarach
© AFP/Eric Cabanis
Mayan doomsday theories state that Bugarach will be sheltered from a cataclysm when the world ends on December 21.
Carcassonne - France on Friday dashed the hopes of those who had planned to take refuge in one of the few places on Earth some believe will be spared when the world ends on December 21.

Local officials banned access to the Pic de Bugarach, a mountain in the southwest where rumour has it the hilltop will open on the last day and aliens will emerge with spaceships to save nearby humans.

Eric Freysselinard, the state's top representative in the area, said he was blocking access to the mountain for public safety reasons to avoid a rush of New Age fanatics, sightseers and media crews.

Believers say the world will end on December 21, 2012, the end date of the ancient Mayan calendar, and they see Bugarach as one of a few sacred mountains sheltered from the cataclysm.

Freysselinard said the 100 police and firefighters he plans to deploy will also control approaches to the tiny village of the same name at the foot of the mountain, and if too many people turn up, they will block access there too.
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V

Anonymous hack hundreds of Israeli websites, delete Foreign Ministry database in support of Gaza


RT.com
Sat, 17 Nov 2012 10:16 UTC
Anonymous has launched a massive attack named #OpIsrael
© Unknown
Anonymous has launched a massive attack named #OpIsrael on almost 700 Israeli websites
Hacker group Anonymous has launched a massive attack named #OpIsrael on almost 700 Israeli websites, protesting against Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza. Israeli media confirmed the group's move.

­The hackers reportedly took down websites ranging from high-profile governmental structures such as the Foreign Ministry to local tourism companies' pages.

The biggest attack as of now has been the Israeli Foreign Ministry's international development program, titled Mashav. Anonymous announced on Twitter they've hacked into the program's database, with the website remaining inaccessible at the moment.

"There is [sic] so many defaced Israeli websites right now, that we just made a list of them," Anonymous tweeted.
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Stormtrooper

Police: Deputy shoots at disabled man waving gun made of legos


CBS Seattle
Fri, 16 Nov 2012 07:31 UTC
File photo of police lights.
© Comstock/Thinkstock
Cottage Lake, Washington - A Kings County Sheriff's deputy has been put on administrative leave after being accused of shooting at a developmentally disabled man who was holding a toy gun.

The Seattle Times reports police got multiple calls about a man waving a gun at passing vehicles.

"The first deputy arrived minutes later and the man ignored her commands. When the man pulled the handgun from his waistband and raised it, the deputy fired about 25 yards away," Deputy Charlie Akers told the paper. "The man dropped to the ground and other deputies moved in to handcuff him."

That's when authorities discovered that the gun was a Lego toy.
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Bad Guys

Gaza under military attack, day 3, in photos

Anne Paq
Chroniques de Palestine
Fri, 16 Nov 2012 21:39 UTC
Chronicles of a French photographer, specialist in human rights, in Palestine, Nov. 16, 2012.

Gaza 11.16.12-1
© Anne Paq/Activestills.org
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Bad Guys

Oil rig explodes in Gulf of Mexico; 2 missing, others hospitalized

Miguel Llanos & Elizabeth Chuck
NBC News
Fri, 16 Nov 2012 10:55 UTC
Image
Two workers were missing and 11 were airlifted to hospitals Friday after an explosion and fire aboard an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Coast Guard said. Earlier reports from local officials said two workers had died, but the Coast Guard could not confirm that.

Rescue crews searched the Gulf some 17 miles southeast of Grand Isle, La., for the missing workers. At least four of the injured are in critical condition, according to Jefferson Parish Emergency Management.

The fire was later extinguished, Coast Guard Capt. Ed Cubanski told reporters, and the platform appears to be structurally sound. Twenty-two people had been aboard the rig at the time of the accident.

The platform was not actively producing oil and a sheen spotted in the water was probably from an estimated 28 gallons of oil that could have spilled when a pipe ruptured, Cubanski said.
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