Society's ChildS


Yoda

SOTT Focus: The few that remain

Corey Schink
Sott.net
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 17:34 UTC
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America continues to sink into a black pit of despair, already way beyond its event horizon. Chris Hedges refers to our future as one of sacrifice zones; those areas on this planet where the dead are simply consequences of a corporation's cost-benefit analysis. Few remain who willingly make the superhuman efforts required to protect the living world and her children. But they are out there. They remain.

Chris Hedges is one of the last to stand up to the corporate power that has taken America by the throat and strangled her until her purse spills to the ground. He is America's Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He is one of the last to stand while those with eyes to see turn their heads to avoid what their eyes are seeing.
"It's absolutely imperative that we begin to understand what unfettered, unregulated capitalism does," Hedges emphasized. "These are sacrifice zones, areas that have been destroyed for quarterly profit. And we're talking about environmentally destroyed, communities destroyed, human beings destroyed, families destroyed. And because there are no impediments left, these sacrifice zones are just going to spread outward."
The whole world has become a sacrifice zone. The shopping mall, main street, the Middle East, Africa and South America, the ground our families walk upon, even our families, are all sacrificed by idiots whose only sense of value is in self-indulgence. Hedges openly defies corporate power. He openly defies imperialism. He openly defies the puppet Obama, suing him for claiming the right to arbitrarily extinguish the lives of the sons and daughters of this world.
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Eye 2

Christian academy student shoots parents in head after grounding from video games

David Edwards
Raw Story
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 14:44 UTC
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A 14-year-old student at a Christian academy in Washington state has been charged with attempted murder for allegedly shooting both of his parents in the head after they restricted him from playing violent video games.

Grant County prosecutors on Monday said that they were asking that 14-year-old Nathan Brooks be tried as an adult for the attempted murder of his parents.

According to a Moses Lake police report obtained by iFIBER One News, Nathon Brooks had considered killing his parents, 38-year-old Jonathan Brooks and 39-year-old Elizabeth Brooks, since the age of 8. He had recently been been grounded for two weeks from using "electronic devices" - including playing video games - and had been punished with detention for being late to class.

Nathon Brooks had admitted to police that he had been obsessed with video games.
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Heart - Black

Steubenville rape trial: Prosecutor outlines "degradation and humiliation" of alleged victim in opening statement

Julia Dahl
CBS News
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 14:07 UTC
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© Pool,AP Photo/Keith SrakocicDefendants Trent Mays, 17, (foreground) and Ma'Lik Richmond, 16, are accused of raping a 16-year-old girl
In her opening statement, the lead prosecutor in the case against two Ohio high school football players accused of raping an intoxicated 16-year-old walked the juvenile court judge through the "degradation and humiliation" suffered by the alleged victim on the night of Aug. 11, 2012.

"This case is simple and direct," said Special Prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter, addressing Judge Thomas Lipps, who will decide the case without a jury. "It hinges on the defendant's knowledge of her substantial impairment...their exploitation of her substantial impairment."

Ma'Lik Richmond, 16, and Trent Mays, 17, are charged as juveniles with sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl while she was intoxicated during a night of partying. According to the Associated Press, Mays is also charged with illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material. Both have pleaded not guilty.

"You will hear witnesses testify that she was stumbling, slurring her words, and using others to help keep her balanced," said Hemmeter.
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Evil Rays

Upstate New York shooting update: Suspected gunman ID'd as Kurt Meyers, police say


CBS News
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 14:03 UTC
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© WTVHPolice say Kurt Myers, 64, of Mohawk, N.Y., is accused of killing four people in shootings at two different locations in upstate New York.
A man opened fire at a car wash and a barbershop a mile apart Wednesday morning, killing four people and wounding at least two others, and a 64-year-old suspect is being sought, police said.

Authorities are looking for Kurt Meyers, said Joseph Malone, the police chief for Herkimer and Mohawk. Officials say guns and ammunition were found inside his Mohawk apartment after emergency crews were sent to a fire there Wednesday morning.

Soon after, two people were fatally shot and two others wounded at John's Barber Shop, around the corner from the apartment, police said. The second shooting happened about a mile away in Herkimer, where two people were killed at Gaffey's Fast Lube and Car Wash, authorities said.

The two villages are about 65 miles east of Syracuse, on opposite sides of the Mohawk River in a region known as the Mohawk Valley.
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Info

Shark-wrestler sacked as he was on sick leave


SkyNews
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 07:42 UTC

A man who was hailed a hero after grappling with a shark in Australia has been sacked after it emerged he was on long-term sick leave with stress.

Paul Marshallsea, 62, waded in to the surf and grabbed the 6ft shark by the tail amid fears it would attack paddling children.

The charity worker, from Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, claims he risked his life at the beach outside Brisbane in January.

A local news crew caught his exploits on camera and his story made headlines around the world and earned him praise from lifeguards.

But now Mr Marshallsea has lost his job with children's charity the Pant and Dowlais Boys & Girls Club, because he had been signed off with work-related stress since last April.

The grandfather-of-one and his wife Wendy, 56, who also worked for the charity and was off ill at the time, flew back to Britain to letters informing them they had been sacked.
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Arrow Up

Food price rises put restive Egypt on edge

Sylvia Westall and Tom Perry
Reuters
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 12:20 UTC
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© Reuters/Amr Abdallah DalshA vendor stands next to his fruit stall as he waits for customers near a mosque in Cairo March 11, 2013.
With croissants, baguettes and bagels spilling off metal trolleys at the bakery where Mohammed Alif works in central Cairo, food is not scarce, but profits certainly are. The Egyptian pound has lost more than 8 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar since the end of December as concern deepens about the state of the economy, which is being undermined by political instability and rioting.

This, along with a general rise in global food prices, has pushed up the amount which bakeries like Alif's have to pay for imported ingredients traded in dollars, which in turn risks feeding back into discontent with the new leadership.

The specter of steep food price inflation driven by a weaker pound is of particular worry to President Mohamed Mursi as he grapples with spasms of unrest two years after the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak and was itself partly driven by a sense of mounting economic hardship in a country long steeped in poverty.

Flour and sugar are 50 percent more expensive than they were a year ago, said Alif, and for now the bakery feels it has no choice but to absorb the increase rather than passing it on to customers:

"I can't make it more expensive because people cannot pay," he said, pausing between filling shelves with freshly baked rolls and serving a steady flow of shoppers on the pavement.
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Bizarro Earth

ADB: In Asia, wealth buys access to clean water

Hrvoje Hranjski
Associated Press
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:13 UTC
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© AP Photo/Aaron FavilaIn this March 12, 2013 photo, a Filipino woman carries buckets of water along a filthy pathway at a slum in suburban Pasay, south of Manila, Philippines. Ninety-one percent of people living in Asia have improved access to clean water, a remarkable achievement over the last two decades in the world's most populous region. But its richest countries and wealthiest citizens likely have better water supplies and governments better prepared for natural disasters.
Ninety-one percent of people living in Asia have improved access to clean water, a remarkable achievement over the last two decades in the world's most populous region. But its richest countries and wealthiest citizens likely have better water supplies and governments better prepared for natural disasters.

The assessments made by the Asian Development Bank in a study published Wednesday say countries in the region could be disproportionally affected by the potential impact of climate change if they did not rethink how they manage their water resources. Nearly half of the deaths caused by water-related disasters and 90 percent of people affected by such disasters from 1980 to 2006 lived in Asia, the report said.

Developed nations like Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and Japan top the list of nations best prepared to cope with floods, droughts, hurricanes, storm surges and landslides, while Nepal, Laos, Cambodia, Tajikistan, the Pacific nation of Vanuatu and Bangladesh are the least prepared.

No country in the Asia-Pacific region is a model for its management of water services and resources, according to the Manila-based lending and development institution, whose aim is cutting poverty. Thirty-eight developing countries have low levels of water security or have barely begun to improve, and only 11 have set up infrastructure and management systems.
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Ambulance

Huge blaze erupts after tugboat pushing oil barge hits pipeline on Louisiana bayou


Associated Press
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:09 UTC
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© AP Photo/Michael DeMocker, Nola.com | The Times-PicayuneA tugboat and barge are engulfed in flames after hitting a natural gas pipeline in Bayou Perot about two miles south of lower Lafitte, Louisiana, Tuesday, March 12, 2013. Four people were injured one person was severely burned and was being treated at West Jefferson Medical Center.
A tug boat pushing an oil barge struck a gas pipeline in a bayou south of New Orleans on Tuesday night, igniting a blaze that burned for hours and left four people injured, one severely.

Ensign Tanner Stiehl told The Associated Press the collision occurred at about 6 p.m. Central on Bayou Perot, in a marshy area near where Lafourche and Jefferson parishes meet, about 30 miles south of New Orleans.

The tugboat and barge were engulfed in flames, and heavy smoke billowed from the scene.

"All crew members were able to exit the tug; the captain reportedly suffered second to third-degree degree burns," the Coast Guard said in a news release early Wednesday.

WWL-TV reported that all four people on the vessel were accounted for, but that one person was severely burned and was treated at West Jefferson Medical Center. The station reported the person, identified as the captain of the tug, was transferred to the burn center at Baton Rouge General Hospital.
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Attention

Number of dead pigs in Shanghai river jumps to almost 6,000


Raw Story
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:01 UTC
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© AFP Photo
The number of dead pigs found in Shanghai's main river doubled in two days to nearly 6,000, the government said, as officials from a nearby area blamed for the porcine deluge sought to deny it was the source.

Shanghai had pulled 5,916 dead pigs out of the Huangpu river, which cuts through China's commercial hub and creates its waterfront Bund district, the local government said in a statement late Tuesday.

The city had earlier put the number of deceased swine - believed to have been dumped by farmers after dying of disease - fished out of the river at 2,813 as of Sunday evening.

Shanghai has pointed the finger at Jiaxing in the neighbouring province of Zhejiang, a major centre for hog-raising, Shanghai media have reported.
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Smoking

Swiss reject full ban on smoking in public spaces


BBC
Sun, 23 Sep 2012 08:56 UTC
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Have vote, will smoke!
Voters in Switzerland have rejected a total ban on smoking in enclosed public places at a referendum.

Although Geneva voted slightly in favour, results from the country's other 25 cantons showed a majority of voters rejected a full ban.

Hotels, restaurants and bars are allowed rooms for smokers but critics say workers' health is at risk.

Restrictions introduced two years ago were watered down after lobbying from the catering trade and tobacco firms.

In some cantons, more than 70% of voters rejected the ban, according to Geneva newspaper La Tribune de Geneve. Geneva itself bucked the trend by supporting the ban by 52% to 48%.


Comment: A very interesting result. Geneva is the headquarters of the UN and many large multinational firms have offices there, a factor that undoubtedly attracts higher percentages of psychopaths and other character-disturbed people.


Geneva and seven other cantons have already imposed their own comprehensive bans on indoor smoking in places of employment while the remaining, smaller cantons have been less restrictive.

Comment: It would be interesting to see how many national smoking bans remain standing after they were all put to a public vote.

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