Society's ChildS


Heart - Black

Palestinian olive trees: IDF and illegal settlers destroying the heart of Palestine

Cesar Chelala
Counterpunch
Tue, 03 Nov 2015 16:06 UTC
During the last few years, Palestinian olive trees — a universal symbol of life and peace - have been systematically destroyed by Israeli settlers. "It has reached a crescendo. What might look like ad hoc violence is actually a tool the settlers are using to push back Palestinian farmers from their own land," stated in the past a spokeswoman for Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization monitoring incidents in the West Bank.

The tree and its oil have a special significance throughout the Middle East. The olive tree is an essential aspect of Palestinian culture, heritage and identity, and has been mentioned in the Bible, the Qur'an, and the Torah. Many families depend on the olive trees for their livelihood.

Olive oil is a key product of the Palestinian national economy, and olive production is the main product in terms of total agricultural production, making up 25% of the total agricultural production in the West Bank. Palestinians plant around 10,000 new olive trees in the West Bank every year. Most of the new plants are from the oil-producing variety. Olive oil is the second major export item in Palestine.


For the last forty years, over a million of olive trees and hundreds of thousands of fruit trees have been destroyed in Palestinian lands. The Israel Defense Forces have been accused of uprooting olive trees to facilitate the building of settlements, expand roads and build infrastructure. The uprooting of centuries-old olive trees has caused tremendous losses to farmers and their families. At the same time, restrictions to harvesting have come through curfews, security closures and attacks by settlers.


Comment: Accused? The video looks pretty definitive. Heavy equipment is pulling olive trees out of the ground, with the IDF standing guard. Regardless of the purported reason, this is illegal under many different treaties. Who is calling Israel to account?


Comment: Parasitical Israel is consuming itself. Besides increasing the already horrendous suffering of the Palestinians, every tree downed changes the land for the worse. The Middle East's climate is delicate. Deforestation there will have the same catastrophic effect as in the Amazon. But the short-sighted criminals in government just can't see beyond today.

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Attention

Explosion at chemical plant in Japan may have released toxic gas


RT
Tue, 03 Nov 2015 12:10 UTC
mitsubishi gas chemical plant
An explosion has occurred at Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company in Kamisu, Japan, according to reports. There are fears that toxic gas has been released and gone into Kashima plant.

A fire brigade has arrived at the scene. There is so far no information on whether anyone was injured in the explosion.

The plant says there is no risk of hazardous substances being released as a result of the blast.

Comment: There have been a number of unexplained explosions at industrial facilities around the globe recently, and the following examples are only a few of the most recent. For a better understanding of what may be causing these explosions, see Earth Changes and the Human Cosmic Connection.

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Bomb

Man upset about retail giant not selling items with a Confederate flag detonates bomb at Mississippi Walmart


USA Today
Mon, 02 Nov 2015 15:58 UTC
Marshall W. Leonard
© Lee County jailMarshall W. Leonard
A man is charged after allegedly setting off an explosive at a Mississippi Walmart Sunday morning.

Marshall W. Leonard, 61, of Tupelo, will be charged with placing an explosive device. Under Mississippi Code 97-37-25 he could get life in prison if convicted, the Tupelo Daily Journal reported.

Tupelo Police Chief Bart Aguirre said a vehicle pulled up to an entrance of the Walmart in North Gloster around 1:30 a.m. CT.

"A white male got out, lit the package and threw it in the vestibule," said Aguirre. "There was an employee on break, and the suspect told him, 'You better run.'

"The employee did run and was away from harm when the package went off. It wasn't a large explosion. It didn't cause a lot of damage to the store."

No one was injured in the incident. The remnants of the homemade explosive device have been sent to the crime lab.
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Stop

Keystone XL builder asks for a halt to U.S. review while it gets approval to build through Nebraska

Oren Dorell
USA Today
Mon, 02 Nov 2015 15:39 UTC
Stop the TransCanada Pipeline sign
© NH, APA sign in a field near Bradshaw, Neb., on March 11, 2015, says "Stop the Transcanada Pipeline".
A Canadian company building the Keystone XL pipeline on Monday asked the State Department to suspend its review of the controversial project.

TransCanada Corporation asked for a pause in the review process while the Nebraska Public Service Commission approves the pipeline route through that state, something the company resisted in the past.

"We are asking State to pause its review of Keystone XL based on the fact that we have applied to the Nebraska Public Service Commission for approval of its preferred route in the state," said Russ Girling, TransCanada's president and CEO, in a company statement.

President Obama in February vetoed a Congressional bill that would have approved the 1,179-mile pipeline. Environmentalists opposed the project, arguing that transporting 800,000 barrels a day from the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, to ports and refineries in the Gulf of Mexico would result in putting more climate-changing carbon into the atmosphere.

Supporters — eight Democrats voted with 54 Republicans to override the veto and failed — said the pipeline would create thousands of good-paying jobs and support American businesses.

The State Department did not have an immediate response to TransCanada's announcement.

Comment: Of course they're asking for a halt in the review process. If the finished report is even moderately objective, the TransCanada Corporation wouldn't get the approval to build anywhere.

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Ambulance

Princeton study finds white middle-aged people in US dying quicker than in any other developed nation


RT
Tue, 03 Nov 2015 15:28 UTC
Image
© Toby Melville / ReutersCity workers cross the Millennium footbridge over the River Thames on a misty morning in London, Britain, November 2, 2015.
Nobel Prize-winning scientist Angus Deaton and Anne Case have come out with shocking conclusions that white middle-aged Americans are the only first-world group of people dying faster than their counterparts in any other developed country.

According to them, this is due to an out-of-control alcohol and drug habit, as well as suicide and depression. Researchers have described this as an "epidemic" that threatens the fabric of future America.

The research by economists Deaton and Anne Case, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, follows another paper of theirs from 1999, where questions were raised regarding the relationship between income and mortality.

Comment: A sad statistic indeed for the US. A culmination of factors that will be difficult to address in the current economic situation.

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2 + 2 = 4

Recent 'Teacher Of The Year' and 21-year teaching veteran resigns in Alabama after being told she's 'unqualified to teach above 3rd grade'

Bill Chappell
NPR
Sat, 31 Oct 2015 02:30 UTC
Oliver Elementary School in Birmingham, Alabama
© Google MapsOliver Elementary School in Birmingham, Ala., where Ann Marie Corgill taught until Friday. The recent Alabama Teacher of the Year says she quit her job after being told she wasn't highly qualified to teach fifth grade.
Less than two years after being named Alabama's Teacher of the Year, Ann Marie Corgill resigned her post this week, citing her frustration with bureaucracy. After Corgill was moved from teaching second grade to fifth, she was told she wasn't qualified to teach fifth-graders.

In January, Corgill was named one of four finalists for the National Teacher of the Year award. She is a 21-year teaching veteran whose story — and candid resignation letter — has made waves in the education community and beyond.

After running into a "wall of bureaucracy," Corgill said in a statement to AL.com, "When the news came that I was not considered highly qualified, my frustration boiled over."

Comment: Thankfully, Corgill isn't the only one that sees the institutional problems with the American education system, and her standing up adds to the chorus calling for real, positive change.

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Pills

California doctor convicted of murder by over-prescription

Steve Gorman
Yahoo News
Fri, 30 Oct 2015 15:09 UTC
Image
© Los Angeles TimesDr. Hsiu-Ying "Lisa" Tseng Tseng is charged with second-degree murder.
A Southern California doctor was found guilty of murder on Friday for over-prescribing drugs that caused the fatal overdose of three patients, in a landmark verdict prosecutors called the first such conviction in the United States.

The case comes amid what public health officials describe as a national epidemic of prescription drug abuse. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last year the trend was fueling nearly 17,000 overdose deaths annually, as well as a rise in heroin addiction.

Comment: While it appears that Dr. Tseng was giving her patients potent, addictive medications that they may have not needed, one has to wonder when Big Pharma will be held accountable for their role in unnecessary prescription deaths: Big Pharma: Getting Away With Murder
Big Pharma companies are not in the business of curing disease. They are out to make money - even if it costs your life. It's high time for a corporate death penalty in America along with appropriate prison sentences for those behind the crimes.


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Bomb

Amazon's new parental leave policy is good, and good public relations

Julia Greenberg
Wired
Mon, 02 Nov 2015 15:18 UTC
Image
Amazon has updated its parental leave plan. The retail giant has expanded paid maternity leave to up to 20 weeks for birth moms and added six weeks of paid leave for new parents regardless of gender.

As reported by The Seattle Times, this means that for the first time new dads at the company will be able to take time off following the birth (or adoption) of a child.The news comes just months after other tech giants, most notably Microsoft, Adobe, and Netflix, announced improved parental leave plans for their employees. Amazon, meanwhile, has faced public scrutiny over how it treats its employees following a scathing New York Times investigation that called its work culture into question. (Amazon and the Times later engaged in a very public back-and-forth over the fairness and accuracy of the story.)

Comment: We'd like to welcome Amazon, Microsoft, Adobe, and Netflix to the 21st century. According to Wikipedia, "In 2014, the International Labor Organization reviewed parental leave policies in 185 countries and territories, and found that all countries except two (the USA and Papau New Guinea) have laws mandating leave; laws vary in whether leave is paid by the employer or through social security." So while the USA still has no law requiring paternal leave, it appears some of the larger companies are now instituting their own policies, quite possibly only to avoid bad public relations, which of course hampers their profits.

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2 + 2 = 4

The extraordinary case of the Guevedoces


BBC News
Sun, 20 Sep 2015 14:11 UTC
Image
Catherine and his cousin Carla, Guevedoces in the Dominican Republic
The discovery of a small community in the Dominican Republic, where some males are born looking like girls and only grow penises at puberty, has led to the development of a blockbuster drug that has helped millions of people, writes Michael Mosley.

Johnny lives in a small town in the Dominican Republic where he, and others like him, are known as "Guevedoces", which effectively translates as "penis at twelve".
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Camcorder

ACLU obtains gov documents on Stingray surveillance spy tools - your cell phone is a bug


RT
Tue, 03 Nov 2015 05:02 UTC
stingray
© www.rt.com'intrusive' and 'secretive'
The ACLU has acquired the Justice Department's guidelines on the use of Stingray technology, showing the surveillance tools are capable of tracking targets, recording and listening in on calls - even of innocent parties - and bugging.

"The government is using intrusive new forms of technology to invade our privacy but it is shrouding its practices in secrecy, and Stingrays are a very poignant example of that," Linda Lye, senior staff attorney with the Northern California American Civil Liberties Union, told RT. "We shouldn't have to surrender our privacy merely by using the modern conveniences of daily modern life like a cell phone."

The documents confirm long-held suspicions that the controversial devices, which mimic cell phone towers and trick cell phones into thinking it is a legitimate tower, are capable of recording the numbers of a mobile phone's incoming and outgoing calls, as well as intercepting the content of voice and text communications.


Comment: There is currently no official transparency nor disclosure of the stingray operation and its usage capacity. In fact, prosecutors have agreed to drop cases rather than disclose information about the technology. Is this kind and depth of surveillance warranted? And, maybe equally important: what, exactly, happens to all that secretly collected data from both criminal targets and innocent third parties? We will most likely never know.

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