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Snakes in Suits

One more banker down: Liechtenstein CEO murdered in underground garage

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Mon, 07 Apr 2014 10:05 UTC
Juergen Frick
© bankfrick
Juergen Frick

Over the weekend the world was gripped by the drama surrounding the mysterious murder-homicide of the former CEO of Dutch bank ABN Amro and members of his family, and whether there is more foul play than meets the eye. However, that is nothing compared to what just happened in the tiny, and all too quiet Principality of Lichtenstein, where moments ago the CEO of local financial institution Bank Frick & Co. AG, Juergen Frick, was shot dead in the underground garage of the bank located in the city of Balzers.
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Laptop

Research shows the Internet could be making Americans lose faith


Daily Mail
Sat, 05 Apr 2014 15:57 UTC
Losing our religion: New research shows the Internet could be making Americans lose faith.

New research has shown a correlation between the rise of the Internet and the decline of Americans claiming religious affiliation.

Other factors, such as an increase in higher education, are also implicated, but according to Allen Downey, a computer scientist at the Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts, the increase in Internet usage has a significant correlation.

The MIT Technology Review reports that in 1990, eight per cent of Americans had no religious affiliation. In 2010, that figure stands at 18 per cent, or 25 million people.
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U.K. supermarkets urged to scrap buy-one-get-one-free offers as shoppers waste 'morally repugnant' 222m tons of food a year

Zander Swinburne
The Independent
Sun, 06 Apr 2014 15:41 UTC
Supermarket
© Unknown
Buy, buy, buy! Supermarkets shift waste on to the consumer with special offers
Lords report slams 'repugnant' scapegoating of farmers and the 222m tons of food thrown away each year by the West - as much as is produced in sub-Saharan Africa

Supermarkets and food retailers are today accused of failing to take responsibility for the UK's food-waste crisis, contributing to 15 million tons of produce being thrown away unnecessarily every year.

A report published today by the House of Lords EU Committee concludes British retailers are shifting the blame on to customers by luring them in with Buy One Get One Free offers, a practice it says should cease. Farmers are also unfairly scapegoated by supermarkets cancelling orders at the last minute, the peers said.

The committee, which has been examining the impact of food waste in the UK and the EU, said Britain's inability to reduce the amount of unwanted food it produces was "morally repugnant" and costs the economy at least £5bn a year. Industrialised countries waste 222 million tons of food a year, just 10 million tons short of the net food production of sub-Saharan Africa, peers said.
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Light Sabers

'State-snatched' girl prompts move in Congress

Alana Cook
WND
Fri, 04 Apr 2014 13:18 UTC
Image

Proposal targets policy that took teen from parents.
A proposal in Congress that would block federal tax dollars from states with policies that "conflict with personal liberty" is one strategy in an effort to assist Massachusetts parents who lost custody of their teen daughter to the state because of a psychiatrist's disputed opinion.

Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas, who is considering introducing a bill, is joining with the nonprofit legal advocacy group Liberty Council, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights and Republican state Rep. Marc Lombardo to call for the release of 15-year-old Justina Pelletier from Massachusetts state custody to the care of her parents.

They are also calling for further investigation into the influence of psychiatrists' opinions that result in state removal of children from their families.

"I find certain state policies involving individual and personal medical decisions to be disconcerting," Stockman said. "It is my firm belief that we should not provide federal dollars, through NIH grants, to states that maintain policies that conflict with personal liberty."

Comment: "A Liberty Council investigation revealed that Boston Children's Hospital psychologist Dr. Simona Bujoreanu diagnosed Justina Pelletier with a mental illness called Somatoform Disorder after only 25 minutes with the teen, without contacting other physicians. Bujoreanu is researching Somatoform under a grant from the federal National Institutes of Health."

And this is how a "scientific" bias can destroy a family and their daughter's life. For a chronology of this tragic case, see:

Parents lose custody of teen after seeking 2nd medical opinion; girl indefinitely detained in psych ward
Hospital holds girl for 9 months after parents argue diagnosis
Massachusetts father charged for speaking about his daughter's kidnapping
Boston Psychiatric Unit's imprisonment of teenager Justina Pelletier needs State investigation into reckless endangerment of psychiatric diagnosing
Justina Pelletier: Mitochondrial disease or medical child abuse?

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Attention

Another dead banker! "Family tragedy" cited in death of Dutch CEO, wife, and daughter

Maud van Gaal and Martijn van der Starre
Business Week
Mon, 07 Apr 2014 09:32 UTC
Jan Peter Schmittmann
© linkedin
Jan Peter Schmittmann, 57, and his wife and daughter were found dead at their home in the Dutch town of Laren, 32 kilometres southeast of Amsterdam.
Dutch authorities are investigating the deaths of former ABN Amro Netherlands' Chief Executive Officer Jan Peter Schmittmann, his wife and a daughter, whose bodies were discovered two days ago in their home after a possible murder-suicide.

"We are awaiting the outcome of an investigation of the bodies and on the basis of that information and other information we have gathered, we hope to be able to shed light on what has happened" within the next few days, Leonie Bosselaar, a police spokeswoman, said by telephone today.

Schmittmann, 57, and his wife and daughter were found at their home in the Dutch town of Laren, 32 kilometers (20 miles) southeast of Amsterdam, on April 5 after the police received a call from an acquaintance who said something might be wrong at the property. Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf identified the dead women as Nelly, 57, Schmittmann's wife, and their daughter Babette, 22.

Comment: For more on this suspicious rash of dead bankers see:

4th Financial Services Executive found dead; "From self-inflicted nail-gun wounds"

JP Morgan executive becomes 5th banker to die in last 2 weeks

Young banker's suicide becomes twelfth in financial world this year

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Bell

Artists install massive poster of child's face in Pakistan field to shame drone operators

Tom Boggioni
Raw Story
Sun, 06 Apr 2014 17:40 UTC
Image
An artists collective has unfurled a massive poster showing a child's face in a heavily bombed area of Pakistan in the hopes that it will give pause to drone operators searching the area for kills.

According to #notabugsplat, named after the description given to kills on the ground when viewed through grainy video footage, the artists - with help of villagers - unfurled the giant poster in a field in the Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa region of Pakistan
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Black Magic

Lacey, Washington man gets life without parole for killing and dismemberment of 3-year-old son

Matt Volz
KATU
Fri, 04 Apr 2014 13:52 UTC
Image
© KATU
Broderick Cramer is seen in an undated family photo.
A Montana judge sentenced a Washington state man Friday to life in prison without parole for killing and dismembering his 3-year-old son after his wife threatened to leave him and take the child.

Jeremy Brent Cramer, 38, pleaded guilty in December to deliberate homicide in the July 8 slaying of Broderick Cramer, who was to turn 4 two days later. Cramer had taken the boy from their Lacey, Wash., home that morning after a confrontation with his wife, Nataliya, and killed him 5 miles southeast of Anaconda, Mont.

Prosecutors and Cramer's public defenders had reached a plea agreement that recommended life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years. District Judge Loren Tucker removed any option of parole, saying the brutality of the crime deserved the harshest punishment possible.

"We're dealing with ... the gruesome, horrible, dismembered butchery of a child. Your child. It's almost impossible to fathom the gravity of that crime," Tucker said.
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People 2

Ukraine romance industry scam: Men who go looking for a wife fly home alone and broke

Shaun Walker
Guardian
Sun, 06 Apr 2014 19:00 UTC
Ukraine's internet romance industry is booming - despite the unrest. But after chatting online, travelling to Odessa and wooing women on flashy dates, most men fly home alone and far poorer. Are they unlucky in love, or have they been scammed?

Image
© Gleb Garanich/Reuters
A woman walks by a shop window displaying wedding gowns in Kiev, Ukraine
These are trying times for Odessa. After the annexation of Crimea, pro-Russian forces are stirring tension in this Black Sea port, and there are weekly standoffs between demonstrators who want to be part of Ukraine and those who want closer ties to Russia. But for all the political and economic chaos that has engulfed Ukraine in the past three months, one industry is still thriving: the internet romance trade.

The economies of several Ukrainian cities are boosted by the surreal and disingenuous online bride business, and Odessa is the biggest hub. It does not take long for a visitor to the city to stumble upon an "international date" - there are legions of western men in town meeting with young women they have met online, usually with the conversation facilitated by a translator. At internet cafes and homes across the city, thousands of women spend hours each day chatting to prospective suitors online.
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Snakes in Suits

6 Incredibly common misconceptions about Psychopaths

Dean A. Haycock
Huffington Post
Fri, 04 Apr 2014 07:25 UTC
Psychopathy _ word on Hollywood colline
© Inconnu
Popular culture has offered some flamboyant, unrealistic images of the psychopath: the giggling, twitchy maniac; the silent, masked slasher; the snobbish, culturally refined, highly intelligent cannibal and--depending on how much you like your job--your boss.

Another potentially misleading image appears in the recent trend to imply that anyone with some psychopathic traits is a psychopath. For example, in the eyes of some, a surgeon with a rotten bedside manner, and no inclination to weep with sympathy as he cuts you open to repair your faulty heart valve, nudges his occupation higher on the list of "professions with the most psychopaths." An alternative view suggests this person might be an ambitious, no-nonsense professional, with limited people skills, who wants you to live. He studies for years, trains diligently, and ends up operating on you to repair your faulty heart and extend your life.

A psychopath does have not a few psychopathic traits. He or she has, as the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy explains, "a constellation of traits." And the image outlined by that constellation doesn't evoke confidence over the long term: lack of empathy and guilt, an inability to form meaningful emotional bonds; narcissism and superficial charm; dishonesty, manipulativeness, and reckless risk-taking. Risk-taking is tolerable in surgeons. Reckless risk-taking is not.

Comment: For a better understanding of the psychopath, their effects on society and the distinction between primary and secondary psychopathy, a must read is 'Political Ponerology' by Andrew M. Lobaczewski. See following article for an introduction:
Political Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes

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Stock Down

Gas wars: Ukraine due on $2.2 bn debt to Gazprom


RT
Sun, 06 Apr 2014 19:50 UTC
Image

You bring violent fascism to the table, you pay the price.
Another potential gas war between Kiev and Moscow looms as Ukraine is due Monday to pay a $2.2 billion debt to Russia's Gazprom. Ukraine's PM has called the new gas prices 'unacceptable' and purely 'political'.

"There has been no progress," Financial Times quotes Gazprom's spokesman, Sergey Kupriyanov, speaking in Kiev. "They are not paying anything, zero."

"We cannot deliver gas for free, so they need to pay off the debt," said Aleksey Miller, Gazprom chief executive has said.

"They also need to pay for 100 per cent of current supplies," Miller said, adding that the situation "cannot continue indefinitely".

Gazprom and Kiev's Naftogaz have a rocky payment and pricing history, and past tiffs have resulted in Moscow turning off the pipes, cutting off supplies to Europe.

However, a Gazprom spokesman said Monday that Russian gas exports to Europe through Ukraine remain stable despite a standoff between Moscow and Kiev, Reuters reports.
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