Society's Child
No, there was no smell of napalm in the morning.
But there was the thunderous whump whump of low-flying helicopters, and even the jarring blast of explosions at the abandoned Grand Bay Hotel in Coconut Grove early Tuesday during a military training exercise that jolted many unsuspecting residents from their beds.
"It was quite a shocking experience," said Jane Muir, who was awakened around 1:45 a.m. by the sound of military choppers that later dropped rappelling soldiers onto the Grand Bay's rooftop. "It was kind of that bizarre feeling that you were surrounded by wind."
From her third-floor balcony, Muir then watched the soldiers fire off flares and smoke bombs before searching floor by floor through the darkened hotel, their paths marked by flashlights and the pop-pop-pop of gunshots. "The show of force was so overwhelming," she said.
Jennifer Mahoney, 33, of Manalapan pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to sexual exploitation of a child.
She faces between 15 and 30 years in prison when she is sentenced Aug. 22, and will have to pay restitution to the victim. She had been charged with two counts of sexual exploitation of a child.
As part of the plea, Mahoney agreed 30 years is the appropriate sentence, although the judge will have the final say. She would be under supervised release for anywhere between five years and life after her sentence is completed. She also agreed not to appeal.
Mahoney has been in custody since December after prosecutors said three pornographic videos showing assaults on the child were found on the computer of Robert Ramos Jr. of Austin, Texas.
Just to set the stage as to how large the prison population is in the United States: our prison population is the highest in the world; one out of 100 US residents are in prison. This number has grown dramatically since 1990, due to tighter crime laws and longer sentences. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), "Between 1970 and 2005, the number of people incarcerated in the United States grew by 700 percent. Today, the United States incarcerates approximately 2.3 million people."
"Military personnel here in the U.S. have become a target-of-choice for the Islamist terrorists we have battled since 9/11," Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., one of the bill sponsors, said in a statement. "There have been at least 34 domestic terrorism threats, plots, or attacks against U.S. military communities since 2001."
"This bill provides a long-overdue update to the eligibility criteria for the Purple Heart that acknowledges the threat of domestic terrorism," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., the other bill sponsor.
Pentagon policy currently considers attacks on U.S. service members at home as criminal matters, not a hazard of combat.
While the bill is not yet scheduled for a vote, NBC News' Luke Russert said it has "strong backing from a bipartisan group of legislators.
"If it were to go to the House or Senate floor it would most likely pass," he added.
King and Lieberman held a joint hearing last December on the terror threat to military communities in the U.S. In their statement Wednesday, they noted that testimony included that of Daris Long, whose son, Army Pvt. William Long, was killed in the 2009 attack on the Army's recruiting center in Little Rock, Ark. William Long was denied a Purple Heart.
Later that year, 12 soldiers and one civilian were killed, as well as 32 people wounded, in the shooting attack at Fort Hood, Texas. None of the service members in that attack are currently eligible for a Purple Heart.
Comment: This will make many socio/psychopathic individuals within the armed forces more prone to violence. Further: Imagine a new bill that states if you fight against an armed services person, you are directly attacking the Government of the United States. So, if some drunken sailor were to get in a fist fight, any person engaging them in hand to hand, or perhaps even breaking up a fight, would be considered a terrorist. And of course the drunken sailor might feel more like a man, brandishing his shiny new medal.
"..We're all in it for the slap on the back and the gold watch. The hip-hip-hoo-fuckin' rah. Look at the clever boy with the badge, polishing his trophy. Shine on you crazy diamond, because we're just monkeys wrapped in suits, begging for the approval of others." -Movie: Revolver
Along with a bevy of new onboard safety features, travelers on the new Costa ship will now undergo a rigorous, pre-launch safety-training program. It will be conducted in six languages and led by uniformed personnel.
Not to be outdone, Costa parent company Carnival Cruise Lines recently kicked Nashville neurosurgeon and diet guru Jack Kruse off a ship after some unfortunate tweets issued in his name. Kruse had been scheduled to speak on the 5th annual Jimmy Moore Low-Carb Cruise.
The tweets were issued from the totally real and professional sounding @shitkrusesays account (you know like that TV show with William Shatner). Kruse denies any involvement in the account and claims competitors set it up.
According to USA Today, Kruse was questioned by authorities and removed from the ship after a tweet that claimed he had a "vial of Legionnaires for an epic biohack." The cruise line also received an email warning about Kruse.
Are we hamsters running endlessly on a spinning wheel, oblivious to the fact that we are substantively going nowhere but backwards? Or, are we reasoning, critically thinking human beings who have enough sense to comprehend the enormous difference between being on a perpetually spinning wheel, and making real systemic change that serves the needs and aspirations of ordinary people? The time is here and now for everyday, ordinary Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people to address and honestly answer this question. We must take responsibility for our collective destinies.
The political system of the United States really is one wherein the following words, attributed to Charlie King, so thoroughly apply: "America is a melting pot, the people at the bottom get burned while all the scum floats to the top." The obvious question is why? Why is this allowed to continue? The answer is not complicated. It is the denial, self delusion, lethargy, and hypocrisy on the part of far too many people in this nation -- stoked and perpetuated -- by the corporate-owned Democratic and Republican parties, the corporate-stream 'news' media, and their concomitant systemic 'educational' institutions. The scum does not float to the top by osmosis. It is quite deliberate.
Kruse was scheduled as a guest speaker Monday for Jimmy Moore's 5th Annual Low-Carb Cruise on the Carnival Magic out of Galveston, Texas.
But before the ship departed Sunday afternoon, the cruise line learned of a Twitter message from an account containing quotes allegedly from Kruse.
The account - @s...krusesays, which contains an expletive - contained messages claiming Kruse had a "vial of Legionnaires for epic biohack." The Twitter account has since been disabled.
When Carnival learned of the tweet, it contacted authorities, and Galveston police, the FBI and U.S. Coast Guard boarded the ship to investigate.
The familiar image of the three-year-old was used to illustrate deals offered by lowcostholidays.com on the website VoucherDigg.
But the travel company said it had no advertising contract with the voucher website and admitted that the use of the little girl's picture was "vile".
Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns' spokesman, branded it "appallingly insensitive" and said law firm Carter-Ruck had been called in to demand removal of the picture with "immediate effect".
The VoucherDigg site sells breaks in a self-catering family apartment in Albufeira, Algarve, just 25 miles from Praia da Luz, the resort from which Madeleine disappeared five years ago.
The photograph of her dangling her legs in a swimming pool dressed in a pink dress and white sunhat, was taken just hours before she vanished from the family's holiday apartment.
Iran's state TV said the South Korean inspector was thrown from of the car. He was not wearing a seat belt, the report said, quoting police. The two inspectors were riding in the backseat of the car.
The TV showed video of the other inspector in a hospital bed, not seriously injured. It said the driver, who lost control of the car, was also slightly injured.
State TV showed video of the heavily damaged vehicle.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement it was in touch with the inspectors' families and Iranian authorities.
The IAEA did not name the inspector killed in the crash, but Iran's official IRNA news agency identified as Seo Ok-Seok from South Korea.
IRNA said the inspectors' car overturned near a heavy water reactor being built in Khondab, about 250 kilometers (150 miles) southwest of Tehran.

Volunteers carry a bag containing the body of a victim of the fire that broke out in a clothing store in Butuan City, killing 17 employees
"Twenty-one people were asleep on the second floor when the fire struck the ground floor. They could not find the emergency exit because of the huge volume of black smoke," Chief Inspector Mario Palarca said by telephone.
Comment: Mahoney is just one predator tapping into a huge market - a market created by psychopaths who indulge in pedophilia. It seems as if the current surge of news on this issue is intended to manipulate people into thinking these crimes are done by either lone pedophiles or small groups of individuals. More than likely, the roots of it lie with the psychopathic elite and their international child sex rings. For more information, see these Sott.net stories:
International Sex Ring Exposed, Thousands of Children and Infants Raped
Child sex trafficking, 'epidemic' in US
Dutroux Cover-up Protected Pedophile Networks
Beyond the Dutroux Affair: The reality of protected child abuse and snuff networks in a world ruled by psychopaths
The Pedophocracy
Pedophile Rings Trending on Facebook