Society's ChildS


Heart - Black

Oakdale, Minneapolis deaths are double murder, suicide

Kevin Giles and Anthony Lonetree
Star Tribune
Sat, 17 Sep 2011 00:00 UTC
Oakdale deaths
© Kyndell HarknessMembers of the Bureau of Criminal house where three people were found dead in Oakdale, Thursday.
The couple's children will live with memory of bloody scene all their lives, a trauma expert says.

A man and two women found dead in an Oakdale house each died of a single gunshot wound to the head in an apparent double murder-suicide, the Ramsey County medical examiner's office ruled Friday.

The shooting scene at the blue split-level house, which involved two parents and a babysitter, left other victims as well. A 6-year-old girl returning home from school Thursday found the bodies and ran screaming into the street with blood on her hands. She and her two brothers, ages 3 and 8, were left orphaned.

"When I heard the child found the bodies it really did break my heart," said Washington County Attorney Pete Orput, who expects the county might be asked to help with foster care. "I don't know what it would be like walking in to see your mom and dad dead. That's something that child will never get out of her head, ever."

The dead were identified as Cintia Guadalupe Ornelas Bustos, 28; Jaime Anival Almaras Velasquez, 32, and babysitter Angela Uscanga Gonzalez, 43.

Police declined to say who was responsible for the shooting because the investigation is not complete. But the medical examiner's office has determined that Velasquez committed suicide, said officer Michelle Stark.
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Family

California Bans Unvaccinated Children from Class

Anthony Gucciardi
Activist Post
Mon, 19 Sep 2011 15:30 UTC
classroom
© NA

If your child hasn't received the whooping cough vaccine, he or she is now banned from attending class at many California schools. Despite legitimate religious or personal health reasons for rejecting the whooping cough vaccine, your child simply cannot attend class. Due to a law that requires all students entering grades seven through 12 be vaccinated, the San Francisco school district has begun sending home children who do not have proof of receiving the whooping cough vaccination.

Proof of vaccine ineffectiveness

Why are schools afraid of unvaccinated children spreading the disease to vaccinated children if the whooping cough vaccine is truly effective? How could an unvaccinated child spread the disease to someone who has already received the whooping cough vaccine?

Interestingly enough, scientists have found that vaccinating against the whooping cough is actually an ineffective waste of money. In fact, widespread vaccination of adults against whooping cough (pertussis) would do almost nothing to reduce infection rates among unvaccinated children according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Michigan and published in the journal Science.
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Passport

First versions of Canada's new electronic passport carry hefty price tag


Dean Beeby
Sun, 18 Sep 2011 00:00 UTC
Image
© The Canadian Press / Tom HansonA passenger holds his Canadian passport before boarding a flight in Ottawa, Ont. in this Jan 23, 2007 photo.
The first version of Canada's new electronic passport carries a hefty price tag - an ominous sign that the general version being issued late next year might cost triple or more what Canadians pay today.

Since January 2009 the federal government has issued 40,000 so-called ePassports to senior government officials and diplomats.

The secure document has a computer chip that stores key personal data, including an image of the bearer, that can be accessed with a scanner.

Passport Canada, which is required to run a break-even operation, has not yet announced what Canadians will pay for the more complex, high-tech document.

But an expense claim filed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper indicates the cost of the diplomatic version is far more than the $87 that adult Canadians pay now.

Harper purchased four diplomatic ePassports for himself, his wife and two children late last year, at $225 each, for a total bill of $900.

The cost was picked up by taxpayers through his department, the Privy Council Office, according to documents obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.
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Stop

World's biggest sperm bank, Cryos, tells redheads: We don't want your semen

Michael Sheridan
Daily News
Sun, 18 Sep 2011 00:00 UTC
alg_sperm
© Getty/Getty Images/3D4Medical.com
The world's largest sperm bank is telling redheads to keep their semen.

Demand for ginger-haired donors is so low that Cryos International says they needn't bother donating.

"There are too many redheads in relation to demand," Ole Schou, the director of Cryos, told the Danish newspaper, Ekstrabladet, according to London's Telegraph.

Men with scarlett manes sell "like hot cakes" in Ireland, Schou said, but that's about it.
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Light Saber

US: Wall Street protests continue, several arrested


CBS
Mon, 19 Sep 2011 15:15 UTC
wall street, protests
© Michael Nagle/Getty ImagesPeople protesting the economic system walk down a sidewalk in the financial district as office workers head to work on September 19, 2011 in New York City. Organizers said the protests, which began Saturday, could last for weeks.

New York - At least five people were arrested on the third day of protests in New York's Financial District, spearheaded by a coalition of groups rallying against the influence of corporate money in politics.

Beginning on Saturday - on what was called a U.S. Day of Rage - several groups of activists vowed to occupy Wall Street, to express their anger over a financial system they say favors the rich and powerful, and about a democratic process they deem to be corrupt.

Organizers of the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstration have called for 20,000 people to "flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months."
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Eagle

Washington, US: Tacoma Could Replace Striking Teachers, Says Judge

Drew Mikkelsen & Jake Whittenberg
King5 News
Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:16 UTC
Image
© King5 News
A Pierce County Superior Court judge says he's considering giving the Tacoma school district the option to hire replacement teachers while regular teachers remain on the picket line.

"I'm seriously willing to consider that," said Judge Bryan Chushcoff. "I don't like doing that, but I will do that if it is necessary."

The attorney for the teachers union said he would argue the judge does not have the authority to do that. A spokesperson for the union doubted the district could find enough replacement teachers to resume class.

Chushcoff met with lawyers for both the Tacoma teachers union and Tacoma Public School District Monday morning to determine the penalties teachers faced for defying his court order to return to work last week.
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Stormtrooper

US: Retiree Benefits for the Military Could Face Cuts

James Dao and Mary Williams Walsh
The New York Times
Sun, 18 Sep 2011 12:41 UTC
retired veteran
© Colin Hackley for The New York TimesSteve Griffin left the Army after five years and thus receives no pension. But he believes the system provides incentives for recruitment and rewards retirees who have endured great hardship.
As Washington looks to squeeze savings from once-sacrosanct entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, another big social welfare system is growing as rapidly, but with far less scrutiny: the health and pension benefits of military retirees.

Military pensions and health care for active and retired troops now cost the government about $100 billion a year, representing an expanding portion of both the Pentagon budget - about $700 billion a year, including war costs - and the national debt, which together finance the programs.

Making even incremental reductions to military benefits is typically a doomed political venture, given the public's broad support for helping troops, the political potency of veterans groups and the fact that significant savings take years to appear.

But the intense push in Congress this year to reduce the debt and the possibility that the Pentagon might have to begin trimming core programs like weapons procurement, research, training and construction have suddenly made retiree benefits vulnerable, military officials and experts say.

Comment: And there you have it. "The cost of the criminally minimal support we give to the used-up cannon fodder we like to call 'our troops' is really putting a crimp into all our plans for future wars."

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Family

UK: Jobcentres to send poor and hungry to charity food banks


NBC San Diego
Sun, 18 Sep 2011 17:43 UTC
Image

Tens of thousands of benefits claimants will be referred to food banks by the Government, which is worried that many Britons face a stark choice: starvation or feeding themselves by begging or stealing.

From tomorrow, jobcentres in England and Wales will refer the needy to charity-run food banks that will give them a food parcel. It is the first time in living memory that hungry people will have been passed on to charities in this way.

The move comes amid growing levels of food poverty, fuelled by rising food prices and high rates of unemployment. Under the scheme, people whose benefits have been delayed, or have been refused crisis loans, will be referred to their local food bank. A claimant will be limited to three consecutive referrals - each time giving them enough food for three days. They will be given basics such as tinned soup, baked beans, meat, fish and pasta.
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People

'Violent Protests' Over China Pollution


Raw Story
Sun, 18 Sep 2011 17:15 UTC
chinese troops
© AFP
Hundreds of Chinese have mounted violent protests against a solar panel factory in eastern China over three days, accusing it of cancer-causing pollution, state media reported Sunday

Around 500 protesters gathered in Haining city, Zhejiang province, on Thursday, demanding an explanations for the death of large numbers of fish in a nearby river, the Xinhua news agency said.

Industrial contamination had caused at least 31 cases of cancer among residents of Hongxiao village, which is part of Haining, they said, including six of leukaemia.

The demonstrators broke into the Jinko Solar factory, ransacking offices and overturning vehicles before being forced back by police, Xinhua said, adding that the violence continued on Friday and Saturday evenings.
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Handcuffs

Immigrants For Sale: Lost, Abused and Neglected for a Profit


Brave New Foundation
Sun, 18 Sep 2011 16:31 UTC
Guillermo Gomez-Sanchez is a 50-year-old legal resident with a mental disability. In 2004, Gomez was detained because of a dispute at a grocery store over a bag of tomatoes. His detention led him into a labyrinth of abuse and neglect - in an immigration system that increasingly puts profit over justice by handing the reigns to private prison corporations.

Cuéntame's Immigrants For Sale campaign has documented the case of Guillermo, who got lost in this system, while his mother Dolores Gomez-Sanchez spent years desperately searching for answers. The problem: Guillermo was sent to a private detention facility operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Dolores approached immigration authorities, but time and again was told that because Guillermo was in a CCA facility his case was no longer their problem. At one point the only information immigration officials could offer her was that Guillermo was beaten by guards and hospitalized after requesting to use a bathroom.


Private prison corporations like CCA do not care who and how they lock immigrants up. At a rate of up to $200 per inmate per night, this is the "perfect" money scheme. As such, CCA failed to report Guillermo's condition - why should they? The longer Guillermo was locked up the more money in their coffers. Guillermo spent two years in CCA's detention center. At average contract rates, the operator pocketed an estimated $90,000 off of his incarceration.
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