Society's ChildS


Attention

LIVE from 'Occupy Wall Street': Talking with an #OccupyWallStreet Organizer

From video clip dated September 19, 2011:
We talk with Justin Wedes (@OccupyWallStNYC on Twitter) of the NYC General Assembly LIVE from Occupy Wall Street. #OccupyWallStreet

Gear

One in Five Americans Thinks God Controls the Stock Market

Almighty Dollar?
© MinyanvillePraying to the Almighty dollar.

According to USA Today, "About one in five Americans combine a view of God as actively engaged in daily workings of the world with an economic conservative view that opposes government regulation and champions the free market as a matter of faith."

"They say the invisible hand of the free market is really God at work," sociologist Paul Froese, co-author of the just-released Baylor Religion Survey [PDF], tells the paper. "They think the economy works because God wants it to work. It's a new religious economic idealism."

Froese says this group believes the Bible is the "ultimate truth in the world, and new economic information of cost-benefit analysis is not going to change their mind about how the economy should work."

The study reveals a number of interesting insights. For one, more Americans believe that wealth -- or lack of it -- is predetermined by God.

"In today's United States with high levels of unemployment and vastly expanding wealth inequality, belief in God's plan sustains belief in the fairness of our economic system and our ability to eschew government assistance to stem the tide of our economic woes," write the authors.

Attention

Seven Arrested in 'Occupy Wall Street' Protest: Some for Wearing Anonymous Masks

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© FlickrNew reports indicate that at least seven individuals have been arrested during Adbusters' ongoing Occupy Wall Street protest, one for wearing the "V" mask used by hacker collective Anonymous.
At least seven individuals have been arrested during Adbusters' ongoing 'Occupy Wall Street' protest, one for wearing the "V" mask used by hacker collective Anonymous.

The arrests were initially reported by Bloomberg. In its report the news agency alleged that by the end of the protest's third day New York City Police had arrested as many as seven individuals.

The exact reasons for the arrests remains vague and conflicting reports have since emerged suggesting different motivations.

According to Bloomberg four protesters were arrested Monday for wearing masks -- New York law forbids more than two individuals wearing masks in a public space at any one time during a protest. The fifth protester was reportedly arrested for jumping a police barrier, while the sixth and seventh were detained for attempting to enter a building used by Bank of America Corp while wearing masks. Bloomberg cited an e-mailed statement from police spokesman Paul Browne as its source.

Bad Guys

Bones Tell Tale of Suffering Before Bosnian Genocide

Genocide
© Adam Jones The skull of a victim of the 1995 genocide at Srebrenica. This photo was taken in 2007 at a mass grave exhumed outside of the village of Potocari in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The victims of the mid-1990s genocide in Bosnia were allowed to suffer long before Bosnian Serb forces began their massacres, according to a new study of bones from mass graves in the region.

The bones of the victims are scarred with telltale signs of chronic disease and birth defects, suggesting that this population of Bosnian Muslims endured a lack of health care long before the Bosnian conflict turned violent.

"They had been marginalized for a long time," study researcher Ann Ross, an anthropologist at North Carolina State University, told LiveScience. "They had very poor health care. For example, there were a couple of individuals that had significant ear infections that had produced even the breakdown of bone. ... Obviously, that was telling me they didn't even have access to antibiotics that could have dealt with that issue."

Ross said that the research could help policymakers identify marginalized populations who are at risk of having their countrymen turn against them.

"This is the first time that the actual health of a population has been measured in victims of genocide," Ross said, pointing out that known risk factors for genocide are often anecdotal.

The study will appear in the fall issue of the journal Forensic Science Policy and Management.

Info

Scientists Worry over 'Bizarre' Trial for Failing to Predict Earthquake

Onna Quake
© Franco Volpato | ShutterstockA view of destruction caused by the terrible earthquake in the village of Onna in Aquila, Italy.

Six Italian scientists and one government official are set to go to trial today in Italy (Sept. 20) on charges of manslaughter for not warning the public aggressively enough of an impending earthquake that killed more than 300 people in 2009.

While such a trial is unlikely on U.S. soil, experts say, American geologists and seismologists are watching closely, surprised at a legal system that would attempt to criminalize something as uncertain as earthquake prediction.

"Our ability to predict earthquake hazards is, frankly, lousy," said Seth Stein, a professor of Earth sciences at Northwestern University in Illinois. "Criminalizing something would only make sense if we really knew how to do this and someone did it wrong."

Henry Pollack, a professor of geology at the University of Michigan, echoed Stein's concerns.

"The whole thing seems bizarre to me," Pollack told LiveScience.

Target

US: Activists to protest Ahmadinejad in New York

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© Agence France-PresseA mobile billboard by a group opposed to Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is seen on Second Avenue, a few blocks from United Nations headquarters in New York. Activists vowed on Monday to greet Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with angry protests when he visits New York for this week's United Nations General Assembly
Activists vowed on Monday to greet Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with angry protests when he visits New York for this week's United Nations General Assembly.

United Against Nuclear Iran, an advocacy group, has demanded that managers of the upscale Warwick Hotel refuse to host Ahmadinejad and his delegation and have urged a boycott of the international hotel chain.

"Ahmadinejad is not welcome here. His visit to Manhattan is offensive given Iran's heinous track record and its alliance with Al-Qaeda," UANI executive director David Ibsen said in a statement on Monday.

The group also announced that it was launching a mobile billboard, to be driven by truck near the UN and the Warwick hotel for the next several days, that will contain an anti-Ahmadinejad message.

The mobile billboard, which is similar to a stationary billboard that UANI has placed near Times Square, shows Ahmadinejad and says: "As we remember 9/11 ten years later, Al-Qaeda's silent partner is coming to New York."

Sun

Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Resigns Over Global Warming Hoax

earth
© NASA

The global warming theory left him out in the cold.

Dr. Ivar Giaever, a former professor with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the 1973 winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, abruptly announced his resignation Tuesday, Sept. 13, from the premier physics society in disgust over its officially stated policy that "global warming is occurring."

The official position of the American Physical Society (APS) supports the theory that man's actions have inexorably led to the warming of the planet, through increased emissions of carbon dioxide.

Giaever does not agree -- and put it bluntly and succinctly in the subject line of his email, reprinted at Climate Depot, a website devoted to debunking the theory of man-made climate change.

Info

Canada, Toronto: Tempers Flare Over Prayer in Schools

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© CBC NewsTwo sides squared off outside Toronto District School Board headquarters Saturday over religious prayer in classrooms.
A rally held to recognize the Toronto District School Board for allowing rights and freedoms turned into a shouting match Saturday between religious groups.

About 200 people squared off outside the Toronto District School Board's head office, concerned about Muslim prayer in the city's public schools.

Groups including the Jewish Defence League of Canada, the Canadian Hindu Advocacy and the Christian Heritage Group, are upset that a middle school in the city's north end has provided Muslim students cafeteria space for a weekly prayer service, saying the board showed favouritism to Islam.

Chris Andrewsen who organized what was supposed to be a day of appreciation for the TDSB, said they should be allowed to express their beliefs.

"If we are religious people then we should be allowed to express that. It's not an imposition on other people," Andrewsen said.

But some opponents say allowing students to pray on school property goes against the school board's policy that schools should be a place of study free from cultural or religious influence. While others say the right should be left open to all groups.

Stormtrooper

Canada, Toronto: Taser fired at man in Toronto balcony

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© CBC NewsPolice, fire and EMS workers surround a man who fell nine metres to the ground following an early-morning standoff on Monday in which a Taser was discharged. The man was rushed to hospital in critical condition.
A tense standoff involving Toronto police ended with a man apparently being shocked by a Taser before plummeting from a balcony to the concrete below.

The man was rushed to hospital in critical condition just after 5 a.m. Monday, after falling what appeared to be a distance of about nine metres.

The drama began around 1 a.m., when police from 12 Division were dispatched to arrest a suspect on the fourth floor of 1735 Weston Rd. near Lawrence Avenue. The man descended from the balcony to the third floor as he tried to evade officers.

The Emergency Task Force, which serves as the tactical unit of the Toronto police, were called in for assistance. A negotiation team spoke with the man for more than four hours trying to coax him down and persuade him to give himself up for arrest.

Over the course of several hours, he at times straddled the concrete balcony's ledge, stood on top of it or sat down and leaned against it as he smoked a cigarette. As police approached, he would move closer to the balcony's edge.

Vader

US: New TSA Security Program Causes Major Logan Jam 4 Hour Delays

tsa

Boston-- New security procedures being tested at Logan International Airport caused significant backups at security checkpoints Thursday, according to airlines.

Backups lasted for about four hours after the Transportation Security Administration began testing a procedure that requires more human interaction between security agents and passengers.

The process takes about 30 seconds, but it caused many passengers to be delayed. TSA agents engaged in "chat downs" while checking their IDs and boarding passes.