The European Union Times |
- Russian vandal fined $25,000 in Rome for scratching the Colosseum
- Ferguson trial eye-witness found dead, burned and head shot in his car
- Professor Says Mike Brown Sacrificed to Racist God
- Complex jobs may benefit brain function
- Airlines cancel hundreds of flights on Thanksgiving as snow storm rips through Northeast
- Pope Francis calls Europe ‘old infertile granny’, wants its population replaced with immigrants
- Female Rapper Upset About Ferguson Verdict Wants To Kill “Straight White Men”
- Elderly beaten with his oxygen tank and run over with his car by protesters in Ferguson
- Ebola epidemic slows down in Sierra Leone
- Activists call on Swiss parliament to outlaw pet consumption
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Posted: 27 Nov 2014 09:34 AM PST
 A Russian tourist has been fined €20,000 ($25,000) after he carved a giant letter ‘K’ onto the wall of the best-known structure in all of Italy, the ancient Colosseum in Rome. The 42-year old was handed a hefty fine and a suspended four year jail term on Saturday. Given the fact that the Russian rouble has been reaching historic lows against the euro, the man has to pay more than a million rubles, 1,114,028 to be precise. Rome-based archaeologist, Darius Arya, told the Guardian that the fine would illustrate a no-tolerance stance towards vandals. “It’s an extraordinarily high fee. This says ‘we have no patience’; they’re upping the ante as a new form of protection,” she said. While the tourist was unidentified, some details of his act emerged. He attempted to carve the letter using a pointed stone, and the letter ‘K’ he tried to emblazon in the enormous amphitheater was 25cm in height. “The incision cut out part of the surface of the structure and compromises its conservation and image,” historic site Superintendent Mariarosaria Barbera told Italian wire agency ANSA. This is the fifth such occurrence of vandalism at the Colosseum this year, and union leaders have subsequently been airing frustration about the lack of security personnel to monitor the situation. However, Rossella Rea, director of the Colosseum, told the Guardian that given the annual volume of people visiting the structure, the number, in actuality wasn’t especially high, five out of a potential six million. Source           |
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Posted: 27 Nov 2014 09:21 AM PST
 DeAndre Joshua, 20, fits the social profile of an eye-witness who gave a police/FBI statement and testified before the Grand Jury in the Mike Brown shooting case. He was an employed black male, with no history of drug use or illicit behavior. He was also a friend of Dorian Johnson who is currently under protection.  Obviously, as you can see, Dorian is freaking out right now. Several of the eye-witnesses, who gave honest testimony to the Grand Jury, were, according to their own statements, warned immediately after the shooting to keep their mouths shut. All of the eye-witnesses were African American. If you read the reports the sense of fear about speaking the truth is overwhelming. Many, if not all, of the witness statements outlined in police reports, FBI reports, and later in Grand Jury testimony who testified to the factual events as outlined by officer Wilson, and whose testimony fit the physical and forensic evidence were threatened by the local Canfield Greens community. A man has died during the Ferguson riots just yards from where Michael Brown was shot dead. Residents on Canfield Drive said that DeAndre Joshua, 20, was shot whilst in his car though police at the scene refused to confirm any details. DeAndre’s grandmother Renita Towns said that ‘somebody killed him’ during the carnage. She said that he graduated Beaumont High School and that he was working in Wal-Mart. Family member Brian Joshua, 45, added: ‘He was a good kid, he’s gone to high school, he’s got a job, he’s not into drugs or any of that stuff. ‘I only saw him yesterday morning. He was a smart guy, he spoke cleanly, he was positive’. Police took away DeAndre’s white Pontiac Grand Prix and interviewed witnesses around 11am. A woman in her 20s broke down in tears and said: ‘I knew him, he was my twin’. Source      |
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Posted: 27 Nov 2014 08:31 AM PST
 According to the Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Anthea Butler, robbery suspect gentle giant Mike Brown was sacrificed to the “god of white supremacy.” Butler imbues her diatribe against a racist white America with religious overtones: No one should be surprised that Darren Wilson was not indicted by the grand jury. Prosecutor Robert McCulloch played the role of Pontius Pilate, washing his and Darren Wilson’s hands of impunity, while the sacrifice, Michael Brown, was deemed worthy of death because in Wilson’s words “he look[ed] like a demon.” Wilson even uses the sacred instrument to complete his sacrifice to the god of American Whiteness: the gun. It is not clear if Butler considers other rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to be sacred instruments used for nefarious and racist means by “the god of American Whiteness,” or if this is limited to the Second Amendment. Liberals often praise the First and Fourth amendments, but want the cornerstone of the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment, repealed. The fantasy that America is plagued by racism straight out of the Antebellum South or South Africa drives the Mike Brown-Trayvon Martin movement. In fact, much of “white America” is stricken by politically correct guilt over past sins, from slavery to Jim Crow laws and Ku Klux Klansmen bombing churches, crimes they had nothing to do with. The mantra today is “white privilege,” the illusion that skin color is a determining factor in social and political relations. “There’s something else at work. I think it’s white guilt,” writes Walter E. Williams, who happens to be black. “That’s why, for almost three decades, there has appeared on my website a certificate of amnesty and pardon that I’ve granted to Americans of European ancestry in the hope that they stop feeling guilty and stop acting like fools.” This is not the first time Butler has exploited social issues in an effort to promulgate a race-based agenda. She is also a vocal critic of George Zimmerman, who was exonerated in the killing of Trayvon Martin, and she also exploited the MTV music awards to push the theory that evil white people appropriate black culture.   Source      |
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Posted: 27 Nov 2014 08:12 AM PST
 The research indicated that people with complex jobs, including working with other people or data such as lawyers and engineers, could benefit from a better memory and thinking abilities in later life. The results were achieved after examining 534 men and 532 women – all aged 70 – under Lothian Birth Cohort 1936, a longitudinal study of aging in Scotland, according to the study report in the journal Neurology. “When we look at the association between complexity of work with people or data, we see that those in more complex jobs generally do better on a range of cognitive ability measures,” said Alan J. Gow, from Heriot-Watt University and the Center for Cognitive Aging and Cognitive Epidemiology in Edinburgh, Scotland. The participants were assigned scores summarizing the occupational complexity of their work with data, people, and things. They had to take tests designed to assess memory, processing speed and general thinking ability, as well as filling in a questionnaire about their working life. General linear model analyses revealed that people with complex skills in dealing with data or people, such as management and teaching had better cognitive performance at age 70. Lawyers, social workers, surgeons, and probation officers are categorized into the jobs that score highly for the complexity of work with people, while the jobs that have lower scores for complexity of work with people include factory worker, bookbinder, painter, and carpet layer. “One theory is a more stimulating environment helps build up a cognitive reserve to help buffer the brain against age-related decline,” the researchers suggest. “Keeping the brain active throughout life could be helpful and different types of work may play a role,” said head of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, Dr Simon Ridley. Source      |
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Posted: 27 Nov 2014 08:06 AM PST
 Airlines in the United States have cancelled nearly 300 flights thus far Wednesday given rain and snow along the East Coast and Appalachians. The heaviest snow through the day is expected just west of the I-95 corridor between Philadelphia and Boston. Holiday travelers will have to deal with a storm consisting of rain, at times heavy snow, fog, and poor visibility on Thanksgiving Eve, traditionally one of the busiest days for airlines and highways across the US. The regions of New England, the mid-Atlantic, and Appalachia are expected to see the worst winter weather. Ahead of Wednesday’s precipitation, which is expected to continue into the night, many airlines announced they will waive fees for passenger choosing to switch or change flights to avoid the storm. United, American, and Delta airlines waived flight-change fees at about two dozen northeastern airports, offering travelers the chance to switch flights to Tuesday or Thursday to ease Thanksgiving Eve congestion. As of about 8:00 ET this morning, airlines had cancelled 271 flights due to winter weather, Bloomberg reported. Terminated flights are only part of air-travel headaches on Wednesday, as delays will also add to the mix.  Early rain Wednesday will change to snow from northern Virginia to New England as the day progresses, according to weather reports. The interior of New England is bracing for 6 to 12 inches of snow before the storm is over, though the heaviest snowfall is predicted for north and west of Interstate 95 from Philadelphia to Boston.   In the Appalachians, there have been reports of as many as 4 inches of snow thus far in North Carolina and 8 inches in West Virginia, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Meanwhile, a less severe snowstorm will brush through the Plains and the Midwest, from the Dakotas to the Tennessee Valley, as Wednesday progresses. Some flights out of St. Louis and highway travel on major interstates such as I-70, I-35, and I-29 will likely be delayed as the snow works its way east. The number of air passengers in the US is expected to hit a high level unseen since 2007, with as many as 3.55 million, a 3 percent jump from last year, according to AAA. Source      |
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Posted: 26 Nov 2014 02:14 PM PST
 Pope Satan does it AGAIN! After a series of recent evil declarations such as support for the divorce of families and homosexuality, now the Pope is calling for “old infertile” Europeans to accept their dying fate and welcome immigrants coming in mass mostly through Italy, the hell’s gate of Europe. Among these illegal immigrants there could be run away terrorists, rapists, murderers, jail escapees, Ebola infected and God knows what else yet Pope Satan still wants them in Europe, unchecked, undocumented and illegal as they are! Addressing the European Parliament for the first time, Pope Francis has alluded to a general impression of “aging and weariness” in Europe and said a new spirit should be built, where humans are treated not as programmable objects. “In many quarters, we encounter a general impression of weariness and aging, of a Europe which is now a ‘grandmother’, no longer fertile and vibrant. As a result, the great ideas which once inspired Europe seem to have lost their attraction, only to be replaced by the bureaucratic technicalities of its institutions,” the Pope said. The pontiff said there are many situations in which human beings are treated “as objects whose conception, configuration and utility can be programmed, and who can then be discarded when no longer useful, due to weakness, illness or old age.” He warned, however, against misunderstanding the concept of human rights and from its misuse, saying there is a “tendency to claim ever broader individual rights these days.” “In fact, unless the rights of each individual are harmoniously ordered to the greater good, those rights will end up being considered limitless and consequently will become a source of conflicts and violence,” Pope Francis has warned. Francis said Europe should create jobs, noting that technical and economic questions are currently dominating political debate, much “to the detriment of genuine concern for human beings.” “Men and women risk being reduced to mere cogs in a machine that treats them as items of consumption to be exploited, with the result that – as is so tragically apparent – whenever a human life no longer proves useful for that machine, it is discarded with few qualms, as in the case of the terminally ill, the elderly who are abandoned and uncared for, and children who are killed in the womb.” Speaking to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, the Argentine pope said the challenge is to shape a Europe “which revolves not around the economy, but around the sacredness of the human person, around inalienable values.” Francis said among Europe’s top priorities were “finding new ways of joining market flexibility with the need for stability and security on the part of workers,” as well as “favoring a suitable social context geared not to the exploitation of persons, but to ensuring, precisely through labor, their ability to create a family and educate their children.” Speaking just several days after 600 migrants were rescued in the Mediterranean between Sicily and North Africa, Pope Francis couldn’t help mentioning Europe’s immigration crisis. “There needs to be a united response to the question of migration. We cannot allow the Mediterranean to become a vast cemetery,” he said. “The boats landing daily on the shores of Europe are filled with men and women who need acceptance and assistance. The absence of mutual support within the European Union runs the risk of encouraging particularistic solutions to the problem, solutions which fail to take into account the human dignity of immigrants, and thus contribute to slave labor and continuing social tensions,” he added. It is already too much that the traitorous politicians allow these scum to freely come to Europe, but now the church as well? No wonder Christianity is going extinct faster than ever and ultra-nationalism is on the rise in Europe like we’re back in the 30′s. Source      |
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Posted: 26 Nov 2014 01:10 PM PST
 Twitchy is reporting on tweets from a rapper named Azealia Banks who reportedly stated that she “might have to kill one of these crackers in their sleep.” Banks tweeted several offensive statements before apologizing.     Nah don’t worry. We know how you are Ms Banks. A former stripper turned “rapper” desperately jealous of real artists like Iggy Azalea who grace the covers of magazines you’ll never appear on. And of course Banks is nothing really but a cheap copy of Lady Gaga, whose career did everything Banks wished she could have done but Gaga did years ago. Maybe we could send Eminem over to your house so he can give you what he said he’d give to Lana Del Ray? Let the white man show you what he do? Just kidding! Sorry if we offended any D-list black celebre-wannabes! Source      |
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Posted: 26 Nov 2014 12:32 PM PST
 In Ferguson, Missouri, the cold weather and snow resulted in a much smaller number of protesters outside the local police department. Elsewhere people marched in cities including Los Angeles, Atlanta and Portland. In New York protesters marched along West 125th Street in Harlem. Some arrests were made around the country to add to the 400 or so people arrested in protests since Monday’s verdict was announced. Also on Wednesday, footage emerged showing an elderly man who was run over after two people stole his car in Ferguson during Monday’s disturbances. The aftermath of the incident was captured by a St. Louis news crew and shows the chaotic scene in the parking lot of Faraci Pizza. The victim is shown lying face down on the pavement with his oxygen tank beside him. ‘You need to take us live. Some gentlemen was in his car, he was on oxygen, they stole his car, left him on the ground. We’re standing here where he is,’ said reporter Robin Smith of KMOV-TV. According to witnesses the man, who is dependent on oxygen, was attacked by two men as he returned to his vehicle to replace his almost empty tank.   ‘Only in America do you see stuff like this,’ witness Jaye Perry, 52, told St Louis Post Dispatch. Medics eventually arrived to the scene and transported the man to the hospital. His identity and condition are unknown. On Wednesday night the cold weather and snow appeared to have had a significant impact on the number of protesters on the streets of Ferguson. Hours after nightfall, a crowd of protesters lingered outside the Ferguson Police Department, shouting at National Guard troops as light snow fell. About 100 people marched through a major intersection and blocked traffic for several minutes. Troops with rifles were posted at intersections and parking lots in a nearby area where stores were looted and burned Monday into Tuesday. St. Louis County police are looking for an AR-15 rifle stolen from a police car that was set on fire Monday night during violent protests in Ferguson. ‘Rioters yanked out the high-powered police rifle and the rack in which it was stored,’ Sgt. Brian Schellman told KDSK-TV. Earlier on Wednesday police arrested several people at a protest near St. Louis’ City Hall. A third day of protests against a Missouri grand jury’s decision not to indict Darren Ferguson started in Harlem in New York City when a large group of protesters walked down West 125th Street. In Los Angeles, more than 200 people gathered outside the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles during the afternoon. Protesters formed a line, walking up and down the sidewalk in front of the courthouse, chanting: ‘No justice, no peace. No racist police.’ Later in the day more than 150 protesters were briefly boxed in by police before they were allowed to continue marching around downtown. A short while later the cops made between 60 and 80 arrests after issuing an order for the crowd to disperse. One by one, protesters were cuffed with zip ties and walked to a police bus waiting to take them to jail, reports the Los Angeles Times. LAPD had previously arrested more than 183 people arrested on Tuesday night when protesters had managed to briefly shut down the 101 Freeway. Protests in Oakland, California, also turned violent during the evening when some in a crowd of 150 protesters threw rocks, breaking windows at an Arco gas station and at the Weatherford BMW repair shop. Just before 10 p.m., police declared an unlawful assembly and advanced on the crowd making a handful of arrests as further damage to businesses and other private property, reports San Francisco Chronicle. In Atlanta dozens of protesters gathered in the city center to protest for a second night. Demonstrators gathered by Underground Atlanta and held hands and it was much more peaceful than on Tuesday night when 24 people had been arrested. Ten fans also marched through Atlanta’s Phillips Arena during a game between the Hawks and the Toronto Raptors before leaving the arena peacefully. In Portland, Oregon, about 100 people marched through the streets of the city and one person was arrested. The group chanted ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’ as they marched through the streets while police largely held back. ‘The point is to be peaceful and get the message out without hurting anyone, without breaking our city or burning anything,’ Protest leader John told KOIN 6. ‘We just want our voices to be heard.’ In Chicago three people – two females and a male – were arrested during Ferguson-inspired protests, reports the Chicago Tribune. According to other protesters, the three ‘were arrested as they peacefully stepped into the street at the intersection of Jackson and State with a banner calling for “Justice for Mike Brown!”’ More than 400 people have been arrested in the St. Louis suburb and around the United States in recent days. The parents of Michael Brown and relatives of two other unarmed black men killed by police officers joined hands with the Rev. Al Sharpton on Wednesday and prayed for justice amid days of protests over a Missouri grand jury’s decision not to indict the officer who killed Brown.  ‘On this Thanksgiving eve, this is a very painful time for these families,’ Sharpton said. ‘As you see, they share each other’s pain and understand what we don’t understand.’ He said he hopes that, as the national spotlight is trained on these families, that people on both sides of the legal outcomes would remember that ‘these are real human beings and the value of the lives of their sons and husbands should not be minimized by anybody.’ The attorney for the Brown family, Benjamin Crump, said that they had watched Tuesday’s television interview with Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Brown and said his conscience is clean over the shooting. ‘They thought he had no regard for their child and that was hurtful to them,’ the attorney said. The Missouri family was joined by the wife and mother of Eric Garner, a Staten Island man who died in a police chokehold in July after being confronted by officers for selling loose cigarettes. That case has been sent to a grand jury. Kimberly Michelle Ballinger, the mother of Akai Gurley’s child, also attended. Gurley was shot to death by a rookie police officer in a dark Brooklyn high-rise hallway last week. Sharpton said Ballinger had just returned from the morgue where she identified Gurley’s body. Police Commissioner William Bratton said Gurley had been ‘a total innocent’ when he was shot. That shooting is under investigation. The civil rights leader had traveled to Missouri, where he voiced his disappointment in the lack of charges against Wilson. But in his prayer he said he hoped that the men will ‘not have died in vain, but that we all make sure that their deaths become beacons of a new way that we deal with law enforcement and community responsibility in this country.’ Ten people were arrested in New York on Tuesday during protests over the Missouri case that closed several bridges and snarled traffic on a busy travel day just two days before Thanksgiving. Those protests, unlike some in Ferguson, have remained peaceful. Sharpton made clear that he does not condone violence but said it’s important to separate those looting and causing trouble from those demonstrating. Source      |
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Posted: 26 Nov 2014 12:29 PM PST
 “We believe that … the transmission of new cases will start reducing,” Sierra Leone’s Information Minister Alpha Kanu told reporters on Wednesday. “I don’t think we can get any higher than we are now — we are at the plateau of the curve and very soon we will have a downward trend,” he added. The World Health organization (WHO) announced in its latest Ebola update on Wednesday that the case incidence may still be on the rise in Sierra Leone. The Ebola epidemic has so far claimed the lives of 5,689 people all around the world, while more than 15,935 people have been infected, said the WHO report. However, the WHO predicts that the number of Ebola victims is likely to be much higher than the official statistics considering the 70-percent mortality rate. The virus has been most devastating in the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. Ebola is a form of hemorrhagic fever whose symptoms are diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding. The virus spreads through direct contact with infected blood, feces or sweat. It can also be spread through sexual contact or the unprotected handling of contaminated corpses. There is currently no known cure for Ebola. The media hype over Ebola comes at a time when thousands of people in Africa and other parts of the world die every day from hunger and preventable diseases. Source      |
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Posted: 26 Nov 2014 11:32 AM PST
 The animal protection group, SOS Chats Noraingue, has handed over a petition with 16,000 signatures, including such notable animal rights defenders as Brigitte Bardot, to the Swiss parliament on Tuesday. Dog meat is often used to make sausage, while cats are prepared around the holiday season in a similar style to rabbit, in a white wine and garlic sauce. A type of mostbröckli made from marinated cat or dog is another local favorite. Though there are no statistics available on the amount of cat and dog meat consumed by the Swiss, SOS Chats founder and president, Tomi Tomek told AFP she suspects that “around three percent of the Swiss secretly eat cat or dog.” While the commercial sale of dog meat is banned nationwide, its consumption is still legal and is particularly popular in Lucerne, Appenzell, Jura and in the canton of Bern, according to Tomek. Farmers are free to kill and eat their own animals. Those in the Appenzell and St. Gallen areas are said to favor a beefy breed of dog related to Rottweilers. In a 2012 report on pet eating in the Swiss paper Tages Anzeiger, the Swiss Veterinary Office chalked up the practice to a “cultural matter” and noted that some countries breed dogs specifically for slaughter. One farmer, defending the practice, told the paper, “There’s nothing odd about it. Meat is meat. Construction workers in particular like eating it.” This is not the first time that Swiss animal rights defenders have tried altering animal welfare law. The Swiss parliament rejected a bill banning the eating of household pets back in 1993. Encouraged by last year’s victory outlawing the sale of cat fur, SOS Chats now hope parliament will listen and forbid pet consumption once and for all. “A political leader told us parliament won’t do anything unless people revolt,” Tomek was quoted as saying in the Local.ch, the Swiss edition of the Local. “The Swiss need to take care of this themselves,” she added. Currently, Swiss farming and agriculture welfare laws do not include protection for pets. The killing of a pet can only be prosecuted if the means of slaughter was deemed to have caused unnecessary pain or suffering. Source     |
