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Asghar Bukhari
Medium.com 2015-01-07 23:00:00
Most white people don't like to admit it, but those cartoons upheld their prejudice, their racism, their political supremacy, and cut it how you will - images like that upheld a political order built on discrimination. In less than an hour of the dreadful shooting of 12 people at the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, the politicians had already started to lie to their own public. John Kerry, US Secretary of State, declared that, "freedom of expression is not able to be killed by this kind of act of terror." The media lapped it up - the attack was now spun as an attack on 'Freedom of Speech'. That cherished value that the West holds so dear. The British Government was so in love with it, that they were passing laws that demanded nursery school teachers spy on Muslim toddlers because they had too much of it. Toddlers were 'free' to speak their mind as long as it agreed with UK Government policy. Still at least it was not as draconian as Western Governments routine harassment of those they thought spoke a bit too freely. Ask Moazzam Beg, the freed Guantanamo Bay Detainee and human rights campaigner, who was falsely accused of terrorism and imprisoned for months, after flying back from Syria with damning evidence of Britain's complicity in torture in the Muslim world. | |
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| Puppet Masters |
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RT
2015-01-13 22:52:00
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday that Iran can cope with the economic turmoil of falling oil prices, adding that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will be harder hit. Rouhani said that while oil now only accounts for one-third of Tehran's budget, some of the Gulf states are up to 95 percent reliant on it. "If Iran suffers from the drop in oil prices, know that other oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will suffer more than Iran," he said. He added that "Kuwait's budget is 95 percent reliant on oil," and 90 percent of Saudi Arabia's "annual exports are related to oil." | |
Comment: With the drop in oil prices, there will be more turmoil in the world that could cause revolutions or wars to break out.
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Jamie Dettmer
Voice of America 2015-01-06 21:55:00
Iranian hard-liners are lashing out at Saudi Arabia, accusing it of conspiring with the West to keep oil prices low in a bid to harm the Islamic Republic's economy and pressure the country to conclude a nuclear deal with West. In retaliation, Iranian hawks are urging restive Shia Muslims in eastern Saudi Arabia to rebel against the ruling House of Saud. Iranian hawks' accusations have mounted over the Saudi's refusal to cut production - in an effort to maintain its share of the global oil market - fueling the precipitous slide in prices. Crude oil prices have fallen by more than half since June, from $115 a barrel to below $50. | |
Comment: Looks like this drop in oil prices is really stirring up a hornet's nest of problems that ultimately will not end well.
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Andrew Korybko
Sputnik 2014-12-30 21:51:00
NATO has formally ended its combat 13-year-long combat mission in Afghanistan, but this doesn't actually mean 'no more boots on the ground'. As a matter of fact, nearly 12,000 soldiers will remain in country until at least 2016 in order to train security forces and fight terrorism. The much-publicized withdraw is actually a drawdown, as NATO forces and responsibilities will be officially cut back in the country, not cut out of it as was misleadingly made to seem. Although the Afghans are now supposedly in charge of their own destiny, they still have the option, if mutually agreed upon, to work in coordination with the stay-behind forces to engage in combat operations and counter-terrorism missions. This effectively gives Kabul a crutch to lean on for when times get tough, meaning that at the end of the day, the government still depends on the US and NATO for its ultimate existence. Furthermore, when the Status of Forces Agreement between Afghanistan and the US is critically examined, it becomes clear that the US is still largely in charge of the country and nothing has really changed. | |
Comment: On and on it goes, where she will stop, nobody knows. Looks like the record opium crop production is also safe.
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Harrison Koehli
Sott.net 2015-01-13 19:00:00
The world is collectively mourning the vicious terror attack on a passenger bus that resulted in the deaths of 10 people in the Donetsk People's Republic today, prompting worldwide mass demonstrations and protests against the terrorism being unleashed in that country, and is calling for an international response in the form of new laws to crack down on the dramatic rise in radical terror attacks in the region. People are taking to the streets with signs saying "Je suis Donbass", borrowing from the mass show of unity with the victims of the recent terror attack in France...
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Lora Moftah
International Business Times 2015-01-13 21:14:00
Comment: The reality is that the so-called "freedoms" of the West are slowly being eroded by politicians like Aboutaleb who do exactly what they are told in reaction to events like the Charlie Hebdo shootings. Sure, for someone in a position of power like this mayor, those freedoms that are being eradicated in the name of security won't be much of a bother, but for the regular people of the world, especially anyone Muslim, it's a much different story and every day all these great freedoms that people want to point to as being the best thing about Western culture are merely just illusory. Aboutaleb would do the rest of us a favor and packing his bags and shutting his mouth. The Moroccan-born mayor of Rotterdam shocked a live television audience this week by telling Muslims who have a problem with Western culture to "pack their bags" and "f--- off." The Muslim Labour politician Ahmed Aboutaleb made the remarks during an interview with a Dutch news program about last week's deadly attacks on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and is known for his tough stance on Muslim integration in Europe,according to the U.K.'s Daily Mirror. "It is incomprehensible that you can turn against freedom... But if you don't like freedom, for heaven's sake pack your bags and leave," Aboutaleb said to the Dutch news program"Nieuwsuur" (News Hour). "If you do not like it here because some humorists you don't like are making a newspaper, may I then say you can f--- off." Aboutaleb, 53, also argued that Muslims who could not "find [their] place" in the Netherlands were causing ostracism of other Muslims in the country. "All those well-meaning Muslims here will now be stared at," he said. Muslims make up about five percentof the Netherlands' population of 16.8 million. The Rotterdam mayor became the first Muslim immigrant to lead a major European city when he was appointed to the office in 2008. Born to an imam in Morocco's Rif mountain region in 1961, Aboutaleb moved to the Netherlands when he was 15 and has often been described as a "model non-Western immigrant," according to Spiegel Online. Despite his tough stance on Muslim immigrants, Aboutaleb himself has been criticized for his own immigrant background by the far-right Dutch political leader Geert Wilders, who submitted a motion of no-confidence against the then-deputy social affairs minister in 2007 for continuing to hold on to his Moroccan passport, reported Der Spiegel. This, Wilders alleged, meant that Aboutaleb's loyalty remained to the king of Morocco rather than to the Netherlands. London mayor Boris Johnson praised Aboutaleb in the U.K.'s Telegraph on Sunday, calling him a "hero" for getting "straight to the point" in condemning the terrorist attacks in Paris, which left 17 people dead last week. "That is the voice of the Enlightenment, of Voltaire... that is the kind of voice we need to hear - and it needs above all to be a Muslim voice," he wrote.
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Vocativ
The boy previously appeared in a training video showing child soldiers from Kazakhstan being groomed for battle.2015-01-06 21:58:00
A new video released by the official Islamic State media wing, Al Hayat Media, shows a young boy executing two Russian FSB agents captured by the organization. The boy was previously featured in an ISIS propaganda film showing the training of child soldiers in Kazakhstan. | |
Comment: The FSB has refused to comment on the alleged murder of its "agents". Whatever truth there is to their statements, this is an obvious provocation from the West's proxy terror squad, and comes in the context of similar previous provocations, including threats against Chechnya:
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Annie Robbins
Mondo Weiss 2015-01-11 20:56:00
Comment: It's ironic that amid all the screaming for freedom of speech and expression, there are still those who want to stifle the rights of media, especially when it comes to pointing out Israeli crimes. Apparently to those in the Israeli government, it's perfectly fine for journalists to incite anti-Muslim sentiment, but when it comes to talking about Israeli involvement in killing journalists, they've crossed the line. Sorry Israelis, you can't have it both ways. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris last week Haaretz published a daring cartoon juxtaposing journalists* killed in Gaza by Israel during the brutal summer slaughter with the journalists killed at the office of the satirical magazine in Paris. This set off a chain reaction which ultimately led to calls for murdering Haaretz journalists after Ronen Shoval, founder of the neo-Zionist and proto-fascist Im Tirtzu movement, called for an investigation of the newspaper's editors. The offending cartoon by Noa Olchowski was published with a series of cartoons Haaretzran in their Hebrew edition, a project by the site's graphic designers to pay tribute toCharlie Hebdo cartoonists gunned down at the magazine's Paris office. Including the hashtags #JeSuisCharlie and #JeSuisGaza it reads (original Hebrew): 10 journalists killed in attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris (top), about 13 journalists killed last summer in attack on Gaza (bottom).Shoval, who is running in the primary election of the religious Zionist Habayit Hayehudi"Jewish Home" political party called for the investigation "on suspicion of 'defeatist propaganda' under Statute 103 of Israel's penal code" on his Facebook page. Users of the social media site weighed in, Haaretz reported several of the threats: A raft of death threats came in. "We must do what the terrorists did to them in France, but at Haaretz," wrote Facebook user Chai Aloni. "Why is there no terror attack at Haaretz?" wrote Moni Ponte. | |
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Jennifer Hickey
Newsmax 2015-01-06 02:01:00
Former New York Times correspondent Chris Hedges recently claimed that he was uninvited from speaking at University of Pennsylvania conference on peace in the Middle East after he penned a column comparing the foundation of Israel with the foundation of ISIS. "Being banned from speaking about the conflict between Israel and Palestine, especially at universities, is familiar to anyone who attempts to challenge the narrative of the Israel lobby. This is not the first time one of my speaking offers has been revoked and it will not be the last," Hedges wrote in a Dec. 21 column for TruthDig.com | |
Comment: Another win for 'freedom of speech'.
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Alexander Mercouris
Russia-Insider 2015-01-12 14:30:00
The economic situation in Ukraine continues to deteriorate. Incensed that Ukraine's proposed budget makes no provision to repay the $3 billion loan Russia made Ukraine last year the Russians are now threatening to call it in. In the meantime the Ukrainian central bank's reserves have fallen to just $7.5 billion - enough to cover just 5 weeks' imports. As the Financial Times is reporting (see below), there is no agreement on providing Ukraine with the extra $15 billion the IMF says it needs to get through the next few months. | |
Comment: Those in the West, despite their claims to freedom and enlightenment, have proven they are blind puppets for their psychopathic leaders. Who is protesting for the victims of NATO's Nazis in Kiev?
Also see: | |
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Michael S. Rozeff
LewRockwell.com 2015-01-11 18:32:00
Hypocrites up and down the line. Terrorists themselves. Leaders who have been stoking the furnace of terrorism themselves, creating terrorists, supplying them with arms, tolerating their education in Saudi Arabia. Hypocrites. All those leaders who have been attacking Muslim countries for years on end and supplying arms. Hypocrites. All those leaders who yell "terrorism" when it suits their grander schemes of domination. Now when there is blowback in Paris, they yell "extremism" and use the occasion to continue and enlarge the war on terror. They use it to strengthen police state surveillance and to frighten the populations under their control. The West's leaders have created terrorism, intentionally and unintentionally, knowingly and unknowingly, depending on the person and situation, and now they again are seeking to benefit from an attack on western ground. These same leaders stand by while Netanyahu engages in slaughtering Palestinians. They dismember Libya. They supply arms in Syria. They attack and destroy Iraq and Afghanistan. They now bemoan deaths for which they bear responsibility, for it is they who have invaded one Muslim country after another. | |
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Pepe Escobar
Sputnik 2015-01-12 17:56:00
The Paris unity march attended by over 40 world leaders has revealed the Western "double standard" approach concerning the freedom of speech and the battle against terrorism. What an unrivalled parade of political hypocrisy. The sight of General Hollande, Conqueror of Mali; David of Arabia Cameron; Angela "Let Eastern Ukrainians die" Merkel; Ahmed "Assad must go" Davutoglu; even King Sarko the First, Liberator of Libya; not to mention Bibi "Final Solution" Netanyahu - all marching for "freedom", "free speech" and "civilization" against barbarism in the streets of Paris would make every stalwart of Western intellectual tradition, from Diogenes to Voltaire and from Nietzsche to Karl Kraus,cringe in disgust. Seen from Asia, this political hijacking seemed even more grotesque. And no wonder a mixage went viral across Southwest Asia - home of Arab social networks; the "march for unity" in Paris coupled with Hitler and the nazis strutting their stuff with the Eiffel Tower in the background. Here's the whole "freedom of expression" debate in a nutshell. Would that ever be allowed in the front page of a Western newspaper, satirical or otherwise? | |
Comment: For more on this topic, don't miss:
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Eric Zuesse
The lifelong Russia-enemy George Soros, and the Russian Government itself, are now openly fighting over which parts of the Ukrainian Government they'll be getting in the bankruptcy proceeding that's already unofficially starting.Infowars.com 2015-01-12 22:24:00 Here's the necessary background, so that the battle now occurring on the part of Ukraine's creditors can be truthfully and honestly understood:
In December 2013 - just before the overthrow of the Russia-friendly Ukrainian Government of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, by Soros's American President and major political-campaign investment, Barack Obama - Russia lent Ukraine $3 billion with a contract saying that if Ukraine's debt would rise above 60% of Ukraine's GDP, then Russia would be able to demand immediate repayment, and Ukraine agreed to the contract's condition that Ukraine wouldn't pay a cent to any other creditor before the entire due-balance on this $3 billion loan is returned to Russia. Then, on 4 February 2014, Victoria Nuland of Obama's State Department selected Ukrainian banker Arseniy Yatsenyuk as the person to take control over Ukraine as soon asObama's Ukrainian coup would occur, which turned out to be 18 days later, on February 22nd. Soros's and Obama's plan was to privatize as much of the Ukrainian Government as possible in a fire-sale of its assets, such as the valuable gas-fields in the Yuzivska region in Ukraine's southeast (where the civil war now is), so that Soros and the other investors would be able to get their money back, with interest. Furthermore, inasmuch as only Soros and other insiders would be in on this fire-sale, those same people would also be the bidders; and thus Ukraine's assets would be sold to them at prices far lower than their actual worth as economic investments for the future. This would turn their prior Ukrainian bonds into super-discounted equity or stock in what now are Ukrainian Government-owned gas-fields, electrical power companies, factories, etc. Furthermore,Western agribusiness giants are now coming into Western Ukraine to buy up Ukrainian farmland, which is among the world's most-fertile. Comment: Soros has been heavily involved in creating chaos in Ukraine, so as to enrich himself enormously. Now that things are turning pear shaped, the vulture capitalist is getting more and more desperate to get his pound of flesh. | |
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Today's Zaman
2015-01-12 14:01:00
Ankara Mayor Melih Gökçek has alleged that last week's deadly attacks on a French satirical magazine and a kosher supermarket in Paris that left 17 people dead are the result of France expressing support for Palestine, and that Israeli intelligence is behind the attacks, the semi-official Anadolu news agency reported. According to a report from Anadolu circulating in the Turkish media, Gökçek attended the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Gölbaşı youth branch fourth ordinary district congress on Sunday and mentioned the terrorist attacks in France. He said Israel was annoyed with the lower house of French parliament for voting for the recognition of a Palestinian state and with France's vote in favor of a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution calling for the same recognition. "Israel certainly doesn't want this sentiment to expand in Europe. That's why it is certain that Mossad is behind these kinds of incidents. Mossad enflames Islamophobia by causing such incidents," Gökçek said. | |
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Yahoo! News
2015-01-13 03:33:00
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday blasted Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu for "daring" to attend an anti-terror solidarity march in Paris, accusing him of leading "state terrorism" against the Palestinians. The comments, at a press conference in Ankara with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, were the latest verbal assault against Netanyahu by Erdogan under whose rule Turkey's relations with Israel have steadily deteriorated. He said he could "hardly understand how he (Netanyahu) dared to go" to Sunday's massive march in the French capital and urged him to "give an account for the children, women you massacred." | |
Comment:
Bibi the war criminal godfather!!!! pic.twitter.com/bswhz3ReeV
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Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com 2015-01-12 00:57:00
It was only natural that "world leaders" would place themselves at the head of the Paris "unity" demonstration held to express outrage at the vicious Charlie Hebdo murders. Daniel Wickham, a student at the London School of Economics, compiled a list of the enemies of free speech who elbowed their way to the head of the march. Most hypocritical of all are the French themselves, who have laws against "hate speech" which are only selectively enforced and which have been used against the editors of Charlie Hebdo in the past. This cognitive dissonance was eloquently expressed by one Frenchman who carried a sign saying: "I'm marching but I'm conscious of the confusion and hypocrisy of the situation." That politicians would steal the spotlight and turn the sincere outrage of millions into an opportunity for self-advertisement is hardly surprising. Sincerity has its uses, however, and these will become apparent in the days and weeks to come. Those marchers will soon be cheering their soldiers as they go marching off to war, with "Je suis Charlie" inscribed on their banners. | |
Comment: How convenient. It almost sounds scripted, doesn't it? That's because it was. The West wants war in Syria, so they create some puppets who say "Come and get us!", and the West is only too happy to oblige.
And speaking of smarmy political opportunism, Netanyahu deserves special kudos:Hollande didn't want Netanyahu in Paris for march - he came anyway | |
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| Society's Child |
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Nina Golgowski
NY Daily News 2015-01-12 22:59:00
One person is dead and dozens more are injured after smoke poured into one of Washington, D.C.'s busiest metro stations Monday, creating what authorities described as a "mass casualty" incident. The heavy smoke began billowing out of L'Enfant Plaza Metro Station around 3 p.m. after a disabled train became trapped inside an underground tunnel, DC Fire and EMS reported. At least 83 people were taken to area hospitals for treatment, including a firefighter, and two were critically injured, authorities said. "We have one fatality, a woman who was in distress on the train, which I'm very sorry to report," Metro General Manager and CEO Richard Sarles said at a press briefing.
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Tom Phillips
The Telegraph 2015-01-13 22:15:00
A restaurant in central China is offering free meals to its most attractive clients. The Jeju Island restaurant, a Korean eatery in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou, says the 50 most handsome people to arrive at its gates each day will be spared paying their bills. Those hoping for a free lunch have their looks evaluated by a panel of local plastic surgeons whose tummy-tucking talents the restaurant is attempting to promote. Before eating guests are taken to a "beauty identification area" where they are photographed and considered. Potential diners are judged on the quality of their faces, eyes, noses and mouths. Protruding foreheads are a particular advantage, according to reports. As news of the promotion spread, Chinese internet users debated how they might fare at the restaurant. | |
Comment: A preoccupation with superficiality is usually associated with the West, but as we can see here the values of the West have spread to the East. It's surely not a good sign.
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Tiffany Pelt
Kvue.com 2015-01-13 13:44:00
Killeen Police and Fort Hood Military Police currently have a home blocked off on the 3300 block of Cantebrian Drive where a man was found dead in a yard Tuesday morning. Fort Hood officials confirm the man is a soldier who recently returned from a deployment to West Africa. Officials say there are no indications the soldier had Ebola, however medical personnel at Carl R. Darnall Medical Center are running tests as a precaution to make sure there is no threat to the community. Troops returning from West Africa must undergo a 21-day monitoring period at a controlled monitoring site on post. Officials say this soldier was granted an emergency leave that was not medical related and involved a family emergency, according to officials. It is not known if the soldier was hospitalized or if the family emergency was a false report. The soldier was under self monitoring where he had to check in with officials twice a day before his family emergency. | |
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Gretchen Livingston
Pew Research Center 2014-12-22 21:38:00
Less than half (46%) of U.S. kids younger than 18 years of age are living in a home with two married heterosexual parents in their first marriage. This is a marked change from 1960, when 73% of children fit this description, and 1980, when 61% did, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of recently-released American Community Survey (ACS) and Decennial Census data. Rapid changes in American family structure have altered the image of who's gathering for the holidays. While the old "ideal" involved couples marrying young, then starting a family, and staying married till "death do they part", the family has become more complex, and less "traditional". Americans are delaying marriage, and more may be foregoing the institutionaltogether. At the same time, the share of children born outside of marriage now stands at 41%, up from just 5% in 1960. While debate continues as to whether divorce rates have been rising or falling in recent decades, it's clear that in the longer term, the share of people who have been previously married is rising, as isremarriage.
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Comment: It can be very traumatic for a child to experience the divorce of their parents, and according to these numbers that experience is more and more common in today's modern world. That no doubt has an affect on society since those children are affected by the experience into adulthood. Perhaps it's one more reason why U.S. society is becoming more and more insane?
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Phyllis M. Daugherty
Opposing Views 2015-01-13 20:25:00
Wilson Longanecker, Jr., who served as a town councilman and then as Mayor of Sorrento, Louisiana, from 2011 to 2013, was arrested Dec. 29 on four counts of cruelty to animals and three counts of aggravated cruelty to animals, according to the Advocate. The Advocate also reports that, at that time, Longanecker had already been in custody in Ascension Parish prison since Oct. 23, facing 42 counts of possessing child pornography and one count of obstruction of justice, with bail set at $1.025 million. Sorrento is a town in Ascension Parish, near Baton Rouge. Officials with the Northside Humane Society and the Capital Area Animal Welfare Society (CAAWS) were shocked and recalled that on a Saturday, July 7, 2012, the former mayor had stopped by a PetSmart adoption event held at its store in Baton Rouge and he had bottle-fed two newborn kittens that had lost their mother. Longanecker, 42, came to the store by himself that day and said he was looking for cats to adopt because he wanted his children to have cats in his big house in Sorrento. He promised the rescuers, "They'll be spoiled," Lori D'Arensbourg, president of the Northside Humane Society told Advocate reporter David J. Mitchell. D'Arensbourg and other cat rescue volunteers were upset and very worried about the cats he adopted that day when they learned this week that Longanecker was arrested on seven counts of animal cruelty involving cats. Although D'Arensbourg and Stacey Orillion, cat chairperson of the Capital Area Animal Welfare Society, said it is unusual for someone to adopt cats for his children by himself,Longanecker's charm won their confidence; and he adopted from both agencies without home checks. Comment: A hallmark trait of the psychopathic personality is their charm and ability to manipulate other people. Empathetic people, like the kind that would work an animal welfare organization, are natural targets for them. They told the Advocate reporter that Longanecker filled out the screening questionnaires and applications and paid fees of $80 - $100 each for three cats and had his photo taken with them. | |
Comment: From an interview with Robert Hare:
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Rachel O'Brien
Yahoo! News 2015-01-06 00:00:00
Members of the Gade family proudly show off a stash of Indian rupees kept in an unlocked tin barrel in their bedroom, despite their home not having a front door. In Shani Shingnapur village in western India, residents see little need for such security,thanks to their belief in special protection from the Hindu deity Shani. As farmers trundle the roads in bullock carts piled high with sugarcane, they pass rows of homes bearing empty door frames - - a village tradition that goes back for generations. "Years ago, Shani came in the dreams of devotees and told them you don't need to put any doors on your homes," housewife Jayashree Gade told AFP. | |
Comment: India is a land of superstition: in some parts of the country, Shani is considered a god of bad luck.
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Counter Current News
2014-11-30 20:13:00
In all of the melee resulting from the shooting of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson, the media has overlooked a number of other very important shootings of unarmed civilians by police officers. One of the most egregious offenses is that of Officer Joseph Weekley's fatal shooting of 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones. Officer Weekley recently saw manslaughter charge dropped against him, for shooting the 7-year-old while she slept. The Detroit police officer had been on trial for involuntary manslaughter for shooting and killing the young girl during a 2010 police raid. But early in October, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway granted a motion which Weekley's attorney had filed, arguing for the dismissal of the felony charge he faced in the young girl's death. The trial was brought to an end while the Michigan Court of Appeals reviewed an emergency appeal of the ruling. Presiding Judge Michael Talbot issued the order to deny the appeal and allow the judge's dismal to stand. | |
Comment: In the USA, you can shoot and kill a sleeping child and get away with it, as long as you're a police officer and on duty. No matter what the cops do, the system protects them, again and again.
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Ali Meyer
The number of beneficiaries on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) - AKA food stamps--has topped 46,000,000 for 38th straight month, according to data released by the Department of Agriculture (USDA).CNSNews 2015-01-13 09:24:00 In October 2014, the latest month reported, there were 46,674,364 Americans on food stamps. Food stamp recipients have exceeded 46 million since September 2011.
The 46,674,364 on food stamps in October was an increase of 214,434 from the 46,459,930 on food stamps in September. As of July, the national population was 318,857,056, the Census Bureau estimates. Thus, the 46,674,364 on food stamps equaled 14.6 percent of the population. The number of households on food stamps increased from 22,749,951 in September to 22,867,248 in October, an increase of 117,297. As of September, according to the Census Bureau, there were 115,831,000 households in the country. Thus, the 22,867,248 households on food stamps in October equaled 19.7 percent of the nation's households. The 46,674,364 people on food stamps in the United States also exceeded the total populations of Columbia (46,245,297), Kenya (46,245,297), Ukraine (44,291,413) and Argentina (43,024,374). They were slightly fewer than the population of Spain (47,737,941). Households on food stamps got an average benefit of $261.44 during the month, and total benefits for the month cost taxpayers $5,978,320,593. | |
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Sott.net
2015-01-13 18:40:00
In this episode of RT's Breaking the Set, Abby Martin goes over the most outrageous responses to the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris and why the clash of civilizations mentality when it comes to these type of acts is so misleading. She then interviews Chris Hedges, author of a recent article on the attacks (available here). Her introduction is a must-watch. France, and Europe in general, are willingly spiraling into a racist gutter of a mindset, which is exactly what their masters want. Indeed, it's the reason the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the kosher supermarket were planned and executed.
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Al Jazeera
2015-01-12 23:14:00
Two Albuquerque police officers were charged with murder Monday in the March killing of a homeless camper, a shooting that generated sometimes violent protests around the southwestern city and brought new scrutiny to the police department amid a federal investigation. The shooting occurred during a year when police tactics came under intense scrutiny around the U.S., fueled by the fatal shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri, and the chokehold death of another unarmed man in New York City. Grand juries declined to charge officers in those cases, leading to protests. Albuquerque police said SWAT team member Dominique Perez and former detective Keith Sandy fatally shot 38-year-old James Boyd after a four-hour standoff in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains. Video from an officer's helmet camera showed Boyd, who authorities say was mentally ill, appearing to surrender when officers opened fire. Accused of illegally camping, Boyd was armed with two small knives, the Albuquerque Journal reported. "Unlike Ferguson and unlike in New York City, we're going to know. The public is going to have that information," said District Attorney Kari Brandenburg. She said she decided to bring murder charges and avoid a grand jury to heighten transparency. Comment: We'll see how transparent the proceedings are. Grand jury proceedings are closed to the public. The shooting prompted protests critical of the Albuquerque police department, which the federal government found has used excessive force against civilians. The city is now subject to federal monitoring. | |
Comment: It's pretty obvious from the video that James was murdered. Did the DA all of a sudden acquire a conscience? It's interesting that over 9 months later, the City decides to file charges against these psychopaths. It may be an attempt to release the pressure valve on public anger, and the recent protests that have brought a lot of attention to police brutality and our growing police state.
Listen to a recent SOTT Blog Talk Radio show where the editors discuss the excessive brutality and militarization of the police force. See also: Homeless man shot to death by police while "illegally camping" in the foothills of New Mexico | |
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filmingcops.com
2015-01-11 00:00:00
Citizens in Stockton, California have taken a new approach to activism. Rather than sticking to the traditional form of protest in which signs are held and slogans are chanted, these citizens have taken direct action and offered a grassroots, crowd-funded incentive structure to end police brutality in their community. They have offered a $2,500 reward to anybody who submits information leading to the arrest or termination of cops who brutalize or kill people. They were able to let people know about the offer by printing all the details on flyers and spreading them throughout their community. The flyer specifically names 15 cops as a start, and includes pictures of at least 10 cops who have been involved in either the brutalization or killing of Americans. The words "Know Your Killer Cops" are printed on the flyers, along with instructions to film any police brutality and a location where the footage can be submitted. "Stockton police have been getting away with terrorizing our citizens for far too long," the flyer says. "It is time to take back our streets." | |
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Matthew Stabley, Jackie Bensen,
NBC Washington 2015-01-12 20:01:00
One woman is dead and dozens of other people were hospitalized, two in critical condition, after the upper level of the L'Enfant Plaza Metro station in southeast D.C. filled with smoke Monday afternoon. One Virginia-bound Yellow Line train was in the tunnel just south of the station when the smoke was reported about 3:20 p.m., according to Metro. "There was a woman who was in distress on that train, and I'm sorry to say she's passed away," Metro General Manager and Chief Executive Officer Richard Sarles said. The Metropolitan Police Department will take the lead in the death investigation, Sarles said. | |
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John Vibes
Informationliberation 2015-01-10 18:03:00
Local politicians in cities and towns across America have implemented laws that will ban children from sledding. Town officials in Dubuque, Iowa for example, have banned sledding in 48 of its 50 parks because they fear that children will get hurt and that their parents could sue the city. "We have all kinds of parks that have hills on them. We can't manage the risk at all of those places," Marie Ware, Dubuque's leisure services manager told reporters. "Everybody likes sledding, OK? Everyone wants to promote |
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