Wednesday 31 December 2014

Nature’s Medicine Versus Big Pharma

The word heroin has many negative connotations associated with it, and what many people don’t know is that a lot of painkillers are basically the same thing. Painkiller use has reached alarming levels in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has classified the misuse of painkillers to be at an epidemic level. This has even prompted the FDA to consider changing the classification system of these drugs in an effort to tackle the issue with abuse surrounding their prescription and consumption.
According to statistics from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the number of painkillers sold at retail establishments increased 90 percent between 1997 and 2005. Oxycodone, used in OxyContin, is responsible for most of the increase, with its own use having risen over 600% within the same time frame. Deaths due to overdose from opioid painkillers have also surpassed deaths from heroin and cocaine. Opioid pain relievers caused 14,800 overdose deaths in 2008 alone. Meanwhile, deaths due to overdose from marijuana remain at the expected tally of zero. DEA figures show that between 2000 and 2010, distribution of oxycodone, used in OxyContin, Percocet, and Percodan, saw sales increase sixteen-fold.
“In the United States, enough painkillers were prescribed in 2010 to medicate every American adult around the clock for one month.” – Amel Ahmed
It is clear that prescription drug abuse is prevalent in our society, and that its use is continuing to increase dramatically. Perhaps this attitude contributes to the fact that marijuana use is becoming more widespread and socially acceptable, even persuading some nations and states to consider its legalization. Marijuana has proven to be effective in treating a myriad of ailments, including seizures, it has even been shown to treat cancer.
Arguably, cannabis may even be the best natural source we have available for disease and cancer-fighting treatment. The painkiller use is even driving some individuals to purchase morphine, claiming that it is tenth the price of their “favorite pill”. Just because painkillers can be obtained “legally” doesn’t mean they are any less dangerous than heroin, crack, or other “illegal” drugs off the street. Their purity is more guaranteed, but that doesn’t make them necessarily less harmful. You are feeling pain because there is a problem somewhere, and painkillers don’t treat the problem, they just treat symptoms and cover the problem up.
weed34
If you are experiencing pain because you suffer from chronic inflammation as an example, then changing your diet, and/or choosing natural, anti-inflammatory substances, is a healthier choice for battling your discomfort than consuming synthetic painkillers. Addiction is a foul social curse, and we as a nation treat addicts like criminals, whether or not they have committed any non drug-use related crime. Although, millions of Americans do suffer from chronic pain and illness, perhaps it would benefit the citizenry more if doctors would take a more active interest in the diet of their patients.
It is an undeniable truth that certain foods we eat can cause excess inflammation in our bodies. If you have excess inflammation in your body it can lead to a variety of physical impairments, including pain. One might wonder why we need and only legalize totally synthetic prescription medications for painkilling purposes, when hundreds of studies have demonstrated that concentrated cannabinoids in cannabis oil have been shown to be of the strongest painkillers known to man. Marijuana has also been shown to effectively offer relief to aids and cancer patients, and is also believed to help cure cancer. Alternative methods to prescription painkillers are often much safer and not as addictive (if at all). When an individual gets addicted to these synthetic substances, they can suffer from severe withdrawal symptoms. They will also find that there is a crucial lack in treatment facilities, and lack of space available within those existing. Treatment can also come with a very high price tag, and many are unable to afford any effective treatment to cure their painkiller addiction.
The solution to the painkiller epidemic may lie in the broad legalization and DE-criminalization of the natural substance, cannabis. Uruguay, Colorado and Washington are progressively open-minded about altering archaic drug laws, and are leading the transition toward legalization, with other nations, and states in the US looking to follow suit.
Cannabinoids have been shown to kill cancer cells in many cases, and they can help our bodies to holistically, along with our biochemistry, restore balance. While the debate rages on for those in favor or against legalizing marijuana, more frequently the anti-marijuana myths are being debunked and ridiculed. And the truth about the variety of benefits from its consumption are becoming better known.
Health is a complicated issue, and often natural substances are more effective because they contain lots of different molecules and therefor help several different systems and deals with the causes. Prescription medication largely treats symptoms, and often takes a high toll on the liver and also likely our gut flora. How much longer can the establishment and big pharmaceutical companies continue this horrifying charade
SOURCE 



Nature’s Medicine Versus Big Pharma

Chicago’s Dirtbag Anti-Gun Mayor Needs Armed Secret Service But Leaves Everyone Else Unprotected

Earlier this month, Emanuel’s son, Zach, was mugged just outside of the prominent Democrat’s home. In response, reports indicate Chicago police were on the scene in a fraction of the time such calls generally take to complete. Even on a typical day, documents show multiple officers are assigned to guard Emanuel’s home around the clock.
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A local Fox affiliate noticed that even this level of armed protection is apparently not sufficient for Barack Obama’s former chief of staff. WFLD captured a sign posted in front of the residence after the recent attack warning that the premises are off-limits and being protected by the U.S. Secret Service.
Guns for me but not for thee: Rahm Emanuel doesn’t want you to have guns, but he’s got ‘em. All over. http://t.co/ULxGDaqwOF
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanJFischer) December 30, 2014
As The Daily Caller noted, mayors are not among the public figures typically afforded such protection. According to the department’s website, Secret Service agents are only authorized by law to protect a limited range of individuals without an executive order from the president.
Hypocrite. Anti-Gun Rahm Emanuel’s Yard Sign Warns Burglars That He Has Armed Secret Service http://t.co/QEy28JJlIR #2A #GunRights
— Hank Rearden (@mlkahnke) December 30, 2014
New Height Of Hypocrisy… Anti-Gun Rahm Emanuel’s Yard Sign Warns Burglars That He Has Armed Secret Service http://t.co/4L21bJRAlY
— Sally LeMaster (@SallyLeMaster) December 30, 2014

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Intel files patent for real-time facial recognition system

Intel Korea research engineer Wooju Ryu describes the face detection method in the U.S. Patent Application No. 20140341430, titled “Method and Device for Detecting Face, and Non-Transitory Computer-Readable Recording Medium for Executing the Method”.

Ryu writes that the method calls for the breaking up an input image into a set number of regions, then resizing those image regions and conducting both face detection and face tracking operations on the divided and resized regions.

By partitioning the input images, the individual is able to cut down the amount of time it takes for portable devices to process face detection in real time.

Intel continues to make a strong push into the biometric and wearable technology market through a series of developments and partnerships, such creating a new developer’s platform for the Internet of 

Things, a sector that is closely related to wearable technology.

The company recently announced it has developed a new line of processors that powers the Asus PadFone X smartphone.

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The Prison State Of America

SOURCE: CHRIS HEDGES VIA TRUTHDIG

Prisons employ and exploit the ideal worker. Prisoners do not receive benefits or pensions. They are not paid overtime. They are forbidden to organize and strike. They must show up on time. They are not paid for sick days or granted vacations. They cannot formally complain about working conditions or safety hazards. If they are disobedient, or attempt to protest their pitiful wages, they lose their jobs and can be sent to isolation cells. The roughly 1 million prisoners who work for corporations and government industries in the American prison system are models for what the corporate state expects us all to become. And corporations have no intention of permitting prison reforms that would reduce the size of their bonded workforce. In fact, they are seeking to replicate these conditions throughout the society.
States, in the name of austerity, have stopped providing prisoners with essential items including shoes, extra blankets and even toilet paper, while starting to charge them for electricity and room and board. Most prisoners and the families that struggle to support them are chronically short of money. Prisons are company towns. Scrip, rather than money, was once paid to coal miners, and it could be used only at the company store. Prisoners are in a similar condition. When they go broke—and being broke is a frequent occurrence in prison—prisoners must take out prison loans to pay for medications, legal and medical fees and basic commissary items such as soap and deodorant. Debt peonage inside prison is as prevalent as it is outside prison.
States impose an array of fees on prisoners. For example, there is a 10 percent charge imposed by New Jersey on every commissary purchase. Stamps have a 10 percent surcharge. Prisoners must pay the state for a 15-minute deathbed visit to an immediate family member or a 15-minute visit to a funeral home to view the deceased. New Jersey, like most other states, forces a prisoner to reimburse the system for overtime wages paid to the two guards who accompany him or her, plus mileage cost. The charge can be as high as $945.04. It can take years to pay off a visit with a dying father or mother.
Fines, often in the thousands of dollars, are assessed against many prisoners when they are sentenced.There are 22 fines that can be imposed in New Jersey, including the Violent Crime Compensation Assessment (VCCB), the Law Enforcement Officers Training & Equipment Fund (LEOT) and Extradition Costs (EXTRA). The state takes a percentage each month out of prison pay to pay down the fines, a process that can take decades. If a prisoner who is fined $10,000 at sentencing must rely solely on a prison salary he or she will owe about $4,000 after making payments for 25 years. Prisoners can leave prison in debt to the state. And if they cannot continue to make regular payments—difficult because of high unemployment—they are sent back to prison. High recidivism is part of the design.
Corporations have privatized most of the prison functions once handled by governments. They run prison commissaries and, since the prisoners have nowhere else to shop, often jack up prices by as much as 100 percent. Corporations have taken over the phone systems and charge exorbitant fees to prisoners and their families. They grossly overcharge for money transfers from families to prisoners. And these corporations, some of the nation’s largest, pay little more than a dollar a day to prison laborers who work in for-profit prison industries. Food and merchandise vendors, construction companies, laundry services, uniforms companies, prison equipment vendors, cafeteria services, manufacturers of pepper spray, body armor and the array of medieval instruments used for the physical control of prisoners, and a host of other contractors feed like jackals off prisons. Prisons, in America, are a hugely profitable business.
Our prison-industrial complex, which holds 2.3 million prisoners, or 25 percent of the world’s prison population, makes money by keeping prisons full. It demands bodies, regardless of color, gender or ethnicity. As the system drains the pool of black bodies, it has begun to incarcerate others. Women—the fastest-growing segment of the prison population—are swelling prisons, as are poor whites in general, Hispanics and immigrants. Prisons are no longer a black-white issue. Prisons are a grotesque manifestation of corporate capitalism. Slavery is legal in prisons under the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It reads: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States. …” And the massive U.S. prison industry functions like the forced labor camps that have existed in all totalitarian states. 
Corporate investors, who have poured billions into the business of mass incarceration, expect long-term returns. And they will get them. It is their lobbyists who write the draconian laws that demand absurdly long sentences, deny paroles, determine immigrant detention laws and impose minimum-sentence and three-strikes-out laws (mandating life sentences after three felony convictions). The politicians and the courts, subservient to corporate power, can be counted on to protect corporate interests.
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest owner of for-profit prisons and immigration detention facilities in the country, had revenues of $1.7 billion in 2013 and profits of $300 million. CCA holds an average of 81,384 inmates in its facilities on any one day. Aramark Holdings Corp., a Philadelphia-based company that contracts through Aramark Correctional Services to provide food to 600 correctional institutions across the United States, was acquired in 2007 for $8.3 billion by investors that included Goldman Sachs.
The three top for-profit prison corporations spent an estimated $45 million over a recent 10-year period for lobbying that is keeping the prison business flush. The resource center In the Public Interest documented in its report “Criminal: How Lockup Quotas and ‘Low-Crime Taxes’ Guarantee Profits for Private Prison Corporations” that private prison companies often sign state contracts that guarantee prison occupancy rates of 90 percent. If states fail to meet the quota they have to pay the corporations for the empty beds. 
CCA in 2011 gave $710,300 in political contributions to candidates for federal or state office, political parties and so-called 527 groups (PACs and super PACs), the American Civil Liberties Union reported. The corporation also spent $1.07 million lobbying federal officials plus undisclosed sums to lobby state officials, according to the ACLU.
The United States, from 1970 to 2005, increased its prison population by about 700 percent, according to statistics gathered by the ACLU. The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, the ACLU report notes, says for-profit companies presently control about 18 percent of federal prisoners and 6.7 percent of all state prisoners. Private prisons account for nearly all newly built prisons. And nearly half of all immigrants detained by the federal government are shipped to for-profit prisons, according to Detention Watch Network.
But corporate profit is not limited to building and administering prisons. Whole industries now rely almost exclusively on prison labor. Federal prisoners, who are among the highest paid in the U.S. system, making as much as $1.25 an hour, produce the military’s helmets, uniforms, pants, shirts, ammunition belts, ID tags and tents. Prisoners work, often through subcontractors, for major corporations such as Chevron, Bank of America, IBM, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Starbucks, Nintendo, Victoria’s Secret, J.C. Penney, Sears, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Eddie Bauer, Wendy’s, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Fruit of the Loom, Motorola, Caterpillar, Sara Lee, Quaker Oats, Mary Kay, Microsoft, Texas Instruments, Dell, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Nordstrom’s, Revlon, Macy’s, Pierre Cardin and Target. Prisoners in some states run dairy farms, staff call centers, take hotel reservations or work in slaughterhouses. And prisoners are used to carry out public services such as collecting highway trash in states such as Ohio. 
States, with shrinking budgets, share in the corporate exploitation. They get kickbacks of as much as 40 percent from corporations that prey on prisoners. This kickback money is often supposed to go into “inmate welfare funds,” but prisoners say they rarely see any purchases made by the funds to improve life inside prison.
The wages paid to prisoners for labor inside prisons have remained stagnant and in real terms have declined over the past three decades. In New Jersey a prisoner made $1.20 for eight hours of work—yes, eight hours of work—in 1980 and today makes $1.30 for a day’s labor. Prisoners earn, on average, $28 a month. Those incarcerated in for-profit prisons earn as little as 17 cents an hour.
However, items for sale in prison commissaries have risen in price over the past two decades by as much as 100 percent. And new rules in some prisons, including those in New Jersey, prohibit families to send packages to prisoners, forcing prisoners to rely exclusively on prison vendors. This is as much a psychological blow as a material one; it leaves families feeling powerless to help loved ones trapped in the system.
A bar of Dove soap in 1996 cost New Jersey prisoners 97 cents. Today it costs $1.95, an increase of 101 percent. A tube of Crest toothpaste cost $2.35 in 1996 and today costs $3.49, an increase of 48 percent. AA batteries have risen by 184 percent, and a stick of deodorant has risen by 95 percent. The only two items I found that remained the same in price from 1996 were frosted flake cereal and cups of noodles, but these items in prisons have been switched from recognizable brand names to generic products. The white Reebok shoes that most prisoners wear, shoes that lasts about six months, costs about $45 a pair. Those who cannot afford the Reebok brand must buy, for $20, shoddy shoes with soles that shred easily. In addition, prisoners are charged for visits to the infirmary and the dentist and for medications.
Keefe Supply Co., which runs commissaries for an estimated half a million prisoners in states including Florida and Maryland, is notorious for price gouging. It sells a single No. 10 white envelope for 15 cents—$15 per 100 envelopes. The typical retail cost outside prison for a box of 100 of these envelopes is $7. The company marks up a 3-ounce packet of noodle soup, one of the most popular commissary items, to 45 cents from 26 cents.
Global Tel Link, a private phone company, jacks up phone rates in New Jersey to 15 cents a minute, although some states, such as New York, have relieved the economic load on families by reducing the charge to 4 cents a minute. The Federal Communications Commission has determined that a fair rate for a 15-minute interstate call by a prisoner is $1.80 for debit and $2.10 for collect. The high phone rates imposed on prisoners, who do not have a choice of carriers and must call either collect or by using debit accounts that hold prepaid deposits made by them or their families, are especially damaging to the 2 million children with a parent behind bars. The phone is a lifeline for the children of the incarcerated.
Monopolistic telephone contracts give to the states kickbacks amounting, on average, to 42 percent of gross revenues from prisoner phone calls, according to Prison Legal News. The companies with exclusive prison phone contracts not only charge higher phone rates but add to the phone charges the cost of the kickbacks, called “commissions” by state agencies, according to research conducted in 2011 by John E. Dannenberg for Prison Legal News. Dannenberg found that the phone market in state prison systems generates an estimated $362 million annually in gross revenues for the states and costs prisoners’ families, who put money into phone accounts, some $143 million a year.
When strong family ties are retained, there are lower rates of recidivism and fewer parole violations. But that is not what the corporate architects of prisons want: High recidivism, now at over 60 percent, keeps the cages full. This is one reason, I suspect, why prisons make visitations humiliating and difficult. It is not uncommon for prisoners to tell their families—especially those that include small children traumatized by the security screening, long waits, body searches, clanging metal doors and verbal abuse by guards—not to visit. Prisoners with life sentences frequently urge loved ones to sever all ties with them and consider them as dead.
The rise of what Marie Gottschalk, the author of “Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics,” calls “the carceral state” is ominous. It will not be reformed through elections or by appealing to political elites or the courts. Prisons are not, finally, about race, although poor people of color suffer the most. They are not even about being poor. They are prototypes for the future. They are emblematic of the disempowerment and exploitation that corporations seek to inflict on all workers. If corporate power continues to disembowel the country, if it is not impeded by mass protests and revolt, life outside prison will soon resemble life in prison.

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Obama Says He Is Improving the World

He asserts: “wherever we have been involved over the last several years, I think the outcome has been better because of American leadership.”

U.S. President Barack Obama said in a December 30th Oval Office interview with Steve Inskeep of National Public Radio, that, “wherever we have been involved over the last several years, I think the outcome has been better because of American leadership.” This statement from him was part of his answer when Inskeep asked whether the President had regrets about “overthrowing the Gadhafi regime” in Libya.
Obama answered:
“We are hugely influential; we’re the one indispensable nation. But when it comes to nation-building, when it comes to what is going to be a generational project in a place like Libyaor a place like Syria or a place like Iraq, we can help, but we can’t do it for them.” In other words: the Libyan people failed, and the Syrian people failed, and the Iraqi people failed, according to America’s President — but he himself and his predecessor Bush did not fail by bombing those countries under false pretenses as they did.
Obama then pivoted into a direct criticism of Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin. He started his attack here by praising himself for “having some strategic patience. You’ll recall that three or four months ago, everybody in Washington was convinced that President Putin was a genius.” Obama was suggesting that the real genius was himself, for his “strategic patience.”
Inskeep (who apparently was ignorant that the people of Crimea had always opposed the donation of Crimea from Russia to Ukraine by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954, and who was also ignorant that Crimeans in March 2014 were delighted to be reunited again with Russia and had not been “taken” by Russia but were instead saved by Russia from the fate that befell Donbass) interjected, there, that Obama meant that Putin was thought to be a “genius” “for taking Crimea.” Inskeep was here trying to clarify Obama’s reference by the “genius” term; and, in doing so, Inskeep falsely assumed that Crimea had been seized, against the will of Crimeans.
The President skillfully built upon Inskeep’s ignorance, and anti-Russian bias, here, by playing along with Inskeep’s false intrinsic assumption, and by continuing directly from it in such a way as to present himself as being the real “genius”; he asserted, “And he had outmaneuvered all of us and he had, you know, bullied and, you know, strategized his way into expanding Russian power. And I said at the time we don’t want war with Russia [even though his February 2014 anti-Russian coup in Ukraine and actions afterwards show otherwise] but we can apply steady pressure working with our European partners, being the backbone of an international coalition to oppose Russia’s violation of another country’s sovereignty [as if it weren’t the case that two recent Gallup polls in Crimea showed an overwhelming public support there for leaving Ukraine and for reuniting with Russia, and as if it weren’t the case that America’s takeover of Ukraine on Russia’s border hadn’t been the aggressive act here], and that over time, this would be a strategic mistake by Russia [when, in fact, Obama knows quite well that the people he installed in his February coup in Ukraine had already been initiating the process to kick out of Crimea, Russia’s crucial Black Sea Fleet, which had been stationed there since 1783, and that this reversal of Khrushchev’s 1954 gift of Crimea to Ukraine was crucial for Russia’s own national security]. And today, you know, I’d sense that at least outside of Russia [such as among the trusting listeners to NPR], maybe some people are thinking what Putin did wasn’t so smart [when Obama knows quite well that what Putin did by his re-absorbing Crimea back into Russia was actually vital to Russian national security under the circumstances of Obama’s February coup in Ukraine].”
Inskeep responded to Obama’s distortions, with what he perhaps hoped his listeners would think to be a challenging question to the President: “Are you just lucky that the price of oil went down and therefore their currency collapsed or … is it something that you did?” Inskeep was apparently quite ignorant there that Obama’s Secretary of State had met in Riyadh with the Saudi King on September 11th widely viewed as having actually produced the King’s decision to flood oil markets in order to drive oil prices so low as to cripple Russia’s economy, so that Inskeep’s question here was assuming a non-existent polarity, in any case (between the sanctions from Obama, vs. the falling oil-price, which was supposedly not from Obama).
Obama answered Inskeep’s ignorance there by triumphantly bragging against Putin: 
“If you’ll recall, their economy was already contracting and capital was fleeing even before oil collapsed. And part of our rationale in this process was that the only thing keeping that economy afloat was the price of oil. [Actually, Russia’s economy under Putin had been growing much faster than had the U.S. economy under the George W. Bush and Barack Obama regime.] And if, in fact, we were steady in applying sanction pressure, which we have been, that over time it would make the economy of Russia sufficiently vulnerable that if and when there were disruptions with respect to the price of oil — which, inevitably, there are going to be sometime, if not this year then next year or the year after [which also is a lie from him because the current low oil price is the engineered price, and even the Saudis will have to quit doing it within a few years] — that they’d have enormous difficulty managing it. I say that, not to suggest that we’ve solved Ukraine [by producing the civil war there?], but I’m saying that to give an indication that when it comes to the international stage, these problems are big, they’re difficult, they’re messy [like America’s coups were in Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973, etc.]. But wherever we have been involved over the last several years, I think the outcome has been better because of American leadership.”
So, the particular instance in which America’s President feels proudest of having produced an “outcome [that] has been better because of American leadership” was in Ukraine, where Obama’s policy produced a takeover of the Ukrainian Government by racist anti-Russian fascists, or nazis who hate Russians — nazis who are ethnically cleansing ethnic Russians away from Ukraine’s Donbass region, the region that had voted 90% for the President, Viktor Yanukovych, whom Obama had overthrown with the crucial armed muscle of those nazi snipers who carried out his coup. (And virtually no U.S. ‘news’ medium has reported that the actual person whom Obama placed in control of Ukraine is a longstanding leader of Ukraine’s nazis.)
With ‘news’ coverage like this, it’s clear why, as Gallup headlined on December 29th, “Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton Extend Run as Most Admired.”
And, without ‘news’ coverage like that, it’s also clear why people outside the United States consider the U.S. to be the biggest threat to world peace. Internationally, Russia is way down this list. However, America’s President won’t need to ask those foreigners whether to launch a nuclear attack against Russia. All that he will need to control is America’s press — and he (and the aristocrats who placed him into power) do.
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Tuesday 30 December 2014

Teenagers Attack Two Boston Police Officers, Cops ‘Kicked, Punched And Choked’ While Making Arrest

Teenagers Attack Two Boston Police Officers, Cops 'Kicked, Punched And Choked' While Making Arrest
Monday, two Boston police officers were hospitalized after they were kicked, punched, and choked by six teenagers while trying to arrest a seventh teen on outstanding warrants.
Previously reported by The Inquisitr, a father sets up a prank for his teen daughter, and when the teen is pulled over by a cop is given a gift instead. With the the executions of NYPD’s Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu police departments across the country have been cautioned not to make arrests “unless absolutely necessary.”
The two Boston police officers, a woman and a man, went to an apartment in the city’s Roxbury neighborhood on Monday morning to serve a warrant on a 19-year-old for defaulting on court appearances.
While only originally seeking the arrest of one adult teen, Woobenson Morrisset, seven teenagers were arrested in all.
When the officers found Woobenson Morrisset in a rear stairwell, he attacked them, according to the police report.
At that point other teens, mostly family, joined Morrisset in attacking the cops, authorities said, reported the Boston Herald.
“Numerous occupants (mostly the suspect’s family members) exited from Apt. #4 and Apt. #3, entered the stairwell and began 
assaulting the officers in an effort to free the suspect and prevent him from being arrested. During the altercation, officers were kicked, punched and choked by 
numerous suspects.”
The police officers used pepper spray to fight off the attackers until other officers arrived, their officers never drew their guns.
Mayor Martin Walsh stressed the assault was not related to rising national tensions over police conduct following the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.
Morrisset, and 18-year-old Lorcen Morrisset, who is accused of participating in the attack, pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges. Woobenson Morisset was released on $ 500 bail; Lorcen Morisset was released on his own recognizance.
Before appearing in court, Lorcen Morriset spoke to reporters and insisted he never made physical contact with any police officer and that the four girls had hid inside their apartments to avoid the struggle taking place outside.
“[It’s] a lie. They didn’t touch the officers. They went to hide in the bathroom.”
Lorcen identified two of the girls as being his sisters and the other two being their cousins.
According to Lorcen, his brother Woobenson had asked if the police officers had a warrant but instead was allegedly then beaten by the officers. He said that when police grabbed his brother, he also grabbed on to him. “And I try to hold my brother, so they arrested me,” Lorcen said. “That’s the only thing I did. I didn’t touch no police officer or anything.”
Lorcen Morriset also claimed that he had recorded video on his phone of the officers beating his brother. Allegedly he claims to have run to get his phone when the officers began to beat his brother, but the officers “took my phone.”
The other teens are all minors. A 17-year-old boy and girls ages 13, 14, 15, and 16, face assault and battery on a police officer and other charges in juvenile court. Not guilty pleas were entered on the teens behalf in court and bail was set at $ 500 cash for the 17-year-old and just $ 1 for the younger teens, reported Boston Globe. The bail set can only be posted by their parents.
The two Boston officers that were attacked during the arrest were treated for undisclosed injuries and were released from the hospital. Their names were not made public.


Teenagers Attack Two Boston Police Officers, Cops ‘Kicked, Punched And Choked’ While Making Arrest

The Deadliest Unit: U.S. Air Force Intel Unit Helped Kill 1,200 People in a Year

That’s one startling revelation in the official annual history for 2012 of the Air Force’s Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency, a heavily-redacted copy of which War Is Boring obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

Linguists and analysts from the 361st Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group at Hurlburt Field in Florida flew on at least 31,180 combat sorties in 2012, supporting no fewer than 960 separate operations that resulted in Special Operations Forces detaining more than 3,980 people and killing at least 1,210, according to the history.
That single year’s kill tally probably makes the 361st one of the deadliest individual organizations in the entire U.S. military.
The 361st began as an aerial mapping unit during World War II. In 2008, the Air Force revived the unit as part of a massive expansion of intel units to support counterterrorism operations and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Between 2008 and 2012, the Pentagon grew its fleet of spy planes and surveillance drones by 238 percent—until they accounted for half of all Air Force aircraft, according to the ISR Agency history. By 2012 the Defense Department was spending $67 billion a year on intelligence and surveillance.

Many intel flights require specialists to fly aboard the aircraft to quickly analyze the video the plane is shooting or translate the communications between enemy fighters that the aircraft’s receivers pick up.
The intelligence personnel can then pass the information they gather to troops on the ground. The info might include the locations and strength of enemy fighters. 

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Why China Is Trying to Kill Gmail

So the real question isnt why Chinas government would seek to block Gmailgiven its long history of web censorshipbut rather: why now?
In the absence of official confirmation, some Chinese Gmail users have their own theories. Brian Glucroft, a user experience researcher and travel blogger in China, told Motherboard he suspected that Chinese authorities needed time to close the loopholes for accessing Gmail enabled by third-party apps and protocols. The question is whether this is something genuinely new or just China cleaning things up, Glucroft wrote in an email sent from Shanghai through Gmail and a VPN. I lean towards the latter.
Cook, the research analyst, agreed, saying that China has been tightening internet censorship since Xi Jinping took over the presidency in 2013. But she offered another more troubling theory as well. The Chinese government has a tendency to sentence activists around the time of the holidays, Cook noted. One thing to keep an eye on is whether this is to pre-empt some action that the governments going to take that they want people not to talk about.
Whatever the reason for the timing, the Chinese governments apparent censorship of Gmail is a clear indicator it views the service as yet another tool that can be used against it by activists and foreign actors. Its also a painfully ironic reminder of how the country with the largest online population in the world has deviated from the first email its government ever sent back in 1987, which read: across the Great Wall we can reach every corner in the world."

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28 Signs That U.S. Public Schools Are Rapidly Being Turned Into Indoctrination Centers And Prison Camps

It has been said that children are our future, and right now the vast majority of our children are being “educated” in public schools that are rapidly being turned into indoctrination centers and prison camps.  Our children desperately need to focus on the basics such as reading, writing and math, but instead a whole host of politicians, “education officials” and teachers are constantly injecting as much propaganda as they possibly can into classroom instruction.  Instead of learning how to think, our children are continually being told what to think.  Not only that, our children are also being trained how to live as subservient slaves in a Big Brother police state.  Today, nearly everything that children do in public schools is watched, monitored, recorded and tracked.  Independent thought and free expression are greatly discouraged and are often cracked down upon harshly.  If students get “out of line”, instead of being sent to see the principal they are often handcuffed, arrested and taken to the police station.  In addition, law enforcement authorities are using weapons such as pepper spray and tasers against young students in our public schools more than ever before.  Children in U.S. public schools are not learning how to live as strong individuals in the “land of the free and the home of the brave”.  Rather, they are being trained how to serve a Big Brotherpolice state where control freaks run their entire lives.  If we continue to allow all of the liberty and freedom to be systematically drained out of our school children, then there is not going to be much hope for the future of this nation.
The following are 28 signs that U.S public schools are being turned into indoctrination centers and prison camps….
#1 All 50 U.S. states are now constructing federally-mandated databases that will track the behavior and performance of all public school students in America throughout their entire school careers.  According to the New York Post, the Obama administration wants to use the information that is gathered for a wide array of purposes….
The administration wants this data to include much more than name, address and test scores. According to the National Data Collection Model, the government should collect information on health-care history, family income and family voting status. In its view, public schools offer a golden opportunity to mine reams of data from a captive audience.
#2 All over America, school children are being immersed in the radical green agenda.  In fact, in many areas of the country children are actively trained to watch how their parents behave and to correct them when they are being “environmentally unfriendly”.  The following is from a recent New York Times article about this phenomenon….
“I have very, very environmentally conscious children — more so than me, I’m embarrassed to say,” said Ms. Ross, a social worker in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. “They’re on my case about getting a hybrid car. They want me to replace all the light bulbs in the house with energy-saving bulbs.”
Ms. Ross’s children are part of what experts say is a growing army of “eco-kids” — steeped in environmentalism at school, in houses of worship, through scouting and even via popular culture — who try to hold their parents accountable at home. Amid their pride in their children’s zeal for all things green, the grown-ups sometimes end up feeling like scofflaws under the watchful eye of the pint-size eco-police, whose demands grow ever greater, and more expensive.
Later on in that same article, a district superintendent is quoted as saying that they try to inject the green agenda wherever they can into the curriculum….
“We’re trying to integrate it into anything where it naturally fits,” said Jackie Taylor, the district’s superintendent. “It might be in a math lesson. How much water are you really using? How can you tell? Teachers look for avenues in almost everything they teach.”
#3 One 13-year-old student down in New Mexico was recently handcuffed and forcibly removed from a classroom just because he burped in class.  In all, over 200 students in Bernalillo County “have been handcuffed and arrested in the last three years for non-violent misdemeanors”.
#4 All over America, students are being taught that the First Amendment does not apply in public schools.  Expressions of free speech in school are often cracked down upon very hard.  For example, one group of high school athletes was recently suspended for “Tebowing” in the hallways of their school.
#5 Many public school sex education classes have totally crossed the line.  Instead of just “educating” children about sex, many sex ed courses are now “indoctrinating” children about sex.  One recent example of this was detailed in the New York Times….
IMAGINE you have a 10- or 11-year-old child, just entering a public middle school. How would you feel if, as part of a class ostensibly about the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, he and his classmates were given “risk cards” that graphically named a variety of solitary and mutual sex acts? Or if, in another lesson, he was encouraged to disregard what you told him about sex, and to rely instead on teachers and health clinic staff members?
That prospect would horrify most parents. But such lessons are part of a middle-school curriculum that Dennis M. Walcott, the New York City schools chancellor, has recommended for his system’s newly mandated sex-education classes. There is a parental “opt out,” but it is very limited, covering classes on contraception and birth control.
#6 Sadly, this “sexual indoctrination” appears to be working.  According to one recent study, sexual conduct between teen girls in the United States is now at the highest level ever recorded.
#7 Putting kids in jail has become standard operating procedure in the United States.  Today, nearly one-third of all Americans are arrested by police by the time they reach the age of 23.  At this point, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the largest total prison population on the entire globe, and yet our society just continues to become more unstable.
#8 In some U.S. schools, RFID chips are now being used to monitor the attendance and movements of children while they are at school.  The following is how one article recently described a program that has just been instituted at a preschool in California….
Upon arriving in the morning, according to the Associated Press, each student at the CCC-George Miller preschool will don a jersey with a stitched in RFID chip. As the kids go about the business of learning, sensors in the school will record their movements, collecting attendance for both classes and meals. Officials from the school have claimed they’re only recording information they’re required to provide while receiving  federal funds for their Headstart program.
#9 Increasingly, incidents of misbehavior at many U.S. schools are being treated as very serious crimes.  For example, when a little girl kissed a little boy at one Florida elementary school recently, it was considered to be a “possible sex crime” and the police were called out.
#10 Even 5-year-old children are now being handcuffed and arrested by police in public schools.  The following is froma recent article that described what happened to one very young student in Stockton, California earlier this year….
Earlier this year, a Stockton student was handcuffed with zip ties on his hands and feet, forced to go to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and was charged with battery on a police officer. That student was 5 years old.
#11 A teenager in suburban Dallas was recently forced to take on a part-time job after being ticketed for using bad language in one high school classroom.  The original ticket was for $340, but additional fees have raised the total bill to $637.
#12 It is not just high school kids that are being ticketed by police.  In Texas the crackdown extends all the way down to elementary school students.  In fact, it has been reported that Texas police gave “1,000 tickets” to elementary school kids over a recent six year period.
#13 Our children are being programmed to accept the fact that they will be watched and monitored constantly.  For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is spending large amounts of money to install surveillance cameras in the cafeterias of public schools all across the nation so that government control freaks can closely monitor what our children are eating.
#14 If you can believe it, a “certified TSA official” was recently brought in to oversee student searches at the Santa Fe High School prom.
#15 Last year, a 17 year-old honor student in North Carolina named Ashley Smithwick accidentally took her father’s lunch with her to school.  It contained a small paring knife which he would use to slice up apples.  So what happened to this standout student when the school discovered this?  The school suspended her for the rest of the year and the police charged her with a misdemeanor.
#16 According to blogger Alexander Higgins, students in kindergarten and the 1st grade in the state of New Jersey are now required by law to participate “in monthly anti-terrorism drills”.  The following is an excerpt from a letter that he recently received from the school where his child attends….
Each month a school must conduct one fire drill and one security drill which may be a lockdown, bomb threat, evacuation, active shooter, or shelter-in place drill. All schools are now required by law to implement this procedure.
So who in the world ever decided that it would be a good idea for 1st grade students to endure “lockdown” and “active shooter” drills?  To get an idea of what these kinds of drills are like, just check out this video.
#17 In some U.S. schools, armed cops accompanied by police dogs actually conduct surprise raids with their guns drawn.  In this video, you can actually see police officers aiming their guns at school children as the students are lined up facing the wall.
#18 The U.S. government is now encouraging children to spy on their parents as part of the “war on terror”.  If a school official hears that a parent has said the “wrong thing” at home, that parent could potentially get labeled as a “potential terrorist”.
#19 The U.S. government has also been increasingly using “polls” and “surveys” as tools to gather information about all of us.  In previous articles, I have noted how government authorities seems particularly interested in our children.  According to Mike Adams of Natural News, the CDC is starting to call parents all over the U.S. to question them about the vaccination status of their children….
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control, which has been comprehensively exposed as a vaccine propaganda organization promoting the interests of drug companies, is now engaged in a household surveillance program that involves calling U.S. households and intimidating parents into producing child immunization records. As part of what it deems a National Immunization Survey(NIS), the CDC is sending letters to U.S. households, alerting them that they will be called by “NORC at the University of Chicago” and that households should “have your child’s immunization records handy when answering our questions.”
You can see a copy of the letter that the CDC has been sending out to selected parents right here.
#20 Last year, a high school student in Southern California was suspended for two days because he had private conversations with his classmates during which he discussed Christianity.  He was also banned from bringing his Bible to school ever again.
#21 In early 2010, a 12 year old girl in New York was arrested by police and marched out of her school in handcuffsjust because she doodled on her desk. “I love my friends Abby and Faith” was what she reportedly wrote on her desk.
#22 Back in 2009, one 8 year old boy in Massachusetts was sent home from school and was forced to undergo a psychological evaluation because he drew a picture of Jesus on the cross.
#23 A little over a year ago, a 6 year old girl in Florida was handcuffed and sent to a mental facility after throwing temper tantrums at her elementary school.
#24 Other students in Florida have actually been arrested for bringing a plastic butter knife to school, for throwing an eraser, and for drawing a picture of a gun.
#25 Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has announced that school officials can search the cell phones and laptops of public school students if there are “reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school.”
#26 Increasingly, authorities are using “pre-crime” technology on our children in order to identify potential problem individuals.  For example, the Florida State Department of Juvenile Justice has announced that it will begin using analysis software to predict crime by young delinquents and will place “potential offenders” in specific prevention and education programs.
#27 At one public high school in McAllen, Texas earlier this year, students were ordered to stand up and recite the Mexican national anthem and Mexican pledge of allegiance.  School authorities have failed to explain how reciting a pledge of allegiance to a foreign nation has any educational value whatsoever.
#28 All over the United States, tasers are increasingly being used to “subdue” high school students.  The following are two very shocking examples of this that were cited in a recent Alternet article….
On September 29, Keshana Wilson, 14, was shocked in the groin with a Taser while shoved against a parked car by Allentown, Pennsylvania police officer Jason Ammary, just outside her high school. The incident was captured on surveillance footage. Allentown police argue that the officer’s behavior was justified because “Wilson was cursing and inciting a group of people” as well as resisting arrest. While defending his fellow officer, Allentown Assistant Police Chief Joseph Hanna argued, “officers are trained to use the justified amount of force dictated by the actions of the resister, not their age or gender.”
Zahrod Jackson, a 17-year-old student, “was eligible to receive free lunch” at Middletown High School in Connecticut, according to a June report in the Middletown Press. Last September, Jackson exited the cafeteria line with a slice of pizza, but returned for a beef patty after spotting both pizza and a beef patty on the tray of a student who also receives free lunch. A screaming match ensued between Jackson and a cafeteria worker who accused the teen of stealing. The commotion quickly caught the eyes of SROs Kurt Scrivo, who “threw Jackson onto the cafeteria floor,” and Alex Rodriguez, who Tasered him five times.
So is all of this brutal repression helping our children get a better education?
Of course not.
The truth is that the American population is rapidly being “dumbed-down”.
Today, American 15-year-olds do not even rank in the top half of all advanced nations when it comes to math or science literacy.
Not only that, our public schools are also producing kids that are woefully unprepared for college.  The United States once had the highest proportion of young adults with post-secondary degrees in the world.  Today, the U.S. has fallen to 12th.
Our public education system absolutely stinks and it is getting worse all the time.
I went to public schools all of my life, but I would never want to send my children to public schools now.  They are going downhill really, really fast.
Just sending different politicians to Washington D.C. is not going to change the course of this nation.  We need a complete political, economic, educational, moral, spiritual and philosophical renewal.  Right now America is becoming a little more like North Korea every day.  If we continue on this path there will be absolutely no future for our children and our grandchildren.
It is absolutely disgusting that our public schools are being transformed into indoctrination centers and prison camps.  This is not what America is supposed to be about.
If we do not choose to stand up and fight for the future of this country, then we are going to get the future that we deserve.

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