Children stolen by the state needlessly, causing utter misery in one of Britain's most disturbing scandals

By CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: The most shocking story I have reported in all my many decades as a journalist.

Applications to take children into care in England have soared to an all-time record, for the first time topping 10,000 in just 12 months.

Since 2008 alone, the figure has much more than doubled, to some 225 cases a week — bringing the total number of children in care in the UK as a whole to at least 90,000.

The official reason given for this explosion in the number of children being removed from their families by social workers in only four years is that 2008 was the year when the nation was shocked by the events leading to the death of Baby P — later named as Peter Connelly.

He was just 17 months old when he died in North London at the hands of his mother Tracey and her violent partner, suffering more than 50 injuries.

Scandal: How many children are needlessly being taken from loving homes to the detriment of both them and their parents?

The story goes that social workers have become much more eager to take children into care because they do not wish to see any repetition of the scandal surrounding their failure to save Baby Peter, even though they and other officials had visited his home 60 times.

But one hugely important ingredient is missing from the way this version of events is being put across by the authorities responsible for ‘child protection’.

Evidence is accumulating on all sides to show that far too many children are now being removed from their parents wholly unnecessarily, often for laughably inadequate, even absurd, reasons.

'The father love that dare not speak its name' Revisited - Sir Bob Geldof

When it comes to access to children, divorced men haven’t a chance. In a world of dual-career couples, the law needs to recognise the hands-on parenting role played by many fathers

Family law as it currently stands does not work. It is rarely of benefit to the child and promotes injustice, conflict and unhappiness on a massive scale. Most custody rulings show no understanding of contemporary society.

The contention that women are inherently better nurturers is wrong. Custody rulings appear to be based on the “sugar and spice and all things nice” school of biological determination rather than on anything more significant. If a woman “mothers” a child, a warm universe of nurturing is conjured. If a man “fathers” a child it simply implies nothing more than the swift biological function involved in the procreative act.

If the later 20th century saw the transformation of women’s lives, then the 21st century is seeing the transformation of men’s lives, and by definition the lives of their children. Nearly half the workforce is female and men now hold a different view of parenting. There are no studies which suggest that a child brought up by a man (as I was) displays any psychological or emotional characteristics different to one raised by a woman.

My complaints are not the moans of the unsuccessful litigant at the hands of family law. I, in fact, was “successful”. This is someone dismayed by the inappropriateness of the law to the everyday. Nor is this the complaint of the proto-misogynist — indeed the law is so inept that it produces misandrists in equal measure — but rather the irritation and anger of someone who sees exact parallels with women’s struggle against bias and prejudice.

Houston Cop goes CRAZY (Original RAW Footage)

Hostile Houston Cop comes after two innocent guys video taping at a Wal-Mart in SouthWest Houston for NO REASON, the men were held against their will before later being hand-cuffed to be arrested but released after another cop came to their rescue. The incident was only resolved after the cop tried to bribe and threaten the men to ERASE this footage or go to JAIL....

Assymmetric Secret Servicing Initiative: Obama's Colombia Visit Found To Subsidize Local Alternative Monogamy Market

Submitted by Tyler Durden:

Obama may not be the most successful president when it comes to creating jobs at home, but when success is measured by the number of blowjobs outsourced abroad, he may be truly second to none, as his visit to Colombia proves before it has officially begun. According to the AP, "A dozen Secret Service agents sent to Colombia to provide security for President Barack Obama at an international summit have been relieved of duty because of allegations of misconduct." Relieved here being a perfectly randomly selected verb. Because according to a tip received by The Associated Press "the misconduct involved prostitutes in Cartagena, Colombia, the site of the Summit of the Americas. A Secret Service spokesman did not dispute that allegation." Or, as Goldman would call it, an "AsSymmetric (Secret) Servicing Initiative" where much more than just inside information is leasked. Unfortunately, while he may be far more successful in generating jobs in Latin America than domestically, even those jobs have proven to be quite transitory, just like virtually all quickie temp jobs "created or saved" in the US in the past several years. Furthermore, just like in the US, we doubt that the incremental wealth benefits willtrickle down to the local population. After all, unlike in the US, endogenous Colombian liquidity may be abundant everywhere but certainly not at the central bank, which is far, far tighter at a rate of 5.25% (and rising), compared to extra loosecentral planners the "developed" world over.

Shark-infested Equity Waters, Metals Manipulation and Energy Depletion - Chris Martenson

Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water...US and European stock markets remained under pressure today, some eurozone government bonds once again came under intense pressure from investors. We ask if we're headed for 2008 style trouble...has the subprime mortgage crisis given way to the subprime sovereign debt crisis?

"Tiny Cult Of Un-evolved Voodoo Practitioners" + KOREAN BOGEYMAN FAIL - FKN Newz

Iceland Forgives Mortgage Debt for the Population. Putting Bankers and Politicians on "Bench of Accused"

This is awesome. It shows when the people DO STAND UP they have more power and win against the corrupt bankers and politicians of a country. Iceland is forgiving and erasing the mortgage debt of the population. They are putting the bankers and politicians on the "Bench of the Accused." Which means I assume they are putting them on trial for corruption. 
Now the rest of people of the world need to start doing the same thing. We all need to stand up and against all the corruption and fraud of the banks and politicians that are puppets of the banks and corporations. 

Source

Steinhardt On The Fed's Failure And The End Of Wall Street As We Know It

Submitted by Tyler Durden: 

The low interest rate 'logic' is not working and "the economy can't gain any zest, can't gain any vigor" is how Michael Steinhardt describes the crushing of 'widows and orphans' that the Fed has embarked upon. In a Bloomberg TV interview, the WisdomTree chairman notes the broad 'pall' over the equity markets (conjuring images of a funereal procession down Trinity Street) pointing out that there is no reason to be wildly bullish here. Citing Wall Street's lack of 'spirit', he questions the entire raison d'etre of efficient capital transfer as becoming secondary as he rather poignantly asks who has benefited from Fed's policies "Certainly the banks.

First New Concentration Camps in Europe Set to Sprout on Greek Soil

By Richard Cottrell – End the Lie

As if the current circumstances of austerity-riven Greece were not bad enough already, now it seems that they are set to have a dozen or so concentration camps dotted around the country.

In language that might have been lifted straight from the Nazi lexicon, these  establishments will be known as ‘closed-hospitality’ centers.

The incarcerates will be undocumented – meaning unwanted – refugees flooding  in from North Africa, particularly the once prosperous and richest country in  the Maghreb belt, namely Libya.

Most of the Mediterranean countries are in the thick of the refugee tide, but Greece is so far the only country that plans to compulsorily pen them up.

The first ‘reception center’ is scheduled to open at a former army base near  Athens in the next few weeks.

Why the sudden haste, you ask? The answer is simple. A general election is  scheduled for May 6th.

Secret Source Codes Threaten Modern Science

Modern science relies upon researchers sharing their work so that their peers can check and verify success or failure. But most scientists still don't share one crucial piece of information — the source codes of the computer programs driving much of today's scientific progress.

Such secrecy comes at a time when many researchers write their own source codes — human-readable instructions for how computer programs do their work — to run simulations and analyze experimental results. Now, a group of scientists is arguing for new standards that require newly published studies to make their source codes available. Otherwise, they say, the scientific method of peer review and reproducing experiments to verify results is basically broken.

"Far too many pieces of code critical to the reproduction, peer-review and extension of scientific results never see the light of day," said Andrew Morin, a postdoctoral fellow in the structural biology research and computing lab at Harvard University. "As computing becomes an ever larger and more important part of research in every field of science, access to the source codeused to generate scientific results is going to become more and more critical."

Missing source codes mean extra headache for scientists who want to closely follow up on new studies or check for errors. Such unavailability of source codes can also lead to more bad science slipping through the cracks — unreleased and irreproducible codes played a part in a Duke University case that led to study retractions, scientist resignations and canceled clinical drug trials for lung and breast cancer in 2010.

Audio reveals US police violent murder of yet another black man

A newly released tape recording has further implicated North Chicago city police in a cover-up in connection with the killing of an African-American back in November, Press TV reports. In the audio, the 45-year-old Darrin Hanna is heard begging for his life during a brutal beat-down by the police. "Put me down! Put me down! Please! I'm about to die! I was down. I was down...They killing me," he said. Hanna died just days after the altercation. Source

Black Market in Spain: Cash Transactions Exceeding 2,500 Euros Now Banned

By Mike "Mish" Shedlock

Things are going so "well" in Spain that the Government banned cash payments in excess of 2,500 euros 



Via Google Translate from Libre Mercado ...

The Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, has announced on Wednesday that the plan to combat tax evasion on Friday approved the Cabinet prohibit the payment in cash transactions of over € 2,500 and n which at least involved a businessman professional.

During the control session the Government in the House of the Congress of Deputies and in response to a question about the tax amnesty made by the general coordinator of IU, Cayo Lara, the Prime Minister has revealed that those who violate the ban will face fines of 25% of the payment made in cash. 

Black Money

This measure aims to prevent the use of black money in commercial transactions and, in the case of companies, give them an obstacle to not resort to false invoices. The plan to combat fraud adopted on Friday, the Cabinet intends to raise up to 8.171 million euros in 2012.

I calmly predict that black market transactions in Spain will soar as soon as Spain is stupid enough to hike the VAT.