LIGHTS collection of ToT spamm

[LIGHTS_444]

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A Turkish court on Friday formally charged an internationally known pianist and composer with insulting Islamic religious values in comments he made on Twitter.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/turkish-pianist-charged-with-insulting-islam-on-twitter.html#ixzz1xbo7j0Fz

[Darkwing Duck (The Reincarnation)]

i heard, they cut off ur hand if u steal in Turkey

[Sikotic™]

allah akbar

[virtuoso]

Don't these dumbasses realise that you will get terrorised for something you express on twitter?

[LIGHTS_444]

you are so dumb that you are blaming the sheep for the Shepard's lack of focus

[LIGHTS_444]

Syrian children tortured, used as human shields, U.N. report finds
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The Syrian military and armed militias loyal to President Bashar Assad have used children as young as 8 years old as human shields, a new United Nations report has found.

Children have also been tortured and killed by the Syrian army and its allies; whipped, beaten, subjected to sexual violence, burned with cigarettes and even given electrical shock. One former soldier told the U.N. he had been ordered to shoot "without distinction" during protests in the city of Tall Kalakh, even though children were there. Three girls roughly between the ages of 10 and 13 were killed, he said.

Though most of the reported abuses were carried out by the Syrian army and its allies, there are also credible allegations that the armed rebels fighting Bashar's forces have recruited children to fight, the U.N. report said.

The abuses were laid out as part of an annual U.N. report on children and armed conflict worldwide last year. However, the violations in Syria were so grave that the U.N. decided to include a string of more recent incidents in its report, including a March attack by government forces in which three teens were killed and three other youths were arrested for interrogation, one of them a 9-year-old girl.

Syria was added to the U.N. "list of shame" this year. "The world is keeping a detailed account of the violence committed against civilians in Syria and I am confident that these crimes will not go unpunished," U.N. Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy said.

The fighting in Syria has resulted in more than 10,000 deaths, with those killed including rebels, civilians and government forces. The slaying of children, including a recent massacre that included at least 32 children in the township of Houla, has stepped up continued calls to stop the violence.

U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan lamented last week that a peace plan he brokered had not halted the violence, with both sides violating the truce. Heavy bombardment of the Syrian city of Homs and other towns occupied by rebels has alarmed the international body, whose secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, called the recent shelling a "dangerous intensification of armed violence."

The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition activist network, said that at least 40 people were killed Tuesday, including a baby less than 2 months old. Meanwhile, Syrian state media reported that armed terrorists -- the usual government term for the rebels -- kidnapped passengers on two buses Tuesday.

Outside a Homs building battered by shelling, a man asked angrily, "What is this? Nobody help us? Why?" The unnamed man was recorded in a video shared by the U.N. Tuesday. "We are people. Not animals."

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smoke weed everyday

[LIGHTS_444]

March of the drones: Map reveals 66 military bases for unmanned aircraft on American soil... and 22 more on the way
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2159615/March-drones-Map-reveals-66-military-bases-unmanned-aircraft-American-soil--22-way.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
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he US military operated 66 bases for unmanned drone aircraft on American soil and has 22 more planned across the country.

A new map released by Public Intelligence, a nonprofit group dedicated publishing public government data, reveals the ever-growing footprint of the Department of Defense's newest weapon.

The bases span the entire country -- 33 states either have a base already or are slated to have one.

View Current and future US military drone bases in a full screen map

The existence of a base doesn't necessarily mean drones are stationed there.

Wired Magazine reports some bases are remote cockpits, where soldiers fly the unmanned craft in the skies over Yemen and Afghanistan. Others are training facilities for prospective drone pilots.  Others serve as depots where servicemen analyses data the remote-controlled spy planes bring back.

 
More...

    F-22 Raptor pilots urged to ditch pressure vests in ongoing probe of oxygen-deprivation issues
    The Washington D.C. 'UFO' that turned out to be one of ours: Mystery craft on highway was military drone being transported to air base

The bases house mostly smaller spy drones like the RQ-7 Shadow, the RQ-11 Raven and the Wasp III, which has a wingspan of less than two and a half feet.

Six of the bases are home to the larger Predator and Reaper drove, which can carry missiles.

Public Intelligence cobbled together its map of military bases from a host of public documents, including a 2011 US Air Force presentation on the subject.

[virtuoso]

How many children are murdered by these giant car bombs? By snipers? It's NOT about good and bad it's about reporting without hypocrisy.

[virtuoso]

As soon as hypocrisy seeps in, you know there is a bias agenda. They are funding terrorists to topple the existing governing of Syria.

[Hack Wilson - real]

Obama should be able to stop all of this when he gets re-elected

[virtuoso]

Stop or top?

[Fraxxx]

How many children are murdered by these giant car bombs? By snipers? It's NOT about good and bad it's about reporting without hypocrisy.

They talk shit for a just cause. First Syria, next is Iran, peace and prosperity for all!

[LIGHTS_444]

 
It may be unkind and uncouth to threaten or taunt tennis officials, but John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Serena Williams never actually drew blood from a lines judge on the court. Now, however, another bad precedent has been set: David Nalbandian of Argentina is facing a possible assault charge by London police after kicking an advertising board into the shin of a linesman Sunday at the Queens Club final in England.

Nalbandian, 30, is a former Wimbledon finalist and known among the media more for being a tournament killer than a tantrum thrower. He is a baseline player who is not particularly fun to watch on the court or enlightening in the interview room. He became more than a tennis footnote, however, when he was disqualified from the final of the Wimbledon tuneup tournament in the second set against Marin Cilic. And now, an unnamed accuser has charged him with assault, and a criminal investigation has begun.

Nalbandian lost a point in the match, became angry at himself and booted the small board into the leg of the lines judge, who required medical treatment after blood dripped through his pants. The player wasn't upset at the linesman, and apologized immediately. The damage had been done, however. ATP rules mandate the disqualification of a player due to any violence against an official, though Nalbandian insisted there was no intent in this case and therefore the rule was misapplied.

"Sometimes you get very frustrated on court and it's tough to control that, and sometimes I do a mistake," he said afterward. "So it's very tough to end a final like that. But sometimes we feel so much pressure from the ATP to play a lot of tournaments. They don't do anything (for) us, and today I do a mistake and I have to pay like that. I agree I do a mistake but sometimes everybody do a mistake and I didn't feel it had to end like that, especially in a final."

Nalbandian was leading the match, 7-6 (3), 3-4, when he was run off the court to his forehand side by Cilic on the point. At the very least, he will lose what could have been prize money of more than $50,000. And while criminal charges probably are not warranted in this instance, the disqualification was certainly justified. Violent actions have consequences, even if the act was wholly unintended.

Considering some past events, this escalation is not that surprising. Andre Agassi once slugged a first serve at a Wimbledon lines woman. Even the ultimate gentleman, Tim Henman, once struck a ball in anger that accidentally knocked a ball girl in the head (Henman then brought her flowers). In perhaps the most legendary assault on a tennis official, Benedicte Tarango, the wife of American player Jeff Tarango, slapped a chair umpire twice after her husband's match at Wimbledon.

"Yes, I did it," she confessed then. "And he deserved it."

No blood, however, was involved.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more-sports/violent-actions-david-nalbandian-temper-tantrum-consequences-criminal-charges-warranted-article-1.1097731#ixzz1yALBpby8

[LIGHTS_444]

Armenia ‘attacks' expose anti-gay hatred

May 25 2012 at 09:29am
By Mariam Harutyunyan

Comment on this story
iol pic wld Nicaragua International Day Against Homophobia

AP

File photo - People carry a large gay pride flag during a march on International Day Against Homophobia.

The acrid stench of burnt plastic still hangs in the air at the devastated basement bar, its walls blackened and fixtures melted by intense heat after the fire-bombers staged their nocturnal raid.

The alleged "hate crime" bombing this month of alternative music bar DIY - popular with Yerevan's young liberals and gays - has sparked fear and anger in Armenia's small gay community and highlighted deep-rooted homophobia in the conservative Christian ex-Soviet state.

"By terrorising me, they want to give a lesson to others too," said owner Armine "Tsomak" Oganezova amid the ruin of the once-vibrant underground hotspot.

She alleged that the attack was staged by "members of a fascist organisation" who had repeatedly harassed the bar since it opened.

"It seems that today the life of anyone that is different in our country is under threat," she said.

After being caught on surveillance cameras, two Iranian-Armenian brothers aged 19 and 20 were arrested for alleged arson, police said without specifying any political motives.

But within days of the blaze, extremists attacked the bar again, this time spraying swastikas on the walls and burning "No to Fascism" posters put up by well-wishers.

The scandal quickly turned political when local media reported that two lawmakers from the nationalist Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutiun) party had paid the bomb suspects' bail.

One of them, Artsvik Minasian, was reported as saying that causing damage was wrong but the attackers "acted the right way, in the context of our societal and national ideals".

Minasian later denied the lawmakers paid bail, but told AFP that he did petition the court on the attackers' behalf and accused DIY's owner of trying to "artificially aggravate the situation, to become famous".

The political row escalated when the deputy speaker of parliament, Eduard Sharmazanov, gave an interview to local media that appeared to justify the violence.

"As an Armenian citizen and member of (the ruling) national-conservative party, I find the rebellion of the two young Armenian people against the homosexuals... completely right and justified," he was reported as saying, although he did not respond to AFP's requests for clarification.

Leading blogger Mika Artyan said on his Unzipped: Gay Armenia site that the statement "effectively encourages terrorism".

Rights group Amnesty International meanwhile lamented that "the official response to the firebombing in Yerevan is utterly shocking."

Worryingly for Yerevan's lesbians and gays, extremists seemingly untroubled by the possibility of arrest have kept returning to the gutted bar to spit on the walls and throw cigarette butts.

One of them, 17-year-old Hovsep, wearing a swastika pendant over a death's head T-shirt, said he would keep harassing DIY until "these perverts" leave.

"People like Tsomak (Oganezova) should not live among us. She participated in a gay parade in Turkey. She perverts teenagers," he said.

His friend Vahag, 18, accused the bar of being engaged in "open propaganda" for gay rights and said homosexuals should "be shut in their homes".

Civil rights campaigners say there are serious divisions between the conservative majority and the small liberal minority in the small Caucasus state.

"Our society has created certain criteria of what a human should be like. It despises and does not accept those who diverge a little bit from these criteria," said Mamikon Hovsepian, head of campaign group PINK Armenia.

He said that incidents of gay-bashing were common, but the victims are often too afraid to go to the police.

"In the nation's value system, a man and a woman have defined roles and any deviation provokes alarm and resistance," said Narine Khachatrian, a psychology professor at Yerevan State University.

But she said she did not believe that there were organised neo-Nazi movements in Armenia and the recent attacks were the work of individuals.

However a small march supporting "diversity" in Yerevan this week was stopped by around 100 young nationalists singing patriotic songs and hurling abuse - even though it was not a gay pride event.

"Do not promote perversion in our country," demanded one. "You are not Armenians," shouted another, before a priest intervened to prevent clashes.

Despite the bombing of her bar and the possibility of further violence, Oganezova vowed to remain defiant.

"It's impossible to scare me," she said. "I will fight." - Sapa-AFP

[LIGHTS_444]

The Shosh village School in Artsakh's Askeran region received a new school bus earlier this month thanks to an anonymous donor from Toronto.

The bus will be utilized to transport children from nearby villages to the school, according to the chairman of Armenia Fund Toronto, Migirdich Migirdichian.

    It's hard to imagine how children from nearby villages walk some 2.5 kilometers daily to reach their school. We're overjoyed that those days are finally over for these youngsters and they will be able to use their time more efficiently now.

The three-story Shosh School was built in 2004 through the support of the Fund's Toronto affiliate. With the continued sponsorship of Toronto's Armenian community, the school's computer lab will be receiving Internet access next month.

School Principal Hamlet Harutyunyan expressed his gratitude for ongoing support the school receives from the Armenian community of Toronto:

    On behalf of the entire school, I convey our gratitude to all benefactors who contribute to the school as well as Mr. Migirdichian of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund's Toronto affiliate. As for our schoolchildren, they express their thanks by being good students.

Additionally, Shosh is one of four schools that will receive new new school uniforms early in Spring. The uniforms were custom designed by an anonymous tailor who donated them to schools in Spitakashen, Madaghis, Shosh and Verin Horatagh.