Society's ChildS


Cheeseburger

Taxes on 'non-essential' foods won't prevent obesity - but they will hurt poorer people

burger
After the UK government published its new obesity strategy, a leading think tank has suggested drastic measures to reduce childhood obesity. Such 'nanny state' nonsense only hits personal freedom and the pockets of the poor.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) is a left-leaning think tank that has a track record of supporting state intervention in our lives. Moreover, the IPPR's new report, The Whole Society Approach: Making A Giant Leap On Childhood Health, has been bankrolled by three charities - Cancer Research UK, Diabetes UK and the British Heart Foundation - that have also been keen supporters of the government micromanaging our lives and suppressing our 'bad habits.'

There's a formula to such reports. First, overstate the problem. Second, exaggerate the benefits of solving the problem. Third, claim that the proposed solution is much more effective than it really is, while ignoring the potential downsides.

Comment: Governments the world over should be looking to their deadly erroneous dietary guidelines before they start targeting those suffering because of them:


Car Black

4 South Koreans dead after crash with US armored vehicle, training suspended

crash us army
© Pocheon Fire Station handout photoEmergency workers attend a collision involving a U.S. armored personnel carrier and a civilian SUV, which killed four South Koreans near the Rodriguez Live-Fire Complex in Pocheon, South Korea, on Aug. 30, 2020.
A crash involving a U.S. military vehicle killed four South Koreans, prompting U.S. Forces Korea to temporarily suspend training in the area, which is near the border with North Korea, officials said Monday.

An SUV carrying the four civilians rear-ended the armored personnel carrier -- a tracked vehicle -- at about 9:30 p.m. Sunday on a road near the Rodriguez Live Fire Complex in the city of Pocheon, local police and fire officials said.

The four civilians were pronounced dead at the scene, a fire official said. The two soldiers in the military vehicle were not seriously injured. One was taken to a nearby hospital for evaluation but was cleared and released back to his unit, according to the 2nd Infantry Division.

Comment: See also:


Brick Wall

The MSM won't report what it's really like in Kenosha, Wisconsin, so I will

kenosha firefighters
Firefighters mop up after another night of rioting in Kenosha, WI
Kenosha, Wisconsin is situated in the southern part of the state, about an hour and a half from Chicago, and has a population of approximately 100,000. Republican Rep. Bryan Steil, who represents Kenosha in Wisconsin's First Congressional district, told The Federalist the city "is like a lot of cities in Wisconsin." Steil says Kenosha is "family-centered" and "hard-working."

Kenosha became a very different place after police shot Jacob Blake in the back seven times. Subsequent video footage showed that Blake was armed with a knife and had been wrestling with officers, threw off a Taser, and was disregarding police commands to stop after they were called to address a domestic violence complaint.

Following the shooting that left Blake paralyzed, rioting erupted in the city. Although the first night was relatively peaceful, after the second night, things were "spiraling out of control," said Steil. Fire and looting consumed uptown and downtown Kenosha, and Steil said the city was no longer the "Kenosha we know."

Target

Piers Corbyn fined £10,000 for organizing anti-lockdown rally


Comment: This is his second arrest at a Freedom rally this summer. The British Establishment really has it in for the Corbyn family...


Piers Corbyn
© Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesPiers Corbyn addressing a crowd in Trafalgar Square on Saturday.
Piers Corbyn has become one of the first people to receive a £10,000 fixed penalty under new coronavirus laws restricting public gatherings of more than 30 people.

The weather forecaster and climate change denier, who is the older brother of the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, was arrested and fined for his part in organising Saturday's demonstration in central London against lockdown restrictions.

He said he was arrested on the stage set up in Trafalgar Square at the end of the event, while protesters marched off down Whitehall.

The 73-year-old told the Guardian:
"After the rally had finished, I was saying goodbye to people ... I was just looking around thinking I had better go now, and then they [the police] just grabbed me from behind. I was not expecting it at all. They frogmarched me - they didn't handcuff me - and told me they were arresting me for contravening the coronavirus regulations for organising a gathering of more than 30 people."

Footprints

Progressive community leaders call for Portland mayor, police chief to resign following deadly shooting

Ted Wheeler
© Dave Killen/The OregonianPortland mayor Ted Wheeler
A group of leaders representing various progressive organizations from across the Portland area have called for the resignations of Mayor Ted Wheeler and Police Chief Chuck Lovell in the wake of Saturday's fatal shooting.

Bobbin Singh, executive director of the Oregon Justice Resource Center, said the conditions leading up to the incident were predictable citing various instances of clashes between right-wing protesters and counter demonstrators over the years.
"These conditions have been created because there's been a lack of leadership, a lack of vision. We can no longer move forward with the current leadership that's in place in Portland."
The victim of Saturday's shooting has not been identified but was wearing a hat bearing the logo of Vancouver, Washington-based Patriot Prayer. Leader Joey Gibson told The Oregonian/OregonLive that although he couldn't provide a name, the deceased man was "a good friend and a supporter" of the organization.

Portland-based community groups have long said they feared confrontations would lead to serious injuries or worse.

Comment: Portland's mayor blamed Trump for the violence and the subsequent shooting with verbal and written condemnations:
Trump renewed his calls for the National Guard to enter the city to temper increasingly violent protests, which have gone on for nearly 100 days. Wheeler has denied the federal assistance and warned them to stay out.

"He has an opportunity to uplift us and bring us together and help us move through this difficult situation in our nation's history and instead he chooses to play petty politics and divide us," the mayor said.


"The only way you will stop the violence in the high crime Democrat run cities is through strength!" Trump added.


Many conservatives blasted Wheeler for his handling of protests in the city, where the county district attorney said he would not prosecute most of those apprehended amid the unrest.






Arrow Down

Rioters, looters could lose unemployment benefits under new bill

looters
© Stephan YangLooters in Union Square.
Rioters and looters would lose federal unemployment benefits and be forced to pay for extra policing needed at protests under a new bill being introduced by a military-veteran congressman.

Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, while introducing his "Support Peaceful Protest Act" on Friday. said:
"Antifa thugs are descending on suffering communities, disrupting peaceful protests and leaving violence, looting and vandalism in their wake. They turned Milwaukee, Seattle and Portland into war zones, and now they're moving the chaos to Kenosha, Wisconsin. Who knows which community is next?

"Due to enhanced federal benefits, taxpayers are giving wages to jobless rioters that are destroying our communities. We need to cut them off from their funding and make them feel the full financial consequences of their actions."
Banks — who was deployed to Afghanistan as a Supply Corps officer with the US Navy Reserve — wants to strip anyone convicted of federal offenses during protests of extra unemployment from the CARES Act helping jobless Americans during the coronavirus pandemic. His measure would also hold those convicted financially liable for the cost of law enforcement "in an amount that is equal to the cost of such policing activity," the bill says.

Yellow Vest

Best of the Web: OffGuardian report from 'Unite for Freedom' protest in Trafalgar Square, London

Unite for Freedom protest was frenetic, cathartic and necessary - but held back by distractions and contradictions
trafalgar square protest covid-19
© Off-Guardian.org
OffG's Samuel May, aka Admin2, was in London for the Unite for Freedom protest, and shares his experiences and impressions.
It is estimated that approximately 10,000 gathered in Trafalgar Square to protest on 29 August. This may be an underestimate. I perched atop a portacabin to gain the footage of the turnout you see here, and later joined the march to Downing Street.

The most notable thing was the huge diversity of those attending. So many different ethnicities. So much varying dress sense, hinting at so many varied backgrounds.

Middle-aged, middle-class women who looked like they'd never attended a rally in their lives. Festival-wear-clad individuals with long hair, who looked like they probably had. Burly, vocal, tattooed gentlemen and professional-looking types. People old and young, although I would say young people were underrepresented at this demonstration.

The atmosphere was peaceful and welcoming. The sense of relief at being amongst a crowd of similarly-minded people, of feeling some safety in numbers for a brief and rare time, was visible on the faces of all those around.

The tone of the crowd, frequently chanting 'Shame on you' at police and establishment figures, was passionate and angry, but not at all violent. There was no hint of violence throughout the protest, reflected in the very low number of police arrests. I think it was two, including a gentleman in his 70s.


Comment: The police arrested one of the event organizers as he was leaving and the crowd was dispersing: Piers Corbyn, brother of the former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. He later said:
"After the rally had finished, I was saying goodbye to people. I was just looking around thinking I had better go now, and then they [the police] just grabbed me from behind.

"I was not expecting it at all. They frogmarched me - they didn't handcuff me - and told me they were arresting me for contravening the coronavirus regulations for organising a gathering of more than 30 people."
Corbyn said he was held for 10 hours by police before being fined, despite having fully cooperated with police and local authorities in the run-up to the event.


Cult

Mob 'justice': A feminist's simple tweet enraged transgender activists and saw her sacked from her dream job

gender transgender choice
© Getty Images / Jamie Grill
On August 24, Sasha White, a 25-year-old literary agent, was fired by the Tobias Literary Agency in New York. She spoke to RT from her California home to explain how one Tweet led to the loss of her job and her livelihood.

The debate had been opened by Space X and Tesla CEO Elon Musk with a two-word Friday evening Tweet, "Pronouns Suck." White's thoughtful intervention came 24 hours later on Saturday, July 25. She responded
, "The reason i think pronouns suck is because thinking of people as 'they/them' and pretending they're not male or female is like color/race blindness for gender. It won't help sexism or toxic masculinity. Men and women have unique and distinct experiences... which should be acknowledged, examined, and critiqued but not obfuscated. Gender nonconformity (with acceptance of biological reality) successfully defies gender roles but switching pronouns reinforces these same roles."
Her Twitter bio announces that "gender non-conformity is wonderful." I asked her what she meant. She explained that, "Your biological sex doesn't have to determine how you move through the world, how you dress, how you act, or who you love or who you are. As a feminist, I see society putting us into boxes and that hurts us. Gender non-conformity is a way of pushing back against that."

Comment:


Handcuffs

Australian man caught in girlfriend's cupboard after repeatedly breaching coronavirus quarantine gets six months behind bars

Sydney Opera House
© Global Look Press / XinHua / Bai XuefeiFILE PHOTO.
An Australian man who repeatedly broke a mandatory 14-day Covid-19 quarantine has ended up in isolation for far longer after a court slapped him with a six-month jail term.

The 31-year-old Perth man, Yusuf Karakaya, was sentenced by an Australian court on Monday. Handing out the harsh sentence for the quarantine breach, the court said it was necessary to "send the message" to others who dare to challenge Covid-19 rules. It also took into account Karakaya's earlier month-long conviction.

The quarantine-dodger got in trouble with the authorities in early August when he returned from Sydney after visiting his uncle. The man was sent into a 14-day mandatory quarantine at a local hotel after all the private addresses he suggested for it were shot down.

Comment: It is absolutely unconscionable what courts and governments are doing to enforce ineffective and unnecessary blanket restrictions on civil liberties.


Mr. Potato

'The new Babylon Bee?' CNN commentator mocked after downplaying riots in Kenosha, Portland as 'protests' with a fiery cover photo

Kenosha CNN riots tweet, peaceful protest burning building CNN
© Twitter / @CillizzaCNN
CNN's Chris Cillizza became the butt of the joke online after saying that calling the unrest in Kenosha and Portland "riots" is a desperate ploy by Trump. The cover photo seems to be at odds with the spin, however.

CNN political commentator Chris Cillizza faced a torrent of mockery from conservatives accusing him of whitewashing the violence festering in Kenosha, Wisconsin and Portland, Oregon, after he opined that referring to the looting, vandalism, and arson in both cities as 'rioting' is unjustified and a "desperate" political ploy by US President Donald Trump.

Comment: More from the cesspool that is CNN:

Russia fuelling Portland & Kenosha violence? CNN turns to Russiagate tsar Schiff with bizarre take on US race tensions
Russia may be responsible for the deadly unrest in American cities, CNN host Dana Bash has implied during an interview with Democrats' top Russiagate figure, Adam Schiff, proving that red-baiting never goes out of vogue.

Schiff, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, came to CNN for a round of Trump-bashing over the President's remarks on how Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe "got tired of" classified information being leaked from Congress. The DNI wrote last week to the California representative and his Senate counterpart, Marco Rubio, that his office will be informing lawmakers on election security through written reports rather than in-person briefings.

During the interview Schiff took time to denounce the President for what he described as an attempt to hide "the fact that the Russians are helping Donald Trump again" and declared that US intel "belongs to the American people". With the election-meddling Ruskie bad guys introduced into the conversation, host Dana Bash mused on what other evil deeds they may be up to.


There were shooting deaths in Kenosha, Wisconsin and Portland, Oregon amid continued race protests in those cities, she said. "Do you have any reason to believe that Russia is trying to fuel some of the civil unrest in these cities via social media or other methods?" she wondered.

Schiff, who played a leading role in peddling the theory that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to win the 2016 election, obliged to confirm that yes, the Russians "are once again doing their best in social media, in the overt media and other means to grow this division again."

Blaming Russia for racial problems in the US is a time-honored tradition, so the CNN-Schiff duet hardly discovered new territory there. And the fact that the collusion theory crumbled after the Robert Mueller investigation failed to find evidence of it doesn't seem to hurt his credibility with the sympathetic media.


Interestingly however CNN apparently didn't find this last part of Russia scaremongering good enough to post it on its own website, cutting the interview short.

The channel's coverage of the latest disturbances in the US has shown a lot of mental gymnastics. Last week's caption on screen described the situation in Kenosha as "fiery, but mostly peaceful protests", clashing spectacularly with the image of a reporter standing in front of burning cars and explaining how the night riots in the city differed from peaceful demonstrations during the day.

On Sunday, CNN analyst Chris Cillizza posted a piece explaining how Trump was disingenuous in calling the events in Kenosha and Portland riots rather than protests. A photo of riot police officers standing in front of a major blaze was chosen as a cover picture.

If the interview with Schiff is any indicator, people on CNN have found a way to explain away the inconvenient violence: Russia did it with memes.