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Loss of Russian gas speeding Germany's deindustrialization - media

Olaf Scholz, BMW plant in Munich
© Getty Images / Sven HoppeGerman Chancellor Olaf Scholz at a BMW plant in Munich, December 5.
Germany's reign as an industrial superpower is "coming to an end" as the loss of cheap Russian natural gas amid the Ukraine crisis has dealt a "final blow" to manufacturers that were already struggling to remain cost-competitive, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday.

Industrial output in Germany has been dropping since 2017, and the downward spiral has accelerated since imports of Russian gas were cut off in 2022 to punish Moscow over the Ukraine conflict. Century-old factories are closing, and other companies are moving production lines to countries with lower costs, Bloomberg said.

"There's not a lot of hope, if I'm honest," Stefan Klebert, CEO at machinery maker GEA Group AG, told the outlet. "I am really uncertain that we can halt this trend. Many things would have to change very quickly."

Comment: The increased cost of gas is causing the cost of doing business to rise and leading to the downfall of German manufacturing. The German government, in its infinite wisdom, is apparently looking at compounding the problem by building gas-powered power plants. From RT:
Germany is set to spend €16 billion to construct four gas-fired power plants as it seeks to ensure an adequate supply of electricity after scrapping its nuclear reactors, the Economy Ministry announced earlier this week.

This comes as part of a major overhaul of the country's energy grid, according to the ministry.

The new gas-fired power plants will subsequently be converted to run on hydrogen between 2035 and 2040. A market-based capacity-boosting mechanism will allow power generation to be expanded by 2028, German officials said in a statement.

The plants will have a total capacity of up to 10 gigawatts (GW), which will come "in addition to the consistent expansion of renewable energies," and are expected to be vital to ensuring steady electricity supplies "even in times where there is little sun and wind."

German energy utility Uniper, which will reportedly be involved in the construction, said it was "relieved" that the decision to build the new plants has been made, adding that "swift action is urgently needed because the approval process and the actual construction of power plants and storage facilities will take several years."

The EU's top economy, which prior to the Ukraine conflict fueled its industry with Russian gas, had to ramp up electricity imports last year after the government decided to scrap nuclear power as it moves toward renewable energy sources.

Last April, Germany shut down its last three nuclear reactors despite warnings that doing so would actually cause more fossil fuels to be burned.

Germany has set itself a target of cutting greenhouse emissions by 65% by 2030, a plan even more ambitious than the one set by the EU as a whole. However, a report last year by the Federal Environment Agency showed that the goal is likely to be missed as the protracted energy crisis has pushed the switch to renewables in the country down the agenda.



Eye 2

Pedophile trans daycare worker avoids jail after sexually-assaulting baby

Maria Childers
A Kentucky transgender daycare worker reached a plea deal and avoided jail time after sexually-assaulting a baby while changing her diaper and bragging about it to a colleague.

Maria Childers was arrested in February 2023 for inappropriately touching an infant and making inappropriate comments while changing the baby's diaper, reported WPSD Local 6.

Investigators had received an anonymous tip that Childers had sexually abused a baby while working at Explore Learning Academy in Paducah in November 2022.

Court records obtained by Reduxx revealed Childers assaulted the child while changing her diaper then told a colleague, 'She likes it. It just made her day,' using additional language that is too disturbing to reproduce.

The Paducah police and the Kentucky Department for Community Based Services interviewed a witness who corroborated the details of the tip.

Comment: This pedophile should face a permanent ban on contact with children as part of the plea deal. Not just a six-month conditional. See also: Trans-identified biological male daycare worker charged with sexual abuse of infant in Kentucky


Snakes in Suits

Andrew Tate loses defamation case against US Marine who sounded the alarm that led to his sex trafficking arrest

andrew tate
© AP / Vadim GhirdaAndrew Tate leaves a courthouse in Bucharest, Romania, April 21, 2023.
Andrew Tate has lost his defamation case against a US Marine sergeant whose whistleblowing to authorities led to his arrest in Romania on sex crime charges.

Tate's bid to sue the reservist in a federal court in Florida was tossed by Judge Robin Rosenberg - who said 'Sergeant Doe' had no choice but to inform his superiors because texts he received from an alleged victim were 'so serious'.

But the judge, sitting in the Southern District of Florida, refused to dismiss a defamation claim in the same complaint against the 'victim' and another woman who say they were imprisoned by Tate, 37, and his 35-year-old brother Tristan in Romania after going there to model for them.

The brothers, dual US and UK citizens, were seized by police in the Eastern European country's capital Bucharest in December 2022. They were later released, but are still barred from leaving Romania where they deny charges of human trafficking, organizing a gang to exploit women and rape brought in June 2023.

Comment: Tate is an absolute slime ball with a sick and twisted sense of morality coming after the people that outed him as if they were in the wrong, not him. See also:


Explosion

Hezbollah escalates attacks on enemy border sites in response to Israeli aggression on South Lebanon

hezbollah
In support of the Palestinian people and resistance in Gaza and in light of the Israeli aggression on the various South Lebanon villages, the Islamic Resistance continued striking the Zionist occupation sites near Lebanon border.

Hezbollah military media issued consecutive statements to illustrate the attacks and their outcomes.

The first statement mentioned that the Islamic Resistance targeted the espionage equipment at Doviv Barracks with appropriate weapons at 11:15 AM on Friday, February 9, 2024, causing direct damage.

Comment: See also:


Camera

New Jeffrey Epstein autopsy photo proves he didn't kill himself - brother

Jeffrey Epstein
© Stephanie Keith / AFPUS Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman announces charges against Jeffery Epstein on July 8, 2019 in New York City.
The brother of Jeffrey Epstein has revealed a previously unreported autopsy photo, arguing that it proves the convicted child-sex trafficker couldn't have committed suicide in his jail cell.

Mark Epstein discussed the photo and other evidence in an interview on Friday with US podcast host Megan Kelly. The graphic picture shows a large red scar across the middle of the deceased pedophile's neck, which his brother said was inconsistent with reports by authorities that he hung himself in his New York City jail cell.

If Jeffrey Epstein had been found hanging from the upper bunk, as reported, ligature marks should have gone up under his chin and behind his ears, his brother said. "From that picture, the ligature mark on his neck is more in the middle of his neck and sort of goes straight back," he said. "In a hanging, it goes really high up in the front of the neck because you sink down into that noose."

Jeffrey Epstein was found dead inside his cell at New York's Metropolitan Correctional Center in 2019, while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide by the city's chief medical examiner. A doctor hired by Epstein's family who was present for the autopsy claimed that some of the evidence, including multiple neck fractures, suggested that he was murdered.

Comment: Not that there was ever any doubt about what happened to Epstein. But additional confirmation never hurts. Especially when the government lies so blatantly about what happened. See also:


Gavel

Amazon sued for pitching pricier products - Reuters

Amazon package
© Getty Images / nito100
Online retail giant Amazon has been sued in a proposed US class action for allegedly violating consumer protection laws, Reuters reported on Friday.

According to the report citing a complaint filed in a federal court in Seattle, Amazon was illegally steering customers to more expensive products by using an algorithm which determines what to display in the retailer's 'Buy Box' when buyers searched for products. The suit claims that the algorithm often picked higher-priced items to display to customers instead of cheaper ones.

The complaint also stated that buyers were likely to heed Amazon's suggestions 98% of the time, trusting the retailer to offer the best deals. According to documents cited by the news outlet, however, the algorithm was created specifically to benefit the retail giant by suggesting sellers that are part of its 'Fulfillment By Amazon' program and pay the marketplace extra fees for its services.

"While ostensibly identifying the selection that consumers would make if they considered all the available offers, Amazon's Buy Box algorithm deceptively favors Amazon's own profits over consumer well-being," the lawsuit stated. The practice allegedly violates a Washington state law against deceptive trade practices.

Amazon has so far declined to comment on the case, the latest in a slew of private and government actions regarding the retailer's business practices. Two separate class actions that also focused on violations against consumers claimed that Amazon charged buyers for returned purchases and failed to meet delivery times.

Comment: Amazon is never without controversy:


Attention

'Enshittification' is coming for absolutely everything

computer skeletons
© Saratta Chuengsatiansup
Last year, I coined the term "enshittification" to describe the way that platforms decay. That obscene little word did big numbers; it really hit the zeitgeist.

The American Dialect Society made it its Word of the Year for 2023 (which, I suppose, means that now I'm definitely getting a poop emoji on my tombstone).

So what's enshittification and why did it catch fire? It's my theory explaining how the internet was colonised by platforms, why all those platforms are degrading so quickly and thoroughly, why it matters and what we can do about it. We're all living through a great enshittening, in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of shit. It's frustrating. It's demoralising. It's even terrifying.

I think that the enshittification framework goes a long way to explaining it, moving us out of the mysterious realm of the "great forces of history", and into the material world of specific decisions made by real people; decisions we can reverse and people whose names and pitchfork sizes we can learn.

Propaganda

"In the war of propaganda, it is very difficult to defeat the United States"

putin
One under-appreciated moment from Tucker Carlson's recent interview with Vladimir Putin came after Putin implied that NATO powers were behind the 2022 bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline. Carlson responded by asking why Putin wouldn't present evidence of this to the world, so as to "win a propaganda victory."

"In the war of propaganda it is very difficult to defeat the United States because the United States controls all the world's media and many European media," Putin replied, adding, "The ultimate beneficiary of the biggest European media are American financial institutions."

I don't know about the specific nature of his Nord Stream insinuations, but Putin is definitely correct about the strength of the American propaganda machine. Of all the fronts one could possibly choose to challenge the United States on, propaganda is surely the least favorable. The US empire has by far the most sophisticated and effective propaganda machine ever to have existed, operating with such complexity that most people don't even know it exists.

Megaphone

'War criminal': Protesters disrupt Hillary Clinton speech

Hillary Clinton
© AFP / Mandel NganHillary Clinton attends her portrait unveiling at the US Department of State in Washington DC, September 26, 2023
Pro-Palestine demonstrators heckled Hillary Clinton at a lecture on Friday, calling the former US secretary of state a "war criminal" and telling her that she "will burn" for her actions in the Middle East.

Clinton was interrupted as she took the stage to deliver a lecture on conflict-related sexual violence at Columbia University in New York, where she is a professor of international and public affairs.

"Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, you are a war criminal!" one man shouted. "The people of Libya, the people of Iraq, the people of Syria, the people of Yemen, the people of Palestine as well as the people of America will never forgive you," the protester continued, shouting "you will burn" as he was escorted from the theater.

The former presidential candidate began her speech, but was interrupted and shouted down by a second protester.


Comment: She deserves to be sent packing on her broomstick back to whatever hell she crawled out of for what she's done and continues to do.


Stop

Time to stop Ukraine 'meat grinder' - Musk

Elon Musk
© Andreas SOLARO / AFPX (formerly Twitter) CEO Elon Musk speaks during the Atreju political meeting organized by the young militants of Italian right wing party Brothers of Italy on December 16, 2023 in Rome.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has taken a swipe at US President Joe Biden, after the American leader criticized Congress for failing to approve more funding for Kiev. The billionaire said the conflict between Ukraine and Russia should already have ended.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday, Musk weighed in on Biden's comments during his meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz earlier in the day. The president had suggested that the failure of the US Congress to continue to support Ukraine would be "outrageous" and would border on "criminal neglect."

The US has for months struggled to approve new funding for Kiev due to opposition among Republicans, who have demanded more money for security on America's southern border. While Biden recently endorsed a $118 billion bill, $60 billion of which was earmarked for Ukraine, many GOP members have opposed it, saying it does not do enough to address the border crisis.

Responding to Biden's criticism of Congress over Ukraine, Musk stated "it is time to stop the meat grinder," adding that this "should have been done a year ago."

Earlier this week, the US-based billionaire also argued it is "insane" to send "so much money to Ukraine with no accountability and no end game."

Comment: He's right.