Society's ChildS


Igloo

European gas prices surge again to "astounding" new record highs, Germany's block on Nord Stream II gas pipeline continues

worker yamal gas pipeline germany russia
© Reuters / Vasily Fedosenko (BELARUS)A worker turns a valve at a gas compressor station at the Yamal-Europe pipeline near Nesvizh, some 130 km (81 miles) southwest of Minsk.
European gas prices have surged to new record highs as flows from a key Russian pipeline stopped, spooking buyers that have been scrambling to secure supplies during a deepening energy crunch.

Gas for delivery in Europe next month, which was already trading at record levels, jumped more than 20 per cent on Tuesday to close at €181 per megawatt hour.

After four months in which waning confidence in Russian supply had already pushed wholesale gas prices to their highest in history, the latest price rise threatens to drive up energy bills further for households and industry across the continent and add to inflationary pressures just as temperatures are forecast to drop.


Comment: 'Waning confidence in Russian supply'? Note that Germany has blocked Russia's recently completed Nord Stream II gas pipeline, because it would rather sabotage its own economy in order to appease its masters in the US; Serbia, on the other hand, hasn't been so foolish: Serbia negotiates "incredible" gas deal with Russia paying lower than market rate as energy costs elsewhere soar


Comment: With soaring inflation, food prices, shortages and vaccine mandates, this winter will likely cause significant suffering and discontent for Europe's citizens. Luckily for governments, the extremely mild Omicron coronavirus variant has arrived in time for them to excuse their scheduled lockdowns: Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: Pandemia Today, Pandemia Tomorrow, But Not Forever




Laptop

'Continued trouble': Amazon Web Services hit by yet another outage

amazon web services logo
© Amazon/GettyIn early December, an Amazon Web Services outage crippled airlines, banks and streaming services.
A loss of power at a single data center caused an outage at Amazon Web Services, the third one this month.

According to a status page for AWS, the power outage was reported at around 8 a.m. ET Wednesday, but has since been brought back.

"We have now restored power to all instances and network devices within the affected data center," read the latest status update at 8:39 a.m. ET.

Cheeseburger

Supply-chain woes: Japanese forced to downsize on french fries

french fries
Japan's branch of the globe's largest fast food chain McDonald's has run short on french fries amid delays in potato shipments. It has been forced to cut portions of its number-one dish.

"McDonald's Japan will temporarily limit sales of medium- and large-sized french fries as a proactive measure to ensure customers can continue to enjoy McDonald's french fries," the company told the BBC, adding that its Japanese customers will still be able to order small-sized fries. But when it's french fries we're talking about, who wants a small portion, right?

Comment:


X

Medical journal slams Facebook's 'inaccurate & incompetent' fact check

facebook warning covid censorship
© REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde
The British Medical Journal and Lead Stories, a fact checker in the employ of Facebook, are engaged in a war of words over a report on a Pfizer whistleblower that was deemed by the social network to have "missing context."

On November 2, the British Medical Journal (BMJ), one of the world's most prestigious medical periodicals, published a whistleblowing report that called into question the integrity of data and highlighted issues with regulatory oversight of phase-three trials of Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine.

The report was based on testimony by the former regional director of the Ventavia Research Group, a contractor that had assisted in the trials. Brook Jackson claimed several trial sites in Texas had experienced major issues, and alleged that Pfizer had falsified data, broken fundamental trial rules, and been "slow" to report adverse reactions.

Comment: Expecting anything other than the most mainstream of the mainstream narrative to survive on social media is a pipe dream, no matter how prestigious the source. Facebook has already admitted in court that their fact-checks are only opinions:
In explaining its actions against Stossel, lawyers for Meta stated - I'm guessing in very hushed tones - that the warning labels affixed by Facebook "are neither false nor defamatory; to the contrary, they constitute protected opinion." Yes, you read that right. Facebook is legally entitled to its opinion when judging the opinion of its customers! In other words, these so-called fact-checkers are merely referring to their own political predilections i.e. opinions when casting judgment upon the opinions of Facebook users. So it's probably fair to say that the image of Facebook fact-checkers all hunched over and squinting at digital Almanacs and Britannica encyclopedias all day in Zuckerberg's sweatshops is an illusory one.
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Arrow Up

The woke mind virus: Elon Musk unveils 'biggest threat to modern civilization'

elon musk babylon bee
© YouTube / The Babylon Bee
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has criticized 'wokeness' and mocked CNN in an interview with the conservative satire website the Babylon Bee, calling political correctness one of the greatest threats to civilization.

In the fiery interview, which aired on Tuesday evening, Musk protested attempts to cancel comedian Dave Chappelle and said the "woke mind virus" is "arguably one of the biggest threats to modern civilization."

"It should be OK to be humorous. Wokeness basically wants to make comedy illegal, which is not cool," the billionaire said, questioning, "Do we want a humorless society that is simply rife with condemnation and hate?"

Comment: Musk is pretty far from on-point on many issues (renewable energy or merging technology with biology, for example), yet he really hits the nail on the head some of the time. Wokeness is indeed a mind virus that seems to be spreading faster than Omicron.

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Briefcase

Journalist Alex Berenson SUES Twitter for 'violation of the First Amendment' over his permanent ban for questioning COVID vaccines

Alex Berenson 2
The lawsuit filed on Monday in US District Court for Northern California seeks Berenson's reinstatement to Twitter and unspecified monetary damages over his permanent ban
The independent journalist Alex Berenson has filed a federal lawsuit against Twitter challenging his ban from the service over a tweet questioning the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.

The lawsuit filed on Monday in US District Court for Northern California seeks Berenson's reinstatement to Twitter and unspecified monetary damages over his permanent ban in August.

A spokesperson for San Francisco-based Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com.

Berenson, a former New York Times reporter and prominent skeptic of many pandemic policies, was banned from Twitter over a tweet in which he stated that COVID vaccines do not prevent infection or transmission of the virus.


Attention

Alex Jones suing Pelosi and Jan. 6 panel, planning to plead the Fifth

alex jones
Alex Jones
Far-right radio host Alex Jones is suing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol in an effort to stop the panel from requiring his testimony and obtaining his phone records as part of its probe.

The lawsuit, which was filed on Monday in Washington, D.C. district court, also reveals that Jones has informed the committee of his intent to plead the Fifth Amendment if compelled to appear before the panel for a deposition, currently set for Jan. 10.

Jones also said he informed the committee that he will raise First Amendment objections when the panel asks about "constitutionally protected political and journalistic activity." The radio host, however, said the committee has disputed his assertions.

Comment: We get a slightly different spin from RT:
The lawsuit, which was filed on Monday in US District Court in Washington, alleges that Pelosi and the investigative committee that she appointed are trying to suspend constitutional liberties "in coercive secret proceedings specifically designed to satiate a political witch hunt."

The committee subpoenaed Jones in November, demanding documents related to his role in organizing an election-fraud protest that escalated into the Capitol riot, according to the lawsuit. The panel also ignored the radio host's constitutional objections, insisting that he testify in Washington on January 10, and it sought to obtain his phone records through AT&T.

"The select committee's members have made it abundantly clear that they are only interested in prosecuting political adversaries," the lawsuit said, adding that Jones was put in the "unconscionable position" of facing imprisonment if he exercises his constitutional rights.

Jones claimed that the committee is violating his 1st Amendment rights as a journalist, his 4th Amendment right of privacy in his papers, and his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. The lawsuit noted that committee chairman US Representative Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi) showed his disregard for those protections when he suggested in an MSNBC interview earlier this month that invoking the 5th Amendment may show that a witness is "part and parcel guilty to what occurred."
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V

Anti-lockdown protesters beat their way through police

Demonstrations in Schwerin, Germany.
© Getty Images / Ulrich PerreyPeople demonstrate downtown against the Corona measures, Schwerin.
In the German city of Mannheim, anti-lockdown protesters have confronted police who were trying to break up an unauthorized rally, leaving 13 officers wounded.

One of the officers had to be hospitalized as a result. The demonstrators had ignored a ban on public gatherings, taking to the city streets regardless, to hold what they described as a "stroll." According to police estimates, as many as 800 people turned up at various locations on Monday evening. Among the slogans heard at the rally were "Peace, Freedom, no Dictatorship," as well as "We are the people!" The demonstrators also set off a few firecrackers along their route.

At first, police were simply notifying the people through loudspeakers that they were violating the regional regulations, which, in turn, led to several altercations, and eventually a brawl that was caught on camera. In the unverified footage circulating on social media, a group of protesters are seen forcing their way through a police line, with some throwing "deliberate punches at the officers," as Patrick Knapp, a spokesperson for Mannheim police, told the media.

Comment: As the PTB are tightening the totalitarian grip over the whole planet, very soon every kind of protest will probably be "unauthorized".

Welcome to the new normal.

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Bullseye

The White House's vaccine threats aren't to keep you safe. They're to keep you in line

president joe biden
© The White House/Flickr
By now, you've likely seen or heard the latest coronavirus messaging from the White House, which President Joe Biden is scheduled to talk about again later on Tuesday. The president gave the first doomsday message for the unvaxxed, COVID response chief Jeff Zients repeated it, and chief of staff Ron Klain doubled down on it, so the comments were no slip of the tongue. This is the administration's official line.

"We are intent on not letting omicron disrupt work and school for the vaccinated. You've done the right thing, and we will get through this. For the unvaccinated, you're looking at a winter of severe illness and death for yourselves, your families, and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm," Zients said, one day after Biden made nearly identical comments.

This messaging is problematic for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is its remarkable ability to further harden 50 percent of the country against the so-called "unity" president, who has shaped up to be leagues more divisive than his predecessor.

But buried under the latest "dark winter" threat is an admission from the Biden White House that its detractors have been right about its aims all along. The contrast between the in-group and the out-group isn't that one is rid of the virus while the other isn't. The difference is that one has "done the right thing."

Comment: See also: White House ripped for doomsday winter message of 'severe illness and death' for unvaccinated people


Handcuffs

Report says dozens of felons out on bond in Chicago are getting re-arrested

Lightfoot
© AP/Charles Rex ArbogastChicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot
As of Saturday, at least 60 were accused of murder, attempted murder or shoootings while out on bond.

Dozens of felons who were released on bond in Chicago have been re-arrested this year for violent crimes, according to a local report.

As of Saturday, at least 60 felons were accused of murder, attempted murder or shootings while awaiting trial for a previous felony, CWB Chicago reported, with the total number of victims from these crimes adding up to at least 92.

The latest felon was identified as Malik Perteet, 22, who appeared in bond court last week. Police said Perteet was arrested Wednesday after shooting a 17-year-old girl in the 12500 block of S. Lowe Avenue earlier this month.

Comment: Flash from Fox News: reality bites! Lightfoot has finally recognized she is losing control of Chicago and requests federal help:
In a news conference Monday, the Democrat mayor asked U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to send in agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for six months to ramp up the number of gun investigations and gun seizures, according to Fox32 Chicago. She also asked for more federal prosecutors to handle the criminal cases those agents will investigate, as well as federal marshals to assist local law enforcement with tracking down thousands of suspects wanted on warrants, the station added.

"We need these additional resources well in advance of summer," Lightfoot reportedly said.

The plea comes as the number of shooting victims in Chicago this year -- as of this past Sunday -- was at 4,270, compared to 3,930 in 2020, the Chicago Tribune reported, citing police statistics.


Homicides have risen to 783, up from the 749 recorded during the same time period in 2020, the newspaper also said.

"Keeping you safe is my priority — not one of, but the first and primary priority," the Tribune quoted Lightfoot as saying. "I wake every morning with this as my first concern and I push myself and all involved to step up and do more and better because we cannot continue to endure the level of violence that we are now experiencing."

Federal law enforcement resources have been involved with the crime situation in Chicago in recent years.

Last summer, Fox News reported that then-President Donald Trump was sending in 100 federal agents to Chicago as part of Operation Legend.

Then in September 2020, then-Attorney General William Barr said the number of homicides in Chicago plunged 50% after the Trump administration's actions.

But Lightfoot, while noting the city was "grateful for the additional federal charges and prosecutions," according to the Chicago Tribune, pushed back against Barr's claims, suggesting the violence had begun to subside before federal law enforcement had arrived.