Society's ChildS


Attention

Saudi oil giant CEO says world should abandon the fantasy of living without oil

The clean energy revolution is failing, and everyone knows it.

In a radical move, the CEO of an oil giant actually defended oil. For a brief moment the space-time continuum opened a worm hole to reality, and leaders of some of the world's largest corporations briefly said sensible things.

The energy transition is falling apart so fast, even the prime targets of hate, the Big Oil Men themselves, are now openly pointing out what a waste of time and money solar and wind power are. BP was trying to cut oil production 40% until very recently when it flipped to increasing it. But now we have a whole conference of Big Oil.
Saudi Aramco CEO says energy transition is failing, world should abandon 'fantasy' of phasing out oil

By Spencer Kimball, CNBC

HOUSTON — Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said Monday that the energy transition is failing and policymakers should abandon the "fantasy" of phasing out oil and gas, as demand for fossil fuels is expected to continue to grow in the coming years.

"In the real world, the current transition strategy is visibly failing on most fronts as it collides with five hard realities," Nasser said during a panel interview at the CERAWeek by S&P Global energy conference in Houston, Texas.
We spent trillions of dollars and we have nothing to show for it:
Nasser said alternative energy sources have been unable to displace hydrocarbons at scale, despite the world investing more than $9.5 trillion over the past two decades. Wind and solar currently supply less than 4% of the world's energy...

Meanwhile, the share of hydrocarbons in the global energy mix has barely fallen in the 21st century from 83% to 80%, Nasser said.
This is the graph he was surely thinking of — the one that shows how irrelevant, inconsequential and trivial the whole "renewable energy transition" has been so far. See that black line...?

Fossil Fuel
© OurWorldData.org

Bullseye

How it's done: Texas pulls $8.5B investment from BlackRock over ESG policies

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott
Texas 'will not stand idle as our financial future is attacked by Wall Street,' said State Board of Education Chairman Aaron Kinsey

The terminating a massive $8.5 billion investment with trillion-dollar asset manager BlackRock over the state's determination that the firm is engaged in a boycott of energy companies.

In an announcement first shared with FOX Business, Texas State Board of Education Chairman Aaron Kinsey said the so-called Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF) had delivered a notice to BlackRock on Tuesday, informing the New York City-based firm of the action. According to Kinsey, the move was made in accordance with a 2021 state law that seeks to distance the state and its large public purse from financial institutions boycotting the oil and gas sector.

"The Texas Permanent School Fund has a fiduciary duty to protect Texas schools by safeguarding and growing the approximately $1 billion in annual oil and gas royalties managed by the Texas General Land Office," Kinsey said in a statement Tuesday. "Terminating BlackRock's contract ensures PSF's full compliance with Texas law."

Comment: Things seem to be turning sour for this tentacle of the financial vampire squid:


No Entry

I was banned from Elon's 'free speech' X app for offending power

ELON MUSK twitter x
© The Grayzone
Following years of pressure from Israel lobbyists and British spooks, I was finally banned by Twitter/X. What does my removal say about Elon Musk, who flaunts his opposition to censorship, while promising to build an "everything app" where you could lose access to banking and messaging for violating dubious speech codes?

On February 17, I was suspended from Twitter/X without warning. The cause was mass-reporting by Zionist activists I'd offended. My removal was justified on the basis that I violated X's "rules against violent speech." Having endlessly condemned violence on the platform - in particular, the Gaza genocide - I'm flummoxed. Not least because a post from one of my Zionist detractors, which openly calls for me to be "battered on a weekly basis" over my political views, remains extant today.
kit klarenberg zionist troll twitter
© WordySleepsmith/X
Despite repeated requests for clarity from X, I have no idea whether I will ever be reinstated. In February, I received from "support" stating the suspension will only be reversed after three months. But just a few sentences later, the email contradicted itself, stating in closing that the ban would last just a month. Meanwhile, whenever I log into X, my profile appears to have zero followers or follows, I cannot view or search anyone's tweets (including my own), and my DMs are inaccessible. Have they been erased? A landing page message reads:
"Your account is permanently in read-only mode, which means you can't post, repost, or like content. You won't be able to create new accounts."

Colosseum

EU threatens to impose tariffs on Russian grain imports, despite farmers calling for duties on Ukrainian grain

Russia grain harvest record agriculture
© Sputnik / Ilya NaimushinFILE: Russia set a record for its largest-ever wheat harvest in 2022
The EU is preparing to impose tariffs on grain imports from Russia and Belarus to placate farmers and some member states, officials familiar with the plans said on Tuesday.

Traders said Russian and Belarusian shipments to the bloc were low, certainly relative to those from Ukraine, and that the imposition of tariffs was largely symbolic.

Russian research company SovEcon said it would have little impact on grain trade and prices, given only 2% of Russian shipments went to Europe, with the exception of sunflower meal, of which the European Union took a third of Russian exports.


Comment: So sunflower meal prices would spike in the EU.


Comment: Whilst farmers do indeed need to be listened to (although that's highly unlikely), these tariffs may prove to be more harmful than is immediately apparent: Europe is wargaming a food crisis - Bloomberg


Arrow Up

Voter turnout in Russian presidential election reaches all-time high of 77.44% - Central Elections Commission

russian elections
© Sputnik/ Ramil Sitdikov
The general voter turnout in the presidential election in Russia, including the votes given online, has reached an all-time high of 77.44% over the entire history of presidential campaigns in the country since 1991, the Central Elections Commission (CEC) said on Monday.

As of 10:00 a.m. Monday, the CEC recorded 87,113,127 votes cast in the election, CEC Chair Ella Pamfilova said.

The previous highest voter turnout in presidential elections in Russia, 74.66%, was recorded in 1991.

About 2.6 million people exercised their early-voting right, Pamfilova said. Nearly 10 million people also voted at polling stations that are closest to their actual current location, rather than where they live permanently, making up 90% of those who previously applied for this option, she said.

The voting in the presidential election in Russia lasted from March 15 through 17, 2024. The candidates previously registered by the CEC to run for president included Liberal-Democratic Party (LDPR) leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma Deputy Chairman Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, Duma member Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party, and incumbent president and self-nominee Vladimir Putin.

Eye 2

Haitian national arraigned for rape of 14-year-old girl at Massachusetts hotel

rockland immigration center
© Alice Giordano/Epoch Times
A 26-year-old Haitian national has been charged with raping a 14-year-old girl at a Massachusetts hotel being used to house illegal immigrants under the Gov. Maura Healey administration.

Cory Alvarez was arraigned on the charges of child rape on Thursday, March 14, at the Hingham District Court. The alleged assault took place at the Comfort Inn in Rockland, according to a press release issued by police. Rockland is located about 22 miles south of Boston.

Patrol Lt. Thomas MacDonald of the Rockland Police Department told The Epoch Times that since the state secured the 100-room hotel as a shelter for illegal immigrants in October, the police have taken on a heavy volume of calls related to the property.

"We're there a lot, he said.

Red Flag

Illegal migrant from Lebanon caught at border admitted he's a Hezbollah terrorist hoping 'to make a bomb' — and was headed for NY

el paso border crossing
© Getty ImagesImmigrants pass through coils of razor wire while crossing the US-Mexico border on March 13, 2024, in El Paso, Texas
A Lebanese migrant who was caught sneaking over the border admitted he's a member of Hezbollah, he hoped to make a bomb, and his destination was New York, The Post can reveal.

Basel Bassel Ebbadi, 22, was caught by the US Border Patrol on March 9 near El Paso, Texas. While in custody, he was asked what he was doing in the US, to which he replied, "I'm going to try to make a bomb," according to a Border Patrol document exclusively obtained by The Post.

But Ebbadi later claimed in an interview that he had been trying to flee Lebanon and Hezbollah because he "didn't want to kill people" and said "once you're in, you can never get out," according to internal US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) documents.

Ebbadi said in a sworn interview after his arrest that he had trained with Hezbollah for seven years and served as an active member guarding weapons locations for another four years, the documents show.

Bad Guys

'Catastrophic' hunger has gripped Gaza - global watchdog

Children walk past the rubble of a collapsed building in Gaza, March 16, 2024.
© SAID KHATIB / AFPChildren walk past the rubble of a collapsed building in Gaza, March 16, 2024.
A UN-backed report warns that mass death is imminent without an immediate ceasefire and food supplies

Famine conditions now exist in the northern part of Gaza, a UN monitor group warned on Monday. Around 300,000 people remain trapped in the area, following months of Israeli bombardment that has left over 31,000 people dead.

The UN-backed report also warns that more than 70% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million faces "catastrophic hunger." The Integrated Food-Security Phase Classification (IPC) said that mass death is now imminent without an immediate ceasefire and deliveries of food aid to the areas affected by the fighting.

Comment:
Israel appears to keep bombing enough to create conditions that make the starvation and death of most of the remaining a matter or course, all the while claiming the need to defend itself and repeating that enough human aids gets through.

And what do the supporters of Israel do? Probably they follow the lead:
Best of the Web: WaPo reports Biden KNEW Israel was indiscriminately bombing civilians in Gaza

And what is the situation in Israel?
War on Gaza: Israel's leftists quickly lost their compassion for Palestinians
The concept that the most the subject can aspire to is the master's recognition of his being human, a recognition that can be withheld as easily as it was given if the subject "disappoints", is the hallmark of the colonial situation.

In this situation, the master deems himself so superior to the subject that the latter should be thankful for every moment in which the master's grip on his throat remains loose, while any resistance to the ever-present threat of a chokehold is tantamount to ingratitude.

These are the same "leftists of the past" who, alongside their disappointment in the Palestinians, have also suddenly discovered the joys of embracing tribalism - as Tzufit Grant evidently has done.

Since 7 October, she says, she has wanted to walk all day through the streets and kiss Israelis: "I have become very Israeli, very Jewish."

Lamentably, disastrously, in today's Israel, this would seem to involve parting not only with the "humanitarian portion" of the brain, but with the brain itself.
And they said "never again"! Apparently it is easy to proclaim at a distance, in time and space, but when closer to a sore point in history, does it become more difficult and ambiguous as the mind filters the information attempting to uphold an idea that little has changed from before?

Scott Ritter: Russia, Israel and the law of war regarding civilians
The "Dahiya Doctrine" specifically calls for the deliberate targeting of civilian populations and civilian infrastructure for the specific purpose of causing suffering and severe distress throughout the targeted population. The goal was to simultaneously destroy any enemy in the targeted area, to intimidate the targeted population into turning on the militants (in the case Hezbollah), and to deter other population centers from supporting Hezbollah. The "Dahiya Doctrine" was used extensively against Gaza since 2008, killing thousands of civilians. In its definition and through its execution, the "Dahiya Doctrine" amounts to nothing less than state terrorism, which means that the Israeli military, through its implementation of this policy, has become a state sponsor of terrorism.
Perhaps the people in Gaza experience what will become more common:
The Globalist's SECRET Message!
For the completely clueless, the points that pop up again and again in the oligarchs' oratory are:
  • Humanity is the enemy.
  • We must reduce the population.
  • Billions of commoners must die that we and our progeny may live.
That's it. It's right there in black and white in their major publications, security memoranda, white papers and speeches. Heck, it's even engraved in stone . . . or at least it used to be until some enterprising individuals turned that stone into rubble. The point is: there is no secret message. There's only a completely out-in-the-open one.



Target

Romanian mercenaries' boast of involvement in Ukrainian attempt to infiltrate Russia's border

launcher rocket
© CC0 / U.S. Army Europe Image
Amid dwindling NATO military aid for the Kiev regime and successful efforts by Russian troops to push through heavily fortified Ukrainian defenses in Donbass, Ukrainian forces have undertaken several attempts to break into Russia's Belgorod and Kursk regions in recent months, only to be "decisively repelled."

Mercenaries from the Romanian Battlegroup "Getica" claim they participated in the recent spate of attacks on Russian border regions together with the Russian Volunteer Corps*.

Representatives of the group also published videos of the brazen attacks and shelling of Russian border regions on social media networks.

Comment: The West seems to be so desperate to line up cannon fodder for its war on Russia that it's acclimatizing its populace to the conscription of women: Denmark becomes latest European country to conscript women into military

See also:


Play

Oscar-winning Ukrainian documentary called out for 'misleading' images

Screenshot from a 2015 music video by Artyom Grishanov
© YouTube / Artyom GrishanovScreenshot from a 2015 music video by Artyom Grishanov
At least one of the images featured in the Oscar-winning Ukrainian documentary '20 Days in Mariupol' was in fact filmed years prior to the fighting in the city, it has emerged. In particular, one clip featured the aftermath of attacks by Kiev's forces on Donbass, leading to accusations that filmmakers misled viewers.

Released last year, the documentary purports to depict the battle between Russian and Ukrainian forces for Mariupol, a large coastal city in the Donetsk People's Republic liberated by Moscow's troops in May 2022.

Ukrainian director Mstislav Chernov was on the ground covering the events for the Associated Press, and the film's narrative aligns with that of Kiev and its Western backers, by accusing Russian soldiers of war crimes.

Comment: In the YouTube video, the image is from minute 4:29 of 8:12 Viewing is restricted by YouTube to protect viewers of all ages from what the Western powers have helped along. If the video does not show up, try looking for the title: "Артём Гришанов - Игрушки / Toys for Poroshenko / War in Ukraine (English subtitles)"

On the topic of the children of Ukraine, there is this artice Is the Olena Zelenska Foundation covering for sex trafficking?

Mariupol has witnessed much history:
SOTT articles: in title, 50+ articles; in summary, 210+ articles While the film is drawing eyes from the watchers are they being drawn to Ukraine and Mariupol, are they, even conveniently being drawn from Gaza and Israel? There are differences in the approach:
Scott Ritter: Russia, Israel and the law of war regarding civilians which ends:
During the 2006 Lebanon War, Israel Defense Force Northern Commander Gadi Eisenkot implemented a military strategy that sought to target and destroy entire civilian areas rather than engage in difficult and dangerous ground combat necessary to capture them. The goal of this strategy was more than simply trying to reduce Israeli casualties — the stated purpose of this new approach was to hold the entire civilian population accountable for the actions of Hezbollah fighters. Eisenkot did away with the requirement under international law to distinguish between military and civilian targets. This new doctrine was first used on the West Beirut Dahiya neighborhood, and the doctrine took its name from this location — the "Dahiya" Doctrine.

The "Dahiya Doctrine" specifically calls for the deliberate targeting of civilian populations and civilian infrastructure for the specific purpose of causing suffering and severe distress throughout the targeted population. The goal was to simultaneously destroy any enemy in the targeted area, to intimidate the targeted population into turning on the militants (in the case Hezbollah), and to deter other population centers from supporting Hezbollah. The "Dahiya Doctrine" was used extensively against Gaza since 2008, killing thousands of civilians. In its definition and through its execution, the "Dahiya Doctrine" amounts to nothing less than state terrorism, which means that the Israeli military, through its implementation of this policy, has become a state sponsor of terrorism.

As the facts emerge about the performance of the Russian military during the battle for Mariupol, it becomes crystal clear that the Russian soldiers behaved in an exemplary fashion, putting themselves at risk to ensure that the principles of distinction and military necessity were applied liberally and well within the spirit and letter of international law.

One cannot make a similar claim about the Israeli Defense Force and Gaza, where the "Dahiya Doctrine" is being executed with a vengeance.