Welcome to Sott.net
Thu, 04 Nov 2021
The World for People who Think

Society's Child
Map

Arrow Down

Early morning jogs banned in Central Park!

Peter Shankman
© Alex Rud for New York Daily News
Peter Shankman, who was ticketed for jogging in Central Park early Thursday morning, says the ticket is ridiculous. 'You’re writing me a summons for exercising?' he told the Daily News.
Sometimes I look at how NYC has been transformed in recent years and I just shake my head. It has become so similar to one of those elite communities in Huxley's Brave New World. Just a haven for cry baby bailed out bankers running amok, tossing their Fed provided fiat all over the place.

As I have said before, the city of my birth has become Disney Land for Wall Street, with the NYPD basically a private enforcement arm of JP Morgan and the TBTF banks.

To scared Manhattanites everywhere, fear not. The departure of Mayor Bloomberg has apparently done nothing to stop the city's evolution into full blown nanny-state.

The latest thing New Yorkers can't do is jog in Central Park early in the morning. Just to keep you peasants safe...

From the Daily News:

Che Guevara

Armed fascist militia from Western Ukraine storms Kharkov adminstration building in East Ukraine, local people retake premises and hoist the Russian flag

Image
© AFP Photo / Sergey Bobok
Pro-Russian activists try to re-capture the regional government building in Kharkov from nationalist pro-Maidan protesters on March 1, 2014.
The police took a back seat when the Kharkov administration building was seized by armed nationalists from Western Ukraine and let pro-Russian demonstrators liberate it instead, the mayor of Kharkov Gennady Kernes told Kommersant.

The political tensions in the largest city in eastern Ukraine, Krharkov have reached a pivotal point on Saturday during a peaceful rally "For protection of the city" at which tens of thousands, including children gathered.

Someone threw an explosive package at the crowd from the administrative building held by a group of pro-Maidan protesters.

No one was injured by the blast, but a group of pro-Russian activists broke through the cordon of Maidan supporters in order to recapture the building.

Scuffles erupted resulting in injuries of more than 100 people. Gun shots were also heard from inside the building, as well as several more blasts. Eventually, the people have retook the building, raising a Russian flag over the administration for a few hours.


Bacon

Medvedev presents a Mercedes each to Russia's 44 Olympic medalists in Kremlin ceremony, while Switzerland's winner from Davos gets... a pig

Image
© RIA Novosti / Artyom Jitenev
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday handed out the keys to a fleet of brand new Mercedes as prizes for the country's Olympic medalists at the Sochi Winter Games.

Russia finished a wildly successful home Olympics, which closed Sunday, at the top of the medal table with 13 golds, 11 silver and nine bronze for a historic high tally of 33.

Family

A dying country? Russia's birth rate is now higher than the United States'

russia us birth rate
This was not the headline that the Center for Disease Control's National Center for Health Statistics gave its recent release of provisional fertility data for 2012. However, if you compare the most recent CDC data with Rosstat data on Russian births you see that, for the first time in a very long time, in 2012 Russia's birth rate actually exceeded that of the United States. This is, to put it mildly, a significant reversal from the not too distant past when the US had a birth rate that was as much as 75% higher than Russia's. As you can see, the speed and scale of the convergence is impressive

Dollar Gold

Coca-Cola and Nestle are sucking us dry without our even knowing, effectively privatizing water supplies

Image
The droughts currently ravaging California, which will likely send food pricesgh soaring down the road, have highlighted the importance of available freshwater supplies. As 17 communities in California are within 60 days of running out of drinking water, the ability of companies like Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) and Nestle (NASDAQOTH: NSRGY) to effectively privatize water supplies feels awfully disconcerting. While the rains that just began to fall out west may bring some measure of relief, the fact remains that the world is coming up hard against a water crisis.

Water, water, everywhere ... right?

Most people view water as an infinite, inexhaustible resource, much like air. After all, it's part of a whole natural cycle, right? For most practical purposes, though, water -- especially clean, safe drinking water -- is resolutely finite and exhaustible. It's getting worse as the global population hurtles toward the 9-billion mark, as agricultural and fuel extraction guzzle more and more water, and as climate change adds growing stress to existing supplies.

Consider a few alarming indicators:
  • One in seven people around the world lack access to safe drinking water.
  • The Global Economic Forum identifies water crises as the third most serious risk the world faces in 2014.
  • The poorest 20% of households in El Salvador, Jamaica, and Nicaragua spend up to 10% of their income on water.
  • From 2003 to 2010, parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran lost 144 cubic kilometers of stored freshwater -- about the same amount of water as there is in the Dead Sea. Many scholars draw a solid line between water scarcity and the recent conflicts in those regions, and the U.S. director of national intelligence sees global water overuse as a potential threat to national security.
  • NASA data from Jan. 17 showed California's backup groundwater reserves to be so depleted that the losses could be detected from satellites 400 kilometers above the earth's surface.

Star of David

Ultra-Orthodox Jews mass-protest in Jerusalem over army-service draft law

 Ultra-Orthodox Jews holding a placard
© AFP Photo / David Buimovitch
Ultra-Orthodox Jews holding a placard that reads in english "Military service will not be imposed upon us" take part in a mass prayer vigil in Jerusalem on March 2, 2014.
Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews have paralyzed most of Jerusalem as men, women and children took to the streets to protest an army service bill that would require many of them to serve in the military.

Local media called the protest "a million man march" and put a number of participants between 250,000 to 400,000 people, while organizers said nearly 500,000 Haredi - ultra-Orthodox men as they are called in Israel - attended the rally.

The police could not give an exact number, but spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that undoubtedly hundreds of thousands men, women and children were present.

Dressed in black hats and long black jackets, members of the Haredi community waved signs in Hebrew and English accusing the government of attempting to suppress religion.

Some of the banners read: "Military service will not be imposed on us" and "Jews cannot survive without the Torah."

Many wore sackcloth as a symbol of grief because of the draft law which may oblige ultra-Orthodox Jews to join the military after decades of being granted rights not to serve in the army, unlike all non-Haredi Jewish men and women.

As the men were rallying, women and children, due to the community's standards of modesty, stood on separate streets, praying.

Black Magic

Rise in satanic crimes among black youth in South Africa

Satanic Crimes
© Flickr

Johannesburg - Occult-related crimes are on the increase across Gauteng, and now police are warning parents to be on the lookout for the telltale signs that their children are dabbling in the dark arts.

The provincial Harmful Religious Practices (Occult Crimes) Unit of the SAPS said it had 78 occult-related enquiries in the past three months, 48 of which were connected to a crime.

Investigator Lieutenant-Colonel Hennie de Jager said his unit had seen an increase of occult-related crimes in Gauteng, particularly among black youth.

"Occult-related crimes are increasing, especially in black areas where boys and girls are promised fame and riches."

He said his unit had recently received calls from parents who had told investigators their children were drinking blood.

"It's all over Gauteng. It pops up, goes down and then appears again," De Jager said.

He was addressing journalists at an SAPS news briefing on Wednesday.

The unit is involved in the investigation into the murder of two Dobsonville girls, Thandeka Moganetsi, 14, and Chwayita Rathazayo, 15, who were killed in a suspected satanic ritual.

The teenagers were discovered in a field in Dobsonville, Soweto, dressed in their school uniforms, with cuts to their hands and necks. Black candles were found at the scene.

Quenelle

Russian flags fly in Ukraine: Thousands rally against 'illegitimate govt'

Image
© AFP/Alexander Khudoteply
A line of police stand guard as pro-Russian protesters wave Russian flags during a rally in front of the regional administration building in the industrial Ukrainian city of Donetsk on March 1, 2014.
Thousands of pro-Russian demonstrators across eastern Ukraine and Crimea are protesting against the new government, with administration buildings being seized in several cities. Gunshots have been reported as anti- and pro-Maidan protesters clash.

Protesters in Kharkov and Donetsk stormed local government offices and removed Ukrainian flags, replacing them with the Russian tricolor on Saturday.

Between 7,000 to 10,000 demonstrators gathered in the center of Donetsk, a large industrial city in eastern Ukraine. Reportedly, protesters seized the regional administration building. While a group of demonstrators were storming the building from the central entrance, a crowd in Lenin Square in front of it kept chanting "Russia!"
Донецк. Площадь Ленина #Крыму #Украины #Ukraine #антимайдан #майдан #малороссия #евромайдан #новороссия pic.twitter.com/5uIxIJwND5

- Антимайдан (@anti_maydan) March 1, 2014
The participants of the rally were demanding to hold a referendum on the future of the region, and particularly, on the status of Russian language.


Newspaper

Reading Ukraine in Iran

"Kyiv's historic day" or "Dem-wreck-cracy!"
Image
© Vatan-e Emrouz
The way Iranian media have portrayed Ukraine's turmoil depends on which side of Iran's political divide they stand.

Hard-line media have given readers the impression that the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych following months of antigovernment protests is a cause for mourning. Those skimming through the reformist press were likely to become excited about the developments in the eastern European country.

The differences highlighted the stances and world views of the two sides: on the one hand hard-liners' wariness of the West and popular protests, and on the other, a hunger for change among reformists who have been increasingly pushing for the release of Iranian opposition leaders.


Comment: How great is this hunger in reality? From the article Iran's real 'nuclear' revolution we can read:
Meanwhile, on Tuesday last week, millions of people hit the streets in Tehran in a massive rally celebrating the 35 years of the Islamic revolution. How come?

For all its economic mismanagement, Iran's illiteracy rate has been reduced to near zero. Women are active, participative voters (try even raising the issue in the House of Saud's paradise). There has been remarkable scientific progress, even under harsh sanctions. Pursuing a civilian nuclear program is a matter of national consensus.

USA

U.S. Army is giving away 13,000 MRAPs to patrol America

MRAP Vehicles
© Cudahy Now
Last year we saw colleges beginning to acquire MRAP vehicles. Now, according to Bloomberg, the United States Army is giving away 13,000 military grade armored trucks for free, which tax payers purchased for $500,000 each.

The 20-ton MRAPs, or Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected trucks, were built with the intention to save U.S. soldiers from roadside bombs during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.