Society's Child
Reducing CO2 emissions and recycling packaging have long been understood as important steps towards curbing climate change. However, the environmental lobby has recently begun to target meat consumption too. A widely publicized report in October argued that beef consumption in Western countries needs to fall by 90 percent to avoid climate catastrophe. Another equally apocalyptic report from the EAT-Lancet commission, released last week, recommended that meat and dairy consumption be drastically reduced worldwide.
The current legislation regulating the path for legally changing a person's sex was adopted in 2003 and has strict requirements. To qualify, a person must be at least 20, unmarried, and have no underage children. He or she must also undergo surgery to reconstruct his or her genitals to match the preferred sex, which involves removing the original sex glands - effectively, sterilization.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court passed a ruling on the case of Takakito Usui, who wanted to be legally recognized as male without losing reproductive ability.
Comment: CNN's coverage of this development skews the line of force of the decision by highlighting that the reassignment surgery causes sterilization. The legal requirement for legal reassignment isn't that the trans people wanting to have their legal gender changed be sterilized. The requirement is that their physique match their desired legal sex. Yes, a consequence of making that transition is sterilization, but that is not the goal. The goal is, as justice Miura stated, to integrate these people into normal society to prevent social confusion. This is not an unreasonable goal and is not an unreasonable requirement. Those wanting to change their gender without the permanent consequences of surgery may disagree, but it's a surefire way to guarantee that those who seek to change their legal sex status both want and deserve it.
"The red MAGA hat is the new white hood," tweeted actress Alyssa Milano in response to the video of a confrontation between a MAGA hat-wearing teenager and a Native American elder.
Milano was joined by commentator Angela Rye during a segment on Chris Cuomo's show. She called the 'Make America Great Again' hat as "maddening and frustrating and triggering" to look at "as a KKK hood."
Comment: The extreme left has gone off the rails and even being faced with reality doesn't change their course. The problem is the extreme has clearly entered the mainstream.
Overall, 34 percent of Americans approve of Trump's job performance in a survey conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That's down from 42 percent a month earlier and nears the lowest mark of his two-year presidency. The president's approval among Republicans remains close to 80 percent, but his standing with independents is among its lowest points of his time in office.
"Trump is responsible for this," said poll respondent Lloyd Rabalais, a federal contractor from Slidell, Louisiana, who's not affiliated with either political party.
McLaren, who led an investigation initiated by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), claimed that hundreds of Russian athletes across various sports had benefited from an alleged state-sponsored doping system which supposedly existed in the build-up to the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games.
McLaren's findings led to a massive crackdown on Russian sports bodies and athletes, with the most severe punishment being the country's ban from the Rio Olympics in 2016 and PyeongChang Games in 2018, with large numbers of national athletes missing out.
Comment: Good for them! Mclaren should face consequences for the horrendous lies that he spread and the damage that he did.
Also see:
- Russian athletes banned from Olympics exonerated of charges, McLaren report exposed as misrepresentation
- Fancy Bears leaks show McLaren was given 'political order' to file report resulting in Russia's expulsion from Olympics
Senate Bill 526, introduced this month in the Oregon Legislative Assembly as part of Brown's budget, orders the Oregon Health Authority to "study home visiting by licensed health care providers." Lawmakers went so far as to declare that SB 526 is an "emergency" measure - one that requires a resolution by the end of the year. The intro to the bill, the language of which has not yet been crafted, reads:
The Oregon Health Authority shall study home visiting by licensed health care providers in this state. The authority shall submit findings and recommendations for legislation to an interim committee of the Legislative Assembly related to health care not later than December 31, 2019.

A woman wears a Pakistani wedding veil ahead of her traditional Islamic wedding blessing, London
The Council of Europe, an organisation made up of 47 nations, passed a resolution on Tuesday, warning about the role of sharia councils on family, inheritance and commercial law, stating that they "clearly discriminate against women in divorce and inheritance cases."
They named the UK, along with Albania, Azerbaijan and Turkey, in a resolution highlighting conflicts between sharia law and universal human rights. It called on the UK government to ensure the protection of those in vulnerable positions, and said it should run awareness campaigns to teach Muslim women about their rights.
It started with Morris giving a long interview to Ofer Aderet in which he issued dire predictions for the future of the state of Israel. This has become a back-and-forth (Morris-Levy-Morris-Levy) that is a fight for the soul of the one-state. Both essentially agree, that the two-state solution is no longer an actual possibility. Thus, the discussion becomes, "What kind of a state this is, and what it will become."
Let's look first at Morris' predictions in the first interview:
This place will decline like a Middle Eastern state with an Arab majority. The violence between the different populations, within the state, will increase. The Arabs will demand the return of the refugees. The Jews will remain a small minority within a large Arab sea of Palestinians, a persecuted or slaughtered minority, as they were when they lived in Arab countries. Those among the Jews who can, will flee to America and the West.
Independent reporter Vincent Lapierre has been 'embedded' with Yellow Vest protesters since the movement began back in November, publishing video reports on his channel Le Média Pour Tous of each of the major Saturday protests in Paris.
The following is his video report from 'Acte IX' in Paris, which took place on Saturday 12th of January. Click on the captions icon (cc) for English subtitles.
Meet the Yellow Vests: working men and women, unemployed people, pensioners, parents, patriots, of foreign descent, Antifa, hoods from the banlieues, country-folk, and privileged students...
The Citizens' Initiative Rally (RIC) announced its decision to field a group of candidates for the upcoming May elections on Wednesday, unveiling first 10 names. The list is to be expanded, as the group plans to get 69 more candidates on it.
"The citizen movement... has shown the need to transform the anger into a political project capable of giving answers to the French people who have supported it," the group said in a statement.
Comment: How the Yellow Vests were going to organize themselves was always going to be tricky, but, for now, rather than attempt to reinvent the wheel they could tweak the system already in place; one idea put forward was the ability to vote to remove a politician at any point in time if they show they're not fulfilling their campaign promises:
- Yellow Vests evolving, organizing over key local and national problems - Professor
- France's Yellow Vests protests: Why it's different this time
- What do the protesters in France want? Check out the 'official' Yellow Vest manifesto
- France's gilets jaunes prepare for ninth weekend, government declare they will show their "authority"
- Niall Bradley to PressTV: 'Yellow Vests Movement a Result of Sclerotic, Totalitarian Politics in Western Europe'
- NewsReal: Yellow Vest Protests, Brexit Farce - Revolutionary Climate in Western Europe?
- NewsReal: Révolution Jaune? France Revolts Against Macron














Comment: See also: