Society's ChildS


Eye 2

Net-zero, the digital panopticon and the future of food

panopticon
The food transition, the energy transition, net-zero ideology, programmable central bank digital currencies, the censorship of free speech and clampdowns on protest. What's it all about? To understand these processes, we need to first locate what is essentially a social and economic reset within the context of a collapsing financial system.

Writer Ted Reece notes that the general rate of profit has trended downwards from an estimated 43% in the 1870s to 17% in the 2000s. By late 2019, many companies could not generate enough profit. Falling turnover, squeezed margins, limited cashflows and highly leveraged balance sheets were prevalent.

Professor Fabio Vighi of Cardiff University has described how closing down the global economy in early 2020 under the guise of fighting a supposedly new and novel pathogen allowed the US Federal Reserve to flood collapsing financial markets (COVID relief) with freshly printed money without causing hyperinflation. Lockdowns curtailed economic activity, thereby removing demand for the newly printed money (credit) in the physical economy and preventing 'contagion'.

Stock Down

Bad omen: Dollar Tree to close around 1K Family Dollar stores

family dollar stores closing economy
© Jin Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty ImagesDollar Tree will close 600 of its Family Dollar stores in the first half of 2024.
600 of its Family Dollar stores to close in first half of 2024

Dollar Tree announced on Wednesday that it plans to close nearly 1,000 U.S. stores in its portfolio after suffering a significant quarterly loss.

As part of its portfolio optimization, initially announced late last year, the company will close 600 of its Family Dollar stores in the first half of 2024. An additional 370 Family Dollar stores and 30 Dollar Tree stores will close over the next several years once their leases expire, the company said in its fourth-quarter earnings report.

The company incurred $594.4 million in charges in connection with the store portfolio review.

2 + 2 = 4

Four years ago this week, freedom was torched

statue of liberty
Beware the Ides of March," Shakespeare quotes the soothsayer's warning Julius Caesar about what turned out to be an impending assassination on March 15. The death of American liberty happened around the same time four years ago, when the orders went out from all levels of government to close all indoor and outdoor venues where people gather.

It was not quite a law and it was never voted on by anyone. Seemingly out of nowhere, people who the public had largely ignored, the public health bureaucrats, all united to tell the executives in charge - mayors, governors, and the president - that the only way to deal with a respiratory virus was to scrap freedom and the Bill of Rights.

And they did, not only in the US but all over the world.

Gavel

India implements 'Islamophobic' citizenship law seen as election stunt

CAA protest
© Unknown1 Up to 7M Indians form 620km human chain to protest anti-Muslim law • State of Kerala
The Indian government enacts a hugely controversial citizenship law, which is discriminatory against Muslims, weeks before the country's general elections as, what analysts call, a means of wooing Hindu nationalist voters.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "government announces implementation of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA)," a government spokesman said on Monday.

The law allows Indian citizenship for non-Muslim refugees from three of India's neighboring countries, namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, who fled to Hindu-majority India before December 31, 2014.

Billed as "Islamophobic" by critics, the CAA was passed in 2019. Its implementation was, however, delayed after the outbreak of protests, during which more than a 100 people were reportedly killed, most of them Muslims.

The law's implementation came as the country is expected to soon announce dates for the elections, which is likely to be held in April or May, with Modi widely favored to win a third term in office.
human chain
© unknownUp to 7M Indians form 620km human chain to protest anti-Muslim law • State of Kerala

Recycle

Briton kills himself on return from fighting for Ukraine, said he was 'inspired' by former PM Truss' 'illegal' call for volunteers

british mercenary
© CopyrightHarry served three tours despite his only military experience being a few months in the Army Cadets when he was 11. 
A young British man told his mother he was going to fight in Ukraine because he had 'done some bad things' and wanted to 'give back to society' before coming home with PTSD and killing himself.

Harry Gregg was 23 when he travelled to the war-torn country after the then foreign secretary Liz Truss encouraged British volunteers to enter the conflict.

He served three tours despite his only military experience being a few months in the Army Cadets when he was 11.


Comment: That's about the same amount of experience many in the Kiev-juntas proxy army have/had.


His devastated mother, Sandi Gregg, has told how Harry felt he was needed and thought he could help, despite his limited experience.

Attention

50 injured on Boeing flight after pilot 'lost control due to instrument failure'

boeing
Screenshot from footage of the flight
The pilot of a terrifying flight from Australia to New Zealand told those on board he temporarily lost control of his Boeing 787 after one of its instruments failed, a passenger said Monday, as authorities investigate what caused a sudden drop that threw travelers around the cabin, injuring dozens.

In accordance with rules outlined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Chile's Directorate General of Civil Aeronautics (DGAC) have sent investigators from the agency's Operations and Airworthiness team to look into the incident, according to a statement released on Tuesday.

"Given that the State of Registration of the aircraft involved is Chilean, it has been established with the New Zealand Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) that the investigation will be carried out by the Chilean Aeronautical Authority," the statement read.

Comment: See also:


Stormtrooper

Israel erects barbed wire around main gate to Al-Aqsa Mosque for first time since 1967 and as Ramadan begins

Lions' Gate (Bab al-Asbat), Jerusalem
Lions' Gate (Bab al-Asbat), Jerusalem
Israel has erected barbed wire on a fence around the Lions' Gate area adjacent to the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem, Palestinian authorities said Monday.

"This is a dangerous precedent that has never occurred since 1967," the Jerusalem governor's office said in a statement.

The Lions' Gate, also known as Bab al-Asbat, is located within Jerusalem's Old City and is one of the main gates leading to Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Comment: Evidently Israel is violating the rights of worshippers in the hope of inciting a reaction from them, as well as Muslims around the world, the Arab league, and Islamic nations.

Notably, some analysts, such as former British diplomat Alastair Crooke, have pointed to Israel's seemingly eschatalogically driven activities around (and underneath) Al-Aqsa as part of the reason for the events of October 7:


Coffee

Chocolate prices soar to record-breaking highs, cost doubled since November, plant disease and extreme weather blamed

chocolate cadbury egg
© AP Photo/Simon DawsonCadbury Creme eggs move down the production line at the Cadburys factory in Birmingham, England. ()
As Easter approaches, stores are stocking their shelves with chocolate enthusiasts' favourite sweet treat, the cocoa-based confection at the centre of this festive season.

However, 2024's Easter celebrations are set against a backdrop of record-breaking cocoa prices, with everyone from consumers to the entire chocolate industry feeling the pinch.

"As cocoa prices soar to record highs, the chocolate industry's response has been to subtly shrink product sizes or reformulate ingredients, a trend that hits consumers' pockets and palates," wrote Sylvain Charlebois, director of Dalhousie University's Agri-Food Analytics Lab, in an email to CTVNews.ca.

Comment: Other than plant disease and extreme weather, which is affecting everything from olive oil to beef, and across much of the planet, the other factors contributing to the rising cost of most products are: lockdowns, the energy crisis, the West's multiple warfronts and the associated fallout, and the subsequent collapse of global shipping.

In conjunction with the above, there's the Western establishment's brazen attack on farming and the rising number of sabotage attacks on the food and energy supply chain.

It's notable that 'shrinkflation' and adulteration of the food supply (aka: skimpflation) is not a new concept, and is often documented in civilisations in the process of collapse:


Document

California study: Attempted-suicide rate among men who had gender surgery was "twice as high" as it was before operation

transgender
© Getty Images / Vladimir Vladimirov
They call it "gender-affirming care" and tell us that not "affirming" gender identity is the equivalent of genocide.

"A living daughter is better than a dead son," the doctors say to parents as they calculate their bill.

All of us — even the liberals and get-rich-quick doctors who push it — we all know this is a lie; and now we have a study out of California that confirms it.

Comment: Anyone thinking that messing with one's hormones to such a profound extent, and permanently surgically altering one's body would make the person less suicidal is delusional. It's nice to have a study to confirm it, but common sense would dictate that people driven destroy their bodies are profoundly unwell in the first place. And the idea that a surgery will cure a psychological disorder is, again, delusional.

See also:


Shamrock

Irish referendums: Voters reject changes to family and care definition

PA/Damien Storan
© Returning Officer Barry RyanReturning Officer Barry Ryan reads the final result at Dublin castle
Voters in the Republic of Ireland have overwhelmingly voted against amending the Irish Constitution.

Proposals to alter wording in the constitution to include families which are not based on marriage were defeated with 67.7% voting 'no'.

A second proposed change on the wording around the role of women in the home was defeated by a higher margin with 73.9% of voters rejecting it.

It was the highest ever no vote percentage in an Irish referendum.

The first result announced on Saturday evening was in the family referendum.

The highest 'no' votes came from Donegal where 80% voted no on family and 84% voted no on care.

Only Dún Laoghaire, south-east of Dublin voted narrowly in favour of changing the definition of a family.

After a long wait, Waterford was the final constituency to declare its result for the care referendum.

In the care referendum, on the role of women in the home, 1,114,620 people voted no, compared with 393,053 yes voters, or 26.07% of the total.

Comment: Good on the Irish for rejecting this obvious debasement of family protections! Though the establishment may yet try to sneak the amendments in by some other means.