Society's ChildS


Colosseum

Britain is fast becoming a failed state. Faith in the system is beginning to collapse - The Telegraph

child poverty uk
© CanvaNew statistics reveal how the UK Government has failed to tackle child poverty
Rishi Sunak's warning earlier week of a "growing consensus that mob rule is replacing democratic rule" - a theme he returned to this afternoon - is a disturbing and damning indictment of a modern-day Britain that many consider to be "broken". Ochlocracy or "mob rule" is something we associate with the Gordon Riots or Salem Witch Trials - not life in the UK in 2024.

The mere notion of the Prime Minister having to tell the police that they should be better protecting the public from what he described as a "pattern of increasingly violent and intimidatory behaviour... intended to shout down free debate and stop elected representatives doing their job" marks a new low for a nation with a proud tradition as a beacon of freedom and democracy.

Should he really need to issue a reminder that protecting the "values that we all hold dear" is not only "fundamental to our democratic system" but also "vital for maintaining public confidence in the police"?

Comment: Indeed it has, which is why Western nations are escalating tensions on their multiple warfronts, as their economies slide ever deeper into recession:


Chart Bar

Vast majority of French oppose Macron's 'troops in Ukraine' comment - poll

macron
© AFP / Ludovic MarinFrench President Emmanuel Macron attends a NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, July 12, 2023.
The president of France said he would not rule out a NATO military deployment to assist Ukrainian forces.

More than two-thirds of the French public believe President Emmanuel Macron was wrong to consider that NATO could someday send its own troops to support Kiev in the conflict with Moscow, according to a new poll.

Survey results published on Thursday by French newspaper Le Figaro showed that 68% of respondents disapproved of Macron's comments on a possible future NATO deployment to the war-torn state, while just 31% said they agreed. The remainder, just 1%, were undecided.

Comment: If Macron said it and then doubled down, despite contradictions from his NATO buddies, you have to assume there's a reason behind it. Perhaps this is a way to 'test the waters' of public perception, so to speak. The poll speaks for itself.

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Health

Obesity overtakes hunger as biggest threat to world health: WHO

scale body weight
© AP Photo/Patrick SisonThis Tuesday, April 3, 2018, file photo shows a closeup of a beam scale in New York.
Obesity has eclipsed hunger as the top threat to global health, with more than one billion people falling into the category of clinical obesity, according to a comprehensive report published in The Lancet.

The study, spearheaded by researchers at Imperial College London and the World Health Organization, underscores a worrying reality: today, more than 1 in 8 people worldwide suffer from obesity. The scale of the issue is such that the number of undernourished individuals globally now stands at fewer than 550 million.

Obesity and being underweight fall under the umbrella of malnutrition, both states signifying an imbalance in essential nutrients and appropriate caloric intake. Children, unfortunately, bear a significant portion of this burden, with those under 18 years old constituting 159 million of the obese demographic.

Comment: So what happened in 1990 that could account for this sudden skyrocketing in obesity rates?

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Microscope 2

Scientist claims 'smoking gun' evidence COVID-19 intentionally created by researchers in Chinese lab

richard h ebright
© Rutgers New BrunswickRichard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, says there is enough evidence to suggest the pandemic was man-made.
COVID-19 may have been created in a Chinese lab, a British professor told the UN Wednesday, with another expert claiming that evidence of the likelihood has reached "the level of a smoking gun."

Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, was quoted saying in a new Wall Street Journal article that the virus that killed millions around the world may actually have been man-made in China's Wuhan Institute of Virology.

He cited evidence found in a 2018 document from the lab that talked of making such a virus.

Comment: It's nothing we didn't already know, but if this latest release of documents cements the means and motives, then the case for a lab-created virus becomes more solid. It's unlikely to change many minds, as everyone seems to be firmly entrenched on whichever 'side' of the debate they've chosen, but evidence is evidence and only helps to clarify the picture.

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USA

Best of the Web: The Silent Eulogy

Russian Yars Flight Test
© Scott Ritter ExtraThe flight test of a Russian Yars ICBM, February 29, 2024.
I was planning on publishing Part 2 of my article on Alexei Navalny.

However, today Alexei Navalny's body is being laid to rest in a funeral service in Moscow attended by a few thousand well-wishers and supporters.

My wife has always cautioned me not to speak ill of the dead.

Especially on the day their mortal remains are being returned to the earth.

Instead, I am compelled to write about something else.

It is the funeral that will never be held.

The obituary that will never be read.

The eulogy that will never be spoken.

Who's passing do I lament?

My own.

My family.

My friends.

My fellow Americans.

Humanity.

Robert Oppenheimer
© Scott Ritter ExtraRobert Oppenheimer
The mechanism of our deaths will only too late be revealed, most likely in a blinding flash of light that will bring us to our knees, awaiting the shockwave that proceeds the unbearable heat that will transform our flesh and bones, instantaneously, to ash.

We cannot claim that we were not forewarned of our imminent demise — ever since Robert Oppenheimer proclaimed himself to be "Death, the destroyer of worlds," we have known that we possessed the mechanism of our own destruction, and yet we have done nothing to remove this danger from our lives.

Instead, we continued to perfect this most horrible of weapons, devising even more deadly warheads, and more efficient delivery systems upon which to deliver them to our enemies, all the while knowing that any large-scale use of these weapons would signal our own passing.

For an all-too-brief moment, the insanity of the course we had set became apparent, and we undertook to return the genie to the bottle, to reverse course, to save ourselves and our fellow human beings.

Bad Guys

Illegal migrant decapitated 2 prostitutes in Austria, authorities had lost track of him

brothel
The survivor told authorities that the door to her hiding spot in the brothel (pictured) remained shut for the duration of the massacre
The incident sent shockwaves across Austria, garnering global media attention. More unsettling details have surfaced about the motives of the Afghan man who confessed to the brutal killing of three prostitutes in Vienna.


Comment: Note the incident occurred on the 24th of February, with the identity of the criminal and his 'motive' just now being released.


Claiming to have found justification in the Quran, he embarked on a spree of violence, stabbing his victims a staggering 96 times, nearly decapitating two of them, reports eXXpress.

Ebadullah A. was not supposed to be in Vienna. Initially seeking asylum in Carinthia, he remained under the radar in the capital. Now, he stands as the prime suspect in the murders of three Asian masseuses at a sex studio in Vienna-Brigittenau. During police interrogations, he admitted to his actions, attributing them to a belief that "Prostitutes are under the guise of Satan" and claiming he was instructed to engage in jihad by the Quran.

Comment: Rather than people being angry with the migrants themselves - because it's largely ineffective and risks worsening the situation - they should be asking their representatives just why they would allow hundreds of thousands of mostly military age, unemployable males into their country in just a few short years?

And then citizens should exercise their democratic right and vote out every representative who facilitates corruption like this.

Also of note is that this occurred amid a cluster of seemingly random, violence in that area of Europe in the last week or so:
A separate incident saw a mother and her 13-year-old daughter found dead in a Vienna apartment earlier on Friday.

Austrian media reported that the father was a prime suspect in the deaths which were likely caused by strangling or choking.
And that is just a small selection of related incidents.


Pills

Best of the Web: Liberal Oregon U-turns, passes bill to recriminalize hard drugs as overdose deaths skyrocket

tent city drug use portland oregon
© Hannah Ray Lambert/Fox News DigitalTents cover an open space near the Steel Bridge in Portland, Oregon on July 7, 2023. Drug use has become rampant in the area.
Oregon lawmakers have voted to recriminalize certain drugs after a surge in overdose deaths resulted in the governor declaring a state of emergency for Portland's fentanyl crisis - all but ending a flagship liberal policy.

In 2020, a measure to decriminalize small amounts of all drugs and redirect much of the state's marijuana tax revenue to fund grants for addiction services was passed into law under Ballot Measure 110 with 58% of Oregon residents approving the measure.

Since then, addiction and overdose deaths have skyrocketed in Oregon and nationwide as fentanyl swept across the country.

Comment: Hot Air adds:
The real story here, which most of the news outlets writing about this completely skip over, is that the city of Portland has been a mess ever since 2020. That's when police were defunded and crime began to go up sharply. And thanks to the passage of Measure 110 (also in 2020) drug use on the streets and homelessness have gotten worse as well.

[...]

For the last several months, Gov. Tina Kotek has gone through a series of steps involving a task force making recommendations about what to do about these problems. All of this was political theater designed to reach the obvious conclusion that the state needed to do something about Measure 110. And that's where we are now.

Just a few years ago, Measure 110 was sold as a bold new vision for dealing with the drug problem, one that would replace the old, harsh system of imprisoning people. The results have been a disaster.

[...]

My own take on this, having watched the downfall of Portland from afar for many years now, is that neither decriminalization nor locking people up with solve this problem because this isn't a problem that can be solved. There is no magic pill that turns homeless addicts into reformed, productive members of society. Offering clean needles and endless services won't do it and neither will putting them in jail. Even those interventions that work can't keep up with the pace of new addicts showing up on the streets.

But the addicts aren't the only ones who matter.

That's what I think the ACLU and similar activists tend to overlook. We can't solve the problem of fentanyl addiction, but we can keep the street cleaner and open for business so people who aren't fentanyl addicts have a nice place to live. We can make it possible for people with physical handicaps to move down the sidewalk rather than being forced to traverse the streets because of all the tents blocking the way.

Locking people up is a brute force means of doing that but it's better than not doing anything at all. If the choice is between lots of addicts walking around, stealing and pissing on the street and lots of addicts locked up in jail, jail is the better option for everyone else. At some point, everyone else has to matter.

You don't have to take my word for it. It's Oregon Democrats who are about to repeal Measure 110. They have learned this lesson the hard way. The new bill should pass sometime in the next 10 days.



Bullseye

University of Florida has fired all DEI employees in compliance with state law

desantis
© AFP 2023 / GIORGIO VIERAFlorida Gov. Ron DeSantis
Gov. Ron DeSantis reacts to news: 'Florida is where DEI goes to die'

The University of Florida is firing all employees in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) positions and administrative appointments, according to a memo sent on Friday.

"To comply with the Florida Board of Governors' regulation 9.016 on prohibited expenditures, the University of Florida has closed the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer, eliminated DEI positions and administrative appointments, and halted DEI-focused contracts with outside vendors," the memo states.

"Under the direction of UF Human Resources, university employees whose positions were eliminated will receive UF's standard twelve weeks of pay. These colleagues are allowed and encouraged to apply, between now and Friday, April 19, for expedited consideration for different positions currently posted with the university. UF HR will work to fast-track the interview process and provide an answer on all applications within the twelve-week window."

Comment: How it started:


It's going to take years to undo the damage. Possibly even more than one generation.


Cow

Polish farmers begin week-long protest at border with Lithuania to block Ukrainian grain imports

Polish farmers in Lithuania
The demonstrators claim Ukrainian grain is being imported into Poland through the Baltic state

Polish farmers have launched a week-long protest along the border with Lithuania against the importation of Ukrainian grain, the authorities in Vilnius have said. The agricultural workers have been blocking checkpoints on the Ukrainian frontier for months in an attempt to prevent deliveries of cheap produce from reaching their markets.

The protest at the Budzisko-Kalvarija checkpoint on the Polish-Lithuanian border began on Friday, the administration of Kalvarija municipality announced in a post on Facebook.

Polish agricultural workers have been protesting against imports of Ukrainian grain since the fall. They claim that agricultural producers from the neighboring country have an unfair advantage, given that they do not have to abide by EU regulations or pay the bloc's taxes.

The farmers have been blocking trucks from Ukraine from entering Poland altogether, but they're using "a new form of protest" on the Lithuanian border, Kalvarija's authorities said.

"The goal of the move isn't to paralyze an important transport artery or intentionally harm businesses," but to draw attention to the issue of the transit of grain from Ukraine and other non-EU countries through Lithuania, they explained.

Comment: To understand the history behind the EU's agricultural policy and thereby understand the design flaws which are seen today, read this article: The European Union against farmers

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Apple Red

US-sanctioned Cuba asks UN for help to feed children

cuba food line
© ADALBERTO ROQUE / AFPHavana, Cuba.
Cuba has asked the World Food Programme for donations of powdered milk.

Cuba has appealed to the World Food Programme (WFP) for help with providing milk to children on the island, for the first time in its history, the UN body has acknowledged.

Havana has admitted to milk shortages for weeks, but has not made the request to the WFP public. The agency confirmed it to the Spanish news agency EFE, in a written statement on Wednesday.

Comment: See also: