Society's Child
Imagine that.
According to the White House, commercial real estate vacancies are way up in major cities throughout the country.
The Digital Identity Wallet is an electronic leash with which Brussels wants to control its citizens
The agreement between the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on the EU Digital Identity Wallet is open to abuse and gives Brussels the ability to deny people rights and control them.
According to the new European legislation, the wallets, which are to be voluntary for the time being, will include digital versions of all ID cards, driving licenses, degree certificates, and medical documentation.
The European Commission insists that the system will be secure, and the current Spanish presidency of the EU is saying that this will make the EU a digital leader at a global level in protecting democratic values, but what has digitalization got to do with European values?
On the contrary, the move actually threatens European values as argued by 504 academics and experts from 39 countries who have signed an open letter warning of the dangers to people's online security and freedom.

The IAF’s 161st Squadron’s fleet of Hermes 450 drones at the Palmachim airbase.
Israel's fleet of Hermes 450 "Zik" armed drones carried out attacks on Israeli military bases, settlements, and civilians during the Hamas attack on 7 October, according to a 14 November report from Mishpacha Magazine.
Previous reports have emerged showing that Israeli forces used tanks to kill Israeli civilians barricaded inside homes with their Hamas captors, and Apache helicopters to fire on Hamas fighters and their Israeli captives while returning back to Gaza.
During the fighting, some 1,200 Israelis were killed, with some killed by Hamas, and others by Israeli forces. Hamas took some 240 Israeli soldiers, civilians, and foreign workers captive.
Israel's armed drone program was initiated in 1993 by Ehud Barak, then Chief of Staff of the army under Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon later approved the use of offensive drones for assassinations in the Gaza Strip. The best known of these attacks was the killing of paraplegic Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin in 2004.
Since that time, armed drones have slowly been replacing Israel's previous use of warplanes, including US-made F-16s.
Irish Justice Minister Helen McEntee has claimed that most social media companies complied with the government's requests to take down posts during last week's Dublin riots. However, Elon Musk's X refused, the minister said on Wednesday.
The minister's statement follows mass unrest that erupted in the republic's capital last Thursday over the arrest of a man who stabbed five people, including three children, outside a primary school. A five-year-old girl and a woman in her 30s are in critical condition. The man was later found to be an Irish citizen who had immigrated from Algeria.
During the unrest, angry rioters ended up setting fire to buses and police cars, looting shops, and clashing with law enforcement. More than 30 people were arrested in the aftermath, with Garda Commissioner Drew Harris claiming that the unrest was the fault of "a complete lunatic hooligan faction driven by far-right ideology."
Taking questions in place of prime minister Leo Varadkar in the Irish parliament, McEntee was asked to comment on police claims that "far-right ringleaders" had used "sophisticated communication online" to gather and organize troops during the riots.
She responded by stating that the country's security services were "actively engaging with TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, or X" to take down what she described as "vile messages."
While most platforms were cooperating, "X were not. They did engage. They did not fulfill their own customer standards," McEntee said.
Comment: Safety valve: People need freedom to vent...including the Justice Minister and the PM.

A screenshot from a video distributed by the Hamas Media Office depicts militants handing over newly released hostages to the Red Cross, on November 29, 2023, Gaza.
Israel and Hamas have agreed to extend the current ceasefire in Gaza by another day, following the exchange of dozens more captives on Wednesday, the Qatari Foreign Ministry has announced. The extension was reportedly finalized just minutes before the previous truce was due to end at 7am local time on Thursday.
According to diplomats in Doha, who have acted as mediators, the conditions for prolonging the ceasefire are the same as for the previous six days. These include an exchange of ten Israeli hostages and 30 Palestinian prisoners, as well as the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Premature babies are especially vulnerable to infection, malnourishment and dehydration as Israel's siege continues, physicians warn.
The tiny infants died starving, cold and alone. Their bodies decomposed.
They were still connected to ventilation and intravenous tubes.
Video footage, which went viral on Tuesday, showed that the babies had been left alone for 17 days.
Comment: No words . . . .

Palestinians react to the devastation caused by an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, November 11, 2023.
The investigation by +972 and Local Call is based on conversations with seven current and former members of Israel's intelligence community — including military intelligence and air force personnel who were involved in Israeli operations in the besieged Strip — in addition to Palestinian testimonies, data, and documentation from the Gaza Strip, and official statements by the IDF Spokesperson and other Israeli state institutions.
The European newsroom of Politico, the Washington-based digital news website, appears to be perturbed by the online footprint of what it dubbed "Kremlin-backed accounts," particularly those run by RT and Sputnik, which, it has found, have "an oversized digital reach."
Politico expressed veiled concern with the competition on Monday in a story about purported Russian propaganda and its employment of the Middle East conflict to boost anti-Western sentiments around the world.
Comment: The Ministry of Truth is clearly upset that people are finding ways around it's official narrative. You would think that the solution to the "problem" that people are going to Russian news sources is for Western news sources to do better rather than attempt to censor these unsanctioned voices into oblivion (which clearly isn't working).
See also:
- Censored: Who really killed RT France?
- RT America ceases productions and lays off most of its staff
- Latvia begins blocking RT news site aimed at country's Russian-speaking minority as outlet accuses Riga of attack on free press
- German bank closes RT-affiliated accounts 1 month after German channel announced
- Latvia threatens fines for citizens watching recently banned Russian TV channels
- Iron curtain on the airwaves: Latvia becomes latest country to censor Russian TV shows, as Moscow diplomats slam new crackdown
They hit the lowest level since the National Association of Realtors began tracking this metric in 2001, meaning it's even worse than readings during the financial crisis more than a decade ago. Sales were down 8.5% from October of last year.
Because the index measures signed contracts, it is the most recent indicator of housing demand. It reflects the buyers who were out shopping in October, which was when the popular 30-year fixed mortgage rate briefly shot higher than 8%.
Comment: It's one data point but so many others also reveal that some economies are even worse off than they were during the global financial crash. However, evidently, because those rigging the zombie markets don't want the system to collapse, just yet, it continues to stagger on:
- Investor home purchases crash 45%, sharpest decline since 2008 threatens housing bubble
- 'Crash coming this year', Big Short investor who called 2008 crisis
- US politicians using government funds to 'stimulate the economy', unprecedented deficit looms, Bloomberg analysis reveals
- Russia's economy growing three times faster than Eurozone - Guardian
At this Monday's full meeting of Limerick City and County Council (LCCC), council members condemned the shocking scenes in the capital last Thursday (November 23) after a knife attack on three children and their care assistant outside a school in Dublin's inner city.
Fine Gael councillor Adam Teskey said that as chairman of LCCC's Joint Policing Committee (JPC), he felt it necessary and appropriate to condemn the "thuggery".
Comment: Back in June Councillor Azad Talukder 'made history' by becoming the first-ever Muslim to be elected as Cathaoirleach of Limerick Metropolitan Council. Talukder probably isn't considering the optics of making such inflammatory comments in the current times.
See also:
Comment: What Israel didn't do is the real story.