Society's ChildS


Donut

British Medical Journal report says Coca-Cola influencing China's obesity policy

Sarah Boseley
The Guardian
Thu, 10 Jan 2019 10:24 UTC
coca cola display china
© Peter Morgan/Associated PressCoca-Cola said it was working on ways to reduce the sugar and calories in its drinks around the world.
Institute funded by Coke promotes exercise over diet to protect sales, academic says

The Coca-Cola Company has shaped China's policies towards its growing obesity crisis, encouraging a focus on exercise rather than diet and thereby safeguarding its drinks sales, an academic investigation has alleged.

Susan Greenhalgh, a Harvard academic and China scholar, says Coca-Cola has exerted its influence since 1999 through a Chinese offshoot of an institute founded in the US by the then Coca-Cola vice-president Alex Malaspina with substantial company funding. The International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) has been heavily criticised in the US and Europe for promoting exercise and downplaying the need for people to cut down on excessive sugary drinks.

Comment: Coca Cola is replicating previous efforts in other markets where it has been chased out. Hopefully the Chinese government will wake up to to scam and send the company packing.

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Attention

Yellow vests wreck two in three French speed cameras

Charles Bremner
The Times
Thu, 10 Jan 2019 00:01 UTC
broken speen camera france
Some 2,600 cameras have been vandalised.
Up to 65 per cent of roadside speed cameras in France have been vandalised in a revolt against speed limits that is closely tied to the yellow vest protest movement.

Attacks began on the 2,600 ground-based cameras when President Macron's government reduced the speed limit on country roads to 80 km/h from 90 km/h last July, but intensified in November with the start of the rural revolt named after the "gilets jaunes", the high-visibility vests that drivers carry.

For car-dependent country-dwellers, the 80 km/hour limit symbolises the "arrogance" of a Parisian president who is indifferent to their plight. The roadside boxes have been burnt, painted over, blown up, smashed or simply covered with the jackets. The state has refused to give figures but officials have privately confirmed estimates from motoring organisations that 65 per cent of them were out of action, with about 300 destroyed. In the western Vendée department, 90 per cent have been sabotaged.

Comment: While the sabotaging of speed cameras can't really be ascribed to the yellow vests (they started months before the movement was born), the same sentiment is evident - the people of France are fed up and sick of the government continuing to skim off their meager paychecks. The French are known to protest at the drop of a hat, but this situation seems different - you can only push people so far before they'll fight back.

See also:

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Family

Americans aren't making enough babies to replace ourselves

Linda Carroll and Shamard Charles, M.D.
NBC News
Thu, 10 Jan 2019 14:06 UTC
babies
© AFP/Getty Images

Government researchers did not offer an explanation, but experts cited factors including changing economics and fewer teen pregnancies.

Americans are having fewer and fewer babies, a new government report finds. In fact, we now aren't making enough babies to replace ourselves.

For the population to reproduce itself at current numbers, the "total fertility rate" needs to be 2,100 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age over their lifetime, researchers for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in their report, released early Thursday. But the latest data show a current rate of just 1,765.5 per 1,000, or 16 percent below the number needed to keep the population stable without additions through immigration.

The total fertility rate has been declining steadily for seven years, but the numbers for 2017 represent the biggest drop in recent history. The rate for 2016 was 1,820.5; for 2015, 1,843.5; and for 2014, 1,862.5.

Comment: Perhaps Americans have, on a subconscious level, a certain sense of 'the inevitable end' that's coming. Any American with open eyes has to see that the current state of things can't continue and that, more than likely, very hard times lay ahead for the country (if not the world) and this subconscious nagging voice may be dissuading many from following their inborn desire to procreate. There are likely many other contributing factors, but one has to wonder if this doesn't play into the situation.

See also:

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Robot

Venture capitalist: In 15 years AI will displace 40 percent of world's working population


CBS News
Fri, 11 Jan 2019 09:37 UTC
Kai Fu Lee
Kai Fu Lee
In as soon as 15 years, 40 percent of the world's jobs could be done by machines, according to one of the world's foremost experts on artificial intelligence. Kai Fu Lee, a pioneer in AI and venture capitalist based in China makes this prediction in a Scott Pelley report about AI on the next edition of 60 Minutes, Sunday, Jan. 13 at 7 p.m., ET/PT on CBS.

"AI will increasingly replace repetitive jobs, not just for blue-collar work, but a lot of white-collar work," says Lee. "Chauffeurs, truck drivers, anyone who does driving for a living-- their jobs will be disrupted more in the 15-25 year time frame," he tells Pelley. "Many jobs that seem a little bit complex, chef, waiter, a lot of things will become automated ... stores ... restaurants, and altogether in 15 years, that's going to displace about 40 percent of the jobs in the world." When pressed by Pelley about 40 percent of jobs being displaced, Lee says the jobs will be, "displaceable."

"I believe [AI] is going to change the world more than anything in the history of mankind. More than electricity," says Lee.

Comment: Also see:

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Pistol

20 dead after shocking Mexican gang battle near US border


New York Post
Fri, 11 Jan 2019 09:37 UTC
Mexico US border
A police agent keeps watch atop a truck at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Reynosa, in the northern border state of Tamaulipas, Mexico.
Mexican authorities are investigating a battle between two suspected gangs that left at least 20 bodies, 17 of them burned, in a border town near where US President Donald Trump will visit on Thursday to win support for his plan to build a wall.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said at his daily morning news conference that initial information pointed to a "battle between two groups," and that security officials would later provide further information.

Trump is headed to McAllen, Texas, on the US border. He has threatened to declare a national emergency if Congress does not meet his demand for billions of dollars to build a wall between the United States and Mexico.

Comment: Also see: The true cost of illegal immigration

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Star of David

Birmingham Institute's decision to rescind Angela Davis award an 'utter embarrassment' to pro-Israel groups who applied pressure

Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
Fri, 11 Jan 2019 09:37 UTC
Angela Davis
© Cartoon: Carlos Latuff
There are two big stories involving Israel and BDS in the American news this week. One is the Senate Republicans pushing a bill to punish supporters of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions and thereby divide the Democratic Party.

The other is the uproar over the decision by the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute to rescind an award to Angela Davis because of the activist/scholar's support for BDS, which one Birmingham Jewish group claimed "targets the Jewish people excessively."

Davis was to receive the Fred Shuttlesworth prize on February 16. The BCRI changed its mind about the award, and canceled the gala, because of what is being reported as pressure from the Jewish community.
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Family

The American Psychological Association is now making it harder to maintain strong marriages

Suzanne Venker
Washington Examiner
Thu, 10 Jan 2019 17:51 UTC
couple with flowers
© iStockWe've known about the war on men for years, but to have the the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the country formally reject the inherent nature of men is both profound and appalling.
I'm finishing up a manuscript for a new book that helps women find Mr. Right and keep him by embracing sexual inequality, aka the innate differences between women and men. So-called gender equality presumes the sexes are interchangeable, and they are not. Masculinity and femininity represent the yin and yang of any romantic relationship and are crucial for lasting love. When they cease to exist, children suffer and families disintegrate.

So you can imagine my shock and disdain for the American Psychological Association's new guidelines that claim traditional masculinity is "harmful." We've known about the war on men for years, but to have the the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the country formally reject the inherent nature of men is both profound and appalling.

The APA guidelines understandably triggered a huge backlash. They emphasize such absurd ideas as "gender role strain," defined as "a psychological situation in which gender role demands have negative consequences on the individual or others," and "gender role conflict," defined as "problems resulting from adherence to rigid, sexist, or restrictive gender roles, learned during socialization, that result in personal restriction, devaluation, or violation of others or self."

Comment: See also: Forget The American Psychological Association - Traditional Masculinity is Part of The Cure For What Ails Modern Men

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Book 2

Anti-gay pastor who called Pulse nightclub victims 'scum' resigns amid sex and drugs scandal

Joel Shannon
USA Today
Wed, 09 Jan 2019 23:38 UTC
Donnie Romero
Donnie Romero
Donnie Romero - a pastor who gained national attention after his views on the Pulse nightclub shooting inspired a protest from LGBTQ advocates - has resigned. In a video posted to YouTube, Romero says that he had sinned by paying for sex, gambling and using drugs.

Romero - formerly the pastor of Stedfast Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas - publicly voiced support for the Pulse nightclub gunman, who opened fire inside the popular LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando and killed 49 people. A June 2016 Dallas Morning News report says Romero's words sparked a protest.

"These 50 sodomites are all perverts and pedophiles, they're the scum of the Earth and the Earth is a better place now and I'll take it a step further," Romero said in a sermon published online, the publication reports. "I'll pray to God like I did this morning, and I will again tonight, that God will finish the job that that man started," Romero said.
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Dollars

Foreign aid: Migrants' remittances to Mexico & Central America jumped to $53 billion in 2018

Neil Munro
Breitbart
Thu, 10 Jan 2019 23:17 UTC
migrants remittances central america
The remittances provide a huge stimulus to the countries that export their populations to the U.S. labor market. But that stimulus also imposes huge economic costs, including civic turmoil, poverty, high rates of crime, and loss of foreign investment.
Legal and illegal migrants sent $53.4 billion in remittances back to Mexico and Central America in 2018, or more than double the cost of building a border barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a World Bank report.

Remittances to Mexico reached $33.7 billion in 2018, up 21 percent from roughly $27.8 billion in 2016, the bank reported.

Remittances from the three Central Americans countries are being spiked by the growing inflow of asylum-seeking migrants into blue-collar jobs throughout the U.S. economy, via the border's catch-and-release laws. The outflow to Central America rose to $19.7 billion in 2018, up from $15.8 billion in 2016, according to the bank.

The outflow to Central America rose 25 percent in just two years.

GOP legislators have urged Congress to pay for the $22 billion border wall by taxing migrants' remittances.

The money sent back from the United States to Central America includes many migrants' payments to the cartels who traffic them into the U.S. economy. The trafficking debts can start at $5,000 per head.

Comment:

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Eye 1

21 bodies found on US-Mexico border after a drug-gang shootout, Trump was to visit nearby town


Yahoo News
Thu, 10 Jan 2019 00:00 UTC
US-Mexico border
© AFP Photo/Julio Cesar AGUILARTamaulipas has become one of the most violent states in Mexico as rival drug cartels fight each other for its strategic position on the US border.
Mexican authorities said Thursday they had found 21 bodies on the US-Mexican border after a drug-gang shootout in a town near where President Donald Trump was due to visit later in the day.

The bodies -- some of them badly burned -- were found Wednesday in the border town of Miguel Aleman, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) from McAllen, Texas, the city Trump was due to visit as he continues his push to build his long-sought border wall.

"We have reports there was a shootout yesterday (Wednesday) between two criminal groups that ended with 21 people dead," the security spokesman for the state of Tamaulipas, Luis Alberto Rodriguez, told Mexican TV news channel Milenio.

"Some of them were burned. Seven vehicles were also located... It was a confrontation between two rival groups that are involved in a turf war over drug-trafficking routes."
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