Society's ChildS


MIB

Best of the Web: Predatory Sparrow: The terrorist attacks of an Israel-linked hacker group

Andy Greenberg
WIRED
Thu, 25 Jan 2024 19:00 UTC
PREDATARORY SPARROW hackers
© ANJALI NAIR; GETTY IMAGES; PREDATARORY SPARROW VIA TELEGRAM
From repeatedly crippling thousands of gas stations to setting a steel mill on fire, Predatory Sparrow's offensive hacking has now targeted Iranians with some of history's most aggressive cyberattacks.

About eight minutes after 3 am on June 27, 2022, inside the Khouzestan steel mill near Iran's western coastline on the Persian Gulf, a massive lid lowered onto a vat of glowing, molten metal. Based on footage from a surveillance camera inside the plant, the giant vessel was several times taller than the two workers in gray uniforms and hardhats standing nearby, likely large enough to carry well over a hundred tons of liquid steel heated to several thousand degrees Fahrenheit.

In the video, the two workers walk out of frame. The clip jump-cuts forward 10 minutes. Then suddenly, the giant ladle is moving, swinging steadily toward the camera. A fraction of a second later, burning embers fly in all directions, fire and smoke fill the factory, and incandescent, liquid steel can be seen pouring freely out of the bottom of the vat onto the plant floor.

Comment: Notably, this escalation is also in line with the WEF's threat of a looming 'cyber pandemic', and it comes amidst an increasing number of serious cyberattacks:

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Truck

Burkina Faso receives free Russian wheat


RT
Mon, 29 Jan 2024 10:20 UTC
truck
© Nikolay Amoseev / Getty Images
Russia has donated 25,000 tons of grain to Burkina Faso as part of a humanitarian aid initiative, Russian Ambassador Alexey Saltykov confirmed on Friday.

A ceremony marking the arrival of the wheat took place in Ouagadougou, the capital of the African country.

"All 25,000 tons of grain were delivered to Burkina Faso from the port of Abidjan [in the Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivoire)]," Saltykov told TASS.

"It will be distributed to the needy population, especially the widows of the defenders of Burkina Faso, as well as the disabled."
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X

Disposable vapes to be banned in UK as part of drive to curb youth vaping

Rachel Hall
The Guardian
Sun, 28 Jan 2024 23:53 UTC
woman vaping
© Miguel Gutiérrez/EPAThe changes are expected to come into effect towards the end of this year or early 2025.
Ministers are to ban disposable vapes as part of a UK-wide drive to curb youth vaping.

The government is also seeking to make vaping less appealing to children by restricting sweet and fruity flavours, introducing plain packaging and making displays less visible in shops, under newly announced powers. The changes are expected to come into effect towards the end of this year or early 2025.

Announcing the move, Rishi Sunak said: "As any parent or teacher knows, one of the most worrying trends at the moment is the rise in vaping among children, and so we must act before it becomes endemic."

He added: "As prime minister, I have an obligation to do what I think is the right thing for our country in the long term. That is why I am taking bold action to ban disposable vapes - which have driven the rise in youth vaping - and bring forward new powers to restrict vape flavours, introduce plain packaging and change how vapes are displayed in shops."

The move forms part of a wider response to a public consultation on smoking and vaping, which has resulted in plans for some of the world's toughest anti-smoking measures, first revealed by the Guardian, including a ban on selling tobacco products to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009.
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Eye 1

Official lies aren't what they used to be

Ted Rall
Sputnik
Mon, 29 Jan 2024 05:43 UTC
Joe Biden
© Sputnik / Stringer
The government's services keep getting worse. Even their lies.

The Bushies told us we had to invade Afghanistan to catch Osama bin Laden and then to go into Iraq because Saddam had WMDs. As the Pentagon knew, bin Laden was already in Pakistan; as Hans Blix and Scott Ritter told us, there was no evidence Saddam had proscribed weapons.

Sure, they were lies. But they were plausible lies. Theoretically, UBL might have snuck into Afghanistan. Saddam might have acquired WMDs. Those things could have been true.

Now they're giving us implausible lies. Not only are their lies, well, lies — they say things that are untrue and can't possibly be true and that no one, no matter how stupid or uninformed, could believe.

Democrats go on and on about how nothing is more important than defeating Trump. Democracy itself hangs in the balance! After Trump redux, the re-deluge.
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Bizarro Earth

Western Europe's energy supply 'vulnerable' - Bloomberg


RT
Mon, 29 Jan 2024 11:36 UTC
gas tanker ship
© Getty Images / IMAGO/Jens KoehlerFILE
Replacing Russian gas with liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US has exposed the EU's energy system to major security risks, Bloomberg has reported, citing industry experts.

The US, which started exporting its shale gas only in 2016, is currently the second-biggest gas supplier to the EU after Norway. In 2023, the US became the world's top LNG exporter.

Many EU states dramatically increased LNG purchases in 2023 following the drop in pipeline gas flows from Russia due to Ukraine-related sanctions and the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in September 2022, which rendered them inoperable.

Comment: Indeed, and now anytime Europe wishes to defy US diktats, the US can simply 'pause' its exports; which is exactly what the US said Russia would do. Meanwhile Russia has continued to supply the West, despite claiming that it wouldn't buy any because of the sanctions, and despite the West literally waging a war against it:

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X

Illinois election officials to weigh recommendation to remove Trump's name from March primary ballot


Market Watch
Sun, 28 Jan 2024 05:59 UTC
Illinois state cap
© UnknownIllinois State Capitol
Former President Donald Trump should be removed from Illinois' primary ballot, but the decision should be left to the courts, a retired judge recommended Sunday to the state's election board, arguing that it was clear Trump engaged in insurrection in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The Illinois State Board of Elections is expected to consider the recommendation Tuesday. Attorneys for Trump and citizens seeking to keep the Republican former president off the ballot presented their arguments Friday before the hearing officer, Clark Erickson. The retired longtime Kankakee County judge is a Republican.

The Illinois effort to keep Trump off the March ballot is similar to those filed in several other states. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments next month in an historic Colorado Supreme Court ruling to remove Trump from that state's ballot. The case presents the high court with its first look at a provision of the 14th Amendment barring some people who "engaged in insurrection" from holding public office.

Erickson's 21-page recommendation concluded that a "preponderance of the evidence" presented proves that Trump engaged in insurrection. But he said the election board can't engage in the "significant and sophisticated constitutional analysis" required to remove Trump's name before the March 19 primary.
"All in all, attempting to resolve a constitutional issue within the expedited schedule of an election board hearing is somewhat akin to scheduling a two-minute round between heavyweight boxers in a telephone booth."
Still, Erickson noted that even if the board disagrees with his reasoning, Trump's name should be removed from the Illinois primary ballot.

The election board is split evenly between four Democrats and four Republicans.

Comment: 'Trump engaged in insurrection'...say something enough times and it pretends to be true.

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Snakes in Suits

Seize part of Ukraine if state collapses - Hungarian MP


RT
Sun, 28 Jan 2024 19:39 UTC
Toroczkai
© Peter Kohalmi/AFPLaszlo Toroczkai delivers a speech in Budapest.
Right-wing lawmaker Laszlo Toroczkai has proposed that territory that was historically under Budapest's control should be re-taken...

Hungary should seize Ukraine's westernmost region of Transcarpathia if the country ceases to exist as a result of its conflict with Russia, right-wing lawmaker Laszlo Toroczkai has proposed. The leader of the 'Our Homeland Movement' was referring to the territory that was once a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and fell under Soviet control after World War II.

Transcarpathia remained a part of modern Ukraine after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, retaining a considerable minority of ethnic Hungarians. Budapest has repeatedly criticized Kiev over alleged discrimination against this ethnic group, especially over access to education in their native language.

Speaking on Saturday, Toroczkai said:
"If this war ends up with Ukraine losing its statehood, because this is also on the cards, then as the only Hungarian party taking this position, let me signal that we lay claim to Transcarpathia."
Fellow right-wingers from several other European nations, including a representative of the Alternative for Germany (AFD) party, reportedly greeted Toroczkai's suggestion with applause.

Comment: Vultures are circling: A territory feeding frenzy is in the making.

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Bizarro Earth

Canada's scandal-ridden euthanasia program providing more organ transplants than any country in the world


CTV News
Mon, 29 Jan 2024 13:37 UTC
Christine Gauthier
FILE: Army Veteran Christine Gauthier, a former Paralympian, testified in Canadian Parliament on Thursday that a Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) caseworker offered her euthanasia after she expressed frustration about delays in installing a wheelchair lift at her home
A growing number of patients who request medical assistance in dying are asking to donate their organs for transplant, says an international review that found that Canada is performing the most organ transplants from MAID patients among the four countries studied that offer this practice.

The report is the first-ever review of the growing use of this new practice around the world. The review was conducted in 2021 and the results were formally published in December 2022.

Comment: Canada's recent euthanasia program is proving to be very profitable for the pathocrats in government, indeed; not only are they fast-tracking, what they consider, to be the 'useless eaters' of society to the grave, divesting them of any responsibility in finding solutions to take care of them, but now there's organ-harvesting.

Notably, much of the West is close to legalising and liberalising euthanasia; a practice that, formerly, was considered to be a very complex and sensitive topic, and which carried with it serious legal constraints and social stigma.

Ukraine, headed by the Western-backed, Nazi-aligned Kiev-junta, has also seen a boon in organ harvesting, and trafficking.

Whilst one would hope that Canada would serve as a startling warning of all the potential abuses of the practice, it seems likely that, instead, the establishment will ensure it's used as a template:

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HAL9000

Logically.AI of Britain and the expanding global reach of censorship

Lee Fang & RealClearInvestigations
RealClear Investigations
Thu, 25 Jan 2024 08:02 UTC
1984 movie
"1984" Film Trailer/YouTube
Brian Murphy, a former FBI agent who once led the intelligence wing of the Department of Homeland Security, reflected last summer on the failures of the Disinformation Governance Board - the panel formed to actively police misinformation. The board, which was proposed in April 2022 after he left DHS, was quickly shelved by the Biden administration in a few short months in the face of criticism that it would be an Orwellian state-sponsored "Ministry of Truth."

Brian Murphy
© LinkedInBrian Murphy, Logically.AI executive and ex-U.S. security official: "The government has a major role to play" in censorship, but "cannot be out in front.”
In a July podcast, Murphy said the threat of state-sponsored disinformation meant the executive branch has an "ethical responsibility" to rein in the social media companies. American citizens, he said, must give up "some of your freedoms that you need and deserve so that you get security back."

The legal problems and public backlash to the Disinformation Governance Board also demonstrated to him that "the government has a major role to play, but they cannot be out in front."

Murphy, who made headlines late in the Trump administration for improperly building dossiers on journalists, has spent the last few years trying to help the government find ways to suppress and censor speech it doesn't like without being so "out in front" that it runs afoul of the Constitution. He has proposed that law enforcement and intelligence agencies formalize the process of sharing tips with private sector actors - a "hybrid constellation" including the press, academia, researchers, non-partisan organizations, and social media companies - to dismantle "misinformation" campaigns before they take hold.
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Arrow Down

Red Sea shipping has sunk amid missile attacks. Here's what that means for Americans' wallets

Will Kessler
Daily Caller
Sat, 27 Jan 2024 03:05 UTC
shipfreight
© AFP/Getty Images
Global shipping has been thrown into disarray by attacks from Iran-backed Houthi militants in the Red Sea, adding expenses and travel time to freight companies which will eventually be passed down to American consumers, according to experts who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The number of weekly transits traveling through the Suez Canal and Red Sea has dropped 42% over the last two months, with the route typically being responsible for around 12% of global trade, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Extra expenses due to the disruptions have led to higher shipping costs across multiple factors for freight companies, which will ultimately be passed down to consumers, leading to higher prices and greater inflation, experts told the DCNF.

Peter Earle, an economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, told the DCNF:
"By any number of measures, avoiding the Red Sea has been costly to shippers. The initial attacks led to a spike in shipping insurance (in at least one case, by tenfold) and concerns about the safety of crews and equipment, which resulted in several carriers shifting to the route around the Cape of Good Hope. Others followed. Because that course is at least twice as long — 10,000 to 12,000 nautical miles versus 4,000 to 5,000 nautical miles — there are two other knock-on effects driving up costs."
Many shipping companies are instead sending their routes around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, adding around ten days to travel times and requiring more fuel and greater labor expenses, according to Reuters. The resulting need for fuel is expected to add $1 million in extra expenses for every round trip between Asia and Northern Europe.

Comment: See also:

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