Society's ChildS


Book 2

Best of the Web: Russian textbooks say Trump lost in rigged election

russian history textbook
A new textbook for Russian students claims former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election due to voter fraud committed by the Democrats.

Images from the history book, which is reportedly used by students in the 11th (graduating) grade, have circulated on social media in recent days. Marc Bennetts, foreign correspondent for The Times (U.K.), posted a page from the book on Monday onto his X (formerly Twitter) account, translating that the book said Trump lost the election "as a result of obvious electoral fraud by the Democratic Party."

Trump and some of his allies are facing criminal charges, accused of attempting to interfere with the results of the 2020 election that President Joe Biden handily won, and Trump's claims of the election being rigged against him have been widely debunked in courts of law and elsewhere.

Trump has also been criticized for dishing out compliments to Russian President Vladimir Putin, though he has condemned Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Still, some Russian analysts have suggested that the Kremlin may prefer Trump winning in 2024 over Biden.

Boat

Because of Israel's war against Palestine, there are no innocent ships at sea

blow the gaff
Since the start of Israel's genocide of Gaza, it has been the claim of the Israelis, their lawyers, and allies that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, so they say that killing them all is neither a genocide nor a war crime.

Israel's President Isaac Herzog said it in India in October. US Congressman Brian Mast said it, following the Israeli lead. The US Navy analyst who spied for Israel and served half a life in US prison for his treason has declared it in print. A French-Israeli lawyer has argued the legality on French television.

The reply the Arab militaries fighting against Israel have made is that there is no innocent oil tanker or container ship moving within missile or drone range of Israel, the Red Sea or the Indian Ocean unless it can prove it. This answer by the Ansar Allah government of Yemen, aka the Houthi military, is that they will attack any vessel which they know to be owned or controlled by Israel through its shipping families, companies, and their cutouts.

As a result, Houthi drone and missile attacks have exposed the elaborate scheme of corporate camouflage and false-flagging which Israel has been employing to conceal the vessel identities and movement of its international shipping operations. The Anglo-American maritime industry media, privy to these secrets, have not published them. The mainstream western press remains in the dark.

In today's Gorillla Radio podcast, this isn't dark any longer. Not genocide in Gaza but money in shipowner pockets is blowing the gaff.

Quenelle

Iran, Russia agree to ditch dollar, trade in national currencies

iran rusia
© Sputnik/ Russian Presidency Press ServiceFILE:
The establishment of new financial and banking platforms has opened a "new chapter" in banking relations between Iran and Russia, with the two countries agreeing to ditch the US dollar and instead trade in local currencies.

Platforms such as non-SWIFT messaging systems and establishing bilateral brokerage relations using national currencies are now being used by banks and businesses in Iran and Russia, Fars News reported on Wednesday, citing information from the Central Bank of Iran.

In a recent meeting, Governor of the Central Bank of Iran Mohammad-Reza Farzin and his Russian counterpart finalized an agreement to use national currencies in bilateral trade.

Comment: Oil Price reports:
"Banks and economic actors can now use infrastructures including non-SWIFT interbank systems to deal in local currencies," Iran's state media has declared.

Moscow has lately been cozying up to Tehran, with Iran revealing in November it will provide Russia with Su-35 fighter jets, Mi-28 attack helicopters and Yak-130 pilot training aircraft.

The global de-dollarization drive has been going on for years with BRIC countries and the so-called pariah states trying to ditch the American dollar in favor of other currencies.

Back in 2019, Putin declared that time was ripe to review the dollar's role in trade. At that time, Russia and China considered switching to the euro, the world's second most dominant currency, as an acceptable stalemate, with the ultimate goal being to use their own currencies.


It just goes to show how quickly the unipolar world is losing its position because China has since replaced the Euro as the World's 2nd top trade currency.


Earlier in the current year, Russia paid dividends from the Sakhalin 1 and 2 oil projects in Chinese yuan instead of the dollar. Last year, Russia was cut off from the US dollar-dominated global payments systems following sweeping sanctions off the Ukraine war.

Russia has declared it will no longer accept the American currency as payment for its energy commodities but will instead switch to Chinese and Emirati currencies.

However, global de-dollarization efforts have borne little fruit with the vast majority of cross-border transactions involving BRICS members continuing to be invoiced in dollars. Indeed, exchanging BRICS members' local currencies with each other and with other emerging market currencies frequently requires using the dollar as an intermediary.

Further, a large share of public and private debt in these economies is dollar denominated. The relative stability of the dollar compared to many local currencies makes it more attractive as a medium of payment in cross-border trade. The dollar's widespread use in these cases has become self-reinforcing, thus preserving its dominant global role and impeding efforts to de-dollarize.
The multipolar world may, in some respects, be struggling to shake dollar dominance, but it's clear that preparations are in the works to ditch it once and for all:


Bizarro Earth

Global defense orders surge amid escalating geopolitical tensions

Raytheon Technologies
© REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol / FileFILE: Raytheon Technologies stand at the 53rd International Paris Air Show at Le Bourget, France, June 21, 2019.
The world's major defense companies are experiencing a surge in their order books, reaching near-record highs due to a more than 10 percent growth in the past two years, Financial Times reports.

Rising geopolitical tensions, notably the conflict in Ukraine, are driving sustained state spending on weapons, attracting heightened investor interest in the sector.

An analysis conducted by the Financial Times on 15 defense groups, including top US contractors, BAE Systems from the UK and Hanwha Aerospace of South Korea, reveals that by the end of 2022, their combined order backlogs had reached $777.6 billion, a significant increase from $701.2 billion two years earlier.

Comment: Judging by diplomatic manouvres on the world stage, it seems that nations are readying themselves for a period of instability and clashes unlike our world has seen for a long time:


Magnify

German authorities prepare for potential riots on NYE with largest police operation in decades

cologne cathedral police germany
FILE: Police vans outside Cologne Cathedral, Dec 24 2023.
Drawing lessons from the riots and attacks on emergency services that occurred on New Year's Eve 2023, Germany's emergency services are preparing to be present in large numbers during the year-end festivities across the country, appealing to the public to be peaceful as the sale of fireworks started on Thursday.

"We are going into action together so that you can celebrate New Year's Eve safely and to help you if you need us," the police and fire departments in Berlin said in a joint video published on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter. "Don't attack us."

In the German capital Berlin, which was a hotspot for violence last year, the police are planning a major operation. "It is the largest police operation on New Year's Eve in recent decades," Berlin's Police Commissioner Barbara Slowik said earlier this week.

No Entry

Mexican officials clear border camp as US pressure mounts to limit migrant crossings

migrants
© Christian Chavez/AP1 Migrants cross the Rio Grande river from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico • December 27, 2023
A ragged migrant tent camp next to the Rio Grande is a long way from Mexico's National Palace, where a U.S. delegation met this week with Mexico's president seeking more action to curb a surge of migrants reaching the U.S. border.

But as Mexican officials in the city of Matamoros dispatched heavy machinery to clear out what they claimed were abandoned tents at the camp, the action was a likely sign of things to come.

The United States has given clear signs, including temporarily closing key border rail crossings into Texas, that it wants Mexico to do more to stop migrants hopping freight cars, buses and trucks to the border.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he got a worried phone call on Dec. 20 from U.S. President Joe Biden.
"He asked, Joe Biden asked to speak with me, he was worried about the situation on the border because of the unprecedented number of migrants arriving at the border. He called me, saying we had to look for a solution together."
Mexico, desperate to get the border crossings reopened to its manufactured goods, started to give indications it would crack down a bit. López Obrador said Thursday that Mexico detained more migrants in the week leading up to Christmas than the United States did, with Mexican detentions rising from about 8,000 per day on Dec. 16 to about 9,500 on Dec. 25.

Briefcase

Microsoft, OpenAI sued by New York Times over copyright infringement

NYTOAIMOAI
© Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto/Getty ImagesThe New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft
The New York Times on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in federal court against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that the companies used the Times' content to train artificial intelligence (AI) models without permission, infringing the outlet's copyrights in the process.

The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, claims that OpenAI, the maker of generative AI chatbot ChatGPT, and its financial backer Microsoft infringed the Times' copyrights by building training datasets containing millions of copies of its copyrighted content. The outlet also claims that its copyrights were violated by the output of generative AI tools like ChatGPT.

The complaint states:
"Defendants' generative artificial intelligence ("GenAI") rely on large-language models ("LLMs") that were built by copying and using millions of The Times' copyrighted news articles, in-depth investigations, opinion pieces, reviews, how-to guides and more. Through Microsoft's Bing Chat (recently rebranded as "Copilot") and OpenAI's ChatGPT, Defendants seek to free-ride on The Times' massive investment in its journalism by using it to build substitutive products without permission or payment."

Umbrella

UT San Antonio reworks DEI to 'belonging' as a new law banning DEI takes effect

UTSA night
© utsa.eduUniversity Texas San Antonio
A public university in Texas has reworked its diversity, equity and inclusion office ahead of a law that takes effect Jan. 1 banning DEI offices at public universities in the state.

The University of Texas at San Antonio has closed its Office of Inclusive Excellence and is opening the Office of Campus and Community Belonging with the same staff due to the new law, President Taylor Eighmy announced in a recent campuswide email.
"As you know, Senate Bill 17 goes into effect on January 1, 2024 and charges college and university governing boards with ensuring that diversity, equity and inclusion offices are not maintained or upheld.

"...Importantly, the individuals who previously served in the Office of Inclusive Excellence will now have new roles with updated responsibilities to support the Office of Campus and Community Belonging purpose, goals and services."
The university's media relations department did not respond to requests for comment this month from The College Fix asking whether the shift is in some ways a rebrand to skirt the law.

Signed by Gov. Greg Abbott in June, SB 17 states:
"An institution of higher education may not establish or maintain a diversity, equity, and inclusion office or hire or assign an employee of the institution, or contract with a third party, to perform the duties of a diversity, equity, and inclusion office."

Bullseye

Egyptian journalist found dead after exposing Zelensky's luxury villa

journalist
© russia.posten.comEgyptian journalist Mohammed Al-Alawi • Luxury villa in El Gouna
Egyptian journalist Mohammed Al-Alawi was found dead after his investigation into the purchase of a luxury villa in El Gouna by Zelensky's mother-in-law.

Mohammed Al-Alawi became famous after he exposed an expensive purchase that Volodymyr Zelensky's mother-in-law Olga Kiyashko made in September, El Mostaqbal reports. The villa that Kiyashko purchased was evaluated at $4.8 million.

The result of Al-Alawi's investigation revealed a corruption scandal in Ukraine and raised suspicions of misappropriation of US financial assistance by the Zelensky family. After the publication of the materials, the journalist started receiving death threats.

The reporter's body was found in Hurghada, not far from the road to El Hadaba, on December 23. There were multiple abrasions, bruises and fractures found on the body. The journalist also suffered a severe brain injury that resulted in brain haemorrhage. The journalist was allegedly brutally beaten by a group of assaulters.

The Egyptian police believe that Ukrainian intelligence services were involved in the murder of the journalist. Supposedly, they received orders from Volodymyr Zelensky or a senior Ukrainian official.

Robot

Tesla robot ATTACKS an engineer at company's Texas factory during violent malfunction

auto robotic assembly robots
Two witnesses watched in horror as a fellow Tesla employee rescued the bloodied engineer from an unwitting, but violent robotic assault — perpetrated by an automated assembly device (like these red robot arms above) designed to grab and move freshly cast aluminum car parts.
A Tesla engineer was attacked by a robot during a brutal and bloody malfunction at the company's Giga Texas factory near Austin.

Two witnesses watched in horror as their fellow employee was attacked by the machine designed to grab and move freshly cast aluminum car parts.

The robot had pinned the man, who was then programming software for two disabled Tesla robots nearby, before sinking its metal claws into the worker's back and arm, leaving a 'trail of blood' along the factory surface.

Comment: This article reads like a sensationalist smear piece. The robot "attacked" a worker? Really? Sounds more like an accident involving an automated piece of equipment, something that likely happens all the time in factories with any level of automation. It may be true that Tesla may have higher than average injuries at it's factory, but it should also be kept in mind that the media really seem to have it in for Elon Musk, and Tesla by extention. They really will attack him for anything. Take all this with a grain of salt.

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