Society's ChildS


Pistol

France to force Ukraine to buy its weapons - minister


RT
Mon, 13 Nov 2023 17:18 UTC
French Armies Minister Sebastien Lecornu
© Ludovic MARIN / AFPFILE PHOTO: French Armies Minister Sebastien Lecornu leaves the Elysee palace at the end of the weekly cabinet meeting in Paris on November 8, 2023.
France plans to stop sending weapons to Ukraine from its own arsenal and will instead allow Kiev to buy arms directly from the country's manufacturers through a support fund, French Minister of the Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu said on Sunday.

"We are now negotiating with our Ukrainian colleagues to prompt Ukraine to buy new howitzers using money from a special fund, and so that the French military will no longer have to transfer guns from their arsenals," the official said in an interview with LCI broadcaster.

French military aid to Ukraine has reached €3.2 billion ($3.4 billion) thus far, according to a parliamentary report released last week, Lecornu noted. This amount has placed France among the leading European backers of the Ukrainian Army, alongside Germany and the UK.

Paris has also pledged an additional €200 million ($213 million) to Ukraine's support fund to ensure the Ukrainian Army's continued access to French military equipment, the official added. Kiev can spend money from the fund on arms purchases, but only from French contractors.

Comment: A signal perhaps that France is seeing the inevitability of a Ukrainian defeat as this move theoretically puts more distance between Ukraine and the weapons it needs to continue.

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Target

3 US-run bases in Syria targeted in drone, rocket attacks


PressTV
Mon, 13 Nov 2023 12:55 UTC
Syria US America military
© APUS occupation soldiers sit in an army vehicle in al0Hasakah, Syria, Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022
Three military bases in Syria's northeastern province of Hasakah and the neighboring province of Dayr al-Zawr, where US occupation troops and their allied militants are stationed, have come under separate attacks by armed drones and rockets.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of anti-terror fighters, in a statement claimed responsibility for the early Monday morning strikes.

It noted that the facility in al-Shaddadi town, located about 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Hasakah, was targeted by three drones, and the designated targets were precisely struck and destroyed.

Comment: This is just part of the surge in attacks against illegal Western bases in the Middle East, and it's occurring alongside the arrival of US & UK warships, fighter jets, and troops, in the region:

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Bullseye

Federal judge sides with DeSantis on transgender athletes, ban on biological males on female teams upheld

Danielle Wallace
Fox News
Thu, 09 Nov 2023 20:16 UTC
Ron Desantis
© Anna Moneymaker / Gettyimages.ruThe Republican candidate for the US Presidency and Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, on September 15, 2023
A federal judge in Miami sided with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the transgender athlete debate, upholding a ban on biological males competing with female sports teams.

DeSantis, now running for president in 2024, signed the Fairness in Women's Sports Act back in 2021, championing the legislation for empowering women and girls in Florida to continue to "compete on a level playing field" and ensuring "opportunities like college scholarships will be protected for female athletes for years to come."

Also known as SB 1028, DeSantis said the state law was based off "biology, not based off ideology."

In a 39-page decision dated Monday, U.S. District Judge Roy Altman, an appointee of former President Trump, determined that the law, which "separates public-school sports teams by biological sex," does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution because it is "sex-based classifications are substantially related to the state's important interest in promoting women's athletics."
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Stop

Sanction Israel - Belgian deputy PM


RT
Thu, 09 Nov 2023 07:59 UTC
DepPM
© James Arthur Gekiere/Belga/AFPBelgian Deputy Prime Minister Petra De Sutter
Trade and travel restrictions should be considered due to the 'rain of bombs' on Gaza, Petra De Sutter has said...

Israel should face repercussions for the massive civilian death toll from its anti-Hamas operation in Gaza, Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Petra De Sutter has said. The politician told the Nieuwsblad newspaper on Wednesday:
"We cannot look away while children are killed every day in Gaza. It is time for sanctions against Israel. The rain of bombs is inhumane. It is clear that Israel does not care about the international demands for a ceasefire."
She proposed suspending Belgium's association agreement with Israel and banning the import of products from the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. Officials and military personnel found guilty of war crimes, as well as violent radical Jewish settlers, should be banned from traveling to the EU, she added.

Comment: Pockets of rational thinking still exist. Insanity has not (yet) spread everywhere.

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Laptop

Best of the Web: Algorithms hijacked my generation. I fear for Gen Alpha

Freya India and Jon Haidt
After Babel
Fri, 10 Nov 2023 19:49 UTC
gen alpha social media
© The Epoch Times/YouTubeAlphas are aged 11 years and under... and will soon outnumber baby boomers.
Freya India explains how algorithms act as conveyor belts, transporting girls to dark and extreme places

A note from Jon Haidt

In October 2021, the brilliant Helen Pluckrose introduced me to a young British woman who had written some superb essays about the problems members of Gen Z were facing for her at Areo, Freya wanted to talk with me about a book she was thinking about writing, and I wanted to learn more from her about what young women were experiencing online.

Freya's writing is compassionate, gripping, and deeply psychological, including essays such as My Generation Isn't Suffering Enough (which is about antifragility), and Women's Sexuality is Powerful, Is Onlyfans The Way to Use It? She recently wrote an essay that has haunted me, titled We Can't Compete with AI Girlfriends. It's about what is going to happen to young women as ever more young men shack up with gorgeous, witty, programmable AI girlfriends, who can be given proportions and personalities unobtainable by real women.

As Zach and I began to seek out the most insightful "voices of Gen Z," we immediately thought of Freya. (I quote Freya in the chapter on girls in The Anxious Generation.) She had an essay topic already in mind when we reached out to her--an insight about virtual conveyor belts. Freya shows us how it all works--how girls get transported to ever more extreme ideas, identities, and behaviors--and she urges us to protect the next generation from suffering the same fate.

— Jon

P.S. If you like Freya's writing, sign up for her Substack, GIRLS where she writes about the challenges girls face in the modern world.
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Rainbow

Pope fires anti-LGBTQ bishop


RT
Sun, 12 Nov 2023 14:16 UTC
Pope Francis
© Getty Images NewsPope Francis on World Youth Day, August 6, 2023
Texas Bishop Joseph Strickland, a prominent figure among traditionalist American Catholics and critic of Pope Francis for making the church more welcoming to the LGBTQ community, was removed from his post as bishop of Tyler, the Vatican has said.

In a statement released on Saturday, the Vatican confirmed that the decision followed "an apostolic visitation ordered by the Pope last June in the Diocese of Tyler," but did not specify the reason.

"The Holy Father has removed Bishop Joseph E. Strickland from the pastoral governance of the diocese of Tyler, United States of America, and has appointed Bishop Joe Vásquez of Austin as apostolic administrator of the same diocese, rendering it sede vacante."

According to the statement, cited by the Vatican news, "as a result of visitation," Bishop Strickland's continuation in office was deemed "not feasible" and he was asked to resign on Thursday. Since the request was declined by the bishop, Pope Frances decided to remove him.

Strickland has repeatedly criticized the Pope's liberal position on issues such as transgender rights and same-sex marriage, and accused the pope of "undermining the Deposit of Faith."
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Syringe

Sudden deaths twice as high among vaccinated in Pfizer trial

Will Jones
The Daily Sceptic
Sat, 11 Nov 2023 14:02 UTC
Pfizer, vaccine, virus, COVID, mrna
Sudden deaths were twice as high in the vaccine group of the original Pfizer clinical trial than in the placebo group, researchers have found, reigniting concerns about the safety of the novel mRNA drug.

The worrying finding comes from new analysis of the data from the original randomised controlled trial (RCT) of the vaccine which were released as part of legal action in Texas.

Researchers at the Health Advisory and Recovery Team (HART) found that there were four additional sudden deaths in the vaccine group than in the placebo group, all of which occurred after the first 60 days. Many assurances of vaccine safety assume that any harms will be seen within 28 days of vaccination, meaning signals after 60 days would be missed.

In all there were 12 sudden deaths with no underlying cause: eight in the vaccine group and four in the placebo group. Three occurred in each group during the first 60 days; subsequently, five occurred in the vaccine group but just one in the placebo group.
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Stock Down

'A perfect storm': German homebuilding collapse threatens wider economic carnage

Alexander Vladkov
Financial Times
Sun, 12 Nov 2023 10:33 UTC
germany construction
© BloombergAn apartment building construction site in Hamburg. The downturn in the residential market threatens the broader economy
Wolfgang Schubert-Raab recalls when the boom times were so good that his firm could not build homes quickly enough.

"Back in 2021, before we'd even poured the first cubic metre of concrete, we'd already had offers on more than half the complex," said the managing director of the Raab construction company. Two years on, the market for single-family dwellings is in what Schubert-Raab describes as a state of "completely collapse".

Across Germany, homebuilders are facing such a sharp reversal in their fortunes that the downturn in residential construction is threatening to have broader repercussions across Europe's largest economy.

Many have declared themselves insolvent, dampening Chancellor Olaf Scholz's target of building 400,000 new homes a year to tackle a housing affordability crisis in several of the country's largest cities.

Comment: Countries across Europe are already showing signs of being in a significant recession, and with their burgeoning conflict in the Middle East, there's every reason to believe that the global economic situation is only going to get unfathomably worse:

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MIB

Explosion derails train carrying fertilizer near Moscow, sabotage attack by Ukraine suspected

Matt Jackson
Express
Sun, 12 Nov 2023 07:25 UTC
russia sabotage
© APA Russian train derailed some 130 miles from Moscow
A Russian cargo train crashed off the tracks following a suspected "sabotage attack".

A major explosion is said to have destroyed tracks in the Ryazan region, around 130 miles southeast of Moscow. The Mirror reports the train was carrying a white powder cargo.

It is however unclear what the cargo is. Officials said the 19 carriages were transporting "mineral fertiliser".


Comment: Russia is one of the world's largest exporters of chemical fertilizers - the West has been critically reliant on those supplies for many years now - and so it's likely that this is indeed fertilizer. It's unlikely Russia would ship anything of critical significance without a military guard.


Comment: Sabotage incidents on Russian territory, ostensibly the sole work of the Kiev-junta, are highly likely being facilitated and directed by the West, and these attacks have been ongoing, and increasing in number and scope, since at least the beginning of the West's proxy war in Ukraine.

Notably, over in the West, there has also been a spike in suspected sabotage incidents, including train derailments, explosions at industrial facilities, and, in particular, food plant fires, however the authorities have not blamed external actors, and instead there's reason to believe that these are in fact the work of internally connected factions:

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Bad Guys

Elon Musk: Killing children in Gaza makes Hamas stronger


RT
Sat, 11 Nov 2023 21:29 UTC
elon Musk
© Lex Clips/YouTubeElon Musk interview with Lex Fridman
The way for Israel to fight is with "conspicuous kindness," the tech billionaire has said

Israel's reaction to the October 7 attack by Hamas has played into the terrorist group's hands, according to X CEO Elon Musk, who urged West Jerusalem to embrace a "counterintuitive" strategy that would be more beneficial in the long-term.

"If you kill somebody's child in Gaza, you've made at least a few Hamas members who will die just to kill Israelis," Musk said on the Lex Fridman podcast on Thursday.

The Tesla, SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter) head argued that the goal of the Palestinian militant group was to "provoke an overreaction" by Israel by committing atrocities and then "leverage that aggressive response to rally Muslims worldwide for the cause of Gaza and Palestine, which they have succeeded in doing."

Comment: Nice thought, but way too late for it. The Israeli regime is in the grip of a bloodthirsty mass psychosis.

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