Society's ChildS


Eye 1

Sturgeon's Covid lockdown so tough 'families considered suicide pacts'

Daniel Sanderson
Telegraph
Tue, 24 Oct 2023 20:56 UTC
nicola sturgeon
© Andrew Milligan/PAMs Sturgeon was generally slower to ease restrictions and reopen society compared with the rest of the UK
Nicola Sturgeon's draconian Covid-19 rules caused children to attempt to take their own lives and parents to consider "suicide pacts", a public inquiry heard.

On Tuesday the first day of evidence in the Scottish Covid-19 inquiry heard harrowing testimony of the impact lockdown had on the lives of vulnerable Scots, including young people with learning disabilities and care home residents treated as "prisoners".

While some victims expressed sympathy for the UK's need to enter lockdown in March 2020, they claimed groups at high risk from the virus were later unfairly prioritised over people with other health conditions.

Comment: We think the answer is obvious, NO, the suffering did not need to be so great.

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Stock Down

Black swan event: Will Israel-Hamas conflict cause surge in energy costs?


RT
Tue, 24 Oct 2023 12:46 UTC
oil pump jack
© REUTERS/Nick Oxford/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsFILE
The Israel-Hamas conflict, characterized as a 'black swan event' in the oil market, holds the potential to propel oil prices to $150 per barrel. This possibility is rooted in the specter of regional entanglement, particularly involving Iran. Apprehensions surround Iran's potential support for Hamas through advanced weaponry, further escalating the conflict. Moreover, Iran's influence on Hezbollah may open a second front against Israel, possibly prompting Israeli strikes on Iran.


Comment: In addition to Gaza, Israel had already bombed Lebanon, Syria, and the outskirts of Egypt.


In response, Iran could opt to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global oil passage. Such an act would disrupt oil supplies, leading to price surges and contributing to inflation via increased energy costs.

The world of commodity trading stirred uneasily as the Israel-Hamas conflict unfurled unexpectedly, leaving market observers with no choice but to acknowledge its reverberations. While some may argue that this tumultuous event has had a limited impact on global oil prices and the broader economy, a closer inspection reveals a more complex reality.
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Arrow Up

Germany: Employer now docking wages of employees who eat meat, drive autos!

P Gosselin
NoTricksZone
Wed, 25 Oct 2023 17:49 UTC
Eating and Driving
© newsauto.gr
Eigengoal

Not only politicians, but also companies are starting to get hysterical when it to comes to climate. There are now drastic wage cuts if employees drive or eat meat.

Germany's APOLLO NEWS here reports that soccer club VfL Osnabrück is now "penalizing its employees with climate fines."

"Based on an individual CO₂ footprint calculated by the club, deductions are made from their salaries as a penalty for climate-unfriendly behavior," reports the German site.

As it's probably a dream of many people to be employed by a professional sports team, the club will probably get away with it. Unhappy employees can be easily replaced.

But in the current environment of a severe skilled workers shortage, other companies may be extremely hesitant to enact such a draconian and personally intrusive policy. It also likely violates German labor law. In any case, VfL Osnabrück does show just how loony the climate craze is getting.

According to the APOLLO site: "The soccer club calculates the amount of salary that is deducted based on things like how far its employees travel to work or how much meat they consume."
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Star of David

Rules for thee: Israeli soldiers blast Benjamin Netanyahu's son Yair, 32, for 'abandoning' them for Florida

Harriet Alexander
The Daily Mail
Wed, 25 Oct 2023 15:15 UTC
Yair Netanyahu son israel prime minister new york
© Yair Netanyahu/InstagramYair Netanyahu is pictured in New York City in a photo posted in October 2022
Still in Miami while 360,000 reservists are called up to fight against Hamas

The son of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been blasted for staying in Miami while reservists returned home to fight against Hamas.

Yair Netanyahu, 32, has been in Florida since at least April, after his father told him to stop making inflammatory posts on social media, which saw him sued for defamation multiple times. Meanwhile an unprecedented 360,000 reservists have been called up - many of them dropping everything to fly back to Israel, even abandoning honeymoons.

But Yair has remained in Miami, to the irritation of some of the troops. 'Yair is enjoying his life at Miami Beach while I'm on the front lines,' one soldier, a volunteer serving on Israel's northern front, told The Times.

'It's us who are leaving our work, our families, our kids, to protect our families back home and the country, not the people who are responsible for this situation.

'Our brothers, our fathers, sons, are all going to the front line, but Yair is still not here. It does not help build trust in the leadership of the country.'

Comment: Yair Netanyahu ticks all the boxes for a spoiled son of power.

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Gold Seal

The Westminster Declaration: 'Censorship-industrial complex' is creating a 'crisis of humanity itself'

Westminster Declaration
Technocracy News
Fri, 20 Oct 2023 00:00 UTC
free speech
Comment from Technocracy News: In March 1783, George Washington gave an address, "If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." This only tells that there are always those who want to muzzle everyone else. Today, the most prominent anti-free speech cabal is led by Technocrats, and demonstrably so. These are the pied pipers, ne, the Sirens of Crete who lured sailors to their death with irresistible music.

In Greek mythology, the music of the Sirens of Create crowded out all other melodies, and they could only be killed by more beautiful music. Today, Technocrats are wrapped in a simulacrum while spreading their pipe dreams that surely will result in the death of civilization. The only remedy is Free Speech.

"Across the globe, government actors, social media companies, universities, and NGOs are increasingly working to monitor citizens and rob them of their voices. These large-scale coordinated efforts are sometimes referred to as the 'Censorship-Industrial Complex."
The Westminster Declaration

We write as journalists, artists, authors, activists, technologists, and academics to warn of increasing international censorship that threatens to erode centuries-old democratic norms.

Coming from the left, right, and centre, we are united by our commitment to universal human rights and freedom of speech, and we are all deeply concerned about attempts to label protected speech as 'misinformation,' 'disinformation,' and other ill-defined terms.

This abuse of these terms has resulted in the censorship of ordinary people, journalists, and dissidents in countries all over the world.
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Clipboard

Lowering risk as we enter forced frugality

Charles Hugh Smith
Of Two Minds
Fri, 20 Oct 2023 00:00 UTC
lifestyle
If things unravel, these risk-reduction strategies quickly shift from "nice to have" to "essential." But by then, it will be too late to put them in place.

I would summarize the economic flow of recent events as:

2020-21: massive stimulus and pandemic restrictions build up household savings and generate a stock market "meme stock" bubble.

mid-2021-22: "Revenge Spending" splurging generates massive spike in consumption, profiteering and inflation.

2023: Renewed bubbles in housing and stocks, a classic "rebound / echo" bubble. Splurging wanes as savings and credit are tapped out, and higher interest rates finally start affecting behavior.

2024: Forced frugality as jobs are slashed, profits fall, inflation stays sticky, credit dries up, businesses close, Federal Reserve stimulus wanes and soaring government borrowing costs crimps government spending.

I've often discussed that the economy and society are cyclical. Nothing stays on the same trajectory forever.

Comment: See also: Ticking time-bomb: Food inflation is crushing millions of low income Americans

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Info

Israeli hostage, 85, shown shaking hands with Hamas captor after release

Rory Carroll and Jason Burke
The Guardian
Tue, 24 Oct 2023 13:56 UTC
Released Hostages Nurit Cooper and Yocheved Lifshitz
Released Hostages Nurit Cooper and Yocheved Lifshitz.
Yocheved Lifshitz filmed saying 'shalom', meaning 'peace', as she and Nurit Yitzhak, 79, taken out of Gaza.

At the precise moment of her deliverance from a hellish ordeal Yocheved Lifshitz paused and turned to grip the hand of one of the masked Hamas militants who had kept her captive. "Shalom," she said.

The handshake and the Hebrew word for peace were a remarkable gesture by the 85-year-old Israeli who later spoke of brutality and mercy during her 16 days as a hostage in Gaza.

Comment: Compare this account with the Daily Mail headline: Israeli woman, 85, who wished 'peace' on her Hamas captors reveals the degrading abuse they inflicted on her that left her struggling to breathe... but could not strip her of her love for fellow man

From Middle East Eye:
Israeli officials are reportedly unhappy with an interview given by an elderly former captive of Hamas in Gaza because she had not been well prepared for the statement.

In a press meeting on Tuesday, 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz, an Israeli captive released from Gaza on Monday evening, said she was beaten on 7 October, the day Palestinian fighters stormed southern Israel, but later treated "gently".

Sources told Israel's state-owned Kan News that the interview was a "mistake", adding that a "preliminary meeting" may not have been held with Lifshitz prior to her press statement and that if one had been held, not "all questions" to do with the preparation were asked.
"PR disaster" indeed. Clearly Lifshitz hadn't been briefed on the acceptable narrative (or she ignored the briefing).



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Fire

'This is 1776 Part Two for the whole world' - Vivek & Alex Jones warn of the coming globalist technocracy

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Tue, 24 Oct 2023 20:40 UTC
alex jones vivek ramaswamy
In a deep dive with one of the most controversial figures of modern media, GOP Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks with Alex Jones on 'The TRUTH Podcast' revealing unsettling insights into modern censorship, geopolitics, and American exceptionalism.

Dubbed "The Most Censored Man In The World", Jones' revelations shed light on the startling decline of free speech and the challenges it presents to the core principles upon which the United States was founded.

"When they censor you and deplatform you they can then steal your identity and misrepresent what you've said."

Comment: See also:

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Broom

US prepares for potential mass evacuations of 100,000s of Americans from Middle East — WaPo


TASS
Wed, 25 Oct 2023 09:13 UTC
gasa palestine airstrikes
Israeli airstrikes have pounded Gaza City since the Oct. 7. According to the newspaper, when the Palestinian radical movement Hamas attacked Israel, there were about 600,000 US nationals in Israel and another 86,000 in Lebanon.
The Biden administration is readying plans for the potential evacuation of hundreds of thousands of US citizens from the Middle East if the conflict between Palestine and Israel escalates, The Washington Post reported, citing sources.

More than 600,000 Americans living in Israel and Lebanon are of concern in what the newspaper said was a "worst-case scenario." It "would be irresponsible not to have a plan for everything," an official told the newspaper. Three officials familiar with discussions said that other outcomes are seen as more likely. Washington is deeply alarmed by the prospect of escalation amid a potential Israeli ground operation, the WaPo said.


Comment: Some in Washington, and the UK, may be alarmed, but others in positions of power are brazenly vocal in their support for war crimes against the Palestinians that would surely escalate the situation (see footage below).


In recent days, the administration has turned its attention to the complicated logistics of abruptly having to evacuate a large number of people. When the Palestinian radical movement Hamas attacked, there were about 600,000 US nationals in Israel and another 86,000 in Lebanon, the newspaper writes.

Comment: Some analysts have commented that at least one aspect of Israel's power and influence in the region is because of the sheer number of people who have migrated there, and, were a large number to leave, the country would be weaker for it. A significant number of Israeli's have duel citizenship or have family in other parts of the world - unlike the indigenous Palestinians - and were these to be given the choice of suffering life in war zone (like the Palestinians have suffered for decades) or to live elsewhere, it's likely that they would leave.

See also: Evidence That an Israeli Jet Dropped an Air Burst Bomb on the al-Ahli Hospital Courtyard





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Footprints

Millions demonstrate around the world in solidarity with Palestine

Abayomi Azikiwe
Global Research
Mon, 23 Oct 2023 00:00 UTC
rally
© PCPalestinian rally
As more people perish from the siege of Gaza, the untenable positions of the United States and other western governments are being exposed for their complicity in the attempted destruction of millions in Palestine and throughout the region...

On Saturday October 21, the streets of various cities throughout the globe were filled with millions rallying and marching in solidarity of the Palestinian people as the siege of Gaza continues having killed over 4,000 people and injuring tens of thousands of others.

2.2 million Palestinians are imperiled due to the relentless bombings by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) over the last two weeks.

The bombings of civilian areas and infrastructure are considered war crimes by the United Nations. However, the United States government, Britain and the European Union (EU) are not only supporting the State of Israel they are pledging to send more military assistance. In the case of Washington, President Joe Biden has gone to the divided and beleaguered Congress to request $106 billion to spread greater insecurity and war throughout West Asia, North Africa, the Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe and the southern border of the U.S.

Biden has deployed two warships to the Eastern Mediterranean along with placing 2,000 Pentagon troops on alert for possible combat activity in defense of Israel and consequently against the Palestinian people and others living within contiguous states. The White House has threatened other countries and their governments not to take action in support of the Palestinians while the administration has failed to call for a ceasefire and the immediate distribution of much needed humanitarian aid to Gaza.
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