Society's ChildS


Pistol

Best of the Web: Summary execution? FBI fatally shoots Utah man who posted threats against Biden, Trump prosecutor Alvin Bragg

Andrew Blankstein, Tom Winter, Phil McCausland and Antonio Planas
NBC News
Thu, 10 Aug 2023 03:38 UTC
Craig Deleeuw Robertson
Agents were attempting to serve a search warrant at the Provo home of the suspect when he was shot and killed.

The FBI on Wednesday shot and killed a Utah man who allegedly made online threats to kill President Joe Biden and New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg while serving a warrant at his Provo home, officials said.

The suspect was identified in charging documents obtained by NBC News as Craig Deleeuw Robertson.

Robertson allegedly made a threat Monday that referenced the president's trip to Utah this week, saying he needed to prepare his camouflage and sniper rifle.

Comment:




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Russian Flag

Best of the Web: Why is the West so weak (and Russia so strong)?

Gaius Baltar
gaiusbaltar.substack.com
Thu, 03 Aug 2023 08:10 UTC
new york vs moscow subway
New York City subway vs. Moscow subway
It is becoming increasingly clear to more and more people in the West that something has gone terribly wrong with the Ukraine project. Predictions and projections didn't pan out and the West doesn't seem to know what to do. The Russian economy wasn't a house of cards as predicted, Russian weapons weren't inferior as predicted, Russian soldiers and commanders weren't incompetent as predicted, and Russian technology wasn't inferior as predicted.

In some respects the Russians even seem to be superior to the West. Their weapons are effective and in many cases outright technologically superior, as clearly demonstrated by their hypersonic missiles, SAM systems and electronic warfare systems. Their economy appears to be surprisingly advanced and diversified and based on real wealth creation rather than financialization and debt like the West's. Their strategic and tactical thinking also seems to work, while the West's clearly doesn't.

The whole mess is often explained as a result of a miscalculation by the western elites - they underestimated Russia and overestimated the West. The situation, however, is far worse than that. Every day that passes reveals the impotence of the West more and more and the situation is becoming outright humiliating. At this point the rest of the world either shakes their heads or simply laughs at the West and its politicians and diplomats - not to mention its crazed populations.

The dysfunction of the West is far deeper than just the situation around the Ukraine project. It's absolutely everywhere. The West can't do diplomacy in general, it can't run its cities or countries except into the ground, its high-tech projects fail almost as a rule, its infrastructure is crumbling, its economies are crumbling, and all public policies seem to have a civilizational suicide as a final goal. The West's control mechanisms over the rest of the world are also crumbling, including the dollar, sanctions, color revolutions, military interventions and threats. Nothing seems to work and everything the West does seems to make things worse.
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Robot

Colleges scrambling to 'ChatGPT-proof' classes: Some professors report 'dozens' of cheating students

Anders Hagstrom
Fox News
Thu, 10 Aug 2023 21:08 UTC
students sit exam paper pencil chatgpt cheating
Will the past become the future?
Many professors are returning to paper-based exams to prevent AI abuse

College professors across the country are working frantically to "ChatGPT-proof" their assignments as some educators report seeing dozens of students cheating with the tool.

Some professors are planning to return to paper exams after years of conducting them digitally. Others are more drastic and plan to require students to show the draft history on their essay assignments.

Timothy Main, a writing professor at Conestoga College in Canada, saw a seven-fold increase in the number of academic integrity issues he had to log in the most recent semester, rising from eight to 57.

Comment: Remember, AI is being trained on human-produced audio, visual, and text material. Surveying the current quality of that material, it doesn't look promising for the calibre of AI functions. At this point, it's being fed the worst of humanity.

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Card - VISA

US credit card debt tops $1 trillion - report


RT
Thu, 10 Aug 2023 09:24 UTC
CredCard
© Getty Images/Image Source
Americans borrowed more than ever in the last quarter, Fed data shows...

Credit card balances in the US rose by $45 billion in the second quarter, surpassing $1 trillion for the first time ever, the New York Federal Reserve Bank reported on Tuesday.

Delinquency rates have now returned to pre-Covid levels, the bank's economists said, noting that the two most recent quarters "appear to show some stabilization."

Other balances, which include retail credit cards and other consumer loans, as well as auto loans increased by $15 billion and $20 billion, respectively.

The quarterly report shows that student loan balances fell by $35 billion to reach $1.57 trillion, while mortgage balances were largely unchanged at $12.01 trillion.

Total household debt jumped by $16 billion to $17.06 trillion in the second quarter of 2023.

Comment: Credit is fast becoming a financial Gordian Knot.

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Sheriff

From the trenches: Seattle cop Lieutenant Jessica Taylor's scathing 'exit' letter

Jason Rantz
My Northwest
Tue, 08 Aug 2023 18:07 UTC
seattle police sargent resign letter brutal scathing
© Seattle Police DepartmentTaylor (left) did not mince her words in her 15-page exit letter
Taylor blames chief's 'failed leadership' and 'spineless' mayor for playing to politics and turning city into 'playground for anarchists and criminals'

Lieutenant Jessica Taylor served in the Seattle Police Department for the last 23 years. But she called it quits Aug. 1. And she made sure she didn't leave quietly, providing a rare and in-depth look into how officers perceive the city and local lawmakers.

Taylor refused to fill out the Exit Form, which asks questions like why an officer is leaving, who is their new employer, and what the officer liked most and least about working in the department. Instead, she offered chief Adrian Diaz a 15-page resignation letter that promised an "unfiltered, raw, and unapologetic" description of why she made decision to retire. (You can click and read the full resignation letter at the end of this article.)

"I wanted to go out with the truth," Taylor explained in an exclusive interview with the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH.

Comment: The Daily Mail adds:
Earlier last month, the Seattle City Council voted not to pass legislation that would have allowed the City Attorney's Office to prosecute public drug use cases.

The move would have brought Seattle into compliance with the state's new drug possession law, which makes the crime a gross misdemeanor.

The council bill failed to pass in a 5-4 vote with councilmembers Alex Pedersen, Sara Nelson, Debora Juarez and Dan Strauss voting in favor of the bill.

Councilmembers Lisa Herbold, Kshama Sawant, Teresa Mosqueda, Andrew Lewis and Tammy Morales voted in opposition to the bill.
Good on Taylor. It's a shame she had to wait until her job was no longer in jeopardy to be able to speak out so bluntly.

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Dollar

LA shutdown looms as more than 11,000 workers will join hotel staff and Hollywood actors and writers who have walked off the job over 'bad faith bargaining' with city hall

Neirin Gray Desai
Daily Mail
Mon, 07 Aug 2023 21:48 UTC
la protest
More than 11,000 city workers in Los Angeles are set to go on strike - further paralyzing a city beset by walkouts staged by multiple trade unions. Pictured is a hotel worker strike in LA on July 21
More than 11,000 city workers in Los Angeles are set to go on strike - further paralyzing a city beset by walkouts staged by multiple trade unions.

On Tuesday morning, sanitation workers, traffic officers and mechanics will picket across the city, including outside the LA City Hall and LAX Airport, their union SEIU Local 721 said.

The union, which represents city and county employees in Southern California, said the one-day strike is a response to the city's 'refusal to bargain in good faith' during negotiations for higher wages.
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Alarm Clock

Covid vaccines are "disproportionately" harmful and up to 98% of injuries are being missed, says senior Conservative MP

Will Jones
Daily Sceptic
Wed, 09 Aug 2023 19:35 UTC
politician UK
Covid vaccines have a "disproportionate" injury rate, with injuries including "strokes, blood clots, heart attacks, amputations and neurological conditions", a senior Conservative MP has said.

Speaking to the Pandemic Response and Recovery All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), former Government Minister and APPG Co-Chair Esther McVey said: "A reporting system that misses as many as 98 out of 100 adverse reactions, inevitably misses safety signals."

The APPG heard about the failings of the Yellow Card system, set up to act as an early warning system for unexpected adverse drug reactions, and the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS), the main source of vaccine injury compensation.
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Cross

Ukrainian church leader given 5 years in prison for being seen as sympathetic to Russia

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Thu, 10 Aug 2023 12:55 UTC
Jonathan of Tulchin
Ukrainian Orthodox bishop, Metropolitan Jonathan of Tulchin, in court.
In yet another example highlighting the Zelensky's government's stance on "religious freedom" and democratic rights, a senior clergyman of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been sentenced to five years in prison after he was accused of 'justifying' Russian aggression against Ukraine. Regional media has identified the bishop as Metropolitan Jonathan of Tulchin.

The dominant Orthodox church in Ukraine to which he belongs — which has frequently criticized the Russian invasion but has not broken communion with the Moscow Patriarchate (The Russian Orthodox Church) — has of late come under severe persecution by the state, with its clergy and monastics seen as "sympathetic" to Moscow.

Regional media says that Metropolitan Jonathan will see property confiscated which was under his oversight. Ukraine authorities have already seized several churches and monasteries on accusations of cooperating with Russia.

Comment: See also:

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NPC

The Two Minutes Hate (new normal edition)

CJ Hopkins
Consent Factory, Inc.
Fri, 04 Aug 2023 00:00 UTC
Two Minutes Hate
Today's edition of the Two Minutes Hate, brought to you by GloboCap, Inc., and featuring an all-star line-up of GloboCap Goldsteins, will begin shortly. Please take your seat and switch off your remaining critical faculties. We've got a butt-load of hate in store for you today. First, though, a few important announcements.

First, due to the increased number of Goldsteins threatening the very fabric of democracy, and GloboCap, Inc., and its global partners, and their assorted subsidiaries, agents, and assigns, the Two Minutes Hate has been extended beyond its traditional two-minute running time and will henceforth be presented more or less around the clock until further notice.

Also, in a departure from the original Two Minutes Hate in Orwell's 1984, we're going to skip the opening "this is our land" part, which is (a) dated and (b) unacceptably unrepresentative of the racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of the New Normal Reich ...
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Sherlock

Best of the Web: Huge fire erupts at grain silos at French Atlantic port, follows explosions of silos in Turkey, Brazil, in last 2 weeks


Reuters
Thu, 10 Aug 2023 12:29 UTC
grain silo fire
More than 80 firefighters fought a huge blaze at grain silos in the French Atlantic port of La Rochelle on Thursday, disrupting shipping activity at one of France's biggest grain export terminals.

The fire started on a conveyor belt at around 8:00 a.m. (0600 GMT) and spread to four grain silos operated by SICA Atlantique, the local prefecture said.

Staff from SICA Atlantique and neighbouring companies in the terminal were evacuated and no injuries were reported, it said.

The fire had been brought under control and had not reached compartments containing stored grain, a representative of SICA Atlantique said.

France is the European Union's biggest grain producer and the cereal terminal at La Rochelle, known as La Pallice, is an important export outlet as it handles larger panamax vessels.

Comment: This incident in France, that comes on the heels of the explosions at grain silos in Turkey (just a few days ago), and Brazil (2 weeks ago), serve as support for the theory that, as with the highly suspect food plant fires that began in earnest in the last 2 years, these incidents at grain silos might be part of a concerted effort to disrupt the already highly vulnerable food supply: Explosion at grain silos at Turkey's Derince port, several injured

A selection of the food plant fires in the last year or so:

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