Society's ChildS


Blue Planet

UK NHS waiting lists at new record high of 7.6 million, 400,000 people waiting over a year for treatment

Storm Newton
Evening Standard
Thu, 10 Aug 2023 10:10 UTC
NHS hospital
© Peter Byrne/PAThe NHS waiting list figure of 7.6 million is the highest since records began in 2007
Data published by NHS England on Thursday revealed 7.6 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of June, up from 7.5 million in May.

The figure is the highest since records began in 2007.

A total of 383,083 people had been waiting more than 52 weeks to start routine hospital treatment at the end of June, down slightly from 385,022 at the end of May.

Elsewhere, some 7,177 patients are estimated to have been waiting more than 18 months, down from 11,446 at the end of May.

The Government and NHS England vowed to eliminate all waits of more than 18 months by April 2023 - excluding exceptionally complex cases or patients who choose to wait longer - with the aim of stopping waits of more than a year by March 2025.

Comment: The UK is exhibiting all the signs of collapse:

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Airplane

FAA asks FBI to consider criminal charges for 22 more unruly plane passengers — including for attempted cockpit break-in

David Propper
New York Post
Wed, 09 Aug 2023 01:21 UTC
pete buttigieg
The FAA, an arm of the Dept. of Transportation headed by Sec. Pete Buttigieg, is asking the FBI to investigate 22 more unruly plane passengers.
The Federal Aviation Administration is calling on the FBI to investigate 22 more out-of-control plane passengers for offenses including sexual assault, making bomb threats and trying to break into a cockpit.

The additional cases that were referred to the feds in the second quarter of this year brought the number of investigation requests up to 39 for 2023, according to the FAA.

The nearly two-dozen cases that could lead to criminal charges date back to as late as December 2021 and early as April of this year.

Comment: See also:

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Question

Do Britons support net zero?

Noah Carl
The Daily Sceptic
Wed, 09 Aug 2023 09:00 UTC
power stations
In a recent YouGov poll, Britons were asked whether they support the government's aim to "reduce Britain's carbon emissions to Net Zero by 2050". A large majority, 70%, said they did. Only 20% said they opposed this aim. Game, set and match to proponents of Net Zero - right?

Not so fast. Asking people whether they support Net Zero is like asking them whether they support increasing the NHS budget or reducing the number of run-over kittens. Of course they're going to say yes. People interpret the question to mean, 'Do you generally approve of cutting emissions?' And since most people do generally approve of that, they answer in the affirmative.

They don't interpret the question to mean, 'Do you support the government's aim to reduce Britain's carbon emissions to Net Zero by 2050 even though this would impose significant costs on ordinary Britons?' If you asked the question in this way, you might well get a different answer.
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Bizarro Earth

Chaos as youths descend onto London's famous Oxford Street after calls to 'loot shops' were made on Tik Tok, imitating recent scenes in New York

Tom Cotterill
Daily Mail
Thu, 10 Aug 2023 09:30 UTC
Oxford Street
Large groups of young people were seen running away from police amid the clashes on Oxford Street
Shocking video has shown police wielding batons clashing with dozens of youths in London's Oxford Street this afternoon after chaos erupted when a social media-fuelled campaign to 'rob JD Sports' and shoplift went viral.

Nine people have been arrested by the Metropolitan Police on suspicion of offences including assaulting a police officer, going equipped to steal and breaching a dispersal order at the shopping hotspot today.

Footage from the scene shows officers chasing after youths outside the Microsoft store in Europe's busiest shopping street with their batons raised, with some being wrestled away by police and put in handcuffs.

Comment: No doubt the youths in the UK, who are notorious for imitating their peers in the US, have been inspired by the very real criminality plaguing liberal cities in America - just one example can be seen in the footage below of a gang looting Yves St Laurent in California. In addition, this follows another recent incident that occurred just a few days ago, whereby a Tik Tok influencer's attempt to organise a prize giveaway resulted in hundreds of youths descending onto New York's Union Square, and that quickly descended into chaos, with some minor thefts. And it's likely that this was the main spark of inspiration for many. One also recalls the recent rioting in France that, no doubt, the youths will have seen footage of.

It's quite telling as to the psychology of the youths, and the state of society that, not only can they be whipped up into a frenzy with little more than a social media post, that they're actually keen to copy the criminality of their peers over in the US, but also that the fabric of society is so weak that they see the chaos, and potential for gains, as a reason to get excited, and they see no shame in doing so.

However this kind of mass mania and social contagion, and its severity, has been on the rise for at least a decade. It's likely that the lockdowns and subsequent Black Lives Matters protest and riots also reinforced this kind of mentality and behaviour.

It's also true that as the quality of life for most people in the UK has evidently begun to deteriorate, with poverty on the rise and with many more families struggling to get by, that there is a general feeling of malaise in society, and in particular amongst impoverished and disaffected youth:





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NPC

'Inclusive' hospital calls women 'patients of childbearing potential'

Michael Searles
The Telegraph
Wed, 09 Aug 2023 19:25 UTC
medical form
The de-gendered medical form at Cromwell Hospital
A private hospital in London has been criticised after labelling women as "patients of childbearing potential" on medical forms.

Cromwell Hospital's radiology department has a series of de-gendered forms given to both patients and clinicians for scans, including CT, MRI, and ultrasound.

The forms ask people if they are a "patient of childbearing potential", while staff are asked to "state the date of the first day of the patient's menstrual period".

Maya Forstater, co-founder and executive director of Sex Matters, accused the hospital of asking "nonsensical questions".

"Healthcare records should show everyone's sex clearly and accurately. 'Patients with childbearing potential' are women," she said. There is no point in being coy about sex.


Comment: Exactly. Who are they kidding here? The only people of 'chid-bearing' potential are women.


"We are seeing this kind of thing all over as NHS organisations decide not to record patients' sex because they are afraid of falling foul of the criminal penalties in the Gender Recognition Act.

"Going around the houses with nonsensical questions about 'childbearing potential' is not necessary and it makes it more likely that mistakes will be made."
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Robot

Bots have taken over nearly half the Internet, but almost a 3rd of users can't tell difference

Autumn Spredemann
The Epoch Times
Wed, 09 Aug 2023 06:46 UTC
Chatbots
© Tero Vesalainen/ShutterstockChatbots are most often used for low-level customer service and sales task automation, but researchers have been trying to make them perform more sophisticated tasks such as therapy.
Crossing paths with a robot or "bot" online is as common as finding a pair of shoes in your closet.

It's a fundamental part of the internet, but users have hit a critical tipping point: An increasing number of people are losing the ability to distinguish between bots and humans.

It's a scenario developers have warned about for years, and it's easy to see why.

A recent study concluded 47 percent of all internet traffic is now comprised of bot-generated content. That's an increase of more than 5 percent between 2022 and 2021. Concurrently, human activity on the internet just hit its lowest point in eight years.

Coupled with advances in human-like exchanges driven by artificial intelligence (AI), almost a third of internet users can't tell if they're interacting with a person any more.

In April, a landmark study called "Human or Not?" was launched to determine whether people could identify if they were talking to another person or an AI chatbot.

More than 2 million volunteers and 15 million conversations later, 32 percent of participants picked incorrectly.
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Family

Gen Z will be last generation with white majority in US, study finds

Edward Helmore
The Guardian
Tue, 08 Aug 2023 15:15 UTC
Times Square
© John Minchillo/APPedestrians pass through Times Square in New York City in July.
Gen Z Americans - who were born between 1997 and 2012 - will be the last generation with a white majority and will give way to a post-2012 "majority minority" generation Alpha, according to a new study of updated US census data.

That change - when non-Hispanic white people will fall below half as a share of the overall US population - should come around 2045, the study predicts.

Projections of the nation's demographic makeup, including age structure and race-ethnic composition, also show that the fastest population growth is occurring among the older population while the youth population declines.

"This [ageing] is not race neutral," the author of the new Brookings Institute study, William Frey, said. "White Americans contributed substantially to older population gains compared to younger and middle-aged populations, which registered white declines."
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X

Most Germans against sending long-range missiles to Kiev - poll


RT
Wed, 09 Aug 2023 06:52 UTC
An Eurofighter
© Ina FASSBENDER / AFPAn Eurofighter jet of the German Air Force is pictured at the Tactical Air Force Squadron 31 "Boelcke" in Noervenich on September 27, 2019.
Most Germans are opposed to providing Kiev with long-range missiles that could potentially be used to hit targets deep in Russian territory, according to a new RTL and n-tv poll released on Tuesday.

A survey conducted by the Forsa research institute on behalf of the two German channels found that only 28% of German citizens want their government to supply Ukraine with Taurus missiles, which carry a 500kg warhead and have a range of about 500km, making them potentially capable of reaching Moscow. Meanwhile, a clear majority of 66% reject the idea.

Ukraine has been asking for the Taurus since at least late May. However, at the time, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper claimed that some in the German government were skeptical of the request, doubting that Kiev would use the weapons sensibly, potentially allowing the conflict to "escalate uncontrollably."

Similar concerns were also voiced by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who said last month that he agreed with US President Joe Biden that Western-supplied weapons should not be used to attack Russian territory. Last week, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius ruled out such deliveries, saying they are "not our top priority right now" and pointing out that the US had so far refrained from a similar move.
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Handcuffs

19 arrested in FBI investigation of Australian pedophile ring that left two agents dead

Timothy Nerozzi
Fox News
Tue, 08 Aug 2023 20:27 UTC
australia pedophile ring fbi agents
© Associated PressFBI agents Laura Schwartzenberger, left, and Daniel Alfin were fatally shot Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2021, while serving a search warrant at the home of child pornography suspect David Huber.
FBI special agents killed in 2021 during investigation of U.S. suspect involved in criminal scheme

More than a dozen men have been charged with sex crimes in Australia in the wake of a U.S. FBI investigation that proved fatal for two agents.

Officials announced Tuesday that 19 men had been arrested and charged with a combined 138 offenses in connection to an international pedophile ring.

"We will allege that these men were members of a technologically sophisticated online child abuse network that was operating across the country," Australian Federal Police Commander Helen Schneider told news outlets.

"We are proud of our longstanding relationship with the Australian Federal Police resulting in 19 Australian men facing criminal prosecution as a result of our collaborative investigation," FBI Legal Attaché Nitiana Mann said.
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Dollars

NYC Mayor Adams announces new taxpayer-funded migrant tent city

Houston Keene
Fox News
Mon, 07 Aug 2023 05:16 UTC
Adams
© Hans Pennink/AP/FileNew York City Mayor Eric Adams
Randall's Island to be new spot for tent city

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, announced that a new taxpayer-funded tent city for illegal migrants will be going up in the Big Apple.

Adams announced Monday that Randall's Island in New York City will be the new spot for the more than 57,000 illegal migrants living in the city that never sleeps.
"As the number of asylum seekers in our care continues to grow by hundreds every day, stretching our system to its breaking point and beyond, it has become more and more of a Herculean effort to find enough beds every night. We're grateful to Governor Hochul and New York state for their partnership in opening this new humanitarian relief center and covering the costs, and we need more of the same from all levels of government. We will continue to work with the governor and elected officials across the state to address this crisis as New York City continues to do more than any other level of government."
Migrants
© Leonardo Munoz/VIEWpressMigrants camp in front of the Watson Hotel after being evicted in February

Comment: New York is the new San Francisco.

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