Society's ChildS


Family

Parents have a right to know what's in sex education classes


The Spectator
Wed, 28 Jun 2023 15:44 UTC
gender swap trans cartoon
Rishi Sunak tends to shy away from social issues so it has been left to a backbencher, Miriam Cates, to introduce a Bill which would oblige schools to disclose to parents the materials which are being used in their children's sex education classes.

The Bill is necessary because the Conservative government has allowed sex education in many schools to be taken over by campaign groups with a radical agenda who wish to persuade children that it is wrong to think in a 'heteronormative' way.

The scandals that have recently surrounded schools reveal the scale and severity of the problem. Children have in some cases been taught that there are dozens, even hundreds, of different genders, and that somehow they must discern and choose their own. Some have been told that when talking or writing about historical figures they should always use 'they' because we don't know a past person's preferred pronouns. Muslim parents in particular have protested against their children being given 'age-inappropriate' information about sexual practices. They insist that parents should have a right to know what their children are being told.

Comment: See also:

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Newspaper

UK's emergency services miss 11,000 calls in 1 day due to technical glitch

Mark Sweney
The Guardian
Thu, 29 Jun 2023 18:09 UTC
UK emergency services
Telecoms firm, which manages the system, said it had taken three days to contact each of the disconnected callers
BT has disclosed that it missed almost 11,500 emergency 999 calls after technical faults shut down the platform last weekend.

The company, which manages the emergency services calls system, said it had taken three days to contact each of the callers who had not been connected after what it described as a complex software issue disrupted the service for several hours from 6.24am on Sunday.

"During the disrupted period on Sunday, we have provisionally identified there was a total of 11,470 unique calls that were unsuccessfully connected to 999," said BT, which published the findings of its internal investigation on Thursday.

Comment: It seems that a number of serious technical glitches are occurring these days:

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Russian Flag

Poland still importing 50% of its gas from Russia


TopCor.ru
Wed, 28 Jun 2023 12:00 UTC
gas russia
The Russian Federation in the first quarter of 2023 became the main supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Poland, which indicates continued dependence on Russian fuel. At the same time, Warsaw's statements about getting rid of it turned out to be erroneous, according to the Polish edition of Money.pl.

The country's authorities, represented by Prime Minister Morawiecki, promised to completely abandon Russian gas imports by the end of 2022, but over the three months of this year, purchases from Moscow accounted for more than half of all imports (50,8%). Their volume cost Warsaw 710 million euros. At the same time, the rest of the EU in the first quarter bought fuel from Russia for 417 million euros. The publication notes that purchases from other LNG suppliers to Poland at the beginning of 2023 did not exceed 5%. Apart from the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan (4,9%), the Netherlands (4,7%) and the UK (4,6%) supplied the most gas.

Comment: The hypocrisy and short-sightedness of Poland, considering how aggressive and provocative its leadership has been towards Russia, does not bode well for the citizens of Poland:

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Sherlock

VP of Russian bank 'plunges to her death from apartment window' in Moscow in latest suspicious fatality involving country's top execs

Olivia Jones
Daily Mail
Thu, 29 Jun 2023 16:19 UTC
Kristina Baikova
Kristina Baikova (pictured), 28, an executive at Loko-Bank, reportedly fell to her death in the early hours of Friday morning
The glamorous vice-president of a Russian bank has reportedly plunged to her death after falling from the window of her Moscow apartment.

Kristina Baikova, 28, an executive at Loko-Bank, is just the latest mysterious casualty involving Russia's top business people.

Ms Baikova allegedly fell from her 11th floor apartment on the Khodynsky Boulevard in the early hours of last Friday. She died instantly at the scene.

The bank executive was with a 34-year-old friend, thought to be named Andrei, at the time of the incident after inviting him over to her home for drink.

An investigation into her death has been launched.

A spate of unexplained deaths of high-ranking energy officials has taken place since the start of Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine in February last year.

Comment: In November 2021, even before Russia's SMO, it seems the suspicious deaths had begun; although they've certainly accelerated since: Russian diplomat was 'found dead' outside embassy in Berlin last month, reports claim he 'fell from a window'

It appears to be primarily Russian citizens that have been targeted - and likely by the West - but in May of this year: Retired Mossad agent and two spies drown in suspicious incident on Italian lake

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Laptop

US health department, law firms latest hit in wide-ranging hack

Raphael Satter
Reuters
Thu, 29 Jun 2023 19:19 UTC
Department of Health and Human Services
© REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan/File PhotoA worker arrives at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, October 1, 2013.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was among those affected by a wide-ranging hack centered on a piece of software called MOVEit Transfer, a source at HHS said on Wednesday.

"While no HHS systems or networks were compromised, attackers gained access to data by exploiting the vulnerability in the MOVEit Transfer software of third-party vendors," a health department official familiar with the matter said.

Hackers behind the massive breach also claimed credit for stealing data from two major law firms, Kirkland & Ellis LLP and K&L Gates LLP.

The ransomware gang known as cl0p posted the names of Kirkland & Ellis LLP and K&L Gates LLP to its leak site, typically a sign that negotiations between the victims and the hackers had broken down.

The hackers' claims could not immediately be verified. Kirkland and K&L did not immediately return messages left after hours. A spokesperson for HHS could not immediately be reached.
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Bizarro Earth

Why the world is on the brink of great disorder

Ray Dalio
Time
Mon, 26 Jun 2023 12:00 UTC
Nasdaq
© Michael Nagle—Bloomberg/Getty ImagesStock market information at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York, on June 9, 2023. Even with the Federal Reserve potentially halting rate hikes, US stocks remain under the shadow of a severe economic downturn, says a recent analysis by strategists at Bank of America Corp.
I'm a global macro investor who has been betting on what's going to happen for over 50 years. I've been through all sorts of events and cycles in all sorts of places over a long time which led me to study how these events and cycles work. In the process, I learned that I needed to study history to understand what's going on and what's likely to happen.

Early in my career, I learned though a couple of painful mistakes that the biggest things that surprised me did so because they never happened in my lifetime but had happened many times in history. The first time that happened was on August 15, 1971 when I was clerking on the floor of the New York Stock exchange and the U.S. defaulted on its debt promise to allow people to turn in their paper dollars for gold. I thought that this was a big crisis that would send stock prices down but they went up a lot. I didn't understand why because I'd never experienced a big currency devaluation before. When I looked back in history, I saw that the exact same thing happened on March 5, 1933 when Roosevelt defaulted on the U.S.'s promise to let people turn in their paper money for gold and stocks went up. That led me to study and learn why — which is that money could be created, and when it's created, it goes down in value which makes things go up in price. That experience led me to study the rises and declines of markets, economies, and countries which I've done ever since. For example, my studying how the 1920s debt bubble turned into the 1929-33 financial collapse led me to anticipate and profit from the 2008 financial crisis. That's how I learned that it's critical to take a longer-term perspective and understand the mechanics behind why history rhymes.

A few years ago, I saw three big things happening that hadn't happened in my lifetime but had happened in the 1930-45 period. These were:
  1. The largest amounts of debt, the fastest rates of debt growth, and the greatest amounts of central bank printing of money and buying debt since 1930-45.
  2. The biggest gaps in wealth, income, values, and the greatest amounts of populism since the 1930-45 period.
  3. The greatest international great powers conflict, most importantly between the U.S. and China, since 1930-45.
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Arrow Down

Matt Hancock slams pandemic preparations telling officials only cared about 'buying enough bodybags'

Greg Heffer
Daily Mail
Tue, 27 Jun 2023 11:48 UTC
matt hancock
Matt Hancock today tore into Britain's 'completely wrong' planning for a potential pandemic prior to the coronavirus crisis.

The former health secretary, giving evidence to the Covid Inquiry, lashed out at the 'doctrine' of Whitehall preparations for a possible virus outbreak prior to 2020.

He claimed officials were focused on planning for the 'consequences of a disaster' - such as buying enough bodybags or working out where to bury the dead - rather than stopping the spread of a dangerous disease.
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Eye 1

NBC News DEFENDS 'we're coming for your children' chant at NYC drag march, arguing it's 'been used for years at Pride events'

Libby Emmons
The Post Millenial
Wed, 28 Jun 2023 00:00 UTC
groomer
The Drag March in Manhattan's East Village featured topless women and plenty of drag performers chanting "We're coming for your children." A clip from Timcast of the event, the chanting, and the festivities went viral on social media, infuriating many who value childhood innocence. In response, NBC defended the chant, saying that it was just for fun, and is a way for LGBTQIA+ people to "own" the slurs that have been leveled against them.

"We're here, we're queer, we're coming for your children," they sang to each other.

NBC asserted that the drag marchers were saying "We're here, we're queer, we're not going shopping," and that it's only "one voice that is louder than the crowd" who said, "We're coming for your children." They quote the drag march organizer, Brian Griffin, who said that they chanted obscene things to basically own the slurs.
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Bullseye

Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action, rules against Harvard and UNC

Jeff Zymeri
National Review
Thu, 29 Jun 2023 17:30 UTC
us supreme court building harvard presiden claudine gay
© Jonathan Ernst & Brian Snyder/ReutersThe Supreme Court Building (left) in Washington, D.C., New President of Harvard University Claudine Gay
The Supreme Court ruled that the race-conscious admissions policies of Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

"The Harvard and UNC admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause. Both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points. We have never permitted admissions programs to work in that way, and we will not do so today," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts for the six-justice majority.

However, universities may still consider an applicant's discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise. Roberts clarified that this does not mean universities can simply establish through application essays or other means the regime declared unlawful by the Court. It means, explained Roberts, "the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of race."

Comment: A long battle come to a proper conclusion. Admission to higher education should be based on merit alone. In a properly functioning society, hard work and ability are rewarded.

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Light Sabers

Olympics chief condemns Poland for Russian visa ban


RT
Thu, 22 Jun 2023 13:48 UTC
Fencing
© AFP/Kirill KudryavtsevRussia's Nikolai Spitsyn (L) and Belarus' Kiryl Abushenka compete in the international fencing event Moscow Sabre in Moscow, Russia, May 27, 2023
International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach accused the Polish authorities of "interfering in the autonomy of sport," after they forbade Russian and Belarusian athletes from attending a recent fencing tournament.

The European Individual Fencing championships were held in Bulgaria last week, despite being originally scheduled to be part of the European Games in Poland this week. The International Fencing Federation moved the championships to Bulgaria after the Polish government warned it would deny visas to Russian and Belarusian athletes, whom the IOC cleared in March to compete under a neutral flag.

Bach, at a session of the IOC, said:
"The Polish government interfered in the autonomy of sport. The decision "goes against what we want and what we fight for. If these divisive political forces succeed in their efforts to decide which athlete can compete in which competition, then we will end up with sports competitions only among athletes from like-minded political blocs."
The IOC sanctioned Russia and Belarus shortly after the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine last year. This March, the organization allowed individual sporting federations to admit Russian and Belarusian athletes under a neutral flag, except those who serve in either country's military or "actively support the war."
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