Society's ChildS

Bug

UK to reverse 'accidental' ban on edible insect farming

Propaganda push is selling eating bugs as usual, and suggests the UK is just going back to normal.
Bugs Bugger
© Off-Guardian
Good news guys, UK companies will soon be free to start producing and selling several species of "edible insects" again.

Apparently, one effect of Brexit is that the UK no longer belonged to the European Union's "novel foods" programme, which approved many varieties of insects for human consumption.

Because of this the farming and selling of insects as food has been essentially banned in the UK for years.

The BBC had a report about this a few days ago, bemoaning the impact on the UK's edible insect industry, and headlined:
Has Brexit squashed our edible insect industry?
The blurb goes on to repeat the all-too-familiar pro-bug eating propaganda, and suggests there could a "revival":
Bugs - the superfood that doesn't cost the earth. They're higher in protein than meat and release far lower CO2 emissions than livestock farming. So experts tell us that, if we want to save the planet, we should eat more insects. However, selling insects as food in the UK was essentially banned following Brexit, leaving the insect industry in limbo. But could there now be a revival?
The "revival" has been in the works for at least a few weeks. Last month the UK government launched a "consultation" on the legal status of edible insects, according to the Food Standard's Agency website:
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has set out plans to allow edible insects to remain on the market while they go through the Novel Foods authorisation process to assess their safety.
This means you can now legally farm and sell edible insects in the UK, despite there being no formal legal approval or even an "assessment of their safety".

Roses

UK mom dies in her sleep on flight with husband and two kids

Helen Rhodes
© GoFundMeHelen Rhodes was flying with her husband and two children when she died in her sleep.
A mother of two traveling back to the UK to see her parents died in her sleep on a flight with her husband and two children, according to a grieving friend.

Helen Rhodes and her family were flying from Hong Kong to the UK on Aug. 5 when she "passed away in her sleep," friends said.

"We are still in disbelief and shock about the sudden passing of our dearest friend whose life has touched many people in Hong Kong and the UK," wrote friend Jayne Jeje on a GoFundMe post.

"Helen was found unresponsive a few hours into the flight. Despite all efforts, Helen was not able to be resuscitated."

Jeje added: "This all unfolded in front of her children. For the remaining 8 hours of the flight, Helen lay in a breathless

Comment: Add this to a long and sad list of individuals and people from all ages and walks of life who have had their lives tragically cut short by cardiac arrest and a host of other ailments that have come on suddenly and fatally: And: The year of collapsing athletes


Dominoes

Amnesty Sweden co-founder resigns after org releases report documenting Ukraine military's use of citizen areas for deployment

amnesty
© Getty Images / Stephen McCarthy
Per Wastberg, who co-founded the Swedish branch of Amnesty International, resigned from the organization on Wednesday. The Swedish activist said his departure was due to Amnesty's report about the conflict in Ukraine, and that the organization has gone beyond its original mandate to advocate for political prisoners.

"I have been a member for over 60 years. It is with a heavy heart that, due to Amnesty's statements regarding the war in Ukraine, I am ending a long and fruitful engagement," Wastberg told the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, where he is an occasional columnist.

"From its inception, Amnesty worked for the freedom of political prisoners everywhere in the world," said Wastberg, who co-founded the Swedish branch in 1964. "It has since gradually, sometimes debatably, expanded its mandate" and become a different kind of organization, he added.

Bad Guys

Progressive Gestapo: Hard-left academics 'plotted gender ID witch-hunt' on colleagues

gender identity
A group of hard-left academics has been accused of stifling free speech on university campuses by plotting a witch-hunt against colleagues on gender identity.

University and College Union (UCU) members pledged to compile a list of university backroom staff suspected of holding gender-critical beliefs, the minutes from a meeting leaked to The Times reveal.

The plan was to use this information to "inform" UCU university branches of their colleagues' views, accusing them of being "transphobes" and "gender-critical activists".

Academics said members of UCU, the lecturers' union that represents more than 120,000 academics on UK campuses, were amplifying attacks on gender-critical feminists, with those speaking about sex-based rights compared to Holocaust deniers.

The findings come amid concern that British universities are damaging their reputations by restricting free speech on campuses.

Star of David

But there's no apartheid: Palestinians forced off Israeli bus to make way for Jewish passengers

bus station west bank israel soldier apartheid
© Agence France-PresseAn Israeli soldier on guard at a bus station near the Jewish settlement of Ariel in the occupied West Bank on 14 October 2021
A man pretending to be a transport ministry official manipulated the driver into removing around 50 Palestinian workers from the bus

Three Jewish passengers, one impersonating a transport ministry official, have forced dozens of Palestinians off a bus heading to the occupied West Bank, according to Haaretz.

The incident happened last Thursday, when about 50 Palestinians workers left the bus in the city of Bnei Brak, after the Jewish passengers demanded that the driver tell them to disembark.

Tnufa Transportation Solutions, the bus owner, operates routes between Tel Aviv and the West Bank settlement of Ariel, taking Palestinian workers with work permits from Israel back to the occupied West Bank.

Comment: What does it say about the mindset of the average Israeli citizen when they so easily succumb to social pressure? At least the bus company took some action, though it's unlikely anything will come of it.


Book

Neil Oliver: '...they are trying to make us forget what is ours....'

Magna Carta
Magna Carta
'...governments and the would be powerful want us to think Magna Carta and the truths it contains do not matter anymore...'


Bullseye

Djokovic wife slams magazine as vaccine row swirls

Jelena Djokovic
© Simon Hofmann / Getty Images for LaureusJelena Djokovic came out in support of her husband.
Jelena Djokovic, the wife of 21-time Grand Slam winner Novak, has hit out at Racquet Magazine for penning an editorial piece critical of her husband's vaccine stance as the Serbian star looks increasingly likely to miss out on this month's US Open.

Djokovic appears almost certain to be absent for what would be a second Grand Slam event of the year, this time due to US rules forbidding unvaccinated non-citizens from entering the country.

In January, Djokovic was deported from Australia in a row over vaccine rules, in an incident which sparked a mini international incident between Australia and Serbia.

Comment: See also:


Eye 1

Ottawa police detective faces misconduct charges for allegedly seeking links between COVID vaccine and child deaths

ottawa police station
© Ashley Fraser/Files Photo by Ashley Fraser /PostmediaAn Ottawa police service detective is facing misconduct charges for checking the vaccination status of the parents of deceased children.
Between June 2020 and January 2022, Grus allegedly accessed nine child or infant death cases in which she had no investigative role.

An Ottawa police officer is facing misconduct charges for allegedly inserting herself into child death investigations looking for connections to the COVID-19 vaccine.

Investigators with the Ottawa Police Service's professional standards unit allege Const. Helen Grus committed discreditable conduct when she took on a private investigative project to find the vaccination status of parents whose infants or children had died.

Comment: Some questions you are not allowed to ask, under any circumstances.






Fire

Supply chain problems will persist because the system is being sabotaged

empty supermarket shelf
In a recent interview with Bloomberg, the executive vice president of UPS asserted that "regionalization" of the supply chain is critical to economic stability as geopolitcal conflicts expand. The word "regionalization" is basically a code word to describe decentralization, a concept which the UPS representative obviously did not want to dive into directly. Almost every trade expert and industry insider is admitting that supply chain problems are going to persist into the foreseeable future, and some are starting to also admit (in a roundabout way) that localized production and trade models are the key to survival.

This is something that I and many other alternative economists have been talking about for a decade or more. The globalist dynamic of interdependency is a disaster waiting to happen, and now it's happening. Without decentralized mining of raw materials, local manufacturing, locally sourced goods, local food production and locally integrated trade networks there can be no true stability. All it takes for the system to implode is one or two crisis events and the economy's ability to meet public demand stagnates. The system doesn't completely stop, but it does slowly shrivel and degrade.

Colosseum

UK gov't plans for blackouts, gas cuts, doubling of energy costs, come January

Caracas blackout
© bangkokpost.comFILE PHOTO: Caracas, Venezuela during blackout
The UK is planning for several days over the winter when cold weather may combine with gas shortages, leading to organized blackouts for industry and even households.

Under the government's latest "reasonable worst-case scenario," Britain could face an electricity capacity shortfall totaling about a sixth of peak demand, even after emergency coal plants have been fired up, according to people familiar with the government's planning.

Under that outlook, below-average temperatures and reduced electricity imports from Norway and France could expose four days in January when the UK may need to trigger emergency measures to conserve gas, they said. The government Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.