Society's ChildS


People 2

Millions of US households may struggle to afford basic water services

Public Library of Science
Phys.org
Wed, 10 May 2023 12:00 UTC
water us poverty
© Patterson et al., 2023, PLOS Water, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)Patterson et al., 2023, PLOS Water, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
A new analysis suggests that about one in seven households across the U.S. may face financial hardship in paying for access to water and wastewater services. Lauren Patterson and colleagues at Duke University, North Carolina, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS Water.

U.S. households pay utilities for access to water for drinking, cooking, cleaning, and sanitation, as well as for wastewater services. However, in recent years, the cost of these services has increased alongside a widening income gap, fueling affordability concerns. Addressing these concerns requires a clear understanding of water affordability challenges across the U.S.

Comment: It's not just access to clean water, because Americans are also facing rolling blackouts, and food shortages:

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Bizarro Earth

US facing rolling blackouts this summer, energy corporation warns

Julianne Geiger
Oil Price
Thu, 11 May 2023 16:00 UTC
blackout
Blackouts are likely this summer in the United States, according to the North American Electric Reliability Corp.

The NERC warning came late on Wednesday, calling for "shortfalls" in power supplies to the U.S. West, Midwest, Texas, Southeast, New England — as well as Ontario — as temperatures rise.

Last year, the warnings of power blackouts were less severe, in part because they didn't include the U.S. Southeast.

"A combination of extreme peak demand, low wind, and high outage rates from thermal generators could require system operators to use emergency procedures, up to and including temporary manual load shedding," the North American Electric Reliability Corporation said in its Summer Reliability Assessment report released last year in the run-up to summer.

Comment: Note that this warning comes of the heels of the US' own Energy Commisioner who stated that the US was facing a crisis of 'system-wide, extensive' blackouts.

One can't help but wonder whether this spike in attacks on energy infrastructure is related to the spike in suspicious fires at major food processing plants; the explosions, fires, and spills at oil and gas; as well as the surge in train derailments:

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Stock Down

UK mortgage lender to offer first 100% loans since 2008 crisis

Rupert Jones
The Guardian
Mon, 08 May 2023 15:41 UTC
houses uk
© Gareth Fuller/PAMortgage lenders carry out affordability tests when working out how much to lend someone.
A leading lender plans to launch a 100% mortgage aimed at would-be first-time buyers who cannot save for a deposit, the first since the 2008 financial crisis.

Standard home loans where the borrower does not have to put down a deposit used to be fairly commonplace but the last was axed in the wake of the financial crisis.

However, Skipton Building Society is getting ready to launch a mortgage targeting those "trapped in rental cycles" and who do not have access to "the bank of mum and dad," and so are therefore unable to save up enough for a home deposit.

Comment: It's official: The banking collapse of 2023 is now officially bigger than the banking collapse of 2008 was - and the crash has barely begun.

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Stock Down

Anheuser-Busch stock downgraded by HSBC analysts over Bud Light 'crisis'

Ariel Zilber
New York Post
Wed, 10 May 2023 17:54 UTC
Bud light
© Associated PressBud Light sales have steadily declined since the April 1 Dylan Mulvaney posts went viral.
The stock of Bud Light parent company Anheuser-Busch has been downgraded by analysts at HSBC who say the brand is in the midst of a "crisis" following the outcry over its ties to transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

Carlos Laboy, a managing director at HSBC's global beverage sector, downgraded the stock of Anheuser-Busch InBev to a hold status — meaning that investors should neither buy or sell shares of the company.

Laboy said that the backlash to the Mulvaney branding partnership is a sign that there are "deeper problems than ABI admits," according to a note that was first reported by CNBC.

"Is ABI's leadership getting the brand culture transformation right? It's mixed," Laboy wrote in a note that was published on Wednesday.

"At Ambev, we think the answer is 'yes;' in the US, we think it's 'no'," Laboy wrote.

Comment: It's on its way to becoming a tired cliche, but it still applies: "Go woke, go broke"

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Magnify

Suspected California serial killer identified as Illegal alien who came to US as unaccompanied minor under Obama


The Post Millennial
Mon, 08 May 2023 17:55 UTC
Carlos Dominguez
A man who was arrested in California last week and stands accused of being a serial killer has been revealed to be an illegal alien who entered the US as an unaccompanied minor during the Obama administration.

According to ABC 10, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has filed a detainer request against 21-year-old Carlos Dominguez, who illegally came into the US in April 2009 from El Salvador, and identified Dominguez as "an alleged serial killer."

The outlet stated that he crossed into the country near Galveston, Texas, as an unaccompanied minor. According to ICE, Dominguez was transferred to a family member and his case was closed "administratively" in April 2012.

Dominguez is accused of stabbing David Breaux and Karim Abou Najm to death and attempting to stab Kimberlee Guillory to death. Guillory remains hospitalized.
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Dominoes

Polish Health Minister tells Pfizer delivery of any more vaccines 'pointless'; asks for money back


Daily Sceptic
Mon, 08 May 2023 17:51 UTC
pfizer
The Biden Administration has announced that its insane vaccine requirements for government employees and international travellers will finally end on May 11th, when the American pandemic state of emergency expires. The WHO has likewise declared that COVID-19 "no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern". Three years and two months after it all started, the last remaining participants in the Covid circus are finally folding up their tables and going home.

It's worth asking why now, because by any objective measure, there has been no virus activity worthy of the words 'pandemic' or 'emergency' for a very long time. The answer seems to be the failure of Corona to return in the winter, as long-absent influenza succeeded in suppressing Corona infections (in accordance with my prediction), and the increasing disinterest of the public in obtaining official test results has put all virus statistics in the toilet. They're ending it now, in other words, not because anything on the ground has changed, but because they no longer have any hope of the scary headlines necessary to keep the machine up and running.
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Alarm Clock

San Francisco's ruin is a warning to ultra-Left officials everywhere

Matthew Lynn
The Telegraph
Sun, 07 May 2023 17:44 UTC
San Francisco
© Jason Henry/BloombergVacant shops are becoming a more common sight in San Francisco
Its tech industries are still booming. It is the financial hub for the whole of California, with the state now the fifth largest economy in the world. And it is home to some of the world's biggest companies.

Add it all up, and San Francisco should be one of the best retail centres globally; an easy place to sell every kind of luxury good, fashion essentials and high end electronics. The money is there, as well as the people to spend it.

Yet this week, the department store Nordstrom announced it was shutting its locations in the city, joining a growing exodus of big name retailers. Household brands are in despair over the damage inflicted by an ultra-woke local government.

There is a warning here for many British cities, not least as left-wing parties consolidate their dominance following another set of disastrous local elections for the Conservative Party. Push businesses too hard, let crime run out of control, and eventually they will simply up and leave. It is happening in ultra-wealthy California, and very soon it could be happening in London, Bristol or Cardiff.
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Pistol

Two mass shootings in 2 days plunge Serbia into shock, dismay

Jovana Gec and Dusan Stojanovic
AP
Wed, 10 May 2023 17:38 UTC
serbia mass shooting
The first shooting left Serbia weeping. The second set off waves of soul-searching in a deeply divided nation, awash in weaponry, where war criminals are glorified and memories run deep of years of civil war.

Two mass killings in two days. Seventeen people dead and 21 injured.

"We walked around like zombies for 24 hours, not believing what has happened and looking for reasons," President Aleksandar Vucic, a populist authoritarian who began his political career as a far-right Serbian nationalist during the Yugoslav civil wars, said Friday in a nationwide TV address.

The back-to-back bloodshed sent shockwaves through a Balkan nation scarred by wars, but unused to mass murders. Though Serbia is full of weapons left over from the conflicts of the 1990s, the last mass shooting before this week was in 2013, when a war veteran killed 13 people in a central Serbian village.
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Cowboy Hat

Back in the saddle: Tucker Carlson to relaunch his show on Twitter after Fox firing

Nadeem Sarwar
SlashGear
Tue, 09 May 2023 17:27 UTC
elon musk tucker carlson
© Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images/Jason KoernerElon Musk and Tucker Carlson
Tucker Carlson, former Fox News host who was unceremoniously fired by the network late in April, is bringing back his show. But instead of a media house or cable TV outlet, Carlson is bringing his popular show to Twitter. The nightly political talk show called Tucker Carlson Tonight aired from 2016 to 2023 on Fox News, but "a new version" of the show will soon find a home on Twitter. Carlson also has a few other things planned for his next venture, but won't dish out the details just yet


Comment:

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Handcuffs

NLPC Chairman Peter Flaherty connects CEO Warren Buffett to Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein - arrested at Berkshire shareholder proposal presentation

Jim Hoft
The Gateway Pundit
Mon, 08 May 2023 14:49 UTC
peter flahrety arrested warren buffet epstein bill gates
© NLPCPeter Flahrety, Chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), is escorted out of the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting
Peter Flaherty, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), had his microphone cut, arrested, and escorted out of the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting on Saturday in Omaha, Nebraska.

Flaherty was removed at the shareholders' meeting and was charged with "criminal trespass" after making statements against Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett for his support for Bill Gates' organization and his association with convicted felon Jeffrey Epstein.

The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) is the primary proponent of a Berkshire Hathaway shareholder proposal that seeks to separate the responsibilities of the Chairman and CEO, according to NLPC's press release.

Flaherty argued that Berkshire "would be less identified with Mr. Buffett's personal political activities" if it had an independent chair, citing Warren Buffett's support for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as an example.

Comment: More on Mr. Flaherty:
Peter Flaherty is Chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), which he co-founded with Ken Boehm in 1991.

He is a longtime anti-corruption activist who has successfully confronted some of the most powerful members of Congress.

In 2008, he was an uninvited observer on a Congressional junket to the Caribbean, led by Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY). Flaherty's photographs and audio recordings showing corporate sponsorship of the event were the basis for House Ethics Committee action against Rangel. As a result, Rangel resigned his Chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee. The evidence was also the basis, in part, for Rangel's Censure by the entire House in 2010.

In his 1994 book Worth It All, former House Speaker Jim Wright (D-TX) described and lamented Flaherty's actions that helped force Wright's resignation.

Flaherty has also confronted the CEOs of some of America's largest corporations on what he believes to be the widespread corruption of the corporate mission.

He has spoken at the annual meetings of public companies like Walmart, Goldman Sachs, Boeing, PepsiCo, GE, Colgate-Palmolive, Pfizer, Proctor & Gamble, United Airlines and Citigroup in support of NLPC-sponsored shareholder proposals.

In recent years, Flaherty has been an outspoken in warning about the threat posed by big Silicon Valley firms to privacy, civil liberties and the political system.

He is the co-author of a 1996 book titled The First Lady: A Comprehensive View of Hillary Rodham Clinton. He provided instant analysis on MSNBC to Hillary's 1998 NBC Today Show interview in which she alleged a "massive right-wing conspiracy."
A follow-up interview:



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