Society's ChildS


Red Pill

EU becoming 'straitjacket' for Sweden - party leader


RT
Wed, 03 May 2023 19:41 UTC
Jimmie Akesson
© Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFPLeader of the Sweden Democrats Jimmie Akesson
Sweden has significant reasons to reconsider its EU membership as the bloc is increasing its influence on member states' internal affairs, particularly immigration policies, the leader of the Sweden Democrats, Jimmie Akesson, has argued.

Writing for the Aftonbladet daily in an op-ed published on Tuesday, Akesson claimed that "EU membership is starting to look dangerously like a straitjacket" for Sweden as the balance of power shifts from Stockholm to Brussels.

Akesson has been in charge of the Euroskeptic, right-wing Sweden Democrats (SD) since 2005. The party is currently the second largest in the country.

The MP said that the EU should focus on trade between member states, although he claimed it would be naive to hope for any serious changes in this area in the near future.
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Cow Skull

Nordstrom closes downtown San Francisco stores, citing 'difficult conditions'


San Francisco Standard
Wed, 03 May 2023 17:24 UTC
Nordstrom department store San Francisco
© Kimberly White/Getty Images for ELLENordstrom in San Francisco
Nordstrom is planning to close both of its Downtown San Francisco stores, choosing not to renew its lease obligations at its location in the Westfield Mall. It will also close a second nearby Downtown Nordstrom Rack.

The retailer confirmed the closures on Tuesday. In an email to employees, the company's chief stores officer wrote that "the dynamics of the downtown San Francisco market have changed dramatically over the past several years, impacting customer foot traffic to our stores and our ability to operate successfully."

The two planned closures represent about 357,500 square feet of retail space, according to the San Francisco Business Times, which first reported Nordstrom's plans. The Westfield mall Nordstrom and the Nordstrom Rack will close at the end of August and on July 1, respectively.

Comment: It will take more than a couple of cops and a "plan" to turn around decades of (deliberate?) mismanagement by idiot progressives.

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Windsock

Dust-storm: Illinois interstate crash involving 72 vehicles leaves six dead, more than 30 injured

Lawrence Richard
Fox News
Tue, 02 May 2023 13:23 UTC
A car crash in Farmersville, Illinois
© Illinois State PoliceA car crash Monday morning in Farmersville, Illinois, that involved over 70 vehicles closed several miles of the interstate.
One of the six people killed in the crash has been identified as an 88-year-old woman.

A massive car crash involving 72 vehicles in Farmersville, Illinois, Monday morning left at least six people dead and 37 people injured, police said.

According to Illinois State Police, the surviving victims - whose ages ranged between 2 years and 80 years old - were transported to local hospitals with various injuries. Some of whom are said to be in critical condition.
"At 10:55 a.m. there was a crash on northbound Interstate 55 at Milepost 76. At the same time, there were numerous crashes on southbound Interstate 55 at Milepost 76. The crashes occurred within a two-mile stretch — from roughly Milepost 76 to Milepost 78," the police statement read.

Comment: See Also:

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Attention

DeSantis signs bill to authorise death penalty for child rapists in Florida

Steve Watson
Summit News
Tue, 02 May 2023 22:30 UTC
desantis law & order
"We think that in the worst of the worst cases, the only appropriate punishment is the ultimate punishment."

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation Monday that will allow convicted child rapists to be given the death penalty, a move that will likely trigger a confrontation in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Florida lawmakers passed HB1297 last month, paving the way for rapists of children under the age of 12 to be sentenced to execution without jury unanimity.
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Dollars

Top banks could be liable for Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking: judge

Zachary Stieber
The Epoch Times
Tue, 02 May 2023 00:01 UTC
JP Morgan building
© Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty ImagesEpstein had been a JPMorgan client from 1998 to 2013, when the bank fired him.
Two banks and a bank executive could be liable for Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking, a judge has ruled.

Plaintiffs have presented enough evidence that JPMorgan Chase, longtime JPMorgan executive Jes Staley, and Deutsche Bank could be liable for Epstein's sex trafficking, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said on May 1 as he rejected motions to dismiss cases brought against Staley and the institutions.

"Plaintiffs have pled sufficient facts to support their allegations that JP Morgan had ... knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein's sex-trafficking venture, either directly or by recklessly disregarding what was plainly to be seen," Rakoff, a Clinton appointee, wrote in a 54-page decision.

Comment: See also:

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Newspaper

Saudi Aramco soars to become world's second largest company


The Cradle
Tue, 02 May 2023 22:42 UTC
Saudi Aramco
© ShutterstockThe Saudi oil giant last year posted a net profit higher than the profits of Apple, Exxon, and Microsoft combined
Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil and gas giant Aramco has overtaken Microsoft to become the world's second-largest company in terms of market value, boasting $2.11 trillion in value.

The Saudi company's stock soared last month after Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman announced he would transfer four percent of Aramco to Sanabil Investments, which is owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF).

"This is a private transfer between the state and Sanabil, and the company is not a party to the transfer and did not enter into any agreements or pay or receive any proceeds from the transfer," Aramco said in a stock exchange filing cited by AP.

Comment: See also: Iran and Saudi Arabia: a Chinese win-win

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Putin

Russia's April gas exports to Europe up 7.5% from March, transiting through Turkey and Ukraine pipelines


Reuters
Tue, 02 May 2023 22:38 UTC
gas pipeline russia
© REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/IllustrationModel of natural gas pipeline and Russian flag, July 18, 2022.
Daily pipeline gas exports to Europe by Kremlin-controlled Gazprom (GAZP.MM) in April rose by about 7.5% from March, mostly thanks to an increase in transit via Turkey, Reuters calculations showed on Tuesday.

The calculations, based on data from European gas transmission group Entsog and Gazprom's daily reports on its transit via Ukraine, showed that average daily pipeline exports of Russian gas to Europe increased to 75.6 million cubic metres (mcm) from 70.3 mcm in March.

Total Gazprom gas supplies via Ukraine and a line of the TurkStream pipeline was about 2.27 billion cubic metres (bcm) in April, calculations show. Gazprom gas supplies to Europe total about 8.14 bcm since the start of the year.

Gazprom, which has stopped publishing its own export statistics, did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Comment: That's not counting Russian energy supplies coming, at cost, via intermediaries, and it reveals the sorry, hypocritical, and helpless state of the West:

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Bizarro Earth

More of Britain's elderly can't afford to retire


RT
Tue, 02 May 2023 19:06 UTC
Blackpool
© CHRIS NEILLIn Blackpool's Bloomfield ward, in the shadow of the town's football ground, the average life expectancy of men is just 67 years and three months - lower than the new proposed state pension age of 68
An increasing number of older people in the UK are being forced to postpone retirement and continue working as a result of the cost-of-living crisis, new research has suggested.

The number of individuals aged over 70 who are still working jumped by 61% last year compared to a decade ago, according to Rest Less, an online community that offers advice to older workers.

The data released ahead of International Workers' Day suggests that more than 446,600 people over 70 had yet to retire last year, which compares to 277,926 in 2012.


Comment: Note that even those who do retire may essentially be living below the poverty line.


Comment: The data reveals that the descent of Britain's living standards may have been catalysed by soaring inflation and the energy crisis, but it has been in the works for a decade and more:

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Red Pill

Econ 101, a Fable

James Howard Kunstler
Clusterfuck Nation
Mon, 01 May 2023 21:44 UTC
statue liberty
"Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good." — Thomas Sowell
Historians of the future, poaching 'possum snouts in sorrel sauce over their campfires, will trace the fall of Western Civ in the 2020s to the dissolving hallucination that was called the financial economy. It was a phantom parasitical organism that thrived on the back of a real economy based on making-and-doing things derived from the natural world, turbo-charged by fossil fuels.

The orgy of making-and-doing went on for two-hundred-plus years. Even with cyclical "recessions," the making-and-doing always increased in the aggregate, while its products got ever more plentiful, elaborate, and complex. The phantom financial parasite clinging to its back got used to this "growth" and it, too, developed ever more ingenious ways to suck the life out of its host organism, until it became a greater entity than the host itself, breaking its back.
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Bad Guys

Terrifying: 3D-printed "fish" set to hit the market

Sarah Knapton
The Telegrapph
Fri, 28 Apr 2023 20:07 UTC
3d printed fish fake food artificial
© Shlomi Arbiv/Steakholder/SWNSIsraeli firm Steakholder Foods say they have 3D bio-printed ready-to-cook cultivated grouper fish
The grouper has been created from cells grown in a lab and then 3D printed into a natural, fishy, shape

It looks like any normal fish fillet and yet it has never seen the sea.

In a world first, this grouper fillet has been created from cells grown in a lab and then 3D printed into a natural, fishy, shape.

It is the creation of Israeli deep-tech food company Steakholder Foods and Singapore's Umami Meats, who claim it has the same taste and texture of a traditionally caught fish, yet is far more sustainable.

Overfishing is a global problem, with marine experts estimating around one third of the world's fish stocks are currently overexploited or depleted. Around one quarter of the grouper fish species face extinction because of overfishing or poor management of coral reef fisheries.

Comment: Man will never be able to artificially recreate a food source in its full nutritional value. There is too much still unknown about the human body's requirements. One has to wonder why this line of research is being pushed so strongly. There's more to it than just the profit motive.

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