Society's ChildS

Red Flag

Thousands march to honor WWII Nazi collaborator

ukraine nationalist march
Ukrainian nationalists paraded in torchlight procession in Kiev with portraits of Hitler ally.

Ukrainian far-right ultra nationalists held a torchlight procession in Kiev on Saturday night, celebrating a controversial WWII-Nazi collaborator. Israeli diplomats said the march "insulted" the memory of the Holocaust.

The activists chanted "Glory" and "Our land" as they marked the birthday of Stepan Bandera, a former leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which was aligned with Adolf Hitler's Germany.

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TV

Jordan Peterson says legacy media in "death spiral," CBC a "near-corpse"

jordan peterson
Renowned Canadian author and psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson slammed the CBC and other legacy media in a tweet last week.

"The legacy media are in an unrecoverable death spiral, spinning ever more uncontrollably. The CBC has become a mewling, meandering, self-righteous, slogan-spewing narcissistic near-corpse," said Peterson.


Comment: It would be nice to see Jordan Peterson recognize the fact that the corporate media are nothing more than the propaganda arm of the PTB. This isn't new, it hasn't only come about since Covid and it affects every level of reporting in media.

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Vader

Watch police descend on massive party over Covid-19 rules

Police, Netherlands
© Nicolas Economou / NurPhoto via Getty ImagesPolice stand guard following Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte's announcement of new measures to fight COVID-19, Netherlands.
Several people have been arrested at an international rave in an abandoned Dutch factory with police playing party poopers

Police raided and shut down an illegal rave in the Netherlands on New Year's Day, with the local mayor calling it inappropriate to hold the event as the rest of the country follows strict Covid-19 restrictions.

Officers dressed in riot gear broke up the rave at an abandoned factory in the small town of Rijswijk on Saturday, ordering attendees to leave and seizing equipment and vehicles. At least three people were reportedly arrested for disobeying police orders and driving under the influence.

The event drew a crowd of hundreds - despite the fact that Dutch coronavirus restrictions currently prohibit large events such as concerts and festivals - and attendees allegedly came from as far as France, Germany, Spain, and Italy.

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Biohazard

8.5 million gallons of sewage spill into flood waterway in Los Angeles County, at least 5 beaches closed

sewage spill
© Dean Musgrove/The Orange County Register, via Associated PressThe release of millions of gallons of untreated sewage into the Dominguez Channel in Carson, Calif., forced the closure of some beaches on Friday.
About eight and a half million gallons of untreated sewage have spilled into a flood-control waterway in Los Angeles County since Thursday afternoon, prompting at least five beaches to close, an official with the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts said.

"It is a lot," said Bryan Langpap, a spokesman for the agency. "That's the biggest spill we've ever had."

The spill began after a concrete pipe 48 inches in diameter in Carson, Calif., collapsed. The sewage leaked out of a manhole on 212th Street on Thursday evening and much of Friday, Mr. Langpap said.

Comment: Infrastructure in the US - in many countries in the West, in fact - is aging and has been neglected to the point that any unusual stresses could cause them to fail. Which is even more alarming as extreme weather events are on the rise:


Video

Soldier arrested over ominous Covid ultimatum video to government

guy w backpack
© Global Look Press/dpa/Marijan Murat
German prosecutors have opened a probe against a Bundeswehr soldier who delivered a video ultimatum to the government demanding it abandon its Covid-19 policies. The man was released after being briefly detained.

A series of video appeals surfaced on social media on Thursday, where a man dressed in military uniform and calling himself "Sergeant Major Oberauer" demanded the government give up on its "crazy anti-constitutional projects." The self-described sergeant was referring to the German government's Covid-19 restrictions, as well as compulsory vaccination for medical workers and Bundeswehr soldiers.

The man then delivered an ultimatum, saying that officials had until Friday to change their ways. "This is a warning," he said in a minute-long clip, adding that "soldiers would be ready for dialogue until 4pm tomorrow." He also accused politicians of betraying Germany's Basic Law and demanded "the constitutional order" be restored.

Authorities swiftly launched a manhunt for the man and, on Thursday evening, police in the southern state of Bavaria said in a statement they arrested a "Bundeswehr soldier" in downtown Munich, who "had publicly called for criminal offenses." His rank or identity have not been made public.

People 2

Segregation returns to American schools

Classroom
© Getty Images/Klaus Vedfelt
Alpha News reported on December 21 that a Minnesota school board unanimously voted to pay black teachers and Native-American teachers more than their white colleagues on no basis other than color - not for merit or seniority or for taking on extra duties. They also voted to segregate staff into separate parts of the school based solely on color.

The story continued:
"The board is chaired by Jodi Sapp, who previously came under fire for requiring concerned parents to dox themselves in order to comment on school matters. Under her leadership, the board voted to amend district policy so that non-white teachers only may receive 'additional stipends' to become mentors to other non-white colleagues. The new policy will also have the district 'placing American Indian educators at sites with other American Indian educators and educators of color at sites with other educators of color.'"
The new meeting rules put in place by Sapp stated that parents or others speaking at board meetings may not identify board members by name or district staff members while speakers must identify themselves with their name and address, and must limit themselves to commenting only on agenda items.

Stop

BlackBerry phones to lose all functionality

BlackBerry phones
© InTech/BlackBerryThe once-pioneering devices will no longer be guaranteed dependable.
BlackBerry, whose smartphones attracted a devoted following for features like built-in keyboards and high security even as Apple and Google gradually poached its customers, is finally giving up the ghost, the company has revealed.

Any phones or tablets running BlackBerry operating systems "will no longer reliably function" starting January 4, the company declared in a recent press release. That rules out phone calls, texts, data use, SMS connections, or emergency 911 calls.

Specifically, while more recent BlackBerry devices running Android operating systems will continue to function, smartphones and other devices running BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier, BlackBerry 10, or the company's tablet operating system, BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1, will cease to operate with any degree of reliability.

Perhaps fittingly given that BlackBerry's initial attractions included its comparatively beefy security profile, parent company BlackBerry Limited has switched to selling cybersecurity software and internet of things systems.

People 2

Massachusetts denies teacher union's request to keep schools closed for COVID-19 testing

MTAssoc announcement
© CBSBoston.com
Massachusetts officials have denied a teacher union's request to keep schools closed for COVID-19 testing.

The Massachusetts Teachers Association made the request to close schools for COVID testing with the input from their environmental health and safety committee and public health experts, according to a report by the Associated Press.

But Massachusetts' Executive Office of Education spokesperson Colleen Quinn told the AP that the department will not close schools on Monday. Quinn said in a statement:
"The commissioner is not going to close schools Monday, and asks teachers to be patient as we work to get tests in their hands this weekend. It is disappointing that once again the MTA is trying to find a way to close schools, which we know is to the extreme detriment of our children."
Schools set to resume classes after a holiday break next week are doing so as the highly-contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus hits the United States hard.

Comment: Teachers Unions do not have the final say:
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker has consistently said keeping children in school is of paramount importance.

"There are a lot of tools and capabilities available to keep kids and adults safe in school, and we should do everything in our power to make sure that kids stay in school."



Fire

Fire devastates South African Parliament, cause not yet known

south africa parliament fire
Firefighters were on hand to battle the blaze in the heart of Cape Town
Firefighters are battling a blaze in the national Parliament buildings that caused the roof of the old National Assembly to collapse. The cause is not yet known, although a person has been detained for questioning.

A fire broke out at the South African Parliament building in Cape Town in the early hours of Sunday morning, and spread to the wing housing the current National Assembly, where parliament sits, causing widespread damage.

In a statement, President Cyril Ramaphosa said, "This is devastating, coming as it does a day after our send-off for Archbishop Desmond Tutu."

He praised the firefighters who "worked to stop Parliament from being razed to ashes," but said "it is very clear that this fire has devastated the parliamentary precinct and its contents and assets, including Parliament's historical treasures of heritage."

Comment: This comes just a few days after a small fire at Old Parliament House in Canberra, Australia.

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Arrow Down

US population grew at record-setting slow rate in 2021

baby ward
In 2021, the American population saw its slowest population growth since the founding of the nation.

The US Census Bureau Vintage 2021 Population Estimates state that the United States population grew by just 0.1 percent in 2021, with the slow pace being exasperated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and following the downward trend seen in the 21st century.

For the first time since 1937, the US population grew by under 1 million people, "featuring the lowest numeric growth since at least 1900, when the Census Bureau began annual population estimates."

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