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Fri, 05 Nov 2021
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Ambulance

Lychee fruit blamed for the encephalitis deaths of 100 children in India

Indian hospital
© AFP 2019 / STR
Acute Encephalitis Syndrome has spread like wild fire in the Indian city of Muzaffarpur, claiming 20 lives alone on 16 June. Consumption of popular local Lychee fruit has been cited as the cause of the virus' rapid spreading by officials.

At least 100 children have succumbed to the Encephalitis virus in the Indian city of Muzaffarpur in Bihar state over the last few days.

As per official data, 83 of these children died in the Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH), while 17 succumbed to the virus in the city's Kejriwal Matrisadan hospital.

Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) is a viral disease which causes symptoms such as high fever, convulsions and body aches.

Some media reports quoted officials as suggesting that the spread of the virus was caused by the consumption of Lychee fruit.

Indian Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan on Sunday visited the Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital where many children have lost their lives.

TV

TV now portrays dads as hapless fools

Homer and Bart
© Fox
Homer and Bart Simpson
It was just father and son out there on the prairie, working the ranch. The town knew the dad as a model citizen, ready to step in at any hint of trouble to keep the peace. The son minded his manners and performed his daily chores without complaint. This was "The Rifleman," which aired from 1958 to 1963.

I watched the black-and-white Western as a boy and watch it now, in reruns, as a grandfather. Chuck Connors played the father, Lucas McCain, a Civil War veteran who promises his dying wife to care for their son. Set in the 1880s, it was the first prime-time TV series featuring a single parent raising a child.

TV in the 1960s was big on fathers. You could watch Jim Anderson on "Father Knows Best," Danny Williams on "Make Room For Daddy," Steve Douglas on "My Three Sons," Ward Cleaver on "Leave It to Beaver," Ben Cartwright on "Bonanza," Rob Petrie on "The Dick Van Dyke Show," Ozzie Nelson on "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet," Tom Corbett on "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" and Andy Taylor on "The Andy Griffith Show."

Generally these were suburban dads, breadwinners who carried briefcases to work while the wife stayed home raising the kids. They reflected a largely patriarchal society where men made the big decisions and tended to play the role of fathers only while off-duty.

Heart - Black

Phoenix cops who threatened to kill family over 'shoplifting incident' placed on desk duty

police scene
© Twitter / Meg O'Connor
Phoenix Police Department has drawn even more criticism after officers, whose "unprofessional" threats to kill parents in front of their children recently went viral, were merely reassigned to "desk duty."

Several videos of the confrontation surfaced earlier this week, quickly going viral and causing a storm of outrage. The incident itself occurred on May 27, when Phoenix Police was alerted by an employee of a Family Dollar store about an alleged shoplifting incident - a four-year-old child had left the shop with a doll without paying.

The police chased the suspects - Dravon Ames, 22; his fiancee, Iesha Harper, 24; along with their two young daughters, one-year-old London Drake, and four-year-old Island Drake - and cornered their vehicle near an apartment complex where the family's babysitter lives. Footage from the scene shows the officers drawing their guns and threatening to kill the pair for non-compliance.

Cell Phone

US tech giants are losing billions, quietly lobby to ease Huawei ban - report

huawei phone factory
© Reuters / Juan Medina
Highly concerned over an imminent loss of billions of dollars in trade with Huawei, Silicon Valley giants have been quietly lobbying the Trump administration to ease its ban on sales of components to the Chinese tech firm.

Huawei spent about $11 billion last year buying components from dozens of US companies, including chips from Qualcomm, as well as software from Microsoft and Google. American firms are set to lose that business once their 90-day temporary licenses, granted following Washington's blacklisting of Huawei and 70 of its subsidiaries, expire on August 20.

To prevent that from happening, major US chip makers such as Intel, Qualcomm and Xilinx have quietly lobbied the Commerce Department to ease its ban on sales to the Chinese firm, Reuters reported, citing anonymous industry sources.

Comment: The Americans have to realize that they're not the only game in town and all their posturing accomplishes is driving Huawei into the arms of their competition. The US tech industry is the only loser in this game.

See also:


Magnify

Publisher delays feminist author Naomi Wolf's book after UK radio host destroys premise live on air

Naomi Wolf

Naomi Wolf
Progressive feminist author Naomi Wolf's new book has been delayed by the publisher after a BBC radio host destroyed a major part of the book's premise during a live interview in May.

In the course of her research for the book Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Love - which deals with the British government's criminalization of same-sex relationships in the 19th century - Wolf misinterpreted the ancient UK legal term "death recorded" to mean that homosexuals were executed.

"I found, like, several dozen executions, uh, but that was again only looking at the old daily records in the crime tables," Wolf told host Matthew Sweet.

Comment: A prime example of how research can be distorted by bias or assumption: And check out SOTT radio's:


Attention

Plane crashes into river at Polish airshow, killing experienced pilot

Yakovlev
© Sputnik / Mikhail Voskresenskiy
Yakovlev Yak-52 trainer aircraft.
The horrific moment when a Yakovlev Yak-52 fell into a river after a stunt-gone-wrong at an airshow in the city of Płock in Poland was caught on camera.

The plane was attempting to perform a tailspin aerobatic maneuver when the tragedy occurred. It seemed all was going to plan as the Yak-52 was rotating in the air during its rapid descent.

But then something went wrong, with the pilot's attempt to lift the aircraft up coming too late. The aircraft hit the water at high speed, instantly killing the man at the controls, a pilot described by the local media as "an experienced aviator from Germany."

Comment: See also:


Airplane

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg admits "mistakes" were made before 2 crashes killed 346 people

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg
Speaking on the eve of the Paris airshow, Boeing CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, admitted to reporters that the company made a "mistake" in handling a problematic cockpit warning system in its 737 Max jets before two crashes of the top-selling plane killed 346 people, and he promised transparency as the U.S. aircraft maker tries to get the grounded model back in flight.

In response to FAA faulting Boeing for not telling regulators for more than year that a safety indicator in the Max cockpit didn't work, AP reports that Muilenberg has now admitted that Boeing's communication with regulators, customers and the public "was not consistent. And that's unacceptable."
"We clearly had a mistake in the implementation of the alert," Muilenburg said.

"When I make comments about the previous design and how we followed those processes, that's something we put a lot of thought and depth of analysis into. That doesn't mean that it can't be improved."

Muilenburg went on to call the crashes of the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines jets a "defining moment" for Boeing, but said he thinks the result will be a "better and stronger company."

Comment: See also:


Stock Down

Millennials face greatest hardships from toxic economic conditions

millennials
A study by researchers at Stanford University found that American millennials face challenges unlike any previous generation, and their struggles are likely signs of mounting issues due to decades of rising economic inequality in the U.S.

Millennials, individuals born between 1980 and 2000, earn less money without college degrees than their predecessors and are more likely to die by suicide or drug overdose than any other generation.

"Millennials are the first generation to experience in a full-throttled way the social and economic problems of our time," says David Grusky, professor of sociology and director of the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, in a statement. "We can think of them as canaries in the coalmine who reveal just how toxic those problems are. By assembling a report that provides a comprehensive understanding of their situation, we can go beyond the usual patchwork policy and begin to address underlying problems."

The study examined comprehensive data explaining integral factors in economic success or struggle, including education, employment and income, health, occupational segregation, economic mobility, debt and poverty rates, racial and gender identities, social connections, housing, and incarceration rates.

Comment: While it's easy to blame millennials on their troubles due to their unrealistic views and self-entitlement, one shouldn't overlook the fact that their attitude is a reflection of the downward path our society has taken - not just economically but culturally as well. See also:


Propaganda

Fake News fail: MSNBC 'hemorrhaging' viewers following Mueller debacle

Rachel Maddow
© Pinterest
Reports are surfacing about a quiet shake-up of personnel at MSNBC after the cable news station lost more than 30% of their audience after the Mueller debacle.
One source familiar told Mediaite the changes came amidst mounting complaints from NBC News chief Andy Lack about a dip in MSNBC's ratings following the end of the Mueller investigation. In May, ratings for the network in the advertiser coveted 25-54 demo were down 32% year over year.
Apparently MNSBC doesn't think their financial woes are newsworthy given that they didn't run any breathless stories about their own failings.

Attention

Report: 60% of 'meat' in 2040 will be plant-based or 'grown in vats'

meat food restaurant
© Graeme Robertson/The Guardian
About $1bn has been invested in vegan meat replacements and the industry is growing rapidly.
Most of the meat people eat in 2040 will not come from slaughtered animals, according to a report that predicts 60% will be either grown in vats or replaced by plant-based products that look and taste like meat.

The report by the global consultancy AT Kearney, based on expert interviews, highlights the heavy environmental impacts of conventional meat production and the concerns people have about the welfare of animals under industrial farming.

"The large-scale livestock industry is viewed by many as an unnecessary evil," the report says. "With the advantages of novel vegan meat replacements and cultured meat over conventionally produced meat, it is only a matter of time before they capture a substantial market share."

Comment: Also see: