Society's ChildS


Bad Guys

Japan plans to build more bomb shelters on remote islands amid concerns of 'growing tensions'

Yonaguni
© Reuters/KyodoYonaguni island in Japan’s Okinawa prefecture is only 111km from Taiwan.
NHK has learned that the Japanese government is making arrangements to build new evacuation shelters on remote islands and elsewhere in the event of emergencies, including a contingency in Taiwan.

Government officials have been discussing how to protect residents in Okinawa Prefecture and elsewhere situated close to Taiwan.

Their plans include building new shelters positioned as special emergency evacuation facilities for those who cannot evacuate quickly.

Comment: Indeed, not only is the US (predictably) escalating the situation in the pacific region, but Japan is doing its bit, too:


Bizarro Earth

Deadly apartment building fires in 1 week in England, Spain, China; man set himself on fire last night in London

london fire
© X/@emergencytimesFifteen fire engines were called and 100 firefighters were deployed to douse the fire at London’s South Kensington.
Around 100 firefighters and 15 fire engines were called to a blaze at a terraced house in Kensington, west London on Friday morning.

Five people were rescued from the first, second, and fourth floors of the building, with 11 people taken to hospital for treatment for smoke inhalation.

Half of the ground floor of the five-storey building, which has been converted into flats, was still alight at around 2.20am on Friday - almost two hours after fire brigades were called.

Comment: Also yesterday in London, the Daily Mail reports:
Shocking moment man ON FIRE runs down London street

This is the shocking moment a man on fire runs down a street in London before bystanders help put the flames out.

Footage which has emerged online shows the man shouting as he runs down a street in Edgware Road with bright orange flames on his chest area.
man fire london
This is the shocking moment a man on fire runs down a street in London
He then drops to the floor and witnesses help pat him down with jackets, managing to put the fire out.

Ambulance crews said they rushed to the scene last night before taking the man to a major trauma centre.

Police have confirmed the incident is not being treated as suspicious.
Meanwhile in the last 2 days over in Germany and Poland: Regarding the apartment block fires elsewhere, whilst they may not all be connected, it seems worth documenting given their proximity in terms of timing, and because they were particularly deadly:

On the 24th of February, The Guardian reported:
Apartment block fire in China's Nanjing city kills at least 15

The blaze started on the first floor where electric bikes had been placed, according to officials, but the cause is still unknown

At least 15 people were killed and 44 injured in a fire at a residential building in eastern China's Nanjing city, local authorities said.
china fire
© Costfoto/NurPhoto/REX/ShutterstockThe scene after a fire was extinguished in a residential area in Nanjing, in eastern China’s Jiangsu province.
The building is located in the Yuhuatai district of Nanjing, a city of more than 8 million about 260km north-west of Shanghai.

By 6am (2200 GMT) the fire had been extinguished, and a search-and-rescue operation ended about 2pm Friday, authorities said.

The 44 injured people were sent to hospital for treatment, they added.

China has seen a spate of deadly fires in recent months, prompting calls from President Xi Jinping last month for "deep reflection" and greater efforts to "curb the frequent occurrence of safety accidents".

In January dozens died after a fire broke out at a store in the central city of Xinyu, with state news agency Xinhua reporting the blaze had been caused by the use of fire by workers in the store's basement.

That fire came just days after a late-evening blaze at a school in central China's Henan province killed 13 schoolchildren as they slept in a dormitory.

A teacher at the school told the state-run Hebei Daily that all the victims were from the same third-grade class of nine- and 10-year-olds.

Domestic media reports suggested the fire was caused by an electric heating device.

In November, 26 people were killed and dozens sent to hospital after a fire at a coal company office in northern China's Shanxi province.

The month before, an explosion at a barbecue restaurant in the north-west of the country left 31 dead and prompted official pledges of a nationwide campaign to promote workplace safety.

In April, a hospital fire in Beijing killed 29 people and forced desperate survivors to jump out of windows to escape.
A day prior, on the 23rd of February, Mainichi reported:
Fire engulfs 2 buildings in Spain, killing at least 4 people. Nearly 20 missing

A fire engulfed two residential buildings in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia on Thursday, killing four people and leaving 19 others missing hours after the blaze started, authorities said.

The fire sent fleeing residents onto balconies where some were rescued by firefighters, officials said.
spain fire
© AP Photo/Alberto SaizA housing block burns in Valencia, Spain, Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024.
Firefighters rushed to the scene on the outskirts of the city center as flames burst from windows of the 14-story residential building where the blaze apparently started. Residents could be seen waiting for rescue on balconies, and firefighters used a crane to lift two residents from one of the balconies.

Valencia's assisetant emergency services director, Jorge Suarez told reporters that four people were confirmed dead and that some six hours hours after the blaze started firefighters were trying to cool down the outside of the building before attempting to go inside.

Soldiers from Spain's Military Emergency Unit also were deployed and medics set up a large tent to tend to the injured on the scene.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known, but news reports said it might have spread rapidly owing to materials used in the building's structure.

The fire sent clouds of black smoke billowing skyward that could be seen from afar. Spain's weather agency, Aemet, reported winds of up to 60 kph (40 mph) at the time.

The fire began in the early evening and spread to an adjacent building, state news agency Efe reported. Emergency service reports said that besides the four people killed, at least 13 were injured, most with fractures, burns and smoke inhalation. The 13 included six firefighters.

It was not immediately clear how many people were in the buildings or how many were rescued.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez posted a tweet on the X platform saying he was "shocked by the terrible fire in a building in Valencia," adding that he had offered the city "all the help that is necessary."

"I want to convey my solidarity to all the people affected and recognition to all the emergency personnel already deployed at the scene," Sanchez said.
It seems that scarcely a week goes by at the moment without a building, but, more often, a factory, exploding or bursting into flames:


Evil Rays

Car ploughs into crowd in Poland leaving 17 people injured including children

poland car crowd
Screenshot
Three children are among 17 people injured after a car drove into a crowd of people in northwestern Poland.

Two are in a critical condition after the incident in the centre of the seaport city of Szczecin, while a 33-year-old man who fled the scene has been apprehended, the website Poland-24 reported.

"We have an incident here with currently 17 people injured, including three minors and two in critical condition. The person who caused the accident has been detained," provincial governor Adam Rudawski was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse.

Comment: Footage:



Meanwhile over in Germany: Germany: 4 shot dead overnight, soldier turns himself in; high school stabbing, 2 seriously injured

The incident is also notable considering the continuing unrest in the country amid the farmer protests:

Also on the 25th of February in Poland: Farmers' rebellion: 160 tons of Ukrainian grain dumped out of trains at station in Poland


Bizarro Earth

Germany: 4 shot dead overnight, soldier turns himself in; high school stabbing, 2 seriously injured

shooting germany
© Kai Moorschlatt/NordwestMedia TV/dpa/picture allianceThe shootings took place at two residential addresses a short distance away from each other overnight
Police and prosecutors in Lower Saxony say a Bundeswehr soldier turned himself in after four people, including one child, were shot and killed in two locations overnight.

A Bundeswehr soldier is suspected of killing four people overnight in the northern German state of Lower Saxony, police and public prosecutors said on Friday.

Rotenburg police and the prosecutor's office in Verden issued a joint statement saying that one child was among the four dead bodies discovered on Friday morning at two locations.

Comment: And just over a week ago on the 22nd of February, Euronews reports:
Four students have been injured, two of them seriously, at a high school in Wuppertal.

Four students were wounded in a stabbing on Thursday at a school in the western German city of Wuppertal, with a suspect - believed to be a student himself - was arrested at the scene.

The incident took place on Thursday morning at the Wilhelm Dörpfeld high school in the city of some 350,000 people near Düsseldorf and Cologne.

Police say four students were wounded, as was the suspect, German news agency dpa reported.

The top regional security official, Herbert Reul, announced that the attack was apparently carried out with a knife by a 17-year-old student.

Reul, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state, said that at least two of the victims were seriously injured, as was the suspected assailant.

He told the state legislature's home affairs committee that he had been told the suspect inflicted injuries on himself. There was no word on a possible motive, and the suspect was believed to be a lone assailant.

Other students were evacuated from the building after the attack.
This is particularly notable considering Germany's enthusiasm for perpetuating the war in Ukraine, as well as its cheerleading of the Gaza genocide, in addition to the fact that these incidents seem to happen in clusters; sometimes, but not always, within the same country.

For example, back in May, 2023: Serbia: eight killed in second mass shooting in days, President pledges to seize all firearms

Meanwhile today: Car ploughs into crowd in Poland leaving 17 people injured including children


Gavel

Covid vaccine mandates ruled unlawful by supreme court in Queensland, Australia

Justice
© Australian Associated Press/Dave HuntStatue of Themis, Greek Goddess of Justice, at the Supreme Court of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia
Covid vaccine mandates enforced on Queensland police and ambulance workers were declared "unlawful" in a landmark Supreme Court ruling this week.

In a decision handed down on Tuesday, Justice Glenn Martin of the Queensland Supreme Court found the Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll's direction for mandatory Covid vaccination, issued in December 2021, to be unlawful under the Human Rights Act.

A similar Covid vaccination order issued by the Director-General of Queensland Health at the time, John Wakefield, was determined to be "of no effect", with enforcement of both mandates and any related disciplinary actions to be banned.

Justice Martin held that the Police Commissioner "did not consider the human rights ramifications" before issuing the Covid workplace vaccination directive within the Queensland Police Service (QPS).

Comment:

1) If you noticed: "Clive Palmer, who reportedly contributed between $2.5 to $3 million towards funding the lawsuits involving 74 police officers, civilian staff and paramedics" and add what else was needed to going through the court system, then it is clear one needs large funds and expensive lawyers.

The ruling from Australia can be seen as uplifting news, but if the people in the administration had consulted a lawyer before they implemented the measure they could have won. This is how the article expressed it:
if the Commissioner could have proved that she had considered the advice she received regarding human rights, her workplace vaccination directives would likely have been considered lawful."
2) Below is a list of other articles that have been related to courts and COVID measures, and go in the same direction as the court ruling in Queensland, Australia: Some cases that were ruled in favour of the governments 3) Human rights, injections and court rulings
It is not a one way street:
Whereas the outcome of the Queensland ruling was:
"This decision will force future employers and Government officials to properly consider human rights when implementing vaccine directions in future, at least in Queensland where there is a Human Rights Act which obligates them to do so,"
That is less necessary in Europe:
Obligatory vaccines 'necessary in democratic society', European Court of Human Rights rules
The expression "necessary in democratic society" can be interpreted from the perspective of SOTT Focus: The End of Democracy: "What I'm Describing is Military Rule"
Mike Benz: [...]There's over 60 universities now who get federal government grants to do the censorship work and the censorship preparation work where what they do is they create these code books of the language that people use the same way they did for isis. They did this, for example, with COVID. They created these COVID lexicons of what dissident groups were saying about mandates, about masks, about vaccines, about high profile individuals like Tony Fauci or Peter Daszak or any of these protected VIPs and individuals whose reputations had to be protected online.

And they created these code books, they broke things down into narratives. The Atlanta Council, for example, was a part of this government funded consortium, something called the Virality Project, which mapped 66 different narratives that dissidents we're talking about around covid, everything from COVID origins to vaccine efficacy. And then they broke down these 66 claims into all the different factual sub claims. And then they plugged these into these essentially machine learning models to be able to have a constant world heat map of what everybody was saying about covid. And whenever something started trend that was bad for what the Pentagon wanted or was bad for what Tony Fauci wanted, they were able to take down tens of millions of posts.
[...]
Mike Benz:

What I'm essentially describing is military rule. I mean, what's happened with the rise of the censorship industry is a total inversion of the idea of democracy itself. Democracy sort draws its legitimacy from the idea that it is ruled by consent of the people being ruled. That is, it's not really being ruled by an overlord because the government is actually just our will expressed by our consent with who we vote for. The whole push after the 2016 election and after Brexit and after a couple of other social media run elections that went the wrong way from what the State Department wanted, like the 2016 Philippines election, was to completely invert everything that we described as being the underpinnings of a democratic society in order to deal with the threat of free speech on the internet. And what they essentially said is, we need to redefine democracy from being about the will of the voters to being about the sanctity of democratic institutions and who are the democratic institutions?

Oh, it's the military, it's NATO, it's the IMF and the World Bank. It's the mainstream media, it is the NGOs, and of course these NGOs are largely state department funded or IC funded. It's essentially all of the elite establishments that were under threat from the rise of domestic populism that declared their own consensus to be the new definition of democracy. Because if you define democracy as being the strength of democratic institutions rather than a focus on the will of the voters, then what you're left with is essentially democracy is just the consensus building architecture within the Democrat institutions themselves. And from their perspective, that takes a lot of work. I mean, the amount of work these people do. I mean, for example, we mentioned the Atlantic Council, which is one of these big coordinating mechanisms for the oil and gas industry in a region for the finance and the JP Morgans and the BlackRocks in a region for the NGOs in the region, for the media, in the region, all of these need to reach a consensus, and that process takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of work and a lot of negotiation from their perspective.

That's democracy. Democracy is getting the NGOs to agree with BlackRock, to agree with the Wall Street Journal, to agree with the community and activist groups who are onboarded with respect to a particular initiative that is the difficult vote building process from their perspective.

At the end of the day, a bunch of populous groups decide that they like a truck driver who's popular on TikTok more than the carefully constructed consensus of the NATO military brass. Well then from their perspective, that is now an attack on democracy, and this is what this whole branding effort was. And of course, democracy again has that magic regime change predicate where democracy is our magic watchword to be able to overthrow governments from the ground up in a sort of color revolution style whole of society effort to topple a democratically elected government from the inside, for example, as we did in Ukraine, Victor Jankovich was democratically elected by the Ukrainian people like him or hate him.

I'm not even issuing an opinion, but the fact is we color revolution him out of office. We January 6th out of office, actually, to be frank, I mean with respect to the, you had a state department funded right sector thugs and 5 billion worth of civil society money pumped into this to overthrow democratically elected government in the name of democracy, and they took that special set of skills home and now it's here, perhaps potentially to stay. And this has fundamentally changed the nature of American governance because of the threat of one small voice becoming popular on social media.
In the case of COVID, it is as if it is a human right for the elite to impose something that is not very healthy on the rest. For just one issue with the vaccine, there is this articles and links in the comments; Top cardiologist reports 47-fold increase in serious myocarditis post Covid vaccinations as he calls on GMC to investigate
See also: Totalitarianism, American Style


Eye 1

Totalitarianism, American Style

american totalitarianism
Editor's Note: "If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it." With these words, Abraham Lincoln laid the foundation for his campaign for the U.S. Senate in 1858.

Today, we need the same clarity that Lincoln was calling for. If patriotic Americans are to chart a course forward, they must understand the challenges they and their country face. To this end, Glenn Ellmers and Ted Richards ask: Are we in a war? If so, who is our enemy? What does that enemy want? How is it going about getting it?

Many conservatives, say Ellmers and Richards, underestimate the threat, and so denounce the radical, counter-revolutionary calls to action of their more concerned countrymen. The woke regime is an emerging totalitarianism, the authors argue — both in the traditional sense, and in ways unique to America in the 21st century. If we are to win this war, we first must understand that we are in a war.
Tom Klingenstein frequently, and correctly, points out that the first step in winning a war is to acknowledge that you are in one. Similarly, one might say that the first step in resisting encroaching tyranny is to understand what it looks like.

If the American experiment in self-government is unprecedented (as the founders, as well as Lincoln, believed) then its transformation into something unjust and oppressive would also be unprecedented. To notice the signs of America's descent into illiberalism — assuming such a thing can be contemplated — it would not be sufficient merely to examine the historical record of how totalitarianism emerged in Europe and Asia. Gabriel Schoenfeld commits this very error, and disparages the legitimate concerns of millions of citizens, in a long essay for Lawfare titled "Is the United States Totalitarian?"

Bug

Bottom feeder: NY AG Letitia James taunts Trump about interest he owes on civil fraud judgment

trump lititia james fraud case
© ABC News/Screenshot/Brendan McDermid-Pool/Getty ImagesNew York Attorney General Letitia James said she is "prepared" to ask the judge to seize former President Trump's assets if he cannot pay the $354 million judgment handed down in his civil fraud case.
Former President Trump is appealing $354M New York civil fraud judgment, with interest

New York Attorney General Letitia James appeared to taunt former President Trump about the interest he may own in a civil fraud judgment.

Trump's legal team on Monday appealed a Feb. 16 ruling from New York Judge Arthur Engoron's finding him liable for more than $350 million in damages in the civil fraud case brought against him by James. Engoron ordered Trump to pay just over $354 million, with post-judgment interest accruing at nearly $112,000 per day.

"In a massive victory, we won our case against Donald Trump for engaging in years of incredible financial fraud to enrich himself. Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., Eric Trump, and his former executives must pay over $450 million in disgorgement and interest," James wrote on X, celebrating on the same day of the judgment.

Comment: Creepy Arthur Engoron is equally complicit in the farce:


The longer-term effects as outlined by Kevin O'Leary if the judgement is allowed to go forward:



Star of David

Israel murders dozens of Gaza citizens attempting to collect food aid

starving gaza food aid famine israel
© Fatima Shbai/AP PhotoPalestinians line up for food in Rafah, Gaza Strip, February 23, 2024
More than 100 Palestinians have been killed and some 700 others wounded after Israeli troops opened fire on hundreds waiting for food aid southwest of Gaza City, health officials say, as the besieged enclave faces an unprecedented hunger crisis.

The Gaza Ministry of Health said on Thursday said at least 112 people were killed and more than 750 wounded, with the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemning what it said was a cold-blooded "massacre".

The ministry said the attack was part of Israel's ongoing "genocidal war". It called on the international community to "urgently intervene" to forge a ceasefire as "the only way to protect civilians".

Comment:






Yellow Vest

Dockworker strike threat looms large over US ports

shipping containers
© Jim Allen/FreightWavesILA leadership rattles sabers before labor contract expires.
There's an increasing abundance of skittishness surrounding the future of East and Gulf Coast ports.

The labor contract between the International Longshoremen's Association and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) is set to expire at the end of September. The ILA represents some 70,000 dockworkers, while the USMX represents employers at 36 coastal ports — including three of the U.S.'s five busiest ports: the Port of New York and New Jersey, the Port of Savannah, Georgia, and the Port of Houston.

Contract negotiations between the ILA and the USMX began in February 2023 but quickly foundered on the issue of wage increases. Developments since then have not been promising.

'Talk of potential disruptions has increased'

Comment: With drought blocking deliveries at the Panama Canal, and the genociders disrupting shipping in the Red Sea and Suez region, in addition to a number of Western nations slipping into recession, shipping and logistics have already taken a battering, and the knockon effects for consumers and businesses may prove disastrous both for their livelihoods, and for the governments responsible for this carnage.

Bear in mind that numerous industries across the West - from farmers to transport and healthcare workers - have been intermittently holding major protests since at least the middle of last year:


HAL9000

'I'm done with Google': Wholesale loss of trust after 'unbelievably irresponsible' racist AI goes mask-off

feminist triggered
The fact that Google's Gemini AI is a complete woke mess comes as no surprise to anyone who's been paying attention.

Between Google's internal culture, and the fact that large language models (LLMs) are largely a reflection of their creators, Gemini is the predictable digital poster-child for racist, anti-white, anti-conservative, historical revisionist culture - as opposed to the neutral purveyors of information they claim to be.

Mask-off, as they say.

Comment: Google is basically a laughing stock after releasing this product. What use could it possibly be to people other than for a good laugh (which will quickly become tiresome)? The results from Gemini go well beyond 'leftist' into 'absurdist' territory. Bravo, Google. You've now proven once and for all that nothing you release can be trusted.

See also: