Society's ChildS


Attention

'Epidemic' of violence against women and girls in UK is getting worse - report

Demonstrators on the London Women’s March
© Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/Getty ImagesDemonstrators on the London Women’s March earlier this month, protesting over VAWG and the erosion of reproductive rights in the US.
National Audit Office says government attempts to tackle misogynistic violence are hampered by poor coordination.

An "epidemic of violence against women and girls" in the UK is getting worse despite years of government promises and strategies, a highly critical report from Whitehall's spending watchdog has said.

The National Audit Office report comes four years after a major government response to violence against women and girls (VAWG) was launched after the murders of Sabina Nessa and Sarah Everard.

The watchdog found "disjointed" efforts meant VAWG was a "significant and growing problem" affecting one in 12 women in England and Wales and causing physical, mental, social and financial harm to survivors.

A review of the previous government's 2021 strategy to tackle VAWG found it had not helped victims or delivered long-term societal change. The review said the departments tasked with making progress lacked a clear picture of how money was being spent and what policies actually worked.

Comment: See also:


Brain

Ukraine drafting schizophrenics

Ukraine recruits
© NurPhoto/file/getty ImagesUkraine recruits
The military's medical commission is a mere "formality" in many cases, a recruitment officer has told an investigative outlet.

The Ukrainian military is enlisting men diagnosed with schizophrenia amid the struggling mobilization campaign, a recruitment office employee has told local media.

Individuals diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and deemed permanently disabled are being sent to the army without much deliberation, the outlet Slidstvo.info reported on Friday, citing a Ukrainian recruitment office employee. The Ukrainian outlet describes itself as team of independent investigative journalists.

The employee, who identified himself as Vladimir, recalled the case of a man with schizophrenia being mobilized after passing a military medical commission. He explained that many potential conscripts who don't have the necessary papers, or who have been put on a wanted list, undergo a medical examination in a "maximally simplified manner." "The commission is a formality," he claimed.
Those diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia can suffer from delusions and hallucinations and struggle with impulse control and judgment, which could lead them to shoot civilians or fellow soldiers.

Schizophrenics are also more susceptible to high-stress situations, resulting in an increased likelihood of suicide in dire circumstances.

Comment: No one wants this war except Zelensky and his overlords continents away. Ukraine and its people are fodder, not prize.


Bulb

Ivanpah solar plant: The flaming failure that's finally being put out of our misery

Ivanpah Solar Plant
It's finally happening. The Ivanpah Solar Power Plant, the behemoth of bureaucratic blundering and incinerated wildlife, is circling the drain. Once celebrated as a game-changer for renewable energy, it's now being quietly escorted off the stage with a "nothing to see here, folks" attitude. After just 11 years of struggling to justify its own existence, Ivanpah is headed for closure. Good riddance​.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — What was once the world's largest solar power plant of its type appears headed for closure just 11 years after opening, under pressure from cheaper green energy sources. Meanwhile, environmentalists continue to blame the Mojave Desert plant for killing thousands of birds and tortoises.

https://apnews.com/article/california-solar-energy-ivanpah-birds-tortoises-mojave-6d91c36a1ff608861d5620e715e1141c

Red Flag

Crime 'spiralling out of control' in stores, warns British Retail Consortium

uk shoplifting co-op
© Ashok Saxena/AlamyThe Co-op recorded a 44% rise in retail crime last year, its public affairs director said, with people coming ‘to steal the entire confectionery section or spirits or meat section’
UK retailers are warning that crime in their stores is "spiralling out of control" with 55,000 thefts a day and violent and abusive incidents rising by 50% last year.

More than 70 incidents a day involved a weapon, according to the annual crime survey from the British Retail Consortium (BRC).

Verbal and physical attacks, violent threats, and sexual and racial abuse in shops soared to more than 2,000 incidents a day in the year to the end of last August, up from 1,300 the previous year and more than three times the 2020 level.

The trade body's report, based on a sample from retailers representing more than 1.1 million employees, found theft had reached an all-time high with more than 20m incidents during the year, 25% more than the year before. It said this had cost retailers £2.2bn with many more incidents linked to organised crime as gangs systematically targeted stores across the country.

Arrow Down

Nationwide test shows US kids' reading levels plummeted to lowest level in 32-year history — and Republicans are blaming 'woke' education

classroom
© AP
Read it and weep — if you can.

American schools got a big fat F on their report card this week — with reading proficiency for eighth graders hitting the lowest level in the 32 years that the federal government has been tracking it.

Results from the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test - administered to fourth and eighth graders — showed at least a third of America's students failed to demonstrate "basic" reading skills expected for their age group.

With 51.5 million students enrolled in public school across America, that represents potentially tens of millions of kids failing to make the grade.

Just 67% of eighth-graders were able to meet or exceed basic skills on the 2024 test, 2% fewer than in 1992 when NAEP testing began.

Network

Critical air safety system NOTAM goes down nationwide — as US reels from 2 plane crashes

airport
© Getty Images
Flights across the US could be delayed Sunday after the Federal Aviation Administration's critical NOTAM warning system experienced an outage — mere days after two deadly plane crashes rocked the nation.

Notice to Air Missions — which relays important information about possible hazards to pilots and airports — went dark Saturday night, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy wrote on X.

"The primary NOTAM system is experiencing a temporary outage, but there is currently no impact to the National Airspace System because a backup system is in place," he said, noting the agency activated its contingency systems to keep flight operations running.

Duffy added that the FAA was working to restore this system fully, but that "there may be some residual delays" going into Sunday morning.

USA

"Liberal" is becoming a slur in America

Alexander Dugin
Alexander Dugin argues that the rapid conservative revolution unfolding in the United States under President Trump mirrors Russia's own turn to traditional values, challenging the dominance of the left-liberal globalist agenda.

What has transpired in the United States following Donald Trump's victory in the presidential elections, the inauguration process, and the transfer of power, demonstrates that we are witnessing a rapid process of conservative revolution in the U.S. The system of values is changing in a direction almost diametrically opposed to its previous trajectory. The principles Trump and his team are proclaiming, along with the initial steps they are taking, stand in complete contradiction to the left-liberal ideology underpinning the orientations, strategies, and actions of the globalists.

Essentially, what is happening today is a profound transformation and even a schism within the West into two poles. One of these poles remains left-liberal and globalist. It has been embodied by Biden and almost all his predecessors, including Republican George W. Bush Jr., who posed no alternative to the left-liberal agenda.

Attention

Living Will Kill You

Dinner Table
© Off-Guardian
Will it? I don't think so. But that seems to be a foundational tenet of the sheep worldview. Interestingly, though, the sheep-set fear most things that are rather innocuous, yet do not fear the things that will more than likely kill them, like chem-trails, fluoride, vaccines, and 5G (few listed here among many).

Why is that?

As you know, I say "why is that?" to an awful lot of things these days. But this one is kind of at the top of the heap. It goes hand in hand with a lot of similar things. Like why does everyone hate Trump with a passion, but love Joe Biden and Kamala Harris?

I can see why some people dislike stuff about Trump (I know I did for a long time) — his hair, his voice, his scowl, his lips, his "asshole-ness," his narcissism, etc. Some even have a point when they cite his crassness when it comes to how he relates to women, his xenophobic response to immigrants, or his silly preposterousness with topics such as buying Greenland or making Canada the 51st state.

But most of these things are personality issues, and not his alleged inability to make sound decisions regarding the nation and the people in it (Canada, after all, would be nice to have). Sure, we can all have an opinion on the best way a country should be run, but HATE its leader?

And when I say "hate" I mean HAAAATE — a depth of hate beyond anything rational.

At the same time, these folks LOVE Kamala Harris, and LOVE Joe Biden. For what? Creepy personality traits? Traits at times that are even less appealing than Trump's? And certainly, there is reason to deeply dislike their political policies, such as dumping billions of dollars into a corrupt war, advocating mutilating children, or opening the borders to unvetted criminals.

Isn't there enough there to dislike? Or even hate? Nope. I guess not.

NPC

Gun control activist David Hogg elected vice chair of DNC

David Hogg
© Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Fast Company
Gun control activist and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivor David Hogg was elected on Saturday to serve as the vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Hogg, who received 214.5 votes, was elected to serve as the vice chair of the DNC the same day that Minnesota state party chairman Ken Martin was selected to serve as the chairman of the DNC.

Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D) received 298 votes to serve as the vice chairman of the DNC with Hogg.

"Who's ready to take the fight to the Republicans and win this thing? Are you guys ready to fight?" Hogg asked during his victory speech. "It's been a long day, but guess what? We have a long road ahead. Let's go and kick some a**. Let's go win our young people back, and let's stop sending just our thoughts and prayers to address gun violence, and do something. Are you ready to do that? Because together, we can make school shooter drills history, and not headlines. Are you ready to do that?"

Comment: He's a terrible orator, he's incredibly naive, and he's accomplished nothing. Failing upwards like this is only going to make him more insufferable.


Binoculars

Trump's FCC launches investigation into NPR, PBS for potentially 'violating federal law'

NPR building
© SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
President Donald Trump's new head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Brendan Carr, has ordered an investigation into NPR and PBS, stating his concern that the public broadcasters "could be violating federal law by airing commercials."

Carr wrote a letter on Wednesday to the presidents and chief executives of NPR and PBS, Katherine Maher and Paula Kerger, alleging that "it is possible that NPR and PBS member stations are broadcasting underwriting announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements."

Carr added that he is providing a copy of the letter to members of Congress because he believes the investigation will be relevant to the ongoing legislative debate of whether or not to defund NPR and PBS.

"In particular, Congress is actively considering whether to stop requiring taxpayers to subsidize NPR and PBS programming. For my own part, I do not see a reason why Congress should continue sending taxpayer dollars to NPR and PBS given the changes in the media marketplace since the passage of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967," Carr wrote.

"To the extent that these taxpayer dollars are being used to support a for profit endeavor or an entity that is airing commercial advertisements, then that would further undermine any case for continuing to fund NPR and PBS with taxpayer dollars," he added.

Comment: NPR is anything but objective and their bias has been ruining the broadcaster for a long time. Is it time to scuttle the sinking ship?