Society's ChildS


Star of David

Most Americans now disapprove of Israel's military action in Gaza new poll reveals as tensions rise between allies

Jewish protesters
© Ronald Segers Jr / SplashNews.comProtesters across the country have demanded an end to the war.
A majority of Americans now disapprove of Israel's military operations against the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip.

A Gallup survey released Wednesday found that 55% of US adults disapprove of the Jewish state's actions in Gaza while just 36% approve — a dramatic turnaround from November, when 50% approved of Israeli action in Gaza while 45% disapproved in the immediate aftermath of Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack.

The poll was published as relations between the Biden administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit a new low over the conduct of the nearly six-month-old war — including plans for the Israel Defense Forces to conduct operations in the densely populated southern Gazan city of Rafah.

Wednesday's poll found that just 18% of self-identified Democrats approved of Israeli action in Gaza, down from 36% in November, while 75% disapproved.

Pro-Israel feeling has also waned among self-identified Republicans, with 64% approving of the military response (down from 71% in November) and 30% disapproving.

Comment: The longer the genocide drags on, the more people who wake up to the reality of Israeli atrocities.


NPC

Toronto Mayor Chow wants to implement rain tax

Toronto Mayor Chow
Toronto Mayor Chow wants to implement rain tax
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow is contemplating taxing residents based on the amount of rainwater that falls onto their properties.

The city's proposal calls it a wastewater usage tax, and it's based on the amount of rainwater generated from residents' hard surfaces, such as driveways and roofs.

Though still in its feedback phase of consideration, the proposal currently states that properties with more hard surfaces would incur higher taxes, as these surfaces contribute to runoff that can overwhelm the city's sewer system during storms.

Bullseye

UN envoy accuses Israel of 'genocide' in Gaza

gaza bombed southern israel hamas
© AP / Ariel SchalitSmoke rises from an explosion in Gaza, as seen from southern Israel, March 17, 2024
Israeli actions in Gaza qualify as genocide on at least three grounds, according to a report by Francesca Albanese, the UN Human Rights Council special rapporteur, that was leaked to the public on Monday.

Albanese was due to present her report to the council on Tuesday. The pro-Israeli group UN Watch obtained an advance copy of the document and posted it online, accusing her of anti-Semitism.

"The overwhelming nature and scale of Israel's assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group," Albanese wrote in the report, titled 'Anatomy of a Genocide'.

Bulb

Florida Gov Ron DeSantis signs controversial bill to ban social media for children under 14

DeSantis
© Wade Vandervort/AFP/Getty ImagesFlorida Governor Ron DeSantis
Florida will have one of the country's most restrictive social media bans for minors — if it withstands expected legal challenges — under a bill signed by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday.

The bill will ban social media accounts for children under 14 and require parental permission for 15- and 16-year-olds. It was slightly watered down from a proposal DeSantis vetoed earlier this month, a week before the annual legislative session ended.

The new law was Republican Speaker Paul Renner's top legislative priority. It takes effect Jan. 1.

Propaganda

'60 Minutes' failed to disclose 'misinformation' researcher got millions in gov't grants, donated to Biden

kate starbird
© 60 Minutes/CBSBig Tech Anti-Free Speech censorship guru Kate Starbird on 60 Minutes
CBS' 60 Minutes failed to disclose that a prominent "misinformation" researcher it featured on its Sunday program received funding and collaborated with President Joe Biden's administration.

University of Washington professor and researcher Kate Starbird was featured on the program about "misinformation" proliferating on social media. Starbird spearheaded a project that Biden's National Science Foundation (NSF) granted $2.25 million in 2021, and the researcher collaborated with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by serving on an advisory committee under its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which CBS did not mention.

Comment: Starbird has been in the censorship game for a long time:



Interesting . . . .
kate starbird CISA censorship social media
© Paul D. Thacker/X



TV

'The Moscow terror attack was an inside job!' The strange and twisted world of the West's political and media Russia haters

Crocus City Hall memorial
© Sputnik / Maksim Blinovwoman lights a candle at a makeshift memorial near the Crocus City Hall in memory of the victims of a terrorist attack on the concert venue near Moscow on March 22, Russia.
Only a few days ago, one of the worst terrorist attacks in recent history occurred in Russia. The perpetrators stormed concert venue Crocus City Hall on the outskirts of Moscow, systematically and in cold blood massacring as many victims as they could, then starting a devastating fire that destroyed much of the adjacent shopping mall.

Numbers cannot convey the depravity of the attackers or the suffering of the victims - and of their families and friends - but they can convey some of the scale of this horror: As of March 25, 137 were reported as killed and over 180 as injured. As always in such cases, many more will have to struggle with severe psychological trauma.

Like numbers, comparison is inadequate yet necessary to try to grasp the significance of this event. The 2015 Paris attacks that centered on a concert at the Bataclan venue, for instance, were similar in scope: They left at least 130 victims dead and more than 350 injured. The French government responded with an immediate countrywide state of emergency, massive security sweeps, and - as Encyclopedia Britannica sums it up - a "dramatic escalation of French military intervention in the Syrian Civil War" as well as an equally "dramatic increase in domestic security spending."

There was also, of course, a great wave of international solidarity not only with the victims of the attack but, as was proper, with France as a nation. No Western or, for that matter, Russian commenters who care about their reputations would have dared make perverse claims about French authorities somehow being behind this horrific attack and prepared to sacrifice their own people and to, in effect, betray their country.

Yet, things have turned out differently after the Crocus City Hall massacre in Moscow. While the Russian security services and authorities got to work in a manner fundamentally similar to the French response in 2015 (capturing 11 suspects, four of them "immediate" shooters who'd mass-murdered innocents at a concert, on the run towards the Ukrainian border), a disturbingly large number of Western politicians and media figures responded with a combination of glee, generally transparently concealed but at times stunningly open, with hypocritical equivocating, and, last but not least, with insane conspiracy theories. In other words, with anything but genuine compassion and respect.

A German X user (here anonymized) with over 30,000 followers delivered an example of pure sadistic pleasure by posting a picture of the Crocus mall in flames, with the comment "May it burn, may all of Moscow burn." Perhaps realizing he sounded as if tweeting from the Nazi Reich Chancellery, the over-excited user subsequently deleted this message. But without displaying any signs of remorse.

Yellow Vest

Farmers protest EU policies with blaring horns rumbling engines, while tractors block Brussels headquarters

farmer protest european union brussels
© AP Photo/Geert Vanden WijngaertPolice move in to clear a demonstration of farmers near the European Council building in Brussels, Tuesday, March 26, 2024.
Dozens of tractors on Tuesday sealed off streets close to European Union headquarters where the 27 EU agriculture ministers were planning to discuss the crisis in the sector that has led to months of protests across the bloc.

The farmers were protesting anything from what they see as excessive red tape to increased environmental measures, cheap imports and unfair trading practices. "Let us make a living from our profession," read one billboard on a huge tractor blocking a main thoroughfare.

Even if smaller than previous demonstrations, the impact on the Belgian capital was sizable during the morning rush hour, and authorities asked commuters to stay out of Brussels and work from home as much as possible.

Comment: It's all about control:


Magnify

The eternal dumpster fire that is Rupert Sheldrake's Wikipedia biography

Rupert Sheldrake
© Joan HillRupert Sheldrake
Wikipedia is a tragic mess of epic proportions and its crowning dumpster fire is Rupert Sheldrake's highly contentious biography. It's been a Wikipedia battleground ever since his TEDx Talk at Whitechapel in 2013. This was all covered in my book: PSI WARS: TED, Wikipedia and the Battle for the Internet. Sheldrake had his video taken down from the main TED website — essentially banned — and there was a big uproar over the whole thing.

Prior to that time, Rupert had a decent Wikipedia page, but as his notoriety grew, his page became the playground of his enemies, making him look worse and worse as they edited out his accomplishments and plastered the word "pseudoscience" everywhere. It's got the fingerprints of the Guerrilla Skeptics on Wikipedia all over it. They are an anti-intellectual atheist materialist Wikipedia editing group dedicated to teaching the world that we have brains, but no minds. But first, a little backstory.

Info

Africa's last monarchy hopes for BRICS but fears blocks - media

Russell Mmemo Dlamini, prime minister of Eswatini
© X / @RussellMDlaminiRussell Mmemo Dlamini, the prime minister of Eswatini, paid a working visit to Taiwanese President-elect Lai Ching-te, March 20, 2024.
The Kingdom of Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, is considering joining the BRICS group with the aim of diversifying economic ties and boosting development, local media reported on Sunday, citing the southern African nation's foreign ministry.

The political department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation has made a recommendation to the government outlining the opportunities the landlocked state will enjoy if it becomes a BRICS member, according to the Times of Swaziland.

"The bloc has been championing crosscutting issues on the international stage," the outlet quoted the ministry's proposal as saying.

"The Kingdom of Eswatini can benefit from increased economic ties, leading to increased exports and access to diverse markets, if the country joins BRICS," it added.

However, Africa's last absolute monarchy is said to be worried that China, a founding member of BRICS, may oppose its membership. Eswatini is one of a dozen countries that recognize Taiwan as an independent state. Beijing considers the self-governed island to be part of China.

Truck

UK farmers plow into central London

UK farmers, Westminster, UK farmer protests
© AFP / Henry Nicholls
Over 150 tractors descended on Britain's Parliament on Monday evening in a protest against post-Brexit regulations and trade agreements that they say will endanger their livelihoods and undermine food security.

Farm vehicles flying UK flags made their way across London and through Westminster, carrying signs with slogans such as 'Save British farming' and 'No farming, no food, no future'. The tractor rally became the largest among the latest protests launched by farmers across the country.

According to the campaign groups Save British Farming and Fairness for Farmers of Kent that organized the march, cheap food imports and unsupportive policies are putting food security in the country at major risk.