Edinburgh to apologise over historical links to slavery
Edinburgh will apologise for suffering caused through the city’s involvement in slavery, while statues, street names and buildings associated with the trade will be “re-presented” to explain the consequences to the public.
City councillors on Tuesday unanimously accepted all 10 recommendations made in a report on Edinburgh’s historical links with slavery and colonialism, the result of a review set up in 2020 in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and chaired by Scotland’s first black professor, Sir Geoff Palmer.
Palmer said the council’s decision to accept the full recommendations was “very significant” and a civic apology was another move towards redress.
“An apology doesn’t buy bread but it gives another form of sustenance,” he said. “It is about feeling that somebody has looked at something and recognised it was wrong. They are saying to you, the person offended, that they regret what has happened.
“Even though many people say ‘we weren’t there, it wasn’t our doing’, we all have responsibilities. We are responsible for what happened in the past, because the past has consequences. We can’t change the past but we can change the consequences of racism.”
The report outlined that statues and other parts of city architecture celebrating people who made money from the suffering of others should not be removed but reframed in order to educate future generations.
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Vegan mother jailed for life after 18-month-old son starved to death on diet of raw fruits and vegetables
A vegan mother has been sentenced to life imprisonment for murder over the malnutrition death of her 18-month-old son who was fed on a diet of raw fruits and vegetables.
Sheila O’Leary, 39, was convicted by a Florida jury in June of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter of a child, child abuse, and two counts of child neglect.
Prosecutors say that her son, Ezra, was severely malnourished and weighed just 17 pounds when he died in September 2019.
O’Leary and her 33-year-old husband, Ryan O’Leary, told police that they fed their children a strict vegan diet of raw fruit and vegetables. Ezra was also fed breast milk, they stated.
Prosecutors say that in addition to Ezra, three other children, a three-year-old, a five-year-old, and an 11-year-old, also suffered from extreme neglect and child abuse.
O’Leary was convicted after three hours of deliberations by a jury in Lee County, Florida, at the end of a five-day trial.
During the trial, the jury was told by prosecutors that the Cape Coral mother “chose to disregard his cries.”
Ryan O’Leary has also been charged with the same crimes as his wife, as well as sexual assault of a victim under the age of 12, as well as lewd and lascivious behavior/molestation of a victim younger than 12.
He remains in prison and has yet to face trial.
“This afternoon, Sheila O’Leary was adjudicated guilty and sentenced to life in prison for First Degree Murder. She was also sentenced to 30 years in prison for Aggravated Child Abuse and 30 years in prison for Aggravated Manslaughter of a Child,” the Office of the State Attorney for the 20th Judicial Circuit of Florida said in a statement.
“She was sentenced to 5 years in prison on two counts of Child Neglect and one count of Child Abuse.”
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Biden’s imposing racism in everything from housing to health care
Unless you’re a person of color or a favored minority, brace yourself to be treated unfairly by the Biden administration.
President Joe Biden is pushing racial equity — which is very different from equal treatment regardless of race. Racial equity means government will treat people unequally, discriminating against whites to equalize outcomes. For Team Biden, it means closing the wealth gap between the white and black populations. By whatever means.
You may think it’s “unfair” to be forced to pay off other people’s student loans after you already paid back your own. But Biden’s White House actually defends debt cancellation as a way to close the “wealth gap” between races, citing data showing that 20 years after starting college, the average black borrower still owes 95% of the loan, while the average white borrower has paid off all but 6%.
At the other end of life’s spectrum, older people who are white will find it harder to get an appointment with a doctor who takes Medicare. The Biden administration is forcing physicians to categorize their patients by race and demonstrate they have an “anti-racism” plan to combat health disparities. To meet that test, black patients will be in demand; white ones not so much.
This is part of Biden's medical equity initiative.
Doctors who insist on treating patients as individuals rather than by race will be punished with lower payments. Most doctors are expected to give in to avoid the penalty.
If you’re white, good luck dealing with the costs of buying a home. Fannie Mae’s new Equitable Housing Finance Plan will help with appraisals and closing costs — but only if you’re black.
If you’re a white company owner who sells to the federal government, get ready to lose business to a competitor who identifies as “underserved,” “marginalized” or “disadvantaged” — all euphemisms for identity groups. The Biden bureaucracy gives preference to minorities in federal procurement. Straight white men can take a hike.
Stunningly, the 2021 Medicare payment rules for physicians printed in the Federal Register parrot the language used by inflammatory college professor Ibram X. Kendi in his 2019 book “How to Be an Antiracist.” Physicians must show a “commitment to anti-racism” to qualify for merit pay from Medicare. They’re told it will require “considerable time and resources” to “prioritize” certain “populations.”
That’s instead of treating all patients the same. Kendi argues that colorblindness sustains racial inequality: “The only remedy for past discrimination is present discrimination.”
Many physicians are horrified, predicting the rule will undermine trust between doctor and patient. It suggests black patients will get more time with the physician and more diagnostic tests. White patients will worry they aren’t getting an antibiotic or a referral to a specialist because of their race.
Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) has introduced a bill banning the rule’s “reverse discrimination.” Eight states and Do No Harm, a physicians’ organization, are suing to overturn the rule. Stanley Goldfarb, Do No Harm chairman, blasts it for pushing doctors to “prioritize some patients over others.”
“Critical race theory has no place in the health-care profession,” says Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, one of the litigants. He says he will not allow doctors in his state “to be penalized for refusing to bend to extremism.”
Extremism it is. It’s being forced on Americans by what Biden calls a “whole of government” approach.
We were warned, even before election night 2020, that a Biden administration would trample America’s commitment to fairness and equal treatment under the law. On Nov. 1, 2020, Kamala Harris tweeted, “There’s a big difference between equality and equity.” Fair warning. Equity is what we’re reeling under now.
Federal courts have struck down several of Biden’s anti-white programs as unconstitutional. More will likely fall. But in the meantime, Biden’s push for equity will foment racial hostility not seen in half a century.
Don’t be fooled by the president’s rhetoric on Sunday, when he commemorated civil-rights leaders who marched on Washington, DC, 59 years ago. They were fighting racial injustice. Biden is not. He’s imposing anti-white discrimination on everything, from housing to health care. It’s racism by another name.
https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/bidens-imposing-racism-in-everything-from-housing-to-health-care/
*****************************************************Australia: Transgender righteousness becoming very oppressive
The rise of the gender affirmation industry and its relationship with children is one of the most important stories of our time.
Under the guise of science, we are being told that toddlers can know with certainty that they have been ‘born in the wrong bodies’.
Under the guise of healthcare, we are being told that it is harmful and cruel to do anything other than affirm a child’s belief that they are a different gender.
Under the guise of medicine, we are being told that it is perfectly fine to treat children with drugs that stunt their natural development.
And if you dare criticise any of this, you run the career-ending risk of being labelled transphobic and turned into a social pariah.
In reality, this remains an open social and medical debate that is being pursued across the West where gender affirmation enjoys far less community support than advertised.
Not in Victoria, however, where the Victorian Education Department’s LGBTQ Support Policy, available on its website, encourages teachers to assist minors to transition genders without parental approval, or even their knowledge.
There may be circumstances in which students wish or need to undertake gender transition without the consent of their parent/s (or carer/s), and/or without consulting medical practitioners.
If no agreement can be reached between the student and the parent/s regarding the student’s gender identity, or if the parent/s will not consent to the contents of a student support plan, it will be necessary for the school to consider whether the student is a mature minor.
If a student is considered a mature minor they can make decisions for themselves without parental consent and should be affirmed in their gender identity at school without a family representative/carer participating in formulating the school management plan.
There is to be no debate after the Victorian government made it a criminal offence – on threat of fines and/or jail time – to attempt to counsel a child out of transitioning genders.
Other Australian states are considering similar legislation.
This runs contrary to decades of accepted best-practice which treated gender dysphoria primarily with therapy, as most children grow out of these feelings.
The previous federal Liberal government watched as bureaucrats edited gendered language within Australian health services against the wishes of the general public. Even medicare forms referred to ‘birthing parents’ until outcry led the incoming Labor government to correct it.
It is very much a one-sided conversation in which the media runs a steady stream of pro-transgender stories, while typically ignoring any negative news, such as the tragic stories of de-transitioners seeking to sue for their lifelong injuries.
There was a good deal of media silence when the UK’s main gender clinic, Tavistock, was closed down with 1,000 families threatening to sue the NHS for harm done to their children.
Meanwhile, you are more likely to find trans puff pieces about teenage girls having double mastectomies.
It is the end result of a cultural shift that has seen the entertainment industry increase LGBTQ+ representation targeted at young audiences – from Buzz Lightyear’s gay kiss to a transgendered character in The Umbrella Academy.
Schools and local councils, particularly in America, continue to integrate Drag Queens into the lives of toddlers despite public backlash against what are traditionally adult performers in sexualised attire.
A doctor friend of mine who dared to suggest, in a very well-written and calm email, that his local council should not be promoting a sexualised all-ages drag show, received a curt response from his local member suggesting he was an ‘overly zealous’ religious ‘bigot’ whose ‘wrongheaded’ ideas were ‘harmful to society’.
Whack!
Consider the dilemma Victorian parents face. If you complain that your children ought not be exposed to gender ideology, you will be labelled a bigot.
So you keep quiet.
If your child – having been exposed to gender ideology at school or at a community event – ends up momentarily confused during a time when kids are confused about lots of things related to their changing bodies, you will be criminalised if you fail to agree with them.
So you keep quiet.
Children are effectively at the mercy of schoolteachers, health professionals, and the state – instead of their parents. Many agree that this is fundamentally wrong.
It is also logically bizarre. Your child, who is not able to take a Panadol at school without parental permission, is assumed capable of making life-changing decisions that often result in permanent medical intervention and sterilisation.
Over the weekend, Libs of TikTok, a conservative social media account that highlights Woke progressive videos, released recordings of a conversation with staff at the Children’s National Hospital in Washington DC.
Libs of TikTok contacted the hospital as a parent asking if they would perform a ‘gender-affirming hysterectomy’ on a 16-year-old.
Both the hospital operator, who took the initial call, and a hospital staff member to whom the caller was subsequently transferred, confirmed that performing such an operation would not be a problem. Hospital staff said that such operations had been performed on children younger than 16.
On the recording you can hear the hospital operator ask:
‘How old is your patient?’
‘Sixteen,’ the caller says.
‘Okay,’ the operator replies. ‘Alright. So they’re in the clear.’
After confirming with a second person over the phone that a 16-year-old would be eligible for a gender-affirming hysterectomy, the caller asks whether it is a common procedure for that age.
‘Yes, we have all different type of age groups that comes in for that,’ the hospital worker responds.
‘For the hysterectomy?’ the caller asks.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ the employee says, adding later that she has ‘seen younger kids, younger than your child’s age’ undergo the surgery.
The recording went viral, and the outrage was palpable.
And the next day the story was picked up by the Washington Post under the title: Children’s hospital threatened after Libs of TikTok recording on trans hysterectomies.
It continued:
‘Children’s National Hospital has been inundated with threatening emails and phone calls after an influential right-wing Twitter account published a recording that falsely suggested the hospital is performing hysterectomies on transgender children, a hospital spokeswoman said. The torrent of harassment was accompanied by social media posts suggesting that Children’s be bombed and its doctors placed in a woodchipper.’
So the story was not that two hospital staff wrongly told a prospective patient that gender-affirming hysterectomies could be performed on a teenager. The story was that hospital staff had been threatened. Of course, the threatening behaviour is unacceptable, but that does not mean the core of the story should be overlooked either.
The people behind the recording were demonised as ‘right wing’. Later in the story they are called ‘activists’.
The Children’s National Hospital has since corrected the record and confirmed that, despite what its staff said, the surgery is not offered for anyone under 18.
This doesn’t change the scorn with which readers are treated if they raised their eyebrows at gender-affirming surgery on children – even if it is only in speculation.
In this case, the whistle-blowers were slurred as hateful rather than the hospital criticised for managing to make such a strange error about a serious procedure.
It was an error made by the hospital staff, not the reporter – and why did the staff make this error? Why did they hold the belief that surgery was available for young children? And why was their (now corrected) website in error stating that gender-affirming hysterectomies were available to patients ‘between the ages of 0-21’?
They are not the only American hospital to make this mistake, with a hospital in Boston also exposed by the Libs of TikTok. They also had to correct the record.
These are mistakes, but again, why are these patterns of mistakes being made in the field of gender affirmation and young children?
Society is still having a conversation about whether ‘medical care’, as classed by these hospitals, includes giving healthy young girls (at 18) hysterectomies.
I always thought The Washington Post’s adverting slogan – ‘Democracy dies in darkness’ – was meant to imply that the Post existed to shine a light into dark places.
There is a new darkness in our society, and that is the silencing of criticism when it comes to the future health of our children.
Australia doesn’t have a voice in this debate – that has been silenced by the legislation of our premiers – so we must wait to see if legal action in other countries is able to give those harmed by gender affirmation a voice.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/08/affirmation/
****************************************My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
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