International
The UN and EU are targeting Bulgaria for moving to protect children
From LifeSiteNews
Bulgaria overwhelmingly passed a ban on LGBT propaganda in schools, and the country appears determined to resist pressure from LGBT activists and their globalist allies.
In 2021, the Hungarian government passed legislation that introduced stricter laws protecting children from pedophilia and also making it illegal to promote homosexuality or “sex changes” (“gender transition”) in schools and in the press to minors. The Hungarian government made clear that the law did not impact content aimed at adults or entertainment but propaganda targeted at children. Hungary promptly became a target for the full fury of the international elites.
The attitude of the European Union was perhaps best summarized by then-Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who warned ominously of the EU’s intention of “bringing Hungary to its knees” over Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s opposition to the LGBT agenda, and billions of EU funds (including COVID recovery funds) were initially withheld from Hungary to that end. Within the EU, there are many countries with socially conservative majorities – but those countries have learned the hard way that the LGBT flag flies alongside the EU flag in Brussels.
In fact, the European Commission at the European Union Court of Justice went so far as to launch a legal case against Hungary in 2022, with the intent of forcing Hungary’s parliament to repeal the bill – and 15 countries signed on, including the Benelux countries, Ireland, Denmark, France, Germany, and Sweden. The message was clear: being part of the EU club comes with specific social obligations, the most important of which is submission to the LGBT movement and the national implementation of its agenda.
Earlier this month, Bulgaria passed a bill banning LGBT propaganda in schools, with a supermajority of parliamentarians – 159 to 22 – voting in favor. In response, the LGBT movement has already swung into action. First, UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Liz Throssell “expressed deep concern” over the law, urging Bulgarian authorities to “reconsider the law in light of the country’s international human rights obligations.” Throssell further remarked that “addressing stigma and misinformation is vital for fostering acceptance, tolerance, and the creation of inclusive societies.”
Translated, of course, this is a United Nations spokesperson insinuating that the Bulgarian law targeting gender ideology and other aspects of the LGBT agenda may actually be a violation of international human rights and stating, in no uncertain terms, that Bulgaria must instead work towards the normalization of LGBT ideology and recreate its society to conform to the LGBT movement’s standards. An unelected progressive bureaucrat, in short, is telling a sovereign country to change its values and change its laws.
LGBT activists are urging the European Union to step in, as well – especially when President Ruman Rudev declined to veto the bill on August 15. “This law is not just a Bulgarian issue — this is a Russian law that has found its way into the heart of Europe,” Rémy Bonny, executive director of the LGBT activist group “Forbidden Colours,” told Politico’s Brussels Playbook. “The European Commission must step in and hold Bulgaria accountable.” He did not mention the fact that the bill was passed with support from every major party, including those supportive of the EU. “Senior figures” from the EU’s LGBTI Intergroup also called on European Commission President Ursula von der Leyden and Equality Commissioner Helena Dalli to “urgently condemn” the law.
In response, the European Commission sent a letter to Bulgarian Education and Science Minister Galin Tsokov on August 13 “to request further information on the legislation,” with a spokesperson stating that: “The Commission remains steadfast in its commitment to tackling discrimination, inequalities and challenges faced by LGBTIQ individuals — including in education, as outlined in our LGBTIQ Equality Strategy of November 2020.” Other activist groups, including Action, Buditelkite, LevFem, and Feminist Mobilizations, have also urged action, and called on the Bulgarian president to veto the bill.
Thus far, the Bulgarian government appears determined to ignore these predictable criticisms. Kostadin Kostadinov, chairman of the Revival Party that introduced the law, called it “a historic breakthrough” and stated that “LGBT propaganda is anti-human and won’t be accepted in Bulgaria.” The vast majority of Bulgarian parliamentarians agree with him – but that won’t stop the UN, the EU, and the LGBT activists who drive the international agenda from doing their best to force their agenda on Bulgaria through threats, soft power coercion tactics, and public condemnation.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? It’s one of the grand conundrums of history, and it is one that is impacting the rapidly expanding AI datacenter industry related to feeding its voracious electricity needs.
Which comes first, the datacenters or the electricity required to make them go? Without the power, nothing works. It must exist first, or the datacenter won’t go. Without the datacenter, the AI tech doesn’t go, either.
Logic would dictate that datacenter developers who plan to source their power needs with proprietary generation would build it first, before the datacenter is completed. But logic is never simple when billions in capital investment is at risk, along with the need to generate profits as quickly as possible.
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Building a power plant is a multi-year project, which itself involves heavy capital investment, and few developers have years to wait. The competition with China to win the race to become the global standard setters in the AI realm is happening now, not in 2027, when a new natural gas plant might be ready to go, or in 2035, the soonest you can reasonably hope to have a new nuclear plant in operation.
Some developers still virtue signal about wind and solar, but the industry’s 99.999% uptime requirement renders them impractical for this role. Besides, with the IRA subsidies on their way out, the economics no longer work.
So, if the datacenter is the chicken in this analogy and the electricity is the egg, real-world considerations dictate that, in most cases, the chicken must come first. That currently leaves many datacenter developers little choice but to force their big demand loads onto the local grid, often straining available capacity and causing utility rates to rise for all customers in the process.
This reality created a ready-made political issue that was exploited by Democrats in the recent Virginia and New Jersey elections, as they laid all the blame on their party’s favorite bogeyman, President Donald Trump. Never mind that this dynamic began long before Jan. 20, when Joe Biden’s autopen was still in charge: This isn’t about the pesky details, but about politics.
In New Jersey, Democrat winner Mikie Sherrill exploited the demonization tactic, telling voters she plans to declare a state of emergency on utility costs and freeze consumers’ utility rates upon being sworn into office. What happens after that wasn’t specified, but it made a good siren song to voters struggling to pay their utility bills each month while still making ends meet.
In her Virginia campaign, Democrat gubernatorial winner Abigail Spanberger attracted votes with a promise to force datacenter developers to “pay their own way and their fair share” of the rising costs of electricity in her state. How she would make that happen is anyone’s guess and really didn’t matter: It was the tactic that counted, and big tech makes for almost as good a bogeyman as Trump or oil companies.
For the Big Tech developers, this is one of the reputational prices they must pay for putting the chicken before the egg. On the positive side, though, this reality is creating big opportunity in other states like Texas. There, big oil companies Chevron and ExxonMobil are both in talks with hyperscalers to help meet their electricity needs.
Chevron has plans to build a massive power generation facility that would exploit its own Permian Basin natural gas production to provide as much as 2.5 gigawatts of power to regional datacenters. CEO Mike Wirth says his team expects to make a final investment decision early next year with a target to have the first plant up and running by the end of 2027.
ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods recently detailed his company’s plans to leverage its expertise in the realm of carbon capture and storage to help developers lower their emissions profiles when sourcing their needs via natural gas generation.
“We secured locations. We’ve got the existing infrastructure, certainly have the know-how in terms of the technology of capturing, transporting and storing [carbon dioxide],” Woods told investors.
It’s an opportunity-rich environment in which companies must strive to find ways to put the eggs before the chickens before ambitious politicians insert themselves into the process. As the recent elections showed, the time remaining to get that done is growing short.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
Dr John Campbell
Cures for Cancer? A new study shows incredible results from cheap generic drug Fenbendazole
From Dr. John Campbell
You won’t hear much about Fenbendazole from the regular pipeline of medical information. There could be many reasons for that. For one, it’s primarily known for it’s use in veterinary medicine. Somehow during COVID the medical information pipeline convinced millions that if a drug is used on horses or other animals it couldn’t work for humans. Not sure how they got away with that one considering the use of animal trials for much of modern medical history.
Another possible reason, one that makes at least as much sense, is that there’s no business case for Fenbendazole. It’s been around for decades and its patent expired in the early 1990’s. That means it’s considered a generic drug that a pharmaceutical company from India could (and does) produce in mass quantities for very little profit (compared to non-generics).
So Fenbendazole is an inexpensive, widely accessible antiparasitic drug used in veterinary medicine. During the COVID pandemic a number of doctors, desperate for a suitable treatment, tried it with reportedly great levels of success. Over some time they discovered it might be useful elsewhere. Some doctors are using Fenbendazole to help treat late stage cancer. Often this is prescribed when the regular treatments clearly aren’t working and cancer is approaching or has already been declared stage 4.
What they’ve found at least in some cases is astounding results. This has resulted in a new study which medical researcher Dr. John Campbell shares in this video.
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