French fuel protests against Macron over rising prices

"World oil prices did rise before falling back again but the Macron government raised its hydrocarbon tax this year by 7.6 cents per litre on diesel and 3.9 cents on petrol, as part of a campaign for cleaner cars and fuel." 

Zimbabwe and Venezuela in a race to the bottom "Zimbabwe's Inflation Rate Balloons To 20.85%: The Unofficial Rate Is Likely Higher"

Zimbabwe's Inflation Rate Balloons To 20.85%: The Unofficial Rate Is Likely Higher

by Tyler Durden

Fri, 11/16/2018 - 10:50

ebookRedditailPrint

Via TechZim.co.zw,

Following a spate of recent price hikes that had a 2008 feel and even included price control threats from the government it comes as no surprise that Zimbabwe’s year to date inflation figure has ballooned. According the ZimStat the year to year inflation rate stood at 20.85% in October up from 5.39% in September.

That is a shocking 15% jump. Inflation is measured by tracking changes in a predetermined basket of basic commodities that most people consume in a typical household. This is also known as the Consumer Price Index (CPI).The CPI for the month ending October 2018 stood at 118,73 compared to 101,97 in September 2018 and 98,24 in October 2017.

Given the composition of the basket used to measure CPI, the surge in the inflation rate can easily be explained by the massive panic buying, hoarding and universal price hikes that followed the policy announcements by the Fiscal and Monetary authorities which were all not received. Social medial played its role as the negative portions of these policies were sometimes taken out of concept and went viral.

Expect inflation to continue to grow in November

Although for the most part the panic buying is not as bad as it was in October prices are still on an upward trend in most shops. Bread prices was officially increased from $1.10 to $1.40. Mazoe Orange crush another family favourite product also saw its price increased to around $4. In the ICT world ZOL increased their internet prices in the face increased cost of doing business. KFC who had closed citing shortage of raw materials came back with eye popping prices of up to $70 fore a meal.

Even the current inflation figure is an understatement

ZimStat no doubt relied on the official prices in coming up with the inflation figures. The truth however is that a number of basic goods such as sugar and cooking oil are now hard to find at official prices. They are sill subject to rationing in most shops but are freely available at the black market at even higher prices. Cooking oil sells at close to $7 from $4 dollars in October at the black market.

In all likelihood the real inflation rate is even higher than the officially cited rate. The next budget is due on 22 November, hopefully therein will be measures that will tame inflation.

A Cold Winter for White Women

A Cold Winter for White Women

By Lori FlahertyThe open assault on white women from the progressive left seems to have begun in earnest. It could be rightfully argued that it
actually began more than two years ago immediately following the election of President Trump, when presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton said, “[Democrats] do not do well with white men, and we don’t do well with married, white women. And part of that is an identification with the Republican Party, and a sort of ongoing pressure to vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son, whoever, believes you should.”

Clinton didn't win over white women for a myriad of reasons but the number of tone-deaf statements she made on why women didn't vote for her, such as this one, certainly did her no favors. Clinton couldn't have been more insulting to her own gender. By making public derogatory statements against white women, Clinton was really signaling that it was time to kick off the white woman blame game. Enter Jada Pinkett Smith, the outspoken racial critic who, just days ago, freely admitted that she just doesn't like white women in general. Smith said on her own talk show, “I have to admit I’m guilty to that to a certain degree because I do have my own biases, specifically to blonde women," she revealed. “Blonde hair on white women just triggers me. I’ve had to catch myself.”
Smith's racist remarks follow on the heels of the media's consistent messaging that it was white women who were to blame for the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Media outlets such as the Guardian, the New York Times, Vogue, and countless feminist organizations were propagating a singular message aimed squarely at the feet of white women. Following the infamous almost all-female Kavanaugh confirmation battle, Vox host Liz Plank tweeted, “The way white women accept to be used as pawns by a party that consistently strips their rights and minorities’ rights away cannot be overstated.”

The progressive left uses minority Hollywood stars to buttress racist arguments of the type we are all too familiar with. White women are racial bigots bent on voting against their own interests and empowering the male patriarchy. Yeah, that one. But this type of race baiting wasn't Smith's first rodeo in the war on whites. Smith boycotted the Oscars because it was too white for her. Chris Rock said at the 2016 Academy Awards, “I’m here at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the White People’s Choice Awards,” in a nod to Smith's angst over the lack of diversity in Hollywood.
Another minority heavy hitter is Oprah, who only endorses political candidates
who are black, such as former President Obama and her recent bid to get
Stacey Abrams elected as Georgia's next governor. Oprah has also said that old
white people just need to die and that she was a victim of racism when a store clerk wouldn't show her an expensive handbag. Oprah is a baby boomer and no doubt, she did experience racism in her lifetime before becoming one of the most influential and wealthy women in the world, but mark my words, she isn't going to let anyone forget that.

It matters little to these big names that they are famous and rich in large part because of white audiences, they believe their fame and notoriety gives them license to use white people in order to obtain success and then denigrate them for something as benign as their skin color. But that would be missing the point entirely. The point is that these Hollywood minorities -- no matter how wealthy -- continue to be used as pawns in the Democratic race game, which sees color, not individuals, everywhere.

Not only is this racist rhetoric dangerous for society, it is poison to our youth. Young white people today are exposed almost exclusively to angry black artists and Hollywood stars who encourage them to hate themselves for their whiteness, demoralizing and denigrating them for their skin color and culture. But hating oneself for his race is not a virtue. Telling young white people to “check” their white privilege or to hate themselves for their culture isn't just insanity, it's racist. What began as a feminist progressive movement united exclusively against white males has now openly set its sights on white women.

In his lavish Kalorama bunker just blocks away from the White House, Obama continues to curate identity groups to undermine the American voter and encourage the breakdown of racial relationships. The grip Obama has on these fascist groups is as tight as his grip over the Hollywood hip crowd, which is a lot more than you may think. Always a Hollywood darling, Obama is a member in good standing with the Creative Arts Agency (CAA), the influential body that pushes his progressive ideals through clueless actors and hip hop artists, and Obama wasted no time in putting his favorite right-hand gal Valerie Jarrett onto its board.
Jarrett, if anyone can remember her for anything other than the reason why Roseanne Barr was fired from ABC, was a major player in the Galvanize Program, which was launched following the first-ever United States of Women Summit sponsored by Obama’s White House Council on Women and Girls. Galvanize is a terrible feminist front group flaming the hysteria of young women in America over imaginary threats to their equality. Think Title IX. In addition to Jarrett, Joe Biden and Arne Duncan -- one of Obama's longest-serving cabinet members -- also joined the CAA with the intent to continue Obama’s public policy work via Hollywood propaganda.
So it was no surprise then when Netflix partnered with Barack and Michelle Obama earlier this year to produce films and series for Netflix, including scripted series, unscripted series, docuseries, documentaries and features. Progressives have backed the entertainment industry with big money and big names in order to continue its influence over culture. While conservatives continue to struggle with the mechanics of being influencers, the left is wasting no time in pushing their current hold over entertainment to further push identity politics.
If you want to know what the next big play is by the progressives, just watch Hollywood. And Hollywood is gunning for white women. It seems that they are angrier than ever following the midterm elections, with head cheerleader Chelsea Handler tweeting, “59% of white women voted for Ted Cruz. I don’t know what it is going to take for us to be sisters to other women, but we have to do better than this.”

The left has invested far too many resources in stoking the racial divide for the sake of hanging on to its most loyal voters. If the Democrats can't get any form of DACA passed over the next several years or slow down Trump's immigration policies, they must absolutely hold onto the black vote. And it is not looking very good for them. Blacks are doing better than ever in the Trump economy and overall, blacks do not support unlimited immigration or granting anchor babies citizenship. With that in mind, the winter forecast calls for more racial hatred aimed squarely at white America, particularly the shaming and name calling of white women.

Planned Parenthood Lists ‘7 Ways to Be Gender-Inclusive in Your Language’

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

15 Nov 20181,444

1:48

To celebrate “Trans Awareness Week,” abortion giant Planned Parenthood has released seven linguistic tips to help gender-sensitive individuals use terms that will not offend members of the LGBTQ “community.”

Partnering with GLAAD — formerly the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation — Planned Parenthood has taken political correctness to a new level, leaving behind feminist inclusivity to remove all references to men or women out respect of for those who are neither.

Thus, the self-anointed language police have determined that “boys and girls” should give way to the more generic “children,” while “his or her” should now be the more capacious (but numerically suspect) “their.”

Planned Parenthood

In their “Beyond the Binary” campaign, Planned Parenthood not only proposes ousting male-leaning terms like “guys” in favor of the more open-ended “folks,” but they suggest that any limitation of human beings to the restrictive categories of male and female is inappropriate.

So, “the lady in the red shirt” should now be phrased, “the person in the red shirt,” presumably to prevent people from thinking that a person’s gender is inferable from “their” biological sex.

Planned Parenthood

“Brothers and sisters” should simply be “siblings,” while “ladies and gentlemen” should be “distinguished guests,” in case one or more of such guests has trouble identifying as one or the other.

Even when addressing a homogeneous group of all men or all women, gendered terms should be avoided, and instead, the all-inclusive “everyone” should be used.

With its cheery backdrop of multi-colored condoms, one could almost forget that Planned Parenthood’s chief business is killing little children in their mothers’ wombs.

Planned Parenthood

Haley Announces Flip from Longstanding U.S. Abstention on Golan Heights Resolution to 'No'

Haley Announces Flip from Longstanding U.S. Abstention on Golan Heights Resolution to 'No'

 

BY BRIDGET JOHNSON NOVEMBER 16, 2018

An Israeli soldier opens the border gates as an UN vehicle enters Syria in Quneitra crossing in the Golan Heights on Oct. 15, 2018. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

For the first time, the United States plans to vote "no" today instead of abstaining on an annual United Nations resolution slamming "continued Israeli military occupation" of the Golan Heights.

In past years, the resolution has called upon Israel "to desist from changing the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure and legal status of the occupied Syrian Golan and in particular to desist from the establishment of settlements."

It also calls upon Israel "to desist from imposing Israeli citizenship and Israeli identity cards on the Syrian citizens in the occupied Syrian Golan, and from its repressive measures against the population of the occupied Syrian Golan."

The U.S. Mission to the United Nations cited as the reasons for the change from abstention to "no" the "resolution’s anti-Israel bias, as well as the militarization of the Syrian Golan border, and a worsening humanitarian crisis."

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley declared in a statement previewing the vote that "the United States will no longer abstain when the United Nations engages in its useless annual vote on the Golan Heights."

"If this resolution ever made sense, it surely does not today. The resolution is plainly biased against Israel," she said. "Further, the atrocities the Syrian regime continues to commit prove its lack of fitness to govern anyone. The destructive influence of the Iranian regime inside Syria presents major threats to international security. ISIS and other terrorist groups remain in Syria."

"And this resolution does nothing to bring any parties closer to a peace agreement. The United States will vote no."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Thursday with the State Department's Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook.

Netanyahu praised recent sanctions against Iran as "the most important thing that has been done against the most aggressive power in the region that has to be rolled back."

Another Constitutionally illiterate judge...... Federal judge restores CNN's Jim Acosta's White House press pass as he humiliates Trump saying claim reporter 'placed his hands' on female intern was of 'questionable accuracy'

BREAKING NEWS: Federal judge restores CNN's Jim Acosta's White House press pass as he humiliates Trump saying claim reporter 'placed his hands' on female intern was of 'questionable accuracy'

Iran may have been closer to building a bomb than US intelligence realized

Nov 15, 2018 2:28 pm

A new report suggests that Iran was much closer to developing a nuclear weapon than U.S. intelligence had thought. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks on Sept. 26, 2018, during a news conference in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images) 

Follow 

Mike Ciandella

Article GoalINFORM

Iran may have been much closer to developing a nuclear weapon than U.S. intelligence initially assumed. According to files obtained by Israeli intelligence earlier this year, if Iran restarts its centrifuges, it could have a bomb in a matter of months.

Here’s what we know

During a speech in April announcing the seizure of tens of thousands of files worth of information from Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Iran had lied about not having a nuclear weapons program. He also said that Iran had been preserving and expanding its nuclear weapons program even after it signed the Iran nuclear deal.

On Monday, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog said that Iran was keeping up its end of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and had not expanded its program beyond the parameters set by that deal.

David Albright, a physicist who runs the nonprofit Institute for Science and International Security, told Foreign Policy that Iran could have enough weapons-grade uranium in seven to 12 months if it restarts its centrifuges.

Even more startling, at the time the Iran deal was signed in 2015 the Iranians were even closer to finishing a bomb — only two months out. It would take a few months longer now than it would have then because under the terms of the deal Iran had to give up most of its nuclear fuel and get rid of the centrifuges needed to refine it.

At the time the deal was signed, the U.S. government either did not know or did not reveal that Iran had been this close to attaining a nuclear weapon.

Albright pointed to the Israeli archive as proof that for years the U.S. and other Western intelligence operations had been consistently underestimating how far Iran was in developing a nuclear weapon of its own. Albright has personally gone to Tel Aviv and reviewed the documents obtained by the Israelis.

What about the Iran nuclear deal?

In 2015, the Obama administration signed a deal with Iran. Under the terms of the arrangement, Iran would give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons, in return for the lifting of sanctions. Opponents of the deal argued that there weren’t enough safeguards in place to ensure that Iran held up its end of the deal.

In May, Trump  announced that the U.S. would be pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal. He had called this deal an “embarrassment” to himself and all U.S. citizens.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced that it would be reimposingall the sanctions on Iran that were lifted under the Obama administration. This was the 19th round of sanctions imposed by the Trump administration on Iran.

Other signatories of the deal — Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China — have tried to continue to uphold it, even after the U.S. pulled out.

Keep counting until the Democrat wins...the arrogance of it.

Georgia Dem. Stacey Abrams seeks to use the courts to find 20,000 votes and force a runoff election

LBGTQ altered reality, Feminist writer blasts Twitter for locking page over ‘hateful conduct.’ She said ‘men aren’t women.’

Feminist writer blasts Twitter for locking page over ‘hateful conduct.’ She said ‘men aren’t women.’

Sarah TaylorSTAFF WRITER

POLITICAL VIEW

CHRISTIAN LIBERTARIAN

VALUES

FAITH, FAMILY

HERO

JOHN THE BAPTIST

Article GoalINFORM

Meghan Murphy, Canadian feminist and journalist, revealed Thursday that Twitter temporarily suspended her account for what they considered to be her “hateful conduct.”

Her “crime?” Saying that “men aren’t women” in a discussion with other Twitter users.

What are the details?

Revealing Twitter’s apparent bias, Murphy wrote, wrote, “This is f***ing bulls**t @twitter. I’m not allowed to say that men aren’t women or ask questions about the notion of transgenderism at all anymore? That a multi billion dollar company is censoring BASIC FACTS and silencing people who ask questions about this dogma is INSANE.”

Murphy is an outspoken feminist who has been opposed to a Canadian bill that would make gender identity and expression part of the law.

Murphy later added, “What ARE we allowed to say here??? How tf is simply saying ‘men aren’t women’ hateful??? I am losing my godd**ned mind over this. Enjoy your brave new world, sjws. Here’s your f***ing social justice.”

“I’m assuming my account is going to get locked again simply for speaking about this,” she added. “But this is not f***ing ok and I’m not going to let it go silently.”

Murphy went on to reveal that trans activists have been targeting her online for her outspoken notion that women simply don’t have penises.

“Trans activists have been targeting my account for a few months now,” she wrote. “Either someone at Twitter or with an in at Twitter has been combing through old tweets and reporting them for ‘hateful conduct.’ Twitter seems to instantly shut my account down without a second thought.”

Murphy went on to question if Twitter was attempting to ban all users with similar opinions, or if just she was a target for suspension.

“Are you going to ban every single user on here who says ‘men aren’t women’?? Actually??? @Twitter Or are you just going out of your way to specifically silence ME?” Murphy complained.

Murphy appeared before the Canadian Senate in 2017 to voice her opposition to the proposed legislation, Bill C-16.

“Treating gender as though it is either internal or a personal choice is dangerous and completely misunderstands how and why women are oppressed under patriarchy as a class of people,” Murphy said in her remarks in front of the Senate. “The rights of women and girls are being pushed aside to accommodate a trend.”

(H/T: The Daily Wire)

The definition of a kilogram has been the same since 1889. Now scientists have changed it.

25 mins

Members of the French Academy of Sciences hold a conference to discuss atomic energy, 1945. From left to right, they are Frederic Joliot-Curie (1900 - 1958), the Duke de Broglie, Paul Langevin (1872 - 1946) and Prince de Broglie. The French Academy of Sciences has decided to redefine the standard for the kilogram. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) 

Follow 

Mike Ciandella

Article GoalINFORM

Scientists gathered in France have decided to redefine the definition of a kilogram.

What does this mean?

“The vote is a unanimous yes, I hope that such votes will be possible for many other issues in the world,” professor Sebastien Candel, president of the French Academy of Sciences, declared.

But why change the kilogram at all?

Since 1889, the kilogram has been defined as the exact weight of an actual piece of metal dubbed “Le Grand K” sitting in the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sèvres, France. While not every metric bathroom scale may have been set to correspond precisely to this cylinder of platinum-iridium alloy, more precise measurements for industries like agriculture, medicine, and science have all used this standard to come to an agreed upon measurement when dealing with super-specific amounts. U.S. President Benjamin Harrison was given a copy of Le Grand K the same year.

But scientists started to notice a problem with Le Grand K. Even though it was kept in a secure location and protected by glass bell jars, the metal had been slowly losing mass. By 2018, the gold standard for the kilogram had lost 50 micrograms and become 99.999995 percent of its original mass. Such a small difference would not affect most people, but for industries that rely on very exact measurements, this difference would require constant adjustment to maintain accuracy.

So the scientists gathered Friday at the General Conference on Weights and Measures decided to retire Le Grand K and move on to something that couldn’t be changed: the mathematical concept known as Planck’s constant. Planck’s constant is one of the smallest measures possible (6.62607004 × 10-34 m2 kg / s), and, more importantly, it never changes.

What else?

The kilogram is not the first measurement to be redefined. When it was first defined back in 1791, the French Academy of Sciences declared that a meter was 1/10 millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator of a line running through Paris. In 1889, the same year Le Grand K was cast, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures created a bar of platinum and iridium alloy with two lines on it that were exactly one meter apart. In 1960 the wavelengths of the spectrum in a krypton-86 atom were used to define a meter, and in 1983 scientists finally decided to settle on defining it as the distance light could travel in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 second.