Tag: united kingdom

British Man Convicted of Criminal Charges for Praying Silently Near Abortion Clinic

In Britain, it can be a crime to think the wrong thoughts in the wrong place. It sounds absurd—not to mention Orwellian—but a handful of people have been arrested or charged in the country simply for praying silently near abortion clinics. 

This month, a British man was convicted of criminal charges for praying silently near an abortion clinic. The man, Adam Smith-Connor did not attempt to harass, intimidate, or interact in any way with those entering the clinic. Instead, he wordlessly prayed with his head bowed slightly. He wasn’t even on clinic property—he was outside the sightline of the clinic itself, according to the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a religious freedom group.

As a result, Smith-Connor was questioned by police and later charged with violating a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO), a broad censorship order enabled by the 2014 Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act. Under this law, local authorities can obtain special status for some public places, allowing them to ban a huge range of conduct. In the name of limiting “anti-social behavior,” British towns have obtained PSPOs to ban the homeless from sleeping outside or to ban swearing.

Several cities have used this law to place “buffer zones” around local abortion clinics. The PSPO in Smith-Connor’s case not only banned “intimidating or harassing” those working at or seeking services from the clinic but also barred individuals from engaging in “prayer,” “[sprinkling] holy water on the ground,” and “[crossing] themselves.”

Smith-Connor violated this order in November 2022. He was convicted, and sentenced earlier this month to a “conditional discharge”—similar to probation—and ordered to pay approximately $11,709 in prosecution fees, according to the ADF.

The court’s reasoning betrayed the absurdly censorious nature of the local law. “In its decision, the court reasoned that his prayer amounted to ‘disapproval of abortion’ because at one point his head was seen slightly bowed and his hands were clasped,” according to the ADF.

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There are an estimated 745,000 illegals in the U.K. – more than any other country in Europe

The United Kingdom has more illegal immigrants than any other European country, with as many as 745,000 people living within British borders without permission.

This is according to a study by academics from the University of Oxford, who found that more than one in 100 people in the U.K. are living in the country illegally – more than double the 300,000 people believed to be living in France illegally and even more than the approximately 700,000 undocumented migrants residing in Germany.

Senior Researcher on Nationhood Guy Dampier of the London-based think tank the Legatum Institute noted that since Britain is an island nation, it should be harder to get there than anywhere else in the continent. Instead, it has achieved the title of “illegal migration capital of Europe” because of, according to Dampier, the country’s  “permissive job market and the failure of the authorities to guard our borders.”

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Open AI Wants to Build Data Centres That Would Consume More Electricity Per Year Than the Whole of the U.K.

Over the past few months, the newswires have been hot with stories about the large-scale data centres that will be required to meet the needs of the forthcoming revolution in Artificial Intelligence (AI). How much electricity will these new data centres consume and what does that mean for the electricity demand forecasts underpinning the plans for Net Zero?

Recent Date Centre Announcements

To give a flavour of the scale of data centre developments that are coming, it is helpful to look at recent announcements from large tech companies. Back in March, it was announced that Amazon had bought a 960MW data centre that is powered by an adjacent nuclear power station. In April, Mark Zuckerberg CEO of Meta that owns Facebook and Instagram said energy requirements may hold back the build out of AI data centres. He also talked about building data centres that would consume 1GW of power.

Last month, Oracle chairman Larry Ellison announced that Oracle was designing a data centre that would consume more than 1GW that would be powered by three small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). Then Microsoft also got in on the act when it announced it had done a deal with U.S. utility Constellation to restart the 835MW Three Mile Island (TMI) Unit 1 nuclear power plant to power its data centres. Anxious not to be left out, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google said they too were working on 1GW data centres and saw money being invested in SMRs.

Finally, Sam Altman of OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT has trumped them all by pitching the idea of 5GW data centres to the White House. Altman has been heard talking of building five to seven of these leviathans.

Bloomberg, usually a driver of the Net Zero band wagon, has reluctantly admitted that there’s not enough clean energy – nuclear or otherwise – to satisfy AI’s voracious appetite and gas will have to fill the gap. America’s national security and energy security is eclipsing climate concerns.

This admission is important because it acknowledges that such important infrastructure cannot rely upon the vicissitudes of the weather. These data centres need a source of electricity that is reliable and always available. It would be absurd to think that a ChatGPT user will want to receive a message saying their request cannot be processed because it is not windy enough.

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Howling mad! Fury as school allows pupil suffering from ‘species dysphoria’ to identify as a WOLF

A British schoolchild has been officially allowed to identify as a wolf, the Mail can reveal.

The secondary-school pupil is said to suffer from ‘species dysphoria’, which is when someone claims their body belongs to a different species.

Teachers are said to be supporting the youngster.

Growing numbers of schoolchildren are said to be taking on the personalities of creatures including foxes, dragons, birds, snakes, sharks and even dinosaurs.

However, clinical neuropsychologist Dr Tommy MacKay insisted last night: ‘There is no such condition in science as ‘species dysphoria’. It’s not surprising that we are seeing this in an age when many people want to identify as something other than they are.

‘Now we have a council which appears to accept at face value that a child identifies as a wolf, rather than being told to snap out of it and get to grips with themselves, which would be the common-sense approach.’

Confirmation of the first-known case in Scotland in which a school has recognised that a pupil identifies as an animal was revealed in official documents.

The Mail knows the name of the council involved but has decided not to disclose it to protect the identity of the child concerned.

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Banking on Betrayal: UK Government’s New Plan for Mass Bank Spying

Civil rights advocates may be saying, “stop bank spying” – but authoritarian-presenting governments are sure to be thinking, “who better to spy on you with?”

Banks not only have fine-grained information about their clients’ financial situation, but also their behavior and habits – and as recent incidents, for example in Canada, but also the UK in different circumstances show, they are not above using their power to debank and therefore censor people. On behalf of governments.

This time in the UK, the Labor cabinet looks set to bring back a legislative plan that would give financial institutions new mass surveillance powers. Now as before, the premise, activists say, is combating welfare fraud.

But the result would be mass bank spying – and “a severe intrusion into the nation’s privacy,” as Big Brother Watch put it.

In a letter to Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Liz Kendall, the privacy group and a number of like-minded allies informed the official that they oppose the Fraud, Error and Debt Bill, and refer to it as work to usher in mass financial surveillance powers in the UK.

This time via banks, with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) as the government actor.

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UK psychological warfare unit collaborated with Israeli army

Britain secretly advised the Israeli military on psychological warfare techniques, Declassified has found.

Leaked documents reveal how the British army’s 77th brigade discussed strategy and tactics with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).

The 77th brigade uses psychological operations and social media to help fight wars “in the information age”.

It specialises in “non-lethal forms of psychological warfare” such as cyber-attacks, propaganda activities, and counter-insurgency operations online.

Israel’s own information operations have involved using fabricated videos and fake social media accounts to defend the bombing of Gaza.

Two exchanges with the IDF took place at the 77th brigade’s barracks in Hermitage, Berkshire, between 2018-19.

Leaked documents about the encounters originate from a hack of the IDF by a group called “Anonymous for Justice”. The dataset was subsequently published by Distributed Denial of Secrets.

Although some of the documents reference “secret” matters, there is strong public interest in reporting on their contents.

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Don’t Let the ‘Infaux Thugs’ Close Down Debate

Today’s censors wield cudgels with the word ‘information.’ Content they don’t like they call ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation.’ The justification is fake. The protection is faux protection. Pretending to protect people from bad information by means of censorship may be called infaux thuggery.

The cudgels are hidden, of course, but it is not hard to see through the pretence and discern the underlying message: knuckle under or we will hurt you.

The UK’s Online Safety Act exemplifies infaux thuggery, as does Brazil’s recent action against X (formerly Twitter). The Australian government is dominated by another gang of infaux thugs. The UK, sadly, not only practices infaux thuggery at home, it tutors the world in infaux thuggery.

The same goes for where I live, the United States. Kamala Harris threatens: ‘If you act as a megaphone for misinformation… we are going to hold you accountable.’ Hillary Clinton calls for criminalization of speech not to her liking. Harris’ running mate Tim Walz threatens: ‘There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation and hate speech.’

Thankfully, that’s not true, at least in the US. As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. responded, the US Constitution ‘is exactly what prevents the government from stifling dissent by labeling something “hate speech” or “misinformation.”’ Alarmingly, former Secretary of State John Kerry recently lamented that the First Amendment ‘stands as a major block to…hammer it [“disinformation”] out of existence,’ and implied that that ‘is part of what this race, this election is all about.’

Of course, malicious actors, including enemy states, may spread lies to sow discord – especially online. So too can those who are simply ill-informed. Yet in the absence of censorship, big lies will be torn to shreds. In this battle, the infaux thugs are on the wrong side.

The infaux thugs use ‘information’ to confuse matters. The content they suppress is more aptly termed narratives, interpretations, opinions or judgments. Those terms are more capacious, befitting frank and open debate and controversy.

In their hostility to open debate, the infaux thugs are mounting an attack on modern civilisation. They evoke our crude instincts from pre-modern life, instincts for a small, simple society, in which the leader’s narrative must be believed by all and enforced upon the members of the band. If you don’t share the leader’s narrative, you are a miscreant. You are to be corrected, expelled or destroyed. At the very least, you are to shut up.

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The UK gov’t wants to legalise “assisted dying”. Here’s what happens next.

The Parliament of the United Kingdom is moving forward with a vote on a new bill that will legalise assisted dying for those diagnosed with terminal illness.

The bill, proposed by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, has yet to be published in full. According to the BBC:

The details have not been finalised but the bill is likely to be similar to a proposal in the House of Lords, which would allow terminally ill adults with six months or fewer to live to get medical help to end their own lives.

This is the culmination of a years-long political, media and entertainment industry wide campaign to normalise euthanasia in the UK’s public mind.

In that time we have been told that assisted dying is good for people, good for the NHS and good for the environment.

The bill is expected to be formally introduced on 16 October, with the first debate to take place later this year, meaning the vote will likely be held in early 2025.

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The UK’s “Chicken License” Rebellion – the GOOD way to deal with BAD laws

As of today, the UK’s “Chicken License” is in full effect. October 1st marked the deadline for registering your chickens with the proper authority.

Moving forward anyone caught with an unlicensed chicken will be in breach of the law and subject to fines and poultry reclamation.

I am entirely serious.

Back in March the UK govt’s “Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs” (DEFRA) announced changes to the poultry registration laws, essentially redefining a “flock” from “50 birds or more” to 1.

So, from now on, everybody in the country who keeps even a single bird – not just chickens, all outdoor birds – has to register as a poultry keeper.

You understand, this is all about protecting birds and the public from avian influenza, not at all about increasing government monitoring with the final aim of stamping down on self-sufficiency.

Banish that cynical thought from your head.

Fortunately, the people of the UK have a tried-and-tested method of dealing with absurdity—more absurdity.

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Psychologist, 53, who works at Tavistock clinic remains FREE to practice despite being caught grooming a schoolboy, 15, for sex in a park

A child psychologist at the controversial Tavistock hospital trust remains free to practise despite being caught grooming a schoolboy for sex in a park.

Dr Ross Canade was entrusted to treat youngsters’ mental health as lead psychologist at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, which became infamous for its gender clinic helping children to transition to a different sex.

Canade was snared by a group of self-styled ‘paedophile hunters’ in an online sting after he sent sexually explicit messages to a youngster who told him he was aged 15.

The 53-year-old psychologist met up with his would-be victim in a Nando’s restaurant, then arranged to go to a local park to have sex. 

The pair were ‘ambushed’ by members of a vigilante group posing as friends of the youngster who had been monitoring their interactions, a court heard.

Canade pleaded guilty on July 29 to attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming. On Monday, he was handed a 12-month suspended sentence by a judge at Wood Green Crown Court.

Although he was spared jail, he was sacked by the Tavistock.

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