Kamala Harris's Word Salads

Presidential contender Kamala Harris is said to be the worst extemporaneous speaker in the history of US presidential politics. But, she has shown herself to be awesomely adept at spewing meme-worthy soundbites, ill-timed cackles and of course, cringe-worthy word salads!

Be sure to read these examples out LOUD and be impressed!

 

"The passage of time" word salad in her speech on March 21, 2022 in Sunset, Louisiana touting efforts to bring high-speed Internet to communities in the state:

"...and erm, talking about the significance of the passage of time, right, the significance of the passage of time. So when you think about it, there is great significance to the passage of time in terms of what we need to do to lay these wires, what need to do to create these jobs and there is such great significance to the passage of time when we think about a day in the life of our children". 

 

"Work together" word salad in remarks made on May 13, 2022 in a meeting on climate at the US-ASEAN special summit:

"Our world is more interconnected and interdependent. That is especially true when it comes to the climate crisis, which is why we will work together and continue to work together to address these issues, to tackle these challenges, and to work together as we continue to work, operating from the new norms, rules, and agreements that we will convene to work together on to galvanize global action".

 

"Seriously" word salad in remarks made on July 05, 2022 on the Highland Park Shooting in Illinois:

"...And we got to take this stuff seriously, as seriously as you are – because you have been forced to have to take it seriously".  

 

"Moment in time" word salad in her speech on April 25, 2023 at a political event on reproductive rights at Howard University, her alma mater in Washington, DC:

“So, I think it’s very important, as you have heard from so many incredible leaders, for us at every moment in time – and certainly this one – to see the moment in time in which we exist and are present, and to be able to contextualize it, to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past but the future. And I will say to everyone here that we are living, I do believe, in a moment in time where so many of our hard-won freedoms are under attack, and this is a moment for us to stand and fight”.

 

"Inspiring" word salad  in her address on September 25, 2024 to the Economic Club of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania:

"We need to guard that spirit. We have to guard that spirit. Let it always inspire us. Let it always be the source of our optimism, which is that spirit that is uniquely American. Let that then inspire us by helping us to be inspired to solve the problems that so many face, including our small business owners".

 

"Holistic/holistically" word salad in interview on September 25, 2024 with MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle:

"Some of the work is going to be through what we do in terms of giving benefits and assistance to state and local governments around transit dollars and looking holistically at the connection between that and housing and looking holistically at the incentives we in the federal government can create for local and state governments to actually engage in planning in [a] holistic manner that includes prioritising affordable housing for working people".

 

Somebody actually suggested a better term: word vomit.

Word salads are not only her thing! She's good at geography too. During an appearance on the syndicated “Morning Hustle” radio program on March 01, 2022, she was asked by co-host "Headkrack" to explain the (Ukraine) conflict “in layman’s terms for people who don’t understand what’s going on and how can this directly affect the people of the United States?” 

 

And thus, she spoke SLOWLY as she informed her fellow citizens:

"Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine, so basically that’s wrong". 

And who can forget her famous retort when she defended her decision to not go to the US-Mexico border during a combative moment in an interview on June 07, 2021 with NBC’s Lester Holt in Guatemala: “And I haven’t been to Europe”.

The Hegemon That Is The United States of America

The neo-cons' conviction:

The French socialist politician Hubert Védrine in 1999 described the US as a hegemonic hyperpower, because of its unilateral military actions worldwide.

 

Methinks, the US' hegemonic days are coming to an end. Give it another 10 to 15 years – maybe even earlier – and we shall witness its humbling.  

 

Yesterday, rampant Celtic stormed to the top of the Scottish Premiership with a thumping 6-0 win away at St Johnstone.

 

A brace from Kyogo Furuhashi (35, 45) and Paulo Bernardo's sumptuous strike in the 43rd minute virtually ended the contest at half-time.

 

There was to be no mercy in the second half though, as captain Callum McGregor added a fourth for Celtic in the fifty-fourth minute from outside the box. 

 

Daizen Maeda headed in the fifth in the 72nd minute before Adam Idah rounded off the scoring in the 83rd minute after being teed up by an outrageous backheel from Alex Valle, to add further gloss to the scoreline.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is six league wins out of six for Brendan Rodgers' side so far this campaign. Even better, the Scottish champions have kept a clean sheet so far. Their last longer run of games without conceding a goal in the competition was a run of seven games from April 26, 2015 to August 09, 2015.

 

It's Germany next for Celtic, where they will meet Borussia Dortmund on October 01 in the UEFA Champions League.

Hollywood In The Doldrums

The Hollywood industry are in the doldrums. 

It is claimed the good times ground to a halt in May 2023, when Hollywood’s writers went on strike. The strikes lasted multiple months and marked the first time since the 1960s that both writers and actors joined forces – effectively shutting down Hollywood production. 

But rather than roaring back, in the one year since the strikes ended, production has fizzled. Projects have been cancelled and production was cut across the industry as jobs have dried up, with layoffs at many studios – most recently at Paramount. They had a second round of layoffs this week, as the storied movie company move to cut 15% of their workforce ahead of a merger with the production company Skydance.

Unemployment in film and TV in the United States was at 12.5% in August, but many think those numbers are actually much higher, because many film workers either do not file for unemployment benefits because they’re not eligible or they’ve exhausted those benefits after months of not working.

As a whole, the number of US productions during the second quarter of 2024 was down about 40% compared to the same period in 2022. 

Globally, there was a 20% decline over that period, according to ProdPro, which track TV and film productions. That means less new movies and binge-worthy shows for the world.

Part of the boom was fueled by Wall Street, where tech giants like Netflix saw record growth and studios, like Paramount, saw their share prices soar for adding their own streaming service offers. 

But experts say the streaming boom wasn’t sustainable. And studios are trying to figure out how to be profitable in a new world when people don’t pay for cable TV funded by commercials.

And along with the streaming bubble bursting, some productions are also being lured away from California by attractive tax incentives in other states and countries.

Even LA Mayor Karen Bass is alarmed because after all, the entertainment industry is critical to the economic vitality of the Los Angeles region. Recent data shows the entertainment industry contributes over $115 billion annually to the local economy, with an employment base of over 681,000 people.

Still, there are industry observers who are optimistic that production will be ramping up soon. After all, summer movie releases (e.g., "Inside Out 2", "Despicable Me 4", "Deadpool & Wolverine") have had box office successes and are rekindling optimism. 

Even so, box office revenue is still below pre-pandemic levels. So far this summer, theaters across the US sold 274 million tickets, an 18% decline from last summer, according to industry data firm EntTelligence. That pales in comparison to the 406 million tickets sold in the summer of 2019.

Will Hollywood fully recover? We shall wait and see...

 

Ibrahima Konaté headed home his first ever Premier League goal (45+2) and Mohamed Salah converted a penalty (61) as Liverpool climbed to the top of the Premier League table with a 2-1 victory over struggling Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday. 

The Reds now have 15 points after six games, one more than both Manchester City and Arsenal.

Their next two games are on Wednesday when they host Bologna in a Champions League match and October 05 when they travel to Selhurst Park to confront Premier League's Crystal Palace.

A Funeral for a Roach

I came across this cool post on a cockroach funeral on Boing Boing today – and traced it to Instagram for the full photo story!

 

When a cockroach passed away in the hallway of an unidentified apartment building something unexpected, hilarious, and heartwarming happened. 

 

One of the neighbors made a little gravemarker for the roach on a piece of paper that said "RIP" and took a photo. Next thing they knew, someone had added a few stones and a small plastic plant to decorate the roaches "grave". 

 

In the next photo, we see that another neighbor added a "wanted sign" for the murderer of a roach. 

 

The next photo shows that the roach is now part of many different narratives. The roach is now resting in his grave, an alleged murder victim, and is somehow running for mayor. A few photos later, there are even more signs and decorations added to the roaches gravesite, including a sign advertising a memorial concert that will be starring the Beatles.

 

 

 

This all appears like something straight out of a sitcom. Can I please live in this apartment building? This seems like the most fun hallway of neighbors to ever exist!😀😀😀

Meta Fined for Lax Password Safety

Big tech company Meta have been ordered to pay a €91 million fine by the Irish data protection authority entrusted to police European Union data privacy for failing to protect users' passwords, it was announced yesterday.

 

The investigation was launched in April 2019, after Meta notified the Irish authority that they had inadvertently stored certain passwords of social media users in "plaintext" – meaning without encryption – on their internal systems. 

 

The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), requires companies to implement appropriate security measures when processing personal data.

 

“It is widely accepted that user passwords should not be stored in plaintext, considering the risks of abuse that arise from persons accessing such data. It must be borne in mind that the passwords the subject of consideration in this case, are particularly sensitive, as they would enable access to users’ social media accounts”, Graham Doyle, Deputy Commissioner at the Data Protection Commission, the Irish supervisory authority for the GDPR, said in a statement.

 

It’s not the first GDPR fine for Meta. In 2023, the company were hit with a record €1.2 billion fine by the Irish regulator for "continuing to transfer personal data" of users from the European Economic Area to the US after the EU’s highest court invalidated an EU-to-US data transfer agreement due to surveillance concerns. And in 2022, Meta were fined €265 million after data of more than 533 million users was found dumped online.

 

It has to be pointed out that for a company that make tens of billions a year in profits, it's just another cost of doing business.

Hostages Are The Sausages

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An awkward gaffe from Keir Starmer!

 

UK's prime minister during his Labour party conference speech in Liverpool on Tuesday had demanded the "return of the sausages", instead of the "hostages", in regards to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. 

 

He must have been having hunger pangs at that time. Anyway, the flub will not be forgotten so soon.

 

On another note, the UK has resumed funding for UNRWA, which the country suspended following allegations from Israel that members of their staff had participated in the October 07 assault last year.

 

I saw this on ...where else ...but Facebook!

 

 

Social Media Puts Rarest Flora and Fauna At Risk

Social media poses a new and increasing threat to vulnerable species and habitats around the world.

A new paper "Liked to death: the impacts of social media and photography on biodiversity" in the Science of The Total Environment, Volume 949, November 01, 2024, informs us that the advent and everyday prominence of social media is fueling a rise in nature tourism and photography to share experiences online. 

This is increasingly resulting in disturbance to natural environments and causing a range of direct and indirect impacts to native species. Direct disturbances arising from social media use include behavioral and physiological impacts, such as disruptions to breeding and feeding and increased predation risk. The use of call playback, drones and baiting of animals for photographs also have a range of negative impacts. Other direct impacts include the capture and handling of animals for photographs and damage and trampling to plants. Indirect impacts include the spread of diseases and increased poaching of flora and fauna. 

Robert Davis (left), a senior lecturer in wildlife ecology at Edith Cowan University, Australia and the paper’s lead author, says the research was “driven by collective rage” at having seen pristine natural spots and vulnerable species negatively affected by visitors.

“There’s actually probably never been a time in human history where you can share information so rapidly to so many people, and with that has come this immense pressure to systems”, he says.

The capercaillie (Scientific name: Tetrao urogallus) is a birders’ dream. Only about 530 of the large woodland grouse survive in the UK wild, most in Scotland’s Cairngorms national park. But in recent years, those tasked with saving the species from extinction have had to walk a line between calling attention to the birds’ plight and discouraging people from seeking them out.

Although it is illegal to disturb capercaillie during the breeding season from March to August, that hasn’t deterred birders and nature photographers, motivated by the possibility of a prestigious spot – or shot. Over the 2022 season, 17 people were found on or around the “lek”, where male birds gather to compete for the attention of females in spring, says Carolyn Robertson, the project manager of the Cairngorms Capercaillie Project.

That same year, a birdwatcher was caught on camera, flushing six capercaillie from the breeding site. The man was arrested, but let go with a verbal warning. By then the damage may have already been done.

Even fleeting disruption can “make the difference between birds breeding, or not”, says Robertson. “We know that it increases their stress levels, so there’s a high chance they didn’t come back to the area to breed that morning; they might not have returned for days”.

With so few birds remaining in the wild, human disturbance could be “catastrophic” for the species, Robertson says – but discouraging nature enthusiasts from seeking them out has proved challenging. “When people have taken photographs of capercaillie and put them online, they’ve been liked thousands of times. By the time we ask them to take them down, it’s got them so much kudos, they don’t want to do so”.

In 2022, packs of photographers turned up in Shetland, seeking a sight of the elusive lanceolated warbler (Scientific name: Locustella lanceolata) potentially causing the bird to abandon the area. 

This August, a photographer was fined more than £1,600 for disturbing a nesting European honey buzzard (Scientific name: Pernis apivorus) in Wales.

In China, populations of the critically endangered blue-crowned laughingthrush (Scientific name: Garrulax courtoisi) restricted to a small area of Jiangxi province, are believed to have changed their nesting habits in response to “severe” disturbance from wildlife photographers.

Davis and his wife, Belinda, a biologist and co-author of the paper, live in Perth, Australia and they know only too well how online attention has proved especially problematic for Western Australia’s endemic orchids.

The Eastern Queen of Sheba orchid (Scientific name: Thelymitra speciosa) which can take 10 years to bloom and is found only in a small area of south-west Western Australia, is such a desirable find for orchid hunters that plants in the wild have had to be put under protection. 

“They’ve had to fence that orchid, put cameras on it and have guardians for it”, says Davis. “That really exemplifies the extreme end”.

Sometimes, only one post about a flowering orchid can result in hundreds of visitors to the site, Davis says, putting the plants at risk of being damaged or poached. 

He acknowledges that the impact on vulnerable species is minor relative to the broader threats posed by habitat loss and invasive species. But social media perpetuates the problem, Davis says. “Ultimately, it fuels demand: the rarer something is, the more people want to see it”. 

It highlights a mounting conflict between conservation aims, and those invested in seeing a species before it’s too late.

Rhetoric for Persuasive Communication

I came across this statement by @ObiWanFranklinX made on X on Friday: "She's rhetorically challenged. She's rhetorted".

 

[Note: The commentator was referring to Kamala Harris because when she opens her mouth, almost without fail, what comes out is "word salad"!

 

For those who are still "blur" about the meaning of "word salad", it is a mixture of words or phrases that is confused and difficult to understand. In fact, you can say that Kamala Harris and "word salad" are synonymous].

 

The weighty remarks made at the start of this post immediately remind me of rhetoric which is language designed to effect persuasion. 

 

Speakers (and writers) ought to learn to use rhetorical appeals – and rightfully, Harris (right), who aspires to be the President of the United States of America on November 05, should be no exception.

 

But then again, she cannot even speak properly – and so, I certainly must not expect her to be able to use rhetoric, much less speak clearly.

 

For the rest of us who endeavor to boost our persuasive communication, we should appreciate the importance of rhetoric. Simply put, rhetoric is the art of persuasive speaking (or writing), especially the different ways in which we use words to present an idea.

 

It is a term that has its roots dating back to ancient Greece. Back then, they focused on persuasion techniques and speech rather than written text. Now, rhetoric encompasses not only speeches and written works, but also visual rhetorics such as images and film.

 

Essentially, rhetoric serves to communicate a message that shapes how the audience receives the information. Knowing how to use the tools of rhetoric can, not only enhance your communication, but it can help more people to agree with your perspective. 

 

We call it, rhetorical appeal.

 

Generally speaking, rhetorical appeal refers to the methods you use to persuade your audience. There are three types of appeals, which I commonly refer to as EPL:

 

Ethos 

 

Ethos is a two-fold appeal. The speaker uses their credibility on the subject to appeal to the values and attitudes of listeners. Your credibility as a speaker is influenced by your competence and experience on the subject. For instance, if you’re trying to get support for environmental conservation, your message will be better received by an eco-conscious crowd if you have an excellent record as an activist. 

 

A rhetor is the owner of a message. As the speaker, writer, or creator of a piece of information, you decide what the message is, how to craft it and when to deliver it. And in making an ethical appeal, the rhetor must also be able to prove their character. 

 

While credibility is about experience, character is about personality traits. When you show that you are of good character, you earn the trust of your audience. When forming ethical appeals, highlight the values that matter to your audience and include why they are important to you. This way, you can create a strong connection with your audience.

 

Pathos 

 

Pathos is an appeal to the sensibilities and emotions of your audience. You can do this by connecting to the emotions your audience already has toward an issue or by evoking new emotions in them. Distinct emotions you can connect with include happiness, sadness, anger and hope.

 

Emotions can influence decision-making. People may be more receptive to pathos than to logos. You can support an emotional appeal through: 

• Vivid imagery describing people or events that others will find relatable 
• Personal stories that your listeners can empathize with 
• Descriptive storytelling techniques 
  

Logos 

 

Logos is an appeal to logic or reason. When you use logos to make your appeal, you support your message with objective evidence – statistics, facts and other verified data. A logical argument is clear and consistent. 

 

To appeal to logos, you must consider the audience and the context of the rhetorical situation. You can support logos through: 

• Using deductive or inductive reasoning 
• Detailing a certain point 
• Making comparisons
  

All these three kinds of rhetorical appeals are governed by time and opportunity. When forming your rhetorical strategy, you should be mindful of the place, time and purpose of your message. 

 

You may even apply a combination of all three appeals to craft a cogent, compelling and convincing narrative.

So, the next time you speak (or write), I challenge you to employ EPL in your speeches (or writings).

Nishimura's Real Ice Coffee

From July-August only, at Nishimura Coffee Shop (or Kobe Nishimura Kohi-ten, 神戸にしむら珈琲店), in Kobe, Japan, you can order this special iced coffee for a unique experience. 

 

Instead of being filled with ice cubes, this delicious looking coffee is served inside of a giant, square ice cube.

 

Apparently, using a giant block of ice for a cup keeps your coffee cold and strong for hours.

 

While this gimmick might seem like it’s made for a generation of social media users, there is apparently a method to this madness. In fact, it’s not just about the great pictures you can post on Instagram. The magic of using enormous blocks of ice like this, is that they actually melt quite slowly. Ice-cold coffee can be sipped out of the ice over the course of hours without getting warm or watered down.

 

The best part of this drink looks like the ice you can scrape from the sides of the cup, which forms into a tasty looking coffee slushie over time.

 

This elegant cafe, which is a 12-minute walk from Sannomiya station, was started in 1948, and is known for their delicious tea, pastries, and now, their ice block coffee which was introduced in 2022.

 

 

Yesterday, Liverpool began their defence of the EFL Cup by coming from behind to thrash West Ham United 5-1 at Anfield and teeing up a fourth-round meeting with Brighton.

 

The visitors took the lead in the twenty-first minute, with a scramble in the box following a corner seeing Wataru Endo clear the ball into Jarell Quansah for an unfortunate own goal.

 

The Hammers' lead lasted just four minutes as Federico Chiesa marked his first start for the Reds with an assist after the winger's acrobatic volley into the ground bounced up for Diogo Jota to head the equaliser. The Portugal forward scored his second in the forty-ninth minute with a low and composed finish in front of the Kop after a lovely pass by Curtis Jones.

 

Liverpool again found the net as Mohamed Salah finished from close range in the 74th minute. And then, Cody Gakpo piled on the misery for West Ham by scoring Liverpool’s fourth and fifth goals when he rifled into the bottom corner in the 90th minute and added his second with a deflected effort in the 93th minute.

Durians To Blame For Making Coffee More Expensive

How much is too much for a caffeine fix?

 

Prices like £5 in London or $7 in New York for a cup of coffee may be unthinkable for some – but could soon become a reality thanks to a "perfect storm" of economic and environmental factors in the world's top coffee-producing regions.

 

The cost of unroasted beans traded in global markets is now at a "historically high level", says analyst Judy Ganes. And experts blame a mix of troubled crops, market forces, depleted stockpiles – and the world’s smelliest fruit.

 

So how did we get here, and just how much will it impact your morning latte?

 

In 2021, a freak frost wiped out coffee crops in Brazil, the world's largest producer of Arabica beans – those commonly used in barista-made coffee. This bean shortfall meant buyers turned to countries like Vietnam, the primary producer of Robusta beans, that are typically used in instant blends. But farmers there faced the region’s worst drought in nearly a decade. 

 

Climate change has been affecting the development of coffee plants (Genus: Coffea; family: Rubiaceae), according to Will Frith, a coffee consultant based in Ho Chi Minh City, in turn impacting bean yields. And then Vietnamese farmers pivoted to the durian (Genus: Durio).

 

The fruit is proving popular in China and is in high demand. And so, Vietnamese farmers are replacing their coffee crops with durian to cash in on this emerging market. In fact, Vietnam's durian market share in China almost doubled between 2023 and 2024, and some estimate the crop is five times more lucrative than coffee.

 

"There’s a history of growers in Vietnam being fickle in response to market price fluctuations, over-committing, and then flooding the market with quantities of their new crop", Frith says. As they flooded China with durians, Robusta coffee exports were down 50% in June compared to the previous June, and stocks were now "near depleted", according to the International Coffee Organisation.

 

Exporters in Colombia, Ethiopia, Peru and Uganda have stepped up, but have not produced enough to ease a tight market.

 

"Right at [the] time when things started to rev up for demand of Robusta, is right when the world was scrambling for more supply", explains Ganes. This means Robusta and Arabica beans are now trading at near-record highs on commodity markets.

 

But industry figures caution that a high market price for coffee may not necessarily translate into higher retail prices.

 

Felipe Barretto Croce, CEO of FAFCoffees in Brazil, agrees that consumers are "feeling the pinch" as consumer prices have risen. But he argues that is "mostly due to inflationary costs in general", such as rent and labor, rather than the cost of beans. 

 

Consultancy Allegra Strategies estimate beans contribute less than 10% of the price of a cup of coffee. "Coffee is still very cheap, as a luxury good, if you make it at home".

 

Besides, the cost of lower-quality beans rising means high-quality coffee may now be seen as better value. "If you go into a specialty coffee shop in London and get a coffee, versus a coffee in Costa Coffee, the difference [in price] between that cup and the specialty coffee is much smaller than it used to be".

 

From what I've read, don't expect price relief anytime soon. It is already said that in the long term, climate change already poses serious challenges for the global coffee industry.

 

A 2022 study "Expected global suitability of coffee, cashew and avocado due to climate change" by Roman Grüter et al, affiliated with the Institute of Natural Resource Sciences, Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Wädenswil, Switzerland and published in Plos One had concluded that even if we drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the area most highly suited for growing coffee could decline by 50% by 2050.

 

One measure to future-proof the industry that has the support of Croce is a "green premium" – a small tax levied on coffee given to farmers to invest in regenerative agricultural practices, which help protect and sustain the viability of farmlands.

 

So while the durian is partly responsible for price rises now – a changing climate may ultimately strain the affordability of coffee in the years to come.

 

McDonald's Filet-O-Fish Sandwich

You don't have to be a particular fan of a fish sandwich to love McDonald's Filet-O-Fish. There's just something delectable about that crispy piece of flaky white fish, the cheese, and the bun that's brilliant in its simplicity. 

 

Have you ever wondered what kind of fish it is? If so, you're not alone – and we have some seriously good news for you. Not only do McDonald's pride themselves on sourcing sustainable fish, but the particular type of fish they use is one of Alaska's most plentiful. (When it comes to food, at least).

 

The McDonald's Filet-O-Fish is probably fresher than you might expect, too: It wasn't too long before you bit into your piping hot fish sandwich that the fish inside was frolicking in the waters around Alaska and the Bering Sea. That's because the Filet-O-Fish is made with Alaska Pollock (Scientific name: Gadus chalcogrammus). 

 

The fish destined for your McD's sandwich are wild-caught as opposed to being farm-raised, and the strict regulations that govern the industry have made this not only one of the most sustainable fish but a fish population that isn't susceptible to overfishing and one that leads to almost no by-catch. (That's the measure of other species that are also caught along with the fish or are killed by fishing practices).

 

Interestingly, the Filet-O-Fish was almost made with a very different fish. The initial plan was to use halibut, which was then switched to cod. It remained a cod sandwich for around 50 years, but today, McDonald's customers are served up a fish that's described as a sustainable and nutritious powerhouse.

 

McDonald's sell a lot of Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, to the tune of 300 million a year (as of 2023). It makes sense, then, that their efforts to use a sustainable fish is a pretty big deal. In fact, in 2013, they started displaying the iconic blue fish of the Marine Stewardship Council, becoming the only national restaurant in the US to carry this distinction. That's a testament to the sustainable fishing practices used all along the process of plucking the fish from the seas to getting it to your drive-thru bag.

 

Alaska pollock has more than sustainability going for it; it's also prized for its mild flavor, flaky texture, and nutritional benefits. It's high in omega-3 fatty acids, and since it's frozen while it's still at sea, you get surprisingly fresh fish. And chances are good that you've had it in places other than McDonald's: It's said to be one of the most popular types of fish in the US.

Rape Epidemics in Two Countries

India's rape epidemic is abhorrent and alarming. 

 

From the harrowing daylight rape* of a woman on a bustling street in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh on September 04, 2024 to the brutal rape and murder of a trainee doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 09, 2024, India’s exploding crisis of sexual violence against women is not just a series of grim statistics – it represents a national tragedy. And a national shame.

 

[*Instead of intervening, passersby filmed the sexual assault on their phones and posted the video on social media, where it quickly went viral].

 

These incidents are far from isolated or random; they are glaring testaments to a systemic collapse across the country. In 2022, the last available government figures reveal a staggering 31,000 reported cases of rapes, amounting to 85 rapes per day. 

 

These horrifying numbers are only the tip of the iceberg, with countless assaults concealed beneath layers of societal pressure, fear of retaliation, and systemic failures.

 

But India is not alone on this appalling issue. UK is equally as bad. 

 

There is one rape reported every hour in London, according to police data published on Friday. Almost 8,800 cases were handled in 2023, which is an average of 24 each day.

 

The figures, obtained by state broadcaster the BBC through Freedom of Information requests, show a further 11,000 reports of other sexual offences. 

 

The totals increased by 14% over the last five years to almost 20,000 in 2023, which means that sexual violence or rape was reported to police every 26 and a half minutes, on average.

 

Charities concerned with protecting children and women against sexual violence said the true extent of such incidents is far higher. The London-based Rape Crisis center claim only one in six women who are raped report the crime. Among male victims that figure is said to be one in five. Only one in four will report other types of sexual assault.

 

Shockingly, the police statistics also reveal that over 4,300 children reported being a victim of rape or sexual assault in 2023.

 

And following a series of high-profile incidents of violence against women by serving London Metropolitan Police officers, the issue of public confidence in policing has received even greater attention. Only four out of ten people in England say they trust the police, with the UK capital’s cops getting the lowest score, a survey suggested in April. A total of 657 Met officers were under investigation for sexual abuse, domestic abuse, or a combination of both last year.

 

Note: I don't know about elsewhere – but the above has been amply highlighted in the media worldwide.