Society's ChildS


Brick Wall

Japan ends coronavirus emergency with 850 deaths and no lockdown

Jason Lemon
Newsweek
Mon, 25 May 2020 11:26 UTC
tokyo face masks
© CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP/GettyPeople wearing face masks cross a street in Tokyo's Shinjuku area on May 25 amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has announced the end of his state of emergency declaration for the novel coronavirus pandemic, with just 851 deaths reported and without ever implementing a lockdown.

"I have decided to end the state of emergency across the nation," Abe said during a televised press conference on Monday. "In just over a month and a half, we almost brought (the infection) situation under control."

Abe cautioned that lifting the order did not mean that the novel virus was gone from Japan. "Our battle against the virus will continue," he said, while urging the Japanese people to continue following stringent social distancing guidance.

Comment: It's quite likely that, much as with Russia, the Japanese did not count every death with coronavirus, despite comorbidities, as deaths from coronavirus. This will make a remarkable difference with the numbers and give a much more realistic view of how deadly the virus truly is. Had western nations been following the same logic, their numbers would likely have appeared similar to Japan's. But they wouldn't want that, now would they?

See also:

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NPC

Best of the Web: The Great UnReason of 2020: The 'curious, but quite authentic, inability to think'

Jack Kerwick
Frontpage Mag
Thu, 07 May 2020 00:00 UTC

Comment: ...hence Sott.net is 'the world for people who think'. Our relatively small readership is roughly how many out there can think!


Hannah Arendt.
Upon the Nazis' rise to power, Hannah Arendt, a Jewish woman who would go on to become a considerable 20th century philosopher, had to flee with her family from her native Germany.

Once the war was over and some prominent Nazis were brought to justice, Arendt attended the trial in Jerusalem of Adolph Eichmann, the architect of the Holocaust.

The experience left an indelible impression upon her, one that would shape the trajectory of her philosophical thinking. What she observed was that, much to her surprise, Eichmann wasn't the incarnation of evil that she expected to encounter. His actions were monstrous, yes; but he was remarkably ordinary or "banal," to use Arendt's term of choice.

What struck Arendt was Eichmann's "curious, but authentic, inability to think."
"However monstrous the deeds were, the doer was neither monstrous nor demonic, and the only specific characteristic one could detect in his past as well as in his behavior during the trial and the preceding police examination was something entirely negative: it was not stupidity but a curious, quite authentic inability to think."
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Light Saber

It's time to step into the arena

Michael Krieger
Libertyblitzkrieg
Tue, 19 May 2020 00:00 UTC
gladiator
There's a passage in Teddy Roosevelt's famous 1910 "Citizenship in a Republic" speech I want to share with you today:
If a man's efficiency is not guided and regulated by a moral sense, then the more efficient he is the worse he is, the more dangerous to the body politic. Courage, intellect, all the masterful qualities, serve but to make a man more evil if they are merely used for that man's own advancement, with brutal indifference to the rights of others. It speaks ill for the community if the community worships those qualities and treats their possessors as heroes regardless of whether the qualities are used rightly or wrongly. It makes no difference as to the precise way in which this sinister efficiency is shown. It makes no difference whether such a man's force and ability betray themselves in a career of money-maker or politician, soldier or orator, journalist or popular leader.

If the man works for evil, then the more successful he is the more he should be despised and condemned by all upright and far-seeing men. To judge a man merely by success is an abhorrent wrong; and if the people at large habitually so judge men, if they grow to condone wickedness because the wicked man triumphs, they show their inability to understand that in the last analysis free institutions rest upon the character of citizenship, and that by such admiration of evil they prove themselves unfit for liberty.
The above words strike me as a perfect description of the deep hole we find ourselves in presently throughout these United States of America. It takes a whole nation to screw things up as badly as we have, and boy have we ever.
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Whistle

Release the Karens! Entitled tyrants are the latest scourge plaguing coronavirus-ridden US


RT
Tue, 26 May 2020 11:43 UTC
karen
© Brett Sayles from Pexels
Viral video shows a mob of shoppers berating a woman for entering a Staten Island store without wearing a face mask. This and other examples show the tyranny of the 'Karens' which is sweeping the US, mid-coronavirus crisis.

Just one tweet of the Staten Island scene, which was originally posted on Facebook, has been viewed more than 6.2 million times since it was posted on May 25.

"This mess has revealed a LOT of people's inner Karen," quipped one Twitter user, referencing the wildly popular meme depicting the entitled middle-aged woman who bosses fellow citizens around with impunity and demands to speak to the manager.

Comment: When a tyrannical government uses a contrived crisis to hystericize and empower its authoritarian followers a plague of Karens will surely follow: Also check out SOTT radio's: Objective:Health - The Menace of the Authoritarian Follower

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Bulb

Enough is enough: Belgium 'won't impose' strict measures again even in case of 2nd coronavirus wave


RT
Mon, 25 May 2020 18:20 UTC
belgium
© Reuters / Francois Lenoir
Belgium will not return to the strict measures imposed for nearly two months to combat the coronavirus outbreak, even if there's a second wave of Covid-19 cases, according to the interior minister.

The country of 11.5 million people effectively closed down in mid-March, with only shops selling food and pharmacies operating. Other activities have steadily resumed in May, including the reopening of non-food stores. "The first lockdown has taken care of the situation in which we have ended up. These were exceptional circumstances, but we never had Italian or Spanish conditions," minister Pieter De Crem told the Flemish television channel VTM on Sunday.

"If there was a second wave, then I think we will find ourselves in a different situation, namely with testing and tracing. But I think we can rule out that we will have to go back to the tough measures," De Crem said.

Belgium, which is home to both the EU and NATO headquarters, has been among the worst affected countries in Europe, with 57,092 Covid-19 cases and 9,280 deaths, Reuters said. The number of cases, hospital admissions and fatalities has declined since peaking in early April.
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Syringe

CROOKS: Two Moderna executives sold $30 million of stock before truth about vaccine trial failure was uncovered

Joaquin Flores
Fort Russ
Tue, 26 May 2020 18:09 UTC
Lorence Kim Tal Zaks Moderna
Two executives at drug firm Moderna quietly sold nearly $30 million of stock when they unveiled a coronavirus vaccine and value surged, before the share price quickly fell again amid skepticism from the medical community.

Moderna's chief financial officer Lorence Kim and chief medical officer Tal Zaks dumped the staggering value of stocks on Monday and Tuesday when the share price skyrocketed following the company's announcement of what it described as 'positive' results from its vaccine trial.

The two executives pocketed almost $25 million in profits in a day's work before experts cast doubt on the vaccine's success and sent shares tumbling. FRN reported on the false reports, citing an article written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that the Moderna vaccine results were a failure.

Fake fact checkers working for social media firms tagged FRN's report as 'false information', insisting instead that the Moderna tests had been a success. Investors in biotech and pharma, and the virologists they depend on, apparently agreed with FRN's assessment.
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Laptop

Israeli research centers developing coronavirus vaccine hit by attackers - report


Sputnik
Tue, 26 May 2020 18:17 UTC
computer hacker
© CC0
According to Israeli cybersecurity company Checkpoint Software Technologies, attacks on laboratories developing a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 have recently increased, with cybercriminals targeting not only Israel, but other countries. The firm said 20,000 attacks related to the coronavirus are reported every day.

Israeli research centers working on a vaccine for the novel coronavirus were among the targets of a large-scale cyber attack on Israel, the nation's Channel 12 reported without citing its sources and elaborating on how many institutes were affected. According to the channel, hackers wanted to sabotage the development of the vaccine, but not steal information.

The attacks on research centres were part of a large-scale cyber assault on Israel that occurred on 21 May and targeted hundreds and some Hebrew-language media said even thousands of websites of political groups, organisations, big companies, and individuals. The homepages of the websites featured an anti-Israel video showing Israeli cities being bombed.

The video started with threatening messages. The first, in English, read: "Be ready for a big surprise", another one written in Hebrew read: "The countdown of Israel's destruction began a long time ago".
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Bad Guys

'Make Germany great again': Ukrainian strategy game about WWII glorifies NAZISM, Russian diplomats say


RT
Tue, 26 May 2020 18:14 UTC
'Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg'
© Starni GamesAn alternative reality Nazi military parade in the Red Square in Moscow
The Russian UN mission in Geneva has criticized a freshly released computer game where players are expected to lead Nazi Germany's forces to "bittersweet victory," with Hitler holding a parade in Moscow.

The diplomats blasted the wargame 'Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg' on Tuesday, saying it "glorifies Nazism and international criminals convicted by the Nuremberg Tribunal." The tweet featured a screenshot from an in-game storyline cinematic video showing Adolf Hitler and Nazi top brass standing atop the Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow's Red Square.

The game was made by the Kiev-based company Starni Games and was released last week. The player, according to the game's description, will "lead the German armed forces, overcoming unthinkable odds and claiming the ultimate bittersweet victory in Europe" during an 80-hour-long campaign.
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Eye 1

Verification purge? Multiple Twitter accounts lose blue checks after interviewing 'wrongthinkers'


RT
Mon, 25 May 2020 17:37 UTC
twitter eye
© Reuters / Fabrizio Bensch
Twitter has purged the blue "verification" checks from the accounts of journalists and podcasters who posted interviews with subjects considered controversial in the ever-narrowing centrist-liberal mainstream.

Mediaite journalist August Takala was stripped of his coveted blue check just an hour after tweeting an interview with former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson, he tweeted on Friday to his 4,000-plus followers. The following day, Wrong Opinion podcaster Josh Lekach tweeted that he, too, had had his blue check revoked after interviewing conservative provocateur (and now congressional candidate) Laura Loomer, who is herself banned from Twitter and several other platforms. Lekach has over 18,700 followers.

What do the two commentators have in common? Both interviewed unapologetic thorns in the Democratic establishment's side. Attkisson, a veteran investigative reporter who now helms Full Measure on Sinclair Media, has long claimed she was surveilled extensively and illegally by the Obama administration - and she told Takala that "many, many others" were also likely spied upon.
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NPC

'Ultimate Karen' calls cops on 'dangerous' black man who asked her to leash dog, gets put on leave after massive backlash


RT
Tue, 26 May 2020 17:21 UTC
walk in the park
© Reuters / Stoyan Nenov
A New York woman dubbed the "Ultimate Karen" has been placed on leave and forced to "voluntarily surrender" her pet after being captured calling the cops on a "threatening" black man who merely asked that she leash her dog.

Shared on social media on Monday and set in Central Park, the video opens with a visibly-upset woman walking toward the camera, asking the man filming to "please stop." The situation quickly escalates when he refuses, with the woman vowing to call the police and "tell them there's an African American man threatening my life."

"There is a man, an African American... he is recording me and threatening me and my dog," she is heard telling the 911 dispatcher, becoming frantic as she shouts: "I am being threatened by a man!"

The clip went viral after it was shared online by Melody Cooper, a writer and director for HBO whose brother, Christian, captured the footage. At no point in the video is the woman threatened, with Cooper explaining the whole incident began after her brother "politely [asked]" that the woman put her dog on a leash - as the park mandates.
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