Society's ChildS


Pumpkin

Chris Wallace tweets being 'jealous' of Kristen Welker: New moderator wins praise from all sides for managing 'civilized' debate

Chris Wallace Kristen Welker
© Olivier Douliery/ REUTERS; REUTERS/Jim BourgChris Wallace during the first 2020 presidential debate and Kristen Welker during the second 2020 presidential debate
NBC News correspondent Kristen Welker won praise from both the political left and right - including kudos from Donald Trump himself - for finally giving Americans a presidential debate without controversy over moderator bias.

Thursday night's performance by Welker in the final debate between President Trump and Democrat rival Joe Biden stood in stark contrast to the handling of this fall's previous debates and town hall meetings by moderators and hosts. Fox News host Chris Wallace, in particular, was pilloried for his performance in the September 29 Trump-Biden debate, after which he was blasted by Democrats for failing to take control over the conversation and ripped by Republicans for being "shamelessly biased" against Trump.

Comment:


Heart - Black

Andrew Cuomo continues his self-aggrandizing Covid-19 victory lap while reimposing ruinous lockdowns on New York

Cuomo
© Getty Images via AFP/Getty Images North America/Spencer PlattNew York Governor Andrew Cuomo
The New York governor has praised his own response to the pandemic, touting the state's low infection rate to sell his new book, even as he again places dire restrictions on residents, insisting the virus is back. So, which is it?

In one version of Cuomo's New York, the state - and especially New York City - has come out the other side of its dire stint at the center of the US Covid-19 epidemic victorious. Businesses are reopening, birds are singing, and residents are praising his steadfast leadership. In the other version, the virus has returned to the gates, requiring New Yorkers to make sacrifices, shut down businesses that have just reopened after punishing (and in many cases financially fatal) months-long lockdowns, submit to humiliating and expensive 'mask patrols,' and... praise Cuomo's steadfast leadership.

Surely these worlds can't simultaneously exist?

Comment: Fair criticism - Cuomo should give a listen (but he won't). Perhaps the people still trapped in New York experiencing this nightmare will. Cuomo has perpetrated a basket of crimes on his constituency, the consequences of which will play out for years to come.


Gold Seal

Best of the Web: Lockdown Lunacy 4.0: The Illusion of Control

lockdown
The story I will tell my grandchildren someday will go something like this:

A totalitarian regime — China — flipped out and locked down an entire city when they discovered a new virus. Most of the world's leaders, throwing out a century of hard-earned knowledge about how to manage through infectious disease outbreaks, ended up doing the same thing in a panicky week fueled by trumped-up death models created by people with fancy degrees. As the details began to emerge that the original forecasts and death rates were way overblown, most leaders doubled-down on stupid policies, unwilling to acknowledge an obvious truth: governments don't stop viruses. Instead, they continued to take their shockingly-acquiescent populations on a year-long snipe hunt. Mercifully, a few countries and U.S. states took a different path, so that a world without these ridiculous policies exists to highlight the idiocy.

Italy: did everything right...and now the virus is back?

In yesterday's Daily Beast, the headline tells the whole story: Italy Did Everything Right to Stop a Second Wave of the Coronavirus. So What Went Wrong? The article explains:
What's particularly troubling about the return of COVID in Italy is that the country has done everything experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci have been advising. Face masks in public places have been compulsory for months, social distancing is strongly enforced, nightclubs have never reopened, and sporting arenas are at less than a third of capacity. Children who are back at school are regularly tested and strictly social-distanced, and yet, the second wave seems completely unstoppable.
So, wait. Italy is following, more strictly, the many recommendations being made by Governors and public health officials here in the U.S., and yet the problem is getting worse? The article continues:
While ruling out another full lockdown, Italian health officials are instead urging people to limit their own movements, even as concern grows that by keeping them at their homes, they are inadvertently encouraging private parties where the spread seems to be the worst at the moment. Italy's health ministry released data this week showing that 80.3 percent of the new infections "occur at home" while only 4.2 percent come from recreational activities and schools.
I found this article to be shockingly honest for a somewhat mainstream publication, and the conclusion for anyone with the capacity to think independently is fairly obvious: you can't stop a virus. And, for reasons that I'm sure psychologists will be analyzing for decades to come, both your fellow citizens and many politicians seem to be suffering from a deeply destructive condition: the illusion of control. The Daily Beast's article concludes with a dreary statement that I think every American will soon realize is true for all of us, too:
But for many, the sacrifices that helped during the first round seem lost now, as though they had been made in vain.

Comment: Handley's previous entries in this series are still worth reading:


Black Magic

Best of the Web: Lockdowns will cause 10 times more harm to human health than COVID-19 itself, says infectious disease expert

corona dilemma
The Corona Dilemma, as described by economist Paul Frijters, The London School of Economics
The harm caused by lockdowns is much worse than the disease of COVID-19. That's the argument from numerous public health officials and economists around the world, including an Alberta expert in infectious disease and critical care, Dr. Ari Joffe of the Stollery Children's Hospital and the University of Alberta.

"I'm truly worried the (lockdown) approach is going to devastate economies and the future for our children and our grandchildren," says Joffe, who has practised at the Stollery for 25 years and has now written a review paper on the impacts of the lockdown.

The cost of lockdowns in Canada is at least 10 times higher than the benefit in terms of population health and well-being, he estimates, at least if you account for numerous variables such as economic recession, social isolation and impacts on life expectancy, education and the full gamut of health-care priorities.

If you look at the issue worldwide, lockdowns will cause at least five times and, more likely, as much as 50 times more harm than benefit.

Many public health experts continue to implement mandatory lockdowns, as seen recently in Ontario and Quebec. But Joffe no longer supports most such measures, which is an about-face from his position in March.

Comment: Meanwhile, there is this bit of correspondence from Ellen Townsend, published the Lancet:
The lockdown to "flatten the curve" of COVID-19 has caused harm to many people globally. Over the past 6 months it has been nearly impossible to discern what the UK government strategy is in relation to the virus: suppression, or following of the model used in Sweden to foster community immunity? In mid-September, things became clearer: the UK is on a course for suppression until a vaccine or effective mass testing is in place. For good measure, UK residents have all been punished by new limits to the number of people socialising together, and have been warned that further restrictions could be imposed unless their supposedly reckless social behaviour improves. Frightening graphs depicting scenarios rather than predictions have been used to terrify people about the resurgence of the virus. However, it might be years before a safe vaccine is available, and the mass testing proposal dubbed moonshot is scientifically unsound and could do more harm than good.

There is another way. One which takes account of the fact that COVID-19 does not have equal effects across age groups: for young people the risk of COVID-19 seems to be very low but the mental health of young people has been disproportionately affected during this crisis. We should allow young people to go about their lives normally and protect those who are older and more susceptible in a humane and compassionate manner; infectious diseases specialists have good ideas about implementing this suggestion. However, in late September, hundreds of healthy, young students in Scotland and Manchester, UK, have been locked down, banned from visiting home and family, and threatened that they might not be able to go home for Christmas. It is hard to see how this policy is within the bounds of human rights and I am deeply concerned about the impact of such measures on mental health and wellbeing.

Many people have highlighted the need not to medicalise natural reactions to the global crisis that the global community is facing as a mental illness. However, the global community cannot, and should not, ignore the evidence amassing to suggest that people of all ages are struggling. Increases in suicidal ideation and self-harm have been observed among young people in China before and after lockdown according to prospective studies that were able to collect cohort data. It is clear that young children have been badly affected by lockdown.

Moving forward, nations should prioritise young people. They have suffered immensely in this crisis and sacrificed a lot. Moreover, the economic devastation will have an enormous impact on young people who will bear this burden for years to come. The association between economic downturn and suicide has been shown repeatedly across the globe.Services and support for those in distress should now be prioritised and made easily accessible, in the virtual and real world. Mental health should not be left behind in this crisis. For young people, whole-school approaches involving mental health awareness have been shown to reduce suicidal ideation and behaviour. Such evidence-based mental-health interventions should be implemented, urgently, at scale in the community.



Bad Guys

Authorities: Damascus Grand Mufti killed in targeted terrorist attack

missile attack damascus
© SANAExplosions over Damascus
Sheikh Muhammad Adnan Al-Afyouni was "martyred" as an explosive device planted in his car was detonated on Thursday night.

Damascus' grand mufti has been killed in a reported IED attack on his vehicle in the Syrian city of Qudsaya, according to state news agency Sana.

Info

New Yahoo News/YouGov poll: Half of Trump supporters believe QAnon's imaginary claims

QAnon protester
© Brian Snyder/ReutersA man wearing a QAnon vest attends a "No Mandatory Flu Shot Massachusetts" demonstration in Boston on Aug. 30.
A full 50 percent of President Trump's supporters now believe the bizarre, made-up claims about an international ring of child sex traffickers at the core of the extremist conspiracy theory known as QAnon, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll — a disturbing sign of how susceptible partisans have become to bogus stories in an age of rampant polarization and unbridled social media.

The survey, which interviewed 1,583 registered voters from Oct. 16 to 18, shows that most of the registered voters (55 percent) say they've never heard of QAnon, including 44 percent of Trump supporters. And 59 percent of voters who have heard of QAnon describe it as "an extremist conspiracy theory with no basis in fact." (The survey has a margin of error of about 4 percent.)

Yet these numbers understate the degree to which awareness and even acceptance of QAnon's underlying falsehoods have permeated the right, regardless of how many unwitting adherents explicitly realize such fictions originate with QAnon itself.

Comment: Much of the nonsense spouted by Q is rather easily debunked. But does that mean there are no Democrats engaged in child sex-trafficking? Keep in mind that evidence for elite pedophile rings was around long before Q drops started showing up on 8chan. It's almost as if the entire idea is being dismissed due to its association with Qspiracies. Funny, that.

See also:


Bizarro Earth

Deadly knife attacker in Dresden was under German 'intelligence surveillance' on the day of the attack

dresden stab
German police say they have arrested an asylum seeker suspected of killing one person and wounding another in Dresden two weeks ago. Prosecutors are now treating the deadly stabbing as a possible terrorist attack.

A 20-year-old Syrian who stabbed one person to death and wounded another in Dresden was likely motivated by Islamic extremism, German prosecutors said on Wednesday.

The man was arrested on Tuesday evening, police and prosecutors in the eastern German city said. They said the suspect came to authorities' attention as a result of examining evidence at the crime scene.

Comment: RT provides more details:
The suspect was being monitored by Germany's domestic intelligence agency on the very day of the attack, following his release from prison just days before, the state of Saxony's head of police, Petric Kleine, confirmed on Thursday.


This begs the question as to where German intelligence, that were monitoring him on that very day, were at the time of the attack. This is a reccurring situation with terrorists committing atrocities whilst at the same time being under surveillance:

He added that the man was on security officials' radar as early as 2017. Police said that some 600 suspected Islamists in Germany are classed as posing a threat to the public.

The man was released from prison in late September, after serving a two-year sentence for promoting the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorist group, according to local reports.

Kleine said the authorities had flagged up that the man was likely to commit further offences on his release. The head of the Saxony branch of the domestic intelligence agency, Dirk-Martin Christian, stated that round-the-clock surveillance had not been in place, but did not comment further.
A violent stabbing occurred in Paris just yesterday, and this comes on the heels of numerous other violent incidents in France in just the last month: Two women arrested for racially aggravated knife attack near Paris' Eiffel Tower

See also: 9 dead after 'racist' man goes on shooting spree at two hookah bars in Hanau, Germany - UPDATE

And check out SOTT radio's:


Sheriff

Third-degree murder charge dismissed against Derek Chauvin in death of George Floyd

derek chauvin
© Minnesota Department of Corrections/via ReutersFormer Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin poses for an undated booking photograph taken after he was transferred to a Minnesota Department of Corrections state facility, June 2, 2020.
A judge on Thursday dismissed a third-degree murder charge against Derek Chauvin, one of four former Minneapolis police officers charged in the death of George Floyd.

Chauvin, who was released from custody this month on $1 million bond, will still face charges of second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, Hennepin County Judge Peter A. Cahill ruled.

Video shows Chauvin pressing his knee onto Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes while he is handcuffed and yelling that he can't breathe.

Comment: See also:


No Entry

Facebook fact checkers CENSURED me when I said Covid infection fatality rate was around 0.1%. But what do the latest studies say?

censored smartphone
© Getty Images / klevo
The world's top scientists can't yet be certain how deadly Covid-19 is, so why are Facebook's censorial police consistently flagging stories saying this is 'misinformation' & claiming the rate is NINE times worse than my estimate?

Covid-19 has impacted the world with massive force, a pandemic beyond anything seen in living memory. There has been an unprecedented reaction - some would say an unprecedented over-reaction. But what are the real figures, what is the true risk from the virus?

It is very difficult to know. At the start of any pandemic, no one knows how many people have been infected. As the World Health Organization states:

"Under-detection of cases may be exacerbated during an epidemic, when testing capacity may be limited and restricted to people with severe cases and priority risk groups (such as frontline healthcare workers, elderly people and people with comorbidities)."

Comment: See also:


Eye 1

UK lockdown: Supermarkets in Wales to remove 'non-essential items', Scotland told to prepare for 'digital Christmas'

supermarket
Wales lockdown: Supermarkets told to sell only essential items
Supermarkets will be unable to sell items like clothes during the 17-day Covid firebreak lockdown in Wales.

First Minister Mark Drakeford said it would be "made clear" to them they are only able to open parts of their business that sell "essential goods".

Many retailers will be forced to shut but food shops, off-licences and pharmacies can stay open when lockdown begins on Friday at 18:00 BST.

Retailers said they had not been given a definition of what was essential.

The Association of Convenience Stores and the Welsh Retail Consortium have written urgently to the first minister, expressing alarm over the new regulations.

Comment: Meanwhile in Dublin:

And so as we enter our dystopian future it is essential that people realise what this is really all about: Also check out SOTT radio's: