Society's ChildS


Biohazard

Fear in the age of coronavirus: Chinese no longer welcome in other countries


The Straits Times
Sun, 01 Mar 2020 17:30 UTC
airport passengers coronavirus
© Agence France-PressePassengers wearing face masks queue at the immigration counter upon arrival at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2, on Jan 29, 2020.
Hong Kong suspends travel from China. Schools in Europe uninvite exchange students. Restaurants in South Korea turn away Chinese customers.

As a deadly virus spreads beyond China, governments, businesses and educational institutions are struggling to find the right response. Safeguarding public health is a priority. How to do that without stigmatising the entire population of the country where the outbreak began is the challenge.

With the death toll reaching 170 and the roster of cases climbing above 7,700, worries are growing. Many global companies with operations in China have asked workers to stay home. Airlines are curtailing flights to the nation. Several countries have begun evacuating citizens from the most stricken zone around the city of Wuhan.

Comment: It's a sign of the times that sensible precautions against a unknown disease are railed against, yet hysterical reactions are applauded. A lot of it seems to be a mix of reasonable conclusions and deep-seated prejudice. China is rightfully worried about this toxic brew even as it strains to meet its domestic emergency.


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Star of David

Freedom of speech? Abby Martin banned from speaking at US university for refusing to sign pro-Israel pledge


teleSUR
Sat, 01 Feb 2020 16:38 UTC
Abby martin
© Abby MartinAbby Martin is an outspoken critic of Israel’s apartheid government and anti-Palestinian policies.
Former teleSUR presenter and creator of The Empire Files Abby Martin was blocked from delivering a keynote speech at Georgia Southern University for refusing to "sign a contractual pledge to not boycott Israel" to comply with the anti-Boycott, Divest and Sanctions state law.

"After I was scheduled to give a keynote speech at an upcoming Georgia Southern conference, organizers said I must comply with Georgia's anti-BDS law," Martin tweeted on Friday.

Since 2014, 28 states, among those Georgia, have adopted anti-boycott laws, including five executive orders issued by governors.

"I refused and my talk was canceled. The event fell apart after colleagues supported me." Martin is an outspoken critic of Israel's apartheid government and anti-Palestinian policies.

Comment: Abby Martin has been championing the cause of Palestine for years. How is it that Georgia Southern University was unaware of that? Or did the pro-Israeli groups on campus set her up in the hopes of making an example of her? They are not above such tactics.

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X

Proposed Missouri book ban could jail librarians for loaning 'inappropriate' content

Ivan Pereira
ABC News
Fri, 31 Jan 2020 11:32 UTC
Public Library
© St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP, FILEChildren look for books at the Ferguson Municipal Public Library in Ferguson, Mo., Nov. 26, 2014.
Librarians and free speech advocates are fighting back against a proposal in the Missouri House of Representatives that would ban certain books from the state's libraries with the threat of a misdemeanor charge.

Missouri House Rep. Ben Baker introduced the bill, dubbed the "Parental Oversight of Public Libraries Act," in January that calls for the creation of a panel made up of non-library workers who will determine the removal of "age-inappropriate sexual material," from their local branch.

Libraries that don't comply will lose their funding. Library employees providing material deemed inappropriate would be hit with a misdemeanor charge and liable for a $500 fine or a maximum jail sentence of a year, according to the bill's current language.

Cynthia Dudenhoffer, the president of the Missouri Library Association, said she was shocked when she first heard about the bill and said it was unnecessary. Each of the state's library systems, which account for a total of 365 branches, already have their own protocols in place to determine which materials are allowed for their younger members.

Comment: See also: Telling it like it is: Drag Queen destroys Drag Queen Story Hour and woke culture

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Ambulance

Best of the Web: Pentagon AGAIN increases casualty numbers from Iranian airstrikes against US base in Iraq, this time to "50, as of today" - UPDATE: Now it's 64!


The Guardian
Wed, 29 Jan 2020 11:04 UTC

Comment: UPDATE January 31

We're losing track of how many times the number has been revised. It seems American troops keep getting injured by that Iranian attack.

What were the Iranians using, time bombs?

Here's the latest revision:
The U.S. military has once again raised the number of U.S. service members who suffered traumatic brain injuries in Iran's missile strike on an Iraqi base earlier this month.

Pentagon spokesman Thomas Campbell said that as of January 30, "a total of 64 U.S. service members have been diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury, or TBI."

In remarks that have angered many U.S. veterans groups, President Donald Trump initially claimed that no Americans were harmed in Iran's January 8 attack on the Ain al-Asad air base in western Iraq.

The military later said that 11 troops had suffered injuries, then raised it to 34 before saying on January 28 that 50 personnel had been injured.

Trump has downplayed the injuries, saying he "heard that they had headaches and a couple of other things."
This is the FIFTH time the Pentagon has revised its casualty estimate upwards since the airstrikes on January 8th...


al-asad airbase iraq iran airstrikes
© AP
The Pentagon said on Tuesday 50 US service members were now diagnosed with traumatic brain injury after missile strikes by Iran on a base in Iraq earlier this month, 16 more than the military had previously announced.

Donald Trump and other top officials initially said Iran's 8 January attack had not killed or injured any US service members.

"As of today, 50 US service members have been diagnosed" with traumatic brain injury, the Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Campbell said in a statement about injuries in the attack on the Ain al-Asad airbase in western Iraq.

Symptoms of concussive injuries include headaches, dizziness, sensitivity to light and nausea.


Comment: "As of today..."

Who knows what tomorrow will bring? The situation is always... fluid. Dynamic narratives are always... shifting.

The inability of the top authorities in the NATO sphere to speak plainly about even the smallest things is why conspiracy theories, paranoia, hysteria and chaos in general are proliferating across the West.


Comment: At this point we can no longer rely on the Pentagon's claim of zero US deaths. We have their claim versus the Iranian claim (of 80 or so US deaths). So that remains unknown, for now.

The dodgy PR campaign over this also makes us wonder just how far off is the official death toll for US soldiers in the Iraq War 2003-2011. Officially, it's 3,836, but given how drastically they under-reported Iraqi deaths in that war, and how readily and craftily they lie about the small things, and how sensitive they are about the optics of Americans coming home in coffins...

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USA

Antifa plans massive anti-cop action in NY subways, push for free transit, ending police presence

Paulina Dedaj
Fox News
Fri, 31 Jan 2020 13:30 UTC
antifa NYC transit protest
Police in New York are increasing their presence in subways Friday after members of the far-left Antifa movement called for a mass protest against law enforcement and transit fares.

The Police Benevolent Association of New York City issued a strong warning ahead of Friday's Antifa demonstration, urging New Yorkers to "pay close attention."

"This is [the] true endgame of the anti-police movement, an end of all policing & destruction of public order," the group said in a tweet. "Our members have spent their careers -- and in some cases given their lives -- to bring public safety back to NYC. We can't go backwards."

Comment: Some footage from the protest:







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Attention

Best of the Web: Twitter suspends independent news outlet Zero Hedge - Fake news site BuzzFeed doxxes 'Tyler Durden'

Ian Miles Cheong
The Post Millennial
Sat, 01 Feb 2020 11:12 UTC
zero hedge twitter
Twitter has suspended the independent news outlet Zero Hedge. The publication, which enjoyed a following of over 673,000 followers on Twitter, was unceremoniously nuked from the social media platform following its report that the origins of the deadly coronavirus (2019-nCoV) may have a man-made origin, in addition to reports that the Chinese government may be suppressing the total number of people infected by the deadly illness that is sweeping throughout Wuhan.

According to the pseudonymous Zero Hedge writer, Tyler Durden, mainstream media outlets have been pushing back against the story by pointing fingers at Zero Hedge for covering the topic that has received widespread attention on social media due to the postings of Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding and Dr. Anand Ranganathan, who highlighted studies noting the coronavirus' strange properties.

Given Twitter's lack of transparency in suspending, it cannot be confirmed if Zero Hedge's new articles and the subsequent backlash from websites like Politifact contributed to the social media's decision to ban it, or if it was taken down by mass reports. Twitter quietly implemented a new report function that allows U.S.-based users to report tweets for being "misleading about a political election."

Comment: Here's the article on SOTT it is suspected Zero Hedge was suspended for. In the comment at the foot of the article, you'll find more information on Zero Hedge's suspension from Twitter. Spoiler alert: Buzzfeed ratted them out. Not only that, their article 'doxxed' Zero Hedge's creator and lead editor, publishing his real name.

See also:

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Mr. Potato

CNN angry that white people are trying to stop the coronavirus spreading

Paul Joseph Watson
Summit News
Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:09 UTC
CNN article coronavirus
According to CNN, the real concern about the coronavirus is not the potential for a global pandemic, it's the fact there are too many white people trying to stop it.

That was the message sent by an article posted on the news network's website entitled 'Coronavirus task force another example of Trump administration's lack of diversity'.

The two images illustrating the article showed Barack Obama's circle of advisers during the 2017 Ebola outbreak and President Trump's advisers during a recent meeting about the coronavirus outbreak. In the photograph showing Trump's advisers, most of them are, God forbid, white men.

Comment: #CNNisTrash

See also:

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People 2

Domestic abuse by women triples in a decade with female attackers carrying out almost a third of assaults

Luke Andrews
Daily Mail
Mon, 27 Jan 2020 16:43 UTC
women domestic abusers
Domestic abuse by women has more than trebled in a decade, police figures show.
Domestic abuse by women has more than trebled in a decade as females carry out nearly a third of attacks, police data reveals.

Attacks by women on family members jumped three-fold from 27,762 in 2009 to 92,409 in 2018, with a ninth of all incidents being recorded in West Yorkshire alone.

Experts have repeatedly called for men to be recognised as victims of domestic abuse, alongside women, fearing that cases are going unreported.

It comes as police forces reportedly rush to attend more than 2,000 domestic abuse cases across the UK every day.

Comment: Those last two sentences make no sense. One quarter of women who experienced domestic abuse were men?

While men are unilaterally depicted as the aggressors in domestic violence, it seems quite likely that there is a great deal of domestic violence towards men that goes unreported. It's impossible to know what the actual figures are. The recent publicity surrounding Johnny Depp's past abusive relationship with Amber Heard is a case in point.

See also:



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Attention

Amber Heard admits to 'hitting' ex-husband Johnny Depp and pelting him with pots, pans and vases in explosive audio confession

Ben Ashford
Daily Mail
Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:50 UTC
Amber Heard Johnny Depp
Amber Heard admits to 'hitting' Johnny Depp in an explosive audio confession obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com. The estranged couple tried to talk through their marriage problems and Heard opens up about her violent tantrums in a series of taped conversations from 2015. Pictured: The former couple in September 2015
Amber Heard admits to 'hitting' ex-husband Johnny Depp and pelting him with pots, pans and vases in an explosive audio confession obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com.

The Aquaman actress, 33, opens up about her violent tantrums in a series of taped conversations the estranged couple made in 2015 as they tried to talk through their marriage problems.

'I'm sorry that I didn't, uh, uh, hit you across the face in a proper slap, but I was hitting you, it was not punching you. Babe, you're not punched,' Heard tells Depp, attempting to downplay her outburst the previous evening.

Comment: For a full transcript of the tape go to the original Daily Mail article.

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Passport

U.S. border officers ordered to interrogate travelers with Iranian links at Canada-U.S. border, says memo

Sophia Harris
CBC News
Thu, 30 Jan 2020 00:00 UTC
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer
© Elaine Thompson/Associated PressU.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has denied detaining Iranian-born travellers in early January and said delays at the Blaine Peace Arch crossing were related to staffing issues during a busy holiday weekend.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has denied detaining Iranian-born travellers in early January and said delays at the Blaine Peace Arch crossing were related to staffing issues during a busy holiday weekend.

An apparent U.S. Customs and Border Protection internal memo adds credence to the recent numerous complaints from Iranian-born Canadian and American citizens that they were questioned and held for hours at the Canada-U.S. border in Blaine, Wash.

Despite reports that up to 200 travellers of Iranian descent were detained at the Blaine Peace Arch crossing on Jan. 4-5, U.S. Customs Border Protection (CBP) has denied such allegations. It told CBC News that delays at that popular border crossing — between B.C. and Washington state — were due to staffing issues during a busy holiday weekend.
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