Society's ChildS


NPC

Is 'cis white male' a slur? William Shatner thinks so, triggering rage of woke Twitterati who used the term against him


RT
Sun, 23 Aug 2020 22:29 UTC
william shatner
© REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett
After setting off his woke critics with a tweet deemed 'transphobic,' 'Star Trek' actor William Shatner turned the tables and accused the Twitter activists of using the term "cis white male" as a slur to suppress his voice.

Shatner has dedicated what appears to be a good portion of his weekend to pushing back against what he slammed as the "hubris of youth" after liberal critics took aim at him following an alleged case of "misgendering." They also took serious issue with the 89-year-old actor's suggestion that some people use "cis white male" in a derogatory manner to shut down dialogue with people they disagree with.

Shatner's original sin, in the eyes of Twitter's PC-police, was committed when he was live-tweeting an episode of 'The Unexplained' — a series which he hosts — last weekend. At one point, Shatner tweeted a quote straight from the show regarding the late jazz musician Billy Tipton. When paramedics found Tipton dead in 1989, they discovered the musician was "a woman who had been living as a man for decades."

Comment: Way to stay true to Captain Kirk, Bill! It seems Shatner has actually been taking on the woke mob for awhile now.

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Display

QAnon 'largely a US domestic phenomenon' despite attempts to revive Russia-gate

Joseph Menn
Reuters
Tue, 25 Aug 2020 09:27 UTC
QAnon
© REUTERS/Stephanie Keith/File PhotoFILE PHOTO: A person wears a t-shirt with the anagram WWG1WGA, the QAnon slogan, while participating in a "save the children" march and rally in New York City, New York, U.S. August 12, 2020.
Russian government-supported organizations are playing a small but increasing role amplifying conspiracy theories promoted by QAnon, raising concerns of interference in the November U.S. election.

Academics who study QAnon said there were no signs Russia had a hand in the early days of the movement, which launched in 2017 with anonymous web postings amplified by YouTube videos.

But as QAnon gained adherents and took on new topics - with President Donald Trump as the constant hero waging a misunderstood battle - social media accounts tied to a key Kremlin ally joined in.

Comment: Comment: RT reports that Russia-gate peddlers are attempting to conflate criticism of Biden with being a 'Kremlin agent':
US citizens may "unwittingly" become Russian agents and spread "disinformation" about Joe Biden, Senator Mark Warner has warned, urging the intelligence community to be more vocal and tell the public what to do.

According to the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, one should be particularly vigilant about the Russian trolls, lurking around the social media feeds, as Kremlin is allegedly once again seeking to prop up President Donald Trump and help him secure re-election in November.

Speaking to NBC News' "Meet the Press" on Sunday, the Senator warned that if one is not careful enough, he can accidentally become a Russian "agent" partaking in the alleged smear campaign against Biden.


'Anyone who disagrees with me is a Russian-agent'...


biden
© AFP / Olivier Douliery
"My fear is there may be Americans that are unwittingly promoting that Russian disinformation campaign, and I think they need to be briefed so they don't become, frankly, agents in effect of this disinformation campaign."

"It's incumbent on the intelligence community to lay out more of the facts of what we know about that disinformation campaign," he said.

The Russiagate saga has been marred with controversies throughout the whole presidential term of Donald Trump, and after years of taxpayer-funded probes, failed to prove the thing it was originally designed to investigate - the Trump-Russia collusion. Severe lack of facts, however, did not interfere with the drive to frequently roll out new sanctions against Russia, as well as to produce more baseless accusations.

The latest batch of them arrived earlier in August, when the Senate Intelligence Committee released its fifth and final report on Russia's supposed interference. In the 1000-page report, word "likely" appeared nearly 140 times, while "almost certainly" - 21 times. In nearly every case, those words were used to make assumptions in place of actual evidence. Senator Warner has urged Americans to read the lengthy report for themselves.


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Newspaper

RT is accused of supporting QAnon, but with Russiagate back for 2020, who are the real state-funded conspiracy theorists?

Helen Buyniski
RT
Mon, 24 Aug 2020 20:59 UTC
QAnon
© Reuters/Leah Millis
Certain mainstream media are losing sleep over what they claim is Russian support for pro-Trump conspiracy theory QAnon. But it's their own obsession that spawned RT's coverage - and their own behavior that encourages such groups.

According to Reuters, RT's coverage of social media platforms' crackdown on QAnon is proof that Russia actually supports the fringe movement, which believes President Donald Trump and a crew of "white hats" within his administration are going to save the US from a cabal of satanic pedophiles any moment now, swooping in to arrest everyone from failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to liberal billionaire George Soros in one great blast of swamp-draining.

Lacking any proof to back this hypothesis - indeed, the writer admits RT's coverage has not only "fallen short of full-throated support," but is even "critical" of the rightwing psy-op - the outlet instead defers to disinformation 'experts' Graphika, who note that the Internet Research Agency - the "Russian trolls" still blamed in some corners for delivering the 2016 election to Trump - tagged a bunch of tweets with QAnon slogans in 2019.
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Bomb

Philippines: Twin bombs kill at least 14, blamed on Islamic State-linked rebels, a third found unexploded


South China Morning Post
Mon, 24 Aug 2020 07:45 UTC
Soldiers Jolo
© APSoldiers at the site of an explosion in the town of Jolo, Sulu province, southern Philippines.
Muslim militants allied with Islamic State set off a powerful motorcycle explosive followed by a suicide bombing that together killed 14 people on Monday, many of them soldiers, in the worst extremist attack in the Philippines this year, military officials said.

At least 75 soldiers, police and civilians were wounded in the midday bombings in Jolo town in southern Sulu province, regional military commander Lieutenant General Corleto Vinluan said. The bombings were staged as the government grapples with the highest number of coronavirus infections in Southeast Asia.

Vinluan said most of the victims, including children, were killed and wounded in the first attack, when a bomb attached to a motorcycle exploded near two parked army trucks in front of a grocery store and computer shop in Jolo. "It was a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device which exploded while our soldiers were on a marketing run," Vinluan told reporters.

A second blast, apparently from a female suicide attacker, occurred about an hour later and killed the bomber, a soldier, a police commando and wounded several others, a military report said. The suspected bomber walked out of a snack shop, approached soldiers who were securing a Roman Catholic cathedral and "suddenly blew herself up".

Snipers were deployed in the area to guard against more bombers as the victims were carried to an ambulance. A third unexploded bomb was reportedly found in a public market. Jolo was immediately placed in a security lockdown by troops and police.
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Propaganda

Associated Press bungles again - this time it's balloons

Kathryn Shihadah
If Americans Knew
Sat, 15 Aug 2020 00:00 UTC
balloons
© ScreenshotIncendiary balloons discovered on Gaza border, January 8, 2019.
As has too often been the case, Associated Press once again fails the test of good journalism on the subject of Palestine, earning poor marks on accuracy, balance, and context.

Associated Press, considered one of the most respected sources of global news reporting, has been the subject of more than one If Americans Knew investigation. We have detailed AP's slanted coverage of the Israel/Palestine issue for years in hopes that the organization would revamp its efforts there. (Our major studies are here and here, and previous analyses are here.)

(IAK has also reported on other news organizations that exhibit the same lack of objectivity - as have other watchdogs. Read here about a broad, 50-year study.)

A recent erroneous story is about balloons. AP's original story is 120 words - 7 sentences, of which 4 cite statements by Israeli spokespersons. 2 are factual, and 1 is grossly exaggerated and misleading. The story provided 0 sentences from Palestinians. The AP article was carried by many large news outlets, including the New York Times and ABC News.

No news organization as busy as AP would be expected to cover every detail of a story like this, but readers deserve a less Israel-centric story and instead a more objective, balanced report. Time to set the record straight.
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Tornado1

Anything goes to spite GOP? Popular British historian draws fire by cheering on hurricanes about to batter 'Trump voting states'


RT
Sun, 23 Aug 2020 11:11 UTC
Trump in FLA
© Reuters/Kevin LamarqueDonald Trump touring recovery efforts and damage from Hurricane Michael in Florida.
Two potentially devastating hurricanes hitting the United States may actually be a good thing, since they would disrupt next week's Republican convention and stick it to Donald Trump, British historian Dan Snow said.

Tropical Storms Laura and Marco are moving through the Gulf of Mexico towards Texas and Louisiana and are projected to make landfall on Monday and Tuesday, less than 24 hours apart. One might think the destruction and loss of life they could cause is bad news, but not so for Dan Snow, a popular British media personality famous for his historical films.

Snow managed to find dark irony in the potentially deadly storms, saying they will smash "into Trump voting states the night before the climate crisis denying authoritarian's acceptance speech" during the upcoming Republican National Convention.
Screenshot

Comment: There are worse storms brewing in the US than these, the ramifications of which promise to be epic.

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Video

Fear-mongering overlords now want Covid-19 to rob us of sex scenes in movies

Zachary Leeman
RT
Fri, 21 Aug 2020 18:30 UTC
man/woman
© Getty Images/Maskot
British filmmakers are being encouraged to cut sex scenes in their movies to protect actors from Covid-19, but the ridiculous suggestion is just an excuse to censor art and expression.

Directors UK, a professional association of directors in Britain, which has more than 7,000 members, has unleashed 'Intimacy in the Time of Covid-19' - new recommendations for filmmakers returning to productions in the midst of the current pandemic. Put together by board members Susanna White and Bill Anderson, and 'intimacy coordinator' Vanessa Coffey, the guidelines are the latest fear-mongering nonsense to have dropped as a result of coronavirus.

The most alarming section of the pamphlet is the "narrative alternatives" bit, about depicting sex scenes. The recommendations are not only ill thought out, but also essentially encourage the rewinding of the clock by more than a few decades and returning to the talkies of the 30s, when the Hays Code banned the portrayal of sex and other morally dubious activities onscreen.

Instead of actually showing scenes of intimacy, filmmakers are now being encouraged to show only the before-and-after moments book-ending the act. One could show a bedroom door closing, the guidelines suggest, and then leave everything "up to the viewer's imagination," or characters could be seen "fixing their own clothes/re-dressing after the event."

And in truly bizarre Covid-19 fashion, "sexting" and intimate video chats are suggested as replacements for physically intimate scenes.

Comment: Yet another part of life on the chopping block, destined for the editing floor and another personal preference decision deleted!

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Heart - Black

Care homes 'ordered not to resuscitate' residents during height of pandemic

Elisa Menendez
Metro
Mon, 24 Aug 2020 11:46 UTC
elderly care
© SWNS
Care homes were told to impose a blanket 'do not resuscitate' order on all of their residents during the peak of the UK's coronavirus outbreak, according to a report.

Charity, The Queen's Nursing Institute, found one in 10 care homes were told by the NHS to change resuscitation orders for patients, without discussion with staff, the residents or their family.

Half of staff members who were told to change the orders, which were imposed in a bid to free up hospital beds, worked in homes taking care of people with learning or cognitive disabilities. The other 50% worked in elderly residential homes.

Professor Alison Leary, an expert in healthcare and workforce modelling at London South Bank University who wrote the report, described the findings as 'worrying' and called for an inquiry.

A fifth of the 128 surveyed care home managers and nurses said they received patients from the hospitals who had tested positive for coronavirus during March and April. Almost half of staff said they also received residents that had not been tested before leaving hospital, while a third said they often did not have access to PPE.

One respondent was quoted in The Times as saying:
"We were advised to have them in place for all residents. We acted in accordance with medical advice and resident wishes, not as advised by a directive to put in place for all by a clinical care group representative. We challenged this as unethical."
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Bullseye

Top French professor of medicine exposes the 'casedemic' hysteria

Ivor Cummings
The Duran
Mon, 24 Aug 2020 18:52 UTC
Professor Jean-François Toussaint
Professor Jean-François Toussaint
Professor of Medicine Jean-François Toussaint exposes the lunacy of the current #Casedemic hysteria. Wakey wakey guys - the Epidemic is long since over. But now we are dealing with the rights-destroying and economy-eviscerating reactions to the current concocted #CASEDEMIC !


Comment: It seems a sane view of the "pandemic" is slowly making it's way into the mainstream.

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Arrow Down

Ancestry.com acquired by Blackstone group

Chibuike Oguh
Reuters
Wed, 05 Aug 2020 18:28 UTC
Ancestry.com
© REUTERS/George FreyAttendees look around the Ancestry.com booth at the RootsTech annual genealogical event in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S., February 28, 2019.
Blackstone Group Inc BX.N said on Wednesday it agreed to acquire genealogy provider Ancestry.com Inc from private equity rivals for $4.7 billion, including debt, placing a big bet on family-tree chasing as well as personalized medicine.

Ancestry.com is the world's largest provider of DNA services, allowing customers to trace their genealogy and identify genetic health risks with tests sent to their home.

Blackstone is hoping that more consumers staying at home amid the COVID-19 pandemic will turn to Ancestry.com for its services.

"We believe Ancestry has significant runway for further growth as people of all ages and backgrounds become increasingly interested in learning more about their family histories and themselves," David Kestnbaum, a Blackstone senior managing director, said in a statement.
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