Society's ChildS


Brick Wall

Panic merchants, be gone... Covid is just another virus

Ramesh Thakur
The Daily Sceptic
Mon, 21 Feb 2022 12:07 UTC
neil ferguson fortune teller
From the very start of the pandemic, a small but critical minority of us has argued that irrespective of the paths taken to get there, the end state will be living with COVID-19 as an endemic virus. The key question was never: how do we eradicate this virus? Rather: what is the level of risk that we are prepared to accept and live with?

Unfortunately, like cascading dominoes, governments all over the world engaged in herd behaviour to lock down their countries based on apocalyptic modelling projections.

Models are neither science nor data but a set of assumptions that generate their own tautological conclusions. The Spectator has a brutal set of charts showing the wildly inaccurate projections of most models by various British teams that vastly overestimated the harms with regard to cases, hospitalisations, ICU occupancy and deaths.

Comment: See also:

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Megaphone

The Netherlands' Omicron lockdown was a complete failure

Noah Carl
Daily Sceptic
Tue, 22 Feb 2022 20:17 UTC
netherlands
Though many Western countries eschewed lockdowns during the Omicron wave, a few did reintroduce major restrictions. One of these was the Netherlands.

Beginning on December 18th, 'non-essential' shops, bars, restaurants, gyms, museums and other public venues were shuttered. No more than two guests were allowed in people's homes, rising to four over the Christmas period. Sports matches had to be played without spectators. And all the country's schools were closed.

Upon announcing the measures, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said, "I stand here tonight in a sombre mood ... the Netherlands will go back into lockdown from tomorrow."
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Arrow Down

John Oliver's attempt to smear a Critical Race Theory critic backfires spectacularly

Libby Emmons
The Post Millennial
Tue, 22 Feb 2022 06:54 UTC
Rufo/Oliver
© Manhattan Institute/hollywoodreporter.comChristopher Rufo • John Oliver
Comedian John Oliver delved into the debate over critical race theory in the American educational system on his show Last Week Tonight, essentially taking the opportunity to slam parents, politicians, and anyone who doesn't like children being taught racist ideas and ideologies. He slammed education activist Christopher Rufo for daring to point out that teaching white men to hate themselves isn't exactly a great use of taxpayer dollars, or of corporate time.

In Oliver's view, the problem with the opposition to critical race theory is that it is in service to the concept of school choice, and for that he chooses to paint Christopher Rufo as the bogeyman.

School choice would allow parents to be able to choose where to spend their educational tax dollars, whether that be in public schools, private, parochial, charter, or home schools. In his view, parents should not have the option of where to send their kids to school unless they are already wealthy and able to afford private school in addition to paying their taxes to fund public school.

Oliver complained that the concerns about critical race theory is nothing more than "noise," before showing parents who have spoken up at school board meetings over the past year to demand that this curriculum be removed from classrooms.

Comment: All or nothing? No choice? Oliver argues we mustn't agree to disagree:



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Arrow Up

Pregnancy-related deaths for US mothers rose in pandemic's first year


AP
Wed, 23 Feb 2022 07:47 UTC
Cots/Cribs
© Rick Bowman/APCots and cribs • Mountain America Expo Center • Sandy, Utah
Pregnancy-related deaths for U.S. mothers climbed higher in the pandemic's first year, continuing a decades-long trend that disproportionately affects Black people, according to a government report released Wednesday.

Overall in 2020, there were almost 24 deaths per 100,000 births, or 861 deaths total — numbers that reflect mothers dying during pregnancy, childbirth or the year after. The rate was 20 per 100,000 in 2019.

Among Black people, there were 55 maternal deaths per 100,000 births — almost triple the rate for whites.

The report from the National Center for Health Statistics does not include reasons for the trend and researchers said they have not fully examined how Covid-19, which increases risks for severe illness in pregnancy, might have contributed.

The coronavirus could have had an indirect effect. Many people put off medical care early in the pandemic for fear of catching the virus, and virus surges strained the health care system, which could have an impact on pregnancy-related deaths, said Eugene Declercq, a professor and maternal death researcher at Boston University School of Public Health.

He called the high rates "terrible news" and noted that the U.S. has continually fared worse in maternal mortality than many other developed countries.
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X

Judge who denied bail to Freedom Convoy organizer ran for Liberals in 2011

Jonathan Bradley
True North
Tue, 22 Feb 2022 00:00 UTC
Lich
© CHAT NewsTamara Lich
The Ontario judge who denied Freedom Convoy organizer Tamara Lich bail on Tuesday ran as the federal Liberal candidate for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell in 2011.

Julie Bourgeois, who was a Crown attorney when she ran, came in second place for the Liberals in the 2011 federal election, losing to former Conservative MP Pierre Lemieux.

Bourgeois also made 71 donations to the federal Liberals from 2009 to 2014, ranging in amounts from $5 to $1,186.

During her failed campaign, Bourgeois spoke about how tough times led people to commit crimes. "Not necessarily major crime," she said. "You see desperate people going through desperate times."

Justin Trudeau himself had also praised Bourgeois in a campaign video.


Comment: Bourgeois succeeded in compromising herself by not recusing.



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People 2

Metaverse app allows kids into virtual strip clubs

Angus Crawford, Tony Smith
Yahoo
Wed, 23 Feb 2022 08:27 UTC
VRChat
© VRChatThe entrance to a virtual strip club, accessed by the VRChat
Some apps in the virtual-reality metaverse are "dangerous by design", the NSPCC has warned in response to a BBC News investigation.

A researcher posing as a 13-year-old girl witnessed grooming, sexual material, racist insults and a rape threat in the virtual-reality world. The children's charity said it was "shocked and angry" at the findings.

Head of online child safety policy Andy Burrows added the investigation had found "a toxic combination of risks".

The BBC News researcher - using an app with a minimum age rating of 13 - visited virtual-reality rooms where avatars were simulating sex. She was shown sex toys and condoms, and approached by numerous adult men.
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Heart - Black

California trans child molester 'Hannah' Tubbs gloats over light sentence in jailhouse phone calls


Fox LA
Mon, 21 Feb 2022 19:24 UTC
hannah tubbs transgencer child molester
(L) A surveillance camera catches 'Hannah Tubbs' (R) 'Hannah Tubbs' mugshot

Hannah Tubbs began identifying as female after being arrested last year in a 2014 child molestation case, according to prosecutors.
Explicit Los Angeles jailhouse recordings of Hannah Tubbs, the 26-year-old trans child molester who received a slap on the wrist last month after pleading guilty to molesting a 10-year-old in 2014, depict her admitting it was wrong to attack a little girl but gloating over the light punishment.

She boasted that nothing would happen to her after she pleaded guilty due to Democrat District Attorney George Gascón's policies and laughed that she won't have to go back to prison or register as a sex offender. She also made explicit remarks about the victim that are unfit to print.

Gascon says 2 years 'may not' be enough jail time for child sex assailant

Comment: Considering the funding source for his election, Gascón is dutifully upholding Soros' Open Society ethos:

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Bullseye

Best of the Web: After Covid, we must embrace critical thinking again

Memoree Joelle
RT
Wed, 23 Feb 2022 19:00 UTC
covid on horses
© AFP / NOAH SEELAM
I'll never forget the most valuable lesson I learned during my first year at university, taught to me by a literature professor who had fled the USSR: All totalitarian regimes throughout history have shared one key trait - they control all knowledge. This is essential to their success, because if you can't control what information the public can access, then you can't effectively control a population.

"If you ever give up your right to freedom of information," he would frequently remind me, "all of your freedom will be gone. You've lost everything." This stuck with me and, over the next four years, I was fortunate to have a few great professors who expanded on it by teaching me how to keep that freedom. To be free, you must first learn how to think.

Freedom must be fought-for and preserved in a variety of ways but, if you don't first know how to think, you won't even recognize when your freedom is being taken away in the first place. As my professor explained, "For a people to be free and remain free, each person must recognize that he or she is an individual capable of independent thought, and learn to think critically about all subjects." Anything less than that leads to regurgitating memorized information that may or may not be true.
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Arrow Down

SNP sex guidance 'effectively lowers age of consent to 13' say campaigners

Douglas Dickie
Scottish Daily Express
Sun, 20 Feb 2022 18:55 UTC
students school
© Getty Images/iStockphoto
The SNP-run Scottish Government has been accused of effectively lowering the legal age of consent in Scotland to just 13 by campaigners.

New guidance for police, teachers and social workers states that parents should not be automatically told if their children are having sex before the age of 16.

Instead, the policy says that if a young person is in a "safe and mutually respectful" relationship, their "confidentiality" should be respected.

The change has been blasted by family campaigners and the Catholic church.

The row follows on from the controversy surrounding the SNP's hated 'sex survey' for school children.

Although the guidance still recognises the legal age of consent as 16 - and those aged 13 to 16 would still be committing an offence - it also states teenagers will not be automatically considered at "risk of significant harm," reports the Mail on Sunday.

Instead, factors such as age or whether alcohol or drugs were involved will be considered. Whether there is a "power imbalance" or whether grooming, bribing or coersion is involved will also be taken into account.


Comment: Given the amount of woke grooming that is considered acceptable these days, this isn't reassuring.

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Penis Pump

Victory? Trans swimmer Lia Thomas sets new record for 200-yard freestyle race beating female athletes by half a pool length

Sarah Vine
Daily Mail
Wed, 23 Feb 2022 22:31 UTC
Lia Thomas
On Friday night, Lia Thomas, a transgender woman athlete, set a record for the 200-yard freestyle race in the Ivy League university swimming championships in the US, beating her closest opponent by half a pool length
On Friday night, Lia Thomas, a transgender woman athlete, set a record for the 200-yard freestyle race in the Ivy League university swimming championships in the US, beating her closest opponent by half a pool length.

Her win was widely praised as a victory for women's sport as Thomas, who until 2019 was competing - with notably less success - in the male category, took to the podium to claim her prize.

Alongside her, somewhat dwarfed by her broad shoulders and imposing stature, her defeated opponents smiled and applauded in the approved manner, as though the entire thing were completely normal.

No mention of the fact that they had just been bested by someone with an inherent set of physical advantages: muscle mass, speed, size.

Comment: See also:

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