Society's ChildS


Brick Wall

Best of the Web: Health lockdown or student incarceration? Glasgow Uni feels like a prison

Harry Butcher
spiked
Fri, 25 Sep 2020 16:18 UTC
lockdown glasgow university police
© Getty
Police patrol our halls of residence. We've been banned from pubs. Even Christmas could be cancelled.

I'll confess, I think I almost enjoyed lockdown at first: I could cycle to work without the roar of cars all around me, and I enjoyed the novelty of being able to walk down a near-empty high street. The hard reality of our government's decision to shut down society hit home soon enough, though. I lost a planned seasonal job that was due to start at the beginning of May, and so was forced to spend an additional three months in a job I disliked, working even longer hours due to greater demand. As much as I love my family, you can grow sick of the same faces after a while. Not being able to see friends certainly had an effect on my mental health - and the incessant screeching of the fear-mongering media could leave anyone in a nervous fit. In an unfathomable irony, during the 'peak pandemic', university was my glimmer of hope on the horizon.

I'm at Glasgow University, which has been the subject of considerable controversy this week. I'll spare myself a lawsuit by not revealing every detail, but if you take a group of young people, most of whom won't have been away from home before for longer than a school trip, it takes only a few brain cells to realise that they're going to find creative ways of having fun - restrictions or not.

Comment: Glasgow University is not unique. This appears to be becoming policy at universities all over the UK. What more effective way to destroy an entire generation, all in the name of keeping everyone "safe"?

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Map

26 dead after Ukraine military plane crashes and bursts into flames


Stars and Stripes
Sat, 26 Sep 2020 09:55 UTC
ukraine plane crash
© EMERGENCY SITUATION MINISTRYIn this TV grab released by Ukraine's Emergency Situation Ministry, an AN-26 military plane bursts into flames after it crashed in the town of Chuguyiv close to Kharkiv, Ukraine, late Friday, Sept. 25, 2020. Among 28 people on board 22 people were killed.
Searchers combing the area where a Ukrainian military aircraft crashed found two more bodies on Saturday, bringing the death toll to 26. One person survived.

The plane, a twin-turboprop Antonov-26 belonging to the Ukrainian air force, was carrying a crew of seven and 20 cadets of a military aviation school when it crashed and burst into flames Friday night while coming in for landing at the airport in Chuhuiv, about 250 miles east of the capital Kyiv.

Two people initially survived the crash, but one later died in a hospital. No cause for the crash has been determined.

Comment: See also:

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Yellow Vest

Large protest against lockdown in London meanwhile polls of British public show many want HARSHER measures


RT
Sat, 26 Sep 2020 12:28 UTC
london lockdown protest 26 september
Demonstrators descended on London for the second straight weekend to air their disapproval of the coronavirus guidelines, with police warning they will break up the rally if protesters don't follow social distancing rules.

Several thousand protesters assembled at Trafalgar Square on Saturday, with some eyewitnesses claiming that attendance was even higher than the turnout at a similar event held last weekend.

Demonstrators held signs, waved British flags and cheered as speakers addressed the crowd. At one point the crowd could be heard chanting "freedom" as people whistled and clapped.

The protest, dubbed We Do Not Consent, received a warning from the Metropolitan Police, which said it would intervene if the protesters don't abide by social distancing guidelines.

Comment: Whilst the days may seem increasingly darker, there is still hope, because it would appear that not only is the movement questioning the government narrative growing but we're also seeing an increasing number of regional figureheads who have all criticised the futility and irrationality of these measures; as seen in Leicester in the UK, Marseille in France, and Madrid in Spain:

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Take 2

Christmas movies are going gay this year, but is this really progress for LGBT people?


RT
Sat, 26 Sep 2020 11:56 UTC
Jonathan Bennett
© Getty Images / Paul ArchuletaActor Jonathan Bennett (R) attends Hallmark Channel's 10th Anniversary of "Countdown To Christmas" screening and party at 189 by Dominique Ansel on November 20, 2019 in Los Angeles, California.
The Hallmark and Lifetime channels are targeting their Christmas movies at gay audiences this year. Activists have hailed this as a victory, but there will be little to celebrate in terms of quality filmmaking.

"Don we now our gay apparel" takes on a whole new meaning this year as The Hallmark Channel airs The Christmas House, its first gay-themed Christmas movie.

The film stars Jonathan Bennett as one half of a gay married couple who visit family as they anxiously await a call about adopting their first child.

According to PinkNews, "LGBT+ fans have long been crying out for a queer festive film - and this year, they have finally been granted their grown-up Christmas wish".

PinkNews also reported that, "In July, queer Hallmark Christmas fans were sent into a frenzy when the company confirmed the LGBT+ Christmas films were on the way."

The 'queer frenzy' over The Christmas House is heightened by the fact that the Lifetime Channel also has a gay-themed holiday film this year, The Christmas Set-Up. Looks like there will be a lot of same sex canoodling under the mistletoe on TV this holiday season.
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Cult

With misogyny now a hate crime, we're officially criminalising thought

Frank Furedi
RT
Sun, 27 Sep 2020 00:08 UTC
police desk booking handcuffs phone
© Getty Images / SARINYAPINNGAM
We'll soon have thought police exploring our private lives

Silence the wolf whistles, don't say 'you look lovely in lycra' to that woman at the gym, and don't tweet about transgender women not being real women. You could be breaking the law and be charged.

Welcome to an Orwellian world where what you think about women, gays or Muslims may now be criminalised under hate crime legislation proposed by the Law Commission. Since its invention in the United States in the 1980s, the number of different hate crimes have been growing and growing.
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Eye 2

UK gov figures show 75,000 could die because of lockdown, excess deaths are already soaring


RT
Sat, 26 Sep 2020 09:58 UTC
bojo nhs
© Ben Stansall/Pool via REUTERSBritain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson talks with a paramedic
Thousands of Britons who suffer heart attacks and strokes are dying at home instead of seeking medical treatment, a new study has found, as new government figures show 75,000 are projected to die as a result of lockdown measures.

Stay-at-home orders prompted countless people suffering from serious medical conditions to avoid hospitals, according to the study's findings, which were published in the Heart medical journal and first reported by the Daily Mail. The paper noted that deaths from heart disease in private homes surged by 35 percent from March to July, resulting in 2,279 more fatalities on average over the past six years. However, heart and stroke deaths in hospitals dropped by around 1,400 during the same period, suggesting that some who chose to stay home would have died anyway even if they had been hospitalized. The researchers calculated that in total, there were 2,085 excess deaths in England and Wales that could be linked to heart attack and stroke sufferers who refused to seek out medical treatment. This means that between March 2 and June 30, every day 17 people died needlessly from heart attacks.

Comment: And likely tens of thousands more - and counting:

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Syringe

China approves Covid-19 vaccine for emergency testing in last phase of human trials, hundreds of thousands of vaccinations already given

Huizhong Wu
Yahoo
Sat, 26 Sep 2020 12:00 UTC
china vac
After the first shot, he had no reaction. But Kan Chai felt woozy following the second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine approved for emergency use in China.

"When I was driving on the road, I suddenly felt a bit dizzy, as if I was driving drunk," the popular writer and columnist recounted in a webinar earlier this month. "So I specially found a place to stop the car, rest a bit and then I felt better."

His is a rare account from the hundreds of thousands of people who have been given Chinese vaccines, before final regulatory approval for general use. It's an unusual move that raises ethical and safety questions, as companies and governments worldwide race to develop a vaccine that will stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Chinese companies earlier drew attention for giving the vaccine to their top executives and leading researchers before human trials to test their safety and efficacy had even begun. In recent months, they have injected a far larger number under an emergency use designation approved in June, and that number appears poised to rise.

Comment: Evidently the article is written with the intent to smear China where possible, but what is clear is that China was already in late trials for the vaccine in July - way ahead of the West - and (again) unlike the US and the UK it was confident enough to trial it on some of its top staff; surely it wouldn't do that if it was having results similar to the 'serious concerns' seen at AstraZeneca.

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Bullseye

Best of the Web: Democracy muzzled

Peter Hitchens
The Critic Magazine
Sat, 26 Sep 2020 20:26 UTC
mask police protest australia
© William West / AFPSubjugation: Police place a facemask on a protester in Melbourne, Australia
Covid masks are a potent symbol of the West's headlong flight from Enlightenment values

The long retreat of law, reason and freedom has now turned into a rout. It was caused by many things: the mob hysteria which flowered after the death of Princess Diana; the evisceration of education; the spread of intolerant speech codes designed to impose a single opinion on the academy and journalism; the incessant state-sponsored panics over terror; the collapse and decay of institutions and traditions.

These have all at last flowed together into a single force, and we seem powerless against it. Absurdly, the moment at which they have achieved maximum power is accidental, a wild, out of-proportion panic response to a real but limited epidemic.
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Handcuffs

Maryland man sentenced to prison for throwing parties against COVID-19 orders

Vincent Barone
New York Post
Fri, 25 Sep 2020 18:59 UTC
Shawn Marshall Myers
© Charles County Sheriff's OfficeShawn Marshall Myers
He's serving hard time for hard partying.

A Maryland man was sentenced Friday to a year in prison for hosting two parties in defiance of the state's coronavirus orders barring large gatherings, a local Fox affiliate reported.

Shawn Marshall Myers, 42, had 50 to 60 people over in his Hughesville home for the first bash he threw on March 22, according to the Charles County Sheriff's Office.

When officers arrived to shut down the soiree, Myers was "argumentative...but eventually agreed to disband his party," the county State's Attorney alleged.

But he went right back to raging, throwing another party with more than 50 people less than a week later on March 27, the station reported.

Comment: Gov. Larry Hogan should be serving this time instead, and preferably for much longer than one year.

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Chart Pie

One China? Only 2-6% of Taiwanese identify as Chinese over Taiwanese

Rhoda Kwan
Hong Kong Free Press
Fri, 25 Sep 2020 18:20 UTC
taiwan
© Tom Volz via Pexels
A large majority of residents surveyed in self-governed Taiwan consider themselves to be Taiwanese rather than Chinese, an opinion poll on national identity has found.

The survey conducted by a group called Taiwan Thinktank asked respondents whether they consider themselves to be Taiwanese or Chinese. Some 62.6 per cent identified themselves as Taiwanese while only 2 per cent identified as Chinese and 32.6 per cent considered themselves to be both.

Separately, when asked to choose between a Taiwanese identity and a Chinese one, 86 per cent identified themselves as Taiwanese over Chinese, while 6.2 per cent saw themselves as Chinese over Taiwanese.

The survey, whose findings were released at a press conference on Thursday, was conducted to gauge public opinion towards constitutional amendments proposed by the Legislative Yuan, the Taiwanese parliament. These proposals are geared towards prioritising "Taiwanese" as a national identity in the international arena.

One element of the proposed constitutional amendments will mean the island will seek to represent itself as "Taiwan" at international events such as the Olympics where in the past it has taken part as "Chinese Taipei".
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