Society's ChildS


Handcuffs

Seven percent of US protests this summer were violent, according to nonprofit report

blm protest
Despite several incidents of protests against racism and police brutality turning violent, more than 90 percent of the summer's protests were peaceful, according to an analysis released Thursday.

The report, produced by the nonprofit Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, identified 7,750 protests between May 26 and Aug. 22 in 2,400 locations, according to The Washington Post.

The report found that about 220 became "violent" — a term defined as demonstrators fighting with police or with counterprotesters. The term also applies to demonstrations that resulted in property damage. In 93 percent of cases analyzed, there was no violence.

In the violent cases, the report said, violence was "largely confined to specific blocks, rather than dispersed throughout the city."

Despite these findings, however, the authors warned that due to the environment of "violent political polarization" in the U.S., violence is likely to occur again if there are issues with the November election.

"In this hyper-polarized environment, state forces are taking a more heavy-handed approach to dissent, non-state actors are becoming more active and assertive, and counter-demonstrators are looking to resolve their political disputes in the street," the authors wrote, according to the Post.

Bad Guys

US pop star Akon's $6bn plan to build a real-life Wakanda in Senegal is an insult to black people's intelligence

Akon
© REUTERS/Pedro NunesAkon, artist, chairman and co-founder of Akon speaks at the Web Summit, in Lisbon, Portugal, November 6, 2019.
Akon is ploughing ahead with a futuristic smart city for black people 'fleeing racism', and plans franchises across Africa. Does he think they are Disney characters who want to live in theme parks?

Black people in America and Europe are going through the wringer. Donald Trump seemingly has no respect for them, and other leaders like Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron also appear disinterested in their plight.

So that's what makes the recent announcement of the much-hyped Akon City so heartbreaking. For those unaware, Akon is a singer born in America with Senegalese heritage. He is also a liar.The biggest hit of his career was the single, Locked Up, which spun a narrative that he'd operated a sophisticated stolen car operation that saw him facing 75 years in prison and that he'd written the lyrics while in his cell. The video depicts him in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs.

Stock Down

'Bad optics'? Why are Moderna executives dumping stock while developing a Coronavirus vaccine?

moderna sign
© Maddie Meyer/Getty ImagesModerna, based in Cambridge, Mass., has reached phase three trials for its coronavirus vaccine. At the same time, its executives have sold tens of millions of dollars worth of stock, which has led to intense criticism of the company.
Whether the coronavirus vaccine developed by Moderna succeeds or not, executives at the small biotech company have already made tens of millions of dollars by cashing in their stock. An NPR examination of official company disclosures has revealed additional irregularities and potential warning signs.

"On a scale of one to 10, one being less concerned and 10 being the most concerned," said Daniel Taylor, an associate professor of accounting at the Wharton School, "this is an 11."

Taylor said Moderna's stock-selling practices appear well outside the norm, and raise questions about the company's internal controls to prevent insider trading.

Comment: Mighty fishy indeed! Either these employees are complete newbs in the stock market and are selling as soon as they can profit, or they know something the rest of us only suspect - that this vaccine is going to be a dud at best or a complete disaster at worst.

See also:


Megaphone

French court rules mandatory masks in public places "serious and illegal infringement" of citizens' liberties

masks france
© AFP/Christophe ArchambaultAn announcement on the mandatory use of face masks on the streets of Paris on September 1, 2020.
Some French local authorities are being forced to revise orders making mouth and nose coverings compulsory as courts side with civil liberties groups.

A court in Lyon ruled on Friday that making face masks mandatory in all public spaces in Lyon and neighbouring Villeurbanne constituted a "serious and illegal infringement" of citizens' liberties.

It added that health authorities have "only recommended wearing of masks in cases of gatherings with a high density of people outside" and gave the prefecture until September 8 to amend their orders to exclude areas where conditions were not "likely to favour the spread" of the disease.

Officials must also remove periods of the day in which "there is no particular risk of spreading the virus" from the orders.

Comment: See also: Also check out SOTT radio's:


Clipboard

Best of the Web: COVID - why terminology really, really matters

covid-19 cumulative confirmed cases UK
When is a case not a case?

Since the start of the COVID pandemic I have watched almost everyone get mission critical things wrong. In some ways this is not surprising. Medical terminology is horribly imprecise, and often poorly understood. In calmer times such things are only of interest to research geeks like me. Were they talking about CVD, or CHD?

However, right now, it really, really, matters. Specifically, with regards to the term COVID 'cases.'

Every day we are informed of a worrying rise in COVID cases in country after country, region after region, city after city. Portugal, France, Leicester, Bolton. Panic, lockdown, quarantine. In France the number of reported cases is now as high as it was as the peak of the epidemic. Over 5,000, on the first of September.

But what does this actually mean? Just keep to the focus on France for a moment. On March 26th, just before their deaths peaked, there were 3,900 hundred 'cases'. Fourteen days later, there were 1,400 deaths. So, using a widely accepted figure, which is a delay of around two weeks between diagnoses and death, 36% of cases died.

NPC

USC suspended a communications professor for saying a Chinese word that sounds like a racial slur

Bovardi
© Bobak Ha'Eri / Wiki Commons
Greg Patton is a professor of clinical business communication at the University of Southern California. During a recent virtual classroom session, he was discussing public speaking patterns and the filler words that people use to space out their ideas: um, er, etc. Patton mentioned that the Chinese often use a word that is pronounced like nega.

"In China the common word is 'that, that that that,' so in China it might be 'nega, nega, nega, nega,'" Patton explained to his class. "So there's different words you'll hear in different cultures, but they're vocal disfluencies."

But because the Chinese word nega sounds like nigger, some students were offended and reported the matter to the administration. Patton is now suspended, according to Campus Reform:

Comment: Apparently context doesn't matter anymore, only "feelings". See also:


Bullseye

Up to 90% of people who test positive for Covid barely carry any virus & are not contagious. Every stat about the disease is bogus

drive thru testing
© Getty Images / Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles TimesClinicians from 360 Clinic are administering the test kits, but citizens will do their own sample taking
It has been revealed that the standard tests being used in the US to diagnose Covid-19 cases are far too sensitive, with the vast majority of people marked down as being positive actually turning out to be negative.

Top US virologists have been stunned by revelations about the laxity of the US Covid testing regimen. It turns out that tests that deliver a simple binary "positive or negative" result are not fit for purpose, as they tell us nothing about the contagiousness of each person.

Data from three US states - New York, Nevada and Massachusetts - shows that when the amount of the virus found in a person is taken into account, up to 90 percent of people who have tested positive should actually have been negative, as they are carrying only tiny amounts of the virus, are not contagious, pose no risk to others, and have no need to isolate.

This means that only a fraction of the daily "cases" being reported so hysterically in the mainstream media are actual, bona fide Covid-19 sufferers, and need treatment and to separate themselves from others.

Comment: See also:


TV

Welcome to the hypocrisy zone: CNN complains about Fox News being chosen to host debate; 'Network has pushed disinfo, conspiracy theories'

cnn screenshot
CNN, the network that for the best part of 3 years pushed the conspiracy theory that President Trump colluded with Russia, and attacks Trump constantly every day, is now complaining that it isn't fair that the network hasn't been chosen to host a Presidential Debate.

CNN host Brianna Keillar noted Thursday that "The presidential debates are set and Fox News' Chris Wallace will monitor the first between President Trump and Joe Biden."

"The debate commission giving the September 29th face-off to Fox despite propaganda, dishonesty, and the fact that some Fox hosts advise President Trump," Keillar added.

Comment: See also:


Stop

Colorado woman assaults 12-year-old boy over his Trump sign, police say

trump pence sign
© Mark Makela/Getty Images
A Colorado woman allegedly assaulted a 12-year-old boy Monday over a Trump sign, police say, according to multiple reports.

Police say that around 3:00 PM, a woman on a moped attacked a boy riding a bicycle brandishing a Trump sign, according to The Denver Post.

Comment: From the Denver Post, police have released a composite sketch of the assailant:

assailant of 12 yo trump supporter
© Boulder Police DepartmentBoulder police released this sketch of a woman who is suspected of assaulting a 12-year-old boy who had a Trump banner on his bike.



Propaganda

"Russians" are the dumbest idiots on the planet!

Novichok Butter L
Russians are dumb. Hopelessly stupid. They are amateurs of the worst kind. Ignoramuses on steroids. Why?

Well, for one, their so-called super-dooper biowarfare agent "Novichok" seems unable to kill anybody. The Russians must have realized that. This is why, when they tried to kill Skripal (after freeing him from jail) they put that Novichok thing all over the place: on the bench near Salisbury, on Skripal's door handle, even in some bottle of perfume a local addict found in the trash. Probably all over the Skripal home, and this is why the Brits initially said that they would tear down the extremely toxic place (yet both the Skripal cat and their hamster survived - tells you how utterly useless that pretend biowarfare substance really was...).

One would have thought that after this total cluster-bleep the Russians would have learned their lesson.

Comment: See also: