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People 2

Best of the Web: Reuters poll: Hong Kongers 'support protester demands' but only a minority wants independence from China


Comment: Right there, we see a glaring contradiction: the protesters' core demand, of late, is complete independence for Hong Kong from China, so the majority that supports the protest movement supports the EARLIER protests, not the more recent violent rioting...


Protesters Hong Kong New Years 2020.
Anti-government protesters in Hong Kong continue their demands in 2020.
Hong Kong's protest movement is supported by 59% of city residents polled in a survey conducted for Reuters by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute, with more than a third of respondents saying they had attended an anti-government demonstration.

Supporters of the protests outnumbered opponents by a ratio of nearly two to one, with 30% percent saying they were opposed. Of those polled, 57% said they favored the resignation of Carrie Lam, the city's leader. Lam was a particular target of the anti-government demonstrations that gripped Hong Kong for most of 2019 after she attempted to push through a deeply unpopular extradition bill.

Nevertheless, only 17% expressed support for seeking independence from China, and 20% were opposed to "the current path of one country, two systems" - the arrangement under which Hong Kong is governed by Beijing.

Comment: It would appear that, while there is strong evidence for foreign meddling in Hong Kong - likely reflected by those rioters infamous for their wanton vandalism and extreme violence - these colour revolution attempts wouldn't get off the ground were they not based on the genuine grievances of the people. However, as it stands, the majority are not seeking to totally overthrow the current model, they, like the protest movements in the West, are rallying against deteriorating living conditions, the divide between rich and poor, and an increasingly detached and unaccountable establishment.

See also: Roaring Twenties: 'Global impeachment' and the end of the era of liberal globalization


Cult

Best of the Web: Creepy as hell: THIRD Kevin Spacey sex-crime accuser 'suddenly dies'


Comment: And that's the third time just in 2019. This guy needs his passport revoked, at the very least...


kevin spacey
Quite possibly the creepiest Clintonista in that circle of friends
Scandinavian writer Ari Behn — the ex-husband of Norwegian Princess Martha Louise who accused Kevin Spacey of sexual misconduct — died this week, his manager said. He was 47.

Behn died by suicide Wednesday, his manager told the Norwegian news service NTB. Authorities said he was found at his home in Norway.

The Norwegian royal family said in a written statement that Behn was "an important part of our family for many years and we carry warm and good memories of him with us."

Behn, who was Danish-born, and Martha Louise, the oldest daughter of Norway's King Harald and Queen Sonja, were married for 14 years. The couple divorced in 2017 and have three children.

Comment: Then there was another accusation which made it to trial, but was suddenly wrapped up last summer when the now 21-year-old had an unexplained change of heart:
Kevin Spacey's sexual assault case dropped by prosecutors due to accuser's 'unavailability'
For how much longer is this going to continue? By now, over 30 people have accused him. 4 down, 26 to go?

This latest 'suicide' of Behn occurred ONE DAY after Kreepy Kev posted this video on his YT account on Christmas Day...




Yellow Vest

Best of the Web: America's 'Islamic Republic' moment in Iraq? Protesters storm US embassy compound in Baghdad after US airstrikes against anti-ISIS forces


Comment: It may not play out quite like the revolution in Iran in 1979, but the increasing turmoil in Iraq over the last year is headed for 'regime-change' not to Washington's liking...


baghdad embassy protests
© REUTERS/Thaier al-SudaniHashd al-Shaabi (paramilitary forces) fighters set fire to the U.S. Embassy wall to condemn air strikes on their bases, in Baghdad, Iraq December 31, 2019.
Dozens of Iraqi protesters furious over airstrikes that targeted Hezbollah positions have forced their way into the US embassy compound in Baghdad. Tear gas and sounds of gunfire were reported at the scene.

The crowd was able to gain access to sections of the heavily-fortified Green Zone, smashing doors and security cameras on the wall surrounding the diplomatic building, according to the Associated Press. The agency said that there was a fire in one part of the compound, and that at least three US soldiers were spotted on the roof of the embassy.

Plumes of dark smoke could be seen rising from the compound, as protesters waved Hezbollah flags and chanted "Down, down USA!", "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."


Comment: The 'protesters' in military fatigues with guns are standing around watching the burning. It looks like Iraqi military and therefore the government is tacitly approving.

Officially, however, it is not. But what else can they do given that the country is held together by a coalition of militias, a swathe of which are Shia and thus natural allies of Iran, Hezbollah and the anti-ISIS government in Syria.

So when America blows up two dozen of their fighters taking on ISIS in the Syria border region, this is what results: the first real penetration of the Green Zone since 2003. The compound can resist mortars and car-bombs, but it withers under a wave of popular discontent.

How much did that facility cost US taxpayers again? Oh yeah, a billion to build, and another billion ANNUALLY to run... that's about $16 BILLION. Good job, Pompeo...

Now, will he be signalling his support for these protests in Iraq, as he did last month when he said "Lebanese and Iraqi protesters have the right to get rid of Iran's meddling"?

No chance!


Fire

Best of the Web: Thousands trapped on Australian beach by massive wildfire, turning skies RED and raining embers

Tourists and locals attempt to flee brush fires in Mallacoota, Australia, December 31, 2019
© Reuters / Instagram / @IDASHOPE4STROKETourists and locals attempt to flee brush fires in Mallacoota, Australia, December 31, 2019.
Thousands of people have been forced onto the beaches in Australia as massive bushfires hit popular holiday resort towns.

Holidaymakers have fled into the water as the blaze moved into the Victorian town of Mallacoota in New South Wales on Tuesday morning.

Wildfires are now burning across the country's two most-populated states in what has been described as "apocalyptic" scenes.

Two are now confirmed to have died with five others still missing and feared dead with "significant losses" to property.


Comment: See also:


Star of David

Best of the Web: Judistan? Declaring Criticism of Jews Synonymous With Criticism of Israel, Trump Has Created a New Nation

Executive order implies that "Jewishness" is now a nationality
Trump order jews anti-semitism
Dems: "Literally Hitler!"
The pandering by Donald Trump and those around him to Israel and to some conservative American Jews is apparently endless. Last Wednesday the president signed an executive order that is intended to address alleged anti-Semitism on college campuses by cutting off funds to those universities that do not prevent criticism of Israel. To provide a legal basis to defund, the administration is relying on title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits any discrimination based on race, color or national origin. Since the Act does not include religion, Trump's order is declaring ipso facto that henceforth "Jewishness" is a nationality.

The executive order does not mention Israel by name, but it does state that its assumptions are based on "the non-legally binding working definition of anti-Semitism adopted on May 26, 2016, by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which states, 'Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities'; and (ii) the 'Contemporary Examples of Anti-Semitism' identified by the IHRA, to the extent that any examples might be useful as evidence of discriminatory intent."


Comment: Thought-crime: it's not what you did or said that counts. It's what you were thinking...

What could possibly go wrong?


Comment: We would ordinarily agree with the author. However, given that things are as they are, and given how powerful the lobby has become, why keep standing up to it and losing every time? How about yielding instead, thereby giving it all the rope it needs...

So we say let them call their network a nationality. They do after all have a nation-state now. And, like their Western Christian counterparts, almost none of them are religious anymore.

If you think about it, this actually simplifies things. Judaism the religion is long dead. But Zionism, the secular replacement for that religion, is thriving. Whether or not most Jews globally consider themselves adherents of it, it is the only show in town for them.

So in that sense, yes, if you criticize 'Zionism', you're criticizing 'the Jewish nation', thus you're being a critic of Jews, thus 'anti-Semitic'.

The danger of course, which they're apparently oblivious to, or willing to risk, is that this expansion of censorship to all criticism of Jews further accentuates the division between Jews and every other people. When it was a religious movement, the Jewish ideology could to a better extent 'blend' and 'integrate among the nations'.

But now that it's a national project with a significant diaspora and (for all intents and purposes) explicit dual-national allegiance, it's highly visible and increases the odds of backlash - which is apparently underway in the form of a global wave of 'anti-Semitic attacks'.

Ultimately, it's reverse-Nazism. Instead of yellow Stars of David, Jews are getting highly-publicized special favors. Either way, Jews are set apart and thus exposed to retaliation from 'the herd'. This is NOT going to end well.


Snakes in Suits

Best of the Web: Sociopaths on the Left and Right working to break potential US-China alliance

us china
Donald Trump is in a painful bind.

The China-bashing traitors within his own party trying to pass themselves off as American patriots have done everything imaginable to destroy the one chance the President has to save America from the policies of economic and social decay which have mis-shaped the past 50 years of world history. Before breaking under the pressure to pass the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act on November 27, Trump attempted desperately to push against the hard liners stating a day earlier:
"I stand with Hong Kong, but I also stand with President Xi. He's a friend of mine, he's an incredible guy. We have to stand, but I'd like to see them work it out, OK? We have to see them work it out. I stand for Hong Kong, I stand for freedom, I stand for all those things we want to do. But we are also in the process of making the largest trade deal in history."

Comment: See also:


Cloud Lightning

Best of the Web: Incredible find at ancient site in Scotland reveals massive lightning scar in center of circle of standing stones


Comment: Thunderbolts of the gods, literally...


Calanais Stones
© Screen ShotCalanais Stones were constructed with astrological phenomena.
New evidence of a massive lightning strike at the centre of a hidden stone circle in the Outer Hebrides may help shed light on why these monuments were created thousands of years ago.

The Calanais Virtual Reconstruction Project, a joint venture led by the University of St Andrews with the Urras nan Tursachan and the University of Bradford, with funding from Highlands and Islands Enterprise, has uncovered a potential link between ancient stone circles and the forces of nature.

While studying prehistoric Tursachan Chalanais, the main stone circle at Calanais on the Isle of Lewis, the project team surveyed nearby satellite sites to reveal evidence for lost circles buried beneath the peat.

One rarely-visited site surveyed, known as Site XI or Airigh na Beinne Bige, now consists of a single standing stone on an exposed hillside overlooking the great circle.

Comment: What an astonishing find.

Clearly, at least some of these stone circles - located all over the world - were machines or technologies of some sort....


Propaganda

Best of the Web: Media's Deafening Silence On Latest WikiLeaks Drops Is Its Own Scandal

opcw
This is getting really, really, really weird.

WikiLeaks has published yet another set of leaked internal documents from within the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) adding even more material to the mountain of evidence that we've been lied to about an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria last year which resulted in airstrikes upon that nation from the US, UK and France.

This new WikiLeaks drop includes an email from the OPCW Chief of Cabinet Sebastien Braha (who is reportedly so detested by organisation inspectors that they code named him "Voldemort") throwing a fit over the Ian Henderson Engineering Assessment which found that the Douma incident was likely a staged event. Braha is seen ordering OPCW staff to "remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever" from the organisation's secure registry.

Pocket Knife

Best of the Web: ANOTHER anti-Semitic attack, this time in New York: Machete-wielding man wounds 5 Jews at Hanukkah event in rabbi's home, suspect arrested


Comment: The global wave of anti-Semitic attacks continues...


attack Monsey
© APPolice work the scene of the stabbings that took place inside the home of a rabbi in Monsey, New York, on Saturday
A frightening attack at a Hanukkah celebration in the home of a rabbi in a suburb north of New York City on Saturday night placed the entire New York region on edge and had public officials vowing to stop the violence.

The assault in Monsey, N.Y. -- by a machete-wielding suspect who drove away but whom authorities believe was the man they apprehended later -- continued a string of incidents in recent weeks that have included beatings of Jewish people on the streets of New York City and a massacre at a kosher grocery store in nearby Jersey City, N.J.


Comment: They believe it's the same guy? Well, it either is or it isn't...


Five people were wounded at what public records say was the home of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg, who leads a nearby synagogue. Soon after the attack, video posted on social media showed emergency responders frantically transporting victims on gurneys to waiting ambulances.

Comment: No one should ever be attacked because of their faith, especially while peacefully celebrating a religious holiday. The recent epidemic of "anti-semitic attacks" makes us wonder, however, what's really going on. Cui bono?

In an Op-ed today in The Jerusalem Post, titled Inconvenient antisemitism: The daily attacks on Jews in New York, Seth Frantzman ends with:
The result is a multi-layered cake of excuses and fear at confronting a wider range of perpetrators of antisemitism in New York. If violent antisemitism that sees Jews controlling the police and being responsible for slavery and white supremacy, is growing in the African American community in America then confronting it requires asking a minority community that is also a victim to be self-critical. In the US there tends to be pass for minority groups who are homophobic or racist. Society can only confront one kind of racism. This is largely because those driving the agenda of confronting racism either have blinders on regarding all forms of racism and antisemitism or are unaware of it because they don't conduct surveys and polls regarding the prevalence of antisemitism in places like Brooklyn. When the perpetrators and victims do not fit a convenient model, it is easier to just excuse the attacks or see them as random. Unfortunately, in the US these attacks are not random, and there is rising violent antisemitism coming from a broad spectrum of communities, including white supremacists and from African Americans. Confronting it requires the same broad spectrum to step up the struggle.
Does it sound like some Jewish people are vying for THE minority position among all minorities?

UPDATE 21:00 CET

Governor Cuomo has called the attack "an act of domestic terrorism" fueled by intolerance:
"This is intolerance meets ignorance meets illegality," Cuomo told reporters on Sunday, calling the attack the 13th incidence of anti-Semitism in recent weeks. "This is violence spurred by hate, it is mass violence, and I consider it an act of domestic terrorism."


Police have arrested the alleged perpetrator, though his possible terrorist motives are unknown. The man was arrested without struggle in Harlem shortly after midnight.

The attack took place during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, as Rabbi Rottenberg was hosting around 100 people in his home for the lighting of the candle marking the seventh night of the holiday. The rabbi's home is located in Rockland County, which has the highest per-capita population of Jews of any US county.

The New York Police Department's counterterrorism unit said it is "closely monitoring" the incident. Prior to the attack, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the NYPD would step up patrols in Jewish neighborhoods of New York City, citing a string of recent anti-Semitic attacks.
An eyewitness describes what he saw go down at the rabbi's house:
Witness Aron Kohn described the moment the suspect walked into the Rabbi's residence and began attacking with a knife he described as almost as big as "a broomstick."

"I saw him walking in by the door. I asked who was coming in in the middle of the night with an umbrella. While I was saying that, he pulled it out from the thing and he started to run into the big room, which was on the left side. And I had thrown tables and chairs, that he should get out of here. And the injured guy, he was bleeding here, bleeding in his hand, all over," Kohn said. "I ran into the other room to save my life. I saw him running this way, so I ran the other way to save my life. He said something but I could not understand what he said. I saw him pull out the knife from the holder, the case."
Again, it's all very vague.

In France, one small community of Jews in the country's northeast have been targeted dozens of times in the last year. Despite having the full force of the state on their side, authorities there still have ZERO leads...

42 acts of vandalism in 1.5 years: Jewish cemeteries are being systematically desecrated in Alsace, France, but not a SINGLE arrest has been made

The suspect's name and image, by the way:


Update 22:30 CET

The above suspect, Grafton Thomas, is also now, retrospectively, a suspect in a 'stab-a-Jew-and-run' incident in the same town of Monsey, NY, on 20 November this year (that's the earlier incident we comment on above, the one where a cash reward was offered for info).


Rocket

Best of the Web: What does deploying Russia's hypersonic warheads mean for arms race? Avangard changes everything!

Avangard
© 1Avangard liftoff, Sputnik/Russian Defense MinistryAvangard liftoff
Moscow's deployment of 'Avangard' hypersonic warheads means the US missile defense installations in Europe are now obsolete - and that Washington would have to spend a lot of money it doesn't have in order to catch up.

Video released by the Russian defense ministry on Friday shows the hypersonic glider warheads being loaded onto silo-based missiles. For now, the Avangards will be mounted on the UR-100N (or SS-19 Stiletto, as NATO calls them) ballistic missiles, until the RS-28 Sarmat is ready to enter service.

Hypersonic weapons fly far faster than the speed of sound. Avangard is capable of reaching Mach 27 without losing control or disintegrating under heat and pressure. This means that the weapon can outmaneuver any defenses on its approach phase, rendering it "absolutely invulnerable to any air or missile defense system," in the words of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"We don't have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon against us," is how General John Hyten, then head of the US Strategic Command, put it to the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 2018, shortly after Putin confirmed the existence of Avangard and several other weapons.


Comment: See also: