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Best of the Web: Syrian War Report - September 6, 2018: Russian Warplanes Launch Airstrikes Against McCain's Terrorists in Idlib
Winning
Earlier, pro-militant sources once again accused the Russian Aerospace Forces of striking civilian targets in the province of Idlib. While some civilian casualties as a result of any kind of fully-fledged operations against well-armed terrorist groups can hardly be avoided, pro-militant sources and mainstream media outlets are often exploiting this narrative in their propaganda campaigns against the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance. Most of reports appearing from pro-militant "media activists" in Idlib describe any destroyed militant position, HQ or warehouse as a bakery, a medical point or a civilian house.
Comment: Let's take a closer look:
Sayonara, McCain!
Best of the Web: Another strong earthquake hits Japan - 2 dead, 143 injured - Collapsed buildings and massive landslides in Hokkaido
© Jiji Press/AFP/Getty ImagesThe earthquake turned this road into liquid in Sapporo, northern Japan
Of course, a quake's magnitude on the Richter Scale doesn't tell us everything about its potential to cause damage. All kinds of waves are generated by earthquakes, and a combination of environmental and infrastructural factors will determine how much damage it causes on the surface.
Today's quake comes a day after Typhoon Jebi, officially the strongest typhoon to hit Japan in a quarter century, swept across the country's main island, further damaging infrastructure and causing at least 11 deaths. Japan underwent another major earthquake just two months ago, resulting in three deaths and leaving over 200 people injured.
In the following footage showing the moment the quake struck, note the now familiar 'earthquake lights' on the horizon. These are likely a plasma phenomenon related to powerful ground-to-sky electric discharge during intense seismic activity:
Best of the Web: Farewell to a hero: 120,000 Russians attend funeral of assassinated DPR leader Zakharchenko
A coffin with Zakharchenko's body has been put on display in the lobby of an opera and ballet theater in the city's center, not far from cafe Separ where he was killed in a bomb blast on Friday.
A spokesperson for the city administration told Sputnik that over 120,000 people have come to bid farewell to the assassinated leader.
"At the moment, according to the preliminary estimates, there are more than 120,000 people," the spokesperson said.
It has been 11 years since independent investigative science journalist Gary Taubes published his best-seller, Good Calories, Bad Calories,[1] after 15 years of serious study, enabled by that amazing new tool, the Internet. Turns out, it's not fat that makes us unhealthy. In 640 total pages with 459 notes, 1700 references, and 924 Amazon customer reviews, Taubes demolished what the medical, scientific, and nutrition fields (since at least the 1960s) had spent countless billions of dollars building and profiting (but also dying) from: the fat food theory of the causation of "diseases of human civilization" - atherosclerosis, coronary artery heart disease, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, stroke, cancer, dementia, and even osteoporosis and arthritis.
Best of the Web: After five years the death of investigative journalist Michael Hastings remains a mystery
© Lord Jim/FlickrMemorial at crash site of journalist Michael Hastings
In the early hours of June 18, 2013, a vehicle purported to have been driven by Michael Hastings crashed in Los Angeles, thus snuffing out the life of an already prolific young talent whose best years were still ahead of him. And that is where the worst part of this tragedy begins: the death of Michael Hastings, despite him being an influential member of the journalistic community, was never given the thorough investigative approach it rightly deserved.
This article will not go into all of the details of Hastings' life, since much of that is already known. Suffice it to say that the author probably had just as many enemies - many of them high-ranking officials - as he had friends. Ruining the career of an Army general, while declaring on one occasion that the media should "declare war" on the government, has a tendency to do those things. On top of that, Wikileaks reported that Hastings had contacted them just hours before his death, saying he was under investigation by the FBI. The federal agency, however, denied the claim. Those bits of information were enough for many people to frame his premature and very violent death as some sort of premeditated murder.
Comment:
- CIA Director Brennan confirmed as reporter Michael Hastings next target
- Murdered American journalist Michael Hastings 'feared tampering with his Mercedes'
- Reporter Michael Hastings sent panicky email hours before sudden car crash death
- Michael Hastings, journalist who exposed U.S. military and Obama administration cremated despite family wishes to have body
- WikiLeaks: CIA can hack cars to carry out "undetectable assassinations" - was Michael Hastings one?
- Another whistleblower dead: journalist Michael Hastings
- Michael Hastings and the war on journalism
Best of the Web: Irish co-producers of documentary about British state collusion in terrorism arrested by English police
© Liam McBurney/PAFrom left, solicitor John Finucane with his client, investigative journalist Barry McCaffrey, and Trevor Birney with his solicitor Niall Murphy leaving Musgrave police station in Belfast on Friday night.
Families and supporters of those killed in the 1994 attack had staged a vigil in solidarity with award-winning reporters Barry McCaffrey (48) and Trevor Birney (51).
The two men, who produced the documentary No Stone Unturned about the UVF gun attack at the Heights Bar, were detained at 7am on Friday.
They walked out of Musgrave police station in Belfast at 8.55pm, with a tearful Mr McCaffrey saying: "There are families here [who] lost loved ones who didn't get justice today.
"This man [Mr Birney] was taken away from his wife and his children this morning. My neighbours had to see me getting taken away. It's not fair. It's not fair.
"And it's an attack on the press, everybody should realise. It's us today. Tomorrow it could be you."
Comment: These documents were obviously leaked to them, not 'stolen by them'. For the full story about this, it's best to watch this eye-opening documentary:
Best of the Web: Leader of Donetsk People's Republic killed in explosion - Russia says Kiev was behind the assassination
© Alexander Ermochenko / ReutersAleksandr Zakharchenko, the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR)
"The head of the DNR, Alenksandr Zakharchenko, has died as a result of a terrorist act," a spokesperson of the self-proclaimed republic's administration told journalists, revealing no details of the incident.
"An improvised explosive device was planted inside the café ... right near the entrance," Aleksandr Kazakov, an advisor to the DNR leader, told RT, adding that the killers apparently knew that Zakharchenko would arrive at the café and were "waiting" for him. A state of emergency has been imposed, Kazakov said, adding that borders with both Ukraine and Russia were sealed as the security services are "actively searching for the potential perpetrators."
Comment: This just adds to the murderous Kiev regime's efforts to assasinate Donetsk People's Republic leaders:
In February 2017, separatist commander Mikhail Tolstykh, 36, whose nom de guerre was Givi, died in an explosion in his office in Donetsk.
Another separatist commander -- Arseny Pavlov, known as Motorola -- was killed when a bomb exploded in an elevator in his apartment block in Donetsk in October 2016.
On January 1, 2015, Aleksandr Bednov, a separatist commander in Luhansk, was killed resisting arrest by fellow separatist authorities on charges he ran a torture chamber in the basement of a rebel-held building.
Best of the Web: The origin of 'white privilege': US aristocrat Peggy McIntosh's catastrophically flawed thesis
Peggy McIntosh
"[White Privilege is] the unquestioned and unearned set of advantages, entitlements, benefits, and choices bestowed upon people solely because they are white. Generally white people who experience such privilege do so without being conscious of it." -- Peggy McIntosh, quoted in the Racial Equity Resource GuideThe concept of 'white privilege' was popularized by Peggy McIntosh in a 1989 paper written at Harvard University and titled, "White Privilege: Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack." It was written as a personal, experiential essay, and it details 26 ways in which McIntosh's skin color has been decisive in determining her life outcomes. This hugely influential paper has been responsible for the subsequent proliferation of a rigidly enforced theory of privilege throughout social movements and university classrooms. So central has this doctrine become to progressive politics, pedagogy, and activism, that to even question its validity is to invite the inquisitorial wrath of 'social justice' radicals. But it is for this very reason that it is important to subject McIntosh's ideas to scrutiny. So let us return to the source and to first principles and unpack Peggy McIntosh's knapsack...
Best of the Web: Leaked Al Jazeera footage exposes US Israel lobby astroturfing pro-Palestinian student event
© Al JazeeraThe astroturfed protest organized by Israel lobbyist Noah Pollak
The release of the much-anticipated US version of undercover documentary The Lobby has been stalled since the UK version, which aired in 2017, revealed Israel's influence within the Labour party and its role in drumming up accusations of anti-Semitism.
The US version is yet to be broadcast, reportedly because of pressure placed on Qatar, which owns Al Jazeera. The delay has prompted segments to be leaked.
Comment: More from GreyZone:
According to one Hoover Institution campus fellow, "This is the first foot soldier activity that I think we've been forced to do."Nathan Pollak
A Hoover fellow who identified himself as "Marshall," explained the background of the protest: "It was basically like Noah Pollak coming in and being like, 'Look, there are these jihadis who basically support suicide bombing, and they're on a campus and you have to stop them.'"
"It's a chance to shout at Arabs," another fellow interjected.
Marshall, who is African American, divulged his fear that some media outlet might publish "a photo of Deon [another Hoover Institute fellow] and me together, and we're just like clearly identifiable. They're like, "Oh, who are these traitors who sold out to the Jewish conspiracy for money?'"
He then joked: "I'm like, 'We did! We cost $50,000 plus benefits."
Later, as the bus neared the SJP event, Marshall aired more doubts about the staged protest: "No, no, no - this is astroturfing... It's when you set up fake protests."
"It's not that astroturfing is wrong, it's just that your astroturf has to be, like, committed," he lamented.
Months before Al Jazeera's investigative unit went undercover in the Israel lobby, it interviewed me about the way the lobby operates. In the footage presented in this clip, I can be seen explaining that its outfits in Washington have been "manufacturing the image of a grassroots movement by taking corporate money and basically paying people to appear as activists."
[...]
During a private conversation with "Tony," the Al Jazeera undercover reporter who filmed the documentary with a hidden camera, Pollak explained his smash-mouth strategy: "The activism has to be very provocative and, like, attention getting and, like, total no-fucks-given. We're going to be more pro-Israel than you can even imagine. Just to, like, provoke everyone."
In arguing that his tactics were more likely to find an audience in the US than in the home country of "Tony," the Israel lobbyist unleashed a xenophobic diatribe.
"The majority of Americans are pro-Israel," Pollak said. "Whereas, if you take a poll of Israel in the UK, it's just pure hatred of Israel. You're country, like, basically let half of fucking Pakistan move in. So you have a different problem than we do here."
Comment: Footage from his funeral: