Welcome to Sott.net
Wed, 13 Oct 2021
The World for People who Think

Society's Child
Map

Star of David

Gaza has suffered the longest, most barbaric, lockdown in the world - I know, because I lived through three years of it

Palestinians in Gaza
© Reuters
Palestinians in Gaza
While the rest of the world may rightly moan about the ways in which the miserable Covid-induced lockdowns have affected our lives, spare a thought for the 2 million Palestinians imprisoned in Israel's brutal and illegal blockade.

"We're all Palestinians now," some say, as people around the world are under Covid-19 lockdown and rendered jobless. While the reference is apt, Palestinians in Gaza have been under the most severe lockdown in the world for 14 long years.

As 2021 has gone on, it has become increasingly clear that lockdowns are affecting people around the world in painful and deadly ways beyond the already awful effects of slashed incomes and isolation.

So imagine life where the lockdown isn't for a period of weeks or months, but throughout the year, every year, with no end in sight, making life utterly unlivable.

Yellow Vest

Dozens arrested at Dutch anti-lockdown protest as demonstrators carry mock coffin mourning death of democracy

Police Amsterdam
© Reuters / Piroschka van de Wouw
Police near protest site Amsterdam, Netherlands, February 21, 2021.
At least 28 people have been arrested at anti-lockdown protests in Amsterdam, after around 700 gathered in the city on Sunday to vent their fury at the Dutch government's handling of the pandemic.

Three individuals were detained for public violence offences, seven for defying police orders, and the rest for flouting the government's Covid-19 restrictions, local news site NL Times reported, citing a police spokesperson.

Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema reportedly helped officers break up the protests in the central Museum Square, before riot police were called in to disperse the remaining demonstrators.

Comment: That last line from RT is pure BS. Something like half the global population has 'had' Covid-19 - in the sense that they were exposed to, and easily fought off, the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Their 'cases' in the above context are meaningless.

Anyway, nothing can stop what's coming: global revolution.

See also:


Megaphone

US scholars form Academic Freedom Alliance to defend free expression

princeton
© William Thomas Cain/Getty Images
Students at Princeton University in New Jersey. The alliance arose out of discussions among some Princeton faculty over how to counter what they see as growing intolerance of differing viewpoints.
Cornel West and Laura Kipnis join alliance designed to help educators 'speak and publish without fear of sanction'.

Cornel West, Laura Kipnis and Stephen Pinker are among about 200 scholars from across the US who on Monday launched the Academic Freedom Alliance, a group with a mission to help college educators "speak, instruct and publish without fear of sanction, bullying, punishment, or persecution".

The non-profit organization arose out of discussions among some Princeton University faculty members over how to counter what they see as growing intolerance of differing viewpoints.

Comment: See also:


Bizarro Earth

UK 500-bed Nightingale Hospital to close without treating a single Covid-19 patient

Nightingale
© NHS England/Simon Dewhurst
The Nightingale hospital in Harrogate will revert to its original use as a convention centre
Yorkshire's 500-bed Nightingale Hospital is to close without treating a single Covid-19 patient.

The emergency unit was set up at Harrogate's Convention Centre and opened by Captain Sir Tom Moore in April.

It was one of seven built in England in 2020 to try and prevent hospitals becoming overwhelmed during the pandemic.


Comment: And all of these hospitals, many of which cost millions of pounds to set up, are either closed or in the process of closing after receiving next to no patients. Meanwhile the government is still threatening the public that the NHS could be overwhelmed at any moment: London's 4,000-bed Nightingale hospital to be SHUT after treating just 51 Covid-19 patients


The NHS said it would offer testing while it was being wound back.

Arrow Up

UK parents not consenting to swab test children for coronavirus twice a week in return to school plan

school distance uk
© Reuters
Schools have already begun testing ahead of pupils returning next week
Head teachers are warning of problems getting parental consent for Covid tests, ahead of pupils returning to school in England next week.

A survey found more than half of secondary head teachers had faced difficulties getting parental approval.

Geoff Barton, leader of the ASCL union which carried out the survey, said parents might have heard "misinformation" about testing.

The Covid tests for pupils are voluntary and need parents' permission.

Gold Coins

Beware of a central bank digital currency

Bitcoins
© Dado Ruvic/Reuters
In recent weeks Jerome Powell at the Federal Reserve and Christine Lagarde at the European Central Bank have commented on the likelihood of implementing digital currencies in the next years. The positives have been well explained. More transparency, ease of use and lower cost.

The European Central Bank has stated that "a digital euro would guarantee that citizens in the euro area can maintain costless access to a simple, universally accepted, safe and trusted means of payment. The digital euro would still be a euro: like banknotes but digital. It would be an electronic form of money issued by the Eurosystem (the ECB and national central banks) and accessible to all citizens and firms. A digital euro would not replace cash, but rather complement it. The Eurosystem will continue to ensure that you have access to euro cash across the euro area. A digital euro would give you an additional choice about how to pay and make it easier to do so, contributing to financial inclusion alongside cash".

In the United States, many voices call for a digital dollar to compete with China's yuan. However, the US dollar is already the world reserve currency, it is used in more than 80% of global transactions while the yuan is used in less than 4%, according to the Bank of International Settlements (the total is 200% as each transaction involves two currencies), and most payments and transfers are already electronic. The euro is the second most used currency and is also mostly through electronic transfers. One can say that the US Dollar and the euro are already "digital".

Comment: See also:


Padlock

Revolver exclusive study: COVID-19 lockdowns over 10 times more deadly than pandemic itself

mask wearing with laptop
A groundbreaking new study commissioned by Revolver News concludes that COVID-19 lockdowns are ten times more deadly than the actual COVID-19 virus in terms of years of life lost by American citizens.

Up until this point there had been no simple, rigorous analysis that accurately and definitively conveys the true costs of the COVID-19 lockdowns. Accordingly, Revolver News set out to commission a study to do precisely that: to finally quantify the net damage of the lockdowns in terms of a metric known as "life-years." Simply put, we have drawn upon existing economic studies on the health effects of unemployment to calculate an estimate of how many years of life will have been lost due to the lockdowns in the United States, and have weighed this against an estimate of how many years of life will have been saved by the lockdowns. The results are nothing short of staggering, and suggest that the lockdowns will end up costing Americans over 10 times as many years of life as they will save from the virus itself.

The COVID-19 lockdown measures that Americans have had to endure for the greater part of 2020 represent one of the most dramatic, consequential, and damaging policy measures undertaken in this nation's history. For the first time in its history, America has experienced a situation so crippling and perilous that long term financial and social stability have been legitimately threatened.

Comment: See also:


X

Will the Scottish National Party finally see sense on its flawed Hate Crime Bill?

Humza Yousaf
© Getty images
The SNP's Humza Yousaf.
The saga of the SNP's Hate Crime Bill is drawing to a conclusion. This week, Holyrood will cast a decisive vote on the embattled bill. Introduced just ten months ago, it seeks to consolidate existing hate crime laws and create new offences on the 'stirring up of hatred' against certain groups. These proposals would make 'threatening or abusive' behaviour which 'stirs up hatred' on the grounds of age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity and variations in sex characteristics a criminal offence, punishable by up to seven years in prison, an unlimited fine or, for the extremely unfortunate, both.

The proposals have proved highly controversial and understandably so. In our society, the term 'hatred' is malleable. It means very different things to different people. Many accusations of 'hatred' don't exactly chime with the dictionary definition of the word which, by the way, is 'an extremely strong feeling of dislike'. Not merely 'dislike', not 'disagreement' and not 'dismissal' of one's views.

Comment: See also:


NPC

People are starting to use Lefties' nonsensical language against them and it's absolutely beautiful: Meet #SuperStraight and #BlueAnon

super straight blue anon
One of the biggest issues conservatives have faced in recent decades is a lack of control over shaping language. See, everyone right of Marx believes in objective, scientific definitions. For example, a tree... is a tree.

For the Left, however, a tree might not be a tree. A tree might be an animal. A man is a woman. An expensive death sentence is "affordable healthcare." War is peace. Ignorance is strength. Now you begin to understand me.

This is how we've come to a point where most labels in mainstream culture are created by the politically-correct Left, whether it be "income equality," "social justice," "inclusion," "cultural appropriation," or "anti-racism."

Comment: UPDATE: The Blue Anon entry has been put back up on Urban Dictionary, but appears is still being censored in Google searches.


Gold Seal

The REAL 'Lunatic Fringe', And Where to Find it: The Anti-Lockdown Protests in Dublin

great awakening
On Sunday, an irate Irish society finally said 'no more'. For a year they had been subjected to a criminally long lockdown to the detriment of their physical, emotional, and financial well being.

Thousands of them took to the streets of Dublin to display their dissatisfaction with a Davos-owned political class and the police state they were held hostage in. Besides one or two trouble-makers the protests were peaceful and the message was loud and clear.

Enough is enough. The Irish did what they do best - demanded freedom, stood up to their oppressors and sang songs.

The oligarchs winced. Butterflies were doing somersaults in their overfed bellies. Panic set in and beads of sweat dripped down their deranged little heads. Their biggest fear was realised; the people refused to comply. As a result, what followed was an onslaught of desperation from every political party and establishment sycophant in the nation.

The usual rhetoric was thrown out; anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, far-right, etc, etc.

Yawn!