Society's Child

Seven torture chambers & cells inside shipping containers discovered in Dutch police raid after crack of encrypted chat app

RT
Wed, 08 Jul 2020 16:46 UTC

Six Dutch men have been arrested after a Franco-Dutch police operation to crack the EncroChat encrypted text app led authorities to seven shipping containers outfitted as grisly torture chambers and cells near the Belgian border.

Police arrested six men after snooping on their alleged plans to kidnap and take hostage fellow criminals, discussed in detail over EncroChat for months, Dutch authorities revealed on Tuesday. The kidnappers were apparently quite meticulous in their planning, with several "teams" preparing to snatch up their victims and one "observation team." The authorities conducted their raid on June 22, swooping in right as it seemed the men were ready to strike - through their assumed victims had been tipped off by police and gone into hiding.

Comment: Certainly makes the case for having a police force capable of taking men like this off the street.

Instagram blocks post by supermodel Bella Hadid saying she's proud to be Palestinian

RT
Wed, 08 Jul 2020 17:00 UTC

Supermodel Bella Hadid has called out Instagram, after it deleted a post honoring her father "and his birthplace of Palestine." The Facebook-owned company said the post broke its community guidelines, but Hadid wasn't satisfied.

Hadid shared a photo of her father's expired American passport on Tuesday, which lists his place of birth as "Palestine." The picture, posted to Hadid's story and accompanied with the text "I am proud to be Palestinian," was soon removed by Instagram.

In a follow-up post, Hadid explained that Instagram sent her a message claiming that the post breached the site's community guidelines on "hate speech, harassment and bullying."

"Exactly what part of me being proud of my father's place of Palestine is 'bullying, harassment, graphic, or sexual nudity'?" she asked. "Are we not allowed to be Palestinian on Instagram? This, to me, is bullying."

"You can't erase history by silencing people," she added. "It doesn't work like that."

Slavery rampant in Africa, Middle East; the West wrongly accuses itself

Giulio Meotti
Gatestone Institute
Sun, 05 Jul 2020 16:40 UTC

© Mark Wilson/Getty Images
According to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who fled her homeland of Somalia and now live in the US: "What the media do not tell you is that America is the best place on the planet to be black, female, gay, trans or what have you. We have our problems and we need to address those. But our society and our systems are far from racist".

For the intersectional activists, the US is the world's biggest oppressor -- not China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, or Iran.
"What the media do not tell you is that America is the best place on the planet to be black, female, gay, trans or what have you. We have our problems and we need to address those. But our society and our systems are far from racist". — Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Twitter, June 9, 2020.
"The new anti-racism is racism disguised as humanism (...) It implies that every white person is bad... and that every black person is a victim". — Abnousse Shalmani, born in Tehran, now living in Paris, to Le Figaro, June 12, 2020.
"America looks different if you grew up, as I did, in Africa and the Middle East". — Ayaan Hirsi Ali, The Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2020.
It is high time for the United States to stop funding the United Nations.... The United Nations is now being used to perpetuate injustice, not stop it.
Real slave traders and racists -- those who believe Western societies and values should not exist at all -- most likely look at the current Western self-flagellation and cheer their approval.

The United States abolished slavery 150 years ago, and has affirmative action for minorities. It is the country that elected a Black president, Barack Obama -- twice! Yet, a new movement is toppling one historic monument after another one, as if the US is still enslaving African-Americans. Activists in Washington DC even targeted an Emancipation Memorial, depicting President Abraham Lincoln, who paid with his life for freeing slaves.

Today slavery still exists in many parts of Africa and Middle East, but the self-flagellating Western public is obsessively focused only on the Western past of African slavery rather than on real, ongoing slavery, which is alive and well -- and ignored. For today's slaves, there are no demonstrations in the streets, no international political pressure, and virtually no articles in the media.

Comment: And that's for at least two reasons: 1) many of the purveyors of this self-flagellation are not actually concerned about slavery (past or present) and are cynically using it as a means of gaining power over others, 2) many believers are too ignorant to know otherwise (influenced by the purveyors of the ideology).

The Groupthink Pandemic

Kevin Smith
Off-Guardian
Sun, 05 Jul 2020 00:00 UTC

Groupthink is all around us. Decision-making in government, in the media and at work. It's slowly killing the world.

In the background of the most important events, the Covid-19 response and increasing tension and conflict in the world, it might be worth looking through some of this in a bit more detail.

I've experienced groupthink working for large organisations, most notably in my last job. We were tasked with investigating and solving complex problems. Some technical expertise helped but was not crucial to the role.

Critical thinking and balancing evidence and differing viewpoints was key.

Yet the organisation decided that this was no longer required and changed the whole operating model to a one-size fits all type of call-centre. This new high-risk approach was recommended to us by the outside consultants Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) who were clueless about our business.

Those of us who were experienced in the role argued that the model wouldn't work. But the organisation ploughed on regardless. It was obvious from day one that the financials didn't stack up which they tried to deny and later concealed.

Aide to Venezuelan Guaido threatens journalists with FBI investigation over 'Twitter hack'

RT
Tue, 07 Jul 2020 00:00 UTC

Nothing says you represent an internationally recognized government like telling people who mock you on Twitter that the FBI is after them and that there is a "price" on their heads. Just ask Juan Guaido's 'ambassador' to the UK.

Last Friday, the personal account of Vanessa Neumann, the Venezuelan businesswoman who serves as the representative of self-proclaimed 'interim president' Juan Guaido in Britain, posted a call for the death of the democratically elected Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Comment: See also:

Couple who painted over Black Lives Matter lettering on California street charged with HATE CRIME

Cassandra Fairbanks
Gateway Pundit
Tue, 07 Jul 2020 18:49 UTC

The California couple caught on video painting over a Black Lives Matter mural in Martinez on the Fourth of July are being charged with a hate crime by the Contra Costa County District Attorney's office.

The tacky bright yellow Black Lives Matter painting was approved and paid for by the city.

Nichole Anderson and David Nelson have been charged with three misdemeanors for the painting, meanwhile hundreds if not thousands of vandals and looters have gone free during the unrest. The pair are each charged with Vandalism Under $400, Violation of Civil Rights, and Possession of Tools to Commit Vandalism or Graffiti.

Comment: From Twitter:

The new battle of the sexes: Woke women vs. pro-Trump men

Suzanne Venker
Washington Examiner
Tue, 07 Jul 2020 15:02 UTC

Over the holiday weekend, Kellyanne Conway's teenage daughter took to social media to blast President Trump and to take a swipe at her parents for "bullying" her into silence by attempting to block her access to TikTok. This is a great example, albeit an extreme one, of the battle being played out in homes across the country between the "woke" and the "non-woke."

For anyone who needs clarification, being "woke" means to be a card-carrying member of an unofficial party that deems America endemically racist, oppressive, and prone to injustice. It isn't just about being anti-Republican and pro-Democrat, though it is that. To belong, you must harbor a deep-seated hatred for Trump and for the ideals and principles of America. You need to believe, as the tear-down of our statues demonstrates, that we need a whole new America.

But the divide between the woke and the non-woke isn't just between parents and their children or between siblings or even between husbands and wives — though it is all of those things. Increasingly, it's between the sexes.

Comment: See also:

J.K. Rowling, Noam Chomsky among dozens to call for end to 'cancel culture'

Tamar Lapin
New York Post
Tue, 07 Jul 2020 16:25 UTC

More than 100 writers and scholars — including Noam Chomsky, J.K. Rowling and Malcolm Gladwell — have signed a public letter decrying cancel culture and the rising "intolerance of opposing views."

Published in Harper's Magazine on Tuesday, the letter argued that the recent "needed reckoning" on racial and social justice has also "intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments" that tend to stifle the norms of public debate and tolerating differences.

"The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted," the letter states.

Comment: See also:

Hate is in the eye of the beholder: Facebook extends olive branch to boycott leaders, but middle ground is elusive in polarized US

RT
Tue, 07 Jul 2020 21:20 UTC

Seeking to appease hundreds of companies that have halted advertising, Facebook is pledging to do a better job policing 'hateful' content - a tall order in a nation where warring political parties can't even agree on basic facts.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg met on Tuesday with organizers of the boycott campaign, led by the NAACP and the Anti-Defamation League. They also announced plans to meet with other activist groups and consult with their own civil rights auditor.

The #StopHateForProfit boycott movement has seen more than 900 businesses suspending their advertising on the platform until the company curbs content that they find "toxic and hateful," although many big advertisers didn't join it. Stock investors were not impressed with Facebook's shares rising this week, and even CNN and the New York Times continued to run ads on the platform despite the criticism.

Facebook's talks with boycott organizers come amid "the largest social movement in US history and our nation's best and latest chance to act against the racism that has pervaded our country," Sandberg said. Changes will be made not because of advertiser pressure, but "because it's the right thing to do," she added.

Comment: See also:

'Redress for systemic racism'? California State University faculty demand free tuition for non-white students and segregation

RT
Wed, 08 Jul 2020 03:37 UTC

Lamenting declining minority enrollment, California State University's faculty union has called for tuition-free education for nonwhite students, nixing a ban on affirmative action, and... segregating students and faculty by color?

The California Faculty Association has published a list of demands aimed at "redress for systemic anti-Black racism in the CSU," insisting that black faculty, students and staff are "criminalized both on CSU campuses and in our communities." Its orders begin with a directive that "everyone needs to recognize: black lives are precious" and "take serious, tangible and public steps to protect Black lives, Black futures, and Black joy," and spiral off into calls for revisiting racial segregation.

In addition to abolishing tuition for "Black, Native and Indigenous students," the union has demanded the university system join its efforts to overturn a statewide ban on affirmative action, a controversial program that gives preference to minority students in admissions (or minority faculty in hiring). The professors have also demanded the university prioritize and expand its Ethnic Studies curriculum, forcing each student to take at least one Ethnic Studies course lest they participate in the "'spirit murdering' and violent deaths of Black communities."

This article is irrelevant. Hunter Biden was scheduled to be executed through hanging on Friday Oct. 15 at GITMO. Wake Up SOTT.net! [Link]

rbeltz48

The Duke gave the credit for the Royal family's decades-long interest in the environment to his late grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh, who he...

LadyRad

Harry Truman met Luce shortly after leaving office and told him to his face; "Mr. Luce, a man like you must have trouble sleeping at nights...

bobpinto

Trick Or Treat II: [Link]

parzival

The Impact of CO2, H2O and Other “Greenhouse Gases” on Equilibrium Earth Temperatures” by Coe, Fabinski and Weigleb, in the International Journal...

parzival

Society's Child

Seven torture chambers & cells inside shipping containers discovered in Dutch police raid after crack of encrypted chat app

Instagram blocks post by supermodel Bella Hadid saying she's proud to be Palestinian

Slavery rampant in Africa, Middle East; the West wrongly accuses itself

The Groupthink Pandemic

Aide to Venezuelan Guaido threatens journalists with FBI investigation over 'Twitter hack'

Couple who painted over Black Lives Matter lettering on California street charged with HATE CRIME

The new battle of the sexes: Woke women vs. pro-Trump men

J.K. Rowling, Noam Chomsky among dozens to call for end to 'cancel culture'

Hate is in the eye of the beholder: Facebook extends olive branch to boycott leaders, but middle ground is elusive in polarized US

'Redress for systemic racism'? California State University faculty demand free tuition for non-white students and segregation

Latest News

Picture of the Day

Quote of the Day

Recent Comments

Quantum Quirk

Contact Us