Society's Child

At least 21 dead, 33 injured in southern Brazil bus accident

News.Az
Tue, 26 Jan 2021 11:25 UTC

At least 21 people were killed and 33 injured, with seven in critical condition, after a bus crashed on Monday in the southern Brazilian state of Parana, the Military Police Air Operations Battalion (BPMOA) said, according to Xinhua.

According to the BPMOA, which initially reported 10 dead and six injured, the accident occurred on a stretch of road in the municipality of Guaratuba on the coast of Parana, when the bus went off the road and overturned for reasons still unknown.

Local fire department captain Icaro Grenert explained to the press that it is not known if the accident was due to a mechanical failure.

The vehicle was carrying 54 passengers and two drivers at the time of the accident.

It had left the northern municipality of Ananindeua and was bound for the seaside resort of Camboriu on the coast of Santa Catarina state.

Twitter rolls out new Wikipedia-like program to narrative manage tweets

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com
Tue, 26 Jan 2021 07:48 UTC

Twitter has announced that it will be employing "a new community-driven approach to help address misleading information" called Birdwatch which news media are comparing to the model of content moderation used by Wikipedia.

"Twitter unveiled a feature Monday meant to bolster its efforts to combat misinformation and disinformation by tapping users in a fashion similar to Wikipedia to flag potentially misleading tweets," reports NBC. "The new system allows users to discuss and provide context to tweets they believe are misleading or false. The project, titled Birdwatch, is a standalone section of Twitter that will at first only be available to a small set of users, largely on a first-come, first-served basis."

Comment: See also:

European countries move toward compulsory medical-grade masks for public

James Hookway
The Wall Street Journal
Mon, 25 Jan 2021 13:32 UTC

More countries in Europe are moving to requiring people to use medical-grade face masks in public, while in the Netherlands, there were violent protests in several cities against a new curfew order.

The Dutch police union has warned against further unrest after law enforcers used water cannons and mounted police to break up a protest in Amsterdam that saw some people throw rocks and fireworks at police lines. Around 200 people were arrested there, while there were arrests elsewhere, including in Eindhoven, where people looted stores near the protest site and vehicles were set on fire. A new curfew began on Saturday requiring people to remain indoors after 9 p.m.

"This has nothing to do with protest," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Monday. "This is criminal violence and we will treat it as such." The Netherlands had 4,924 new cases on Sunday, and 30 deaths.

Austria, meanwhile, now requires medical-grade respirator masks on public transport and when entering stores, businesses and hospitals, among other buildings. The government sent out free supplies of the FFP2 masks to older and low-income citizens. Austria reported 29 deaths on Sunday and 1,200 new cases.

Comment: See also:

Only 1 in 5 Americans have confidence Biden can unite the country: Poll

Mark Moore
NY Post
Sun, 24 Jan 2021 00:00 UTC

Americans definitely aren't united on this question.

Just one in five Americans have "a great deal of confidence" in President Biden's ability to make good on his goal to unify the country, according to a new poll released Sunday.

While 22 percent said Biden will unify the country, 24 percent remained highly skeptical, saying that they have no confidence "at all" that he will be able to do so, the ABC News/Ipsos poll found.

Thirty-five percent said they have a "good amount" of confidence Biden could unite the country and 19 percent said they had "not so much" confidence.

Comment: See also:

Gah! Joe Biden quietly embraces far-left 'critical race theory'

NY Post
Sun, 24 Jan 2021 00:00 UTC

President Biden is siding firmly with the hard cultural left in his early rush of executive orders, including re-opening the door for federal bias training that relies on the absurd "critical race theory."

Last week he rescinded a Trump-era order that banned training that implies anyone is racist or sexist "by virtue of his or her race, sex, and/or national origin." The former prez had set that rule after it turned out that agencies across the federal government had actually been doing just that — jumping onto the far-left bandwagon of insisting that (for starters) all whites and all men are intrinsically bigoted.

Yes, several agencies reacted to the Trump order by suspending all anti-bias training until they could vet their programs — but that was a wise response: It's all too typical for harried bosses to carelessly sign off on the use of outside "experts" who pitch utter nonsense.

Comment: See also:

Lebanon goes extreme lockdown, will have 24-hour curfew for almost a MONTH

Timour Azhari
MSN
Fri, 22 Jan 2021 02:11 UTC

Comment: There are numerous 'exceptions' to the rule, but the very concept is totalitarian no matter how you spin it.

Lebanon has extended a hard lockdown by two weeks amid record-breaking numbers of COVID-related deaths and an unabated surge in the number of new cases that have stretched the country's healthcare system to its limits.

Meanwhile, a top health official has announced plans for a roll-out of vaccinations in the crisis-hit country that he said would see some three million of the country's inhabitants - roughly half the population - receive the jab by the end of the year.

Assem Araji, the head of Lebanon's parliamentary health committee, announced that the first batch of doses from United States-based Pfizer would arrive in the first week of February and that priority would be given to healthcare workers and those over the age of 74.

Lebanon has struggled to bring a COVID outbreak under control since the August port explosion that killed 200, injured more than 6,000 and destroyed large parts of Beirut, including several hospitals.

Anti-lockdown protesters in Denmark burn effigy of PM, brawl with police

RT
Tue, 26 Jan 2021 02:00 UTC

Crowds of black-clad protesters have taken to the streets, launching fireworks, torching an effigy of Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, and clashing with cops.

Hundreds of black-clad protesters clashed with police on the streets of Copenhagen on Saturday night, shooting fireworks at the officers and getting batons in return. Violent demonstrations have become a weekly occurrence in the Danish capital, where lockdown measures were extended at the beginning of the year and where the government recently clamped down further on the size of gatherings permitted.

The group, calling themselves the 'Men in Black', torched an effigy of Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. By the end of the night, at least five people were arrested, Copenhagen police said on Twitter.

Comment: This is happening in a lot of places around the world. The people are sick and tired of their rights being trampled on by the authorities.

Internet goes ballistic after Jimmy Dore interviews a 'Boogaloo Boi': Are they pro-LGBTQ anti-war activists, or right-wing extremists?

RT
Tue, 26 Jan 2021 00:44 UTC

Jimmy Dore has found himself at the center of an ideological internet feud after the left-wing pundit suggested that progressives share many common causes with the Boogaloo movement, often denounced as a far-right militia.

The popular political commentator and comedian interviewed a self-described "Boogaloo Boi," Magnus Panvidya, after seeing a video of the gun-toting radical denouncing US wars and corporate power during a speech in front of the Michigan State Capitol.

Noting that he couldn't find anything in the speech that he disagreed with, Dore explained that he decided to invite Panvidya onto his show to "explore his beliefs further."

Panvidya described himself as an anarchist who had a long history of environmental activism, rejecting the claim that the Boogaloo Bois were white supremacists or right-wing extremists.

Comment: It seems Facebook has pegged the Boogaloos as right-wing:

Facebook bans hundreds of 'boogaloo' accounts citing- without examples- 'real-world violence' while ANTIFA linked accounts are left alone

The river of forgetfulness: The great reprogramming of America

Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
Sun, 24 Jan 2021 00:53 UTC

Riotous rogue Trump supporters who broke into the Capitol on January 6 were properly and widely condemned by conservatives. They were somewhat reminiscent of the mobs of fanatic leftists and union members that a decade ago stormed the Wisconsin state capitol at Madison, or the unpunished hundreds of rioters who created havoc on Washington, D.C. streets during the Trump 2016 inauguration. We expect the Capitol stormers will be punished, and not in the lax fashion of the latter two groups that were not.

Within a few days, the talking points were finalized that all of Donald Trump's supporters deserved blame for the violence. That riot, the Trump defeat, and the loss of the Senate have greenlighted left-wing talk of "deprogramming," "de-Baathification," "re-educating," and "reprogramming" half the country to ensure they think correctly and act properly from now on — the exact methodology of such brain rinsing apparently to be announced later.

So we are beginning a great reprogramming of America. The construction of Trump and all of his supporters as abettors, terrorists, seditionists, and traitors is certainly proving useful. After the Capitol conundrum, we have seen over the past two weeks a coordinated and synchronized effort by Amazon, Twitter, and Google to destroy Parler, a small conservative-friendly rival to their social media and internet monopolies. More of such humanitarian taking care of business will follow — all as preemption for the most leftwing agenda in a half-century now rolling out.

New service Counterweight provides counsel to those facing social justice-fueled 'cancellation'

RT
Mon, 25 Jan 2021 00:47 UTC

A well-known British intellectual has launched an organisation whose stated mission is to provide resources and guidance to those facing 'cancellation' in the workplace or elsewhere, eliciting cheers as well as groans.

The new group, Counterweight, will help individuals "resist the imposition of Critical Social Justice (CSJ) on their day to day lives." A video featured on Counterweight's website describes 'woke' activism as a "restrictive ideology" that cares more about a person's identity than their character or actions. The organization has pledged to provide "mental health support" and other forms of aid to "casualties of the culture wars."

Created by writer and self-described "leftist" Helen Pluckrose, the organization bills itself as a non-partisan community that advocates for "liberal concepts of social justice that include individualism, universalism, viewpoint diversity and the free exchange of ideas."

Pluckrose found herself in the public spotlight after she was revealed as one of the co-conspirators in a headline-grabbing gimmick in which absurd and bogus academic papers were submitted to and published by journals focusing on social justice issues.

Known as the "grievance studies affair," the hoax academic papers made Pluckrose a leading commentator on postmodernism and identity politics within academia.

Many people who are hesitant to be vaccinated for Covid-19 see the drug as a treatment or prophylactic for the disease, though so far there is no...

Good Optics

With mail in voting likely to become a thing, does it really matter any more? Stick a fork in us...this country is done.

Bezel Bub

Other comets coming sooner, although not quite as big. E.g. "Leonard" this December https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2021_A1_(Leonard)

Tsidkenu

Tornadoes here in Aus too, as I reported here [Link]

Tsidkenu

Small tornado also struck Armidale. We had another tornado hit farmland near Bathurst last week. This summer will be the summer of floods, hail...

Tsidkenu

Society's Child

At least 21 dead, 33 injured in southern Brazil bus accident

Twitter rolls out new Wikipedia-like program to narrative manage tweets

European countries move toward compulsory medical-grade masks for public

Only 1 in 5 Americans have confidence Biden can unite the country: Poll

Gah! Joe Biden quietly embraces far-left 'critical race theory'

Lebanon goes extreme lockdown, will have 24-hour curfew for almost a MONTH

Anti-lockdown protesters in Denmark burn effigy of PM, brawl with police

Internet goes ballistic after Jimmy Dore interviews a 'Boogaloo Boi': Are they pro-LGBTQ anti-war activists, or right-wing extremists?

The river of forgetfulness: The great reprogramming of America

New service Counterweight provides counsel to those facing social justice-fueled 'cancellation'

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