Welcome to Sott.net
Fri, 05 Nov 2021
The World for People who Think

Society's Child
Map

Cell Phone

American-born NASA scientist detained at border, forced to unlock his phone for freedom

Sidd Bikkannavar
© Youtube
Sidd Bikkannavar
Sidd Bikkannavar should not have raised any red flags with Customs and Border Patrol, much less should the U.S.-born scientist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab have been forced to fork over phone and social media passwords in order to return to the country after a trip to Chile.

But thanks to an abrupt, uncoordinated, and overly-broad travel ban implemented with an executive order from President Donald Trump, that's exactly what happened — and Bikkannavar feels unsettled by the incident.

"I don't know what to think about this," the scientist with 10 years at JPL told The Verge by phone. "... I was caught a little off-guard by the whole thing."

Bikkannavar traveled to South America on a multi-week vacation to pursue a personal hobby of racing solar-powered cars, and attended a race in Patagonia with a Chilean team he'd recently joined.

Departing under the Obama administration, the scientist faced a strikingly different atmosphere upon return to the administration of Trump and the chaos unfolding in the wake of tight restrictions on travel from certain predominantly Muslim nations.

Snowflake

The Intolerant Left: Singer Joy Villa receives death threats on social media after wearing 'Make America Great Again' dress to Grammys

joy villa
© MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images
Singer-songwriter Joy Villa was hit with a barrage of hate from leftists who wished for her death on social media after she walked the red carpet at the Grammys on Sunday proudly wearing a red-white-and-blue dress emblazoned with President Donald Trump's signature "Make American Great Again" slogan.

"Die," was the message some Twitter users sent directly to Villa on the social media platform.

"Sometimes you just gotta be free to express yourself," Villa wrote of her headline-making dress.

"Go big, or go home. You can either stand for what you believe or fall for what you don't. Above all make a choice for tolerance and love," the singer wrote on Instagram. "Agree to disagree. See the person over the politics, carry yourself with dignity, always. Life is made to be lived, so go boldly and give no offs!"

Comment: Unfortunately for the precious snowflakes on the Left who want to persecute anyone who doesn't conform to their worldview, Joy Villa's dress of choice has only benefited her professionally. She has seen a 'significant' spike in album sales since wearing the dress. What the Left doesn't understand is that they are the vocal minority, while a vast majority of Americans support Trump and his opposition to the Establishment and respond positively to the public figures who stand up and show their support as well. All the Left does is show their sick, fascist tendencies by threatening violence to those who refuse to be coerced into conformity.


Star of David

Crocodile tears: Corrupt Israeli politician used onion to fake crying in campaign video

Israel interior minister Arye Deri

Crocodile tears? Israel's Interior Minister in embarrassing viral video
Israel's Interior Minister has been left red-faced after a video emerged of him using an onion to induce tears while filming a campaign video.

It seems that Arye Deri, of the ultra-orthodox Shas political party, resorted to extreme measures when he was unable to truly weap while speaking about Shas' late spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

Yosef, who died in 2013, was the founder of the party and, as Deri clearly realized and exploited, the key to gaining the support of the membership.

Comment: A heartless & corrupt politician in an apartheid state where people (children included) are routinely killed? Or where they're abducted from the walled off ghetto in which they're confined, to be tortured and sexually abused by Israeli soldiers? No, Israel's the 'only democracy in the Middle East.'

Further reading: Israel's confiscation law means 'from now on it's legal to steal from Arabs'
On Monday this week the die was cast. Israel was declared the second apartheid state.

At midday in London, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to support the two-state solution any longer, thus marking the end of this strategy. That evening the Knesset passed the confiscation bill, marking the new regime it was establishing in its stead.

Israel has had its say, and it's loud and clear: one state, from the sea to the Jordan River, and its regime - apartheid. Two peoples, one of them superior. The spit in one's face can no longer be called rain. This spit requires a response, and the response must be action.



Vader

Two cops from same dept arrested for rape — 1 victim was a child

Brian Michael Lujan

Brian Michael Lujan
"Isolated incident," "a few bad apples" — these are just some of the terms used to downplay occurrences of police misconduct. "This officer is not representative of all police," we are told when a serial rapist cop is exposed. However, when looking at actual numbers, these incidents appear to be anything but isolated. Two recent police officer arrests last week in El Paso, Texas — both for sexual assault — back this point up quite powerfully.

Last Friday morning, a four-year veteran with the El Paso Police Department was arrested on sexual assault charges. According to the charges, while officer Brian Michael Lujan was out protecting and serving the citizens of El Paso, he was also raping them.

According to officials, Lujan's charges and subsequent arrest stem from the rape of three separate victims who were all attacked by Lujan while he was on-duty.

According to KVIA:

Brick Wall

Warning of Oroville Dam design risk issued over a decade ago

Oroville Dam
© Ruptly
A warning issued 12 years ago that California's Oroville Dam could be at risk of eroding was apparently ignored by the authorities. America's tallest dam was reported to be at risk of collapsing Sunday night, forcing mass evacuations.

A document released by three environmental groups more than a decade ago said that the dam's "ungated spillway" design could result in the "loss of crest control" and threaten people's lives.

The potential risk from the Oroville Dam was highlighted in a motion from October 2005 by three environmental groups - Friends Of The River, Sierra Club, and South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL) - which was sent to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The document resurfaced when SYRCL said in its statement on recent events with the dam that it had raised the issue back in 2005. The group also released a link to the 2005 motion.


Question

Yusra Khogali co-founder of Black Lives Matter appears to label white people 'defects'

Yusra Khogali

Yusra Khogali
A co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto argued that white people are "recessive genetic defects" and purportedly mused about how the race could be "wiped out," according to a post on what appears to be her Facebook page.

Yusra Khogali has faced increased scrutiny over the past year after BLM Toronto gained political influence following their disruption of the Toronto Pride parade and confrontations with Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne.

On Friday, Toronto Police announced they would not participate in this year's upcoming parade. This has been a longstanding demand of BLM TO and one that the board of Pride Toronto recently backed in a controversial vote.

Khogali has a track record of inflammatory, divisive rhetoric.

Dollar

Trump effect: Stock value of America's top 500 companies hits $20tn for first time

stock market bull Wall Street Standard and Poor
© Bloomberg / Getty Images
Investor optimism over increased corporate profits as well as faster US economic growth under President Trump has seen the value of stocks listed on the S&P 500 Index soar to the never-seen level of $20 trillion on Monday.

According to S&P Dow Jones Indices, the index that tracks the biggest American corporations has gained almost 25 percent over the past year increasing its market value by $3.6 trillion.

Nearly two-fifth of the growth followed the victory of Donald Trump in November. Some of the steps he promised to take during his presidential campaign, including tax cuts, regulatory relief as well as government spending aimed at bolstering inflation and boosting corporate sales have encouraged traders.

Eye 2

Poachers shot by Indian park rangers protecting rhinos

Rare great one-horned rhinoceros
© Flickr/ Kenzo Tribouillard
Come to Kazaringa National Park in India to enjoy the stunning and rare great one-horned rhinoceros- but if you want to poach them for their valuable horns, you may want to think twice. This is because the guards have been ordered to shoot with lethal intent at poachers, and have killed 50 of them in the last three years.

In 2014, park guards were instructed to shoot at suspected poachers. Poachers here is defined by anyone non-park personnel found in the park at night. 22 poachers were shot dead that year, as many as were killed between 2007-2013.

In 2015, the number killed grew to 23- the first year that the number of poachers killed exceeded the number of rhinos killed. It then plummeted to five in 2016, which park officials claim is because their lethal measure has successfully frightened would-be hunters away.

Dr Satyendra Singh, the park director, claims the "shoot on sight" label assigned to the park by the media is inaccurate. "First we warn them — who are you? But if they resort to firing we have to kill them. First we try to arrest them, so that we get the information, what are the linkages, who are others in the gang?"

Comment: See also: The Greatest Epidemic Sickness Known to Humanity
We, as a species, are in the midst of a massive psychic epidemic, a virulent collective psychosis that has been brewing in humanity's psyche from the beginning of time. Indigenous people have been tracking this 'psychic' virus calling it "wetiko," a Cree term which refers to a diabolically wicked person or spirit who terrorizes others.

Wetiko is a disease of industrial civilization - its unsustainable nature is based on, and increasingly requires violence to maintain itself. Modern civilization suffers from the overly one-sided dominance of the rational, intellectual mind that disconnects us from nature, from empathy, and from ourselves. Due to its disassociation from the whole, wetiko is a disturber of the peace of humanity and the natural world, a sickness which spawns aggression and is capable of inciting violence amongst living beings. Those afflicted with wetiko, like a cannibal, consume the life-force of others -- human and nonhuman -- for private purpose or profit, and do so without giving back something from their own lives.



Stormtrooper

Twitter users attack Melania Trump after she tweets message encouraging women to support each other

melania trump
© Nicholas Kamm / AFP
US First Lady Melania Trump was trolled on Twitter after her official FLOTUS account encouraged women to "speak up, stand up and support other women".

Melania's tweet was in response to model and actress Emily Ratajkowski, an advocate for women who chose to express their sexuality with their bodies, after she defended the first lady amid claims she worked as an escort.
On Monday, Ratajkowski called out a New York Times journalist on Twitter for allegedly repeating the claims, denouncing the journalist's comments as "slut shaming" and "sexist".

Георгиевская ленточка

1 in 3 Russians polled think Putin era is best the country's had in 100 years

russians
© Natalia Kolesnikova / AFP
Thirty-two percent of Russians think the period beginning with Vladimir Putin's first presidency is the best their country has enjoyed in a century, according to a poll conducted to mark the centenary of the Bourgeois-Democratic Revolution of 1917.

The study, conducted by the independent Levada research center, also showed that 29 percent of respondents think life was best during the 1970s and '80s - the peak of Soviet development under Communist leader Leonid Brezhnev.

Only 6 percent of respondents said that they saw the period between the February revolution and the Bolshevik Revolution that took place in October 1917 as the best in the history of their country. The same proportion of Russians - 6 percent - see the period of Stalin's dictatorship as the best for life in Russia.

Two percent said they saw Perestroika as the period when Russia reached the greatest prosperity and only 1 percent said the best period in the last century was that of Boris Yeltsin and his pro-market reforms.