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Weinstein found GUILTY of 2 counts sexual assault and 3rd degree rape, acquitted of more serious charges


CBS News
Mon, 24 Feb 2020 16:49 UTC

Comment: A good day for #MeToo then...


weinstein guilty trial
Jurors found disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein guilty of rape in the third degree and criminal sexual assault Monday, but cleared him of more serious charges of predatory sexual assault. They also cleared him of rape in the first degree.

The jury of seven men and five women returned the verdict in a Manhattan courtroom after more than four days of deliberation. The high-profile trial got underway with opening statements on January 22.

Weinstein's bail was revoked and he was taken into custody. He could face up to 29 years in prison when he's sentenced on March 11. He had been free on bail since his arrest nearly two years ago.

Comment: On to the other Stein then?

Oh no, wait, he's dead.

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Arrow Up

UK censorship & Wikileaks: Celebrities fighting for Assange's freedom speak out


RT
Sat, 22 Feb 2020 19:16 UTC
Assange
© REUTERS/Peter Nicholls
Protesters march against Julian Assange's extradition in London
Prominent public figures like designer Vivienne Westwood and musician Brian Eno, joined mass protesters against Julian Assange's extradition, saying his fate will have impact on press freedom and holding governments accountable.

"Julian is the Trojan horse. If he knocks a crack in that wall, we can get government to do all the other things they need to be doing, which they are doing the opposite of [right now]," British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood told RT. Thousands took to the streets near the British Parliament to protest the imprisonment of the WikiLeaks founder ahead of a hearing next week to determine whether the imprisoned journalist will be extradited to the US.

Westwood called out British Prime Minister Boris Johnson for the 2019 imprisonment of Assange and his not standing up for the journalist, who the US alleges violated the Espionage Act of 1917 through his WikiLeaks publications.

Comment: Meanwhile the OSCE rep on press freedom argues that Assange's extradition to the US would have a "chilling effect" on press freedom:
OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Harlem Desir expressed concern over Assange's upcoming extradition hearing at London's Woolwich Crown Court on Monday. He called on UK authorities to refuse to hand over Assange to Washington, citing the "disproportionate prison sentence, up to a total of 175 years, that he could potentially face if extradited and convicted."

Desir argued that WikiLeaks has provided "important investigative reports and news reporting" and Assange's extradition would have a "chilling effect" on freedom of expression and media freedom. Assange has been charged under the Espionage Act over the publication of leaked documents that revealed possible war crimes by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
See also:

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Igloo

UK gov bans homes from using coal and wood fires, plan to target petrol and diesel cars next

Luke Hawker
Express
Fri, 21 Feb 2020 09:36 UTC
fireplace
© GETTY
Sales of house coal and wet wood will be phased out in England from 2021
Sales of house coal and wet wood will be phased out in England from 2021 - affecting an estimated 2.5 million homes. Environment Secretary George Eustice said the continued use of dangerous fuels has become the "most harmful pollutant" across the UK. Wood burning stoves and coal fires are the single largest source of the chemical PM2.5 - a particle known to cause serious health problems.

The Department said the fumes from burning those materials produce three times as much pollution as road transport.

Mr Eustice said the Government is not banning the use of wood or coal-burning stoves, but stated the plan encourages a move towards the use of "cleaner" sources of energy, such as dry wood and manufactured solid fuels.

The initiative forms part of the wider Clean Air Strategy target which aims to reduce emissions of PM2.5 by 46 percent by 2030.

Comment: Meanwhile just last year over 16,000 people died because they were unable to heat their homes and over 4.5 million citizens are living in fuel poverty: EnvironMENTALism: Origins, Symptoms And Treatment of a Global Pandemic

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Brain

Because why not? Head transplants 'could replace gender reassignment surgery' for gender dysphoria

Conor Gaffey
Newsweek
Fri, 27 Feb 2015 13:25 UTC
head transplants
© Brian Snyder/REUTERS
An Italian neuroscientist has said that human head transplants believes that the procedure could help transsexual people.
An Italian neuroscientist researching the possibility of human head transplants believes that the procedure could help people with gender dysmorphia.

Dr Sergio Canavero, of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, published a summary of the technique, known as 'Gemini' spinal cord fusion, in the Surgical Neurology International journal this month.

In an interview with Newsweek, Dr Canavero said that the procedure could have wide-ranging implications for those who feel trapped in their own bodies, a condition he says prompts many to commit suicide. "Why not give them a chance?" he says.

Comment: Read Frankenstein.

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Megaphone

A pernicious online bubble is suffocating civilised debate

Jacqueline Maley
The Sydney Morning Herald
Sun, 23 Feb 2020 00:00 UTC
social media memes collage
© Reg Lynch
What happens in the bubble, stays in the bubble, right? Wrong.

This week the Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders was forced to distance himself from his vicious "Bernie Bro" online supporters - renowned for their bullying tactics, mostly on Twitter - when the issue bled over into the "real" political sphere and became a problem for him in the presidential nomination debate.

His nomination rival, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, even aired an attack ad on Sanders over the nastiness of his online supporter mob. Fellow candidate Pete Buttigieg said Sanders should "accept some responsibility and ask yourself what is it about your campaign in particular that seems to be motivating this behaviour more than others".

Comment: See also:

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Eye 1

Witness says he saw Prince Andrew grope Virginia Roberts on Jeffrey Epstein's island

Adam Schrader
New York Post
Sun, 23 Feb 2020 05:22 UTC
Prince Andrew

Evidence photo of Virginia Roberts, center, with Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein's gal pal Ghislaine Maxwell
A witness claims to have seen Prince Andrew grope Virginia Roberts Giuffre's butt on Jeffrey Epstein's "Pedophile Island," a report said Saturday.

Steve Scully, 70, told The Sun that he saw the disgraced prince kissing and grabbing a young blonde woman wearing a bikini — someone he believes was Giuffre — by a pool on Epstein's private island, Little St. James.

"He was grabbing her ass and stuff like that. They were kissing," Scully told The Sun. "He was grinding against her and groping her."

Scully, who reportedly worked as Epstein's internet and phone specialist, said that the woman "wasn't resisting."

"They were bumping and grinding and fooling around for five, six, seven minutes and they then laid back down on the lounge chairs and continued," Scully said.

But the new witness said he was shocked by how young the girl looked.

"She stood like a kid would stand behind a parent," he said.

Comment: See also:

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Bizarro Earth

On mayors, trans-mayors and the Up-is-Down brigade

Rob Slane
The Blogmire
Sun, 23 Feb 2020 22:02 UTC
alice wonderland tea party
Is the Mayor of London really the Mayor of London? I take it to be self-evident that he is, since he stood for election back in 2016, beating his nearest rival, Zac Goldsmith, by winning 56.8% of the vote. The election was real. The votes were real. The victory was real. It all really happened.

Yet according to his worldview, others may also be the Mayor of London (more on that at the bottom). Here is what he said in a Tweet this week:
"Trans women are women.
Trans men are men.
Non-binary people are non-binary.
All gender identities are valid."
Which can be paraphrased as:
"Up is down.
Left is right.
Nothing actually means anything.
Anything may mean something else."
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Chart Pie

Germans say far-right more dangerous than Islamists, but is Merkel's shaky govt there to take on growing threat?


RT
Sun, 23 Feb 2020 22:36 UTC
germany police
Far-right terrorism is more of a danger than Islamism in the eyes of nearly a half of Germans, while almost the same number blamed the AfD party for fueling extremism - and authorities for sitting idly as the threat grows.

Days after the deadly shooting spree in Hanau, where a hate-motivated gunman killed ten people before taking his own life, Bild am Sonntag newspaper came up with an eye-catching survey, carried out by pollster, Kantar, revealing Germans' attitudes toward extremism.

It found that 49 percent of Germans consider far-right extremists to be the greatest terrorist threat in the country, whereas only 27 percent of their compatriots said they feel the same danger from Islamist fundamentalists.

Remarkably, 60 percent opined that the right-wing, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) shares responsibility for attacks like the one in Hanau, despite the party leaders trying their best to publicly denounce the shooting spree and disavow themselves from the lone-wolf gunman.

The aforementioned result fits well into the mainstream view as many voices on the left - including top brass from the Social Democrats, Greens and Die Linke - rushed to bash AfD, with demands heard for the party to be put on a watch list and its members to be surveilled by Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the BfV.
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War Whore

'Extremely concerning': Russia's Olympic Committee and diplomats file complaints over police raid on biathletes in Italy


RT
Sun, 23 Feb 2020 12:18 UTC
Alexander Loginov
© Tiziana Fabi / AFP
Alexander Loginov at the IBU Biathlon World Championship in Rasen-Antholz, Italy. February 15, 2020.
Moscow diplomats and sporting officials have urged Italy to explain why its police barged into the rooms of Russian biathletes mere hours before a world championship event.

The Russian Embassy in Rome demanded that Italy explain the reasons behind police searches conducted in the hotel rooms of Russian athletes on Saturday. The diplomats urged local authorities to guarantee all "necessary conditions" for Russians to train and participate in international tournaments in the country.

Moscow's Olympic Committee (OKR) asked its Italian counterpart and the International Biathlon Union (IBU) to explain the situation in detail, querying whether Italian police had any grounds or authority to carry out the searches. The OKR called the whole incident "extremely concerning."
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Light Sabers

Historical inaccuracy and 'human chess' - Auschwitz Memorial slams Amazon's Nazi-hunting series


RT
Sun, 23 Feb 2020 22:16 UTC
Auschwitz 1 concntration camp
© Flickr / Ian Rutherford
The entrance to Auschwitz 1 concntration camp
The Auschwitz Memorial in Poland has criticized Amazon's 'Hunters' for sensationalizing the suffering of inmates at the notorious Nazi death camp, in particular a gruesome game of "human chess" depicted in the new series.

The horrors of the Holocaust are extensive and well documented. However, the writers of Amazon's 'Hunters' evidently needed to make the systematic slaughter of Jews, Slavs, Gypsies and homosexuals even more comically macabre.

The show, which premiered on Amazon Prime on Saturday, stars Al Pacino as a Holocaust survivor turned Nazi hunter, tracking down German war criminals hiding in the US. Flitting between 1970s America and the death camps of World War II, the series claims to be "inspired by true events."
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