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

Society's Child
Map

People 2

European women fight back with anti-migrant violence campaign video


Voice of Europe
Thu, 08 Feb 2018 12:24 UTC
120db campaign
© YouTube
Screenshot of the 120db campaign video
The campaign that was launched by German women against migrant violence is becoming very successful. Its video has over 1.5 million views and women from all over Europe are using the 120db hashtag.

The 120 decibel (120db) movement is named after the noise level of the "rape alarms" some women in Germany carry in their handbags. Its campaign was launched last week by a group of women who are increasingly worried about migrant violence and sexual assaults.

Comment: Further reading:

      Read More...
Pirates

ISIS video shows jihadists waiting in French countryside to attack "Paris before Rome"

Bridget Johnson
PJ Media
Wed, 07 Feb 2018 12:28 UTC
jihadist sniper
© Al-Faqir Media video
The pro-ISIS group that last month depicted the invasion of Washington this week declared "Paris before Rome," depicting a terrorist invasion that began with cells in the countryside outside Paris before attacking the city.

Al-Abd al-Faqir Media released what they called "a cinematic film about the invasion of the Islamic State of the capital of degeneracy ... in the near future, inshallah."

The video opened with a man visiting an ISIS social media account on a computer and a recording of deceased ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani: "The time is now -- we want Paris before Rome and before al-Andalus, after we make your lives miserable and bomb your White House and Big Ben and Eiffel Tower." Sacking Rome has been a cornerstone of ISIS theology since the beginning of the caliphate.

Showing a map of France, the group showed a rendering of a drone approaching Paris from the southwest, "type: al-Burraq," which is a drone used by the Pakistani Air Force, "belonging to the caliphate army - location: the western countryside of Paris."

Comment: We wonder if this laughably absurd video is intended more for those Muslims who are gullible enough to take it seriously and do something stupid or for the Western masses to remember to be very afraid.

It's funny how drones now feature in terrorist propaganda videos, especially considering the recent incident of a swarm of drones attacking Russian bases in Syria:

      Read More...
Cross

Pew Research: Five facts about the religious lives of African Americans

David Masci
Pew Research
Wed, 07 Feb 2018 00:01 UTC
National Baptist Convention
© Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
Attendees at the annual session of the National Baptist Convention in 2016.
Religion, particularly Christianity, has played an outsize role in African American history. While most Africans brought to the New World to be slaves were not Christians when they arrived, many of them and their descendants embraced Christianity, finding comfort in the Biblical message of spiritual equality and deliverance. In post-Civil War America, a burgeoning black church played a key role strengthening African American communities and in providing key support to the civil rights movement.

For Black History Month, here are five facts about the religious lives of African Americans.
      Read More...
Attention

Canada's gender-neutral pronoun bill should be a warning for Americans

Jordan Peterson
The Hill
Tue, 18 Oct 2016 00:00 UTC
gender identity
Two weeks ago I posted three YouTube videos about legislative threats to Canadian freedom of speech. I singled out Canada's Federal Bill C-16, which adds legal protection for "gender identity" and "gender expression" to the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal code.

I noted that the policy statements surrounding similar legislation - most particularly those on the Ontario Human Rights Commission website - were dangerously vague and ill-formulated. I also indicated my refusal to apply what are now known as "preferred" pronouns to people who do not fit easily into traditional gender categories (although I am willing to call someone "he" or "she" in accordance with their manner of self-presentation).
      Read More...
Blackbox

The trade in dog meat South Korea doesn't want Olympics tourists to see

Nick Fagge
Daily Mail
Tue, 06 Feb 2018 22:18 UTC
dogs for food South Korea
© Roland Hoskins
Dogs and even puppies are sold openly for food in Moran market, Seongnam, the country's largest open-air dog market, near Seoul, which has survived an animal rights campaign to shut it before the Winter Olympics - and claims by the local authorities to have closed it
These are the images South Korean Olympics organizers do not want you to see - dogs being slaughtered and sold for food just 70 miles from where the Games begin on Friday.

Dogs and even puppies are sold openly for food in Moran market, Seongnam, the country's largest open-air dog market - contradicting claims made last year by local authorities that it was closing.

Up to 80,000 dogs are sold and slaughtered at the market each year, to be made into a soup which folklore claims boosts the eater's sex drive.

Comment: First off, the conditions described in the article are tantamount to animal abuse, and it should be outlawed to keep any animals in those conditions. But when it comes to the practice of eating dogs things become a little morally ambiguous. Is it that different from eating pigs? On the one hand, dogs have been the companions of humans for millennia. But piggies seem to have a similar disposition to human companionship. If the only reason to eat dog is the silly superstition about sexual virility, or if its just a leftover from times of scarcity, then there's really no reason to keep the practice. Overall, it seems like there is just something inherently wrong about eating dogs (and cats, for that matter).

See also:

      Read More...
Life Preserver

Norovirus outbreak at 2018 Olympic Games: Number of people with vomit illness symptoms grows

Rachel Axon
USA Today
Wed, 07 Feb 2018 06:49 UTC
hand sanitizer olympics South Korea
Korean officials on Wednesday confirmed additional cases of norovirus at the Pyeongchang Olympics, bringing the total of people infected to 86.

The Korean Centre for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed an additional 54 cases after announcing 32 on Tuesday.

The disease is considered highly contagious and typically includes symptoms of diarrhea, stomach pain, vomiting and nausea.

"The peak season for norovirus is January and February so unfortunately we're in a bad time of year where outbreaks occur," said Kim Hyunjun, director of the Korean CDC.

Comment: Rather ironic that the Olympic committee, which clearly caught the "anti-Russian bug", has their event plagued by a viral outbreak. While 28 of the Russian athletes who were banned from competing have been cleared due to "insufficient evidence" of wrongdoing, 11 bans still remain.

More on the Olympics:

      Read More...
Arrow Down

Banks close 1,700 branches in past 12 months, fastest pace in decades

Rachel Louise Ensign, Christina Rexrode and Coulter Jones
Wall Street Journal
Mon, 05 Feb 2018 23:04 UTC
banks closing
© DAVID MORRIS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Charlene LeBlanc continues to bank at Regions even after it shut its branch in Centreville, Miss. She now has to drive 30 miles to get to the nearest branch
Banks are closing branches at the fastest pace in decades, as they leave less profitable regions and fewer customers use tellers for routine transactions.

The number of branches in the U.S. shrank by more than 1,700 in the 12 months ended in June 2017, the biggest decline on record, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal data.

Branch numbers fell again in the second half of 2017, according to related data submitted to bank regulators and reviewed by the Journal. That would add to the thousands of locations closed following the financial crisis, and is the longest stretch of closures since the Great Depression.

Many of the closings were in big cities and surrounding suburbs, where branches were consolidated largely because of falling foot traffic. Others were in rural areas, where some large regional lenders are leaving town altogether.
      Read More...
Dollars

Study: Resettling refugees costs US taxpayers more than $8B in five years

John Binder
Source
Mon, 05 Feb 2018 21:12 UTC
refugees
© Frederic J. Brown/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Over a five year period, American taxpayers are billed more than $8 billion for the resettlement of thousands of foreign refugees every year, a new study finds.

In research conducted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), analysts concluded that annual refugee resettlement costs American taxpayers about $1.8 billion a year, and over five years, about $8.8 billion.

FAIR's research found that of the $1.8 billion annual cost of resettling refugees in the U.S., about $867 million was spent on welfare.

Comment:

      Read More...
Handcuffs

Complaint: 'Collateral arrests' by ICE amount to racial profiling, violation of immigrants' rights

Andrea Castillo
Los Angeles Times
Sun, 04 Feb 2018 05:00 UTC
ICE arrest
© ICE
They burst into View Park Automotive in South Los Angeles carrying semi-automatic weapons and wearing vests that simply read "police." Four men, including Juan Hernandez Cuevas, were handcuffed and taken away.

Hernandez, 46, said he had no idea which law enforcement agency had just arrested him - or why - until he arrived at a downtown L.A. processing facility and saw the word "immigration" written on a wall.

On that late September afternoon, at least six agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrived with a warrant for the owner of the shop, who had an outstanding deportation order based on multiple DUI convictions.

They didn't identify themselves or ask questions about the men's immigration status as they arrested every employee on the property. "In the moment, I just had the worry and anguish about what would happen with my wife and child," Hernandez said.

The Trump administration calls immigrants who are not the original targets but are swept up during enforcement actions "collateral arrests." While some do have criminal records, some have none. Immigrant rights advocates say the practice is a return to the George W. Bush presidency, a period when large-scale workplace raids were common.

Comment: When laws change and protocol is revised, mindsets remain more/less the same. There are those who have the capacity to understand the big picture and those who can only complain.

      Read More...
Question

Syria: Is Turkey's attack on Afrin intended to split the US-Kurdish alliance?


Moon of Alabama
Tue, 06 Feb 2018 00:00 UTC
Map Afrin/NW Syria
© edmaps.com
The successful Syrian army operation to liberate Abu-Duhur airbase left a large enclave (pink) controlled by al-Qaeda and ISIS fighters in east-Hama. Further advances towards Idlib have been halted for now to clean up the cauldron that could otherwise create future troubles behind the lines.

Most of the al-Qaeda/HTS aligned Takfiris are thought to have fled the now enclosed area before it was encircled by the Syrian government forces. A few hundred ISIS fighters who had earlier slipped into there then claimed to have occupied dozens of empty local villages. But these forces are in fact too small to hold onto anything. They will now be sought out and destroyed. In just one day some 20 hamlets were liberated. It will take a week or two to bring the total area under control.
      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts