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Thunberg vs Trump: Showdown at UN General Assembly spurs memes and snark about Greta's scowling

Greta Thunberg
© REUTERS/Andrew Hofstetter
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg watches US President Donald Trump arrive at UNGA in New York, September 23, 2019
Arriving at the UN General Assembly, US President Donald Trump paid no attention to Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg. Caught on camera, her stare sparked a thousand tweets and divided the public.

While Thunberg was giving a fiery speech at the UNGA Climate Action Summit, Trump was speaking at an event about religious freedom. Video from the UN headquarters on East River shows Thunberg scowling as Trump enters the building to speak to reporters, not even registering her presence.

Trump's critics were quick to make Thunberg their "shero," describing her stare their new "life goals" and declaring that the 16-year-old climate "became president today."


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Handcuffs

Footage reveals hundreds of blindfolded and shackled Uighur prisoners in China

hundreds of blindfolded Uighurs
Video shows what appear to be Uighur or other minority prisoners led away by police

Drone footage has emerged showing police leading hundreds of blindfolded and shackled men from a train in what is believed to be a transfer of inmates in Xinjiang.

The video, posted anonymously on YouTube last week, shows what appear to be Uighur or other minorities wearing blue and yellow uniforms, with cleanly shaven heads, their eyes covered, sitting in rows on the ground and later being led away by police. Prisoners in China are often transferred with handcuffs and masks covering their faces.

Nathan Ruser, a researcher with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's international cyber policy centre, used clues in the footage, including landmarks and the position of the sun, to verify the video, which he believes was shot at a train station west of Korla in south-east Xinjiang in August last year.


Comment: Before assuming the very worst about the Chinese government, read the following nuanced analysis of what may actually be occurring in this story. A little context goes a long way... The truth about China's Uighur 're-education' facilities


Handcuffs

Orlando officer fired after arresting two 6-year-old children at school

Emma Nixon Academy
© Google Maps
The Lucious and Emma Nixon Academy in Orlando, Florida.
An Orlando school resource officer lost his job after he arrested two six-year-old children at a Florida elementary school over trivial misbehavior. All charges against the children were dropped following public backlash.

Orlando Police Chief Orlando Rolon said on Monday that the officer behind the arrests had been fired, apologizing to the two children and their families and adding that the case made him "sick to [his] stomach."

"It was clear today when I came into work that there was no other remedy than to terminate this officer," Rolon said in a statement. "As a grandfather, I can understand how traumatic this was for everyone involved."


The police chief added that he issued a "special notice" to the police force to "ensure this does not occur in the future."

Comment: Police State USA spares no one, not even kids just being kids. See also:


Book 2

My book defending free speech has been banned

James Flynn
© University of Otago
I recently completed a book defending free speech. Emerald Press scheduled it for publication but then decided not to proceed. Here's what it said about the book in Emerald's September 2019 catalogue:
In Defense of Free Speech: The University as Censor
Author James R. Flynn, University of Otago, New Zealand

Synopsis: The good university is one that teaches students the intellectual skills they need to be intelligently critical — of their own beliefs and of the narratives presented by politicians and the media. Freedom to debate is essential to the development of critical thought, but on university campuses today free speech is restricted for fear of causing offence. In Defense of Free Speech surveys the underlying factors that circumscribe the ideas tolerated in our institutions of learning. James Flynn critically examines the way universities censor their teaching, how student activism tends to censor the opposing side and how academics censor themselves, and suggests that few, if any, universities can truly be seen as 'good.' In an age marred by fake news and social and political polarization, In Defense of Free Speech makes an impassioned argument for a return to critical thought.

Smoking

All 'bad habits' will soon be treated like smoking

smoking permitted


The government wants to tax, ban or reformulate our vices.


Slipped out in the dying days of Theresa May's administration, the government's consultation paper on the future of health deserves more attention than it received at the time. One of the main messages from the paper is that the methods employed to attack smokers will be applied with increasing enthusiasm to every aspect of our lifestyles.

Most widely publicised was the government's plan to eliminate smoking by 2030. As Christopher Snowdon pointed out on spiked, the aim is much bolder than before: prohibition, rather than reduced use. The argument is as follows: if tobacco products are available for sale, a proportion of the population will want to use them. The only way to 'eliminate' smoking is to ban it altogether. Of course, as the experience of prohibiting various other products tells us, from alcohol in Prohibition-era America to cannabis, heroin and cocaine today, a ban on tobacco products would not actually eliminate the supply and use of these products. It would simply change the supplier from legally run shops to criminals. Indeed, the high level of taxation applied to cigarettes is, in itself, a form of prohibition. And - surprise, surprise - there is a thriving black market in cut-price baccy.

Comment: See also:


Arrow Down

Labour mulls giving foreign nationals the vote in UK general elections

labour elections
© AFP / Daniel Leal-Olivas
The UK's Labour Party is considering extending voting rights to all foreign citizens with residency rights in the country, a move guaranteed to upset the balance of power - especially in the case of a future Brexit referendum.

Labour will "extend equal rights to vote to all UK residents" if it wins the next general election, according to a motion set to be voted on during the party's annual conference in Brighton on Tuesday. It is "fundamentally wrong" that millions of UK residents cannot vote in general elections, the motion states. It is very likely to pass, according to the Independent newspaper.

The measure was inserted by Labour for Free Movement, a coalition of party members working to extend citizens' rights to migrants. It also seeks to "close all detention centres" and "scrap all Hostile Environment measures," referring to laws designed to make life as difficult as possible for people who are in the UK illegally, hoping to convince them to leave the country.

Comment: Considering that the vast majority of Brits voted for Brexit, any attempts to thwart that vote, and worse, to further weaken the vote of local people - oblivious to rising nationalist sentiment throughout the country, and Europe generally - will likely put a stop to Labour's rising popularity: Try again: Corbyn plans 2nd Brexit referendum next June if Labor wins power

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Bullseye

Why Asking Questions And Understanding 9/11 is of Vital Importance

understanding 911
This day, 18 years ago, the world watched aghast as arguably the worst terrorist attack in history supposedly unfolded before out eyes. The shock and anger generated by 9/11 was understandable. Nearly three thousand innocent people, citizens from across the world, lost their lives that day. Many thousands more have perished, and will perish prematurely, due to the toxins in the dust they inhaled on 9/11. It is truly a day we should never forget.

Many people believe that the official account of 9/11 is totally unbelievable. We are going to look at some of the reasons why. For considerably more people, even suggesting this is a gross act of disrespect. At least that is what the mainstream media would have us believe. If so, it is a disrespect shared by many of the families of 9/11 victims who have been fighting for answers to numerous unresolved questions for nearly two decades.

911 concrete
In truth, the allegation of 'disrespect' is preposterous. If you believe you witness a murder and the wrong person is then convicted, is it an act of disrespect to the victim to point this out? It doesn't matter if you are wrong, what matters is that you believe the evidence of your own eyes and act upon it in good faith. In such circumstances, saying nothing is the true act of disrespect for the victim. Those who question 9/11 aren't disrespecting anyone's memory. They are fighting for the truth they believe the victims deserve.

9/11 - The War On Terror In Perspective

9/11 Propelled the world into the global "War on Terror." Research shows that, to 2018, more than one million people have been killed in the resultant U.S led wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, with the number of lives subsequently lost in Pakistan also notable in the study. Further wars and conflicts, linked to the war on terror, in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Chad, Palestine and elsewhere have killed at least one million more since 9/11. There is also considerable evidence that this horrific post 9/11 death toll has been grossly underestimated.

NPC

Theology students are being taught to confess their "climate sins" while sitting in front of several potted plants...

talking to plants
The folks at Union Theological Seminary are taking the concept of "talking to your plants" to a frightening new level. Each year, students at the seminary pay a ridiculous amount of money to go to the school, and they are there to be trained to be the Christian leaders of tomorrow. But instead, they are being taught to confess their "climate sins" to potted plants, and eventually these impressionable young minds will be leading churches and Christian institutions all over America. I realize that this story is so bizarre that it sounds like somebody made it up, but it is actually true. The following was posted by the official Twitter account of Union Theological Seminary last week...
Today in chapel, we confessed to plants. Together, we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt and sorrow in prayer; offering them to the beings who sustain us but whose gift we too often fail to honor.

What do you confess to the plants in your life?

Cult

Child hostage: Greta Thunberg caught in 'disintegrating family' and 'devilish covenant' with her mother

Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg
"I'd rather report her mother to the police than review her book for the newspaper. It's horrifying reading," Danish journalist Mikael Jalving has said of the book Scenes from the heart about Swedish teenage climate activist and icon Greta Thunberg, penned by her own mother.

Jyllands-Posten star journalist Mikael Jalving has called award-winning Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg "poor thing" caught in a "disintegrating family" and a "devilish covenant" with her own mother.

Jalving dismissed Thunberg's mother Malena Ernman's book Scenes From the Heart as scary reading and rated it only one star.

"The book contains a story of failure," Jalving told the Danish newspaper BT.

Jalving called Thunberg "poor thing" and stressed that she has previously suffered from depression and an eating disorder, whereas her current diagnoses include obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and Asperger's syndrome. Beata, her little sister, has also been diagnoses with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Asperger's and OCD.

According to Jalving, Ernman's book conjures a picture of a family that's disintegrating. Jalving believes Ernman focuses too much on making Greta Thunberg a star instead of addressing why both her daughters are so sick and feel an extreme urge to save the world instead of dealing with their own teenage lives.

Comment: This child is being exploited by self-serving parents who are just as disturbed as their children. In a saner world they would all be in therapy (or institutionalized) - not parading on the world stage to huge acclaim.


Eye 1

US soldier arrested for plot to bomb news network and join neo-Nazi Azov Battalion in Ukraine

Azov
© Reuters / Valentyn Ogirenko
Azov Battalion volunteers in training
A US soldier arrested for sharing information on how to build bombs also allegedly planned to travel to Ukraine to fight with the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, and plotted to bomb a major American news network, according to the FBI.

Jarrett William Smith, a soldier stationed in Fort Riley, Kansas, has been arrested after unwittingly sharing bomb-making instructions with an FBI informant. The private first class is charged with one count of "distributing information related to explosives and weapons of mass destruction," according to charging documents released Monday.

Smith reportedly planned to travel to Ukraine to fight alongside the far-right Azov Battalion and also talked about a plot to blow up the headquarters of an American news network with "a large vehicle bomb" in his conversations with the informant.

Comment: See also: