Society's Child

Guardian, Atlantic contributor acts as a Syrian terrorist mouthpiece on Twitter, and if you don't like it you're a Russian stooge

Eva Bartlett
RT
Fri, 27 Dec 2019 19:18 UTC

Giving a sympathetic platform to a terrorist is reprehensible at best, downright criminal at worst, and definitely a bad look for a 'respected' media contributor. Oh, it's for bashing Assad and the Russians? Go ahead, then.

A funny thing happened recently on Twitter. A journalist who contributes to the Guardian, Foreign Policy and the Atlantic tweeted — in a long thread peppered with photos of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of an Al-Qaeda branch in Syria — about "the force that dominates" Idlib. Hassan Hassan's initial tweet coyly avoided mentioning that this force is Al-Qaeda in Syria.

And no, its not just us Russian bots who say that Idlib is infested with Al-Qaeda: former US special envoy, Brett McGurk, deemed Idlib "the largest Al-Qaeda safe haven since 9/11."

The thread smacked of giving a platform to terrorist propaganda. After extensively quoting Jolani, Hassan weighed in with his own thoughts on the situation in Syria and his Al-Qaeda "rebels".

Mural of Tina Turner is defaced with a red swastika outside a North Carolina record store

Leah McDonald
Daily Mail
Fri, 27 Dec 2019 18:12 UTC

Employees in North Carolina were left shocked after a mural of pop star Tina Turner was defaced with a red swastika outside their record store.

The mural is outside Static Age Records in downtown Asheville and it was defaced after the store closed on the evening of December 23.

Store owner Jesse McSwain said someone unconnected to the store apparently covered the mural in a black sheet before he could address the situation.

Static Age called police and later contacted the Southern Poverty Law Center, WLOS reported.

The swastika was eight feet tall, and also drawn the wrong way, with three of the four arms pointing counterclockwise.

Freedom Flotilla will make its 35th attempt to sail to Gaza in 2020

Ramzy Baroud
MintPress News
Wed, 25 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC

What is Gaza to us but an Israeli missile, a rudimentary rocket, a demolished home, an injured child being whisked away by his peers under a hail of bullets? On a daily basis, Gaza is conveyed to us as a bloody image or a dramatic video, none of which can truly capture the everyday reality of the Strip - its formidable steadfastness, the everyday acts of resistance, and the type of suffering that can never be really understood through a customary glance at a social media post.

At long last, the chief prosecutor of the International Court of Justice (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, has declared her 'satisfaction' that "war crimes have been - or are being - committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip." As soon as the ICC statement was made on December 20, pro-Palestinian groups felt a rare moment of relief. Finally, Israel will stand accused, potentially paying for its recurring bloodbath in the isolated and besieged Gaza Strip, its military occupation and apartheid in the West Bank, and much more.

However, it could take years for the ICC to initiate its legal proceedings and render its verdict. Moreover, there are no political guarantees that an ICC decision indicting Israel would ever be respected, let alone implemented.

Comment:

Russian news agency claims explosion at apartment building in Magnitogorsk was terror attack, not gas leak

Todd Prince
RFE/RL
Sat, 28 Dec 2019 04:43 UTC

Russian investigative journalists claim an explosion last year in the Urals town of Magnitogorsk that killed 39 people was a terrorist attack.

Russian authorities have never given a definitive reason for the blast that ripped through an apartment building on Karl Marx Street in the steel town on December 31, 2018.

Russia's Investigative Committee said shortly after the blast that it was focusing on a gas leak as the most likely cause.

However, Baza, an independent online news agency that focuses on investigations, on December 27 published a 40-minute video detailing its yearlong probe into the explosion, concluding that at least three men set out to blow up the apartment building and possibly detonate other bombs in the city that day.

Baza did not give a reason for the men's actions but said that two of them had recently taken a greater interest in Islam and that they were facing financial difficulties.

The Islamic State (IS) extremist group claimed responsibility in mid-January for the Magnitogorsk explosion, but gave no proof to back it up.

Comment: More on the Magnitogorsk explosion:

Iraqi protesters shut down southern Nassiriya oil field

Sputnik
Sat, 28 Dec 2019 18:08 UTC

Over 450 people have been killed in Iraq since mass protests started in the country in early October; demonstrators accuse the political system of being "corrupt".

Protesters broke into an oil field in the city of Nassiriya in southern Iraq on Saturday, forcing employees to cut off electricity from its control station, Reuters reported, citing sources.

The oil field produces 90,000 barrels of crude per day. The protesters chanted "no homeland, no oil" as they broke into the facility, the agency quotes sources as saying.

Although protesters had previously blocked entrances to refineries and ports, this is the first time they have shut down an oil field.

Iraq has been gripped by mass protests since October when activists took to the streets to demand a change in the country's "corrupt" political system. More than 450 people have been killed in the protests since then.

Anti-Semites everywhere! Second Jewish cemetery vandalized in a month in Slovakia

RT
Sat, 28 Dec 2019 17:50 UTC

Comment: Watch as no one is caught doing these attacks either...

42 acts of vandalism in 1.5 years: Jewish cemeteries are being systematically desecrated in Alsace, France, but not a SINGLE arrest has been made

Vandals have targeted an old Jewish cemetery in the small Slovakian town of Rajec, toppling over 20 tombstones. A similar incident happened just two weeks ago about 70km away.

The vandalism in Rajec may have happened in mid-December, since the cemetery has few visitors.

"Unfortunately, very few people visit the tombs of their relatives in Jewish cemeteries because there are very few relatives alive," Jewish publicist and journalist Konstanty Gebert told Ruptly. "The hatred must be powerful enough that insulting the dead, even if no living are insulted, gives satisfaction."

Comment: Yeah. That or it made it easier for agents provocateurs to carry it out.

Comment: Other countries have seen an uptick in 'anti-Semitic vandalism' recently - some might be 'legit' in the sense that Jew-haters targeted them, but a LOT of them appear to be manufactured for the purpose of eliciting sympathy and clamping down on civil rights:

The Republic of Ireland: a model for the world?

George Callaghan
The Duran
Sat, 28 Dec 2019 17:42 UTC

Republic of Ireland's Leinster House in Dublin Ireland

The Irish political system often produces coalition governments. But we do not lack for stability and continuity despite that.

Democracy, a written constitution, a superb human rights record, prosperity, strong economic growth, a clean environment and an enviable educational system: the Republic of Ireland has it all. In almost a century of independence our state has achieved more than many thought possible. It begs the question: is the Irish model one which most of the world should strive to emulate?

The attitudinal revolution has been staggering in a quarter of a century. Cast your mind back to the early 1990s. We were still governed by state of emergency legislation. Drug gangs wreaked havoc in Dublin. Homosexualism was illegal. Contraception was severely restricted. Unwed mothers were widely castigated and politicians still feared a lash of the crozier. Child abuse in the Catholic Church was widespread but no one dared tackle it. Misogynistic, ultramontane, incense waggers and wankers weaved their wicked magic over our body politic and our bodies. Our economy was the weakest in Western Europe. Erin was the sick man of Europe. Unemployment was obstinately high. Almost half of all youngsters departed our shores. The Northern Conflict raged on partly thanks to a jaw dropping axis [of] Colonel Gaddafi and certain Irish-Americans. The republican movement and its loyalist counterparts engaged in their cruel and barbaric attempt to destroy freedom. The Crown Forces and the Irish security forces gallantly battled against the ghouls.

Families of workers killed in Afghanistan suing US military contractors for funding terrorism by bribing Taliban militants

RT
Sat, 28 Dec 2019 01:25 UTC

Construction site in Mazar-i-Sharif Afghanistan

Bribes paid by international military contractors in Afghanistan were used by the Taliban to fund attacks on companies that didn't make the payments, according to a lawsuit filed by families of those injured or killed as a result.

"Large corporations that had lucrative businesses in Afghanistan" paid off the Taliban through a series of subcontractors, bribing the Afghan militants in order to save money on security, according to a lawsuit filed on Friday in federal court by the families of 143 US soldiers and contractors injured and killed during the longest war in American history. The 288-page civil suit alleges the Taliban then used the money to finance acts of terrorism against companies that didn't bribe them, detailing the grisly circumstances that led to the deaths and injuries of the victims.

An employee of the US Embassy in Kabul referred to the payments as "organized crime," according to the suit, which seeks unspecified relief for their families under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Comment:

A big and bizarre drone mystery is unfolding in rural Colorado

Tyler Rogoway
The Drive
Thu, 26 Dec 2019 14:11 UTC

The sparse expanses of Northeast Colorado have become ground zero for a bizarre mystery surrounding sightings of nighttime coordinated flights of groups of drones. From roughly 7 pm to 10 pm every night last week, an estimated 17 drones with six-foot spans have flown "grid patterns" over Phillips County and near its border with neighboring Yuma County, according to Phillips County Sheriff Thomas Elliott. The drones operate at a few hundred feet in the air and were brightly lit with strobing colored and white lights, leaving local residents and those driving through the area baffled.

The Denver Post was first to report on the string of strange sightings. Local law enforcement, the FAA, DEA, U.S. Army, and the Air Force have said they have no idea what these aircraft are or who they belong to.

The Denver Post writes:

Comment: Mysterious drones flying nighttime patterns over northeast Colorado leave local law enforcement stumped

Jordan Peterson finds an unlikely readership in China, even after censors stripped away entire sections of his book

Nathan Vanderklippe
The Globe and Mail
Fri, 27 Dec 2019 13:24 UTC

© Mark Sommerfeld/The New York Times News Service
Jordan Peterson, a University of Toronto psychology professor turned influential YouTube philosopher, at home in Toronto, May 2, 2018.

The censors have gouged out Jordan Peterson's criticism of Mao Zedong and Communism, but his latest book has nonetheless arrived in China where it has established a foothold on the country's bestseller lists after its publication in Mandarin this fall.

Mr. Peterson, the controversial Canadian psychologist whose work has been favoured by right-leaning groups, does not make for an obvious fit in China. In 12 Rules for Life, he peppers his writing with biblical references and faults China and other countries for using Marxist ideology to devastating effect, subjecting people to "oppression rivalling that still operative in North Korea, the last classic communist holdout" and Mao Zedong of perpetrating "bottomless horrors."

But Mr. Peterson has nonetheless found an audience in the world's most populous country where, long before the local release of 12 Rules in late November, volunteers had translated more than 100 of his videos and published reviews of his writing.

Some in China have found in Mr. Peterson a coveted riposte to what they see as a preachy - and, for Beijing, hostile - form of Western liberalism, one embodied by people such as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Comment: See also:

New Lt. Governor of Virginia Winsome Sears: "We're going to have safer neighborhoods, safer communities, and our children are going to get a good...

parzival

Bill Gates is going to be the one with the uncertain future,,, * New Lt. Governor of Virginia Winsome Sears: "We're going to have safer...

parzival

The more we hear about adverse affects the more we will merely shrug. It's a catch 22. Is that an asteroid trail in the photo?

sass

Welcome to the new normal. The more sensory exposure we have about such things, the less it is an issue.

sass

more misbehaving phuqqin' jewzskies starring on the sott; speaks for itself

Jibrish

Society's Child

Guardian, Atlantic contributor acts as a Syrian terrorist mouthpiece on Twitter, and if you don't like it you're a Russian stooge

Mural of Tina Turner is defaced with a red swastika outside a North Carolina record store

Freedom Flotilla will make its 35th attempt to sail to Gaza in 2020

Russian news agency claims explosion at apartment building in Magnitogorsk was terror attack, not gas leak

Iraqi protesters shut down southern Nassiriya oil field

Anti-Semites everywhere! Second Jewish cemetery vandalized in a month in Slovakia

The Republic of Ireland: a model for the world?

Families of workers killed in Afghanistan suing US military contractors for funding terrorism by bribing Taliban militants

A big and bizarre drone mystery is unfolding in rural Colorado

Jordan Peterson finds an unlikely readership in China, even after censors stripped away entire sections of his book

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