Society's ChildS


Light Sabers

"It's just..." - Why I won't submit

Addison Reeves
OffGuardian
Sat, 07 Aug 2021 09:46 UTC
resistance
It's just two weeks. It's just staying three feet apart. It's just staying six feet apart. It's just not going outside. It's just not giving handshakes. It's just working from home. It is just non-essential businesses that are closed.

It's just bars. It's just restaurants. It's just theaters. It's just concerts. It's just dancing. It's just intramural sports. It's just choir.

It's just non-essential medical services that you have to give up. It is just non-essential items that you are not allowed to buy. It's just not being able to exercise. It's just gyms. It is just the closure of your business for a while. It is just not making money for a while. It is just not being able to pay your bills for a little while.

It's just a minor inconvenience. It's just not being allowed to carpool. It's just not socializing for a while. It's just a mask. It's just not traveling for a while. It's just not hugging people for a while. It's just missionary sex that is risky.

It is just not seeing your family and friends for a while. It's just not visiting your grandparents temporarily. It's just your grandparents not having visitors for their safety. It's just one birthday you have to sacrifice. It's just one Thanksgiving alone. It's just one Christmas without your family. It's just two birthdays you had to sacrifice. It is just not celebrating any milestones for a year and a half.
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Arrow Up

COVID-19: Wales lifts most remaining coronavirus restrictions as it moves to alert level zero

Amar Mehta
Sky News
Sat, 07 Aug 2021 06:04 UTC
Wales
Almost all of the COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted in Wales but masks will still be mandatory
Most of the remaining COVID-19 restrictions in Wales have been lifted as the country moves to alert level zero.

Social distancing rules and limits on how many people can meet indoors have now ended, almost 17 months after the first lockdown.

However, rules will remain tighter than in England, with face masks still required by law in many public places.

Mark Drakeford
Mark Drakeford official announced plans for Wales to enter level zero on Friday
First Minister Mark Drakeford said masks are still required in most indoor public places, including in shops, healthcare settings and on public transport.

However, they are no longer a legal requirement in hospitality venues where food and drink is served.
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Brick Wall

Thai police fire tear gas in protest over pandemic response


Independent
Sat, 07 Aug 2021 13:10 UTC
thailand protests
© 2021 The Associated PressThailand protests.
Thai riot police have fired water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets to repel a crowd of several hundred young anti-government protestors who marched on an army base where Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has his residence to demand his resignation.

Thai riot police on Saturday fired water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets to repel a crowd of several hundred young anti-government protestors who marched on an army base where Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has his residence to demand his resignation.

The demonstrators threw rocks, bottles, fireworks and fired slingshots during the hourslong confrontation in the Din Daeng area of Bangkok which was obscured by swirling smoke.

Comment: See also:

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Handcuffs

Austrian court sentences Chechen arms dealer to life in prison over killing of 'Kadyrov critic'


RT
Sat, 07 Aug 2021 00:46 UTC
austrian police
© AFP / APA / Helmut Fohringer
An Austrian court has sentenced a Chechen arms dealer to life behind bars over the killing of former separatist, blogger and police informant Mamikhan Umarov. The investigators did not rule out the botched deal was a contract hit.

The man who gunned down Umarov, identified only as Sar-Ali A., was unanimously sentenced by a jury at the Korneuburg regional court on Friday. The hearings saw extreme security measures, with heavily armed police guarding the court, all video and photo recording prohibited in the courtroom, and the defendant reportedly wearing body armor.

The defendant pleaded not guilty, claiming the 43-year old victim was instead killed by an unknown man who fled the scene. The court's verdict is not final and can be appealed.

Comment: See also: Widow of Chechen killed near Vienna confirms he was police informant

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Attention

Lawsuit filed against US State Dept for allegedly concealing info on 'abusive' anal-swab testing of American diplomats in China


RT
Sat, 07 Aug 2021 11:18 UTC
state dept. lab sample
© (L) REUTERS/Joshua Roberts; (R) REUTERS/Daniel Becerril
A nonprofit organization in the US has sued the State Department, claiming the Biden administration is unlawfully withholding records of American diplomats who allegedly have been subjected to anal swab Covid tests by Beijing.

Judicial Watch, a conservative non-partisan educational foundation, filed the lawsuit on Friday. Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the organization had previously requested the State Department to provide "non-identifying records of US diplomatic personnel being subjected to invasive COVID-19 'anal swab' tests by the Chinese government." However, no response has been provided within a legitimate time period.

"Our diplomatic personnel were abused in a reprehensible way by the Chinese and the Biden administration seems to have done little in response - except to cover it up," Judicial Watch's President Tom Fitton stated.

Comment: See also:

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Control Panel

Facebook cuts off NYU researcher access, prompting rebuke from lawmakers

Taylor Hatmaker
TechCrunch
Wed, 04 Aug 2021 14:17 UTC
facebook
© TechCrunch
Facebook shut down accounts belonging to two academic researchers late Tuesday, cutting off their ability to study political ads and misinformation on the world's biggest social network.

The company accused the academics of engaging in "unauthorized scraping" and compromising user privacy on the platform, claims that Facebook's many critics are slamming as a thin pretense for killing the transparency work.

The company took action against Laura Edelson and Damon McCoy, two well-known researchers affiliated with NYU's Cybersecurity for Democracy project who have long sparred with the company. The move cuts off their access to Facebook's Ad Library — one of the company's only meaningful transparency efforts to date — and data on popular posts from the social media monitoring service CrowdTangle.

Facebook has a history with Edelson and McCoy. The company served the pair cease and desist letters just weeks before the 2020 election, calling on the team to disable an opt-in browser tool called Ad Observer and unpublish their findings. Ad Observer is a browser tool anyone can install that's designed to give researchers a rare glimpse into how Facebook targets the ads that have transformed it into a trillion-dollar company.

"Over the last several years, we've used this access to uncover systemic flaws in the Facebook Ad Library, identify misinformation in political ads including many sowing distrust in our election system, and to study Facebook's apparent amplification of partisan misinformation," Edelson said on Twitter.
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Attention

DHS concerned about violence stemming from Trump reinstatement conspiracy theory

Caroline Vakil
The Hill
Sat, 07 Aug 2021 10:18 UTC
DHS emblem
© Department of Homeland Security
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Friday sent a notice to local and state authorities regarding recent online activity calling for violence in relation to several 2020 election conspiracies.

According to CNN, which cited a source, the notice said:
"[D]HS is providing awareness of reports regarding an increasing but modest level of activity online calling for violence in response to unsubstantiated claims of fraud related to the 2020 election and the alleged 'reinstatement' of former President Trump.

"As public visibility of the narratives increases, we are concerned about more calls to violence. Reporting indicates that the timing of these activities may occur during August 2021, although we lack information on specific plots or planned actions."
Though DHS said it did not have any reports of specific threats, Trump and others have pushed unsubstantiated claims that widespread voter fraud happened during the 2020 election.
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Syringe

REACT report: Vaccine effectiveness could be as low as 22%; under-64s at greater risk of hospitalizations than before vaccines

Will Jones
The Daily Sceptic
Thu, 05 Aug 2021 00:50 UTC
REACT study
© Imperial College London/KJN
The report from round 13 of Imperial College's REACT-1 Covid infection survey was published yesterday, covering the period from June 24th to July 12th, broadly corresponding to the Delta surge.

The press release led with the claim that "double vaccinated people were three times less likely than unvaccinated people to test positive for the coronavirus" (0.4% vs 1.2%). This is clearly misleading as an indication of vaccine effectiveness, however, as younger people were both less likely to be vaccinated and more likely to test positive. As the report itself admits:
"These estimates conflate the effect of vaccination with other correlated variables such as age, which is strongly associated with the likelihood of having been vaccinated and also acts as a proxy for differences in behaviour across the age groups."
Presumably, the headline was chosen by a politically savvy communications officer who did not want to draw attention to the fact that the study found a lower vaccine effectiveness than other studies such as those of Public Health England.

Comment: If vaccines were effective and the 'answer' to Covid, they would not need marketing schemes to manipulate public perceptions to increase acceptance.

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Attention

A panicked Gavin Newsom attacks Larry Elder, leading contender in California recall

Joel B. Pollak
Breitbart
Fri, 06 Aug 2021 00:00 UTC
Newsom/Elder
© Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/AP/Marcio Jose SanchezCalifornia Governor Gavin Newsom • Talk show host Larry Elder
California Gov. Gavin Newsom attacked conservative radio talk show host Larry Elder on Thursday during a Zoom call with campaign volunteers, targeting the candidate who is the leading contender to replace Newsom in many polls.

Newsom's attack acknowledges Elder, a popular figure who has never run for public office before, as the leading threat to his tenure. Several recent polls show voters increasingly prepared to recall Newsom; the most recent showed a majority of likely California voters were prepared to remove Newsom from office — a reversal from earlier this year.

Comment: See also:

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V

Joe Rogan rips vaccine passports: It's 'one step closer' to having a dictator

David Hookstead
The Daily Caller
Sat, 07 Aug 2021 19:01 UTC
Joe Rogan
© Screenshot/YouTubeJoe Rogan holds for on the danger of vaccine passports
Joe Rogan isn't a fan of vaccine passports.

During the Friday episode of his podcast, Rogan and his guest Evan Hafer discussed coronavirus vaccine passports and freedom, and the former launched into a rant that should be required viewing for everyone.

Rogan said the following in part when discussing vaccine passports and the freedom that made America the greatest country in the world:

Comment:

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