Society's ChildS

Attention

$450M Leonardo da Vinci painting mysteriously vanishes into thin air

DaVinciPainting
© UnknownMissing Da Vinci painting, 'Salvator Mundi'
Back in November 2017, "Salvator Mundi," a painting of Jesus that was controversially attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, was driving the art world crazy. Aside from its sky high price of $450 million and its sale to a bidder that many thought represented Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the painting's authenticity was also called into question.

Which is why when the Louvre Abu Dhabi cancelled a planned showing of the work this week, it caught the eye of art world yet again. Not only that, but the museum's culture department has deflected questions about the work and other museum workers have said that they "do not know where the painting is," according to Inquisitr.

The bottom line: the painting appears to have vanished into thin air.

French officials at the Louvre in Paris expected to get the painting for an exhibition later this year that will mark the 500th anniversary of Da Vinci's death. They hoped that the painting would surface prior to then, but so far, it hasn't.

Comment: See below for more on this 'missing' masterpiece:


Card - VISA

Hungary: Suspected ISIS fighter found with EU debit card

VISA-IS
© Global Look Press/Monika Skolimowska โ€ข AFP/Ahmad Al-Rubaye
A suspected Islamic State terrorist, who sought asylum in Europe, reportedly received a prepaid debit card meant for refugees from the European Union. The incident reflects a dangerous new period for Europe, an analyst told RT.

Hungarian counter-terrorism officers apprehended a Syrian national, in Budapest last week, who had been identified as a high-ranking member of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL). The suspected terrorist, posing as a refugee, reportedly received a prepaid debit card from the EU upon his arrival in Europe - one of 64,000 individuals to receive the taxpayer-subsidized cards.

While the EU insists that a strict screening process is used to ensure the euro handouts reach the right people, the Hungarian government has argued that the embarrassing discovery highlights the grave security threat facing Europe, as jihadists fleeing the Middle East seek refuge abroad.

Philip Ingram, a former British military intelligence officer, agreed, telling RT that Europe must become more diligent as Islamic militants flee Syria and Iraq. "We're seeing a time of transition. They'll transition into something different. This is a very, very dangerous and difficult period, and we need to monitor that transition very closely, to be able to identify and track known jihadists that are coming through," he said.


V

Russian prankster who trolled Guaido tells RT how he fools world politicians time and again

Aleksey Stolyarov
While not quite president of Switzerland, prankster Aleksey Stolyarov has made his political mark with little more than a phone. In a conversion with RT, he explains how he makes headlines by making fools of powerful people.

From tricking Elliott Abrams into proving the United States' power over Juan Guaido, to getting the investigators of the Skripal case to admit they didn't know which country produced the Novichok poison, Stolyarov is no ordinary prank caller. Yet, as he himself is quick to admit, he lacks some of the "moral ethics" a journalist ought to possess. All the same, he and his partner in crime, Vladimir Kuznetsov, have been able to get the truth out of high-ranking officials in ways normal journalists could only dream of.

The duo's brand of "prank journalism" aims to be "useful to society," provoking both rare moments of honesty from powerful figures as well as laughter among audiences. Watch Afshin Rattansi's conversation with the Russian trickster about how he manages to pull off his epic pranks on people at the highest levels of international politics on RT.


2 + 2 = 4

SOTT Focus: Pollution in Pre-Industrial Europe

1600s-london
Last week, I wrote about Jason Hickel's romantic idea that people in the past "lived well" with little or no monetary income. I noted that prior to the Industrial Revolution, clothing was immensely expensive and uncomfortable. The cotton mills changed all that.

As a French historian noted in 1846, "Machine production...brings within the reach of the poor a world of useful objects, even luxurious and artistic objects, which they could never reach before."

Today, I wish to turn to pollution. It is well known that industrialization helped to pollute the environment, but that does not mean that air and water were clean before factories and mills came along! Compared to today, our ancestors had to endure horrific environmental conditions.

Comment: Social and environmental justice warriors and anti-capitalist activists of all types would do well to read a little real history before they roundly denounce the 'modern world'. It is true that we live in an increasingly dystopian society, but that is largely due to the lack of truly moral guidance from authorities and cannot reasonably be laid at the door of technological progress. Indeed, without the creature comforts of modern technology, the immorality of modern Western life would likely be too much to bear.

At the same time, modern creature comforts have led many people to passively accept or ignore the immorality that defines modern Western culture and encouraged the 'social justice' types to misjudge what should be railed against and what should be left well alone. Indeed, a major part of the immorality sweeping Western society is the result of modern technology and comforts that allows fanatical social justice warriors the time and means to promote their twisted view of reality far and wide.


Stock Down

Artificially low interest rates: The slow vindication of Austrian economics?

Austrian Economics
Austrian Economics
Followers of the Austrian economists (if you are at all sincere about understanding political economy you should at least get familiar with their arguments) frequently lament that the Keynesian social-democrat mainstream not only disagrees with them, but never even bothers to argue against them, treating them instead as if they were invisible or worse, attacking idiotic strawmen instead. But every once in a while I notice a truth, revealed long ago through reason by the Austrians, peeking through when a modern Keynesian happens to write about real world effects that seemed to him counter-intuitive. Several times in the past year or two I've seen Austrian conclusions pop through the cracks of post-2008 Keynesianism, but justified on different grounds and expressed in different language. The truth is making itself known, for truth can never be suppressed forever, but the mainstream of economics is still having a hard time shedding their faux empiricism and obsession with complicated-but-meaningless mathematical models. So when they notice it they have to notice it in terms of economic history throwing them a curveball that warrants more study.

Just today in the New York Times, Neil Irwin notices with some consternation that low interest rates have a strange way of favoring the biggest players in a market. The revelation comes from a chance encounter with on-the-ground experiences of actual entrepreneurs.

Comment: While this may be true, it is also true that the financial system is so manipulated, its values distorted and at the whims of an unaccountable government-corporate elite that whichever system is employed it's unlikely to ever benefit to the little man:


Briefcase

Matt Levine on trading strategies, Lyft going public & why bankers should be allowed to steal deals on the train

Businessman using train on phone
Eurostar

If you are an investment banker, and you settle into your seat on a train after a long day of doing investment banking, and after a while you look up from your novel and notice that the person sitting next to you is also an investment banker, a competitor, and not only that but he is doing investment banking right now, and not only that but you can see his email and figure out what company he is working for and what deal he is working on, what should you do?

There is a correct answer, and you are not going to like it, but it is: You should get out your phone and, carefully and casually and without letting him see your screen, you should email the people back at your office and try to get them to pitch his client right now and take the deal away from him, or at least get a role in it. Then your colleagues will scramble to use the information you gather to put together, within the hour, a compelling pitch to the client, and they will call the client and present their credentials and make their pitch, and the client will say "wait how did you even know we were doing a deal, it is secret," and your colleagues will smugly reply "we are investment bankers, it is our business to know what deals are going on, and we are very good at our business, also by the way if I were you I'd have some questions for your current bankers about leaks," and the client will be impressed and hire your bank and fire the other guy's bank.

Biohazard

Fukushima contamination has drifted as far north as Alaska's Bering Strait

Fukushima reactor
© REUTERS/Issei KatoThe reactor units No.1 to 4 are seen over storage tanks for radioactive water at Tokyo Electric Power Co's (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, Japan February 18, 2019. Picture taken February 18, 2019.
Radioactive contamination from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant hit by a tsunami in 2011 has drifted as far north as waters off a remote Alaska island in the Bering Strait, scientists said on Wednesday.

Analysis of seawater collected last year near St. Lawrence Island revealed a slight elevation in levels of radioactive cesium-137 attributable to the Fukushima disaster, the University of Alaska Fairbanks Sea Grant program said.

"This is the northern edge of the plume," said Gay Sheffield, a Sea Grant marine advisory agent based in the Bering Sea town of Nome, Alaska.

Comment: Also see: What's occurring at Fukushima since the meltdown in 2011


Attention

Violence has returned to Somalia

Mogodishu somalia car bomb
In Mogadishu, last week, a series of car bombs, including a truck bomb chose four targets; a Government building, a high profile hotel and a popular restaurant including one of the main streets in Mogadishu, which represents a new offensive by Al-Shabab not seen since the massive vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) that injured and killed over 900 people nearly two years ago, in October 2017.

The bombings last week happened over consecutive days, causing last Saturday Mogadishu's Mayor Abdirahman Omar Osman to announce a new counter terrorism strategy to end the wave of attacks by Al-Shabaab sleeper cells thought to be hiding embedded among the local population.

"Since it's a massive operation targeting houses across the city, we ask the public at large to exercise more patience and cooperate with the security personnel in the line of duty," said Mayor Abdirahman Omar Osman.

Info

Militants dead in Kashmir after gun battle with Indian security forces

Indian soldiers
© REUTERS / Danish IsmailIndian soldiers on patrol in the city of Srinagar, Kashmir, May 5, 2018
At least four suspected militants have been killed and four members of India's security forces injured, following a heated gun battle in the Pulwama district of Kashmir in the early hours of Monday morning.

The exchange of fire erupted as members of India's army, paramilitaries, and the special operations group of the Jammu & Kashmir police force conducted a cordon-and-search-operation following a tip-off, according to local media. The wounded were evacuated and taken to hospital, and are now in a stable condition.

As the cordon was tightened, the militants fired at the forces, triggering a fierce gunfight in which four ultras were neutralized," a police official said. He added that the dead militants were believed to be members of the Pakistan-based Islamist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and security personnel was working to identify the dead members.

Attention

Why not draw US crimes? Mussolini's granddaughter rips Jim Carrey over sketch of fascist dictator

Jim Carrey Alessandra Mussolini
© Jim Carrey REUTERS/Mike Blake; Alessandra Mussolini AFP / ANDREAS SOLARO
The granddaughter of Italy's fascist dictator Benito Mussolini has lashed out at Jim Carrey after the actor shared a drawing of Mussolini's corpse. She suggested instead that Carrey's art should focus on America's dark past.

The e-feud began after Carrey, who regularly shares his provocative political art on Twitter, posted a sketch he made of Mussolini and his mistress hanging upside down from a beam - an image modeled on a famous photograph of the executed dictator.

"If you're wondering what fascism leads to, just ask Benito Mussolini and his mistress Claretta," Carrey captioned the drawing.

Comment: Say what you will about Benito Mussolini, Alessandra's assessment of Jim Carrey pretty much hits the mark. The actor-turned-artist has become more and more unhinged as time has gone on, putting out "artwork" akin to that of a cranky petulant child.

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