Society's ChildS


Dollars

Rex Murphy: The worst crime in the university admissions scandal? Harlotry

Rex Murphy
National Post
Fri, 26 Apr 2019 01:24 UTC
Universities don't just have ethical boundaries, ethical codes. They are supposed to be the expositors of ethics


University of Souther California
The University Village area of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles is seen on March 12, 2019.Reed Saxon/AP
A little learning is a dangerous thing (Alexander Pope) ... and it's expensive, too.

According to one summary of the news "Fifty people — including Hollywood stars, top CEOs, college coaches and standardized test administrators," and eight universities were caught up in various scams, under-the-table deals and outright bribery to get their untalented, vacant offspring into college. They cheated, lied and bought their entrance into the American system of higher education, under the same empty impulses that have some of the very well-to-do splurge on upscale cars and Prada handbags.

One of these parents is an undistinguished mediocrity from a number of numbing television presentations — the best known, Full House, a dreary, treacle "comedy," in comparison with which the one-time hit Saved by the Bell could be considered King Lear. Her name is Lori Loughlin, and now she, with a great number of other worthies, is facing criminal charges of fraud, and perhaps a long-term visit to another house, which is also full but, alas, doesn't have a studio audience. Loughlin is accused of paying half a million dollars to lubricate the enrolment of her daughter, Olivia Jade Giannulli, into the University of Southern California.

Comment:

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Bullseye

The Julian Assange loyalty test

C.J. Hopkins
The Unz Review
Mon, 15 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
Assange
I don't normally do this kind of thing, but, given the arrest of Julian Assange last week, and the awkward and cowardly responses thereto, I felt it necessary to abandon my customary literary standards and spew out a spineless, hypocritical "hot take" professing my concern about the dangerous precedent the U.S. government may be setting by extraditing and prosecuting a publisher for exposing American war crimes and such, while at the same time making it abundantly clear how much I personally loathe Assange, and consider him an enemy of America, and freedom, and want the authorities to crush him like a cockroach.

Now I want to be absolutely clear. I totally defend Assange and Wikileaks, and the principle of freedom of the press, and whatever. And I am all for exposing American war crimes (as long as it doesn't endanger the lives of the Americans who committed those war crimes, or inconvenience them in any way). At the same time, while I totally support all that, I feel compelled to express my support together with my personal loathing of Assange, who, if all those important principles weren't involved, I would want to see taken out and shot, or at least locked up in Super-Max solitary ... not for any crime in particular, but just because I personally loathe him so much.
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Quenelle

In the small Canadian city of Regina, voices are speaking out against NATO

Andre Vltchek
Dissident Voice
Sun, 28 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
Ed Lehman
Ed Lehman
Ed Lehman is a Canadian Communist, and a comrade of mine. I don't say such things often or lightly, especially about Westerners. But he became my comrade, and we struggled shoulder to shoulder, for five days. Not in the South American wilderness, not in Afghanistan or Syria, but in Regina, a small Canadian city, the capital of the province of Saskatchewan.

I admit, before being invited there, I knew close to nothing about Regina. I did not even know how to pronounce it, correctly. But one day, an email arrived, and I was invited to become a keynote speaker at the Peace Conference there - in Regina. Spontaneously, I accepted.

The peace conference was called "Yes to Peace and Progress - No to NATO and War!"

I usually do not speak at peace conferences. I have always believed that oppressed and colonized countries have to fight for their independence and freedom, and that peace as it is propagated in the West is something that basically upholds the status quo. It is, as I mentioned in Canada, "when the bombs are not falling on Paris or Toronto". It is when the wretched of the earth are dying quietly and obediently, far away from camera lenses, in their looted countries and continents.

Actually, many peace movements in the West annoy me to the extreme. Their lack of sensitivity, as well as ignorance, are maddening. The desire of their members to 'do good' and 'feel good', is often self-serving, and has absolutely nothing to do with the struggle for justice in dozens of colonized, and plundered 'client' states.
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Cardboard Box

If the US economy is doing so great, why are so many workers miserable?

Mac Slavo
SHTFplan.org
Wed, 01 May 2019 00:00 UTC
miserable employee
Millennial and generation Z workers are becoming increasingly miserable with their jobs and careers. Since we are told several times a day by the media that the economy is booming, why are so many young workers so disastrously melancholy all the time?

The mental well being of the American worker hit an all-time low in 2018, according to a report by Barron's. That's a bit shocking considering the economy is booming and wages are rising, right? Well, wages aren't rising that much, and much of the consumer spending is being put on credit cards, creating a vicious cycle of depression and consumerism that will repeat for a lot of folks.

So why are we constantly being told everything is fine? The mainstream media loves to say that the U.S. is nearly ten years into one of the longest economic expansions in history, unemployment is the lowest it's been in almost half a century, and employees have more job choices than they've had in years. But there's just one problem. That's not actual truthful when taking all of the data into consideration. Sure, unemployment is low the way the government calculates it, but there's a reason for that. 102 million Americans are no longer "in the workforce" and therefore, unaccounted for. Michael Snyder, who owns the Economic Collapse Blog says: "Sadly, the truth is that the rosy employment statistics that you are getting from the mainstream media are manufactured using smoke and mirrors."
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No Entry

CBS News, New York Times reporter suggest that US scrap free speech in favor of New Zealand-style censorship

Chris Menahan
Information Liberation
Tue, 30 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
free speech
CBS News released a propaganda segment on Monday featuring New York Times tech reporter Cecilia Kang where they suggested the US government could do an end run around the First Amendment through strict "regulations" in order to suppress "hate speech" and "misinformation" online.

Both the CBS News host and NYT reporter Cecilia Kang said the US should look to countries like Australia, New Zealand, Germany and India -- which do not have free speech -- as models for suppressing free speech on the internet.

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Bizarro Earth

Not satire! Trans woman with 'male physiology' sets four world records in women's power-lifting event

Max Channon
PlymouthLive
Mon, 29 Apr 2019 21:45 UTC
Mary Gregory trans powerlifter
© Mary Gregory/InstagramTrans powerlifter Mary Gregory
Plymouth Olympian Sharron Davies and Dame Kelly Holmes have reacted with dismay after a trans woman with "a male body with male physiology" set four new world records while winning a women's powerlifiting event in America.

On Instagram, transgender powerlifter Mary Gregory shared her joy at winning 'nine out of nine' events at the Raw Powerlifting Federation Event - and setting new world records for Masters Squat, Open bench, Masters dead lift and Masters total.

"Still processing, full meet recap to come a bit later but I do want to thank a few people," said Mary in her Instagram post.
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Stock Down

Alphabet (Google) had more than $70 billion in market cap wiped out, and it says YouTube is one of the problems

Steve Kovach
CNBC
Wed, 01 May 2019 18:07 UTC
alphabet google
Google has a YouTube problem, according to CFO Ruth Porat.

On Monday, after reporting that ad revenue grew 15% versus the 24% it saw a year ago, Google's parent company Alphabet saw its stock punished. It fell more than 8% Tuesday afternoon.

According to Porat, YouTube was one of the culprits.

"While YouTube clicks continue to grow at a substantial pace in the first quarter, the rate of YouTube click growth rate decelerated versus a strong Q1 last year, reflecting changes that we made in early 2018, which we believe are overall additive to the user and advertiser experience," Porat said on the company's earnings call Monday.

Comment: By bowing to the mainstream media, promoting "authoritative sources" and basically turning themselves into 'television on the internet', YouTube is killing what made their platform great in the first place - original creators. People don't go to YouTube to hear the big MSM voices - they go for original content and to find things they can't find on television. By demonitizing and deranking anything slightly controversial, YouTube is accelerating its own trip into irrelevancy. Will they figure this out before they hemorrhage yet more billions?

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Attention

Best of the Web: Mayhem in Paris as police vastly outnumbered by massive joint Yellow Vest-May Day protest


RT
Wed, 01 May 2019 11:07 UTC

Comment: The French government claims just 164,000 people were out on the streets across France today, of which 28,000 protested in Paris. Based on video footage from just the Paris protest, the real figure is likely 20+ times higher.

Incidentally, the precise moment violence 'erupted' was when a phalanx of 'Black Bloc' - the ISIS of anti-globalism - charged through the actual protesters and attacked a line of riot police, who then charged and let fly with tear gas and 'flash-grenades'. It can be seen on Sputnik's live-feed of the protest, at 01:12:40


Injury Paris
© Reuters/Gonzalo FuentesAn injured protester is evacuated by street medics after clashes ahead of the start of the traditional May Day march in Paris, France on May 1, 2019.
Demonstrators marching in Paris to mark International Workers' Day have been met with tear gas, images from the French capital show, with reports of over 300 people detained.

The procession was scheduled to start at 2:30pm local time but clashes have already erupted between riot police and protesters who have turned out in their thousands. Huge plumes of smoke can be seen rising from tear gas canisters or smoke grenades along the protest route.


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Dollars

Debate: Should Britain pay reparations for involvement in slave trade?


RT
Wed, 01 May 2019 10:49 UTC
Slave Sale
© Global Look Press/Mary Evans Picture LibrarySlave Sale
Is it only right and proper that Britain compensates descendants of Africans it enslaved during its colonial period? Or is it enough to educate people about the horrors of slavery and move on? RT guests debate the hot topic.

Social activist Lee Jasper insisted that all colonial artefacts Britain acquired as a direct result of colonial plunder now be returned to the countries of origin. UK radio host and journalist Jon Gaunt argued that that the "idea of reparations is ludicrous," saying it wasn't his generation that committed such horrendous acts.

It comes after Cambridge University revealed that it will conduct a two-year investigation into its links to the slave trade, and whether or not the word-renowned academic institution profited from it.

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Arrow Down

Not buying it: Twitterati highly amused at Zuckerberg's plan to make Facebook a 'privacy-focused social platform'


RT
Wed, 01 May 2019 06:39 UTC
Facebook privacy overhaul
© Reuters / Stephen Lam
The DeleteFacebook hashtag is once again trending on Twitter, after online enthusiasts found Mark Zuckerberg's newly announced privacy overhaul strategy seemingly laughing at his own words.

"I know that we don't exactly have the strongest reputation on privacy right now, to put it lightly. But I'm committed to doing this well," the Facebook founder and CEO said, all smiles as he outlined a product roadmap for his "privacy-focused social platform" at the F8 developer conference in San Jose, California, on Tuesday.

Comment: As most users have noted, Facebook isn't likely to deep-six such a highly profitable business model. Since the company provides such a useful service to the government both in gathering data and controlling the narrative it wouldn't be surprising if some quiet compromise is reached with federal prosecutors.

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