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Dr. Victor Bayda
Dr. Victor Bayda, a native of Moscow, has been named as an Irish language officer in the Kerry Gaeltacht (a primarily Irish-speaking region) by the Comhchoiste Ghaeltacht Uíbh Ráthaigh, a local community organization in the area which is tasked with reviving the language.
Bayda has been teaching Irish or Gaeilge at Moscow State University for the past fifteen years. He began learning Irish after he first mastered Scots Gaelic (in addition to speaking Dutch, Welsh, Swedish, French, German and Icelandic... and Russian and English), and holds a PhD for a thesis relating to certain aspects of the Irish language. So he certainly has the gift of the gab.
"Irish is such a beautiful language and is well worth learning. It's a different way of thinking and the language allows you to express yourself in creative ways not possible in most major European languages. It's certainly a language worth saving and holding on to," Bayda told Irish state broadcaster RTE.
In never-before-seen interrogation tapes, Jason Dalton, the former Uber driver who pleaded guilty to a 2016 shooting spree in the Kalamazoo, Michigan, area that left six dead and two severely wounded, explained in detail how he claimed the ride-sharing app had "guided" him to kill unsuspecting residents.
During the 2016 interrogation, tapes of which ABC News' "20/20" obtained, Dalton told investigators that he'd been working for Uber for less than a week and had noticed something unusual about the mobile app.
"The minute that I logged on, to be honest with you, I don't know what happened," he is heard telling investigators in tapes. "I know you guys are going to have a hard time believing this, but it literally took over (my) mind and body."
© Invision/AP, FILEJussie Smollett attends an "Empire" event in Los Angeles, May 20, 2016.
"Empire" actor Jussie Smollett was arrested in Chicago early Thursday morning for allegedly filing a false report of a crime, police said.
Chicago Police Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi announced via Twitter early Thursday that Smollett "is under arrest and in custody of detectives."
Smollett turned himself in at 5:15 a.m. local time and made a statement to police before being taken into custody. His lawyers, Todd Pugh and Victor Henderson, were not present at the time but they released the following statement the night before, "Like any other citizen, Mr. Smollett enjoys the presumption of innocence, particularly when there has been an investigation like this one where information, both true and false, has been repeatedly leaked. Given these circumstances, we intend to conduct a thorough investigation and to mount an aggressive defense."
© Getty
A toxic culture of sniping and censorship has swamped academic life.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission of England and Wales, along with other higher-education organisations, has published new guidelines designed to enshrine freedom of expression as the default position on campus. There's surely no better illustration of the low regard for free speech on some campuses: the state is having to enforce free speech on students and academics who are desperately defending their right not to be offended. Tragically, this is where we are right now in UK universities. Radical students do not demand freedom of speech in order to criticise the establishment, but instead demand protection from speech.
Since the new guidelines were released we've had students insisting on their right to No Platform feminists like Germaine Greer and Linda Bellos, while their overgrown veneraters in academia and the media blithely insist that free speech is alive and well. Politically motivated head-burying is unhelpful; as Tom Slater has discussed on spiked this week, campus censorship is not a myth.
Comment: Because the current generations have never had to fight for freedom of speech, it seems they don't really know what it is or have any understanding of its value. Freedom of speech means that others have the right to offend you, and you have the right to argue, disagree or ignore them. That so many go the route of trying to shut down voices they disagree with has truly grave implications at all levels of our society.
See also:
- Maffick Media CEO, Host Slam Facebook's Unprovoked 'Censorship' After CNN Runs Hit-piece: 'End of Free Speech'
- Faculties still digging in their heels: Ontario universities still don't really want free speech on campus
- Facebook says it believes in free speech except what they practice is censorship
- Jordan Peterson: NYT showing 'willful blindness' on free speech threats by tech companies
- The New War on Comedy, and Free Speech, by the Intolerant Left
Best of the Web: Self-proclaimed white nationalist arrested for planning a 'mass terror attack', the government says
Christopher Paul Hasson called for "focused violence" to "establish a white homeland" and said, "I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on the earth," according to court records filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland. Though court documents do not detail a specific planned date for an attack, the government said he had been amassing supplies and weapons since at least 2017, developed a spreadsheet of targets that included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and searched the Internet using phrases such as "best place in dc to see congress people" and "are supreme court justices protected."
"The defendant intends to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country," the government said in court documents filed this week, arguing that Hasson should stay in jail awaiting trial.
© Chris Corbin,US Air ForceJournalist Lara Logan
Logan is making headlines again, but for a different reason. In an interview with the Mike Drop podcast, she asserts that the American media is absurdly left wing and supportive of Democrats. She calls it a "disaster for this country," adding that she is likely committing "professional suicide" by giving the interview.
Comment: See: 'I'm Committing Professional Suicide': CBS Star Reporter Admits 'Mostly Liberal' Journalists are Now 'Political Activists'
Logan left CBS News a few months ago and apparently decided to open up. If anyone is qualified to discuss media bias, then it is a veteran of this established television network.
Comment: Logan's candid remarks aren't newsworthy because they're not telling us anything new - the left-leaning bias of legacy media (and social media) is well established at this point. What's interesting about it is that an insider is confirming what the media themselves deny. While the MSM stand behind their supposed integrity as unbiased and objective, Logan calls them out for what they are - political activists. It's refreshing to have the constant media gas-lighting exposed for what it is.
See also:
- Robert Epstein: Google bias against conservative news is 'much more dangerous' than China's attempts to control its citizens
- Extreme bias: WaPo sandbagged a report that might have cleared Kavanaugh
- 'Be Careful About What You Believe' - Ken Livingstone on US, UK Media Bias & Lies
- Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey goes on CNN & admits Twitter has 'left-leaning bias'
- Media bias: Are liberals more likely to be let off the hook than conservatives for bad behavior?
- Corporate media bias: News reports twist Sessions response to student's 'Lock her up' chants
Best of the Web: Bizarro world! France threatens to boycott Eurovision over Israeli TV show that predicted French contestant as Muslim, gay...and a terrorist
© Meged GozaniMali Levi and Roy Miller in the 2019 Israeli miniseries "Douze Points."
Set to air in May, the three-part series called Douze Points ('twelve points' in French, the highest score you can receive at Eurovision) is about a French-Algerian Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorist posing as a gay man who manages to secure a place in the high-profile international song contest - ostensibly in hopes of carrying out a heinous terrorist attack live on television. The program will air the same week as Eurovision 2019, which is being hosted by Israel.
The fictional Israeli series has apparently rubbed French authorities the wrong way - perhaps because France will be represented this year by Bilal Hassani, a gay Muslim.
Comment: One dark possibility is that Hassani was selected afterwards to fit with a script.
But the show is presumably as its creators claim: a send-up of Israelis' obsession with terror.
Which leaves this a freakishly hilarious coincidence.
When Zionisms collide!
This show has it all: terror, entertainment, LGBT-ness, Muslim migrants... and the Israeli security services, of course, saving the day.
Everything, they have tried everything, but none of the scare tactics they used to cast anathema and discredit on their opponents will have worked. The demonization of the Yellow Vests accused in November of being under the influence of the extreme right - failed! The stigmatization of the supposed violence of the bad Yellow vests - failed! The attempt to introduce the venom of the migratory problem on the roundabouts - failed!
© Maajid Nawaz/TwitterMaajid Nawaz, LBC radio presenter and Quilliam Foundation leader.
The LBC radio presenter Maajid Nawaz has said he does not "harbour hate" towards the man who attacked him outside a theatre in central London, as police investigate after reports of a racially aggravated assault.
Nawaz was hit from behind outside the Soho theatre on Monday after 7pm by a white man who the presenter described as "a racist coward", posting a photo of the cut to his forehead caused by a punch with what could have been "a signet ring".
He criticised far-left social media users for politicising his attack by highlighting his centrist views, which they apparently claimed "legitimise rightwing hate". Nawaz is the founder of the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism organisation.
Comment: This is getting scary. De-platforming simply due to one's political beliefs is bad enough when its done on social media, but for financial institutions to oust customers because they support the wrong candidate - it couldn't get any more dystopian! Remember Revelations, "And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name"? As Jordan Peterson said, "If you don't think there are reasons in your life for "well-meaning" financial institutions to implement the same limitations on you then you are not thinking."
See also: