Society's ChildS


Biohazard

Symbolic: Washington 'swamp' overrun by actual vermin

Ashraf Khalil
AP
Wed, 12 Dec 2018 18:00 UTC
washington rats
Pest Control Officers Gregory Cornes, left, uses a hand trowel to scoop-up dry ice before dropping it directly into rat burrows, as his co-worker Curtis Redman assist, near the Capitol building in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018. Both are from the Department of Health's Rodent Control Division. The nation’s capital is facing a spiraling rat infestation, fueled by mild winters and a human population boom. Washington’s government is struggling to keep pace (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
But their target isn't corrupt officials or shady political fixers; it's Rattus Norvegicus, the common Norway Rat.


Comment: Shame.


The nation's capital is facing a spiraling rat infestation, fueled by mild winters and a human population boom. Washington's government is struggling to keep pace, with the pest control department fielding a record number of calls.


Comment: Mild winters?


On one recent day, Pittman and Cornes, both veteran Health Department employees, are working within sight of the Capitol, shoveling dry ice pellets into suspected rat burrow entrances. On another, they're summoned about six blocks north of the White House, at 16th Street and M, where residents have complained of an outbreak.

"Rats adapt to everything. They can be like geniuses," Pittman said.


Comment: And again with the symbolism.


On the grounds of a church, Cornes and Pittman poke around, expertly spotting telltale holes and matted dirt trails that signal rat burrows. Cornes uses an instrument like an extra-long Super Soaker to inject poison into the hole, while Pittman watches to see if the white powder puffs up from other holes and then shovels dirt to block those exits.

Comment: The similarities to the political sphere are astounding. But they're going to need something a lot stronger if they want to rid Washington of its real vermin.

See also: And check out SOTT radio's: The Truth Perspective: Introducing Political Ponerology, plus some odds and ends

Read More...
Sheriff

Police in Russia on manhunt for attackers who threw grenade at cops


RT
Wed, 12 Dec 2018 19:24 UTC
russia police
© Reuters / Maxim Shemetov
Russian police are on a manhunt for unknown attackers who reportedly threw a grenade at two police officers near a mall in the southern Republic of Ingushetia. The seriously injured officers have been taken to hospital.

The policemen suffered multiple shrapnel wounds to their hands and legs, a source told TASS. "They remain conscious. Their condition is of moderate severity, non-critical," he added.

The Ingushetia police have confirmed that two of its servicemen were injured outside a shopping center in the city of Nazran on Wednesday.

The officers were trying to detain two men, who resisted arrest and threw a grenade at them. Other reports said the policemen were sitting in a parked car at the time of the attack.

The perpetrators were reportedly killed by return fire and are being identified.
Read More...
Brick Wall

Flashback El Paso: This town is proof that Trump's wall can work

Paul Sperry
New York Post
Sat, 13 Jan 2018 09:15 UTC
Fence
© MapQuestUS-Mexico border fence, El Paso, Texas
When charges of "racism" and "xenophobia" fail, Democrats' fallback argument against President Trump's proposed border wall is that it simply "won't work," so why waste billions building it? Tell that to the residents of El Paso, Texas.

Federal data show a far-less imposing wall than the one Trump envisions - a two-story corrugated metal fence first erected under the Bush administration - already has dramatically curtailed both illegal border crossings and crime in Texas' sixth-largest city, which borders the high-crime Mexican city of Juarez.

In fact, the number of deportable illegal immigrants located by the US Border Patrol plummeted by more than 89 percent over the five-year period during which the controversial new fence was built, according to Homeland Security data reviewed by me. When the project first started in 2006, illegal crossings totaled 122,261, but by 2010, when the 131-mile fence was completed from one end of El Paso out into the New Mexico desert, immigrant crossings shrank to just 12,251.

Comment: In El Paso, at least, there reportedly is a wall of evidence!

Read More...
Family

Syria triumphant: The entire nation mobilized and won

Andre Vltchek
New Eastern Outlook
Tue, 11 Dec 2018 16:54 UTC
Syria flag rubble mosque
© Reuters/Omar Sanadiki/File PhotoA member of forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad attempts to erect the Syrian national flag inside the Umayyad mosque, in the government-controlled area of Aleppo, during a media tour, Syria December 13, 2016.
Yes, there is rubble, in fact total destruction, in some of the neighborhoods of Homs, Aleppo, in the outskirts of Damascus, and elsewhere.

Yes, there are terrorists and 'foreign forces' in Idlib and in several smaller pockets in some parts of the country.

Yes, hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives and millions are either in exile, or internally displaced.

But the country of Syria is standing tall. It did not crumble like Libya or Iraq did. It never surrendered. It never even considered surrender as an option. It went through total agony, through fire and unimaginable pain, but in the end, it won. It almost won. And the victory will, most likely, be final in 2019.
Read More...
Star of David

'Force, intimidation & tear gas': Palestinian news editor says IDF raid to seize CCTV footage totally unnecessary, would have been freely given if asked for


RT
Wed, 12 Dec 2018 17:48 UTC
IDF raids Palestinian news agency Ramallah
© Reuters / Mussa Issa QawasmaStatus Quo - 'it happens repeatedly, armed raids are continuous throughout the West Bank, but not as often in Ramallah.'
There was no need for the IDF to raid the Palestinian news agency office in Ramallah and use force and tear gas to seize CCTV footage, as they could have asked for it and got it, WAFA editor Maher Abukhater has said.

Israeli soldiers raided the office of the Palestinian news agency WAFA in the West Bank on Monday. According to the agency, soldiers fired tear gas and seized footage from surveillance cameras while searching the building.

Israel gave no reason for the raid, but it is believed the action is connected to the IDF's search for the perpetrator of an attack on Sunday which left seven Israelis wounded.

RT spoke to Maher Abukhater, English desk editor at the Palestinian news agency, who was there at the time of the raid and described how events unfolded.

Comment: Business as usual for the IDF - a show of force simply to intimidate Palestinians and remind them 'who's the boss'. See also: All hell breaks loose when settlers are threatened, yet disregard and lame excuses are the norm when settlers murder and harass Palestinians:

Read More...
Heart - Black

Were sanctions against North Korea a factor in the death of Otto Warmbier?

Konstantin Asmolov, PhD
New Eastern Outlook
Wed, 12 Dec 2018 00:00 UTC
Otto Warmbier
© KCNA/ReutersU.S. student Otto Warmbier speaks at a news conference in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang February 29, 2016
On 10 October 2018, several American doctors, who were involved in caring for and treating the fairly well-known Otto Warmbier, confirmed the theory, proposed by the student's parents, that Otto's teeth and gums looked as if they had been cut with a saw, and as a result, the US citizen had died from torture inflicted on him. This "medical conclusion" was sent to a court in Washington.

In response, on 27 October, the Head Doctor at a Pyongyang hospital reminded the public that US doctors, who took part in repatriating the student, gave the North Korean side a medical note stating that at the time of transfer he was in normal state of health. The doctor also referred to an article in the American newspaper USA Today from 21 June 2017, which mentioned the fact that a neuropathologist from the US University of Cincinnati carried out a medical examination of Warmbier, and confirmed absence of any signs of starvation or physical abuse, either in the form of fractures or damage to internal organs. In addition, the doctor said that, according to the report by the US network NBC from 27 September 2017, an expert, who conducted the autopsy on Warmbier's body, also did not find any signs of torture, and an examination by forensic odontologists indicated there was no evidence of any trauma to the teeth.

However, if we distance ourselves from yet another attempt by grieving parents to find culprits, responsible for the death of their son, among the North Korean authorities, a very sad picture begins to emerge.

Based on Warmbier's symptoms, it seems very likely that the young man died from after effects of a stroke, or a serious problem with circulation in the brain, which had gone unnoticed, and the treatment, he had received, was not of good quality. This, of course, is connected to the overall state of North Korean medicine, as it is one of the sectors most affected by imposed sanctions.

Comment: Sanctions disproportionately affect innocent civilians and as French analyst Alain de Benoist said, sanctions are a form of war:
The policy of sanctions, again, is not a form of diplomacy but a form of war. It comes when diplomacy has abdicated. Sanctions are intended to bring about both physical effects (scarcity, impoverishment, disorganization of the economy, inability to export or import) and psychological effects (raising discontent in the population of so that it puts pressure on its government).
More on Otto Warmbier:

Read More...
Stop

Russia to separate terrorists, extremists from other prison inmates to halt recruitment and spread of radicalism


RT
Wed, 12 Dec 2018 16:16 UTC
russian penal colony separates terrorists
© Sputnik / Mikhail VoskresenskiyIn order to crumble the extremist cells that are being formed behind bars, the Federal Penal Correction Service will be given the power to relocate inmates that promote radical ideas to other prison institutions.
Terrorists and extremists will be kept separately from other inmates in Russian prisons to avoid recruitment and spread of radical views among the convicts, according to the legislative amendments supported by the State Duma.

Previously, those, sentenced for terrorist and extremist crimes, could have been placed in various types of correctional institution, including mild general regime colonies. But the MPs behind the draft law, which was approved in the first reading on Tuesday, believed it to be a dangerous practice.

In colony settlements, "the convicts are kept in brigades and are able to communicate with a significant number of people, which still allows the spread of extremist ideology," Pavel Krasheninnikov of the ruling Untied Russia Party said.

Comment: While Russia works to end the spread of malignant jihadi ideology, Western nations are quite willing to spread the 'disease' in service to geopolitical aims, no matter how much misery and devastation is inflicted on the rest of the world:

Read More...
NPC

Why are late night comedians humorlessly lusting after Mueller and mindlessly going after Trump?

Michael Tracey
Spectator
Mon, 10 Dec 2018 18:11 UTC
Stephen Colbert
Lambasting Trump and pining for Mueller is a defining feature of most of Stephen Colbert’s monologues
For those desperately awaiting the Trump presidency's spectacular collapse, Robert Mueller has acquired an almost mythic status - forever looming in the background with astonishing 'bombshells' that could drop at any moment. Mueller himself never speaks, except through terse court filings, which lends his aura a mystical quality. His newfound fans have been known to light votive candles in his honor, wear apparel sporting his heroic visage, and spend day after day speculating on the internet about the time, date, and profundity of his next miraculous intervention.


Comment: It's high time some smart comedians call Mueller out for his deep state-motivated witch hunt proclivities - and for all the considerable s**t he's responsible for. But until someone has the courage and talent to do so, we will be stuck with the mind-numbing-status-quo-NPC banalities that pass for the comedy we see now.

See also:

Read More...
Pirates

Sad radicals' paradigm of suspicion fosters the conflict they seek to end

Conor Barnes
Quillette
Tue, 11 Dec 2018 18:33 UTC
sad radical
When I became an anarchist I was 18, depressed, anxious, and ready to save the world. I moved in with other anarchists and worked at a vegetarian co-op cafe. I protested against student tuition, prison privatization, and pipeline extensions. I had lawyer's numbers sharpied on my ankle and I assisted friends who were pepper-sprayed at demos. I tabled zines, lived with my "chosen family," and performed slam poems about the end of the world. While my radical community was deconstructing gender, monogamy, and mental health, we lived and breathed concepts and tools like call-outs, intersectionality, cultural appropriation, trigger warnings, safe spaces, privilege theory, and rape culture.

What is a radical community? For the purposes of this article, I will define it as a community that shares both an ideology of complete dissatisfaction with existing society due to its oppressive nature and a desire to radically alter or destroy that society because it cannot be redeemed by its own means. I eventually fell out with my own radical community. The ideology and the people within it had left me a burned and disillusioned wreck. As I deprogrammed, I watched a diluted version of my radical ideology explode out of academia and become fashionable: I watched the Left become woke.

Comment: Truth and knowledge is not a part of the radical's ideology. Rather, they live in a garish fantasy where everything is defined by oppression and power. Situational and historical context have no place, reducing understanding to oversimplified explanations that do not align with reality. As the author details, the result isolates the individual in being able to genuinely connect with other people and with knowledge that is beyond such a myopic worldview. The natural outcome is compounded suffering stemming from isolation, which is in turn incorrectly identified as proof they are in the right, and the cycle continues. It's a self-destructive feedback loop that not only affects the radical community but also spreads conflict upon others.

Read More...
NPC

Inside a Google Summit on 'diversity' and 'inclusion'

Joseph Klein
Quillette
Tue, 11 Dec 2018 16:18 UTC
google
© Reuters / Chris Helgren
How could any reasonable person oppose diversity and inclusion in the workplace? Answer: Because "diversity and inclusion" in the work context is actually a euphemism for something else.

During an October 30 summit held by Google, attendees listened to a panel discussion titled, "Beyond Hype, How Diversity & Inclusion in the Workplace Maximizes Your Bottom Line." The panelists' comments amounted to a very irregular definition of "diversity and inclusion:" A desire for equal outcomes among all identity groups, and disadvantaging individuals in overrepresented demographic categories.


Adam Berlew, head of Americas Marketing for Google Cloud, moderated the panel, which featured guests Joanna Dees, VP of educational programs at Women in Cable Telecommunications; Maribel Perez Wadsworth, president of the USA Today Network; Tom Kazmierczak Jr., head of diversity and inclusion at T. Rowe Price Associates; and Lori Rosenkopf, vice dean and director of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, undergraduate division.
Read More...