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Kosovars questioning Turkey's Islamic outreach


Ahval
Thu, 03 Jan 2019 11:48 UTC
mosque
Kosovo's capital badly needs a new mosque, but Turkey's attempts to court the Balkan state with investment and advocacy are making many locals uneasy, The Guardian reported on Wednesday.

Six years ago, Pristina's Muslim leaders and government officials laid the cornerstone for a new central mosque. But today it lies under weeds, covered in red graffiti that threatens Kosovo's chief mufti: "No Turkish mosque or there will be blood."

After years of debate and controversy, Kosovo's capital appears set to finally get its new mosque, a gift from Turkey that is to begin construction this spring.

Kosovo's population of 1.8 million is 95 percent Muslim, yet many of the countless mosques destroyed in recent conflicts with neighboring Serbia have yet to be rebuilt.
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Attention

Reporter Quits NBC Citing Network's Support for Endless War

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.com
Thu, 03 Jan 2019 00:01 UTC
William M Arkin
A journalist with NBC has resigned from the network with a statement which highlights the immense resistance that ostensibly liberal mass media outlets have to antiwar narratives, skepticism of US military agendas, and any movement in the opposite direction of endless military expansionism.

"January 4 is my last day at NBC News and I'd like to say goodbye to my friends, hopefully not for good," begins an email titled 'My goodbye letter to NBC' sent to various contacts by William M Arkin, an award-winning journalist who has been associated with the network for 30 years.

"This isn't the first time I've left NBC, but this time the parting is more bittersweet, the world and the state of journalism in tandem crisis," the email continues. "My expertise, though seeming to be all the more central to the challenges and dangers we face, also seems to be less valued at the moment. And I find myself completely out of synch with the network, being neither a day-to-day reporter nor interested in the Trump circus."

Comment: It's nice to see that some within the MSM still have something akin to integrity. We hope for the best from Arkin in the future - it would be nice to see him on a platform that actually values his perspective.

See also:

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People 2

Indian women form '620km human chain' for right to access 'bachelor' temple of Sabarimala


BBC
Tue, 01 Jan 2019 12:00 UTC
Sabarimala

The demonstration was a response to protests that prevented women from entering a Hindu temple
Women in the southern Indian state of Kerala have formed a 620km (385-mile) human chain "in support of gender equality", amid a row over access to a prominent Hindu temple.

The Sabarimala shrine was historically closed to women of "menstruating age" - defined as between 10 and 50.

India's top court overturned the ban in September, but protesters have since attacked female visitors.

The "women's wall" was organised by the state's left-wing coalition government.

Comment: It's a rather tricky situation where tradition comes up against an increasingly 'modernized' culture. A clash that appears to be having quite a profound effect in India right now: Virtue-signalling blowback: Twitter CEO Dorsey provokes backlash for holding sign in India denouncing caste system

See also:


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Propaganda

As users leave Patreon due to censorship based on political bias, the rabbit hole goes deeper

Barrett Wilson
The Post Millennial
Wed, 02 Jan 2019 00:01 UTC
Dave Rubin Jordan Peterson

It turns out that in 2019, the most dangerous regulatory agencies are the big tech and media companies themselves. Their primary target? Ideas.
In a video released on January 1st, 2019, Dr. Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin announced that they would both be walking away from Patreon, following the lead of Sam Harris and other high profile creators who have lost faith in the crowdfunding platform.

As we first reported on December 12th, Patreon began to lose the trust of its users when it deplatformed popular YouTuber Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad) in a completely arbitrary decision that had nothing to do with its own terms of service.


Comment: See: Jordan Peterson speaks out on Patreon's deplatforming controversy (UPDATE)


Censorship based on political bias

Many in the Patreon community viewed this as an act of censorship based entirely on political bias. The deplatforming had a cascading effect, with creators and users walking away from the platform. Many smaller creators had their income wiped out entirely. The entire debacle made for a bleak Christmas for the anti-censorship corner of the internet.

Comment: Checking out the Twitter thread by Nick Monroe, linked in the piece above, is worth your while if you want to see how the big banks are implicated in ordering the deplatforming of individuals from Patreon. These orders are coming from the very top. It paints a rather grim picture and it seems unlikely a separate platform created by Rubin and Peterson will have much success as a result - if no payment processor will support your project, how can it possibly function? 2019 may just be the year that anyone with the wrong political leanings finds themselves unable to buy or sell. Makes you want to go back and read Revelations.

See also:

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NPC

New law allows for gender-neutral birth certificates in New York City

Owen Daugherty
The Hill
Thu, 03 Jan 2019 12:09 UTC
Birth Certificate
A new law taking effect Tuesday made gender-neutral birth certificates available in New York City.

The law, signed by Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) in October, allows for a third gender category for selection on city-issued birth certificates, according to The Associated Press.

The nonbinary category, known as "X," can be selected by those who choose to identify as nonbinary or by parents who choose the category for newborns.
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Heart - Black

Violent pedophile who posted photos of himself raping toddler finally snared by police


The Daily Mail
Thu, 03 Jan 2019 12:09 UTC
Terry Coneyworth

Terry Coneyworth, of Hull, is facing jail for raping a toddler and taking pictures of the attack
A violent paedophile who took pictures of himself raping a two-year-old girl was caught by police after he openly plotted about abusing another child.

Terry Coneyworth, of Hull, sexually abused the toddler before uploading horrific pictures online and will be sentenced in February 2019 after admitting to a series of disturbing sex attacks.

The 31-year-old has admitted a total of 19 sexual offences charges in what one police officer told the city's crown court was 'the most serious and disturbing case I have dealt with in my 16 years of service'.
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Cow

Celebrity shills Jay-Z and Beyoncé want everyone to go vegan

Edwin Ortiz
Complex
Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:01 UTC
jay-z beyonce
© Getty/Kevin Mazur/Parkwood Entertainment
If you're still on the fence on what New Year's resolution to go with, Beyoncé and JAY-Z may have made your decision a little easier.

In the introduction for Marco Borges' (Beyoncé's trainer) new book, The Greenprint: Plant-Based Diet, Best Body, Better World, the couple challenge their fans to try veganism.

"Having children has changed our lives more than anything else," they wrote, according to People. "We used to think of health as a diet - some worked for us, some didn't. Once we looked at health as the truth, instead of a diet, it became a mission for us to share that truth and lifestyle with as many people as possible."

Comment: Anyone who would take dietary advice from vapid soulless pop stars probably deserves what's coming to them. Veganism is not healthy, it doesn't help the planet and it isn't good for animals. But given the amount of "cool cred" its getting from celebs lately, it seems likely we're going to have even more sick and angry vegans in the coming generations. Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse.

See also:

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Robot

The rise of AI could hurt progress made in 'gender pay gap'

Karen Gilchrist
CNBC
Fri, 21 Dec 2018 00:11 UTC
Robot woman
© Blutgruppe | Corbis | Getty Images
Developments in artificial intelligence and automation have been heralded as a major leap forward in human advancement. But they could also adversely affect another important measure of societal progress: The gender pay gap.

That's according to a new report from the World Economic Forum, which indicated that the growth of jobs in emerging industries, such as IT and engineering, is set to disproportionately hurt women and, by consequence, progress made in reducing pay inequality.

The gender pay gap, the difference between average earnings for men and women, has been narrowing over recent years, yet there remains a long way to go until compensation parity is reached - 202 years to be exact. And that estimate could grow even lengthier if progress is not made in bringing more women into the workforce, the WEF found.


Comment: The real issue is they are starting with a wrong premise. See here and here.


That's due to two major factors, Saadia Zahidi, managing director and head of social and economic agendas at the World Economic Forum, told CNBC's "Squawk Box."

Firstly, many of the roles typically filled by women, such as administrative and customer service roles, are being "automated away" by new technologies. And, secondly, the types of roles that are growing, like machine learning and big data roles in the IT sector, happen to be ones where "the talent base of women is very small as compared to men."
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Eye 1

You are being misled, YouTube is not a far-right platform

Mark Ledwich
Medium
Fri, 28 Dec 2018 07:41 UTC
magnifying glass
YouTube recently released its year-in-review "Rewind" video, showcasing 2018's notable trends and highlights on the platform. It was a jam-packed montage of YouTube stars, Fortnite references, and talk of Youtube's diversity and inclusiveness. What could go wrong?

Rather than encompass for fans the year in YouTube culture, it is now the most disliked video in the platform's history. It garnered over ten million dislikes in the space of eight days. To put that into perspective, the second most disliked video - Justin Bieber's 2010 song "Baby" - managed to achieve just under that amount in the space of eight years.

Speculation flowed as to why the video was so badly received, including a recent article by Kevin Roose of the New York Times. He argues that the video...
...was trying to please two separate audiences - creators, who want to see the breadth of YouTube's output reflected back at them, and advertisers, who need to be reassured that the platform is a safe place to spend their money.
YouTube has been busy dissociating itself from the controversies that have surrounded some of its most popular creators. There was no mention of Felix Kjellberg (better known as 'PewDiePie'), for example, whose ongoing subscriber battle with T-Series has dominated discussions on the platform for months. YouTube inevitably cut ties with him after a Wall Street Journal hit piece supposedly revealed anti-Semitism in his videos, but YouTube's own users do not seem to be deterred.

Comment: See also:

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Hammer

Cops mistake man's going into diabetic shock as 'resisting arrest' - savagely beat him for not complying

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Wed, 02 Jan 2019 00:00 UTC
police attack
Police mistook a man's diabetic distress for an act of resisting arrest and proceeded to savagely beat him to the point of hospitalization.

When your only tool is a hammer, often times, everything begins to look like a nail. John Priest learned this the hard way when police mistook his medical emergency for resisting arrest as he slipped into a diabetic coma. Instead of providing him with the medical attention he needed, Priest was savagely beaten and severely injured by police.

The incident happened on January 9, 2017 but the dashcam footage was only just released. According to John's father, Daniel Priest, the family has been trying for two years to get the video released because the department tried to keep it a secret.

According to Daniel, the video shows what "amounts to an unwarranted, violent, physical assault perpetrated by 2 Amarillo police officers on my son John Priest, while he was incapacitated and in critical medical danger brought on by a diabetic low blood sugar state."

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