Welcome to Sott.net
Thu, 04 Nov 2021
The World for People who Think

Society's Child
Map

Eye 1

Search continues for Amanda Eller, woman who went missing during hike on Maui 4 days ago

Amanda Eller
© Sarah Haynes
Amanda Eller, 35, went missing in Maui, Hawaii, when going on a hike Thursday, May 9, 2019. The physical therapist and yoga teacher has not been seen for three days.
Friends, family and rescue crews spent a third day searching for a missing Maui woman on Saturday after she mysteriously disappeared during a routine hike.

Amanda Eller, 35, who is a physical therapist who moonlights as a yoga teacher, drove to Makawao to hike the Kahakapao Trail on her day off Wednesday. Eller is a regular hiker and avid outdoorswoman, friends say, but she has not been seen since taking to the trail.

The Maui Fire Department found Eller's white Toyota RAV4 at noon on Thursday, with her keys and cellphone inside. Friends said it was not uncommon for her to hike or run the trail without her phone.

Her boyfriend told police he last saw her Wednesday morning. He is not a suspect, friends say.

2 + 2 = 4

Head of elite school under fire for comparing criticism of fee-paying schools to anti-Semitism

graduates
© Reuters / Hannah McKay
The head of a prestigious £12,000-a-term school prompted fierce reactions after suggesting that the bashing of fee-paying schools was similar to the tropes found in anti-Semitic conspiracies.

Anthony Wallersteiner, head of the Stowe school in Buckinghamshire, UK, claimed that students from independent, fee-paying schools were unfairly losing out on places at Oxford and Cambridge universities at the expense of their state-educated counterparts, in an interview with the Times newspaper. He added that many fee-paying parents were now accusing Oxbridge admissions offices of "social engineering" and positive discrimination by limiting the number of successful privately-educated applicants.

Wallersteiner's most controversial comment came, however, in his analogy likening criticism of the private education sector to anti-Semitism. "The rise of populists and polemicists has created a micro-industry in bashing private schools," he said before noting that their criticisms echoed the "conspiratorial language" found in the notorious fabricated anti-Semitic text, 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'. He added that it was easy for Hitler and the Nazis to suggest that Germany's Jewish minority was overrepresented in key jobs such as doctors, lawyers, teachers, and creatives.

Bullseye

Author loses book deal and gets eviscerated on Twitter for reporting black, female Metro employee eating on a train

metro commuters
© REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
A legit but somewhat petty complaint has cost an author her book deal and reputation after liberal Twitter ganged up on her for reporting a DC Metro employee eating on a train. It's a violation, but the employee is a black woman.

Jordanian-American journalist and writer Natasha Tynes faced Twitter wrath after she alerted the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) to a black woman in a Metro uniform eating on a train presumably on her way to work. Tynes, who has since deleted her tweet, reportedly wrote: "I thought we were not allowed to eat on the train. This is unacceptable. Hope @wmata responds."

"When I asked the employee about this, her response was, 'worry about yourself,'" Tynes said.

It did not take long for WMATA to respond. The transit authority asked Tynes to provide the exact time and location of her encounter and thanked her for helping to "make sure all Metro employees are held accountable."

But that was only the beginning of the story, as Twitter erupted with outraged posts accusing Tynes of being a snitch. The backlash mostly focused on the race and gender of the employee, with many calling out Tynes for contributing to the oppression of women of color.

Attention

Sabotage to out activists? Now water has been cut to Venezuela's US embassy, govt. denies action

Man in window
© REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne
Anti-coup activists demonstrate from the window of the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, U.S., May 1, 2019.
Anti-coup activists holed up in the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington say they have been left with no utilities after the water supply was shut off or disrupted. The municipal water provider has denied responsibility.

The already dismal conditions the activists known as the Embassy Civilian Protection Collective have had to endure after the US authorities complied with the opposition's request to shut down power in the building, have grown even worse, with water now reportedly gone as well.

Since it comes just two days after the 'ambassador' appointed by Juan Guaido, the US-backed opposition leader and self-proclaimed 'interim president' of Venezuela, demanded that the US authorities shut down the power, the activists said it was yet another joint attempt by Washington and Guaido to drive them out of the embassy.

"The US govt turned off water at Venezuela Embassy this morning to try to force the #EmbassyProtectionCollective to leave," Code Pink's Medea Benjamin wrote, while another activist, reporter Mark Hand, accused municipal water company DC Water of leaving the activists without water, and public utility Pepco for the continued blackout.

Comment: See also:


Control Panel

Clampdown: New York wants to force all gun owners to purchase million dollar liability policy

New Yoek gun insurance
New York state is still busily chipping away at gun rights and now they've introduced Obamacare for guns. Legislators are hard at work trying to force every gun owner in the state (who isn't a cop or active military) to purchase and maintain a minimum $1 million liability insurance policy.
§ 2353. FIREARM OWNERS INSURANCE POLICIES. 1. ANY PERSON IN THIS STATE WHO SHALL OWN A FIREARM SHALL, PRIOR TO SUCH OWNERSHIP, OBTAIN AND CONTINUOUSLY MAINTAIN A POLICY OF LIABILITY INSURANCE IN AN AMOUNT NOT LESS THAN ONE MILLION DOLLARS SPECIFICALLY COVERING ANY DAMAGES RESULTING FROM ANY NEGLIGENT OR WILLFUL ACTS INVOLVING THE USE OF SUCH FIREARM WHILE IT IS OWNED BY SUCH PERSON. FAILURE TO MAINTAIN SUCH INSURANCE SHALL RESULT IN THE IMMEDIATE REVOCATION OF SUCH OWNER'S REGISTRATION, LICENSE AND ANY OTHER PRIVILEGE TO OWN SUCH FIREARM. (source)
Hmmm...privilege? I had no idea it was called constitutional privileges. I'm going to have to go back and fix some articles really quickly where I called them "rights."

New York wants to make it impossible to own a gun. Although the bill clearly states it's been read twice, it's rife with grammatical errors, almost to the point of illiteracy. (I italicized them for ya.) But I digress. Under the heading "Justification" the bill states:I
Injury and death by gun has increasingly become a problem in U.S. and in New York State. In the wake of recent mass shooting incidents in Aurora, Colorado and Newtown, Connecticut; there has been a nationwide attention on gun control and public safety.

According to FBI Crime Report, there were 445 firearm murderin New York in 2011 and 517 firearm murder in 2010. However, there is little attention on the economic impact these shootings have on the victims and their families.

This legislation establishes and requires gun-owners to obtain and maintain liability insurance policy prior to such ownership. By having this insurance, policy in place, innocent victims of gun-related accidents and violence will be compensated for the medical care for their injuries.

In such cases where the gun was stolen, the original owner is typically not liable unless the weapon was stolen through negligence on the part of the owner.

This insurance policy will also serve as an incentive for firearm owners to implement safety measures in order to conduct the activity as safely as possible and only when necessary.

Bad Guys

District letter documents anonymous callers fears of another 'Columbine' at STEM School - 'a perfect storm'

stem school shooting coloroado
© David Zalubowski/AP
Police and others are seen outside STEM School Highlands Ranch after a shooting
Douglas County School District received an anonymous call from a parent claiming a "perfect-storm."

A Douglas County School District letter describes a list of serious concerns from a parent who feared there may be "a repeat of Columbine" at STEM School Highlands Ranch months before Tuesday's fatal shooting.

Two shooters walked into the school at South Ridgeline Boulevard and Plaza Drive at around 1:50 p.m. Tuesday and opened fire on their classmates in "two separate locations," according to the Douglas County Sheriff's Office. The shooting left one student, 18-year-old Kendrick Castillo, dead and eight others injured.

Daniel Winsor, director of choice planning at Douglas County School District, wrote the letter on Dec. 19, 2018. It was sent to STEM School Executive Director Penelope Eucker.

Heart - Black

San Francisco elementary school teacher told to pay for substitute teacher while on medical leave for cancer

San francisco teacher cancer

Normally teachers get 10 sick days a year, but can take 100 days of medical leave. That leave comes at a cost directly from the regular teacher’s paycheck.
A teacher in San Francisco who was diagnosed with breast cancer was told she has to foot the bill for the substitute who will fill in for her while she's on medical leave.

The second-grade teacher, who was not identified by KGO, works at Glen Park Elementary school.

She is on leave through the end of the school year, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Normally teachers get 10 sick days a year, but can take 100 days of medical leave. That leave comes at a cost directly from the regular teacher's paycheck, KGO reported.

A substitute's salary runs from $174.66 to $240.26 a day, the Chronicle reported.

Comment: California is generous in its support of illegal immigrants, yet this largesse apparently does not extend to it's own citizens. One of the many reasons people are leaving the state in droves.


Star of David

One dead, 30 injured as Palestinians clash with IDF near Gaza Strip border

Man shot
© AP/Adel Hana
Elderly man shot by IDF troops
A Palestinian died and at least 30 others were injured on Friday in clashes with Israeli troops near the Gaza Strip border, the Gaza Health Ministry spokeswoman, Wafaa Yagi, told Sputnik.

"A 24-year-old Palestinian died and 30 Palestinians were injured during clashes with the Israeli army on the eastern borders of the enclave," the spokeswoman said. Earlier, it was reported that 14 Palestinians were injured during Friday's clashes.

The Gaza border area has been a scene of violent clashes between Palestinians and the Israeli military when the Palestinians launched their anti-Israeli campaign, dubbed the Great March of Return.

The scope of the protests has noticeably decreased in the last month due to the fact that the parties to the conflict have managed, with the mediation of Egypt and the UN, to agree on easing the blockade of the Gaza Strip and other measures of social and economic support.

NPC

When the left goes too far - the dangerous doctrine of equity in the workplace

female construction worker equality
© Getty Images
Do we really believe that these large-scale equity interventions are necessary and, even more naively, that they would solve more problems than they would cause, Jordan Peterson asks.

The mantra of Diversity, Inclusivity and Equity (DIE) perhaps constitutes the primary identifying factor of the tiny minority of radical collectivist ideologues that nonetheless have come to dominate the humanities and social sciences in Western universities (and, increasingly, the HR departments of corporations). Of these three, equity is the most egregious, self-righteous, historically-ignorant and dangerous. "Equity" is a term designed to signal "equality," in some manner, and is a term designed to appeal to the natural human tendency toward fairness, but it does not mean the classic equality of the West, which is equality before the law and equality of opportunity.

Equality before the law means that each citizen will be treated fairly by the criminal justice and judicial systems regardless of their status - and that the state recognizes that each individual has an intrinsic value which serves as a limit to state power, and which the polity must respect. There is likely no more fundamental presumption grounding our culture.

Comment:


No Entry

Compromise or censorship? London gallery caves, covers artwork after blasphemy complaints

Saatchi Gallery
© Reuters / Luke MacGregor
The Saatchi Gallery in London
London's Saatchi Gallery covered two paintings which showed the text of shahada, one of the five pillars of Islam, after complaints from Muslim visitors. RT UK guests debate over whether it was the right call.

The artist SKU used the holy Arabic text, which professes belief in God and acceptance of Muhammad as God's prophet, in two works, both of which allude to the design of the US national flag and one also shows a nude woman. Some visitors complained about the pieces and called for their removal, but the gallery refused. SKU suggested a compromise solution: keep his work on display but cover them with sheets.

Comment: And yet:

South Africa magistrate rules 'F*ck White People' art not racist