Society's Child

Hostility toward journalists rising worldwide, Reporters Without Borders

Yahoo!
Wed, 25 Apr 2018 00:01 UTC

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders says hostility toward journalists is growing worldwide, often encouraged by political leaders - even in democratic countries.

The group's annual global index of media freedom released Wednesday found an overall rise in animosity toward reporters and a drop in freedoms, notably in former Soviet states but also in countries from the U.S. to the Philippines.

Comment: Note the failure to mention Israel, the most egregious recent example. Despite being clearly marked, the IDF recently shot six journalists during Gaza protests. Wonder how Reporters Without Borders missed that one.

See:

The group says many democratically elected leaders "no longer see the media as part of democracy's essential underpinning," singling out U.S. President Donald Trump for his media-bashing. It also notes the recent killings of reporters in EU members Slovakia and Malta.

Comment: So this was simply a backhanded cheap-shot against Trump, more or less, despite the fact that the media have admitted Trump is 'not shy' about talking to press, and is more accessible than Obama. If they'd widen their search, Reporters Without Borders might actually find much of the hostility towards journalists is currently coming from mainstream media outlets and tech platforms.

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New Zealand now adds prostitution to list of 'employment opportunities' for immigrants

RT
Thu, 26 Apr 2018 12:18 UTC

Migrants hoping to start a new life in New Zealand can now add a new skill to their visa applications. Under a new plan, would-be immigrants can claim points as skilled sex workers and escorts.

The skill is regarded as providing social companionship in the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) list.

In order to meet the criteria of a highly qualified sex worker, would-be migrants will be expected to have ANZSCO skill level 5. The requirements issued by ANZSCO also include compulsory secondary education.

Flemish Priest Father Daniël Maes Living In Syria Exposes The Truth The Western Press Ignores

Bahar Azizi
Sott.net
Wed, 25 Apr 2018 13:11 UTC

Father Daniël Maes

Living in Syria in the sixth-century-old Mar Yakub monastery in the city of Qara, 90 kilometers north of the capital Damascus, Flemish Father Daniël Maes has been a witness to the invasion of western-backed terrorists since the very beginning. To this day, he and his friends continue to help the Syrian people by not only helping them directly, but also by spreading the truth about what is truly going on in the country.

Nibiru 'fear porn' prophets are profiting from the apocalypse on YouTube

Jasper Hamill
Metro
Mon, 23 Apr 2018 18:39 UTC

The world spectacularly failed to end again this week when a mysterious death planet did not show up in the sky and spark a biblical apocalypse.

But you can be assured that the no-show of Nibiru will not silence the dozens of crackpots and conspiracy theorists who make a living from claiming the apocalypse is nigh.

We have discovered that so-called Planet X 'investigators' are earning tens of thousands of pounds a year from the false claim that a mysterious hidden world is about to reappear and wipe out humanity.

Comment: The above article seems to be implying that YouTube should be demonetizing accounts that talk about Nibiru, Planet X or the like. This seems a little extreme. While it's true that these sorts of conspiracy theories can do harm, and the whole Nibiru thing is so wrapped up in nonsense there's little true knowledge to be found in these videos, where is the line for what's acceptable and what isn't, and who gets to decide where that line is drawn? If YouTube truly tried to purge its platform of all non-truths, there'd likely be little left to watch.

See also:

Some basics on the war in Syria and a letter to Salafist Wahhabist apologists

Paul Larudee
Dissident Voice
Sun, 22 Apr 2018 00:00 UTC

Your head chopper heros are apparently not what Syrians have in mind when they think of democratic revolution.

Mehdi Hasan (MH) can hardly be blamed for the ignorance that he displays in his Intercept article, "Dear Bashar al-Assad Apologists: Your Hero Is a War Criminal Even If He Didn't Gas Syrians." He has apparently never been to Syria, doesn't often do research on Syria, and gets his information from proponents of a single point of view, representing a bunch of idealists that want to usher in their idea of a liberal democracy in Syria, without benefit of electoral niceties until their power is already ironclad. What's wrong with this picture?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start by deconstructing the absurdities and the language in the MH article.

Thankfully, MH has spared us the need to deconstruct the absurd accusation that the Syrian armed forces have used chemical weapons. He apparently accepts that they don't need to, that there is no benefit in using them, so why would they? OK, then who did? Cui bono? Easy answer. The motive of the promoters of destruction in Syria is to create a pretext for the US and its partners to bomb, invade and establish a no-fly zone; i.e., to directly take on the Syrian government and its allies. These war criminals include the neoconservative cabal in the US, the Zionist and Israeli proponents of using the US to fight Israel's perceived enemies, and the Saudi and Qatari adventurists backing the Project for a New Salafist Paradise. These are the same players who brought us Iraq I and II, Libya, Afghanistan forever, Somalia and Yemen. What more could we wish for?

The silencing of a conservative writer: When the mob came for me

Guy Benson
Townhall
Mon, 23 Apr 2018 10:25 UTC

Ken Williamson

Several weeks ago, acerbic conservative writer Kevin Williamson was fired from the job he'd just accepted at The Atlantic, a prestigious mainstream publication. The supposed iniquity for which he was dismissed was a years-old exploration of potential policy consequences related to his views on the criminalization of abortion -- an outcome he supports. The braying jackals who applied heavy pressure on The Atlantic's editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, to kick Williamson to the curb homed in on the columnist's ostensible stance that women who obtain abortions should be hanged. This is a gross distortion, for reasons we'll get to shortly. Some of his critics also circulated a fabricated racist quote, falsely attributing it to Williamson. After a period of silence, Williamson finally weighed in on this contretemps in aWall Street Journal op/ed entitled, "When the Twitter Mob Came For Me." The piece is devastating and unsparing, as is typical of Williamson's work. He begins by clarifying what he meant with his tweets and comments about abortion and capital punishment. Unsurprisingly, the views ascribed to him by dishonest or ignorant partisans was not accurate or fair:

Despicable: Judge no longer allowed in court after verbally abusing ill inmate who later died

Breck Dumas
The Blaze
Mon, 23 Apr 2018 10:10 UTC

© YouTube screencap
A Florida judge has been reprimanded after a recorded hearing was released, showing her yelling at a woman with COPD who later died.

A Florida judge has been reprimanded after scolding a wheelchair-bound defendant who died days later.

Judge Merrilee Ehrlich berated Sandra Faye Twiggs in a recorded hearing on April 15. Twiggs was making her first appearance in front of the court for a domestic violence charge.

In the video, the court hears that the 59-year-old Twiggs has no prior convictions, and was in court after a domestic dispute with her daughter. As the proceeding continues, Twiggs is seen coughing and struggling, and the judge asks if someone can offer the defendant some water.

After the judge asks Twiggs to nod if she needs a glass a water, the woman nods and says that she also needs a breathing treatment.

Judge Ehrlich then unleashes, saying "Ma'am, I'm not here to talk to you about your breathing treatment."

The left's cult of violence has a history of backfiring on them

Chris Hedges
Truthdig
Mon, 16 Apr 2018 00:00 UTC

The Weather Underground, a clandestine revolutionary organization that advocated violence, was seen by my father and other clergy members who were involved in Vietnam anti-war protests as one of the most self-destructive forces on the left. These members of the clergy, many of whom, including my father, were World War II veterans, had often became ministers because of their experiences in the war. They understood the poison of violence. One of the most prominent leaders of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam (CALCAV), to which my father belonged, was the Catholic priest Philip Berrigan, who as an Army second lieutenant fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

The young radicals of the Vietnam era, including Mark Rudd - who in 1968 as a leader of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) led the occupation of five buildings at Columbia University and later helped form the Weather Underground - did not turn to those on the religious left whose personal experiences with violence might have saved SDS, the Weather Underground and the student anti-war movement from self-immolation. Blinded by hubris and infected with moral purity, the members of the Weather Underground saw themselves as the only real revolutionaries. And they embarked, as have those in today's black bloc and antifa, on a campaign that was counterproductive to the social justice goals they said they advocated.

Lawsuit says man spent 18 days in prisoner transport van

Mathew Barakat
Associated Press
Tue, 24 Apr 2018 18:15 UTC

Edward Kovari's 18-day ordeal began Sept. 12, 2016, when some guys in a van showed up to take him from a jail in Virginia to Texas, where he was wanted on charges that he had stolen a car.

But the trip from Winchester, Virginia, to Houston took more than two weeks in a crowded van where inmates had to urinate in bottles and take turns sleeping on the van's floor, according to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday by Kovari. The private company that contracted with the jail to transport Kovari, 39, kept him shackled in the back of that van for 18 days as it wound through the country picking up inmates in an effort at cost efficiency.

The charge on which Kovari was brought to Texas was later dismissed.

The company that transferred him, Nashville-based Prisoner Transportation Services, bills itself as the nation's largest prisoner extradition company. It did not respond Tuesday to messages seeking comment.

The lawsuit, filed by civil rights lawyers Jia Cobb, Glenn Schlactus and Orly May, alleges Prisoner Transportation Services prioritizes "transporting as many detainees, with as few stops for rest or care, as possible over their obligation to safely transport those in their custody."

In Kovari's case, that meant 18 days, most of which he spent in shackles. On only two or three nights did the van actually stop at a jail where prisoners were allowed to get out and spend the night in a bed.

Parents keep infant alive via mouth-to-mouth resuscitation after UK court rules he cannot be flown abroad for treatment

Conservative Fighters
Wed, 25 Apr 2018 04:14 UTC

The horror out of the U.K. concerning sick 23-month-old baby Alfie Evans continues. Earlier on Tuesday, Alfie was effectively sentenced to death yet again by the U.K. court system after a judge denied the the parents' request to travel to Italy to seek further treatment.

Now, with the child off of life-support since Monday evening and battling for his life, the baby's parents have been forced to give Alfie mouth-to-mouth while sitting in a hospital.

"Evans' parents are giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in a desperate bid to keep him alive after a court ruled he cannot be flown to Italy for treatment," reported The Sun on Tuesday evening. "Tom Evans tonight said he and Alfie's mum Kate are trying to help Alfie's breathing after 'his lips turned blue.'"

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Society's Child

Hostility toward journalists rising worldwide, Reporters Without Borders

New Zealand now adds prostitution to list of 'employment opportunities' for immigrants

Flemish Priest Father Daniël Maes Living In Syria Exposes The Truth The Western Press Ignores

Nibiru 'fear porn' prophets are profiting from the apocalypse on YouTube

Some basics on the war in Syria and a letter to Salafist Wahhabist apologists

The silencing of a conservative writer: When the mob came for me

Despicable: Judge no longer allowed in court after verbally abusing ill inmate who later died

The left's cult of violence has a history of backfiring on them

Lawsuit says man spent 18 days in prisoner transport van

Parents keep infant alive via mouth-to-mouth resuscitation after UK court rules he cannot be flown abroad for treatment

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