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Washington Post accused of providing PR to Taliban after arguing group incites less violence than Trump on Twitter


RT
Thu, 19 Aug 2021 14:46 UTC
WaPo
© AFP/Eric Baradat
The Washington Post has come under fire after publishing an article insinuating that the Taliban hasn't been banned from Twitter like former President Donald Trump because it incites less violence in its carefully worded posts.

The headline hails the Taliban's "sophisticated social media practices that rarely violate the rules." In the article, reporters Craig Timberg and Cristiano Lima wrote that the Taliban has
"used strikingly sophisticated social media tactics to build political momentum" and "make a public case that they're ready to lead a modern nation state after nearly 20 years of war."
The reporters also argue that the Taliban - who they described as "a group that espouses ancient" and "traditional moral codes" - has been using messaging on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter that
"challenges the West's dominant image of the group as intolerant, vicious and bent on revenge, while staying within the evolving boundaries of taste"
- a tone that some found oddly sympathetic to the terrorist group, prompting some to accuse the newspaper of aiding those PR efforts. The Post continued:
"The tactics overall show such a high degree of skill that analysts believe at least one public relations firm is advising the Taliban."

Comment: The Post reporters back-slapped all the way to print.

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Target

Hong Kong authorities evade questions over 'retrospective' security law, despite Lam comments to UN

Tom Grundy
HKFP
Wed, 18 Aug 2021 08:00 UTC
Civil Front march
© May James/HKFP
The last Civil Front March • January 1, 2020
"Police will act on the basis of actual circumstances and according to the law," the police said when asked if the security law would be used retroactively. The Hong Kong authorities have evaded questions over whether the national security law is to be applied retrospectively following comments from the police chief.

Last week, Commissioner of Police Raymond Siu told state-backed Ta Kung Pao that the since-disbanded Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF) might have violated the security law for "organising a series of large-scale, illegal protests" in recent years. It is despite the fact that the coalition has not organised any rallies since the security law was enacted last June 30.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam told the UN last June that the law would "have no retrospective effect." However, when HKFP asked Lam's office if she stood by her comments, the questions were referred to the police for a response. "In conducting any operation, Police will act on the basis of actual circumstances and according to the law," a spokesperson told HKFP, without addressing the questions over whether the law was being applied retroactively.


Comment: Be it new rules, old rules or spontaneous rules - the State wins.

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Dollar

Quinnipiac University to fine, cut internet access to unvaccinated students

Kenneth Garger
New York Post
Tue, 17 Aug 2021 10:42 UTC
Quinnipiac University
© Getty Images/AP/Craig Ruttle
Quinnipiac University vaccine card
Connecticut's Quinnipiac University will be issuing fines and cutting internet access to non-exempt students who fail to show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination, a new report said.

The bold mandate was communicated in an email to about 600 students who so far have not requested an exemption or provided the university with documentation to show they have received the jab, according to a report from the student newspaper, The Quinnipiac Chronicle.

Quinnipiac's vaccine requirement for incoming students in this fall semester had been previously announced, and earlier this month the university reinstated its indoor mask mandate, according to the report.

Fines for students who don't supply vaccination proof will begin at $100 per week for the first two weeks. The penalty will increase by increments of $25 every two weeks until a max fine of $200 per week.

Currently non-complying students can avoid the fines if they show the proper documentation by Sept. 14. If they fail to meet the directive by then, they will lose access to the campus internet network.

Comment: Amazing how many institutions of 'higher learning' are operating like kindergartens and detention centers.

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Laptop

Former Google employee tells Russell Brand: Big Tech 'stripmining brains for profit'

Children's Health Defense Team
Children's Health Defense
Thu, 19 Aug 2021 08:54 UTC
technocracy
The essence of who we are as human beings — our thoughts, our awareness and our behaviors — are being hijacked by Big Tech, said Russell Brand.

"How did we find ourselves in this Big Tech dystopia?" he asked.

In a clip from his "Under the Skin" podcast, Brand spoke with Tristan Harris, a former Google employee featured in the Netflix film, "The Social Dilemma" and founder of the Center for Humane Technology, about how our attention and free will are being turned into a product and mined by the most powerful businesses in the world.

Comment: See also:



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Ambulance

'Three dead' in Jalalabad as Taliban open fire during defiant protests in defence of Afghan flag

Arpan Rai
Independent, UK
Wed, 18 Aug 2021 18:10 UTC
Taliban

Taliban open fire during defiant protests in defence of Afghan flag
At least three people are believed to have died after Taliban gunmen opened fire to break up a protest in Jalalabad on Wednesday, where scores of people had to the streets in a rare show of dissent against the militant group's takeover of Afghanistan, raising Afghan national flags.

Dozens of protesters in the eastern city had taken to the streets to protest the way the Taliban has taken the country by force and to defend the national flag, which the group's fighters removed from the presidential palace after it was vacated by fleeing President Ashraf Ghani.

Local resident Salim Ahmad told the Associated Press that Taliban members had fired into the air to disperse the crowd, but a witness told Reuters at least three people died in the shooting and ensuing chaos. Al Jazeera reported that around a dozen others were injured.

Since they started to make sweeping territorial gains across the country last month, the Taliban have been replacing the Afghan national flag with their own banner, a white background with an Islamic inscription in black.

The Taliban leadership have promised a general "amnesty" for those who opposed it in government during the past 20 years and say they will not carry out reprisal attacks.

But in another incident of violence on the streets on Wednesday, Taliban forces blew up the statue of a Shiite military leader who fought against the armed group in Afghanistan's civil war in the 1990s, according to local reports.

Comment: Such protests have reportedly spread to several cities, with protesters marching to celebrate Afghanistan's Independence Day (commemorating the end of British rule in 1919).

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Eye 2

Canada: Military officer who led vaccine campaign charged with sexual assault


Toronto Sun
Wed, 18 Aug 2021 00:00 UTC
Major General Dany Fortin
© PATRICK DOYLE /REUTERS
Major General Dany Fortin, formerly in charge of the logistics of Canada's COVID vaccine response, gives a statement outside the Gatineau Quebec police station, after being charged with one count of sexual assault in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada August 18, 2021.
The military officer who led Canada's COVID-19 vaccine distribution campaign has been charged with one count of sexual assault.

Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin presented himself to police in Gatineau, Que., Wednesday after a warrant for his arrest was issued Monday.

He later told reporters that he does not know the details of the allegation against him, despite repeated requests from his legal team.

"For the past three months, my family and I have been living this nightmare of not knowing the nature of the allegation, not knowing the status of the investigation, not knowing whether or not I'd be charged," Fortin said.

"My legal team has repeatedly — repeatedly — contacted prosecutors to seek any information with no success. So I've been forced to read much about me in media, with no ability to defend my name."

Comment: Is this a legit case of someone getting justice - or is Fortin just a high profile figure being "made an example of" to quell criticism of the military and win more support from liberals?

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NPC

SJW grift: 'Feminist' writer begs for therapy donations after attack on white woman's Asian cookbook backfires


RT
Thu, 19 Aug 2021 12:47 UTC
Roslyn Talusan feminist cook book cultural appropriation
© Roslyn Talusan
Roslyn Talusan is trying to make bank on her failed 'cultural appropriation' attack
A journalist and self-described "feminist writer" called on her readers to help pay for $130-per-session therapy costs after she was criticized for harassing a white female author who dared to pen a cookbook about Asian cuisine.

Roslyn Talusan - a Filipina Canadian who has written for Vice, Refinery29, and the A.V. Club, among other publications - sparked social media controversy after she publicly called out white author Pippa Middlehurst for writing a book about dumplings and noodles.
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Handcuffs

'What the bloody hell are ya up to?' Clueless Aussie government's mishandling of Covid is a global joke waiting for a punchline

Damian Wilson
RT
Tue, 17 Aug 2021 07:38 UTC
Police officers in Sydney, Australia.
© REUTERS/Loren Elliott
Police officers speak with a member of the public during a law enforcement operation to prevent anti-lockdown protesters from gathering. Sydney, Australia.
With only 30 Covid deaths in nearly a year, Australia should be on top of the pandemic but tough, random lockdowns, a snail-paced vaccine rollout and international borders closed into 2022 cause widespread misery and confusion.

Scott Morrison, before he became Prime Minister of Australia, was something of a marketing guru, best known for a controversial and short-lived international tourism campaign that begged the question from bemused foreigners, "Where the bloody hell are ya?" In the same spirit, we now have to ask Scotty from Marketing, "What the bloody hell are ya up to?"

One Sydney shopkeeper and artist summed it up in a handwritten sign:
"Dear loyal customers, We will be closed till early 2023 because Scott, front of the queue, Morrison f***ed up our vaccination roll out. We thank you for your patience".
And the note's author, James Powditch is not my only frustrated compatriot. Because Australia is in a mess. A bloody great coronavirus-shaped shambles and the rest of the world, frankly, is starting to think that Morrison and his mates haven't got a clue about what they are doing, that they're a few kangaroos short in the top paddock, as we might say back home.

While nations across the world immunize millions of people, even after some disastrously slow starts, Australia has just 26.9% of its population over the age of 16 fully vaccinated, with the target of 70% not expected to be met until early November.

Comment: It is a controlled experiment indeed. They feel comfortable pushing these totalitarian measures more and more, but at some point in time the joke will be over and it won't be a good time for the "elites" who started this mess.

See also:

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Attention

Shocking video shows bloody hatchet attack at Manhattan ATM

Tina Moore, Jorge Fitz-Gibbon and Larry Celona
New York Post
Tue, 17 Aug 2021 19:45 UTC
hatchet attack
© William Miller
The unidentified suspect is still on the loose.
Horrifying new surveillance video shows the moment a 51-year-old man was brutally attacked by a hatchet-wielding maniac while at a lower Manhattan ATM.

The footage, obtained by The Post on Tuesday, shows the victim at one of the ATMs inside a Chase Bank vestibule on Broadway near Beaver Street in the Financial District shortly before 5:30 p.m. Sunday when the attacker walks in, removes a hatchet from a dark bag, sneaks up behind him and begins slashing him.

The frightened and bloodied victim tries to fend off the brutal assault, falling to the floor several times as he futilely attempts to grab his crazed assailant's weapon, the footage shows.

When the unidentified attacker is finished beating the victim, he smashes the screens of the cash-dispensing machines before walking away — and leaving the hatchet and his backpack behind, according to police.

Comment: Footage of the grisly scene:

The suspect was later apprehended:
A 37-year-old military vet has been busted in the terrifying, caught-on-camera hatchet attack on an ATM customer in Lower Manhattan — and is also suspected in two other incidents involving strangers earlier this month, law-enforcement sources said Wednesday.

Yonkers cops had been separately seeking to arrest the suspect, Aaron Garcia, too — for an unspecified Feb. 15 incident and on four bench warrants for failing to appear in court, sources said.

All of those incidents allegedly involved domestic disputes and charges ranging from harassment and stalking to criminal contempt, sources said.

Garcia of Yonkers was charged with attempted murder and assault in the bloody violence that took place late Sunday afternoon inside a Chase bank in the Financial District, the NYPD said.

[...]

Garcia, who served in the military, is suspected of another unprovoked assault in Lower Manhattan earlier this month, when he allegedly kicked someone without warning on South Street around 6:20 p.m. on Aug. 3, sources said.

Around noon that same day, Garcia also allegedly brandished a knife and pointed it at a passer-by who yelled at him to stop urinating in public on Pine Street, sources said.


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X

Censor-it-yourself: Twitter testing new feature that allows users to flag 'misleading' tweets


RT
Tue, 17 Aug 2021 21:47 UTC
New York Twitter
© REUTERS/Andrew Kelly
New York Twitter offices after they announced they will close their re-opened offices due to Covid-19 in Manhattan, New York City
Twitter has announced a new feature that allows users to flag "misleading" tweets with a press of a button as part of the social media platform's effort to remove "disinformation" on topics like Covid-19 and election fraud.

Users can already report tweets, but the new feature gives a second option after clicking on "Report Tweet." Users can flag the tweet as "misleading." Once a tweet has been labeled "misleading," it will go on to be reviewed by artificial and human moderators, who will decide whether further action needs to be taken.

Select people in the US, Australia, and South Korea will have access to the feature, though Twitter did not reveal the exact number of people with access to the pilot program.

The company acknowledged that it would be near impossible to individually go through the identified tweets and make a determination, but they said the feature will be used more to "identify trends so that we can improve the speed and scale of our broader misinformation work."


Comment: In other words, we will now train their AI algorithms for more censorship.

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