Society's ChildS


Pistol

Federal judge blocks 3-D printed gun blueprints from being publicly available


RT
Wed, 01 Aug 2018 17:00 UTC
3d printed gun
© Robert MacPherson / AFP
A federal judge in Seattle has blocked the release of downloadable plans for 3D-printed guns, hours before a Second Amendment activist was due to release them to the world.

US District Judge Robert Lasnik issued the temporary injunction on Tuesday, after eight Democratic attorneys general filed a lawsuit on Monday.

"These downloadable guns are unregistered and very difficult to detect, even with metal detectors, and will be available to anyone regardless of age, mental health or criminal history," Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a statement. "If the Trump Administration won't keep us safe, we will."

The plans were due to be made public after the federal government reached a settlement with Defense Distributed, a Texas company that hosts and distributes the blueprints from its online depository, DEFCAD. Defense Distributed and DEFCAD are the creation of Cody Wilson, a pro-gun, libertarian activist.
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Star of David

Unintended consequences: Druze soldiers quitting Israeli military over apartheid nation-state law


Sputnik
Wed, 01 Aug 2018 16:40 UTC
Israeli soldier IDF
© Flickr/ Israel Defense ForcesIsraeli soldier
The Israeli military continues to deal with fallout from soldiers belonging to minority groups after the country passed a "nation-state" law declaring that Jews, and only Jews, have the right to self-determination in the country.

The law significantly restricts the rights of Palestinians living in Israel, Masud Ghnaim, an Israeli-Arab member of Knesset, told Sputnik News.

But Palestinians, both Muslim and Christian, are not the only minority group in the country and therefore not the only ones affected by the nation-state law. There are also Bedouins, Druze, Circassians, Arameans and more peoples within its borders.
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Dominoes

New Calexit seccession plan would include creation of autonomous Native American nation


RT
Wed, 01 Aug 2018 16:40 UTC
calexit
© Yes California #Calexit Campaign / Facebook
Supporters of a long-running effort to see California secede from the United States have revamped their plans to include the creation of an "autonomous Native American nation," which would encompass almost half of the new state.

'Calexit' supporters were given the go-ahead in April this year to begin collecting signatures to get the question of Californian independence on a special 2021 ballot. It will be no easy task, however, because supporters will need to collect 365,880 signatures in order to see the question put to a statewide vote.

Instead of simply seceding from the US, however, the new plans for Calexit involve creating a special Native American "autonomous nation" within the new independent state, creating a "buffer zone between between Donald Trump's America and the new independent California Republic," according to Yes California co-founder Marcus Ruiz Evans.

Another movement co-founder, Louis J. Marinelli, explained the decision as a way to "right the some of the wrongs of the past" by giving back land to Native American people.
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Laptop

Amnesty International reports employee targeted by 'hostile govt' using Israeli-made spyware


RT
Wed, 01 Aug 2018 16:39 UTC
whatsapp
© AFP
Amnesty International has said that an employee was targeted by a sophisticated Israeli-made spyware, stressing that it was "a deliberate attempt" to snoop on the group by a government "hostile" to the organization's work.


Comment: Not so coincidentally, Israel tops the list of countries hostile to Amnesty (a list which includes the DRC, China, Vietnam, Russia, and the USA).


The incident took place in June this year when an unnamed Amnesty employee received a cryptic message via WhatsApp messenger. It contained a malicious link to a website which installs spyware when visited.

Amnesty said such links are "used to distribute and deploy sophisticated mobile spyware" and are part of the Pegasus spyware platform sold by Israeli surveillance vendor, NSO Group. The spyware is able to "relay phone calls, photos, messages and more," Amnesty added.

NSO Group "is known to only sell its spyware to governments," Joshua Franco, Amnesty International's Head of Technology and Human Rights said. He stressed that the group believes that this was "a deliberate attempt to infiltrate Amnesty International by a government hostile to our human rights work."

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Bad Guys

New opposition leader Pablo Casado tells government Spain can't absorb "millions of Africans"


RT
Wed, 01 Aug 2018 16:21 UTC
migrants spain
© Jorge Guerrero/Agence France-PresseA group of migrants arrive on a Spanish coast guard vessel into the southern Spanish port of Malaga on January 1, 2017
Spain is the new center of Europe's migrant crisis - and the conservative Popular Party leader Pablo Casado has blamed the socialist government after they accepted migrant rescue boat Aquarius, which Italy had turned away.

The rescue boat, which carried 630 migrants, has been operated since February 2016 by SOS Mediterranee and Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). Italy and Malta rejected the rescue boat in June, sparking a bitter row within the European Union, with the two countries demanding another member of the bloc take in the migrants on board. The ship ended up docking in Valencia; a move that Casado warned may be seen as a welcome sign for more arrivals.

Comment:

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Chess

Saudis suspend oil shipments through Red Sea


Reuters
Mon, 30 Jul 2018 16:50 UTC
Ras Tanura oil refinery
© REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah/File Photo
Saudi Arabia announced last week it was suspending oil shipments through the Red Sea's Bab al-Mandeb strait after Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis attacked two ships in the waterway.

To date, no other exporters have followed suit. A full blockage of the strategic waterway would virtually halt shipment to Europe and the United States of about 4.8 million barrels per day of crude oil and refined petroleum products.

Western allies backing a Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen expressed concern about the attacks, but have not indicated they would take action to secure the strait. That would risk deeper involvement in a war seen as a proxy battle for regional supremacy between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
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Magnify

Upside-down values: Swede deemed 'hero' for stopping deportation of migrant sentenced for assault


RT
Wed, 01 Aug 2018 16:31 UTC
sweden refugees
© ReutersRefugees on a stairway leading up to trains at the Hyllie train station outside Malmo, Sweden
A story about a Swedish student being hailed as a 'hero' for temporarily stopping the deportation of an Afghan man has taken a surprising twist after it emerged that the migrant 'victim' had reportedly been sentenced for assault.

The 'deportation drama' unveiled on board an airliner about to take off for Turkey from the Swedish city of Gothenburg earlier in July. Elin Ersson purchased a ticket after learning that a 52-year-old Afghan asylum seeker would be on the plane, as he was being sent back to his home country.

Live-streaming the whole event on her Facebook page, Ersson explained the reasons behind her protest amid tense and emotional scenes.

"There is a man who is going to get deported to Afghanistan, where he will most likely get killed," she said in the footage, adding that she would not "sit down until this person is off the plane." "All I want to do is stop the deportation and then I will comply with the rules here. This is all perfectly legal and I have not committed a crime," the lone activist can be heard saying.

The emotive video gathered almost five million views and Ersson has since amassed some 50,000 followers on Facebook. People branded the girl "a hero" and thanked her for her courage.


Comment: Toxic compassion? There's a place for kindheartedness - it's an essential component of being human - but without the addition of thought, it is worthless. It's what leads naive people like Ersson to support terrorists, rapists, murderers, and other criminals - all in the name of compassion. Solzhenitsyn warned about this trend 40 years ago, and it has only gotten worse.

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TV

Liberal media hacks and bad behavior in the Oval Office

Jim Hoft
The Gateway Pundit
Mon, 30 Jul 2018 16:05 UTC
Jim Acosta Oval office
© NBC NewsReporters at the Oval Office
The behavior of liberal media hacks is just unbelievable!

President Donald Trump met with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conti Monday in the Oval Office.

President Trump opened the room to reporters so the two leaders could make a few statements during their meetings.

The reporters know when they come into a meeting whether or not the president will take questions. On Monday the president was not planning on taking questions.
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Chart Pie

Unflattering: Over 50% of Israelis support the new apartheid 'nation state' law


Sputnik
Tue, 31 Jul 2018 16:04 UTC
israeli
© REUTERS / Ammar Awad
Fifty-eight percent of Israelis support the controversial nation-state law anchoring the privileged status of the Jews in Israel, The Jerusalem Post newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing a new poll.

The law is opposed by 34 percent of respondents, while eight percent have no opinion on the issue, The Jerusalem Post reported citing the Panels Research poll conducted for the Walla! News.

The new legislation has a solid support of 85 percent among those, who define themselves as right-wing parties' supporters.

Another indicator of popular support for the policy of the Israeli government is the public support for the ruling party of Likud, which would get 33 out of 120 seats in the Knesset comparing to 30 seats it currently holds.

The poll was conducted among 532 Israelis with a margin of error amounting to 4.4 percent.

Comment: Back in 1978, in his Harvard address, Solzhenitsyn stated his opinion that Israel "should not be reckoned as part of the West, if only because of the decisive circumstance that its state system is fundamentally linked to religion." He's right. Israel isn't part of the West. It's a Jewish State - not a democracy.

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Eiffel Tower

Workers plan to go on strike over long lines at Eiffel Tower


AFP
Mon, 30 Jul 2018 12:48 UTC
Eiffel Tower
© AFP Photo/Ludovic MARINPeople cooling off in the Trocadero Fountain in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris on July 27, 2018 on July 27, 2018, as a heatwave continues across northern Europe.
Eiffel Tower workers are planning to strike this week over a new access policy for visitors which they say is generating "monstruous" waits at the famous tourist landmark, union officials said Monday.

Since early July the monument has set aside half of daily tickets for people who buy them in advance on the internet and choose a scheduled time for their visit.

Previously just 20 percent of tickets could be booked ahead of time.

But the tower's management has also decided to reserve specific elevators for each type of ticket holder, a move which "creates lines that are at times monstruous and often lopsided," the CGT union said in a statement.

During off-peak times for pre-booked tickets, such as early afternoon or evening, the reserved elevator might be half empty -- despite lines of up to three hours at the elevator for walk-ins.
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