Society's ChildS


Attention

Attempted emergency landing kills 13 in Mexican helicopter crash, minister & governor aboard survive - UPDATE

Helicopter
© Henry Romero / Reuters
A helicopter carrying the Mexican interior minister and the governor of the earthquake-stricken state of Oaxaca has crashed. Both officials survived, but more than a dozen people were killed.

The military helicopter carrying Interior Minister Alfonso Navarrete Prida and Oaxaca Governor Alejandro Mura crashed while attempting an emergency landing in the disaster-affected province, the minister told TV network Televisa. Later, the Mexican Prosecutor General's Office said that as many as 13 people died in the crash.

Comment: See also:


Airplane

Commercial Airliner Crashes in Iran, All 66 on Board Killed

ATR-72 plane
An ATR-72 turbo prop plane similar to the one that crashed today
A passenger plane has crashed in central Iran during a flight from Tehran to the southwestern city of Yasuj, killing all 66 people on board, authorities said on Sunday.

Meteor

Democrats are in for a world of completely deserved hurt

Political party distribution US house
Will it only get worse for the Dems?
After years of non-stop virtue signaling as the party of "truth, justice and equality," the Democrats are slowly, inexorably being revealed to be the reverse. They are being hoisted on the petard of their own moral narcissism. It has made them blind.

So convinced of their own righteousness were they that it allowed them to participate in, even instigate, the subversion of our justice system to the extent of lying to and deceiving a FISA court in the name of what they assumed was "good." They did this in concert with people who claimed to be Republicans or "independents" working for that system in the supposedly noble cause of upending Donald Trump, before and after his election, but ended up being the deluded agents of government corruption the likes of which we have never seen in this country.

It comes down to something as crude as this: Trump's a bad guy, therefore I'm a good guy and can do or say anything I wish to destroy Trump. This is moral narcissism taken to a pathological extreme.

Megaphone

Chris Rock lays it out: 'We need bullies'

chris rock
© Netflix via YouTube
And be faithful in your marriage, and reject pornography.
Who said it: G. K. Chesterton, John Wayne, or Jordan Peterson? "We need bullies. Pressure makes diamonds. Not hugs. Hug a piece of coal and see what you get. You get a dirty shirt."

Buzzer sound. The answer is none of the above. Chris Rock said it, on his new Netflix special Tamborine. Rock isn't a political conservative, and I doubt he's ever voted Republican in his life. But in his one-hour standup routine he articulates a vision in which the harsh facts of existence are to be welcomed rather than bubble-wrapped, sexual morality is the core of a successful marriage, and men acknowledge their special burden to toil for others. Take out the "mother*****r"s, of which there are many, and you could almost be listening to an unusually sharp-witted pastor.

Near the outset, Rock recalls attending a high-school orientation session for one of his daughters that promoted the kind of touchy-feely wish-based thinking that infects education these days. Noting that the kids were told, "You can be anything you want to be," he thought, "Why are you lying to these children? Maybe four of then can be anything they want to be. But the other 2,000 better learn how to weld." He imagines a more truth-based approach to pedagogy: "You can be anything you're good at, as long as they're hiring. And even then it helps to know somebody."

Comment: Some of the best comedy out there contains the seeds of truth in it.


Brain

Steven Pinker on identity politics: 'An enemy of reason and Enlightenment values'

Steven Pinker
© TEDSteven Pinker
A conversation with the renowned psychologist on reason, identity politics, and humanism. Plus, what does he think Trump should read?

Adam Rubenstein: If "reason" is to be "the currency of our discourse," what's the future of identity politics? Is identity politics based in reason? Your new book touches on the issue, but cursorily. Could you provide more of an explanation of identity politics, where it comes from, where it's going, and how we should think about it?

Steven Pinker: Identity politics is the syndrome in which people's beliefs and interests are assumed to be determined by their membership in groups, particularly their sex, race, sexual orientation, and disability status. Its signature is the tic of preceding a statement with "As a," as if that bore on the cogency of what was to follow. Identity politics originated with the fact that members of certain groups really were disadvantaged by their group membership, which forged them into a coalition with common interests: Jews really did have a reason to form the Anti-Defamation League.

Vader

Arrogance: Former CIA chief Woolsey says US meddles in election of other countries 'for their own good'

James Woolsey
© Roger L. Wollenberg/UPIFormer Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey, Jr.
The hubris is amazing.

Former CIA chief James Woolsey was on Fox News to discuss how those devilish Russians meddled in America's democracy by posting messages on Twitter and Facebook, forgetting about all the CIA coups, false flags, and election meddlings he oversaw when running the CIA.

The hypocrisy was so thick that when Laura Ingraham asked Woolsey if the US ever meddled in elections, the response (and laughter from both of them) was telling...


Comment: The neocons had Woolsey planted near Trump at the beginning of his term, but he didn't stick. More Woolsey gems:


X

NLRB rejects Damore's claim because memo 'constituted sexual harassment'

google lens
© shutterstock
Former Google engineer James Damore has attempted to take civil and legal action against his former employer after being fired in August, but on Thursday, a federal memo revealed that one of Damore's filings has been unequivocally denied.

The National Labor Relations Board published its memo this week, which was issued in January after Damore filed a charge against his former employer on August 8. In spite of Damore withdrawing his NLRB filing in September, the board proceeded to examine and issue its own ruling: Google "discharged [Damore] only for [his] unprotected conduct while it explicitly affirmed [his] right to engage in protected conduct." The NLRB emphasized that any charge filed by Damore on the matter should be "dismissed."

In explaining the board's reasoning, NLRB member Jayme Sophir points to two specific parts of the controversial memo circulated by Damore in August: Damore's claim that women are "more prone to 'neuroticism,' resulting in women experiencing higher anxiety and exhibiting lower tolerance for stress" and that "men demonstrate greater variance in IQ than women."

Comment: To say that Damore's statements "constituted sexual harassment" is quite a stretch and misinterpreting the memo. One would think someone from the labour board would be a bit more objective with regards to the memo. Apparently not. See also:


Propaganda

Reports that 'scores of Russians' were killed in Syria is FAKE NEWS

military
© Unknown
Russia denies reports of 'scores' or 'hundreds' of Russians killed in US air raid east of Euphrates

Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman of Russia's Foreign Ministry, has vigorously denied widespread Western media reports of 'scores' or even 'hundreds' of deaths of Russian mercenaries supposedly killed in the recent US air strike in Syria against pro-Syrian government tribal fighters east of the Euphrates river.

These reports have appeared in Bloomberg, The New York Times, and The Guardian. They have been followed up by a further report by Agence France-Presse and in The Guardian, sourced to the pro-Jihadi British based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, that another fifteen Russian mercenaries were recently killed as a result of an explosion at their base in Syria's Deir Ezzor province.


Comment: SOHR is a shell propaganda outlet for Western consumption.


Zakharova's denial does not touch on the explosion at the base, but does respond in detail to the claims of 'scores' or even 'hundreds' of deaths of Russian mercenaries as a result of the earlier US air strike:
Reports about the death of dozens and even hundreds of Russian nationals are a classic example of disinformation. There were not 400, 200, 100 or even ten (who died), according to preliminary information, in a clash the cause of which is being investigated. Five people, who allegedly were Russian citizens, may have been killed. Several people suffered wounds but it requires verification, particularly as to whether all of them are Russian nationals.

Comment: See also:
Watch out for distorted data advises Kremlin on reports of Russians killed in Syria


Biohazard

Syrian media: Turkish forces blasted Syrian Kurds with toxic gas, 6 civilians injured

Afrin
© Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty ImagesOperation Olive Branch near Afrin
Turkish forces engaged in Operation Olive Branch against Kurdish militias in the northwest of Syria have used gas, Syrian state media SANA reports. At least six civilians have been hospitalized.

"Six people have been admitted with symptoms of suffocation as a result of the use of projectiles with poisonous gas by the Turkish regime in the town of Aranda," SANA quotes the hospital's director, Joan Mohammed. Medics are working to determine the type of gas used, Mohammed said.

Local journalist Mohammed Hassan tweeted pictures of patients, who were purported to be victims of the attack, wearing breathing masks. The hospital director said four of the victims were stable and two were in critical condition.

YPG spokesman Birusk Hasaka confirmed to Reuters that Kurds came under what appears to be a chemical attack during Turkey's offensive on a village, saying that the symptoms of the six people affected are consistent with exposure to a gas poisoning.


Comment: Turkey has been waiting for this opportunity to let loose on the Kurds. But as in the past, we should be wary of accusations until proven to be true.
See also:


Arrow Up

Russian men's hockey team conquers US 4-0 in Pyeongchang Winter Olympics

Russian hockey players
© Alexander Vilf / Sputnik
The Russian men's hockey team, which is competing under a neutral flag at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, delivered a crushing 4-0 defeat to Team USA.

The Olympic Athletes from Russia took the lead in the middle of the opening period at the Gangneung Hockey Centre, with Nikolay Prokhorkin beating US goalie Ryan Zapolski. Prokhorkin then struck again to make it 2-0 for the Red Machine early in the second 20 minutes.

Former NHL star Ilya Kovalchuk dashed any American hopes for a comeback, netting his team's third goal in the last second of the period. And it was Kovalchuk who settled the final 4-0 score less than 30 seconds into the third period.

The win allowed the Russian team to climb to first place in Group B of the tournament, and guarantees a spot in the playoffs. Oleg Znarok's men have 6 points with one game remaining in the group stages, while Slovenia, the US, and Slovakia are all tied with 4 points.