Thursday, November 11, 2021

Links - 11th November 2021 (2: Biden-Harris)

Meme - "Trump signs bill restoring funding for black colleges"
"Biden budget cuts $30B in funding for black colleges"

Joe Biden on Twitter - "Now more than ever, we need a president who will choose to unite rather than divide."
Joe Biden on Twitter - "My message to Republicans: If you don't want to help save the country, get out of the way."

Jeremy.eth on Twitter - "Trump tweeted endlessly about law and order while Biden directs his FBI to go after his political opponents. The Biden regime is not afraid to wield power"

The radical Left is now extinct - "Following Joe Biden's decisive victory, the fate of today's millennial revolutionaries is all but sealed"
HAHAHA

AaRogan RodGMers on Twitter - "They covered up “no human is illegal”"
“In this house, we believe: Black Lives Matter. Women’s rights = human rights. No human is illegal. Science is real. Diversity Makes Us Stronger. Love is love. Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere"

Biden Voters Posting Their L's - Posts | Facebook - "Some days I have to search high and low, today is not one of those days."

Biden's credibility is in tatters - "After just eight months in office, Biden already looks like a lame duck, his administration beset by a massive southern border crisis of its own making, out-of-control government spending with a national debt approaching a staggering $30 trillion, a worsening Covid pandemic, and a foreign policy disaster of epic proportions in south Asia. The only thing Biden has going for him is his vice president, Kamala Harris, comes across as even more incompetent and unpopular than he is. In nearly 20 years in Washington, I have watched countless UN addresses broadcast live on American television screens, from four different presidents. Biden’s was quite possibly the worst in terms of sheer hypocrisy and a complete lack of substance. I suspect America’s enemies were delighted by Biden’s remarks, and US allies were mightily unimpressed.   This was a cowardly speech designed not to offend the adversaries of the free world. Biden made no direct mention of China or Russia, the United States’ two biggest opponents, and no specific reference to Islamist terrorism. He made no attempt to hold Beijing’s Communist rulers to account over the Uighur genocide or its lack of transparency and cooperation over the origins of Covid-19.  At the United Nations, the president of the most powerful nation on earth was reduced to selling a slick PR slogan, “the Build Back Better World,” the sort of marketing concept that might once have sounded chic in a Coca-Cola commercial from the 1970s...   Senior officials I have spoken to in both the UK and continental Europe fear the damage the Biden presidency is inflicting on the transatlantic alliance will be long-lasting and possibly irreparable unless the next US administration takes a dramatically different approach. They believe that the next three and a half years of the Biden era could be the most dangerous moment for the West since World War Two, with the enemies of the free world, from Beijing to Moscow, Pyongyang and Tehran, in addition to an array of Islamist terror movements, ready to test the resolve of a weakened United States.  For all the global liberal condemnation of Donald Trump, his administration never abandoned America’s leadership role, and firmly rejected the siren call of isolationism. As the Commander in Chief, his view was very clear: The US will stand with its allies, including the United Kingdom, and America’s enemies should fear its power. This is the exact opposite of the Biden doctrine, which is leaving the US weaker and more vulnerable internationally."

Joe Biden on Twitter - "President Trump threatening the mass deportation of immigrants is cruel and un-American. We can fix our broken immigration system and enforce our laws without tossing aside our values."
The New York Times on Twitter - "The first group of Haitian migrants expected to be deported from Texas has landed in Port-au-Prince. Haitian officials have beseeched the Biden administration to stop returning thousands of people to a country reeling from several crises."

Biden Charges Facebook With Homicide, While His Surgeon General Recommends 'Legal and Regulatory Measures' To Suppress COVID-19 'Misinformation' - "Speech is protected by the First Amendment even when it discourages vaccination."

Scott Jennings on Twitter - "White House spox: Biden is “perfectly comfortable” with the American taxpayer funding cash payments for illegal immigrants."
"We’ve gone from “that’s garbage” to “perfectly comfortable” in 24 hours"

Joe Biden blasted by Alberta for demanding more OPEC oil after cancelling Keystone XL - "Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, criticized global oil producers Wednesday, saying, “At a critical moment in the global recovery, this is simply not enough.” Sullivan also said in the statement: “Higher gasoline costs, if left unchecked, risk harming the ongoing global recovery.”... “ Our producers can easily produce that oil if your Administration will just stay out of the way,” tweeted George Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas. “Allow American workers—not OPEC —(to) produce the oil that can reduce the price of gasoline. Don’t make us dependent on foreign sources of energy.”... Biden doesn’t want to jeopardize his climate change-fighting policy target of the U.S. achieving net zero carbon production by 2050"
Apparently it doesn't lose you virtue signalling points to ask for oil from far away. Out of sight, out of mind

Meme - CNN Politics: "President Biden shows he's ready to make drastic moves in the Covid-19 fight - even if he's not sure they're legal I Analysis"
""Even if he's not sure they're legal"???? What the hell!? Yet somehow the government wonders why we don't trust them."

The Media Would Like Everyone to Know Biden Eulogized a KKK Exalted Cyclops, Not Grand Wizard - "Media fact checking is a corrupt suppressive industry.  As discussed yesterday, one of the patented media fact checking gimmicks is to make true stories seem false by finding a somewhat inaccurate version of them and fact checking that version...   The fact checks all come down to the same thing. Senator Robert Byrd was a Klan recruiter who was so good at it that a Klavern was set up and he received the honorary title of Exalted Cyclops, which is the highest level within a chapter, he was not a Grand Wizard.   Okay.  Plenty of conservative publications correctly stated Byrd's title. And the distinction has a difference, but it's also deliberate nitpicking to distract from the substantive issue, which is that Byrd was a Klan leader and it was that organization which helped propel him into a life in politics.  Or to put it another way, if President Trump had eulogized a Klan leader, the takeaway would not be fact checks as to his exact title.   This is a particular type of media fact check which uses nitpicking to divert attention from the substantive issue while making it appear that the accurate statements about Biden and Byrd are false. And since Big Tech elevates this media spin under the guise of fact checks, that means anyone searching for the real story will get a barrage of media disinformation instead.  That's what this is, disinformation."

Biden used cheat sheet during his first press conference - "New photos reveal several cheat sheets used by President Biden during his Thursday press conference — including one with the headshots and names of reporters he planned to call on.  The president also used notes to assist with facts about US infrastructure, a policy area Biden is focusing on during his first months in the White House.  “The United States now ranks 13th globally in infrastructure quality — down from 5th place in 2002,” read one bullet point.  But despite having the answers in front of him, Biden still slipped up, saying America ranked 85th in the world in infrastructure, before correcting himself. The press pool at Thursday’s briefing, the first one held by Biden since taking office 65 days ago, was limited to 25 reporters.  Biden only took questions from a list of journalists whose names and outlets he read from a cue card. A photo of the card shows circled numbers around select reporters.   In the early stages of the 62-minute presser, in which Biden fielded 10 questions, the president appeared to repeatedly lose his train of thought, forgetting questions and asking reporters if they wanted him to give detailed answers... He abruptly wrapped up the press conference, telling reporters, “But folks. I’m going,” without sticking around for a follow-up question."

Biden calls Masters champ Hideki Matsuyama 'Japanese boy' - "“Did Biden just use the term ‘Japanese boy’ to describe a grown ass man? oof”"
It's not racist when liberals do it

Biden Reverses Course Again After Backlash and Will Increase Refugee Limit - The New York Times - "After a backlash from Democrats and human rights activists, the White House abruptly reversed course on Friday on the number of refugees it will allow into the United States, a reflection of President Biden’s continuing struggle with immigration policy.  At midday on Friday, the administration had said it would limit the number of refugees allowed into the United States this year to the historically low level of 15,000 set by the Trump administration, breaking an earlier pledge to greatly increase that number and let in more than 60,000 people fleeing war and persecution... The sudden shifts come as the United States struggles with a surge of unaccompanied children and teenagers at the Mexican border, and growing concerns that the increase has already overwhelmed the refugee branch of the Department of Health and Human Services"

GOP and Democrats agree: Press ‘protecting’ Biden - "62% said the media are “protecting Joe Biden by not asking him tough policy questions on issues.”... 55% of Democrats agreed with that assessment, as did 80% of Republicans... Voters also believe that Biden’s press shop is limiting access to the president. By comparison, Trump made himself available nearly daily to the media pool."

Biden Cancer Initiative spent millions on payroll, zero on research: report - "A cancer charity started by Joe Biden gave out no money to research, and spent most of its contributions on staff salaries, federal filings show.  The Biden Cancer Initiative was founded in 2017 by the former vice president and his wife, Jill Biden, to “develop and drive implementation of solutions to accelerate progress in cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, research and care and to reduce disparities in cancer outcomes,” according to its IRS mission statement. But it gave out no grants in its first two years, and spent millions on the salaries of former Washington, DC, aides it hired...   After only two years, the charity “paused” its operations when Joe Biden and his wife stepped down for his presidential run."

Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts | Facebook - "For the last several administrations, each president has escalated the powers taken by the previous president. I see no reason to expect this change of administrations to be different. Of course, with the shoe on the other foot, what was glorified will be criticized and what was criticized will be glorified."

US should encourage China's rise, Biden national security pick Jake Sullivan says
"America is back"

Ethics group files Hatch Act complaint against WH Press Secretary - "A government watchdog group filed a complaint Friday accusing White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki of violating the federal Hatch Act by praising Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe during her regular briefing...   The complaint from Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington (CREW) to the Office of Special Counsel alleged that Psaki had improperly used her office to affect the outcome of next month’s election."

Emily Zanotti on Twitter: - "More than 300 Black churches across VA will hear from @KamalaHarris  btwn Sun. and November 2 in video message that will air during morning services as part of outreach effort aimed to boost @TerryMcAuliffe."
"This seems not legal…?"
Only white evangelicals deserve criticism for politicising religion

US jobs figures fall far short of expectations - "US employers hired fewer workers than expected last month despite a huge stimulus package that saw the government send $1,400 (£1,000) cheques to most Americans."
Damn Trump!

Meme - Cam @ @cameron_kasky: "We thought it was "no more kids in cages." Turns out it's "no more talking about kids in cages."
"Genuine question: how can you still identify as a Dem when this pattern of behavior is so rampant within the party?"
"What the fuck am I supposed to be? I'll be voting for these sick twisted fucke my entire life"
Why nothing changes

WATCH: White House press sec defends Chinese Communist Party talking points about 'racist America' | The Post Millennial - "White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked by reporters about a comment made by UN Ambassador for the United States Linda Thomas-Greenfield earlier this week that said US founding principles were "woven with white supremacy.""

Donald Trump Jr. on Twitter - "President Biden shows he's ready to make drastic moves in the Covid-19 fight — even if he's not sure they're legal | Analysis"
"Because that’s what communist totalitarian dictators do. I’m old enough to to remember when democrats would have cared about this a lot."

PolitiFact | No, Joe Biden didn’t use a racist hand gesture. He was trying to illustrate the number 'zero.' - ""Last week Joe Biden flashed the ‘white power’ sign. President Trump condemned white supremacists yesterday. Why hasn't Joe Biden?”
No, Joe Biden didn’t use a racist hand gesture. He was trying to illustrate the number 'zero.'"
It's only a white supremacist hand sign when done by someone the media doesn't like

Opinion | Another Failed Presidency at Hand - The New York Times - "We find ourselves commemorating the first great jihadist victory over America, in 2001, right after delivering the second great jihadist victory over America, in 2021. The 9/11 memorial at the World Trade Center — water cascading into one void, and then trickling, out of sight, into another — has never felt more fitting... Joe Manchin, Democrat from West Virginia, published an essay in The Wall Street Journal in which he said, “I, for one, won’t support a $3.5 trillion bill, or anywhere near that level of additional spending, without greater clarity about why Congress chooses to ignore the serious effects inflation and debt have on existing government programs.”  Is the White House paying any more attention to Manchin’s message than it did to classified intelligence briefs over the summer warning of the prospect of a swift Taliban victory?... The president might also seize the “strategic pause” Manchin has proposed and push House Democrats to pass the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill without holding it hostage to the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. Infrastructure is far more popular with middle-of-the-road voters than the Great Society reprise that was never supposed to be a part of the Biden brand.  My sense is that Biden will do neither. The last few months have told us something worrying about this president: He’s proud, inflexible, and thinks he’s much smarter than he really is. That’s bad news for the administration. It’s worse news for a country that desperately needs to avoid another failed presidency."
His comment elsewhere: "people who wish the president success — and that includes me — need to grasp the extent to which he’s in deep political trouble. It isn’t just the Afghan debacle, or worrisome inflation, or his predictions about the end of the pandemic when the virus had other ideas. I think he has misread his political mandate, which was to be a moderate, unifying leader in the mold of the senior George Bush, not a transformational one in the mold of Lyndon Johnson. And he’s trying to do this on the strength of Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote in the Senate. I think it’s a recipe for more social division and political failure."

Alice on Twitter - "I see we've reached the point where the US government is now actively threatening its own citizens"
"gotta show their muscles somehow after being humiliated by the taliban"
"coming home to take out their frustrations on the dog and kids"

Biden looks at little girl in audience and says "I love those barrettes in your hair SHARE & COMMENT - YouTube - "Joe Biden looks at a little girl in the audience, the daughter of a veteran, and says "I love those barrettes in your hair. Man I’ll tell you what, look at her she looks like she's 19 years old sitting there like a little lady with her legs crossed.""

Biden deportation freeze blocked by judge - "A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Biden administration’s move to freeze deportations of illegal immigrants for the next 100-days... In his complaint, Mr Paxton said the directive violates the Administrative Procedure Act, which required that the department seek input from Texas. "

U.S. judge blocks Biden's limits on immigrant arrests, deportation - "A federal judge on Thursday blocked President Joe Biden's administration from enforcing its guidance limiting who can be arrested and deported by U.S. immigration agents, siding with two Republican-led states - Texas and Louisiana - that had challenged it.  U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton, in Corpus Christi, Texas, ruled that the February guidance from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency violated a federal law requiring that the government "shall detain" people who commit certain crimes or are otherwise deemed eligible for deportation."

Critical Spectator - Posts | Facebook - "Not even a week has passed since Biden's inauguration and his administration already lied several times. Is it likely that Sleepy Joe is going to be labeled a habitual liar just like Trump was? Not really. The mainstream media are fawning over the man and the new age of peace and progress he reportedly started...
1. No plan to combat the pandemic - Biden admitted there's no way for the administration to change the course of the pandemic despite running on a promise of having a plan and accusing Trump of chaos.
2. 100 million vaccinations in 100 days - the administration promised to vaccinate 100 million people in 100 days and that's a very noble vow. There's just one problem - the country has already been on track to achieve just that thanks to Trump's administration...
3. Allegations that Trump's administration left the country with no plan and Biden has to start from scratch - another obvious lie (given the figures I mentioned above) that was challenged even by Dr. Fauci himself, what led to CNN White House correspondent label him as, quote "a Trump administration holdover". You see how quickly one can fall out of favor by merely stating a fact that is uncomfortable for the new glorious leader and his acolytes?
4. Ban on fracking - Biden flip-flopped on the topic of fracking during the campaign, often contradicting himself. He claimed he never really opposed it and yet one of the first executive orders he signed instated a 60 day ban on new drilling permits on federal land and water, now reportedly extended to a year. It means - no new exploration, no expansion of business. This was a pretty swift blow to the industry, which rattled some people even in Democratic states like New Mexico, that saw an economic boost thanks to oil & gas investment. Though I guess in their case we can simply say - serves you right."

Joe Biden’s 1st Speech To Congress Down From Trump In Early Ratingss - "An estimated 26.9 million people watched the president’s address across 16 broadcast and cable networks, according to Nielsen figures released this afternoon. That’s a steep drop from the 47.7 million who watched Donald Trump’s first speech to a joint session on February 28, 2017."

Biden admin prevents 4th of July fireworks at Mount Rushmore, Kristi Noem sues | The Post Millennial - "South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem announced on Twitter Friday that she filed a lawsuit against the Biden Administration after they denied permits for a fireworks display at Mouth Rushmore on the Fourth of July."
Addendum: SD Gov. Noem Slams Biden Admin Decision to Close Mt. Rushmore for Fourth of July -- 'They Don't Want to Celebrate America or Freedoms'

Biden's job rating sinks to 42 percent in NBC News poll a year from midterms - "A majority of Americans now disapprove of President Joe Biden's job performance, while half give him low marks for competence and uniting the country... 7 in 10 adults, including almost half of Democrats, believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction, as well as nearly 60 percent who view Biden's stewardship of the economy negatively just nine months into his presidency... Democrats trail Republicans on which party better handles the economy, inflation and immigration, while they’ve lost ground on issues like education and the coronavirus... “The promise of the Biden presidency — knowledge, competence and stability in tough times — have all been called into question,” Horwitt continued.  “What people voted for was stability and calm," added fellow Democratic pollster Peter Hart. "And what they got was instability and chaos.”... The NBC News poll comes after a rough summer and early fall for the first-year president, as he’s faced a new surge of coronavirus cases and deaths, fallout from the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, rising inflation, disappointing jobs numbers and Democratic infighting over Biden’s legislative agenda.  More recently, however, Covid-19 cases and deaths are once again on the decline, and Capitol Hill Democrats have made progress on Biden’s legislative priorities, but still haven’t crossed the finish line...  just 37 percent of adults give him high marks — on a 5-point scale — for being competent and effective as president, and only 28 percent give him high marks for uniting the country... Biden’s favorable/unfavorable rating in the poll (40 percent positive, 48 percent negative) is almost identical to Trump’s in the same survey (38 percent positive, 50 percent negative)."

‘Surprise conclusion’: Trump overtakes Biden in popular support among U.S. voters, poll finds - "Former U.S. president Donald Trump has overtaken his successor, Joe Biden, in popular support"

Hostility Against Joe Biden Grows Across the US amid Record-Low Approval Ratings - "President Biden’s approval rating has fallen to 45% just two days after he was booed at a 9/11 memorial ceremony in New York City.   The figure, calculated as an average of eight major polls by polling data aggregator Real Clear Politics, follows the President’s implementation of widely unpopular COVID-19 vaccine mandates and the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan which left 13 American service members dead. "

Poll: Joe Biden's Approval Rating Drops More than Any President Since 1953 - "President Biden’s 11-point drop in averaged approval ratings over his first three quarters in office marks the most significant decline in approval during the same point in any presidency since 1953, according to Gallup."

Syed Mohammed Alsagoff's joke to Lee Kuan Yew

For some reason Calvin Cheng deleted this post:

"BICENTENNIAL HISTORY TIDBIT

My own thoughts on the post below, regarding the Arabs in Singapore:

Lee Kuan Yew in his memoirs, recounted how he decided to set up the SAF in response to General Syed Mohammed Alsagoff, then the commander of the armed forces in Singapore. The Alsagoffs were the leading Arab clan in Singapore back then.

Alsagoff insisted that his (Malaysian) troops escort LKY from City Hall to Parliament, during the opening of first Parliament of Singapore. Alsagoff then joked he could have had LKY shot and taken over Singapore.

LKY did not find Alsagoff funny and proceeded to not only form the SAF after independence, but also dismantle the vast wealth of the Alsagoffs.

What was once one of the richest families in SE Asia are now a footnote of history, after LKY confiscated their property for a pittance under the Land Acquisition Act, including the whole of Geylang Serai.

You may come across modern day Alsagoffs in Singapore. They were once one of the richest clans in Singapore (Raffles Hotel and the land it sat on was owned by them), and their clansman commanded the troops here.

But they lost it all due to his unfunny joke to LKY šŸ˜‰"

I am unable to find a citation for Alsagoff's joke (perhaps why Cheng deleted the post) beyond a Quora post by Terence Kenneth John Nunis, who says his "source is direct, not third party".

There is a letter to the New Straits Times from an (ex?) Malaysian soldier claiming that Alsagoff was a big joker so he probably didn't mean anything by his insistence on escorting Lee, but that's about it.

It is true that the Alsagoff family had land bought by the government under the Land Acquisition Act, but this happened to the Arabs in general so it most likely was not targeted retribution.

Here are all Lee's mentions of Alsagoff in From Third World to First:

"When Parliament was due to open in December 1965, four months after our separation from Malaysia, Brigadier Syed Mohamed bin Syed Ahmad Alsagoff, who was in charge of a Malaysian brigade stationed in Singapore, called on me and insisted that his motorcycle outriders escort me to Parliament. Alsagoff was a stout, heavy-built Arab Muslim with a moustache, a Singaporean by birth who had joined the Malayan Armed Forces. To my amazement he acted as if he was the commander-in-chief of the army in Singapore, ready at any time to take over control of the island. At that time the First and Second Singapore Infantry Regiments (1 and 2 SIR) of about 1,000 men each were under Malaysian command. The Malaysian government had placed 700 Malaysians in 1 and 2 SIR, and posted out 300 Singaporean soldiers to various Malaysian units.

I weighed up the situation and concluded that the Tunku wanted to remind us and the foreign diplomats who would be present that Malaysia was still in charge in Singapore. If I told him off for his presumptuousness, Alsagoff would report this back to his superiors in Kuala Lumpur and they would take other steps to show me who wielded real power in Singapore. I decided it was best to acquiesce. So for the ceremonial opening of the first Parliament of the Republic of Singapore, Malaysian army outriders “escorted” me from my office in City Hall to Parliament House...

We had to have a credible force to protect ourselves. I had no fear of the Tunku changing his mind but other powerful Malay leaders, like Syed Ja’afar Albar who so strongly opposed separation that he had resigned as secretarygeneral of UMNO, might persuade Brigadier Alsagoff it was his patriotic duty to reverse separation. The brigadier with his brigade based in Singapore could have captured me and all my ministers without difficulty. So we maintained a quiet, non-challenging posture, while Keng Swee as defence minister worked feverishly to build up some defence capability...

Shortly after separation, at the request of the Malaysian government, we had sent the 2nd battalion SIR to Sabah for Confrontation duties. We wanted to demonstrate our good faith and solidarity with Malaysia even though a formal defence treaty had not been concluded. This left their barracks, Camp Temasek, vacant. We then agreed to a Malaysian proposal that one Malaysian regiment be sent down to Camp Temasek. The 2nd battalion SIR was due to return from its duties in Borneo in February 1966, and arrangements were made at staff level for the Malaysian regiment to withdraw. The Malaysian defence minister requested that instead of reoccupying Camp Temasek, one Singapore battalion should be sent to the Malayan mainland to enable the Malaysian regiment to remain where it was. Keng Swee did not agree. We wanted both our own battalions in Singapore. We believed the Malaysians had changed their minds because they wanted to keep one battalion of Malaysian forces in Singapore to control us.

The Malaysians refused to move out, so the SIR advance party had to live under canvas at Farrer Park. Keng Swee saw me urgently to warn that if our troops were under canvas for too long, with poor facilities for their mess and toilets, there was the risk of a riot or a mutiny. He compared himself to a British general in charge of troops the majority of whom were Italians. The Malaysians could take advantage of this and, through Brigadier Alsagoff, mount a coup. He advised me to move from my home in Oxley Road into the Istana Villa in the Istana domain and to post Gurkha police guards around just in case. For the next few weeks, my family and I stayed there with a company of Gurkhas on standby."

Links - 11th November 2021 (1)

Nick on Twitter - "My girlfriend said we should each pick a “hall pass”, just in case we ever met that person. I chose Kate Upton and she chose her roommate Connor"

Meme - "Jesse Kelly @ We did not win the Cold War. The Cold War was meant to stop the spread of communism. The communists now educate your American children, sell you communist products, and bring you the news. Total myth that we won the Cold War."

Thread by @SYSCAbout on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "so you all know barilla pasta right?
well they have a Spotify account
with playlists that last for the EXACT AMOUNT OF TIME IT TAKES TO COOK EACH TYPE OF PASTA SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO SET A TIMER"

A sign of maturity or the times? Tim Hortons closes its much ballyhooed innovation cafe - "Innovation, usually a cheery buzz word, can actually be a sign of distress in the fast-food business, said Sara Senatore, a senior analyst at Bernstein who has studied turnaround efforts at Starbucks Corp., McDonald’s Corp. and, more recently, Tim Hortons. The dark phase leading up to most restaurant turnarounds usually involves a period of frenzied innovation or limited time offers, all aimed at finding a quick fix for deteriorating results... those flashy attempts don’t often succeed in turning around a brand’s fortunes because “you’re not doing a good job with the core of what customers want”...   The following phase, after all the innovation, is usually boring but successful, with the chain heavily investing to get better at what its customers expect it to be good at in the first place.   Tim Hortons was firmly in that innovation phase when the innovation cafe opened in 2019. That year, it tried serving Beyond Meat burgers — a notorious flop — as part of then-president Alex Macedo’s strategy of being the first, “or the very quick second,” to serve trendy new things in the market. That summer, the coffee chain also served poutine.  “Everything that we saw was very typical of a company that is searching for answers in the wrong places,” Senatore said.   In early 2020, following Macedo’s departure from the chain, Tim Hortons announced a new “back-to-basics” strategy, admitting that its flurry of innovations had only served to confuse customers and slow down its kitchens."
So much for innovate or die, or disrupt your business model before someone else disrupts you

Why Nonnative English Speakers Actually Speak The Best English - "Decades of research show that when a native English speaker enters a conversation among nonnative speakers, understanding goes down. Global communication specialist Heather Hansen tells us that's because the native speaker doesn't know how to do what nonnative speakers do naturally: speak in ways that are accessible to everyone, using simple words and phrases.  And yet, as Hansen points out, this more accessible way of speaking is often called "bad English." There are whole industries devoted to "correcting" English that doesn't sound like it came from a native British or American speaker. Try Googling "how to get rid of my accent," and see how many ads pop up. It turns out that these definitions of "good" and "bad" English may be counterproductive if our goal is to communicate as effectively as possible...   "Proper" English can be used to shut people out of spaces and opportunities, Repečkaitė says. While volunteering at the African Refugee Development Center in Tel Aviv, Israel, she helped a Sudanese refugee prepare for the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) — an English-proficiency standardized exam that stood between him and his dream to go to an Israeli university.  According to Repečkaitė, the student was fluent (English was his country's colonial language), but he didn't pass on his first attempt. How can a person fluent in English fail TOEFL? There are a few reasons, she says.  One, the test requires writing an argumentative essay — "a very specific genre," Repečkaitė explained, that requires knowledge of specific writing conventions and linking words like "moreover" that are rare in other contexts.  The test also requires making a clear choice between British and American spelling and vocabulary. That "can trip up people whose English comes from various sources" — say, a third from British textbooks and two-thirds from American movies, Repečkaitė said.  Ultimately, Repečkaitė said, the test does not simply measure communication skills. "I knew and made it very clear to him that TOEFL is not about English. It is a gatekeeping tool to enter middle-class spaces." "Good English" (and the educational resources, like tutoring, needed to acquire it) is tied to class status; it functions as a barrier to success that not everyone can pass...   When he started as a professor in Toronto, he faced criticism and ridicule from his colleagues. "I remember quite vividly," he said, "when about 10 years ago, I had to chair the dissertation defense of a student from the department of English." At one point, RodrĆ­guez asked the group, "Does anybody else want to intervene?"  "Professor C leaned back in his chair and repeated in a dramatic mock British accent, 'Intervene!' " The professor was drawing attention to RodrĆ­guez's way of pronouncing the word.  RodrĆ­guez says he "had an utopian idea of the university as a space for constructive debates and respect among peers" and was disappointed and shocked to be mocked by a colleague in this setting. When he looks back, RodrĆ­guez says, he sees this moment as "another example of microaggression based on my accent."  In the moment, he didn't react. "I was young and still believed in the redemptive power of nonviolent goodwill."  "Nowadays," RodrĆ­guez notes, "I would have filed a grievance against [this professor] so heavy that he would have had to sell his soul to remain employed...   Research shows that it's not just judgment and ridicule from native English speakers that impede communication. It's also their unconscious use of esoteric idioms and unnecessarily confusing vocabulary that makes language less accessible... Instead of policing others' accents, native English speakers can focus on changing their own enunciation to be more understandable. For example, research shows that clearly enunciating hard "t" and "r" sounds in your speech makes it easier for nonnative English speakers to understand you."
I'm sure filing grievances makes people love foreigners/immigrants/minorities and want to work or otherwise interact with them

Police find Nintendo Switch in park, beat high scores before returning it to owners - "Someone found the Switch in North Canyon Park in Bountiful, Utah, and turned it in, according to the Bountiful Police Department.  “I’ve beaten all your high scores and spent all your gold coins and I’m bored now so you can come pick it up,” police said in a Facebook post addressed to Mason and Ali."

Breast Implants Save Woman's Life by Deflecting Bullet Away From Her Heart - "thank's to her D-cups, the woman suffered only a fractured right rib and the loss of her breast implants. Her implants were removed, and her wounds were cleaned. As a precaution, she was given antibiotics by her doctors."

Overdue VHS Tape of 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch' Prompts Arrest Warrant - The New York Times - "She was charged with embezzlement of rented property, and a warrant was issued for her arrest in March 2000. The store where she rented the tape, Movie Place, closed in 2008... Ms. Davis, 52, discovered the outstanding warrant for her arrest after she got married and tried to change her name on her driver’s license... prosecutors dropped the embezzlement charge against Ms. Davis in consideration of the “best interest of justice”"

Egypt jails belly dancer for debauchery in social media crackdown - "Sama el Masry, who is well known in Egypt, was arrested in April as part of an investigation into videos and photos on social media. Prosecutors described the posts as sexually suggestive and Cairo's Misdemeanours Economic Court said she had violated family principles and values, as well as using accounts on social media with the aim of committing "immorality"."

Rodent suspects in alleged lumber theft won’t face charges: RCMP - "Porcupine Plain RCMP say one or more beavers are to blame for a rural lumber theft...   “Who could really blame these little bucktooth bandits, considering the price of wood these days?”"

D.Muthukrishnan on Twitter - "Lend money to a friend; lose both friendship and money. By saying no, lose only friendship."

Facebook - "This morning an AsiaOne ( a subsidiary of SPH) article heaping praise on Workers' Party's Dr Jamus Lim's performance on last night's televised General Election debate was published. Hours later it was yanked. Then it was republished just now with a more flattering headline for the ruling party's Minister. It included one tiny, added paragraph "As for Dr Balakrishnan, the Minister for Foreign Affairs also scored tons of brownie points online for his composure under the keen queries fielded by the opposition". It looks like the writer got a memo from the Government to give the poor Minister some credit. It's like they need that extra support so badly. And thats why SIngapore's mainstream media tanks on independence and true journalism"

Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts | Facebook - "This is just offensive. The Washington Post is using the occasion of a horrific building collapse to pitch a global warming message. We don’t know the cause of the collapse yet but it almost certainly wasn’t due to global warming."

Building's Damage 'Has Gotten Significantly Worse,' Condo Board Warned : Live Updates: Miami-Area Condo Collapse - "Before a large portion of Champlain Towers South came smashing down, the building's condo board sent a letter to residents noting significant deterioration and explaining the need for a $15 million special assessment to be paid by members... It is signed by Jean Wodnicki, president of the board of directors of the condo association.  In the letter, Wodnicki said discussion of construction and the related expenses had stretched for months and years... since then, Wodnicki wrote, the cost of the work had increased as the building's condition had deteriorated significantly and visibly... The cost for such extensive repairs appears to have been a cause for concern for owners of units in the building. Morabito's 2018 estimate for repairs had been $9.1 million, but that figure had risen to $15 million when the letter was written."
Clearly it's the condo board's fault for not telling the residents that the building was unsafe

Florida Condo Residents Argued Over Repairs Months Before Collapse - "Seven months before the collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Fla., the condominium association board and residents were still sparring over expensive repairs needed in their building... the board and residents were shown an urgent PowerPoint presentation from the property manager dated November 10-11, 2020. The language was stark. One slide explained in bold, uppercase lettering: WHY WE HAVE TO DO ALL THIS NOW."

Champlain Towers in Surfside was a mosaic of Miami’s cultures - "The close-knit Jewish community has been devastated by the Champlain tower collapse. About one third of the people still unaccounted for are Jewish"
Is this a "stereotype"?

Bethesda sues Warner for ripping off Fallout Shelter in its Westworld game - "Warner Bros. released a mobile game based on HBO's Westworld series yesterday, which isn't something we'd normally pay much attention to. We are in this case, however, because the launch of the game was followed shortly by the launch of a lawsuit, filed by Bethesda, alleging that the game is "a blatant rip-off of Fallout Shelter," that's actually built on the same code... The lawsuit examines the many similarities between Westworld and Fallout Shelter in detail, but what makes the case seem particularly egregious is Bethesda's allegation that Westworld contains the same bugs as Fallout Shelter did when it was launched. One such bug causes the view to be off-center and out of focus at startup, "as if a camera capturing the scene had been inadvertently pointed to the lower right foreground and then slowly refocuses on the central image.""

Meme - "VICE TV: We Paid A Freelancer To Say A Thing You Like Is Dogshit Because The Duopoly Ate The Whole Digital Ad Market And Now Harvesting Hate Clicks Is The Only Viable Business Model For Online Media"

Kodak Black throws $100 bills in the ocean, down the toilet - "Kodak Black threw $100 bills into the ocean and down the toilet in a now-deleted Instagram post, then deactivated his account. Black, real name Bill Kahan Kapri, was filmed disposing of the cash by throwing the notes off the side of a boat and stuffing them down a toilet until it became clogged... “Hes from one of the poorest places in Florida and yet he rather impress people for views instead of giving that money to black poverty stricken families. This could be one of the saddest and out of touch videos I’ve ever seen (sic).”"

Meme - "Ernie Isn't Sure if Killing Kermit and Stealing His Skin Was a Good Idea of Spicing Up the Roleplay. Bert However Feels Pretty and Really Enjoys His Role as a Princess"

Meme - "Elmo bets Natalie she can’t fart around the buttplug."

Remove Xbox Game Bar - Microsoft Community - "In Powershell Admin. Right-click Start and select PowerShell (admin)
Enter the following commands and wait for each to complete before the next one
Get-AppxPackage -allusers XboxApp | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -allusers Microsoft.XboxGamingOverlay | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -allusers XboxApp | Remove-AppxPackage"

Why Doesn't American Produce Taste as Good as Europe's? - "It turns out that there’s nothing different about the soil in North America. We have the ability to grow produce that is just as delicious as what’s grown in Europe. It's just that we choose not to. It all comes down to differences in culture and preference.   In Italy, France, and other parts of Europe, taste reigns supreme. It is the most important factor in growing and selling produce, since that is what customers want. They have higher standards that would not accept a gigantic mealy tomato in the middle of January; rather, they would wait for smaller, juicier, more flavorful tomatoes in the right season.  Growers in North America, on the other hand, have responded to decades of pressure to grow bigger, heavier fruits and vegetables that are uniform in appearance. Customers want their produce all-year-round, even if it’s out of season, and they want to pay minimal price. Picking larger tomatoes, for example, costs the grower less because it takes less time and labor to yield more product. Harry Klee is a tomato grower from Florida who developed a great-tasting, nutrient-rich tomato called the Garden Gem that will never be sold in the United States because it’s considered too small. He told Belluz:
“The bottom line here with the industrial tomatoes is that tomatoes have been bred for yield, production, disease resistance. The growers are not paid for flavor — they are paid for yield. So the breeders have given them this stuff that produces a lot of fruit but that doesn’t have any flavor.”
Most supermarket tomatoes sold in North America share a genetic mutation that makes them all round, smooth, and deep scarlet red when ripe. The only problem is that this widely-embraced mutation deactivates a gene that produces the sugars and aromas that are essential for a flavorful tomato... In the meantime, it’s possible to seek out European-tasting produce from small-scale growers at farmers’ markets and CSA shares."

Meme - "Tina. 27. 1,69 m pieds nus. 1,78 m avec talons. 1,10 m si t'es gentil"

Meme - "Comme beaucoup de femmes, je fuyais la science dure et l'informatique car ils sont exercĆ©s Ć  98% par des hommes moches que je souhaite pas cĆ“toyer personnellement et professionnellement, c'est Ć  cause d'eux que du coup j'ai fait des Ć©tudes de socio par dĆ©faut. Les choses doivent changer, ils ont gĆ¢chĆ© ma vie"
Il faut que les hommes deviennes moins sexiste !

Sargon of Akkad - Posts | Facebook - "Leftist pages complaining about a lack of civility is my new fetish."

MemeAsked a  - "Any women in here with cancer? I'm Looking for a relationship but not long term."

Meme - "I'm a Mother first. But if you have a child get away from me. I do not like other people's children *vomit*"

Antonio GarcĆ­a MartĆ­nez on Twitter - "When the wealthy laundered their guilt through Catholic indulgences instead of NGOs, we at least got Michelangelo and gorgeous cathedrals out of it."

Michael Holding exclusive: 'If I had grown up in the UK, I would be dead now' - "Growing up in Jamaica I didn’t experience racism. I experienced it every time I left Jamaica"
Crime in Jamaica - Wikipedia - "When Jamaica gained independence in 1962, the murder rate was 3.9 per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the lowest in the world. In 2005, Jamaica had 1,674 murders for a murder rate of 58 per 100,000 people. That year, Jamaica had the highest murder rate in the world"
Examining Race in Jamaica: How Racial Category and Skin Color Structure Social Inequality - "access to household amenities and years of schooling are starkly structured by racial category, and even more robustly by skin color, across all dimensions. The findings challenge long-held assumptions that marginalize race with regards to social inequality in Jamaica."

Row over overhanging tree becomes a saw point between neighbours - "Neighbours have cut a tree almost in half after a row over bird mess in the driveway.  Graham and Irene Lee, both in their 70s, called in tree surgeons to the suburb of Waterthorpe in Sheffield to cut overhanging branches from the fir tree on Friday. The result was more than a light trim...   Joanne Ellis, a specialist in neighbour and land disputes at the London-based law firm Stephensons, said: "They’re perfectly entitled to do this because you’re entitled to cut off anything that overhangs and when you own property you own all of that space.  “But if the tree dies because it’s been hacked so severely, then potentially that could be criminal damage - as they’ve destroyed something that belongs to somebody else.""

Facebook - "English Literature: I shall die for honour
French Literature: I will die for love
American Literature: I will die for freedom
Russian Literature: I will die"

Last gasp for the breathalyser as scientists create earmuffs that can detect alcohol - "One reason the ears offer a potential alternative to breathalysers is that they don’t get particularly sweaty, as sweat interferes with the ethanol vapor reading... The auditory organ contains 140 glands per centimetre, almost half that of the forearm (225), a third as many as cheeks (360) and four times less than the palm (620)... The researchers proposed that the device could also be used to measure other gases released through the skin, for example in disease screening, and would only require a different enzyme to be used to switch from spotting ethanol to identifying other chemicals or biomarkers."

TIL of the Orgone Accumulator, a device sold in the 1950s to allow a person sitting inside to attract orgone, a massless 'healing energy'. The FDA noted that one purchaser, a college professor, knew it was "phony" but found it "helpful because his wife sat quietly in it for four hours every day." : todayilearned

Monday, November 08, 2021

Links - 8th November 2021 (2 - Covid-19: Australia/New Zealand)

New Zealand keeps Auckland in strict lockdown to beat Delta - "New Zealand extended a strict lockdown in its largest city on Monday, requiring 1.7 million people living in Auckland to remain indoors for at least another week to snuff out small outbreaks of the highly infectious Delta variant of coronavirus... an outbreak of the Delta variant imported from Australia prompted Ardern to order a snap nationwide lockdown on Aug. 17... The city is virtually cut off from the rest of the country... Ardern has been criticised for a slow vaccination programme as the country battled the Delta outbreak. About 34% of its 5.1 million population has been fully vaccinated so far."
Covid "success" strikes again

New Zealand Covid: Men caught smuggling KFC into lockdown-hit Auckland - "The men were charged with breaching the country's tough Covid-19 rules.  Under Auckland's strict Level 4 lockdown, all restaurants, including take-away services, remain closed... Police photos showed at least three buckets of chicken, about 10 cups of coleslaw, a large package of fries, and four large bags containing other KFC items."

Maori leader in New Zealand blasts country's new COVID-19 strategy - "  The co-leader of New Zealand's Maori Party, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, says the country's new COVID-19 strategy amounts to a "death warrant" for Indigenous communities... A seven-week lockdown in Auckland failed to bring cases in the latest outbreak down to zero... Ngarewa-Packer, who is also a member of New Zealand's parliament, said the plan showed "Maori were always expendable."  "When a majority of Maori are not vaccinated, then that effectively is perceived by us on the ground as signing a death warrant," she told NPR's All Things Considered. "We are an Indigenous people that have survived colonization and all that comes with it, so sadly, we have some of the worst health statistics."   A study in the New Zealand Medical Journal found that due to increased rates of comorbidities in Maori and Pacific Islander communities, as well "structural bias and systemic racism" in the healthcare system, an 80-year-old white New Zealander had the same predicted risk of hospitalization from COVID-19 as a roughly 60-year-old Maori patient, and a roughly 55-year-old Pacific patient...   Ngarewa-Packer said Maori communities weren't to blame for their lower-than-average vaccination rate.  "It starts basically with a high mistrust in government and authority," Ngarewa-Packer said, adding the vaccination campaign was designed with only the general population in mind...   Ngarewa-Packer noted that during the initial outbreak, Maori communities were able to "stand up their own responses" in the forms of checkpoints to control movement and extra resources for disadvantaged citizens."
Apparently the Maori have been tricked by "white supremacy" into not getting vaccinated so they will all die from a disease with an under 1% fatality rate

New Zealand Wants a 90% Vaccination Rate. Its Street Gangs May Hold the Key. - The New York Times - "one group of particular concern is the gang community, many of whose members are Maori or Pacific Islanders, who make up about a quarter of the overall population. In the past two months, multiple outbreaks have been reported among gangs, a group less likely to comply with official vaccination efforts, forcing officials to cooperate with gang leaders to reach their communities. New Zealand has one of the highest rates of gang membership in the world... New Zealand’s gangs have a long history, often inspired by similar American groups. In 1961, it became the first country outside the United States to have a chapter of the Hells Angels. Beginning in the 1970s, gangs with an ethnic basis, including the majority-Maori Black Power and Mongrel Mob, became more widespread. For Maori who had moved to New Zealand’s urban centers, gangs became a critical way to find kinship away from traditional tribal structures. More recently, Dr. Gilbert said, some have been drawn to gangs for their association with profit-driven crime, particularly the sale of drugs. New Zealand is a lucrative market for methamphetamine, and gang members have been among those caught in major police stings"
White supremacy makes Maoris join Maori street gangs

New Zealand has ditched its ‘COVID-Zero’ strategy. Will proponents in Canada do the same? | The Star - "After seven weeks of strict lockdown, during which residents could only go out to buy food, medicines or to see a doctor, New Zealand acknowledged that it has been unable to contain the Delta variant, and that it would dramatically change its approach — from one geared toward eliminating the virus, to one aimed at containing it... Large protests against the lockdown in Auckland had signified growing opposition to, and diminishing compliance with, the COVID-Zero strategy that was once hailed as the country’s key weapon in “defeating” COVID-19... The COVID-Zero movement, by its nature, does not gather in crowds or protest in the streets. But online it is loud — full of keyboard warriors and dogged believers that those jurisdictions that have tried to live with some level of COVID-19 have gotten it wrong. To them, any level of COVID-19 transmission in the community is too much, and they’re furious at public health officials and leaders who they say are responsible for allowing COVID-19 to flourish... about 29 per cent of Canadians thought public health measures to fight COVID-19 did not go far enough in May 2021, compared to 19 per cent who thought they had gone too far.  Mario Canseco, president of Research Co., said much of the criticism directed at public health officials and political leaders throughout the pandemic has come from the group of people who want more restrictions, while in places such as Alberta and Saskatchewan, the voices of people who want fewer restrictions have been louder."

New Zealand is moving to a two-tier society, but the unvaccinated are already a global underclass - "Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister, admitted that its new plans on loosening restrictions risked turning the country into a “two-tier” society.  Under the "traffic light" policy, those who are vaccinated will be able to move around and use services relatively freely, while the unjabbed will not...   Perhaps one of the most eye-opening vaccine mandates under consideration is in Austria, where the number of cases is climbing again - and those who are unjabbed risk being confined to their homes...   Human Rights Watch has raised concerns over a vaccine mandate in Cambodia, one of a handful where children under the age of 12 are being jabbed. Earlier this month the governor of Phnom Penh issued an order requiring anyone over the age of six to show proof of status before being allowed entry to schools, markets, restaurants and other public spaces.   The organisation said the order was issued with little publicity and without mentioning medical exemptions...   Anyone concerned that once introduced, such restrictions are hard to roll back should be heartened by the example of Portugal - over the summer proof of vaccination was required for entry to bars and restaurants. But the second highest vaccination rate in the world - nearly 87 per cent of the population are fully protected - and low case rates mean the requirements were ditched last month... [In England] by the Department for Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) own estimates, around 40,000 carers – seven per cent of the workforce – will refuse the jab, meaning that managers will be forced to sack them, depleting a workforce that is already around 120,000 workers short."
Apparently the vaccines are so ineffective that vaccinated care home residents are at so much risk from unvaccinated care home staff that it's better for them to have no staff to care for them

As Australia’s Politicians Enforce Yet Another Lockdown, Small Businesses Keep Suffering - "our market research indicated that demand would be high enough to sustain the necessary investment. Fortunately, the customers showed up—enough to meet wages, pay the bills, and allow me to put money away for a rainy day.  That day arrived last year, in the form of COVID. And not just the disease itself, but also the draconian, one-dimensional response from government officials: throughout the state of Victoria, 600,000 small business owners like me—men and women who collectively employ millions of people and generate a substantial share of the region’s economic output—have been marginalized in the name of public health and safety. Small-business entrepreneurs are, by nature, both aspirational and pragmatic. We pay our taxes like everyone else, and understand the role government must play in managing national emergencies—including pandemics. But we also expect leaders to avoid imposing unnecessary and unreasonable regulatory burdens and operating prohibitions.  One of the lessons learned over the last year and a half by small business owners is that Australia’s flawed, multi-layered government structure can easily enmesh an owner in overlapping forms of red tape. This has forced us to reflect on what type of society we are becoming, and whether, in Victoria at least, it is still worth setting up businesses here. With each new lockdown (as of August, Victoria is at six) the level of outrage has risen, and fissures in society have deepened. Supporters who lash out at critics of the government have ignorantly lumped small business owners in with fringe anti-vaxxers and violent protestors. Rules-following businesspeople such as myself, who endorse the vaccination program because they understand the threat of COVID (and who feel guilty about where our plight sits relative to people in countries that have suffered huge death tolls), simply want to have an adult discussion about how best to live with the virus in a way that doesn’t squeeze them to death financially... Businesses are being targeted by police for breaking the rules. Well-known restaurateurs Chris Lucas and Paul Dimattina were issued substantial fines, despite the fact that neither was serving customers after the lockdown deadline. Rather, Lucas had patrons inside his restaurant waiting for Uber services (which, ironically, were in short supply at the time because of an anti-lockdown protest that was occurring on the street outside). For his part, Dimattina was found to be in violation of the rules because a small group of friends were inside his establishment, commiserating over this latest financial disaster they were all suffering. Lucas and Dimattina appear to have been singled out from among many Melbourne business operators who were in technical violation of the hastily announced government order. Many suspect that this is related to their status as prominent advocates for Melbourne’s locked down retail businesses. This advocacy has included appearances on Sky News, a platform that often has been critical of Victoria’s government... In November last year, after Victoria had come out of a 112-day lockdown, I received a letter from the State Revenue Office, touting the government’s credentials as a supporter of business, and offering a deferral (not waiver) of payroll tax owing for 30 days beyond the due date. Even in the best of times, the 4.85 percent payroll tax provides a significant disincentive to take on more staff. But in this case, I was required to pay it not on real wages (we’d been closed for almost four months), but on certain amounts received under the federal government’s “job-keeper” assistance package.  Any support is welcomed, but the Victorian government’s boast that it “has provided more than $3 billion to support business” ignores how this sum is spread out over an enormous number of recipients. The truth is that for most businesses, the amount of relief is very small relative to the losses incurred. Much of the health advice relied upon by Victoria’s government has been provided by the state’s Chief Health Officer, Brett Sutton, who’s become something of a media darling among progressive urbanites. For small business, however, Sutton is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In 2019, before the pandemic, Sutton was responsible for the order to temporarily close down I Cook Foods, a commercial catering company based in Melbourne’s Dandenong suburb, over unproven claims that it was responsible for a listeria outbreak. More than 40 people, including disabled workers, were affected, and the business’s reputation never fully recovered. The fallout continues to this day, as owner Ian Cook (who is suing Dandenong Council and health-department officials) alleges that the takedown of his business was connected to the machinations of a rival business called Community Chef, in which the council and its CEO were commercially vested. This scandal is already two and a half years old, and has become the focus of a parliamentary inquiry, yet Sutton remains on the job. Like other public officials, he’s also avoided paying any real political price for gross failures in Victoria’s hotel-quarantine program in 2020, which led to approximately 800 COVID deaths. On building sites, construction workers are able to keep working—a fluoro vest and union card evidently being sufficient to repel COVID—despite sometimes exhibiting little in the way of social distancing and mask wearing. But even when the current lockdown ends and Premier Andrews once again sells the false claim that COVID has been defeated, most downtown customers will still be housebound, due to restrictions that allow no more than 25 percent of office workers to return to offices in the central business district. While white-collar employees and members of the increasingly bloated public sector will continue to earn income from home, chatting daily on Zoom calls and Slack chats, retail business owners will be left to rue the empty footpaths and shuttered shopfronts.  Our sense of bitterness is compounded by the self-aggrandizing rhetoric of public officials, who flood social media with messages about how proud they are of “each and every Victorian” alongside photos of donuts indicating zero-COVID-case days. And at the local level, retailers’ concerns have been superseded by politically fashionable social issues: Seemingly oblivious to the acute commercial devastation that has unfolded around them, city councillors busy themselves with issuing sanctimonious statements about climate change, and advancing their vision of turning Melbourne into the Amsterdam of the south. Incredibly, council recently granted approval for a customer-repelling safe-injection site immediately adjacent to the popular Degraves Street dining and tourist precinct. As Australian Retailers Association chief Paul Zahra put it, “the Melbourne [central business district] is a shadow of its former self, and it’ll take years for the recovery to be complete.” The inability of industry groups to gain a seat at the table with government is another source of frustration. Business advocates have been reduced to being little more than experts in stating the obvious, the futility of their task laid bare when Premier Andrews recently shut down parliament indefinitely—citing spurious “safety” concerns, and telling Australians, “I answer enough questions here every day.” If the rites of democracy can so easily be cast aside, what hope is there for small business? What we need is a transparent, honest, and realistic conversation about the optimal trade-off between promoting public health (in regard to all risks, not just COVID), and avoiding economic misery. In May, Virgin Australia boss Jayne Hrdlicka, dealing with a mountain of debt, legions of furloughed staff, and a fleet of idle planes, tried to initiate such a conversation. She was unceremoniously rebuked, and has barely been heard from since. Strong leadership would have embraced her contribution. But to this day, in a number of states, public policy continues to be rooted in the false hope of eradicating the disease entirely. According to Australia’s Bureau of Statistics, despite the low number of COVID deaths, the country’s overall mortality rate was elevated in 2020, as compared to 2015–2019 benchmarks—a phenomenon likely related to the emotional and financial difficulties that many Australians face due to isolation and lockdowns, not to mention the reduction in available cancer-screening programs and hospital operating rooms... if rules can be created to allow the Australian Rules Football League to continue operating, surely we can be equally creative in other sectors.  It is apparent that Australia’s leaders lack the courage and candor to lead on this issue, having become locked in to agendas dictated by advisors and spin doctors. There is also a strong element of hypocrisy in their actions. Queensland Premier Anna Palaszczuk, for instance, demanded a moratorium on international travel, even while jetting off to Japan to win a 2032 Olympic Games for Brisbane that no other city was bidding for... Only in New South Wales did the state premier, Gladys Berejiklian, seek to strike a balance between pandemic suppression and civic and business freedoms. But going into 2021, with the Delta strain overwhelming the state’s contact-tracing capability, her reputation has plummeted, and she has given ground to critics... As Melbourne’s latest lockdown is extended yet again, small business owners such as myself are forced to determine at what point continuing to incur more debt, which can seem like throwing good money after bad, becomes pointless. Each time, it is not just the actual closures that bite, but the diminution in belief that things will get better—the confidence that seeps away each time Premier Andrews stares down a camera and promises that he won’t hesitate to do the same thing again. In that respect at least, he has proven to be a man of his word."
The fact that Australia had more deaths in 2020 despite covid hysteria is good proof that lockdowns kill more than covid. Though covid hystericists will likely attribute all the extra deaths to covid in the same breath as praising Australia's 2020 "success" Of course covid hystericsts blame NSW for being too soft

Victoria Police Are Attempting to Stop Media from Airing Live Aerial Pictures of Melbourne Protest

Photo taken by a MatrixNews Photojournalist, capturing a women said to be in her 70s from today’s protest. : CoronavirusDownunder - "It's amazing how quickly a lot of people went from "defund the police" to "the police should spray that old bitch in the eyes some more"."

Elderly Australian woman knocked down & PEPPER-SPRAYED by police during Melbourne protest against lockdowns - "An elderly woman believed to be in her 70s was attacked by Melbourne police and pepper-sprayed while she was on the ground during a protest against Covid-19 lockdowns... Australian MP Craig Kelly called the attack “despicable,” “disgusting,” and “ILLEGAL,” and tweeted, “This is not my Australia… We cannot accept Police in Australia pushing to the ground an unarmed 70 yr old woman (or anyone) who presents no threat & then have 2 officers pepper spray the unarmed, defenceless person in the face while on the ground.”  Former New South Wales Senator David Leyonhjelm also condemned the attack, calling the officers “gutless,” while journalist Ky Chow wrote, “I’ve watched several videos of this, and it's hard to see how the Vic cops defend this.”"
When liberals support police brutality. Maybe the police in Australia need to shoot protesters with live rounds in order to "protect" them against a disease with an under 1% fatality rate

Christensen Condemns Police for Shooting Civilians Protesting for Freedom - "Christensen also condemned Victorian Police for shooting rubber bullets at protesters attending a peaceful freedom rally over the weekend."

Powerful Australian Trade Union Protests for Freedom Over Medical Tyranny - "the lack of balance from most major legacy media outlets appears to be due to an organised narrative, designed to paint the Victorian police as victims, and the protesters as villains. There was little, to no mention in legacy media of injuries sustained by protestors at the hands of Victorian Police officers, who were dispatched on Saturday to squash dissent. Such as, “officers pepper-spraying several members of the press who posed no risk to police.”... The Australian flag being thrown to the ground along with the woman is a small, but powerful metaphor that illustrates the contempt Australia’s overbearing, bloated bureaucracy has for the people they’re paid to serve. Victoria is in its sixth hard lockdown. While tax-payers suffer, bureaucrats don’t."

Zero Covid has torn Australia apart - "Back in the summer, as the rest of the world was opening up, state after state in Australia started to impose new restrictions to deal with a handful of Covid cases. It turned us into a global laughing stock. No one is laughing now.   Time was when, even in Melbourne, we could chuckle at the absurdity of our Covid rules. We were told we could remove our face masks – still mandatory indoors and outdoors – in order to drink a coffee, but not to drink a beer. We were also told that if we lived with five other adults, we were not allowed to all leave the house in one group. Indoors, we were no risk to each other, but outside we were apparently a viral petri dish.  Laughter has since turned into anger. After over 230 days of hard lockdown, whatever was left of Melbourne’s social fabric has gone. And the city has been rocked by weeks of protests and violence. On 17 September, the Victorian government announced that it would be mandating vaccinations for the construction industry. It gave construction workers six days to get their first jab or be banned from working. Unsurprisingly, not all construction workers were pleased about this. They took their anger out on their union the following Monday by protesting outside its offices. The union bizarrely claimed that the protest was made up of far-right and neo-Nazi agitators. Just as bizarrely, the Victorian government then decided to close the entire construction industry for two weeks. Even the vaccinated were banned from working. The protesters were back in bigger numbers the next day, drawing in people from many other walks of life... A man peacefully talking to police officers at a train station was tackled from behind by another officer, his head smashing into the hard ground. Police have fired rubber bullets at protesters, too...   This is the price of our ‘victory’ against Covid. Yes, our Covid deaths are low – far lower than the rest of the world. But how much longer can we live like this?   Well, Melbournians have been ordered to live like this until 26 October at the earliest. That’s when Melbourne’s sixth lockdown is scheduled to end – though you would be lucky to find a single person who thinks it will actually end on that day. By then, Melbourne will have been locked down for longer than any other city on the planet.  We got to this point because our leaders have been chasing the goal of Zero Covid. The successes of 2020 went to their heads and they believed they could do what no other country has done: eliminate the virus. This mindset was what drove Melbourne into lockdown on 5 August after recording just eight cases. It has been in lockdown ever since. There are some signs of hope, however. Victoria’s state premier, Daniel Andrews, has acknowledged that the Delta variant is too virulent to be eliminated. He now says that Victorians will have to learn to live with Covid.  Andrews’ words are promising, but his actions do not match them. Melbourne is not learning to live with the virus – it is learning to live with authoritarianism."
Liberals can't dismiss the author as an American who doesn't know what he's talking about. So they will smear him as someone from the "far right"

Covid Mandates Are Turning Australia Into A Police State - "To many outsiders, the footage out of Australia flooding our social feeds appears more like a scene from a dystopian Hollywood flick than the laid-back land down under that has often be regarded as one of the best places in the world to live... Melbourne, which boasts of being “one of the world’s most liveable cities,” set a record for the longest lockdown endured worldwide. On September 23, the city with a population of over 5 million people hit 235 days in lockdown – that’s eight whole months essentially under house arrest, unless you’re emerging for the few arbitrary reasons the government has deemed “essential.”... hundreds of Australian Defence Force military personnel were called in by state police to “help crack down on Covid-19 compliance.” Perhaps worst of all, we’re now seeing yesterday’s “Covid heroes” being threatened with unemployment if they fail to take a Covid vaccine. Aged care workers, nurses, paramedics, firefighters, police, schoolteachers, and health care workers have been hit with a “no jab, no job” mandate, despite the fact that most of these industries are facing a nationwide staff shortage. Naturally, such excessive measures have triggered another crisis, often unspoken, namely the disturbing impact on Australians’ mental health, particularly among young people... For the sake of perspective, and with all of this in mind, let’s note that the average age of death with Covid in Australia is approximately 85 to 86 years, with an overall fatality rate of about 1.6%. That’s three to four years above the nation’s average life expectancy...  NSW Health, in August, admitted many of Australia’s then 993 Covid casualties died from something else or had even recovered from the virus. There seem to be more protests opposing mandates and with them an increasing number of Australians are growing sympathetic and even supportive of their resistance."
"There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state. The other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people"

Melbourne police ‘check coffee cups’ to ensure residents aren’t breaking mask rules - "Footage has emerged of police in Victoria checking people’s coffee cups in a park to ensure they were genuinely drinking coffee and not using an empty cup as a prop for avoiding wearing a mask."

Protesters in New York Chant “Save Australia” at Pro-Freedom Rally

Australian apartment blocks placed in hard lockdown - "Two Australian apartment blocks have been placed under strict lockdown with residents barred from leaving on Tuesday, as authorities stepped up efforts to curb a fast-growing coronavirus outbreak.  Police were posted outside an apartment block in Sydney's Bondi neighbourhood, where nine people have tested positive for the virus, with movement in and out of the building restricted... An entire apartment block in Melbourne was also placed under isolation for 14 days, after removal workers who visited from Sydney tested positive."
It was only bad when China did it

"No More Lockdowns": THOUSANDS of Australians Rally for Freedom in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane - "protesters were met with a heavy police presence, including mounted police and riot officers. ABC News reported that police made several arrests during the rally, with other outlets describing the event as “violent” and “chaotic.”  Sky News contributor John Ruddick accused the media of lying about the nature of the rally, saying “this is the most peaceful and happy protest I’ve ever seen.”... Avi Yemini of Rebel News told Caldron Pool the rally was the biggest lockdown protest he’s ever seen in Melbourne."

Australian rescue dogs shot dead to 'prevent' spread of COVID-19 | The Post Millennial - "A local government in Australia, under its interpretation of COVID-19 restrictions, has opted to shoot and kill animal shelter rescue dogs to "protect" the community from the risk of virus transmission. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the Bourke Shire Council, in the state's northwest, slaughtered the dogs to prevent volunteers at a Cobar-based animal shelter from travelling to pick up the animals"

Is Pandemic Australia Still a Liberal Democracy? - The Atlantic - "Before 2020, the idea of Australia all but forbidding its citizens from leaving the country, a restriction associated with Communist regimes, was unthinkable. Today, it is a widely accepted policy... The rule is enforced despite assurances on another government website, dedicated to setting forth Australia’s human-rights-treaty obligations, that the freedom to leave a country “cannot be made dependent on establishing a purpose or reason for leaving.” The nation’s high court struck down a challenge to the country’s COVID-19 restrictions. “It may be accepted that the travel restrictions are harsh. It may also be accepted that they intrude upon individual rights,” it ruled. “But Parliament was aware of that.” Until last month, Australians who are residents of foreign countries were exempt from the rule so they could return to their residence. But the government tightened the restrictions further, trapping many of them in the country too. Intrastate travel within Australia is also severely restricted... The state of Victoria announced a curfew and suspended its Parliament for key parts of the pandemic. “To put this in context, federal and state parliaments sat during both world wars and the Spanish Flu, and curfews have never been imposed,” the scholar John Lee observed in an article for the Brookings Institution. “In responding to a question about whether he had gone too far with respect to imposing a curfew (avoiding the question of why a curfew was needed when no other state had one), Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews replied: ‘it is not about human rights. It is about human life.’” In New South Wales, Police Minister David Elliott defended the deployment of the Australian military to enforce lockdowns, telling the BBC that some residents of the state thought “the rules didn’t apply to them.” In Sydney, where more than 5 million people have been in lockdown for more than two months, and Melbourne, the country’s second-biggest city, anti-lockdown protests were banned, and when dissenters gathered anyway, hundreds were arrested and fined... if a country indefinitely forbids its own citizens from leaving its borders, strands tens of thousands of its citizens abroad, puts strict rules on intrastate travel, prohibits citizens from leaving home without an excuse from an official government list, mandates masks even when people are outdoors and socially distanced, deploys the military to enforce those rules, bans protest, and arrests and fines dissenters, is that country still a liberal democracy? Enduring rules of that sort would certainly render a country a police state. In year two of the pandemic, with COVID-19 now thought to be endemic, rather than a temporary emergency the nation could avoid, how much time must pass before we must regard Australia as illiberal and unfree? To give Australia’s approach its due, temporary restrictions on liberty were far more defensible early in the pandemic, when many countries locked down and scientists understood little about COVID-19’s attributes or trajectory. Australian leaders hoped to “flatten the curve” of infection in an effort to prevent overcrowded hospitals and degraded care, and the higher death rates that would follow. The country was also betting that, within a time period short enough that restrictions could be sustained, scientists would develop a vaccine that protected against morbidity and mortality.  As it turned out, the bet paid off. Had it behaved rationally and adequately valued liberty, a rich nation like Australia would have spent lavishly—before knowing which vaccines would turn out to be most effective—to secure an adequate supply of many options for its people. It could afford to eat the cost of any extra doses and donate them to poorer countries. Australia then could have marshaled its military and civil society to vaccinate the nation as quickly as possible, lifted restrictions more fully than Europe and the United States did, and argued that the combination of fewer deaths and the more rapid return to normalcy made their approach a net win.  Instead, Australia invested inadequately in vaccines and, once it acquired doses, was too slow to get them into arms... Australia’s low infection and death rates, which the country achieved both by being surrounded by water and by adopting harsh restrictions on liberty, seemed to sap its urgency when it came time to vaccinate—even though that lack of urgency meant months more of basic human rights being abrogated... If the country quickly reinstates its citizens’ pre-pandemic liberties, it can argue that the loss of liberty was only temporary (though some restrictions, such as a prohibition on leaving the country, would still seem needless if the goal was minimizing the spread of COVID-19 in the country). And if Australia’s death rate remains lower than Israel’s or America’s, Australian leaders can plausibly tell their citizens that the deprivation was worth it. If not, supporters will have a much harder time defending a record that includes handcuffing a small group of teenagers after they gathered for an outdoor hangout. More important than whether or not the past can be justified is what the country does from now on. Promising murmurs are coming from some politicians. “New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian vowed to reopen the state once 70% of those 16 and older get vaccinated,” Reuters reported Sunday. “No matter what the case numbers are doing … double-dose 70% in NSW means freedom for those who are vaccinated." But in Victoria, the country’s next-most-populous state, the news organization reports that “Premier Daniel Andrews said his state’s lockdown, due to end on Thursday, will be extended, but would not say for how long.” Because of its geography, Australia is a neighbor and an observer of authoritarian countries as varied as China and Singapore. But its own fate, too, may turn on whether its people crave the feeling of safety and security that orders from the top confer, or whether they want to be free."
Some covid hystericists shared a meme claiming that if you didn't want no human rights, there would be no humans left. Ironic given that the IFR is under 1%

Meme - Em @Em93793078: "Has anyone crossed from NSW to VIC recently?? My son and I are stuck in NSW and don't know if we will be able to get back. We are going to be out of resources soon, can't keep living in motels. For the first time I'm scared we can't get home!!"
Lauraine knight @rainey_knight: "@VictoriaPolice this person is contemplating crossing border from NSW to Victoria illegally"

Scott Morrison declares Australians will be first to return under NSW plan to end quarantine - "The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has put the brakes on New South Wales’ plan to open to the world, declaring international arrivals will be limited to Australian citizens, residents and their immediate families, just hours after the state’s premier said Australia could no longer live as “a hermit kingdom”.  The NSW premier, Dominic Perrottet, appeared to take the federal government by surprise on Friday with his announcement the state would allow vaccinated international arrivals to enter the state without the need to quarantine – either in a hotel or at home."

Australian Senator Warns Unvaccinated: "We're Coming at You Lock, Stock, and Barrel" - "Understandably, the “threatening” remarks drew criticism on social media, with some accusing the Senator of incitement against unvaccinated people. Former WA Senator, Rod Culleton said, “Monica Smit is in gaol for incitement, while this ‘thing’ is free to incite violence."... Federal MP and United Australia Party Leader, Craig Kelly, described Lambie’s comments as “lynch mob mentality,” saying it is “disgusting to see that in Tasmania, Liberals, Labor, Greens AND Jacqui Lambie believe in vaccine coercion.”"
So much for being in it together

Australia: Harsh Police Response During Covid-19 - "Victoria’s police have used harsh measures during the Australian state’s Covid-19 lockdown that threaten basic rights, Human Rights Watch said today. Victoria’s parliament should reject a new attempt to broaden police powers... On September 2, in Ballarat, police were recorded on video as they arrested a pregnant woman on incitement charges for organizing an anti-lockdown protest on Facebook. Gatherings have been banned under regional Victoria’s Stage 3 stay-at-home orders, yet arresting, handcuffing, and taking someone to the police station solely for planning a protest is a seemingly disproportionate response. Police handcuffed the woman in front of her children and ignored her offer to delete the post. They have since asserted that their actions were proportionate... An Indigenous man riding his bike to work at about 5:30 a.m. on September 3 alleged that Victoria police tackled, assaulted, and racially abused him. Police say the man failed to stop when asked for a permit check. The police did not have their required body cameras turned on so there is no independent record. The man’s workplace union plans to lodge a complaint with Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) for an independent review. The police said that after an internal debrief they were satisfied with the level of force used. The media have also reported incidents in which the police allegedly used harassing tactics. These include a law professor with cerebral palsy who alleges that the police told her to “move on,” preventing her from sitting down and resting while out with her 70-year-old mother; a heavily pregnant woman whom police reportedly ordered not to sit down at a park bench for a break; and a young tradesman whom the police fined for allegedly having the wrong column mistakenly filled out on his work permit. Data reported by the ABC as of September 3, showed the Victorian police had issued 1,762 fines for breaking curfew, totaling A$2.9 million (US$2 million). The Age newspaper reported that over 10 percent of fines have reportedly been imposed in three of Victoria’s most disadvantaged communities, while Victoria’s three most affluent communities have incurred only 2 percent of the fines. In July, after a rise in coronavirus cases among residents, Victorian authorities suddenly locked down several public housing complexes completely for 14 days, enforced by police, resulting in severe restrictions not imposed elsewhere in the state. International human rights law, such as found in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), recognizes that in the context of a serious public health threat, restrictions on some rights can be justified. But such restrictions must have a legal basis, be strictly necessary, neither arbitrary nor discriminatory in application, of limited duration, respectful of human dignity, subject to review, and proportionate to achieve the objective. On September 18, the Victorian government’s lower house passed the Covid-19 Omnibus (Emergency Measures) and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2020. The bill, if passed by the upper house, would extend powers currently granted only to health officials, to any authorized officer to preemptively detain people who test positive for the virus that causes Covid-19 and who are “likely to refuse or fail to comply with the direction.” Police officers and Protective Services Officers could be among those granted these powers, but it is unclear who would be an “authorized” officer. Preventive detention authority should only be used in the most serious circumstances, subject to strict limitations and independent review, Human Rights Watch said. If police receive expanded powers under this law, the limitations and rights of appeal would be unclear, as would be whether there is sufficient oversight to prevent misuse or the discriminatory application of the law. On September 22, a group of retired judges and leading lawyers wrote a letter to the Victorian premier expressing their alarm over the proposed laws, calling it “unprecedented, excessive and open to abuse.”"

‘Not proportional’: Sukkar slams Victorian construction shutdown - "Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar has slammed the Victorian government for its two-week shutdown of the construction industry"
Melbourne and regional Victoria rocked by 'earthquake' as NSW feels tremors - "A magnitude 5.8 earthquake has rocked Melbourne and demolished part of a building on famous Chapel St, with tremors felt as far as NSW and Tasmania."

Craig Kelly MP on Twitter - "Looks like Infectious Diseases Discrimination is against the law It’s when you’re treated unfairly because: >you may acquire an infectious disease in future >people think you have an infectious disease >you used to have an infectious disease šŸ‘‡šŸ‘‡šŸ‘‡"
From NSW, Australia
Of course human rights are thrown out the window when the left decides due to their moral panic, since they don't believe covid vaccines work

Why the delay? The nations waiting to see how Covid vaccinations unfold - "Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and Japan are among those that won’t start vaccinating for months, in part to see how other populations react to the jab"
Then they got hit by Delta. The price of covid "success"

New Zealand scientists say UK’s ‘awful experiment’ on Covid will threaten the country - "Scientists in New Zealand have expressed concern at Britain’s unlocking of Covid restrictions, describing it as an “awful experiment.”"
When you're so invested in covid zero hysteria that you need to pre-emptively blame other people for the inevitable failure of your disastrous strategy
Of course 2 months later the whole of the UK still hasn't died from covid despite all the crowing of covid hystericists

Australians Have Labelled Scott Morrison's Actions As A "Slap In The Face" After It Was Revealed That He Flew To Sydney To Visit Family - "In news that will surely not surprise anyone, prime minister Scott Morrison was granted a travel exemption to return to Sydney for Father's Day over the weekend. Yep, you read that right. ScoMo was even granted access to a VIP taxpayer-funded flight that enabled him to travel to Sydney on Friday afternoon and return to Canberra on Monday morning — all so that he could visit his kids. This is despite there being strict interstate COVID-19 restrictions in place, which have resulted in countless other Australians being unable to see their families. Plus, although the usual protocol for someone visiting Sydney would be to quarantine for 14 days, ScoMo has bypassed this and instead been granted a Level 3 stay-at-home order by ACT Health."

Popular Australian Cartoonist Axed for Criticising Mandatory Vax - "Michael Leunig, poet, satirist and artist, has been axed by the Australian left-wing newspaper, The Age, after violating the sanctity of COVID cultism. Leunig’s chief crimes were doggedly questioning the use of force to impose unwanted – and based on COVID’s 99.9%+ survivability rates for the majority, unnecessary – medical procedures on Australians... Leunig’s support for life, light and liberty have broken taboos on criticising the church of COVID and its corrupt cultic priesthood. According to Smith, Leunig said he’s had “12 cartoons censored this year, “all about Covid and/or Dan Andrews, with next to no explanation.”... Michael Leunig is an Australian icon. He’s been ‘declared a national living treasure by the National Trust and awarded honorary degrees from La Trobe and Griffith universities and the Australian Catholic University for his unique contribution to Australian culture.’ Leunig was a darling of the Left when he opposed the post-9/11 “war on terror” invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. In true leftist style, it would seem that the artist has been dropped by the Left, for applying the same loveable sharp-eye of accountability to those on the Left. This is yet another remarkable testimony to the insidious power of cancel culture, and the danger it poses. When the only allowable opposition is what the Left approves as opposition, we are no longer dealing with reasoned debate, but a manufactured narrative and its badly constructed religion."

Pier’s off: Fishers get marching orders days after mass protests - "Victoria Police closed a popular Mornington Peninsula pier over concerns that locals and visitors were not “observing social-distancing requirements” just two days after thousands marched through the streets of Melbourne without penalty. People would be “moved on” if they visited Rye pier and more local attractions would be shut if social-distancing was not observed, the police later said. The apparent double standard in policing comes as health authorities consider lifting social-distancing restrictions more quickly and pressure mounts on states that let thousands of people march in Black Lives Matter protests"
From 2020

WATCH: Food Store Owners Who Banned Masks Over Hygiene Concerns Violently Arrested - "Shop owners from an organic food store that banned customers from wearing masks over hygiene concerns have been violently arrested... The company’s reasons for not allowing masks inside their store were outlined last week in a post on Instagram. “Our reasons are clear,” the shop said. “(1) Hygiene – mask wearers constantly touch them. Are they 3 min, 3 days or 3 months old! We are an open food store. Not appropriate. (2) Depleted O2 could result in fainting or worse in store. Not pleasant. (3) We like to hear our customers requests and see their happy faces. Not muzzle them. (4) Simple really. Not law.”"

Australia’s lockdown hypocrisy - "Australia’s response to the pandemic has been one of the most authoritarian in the world... some – celebrities, sports people, the rich – have been given a free pass. Take, for example, the treatment of one young woman compared with that of Aussie-rules footballers. In August 2020 a woman, pregnant with twins, was suffering from birth complications. She was living in northern New South Wales at the time. So, in search of emergency treatment, she headed to healthcare facilities in Brisbane, in neighbouring Queensland. When she arrived at the Queensland border she was reportedly denied entry because of lockdown border restrictions. Instead of making the roughly 160-kilometre trip to Brisbane, she was forced to wait 16 hours and travel 600 kilometres to a Sydney hospital. During this trip she lost one of her unborn babies. Fast forward a few weeks to September 2020 and the Queensland government was only too happy to relax the hitherto strict border restrictions for around 400 people involved in the Australian Football League Grand Final – including players, staff and family members. They were forced to quarantine… at a resort hotel, where they were filmed mingling poolside and drinking cocktails... Celebrities, including Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban and Danii Minogue, have been allowed to skip ‘mandatory’ hotel quarantines and go straight home to their mansions after jetting in from abroad. Meanwhile, Queensland denied a six-year-old boy with cerebral palsy the right to quarantine at home after returning from the US, where he had undergone major surgery. Instead, the boy and his father were forced to isolate in a hotel room for 14 days. It seems that Australia’s class divide has widened during the pandemic – and compassion has been thrown out of the window. The hypocrisy has also been clear to see in Victoria, whose capital, Melbourne, is the most locked-down city in the world. In early 2021 the state government decided to let in 1,200 tennis players, staff and VIPs from around the world to attend the Australian Open. At that time there were more than 37,000 Australian residents stranded overseas and unable to return home due to the ‘danger’ they posed to the quarantine system. The Victorian government even denied entry to residents from neighbouring states. While those involved in the Australian Open were welcomed into Victoria, Australia’s own citizens were turned away. Such inconsistency has also affected the right to protest. When the Black Lives Matter protests swept across the world in 2020, 10,000 BLM protesters gathered in Melbourne. They did so in direct contravention of health directives, at a time when there were thousands of Covid cases in Australia. Yet the state government was so sympathetic to their cause that police decided before the event not to fine any of the protesters. Contrast this with what happened a year later. Having endured more than 250 days under lockdown, many Melburnians took to the streets to protest against the ever more authoritarian controls over their lives. Unlike the BLM protesters, however, they were faced with riot police armed with rubber bullets, truncheons and pepper spray. The police even tried to censor coverage of their own actions – which was hardly a surprise given their track record of aggressive and brutal policing."

Polish MPs Blast Australian Governments for Breaches of Human Rights - "Unsurprisingly, Australian Legacy media appear aloof and uninterested in politicians from the former Communist bloc nation warning about Australia’s downgrade of civil liberties, and civil rights, particularly in Victoria."

“Freedom Day” Is a Joke - "Victoria and New South Wales are not back to normal, are they? In the latter state, people who have decided not to be vaccinated against covid are still ordered to remain confined in their homes – barred from entering restaurants, cafes, gyms, etc. Whatever happened to medical treatments being voluntary and free from coercion? That should always be the case, even if the novel covid vaccines were the safest vaccines in the world and there had been no reported side effects whatsoever. Of course, that is clearly not the case. I personally know many people who have had loved ones suffer from severe adverse reactions, and it seems that everyone I talk with has a similar story. Despite these alarming and widespread occurrences, people in both states must carry their proof-of-vaccination documentation at all times, either on their mobile phones or as authorised paperwork (if they don’t use a smartphone) to participate in society. Masks are still mandatory virtually everywhere, despite hard evidence suggesting that they make little to no difference regarding viral transmission. Gatherings of any kind are still severely restricted. For example, “Religious ceremonies will be allowed for up to 20 fully vaccinated people or 10 unvaccinated people indoors,” and “Masks will still be required when leaving the home. The existing exemptions will apply.” Do you feel free yet, Victoria? Are we living in a Stephen King novel? In what dystopian world is all this construed as freedom? It beggars belief that mandatory vaccination, mask mandates, vaccine passports (the foundation of a Chinese-style social credit system), closed borders, and excluding people from society would fit into anyone’s understanding of the term. Bear in mind that this is all supposedly to protect us from a virus with an over 99% survival rate. Perhaps Australians are so historically and philosophically illiterate that they have forgotten what freedom is (a symptom of the abysmal standards of our failed education system). Our concept of freedom was the inheritance of our British ancestry, now virtually erased from our cultural consciousness. Perhaps people think that the restrictions are worth it because they believe that covid poses a deadly threat to them due to the fearmongering mainstream media. Perhaps people simply feel hopeless and powerless to stop the wave of bureaucratic tyranny and comply to keep their jobs and avoid social ostracisation. Perhaps it’s a combination of all these things... Vaccine discrimination is every bit as wicked and disgusting, not to mention scientifically absurd, as the racial segregation of America’s past. In fact, it’s worse than segregation. Segregation means separating different groups of people. What we are witnessing today is outright exclusion, with unvaccinated Australians increasingly having very few places to go. If you’ve ever wondered how inhumane and obviously discriminatory policies such as segregation were accepted, now you know. We are living in such a time. It’s quite ironic, given that we’ve been banging on about discrimination of other kinds in Australia for over twenty years."

Pro-surfer Health Nut, Kelly Slater, Labelled an Anti-vaxxer for Defending Informed Consent

Dictatorship For Life in Victoria? - "Recently the Victorian government tabled its ‘Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021’. In it, the chief health officer’s powers would be lessened, but the premier would gain new authority to declare a pandemic, and the health minister would have the power to make unfettered public health orders. Worse yet, anyone said to be violating these health orders would face two years in jail or a $90,000 fine! And small businesses can be slugged with $425,000 fines. Wow!... ' The president of the Victorian Bar has slammed the Andrews government’s new pandemic legislation as “appalling” and revealed the government “grossly misrepresented” its consultation with the barristers’ peak body. Christopher Blanden, QC, said the new laws, designed to replace sweeping state of emergency powers, would give the Premier unprecedented power with little to no checks and balances. “Stasi police would have been more than happy with the range of powers if they were given it,” Mr Blanden told The Age. “It’s extraordinary.”'... ' The opposition leader said this would be giving “the most power-hungry politician in Australia licence to declare a pandemic” and ultimately giving him “the power to determine what he wants to do for an indefinite period of time”. Accountability would rest not with “the cabinet, not his party room or caucus, not the Parliament but him,” Mr Guy said. “Giving one person that amount of power doesn’t appear to be … anything that I can imagine to be democratic about it.”'... It would not be surprising at all if we hear him announce in the very near future: ‘I have decided to suspend all forthcoming elections. Things are just too dangerous and I am here to protect you and to save you. Just trust me.’"

Jordan Peterson: “I’m Not Impressed by This Creeping Authoritarianism in the Name of Public Safety” - "Anderson, acknowledging the negative contributions of the “Right,” laid the blame for “remarkably little balanced commentary” more squarely on the Left. Using The ABC as a primary example, he briefly explained how ABC employees with secure jobs (fanatically) pushed for COVID measures that would hurt others, but wouldn’t hurt ABC employees or their families. Anderson asked, “How are Australians meant to get adequate information when they’re only getting one side of the debate?”... people don’t trust politicians, so politicians put “health experts” on camera to sell the political agenda... “There’s tremendous danger from a precedent perspective in making an active, invasive medical procedure mandatory.”... For Peterson, forced vaccination is a “sign of the failure of the ‘vaccine’ arguments. To use political and police force to insist is only going to increase distrust, and drive resistance.” The better option, he said, was for governments to make the vaccines as available as possible, then back off. Once governments have given people the choice, reopen the country. Peterson and Anderson were in agreement that “the dangers posed by the unvaccinated to the vaccinated” were unclear. They admitted to being bewildered by the notion. I got the impression that both men considered the idea of the “unvaccinated” being a threat to the “vaccinated” to be superstition; part of the sensationalism corrupting information. Therefore, stopping quality debate, and hindering good government. The two men also got around to addressing “safetyism” with Peterson calling policies that feed into it “strange precedents.” Anderson alluded to how today’s public health orders could be creating tomorrow’s public health crisis."

No, It Is Not ‘Freedom Day’ in Melbourne – Not Even Close - "The Czech Republic spent 201 days locked down because of the state’s response to the virus. London spent 207 days locked down. Buenos Aires spent 245 days locked down. Melbourne spent 263 days locked down as of October 21, and it is still not over yet... Some of the madness over these past 263 days that I and 5 million other hapless citizens have had to endure include:
closure of playgrounds, skate parks, tennis courts, golf courses
no one allowed to visit you at home
one hour a day allowed outdoors to exercise
a ban on watching sunsets alone on a windswept beach
a ban on fishing
not being able to remove masks while drinking a beer
not being allowed to sit on a park bench
overnight curfews
shutting down construction in Melbourne for two weeks costing us $1.4 billion...
Consider one more bit of insanity and heartlessness, this time from the Victorian head of the AMA. As one news report stated: “The AMA Victoria president, Dr Roderick McRae, said those who do not believe Covid-19 is real or a threat should update their advanced care directives and inform their relatives that they do not wish to receive care in the public health system if diagnosed with the virus.” Good grief, who is this clown? He is actually saying those who have had legitimate questions about all things Covid should be denied health care?... Even those who have questions about these matters have paid for the public health system with their taxes. They are just as entitled to make use of it as anyone else. Or will this little medical dictator also be telling us that the obese, or heavy smokers, or drug takers, or alcoholics, or others deemed unworthy by the state should not get access to health care as well?"

Is It 'Informed Consent' If The Facts Are Suppressed? - "vaccine-related fatalities and nasty side effects may not be as rare as we are led to believe. Let me tell you about a few cases that I am personally aware of and have affected people close to me, over the past few weeks... These three deaths were all in our local area and not one word of any in the news, local or otherwise. Further, it should be noted that according to the statistics these relatively young people had as good as no chance of dying from Covid-19 in an unvaccinated state... I am just one person and I have heard all these accounts from close friends. I would like to know just how many vaccine-related deaths and serious side effects we have had in Australia but I doubt that I will ever know. I am angry that none of this is making it into the news. I am angry that social media is shutting down anything that is contrary to the official narrative. I am angry that the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) is silencing the medical community by threatening to deregister any doctor or health worker that says anything that would affect the rollout. I’m angry that only one side of the story is being told. Further, I am angry that many people who do not want to take the vaccination are being forced into taking it by having their jobs held over their heads... If the vaccines are so safe why are so many of our medical professionals prepared to leave their vocations rather than be vaccinated? Why is our freedom to choose being taken from us? Why are we being punished if we don’t comply? Why are we being coerced? Let me be clear here, I am not and never have been “anti-vax” but I am definitely anti-coercion, anti-withholding of information and anti-mandatory vaccination... Hardly anyone has told me that they took the vaccine because they wanted to or because they were scared of catching Covid19. The vast majority have said that they took it because they “wanted to see the grandkids”, “get back to the gym”, “wanted to travel”, “go overseas”, they “couldn’t visit relatives if they didn’t”, “to get out of lockdown”, “to get back to normal” or, they had to take it to “keep their job”. Sorry folks, sounds like an awful lot of manipulation and coercion there."

Northern Territory Imposes Strictest Vaccine Mandate in the World: "You Must Be Vaccinated... You Have 30 Days" - "The Northern Territory has imposed the strictest vaccine mandate in the world, requiring all workers who interact with the public to receive a COVID vaccine within a month. Michael Gunner, Northern Territory Chief Minister, announced on Wednesday that the government issued a legal direction requiring workers in all public-faced roles to received the vaccine or else face a $5,000 fine."

Mask Exempt Abuse Victims Must Now Provide Police With "Evidence" of Trauma On Request

“The Military Should Never Be Used to Perform the Work of Government,” Argued the ABC in 2018 - "The NSW Police Commissioner, on Thursday, called on hundreds of Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel for assistance in enforcing lockdown restrictions in Sydney over the weekend... While many have questioned whether military intervention is necessary, calling it heavy-handed, some are questioning the constitutionality of the move. Augusto Zimmermann, Professor of Law and author of Fundamental Rights in the Age of COVID-19, told Caldron Pool the government’s move is a gross deviation from the military’s primary role, which is protecting the nation from external enemies, not protecting an elected government from the public... “Calling the army to enforce lockdown rules sets an incredibly dangerous precedent. It is certainly not constitutional to entrust army personnel with ostentatious policing activities. “The designation of soldiers for policing activities constitutes a gross deviation of the ADF’s primary role of protecting the nation against external enemies and not an elected government from its people, especially when their basic rights and freedoms are being grossly violated”... In 2018, the ABC appeared to agree. A piece that was then published by the ABC argued that “the only proper role of the military forces is to protect the national interest in extremis; it should never be used to perform the work of government.” At the time, the article was written in relation to Peter Dutton wanting to expand anti-terror powers by giving the Government the ability to call out the Army for domestic purposes within Australia, such as a terrorist attack."

Professor of Public Ethics: The Vaccine-Hesitant Are as Evil as Climate Change “Deniers” - " Seemingly cheering on the deaths of COVID-19 victims who weren’t vaccinated, Hamilton pins his hopes on the vaccinated, politicising the suffering of others as examples that would force “COVID and Climate change science deniers to wake-up.” Hamilton repeatedly labels the vaccine-hesitant as “anti-vaxxers”, writing: “Climate change deniers make comparable claims to ‘anti-vaxxers.’ Prone to ‘conspiracist ideation,’ many anti-vaccination activists appear to believe Covid-19 is a hoax.” A bizarre claim considering that many of those who are vaccine-hesitant, are not traditional “anti-vaxxers.”... When we’re told to “shut up” and “follow the science,” what we’re really being told is, “fall in line with ideological propaganda, or else!” Asking questions is a crucial part of applying the scientific method. What Hamilton does is inadvertently admit there is no room for dissent. He appears to be guilty of denying the science, while accusing others of doing the same. For instance, on the basis of risk, he conflates women taking the “pill” with the COVID vaccines. This is without concern for qualifying how the two are vastly different... Here are five observable reasons why Hamilton’s “pill”/COVID vax equivalence is misleading: First, informed consent. No woman is forced to take the pill, on the threat of losing their job. Second, the long-term data is in on the “pill.” Assessing long-term data on the global COVID ‘vaccine trial’ is still a work-in-progress. Third, there are confirmed deaths, unconfirmed deaths, and a consistent pattern of health problems associated with the vaccines. Such as heart inflammation, Bell’s palsy, and blood clotting. Fourth, if women were having the same reactions to the pill, as some people are experiencing with the vaccines, the pill would have been pulled from the market. Fifth, the pill is specific, targeted, and measured out proportionally — a stark contrast to the ham-fisted, arrogant rush associated with the COVID vaccines. Forcing a vaccine onto healthy people, many of whom have a 0.003% chance risk of dying from COVID-19 is non compos mentis... Hamilton and others would do well to heed recent comments made by ‘Outsiders’ host Rowan Dean, “Once the authorities have decreed that there are two classes of people in Australia, the good, and the bad; that one class is superior to another and gets special privileges while the other class is shunned, locked out, vilified and loses their employment you have, by definition created an inferior class.” “For which the Germans,” Dean adds, “once coined as Untermensch (under/inferior person). If that word brings a chill of horror to your hearts, so it should!”... All vaccines should be chosen by individuals on merit, not the power of their apparent virtue, threats, or coercion... In case you missed it, “Anti-vaxxer” is the new “that’s racist.“"

"We Are Being Lied To and It Is Far From Being a 'Conspiracy Theory'" - "Earlier this month, I heard NSW Liberal MP Tanya Davies say that AHPRA would de-register any doctor that discouraged vaccination or criticised the COVID-19 vaccination rollout. This silences any opinion that differs from the government’s stance and if true, is extremely unethical and dangerous and changes the program from science to propaganda... I was told that the information was correct and very well known in the medical community. I was sent documents confirming it. What I was told is, if a medical health professional speaks against vaccination in any way – even to warn of possible side effects – AHPRA can suspend or de-register them. They were all well aware of the situation and unhappy about it. One doctor told me that this means is that the public does NOT have informed consent as they are not being made aware of the reality of the potential side effects of the vaccine. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that side effects and deaths are underreported, figures are being manipulated and the public is being kept in the dark. I was told that this is not the opinion of just a “few” but of “thousands” of medical professionals including specialists, general practitioners, nurses, and others, and as a result, large class actions are being prepared to go before the courts. I was also told that a significant number of their colleagues (an estimated 30% in one case) felt coerced into taking the vaccine but reluctantly complied just to keep their job. One individual was clear that they never would have taken the vaccine except for what they described as being blackmailed. I was also told of long-serving members within the medical community electing to quit rather than take the jab. These were hard-hitting accounts from health professionals who are currently serving “on the front line”. It concerns me greatly that medical professionals are being gagged if they have an opinion that differs from the government’s official party line. Anyone who has a different opinion, regardless of how qualified or educated they are, is shut down or suspended."