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Post by mhbruin on Nov 28, 2022 9:44:38 GMT -8
My friend David had his ID stolen. Now he's just Dav.
But I've Got a Blank Space, Baby
So often one item comes to symbolise an entire protest movement. In China, that item is a humble piece of blank paper.
As dusk fell on Shanghai on Sunday evening, some of those who gathered at a vigil to remember the victims of a fire that catalysed the demonstrations came clutching sheets of paper.
Similarly, in the capital Beijing, protesters came armed with scraps of paper to a demonstration at Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University, once attended by President Xi Jinping.
And in another striking video a young woman could be seen walking through the streets of Wuzhen - a town in the eastern province of Zhejiang - with chains around her wrists and duct tape over her mouth. In her hands was a sheet of unspoiled blank paper.
The trend has its roots in the 2020 Hong Kong demonstrations, where locals held blank pieces of paper to protest against the city's draconian new national security laws.
Activists held the paper aloft after authorities banned slogans and phrases associated with the mass protest movement of 2019 that saw the city grind to a halt and officials violently clamp down on demonstrators.
Some have argued that the gesture is not only a statement about the silencing of dissent, but also a challenge to authorities, as if to say 'are you going to arrest me for holding a sign saying nothing?'"
"There was definitely nothing on the paper, but we know what's on there," a woman who joined protests in Shanghai told the BBC.
And the Chinese Police Will Write Your Name
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 28, 2022 9:45:57 GMT -8
A Rose By Any Other Name
Monkeypox will now be known as mpox, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced, after complaints over racist and stigmatising language linked to the virus's name.
The old term will be used alongside the new one for a year, before being phased out.
Mpox was decided on after lengthy discussions between experts, countries and the general public.
It can easily be used in English as well as other languages, the WHO said.
Human monkeypox was first identified in 1970 and named after the disease caused by the virus was discovered in captive monkeys more than a decade before.
Since then, the WHO has introduced advice on naming diseases.
It stresses the need to minimise unnecessary negative impact on trade, travel, tourism or animal welfare, and to avoid causing offence to any cultural, social, national or ethnic groups.
During the Covid pandemic, it recommended that variants were referred to using letters of the Greek alphabet because they were "non-stigmatising" and easy to pronounce.
This year, there has been unusual spread of mpox virus - a member of the same family of viruses as smallpox - in many countries outside central and west Africa, where it is often found.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 28, 2022 9:47:40 GMT -8
Don't Make an Ash of Yourself
Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, has erupted for the first time in nearly four decades, causing volcanic ash and debris to fall nearby, authorities say.
Flows of lava remained contained within the summit caldera of Mauna Loa in the US island state, but the eruption could pose a threat to nearby residents should conditions change, the United States Geological Survey reported at 11:45 pm Sunday (09:45 GMT Monday), about 15 minutes after the eruption in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park .
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 28, 2022 9:49:29 GMT -8
How Do You Pronounce GLSDB?
The Pentagon is considering a proposal to supply Ukraine with cheap, small precision bombs fitted onto abundantly available rockets, allowing Kyiv to strike far behind Russian lines as the West struggles to meet the demand for more weapons.
US and allied military inventories are shrinking, and Ukraine faces an increasing need for more sophisticated arms as the war drags on.
Boeing’s proposed system, dubbed Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB), is one of about a half-dozen plans for getting new munitions into production for Ukraine and the US’s Eastern European allies, industry sources said.
GLSDB could be delivered as early as spring 2023, according to a document reviewed by Reuters news agency and three people familiar with the plan. It combines the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) with the M26 rocket motor, both of which are common in US inventories.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 28, 2022 9:52:58 GMT -8
Here's a First. I am Posting a Kardashian Story
Kim Kardashian says she is “re-evaluating” her relationship with Balenciaga in light of the brand’s recent ad campaign that featured images of young children posing with teddy bears that appeared to be wearing BDSM-inspired accessories. (bondage, discipline or domination, sadism, and masochism as a type of sexual practice)
“I have been quiet for the past few days, not because I haven’t been disgusted and outraged by the recent Balenciaga campaigns, but because I wanted an opportunity to speak to their team to understand for myself how this could have happened,” Kardashian, 42, wrote in her Instagram story on Sunday.
“As a mother of four, I have been shaken by the disturbing images,” she continued. “The safety of children must be held with the highest regard and any attempts to normalize child abuse of any kind should have no place in our society — period.”
Following the outcry surrounding their recent ad images, Balenciaga deleted all of its Instagram posts and shared a statement of apology on the social media platform.
I Do My Best to Ignore Kardashians and British Royals
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 28, 2022 9:57:15 GMT -8
Pillow Man Wants to Turn the QOP Into the Pillow Party
Prominent conspiracy theorist and pillow tycoon Mike Lindell is weighing up a challenge to Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel for leadership of the party following the GOP's underwhelming performance in the 2022 midterm elections.
In an appearance on his "Frank TV" livestream this week, the MyPillow CEO asked fans whether they would support him pursuing a bid against the sitting RNC chairwoman, whom he has previously criticized for her lack of effort to overturn the results of a 2020 election Lindell baselessly claims was rigged against former President Donald Trump.
They overwhelmingly did and Lindell—who has faced federal inquiries for his connections to a Colorado-based effort to prove fraud in that state's election—said he would seriously consider challenging McDaniel.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 28, 2022 9:58:22 GMT -8
Lie-Walker Enters the Wonderful World of Oz
State investigators are being urged to probe whether Republican Senate hopeful Herschel Walker violated the law by receiving a tax break on his Texas home meant for primary residents of that state even as he runs for federal office in Georgia.
The complaint filed Sunday by Ann Gregory Roberts asked the Attorney General’s office and Georgia Bureau of Investigation to “promptly investigate this apparent violation of Georgia law” ahead of the Dec. 6 runoff against U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock.
Tax records show the former football player is set to receive a homestead exemption worth about $1,500 for a $3 million home in the suburbs of Dallas that Walker listed as his primary residence.
Walker’s campaign has declined requests for comment about the tax records, which were first reported by CNN. The documents show Walker has claimed the exemption since 2012.
The records brought new scrutiny to questions Walker has faced about his residency that precede his decision to formally run for office. He faces Warnock in a runoff after neither candidate won a majority of the vote in the November midterm.
A former Dallas Cowboys star, Walker lived in Texas for decades before registering to vote in Georgia in August 2021 shortly before he declared his candidacy.
At the time, Walker’s main GOP rival challenged him to “move here, pay taxes here, register and vote in some elections” before running. Warnock’s allies have taken a similar line of attack, framing the Republican as an out-of-state charlatan.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 28, 2022 10:00:38 GMT -8
The QOP Doesn't Want People to Vote. I Wonder Why.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 28, 2022 10:01:44 GMT -8
Accidently, On Purpose
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 28, 2022 10:02:51 GMT -8
China's Zero-COVID Policy Isn't Just China's Problem
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 28, 2022 10:03:44 GMT -8
Winter is Coming
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 28, 2022 10:06:17 GMT -8
Gov. DeathSentence Is Not Inevitable Like a Death Sentence
Also, I will say it again: if Ron DeSantis really were such an ironclad alternative to Donald Trump, all the Trump-agnostic Republicans would be consolidating around him right now, not forming groups and PACs that would let them run for president themselves.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 28, 2022 10:08:00 GMT -8
2024 Is Coming
Democrats celebrating a successful effort to keep control of the U.S. Senate this year will soon confront a 2024 campaign that could prove more challenging.
The party enters the next cycle defending 23 seats, including two held by independents who caucus with Democrats. That’s compared with just 10 seats that Republicans hope to keep in their column.
Adding to the potential hurdles is that some 2024 contests are in states that have become increasingly hostile to Democrats, including Montana, Ohio and West Virginia. Other Democratic-held seats are in some of the same hotly contested states that were at the center of this year’s midterms, such as Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada. And while Democrats carried each of those races, they did so at great cost and with sometimes narrow margins. In Nevada, for instance, Democratic incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto won by less than 1 percentage point, or about 9,000 votes.
Can We Get Previous Guy to Endorse Some Candidates?
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 28, 2022 10:10:35 GMT -8
Does China Want It Citizens to Frequent Hookers Instead of Protesting?
Twitter’s radically reduced anti-propaganda team grappled on Sunday with a flood of nuisance content in China that researchers said was aimed at reducing the flow of news about stunning widespread protests against coronavirus restrictions.
Numerous Chinese-language accounts, some dormant for months or years, came to life early Sunday and started spamming the service with links to escort services and other adult offerings alongside city names.
The result: For hours, anyone searching for posts from those cities and using the Chinese names for the locations would see pages and pages of useless tweets instead of information about the daring protests as they escalated to include calls for Communist Party leaders to resign.
It is not the first time that suspected government-connected accounts have used the technique, according to a recently departed Twitter employee. But in the past, it was used to discredit a single account or a small group by naming them in the escort ads.
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Post by mhbruin on Nov 28, 2022 10:12:01 GMT -8
What's an Acceptable Loss?
President Biden may have declared the coronavirus pandemic “over,” but from John Felton’s view as the Yellowstone County health officer in Billings, Mont., it’s not over, just different.
Now, more than ever, it is a plague of the elderly.
In October, Felton’s team logged six deaths due to the virus, many of them among vaccinated people. Their ages: 80s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 90s. They included Betty Witzel, 88, described by her family as a tomboy who carried snakes in her pocket as a child and grew up to be a teacher, mother of four, grandmother of nine and great-grandmother of five. And there was Nadine Alice Stark, 85, a ranch owner who planted sugar beets and corn.
Yellowstone County made the decision early in the crisis to recognize each death individually, and Felton said that is as important as ever to acknowledge the unrelenting toll on a still-vulnerable older generation, while most everyone else has moved on.
“I think about someone’s grandfather — the plays they wouldn’t watch, the games on the football field they wouldn’t see,” he said.
More than 300 people are still dying each day on average from covid-19, most of them 65 or older, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While that’s much lower than the 2,000 daily toll at the peak of the delta wave, it is still roughly two to three times the rate at which people die of the flu — renewing debate about what is an “acceptable loss.”
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