On Saturday (January 21), a Turkish author by the name of Ramazan İzol openly called for the killing of a Danish-Swedish politician named Rasmus Paludan for committing ‘blasphemy’ by burning Quran.
Paludan had burnt a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish Embassy in the Swedish capital Stockholm, to protest against Islam and Turkish President Erdogan’s attempt to influence freedom of expression in Sweden.
Angered by his action, Ramazan İzol vowed to kill him on the micro-blogging platform. He wrote (archive), “A bastard burned the Quran today in Sweden, why are you silent as Muslims? If I catch this rascal who burned the Quran, I will burn him alive.”
At the time of writing, the disturbing tweet was viewed over 13 lakh times. Moreover, it was retweeted over 3400 times and garnered 5,471 likes. Ramazan İzol boasts of a whopping 5.11 lakh followers on the micro-blogging platform.
Although it has been two days since the Ankara-based author posted the threatening tweet, the Twitter moderation team did not take any action against Ramazan İzol.
Twitter has a crystal-clear policy against violent threats
Inaction against İzol is very surprising since the tweet openly violates the micro-blogging site’s violent threats policy. The policy dated March 2019 states –
“You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people. We also prohibit the glorification of violence.Healthy conversation is only possible when people feel safe from abuse and don’t resort to using violent language. For this reason, we have a policy against threatening violence on Twitter. We define violent threats as statements of an intent to kill or inflict serious physical harm on a specific person or group of people.“
Ramazan İzol tries to skirt Twitter policy
Amidst growing demands of netizens to de-platform the Turkish author for openly vying for the blood of Rasmus Paludan, Ramazan İzol has voiced his fear of an impending suspension.
“My account is at risk because I shared about the dishonest person who burned our Quran. This is why I ask you to follow my @ramazanizoll account where I opened all my brothers as a backup,” he announced on Sunday (January 22).
So far, Twitter has turned a blind eye to the hateful rhetoric from his account, so it is unlikely that he will need to use his “backup” account.
The public prosecutor’s office in Frankenthal, Rhineland-Palatinate, has announced the motives behind a terrible bloody crime in the Oggersheim district of Ludwigshafen. On October 18, 2022, a Somali man (photo) brutally stabbed two men to death while shouting “Allahu Akbar” and seriously injured another man.
The asylum seeker had committed the murders because his girlfriend had left him: “He was convinced that she had a new life partner,” Frankenthal’s senior public prosecutor Hubert Ströber told the Bild newspaper. During his bloodlust, the 26-year-old “was aware that both victims were not acquainted with his former partner”.
According to the report, the murders were committed out of a fundamental hatred of German men. The first victim was 20-year-old Jonas S., who happened to walk past him. He stabbed the painter with a knife with a blade 20 centimetres long, “taking advantage of his vulnerability and lack of protection”, as the prosecutor said.
When the 20-year-old’s colleague rushed to help, the Somali rammed the murder weapon into the 35-year-old Sascha K.’s neck – “with intent to kill”, according to the prosecutor. The man had no chance and died. Afterwards, he attacked the 20-year-old again, allegedly stabbed him in the head with incomprehensible brutality and then cut off his right forearm. He then threw the body part onto the balcony of his former partner.
Then the perpetrator went into a drugstore and stabbed a 27-year-old customer, who was standing at the cash register, in the chest. Despite his severe injuries, the German dragged himself to the street. There, police officers who had been called to the scene rendered first aid and stopped the asylum seeker with four shots from their service weapons.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, the Somali had given the details of the crime to a psychiatric expert. According to the expert, he had wanted to kill “German men” out of anger and jealousy. So far, the doctor considers the man to be capable of committing the crime. The public prosecutor’s office has brought charges of two counts of murder and dangerous bodily harm. It is not yet clear when the trial will begin.
Nita Farahany, recently speaking at the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, touted the “extraordinary promise” of the use of mind-reading devices in the workplace and elsewhere. Farahany noted that the devices, in some forms, are already here. The legal ethicist and author of The Battle for Your Brain gave a talk titled “Ready for Brain Transparency?” She cited existing consumer-wearable devices such as “headbands, hats that have sensors that can pick up your brain wave activity, earbuds, headphones, tiny tattoos that you can wear behind your ear — we can pick up emotional states.” Kinda creepy if you ask me.
During a WEF “Transforming Medicine, Redefining Life” panel discussion, Farahany said that this technology will soon be integrated into “multi-functional devices,” so that — for example — the same earbuds used to take conference calls and listen to music would be laced with EEG sensors to pick up brain waves. The “legal ethicist” stated that it would then be possible to “pick up and decode faces that you’re seeing in your mind, simple shapes, numbers, your pin number.” What could go wrong?
Farahany predicted that in the “near-term future,” such devices will become “the primary way with which we interact with all of the rest of our technology,” and pointed out that major tech companies like Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta are already “investigating ways to make these devices universally applicable.” She claimed this would allow a person to, for example, “simply swipe with your mind” instead of with a mouse or keyboard.
Farahany stressed the potential such technology has to solve workplace problems and cited as an example truckers who can inadvertently take lives by falling asleep on the road. She noted that such tragic outcomes could be prevented if their employers provided them with a “simple wearable hat” that, via “embedded electro-sensors,” could measure brain wave activity and therefore determine “what stage of alertness the person was experiencing and whether or not they are starting to fall asleep.” She further argued that, despite the existence of driver-assist technology designed to prevent such accidents, such brain-reading wearables are necessary because they intervene “much sooner” and “much more accurately.” And, she said, “We as a society should want that.” Well, that’sdebatable… at the very least.
Farahany also stated: “In over 5,000 companies across the world, employees are already having their brain activity monitored to test for their fatigue levels.”
Farahany did acknowledge that these mind-reading devices could be “the most oppressive technology” ever used at “large scale across society,” and that it is possible they could give others access to “your bank account.” No matter. On balance, she’s all for them.
Mind-reading devices? Not overly personal and intrusive at all, right? What could be wrong with this technology? I mean, shouldn’t your employer be entitled to know every thought that flickers in — and floats through — your brain? Your teacher? Spouse? (Can you say “D-I-V-O-R-C-E.?”) The government? Every tyrant in history would have loved this ability. “You are not thinking correctly! We must help you adjust your thoughts!”
And what if you were “hacked” and your thoughts altered or replaced by someone else’s? Where’s the transparency or “extraordinary promise” in that?
Bodily autonomy is a vital human right. It is even more critical that we control our own minds.
There is a battle for our brains going on. And our humanity. And our freedom.
If we don’t win this one, nothing else will matter.
Protesters rally in the Plaza de Cibeles in front of City Hall in Madrid on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023. (Credit: @vox_es Twitter)
More than 30,000 people congregated at the Plaza de Cibeles in front of Madrid’s City Hall on Saturday to protest Spain’s socialist government led by Pedro Sánchez.
The rally, organized by dozens of conservative action groups and endorsed by Spain’s center-right People’s Party and conservative Vox party, accused Sánchez’s left-wing coalition government of undermining the country’s constitution.
Sánchez’s administration has been criticized for abolishing the crime of sedition and pardoning nine Catalan separatist leaders for their involvement in the region’s failed independence bid back in 2017.
Hay una España muy alejada de los cálculos electoralistas y de las mezquindades de la política. Hay millones de españoles hartos del autócrata y sus secuaces. Con ella tenemos que estar. A ellos tenemos que saber representar pic.twitter.com/NlNmFmqlWi
Vox party leader Santiago Abascal told reporters the country was being subjected to the “the worst government in history,” claiming Sánchez “has divided Spaniards and freed rapists and coup leaders.”
Outside the city hall, scores of protesters could be seen waving Spanish flags and holding placards depicting the incumbent prime minister with the term “traitor.” Shouts of “murderers” were also heard, according to the EFE news agency.
Absacal told his supporters on Saturday: “There is a Spain far removed from electoral calculations and the pettiness of politics. There are millions of Spaniards fed up with the autocrat and his henchmen. We have to be with them. We have to know how to represent them.”
Quienes amamos a España y la queremos ver libre y soberana, somos muchos más, y lo demostraremos en las calles, en las urnas y en las instituciones.
Vox Vice President Javier Ortega Smith tweeted during the protest: “There are many more of us who love Spain and want to see it free and sovereign, and we will demonstrate it in the streets, at the polls, and in the institutions.”
Alberto Nunez Feijoo, leader of the center-right People’s Party, which is widely tipped to become the largest party in the Spanish parliament at the next election, did not attend the rally but encouraged party members to participate.
While local government estimates suggest 30,000 people attended the rally, organizers believe the true figure was closer to 70,000.
At an event in the Spanish city of Valladolid on Saturday, Sánchez told his own supporters that the protesters in Madrid were defending racism, according to the Reuters news agency.
Spanish local elections are due to be held on May 28, while the next general election is expected to take place on Dec. 10.
Klaus Schwab has been at the helm of the World Economic Forum for more than half a century. Recently, there has been strong criticism against him coming from his own ranks.
On this issue, a group of current and former WEF staff contacted the British newspaper The Guardian. They complained that the 84-year-old Schwab acted on his own and surrounded himself with “nobodies” who were incapable of leading the organisation he founded in the early 1970s.
He was in no way accountable to people inside and outside the organisation, said the anonymous group. “We are reluctant to go public, as Klaus has many connections and can make our lives very difficult, even if we leave the WEF,” it said.
The WEF staff group said it posted a critical piece on LinkedIn, but it was removed at the request of the World Economic Forum, something the organisation denied.
The piece included a statement that WEF leader Klaus “was a law unto himself” and that the board was an “adder’s nest”. Staff expected the board members to clash once Klaus dies. The WEF’s nepotistic governing statutes guarantee members of the Schwab family a position of authority in the organization. The Schwabs also hold a veto over whether WEF can be shut down.
As it stands, Schwab’s daughter is a trustee, his son is a member of the managing board, and his wife runs a foundation closely connected to WEF.
Schwab “has a god complex, and thinks he’s in the fittest 0.1 percent. But no one is immortal,” an American veteran of 20 Davos conferences told Politico.
The 29 sources Politico had contacted, including WEF corporate strategic partners, current and former staffers and members of the forum’s committees and communities almost all feared repercussions from talking to the media about Schwab’s reign.
British former prime minister and architect of the Iraq war, Tony Blair has been tipped as a possible successor to Schwab.
There is diplomatic unrest between Austria and Bangladesh: the foreign ministry rejects the appointment of the representative of the Muslim government after allegations of violence against a woman.
Mohammed Tauhedul Islam is so far regarded as the flagship diplomat of the Southeast Asian state on the Bay of Bengal. After a first place in the state exam, things went up steeply. He started his career as a representative of the government of the eighth largest country in the world with more than 171 million inhabitants at the United Nations in New York.
After that, the well-paid job took him to Milan and Kunming (China), including as Consul General of Bangladesh. He is currently based in Singapore. But now a dark shadow hangs over the model diplomats of the Muslim People’s Republic.
Former colleague from allegations of abuse Because during his appointment as an emissary of the Viennese representation, a beautiful villa in the posh district of Döbling, allegations of violence come to light from a former colleague from his time in the Italian fashion metropolis. He allegedly assaulted the employee there a few years ago. Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abdul Momen remains with the ambassador-designate in Vienna despite the scandal and speaks of a “constructed scandal and conspiracy”. All allegations against him have been proven false after investigation.
However, the allegations of violence apparently weigh heavily on the local Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Austria reserves the right to approve the appointment When asked by “Krone”, it said very diplomatically: “We expect all ambassadors working in Austria to be irreproachable and honest. Should there be any suspicion to the contrary, we reserve the right not to conclude an agreement. ”
The former commander of the terror cell in Verviers is part of a programme to reintegrate prisoners by means of football. He is one of 16 inmates from Lantin and Leuze prisons who act as coaches for dozens of children. (…) Sudinfo.be
January 2015: In a peaceful street in Verviers, there are war-like scenes, explosions, gunshots. Special police units have just smashed a terrorist cell. A few days after the deadly attack on the editorial office of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, this event has a special resonance in Belgium, but also beyond.
However, the investigation had started long before. The return of a Belgian jihadist from Syria triggered the attention of investigators in November 2014. Very quickly, it emerged that he had stayed in contact with his network boss, picked up two other returnees, as they are called, and brought them to a flat he had rented in Rue de la Colline in Verviers since mid-November.
January: The attack on Charlie Hebdo. Text messages are intercepted by French investigators. They warn of attacks on police officers in Belgium.
January: The flat in the Rue de la Colline is bugged by experts.
January: An accomplice turns up with a package. The three men show enthusiasm for a Kalashnikov. The law enforcement officers do not hesitate any longer: the raid takes place. It is 5:42 pm. Stun grenades, gunfire… 26-year-old Sofiane Anghar and 33-year-old Khalid Ben Larbi are shot dead. Marouane El Bali is caught in the act. All three men are from Molenbeek.
El Bali is sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Among other things, police uniforms, weapons of war, handguns and all material for the production of explosives are found in the flat. RTBF
As illegal migration, runaway inflation and the national debt all soar to unimaginable heights, no one seems to know who is actually running the country. Could a national digital currency be the government’s newest Big Brother surveillance program? (Image source: iStock)
The U.S. for years has been witnessing countless displays of people deliberately committing criminal acts, including felonies, that prosecutors refuse to charge. These include mass violence in cities, widespread gun violence (for instance here and here), and rampant vandalism and theft.
This anarchy is not helped by “revolving door” laws that put perpetrators back out in the street, movements to defund the police, and decriminalizing theft under $950. Target blames a loss of $400 million on retail theft by organized crime, and does not even touch on an industry-wide loss of $800 million just from theft of shopping carts.
If a populace is threatened, it is easier to control – as during COVID-19 restrictions, when most people agreed to be locked up. The people will look to the government for help. Poverty must be among the easiest ways to suppress people, as Hugo Chavez and Nicolás Maduro produced in Venezuela. “The worse, the better,” Vladimir Lenin is alleged to have said.
Meanwhile, massive criminality in the form of China poisoning American children wholesale with fentanyl and the world in general with COVID-19. China lied about its transmissibility and insisted on sending its people abroad well after its leaders knew how infectious the virus was; yet, to this day these mass murders go unaddressed and unpunished.
When 10 million ballots go missing and 226,000 are rejected in just one state, California, you know you have a problem. “After accounting for polling place votes and rejected ballots in November 2022, there were more than 10 million ballots left outstanding, meaning election officials do not know what happened to them,” according to a report by J. Christian Adams, President and General Counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. “It is fair to assume that the bulk of these were ignored or ultimately thrown out by the intended recipients. But, under mass mail elections, we can only assume what happened.”
“Mail ballots disenfranchise,” Adams noted. “California’s vote-by-mail demonstration should serve as a warning to state legislators elsewhere.” That is, of course, unless a state wants to cheat. The Carter Commission, headed by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III — hardly Conservatives — warned against mail-in ballots as early as 2005; France has rejected them altogether.
“The nonpartisan 2005 Commission on Federal Election Reform… noted among its many findings… [that] voting by mail creates increased logistical challenges and the potential for vote fraud, especially if safeguards are lacking or when candidates or political party activists are allowed to handle mail-in or absentee ballots,” the Carter Commission concluded. It also mentioned as a serious problem, “ballot-harvesting”: “eliminate the practice of allowing candidates or party workers to pick up and deliver absentee ballots.”
Two threats to election integrity seem extremely pernicious,. The first is the possibility of unlimited amounts of money poured into not-for-profit non-governmental organizations (NGOs), especially if the donors are able to get a tax-deduction for tacking the word “educational” onto their donation. The educational NGO already has a list of likely voters – for instance for environmental preservation, climate change, whatever. The NGOs are presumably free to further “educate” potential voters in the election districts that will deliver the political result the donor wants.
Facebook has even set up a page for you to funnel your not-for-profit donation through its organization – what happens to the funds after that? What is the oversight? It was $400 million from Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook (Meta), that “saved” the 2020 election, as NPR put it. Is it possible that “click to donate” is something similar on a larger scale? What about unlimited donations from “dark money,” where one is not able to know who gave it? How would one monitor that?
The second massive threat to election integrity is the surreptitious voter manipulation conducted by Google, Facebook and other social media – able to shift voters’ preferences by tens of millions of votes without voters even being aware of it. “Google and Big Tech can shift millions of votes in any direction,” notes Dr. Robert Epstein, who has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Both sides of the aisle are presumably being amply rewarded by lobbyists to do nothing, and even if Big Tech companies were to be broken up, they would just sell off a few acquisitions, and the result would be no different.
All this time, threats to our Constitution have been coming in hot and hard – such as suggestions to expand the Supreme Court until the number comes out “right” for whichever party is demanding it. As illegal migration, runaway inflation and the national debt all soar to unimaginable heights, no one seems to know who is actually running the country. The Biden administration has been trying to hire 87,000 new Internal Revenue Service agents to break the bones of small businesses who would rather pay up than try to find the money for legal or tax advice. With Executive Order 14067, the Biden administration has also been trying to launch a national digital currency — already called a “massive threat to freedom” — to replace the paper one, perhaps the better to monitor everyone’s financial transactions down to the dime. Could a national digital currency be the government’s newest Big Brother surveillance program? If ever a republic needed rescuing, it would seem this is it.
With a battery much bigger than the electric motor, the look won’t be nearly as appealing – Photo credit: Ronald SandersCC BY-SA 2.0 license
By Thomas Lifson
I can’t think of a worse example of a corporate CEO misreading his customer base than this via the Robb Report (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll, Instapundit)
“At some point in time, Harley Davidson will be all-electric,” the executive [Harley-Davidson CEO Jochen Zeitz] recently told Dezeen. “But that’s a long-term transition that needs to happen. It’s not something you do overnight.”
Zeitz’s pronouncement seems guaranteed to make a not-insignificant portion of the manufacturer’s customer base cringe. For many enthusiasts, the thing that really sets a Harley apart from other motorcycles—American-made or otherwise—is a thunderously loud internal combustion engine. But the company knows that no matter how important those large-displacement mills might be change is on the horizon.
Maybe by “long term” he means several generations from now. If not, this is a surefire recipe for disaster.
Perhaps it is just an attempt to pre-empt critics, possibly including the CEO’s college indoctrinated children, claiming that Harley emissions are making “the oceans boil” as Al Gore recently claimed at Davos, after deplaning from his Gulfstream private jet, the Flying Squirrel.
But after all, what does Harley-Davidson really have to offer aside from a bad boy image connected to loud exhaust pipes and the buy-American preferences of some motorcycle gangs clubs? I am not a biker nor an expert on motorcycles, but I spent a lot of time as a consultant to two of the world’s biggest auto manufacturers and talked to a lot of engineers about manufacturing tolerances and other arcana of internal combustion engines, and I know that Harleys are not exactly pushing the frontier of excellence. In fact, one American executive with whom I worked was an enthusiast and drove a BMW machine, while others praised the engine technology of Japanese manufacturers.
This is what happens when CEOs focus on acceptance by elites in the media, other corporations and governments. Or when they listen to their kids home on break from college.
