Reader’s Links, November 15, 2018

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In order to preserve the flow of conversation about various posted items, and also in order to make it easier for visitors to find the list of related links being shared by other readers, regulars and interested parties in one place, each day a post is automatically created at a minute past midnight ET.

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Thank you all for those that take the effort to assist this site in keeping the public informed. Below, typically people can find the latest enemy propaganda, news items of related materials from multiple countries and languages, op-eds from many excellent sites who write on our topics, geopolitics and immigration issues and so on.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

138 Replies to “Reader’s Links, November 15, 2018”

  1. Polar bear numbers are so HIGH they threaten native Inuit populations, claims controversial Canadian government report bitterly contested by environmentalists who have made creature the icon of global warming

    Polar bear numbers are so high they threaten native Inuit populations, a controversial Canadian government report has found.

    The animals, which have become one of the enduring symbols of the environmental cause, are growing in such numbers that they cannot currently safely co-exist with humans in northern Canada, the report suggested.

    But the findings have been bitterly contested by environmental scientists who say that climate change has simply pushed the bears closer to humans as they search for food.

    They argue that populations are not actually increasing.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6388557/Polar-bears-threatening-native-Inuit-populations-warns-controversial-government-report.html

    • Found one sleeping in the back seat of my truck this morning when I went to work. –Dropped him at the bus stop.

  2. I believe the reports about the population growing, Satellite photos show the arctic ice is increasing in volume not shrinking and the reports I have read say that the sea levels aren’t increasing. The environmental movement (which includes the people called wildlife experts in the article) are true believers in a new religion and will not look at any data that shows that their beliefs are wrong.

  3. Dashcam video shows moment illegal immigrant suspect opens fire on Arkansas police officer

    Newly released dashcam video shows the moments a police officer in Arkansas stared down the barrel of a gun during an intense shootout with an illegal immigrant suspect over the weekend.

    The Washington County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release the incident happened Sunday, after County Corporal Brett Thompson tried to initiate a traffic stop around 12:43 p.m. in Tontitown, located just outside Fayetteville.

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/dashcam-video-shows-moment-illegal-immigrant-suspect-opens-fire-on-arkansas-police-officer

    video at site.

  4. Children’s tolerance of immigrants declines with age (DW, Nov 15, 2018)
    https://www.dw.com/en/childrens-tolerance-of-immigrants-declines-with-age/a-46313313

    “Intolerance comes with age and location can play a part, too, according to a new study. Most German children said they are friends with kids from other countries.

    An annual survey of 10,000 German schoolchildren between the ages of nine and 14, found that three-quarters of those questioned were strongly in favor of taking in immigrants and refugees from countries that are struggling with poverty or violence, according to the LBS Kinderbarometer (children’s barometer) poll published Thursday.

    The study found that although the majority of children were clearly in favor of immigration, 10 percent were strictly against it.

    Age and place of residence affect tolerance

    The study showed that as children got older they became less tolerant and also that place of residence was clearly a factor in attitudes. Children from the populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the city states of Bremen, Hamburg and Berlin were much more open to immigration than children from the eastern German states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia.

    Nearly two-thirds (61 percent) of those children surveyed also said they were friends with children from other nations. The report noted that this was especially the case when it came to children who had immigrant backgrounds themselves.

    “Dealing with people from other nations has become part of everyday life for most schoolchildren,” said Christian Schröder, a spokesman for LBS, the German banking federation that commissions the study.

    ‘Fostering inclusion’

    Additionally, the study found that roughly one-third of the children surveyed said they had friends who were either mentally of physically handicapped. “The aim of fostering inclusion is obviously having an effect as these numbers reflect a clear increase over those from 2009 and 2014,” Schröder said.

    The organization ProKids has conducted surveys for LBS since 1997. The survey is done according to Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and asks children about their fears and desires as well as the topics of friends, family and school.”

      • The report noted that this was especially the case when it came to children who had immigrant backgrounds themselves.

        From the above statement I’ll bet that the ethnic Germans are much less tolerant and friendly then they were abotu 3 years ago.

  5. More than 28,000 Afghan military deaths since 2015 (straitstimes, Nov 15, 2018)
    https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/south-asia/more-than-28000-afghan-military-deaths-since-2015

    “More than 28,000 Afghan police officers and soldiers have been killed since 2015, the Afghan President revealed this week, breaking with his government’s long-standing suppression of casualty totals.

    The admission from President Ashraf Ghani came during a particularly bad week for Afghanistan’s beleaguered government forces, with at least 242 security force members killed from Nov 9 to 15, according to casualty reports compiled by The New York Times.

    In the Jaghori district of Ghazni province, once regarded as the safest rural district in the country, an entire company of 50 elite commandos was wiped out, all but a handful killed or wounded.

    Taleban insurgents also killed dozens of police officers and soldiers in a series of attacks in Farah province, and an additional 14 police officers in an attack on a police station in the central city of Ghazni.

    Speaking by video link on Monday (Nov 12) from Kabul, the Afghan capital, to an audience at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, Mr Ghani noted that some 2,000 US soldiers had been killed in Afghanistan through 2014, at the end of which responsibility for security was handed to the Afghans.

    “Since 2015, still much regrettable, but the entire loss of American forces in Afghanistan is 58 Americans. In the same period, 28,529 of our security forces have lost their lives,” Mr Ghani said.

    Here is some background:

    1. WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TOLL?
    To put Ghani’s figure in context, it means that the current death rate is on average about 25 police officers and soldiers a day, or 175 a week – more than 9,000 a year.

    By comparison, in 2013, there were occasional weeks in which the death toll for the government exceeded 100, but the average was far less.

    Even at that point, US commanders were alarmed.

    “I view it as serious, and so do all the commanders,” General Joseph Dunford Jr, the US commander in Afghanistan at the time, told The Guardian.

    “I’m not assuming that those casualties are sustainable.”

    If the average week now is nearly twice as bad as a bad week in 2013, the losses are even less sustainable – although US military leaders are not talking publicly about that now.

    The last time Mr Ghani’s government gave official totals was in May 2017; after that, the information was treated as classified by the US military at the request of the Afghans.

    Here is how the current rate is calculated. Mr Ghani said that 28,529 security force members had been killed since the beginning of 2015.

    Previously released government data confirmed 5,000 deaths in 2015 and nearly 7,000 in 2016.

    That leaves 16,529 over the past 23 months (Mr Ghani did not specify how up to date his figure was, but he spoke on Monday). Assuming, conservatively, that losses have held steady in 2017 and 2018, that is an average of about 175 a week.

    2. IS IT GETTING WORSE?
    Losses have probably not held steady, however. In the week ending Thursday, at least 242 Afghan security forces were killed, according to a New York Times compilation, even though much of the country is already experiencing winter weather, when the fighting season traditionally ends or at least greatly slows down.

    When the weather was still warm and the fighting season in full swing, Afghan forces suffered what might have been their worst week of fighting recorded so far in the week ending Sept 14, when more than 400 members of the security forces were killed.

    3. WHY ARE AFGHAN CASUALTIES SO HIGH?
    On paper, the Afghan security forces are many times more numerous than the Taleban, but there is some indication that those numbers are inflated by “ghost” soldiers who have left or deserted without being removed from payrolls.

    Even with a larger force, however, the government has been fighting a largely static war, guarding facilities, roads, bases and outposts throughout the country, while the Taleban have been free to pick their targets and concentrate their forces.

    The US military has been pressing the Afghans to abandon that policy and not worry so much about guarding rural areas as protecting population centres.

    At the same time, the government and the Americans have encouraged the training of more commando forces, which would in theory have the same mobility – backed up by air power – as the insurgents.

    But most deaths among the Afghan security forces continue to be those of police officers and soldiers at relatively isolated outposts, as military leaders struggle with local politicians who want their areas protected.

    4. DOES THIS MEAN THE TALEBAN ARE WINNING?
    Some people think the Taleban are indeed winning, but Mr Ghani denied it in his speech to Johns Hopkins, as he has in other recent public remarks.

    “Is the state at risk of collapse?” he said. “No. Why? Because as long as we have our commando forces and our air force, we will be able to retake. Are the losses horrific? Yes.”

    Afghan officials also insist that they are giving as good as they get, and killing large numbers of Taleban militants.

    In fact, last year, the government claimed to have killed 13,600 insurgents and arrested 2,000 more, nearly half the insurgents’ total strength, according to some estimates.

    Verifying that claim is difficult; only in rare cases are the authorities able to produce bodies or photographs as evidence.

    That is partly because the insurgents generally try to take away their dead, and unlike government casualties, they rarely end up in hospitals or morgues.

    5. WHAT ABOUT AMERICAN LOSSES?
    Mr Ghani’s figure that 58 Americans have been killed since 2015 is actually on the high side.

    According to the special inspector’s reports, 30 US soldiers were killed in Afghanistan from 2015 to 2017.

    Nine more Americans have died so far this year, according to icasualties.org, which tracks war fatalities. (Mr Ghani’s number may have included casualties from Nato and other members of the US-led coalition.)

    The low number of American casualties reflects the fact that most of the fighting is being done by the Afghans.

    Of the 14,000 US troops in Afghanistan now, only about half are Special Operations troops involved in combat missions.

    By comparison, in 2011, there were more than 100,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan.

    6. ARE AFGHAN LOSSES SUSTAINABLE?
    The central government in Kabul says that its forces have been able to recruit enough replacements to make up for their losses, but many individual recruiters at the provincial level have expressed doubt about that.

    The government’s own figures this summer showed that the Afghan National Army was at 85 per cent of its authorised strength.

    In its latest report to Congress, the special inspector noted that since then, new attrition data for the Afghan army and the police has been classified by the US military.

    Attrition includes losses from non-reenlistment, desertions and illnesses, besides battlefield casualties.”

  6. Democracy Dies in a Leftist Coup
    The best midterms that San Francisco donors could buy.
    November 15, 2018
    Daniel Greenfield
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    After President Trump took office, the Washington Post announced its new motto, “Democracy dies in darkness.” But it was the Washington Post, not Trump, that was guilty of undermining democracy.

    President Trump had been legitimately elected by a majority of states. The Washington Post was an establishment paper in a government city owned by a dot com robber baron. There’s nothing more undemocratic than a paper owned by the richest man in the world working to overturn an election.

    There was just as little democracy to the midterm elections in which wealthy donors from blue states and districts poured money into local races in red and purple states and districts. San Francisco and New York billionaires buying elections in Pennsylvania and Nevada is not democracy. It’s oligarchy.

    American elected officials were meant to be elected by local communities to serve their needs. Instead the Left has nationalized local races by exploiting its cultural power. And when that didn’t produce the immediate results that it wanted, began overwhelming local elections with huge piles of outside cash.

    The midterm elections were the best elections that San Francisco donors could buy.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271936/democracy-dies-leftist-coup-daniel-greenfield

    Ricahrd: In many ways the US is now a Third World nation and given the actions and attitude of the left will remain one for several years if not several decades. I hate saying this but no matter what happens in the law suits and investigations about the vote fraud in Flordia and other states the Dems aren’t going to quietly accept any victory or loss, they will turn violent no matter what happens. Check out the Tim Poole video about the Tucson man who had his ankle broken because he was wearing a MAGA cap.

  7. Richard: Remember what I said above about the US being a Third World Country, read this article and try to say we aren’t.

    Florida Dem Party Practiced Statewide Ballot Fraud
    November 15, 2018
    Daniel Greenfield

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/271958/florida-dem-party-practiced-statewide-ballot-fraud-daniel-greenfield

    A lefty scandal has 3 stages.

    1. Deny – it’s a crazy right-wing conspiracy theory.

    2. Minimize – Claim it only happened on a small scale and had no significant impact

    3. Admit – Admit everything and declare it the new normal

    After briefly wavering on 1, the Florida Dems have jumped right to 3.

    TALLAHASSEE — A day after Florida’s election left top state races too close to call, a Democratic party leader directed staffers and volunteers to share altered election forms with voters to fix signature problems on absentee ballots after the state’s deadline.

    The altered forms surfaced in Broward, Santa Rosa, Citrus and Okaloosa counties and were reported to federal prosecutors to review for possible election fraud as Florida counties complete a required recount in three top races.

    But an email obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida shows that Florida Democrats were organizing a broader statewide effort beyond those counties to give voters the altered forms to fix improper absentee ballots after the Nov. 5 deadline. Democratic party leaders provided staffers with copies of a form, known as a “cure affidavit,” that had been modified to include an inaccurate Nov. 8 deadline.

    It’s okay.

    It’s not fraud because a judge retroactively backed it up. That’s the kind of thing that makes judicial bias even more absurdly obscene than it already is.

    So we’re at Stage 3. This is the new normal.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/271958/florida-dem-party-practiced-statewide-ballot-fraud-daniel-greenfield

  8. “Islamophobia” Outbreak in California
    A Muslim was found with a Qur’an, a book on terrorism, and a sawed-off rifle. What else could this be but “Islamophobia”?
    November 15, 2018
    Robert Spencer

    The San Francisco Chronicle has discovered a case of “Islamophobia,” and their intrepid reporters are on the job: “An Alameda County prosecutor,” we’re told, “recently held up an unusual piece of evidence while arguing that a man charged with a weapons violation should remain jailed without bail: a Quran.”

    It seems that “the religious text, paired with a book on the psychology of terrorism, as well as a sawed-off rifle — all allegedly found in Dajon Ford’s car at the time of his arrest — was cause for concern, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Golde told Superior Court Judge Yolanda Northridge at an Oct. 19 bail hearing.”

    Golde, says the Chronicle, asked rhetorically: “What are his plans?” According to the paper, “the Quran was cited among several arguments Golde made suggesting Ford was a threat to the community, in addition to noting his previous criminal history.” But the predictable response has come: “the move has drawn heat from at least one local civil rights attorney, and stunned defense attorney Claire White, who called Golde’s line of questioning ‘racist’ and ‘Islamaphobic [sic].’”

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271950/islamophobia-outbreak-california-robert-spencer

  9. Florida Department of State Sends Dem Voter Fraud Charges to Feds
    November 14, 2018
    Daniel Greenfield

    The radical Left stole a Senate seat in Arizona where Republicans were too weak to stand up for themselves. But Florida Republicans seem to have more fight in them.

    <blockquote)The Florida Department of State last week asked federal prosecutors to investigate dates that were changed on official state election documents, the first voting “irregularities” it has flagged in the wake of the 2018 elections.

    The concerns, which the department says can be tied to the Florida Democratic Party, center around date changes on forms used to fix vote-by-mail ballots sent with incorrect or missing information. Known as “cure affidavits,” those documents used to fix mail ballots were due no later than 5 p.m. on Nov. 5 — the day before the election. But affidavits released on Tuesday by the DOS show that documents from four different counties said the ballots could be returned by 5 p.m. on Thursday, which is not accurate.

    The information was sent on Nov. 9 by Bradley McVay, DOS’ interim general counsel, who asked that the altered dates be investigated.

    “Altering a form in a manner that provides the incorrect date for a voter to cure a defect … imposes a burden on the voter significant enough to frustrate the voter’s ability to vote,” McVay wrote in a letter that was sent Nov. 9 and released publicly on Tuesday. The letter was sent to U.S. Attorneys Christopher P. Canova of the Northern District of Florida, Maria Chapa Lopez of the Middle District of Florida and Ariana Fajardo Orshan in the Southern District of Florida.

    In an email chain released as part of the Department of State's Tuesday document dump, Citrus County Supervisor of Elections Susan Gill last week told DOS officials that a voter who received one of the cure affidavits with the wrong date had also received a call from a number identified as the Tallahassee office of the Florida Democratic Party, an indication the party was reaching out about her vote by mail ballot.

    "When I called it, it is the Democratic Party of Florida," she said in a Nov. 8 email to DOS officials.

    She went on to write that she thinks the incorrect date was used because whoever sent the cure affidavit mixed up the deadline for cure affidavits with the deadline for provisional ballots. But, she said, "a bigger problem is the fact they actually changed one of the DOE forms."

    That change to an official election form was what state officials turned over to federal prosecutors.

    Another email included in the DOS document dump included correspondence from Okaloosa County Supervisor of Elections Paul Lux, who also said he believed the affidavits were from the Florida Democratic Party.

    But the media will keep on pushing its “accused without evidence” meme anyway.

    • ~ty~
      test 07

      “Asians, who have embraced Western classical music in great numbers, may wonder why this magnificent art is neglected in the lands of its origin. The answer is that we of the West all release the safety-catch of our pistols when we hear the word “culture.” The optimistic, orderly and harmonious culture of pre-1914 Europe is redolent of loyalty to tradition, that is, the attitudes that led us into the trenches.

      We despise the culture because we abominate authority, tradition and loyalty, that is, virtues that Asians still cultivate. We abhor art that demands of us the recognition of higher authority – of genius subordinated to tradition and precedent – and prefer a levelling popular culture with which we can identify as supposed equals…. But there is a dimension to Western art – its risk-friendliness, as it were – that most Asians will have difficulty understanding.”
      https://pjmedia.com/spengler/france-has-neither-nationalism-nor-patriotism/

      • You wouldn’t believe the looks I get when I say that I prefer classical music to modern music. Farming country doesn’t like the culture even though the Western music of Roy, Gene, Tex and others are closely related to the Big Band music which is an descendant of the classical school.

        Of course most people don’t know that Country is one genre and Western is a different genre. Granted people use to pass from one to another and back again but they are still two distinct genre’s.

        • Richard, I’m afraid all of us at VT are sort of oddballs whereever we live. Thank you Martin!

      • .... er..... most Asians have a very good ear and digital facilities when playing musical instruments but usually they don't understand that there is a strong lyrical and expressive side to the Western classical music ...

        • "soul"
          Of course Yo-Yo Ma is as West as he is East, North and South. He's a world in one marvelous package.
          (I've had a crush on him for as long as I remember.)

  10. “Wild herd” of 14 Muslims sexually attack girl and knife her boyfriend in Spain

    The events took place in Santa Coloma de Gramenet in Catalonia two days ago. The young lady was travelling on the Metro with her boyfriend when the Moroccan “manada” (or wild herd, as the Spanish call sexually violent groups of men) started molesting her.

    https://gellerreport.com/2018/11/rape-jihad-spain.html/

    • Hannity: Migrant caravan is a massive security risk

      After an illegal immigrant is arrested for opening fire on Arkansas police, we’re reminded that criminals take advantage of unchecked and un-vetted migration to our country

  11. Video: “How ZTE helps Venezuela create China-style social control”
    by Angus Berwick – November 14, 2018
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-zte-specialreport/special-report-how-zte-helps-venezuela-create-china-style-social-control-idUSKCN1NJ1TT

    Secure Freedom Radio Podcast with Frank Gaffney
    Guests: David Goldman, Daniel Horowitz, Arthur Herman and Diana West

    ARTHUR HERMAN, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, Author of 1917: Lenin, Wilson and the Birth of the New World Disorder(2017):

    Implications of the current 5G revolution
    China’s digital Belt and Road Initiative
    https://securefreedomradio.podbean.com/e/with-david-goldman-daniel-horowitz-arthur-herman-and-diana-west/

    • “1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder”
      Hudson Institute – Published on January 22, 2018

  12. “Ep. 39 – Sexualizing English Class, Student Punches Teacher & School Overrules Parental Rights”
    FreedomProject Media – Published on November 15, 2018