Lockdown has destroyed the Australian spirit

This once easy-going country has become illiberal, mistrustful and divided.

Australia is currently ranked 104th in the world for coronavirus deaths – a victory of sorts in the eyes of the laptop class which now runs much of our lives. Yet the cost of this achievement is incalculably high and the damage to civil society may never be fully repaired. The ever-changing list of petty edicts has tugged at the threads of the social fabric in countless ways, and Australia is a less companionable country as a result.

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CAIR Files Discrimination Lawsuit Against Missouri Gun Range

“Islamophobia” is reaching epidemic proportions in Old Joe Biden’s America: the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Independence, Mo. law firm of Baldwin & Vernon filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday, claiming that Frontier Justice, a gun store and firing range in the Kansas City suburb of Lee’s Summit, discriminated against a Muslim woman, Rania Barakat, when it wouldn’t allow her to use the range while she was wearing her hijab.

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Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes found guilty on some fraud charges

Holmes was unanimously found guilty of three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She was found not guilty of four more charges and the jury could not reach a decision on three additional fraud charges.

She faces up to 20 years in prison for each charge, though it’s likely they would be served concurrently. A sentencing date hasn’t been given and it’s not clear if she will be placed into custody immediately in the meantime. Court watchers have said it’s likely Holmes will appeal.

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Breaking: Mount Everest Is Racist!

Team of nine black climbers attempt to scale Mount Everest to tackle the peak’s ‘intentional lack of access for black people’ and mountaineering’s ‘colonial history’

A team of nine black climbers is attempting to scale Mount Everest to tackle the mountain’s ‘intentional lack of access for black people’ and mountaineering’s ‘colonial history’.

The Full Circle Everest Expedition, which climbing leader Fred Campbell described as ‘the first all black and brown expedition to the highest place on earth’ in an Instagram video, is hoping to change the future of mountaineering.

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Tara Henley: Why I quit the CBC

‘To work at the CBC in the current climate is to embrace cognitive dissonance and to abandon journalistic integrity’

For months now, I’ve been getting complaints about the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, where I’ve worked as a TV and radio producer, and occasional on-air columnist, for much of the past decade.

People want to know why, for example, non-binary Filipinos concerned about a lack of LGBT terms in Tagalog is an editorial priority for the CBC, when local issues of broad concern go unreported. Or why our pop culture radio show’s coverage of the Dave Chappelle Netflix special failed to include any of the legions of fans, or comics, that did not find it offensive. Or why, exactly, taxpayers should be funding articles that scold Canadians for using words such as “brainstorm” and “lame.”

As bad as we thought.

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Theranos jury returns to deliberations after deadlocking on three counts

The jury weighing fraud charges against Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes told the court it is unable to reach a unanimous verdict on three of the 11 criminal counts she faces, according to a note from the panel read aloud in court on Monday morning.

Jurors in the high-profile Silicon Valley trial had been deliberating for seven days after a trial that chronicled the missteps of the now-defunct blood testing startup. Over the course of 15 weeks, federal prosecutors called 29 witnesses, outlining missteps and alleged fraud Holmes committed during her 15-year reign as CEO.

In response to the note, US district judge Edward Davila gave the jury what is called an Allen charge, encouraging them to deliberate further.

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China’s Hostile South Pacific Takeover

This October, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) convened, via video link, the first foreign ministerial conference with nearly 20 Pacific Island states. On December 3, the Chinese quickly followed up this initiative by establishing “The China-Pacific Island Countries Reserve of Emergency Supplies.”

China’s diplomatic offensive in the South Pacific suggests yet another effort to replace the US as the world’s primary superpower and install its authoritarian values instead.

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Taliban pour 3,000 litres of alcohol into Kabul canal amid crackdown

A team of Afghan intelligence agents poured about 3,000 litres of liquor into a canal in Kabul, the country’s spy agency has said, as the new Taliban authorities crack down on the sale of alcohol.

Video footage released by the General Directorate of Intelligence showed its agents pouring alcohol stored in barrels into the canal after seizing it during a raid in the capital.

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$29,000 for an average used car? Would-be buyers are aghast

DETROIT (AP) — A couple of months ago, a woman paid a visit to Jeff Schrier’s used car lot in Omaha, Nebraska. She was on a tight budget, she said, and was desperate for a vehicle to commute to work.

She was shown three cars priced at her limit, roughly $7,500. Schrier said the woman was stunned.

″‘That’s what I get for $7,500? ’” he recalled her saying. The vehicles had far more age or mileage on them than she had expected for something to replace a car that had been totaled in a crash.

The woman eventually settled on a 2013 Toyota Scion with a whopping 160,000 miles on it. Schrier isn’t sure he made any profit on the deal. “We just helped her out,” he said.

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Democrats Look To Primary Biden In 2024: ‘Deeply Unpopular,’ ‘Old As S***,’ ‘Largely Been Ineffective’

Progressive Democrats will reportedly look to primary President Joe Biden in 2024 as dissatisfaction with the president grows within the party.

Politico reported that some in the party are now talking about treating him like former President Jimmy Carter, who was challenged in a primary in 1980.

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Secret Commandos with Shoot-to-Kill Authority Were at the Capitol Riot

On Sunday, January 3, the heads of a half-dozen elite government special operations teams met in Quantico, Virginia, to go over potential threats, contingencies, and plans for the upcoming Joint Session of Congress. The meeting, and the subsequent deployment of these shadowy commandos on January 6, has never before been revealed.

h/t SP

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