Musical Interlude

New study suggests conservatives are no more fearful or threat-sensitive than liberals

New research casts doubt on the theory that politically conservative people are generally more sensitive to negative and threatening information than liberals. While previous studies have indicated that conservatives have stronger responses to negative stimuli, the new research provides evidence that whether conservatives are more or less sensitive to threats is dependent on the context.

The findings appear in the British Journal of Psychology.

“For several decades, the dominant narrative has been that political conservatives are generally more sensitive to negative information (i.e. more fearful or threat-sensitive) than liberals. Conservatives are also perceived to be less open-minded, less exploratory and more cautious. As a consequence, conservatives tend to form more negative attitudes than liberals,” said study author Michael Edem Fiagbenu, a doctoral researcher at Friedrich Schiller University of Jena in Germany.

“However, most of the past research, explicitly or implicitly, used mostly physically threatening stimuli (e.g., terrorism, crime or food) to test the relationship between political views and sensitivity to negative information. We were therefore keen on verifying these past findings.

The Director General of WHO doesn’t have a medical degree

Yes, really

Houston Mayor Pleads with Criminals to ‘Chill’ Until Coronavirus Pandemic Over

“Crooks, criminals, you chill.”

Coronavirus and PA financial priorities

The amount the PA is paying terrorists this month could buy them 387,143 Coronavirus test kits or 465 ventilators instead

Netflix series “Messiah” canceled after charges of “subtextual anti-Islamic sentiment”

“Subtextual.” That means you won’t notice them unless you’re a paranoid Leftist or Muslim authoritarian who wants to use claims of victimhood to gain total control over the public discourse.

Mahmoud Abbas: IDF soldiers are spreading coronavirus in the West Bank

We should make peace with these people already

VIDEO: Cuomo brothers shit show, part #2

“You’re a great interviewer, by the way”

Canada keeps up costly campaign for UN Security Council seat amid COVID-19 crisis

To help secure a seat, Canada be expected to give ‘several hundred million’ to the African Union for peacekeeping and increase its foreign aid for COVID-19

MPs take a pay raise while raising your taxes during a crisis

Bend over, bitches

De Blasio says not “time to look backwards” at his Wuhan coronavirus failures

At critical times, de Blasio and his key administrators advised New Yorkers to disregard warnings and to go to parades and festivals, and now New York City is the nation’s hotspot for infections.

 

Chinese Markets Reopen — And They Still Sell Bats, Dogs And Cats

Live animals are still for sale in Chinese food markets that reopened after the country recently declared victory over coronavirus.

Cages full of cats and dogs waiting for slaughter and the unsanitary preparation of animals is again reportedly a common sight in Chinese food markets, often called wet-markets, according to in-country correspondents with the Daily Mail.

King Of Thailand Isolates From Coronavirus — With A Harem Of 20 Concubines

If you’re going to isolate to avoid catching SARS-CoV-2, you might as well do it with 20 women.

That’s what Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn, also known as Rama X, has reportedly done. He has booked the entire Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl with “special permission” to break the lockdown in the Alpine resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany, The Independent said.

“The 67-year-old king’s entourage included a ‘harem’ of 20 concubines and numerous servants, reported German tabloid Bild. It is unclear if his four wives are living in the hotel with the rest of the group.”

Although hotels in the region have been closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, “a spokesperson for the local district council said the Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl was an exception because ‘the guests are a single, homogenous group of people with no fluctuation.’ However, 119 members of the entourage had been reportedly sent back to Thailand on suspicions they contracted the highly contagious respiratory disease,” The Independent reported.

The Thai people aren’t too happy with their king.

Suspected SARS virus and flu samples found in luggage: FBI report describes China’s ‘biosecurity risk’

In late November 2018, just over a year before the first coronavirus case was identified in Wuhan, China, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at Detroit Metro Airport stopped a Chinese biologist with three vials labeled “Antibodies” in his luggage.

The biologist told the agents that a colleague in China had asked him to deliver the vials to a researcher at a U.S. institute. After examining the vials, however, customs agents came to an alarming conclusion.

“Inspection of the writing on the vials and the stated recipient led inspection personnel to believe the materials contained within the vials may be viable Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) materials,” says an unclassified FBI tactical intelligence report obtained by Yahoo News.

The report, written by the Chemical and Biological Intelligence Unit of the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate (WMDD), does not give the name of the Chinese scientist carrying the suspected SARS and MERS samples, or the intended recipient in the U.S. But the FBI concluded that the incident, and two other cases cited in the report, were part of an alarming pattern.

“The Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate assesses foreign scientific researchers who transport undeclared and undocumented biological materials into the United States in their personal carry-on and/or checked luggage almost certainly present a US biosecurity risk,” reads the report. “The WMDD makes this assessment with high confidence based on liaison reporting with direct access.”

The report, which came out more than two months before the World Health Organization learned of a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan that turned out to be COVID-19, appears to be part of a larger FBI concern about China’s involvement with scientific research in the U.S. While the report refers broadly to foreign researchers, all three cases cited involve Chinese nationals.

VIDEO: CBS News Caught Using Footage from an Italian Hospital to Describe Conditions in New York City

The situation in New York isn’t bad enough for “journalists”

Police disperse hundreds of Jewish Taliban from synagogues in Israel

Extremists in radical neighborhoods such as Mea Shearim have openly flouted social-distancing orders and continued to congregate for prayer services, weddings and funerals, leading to heightened police action in recent days.

UK Believes China Might Have 40 Times More COVID-19 Cases Than They Admit

“Johnson has been warned by scientific advisers that China’s officially declared statistics on the number of cases of coronavirus could be ‘downplayed by a factor of 15 to 40 times.”

Singapore court upholds law criminalizing sex between men

The Supreme Court of Singapore upheld a law that criminalizes sex between men, dismissing three separate appeals claiming that the legislation was unconstitutional.

Two lawyers involved in the hearings reported the ruling on Monday, according to Reuters.

The decision comes after a series of challenges last year to Singapore’s controversial gay sex law, which has its roots in the country’s British colonial era.

According to their lawyers, the applicants had argued that Section 377A, a rarely implemented law, under which a man found to have committed an act of “gross indecency” with another man could be imprisoned for up to two years, is unconstitutional.

The law does not apply to lesbians.

Chiropractors told to remove posts claiming they boost immune system and prevent COVID-19

There’s no scientific evidence that chiropractic care can boost your immune system, but that hasn’t stopped some chiropractors from touting the practice as a tool to prevent infection from the novel coronavirus that has caused the COVID-19 pandemic.

The problem is so widespread that one Ontario man has filed at least 34 complaints against chiropractic clinics in the province alone in the past few weeks.

“As soon as there is public fear to exploit, these practitioners are really quick to get on message and promote this type of misinformation for their own profit,” said Ryan Armstrong, who runs an independent non-profit called Bad Science Watch.

Suspected, confirmed COVID-19 patients filling roughly 1 in 4 Ontario ICU beds

More than 430 patients in Ontario hospital intensive care beds have either tested positive for COVID-19 or are suspected to have the coronavirus, a far higher number than officials have revealed.

FDA Gives Emergency Authorization of Hydroxychloroquine Use

The use of the drug — often paired with azithromycin — has not yet been proven in clinical trials to be effective against the disease. However, given reported success in a growing number of small, non-randomized studies; as well as testimonials from doctors and patients about the use of the “off-label” drug regimen, doctors are said to be prescribing the treatment to patients who are severely ill. Anecdotally, many doctors are taking it prophylactically.

Coronavirus: How “Progressive” Ideology Led to Catastrophe in Spain

The Spanish government, comprised of a coalition of Socialists and Communists, is facing legal action for alleged negligence in its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The government is accused of putting its narrow ideological interests ahead of the safety and wellbeing of the public, and, in so doing, unnecessarily worsening the humanitarian crisis now gripping Spain, currently the second-worst afflicted country in Europe after Italy.

A class action lawsuit filed on March 19 accuses the Spanish government — highly ideological by any standard, as the Communist coalition partner, Podemos, was founded with seed money from the Venezuelan government — of knowingly endangering public safety by encouraging the public to participate in more than 75 feminist marches, held across Spain on March 8, to mark International Women’s Day. The nationwide rallies were aimed at protesting the government’s perennial bugbear: the alleged patriarchy of Western civilization.

Hundreds of thousands of people participated in those marches, and several high-profile attendees — including Spain’s deputy prime minister, as well as the prime minister’s wife and mother, and also the wife of the leader of Podemos — have since tested positive for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). It is unknown how many people were infected by the coronavirus as a result of the rallies.

The lawsuit, involving more than 5,000 plaintiffs, accuses Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his representatives in Spain’s 17 autonomous regions of “prevarication” — a Spanish legal term that means lying and deceiving. The government was allegedly so determined to ensure that the feminist marches took place on March 8 that it deliberately downplayed warnings about the pandemic.

As the rest of Europe lives under lockdown, Sweden keeps calm and carries on

If there’s been a fall in custom at the Nyhavn restaurant, it’s hardly noticeable. Groups of drinkers huddle under heat lamps out on Möllevång Square, the centre of nightlife in the Swedish city of Malmö, seemingly oblivious to the virus spreading through Europe.

“It’s the Swedish trust in government,” says Elias Billman, 22. “No one told me you have to stay home right now,” agrees his friend, Fredrik Glückman, a history student at Lund University. “We’re not in quarantine. And as soon as we hear from our government that we have to stay in, like you do in Britain, then we will do it.”

Netherlands recalls 600,000 face masks from China due to low quality

Dutch officials have recalled 600,000 face masks manufactured in China because they did not meet quality standards, the government’s health ministry said on Saturday.

 

No 14-day isolation for some healthcare workers returning to Canada Social Sharing

Healthcare staff who recently returned from a trip outside of the country, but are deemed “critical” to helping patients, are allowed to work without the recommended isolation period of 14 days.

Windsor Regional Hospital (WRH) currently has more than 300 employees who have returned from a trip outside of Canada within the last two weeks amid the coronavirus pandemic. On Monday, about 30 of them were at work interacting with other staff and patients, exempt from the mandatory self-quarantine period of two weeks. Those employees aren’t ill or showing any symptoms, the hospital tells CBC News.

“If we don’t have them, patients will suffer,” said WRH CEO David Musyj. “So it’s balancing that risk.”

As criticism mounts, Mexican government rejects more aggressive fight against coronavirus

Resisting calls to amp up the fight against the coronavirus, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his top aides continued to defend a strategy they say balances public health needs with potential damage to the country’s faltering economy.

“We don’t want to have a cure that is costlier in social terms than the actual illness,” Hugo López-Gatell, the country’s sub-secretary of health, told reporters Thursday. “We have said many times that there are some measures that don’t have a technical basis, such as closing borders and airports.”

Hamilton woman fakes having coronavirus to get out of McDonald’s shift, gets arrested

Dumb skank

Feds seize 100 fraudulent COVID-19 test kits shipped from China, addressed to Portland man with prior ties to cannabis industry

Federal prosecutors in Oregon are pursuing their first case of alleged coronavirus fraud: Authorities this month intercepted a shipment of 100 unauthorized COVID-19 test kits sent from China to a Portland man, they say.

The man who ordered the package of kits, at 50 cents each, is a former senior vice president of a now-defunct cannabis oil company, federal agents wrote in an affidavit for a search warrant signed by a judge on Wednesday.

Canadian scumbag of the day

A Calgary Subway location came under fire this week after offering free medical masks with the purchase of two sandwiches.

Nurses across Alberta have already been working to gain access to N95 masks, with about 30 nurses refusing to swab patients until they’re provided with personal protective equipment.

Canadians with COVID-19 symptoms to be denied boarding domestic flights, trains

Uh, they’ve been allowed to travel until now? Cheezus

Kennedy Center Tells Musicians It Will Stop Paying Them Hours After $25 Million Bailout Is Signed

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts informed members of the National Symphony Orchestra that they would no longer be paid just hours after President Trump signed a $25 million taxpayer bailout for the cultural center, according to an email obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Nearly 100 musicians will no longer receive paychecks after April 3, according to an email from the orchestra’s Covid-19 Advisory Committee.

“The Covid-19 Advisory Committee was broadsided today during our conversation with [Kennedy Center President] Deborah Rutter,” the email says. “Ms. Rutter abruptly informed us today that the last paycheck for all musicians and librarians will be April 3 and that we will not be paid again until the Center reopens.”

The email went out to members on Friday evening, shortly after President Trump signed the $2 trillion CARES Act, a stimulus package intended to provide relief to people left unemployed by the coronavirus pandemic. Congress included $25 million in taxpayer funding for the Kennedy Center, a provision that raised eyebrows from both Democrats and Republicans, but ultimately won support from President Trump. The bailout was designed to “cover operating expenses required to ensure the continuity of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and its affiliates, including for employee compensation and benefits, grants, contracts, payments for rent or utilities, fees for artists or performers,” according to the law’s text. The arts organization decided that the relief did not extend to members of the National Symphony Orchestra, its house orchestra.

“Everyone should proceed as if their last paycheck will be April 3”

Urns in Wuhan far exceed death toll, raising more questions about China’s tally

A single mortuary has had 5,000 urns delivered over the past two days, double the city’s reported coronavirus death toll

Fatah: Honoring terrorists is more important than stopping Coronavirus

In what was probably the largest gathering this week anywhere in the world, since self-isolation is the key to defeating the Coronavirus, Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Movement organized a celebration with “thousands” of Palestinians crammed together to honor a terrorist released from prison.

Muslim leaders of Ghana blame coronavirus on ‘transgender and lesbianism’

“It is important for us to acknowledge our sins against the world,” the Muslim Mission said, “especially the most abominable acts such as homosexuality, lesbianism, transgender, destruction of water bodies and forests.”

Repenting for the “sin” of “homosexuality, lesbianism, transgender” will “bring us Allah’s mercies and intervention in fighting the pandemic in Ghana and the rest of the world”, the Islamic organisation added.

VIDEO: B.C. Imam: We Must Not Ally With Jews, Christians, Infidels – This Matter Is More Dangerous Than COVID-19

Click the image

Sheikh Younus Kathrada

Pro-Iran cleric in Iraq says same-sex marriage caused coronavirus

The firebrand Iraqi Shi’ite cleric leader Muqtada al-Sadr on Saturday said legalization of same-sex marriage caused the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

“One of the most appalling things that have caused this epidemic is the legalization of same-sex marriage,” al-Sadr tweeted, adding, “Hence, I call on all governments to repeal this law immediately and without any hesitation.”

How China Built a Twitter Propaganda Machine Then Let It Loose on Coronavirus

ProPublica analyzed thousands of fake and hijacked Twitter accounts to understand how covert Chinese propaganda spreads around the globe.

Pali savages ain’t gonna let no stinkin’ virus stop’em

Gazans fire projectile into Israel breaking lull in violence amid virus outbreak

Mystery In Wuhan: Recovered Coronavirus Patients Test Negative … Then Positive

Go figure out what’s true

Meme of the day

Liberals get unlimited spending authority for six months

On Wednesday morning, the government, with the unanimous consent of the Opposition parties, passed legislation giving sweeping powers to Finance Minister Bill Morneau, including the power to unilaterally spend and borrow without parliamentary approval until September 2020.

Tweet of the day

Jew hating NGO of the day: ActionAid

ActionAid is an “international organisation, working with over 15 million people in 45 countries.” Its head office is in Johannesburg, South Africa.

CBC Host Carol Off Uses Corona Virus to Tacitly Criticize Israel

Carol Off, the host of CBC Radio’s “As It Happens” program, is known for her animus towards Israel. It was not surprising to see her show use the Coronva virus pandemic as a pretext to tacitly criticize the Jewish state.

Chinese Distributed Faulty Coronavirus Test Kits Throughout Europe, Reports Indicate

Thousands of rapid test kits purchased from China by European countries have proven to be defective, according to local reports.

In Spain, which currently has the fourth-highest number of coronavirus cases in the world, the government purchased 640,000 rapid test kits from China and South Korea as it fights the pandemic. Experts soon discovered, however, that the tests it purchased from Chinese company Bioeasy were only correctly identifying coronavirus cases 30 percent of the time, according to Spain’s El Pais.

Hospitality Union Demands Dues From Members Left Unemployed By Coronavirus

A hospitality union is still demanding dues payments from workers left unemployed by the coronavirus, threatening to cut off health insurance benefits for those who fall behind on payments.

UNITE HERE Local 11, which represents more than 30,000 hotel employees in Southern California and Arizona, has continued to request dues from laid off workers as the pandemic halts travel across the country. The union on Tuesday sent payment reminders to members via text message, telling many unemployed workers, “It is critical for you to keep paying your dues so that we can keep fighting.”

The ADL wants bailout money

Essential kapo libs

Organizer of Holocaust-denying cartoon comp has new theme: coronavirus

Iranian propagandist Masoud Shojaei-Tabatabaei, who has previously organized two competitions mocking the Holocaust, has launched another peddling coronavirus conspiracy theories.

I’m guessing libs won’t be “believing her”

‘He Penetrated Me With His Fingers’: Joe Biden Accused of Sexual Assault

TIME’S UP SAID IT COULD NOT FUND A #METOO ALLEGATION AGAINST JOE BIDEN, CITING ITS NONPROFIT STATUS AND HIS PRESIDENTIAL RUN

Joe Biden Said He Believes All Women. Does He Believe Tara Reade?

Peter Navarro blasts ‘Swamp Creature’ opponents of ‘Buy American’ order

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro is hitting back at a group of Big Pharma lobbyists, medical organizations, and free trade groups for opposing President Trump’s proposed ‘Buy American’ executive order reshoring the medical supply chain.

Navarro, the assistant to the president for trade and manufacturing, told The Spectator that Big Pharma’s opposition to the executive order, which would require government agencies to purchase pharmaceutical products made in the US, because it wants to ‘preserve its offshore oligopoly’.