Friday, August 06, 2021
Australia’s Covid Crisis: Victoria Enters 6th Lockdown as New South Wales Cases Hit New Record
THE GUARDIAN: Three largest states under strict controls as Delta variant spread worsens and Sydney warned to expect more bad news in coming days
The Australian state of Victoria has entered its sixth lockdown to join the country’s two other largest states under varying degrees of coronavirus restrictions as the Delta variant continues to spread.
Lockdowns have been enforced across the east coast, including Australia’s three largest cities – Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane – putting more than 60% of the country’s 25 million population under strict stay-home orders.
Victoria, which endured one of the world’s longest lockdowns in 2020, began a snap, seven-day lockdown on Thursday in response to an outbreak of unlinked new infections.
The latest round of restrictions include rules that have become wearily familiar to Victorians – including only being allowed to leave home for five reasons, a 5km travel limit for exercise and shopping, and compulsory masks indoors and outdoors – and come only 10 days after the last mini-lockdown ended. » | Martin Farrer | Friday, August 6, 2021
1959 : Coco Chanel "Les femmes sont toujours trop habillées" | Archive INA
Ottolenghi's Potato & Gochujang Braised Eggs
Fünf Dinge, die man über Billigfleisch wissen sollte
Reduce methane or face climate catastrophe, scientists warn »
Opinion: Tucker Carlson Has a New Hero
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Tucker Carlson is only the latest — and most famous — American conservative to find inspiration in the autocratic government of Hungary under Viktor Orban. The Fox News personality is hosting his show, one of the most popular on cable news, from the capital in Budapest and on Saturday will deliver a speech, advertised as “The World According to Tucker Carlson,” to a conference of far-right activists.
To critics, Orban’s Hungary is corrupt, repressive and authoritarian, a place where democracy is little more than window-dressing and the state exists to plunder the public on behalf of a tiny ruling elite. To Carlson, it’s a model for the United States, a showcase for anti-immigrant policies and reactionary cultural politics.
“If you care about Western civilization and democracy and families and the ferocious assault on all three of those things by the leaders of our global institutions,” he told his audience on Monday, “you should know what is happening here right now.”
Carlson is not alone. “Orban’s fans in the West include notable writers at major conservative and right-leaning publications like National Review, the American Conservative and the New York Post,” Zack Beauchamp wrote in a piece for Vox last year. » | Jamelle Bouie, Opinion Columnist | Friday, August 6, 2021
Related video here.
Tammy Duckworth: Tucker Carlson Doesn’t Know What Patriotism Is »
Eintritt in Restaurants und Cafés bald nur noch mit Gesundheitspass
FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG: Die Regelungen zum Gesundheitspass und die Impfpflicht für Gesundheitspersonal können durch das Votum der Richter wie geplant in Kraft treten. Gegen die Pläne waren in ganz Frankreich Menschen auf die Straße gegangen.
Der französische Verfassungsrat hat die Verschärfung der Corona-Restriktionen im Land gebilligt. Die Richter befanden die vom Parlament verabschiedeten Neuregelungen am Donnerstag für verfassungskonform. Die Ausweitung der Regelungen zum Gesundheitspass und die Impfpflicht für Gesundheitspersonal können damit wie geplant am Montag in Kraft treten. Gegen die Pläne hatte es in den vergangenen Wochen in ganz Frankreich Massenproteste gegeben. » | Quelle: AFP | Donnerstag, 5. August 2021
La tech chinoise sous la férule du régime
LE MONDE : La radicalité de la mise au pas du secteur par Pékin interpelle sur la compatibilité de la nature du régime avec le fonctionnement d’une économie de marché.
Editorial du « Monde ». La mise au pas du high-tech chinois par le régime de Xi Jinping n’est pas nouvelle mais elle est en train de prendre une ampleur inédite. Ces derniers jours, les fleurons du secteur ont subi un sérieux tour de vis réglementaire qui a provoqué une vague de défiance parmi les investisseurs internationaux. Alors que ces entreprises promettaient jusque-là des taux de croissance attractifs, l’heure est au doute aujourd’hui. En quelques jours, leur capitalisation boursière s’est effondrée de plusieurs centaines de milliards d’euros.
Les attaques portées contre ces géants chinois de l’Internet sont tous azimuts. Il y a quelques mois, Jack Ma, le fondateur d’Alibaba, le numéro un du commerce électronique, avait déjà subi les foudres du régime, l’obligeant à renoncer brutalement à l’introduction en Bourse d’Ant, sa filiale spécialisée dans les prêts financiers. » | Éditorial | jeudi 5 août 2021
Les abonnements au Monde sont disponibles ici.
Editorial du « Monde ». La mise au pas du high-tech chinois par le régime de Xi Jinping n’est pas nouvelle mais elle est en train de prendre une ampleur inédite. Ces derniers jours, les fleurons du secteur ont subi un sérieux tour de vis réglementaire qui a provoqué une vague de défiance parmi les investisseurs internationaux. Alors que ces entreprises promettaient jusque-là des taux de croissance attractifs, l’heure est au doute aujourd’hui. En quelques jours, leur capitalisation boursière s’est effondrée de plusieurs centaines de milliards d’euros.
Les attaques portées contre ces géants chinois de l’Internet sont tous azimuts. Il y a quelques mois, Jack Ma, le fondateur d’Alibaba, le numéro un du commerce électronique, avait déjà subi les foudres du régime, l’obligeant à renoncer brutalement à l’introduction en Bourse d’Ant, sa filiale spécialisée dans les prêts financiers. » | Éditorial | jeudi 5 août 2021
Les abonnements au Monde sont disponibles ici.
The Truth Behind Tucker Carlson's Disturbing Trip to Hungary
Uruguay to Vote on Whether to Allow Bitcoin to Become Legal Tender
THE RIO TIMES: In his bill, in addition to Bitcoin's use as a means of payment, Uruguayan Senator Sartori proposes the creation of three types of licenses for companies directly related to the country's crypto market.
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - After El Salvador recently made Bitcoin legal tender in the country; Uruguay is now thinking about doing the same.
Uruguayan Senator Juan Sartori has announced a bill to make Bitcoin a legal tender in Uruguay, allowing companies to introduce the cryptocurrency and create specific regulations for the sector.
"Cryptocurrencies are an opportunity to create investment and jobs. Today I presented a globally groundbreaking bill that aims to establish a legitimate, legal and secure use for companies related to the production and commercialization of cryptocurrencies in Uruguay," he said on Twitter. » | The Rio Times | Thursday, August 5, 2021
Further reading for subscribers only. Subscription offers available here.
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - After El Salvador recently made Bitcoin legal tender in the country; Uruguay is now thinking about doing the same.
Uruguayan Senator Juan Sartori has announced a bill to make Bitcoin a legal tender in Uruguay, allowing companies to introduce the cryptocurrency and create specific regulations for the sector.
"Cryptocurrencies are an opportunity to create investment and jobs. Today I presented a globally groundbreaking bill that aims to establish a legitimate, legal and secure use for companies related to the production and commercialization of cryptocurrencies in Uruguay," he said on Twitter. » | The Rio Times | Thursday, August 5, 2021
Further reading for subscribers only. Subscription offers available here.
„Ich liebe Dich so sehr mein Schatz!“
Thursday, August 05, 2021
We Need a Rebirth of the Enlightenment!
Perhaps unbeknownst to us all, we are falling backwards: And as a result, darkness is befalling the world! We need a rebirth of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment ‘mark 2’, if you will.
Each day, we read stories of anti-Semitism, homophobia, confusion of homosexuality with paedophilia and even with bestiality. We also hear of people believing in demons and in eastern Europe and in the Middle East, stories of their ‘exorcism’, and much else dark besides.
In my lifetime, I have seen a seismic shift in values and ideas. In my childhood and early years, I never heard people talk seriously of demons and their power over man. (Yes, ‘man’! I don’t do politically correct jargon if I can help it.) Further, I never heard my parents’ generation talk in such derisory, derogatory terms even about homosexuals, though I feel sure that they probably didn’t understand it or condone their mode of loving. That’s a generational thing. However, it appears that with increased access to higher education, people have become more certain of their ignorance! They speak with certitude about matters they simply don’t understand; they quote the Bible, even though most of them have never read it, still less led a life based on its teachings.
I do not profess to be religious; indeed, I do not wish to be. These days, I prefer to say that I am spiritual. But I have lived my whole life, as best as I have been able to, based on sound Christian principles, as set out by Jesus: not to judge others lest you yourself be judged; not to harm others; not to steal; not to kill and to help others when are where possible.
But these days, it seems that so many people, though ignorant of the core teachings of Christianity, are willing to cast the first stone – the very thing that Jesus Christ Himself told us not to do. So many people live dissolute lives; yet are willing to judge the lifestyles of others, even when they know nothing about those lifestyles they are judging.
It is, perhaps, worth noting that Jesus said nothing—zilch—about homosexual love in his teachings. Upon close examination of Jesus’s teachings in the Bible, precisely nothing is to be found. You’d think if He thought it so important that He would have done so, wouldn’t you? In fact, in the Bible in its entirety, there is very little to be found about homosexuality at all; and NOTHING about homosexuality in its modern understanding. What is to be found, comes not from Christ Himself, but from Paul, for example, who was a convert to Christianity. Paul was previously known as Saul of Tarsus, who had his conversion to Christianity on the road to Damascus. Incidentally, Paul was in a protracted dispute with Jesus’s brother James about how Christianity should develop after Jesus’s death. James, apparently, wanted Christianity to remain close to its Judaic origins. Had James won the dispute, perhaps we’d all be donning phylacteries, or tefillin, when in prayer now! Just as practising Jews do.
What people of yore understood about loving someone of the same sex was very different from what we understand by this attraction today. Indeed, the very term ‘homosexuality’ was coined in recent times. People who lived in Biblical times had no understanding of ‘being gay’ as we understand it.
Now back to the Enlightenment…
The Enlightenment brought with it an ability to put aside superstition and irrational thought. Nowadays, we are losing that ability: so we are reverting to irrational thought!
This pandemic should have shown us all just how fragile life truly is. None of us can be sure of tomorrow. Not one of us! So why can’t we just learn to live together, side by side, in harmony, regardless of skin colour, sexual orientation, nationality, etc. If we are to believe in the Almighty, then one thing is certain: We are all God’s children; and we are just as He created us – with skin colour, eye colour, varying degrees of abilities and intelligence, and yes, sexual orientation, too.
To question God’s judgment is itself a manifestation of lack of religiosity. It is tantamount to questioning God’s wisdom. Further, how can we worship God and ask for and expect His mercy when we cannot ourselves show mercy to others? He who expects God’s mercy must, of necessity, show mercy to others. Not to do so, if one is a believer, is asking for God to judge you too – and be merciless! We are all God’s children; and He alone is our judge. The Day of Judgment will come soon enough! And I speak as a spiritual person rather than a committed religious one. I am simply applying Christian teachings as I was taught them and as I understand them. If I have erred, then the errors are mine alone.
But one thing is sure: The world would be a whole lot better and more peaceful place to live in if we adopted one simple principle, which is in accord with Christian teachings: Live and let live!
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© Mark Alexander
Behind the Scenes at a French Bakery
Audrey Hepburn Interviewed on a French TV Show Entitled "Du côté de chez Fred" | 22nd May, 1989
C'était une femme si belle, élégante et sereine ! Elle était tout simplement merveilleuse ! – Mark
Audrey Hepburn... by Her Son
When I Need You - Julio Iglesias
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