It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, March 13, 2021
BUDDHIST NATIONALIST FASCISM
Sri Lanka announces plan to ban burka and close Islamic schools
A Sri Lankan Muslim woman, right in black attire,
walks in a busy street of Colombo, Sri Lanka (Eranga Jayawardena/AP) SAT, 13 MAR, 2021 -
BHARATHA MALLAWARACHI, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sri Lanka announced plans to ban the wearing of burkas and said it would close more than 1,000 Islamic schools known as madrassas, citing national security.
The country’s minister of public security Sarath Weerasekara said he signed a paper on Friday seeking the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers to ban burkas — outer garments that cover the body and face worn by some Muslim women.
“The burka has a direct impact on national security,” Mr Weerasekara told a ceremony at a Buddhist temple on Saturday, without elaborating.
“In our early days, we had a lot of Muslim friends, but Muslim women and girls never wore the burka,” Mr Weerasekara said, according to video footage sent by his ministry.
“It is a sign of religious extremism that came about recently.
“We will definitely ban it.”
A woman walks in a street in Colombo (Eranga Jayawardena/AP) The wearing of burkas was temporarily banned in 2019 after the Easter Sunday bomb attacks on churches and hotels in Sri Lanka that killed more than 260 people.
NO PROOF
Two local Muslim groups that had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group have been blamed for the attacks at six locations — two Roman Catholic churches, one Protestant church and three top hotels.
Mr Weerasekara also said the government will ban more than 1,000 madrassas, saying they are not registered with the authorities and do not follow the national education policy.
The decision to ban burkas and madrassas is the latest move affecting the Indian Ocean island nation’s minority Muslims.
Muslims make up about 9% of the 22 million people in Sri Lanka, where Buddhists account for more than 70% of the population.
Ethnic minority Tamils, who are mainly Hindus, comprise about 15% of the population.
THE BUDDHIST STATE CONDUCTED A FORTY YEAR WAR AGAINST THE NORTHERN TAMIL
FOX'S Wallace: Kudlow 'seems to have found religion' on government spending
A debate over the GOP’s stance on the national deficit played out in real time on Fox News on Friday as host Chris Wallace called out former White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow over his criticism of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief package.
Kudlow had torn into Biden’s legislation, warning it would “kill the economy” because of what he said would be an inevitable rise in the national deficit.
“Larry Kudlow, when he was working in the Trump White House and passing huge tax cuts and huge spending plans, including multitrillion-dollar bills for COVID relief, there wasn’t so much concern about deficit and debt,” Wallace said Friday. “He seems to have found religion now that he’s back out of the government.”
The rebuke was the latest indication of an intraparty feud over how much to prioritize the deficit.
Republicans supported big spending measures during the Trump administration that helped fuel a rise in the deficit, which increased by about 36 percent during his administration.
However, lawmakers have indicated that they will oppose plans under Biden out of concerns for the deficit. That effort was put into action for the first time as the White House pushed its coronavirus relief package.
“I think that’s kind of getting back to our DNA. ... I think spending, entitlement reform, growth and the economy are all things that we’re going to have to be focused on next year, and, yeah, I would expect you’ll hear a lot more about that,” Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican, said in November.
IRONIC
Afghanistan to participate in separate US, Russia-sponsored peace conferences
The Afghan government will participate in two separate peace conferences arranged by the U.S. and Russia as negotiations between the government in Kabul and the Taliban stall.
The first conference, backed by Russia, will take place on Thursday, while the U.S.-sponsored summit will take place in Turkey next month.
“The Afghan government will take part in both the Moscow and Turkey conferences,” Hamdullah Mohib, the country’s national security council advisor, told reporters in Kabul, according to Reuters.
The Afghan National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.
The announcement comes as talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, which have been backed by the U.S., fail to produce a final peace agreement.
The Taliban has halted attacks on U.S. troops as part of a peace deal negotiated during the Trump administration, but strikes against Afghan forces have continued.
The U.S. is staring down a May 1 deadline for foreign troops to withdraw from Afghanistan, though officials have indicated that the withdrawal will not move forward if the violence continues.
“I urge all parties to choose the path towards peace. The violence must decrease, now,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said last month.
“I told our allies that no matter what the outcome of our review, the United States will not undertake a hasty or disorderly withdrawal from Afghanistan,” he added, referring to talks with NATO allies. “There will be no surprises. We will consult each other, consult together and decide together and act together.”
The Taliban has threatened to renew attacks on American troops if they are not gone by May.
SPECULATION FEVER DREAMS
So you spent millions on an NFT. Here's what you actually bought.
On March 11, 2021, Christie's, the 255-year-old auction house, made international news with the $69 million sale of a non-fungible token (NFT). The transaction dwarfed previous head-turning blockchain-art sales, and rode a wave of coverage debating the merits and environmentalcosts of this relatively new art form.
But what, exactly, did the pseudonymous Christie's bidder MetaKovan actually buy?
The artwork the NFT represents, Beeple's "Everydays: The First 500 Days," exists first and foremost in the digital space, and is freely available for everyone to see online. Christie's even tweeted a picture of it. So it's not the artwork itself or, at least, not only the artwork that was purchased.
No, the reality of the Beeple NFT is something else.
We asked the company who minted the $69-million NFT in question to explain what's going on here. We also spoke with a former smart contract auditor and artist exploring NFTs in an effort to get to the bottom of what, on the surface, seems like a relatively straightforward question:
What are you really buying when you buy an NFT?
The answer is both simpler and much more complicated than you might imagine.
It's all in the metadata
When people talk about owning an NFT, they often describe it in terms of owning an original painting. Sure, the argument goes, there might be millions of copies of that painting hanging in dorm rooms around the world. But if you own the associated NFT, then you own the original piece digitally signed by the creator.
This is, in fact, the argument made by MakersPlace — the company which both minted and published Beeple's record-setting NFT, and, like Rarible and Foundation, serves as a form of digital gallery as well as NFT shop.
"There are hundreds of thousands of prints and reproductions of the Mona Lisa, but since they are not the original 1/1 Mona Lisa created by Da Vinci himself they are far less valued," MakersPlace CEO Dannie Chu said over email. "The same principles are applied to NFTs, you can copy and paste an image but only the original, digitally signed by the artist, holds value."
Beeple's "Everydays: The First 500 Days" NFT is the most recent, and perhaps most notable, example of this idea in practice.
"The buyer of this artwork is purchasing an 'NFT' (non-fungible token) which contains the high resolution digital artwork file itself, as well as an indelible signature of the artist and all transactions associated with the artwork — basically digital proof of authenticity and uniqueness," Chu said.
In other words, MetaKovan got a bunch of metadata in addition to the art. The former, it turns out, may be where the real value lies.
According to Lee Azzarello, a former Ethereum smart contract security auditor and artist looking into NFTs, that's partially because the NFTs themselves, in many cases, don't actually contain the art in question — i.e., the original or a copy. The item represented by the NFT — whether that be a painting, GIF, song, or book — may not always be encoded into the Ethereum blockchain itself.
Often, those items live somewhere else entirely.
"What [an NFT purchaser is] becoming the owner of is a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain that has some metadata in it," he explained. "And that metadata points to the name of the work, a longer description of that work, and what's called the [Uniform Resource Identifier]."
The ERC-721 Non-Fungible Token Standard, which describes in technical terms how NFTs work, notes that the URI in question "may point to a JSON file," a format which stores and transports data.
On March 10, Foundation minted a Grumpy Cat NFT. Two days later, that NFT of the famed image of a grumpy cat sold for 44.20 ether — worth around $77,000 at the time.
Here's what that tens of thousands of dollars of metadata looks like in practice.
IMAGE: SCREENSHOT / FOUNDATION
Or, to put it another way, Azzarello said most NFTs are "like directions to the museum."
So where, to continue the analogy, is the museum that typically holds the "original" art in question? In the case of many NFTs, as well as with Beeple's "Everydays: The First 500 Days," the museum is somewhere in the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). This is a protocol which allows for "immutable, permanent links in transactions — time stamping and securing content without having to put the data itself on-chain."
In other words, it's a way to link files to blockchain transactions without having to put those files on the blockchain itself.
Chu explained that this safeguards the investment. So even if down the line MakersPlace stops paying its bills or goes out of business, that doesn't mean the end for the NFTs it minted.
"Because the artwork is hosted on a decentralized file system (IPFS), the artwork is hosted by multiple computers and users around the world, including MakersPlace," Chu said. "If MakersPlace no longer exists, as long as there is another online host to serve this file, the file will continue to live on."
OK, so...
That brings us back to the original question:
Whatis an NFT?
Technical aspects aside, Azzarello said that, essentially, "it is a transaction among a number of parties to agree on ownership."
And that ownership is of metadata which points to a file — often in the form of a URI. And that file is the art associated with the NFT.
Which leaves us with another question:
Are NFTs dumb?
"I don't think it's any more dumb than a business like Christie's," Azzarello said. "I think it is using a techno-utopian vision to take a business like Christie's and put the financialization of that business onto a blockchain."
And what of the environmental costs of NFTs? As far as Azzarello's concerned, critics are "being pretty hyperbolic about how the art market will singlehandedly melt the planet."
He pointed to a blog post by the artist Sterling Crispin titled "NFTs and Crypto Art: The Sky is not Falling." Crispin (who, it should be noted, makes NFTs) argues, in part, that "Attention is a finite resource, and outrage is a type of attention. We should focus our efforts where it actually matters." In Crispin's mind, what actually matters are fossil fuel subsidies, coal power plants, and fracking.
All that aside, MakersPlace believes NFTs provide real value to artists and collectors alike.
"This movement offers an opportunity to interact with a novel medium of artwork in a personal, new way; be the sole or one of the few owners of a coveted digital creation; experience tremendous financial gain on the secondary market; and of course, to support and join the next major art movement," Chu added.
It also offers buyers the opportunity to own their very own chunk of metadata — which, admittedly, can be some pretty important stuff — that's authenticated by the Ethereum blockchain.
Whether this is an opportunity that those currently sitting on the NFT sidelines will ultimately value is an altogether different question.
Police in Moscow Raid Pro-Democracy Forum, Dozens Detained By Charles Maynes Updated March 13, 2021
NAVALNY IS PUTIN'S PUPPET PROVACTUER TO GET DISSIENTS BUSTED
MOSCOW - Russian police detained more than 180 people Saturday at a conference of independent municipal deputies in Moscow — accusing participants of violating the law by attending a pro-democracy forum with ties to an organization the government has labeled “undesirable.”
“The Forum of Independent Deputies,” organized by a group called United Democrats, brought together municipal deputies — and prospective candidates— from across the country to discuss strategies for Russia’s fall election season.
The day’s first panel — a session titled “Can Change Begin at the Municipal Level?” — was concluding as police entered the conference room and announced the proceedings were over.
Russian police detain people at a conference of independent municipal deputies in Moscow, March 13, 2021. (Ricardo Montanana)
Authorities said the event was sponsored by Open Russia, an organization they labeled “undesirable” in 2017 for its financial ties to the exiled Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
A law claims to target foreign NGOs whose activities threaten the foundations of Russia's constitutional system, defense or national security.
Keynote speakers — including Andrei Pivovarov, executive director of Open Russia, former Yekaterinburg Mayor Evgeny Roizman, and Moscow local government representative Ilya Yashin — were quickly detained. Within an hour, scores of police arrested the entire assembled crowd, including several journalists.
“This is nonsense,” said Pivovarov, who noted the forum was little more than an educational exchange. “Nothing like this has ever happened before.”
“If they wanted to prevent us from holding the event, they had plenty of opportunities,” he later continued in a video posting from the back of a police van. “Their goal was to show everyone who came that you should be afraid to get involved in politics.”
Kafkaesque
“Franz Kafka would probably envy what’s happening in our country. He couldn’t possibly have had enough imagination” said opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, in a reference to the Bohemian novelist who chronicled the absurd.
“I never seen a whole conference arrested,” he marveled as officers closed in.
Russia’s TASS News Agency later reported that police subsequently accused participants of violating public gathering restrictions due to the coronavirus — despite masks and gloves being mandatory for entry to the event.
Monitoring group OVD-INFO later released a list of those detained and placed their number at more than 180.
The arrests were the latest in a string of detentions of more than 10,000 opposition figures and activists — including the sentencing of opposition leader Alexey Navalny to about two-and-a-half years in prison for alleged past parole violations last month.
Navalny had been among those leading efforts to chip away at the Kremlin-backed United Russia’s majority in local state parliaments — where polls show cratering support for the ruling party.
Indeed, during local elections in 2019, grass roots campaigns — and a Navalny led strategy of so-called “Smart Voting” aimed at coalescing votes against pro-Kremlin candidates — saw opposition candidates make significant gains.
“Today we saw once again that the Kremlin is terribly afraid of municipal deputies and the very idea of local governance,” wrote Yulia Galiamina, a local Moscow deputy who won her seat in 2019 and was set to participate in the forum before she was detained.
She added that among those supporting the initiative are “real people who want to live a good life in their own country and choose their representatives.”
Actress protests naked at France's Oscars ceremony over Covid arts support
Actress Corinne Masiero, 57, took to the stage at France's equivalent of the Oscars wearing a fake donkey skin and a blood stained dress to present the award for the best costume, before undressing.
The actress had "no culture no future" written on her torso, and "give us our art back, Jean" on her back, in a direct address to French Prime Minister Jean Castex. Cinemas and theaters have been closed since October 30, as announced two days earlier by French President Emmanuel Macron.
Protesters have this month occupied several large theaters across the country to demand "a reopening of cultural places, in compliance with health rules" according to a press release by students at the National Theater of Strasbourg.
"Without political will, we won't be able to preserve our system, which is so virtuous. My children -- who are 6 and 8, wonderful age -- can go to Zara but not the cinema... it's incomprehensible," said producer and director Stephane Demoustier, referring to the high street clothes chain.
France's coronavirus death toll reached 90,146 on Friday, according to figures released by the French public health agency, as the government raised the alarm over rising pressure on hospitals in the Paris region.
Another 316 deaths were reported in hospitals nationwide on Friday, compared with 265 on Thursday, figures showed.
Neymar Jr. charged in Brazil for trying to bribe LGBT activist
Brasilia, Mar 13 (Prensa Latina) An activist from the LGBTI+ National Alliance accused Brazilian soccer player Neymar Jr. of trying to bribe him to withdraw a complaint accepted in June 2020 by the Sao Paulo Prosecutor's Office, it was confirmed on Saturday.
Brasil de Fato's website assures that Agripino Magalhaes, an activist of that group of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transvestites, transsexuals and transgenders (LGBT+), revealed that a representative of the sports star at the Paris Saint-Germain Football club sought him out and offered him 350,000 reais (about 63,000 dollars) to withdraw the charges.
The case became an investigation by the Civil Police in Itaim Bibi, south of Sao Paulo, for alleged death threats against the activist.
Such intimidations began, according to Magalhaes, after he filed charges at the Public Ministry against Neymar Jr. and friends on June 8.
The friends suggest that Ramos should be tortured with a broomstick and Neymar calls him a ladybug, alluding to his bisexuality.
Magalhaes, who is an alternate state legislator for the Brazilian Socialist Party in Sao Paulo, decided to report the athlete for homophobia.
jg/iff/car/ocs
Monetary overhaul makes progress in Cuba despite adversities
Havana, Mar 13 (Prensa Latina) The monetary overhaul in Cuba is making progress despite the situation caused by the tightening of the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States, ministers said.
An assessment of the two and a half months of implementation of this transformation in Cuba's economic and social life, which has implied removing the monetary and exchange duality, establishing a unique exchange rate at 24 pesos (CUP) per US dollar, implementing a general pay reform and eliminating undue gratuities and excessive subsidies, makes them evident.
Minister of Finance and Prices Meisi Bolaños noted that this is a broad and complex process, an economic transformation that, even, implies changes in mentality. She stressed that while respecting the effects of an economic category relative to prices and its effects, the Government is making certain corrections, taking into account the people's opinion.
Bolaños stated that in this stage of adjustment, everything will be modified as much as possible and in response to the demands and criteria from workers, pensioners and the population in general, the corresponding actions will be taken.
Marino Murillo, head of the Commission for the Implementation and Development of the Guidelines, said that the major purpose of the monetary overhaul is a correction of the price of products, seeking to make the economy react.
Murillo also highlighted the difficult economic conditions that accompany this process due to the tightening of the US economic, commercial and financial blockade and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
jg/iff/car/crc
WHO expresses concern over adverse effects of vaccine
Geneva, Mar 12 (Prensa Latina) The World Health Organization (WHO) is reviewing reports on the suspension, in several countries, of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.
Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Italy stopped using it, while Denmark, Thailand, Norway and Iceland suspended the immunization process with that vaccine.
These nations' decision were made due to reports on the formation of blood clots in people who were administered the vaccine.
That same batch was distributed in 17 countries, including Spain, where no such cases have been reported so far, only minor side effects.
WHO underlined that it is studying the situation of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the Univeristy of Oxford, and the results will be published with their respective recommendations.
For its part, the pharmaceutical company insisted on the fact that the vaccine's safety was extensively studied in clinical trials in humans, and it was generally well assimilated.
There are reports of 30 such cases among five million people who were vaccinated until March 10.
However, Sweden confirmed that it will continue to use the AstraZeneca vaccine, as well as Finnland, whose authorities are closely monitoring its Scandinavian neighbors' decisions. France also supports the vaccine.
At present, four vaccines have been approved by the European Union. They are the ones developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson&Johnson, RIA Novosti reported on Friday.
jg/aph/agp/joe
Nurses fight conspiracy theories along with coronavirus
Bogus claims about the coronavirus have exploded since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic a year ago, and much of the job of correcting misinformation has fallen to the world’s front-line medical workers
Virus Outbreak One Year Misinformation (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
Los Angeles emergency room nurse Sandra Younan spent the last year juggling long hours as she watched many patients struggle with the coronavirus and some die.
Then there were the patients who claimed the virus was fake or coughed in her face, ignoring mask rules. One man stormed out of the hospital after a positive COVID-19 test, refusing to believe it was accurate.
“You have patients that are literally dying, and then you have patients that are denying the disease,” she said. “You try to educate and you try to educate, but then you just hit a wall.”
Bogus claims about the virus, masks and vaccines have exploded since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic a year ago. Journalists, public health officials and tech companies have tried to push back against the falsehoods, but much of the job of correcting misinformation has fallen to the world’s front-line medical workers.
In Germany, a video clip showing a nurse using an empty syringe while practicing vaccinations traveled widely online as purported evidence that COVID-19 is fake. Doctors in Afghanistan reported patients telling them COVID-19 was created by the U.S. and China to reduce the world population. In Bolivia, medical workers had to care for five people who ingested a toxic bleaching agent falsely touted as a COVID-19 cure.
Younan, 27, says her friends used to describe her as the “chillest person ever,” but now she deals with crushing anxiety.
“My life is being a nurse, so I don’t care if you’re really sick, you throw up on me, whatever,” Younan said. “But when you know what you’re doing is wrong, and I’m asking you repeatedly to please wear your mask to protect me, and you’re still not doing it, it’s like you have no regard for anybody but yourself. And that’s why this virus is spreading. It just makes you lose hope.”
Emily Scott, 36, who is based at a Seattle hospital, has worked around the world on medical missions and helped care for the first U.S. COVID-19 patient last year. She was selected because of her experience working in Sierra Leone during the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak.
While many Americans were terrified of Ebola — a disease that isn't nearly as contagious as the coronavirus and poses little threat in the U.S. — they aren't nearly afraid enough of COVID-19, she said.
Scott blames a few factors: Ebola’s frightening symptoms, racism against Africans and the politicization of COVID-19 by American elected officials.
“I felt so much safer in Sierra Leone during Ebola than I did at the beginning of this outbreak in the U.S.,” Scott said, because of how many people failed to heed social distancing and mask directives. “Things that are facts, and science, have become politicized.”
ER nurse L'Erin Ogle has heard a litany of false claims about the virus while working at a hospital in the suburbs of Kansas City, Kansas. They include: The virus isn’t any worse than the flu. It’s caused by 5G wireless towers. Masks won’t help and may hurt. Or, the most painful to her: The virus isn’t real, and doctors and nurses are engaged in a vast global conspiracy to hide the truth.
“It just feels so defeating, and it makes you question: Why am I doing this?” said Ogle, 40.
Nurses are often the health care providers with the most patient contact, and patients frequently view nurses as more approachable, according to professor Maria Brann, an expert on health communication at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. That means nurses are more likely to encounter patients spreading misinformation, which gives them a special opportunity to intervene.
“Nurses have always been patient advocates, but this pandemic has thrown so much more at them,” Brann said. “It can definitely take a toll. This isn’t necessarily what they signed up for.”
In some cases, it's nurses and other health care workers themselves spreading misinformation. And many nurses say they encounter falsehoods about the coronavirus vaccine in their own families.
For Brenda Olmos, 31, a nurse practitioner in Austin, Texas who focuses on a geriatric and Hispanic patient population, it was a no-brainer to get the vaccine. But first she had to debate her parents, who had heard unsubstantiated claims that the shot would cause infertility and Bell’s palsy on Spanish-language TV shows.
Olmos eventually convinced her parents to get the vaccine, too, but she worries about vaccine hesitancy in her community.
When she recently encountered an elderly patient with cancerous tumors, Olmos knew the growths had taken years to develop. But the man’s adult children who had recently gotten him the vaccine insisted that the two were connected.
“To them, it just seemed too coincidental," Olmos said. "I just wanted them to not have that guilt.”
Olmos said the real problem with misinformation is not just bad actors spreading lies — it’s people believing false claims because they aren’t as comfortable navigating often complex medical findings.
“Low health literacy is the real pandemic,” she said. “As health care providers, we have a duty to serve the information in a way that’s palatable, and that’s easy to understand, so that people don’t consume misinformation because they can’t digest the real data.”
When Texas Gov. Greg Abbott lifted the state's mask mandate this month against the guidance of many scientists, nurse practitioner Guillermo Carnegie called the decision a “spit in the face.”
“I was disgusted,” said Carnegie, 34, of Temple, Texas. “This governor, and different people, they act like, ‘Oh, we’re proud of our front-line workers, we support them.’ But then they do something like that, and it taxes the medical field tremendously.”
Brian Southwell, who started a program at Duke University School of Medicine to train medical professionals how to talk to misinformed patients, said providers should view the patient confiding in them as an opportunity.
“That patient trusts you enough to raise that information with you," Southwell said. "And so that’s a good thing, even if you disagree with it.”
He said medical workers should resist going into “academic argumentation mode” and instead find out why patients hold certain beliefs — and whether they might be open to other ideas.
That act of listening is imperative to building trust, according to Dr. Seema Yasmin, a physician, journalist and Stanford University professor who studies medical misinformation.
“Put down your pen, put down your notebook and listen,” Yasmin said.
