News stories ignored and conspiracy coverup: you mean the crazies were right?

The rains have kept me inside for most of the last week, so I have been listening to podcasts etc.

Well that will increase your paranoia.

Example one: the Covid coverup is slowly crumbling.

 Covid conspiracy was real??

this is of course an ongoing story and the worse part?? that the major medical journals haven't corrected their misinformation.

Then you have this scandal.

 

so where are the stories about this? Who knows. Probably the same place that ignores the sex trafficking of street kids in poor countries. 

And then you have the ongoing story of the casting couch in Hollywood;

the part of the discussion about seducing a kid you raised is of course about Woody Allen. But it reminded me of Tale of Genji: He kidnaps a young girl and raises her and then "marries her" and it is clear that the girl was raped/traumatized. 

Nothing new under the sun I guess...

   

another story being ignored: That China is being aggressive against the Philippines and Viet Nam in the West Philippine sea.

from StrategyPage

The situation in the South China Sea is becoming more difficult for China because the Philippines has implemented measures to reduce the Chinese threat by curbing corrupt Chinese influence in the country. That is the main reason why the new Filipino government is canceling three Chinese-financed railroad construction projects worth nine billion dollars. ....The cancellation of these projects has been under consideration for over a year due to vague loan terms and China's failure to perform. The Chinese are believed to be using the loan program as a weapon to coerce the Philippines into making concessions in the South China Sea.

A national opinion survey conducted at the end of June found that Filipinos trusted the United States, Australia and Japan the most while trusting China and Russia the least. ... Until China expanded its “lost territory” claims to the South China Sea nearly two decades ago. China was seen as a potential ally of, and investor in, the Philippines.

 

Despite numerous Filipino diplomatic efforts, China refused to compromise on its claims.

at this point, China is seen as the greatest threat to the Philippines, especially since the Chinese appear to have additional claims on Filipino territory and independence as a nation.

They will try to claim Luzon as part of China if not stopped...

however, the country whose risk from Chinese expansion is usually ignored: Russia. China once owned Siberia and has a lot of workers there who could be a fifth column if invaded. Hence China encouraging Russia in the Ukraine probably has more to do with making Russia weak than in hurting NATO...

the USNavy is having problems on on an aircraft carrier and the peace group mothers are making a fuss, which resulted in moving   an aircraft carrier from near VietNam to the Middle East. 

Was the kerfuffle by the peace activists that got an exaggerated scandal on an aircraft carrier that caused the USN to remove it from the middle east influenced by Chinese minions in the peace movement? 

Who knows.

The USNavy has been having problems for years and it will probably take years to fix it, alas.

and on StrategyPage, many of the essays are about drones. Hmmm... I am just too lazy to keep up with the drone news, but it says a lot that the big beautiful ball room that was politicized to criticize Trump was more about drone attacks on meetings in tents outside the WH than about his vanity, not to mention the need to build a new bunker below the WH a la GreenBrier bunker.

So who is behind the hysteria that distort such obvious news stories

AI Frankenvirus or a godsend for reisstant germs?

  

this artificially manufactured virus is a bacteriaphage to eat E Coli. Wapost explains:

or if you don't have the money to get past their wall you can read it at CIDRAP:

 ,,, researchers from Stanford University and the Broad Institute report that the functional bacteriophages they created using artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly destroyed strains of Escherichia coli that had evolved resistance to naturally occurring phages, but experts call for safeguards to prevent the technology from being used for harm.

Bacteriophages are ubiquitous viruses that target, infect, and kill only bacteria. They are found everywhere bacteria live, including the environment and the human gut, and they can be used to treat bacterial infections.

... “Even the simplest genomes are highly complex and can be rendered nonviable by a single mutation,” the authors wrote. “Design at the scale of whole genomes has remained largely beyond reach.”

Urgent biosafety, biosecurity questions

 ....In an accompanying commentary, Thomas Inglesby, MD, and Moritz Hanke, MD, both of Johns Hopkins University, warn that although the finding is promising, “it also raises urgent biosafety and biosecurity questions. The ability to compose viral genomes using generative AI now exists; the governance to safely steer it does not.”

 

They caution that this technology could be used to create non-therapeutic bacteriophages in eukaryotes such as humans, animals, and plants.

Drones anyone?

 China is sneaking into the Philippine economic zone trying to steal a shoal to make an island, meaning that if this is done thcy could say the entire area is owned by the Chinese.

So I keep an eye on what is going on.

Here is one video about drones:

one thing we have in common with the Ukraine is a bunch of kids who love computer games and other high tech stuff.

Hence Pax Silica, to use the local talent.

of course my youtube channel is full of videos by Chinese trolls complaining, and there are local complaints also probably worrying about it.

The worry about China ignores that China is slowly stealing the resources of the West Philippine se and next step, making one of their islands withing the EEZ off of Luzon.

Note: China has lots of trolls to pretend these things are bad, but China is hated.

heh. illegal mining, like all the farmers who are mining for gold etc in their fields since they can't make a profit since the rich guys import cheap rice that depresses the price.

about all those shrine of Mama Mary

 

The church is visited by both Ecuadorian and Colombian pilgrims.

I had visited with my sons 40 years ago. From Pasto we went via bus to Ipialis then hiked over the fields to the northern gorge site. This left us across the gorge from the church, but there is a bridge across the gorge, and on the northern end of the bridge is a small chapel where you can place candles.  

this video is very north American bias and emphasizes the Spanish missionaries.

However my son gave a different story about it: the miracle is about an Indian lady carrying her handicapped daughter along the road along the gorge ridge, and suddenly the daughter cried look at the beautiful lady. And the locals made a shrine there. Only later did the missionaries encourage the formal church. And my sons didn't say anything about the image discussed in the video, only about a spring in the bottom of the gorge where people collect water and consider it holy. They hiked down to the bottom (not me: I am not athletic) to visit the area.

This is the story the locals tell, and the locals see it as Our Lady visiting the local  people, who were looked down on by the establishment Spanish who ran the place. So it is beloved as a sign Mary loved them and visited them, not as a shrine pushed on them by outside Spanish priests.

such visions are common and usually ignored or debunked by the Catholic church, but locals often place shrines at these areas.

I should note that when traveling down the Pan American highway, we saw a shrine on a hill near the road, and my sons said that the Virgin had appeared there.

Here in the Philippines there are a lot of small Lourdes shines in churches and many have one on their garden and families pray the rosary after dinner. Here she is Mama Mary and folk religion is family oriented, not theological: Mama Mary, Kuya Jesus, and God as father.

I am sure there are a lot of visions of Mama Mary here which are known to family and friends but the church tends to shut them down if they get too enthusiastic.

but the big shrine is along the EDSA where the People Power revolution occurred. Left out of most secular articles, the locals believe that Mama Mary appeared and stopped Marcos Sr's soldiers from shooting the demonstrators, who were praying the rosary and singing hymns. 

  in the US, one does hear about visions, often in times of stress or sickness, where our Lady or an angel comes with a word of comfort.

In the USA  it is common for people to place statues of the virgin in the fields or in the front yards . Our next door neighbor in Pennsylvania, a coalminer, had one in his front garden . 

heavy rains and family news

For last 2 days heavy rain and mildly flooded streets.

Not quite a typhoon so no bad winds and we have electricity and city water.

The schools were closed Friday.

The barangay neighborhood patron saint is St Lawrence so fiesta parade later today. and a Miss Gay Gapan contest was scheduled in the plaza for either yesterday evening or today

My arthritis has been bad from the weather so I spent yesterday in bed and didn't attend church in the evening since Catholics have revived the ancient idea that Sunday starts at Sundown.

Howevery arthritis is better today but since l don't have anyone to attend mass with me I will just sit iny room and enjoy the hymns sung by the Baptists who meet in our meeting room each Sunday.

In other news Stella our black dog's 5 puppies are chubby and healthy but their eyes are not open yet so I haven't checked how. many are boys or girls. Their nest is in our closet where I put a flat box for them.

We have another box in my bathroom for Baby our Mama dog but apparently she did not get pregnant last time she was in heat. She is 7 years old so maybe she is too old.

China is pushing war but the US press doesn't seem to notice

China has been attacking Filipino fishermen for years, even though these fishermen have been fishing in the area for several generations.

But now after Obama refused to help the Philippines to stop China from destroying the ecosystem (green groups silent of course) and building miltarized artificial islands, they are getting more aggressive in recent weeks.

 

 and also is prolonging the war in Iran:

and infiltrating the US military:

China has been trying to buy retired American flag officers. https://t.co/JaLRF6TI0L

— Gordon G. Chang (@GordonGChang) August 4, 2026

and notice they are discussing how China  suckered the Pope into signing away the pious Catholics there.

How the original drone made a star

the original drone from WWII 

 from Wikipedia: 

 The Radioplane OQ-2 was the first mass-produced unmanned aerial vehicle or drone in the United States, manufactured by the Radioplane Company. A follow-on version, the OQ-3, became the most widely used target drone in US service, with over 9,400 being built during World War II.

tropical cyclone: Rain rain rain rain

 

translation: Heavy rain all day, but only gusty winds.