They are coming for your organs

be afraid. Be very afraid.

Thirty years ago. when bioethicist Arthur Caplan moved to Pennsylvania and applied for a driver's license, he asked about adding the organ donation permission to that document, and the clerk warned him: Don't do that: if you do they'll let you die.

already, many in minority communities refuse to sign living wills or no resusitation orders, because they don't trust the medical profession: The Tuskegee experiment is remembered in the Black community, and the collapse of trust in the medical profession after the flawed Covid response will make things worse.

If this is approved, it will mean the Catholic bishops will object to organ donations, and could actually result in fewer organs being donated.

But of course don't expect the MSM to warn you. They will quote elite bioethicists to prove it is okay, and if you oppose it, hey look at all those nice people dying.

It also pushed furthur the idea that people with severe brain damage are better off dead: and this will just push the idea it is not just cruel to keep them alive, but their death will save other, so let's kill them. Could euthanasia be far behind?

No I am not being paranoid, becuase there are reports killing depressed people and then donating their organs is going on.

Actually, when done carefully, the diagnosis of brain death means just that: no brain. No reflexes. No blood circulation to the brain. No brain to control your bodily functions and so the body will die when the machines are removed.

But less strict definitions are fuzzy: one third of people in PVS (aka persistant vegetative state, note that Orwellian term implying they are not humans to be loved but vegetables?

but sometimes lay people think that when doctors say there is no hope so pull the plug, or that a person is a "vegetable" so stop treatment, it is the same as saying they are brain dead. It is not.

and as far back as 1990, there were books written by ethicists saying hey let's limit treatment by law to people with low quality of life

and yes, this is being done in places like the UK where the N.I.C.E. can stop your treatment because of your quality of life

Yes NICE, again a nice fuzzy term to hide what they are doing.

One saw this type of forbidding treatment during covid, of course, where drugs that might or might not work were forbidden to be given and some docs are in danger of losing their license for giving a drug with few side effects to people dying of covid

At the same time, there is a difference between stopping extraordinary treatment or deciding not to get everything done for your disease, and euthanasia. THis also is a fine line: So when we stopped the ventillator on Joy's father who had a massive stroke, we did it after five days when brain swelling had gone down, and he died the next day. IF we had stopped it the first day, it would be considered removing extraordinary treatment, so again it would be permissiable, but the family would have felt Hey maybe he would have recovered so what was the hurry. But once brain edema had gone down, and he could breathe without a respirator, then removing the machines meant he could go to a regular room and have family there.

And Lolo decided against chemotherapy and died in his bed: he was 90, and the chemo probably would not have prolonged his life because of his other medical problems.

Personally I am happy I am retired now and since I live in the Philippines, where sophisticated medical treatment is available, but refusing extraordinary treatment is less controversial and there is respect for the elderly not present in the USA.

Raman spectroscopy

 I pointed out in an earlier blogpost about Spaghettification, i.e. pulling a object into spaghetti type strings when it enters a black hole.

so in today's SciDaily news I read a story about scientists learning how to use Ramen spectroscopy to analyze proteins without cooking them accidentally when they do so.

Uh, Ramen Spectroscopy? As in Ramen noodles?

Nope.

it got it's name from C.V. Ramen, the Indian scientist who developed the technique back in the 1920s.

Fusion? True or hype?

 

this speech is a couple years old, from the UK and discusses the problems of actually using fusion, and discusses what fusion will lead to.

translation: if it works, then maybe you will have electricity for your electric batteries and cars.

As predicted here: 

Covid and other medical problem

 links to what I have been writing about on my other blog:

Myocarditis coverup. Discusses the recent Swiss study that shows a lot of sub clinical asymptomatic evidence of myocarditis from the mRNA vaccine: some of these people will drop dead if their hearts are stressed.

Atypical Dengue. I had complicated (hemorrhagic) Dengue but no muscle pain or headache. I discuss my symptoms and find similar cases in the literature.

What's worse than fentanl? Fentanyl plus Xylazine not just kill you but makes you a zombie with lots of ugly sores.

Covid problems from one batch? link to Dr C's video only.

Malaria vaccines Do they work? answer the one they have been giving in Africa (experimenting on children to save their lives) works a third of the time. But they are working on newer vaccines based on adenovirus technology that might work better and I note in the future they plan an mRNA vaccine too, but no information on that one. 

Polio eradification problems. Lots of technical difficulties, including blowback cases if not everyone has gotten the vaccine.

Lockdown data being debunked. The professors warning about this were of course censored and some lost their jobs. the economic and social problems of lockdown was worse than the disease.

Migrants in Darien gap have a lot of medical problems. Links to discussions.

Was the covid response a power grab by the powerful or needed or just an overblown honest try to stop the covid spread? Conspiracy theories discussed.

History of heat waves

 

As a doc, I have treated heat stroke several times: Usually in people who were heat stressed and then were exposed to a hotter climate than they were used to. I treated two people in Massachusetts in May when hot weather hit: One was an elderly lady brought in because she was confused, but the other was a young man out jogging who came in convulsing... I don't know if he made it. And another case was when our Pennsylvania NatGuard unit was doing our two week training in southern Virginia: It was 104 and one guy from the mountain area of Pennsylvania came in confused.

A lot of us are laughing at Europeans saying you will die if it goes over 90. Heck, they never lived in Texas. However, the heat is the reason the French take the month of August off, and because they don't use airconditioners, they have a lot of people dying of the heat.

Here in the Philippines, we are used to heat in the 90s, but yes it was pretty hot last week until the typhoon moved nearby and gave us four days of heavy rain. The worst time is before the Monsoon hits in June: once the monsoon comes in the late afternoon we have thunderstorms that cool things off.

But then there is heat exhaustion.

In heat stroke, your body temperature regulation stops working, you stop sweating, and your body temperature soars (105 is not unusual).

In heat exhaustion often you see dizzyness, fatigue, confusion etc. and often people collapse: their blood pressure goes up and they have a stoke or it goes down and they have a heart attack. And to make things worse, diarrhea is common in the heat: from food poisoning or just viruses that go around. This can kill babies.

When our NatGuard unit did our two weeks in the Idaho desert, I would go around making sure people drank water: a pint an hour at least. So we had few problems.

Here, of course, the problem is partly working in the hot sun, both farmers and those repairing the road nearby (we made sure they had ice for their water) or working construction.

but the main problem is those inside small homes in urban areas, which tend to be hotter. Many have fans, but not everyone. And some have to get water from the common pump so may not drink enough. And many elders have high blood pressure which can go up from the heat.

As for children: Here in our rural area, usually moms breast feed, but older infants and moms who work and formula feed the kids, it means they are in danger not just from heat but from unclean bottles and diarrhea.

Local instructions here.

agriculture damage by typhoon from rain

 

heavy rain here for five days. Will have to replant rice.

musical interlude of the week

turn up speakers and dance!

Ranker has the story of how that scene was filmed: on the first day, they filmed an actual parade with their inserted float. Then the second day they refilmed it with lots and lots of extras.

And others were just ordinary folk who danced:

Construction workers and window washers can be spotted jamming out to Matthew Broderick's lip-synced rendition of "Twist and Shout." These were not choreographed dancers or extras hired to play a part - instead, they were just people going about their everyday jobs.

movie of the week

we just rewatched the old series Lonesome Dove

it is on youtube (at least until the copyright cops find it there)

prequel:

 

then several others tv stuff based on his novels

but alas if you want to watch Terms of Endearment you will have to pay for it.

Return to Lonesome Dove is there too, but written by a Hollywood author so not quite as good as the ones based on the original novels.

------------------

Lonesome dove the audiobook on youtube:

heavy rrains not much wind

 supertyphoon off the northern coast seems to be moving slowly: Our main problem is heavy rain on and off.

[WEATHER UPDATE]

As of 11 a.m., July 26, Typhoon Egay maintains its strength and has made landfall over Dalapuri Islands, Cagayan.

Follow live updates for #EgayPH: https://t.co/Uz3dLg5yDO pic.twitter.com/VxHDfiLzcR

— Inquirer (@inquirerdotnet) July 26, 2023

music of the stars

I was just reading Brian Sibley's blog. Today he has a great interview with Barry Humphries who played the Great Goblin in the Hobbit film.

and in the next blogpost he comments on hearing music while visiting Santiago de Compostela

its multiplicity of multi-directional pipes filled the vast building with glorious sounds, I was reminded of Thomas Carlyle who wrote: 

 "Listen, and for organ music thou wilt ever, as of old, hear the Morning Stars sing together."

that part about the morning stars singing together is from Job chapter38.

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?

 

maybe we will be okay

we are only signal one: and last night heavy rain but today merel cloudy and probably heavy rain later in the day, but no wind.

 

[WEATHER UPDATE]

As of 8:00 a.m., July 25, four areas are placed under Tropical Cyclone Wind Signal No. 3 as Egay developed into a super typhoon.

Follow live updates for #EgayPH: https://t.co/Uz3dLg50Og pic.twitter.com/C0R58uGDc7

— Inquirer (@inquirerdotnet) July 25, 2023

#EgayPH has developed into the super typhoon category on Tuesday morning with four areas now under Tropical Cyclone Wind Signal No. 3, state meteorologists said. | @JEMendozaINQ https://t.co/G2VIg8yhzx

— Inquirer (@inquirerdotnet) July 25, 2023

the call to heresy

 the Pope is trying to change the catholic church. People who believe are being marginalized of course. And this is why the Pope is aghast that a certain group of believers objects and sees through his shennanigans.

First we have oodles of money on synodality meetings at the local level: But not filled with ordinary folks who are asking for the church to preach to them the good news, but with the "marginal"... and not the true marginal (like the homeless addicts sleeping on the sidewalk) but activists who think the church needs to change to approve of their sins. Read those who reject traditional Christian morality at the diocese level. And now we see him calling a meeting of bishops to discuss these things, except the meeting will include a lot of hand picked toadies who will push the party line.

and just to make sure the bishops know they have to kowtow to his agenda, in the next big bishops meeting, handpicked activists will be there to vote down anyone who dares to object.

Duh.

I have said this before: It reminds me of the encounter groups of the 1960s where we were supposed to discuss stuff and bare our souls, but in reality it was to manipulate us to agree with the so called "Facilitators". I usually lied through my teeth when asked to talk about personal matters, and kept silent the rest of the time or got someone to beep me out for an "emergency" when these things were planned in medical school or my residency. 

And of course these things remind me of the propaganda stuff that cannot be questioned. This week all the news stories seem to be of global warming, and when I hear they want to bring the world back to "pre industrial" times, I wonder if they know about something called the little ice age, where famines from the cold led to revolutions and food riots. 

and of course, the anti fossil fuel zealots policies are increasing the price of fertilizer and diesel needed to farm: not to mention the war against farmers and dairy cattle in several countries. 

in the meanwhile, the west if pushing a sexual agenda on countries that will destroy the family the same as it is in the west.

and although Pope Francis talks against this, his minions are busy pushing this agenda, and the synods are going to be the way to prove the "holy spirit" is behind this change.

alas the removal of Catholic opposition to such policies is going at full speed ahead;

the CWN article points out that this is the 1970s redux. and that the language is being distorted in an Orwellian fashion

It seems, then, that the freight train of dialogue travels along tracks that move in only one direction—a secular liberal one—and the decision has been made that the synod will privilege only those voices in order to reach the already determined conclusions. “Synodality” thus emerges as a cynical game and a strategic ruse to bring in through the backdoor what you cannot simply bring directly in through the front door. It is the destruction of the very concept of “truth” in theology and its replacement with a purely sociologistic and political calculus. Thus, you are either a political “enemy” or a “friend” of Pope Francis, and this is the only important category. Pope Francis has said many wonderful things about the aims of the Synod and that he has cautioned against this kind of neo-modernist theologizing. But his closest friends and allies, in their various writings on the upcoming Synod, and his many episcopal appointments—e.g. Archbishop Fernandez as head of the DDF—argue otherwise. Constantly and consistently, Pope Francis’s actions undermine his words and in no way instill confidence that his governing of the Church will avoid turning the keys to the palace over to the theological Vandals who have been camping outside the gates for sixty years.

italics mine.

Sigh. 

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

bishop Barron cautions not to be too strictly.

But at least Bishop could you notice that there are weeds there? 

 

 

battening down the hatches

A supertyphoon is off the western Philippines. It should not hit us, but the edge is bringing rain and sucking the monsoon rains into the area. Our area is signal one with flood/landslide warnings:

So everyone is battening down the hatches.

I got money early from the bank just in case. And the usual relatives are asking for medicine money just in case we get hit.

I am still trying to get the backup generator fixed (both backup generators have minor problems and don't work, but right now the big generator has been fixed so should work in case of prolonged electrical brownouts).

Here, we usually shop from day to day at the palenke. We are in the working class/middle class area of the city, and the poorer folk don't have refrigerators so locals (and our cook) tend to shop for fresh food and supplies every day. It's not like the USA, where I would shop once a week for supplies and store them in the fridge/freezer...although things are changing, and we do have fully stocked supermarkets that take G cash etc. at the mall.

that, by the way, is why SPAM is so beloved: no, not the email type but the pink food that everyone loves to hate, except for those here in Asia where it is beloved.

You see, if one gets a visitor or wants to eat meat the alternative is killing and cleaning a chicken.

So in case of typhoon, a can or two of spam comes in handy, or keep a live chicken or two for unexpected guests.

Come to think of it, we already killed two of the chickens that are cared for by our help in the side garden: It is his birthday party today and they cooked them yesterday and put the food into our refrigerator

Here, we get hit with two or three typhoons a year, but the last big one was the week before the supertyphoon hit the Visayas in 2013 and killed a lot of people and wrecked a lot of houses. So most of the help and publicity went to that area, while we were off line (electricity, internet, water) and with blocked roads (No fresh foods or deliveries for medicines, and the banks were short of cash) for a week from an earlier typhoon.

What saved us then was our own water pump that Lolo had put in, and my backup generator after the big generator broke.

When I see those affluent kids shouting no fossil fuel, I think that they should have to cope without all the comforts of modern life: starting with their cellphones

You see, when we had the prolonged brownout back then, some neighbors came for water, but most of them came to recharge their cellphones for free, and a lot of small businesses put out signs: Cellphone charge 25 pesos (about 50 cents)

Priorities: mainly to check in on relatives that they were safe

We are getting notices that Starlink will soon be available here in the Philippines, but since the rice buyer's check bounced and she fled the country with our money (and the money from a lot of her other customers) we are short cash at the present.

Oh well: As Lolo told me: If I live here I will always have rice to eat

Now, if only we manage to plant and get a decent crop without the weather destroying it, as it has in the past

No it's not global warming: these things happen all the time, alas.

another day another typhoon (there go the seedlings)

 

it looks like it will stay off the coast but we will continue to get heavy rain. The rice seeds were washed away so kuya will replant them later with seedlings. Which costs more. Sigh.

signal one so far: latest report:

Oppenheimer's other victims

 they are releasing a movie about Oppenheimer. 

well, that story of developing the atomic bomb is one of the dark secrets of World War II. 

Harry Truman did not recognize the dangers of radiation and saw the Atomic bomb as just a big bomb, just more efficient in destroying Japanese cities than the fire bombings that killed tens of thousands in Tokyo (and Hamburg and Dresden). 

considering the horrors of Japanese atrocities in World War II and willingness of the Japanese government to insist civilians die rather than surrender, as happened in Saipan such willingness to kill civilians is in bombings rather than have a lot more civilians be killed in an invasion is understandable.

 most American soldiers and sailors facing death in an invasion such as some of my cousins thought correctly that the bomb saved their lives.

The real question is not that the US used a dangerous weapon (they didn't appreciate the dangers of radiation so were willing to do such things), but why the US insisted on unconditional surrender of Japan.

But one of the side issues in Oppenheimer saga will probably be ignored in the film that sees him as a hero persecuted for his leftist sympathies: a typical case of loving mankind but being blind to the ordinary folk affected by your actions.

he and the other scientists who were aware of the problems of radiation exposure causing disease failed to warn those who might be affeced.     And this callus disregard of civilians near atomic test sites continued long after the dangers of fallout were known.

You know, we once lives near Trinity site in New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb was tested.

Trinity site is only open one day a year, so no although we passed by we never visited the site (not even the gift shop near the turn off road to the site).

But we did see a lot of cancers in our Apache patients that made us wonder if some of these cancers had been induced by radiation when they were children.

LATimes article about this 

“They’ll never reflect on the fact that New Mexicans gave their lives. They did the dirtiest of jobs. They invaded our lives and our lands and then they left,” said Tina  Cordova, survivor and founder of a group of New Mexico downwinders, said of the scientists and military officials who established a secret city in Los Alamos during the 1940s and tested their work at the Trinity Site   some 200 miles away.

Cordova’s group, the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, has been working with the Union of Concerned Scientists and others for years to bring attention to what the Manhattan Project did to people in New Mexico.

this video is from 7 years ago:

other areas were also damaged by radition, of course. One of the most notorious sites with a cancer cluster was St George Utah, which had a high cancer rate, and is notorious in Hollywood history because they filmed Ghengis Khan there, and later many of the people who worked on the film, including John Wayne, developed cancer.

this report of what happened is from the UKGuardian:

This is a story about cancer. About how the United States turned swathes of the desert radioactive during the cold war and denied it, bequeathing a medical mystery which to this day haunts Hollywood and rural Mormon communities and raises a thorny question: how much should you trust the government?

 sigh.

But one lesson the government did not learn is tht you can't coverup the distortion of truth forever: be it civilians dying of cancer from atomic bomb tests or the suspicion that the government is using of a covid epidemic to push the schemes of those in power.

Musical interlude of the week

 

In reply to this

headsup Instapundit.

Audiobook of the week

 

,,,,,more here

there is a film based on the book, but it is disappointing. The cinematography is bland, but the main problem is that the characters are miscast.

Kristin, a luminous beauty who is loved by half a dozen of the men in the saga, is shown in the film as a plain looking neurotic girl. And worse, her love interest and later husband, Erland, is portrayed as a plain looking nerd, not the charismatic and brave knight of the saga. Kristin's original finace, a country bumpkin but loyal in the book, is portrayed by a good looking sympathetic character that makes one wonder why Kristin left him for Erland.

One does wish the book could be made into a miniseries. 

a woke Snow White?

 there are photos running around the internet of the cast of a Disney remake of Snow White, starring a Hiapanic and seven ethnically correct men (or rather people of uncertain sex) that includes only one dwarf.

EXCLUSIVE Snow White and the Seven... Politically-Correct Companions? https://t.co/gOantUJDEQ pic.twitter.com/Gn8NpFIEKP

— Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) July 14, 2023

Sigh.

A Hispanic Snow White? Why?

If you want to tell the Spanish version of Snow white, then tell the Spanish version of Snow White. (There is one called BlancaNieves, where Snow White becomes a bullfighter like her father).

except, of course that wouldn't be PC either (bullfighter? PETA would object, and besides the last time I looked Spanish people are Europeans).

Or how about an American remake of Snow White with a modern plot similar to the K Drama the K2. which uses the plot line but puts it into the modern world and tells the story from the huntsmans point of view?

Cartoons are fantasy: they can tell fantasy plots and be believable.

Put Snow White into the reality of the medieval world with disease, poverty and starvation as a real threat would be too glum for modern eyes.

But rewrite it as PC culture means either a complete rewrite or to make it absurd and distorts the story.

This is wrong on many levels.

First of all, being white is not an ethnic thing: Here in the Philippines the girls use skin whitener to look like their pale skinned K Drama heroines.

It's not purely a racial thing: white skin implies that you are rich, meaning you don't have to go outside to weed the garden, feed the chickens, or carry water from the city well. So you don't get sunburned and your skin is pale 

(the opposite to this idea is the word Redneck: a slur that implies that the man is poor and uneducated because his neck gets sunburned from working in the fields all day instead of sitting inside a cushy office).

as for the multiethnic dwarves: They get this wrong too.

People who were poor worked in the mines, and children who worked in the mines tended to be growth stunted (and the children of miners often were malnourished and small too). 

So who did she find to take her in? Poor folk of course. In the fairy tale, they were small miners aka dwarves.  You know: outcasts.

But there is a symbolism to make the rescuers dwarves, because in Northern European tales,dwarfs had a bad reputation in folk tales. They are evil and greedy and hoard gold, and in a lot of fairy tales there is the idea that it was okay to trick them and steal from them.(Rumplestilskin and Wagner's Ring cycle come to mind))(place anti Semetic meme here). This changed in the 1930s, when the Hobbit and Disney's Snow White reframed Dwarves into stubborn but essentially good people. 

Fairy tales tend to have a lot of subliminal messages like this. Indeed, a lot of traditional Disney cartoons have a multi layer mythology that teach children a lot of lessons that are embeeded in the story in a way they teach you without shoving the message down your throat.

So they help children cope with the difficulties of growing up.

Snow White is beautiful, and persecuted for this. 

Any girl can tell you how things like this are behind the nastiness in high school and the back stabbling by women in charge of things at work.So Snow White's story tells girls hurt this way it's not their fault: the bullies are the ones who have problems. (the films Heathers and Carrie come to mind)

The second lesson is that indirect killing lets you ignore you are guilty, but in the long run fate will punish you. So at the end, the evil queen is killed in an accident and Snow White lives happily ever after.

But the queen's choice to get rid of a rival isn't the only moral choice in the movie.

The first attempt to kill Snow White was to hire a hit man (aka the huntsman).

But the guy had pity on her chose not to do this. Instead, he saved her life at the risk of his own life and one suspects he will save his soul because of this deed  (the theme of the Master Gardiner by the way).

Third, Snow White is essentially rescued by strangers, who offer her a job and a place to live.

this lesson is applicable to today's world where millions of people are fleeing violence and war and are asking strangers to help them. The dwarves in Snow White are rewarded when she turns out to be a princess, (Hebrews 13:2) but when they took her in, they didn't know this.

Next lesson: Yes, you are rescued but you still need to work to survive.

Notice she is willing to work? That is also a theme: yes, you accept charity, but to become part of the community, you have to do your share of the work. 

again, given the fact that most immigrants find jobs and are willing workers is one of the lessons missing from the present day arguments over immigration.

And finally, the lesson is that one does not just work, but one becomes part of the community and  eventually part of a family. (In the Heights, West Side Story, and numerous other stories in old time movies)

Yes, family. 

Snow White essentially becomes the mother or older sister of these men, caring for them by keeping the house clean and cooking so they can come home not just to food, but to a family meal with those they love. Presumably she gets to know all the other families and shop keepers in the area.

The next lesson is that that you can't just flee from evil: it must be defeated.

The evil queen finds where she is, and arranged her to be poisoned. and in the end, dies in a messy accidnet.

Again, any number of films echo the bad guys finding the person who ruined their plans and went back to kill them. But in the fairy tale, mercy by an unknown person means the poison partly works, so she survives in a coma.

and finally, of course, we have the prince who falls in love with her and wakes her up with a kiss.

Whoops. NOT PC. He didn't ask permission. 

But of course, this is about a young girl whose sexuality is awakened with the kiss.

Remember the good old days when kids were protected from groomers teaching them pornography in grade school? You know: like most of the world today and the US until about five years ago? 

Snow white is a young teenager, and the dwaves are men, but men who were brought up to protect women. 

So the prince kisses her and this awakens her to love. Or is it sex? Why not both? 

No one doesn't see this in a lot of American movies, where jumping in and out of bed is the norm, but in the good old days courting and kissing had more meaning to a person.

I am amused that in K dramas, often there is a scene where the woman is saved from falling or being hit by a car by the handsome hero she loves but who never noticed her before, and in the accident they embrace... after that scene, everyone knows they will soon become a couple, because sexual attraction has awakened their interest in each other.

So Snow White and her prince marry and live happily ever after.

Hmm... a theme so against the meme being pushed on society by the woke that it might result in a slew of bad reviews (but earn a lot of money at the box office).

exodus as you never read it in Sunday School

 Jordan Peterson's Exodus seminar is now being posted on youtube.

Unlike some of his other lectures on biblical themes, where he tended to interpret Genesis from the viewpoint of psychology and mythological essence, this one has some theologicans and others with him to discuss the book of Exodus.

---------------

Genesis list of lectures LINK

drug addiction: Duterte was right

 

Duterte got condemned by the MSM of the world for trying to get rid of drug pushers (and letting addicts go to rehab). which made the crime rate go down and made it safer to travel on public buses etc.
In the USA, they decide instead to give out crack pipes and narcan.

and the Clergy? Where are they? Anyone? Anyone?

A longer post on the problem can be read in my Medical blog.

and drugs is of course behind the homeless problem.

Bullfrog don't bother me

The Froggies are a courting... (and keeping us up at night).

It is rainy season and for the last few day we have had heavy rain squalls from two low pressure areas and now we are reading a third one is coming our way.

and with all the rain, the bullfrogs have appeared again and are singing all night and keeping us awake.

we get them here after the rain, since the drainage ditches are open and connect to the river. I am not sure what type of frogs they are: the one I saw was not like the Philippine bullfrog but dark greenbrown and the size of American bullfrog which is an invasive species here.

Indeed, it might be an American bullfrog (or a Chinese bull frog) because a lot of frogs here are alienspecies.

Photo of alien bullfrogs (link only due to copyright)in the Philippines

we have two fishponds but usually only see the frogs after the rain, when they move around. After one typhoon, they were in a drainage area under the front window and when it got deep, quite a few got stuck in there and we rescued half a dozen but some had already died, sigh. 

and the dogs chase them (so far no cane toads, whose skin is poisonous to dogs, but nevertheless I have saved one last week from the dogs, who kill rats, cats, and other vermin in our business compound).

After one rainstorm, the dogs went crazy in my room and I found a cowering frog. When I tried to catch it, it hopped out the hole in the floor boards (where the wood had rotted from 20 years of water dripping from the airconditioner).

So even if you live in a western style house you have all sorts of critters visiting: bugs, spiders, lizards, mice, rats snails and frogs.

 

religion is dangerous

What does #XiJinping fear most? That would almost certainly be his fellow #CCP leaders. What’s in second place? My guess is the “house” #Protestant congregations and the underground #Catholics. Despite everything, he cannot control #Christians who pray by themselves. #China

— Gordon G. Chang (@GordonGChang) July 16, 2023

but hey don't worry: the Pope just kowtowed to China by approving of one of their puppet bishops Xi just put in without asking the Pope's approval. This is against the so calledVatican China agreement but never mind. China breaks agreements all the time, and this Pope is more worried about Trads who pray than communists taking over the church with their toadies.

 If you read the first article you might notice all those previous bishops were arrested and silenced for daring to be Catholic.

Thomas More, call your office. History is repeating itself.

Pumpkin spice? No. Wasabi

From the Japanese paper, the AsabiShinbum:

LINK

Tip to beat the heat: Iced milk coffee with chopped wasabi topping 

 KOBE--For those looking for a more exotic taste in their coffee, UCC Foodservice Systems Inc. thinks it has the answer: wasabi. The restaurant provider, which is affiliated with beverage maker UCC Group and based here, now offers the unusual coffee product at its Ueshima Coffee outlets across Japan. Grated Izu Wasabi is mixed with the milk-based coffee, which is then topped with chipped wasabi.

several American coffee sites serve their version of Wasabi Latte:

  LINK

Wasabi plus coffee shouldn’t make sense. But at New York City’s year-old Round K, a kitschy Korean coffee bar on the Lower East Side, owner Ockhyeon Byeon has blended two seeming foes into one unique union.

In order to build his wasabi latte, Byeon first creates a neon green simple syrup to which he adds the plant’s green paste. He mixes that with whole or soy milk (the latter is suggested), vanilla, and sugar. He froths the mixture, then pours it over a shot of espresso, depicting either a man’s face blowing smoke or a grinning cat staring back. Optional side dish? A caramelized onion cake.

Women in the British military World War II

 EnglishHistoryAuthors blog has two articles about British women in the military during World War II.

The Naval units, the WRNS, were voluntary and egalitarian, and quickly morphed from cooking and cleaning and secretaries

Soon the duties assigned WRNS expanded to motor transport, storekeepers, messengers, mechanics, telegraphists and R/T operators, signalers and small-boat handlers. Eventually there were 129 trades including plotters, radar operators. meteorologists, codes and cipher specialists, intelligence officers and anti-aircraft crew. Fundamentally, from 1941 onwards, the WRNS took on all shore-based jobs that did not require physical strength or sea experience, including training RN personnel for their duties at sea.

the larger ATS units had some minor problems since they were led by officers who were chosen for their upper class background, but with time they too proved themselves. Most of the anti Aircraft units included women, for example, and of course, then Princess Elizabeth was a truck driver in one unit.

Bang Bang shoot shoot is okay. Exposes of real crime? Never mind

 So, anyway, we just watched Extraction 2, about a man who went into a dangerous area to rescue someone's sister from a gangster who was in the drug trade.

like John Wick 1-2-3-4, it is mainly lots of shooting and about ten percent plot.

But anyway, I don't see the press publishing oodles of editorials saying it was inspired by conspiracy theories, or getting their knickers in a knot like they are about the Sound of Freedom, a film with the same plot as Extraction 1 and 2, and for that matter, a plot similar to Not without my daughter, where a family member is rescued by mercenaries instead of through official channels.

The Sound of Freedom was produced under Fox but although ready for release was put on the shelf by Disney for five years before a producer got the money to get the rights to distribute it from Disney.

So a lousy film, right? Whoops.

And now I am seeing editorials, not praising this action film for exposing the dirty little secret of sex trafficking poor children in third world countries, but editorials and movie reviews condeming the film as right wing propaganda, or even saying it is about spreading the part of Q conspiracy that was about sex trafficking, never mind that the film predates Q stuff and that Q is not mentioned in the film.

in the EWTN interview they said the q conspiracy was not in the film nor did it have anything to do with their work. 

When asked specifically if their work confirmed the conspiracy theory, they said no. When asked about kidnapping children for organ transplant, or body parts, those who made the film said that some of this is indeed going on, mainly in Africa, but not in the film, which is about human trafficking of kids for sexual exploitation in Colombia...

That African claim,by the way is at least partly true: when I worked in Liberia in 1980 a kidnapped boy escaped and they found a gang that was killing teenagers so they could use body parts buried under stores etc to make the store successful... and my friend said this type of witchcraft got worse after HIV hit and when western medicine didn't help, they turned to local healers/herbalists, but also to witchcraft to get healed.

there was a film many years ago about that called Dingaka.

film link.

I have heard of similar beliefs outside of Africa, but have no direct knowledge of these things.

But there are reports about this being done in Mexico e.g. the Santa Morte cults which are strong in the drug cartels.

So I wonder why the hyperventillation over a film that tries to expose the dangers to poor third world children who are exploited for the sex trade? Why did the controversy require several major outlets to write almost identical hit jobs against the film? 

Because such claims easily morph into hysterical witch hunts that can hurt normal people.

And of course, those who do the crimes are happy to encourage the paranoid conspiracy theorists to go overboard in their claims, knowing that this will result in people no longer believing such things go on at all.

The McMaster preschool hysteria is an example of false accusations that was poorly investigated and promoted by the press to sell papers/ get TV ratings.

dirty little secret: false memories, exaggerated memories, and people lying to get attention all happen. I've seen all of these things.

Another problem: Back in the 1960s and 1970s a lot of experts were claiming that sex with children was not only okay but sometimes helpful. I was told in medical school that once all sexual hangups were destroyed, that all mental illness would disappear.

Well, that fad didn't last long thank goodness (feminism is full of angry women exploited by Don Juans, and of course, some victims grew up and started fighting against the idea).

But this background is why a lot of the true accusations against the priest Pedophiles in the Catholic church were not believed. And it is why no one thought what Sandusky was doing in the shower with a teenage boy was anything to call the cops about.

As one of the few female docs back in the 1970s/1980s, I saw called to do a lot of exam on girls and children to see if they were abused.

About half the cases of sexual abuse that I examined as a doc were fake or the abuse minor (e.g. touching or voyeurism), and some of the real cases were consensual but under legal age, but half a dozen were horrific. 

But the girls all said testifying in court was worse than the abuse, so the cops usually tried to pressure the perpetrator into a plea bargain by evidence or by catching him in a lie.

Sigh.

But why the controversy against a minor film that led to several major outlets to write almost identical hit jobs against the film? 

Just wondering.

And one does hope that any film that exposes this should be encouraged in a way that shows the evil without pushing  hysteria.

a recent  ABC (Australia) report on rescuing children from sexual predators here in the Philippines:

of course such things could never happen in the good old USA or Europe.

 
Hmmm aren't a lot of the plots on Law and Order SVU about such things? 

So who will shoot first?

 just in case you were busy reading about the cocaine found in the WH or other nonsense headlines in the news, you might want to recognize that war in the Pacific could erupt in the near future.

and the war could start with a false flag incident, or with a genuine accident, or a genuine act of Chinese aggression camoflagued as an accident, and which will be promoted by their bought minions as the fault of the US/Philippines/neutral country who is just trying to ship stuff through the area.

Here is the observation of Professor H.J. Mackinder on what's going on:

The Chinese have beens swarming against Filipino fishermen, overfishing the area, destroying the ecology to build artificial islands, and sending threatening messages to ships and planes that cross this area which is legally international waters.

This is a threat not just to the Philippines and Viet Nam, but if not stopped could block the shipping routes to Korea, Japan and eastern Russia.

Duterte tried to make nice with China: This podcast says it was bribes (duh) but actually the CIA was doing a stealth effort to undermine him: including not letting police have weapons saying it was because of the drug war, a very popular war against criminals who were threatening to make the Philippines a narco state, and who were behind a huge upsurge in crime (several of our neighbors were killed by druggies in home invasion thefts, and this doesn't count several other murders which were ordinary arguments that escalated into murder by ordinary folk under the influence of drugs, such as the 17 year old girl killed by her boyfriend).

The Phil Inquirer notes the latest Chinese swarms, which were becoming common in areas that are recognized by everyone (but not by China) as international waters, are now happening within the Philippines economic zone under international law

PCG Commodore Jay Tarriela, maritime security adviser to the coast guard chief, said in an interview with dzBB radio that it was the first time that such a large number of Chinese vessels were seen at Del Pilar (Iroquois) Reef and Escoda (Sabina) Shoal....

The Western Command (Wescom) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines reported on Friday that more than 50 Chinese maritime militia (CMM) vessels were seen “loitering” at Del Pilar and Escoda south of Recto Bank west of Palawan province...

Three China Coast Guard ships and two Chinese naval vessels also were seen in those waters which are well within the Philippines’ 370-kilometer exclusive economic zone (EEZ), Wescom said.

italics mine.  

From Wikipedia:United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea

An exclusive economic zone (EEZ), as prescribed by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is an area of the sea in which a sovereign state has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources, including energy production from water and wind.

this is more than stealing the fish from Philipino fishermen. There are huge natural gas deposits there (which the Chinese have been trying to steal by saying they will cooperate with the Philippines, and years ago they were caught bribing one politician and she was forced to stop giving it away due to public opinion and push back by the courts).

But this area also is a strategic shipping lane for ships going to China, Korea, and Japan.

And by threatening the Philippines, they are trying to stop the Philippines from helping other allies who might stop China from invading Taiwan.

China is watching what happens in the Ukraine: to see if the west might be willing to go to war

A weakened Biden and a Defense Department who seems to be more interested in pushing transgender agenda than finding people to fight a war, and several visits by US big shots that seem to be begging China to play nice are also encouraging China to think that a US won't stop them. And of course, the moves of Biden to destroy their political opponants on many levels suggest a US in so much political turmoil during next year's election cycle that the public won't support a war.

In the meanwhile, Chinese propaganda in the media continues.

So why does a live action Barbie movie show China's dashed line on a map? There is no reason to do this, except as propaganda to normalize people to think that line is legal: And it also shows China has influence over Hollywood movie plots.

fAST FORWARD TO 32 MINUTES.

Viet Nam, who already had one war with CHina over their grab of their islands, has already banned the film. 

As the guys note: Maps do not have dashed lines on them. So why was this put into a distorted map on a movie that has nothing to do with anything? fast forward to 41 minutes and they explain what this is about.

sigh.

Psst: The (Anti) Pope is destroying Catholicism

 The (illegally elected) Pope is going ahead in his plans to morph the church into a PC social welfare institution that is in service to the world leaders who are aiming to reset the world's economies and countries.

GetReligionBlog summarizes what is going on, and notes the silence of the MSM on an important issue.

The Pope is trying to change Catholicism into Anglicanism lite, or maybe the secular Unitarian church where social action is king.

He is doing this in two ways: filling people in charge of the Synod on Synodality (AKA SOS) with his minions, and removing the head of the inquistion board that corrects heresy with a guy who admits he won't defend church dogma.

I guess the grass roots aren't obeying his plans in those synodality stuff....in a council that is supposed to be echoing grass roots concerns, one third of them are to be chosen by the Pope, and are the usual suspects.

So where are the bishops? Keeping their heads down for fear of being investigated or criticized by the Cathoic press.

Here is another problem of good bishops: They are so polite no one can figure out they are criticizing the Pope. Here's an example.

zzzzzzzzzz....

 it isn't until 12 minutes into the video that he dares to say we follow Jesus, not the Pope or rich people (i.e. the Germans and liberal Europeans whose churches are empty but who receive oodles of tax money from the government, and don't forget the rich people who are funding the world wide changes on many levels).

sigh.

And if that isn't enough, at the same time, the Pope just appointed the office supposed to defend the dogma of the church with a guy whose nickname is Tucho, and who wrote a book on how to kiss. LINK

You can't make this up.

VoxCantoris notes he once discussed how the Pope hopes to change the church:“

The pope goes slow because he wants to be sure that the changes have a deep impact. The slow pace is necessary to ensure the effectiveness of the changes. He knows there are those hoping that the next pope will turn everything back around. If you go slowly it’s more difficult to turn things back. . .

 –Tucho Fernandez

italics mine. 

Frog, meet boiling water.

So why care if the Papists morph into liberal Anglicans on a doctrinal level? Because at the same time they are cooperating with the Great Reset.

And having a guy who claims to represent 1 billion Catholics would be a good way to influence them to support these changes, not to mention the numerous schools, hospitals, charitable outreaches etc. that are run by the church.

However, the real problem is that millions of Catholic Christians will end up leaving Catholicism: either to join the large and growing category of "nones" (and endangering their souls), or to join a local Evangelical or Pentecostal church that still worships Jesus.

The Pope knows this because this is what happened in much of South America when the PC pushed liberation theology. But instead of asking why they left, he prefers to keep pushing a similar agenda.

Religion is about finding meaning in life by acknowledging a higher power who cares for you, and who you serve by doing the duties of your daily life.

I spent much of my life being a do gooder (as a doctor), so I sympathize with the idea you serve God by helping the poor and sick.

But this is not the only way to serve God: and when a religion pushes the idea that only do gooders and SJW are doing God's work, they are ignoring the vast majority of ordinary folk who just can't do such things but become saints by simply doing the duties of their daily life as a way to serve God.

Brother Lawrence, call your office. LINK

Musical interlude of the day

 

don't question the data. You don't want to make them mad

No, not the vaccine data: But how the press is lauding what this video claims:

 Threads Gains 30M Users in ONE Day - Is Twitter Finished?

 

 hmm. Really? On a holiday weekend, when most folks are busy having fun, 30 million people had nothing better to do but download a new app and sign up for it.

Or maybe not: But the comment under the video states:

Meta have annouced that 10 million users have joined Threads since it’s launch on Wednesday.

 MarketWatch clarifies this: it was launched on Wed evening.

Meta’s Threads has 30 million users in less than 24 hours after launch..The app garnered 2 million users in the first two hours after launch, according to Zuckerberg’s first post on the platform.

Within seven hours, that number had grown to 10 million. Shortly after 11 a.m. Eastern time, the Facebook founder again posted to say the number had tripled..(30 million)

I'm not the only one a little bit suspicious of the numbers: 

..Meta’s stock, meanwhile, was slightly lower in afternoon trade with markets in selloff mode,.

 Propaganda against Musk of course. 

He opened Twitter to dangerous ideas, and of course, this freedom for deplorables to express themselves has been made worse by a US court decision that the US government could not pressure social media (news) sites to censor government critics who they see as pushing "disinformation".

That dang first amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 and to make things worse, the SCourt just said that you could not force Christians who own businesses to become platforms to push activities that go against their religion.

 Dang it. Next thing you know, the courts will stop the great Biden from forcing religious hospitals and medical personnel from cooperating with abortion or sterilization or elective gender surgeries.

Right now, the fundamentalist athiest activists are very active in politics, and guess who they are trying to force to conform to their creed?

Vaccine stuff: The science is complicated

Dr C reports on a Danish study that showed a high rate of side effects to the mRNA vaccine: but most of the problem of bad reactions to Covid were from one batch. Meaning that one batch of vaccines was bad.

maybe if the discussion of problems hadn't been censored, the docs seeing these cases could have reported these clusters, and since the batch numbers are included in the medical records when you give these shots, the problem could have been found much earlier.

But because discussions of side effects on the social media were censored, (meaning docs couldn't discuss it among themselves and figure out what the problem was) it was the extremist anti vaxxers who yelled enough to get normal people to notice the problem, resulting in the loss of trust in the medical establishment and an increased belief in conspiracy theories.

Sigh.

---------------------

in other news, the WHO is backing giving a malaria vaccine to infants in Africa where FMalaria is common and causes a lot of deaths. Alas, it isn't a good vaccine but newer vaccines are on the way (using older vaccine techology) that might give 80 percent protection.

I have a long blog post about it (which needs editing so is hard to read) or just go and read this older BBC article....but essentially it says hey 30 percent decrease in death from malaria in babies is better than nothing, but please continue to use mosquito nets and drain puddles too.

There are several malarias around; The type reported in the USA causing hyperventillation are the less serious types that can hide inside and flare up on and off. Probably brought in by unscreened illegal migrants of course. The real killer however is Falciparum malaria, which is resistant to a lot of anti malaria drugs, and the only good thing about that form is that it doesn't hide in the liver: Once you are cured, you are cured without relapse problems

Censorship, anti vax hysteria, and saving lives

one of the side effects of the Dengue vaccine debacle in the Philippines, where an experimental vaccine caused a dozen children to die of complicated dengue, was distrust of vaccine: ALL vaccines.

This AlJ article discusses the aftermath: Children not getting routine vaccines dying of measles, etc.

People want cures, and when things are imperfect, don't understand the problem of cost/benefit ratio.

Do we stop giving antibiotics because a few people get severe allegy reactions? Do we stop using birth control pills because a few women had fatal blood clots? Do we stop driving cars because of the risk of auto accidents?

Various vaccines have been around for 225 years, and the question if the risk of side effects outweighed the danger of the actual disease has been around since then (or even longer: Cotton Mather got a bomb thrown at him because he argued locals should be innoculated with a case of mild smallpox (a practice used in the Ottoman empire) during the smallpox epidemic in 1721 Boston.

a similar world wide hysteria is being spread by anti vaxxers about the covid shots.

Anti science Luddites, one would be tempted to say.

But alas, in their defense, it should be noted the real problem was that the side effects were covered up, and this coverup was aided and abetted by governments who censored the news of side effects, especially of the mRNA vaccines (the adenovirus astrozeneca problems were known early, which is why in the Philippines we only gave it to the elders). 

Propaganda pushed vaccines as a prevention, and China got a lot of credit by giving their vaccine to various poor countries before the western vaccines were approved of by scientisits: but quickly it was realized that Sinovax resulted in poor protection, so the western vaccines soon became sought after by locals.

But then it was noted that even the western vaccines required boosters because the immune response decreased with time. 

Luckily, herd immunity from the Omicron varient has pretty well stopped the epidemic here in the Philippines: it was felt that the various vaccines gave us time to cope. And for those who said it wasn't dangerous except for the old: well, sorry but we lost young and middle age friends at the height of the epidemic. And this is why the Philippines, despite suspicion of new vaccines, had a fairly good rate of being innoculated in the first two years, but when it came to boosters, few bothered to get them.

Finally, another big scandal in the USA was the overthetop effort to stop doctors from prescribing possible alternative treatments that might or might not work. Ivermectin? Once it was shown to work it was used widely here, along with steroids and anti viral medicines for severe cases.

Sigh.

But covid is not the only vaccine where both problems and benefits were censored or else exaggerated for political reasons.

A similar fight against the anti vax propaganda involves the attempt to eradicate polio.

I am old enough to remember the polio epidemics of the 1950s: Two of my friends had it and were left with weakened legs. Then came the Salk vaccine, and we all got shots, and there have been very few cases in developed countries since then.

Little known fact:

 If enough people were vaccinated, polio could be wiped out in the world, similar to how smallpox was stopped.

But alas the anti vax hysteria of the west is picked up by ignorant religious leaders (Most but not all Muslim) who read these stories and then told their people that the vaccines are poison. 

This has been going on for quite awhile, before all the covid kerfuffle started.

For example, we had to cope with communist propaganda against "western" vaccines and clinics in the 1970s when I worked in Africa. Then we saw stories blaming HIV on the west, which also was a rumor started by the KGB, 

This was picked up by the UK press: some Brits saw cases of HIV in areas where polio vaccine had been given in central Africa, picked up the KGB disinformation,  and blamed polio vaccine for the epidemic, ignoring the fact that (serum testing showed) the virus had been there for decades, but was being spread mainly via truck drivers and prostitutes along the new pan African highway. But never mind; The anti vax hysteria gets you to feel like a hero.

Similar episodes of hysteria, people avoiding vaccines, and then diseases that docs hadn't seen for decades have occured since then, with whooping cough and now measles vaccines. The Whooping cough vaccine was replaced with a safer one, but measles kills kids, and if you give it too early, it needs boosters, but if you give it later, you get infants dead from measles. Too few experts in the west pushing the hysteria have seen these dead kids, so seem unaware of this terrible disease. As for autism: these kids were around 40 years ago, but we diagnosed them as retarded and they were institutionalized. Now the parents have to cope with them. And often when you take a history and find their symptoms were a problem present since birth, so probably from genetic defects.

Sigh.

Alas, the overhyping of covid vaccine and the censorship of side effects has exacerbated a general anti vax hysteria, and ignorant people just don't see the difference between one vaccine and another completely different vaccine, and often are clueless that these childhood diseases kill children. 

Well, anyway, the pro/anti vax propaganda wars over the last 20 years has waxed and waned. 

However the publicity given to these ideas has led to an upsurge of anti polio vaccine ideas in Muslim countries. This has been a major cause of it's spread,

To to make things worse, the mutation of the OPV virus into unvaccinated population caused several small epidemics.

This resulted in more suspicion of vaccine, and so a successful and easily given oral vaccine has had to be replaced with an expensive injection, requiring training in giving shots, expenses for disposable syringes (so not to spread HIV), etc.

Stratagy page mentions the problems with polio vaccine in their essay on Nigeria's problems. 

In 2020 the government had prematurely declared Nigeria polio free. Because of poor reporting by health officials in several states, it turned out that Nigeria had not been eradicated. This comes after three years with no known new cases of polio.

actually no:  there were cases, but they just weren't being resported. 

In those two nations (Afghanistan and Pakistan) the same Moslem intolerance and paranoia that delayed Nigeria from becoming polio-free are in play....

This polio free effort began in the 1980s and a decade ago ran into problems in northern Nigeria, where conservative Islamic clergy and Boko Haram spread the rumor that the polio vaccine was actually a plot to poison Moslem children. This has delayed eradication of polio in Nigeria for nearly a decade.

Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria all share the same problems of poor public health care systems and some lingering resistance to vaccination preached by a few hardcore Moslem preachers. As long as these three nations still have some polio infections it is possible for migrants, especially illegals, to take the virus to virus-free nations.

It's not just Muslim preachers: Catholic bishops in one African country opposed giving tetanus vaccine to pregnant women because it contained "HCG" which supposedly caused miscarriages or stopped women from becoming pregnant. 

This same rumor was being spread back in the 1990s in the Philippines, so it's not a new claim. 

And naive westerners wondered why pregnant women needed a course of anti tetanus vaccine, 

 
Uh, neonatal tetanus:

This media comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Image Library

This media comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Image Library

Sigh.