Samurai

 With Shogun being the big hit on TV right now, the myth of the Samurai is being discussed.

Hiroyuki Sanada points out that most of the Hollywood  films about Japan and Japanese history are the interpretations of the westerners making the film. But here he influenced the film which differs from the earlier miniseries because it emphasized the Japanese characters and included Japanese actors playing all the minor roles in the film.

Smithsonian magazine article on the film and that period of history in Japan.

yup. Authentic. Or maybe not completely: no blackened teeth or high eyebrows for the leading lady.

Shogun is set in a  time was important to Japanese history: trying to unite the warring states causing chaos in the land, with the added problems of the Europeans who introduced new technology (guns) and ideas (Christianity, not just because of the danger of becoming a colony of European powers, but because it preached dangerous ideas that everyone is equal. This undermines the traditions of Confucian culture which honors hierarchy: women obey husbands, peasants obey local lords, etc. It's easier to run a country if the religion supports the idea that not to obey the guys in charge is a sin.)

So escapism? or is it a lesson for today's world, where the idea of separate states is being pushed by the MAGA types, but ignores the question of what happens when unity breaks down? Hobbes points out a strong central government might be the best choice, but hey who reads those old philosophy books nowadays?

But anyway, instead of Americanized viewpoints maybe watching the Samurai films and historical dramas of Japanese director Kurosawa will give a different background to those times of trouble before Japan was united:

For example: Seven Samurai, about farmers at a time of chaos facing bandits, hiring Samurai hitmen to protect the village.

the full film can be streamed from Internet Archive LINK

Who do you chose, the bandits who you know or the outsiders who you hire who might just take you over anyway?

The film was remade as the Magnificent Seven, placed in Mexico at a time of disorder.

and of course, Kurosawa's other Samurai films use themes similar to the American western. This essay on Yojimbo explains how noir films inspired the film, which then went on to inspire western films like a Fistful of dollars.

the Hidden Fortress inspired parts of Star wars, but we also see influences work both ways: Throne of Blood and Ran are Japanese retelling of Macbeth and King Lear.

Then we have the classic Roshomon about four points of view of the same crime.

This film is about the accuracy of eyewitness testimony and especially important today's news in discussing he said she said stories of sexual harassment where everyone's memory is tainted by self interest.

I always found Roshomon interesting, because the men and their stories all blamed the woman, but the final story, by a woodcutter who had no reason to lie, shows they are all wrong: All the men reject the woman after her rape, so she gets angry and provokes the men into fighting each other by ridiculing their manhood saying they only see her as a doll, not a real woman, and gets them to fight over her by saying that none of them deserve the love of a real woman of passion.

I should note that few reviewers notice this feminist outburst by a woman stuck into what might have been a loveless arranged marriage and now rejected by her husband for something she didn't do. (or maybe because he was angry because she didn't kill herself in shame for being attacked).

the western proverb is; hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

 

dog movie of the week

 

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the real story...

so Sweden, not a Yank. And the race was in Ecuador, not the Dominican Republic. But like most fiction, the facts were changed, but the essence of the story was conveyed.

disease you always have with you

the next big epidemic we are worried about is bird flu.

See this discussion. So far, no air borne spread from person to person although there have had a couple dozen cases over the last ten years from close contact with infected bird. but now it has been found in cows.

But pasteuring milk should stop the spread. anti flu medicine should help but they are busy making a vaccine if they need it.

but there is good news out there.

Remember the Ebola hysteria a few years ago? Just check the older videos on youtube and it's full of hysteria. But few recent videos. Wonder why?

From the CDC:
Use of Ebola Vaccines — Worldwide, 2021–2023

they did ring vaccinations in outbreaks, and then since they had a lot of left over vaccine, offered the vaccine to the high risk folk in those areas.

nothing is perfect, but old fashioned preventive medicine techniques still work.

Queen of tears: or why K dramas rock

Everyone here is watching the K Drama Queen of Tears, which is available on Netflix also.

It is a regular rollercoaster ride of romance that could give the cliche ridden Hallmark channel romances a lesson.

So a country hick lawyer gets a job at a big corporation and falls in love with a beautiful girl who is an intern there. What he doesn't know is that her family owns the business and she helps run the place.

Cue forward three years, and the lawyer is depressed because she nags him all the time, criticizes him in public, and the father and grandfather want him to do actions that he sees as being unkind and unethical to their subcontracters.

So far we have marital problems, corporate corruption, class prejudice, and crazy in laws.

But it doesn't stop there. Add losing a baby which is part of the problem behind the marital problems, a greedy mistress of the grandfather, and her son who are planning to take over the business and gut it. And the real drama: The beautiful leading lady develops a brain tumor, which is fatal.

that last one drives me nuts: like most K Dramas, the medical part is absurd. Supposedly it is a form of glioblastoma but this one merely gives her memory lapses. And (clue to the future) when she finds a hospital in Germany who can remove it, but it will take away her memory. When she finally has surgery there without anyone shaving her hair. WTF?

The final two episodes this weekend will be about her memory loss, (no memories of her family or husband) with bad guy who loves her pretending he is her finace. And we will have to wait to see how they cleared her husband from trumped up murder charges, and revealing the corporate fraud by the mistress.

And we can't wait.

Because it is K drama, expect a happy ending.

So what lessons can this give to Hollywood/TV series? 

 One: yes there is murder, and bad guys. Murder happens but usually for a reason: none of that mindless serial killer subplot that every other Hollywood crime dramas seems to have for a plot. 

 Two: law and corporate fraud are the subplots, but big business is not made the problem: the people who manipulate these things are. And they often do it because they were very poor and had to work their way up. 

Three: Family matters. Family members love and hate each other, but also families help each other in times of trouble. And by family I mean the whole family: not just the single mother in law and daughter. Not the hero without family ties. The entire extended families are there, something rarely seen in western dramas. 

 Four: rich vs poor are the subplot, but no racism here. 

Five: the murders are taken seriously, whereas in too many modern Hollywood shows they are faceless and quickly forgotten. 

 Six: religion matters. Not just the Buddhist funeral rituals of the family, but the protagonist is a Christian and goes to church to pray when his wife is facing surgery. 

Seven: Men cry and show emotion but that doesn't make them weak. 

Eight: lots of eating food, and cooking. And drinking alcohol with friends. A lot of the discussions are around the dining room table. 

Nine: characters of all ages and classes. 

They don't all look alike: heck, in the name of diversity American films have people of different races, but they all look and act alike: only the skin color changes. 

But here, older women look older, not like botoxed middle age women trying to look as if they are 20 as in too many romance dramas. 

And characters act differently: The socialite mother doesn't act the same as the mother who runs her farm or the sister with her beauty salon in the country or the plotting mistress or the lady boss who is the heroine. 

 so yes, it is essentially a soap opera plot with overblown plot and drama, but entertaining.

so if you are depressed from watching Shogun where everyone is nasty and the plot is darker than the cinematography, try this K drama.

And don't forget your handkies.

I give it a 5 out of five stars for entertainment value.

manipulating revolutions

 a follow up from a post I did a few days ago about CIA corruption and what seemed to be getting funding to manipulate the news to destroy Duterte, who hated drugs and hated the CIA who got one of their drug dealing patsies out of jail when he was mayor in Davao. But, as the saying goes: What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

So are the same puppet masters manipulating the press in the USA for the next election? 

Multiple sources in the Middle East and North Africa have told me they believe NPR boss Katherine Maher was affiliated with US intelligence. What we know for sure is that Maher was part of a US-backed regime change operation in the early 2010s. Read more:https://t.co/8GfkTvuUn8

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 24, 2024

full article at City Journal:

The West’s favored methods of supporting Color Revolutions include fomenting dissent, organizing activists through social media, promoting student movements, and unleashing domestic unrest on the streets.... The summer of rioting following the death of George Floyd, which ushered in the new DEI regime, was in many ways a domestic Color Revolution, advanced by progressive NGOs, media entities, and political actors.

A minor figure in these movements, a woman named Katherine Maher, has recently come to greater prominence. Maher was involved in the wave of Color Revolutions that took place in North Africa in the 2010s, and she supported the post-George Floyd upheavals in the United States in the 2020s. She was also the CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, and was just recently named the new CEO of National Public Radio.

At NPR, Maher has already been embroiled in controversy. Longtime editor Uri Berliner, who has now resigned, accused her of left-wing bias and suppressing dissent. Following these accusations, I did extensive reporting demonstrating that Maher has a troubling history of arguing against the notion of objective truth and supporting censorship in the name of democracy.

Ironically, such interference was supposed to be by the right wing in the CIA, but apparently now it is the progressive deep state doing these things.

Sigh.

headsup instapundit. 

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I don't feel like making another post, but here is a discussion about other bad guys who want to change the world. But instead of the American plan, which essentially puts friendly governments in place, the Chinese want to steal everything in site and take the place over (and believe me, the Chinese are a lot more racist than the Yanks):

Stealth killing of useless elders blamed on covid

 

original article here.

translation: If someone was thought to have covid, they were given a tranquilizer to lower their anxiety but sometimes no other treatment... Of course, this tranquilizer would depress their ability to breathe, meaning it would result in them dying.

in treating such patients, there is a fine line between relieving their anxiety and causing respiratory depression, so sometimes this happens. But was a deliberate overdose given with the object to kill?

Ethically you can give pain relief and anti anxiety relief to the dying even with this risk. '

I was once accused by one nurse of overdosing one such dying patient: but when I checked him, he was moaning in pain. So I gave a dose that relieved the pain but his breathing rate went down to 8/minute but did not stop. So I had to titrate him to keep his breathing rate over 8 but not so low that he was in pain....What finally helped was a pastor who prayed over him, and he calmed down and died peacefully a few hours later without having to push extra narcotics to relieve his suffering.

However, with covid, you are not giving narcotic pain relief but anti anxiety medicine.

And the medicine cited causes respiratory depression in higher doses: in people already low in oxygen from pneumonia this can be fatal. However, relieving the suffering from air hunger is important, and can save a life because anxiety increases your oxygen consumption.

and there are traquillizers that do not slow the breathing.

 and I have read some of these deaths were when doctors being phoned about a patient with covid and would just order  the tranquillizer but no other medicine (prednisone, antibiotics).

This will have to be looked into because in the UK, there was a protocol for people with severe pain from cancer, but it was found that this was ordered for people with non fatal diseases or when the cancer was not terminal.

UKGuardian article explains how this was misused. 

the dirty little secret is that once euthanasia becomes a treatment, then making someone dead is not seen as bad: and the elders, handicapped and critically ill are all at risk from medical staff that sees death as an optional treatment.

there is also a question if the ventillators were overused. But that is another question for another time.

Voyager 1 back on line

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more here. and UKGuardian article HERE.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 was designed with the primary goal of conducting close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn in a five-year mission. However, its journey continued and the spacecraft is now approaching a half-century in operation. Voyager 1 crossed into interstellar space in August 2012, making it the first human-made object to venture out of the solar system. It is currently travelling at 37,800mph (60,821km/h).

Hi, it's me. - V1 https://t.co/jgGFBfxIOe

— NASA Voyager (@NASAVoyager) April 22, 2024

I was a bit confused. Apparently there are two Voyager satellites out there.

LINK:

Launched in 1977, the Voyager 1 and 2 probes were both cutting-edge pieces of technology for their time. The computers at the heart of their operations consisted of three systems, each with dual-redundancy, that worked together to enable the probes to journey to Jupiter, Saturn, and beyond: the Computer Command System (CCS), the Flight Data Subsystem (FDS), and the Attitude and Articulation Control System (AACS). What is amazing is that even after four decades of traveling through the harsh, sometimes unpredictable, environment of space, both probes continue to function and call home with new insights and data. It is taking longer and longer to be able to communicate and upload new routines to the probes, but the fact it is still possible with technology from a bygone era is a testament to the quality of engineering put into these spacecraft.

how old is it? It used Fortran.

The original software for the Voyager probes was written using Fortran 5 then ported to Fortran 77, and today there is some porting in C. Low-level, light-weight software is increasingly important as the probes move farther and farther away from Earth and communication becomes slower.

and trivia fact: A fictional Voyager 6 morphed to be the bad guy in the original Startrek movie.

Conspiracy theory: full court press on the CIA

 this is making waves on the internet since the miniseries is being released this week on Netflix. UKGuardian review here.

this is okay to publish, because it is about the Iran Contra scandal, and Reagan can be smeared,

But of course, the CIA has their fingers in the pot all over. The MENA cocaine connection with Clinton and the Southern Mafia won't come to light because Clinton is a Democrat, and was probably CIA when he was doing anti war rallies in London as a student.

CIA conspiracies will make your head spin: The problem: The CIA are after bad guys and will cut corners to win, because they think it will help the USA.

and the bad news: Destroying the CIA will mainly help the bad guys who are doing the same thing.

But if these bad guys (the rabid communists or rigid Islamicists ) win, the results will be a lot worse than if the US/West wins. 

Can you say genocide children? 

Here in the Philippines, Marcos is making nice with the USA because China keeps threatening us. 

Obama stopped the Philippines from stopping China  from moving into the West Philippine sea: because PNoy tried to be honest and cooperative with the USA and no one wanted a war, so he obeyed Obama and went to court, and won.... and China just ignored international law. 

When Duterte won, the CIA/US MSM had a fit, and we saw a full court press to vilify him. 

Ironically, his popularity among ordinary folk was high because the criminal and drug crimes went down, but hey don't expect the US MSM to notice fewer dead innocent people like my neighbors killed in home invasions by drug addicts, dying of overdoses, or kidnapped by gangs for ransom.

But I also have posted about the way Omidyar money (the same money helped to orchestrate the overthrow of the pro Russian Ukrainian president) set up Rappler (and later got the one who accepted that illegal money a Nobel Peace prize). 

The CIA was busy trying to destroy Duterte, who hated the CIA for releasing a drug dealer from a Davao prison. 

Instead of trying to help him get rid of drugs, they arranged to manipulate the press to demonize him in the usual way: Twisting his Pinoy humor as if he meant it, trumpeting innocent deaths in drug raids but ignoring the dead from drugs, ignoring that the Philippines was in danger of becoming a narco state when he took over.

all it did was to push Duterte to get help from China and Russia. China of course screwed him and didn't keep their promises and lied a lot about it. For example, in today's news China said that Duterte had okayed their presence in the West Philippine sea so if the Philippine objects they are wrong.

Of course, this is nonsense: A president can't do that without okay by the senate and courts, and China knows this, because that is what stopped them years ago: when they used the ZTE money to bribe GMA to let them do this, and the courts stopped them. Of course, after many court cases, GMA went free and the whistle blower went to jail for "corruption" but hey, the Philippines where anyone can be accused of corruption. 

So today, AnnAlthouse comments on an interview (Which I have not seen) of Tucker Carlson by Joe Rogan, where the CIA connection to the JFK murder was mentioned. And they question why some documents are not yet being released; and then Tucker related that he was warned about releasing secret information by a lawyer of Mike Pompeo.

here's the interview, for what it is worth

hmm..

well, that might explain why President Biden denied secret service protection for RFK Jr.

and it might explain why suddenly there are a slew of court cases that popped up to accuse Trumpieboy of various stuff: All this stuff happened years ago and were deemed in the past as minor stuff or lacking merit or past the statute of limitations, but of course they changed the laws and reinterpreted the laws in novel ways to try to stop him.

Coincidence? I think not: And I suspect despite wall to wall demonization in the press, it won't work.

What really will destroy Biden is that the demonstrators who destroyed the cities are now becoming toxic and pretending Hamas and other Iranian terror groups are the good guys.

People might be sceptical about the Floyd murder riots but there is some sympathy because racism is a problem. But the wall to wall lies out of Gaza might not make people think riots proclaiming hatred of the USA and attacking Jewish students who have no ties with Israel is okay. 

I don't think so.

PJ O'Rourke was once asked why conservatives don't demonstrate, and he quipped: Because they have jobs.

So who are funding all these student protesters? The elite students have rich parents, but the foreign students are being supported by someone.

No one wants to call those supporting Hamas part of a cult, of course. Just like the transgender cult, or the anti Vietnam protests of the 1960s it is a way for rich kids to feel like they are the good guys, and of course, they will never have to clean up the messes caused by their self righteous piety.

But the huge Trumpieboy rallies suggest they are out there. When these are noticed, those attending are called cultists. 

Sigh.

Lots of corruption out there, and after the Twitter files were exposed for manipulating covid information, it looks like a lot more people are manipulating the news than the CIA....

Senator Church, call your office. They are at it again.

the stuff we keep

an essay on the simple things we collect and cherish.

Moving a lot, I lost a lot of stuff, but the special photos and clippings I put inside my bible.

When I was babysitting my granddaughter, I would often put her on my lap and open my bible and show her the photos of the family and the places I had worked, and told the family stories that were behind the photos.

this doesn't sound good

 

translation: Marcos is making nice with the US against China, who is threatening our resources.

China, of course, is also planning to invade Taiwan, meaning they can block the sea lanes more efficiently

and blackmail us (Manila is on the western side of the Philippines) and this doesn't even mention the internet cables going through that area;

in some ways, China blew it when they failed to keep promises of aid with Duterte: Now China is claiming Duterte had a gentleman's agreement they could steal the West Philippine sea from us, but there is a problem: NO paperwork, of course, and the president can't do that without the senate agreeing.

This isn't the first time they pulled this trick: The ZTE scandal with GMArroyo did the same but was stopped when our free press caught them at it.

But this was the backstory of that deal: letting china explore the area for oil etc. which was later declared an unconstitutional agreement.

But of course this year's execizes are more worried about the possible invasion of Taiwan than China's continued steal of the Philippine resources in the West Philippine sea. When they started making those artificial islands etc. President Obama told PNoy not to fight but take them to court. The Philippines won in courts, which sent China a nasty letter which they ignored of course. 

I should note that these joint Balikatan exercizes go on all the time. 

since a nearby airbase is used by the Philippine special forces to teach Yanks jungle warfare etc, usually we know they are there when we hear planes and helicopters going over us. 

But this year, the joint exercizes will be bigger than usual.

And ironically, most of the training is about coordination between militaries, which comes in valuable when a disaster strikes. And this being the Philippines, disasters are always striking (earthquakes, volcanos, landslide, typhoons, floods). Indeed, disasters are so  common we have our own Wikipedia page.

in the meanwhile, it is "TagInit", aka hot season/summer. It is supposed to go up to 100 F today. No not global warming: It does this every year.

And with the hot/dry season comes other problems; My airconditioner needs to be cleaned because it isn't working as well as usual.

But the city water got a leak, so we are without water. We do have a pump but it is not efficient. Kuya is too busy harvesting the rice to hire someone to fix it, so our handiman is trying his best. 

We still haven't had electrical brownouts so that is good (usually the hydro electric power available relies on adequate water, which  goes down during hot/dry season).

Oh well, I know how to shower with a tabo so no problem.

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update; also see yesterday's post.

Some of Chinese students in Cagayan were reportedly shelling out P2-M to obtain degrees with others not even bothering to attend classes amid worries about the reported surge of their presence there where there are two Edca sites @inquirerdotnet https://t.co/XNlBF18UrS

— John Eric Mendoza (@JEMendozaINQ) April 18, 2024

Fraud in medical reporting?

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The pressure of big Pharma, not just by their advertisements, but because they fund the studies that get published in journals, was pointed out by former editor of the NEJM, Dr. Marcia Angell, twenty years ago: 

italics mine.

Book review here.

For two decades the drug industry was the most profitable sector; even in 2003 it came third, behind crude oil and banking. But now, Angell says, it is facing “a tidal wave of government investigations and civil and criminal lawsuits.”

She writes, “The litany of charges includes illegally overcharging Medicaid and Medicare, paying kickbacks to doctors, engaging in anticompetitive practices, colluding with generic companies to keep generic drugs off the market, illegally promoting drugs for unapproved uses, engaging in misleading direct-to-consumer advertising, and, of course, covering up evidence. Some of the settlements have been huge.”

that was 20 years ago. 

Place conspiracy theory here. 

MUSICAL INTERLUDE OF THE WEEK

 

Chinese students or prepositioned spies?

so what are those Chinese students doing in the Northern Philippines ?

 

Two Cagayan Valley lawmakers said the presence of large numbers of Chinese nationals in the region and other parts of the country pose a risk to the country’s national security and economy, particularly since these foreigners had been involved in “spurious schemes.”

READ MORE:… pic.twitter.com/bm4qRMW2eK

— Inquirer (@inquirerdotnet) April 15, 2024

Lara, in his Resolution No. 1666 dated March 20, noted “an alarming increase in the number of Chinese citizens coming into the province of Cagayan as students enrolled in the various higher education institutions from the past to the current year.”

the article then goes on to list various shady schemes by so called Chinese businessmen, and also notes that the students are in the Philippine legally.

but two EDCA sites are in that area Enhanced Defense Cooperation Arrangement (EDCA) which are bases of shared US and Philippine military.

So are they students, drug dealers, or prepositioned Chinese military, to spy on these bases to find out what is going on as part of their plan to invade Taiwan?

happy tax day to you Yanks

actually I did my tax with Turbotax six weeks ago and have gotten my refund.

When we were in the US, we had an accountant but he said don't waste our money on him after retirement since we only had pensions etc and no longer had to calculate stuff about CME, licenses, offices, business expenses etc. so it didn't need him to figure it out.

Loss of trust and other side effects of covid policies

This video discusses one side effects of the covid quarantine policies: missed routine childhood vaccines, and we now have an epidemic of whooping cough.

I suspect we have it in our area, because the cook has come to me asking to give money to one of the neighbors because their kid had "Broncho" and needs to go to the hospital/clinic for treatment.

But whooping cough right now is spreading in other countries. But then it never really goes away because  adults, who have a mild version of the disease. can spread it to babies who are more vulnerable to get a severe case.

I have seen two cases of whooping cough in my patients in the USA: Both had missed their shots because they were sick (one with reflux related pneumonia the other with wheezing post RSV). The problem is that the routine antibiotics don't work: You have to use something in the Erythromycin family (e.g. azithromycin) instead of the penicillin/amoxicillin/cephalosporins which don't work.

One clue to the disease: A very high wbc. This is important since to get a routine test for pertussis in our rural area would have taken days.

here is the characteristic whoop:

Years ago, the vaccine for pertussis/cough vaccine had a rare but serious side effect of brain damage. In the UK, this got a lot of publicity so parents refused the vaccine and voila, a pertussis epidemic with several deaths. Luckily, the Japanese had just developed an acellular pertussis vaccine that didn't have the problem, and that solved the problem. Except for one thing: It didn't give as strong an immune responses. And since pertussis was still present (probably in adults whose immunity had waned and who had few symptoms) babies who hadn't yet received the vaccine could still catch it.

this article discusses the statistics of pertussis in the UK.

Sigh.

 I have written several articles about vaccines and the overreach for power that was behind the covid shutdown.

By censoring physicians who questioned the so called experts, it resulted in the hysterics taking over the discussion of problems. The good news: The problems finally got discussed. The bad news: The problems were taken out of context, and this resulted in a decrease in trust in so called authorities.

For covid? A lot of people died of this, something that is now being forgotten, and not all the deaths were in elders.

The problem? Yes the quarantine was needed, but not for two years.

As I have noted earlier: The anti covid shot hysteria is not big here, because we used all sorts of vaccines and only got the mRNA vaccine late in 2021 because the DOH would not sign a no liability papers. But as soon as various covid vaccines became available, most folk took these shots. The AZ and later the  Yankee shots which worked better to prevent the disease were given to high risk folk. I got the AZ ... I was aware of the blood clot problem: so it was not given to young folk because of this.  Our younger staff got the Chinese Sinovax, which essentially didn't work, but hey better than nothing. And since Omicron hit, few here are getting boosters.  

In other words, the mRNA vaccines were touted as lifesaving, which they were, but they didn't work very well after a few months and needed more and more boosters. And probably the same problem was seen with other vaccines.

So essentially (thanks to omicron and herd immunity) the disease burnt itself out and although it is still around, like influenza one can live with the problem.

So yes I support vaccines 

but no, I didn't get any more boosters for covid.

One has to remember: nothing in life is perfect.

When patients asked about rare side effects of vaccines or medicines, I would tell them yes these things happen but they are rare. Then I would ask how they got to the office, and most admitted they drove their car. So I would point out that there was a danger that on the way home they might be killed in a car wreck, and that life is risky.

Silencing doctors who have expertise as if they were paranoid anti vaxers has been the real problem of the covid policies.

Which is why the WHO's policies for the next epidemic will be seen as a power grab instead of good policy to stop disease.

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deception in medicine, alas

 

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his website has been following the documents for awhile. Here is an example: March 20,2024: even before the details of the treaty was released, the usual suspects approved of it.

Over 100 members of the Club of Madrid, the Global Leadership Foundation and the Nizami Ganjavi International Center (NGIC), and other prominent people from around the world have published a joint letter to the leaders of the member states of the WHO, calling for an urgent agreement on a pandemic accord.

  

A pandemic accord would deliver vast and universally shared benefits, including greater capacity to detect new and dangerous pathogens, access to information about pathogens detected elsewhere in the world…

sounds good. No problem, right?

The devil is in the details: 

 As countries now enter what should be the final stages of the negotiations, they must ensure that they are agreeing on actions which will do the job required: to prevent and mitigate pandemic threats. 

italics mine. 

it implies that all countries will have to go along with the decisions on what to do, but the big question is: who decides what actions need to be done.

We urge solutions which ensure both speed in reporting and sharing pathogens, and in access – in every country – to sufficient tools like tests and vaccines to protect lives and minimise harm.

good.  

The public and private sectors must work together towards the public good.

 so far so good. Makes sense.

Uh oh:

This global effort is being threatened by misinformation and disinformation.

translation: censorship of those who say wait a second. 

Among the falsehoods circulating are allegations that the WHO intends to monitor people’s movements through digital passports; that it will take away the national sovereignty of countries; and that it will have the ability to deploy armed troops to enforce mandatory vaccinations and lockdowns. All of these claims are wholly false and governments must work to disavow them with clear facts

 uh, maybe the reason some folks think they will do these things is that they did this for covid. 

And a lot of people now think that it was overkill, causing economic damage, diverting resources from preventing other diseases, (dengue because no money to spray for mosquitos, rabies deaths because people threw out their dogs because they couldn't afford to feed them) and folks not getting routine care so they die of ordinary preventable diseases, (Cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes).

and it was the WHO and other experts who essentially instructed the Philippines what to do. 

in summary: the overblown shut down of the world economy to stop the covid virus is now being seen as less wise than a short shutdown and routine isolation of cases. 

And the censorship of opinions and possible treatments has resulted in pushback against these WHO experts.

Like the boy who cried wolf, the problem is that if a real pandemic happened, people will just ignore what they are told by these experts.

Once trust is lost, it will take awhile until it is reformed.

We saw this in the Philippines after the Dengue vaccine experiment that killed some kids: a lot of parents refused routine shots that have been around for fifty years, so we had more kids die of measles etc. because the parents no longer trusted the public health authorities.

sigh.

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an example of disinformation: No, those sudden deaths were not caused by the vaccine says the CDC.

One state, Oregon, and reports of 40 cases, and all cases were early in the epidemic. June 2021 to Dec 2022... But a lot of the reports in the press were after second or third boosters.

the Epoch times notes the problems with this study: cross posted here on FreeRepublic (NSFW). because of firewall.

Genocide in Sudan: The forgotten Muslims

 every day one reads propaganda out of Iran/Hamas about Gaza, and demonstrations by the left's useful idiots who are influencing Biden, alas.

Wikipedia defines Useful Idiots.

A useful idiot or useful fool is a person perceived as propagandizing for a cause without fully comprehending the cause's goals, and who is cynically being used by the cause's leaders.The term was often used during the Cold War to describe non-communists regarded as susceptible to communist propaganda and psychological manipulation.

It's going to be a bad summer in the USA; Similar to what happened in the sixties in Chicago, except now the mainly blue collar Chicago cops won't be allowed to keep the peace by beating up the rich kids. Sigh. 

And remember: the results of those protests was you got Nixon (and in the long term, millions of refugees, ethnic cleansing of the Chinese from VietNam, and the Cambodian holocaust,,,, but hey, these rich kids never had to take responsibility for their actions: Heck I bet none of them ever took care of the Hmong or Catholic or Chinese refugees who made it into the USA, or heard their stories. )

So why am I cynical?

Because the biggest genocide going on right now is not Gaza, but in the Sudan.

It has been nearly one year since war broke out in Sudan, causing a devastating humanitarian crisis.

Here's what you need to know about the war, the peacemaking efforts undertaken since its outbreak, and the current humanitarian situation ⤵️https://t.co/UN0asdGx0e

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) April 11, 2024

more here. 

A real mess, with thousands of dead civilians, mainly Muslim but they can't blame the Jews or the USA, so don't expect the useful idiots to care or protest.

Nor is this just a civil war 

as the NZZ article points out: everyone is involved, and it has geopolitical implications, not just because it will spill into nearby countries

And part of the backstory is the presence of the Russian mercs (aka Wagner group) arming the rebels so they can steal all the gold they can lay their hands on, while suppling weapons and Iranian drones to the rebels,

 and just for good measure, we have Ukrainians in there hunting the Russian Mercs.

from NZZ:

The think tank International Crisis Group, for instance, writes: «An ungoverned Sudan would open the door for warlords and militias of various stripes, possibly including jihadists, to fill the vacuum. Instability could then radiate into the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, North Africa and the Red Sea basin, while pushing yet more migrants into already overtaxed neighboring states or on perilous journeys across the Mediterranean, into the Gulf and Levant, or even farther afield to the U.S.» Although this is an extreme scenario, it is nevertheless plausible. Because the war in Sudan is receiving so little attention, its geopolitically disruptive potential is being underestimated.

Sigh.

FAMILY NEWS

they are tearing out the rotten wood and rebuilding my closet shelves, which were infested with termites. Yuck.

In the meanwhile, I am re reading the novel the Shell seekers, which is one of the books I brought with me to the Philippines.

The film can be found here.

 

putting the boxes in line, not intelligence

 The idea that AI is human like is being pushed in culture, but here is another expert explaining why this is a myth.

Interview of the week

So what is the satire site Babylon Bee doing now?
Interviews? Seriously?

Very interesting.

musical interlude of the week

Family news

I have been busy with doctor's appointments to see why I am so weak. The results? Just getting old. Sigh.

Happy Spaghetti day

 

the anti Shogun (Or they overlooked Admiral Yi).

 The miniseries Shogun is supposed to be really really good. 

It shows all those brave Samurai warrior and the Westerner (of course) who helped them win wars.

I've only seen the first part so can't judge (I saw the older version and it was okay).

So what's not to like?

Uh, maybe the war that they sort of left out of the series. I am talking about the bloody war of these guys against innocent Koreans (in order to invade China), which is sort of passed over.

MSN:

The new FX/Hulu historical epic series Shogun refers to the real-life Imjim War several times throughout its first few episode...

 

Just before the events of Shogun, ... Japan was at war with Korea in the Imjin War.... Hideyoshi's efforts in the Imjim War were intended to seize power from Korea and China, which did not end up working in Japan's favor. With the Taikō's death in 1598, the Japanese forces that had invaded Korea for a second time were ordered to abandon their mission and return to Japan by the newly appointed Council of Five Elders.

what's wrong with this story? Uh, they left out this part: Wikipedia estimates 1 million Korean civilians and soldiers  killed. (and that doesn't include the Chinese soldiers sent to help the Koreans or the 100 thousand Japanese soldiers who died to please the ego of the Japanese leader)... Hey, can't have our heroes involved in a genocide now, can we?

And that is why the Council of Elders told them it was too expensive: they lost their navy and couldn't live off the land .

 like the Persians discovered at the Battle of Salamis, the Japanese discovered they couldn't feed their army if they lost their navy. And like the Persians, they forgot that sea lanes and tides are important.

So the lowly Koreans with the help of China successfully fought those Samurai who are so beloved of the western world.

Add the great man theory of history here: Admiral Yi who destroyed their Navy by using military strategy.

For example, Admiral Yi used the tides to turn the tides:

...

so one does wonder what the Koreans think of this miniseries.

the making of the LOTR

The irony? An unknown director did it. (Unknown except to geeks who loved Braindead). And no big stars. But they worked with folk who knew the story, and had a lot of input from the fans.

hmm... there is a lesson from this for those who took famous franchises and made them fail by hiring people more interested in the propaganda of the day instead of the reasons people liked them in the first place.