upholding democracy in Venezuela

BREAKING NEWS
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2025 #NobelPeacePrize to Maria Corina Machado for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to… pic.twitter.com/Zgth8KNJk9

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 10, 2025

.........

 a good peace prize for a human rights activist that is sort of being ignored by the MSM because they are too busy talking about Trump getting a peace prize... but of course the peace deals by Trump may yet explode, whereas the fight for Democracy in Venezuela is ongoing.

from AlJezeerah:

“She is receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela, and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” said the Norwegian Nobel Committee, awarding the prize on Friday at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo.

Hailing Machado as one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America, it added that she had been a “key unifying figure in a political opposition that was once deeply divided – an opposition that found common ground in the demand for free elections and representative government”.

Reacting to being announced the winner, Machado said her award was an “immense recognition of the struggle of all Venezuelans”. “We are on the threshold of victory and today more than ever we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, the peoples of Latin America, and the democratic nations of the world as our main allies to achieve freedom and democracy,” Machado said in a post on X......

People just don't realize as of 2020 that 5 million people have fled that country, something that rarely was noticed by the MSM in the US....until recently when some of them decided to migrate from where they are living in nearby countries to the USA for better opportunities. 

Alas the open border policy of Presiden Biden also allowed too many gangs and drugs in the country along with unvetted refugees who deserved asylum (e.g. Venezuela and Haiti). So voila, there is a lot of support for Trumpieboy's the immigration deportation policy which deports both the good, the bad, and those who simply didn't get around to getting proper papers...., which is why I feel both pro and against this policy: It will enable quick deportation of the criminal and those who are not really refugees, but will harm a lot of innocent people and in the long run it is that second part that will be remembered long after the streets are safer.

Sigh.

Backstory:  the drug cartels moved from Colombia into Venezuela when the right wing government of Colombia was smashing them and the public opinion went against the gangs.

Then things changed: Alas, a former cartel leader is now president there, partly because people resented the deaths by the hit squads fighting against the drug cartels, former FARC fighters who took amnesty, and innocents who they suspected were associated with the FARC/drug cartel groups...

Venezuela is now an active Narco state : this report goes into details.

some worry that an active war against the boats smuggling drugs by the Trump administration won't work and might not be legal by US or international law of course (AlJ report here.)

On the other hand, those in the USA whose families and neighborhoods suffer from drug and gangs will cheer on Trumpieboy, in the same way the most Filipinos cheered on Duterte's war against druggies and drug cartels, something that not only made the streets safer for the average Pinoy who lives outside of gated communities, but also stopped the country into becoming a narco state.

but like Duterte or the previsous president of Colombia found out, their aggressive killing did slow down the cartels, but killed innocent or semi innocent.

 As a result, there was blow back against the practice  

You see, when things will evolve back to normal people forget how bad it was before the bad guys were killed. 

but on the other hand, the end result of all of this is that  the level of violence will be lower for the average person, so that the place is peaceful enough for the  the next generation tries to restore rule of internaional law standards.

Well, anyway, the Nobel peace prize might encourage the peaceful opposition to the narco state in Venezueala, and hasten the recovery to rule of law so that they can revive the economy.

fentanyl: an open conspiracy

 Pushing alcohol to the Irish, and into the slums of London helped destroy the opposition to the British elite. Ditto Alcohol (and now drugs) openly pushed to the Native Americans in the USA.

The British opium wars ditto.

And when Maxine Waters claimed the CIA was pushing Crack into the black inner city, she was ridiculed as a conspiracy theorist.

so when China sold fentanyl and it's precursors so that it could be smuggled into the USA, no one did anything about the border.

Modern War institute of West Point has a series of videos/podcasts about what was going on from a geopolitical stand.

Part one:

Part two

Part three

Full report pdf

Publicly and officially, the PRC has made significant gestures of cooperation with the United States in meeting the opioid crisis challenge. Unofficially and illicitly, considerable evidence suggests the PRC actively supports and facilitates the flow of fentanyl into the United States. PRC officials continue to claim a narrative of fentanyl addiction as a US problem.

In an interview with China Global Television Network, an international English-language news channel based in Beijing, the deputy secretary-general of the China National Narcotics Control Commission (CNNCC) criticized the United States for its role in creating the fentanyl crisis, attributing it to “its own misuse of prescription drugs.” 

Despite criticism, CNNCC’s spokesman declared readiness to provide full support in material control, intelligence sharing, law enforcement, and combating transnational crimes. In the words of Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, “It is very clear that there is no fentanyl problem in China, and the fentanyl crisis in the United States is not caused by the Chinese side, and blindly blaming China cannot solve the U.S.’ own problem.”

While there is some truth to Pengyu’s statement—the United States must do more to address the problem of addiction—currently, Chinese companies, possibly with the full support or willful blindness of the PRC government, are fanning the flames of this crisis.

well, here in Asia, the main drug is meth/shabu. And the chinese have a major drug crisis going on that gets little publicity: LINK...and the data is ten years old.

 What, not recent data? Big Brother is hiding something....:  

Joe Rogan discusses: caution. Rogan likes psychodelics

So excuse me: This pope is a little bit better than his woke predecessor, but what I read is mainly that he wants to welcome the promiscuous gay community (activist communities who defend promiscuity, not those who are trying to live a normal life despite their same sex attraction), and when he pushes the global warming religion (ignoring that the green initiatives mean poor people should continue living their poverty drive "traditional" lifestyle) maybe he stop a minute and remember he is supposed to be preaching the gospel: And preach an upright moral lifestyle that would condemn corruption and the religion of getting high on drugs, which used to be part of religion.

Hey Leo: look around and see the millions whose lives are being disrupted by drugs and the drug trade and stop pretending to ignore the evil choices behind this activity.

Sigh. We could use a man like John Wesley again...

Nah. Not woke enough.

Look Gaza Squirrel 

 

well that explains why all those planes are flying over our town

 Lots of airplanes and helicopters flying over our town. We are on the flight path to nearby Fort Magsaysay, and usually only hear this when they have the joint US/Philippine war games.

So what's going on? From 24 days ago;

Army to rehearse mobilization in Visayas, Mindanao

uh, we are no where near the Visayas or Mindanao. But later in the article they note:

The Philippine Army's Combined Arms Training Exercise Katihan has been expanded to include areas in the Visayas and Mindanao to test its command and control capabilities for territorial defense. Participants will move to consolidation areas including Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija, as well as the new training sites for this year, Camp Peralta in Capiz and Camp Kibaritan in Bukidnon. “This time we are rehearsing mobilization in Mindanao and the Visayas region. Two areas so we are now expanding,” Philippine Army chief Lieutenant General Roy Galido said in a press conference. “If we would want to simulate a national crisis situation when it comes to territorial defense, it's the Army's ability for command and control,” Galido said.

“And that's the role of the Army, to be able to prevent physical occupation of the land and to be able to push them back in case the scenario would exist,” he added.

translation: Preparing for China to invade Taiwan and because China is still threatening fishermen and the Phil coast guard in the west Philippines sea. 

This is essentially saying to China: Well, we can move our soldiers around if you try to invade us. In some ways, the Philippines has a good military who has had experience in fighting both insurgencies and as UN Peacekeepers, whereas China does not.

 The cooperation with the USA is about using high tech weapons in the fight (see Land of Bad on how this works).

now a question that might or might not be related: Is the arrest of Duterte using the excuse of the International Criminal court, that the Philippines quit a few years ago, a way to placate the deep state because he stopped the Philippines from becoming a narcostate, or because he hated the CIA and their candidate lost to him? Or because he tried to make nice with both the NPA (communist insurgents) and also with China to improve the economy (but pulled back after they screwed him over too?) Or is this merely Marcos playing political games like his father did in the good old days (/sarcasm)?

the estamates of those killed are vague: The latest number is 30 thousand but Bloomberg via Gulf News said it was 6000 , and correctly noted the Duterte arrest was about the feud between the various political families.

the reason for the numbers being inaccurate is that if a body was found, you didn't know if he was killed by a rival drug seller, by locals who wanted revenge for their family members being killed or destroyed by drugs, a robbery by the usual thugs, a political hit against one's political rival, a revenge murder against a businessman or low grade politician who harmed your, a hit by a businessman or low grade politician against activists or reporters who were blowing the whistle on their corruption, by hit squads by rogue cops, or in a shoot out with the police.

and few of these murders (except by the hit squads) can be blamed on Duterte, because this was business as usual before he took over, and the bad news is that the crime rate against ordinary folks is now going up again.

Sigh.

Ignoring the real epidemic

 From the CDC:

During 2023, approximately 72,000, or nearly seven in 10, drug overdose deaths in the United States were estimated to involve illegally manufactured fentanyls (IMFs). Carfentanil, a fentanyl analog 100 times more potent than fentanyl, has reemerged in the U.S. drug supply.

the opioid epidemic was blamed on doctors treating pain patients with oxycodone etc. (which by the way was a godsend to people with chronic pain) but some of this got diverted (often stolen from these patients or prescribed to patients who lied about pain or a few doctors who just gave out pills for money).

So authorities cracked down on all physicians ordering pain medicine, and the result is a lot more pain...and I suspect the push to euthanize patients whose pain can't be controlled is because they weren't given a high enough dosage of narcotic pain relief.

By making doctors/patients with pain the scapegoat, it ignored the elephant in the room: That a lot of the pills used in overdoses were not prescribed but counterfeit drugs that were manufactured and imported into the US (for people who love to take drugs to get high).

but nothing can be done, so just let it go on, right? Make sure Narcan is available and voila, problem solved...well to the acute overdose but not to the families destroyed by drugs or the crime from drug users.

well, a couple years ago when this started, I googled fentanyl and found it in a wholesale place in China willing to ship it to you.

well, it looks like it might have taken years, but at least a few of them are being prosecuted.

November 14, 2024 LOS ANGELES — A joint investigation resulted in charges for Hubei Aoks Bio-Tech Co. Ltd., a chemical company based in Wuhan, China, its director and three senior employees in U.S. federal court Nov. 7, for allegedly selling fentanyl precursor chemicals and xylazine — known as “tranq” — globally.

Developing....

But a lot of the Narcotics are made by sending ingredients to Mexico to be manufactured and then smuggled into the USA by the same criminal cartels that now are expanding into smuggling all those migrants. 

And this is not new: This article  is from 2021...

and this article is from one month ago notes that people smuggling migrants into the USA is big business for them now. 

 Mexico cooperated with the cartels because they had guns etc. and would shoot you if you opposed them.

But something just happened in Mexico, and even CBC is blaming Trumpieboy.

Mexico announces the largest fentanyl seizure in its history. The timing may not be a coincidence.

The raids came after a sharp drop in fentanyl seizures in Mexico earlier this year, and days after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose 25% tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico unless those countries cracked down on the flow of migrants and drugs across the border. Experts say the timing may not be a coincidence. "It is clear that the Mexican government has been managing the timing of fentanyl seizures," said security analyst David Saucedo. "But under the pressure by Donald Trump, it appears President Claudia Sheinbaum's administration is willing to the increase the capture of drug traffickers and drug seizures that Washington is demanding.

Saucedo said it's clear the Mexican government. "doesn't see fentanyl as one of its own problems, and fighting it isn't its priority," He added there would only be big busts "when there is pressure from Washington."

Backstory:

essentially Mexico sarcastically said as long as the US population were taking the drugs, why should they risk their lives to stop the smuggling?

(and remember: If you let the cops shoot these gang members too vigorously, the International courts will send their bloodhounds to destroy you for human rights violations, as they did and continue to do against Duterte here in the Philippines).

Ironically, seeing Mexico shrug and say: Hey stop your people from taking drugs: well, this was the same argument I heard when visiting relatives in Colombia in the 1990s: 

Local farmers could make money for their families, some of their young sons joined the cartels because the job paid well, and hey, they thought if the gringos were dumb enough to use drugs, they may as well sell it to them.

Ironically what changed their minds? The drug taking by locals increased and people realized that if they continued to support this, it would destroy their own families.

this article from a liberal Catholic magazine about how priests try to cope with the narco state developing in Mexico discusses the problem of a society trying to cope with the breakdown of society by drugs and violence. 

fetal fentanyl syndrome

 

I wrote about this the other day on my medical blog.

I am old enough to have had experience with heroin withdrawal in babies, low birth weight babies in heavy cigarette smokers, and with fetal defects from fetal alcohol syndrome and illicit drugs

and of course, another underreported story is the fetal damage in those smoking a lot of marijuana.

Scidaily article. and I wrote about it here.

CNN report here notes that it is worse in the first three months of pregnancy, leading to underweight babies who are at risk for all sorts of problems

“Our study drills down to look very specifically at a specific time point in pregnancy — the first trimester. We found a significant decrease in birth weight of 154 grams. In terms of pounds, it’s about a third of a pound,” she said. While one-third of a pound may not seem to be much, such slight decreases in weight have been linked to health problems as children grow, Bailey said. “Low birth weight is one of the strongest predictors of a child’s health and development long-term,” she said. “These kids are more prone to developmental delays, higher rates of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), learning disabilities, and have higher rates of emotional problems.”

full government report here. 

but like most reports, the problems tend to be vague since they lump together a parent smoking a joint or two on weekends with a parent constantly high and often imbibing other drugs including alcohol.

and of course, abuse and neglect of such children often lead to relatives or friends caring for them outside of official channels, so are probably underrerpoted.

JDVance call your office. We got problems.

Drugs in the Americas

 From the website of Bishop Gracida: a summary of the explosion of gang violence in the USA and Latin American countries. by Marvin L. Covault,Lt Gen US Army, retired

too long for me to summarize here: just read it and weep.

here the shabu/meth problem comes from China.

Duterte's reputation was so frightening that many stopped taking drugs and many retired from pushing, knowing that they would be killed, not arrested and then left go. Kuya tells the story of two drug pushers in our farm area: One disappeared, and his friend got the message and left town.

Repeat this by hundreds or thousands and it means I can walk down the street again. That's why Duterte got 80 percent of folk supporting him, while the international human rights folk are busy trying to prosecute him. But of course it's really because he hated the CIA, and they tried to stop him by manipulating the press etc. Rappler didn't fund itself.

I believe the Chinese saying is kill a chicken to scare the monkey. 

Not very nice, but the problem with mass incarceration is what is seen in Haiti, where the gangs got their friends out of jail and are now terrorizing the entire country.

and what about the victims? JPeterson discusses what could work with the homeless drug addicts.

corruption, Greed, water supply, and cholera

 I almost skipped the StrategyPage essay on Yemen, since it is a bit outside my interests. I am vaguely aware of that country causing trouble with Saudi etc. but this essay points out something that needs to be recognized: The corruption means that there is not a decent public health system: not only for treatment but for basic immunizations, water supply, etc. that is vital for keeping people healthy.

One side effect of the chaos and corruption is the absence of a public health system. That means children do not receive vaccines for common, and sometimes fatal, childhood diseases like measles.... so far, this year 60 Yemeni children a month have died from measles.

another side effect of corruption is the failure to provide basic infrastructure for things like clean water and sewage. So we see:

Even more children die each from a cholera epidemic that started in 2016 and continues.

that caught my eye, because right now Zimbabwe is also in the midst of a cholera epidemic. 

Cholera has often broken out across Zimbabwe in recent years with deadly consequences and has surged and spread again over the last month, driven by the sometimes terrible sanitation conditions in poor, neglected townships and neighborhoods in the capital, Harare, and elsewhere.

and not just Zimbabwe: South Africa had a similar problem recently

 

the Philippines has small outbreaks of cholera on and off, but nothing major LINK'

and no, it's not global warming but just the failure to keep up the infrastructure, partly from lack of money and expertise, and diverting such money to other projects (including lining the pockets of those supposed to be doing the work).

Sigh. That part is often overlooked in the big important reports but our intrepid reporters do report on such things, often risking their lives to do so. And remember: The Philippines is far from the worst country in such things. In most corrupt countries, the reporters don't even try to dig up such stories because the gov't runs the press. 

 A report on the Philippines and some of it's problems supplying water especially in the dry season. 

This is a chronic problem. Right now we use city water, (we had a good mayor in the last decade) but until a few years ago we used our own deep well because often the water pressure was low. But the water supply problem continues in many areas of the Philippines. 

We see this when we see water seeping from leaks from pipes (shoddy pipes made in China? I suspect but can't prove this)  under the roads. And the open ditches that are out sewers did get concrete covers a dozen years ago: These covers are now deteriorating and crumbling, (shoddy Chinese concrete?) leaving the ditches open... meaning mosquito breeding (and dengue)... and of course periodic typhoons destroy the infrastructure.  We have a decent mayor, but this is not true of everywhere, alas.

Sigh...

From Preda Foundation website: 

In 2019, anti-corruption lawyer Cyril Ramos claimed the country has lost around 700 billion pesos (US$12.8 billion), or around 20 percent of the national budget to corruption per annum, ABS-CBN reported.,

corruption here is a big problem: but we are not the worst country for this.

what frustrates me is that often those who demonstrate miss the point: it is corruption. 

Religion is the answer: (hey popey boy, try preaching thou shalt not steal instead of global warming). People know this, which is why a lot of countries have embraced strict Islam, or in India, a strict version of Hinduism.

Alas, as Iran shows, (or in history, the Vatican showed), religious leaders can be just as corrupt when it comes to money. And yes, here I point out that communism is a religion that also is notorious for it's corruption. And that includes China...

a big problem: get rid of the corrupt is a good policy, but sometimes the only ones with the expertise to run the country or the company are these same folk...

sigh.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

back to SP... the essay has lots of information here about Iran and weapons, including shooting missiles into Saudi and now Israel.

Money for weapons, not for clean water I guess: Priorities.

then there is this: Drugs.

usually drugs mean meth/shabu/captagen, or heroin/fentanyl,  but in Yemen the problem is the traditional drugs Khat and hashish.

Khat production has been a major problem for Yemen as well as the Saudis....While Yemen contains most of the only arable land in the Arabian Peninsula, only one percent of Yemen is suitable for agriculture. Rather than produce food, most Yemeni agricultural production is of khat and nearly all of that is smuggled into Saudi Arabia....

wikipedia article on khat: a mild stimulant.

that is not as harmful as cocaine (more similar to chewing cocaine leaf. Like many such drugs, the abuse is in higher doses or more frequent use).

but a bigger danger is hashish: think of this as concentrated marijuana.

Hashish is a concentrated form of cannabis, produced by removing the sticky resin, which is the most narcotic portion of the cannabis plant. Put simply, khat is for relaxation while hashish is for intoxication, it will get you high and largely unable to function....

Khat and hashish do have harmful side effects as they reduce inhibitions and the ability to safely operate vehicles or machinery of any kind.

a lot of the drugs used in Saudi are actually used by their hard working contract workers from other countries. No families, hard work, long hours, and the temptation is to take drugs to relax.

the drug problem is world wide, but that's another essay for another time.

Urban warfare with a side of drugs

 There is a lot of clueless news stories about what Israel faces if they try to weed out the Jihadi terrorists from Gaza.

the best analysis of what Israel and the local population will face comes more from military sites than the MSM who lacks expertise and are biased (I mean, the NYTimes spread the hospital hoax for days because they didn't check the story but believed the propaganda news release).

Urban warfare is wicked, especially when the defenders can hide in a city where they know where to hide (and in Gaza this includes tunnels and hostages, both Isarelis who were kidnapped and locals who support them).

The Philippine military faced a similar problem when Islamic terrorists took over the city of Marawi, where the majority of people by the way did not support these terrorists.

Here is a lecture/essay on the story about the lesson of the Marawi seige.

 the site has a long list of podcast discussions there for background of the problems the military would face in this urban warfare situation of Gaza.

Tunnels anyone?

One difference between Gaza and Marawi:

luckily for the Philippines, the local Muslims did not help them because they were negotiating with the government at the time for a peaceful solution (one reason the outsider ISIS types did this was opposition to the peace process). 

Indeed, they mention the local Muslim insurgents helped the evacuating/fleeing  population instead of joining these militants.

But the end result of the battle was a destroyed city.

The costs of the Battle of Marawi were high. Opinions on infrastructure damage vary but aerial imagery indicates that huge swathes of the city have been devastated by the fighting – the mass destruction flattening entire city blocks. The World Bank estimates it may take two decades to restore Marawi to its original condition. However, the true price of the battle is that paid by the people of Marawi and the lives of those fighting in it. 165 members of the AFoP were killed in action, with over 1000 injured. Some reports indicate over 1000 insurgents were killed in the siege, which also took the lives of 47 civilians. The fighting drove over 400, 000 people from their homes.....

The Marawi experience suggests that such small teams, operating seamlessly alongside engineers, artillery and armour – as well as combat medics and military police – fighting as combined-arms sections, platoons, combat teams and battlegroups, are essential

They discuss who it took so long for the Philippine military to overcome them: The militants knew where the AFP was because they had drones, and they knew where to hide to ambush them. And the militants used middle eastern sources to beam pleading from kidnapped local hostages against the attack.

The Philippines used the social media to get their story out to bypass the MSM who often picked up the insurgent propaganda via their middle eastern contacts.

Like Gaza, they had tunnels in Marawi, and stored their munitions in mosques so that the Philippine military could not flatten these areas for fear of upsetting locals.

Snipers and RPG bombs and booby traps to stop soldiers from entering buildings also used by militants.

their analysis is that it took months for the Philippines to clear the militants who learned how to fight in the Middle East.

In Gaza, the population has had anti Israeli propaganda aimed at them for years, and an Arab street who believes the sophisticated anti Israel propaganda that is happily spread by a clueless local media (and alas the western media).

But the lesson of Malawi is that it will take months to clear the terrorists

Alas the propaganda outlets will continue to push every lie put out by the Hamas propaganda ministry.

Yes, I know: 300 thousand Palestinians fled Israel in 1948 and still want to go back. They have a reason to fight. And the IRA had reasons to terrorize people for 100 years too. And the communists insurgencies defended people's rights for 100 years.

But resorting to terrorism only makes things worse.

 (this is why those countries don't want to resettle the Gaza refugees: they cause trouble for the guest country... and remember: Hamas and Hezbollah are Iranian proxies).

Finally, one of the under reported stories about this is the connection of drugs with terrorism.

Sigh.

 one of the untold stories of Marawi is the presence of Shabu (Meth) in that area. 2017 article.

THE recovery of P10-million worth of shabu from the house of a former mayor of Marawi City established the "close relation" between illegal drugs and the ongoing uprising in the country, Malacañang said on Saturday.

And 2023 article. says it's still going on there.

so what does shabu have to do with Gaza? 

Captogen smuggling thanks to Syria and Iran is destablizing the Middle East.

guess what the Hamas murderers were taking when they murdered innocent civilians? Captogen (a form of Meth)

there is a connection between criminal gangs, drugs, and terrorism. 

I suspect few Yanks watching the latest Denzel Washington Thriller noticed that the backstory of the local Mafia was about importing captogen and using a local winery to cover this smuggling.

Screen rant has an article about this: Equalizer 3’s Italian Mafia & The Real Camorra Syndicate Explained,,,, 

The movie accurately portrays the inner workings of the Camorra, including their involvement in drug trafficking, money laundering, and kidnapping. While the storyline is fictional, it aligns with real-life events, such as the seizure of a large shipment of Captagon pills from the Camorra by Italian government officials in 2020.

Sigh.

facts you are not allowed to post about gun deaths

 Homicide rates vary by race.

During 2022, the national firearm homicide rate decreased for the first time since the sharp increase from 2019 to 2020. Nonetheless, the rate in 2022 (5.9 per 100,000) remained substantially higher than the 2019 rate....

The annual rate among Black persons during 2022 (27.5) was ... still substantially higher than in 2019 (20.5).

 

Among AI/AN persons, the rate during 2022 (9.3) exceeded the rates in both 2021 (7.7) and 2020 (7.9).

 

During 2022, the rate among Hispanic persons leveled off (5.5) but remained higher than that in 2019 (3.8).

 

Rates among non-Hispanic White and A/PI persons, although lower, also increased from 2019 to 2021, followed by a decrease in 2022..

graph

FYI: the rate of gun homicides in Europe are about 1.

Black lives matter.

This is a danger in the inner city: and it is a threat to the teenagers trying to be good. and it often overlaps other crimes.

Not that race is always accurate of course.

and they lump Black Americans together: not separating the more recent immigrant groups from those who were descended from slaves.And one suspects the homicide rate would be higher among Somali immigrants because there is a gang problem, but lower among those from Africa or the West Indies. 

and a lot of this is connected with drugs: Either by gangs selling drugs, or by people who are chronic users of drugs..

and the dirty little secret is that not all deaths by firearms are homicides:

I turn to the Minnesota data

Homicides and homicide rates spiked in 2020—a trend also observed nationally—while other manners of violent death did not.

 what does that mean? car accidents I presume are considered by them as violent deaths? Falls? drownings>

ironically not all firearm deaths are homicides:

Firearms were used in 45% of suicide deaths, 65% of homicide deaths and 54% of inter-personal violence homicide deaths.

Most firearm deaths, 75%, were suicide. 

italics mine. 

Minnesota has large racial disparities in suicide and homicide rates. Suicide rates in Minnesota are highest among the American Indian population, more than 70% higher than for the white population.

yes. The Indian Health Service has an aggressive outreach to fight the suicide problem on the reservations, which is often associated with drug or alcohol abuse problems.

Most people think of the reason they need gun control in the USA is mass shootings, but they are wrong.

The problem is gangs and suicide.

Many people understandably assume the high number of gun deaths in the U.S. is due to mass shootings, which receive frequent attention from the media. In truth, mass shootings account for only a small percentage of gun deaths in the United States. Rather, nearly two-thirds (63%) of gun deaths in the US in 2019 were suicides.

Again, back to the Minnesota data on gun homicide:

Homicide rates in the state are highest among the Black or African American population and the American Indian population, more than 10 times the rate of the white population.

italics mine. Essentially this is an epidemic that kills a lot of young people, mostlyyoung black men, but it is easier to cry racism than to rebuild a community with jobs creation, decent schools, getting rid of drugs, and helping churches rebuild their family outreaches.

Presumably poverty is part of the problem, except it is lower among the Hispanics, who tend to be poorer than these groups. Perhaps the culture of strong family connections in  Hispanic culture helps prevent the gangs and drugs, and one shudders when one sees young men without families being allowed to enter the US: because it takes family ties to stablize young men. 

Then we come to the anti depressant hysteria that is pushed every time a person goes amok and it is found they were on treatment. 

no statistics about drug use in homicides, or about perpetrators who kill being on such medication. 

However one does see this paradox in the suicide statistics:

Antidepressants were found in the systems of 29.8% of females who died by suicide, compared to 12.1% in males.

This suggests that undertreatment of clinical deperssion might be the cause. But again no data here about illicit drugs or alcohol: although it has long been known that alcholics have a high suicide rate. And of course alcohol has long been associated with domestic abuse . 

I had written: Families are protective against such violence: True...Except when they aren't:

Spouses were suspected as the perpetrator in 21.1% of homicide cases where the victim was female. The victim’s boyfriend or girlfriend was suspected in an additional 15.5% of cases.

 

drug and alcohol abuse not only is associated with homicides and suicides, they are a major factor in car accidents. and don''t forget the 100 thousand fentanyl deaths a year thanks to China and the Mexical cartels and the open border policies that make smuggling easy.

Sigh.

 

 

don't forget the bad guys

 the CIA/Crack connection like most of the other conspiracy theories has a small basis of truth (to get information they work with the bad guys and some of them get corrupted) 

But drugs are actually a world wide problem.

so there is a real dilemma in what to do to fight the drug war without hurting the feelings of those who are SJW promoting human rights.

But one does have to wonder why there was an over the top hysteria against Duterte's drug war, because what is rarely noticed by such human rights types is that the murder rate only went up a small amount but the crime rate went way down. 

And one does wonder why these human rights folks never noted the many deaths from drugs: deaths of druggies (overdose or family violence) or of innocent people killed by druggies in robberies etc. who were not counted in the statistics (three incidents in our neighborhood alone).

Here drugs continue to be a problem, but crime remains lower: it is still safe for me to go out (so far). In the past, kidnapping was a real danger, as was robbery. (not just purse snatching but home invasions with violence to those in the home). 

We had kidnap gangs in the area in the past: The security guards at the bank would always laugh when I would go there with the cook, who is 75 and weighs 90 pounds, because I told them (with a wink) that she was my security guard. They thought that was funny, but the truth is that she has connections with all the local tricycle drivers in town, and knows everyone in the area, including most of the NPA of course, so yes she protected me.

Here, every shop has security guards. And sometimes they shoot people, or are shot protecting businesses and politicians, alas. We do have cops of course, but the security guards are more for prevention: a warning to the bad guys not to mess with that business.

well, anyway, this is an old 2016 Reuters article about the elephant in the living room that few reports on Duterte's drug war mention: Chinese gangsters. 

Of 77 foreign nationals arrested for meth-related drug offenses between January 2015 and mid-August 2016, nearly two-thirds were Chinese and almost a quarter were Taiwanese or Hong Kong residents, according to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA). Known in the trade as “cooks” and “chemists,” meth production experts are flown into the Philippines from Greater China by drug syndicates to work at labs like the one at Mount Arayat.

 

China isn’t only a source of meth expertise – it is also the biggest source of the meth and of the precursor chemicals used to produce the synthetic drug that are being smuggled into the Philippines, according to local drug enforcement officials.

If this sounds familiar, it is because it is similar to how Chinese gangsters are working with the Mexican cartels to bring fentanyl etc. into the USA. 

Before Duterte started his drug war, there was a real danger that the Philippines could have become a narco state. We have OFW going to and from the country to all over the world, and many are poor so would become mules to move the drugs.

and of course, corruption is rampant in both the Philippines and in China.

read the article and you might find some parallels to what China is doing with the Fentanyl to the USA.

and the reason I brought this up?

Because China has been going all over the world investing in poor countries (often to steal their resources while helping them. Yes, I know: Europe did this during colonial times too.)

StrategyPage notes that along with Chinese investments come Chinese gangs and criminals.

August 24, 2023: As more Chinese companies invest in LAC (Latin America and the Caribbean) countries, there is an increased need for Chinese security firms to deal with local threats from local organized crime gangs as well as general lawlessness. When there are a lot of Chinese businesses in an area, that usually means Chinese gangsters are not far behind... This is a problem for the Chinese firms and for local police. The locals often can’t tell the difference between Chinese businessmen and Chinese gangsters and adopt an anti-Chinese attitude that makes trouble for all Chinese in the area. Chinese firms came up with a solution; Chinese PSCs, or Private Security Companies.

There are a lot of these private security groups: think of them as the Chinese version of Blackwater or the Russian Wagner group.

sigh

Actually this is the new normal, and I don't blame China for trying to protect their people. 

 I am ambivalent about Chinese investments because I am aware of how Europe looted third world countries for years while also developing them into modern countries. 

But now with all the green agenda in western aid projects (not to mention that the green agenda has infiltrated some western charities and NGOs) that doesn't want to change the lifestyle of all those nice people who seem happy living in dire poverty a low carbon lifestyle...and of course western government aid programs have string attached: to get it you have to implement the western amoral sexual agenda human rights).

So yes, one might be sympathetic to  Chinese investment that sees promoting "human rights" and preventing pollution etc. as a lesser important than promoting projects that will lessen poverty and starvation...

I am posting this because too often the complexities of crime and criminal enterprises is seen as merely a western problem, and the conspiracy types don't see this as a world wide problem.

Chinese aggression

At the very start of his podcast, Scott Adams points out that the name of the Chinese company and the CEO behind the Fentanyl/opioid epidemic is known, and that maybe someone should do something about it. For him it is personal, since his stepson recently died of an overdose.

The article he is mentioning is found here. and HERE, where the SCMP notes that the criminal gangs change the chemical structure to get around the narcotic laws in China.

Not in the article: All you have to do to get around the law in China is bribe the local officials, of course, and note that the article mentions that it wasn't until Trumpieboy pressured Xi that fentanyl trade was made illegal.

the SCMP is from Hong Kong so doesn't follow the party line all the time (remember, one reason for the Hong Kong protests was an extradition law that would allow "dissidents" to be sent to China for all sorts of stuff). However, Wikipedia reports AliBaba owns the newspaper, and that is a Chinese company.

AliBaba is the Chinese equivalent of Ebay/Amazon, that lets people in villages access to all sorts of stuff on line that in the past was not available to them.

But Jack Ma, the founder, is a member of the communist party, and according to Wikipedia the SCMP is being influenced by the party line (i.e. refusing to frame stories via the western memes but more sympathetic to the Chinese point of view).

StrategyPage has a long essay about China's illegal takeover of the West Philippine sea. Like Hitler's slow take over of nearby countries in the late 1930s, everyone knows it is illegal but no one wants to go to war to stop them.

One of the dirty little secrets about the drug war in the Philippines is that the Chinese cartels are behind much of it.

and the bad news is that the smuggling into the country here is getting worse. Or maybe not: What seems to be happening is that more illicit drugs are being found.

as for the 'drug war' so hated by the "human rights" types: things are indeed safer now. And remember, a lot of the deaths the "human rights" types count and blame on Duterte are vigilante or personal pay back hits because people don't trust the justice system.

and it doesn't make the "Human rights" types more believable when they wine and dine De Lima for criticizing Duterte's war on drugs, when everyone here knows about the Bilibad prison scandal,
may get back in the news because the cops have arrested her bag man this week.

a couple years ago, local wags spread around a faked pornographic video of her and her driver that made everyone here laugh at her, since she is one of the few Filipinas who is actually ugly.

as for Duterte's war on drugs: The human rights folks haven't noticed that crime is down and that the murder rate isn't up much worse than before it started.

And for ordinary folks, things are now safer.

But ordinary folks safety doesn't count to "human rights" types who often live in gated communities and recruit among the affluent college students.

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

related items: lots of complications about the "trade war" of the US with China.





and an article on the Chinese food crisis.

they have a major problem because they have to cull millions of pigs with African Swine Flu...

(we don't have it here yet, but it is only a matter of time until it gets here, via smuggled pork). Indeed, the Ag folks are worried it is already here since there are reports of pigs dying.

and this podcast is about the demonstrations in Hong Kong.

Philippine news

Burma is producing a lot of meth, and gangsters from both China and Taiwan is behind it's spread.

some of it is coming here, 

heck, Duterte notes even the Colombian cartels are around.

and Chinese nationals are arrested when they raid meth labs.

 Lately there have been a lot of stories about illegal Chinese working here, taking jobs that locals need, and so there is a growing resentment of Chinese indirect aggression via business and financial shenanigans.

Lolo fought against the Japanese, but didn't hate them: who he really hated were the Chinese who came in, married a local lass, and started businesses and only helped each other, keeping locals out from these opportunities. Which is why most of our family now lives in Chicago (and London).

How this works is lines of trust:as described in Francis Fukuyama's book:Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity

In the US, you net work via clubs and churches, and know you can trust people in them. In Asia, you only trust relative so limit opportunities for outsiders.

Ironically, the church ties in the Protestant community are another way to network: Ruby's school arranged her to get a scholarship in a Canadian high school, for example, and Joy is helping them select students for next year, and Joy networks with other Christian businessmen in our rice business.

This phenomenon is also found in Latin America.

Too bad the Pope hasn't noticed: he's too busy preaching about saving mother gaia by turning off airconditioning than preaching honesty and hard work and responsibility.

Only Jordan Peterson seems to be doing that, and you see what it got him: Banned from a job in Cambridge because his opinions go against what their students believe.

Silly me: I thought universities were about learning lots of different opinions, but then, what do I know?

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

the Philippines is suing China in the ICC for human rights violations and environmental damage in the west Philippine sea.

they not only have destroyed the reefs with their artificial islands, but now they are sending "civilian" ships to harass our fishermen out of another area.

Xi and other Chinese officials allegedly committed crimes against humanity in implementing Beijing's "systematic plan to control the South China Sea." "The situation is both unique and relevant because it presents one of the most massive, near permanent and devastating destruction of the environment in humanity's history," the complainants said. "It adversely affects and injures not only myriad groups of vulnerable fishermen, including 320,000 Filipino fishermen, but also present and future generations of people across nations," the group said in a statement.

China is not a member of the ICC, and Duterte is withdrawing the Philippines from that court, so no one expects much help from the international law types here.

And Duterte says it won't make relations any worse.

China must really be pushing things, since Duterte hates the CIA and loves China, and yet he is now pushing back on their aggression, mainly because, unlike previous politicians, he loves the ordinary Filipino's welfare more than bribes.

presumably the western leftists will take China's line and accuse the US of aggression here.

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

don't look now, but Jolibee is opening a restaurant in Manhattan.




but hey, even the late Anthony Bourdain liked it.




heh. There is one down the street from us. Their hamburger is so-so, their fried chicken okay (similar to KFC)  but their spaghetti is great.  Local spaghetti has a sweet sauce (similar to spaghettios) and has hot dogs instead of sausage or ground beef in it, and cheddar cheese not Parmesan.

Headlines below the fold

Ironic, isn't it, that the "terrible Catholic redneck boys" (who included at least one black kid in their group) who went through a twitterstorm condemnation by the SJW actually had their side of the story vindicated by... the black group who was busy taunting them and filmed the entire incident.

The twitter site apparently is not a "teacher from California", but originates in Brazil and puts out over a hundred tweets a day. WTF?

it may not have been a spontaneous interaction, notes Professor J. of Legal Insurrection blog. You confront someone and then shout they are hurting you, and voila, they are guilty.

This is, of course, unfair to the students, whose only sin was to sightsee after attending the Annual March for Life (which didn't get in much of the MSM because, hey, they are bigots). So what are kids doing at a March for Life? Well, teenagers are the ones who often know friends who were pressured into aborting their kids and left devastated. I never attended (I'm not a demonstration type person) but my son (and his pregnant girlfriend) attended one year a while back. Heh. and of course, afterward they sight see. why not? Catholics see no problem with mixing a pilgrimage with a good party. As Teresa of Avila said when someone criticized her (usually vegetarian) nuns for enjoying a partridge that someone sent them: Well you know, penance is penance, and partridges are partridges.
Or as the sage said: There is a time to mourn and a time to party.

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

and this is on top of several other fake anti Trump stories, not to mention anti Catholic/anti Christian stories out there that sprung up out of nowhere.

I support gay marriage but would be considered a bigot because I am also aware of how the "gay lifestyle" (not those with Same sex attraction or who refrain from acting on these temptations or are truly monogamous) is a terribly dysfunctional and medically dangerous  lifestyle. We docs tend to live in a reality based world after all.

But now it seems if you support the old fashioned definition (i.e. the definition before 2008) you are a bigot, be you Mrs. Pence or a famous British professor of Philosophy.

Hint: Must demonize Catholic Christians in case the replacement of Judge Ginsburg is a believing Catholic.

Knowing Trumpieboy, I predict he will appoint a Jew or Muslim instead and make their heads explode, but that's just my guess.

as for the russia Russia RUSSIA story: That seems to be falling apart too, but never mind.

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

it's not only those crossing the border illegally: another source of illegal immigrants are those who overstay their visas. (either work or visitor visas). For example, Joy was interviewed and was given a visitor visa, but my son was turned down because he was considered high risk to stay in the USA where he had family.

Which is why there is at present a moratorium on Philippine workers. Filipinos tend to blend in with Americans and there is, of course a large FilAm community in the USA.

However, this doesn't upset me much: These people are screened to keep out criminals.

The border problem is that it allows not just people wanting jobs, but includes human trafficking and drug smuggling. Which is why the criminal gangs have killed so many local priests who often help the migrants down there.

And of course, the reason for the much publicized groups marching to the USA is to keep these people protected from the drug cartels/criminal gangs who do the smugging.

A story of one girl who on impulse joined one of these groups from the BBC.LINK

------------------------------
the big controversy here is a bill allowing 9 year olds to be jailed as criminals. 

these are street kids who often are used by criminals to do their dirty work, since the criminals know they can get away with petty crime and drug sales.

an old story: Oliver Twist is Dicken's expose novel on the problem.

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

First they cleaned up Boracay beach, and now they are planning to clean up Manila Bay.

And they closed the Manila zoo to clean it up c(one source of pollution since they dump their garbage into the bay),

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

the Bagsamoro folks voted yes 

slowly making peace? Don't hold your breath: the Moros have been fighting everyone (including each other) for at least 400 years.

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

Can Big Brother get worse?

StrategyPage summarizes China's surveillance state. First you control the media, then you control the people by spying on them.

In the last few years, as their facial recognition via a growing network of high-resolution video cameras became a proven technology, it led quickly to the creation of a SCR (Social Credit Rating) system in which all the accumulated data on an individual can be analyzed to determine which patterns of behavior lead to criminal or anti-government behavior.

China needed someplace to test all these new technologies together and over the last few years, China has used Xinjiang province, which has a large Moslem minority, as the test site. In Xinjiang, China is discovering how well this cell phone, Internet and public (captured via vidcams) behavior and other forms of population monitoring can be used to exercise more control over large populations. It turns out that the degree of control (or at least personal information) is substantial.

and you thought twitter mobs were bad.

Headlines below the fold

Patreon and twitter and youtube are busy purging hate speech.

well, I found a video threatening our mayor, who has already survived two assassination attacks, and reported the video, so yes, banning jihadis and those who promote violence is justified (free speech doesn't mean you can yell "fire" in a crowded theatre) but now you can be banned for more subtle things.

Article on the Patreon purge.

again, led by the atheist stoics:

On January 1st, 2019, YouTube celebrities Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin announced they were leaving Patreon because the payment-processor banned classical liberal YouTuber Sargon of Akkad in December. This followed atheist neuroscientist Sam Harris's December 17th tweet which concluded Patreon persecuted political dissidents...

Peterson mused: "...one of the things that I can't fathom, in some sense, is the lack of imagination on the part of the people who are engaging in censorship of what they regard as hate speech...there's an old military adage which is that if you invent a weapon it will be used by your enemy within 15 years

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

Austin Bay has more about blood cobalt and the DRC which could be heading into another bloody civil war.

If you advocate electric vehicles and dote on cellphones whose manufacture depends on Congo’s minerals, then the Democratic Republic of Congo’s flawed Dec. 30 presidential election matters because it can affect your digital lifestyle. Congo’s stability also matters if you value human life. In Congo’s last civil war (Great Congo War, 1996-2003) some three million to five million people died in anarchic combat and from starvation, disease and exposure exacerbated by war.

in this, the Catholic bishops are backing honest elections.

Instapundit adds:

VERY RELATED: Chapter Six, Cocktails from Hell: Anarchic Violence, Cyclic Intervention, and Mineral Wealth. The chapter gets into China’s interest in Congolese cobalt. Check out Glenn’s USA Today review and James Jay Carafano’s National Interest review.

============

fact checking Trumpie boy (via Instapundit):

OUR BRAVE “FACT-CHECKERS” BUST TRUMP FOR AN UNDERSTATEMENT ON BORDER RAPES, THEN SCRUB IT FROM THEIR REPORT BECAUSE IT HELPS HIM:CBS caught Trump in a lie. Hilarity ensues.

CBS decided to help Democrats by fact-checking in real time President Trump’s address on the need for a wall.
CBS reported, “Fact check: Number of women sexually assaulted on trip to border.
“CLAIM: The president claimed one in three women have been sexually assaulted traveling to the border.
“FACT

CHECK: Between 60 percent and 80 percent of female migrants traveling through Mexico are raped along the way, Amnesty International estimates.”

Hilarious. Who is in charge? Ralph Wiggums?
Thanks for making the president’s point.
The network later scrubbed that from its fact-check.

one reason so many Catholic priests have been murdered in Mexico is because they have been helping the migrants escape from the drug cartels who are making money off of people smuggling.

one reason for the migrant caravans was to try to help people by moving them in a protected group.

one reason for bringing the kids is that they give you a guarantee you won't be immediately thrown out. So compassion is encouraging putting kids into harm's way.

whether you see them as Jesus and Mary fleeing Herod, or the Goths fleeing the Huns at the Danube (which ultimately resulted in the destruction of the Roman Empire) depends on what movie you are watching, (to quote a favorite meme at Dilbert's blog).

 Dilbert's podcast on the situation here.  mp3link

• • illegal activity shifted to isolated rural areas
• Marijuana legalization in US took away a huge chunk of cartel profits
  • Cartels shifted to illegal immigration and making heroin
• Declaring cartels to be terror groups as an enforcement strategy
• US pays cartels for ratting on “watch list” Middle Easterners
• 70% of illegal immigrant women are raped along the journey
  • Multiple rapes of the women are common
• Half-Measures are the real border security problem
  • It’s immoral to have a partial border
• US State Department is biggest obstacle to border control 
• US State Department prioritizes diplomacy over law enforcement
• Half of Mexico has to be patrolled by their military, not police
  • Cartels have military weaponry, police can’t compete