Earthquake in Venezuela

 

Two earthquakes of magnitude 7.1 and 7.5 shook Venezuela and were felt in Colombia

that is a powerful earthquake and hit near Caracas... reports from later suggest thousands may have been killed.

civility or sarcasm: we haz that

I just got another notice that one of my tweets was asking for violence so would be limited.(but not removed) WTF? 

What happened is that someone said Iran was the good guy, and I commented that  Iran should just nuke Tel Aviv. This was sarcasm of course. I should have written the thought more clear: That it looks like they thought it would be fine if Iran nuked Tel Aviv.

 but I forgot to add the sarcasm to it so the computers tagged it as I was suggesting violence instead of that I was being sarcastic in telling someone that their tweet was approving of a regime that would do such things if allowed to continue to process uranium etc.

The tweet was limited and since I don't know how to remove it or change it I guess I will have to let things go. But that shows that I really really shouldn't tweet early in the morning before my second cup of coffee.

But accidental sarcasm is not the problem:

 The paranoid media narrative is out there, but it is being pushed not just by the fringe types but by the media, and by those who are leaders in the Democratic party, which is my party.

How bad is it?

It is so bad the Barney Frank, who represented an area that included Brookline where I used to live, is now in hospice, and is publishing a book saying the Democratic party lost it's way: 

From Politico

The former Massachusetts lawmaker says progressives in his party have “embraced an agenda that goes beyond what’s politically acceptable.”...                   

He’s hoping “to use my reputation and my record of being on the left to give courage to many of my colleagues who I know agree with me but are inhibited from saying so.”

this is good: Someone is able to push back on the radicals because he is dying. 

He insists some of their policies against the police etc are not popular so should not be pushed because it is not a good policy and might lose them votes. But what he doesn't say is that some of what the party is pushing is venomous.

Frank knows about such venom since he was a  target of aa lot of criticism when he came out as gay years ago. But that criticism was a lot less than what I read every day from his party.

And until the dehumanization stops, the spiral into violence will not be stopped.

Here is the  Body Language guy who brings it up:

I think this might have been inspired by people mocking her because when she evacuated the meeting that was attacked, that she looked upset.

WTF?

She should look upset. So why are they mocking her?

Not my party, but the personal attacks on her seem almost diabolical. Why?

The murder of Charlie Kirk is similarly being distorted far beyond a criticism of his opinions. Again diabolical.

what was his sin? That he dared to bring conservative opinions to college campuses, openly debating those who disagreed with him.

and beyond politics: He dared to promote Christianity and emphasized the need to take responsibility, and emphasized the importance of marriage.

One wishes a couple of the PC bishops would do such things, which they won't (with one or two exceptions).

You know what would happen:

  Jordan Peterson's talks were openly attacked by mobs trying to shut him down, and nearly every day one reads about other conservative voices who discuss traditional values who are openly attacked by mobs, and no one says anything. 

Mocking and dehumanization.

the social media makes these voices louder, and this goes beyond politics.

My sister in law refused to let her daughter from using facebook because she was on a skating team and was getting people mocking her for being fat posted on her facebook page (she wasn't fat: She was wearing a back brace for her scoliosis). 

I stopped Facebook because nearly every day I received posts on my page mocking Christians and Christianity.

And that was 15 years ago: I understand things are now worse.

Twitter is in danger of becoming another pest hole full of people tweeting talking points that are lies or distortions.

Sigh.

One is reminded of Yeat's poem:

Come let us mock at the great

Come let us mock at the great

That had such burdens on the mind

And toiled so hard and late

To leave some monument behind,

Nor thought of the levelling wind.

 

Come let us mock at the wise;

With all those calendars whereon

They fixed old aching eyes,

They never saw how seasons run,

And now but gape at the sun.

 

Come let us mock at the good

That fancied goodness might be gay,

And sick of solitude

Might proclaim a holiday:

Wind shrieked—and where are they?

 

Mock mockers after that

That would not lift a hand maybe

To help good, wise or great

To bar that foul storm out, for we

Traffic in mockery. 

What is the alternative?

..

...and I hate to agree with this bozo, but anyone who knows about the danger of collapsing churches.

Seeking hackers, AI robots, and farmers

I just finished reading the Widow, a best selling crime novel where a lawyer hires some criminal hackers to find who poisoned his client.

 The irony is that there are supposed to be a lot of privacy laws that would stop a legal search for such things: But hey Comey and Biden and Obama and Hillary all managed to get around these legal barriers to spy on Trumpieboy's campaign to get information on what he was planning to do (similar to the Watergate burglers, but on steroids). And of course we know that these people will never be prosecuted. 

 Well anyway it's not just campaign stuff: The coverup of a Trump assassin's presence on line is being found and that is what this is

 about: 

I had to laugh at the part where they say Trumpieboy didn't seem upset about it. I doubt that, but maybe he's too busy saving the world. Sort of like the same reason he's ignoring the psy op on Epstein files.

As for Trump's latest: Making pals with the Saudis etc will help make peace in Gaza, but the speech by Musk scares me:

 

 I doubt his robots will replace the farmers. We are only partly mechanized, but if you watch Clarkson's farm you can see the complications of being a farmer.

And all it would take is a solar flare or a minor problem with the internet or electrical grid to make the world fall apart.

Sort of like how Cloudflare crashed X and a lot of other sites yesterday.

Speaking of farmers: One of our farmér's daughters just died of bone cancer. A sad case.

Stories under the fold

 

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more on my Makaipablog. And strategy page has a summary of Islamic and tribal terrorism (which often is now being influenced by ISIS etc) in Africa. Note: You don't need ISIS: The Rwanda massacres were done by Christian and and tribal religion believers, and indeed many who were followers of Islam refused to cooperate with the massacres.

...

and the podcast from yesterday that is burning up the internet,,, 2,978,141 views  so far

,,,

a completely uncovered story: The US lost their ability to build ships 

Is there peace in the Middle East?

 I am watching streaming on youtube from the BBC and they are actually saying nice things about Trump making peace.

Heh.The MSM and especially the press in Europe hate Trump.

It is an ongoing story so I can't post a video which would be out of date in a few hours.

In my prayers.

.......................

update: Hamas is already trying to reneg on returning the bodies of the hostages, and there is news that they are shooting the clan leader's gangs. Sigh.

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.

Give peace a chance

BBC: Cambodia/THailand peace deal

Cambodia and Thailand have agreed to an "immediate and unconditional ceasefire" following peace talks Malaysia's leader Anwar Ibrahim said the ceasefire would take effect from midnight local time, adding: "This is a vital first step to a de-escalation and a restoration of peace and security". ... The talks were held after US President Donald Trump asked both nations to agree to a ceasefire as a pre-condition to their respective trade talks with Washington

,,,,,

from INDIA TODAY: 

Trump to host Armenia-Azerbaijan leaders at the White House tomorrow to sign a peace deal granting the US exclusive rights to a new transit corridor, the TRIPP, reshaping the South Caucasus region.

....

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

and there are rumors... true? False flag?

🇺🇸🇷🇺🇵🇱 Trump team’s secret offer to Moscow leaked?

According to Polish outlet Onet, Moscow received a favorable ceasefire proposal from Trump’s circle, allegedly coordinated with European powers.

Key terms:
— Ceasefire, not peace.
— De facto recognition of Russia’s… pic.twitter.com/LD15tLB4mR

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) August 7, 2025

Hurricane coming to Florida

This explains why President Biden remains popular.

,,,

I am also watching the ongoing news conferenced by the Governor of Florida, since I have family there.

.

The problem is that this is stopping people from going home, since the second storm is hitting.

Sigh. This is a super sized hurricane, and yes several of these have hit Asia this year (but luckily for us, we were on the edge and mainly had flooding and destruction of the almost ready to harvest crops)...

We flew over Hurricane Milton about 90 minutes ago. Here is the view out the Dragon Endeavour window. Expect lots of images from this window as this is where I’m sleeping while we wait to undock and return to Earth.

Timelapse coming in a separate post.

1/6400 sec, f8, ISO 500 pic.twitter.com/zkhJdTlag7

— Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew) October 8, 2024

I was hoping to follow it on Twitter, but too many political bitching back and forth from both sides of the aisle.

and as I noted in an earlier post: The confusion in the mountains is because the flooding was not expected. FEMA is the scapegoat here, but this type of confusion happens after all disasters, where the pencil pushing bureaucrats are slower at helping than the locals, i.e. church groups, relatives, National Guard, first responders, people who have skills and know they will be needed... etc.

the on the street report about British riots

Why is England rioting? pic.twitter.com/QYbEvK5TFu

— Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) August 4, 2024

so is it the extreme nationalist British bigots behind the white riots, or the locals who see these outsiders as freeloaders? How many of the rioters are the same guys who as football fans have started fights after games?

And when a lot of the immigrants are from Eastern Europe, the West Indies, Africa, the Philippines and other Christian lands, not to mention the Hindu Indians, why is the spotlight on just the Muslims, who have been aggressive in trying to bully locals into accepting sharia?

Our family is in the middle of this: We have relatives there who are caregivers. They are now patriotic Brits, and I have to laugh at their accents when their kids, who grew up in England, are more British than Filipino. 

So are all immigrants being attacked, or just  the outsiders who refuse to assimilate, and/or the more recent immigrants who are seen as freeloaders? 

These are supposed to be refugees, but many paid a lot of money to get to Europe from the hellholes of Africa and the Middle East, meaning they are rich enough to pay coyotes (and exploit the UN and NGOs) to move them to an area where they can be safe? 

the assimilation of immigrants in Europe is a problem, because of excess nationalism. 

In contrast, in the USA, we all are of mixed background.

so why is there a problem? Racism? Or is it envy because immigrants will work and get jobs by those who want to hire hard workers, not drug taking locals?

I ask this partly in view of the Governor of Minnesota being selected to be a possible US VP. 

You see, the dirty little secret is that there is a lot of tension in high schools in the Minneapolis area, including between Somalis and the local black population.   (long history of Somali vs Bantu and the BantuSomalis who are many of those resettled in the USA is the cultural background for this).

I have a blogpost with references on this here.

They also have other minorities in Minneapolis who are invisible to the US MSM and never get quoted (the large Hmong population, and the Native Americans who are now living off the res in the city to get jobs). 

Yes, Minneapolis is diverse, but run by the white liberal elites, and this ignores not only the minorities but the large Scandinavian farm population. So no I don't know what is going on in the UK, or even in the USA, but the dispossessed are now being encouraged to fight each other (which is a long standing tactic to control the masses and of course making those who spread drugs or take bribes not to stop the gangs spreading them), and of course, the open drug use makes things worse.

Notice I don't mention the group that in the US is the cause of a lot of resentment: The large Hispanic population who often settle in a Hispanic area and find jobs and assimilate as what Teddy Roosevelt called "hyphenated Americans" but who in a generation or two will be just ordinary Yanks, like the Russian Jews or the Irish or the Italians or the Polish immigrants.

So what is the answer? Revolution as in France, or a religious revival as in the UK when such as when the Methodists reformed people in the slums while also working for social betterment.

the problem of those with the Islamic faith might be a problem, especially in Europe where prejudice is worse. But ironically in the USA, the ordinary Muslim has more in common with the working class Republicans as social conservatives, and history suggests that the immigrant cycle of living in ethnic neighborhoods and attending ethnic churches, the second generation slowly moving out to the main community, and the third generation becoming full blooded Americans will continue to work to assimilate them.

Local cops refuse to be made the scapegoat

more here.

CNN version here.

and did anyone ask about that investor group who the day before the shooting, just happened to short stocks associated with Trump's businesses, that would have made them millions if he had been shot? 

Oh, it was filed in error. No problem here, folk, just move along...

 “No client of APW holds, or has ever held, a put on DJT in the quantity initially reported. The correct holding amount was 12 contracts, or 1200 shares — not 12 million shares, as was filed in error. In submitting the required report for the second quarter of 2024, a multiplier was applied by a third-party vendor that increased the number of the shares by a multiple of 10,000 for all options contracts (not just DJT). We did not catch the error before approving the filing.”

and hey, if you believe this innocent error suggested a conspiracy ,you are a conspiracy theorist....

So how about the Crowdstrike stock shenanigans? Was that an innocent error too? 

this one needs to be looked into because Crowdstrike leader has links to a previous McAfee problem and of course there is a whole industry out there about Crowdstrike and the funny money in the Ukraine...

or as the WAPO put it;

Friday’s debacle has brought the cybersecurity company’s role in probing the 2015 DNC hack and in Trump’s first impeachment into renewed focus among some backers of the Republican nominee.

when experts pounce

The dog that did not bark is going on in the USA, where coverage of the shooting of Trumpieboy is being rewritten and/or ignored.

Of course, we are assured that  top men are working on what happened  ... you know: top men.

Canadian journalist David Warren notes:

Most easily verifiable things are presented by the Left as “conspiracy theories,” so that if something is flagged in the media for having marks of a dark, far right, conspiracy theory, I tend to believe it is true. There may be no contest over many, multiplying facts, so these are not reported.

For instance, the background of the assassination attempt on Mr Donald Trump. No one who is at least partially sane doubts that this happened. Thus the event and its colourful details are now being “memory-holed” by the commentariat. 

and he worries about Trump's safety and uses this quote that is being noted on quite a few websites:

 “They tried to coup him, impeach him, remove him from the ballot, they ran show trials against him, tried to bankrupt him and his family, put him in prison, and assassinate him. They’re OBVIOUSLY not done,” as Mollie Hemingway explains.

Of course, I have also read that this was actually Hemingway quoting someone else, and I have also read that this was a satire.

Just because it is true doesn't permit you to state what is going on, because if you state the obvious, it is a conspiracy theory.

don't believe me? Just google it...

The censorship industrial complex is evil pic.twitter.com/qJeYP952G6

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) July 28, 2024

that is not, of course, the only time people were told: Who do you believe, me or your lying eyes.

The blasphemy of the Paris Olympics horrified most Christians (and even the head Mullah of Iran, but no word yet from the Pope) and the officials in charge have changed the story so you are being told this was about  Dionysis, never mind that those involved admit it was deliberate ridicule of Christ.

So a few hours later Paris went black: Electrical blackout in much of the city (probably those mischevious leftists of course, but never mind)... and a few people noted the irony that one of the few places that remained lighted was the cathedral of the Sacred Heart.

The irony of an electrical power outage in Paris in the wake of the blasphemous & debauched opening ceremonies of the Olympics should be noted. The evil on display mocks God’s power and then the city is left powerless. May the Sacred Heart of Jesus guide us in His powerful Light. pic.twitter.com/zbATrUTfeT

— Bishop J. Strickland (@BishStrickland) July 28, 2024

a close up photo:

The Basilica of Sacre-Coeur de Montmartre | MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP via Getty Images

Yes, I am sure that this has a "natural" explanation. Most miracles do.

Chose who you will worship

 

Friends, my thoughts on the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. #Olimpiadas2024 #OlympicGames pic.twitter.com/xU1ljFMZft

— Bishop Robert Barron (@BishopBarron) July 27, 2024

sigh.

Ed Driscoll quotes this blog who asks:Exit question: “Why is a planet-wide celebration of athleticism and uncommon sporting prowess being introduced with yet another tedious display of cross-dressing, oddly selective sacrilege, and self-satisfied obesity?”

heh. one guy on Twitter/X just quipped:

God just turned the lights out on Paris.pic.twitter.com/25U1rrOeEj

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) July 27, 2024

of course this is probably not related to the blasphemy, but just ordinary cyberterrorism similar to the fires that stopped the trains to Paris before the Olympics.

However, it hints that religious persecution is on the way: why do I say this? Because it mirrors the French revolution, where Notre Dame cathedral was desecrated and dedicated to the goddess of Reason, and a naked prostitute cavorted on the altar and the government took over religion and shut down the churches that refused to play along.

So I am glad that there is at least one American bishop with the courage to say: This is not right. 

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update: A Brazilian athlete was told he could not use his surfboard that had the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer on it.

The surfboard allegedly violates "Olympic rules". Article 50 reads: "No type of political, religious or racial demonstration or propaganda shall be permitted in any Olympic venue." The Christ the Redeemer statue is the landmark of Rio de Janeiro. Chianca is from the state of Rio de Janeiro. Chianca was informed that "the painting is not allowed in the Olympic Games because Christ is a religious figure". He understood that "the [highly politicised] Games have strict rules and [allegedly] focus on total neutrality."

LOL. 

shades of 1933

Shades of 1933, when the shooter missed FDR and killed the mayor of Chicago at a rally in Miami.

I first saw this on my Cspan feed: looks like it came very near to his head.

No, I don't usually follow the news on twitter, which is full of activists spewing anti Jewish haterd, and is now full of two types of tweets; either asking for prayers, or rejoicing at the hit (or insisting that it was fake: Heck, even CNN reported it as a fall when he ducked for cover).

this is despicable because the report suggests a spontaneous fall....yet the noise of the shots fired, and Trump grabbing his ear, are clearly visible on the CSpan video.

according to Instapundit, the initial AP NBC and WaPost reports are similarly failing to report what happened by using language that obscures what you can see... the hostility of the crowd to the CSpan reporter suggests they dislike the press... wonder why?

the local PhilInquirer used theAgence France-Presse story. Trump is ‘safe,’ says Secret Service after rally where shots were heard

Trump was taken to a hospital but is okay, but some reports say a bystander was shot and taken to the hospital.

🚨🇺🇸 ER DOCTOR TRIED TO SAVE TRUMP RALLY ATTENDEE'S LIFE

Emergency Department Doctor:

“Somebody over there was screaming, 'He's been shot. He's been shot.' So I made my way over. I saw him and said, 'I'm an emergency department physician. Let me help you.'

He had a headshot… https://t.co/oY5GGokfgF pic.twitter.com/F48mE0ayB0

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) July 13, 2024

 

Freepers attending the rally who were mainly discussing the size of the crowd or the snacks they planned to eat after the rally reported shots fired at 6:12:25and one of the guys on the edge of the rally told the BBC they saw the guy and were trying to alert the cops when the shots rang out.

MY Question. Why were there no security guatds on the roof? And how did the kid know he could climb up there?

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.

Haiti

BBC article on what is going on in Haiti:

the AP article on the hunger and anarchy in Haiti.

some 1.4 million Haitians are on the verge of famine, and more than 4 million require food aid, sometimes eating only once a day or nothing at all, aid groups say. Expand article logo Continue reading “Haiti is facing a protractive and mass hunger,” Jean-Martin Bauer, Haiti director for the United Nation’s World Food Program, told The Associated Press. He noted that Croix-des-Bouquets, in the eastern part of Haiti’s capital, “has malnutrition rates comparable with any war zone in the world.”

This is a long analysis of Haiti: and he is very blunt about the problem.

Fetal and neonatal malnutrition is the cause of the low IQ. I saw this a lot in Liberia, and in the US, immigrants from Ireland and Poland in the past had the same problem for the same reason.
A lot of the analysis is very hard line, but alas it is true.

Just throwing in money just makes the corrupt rich. Something to remember when you read about the UN planning to send money to poor countries because of global warming. 

this 2019 article from the UK Guardian gives an analysis of the failure of aid before and after the earthquake ten years earlier.

No, I have never been in Haiti, but our church in Pennsylvania had a sister church there. And I know doctors who worked in clinics there. 

But although this is very bad, there are dozens of countries that have slightly less problems, and yes I have worked in some of those countries.

Headlines we got um

a follow up of my previous rant about Iran being the puppetmaster behind the latest war against Israel and the west:

.

all the stuff on Gaza casualties is of course exaggerated and much of it is violence porn and sophisticated so that it makes you want to hate Israel. but never mind. 

............

and then there is this.

BREAKING INSIDE THE PENTAGON: Associate Director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense says, “Why not just have an open border?” “Tear down the wall.”

“I think we should repeal the Second Amendment and take the guns all away!” says Jason Beck, who has a classified security… pic.twitter.com/QSuXmgQAPz

— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) March 13, 2024

remember this guy has a secret clearance, showing you that all that any nincompoop can get a security clearance.

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and a virus experts explains why banning gain of function research is like silencing Galileo. But unlike Galileo, he didn't kill a couple million folks with a lab leak.

most biolabs are about identifying illnesses in animals: an example would be when Ebola Reston infected a bunch of pigs in a nearby farm. But a year ago there was a story here about EcoHealth trying to fund a lab here, not to help with these needed investigations, but to investigate illnesses in wild animals that might evolve to hurt humans. Luckily the Senate stopped it because they found the US Dept of Defence was funding it. But nothing in the news since then, so I hope the gov't stopped them from doing germ warfare stuff here.

and another story of how an expert who opposed some of the covid shutdown policies was punished.

it was the Great Barrington Declaration.

see above post about Galileo. But hey, it's okay to use a 400 year old mistake to destroy Catholicism, but don't dare criticize Pope Fauci.

and the rot isn't limited to the medical leaders in the CDC and medical societies/journals that should have published these questions.

Audit of Boeing's practices suggests a sloppiness that is dangerous and might sink that company's ability to sell airplanes. And the "suicide" of a whistleblower right before he was scheduled to testify makes things worse.

and a lot of people are now willing to stand up and say: Wait a second.

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

I thought Dr Phil was a new age guru in Oprah's religion. But now he is talking to Jordan Peterson?!

.................

years ago, an Irish friend told me the press was very anti Catholic because they saw the church standing in the way of modern policies of what we call woke. So far they have succeeded, but last week's vote suggested push back.

of course this is the spin by the experts that give you an idea of how this is being reframed to explain why those deplorables didn't do it.

reminds one how they pushed a hysterical narrative about a death of a woman from sepsis from a botched and illegal second trimester abortion into the need to legalize abortion.

The bad news is that after Ireland rejected the Mastrict treaty, they simply started a propaganda campaign and promises of prosperity and it squeaked through in a revote.

so expect the same thing here.

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finally, I know nothing about tiktok, but the addiction to social media was made worse by the isolation during the covid quarantines. It is not good for one's mental health, and you can be quickly sucked into a rabbit hole of the latest thing. But heck, talk radio has done that for years. The difference? The kids are more vulnerable to being groomed/brainwashed.

.....

Rand Paul's take on the issue:

🧵1/2

Reactionaries who want to ban TikTok claim the data can’t be secured because the “algorithm” is in China.

Not true.

The truth is the Algorithm runs in the U.S. in oracle cloud with their review of the code. (NOT in China).

Maybe we should examine the facts before…

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 13, 2024

As to China mining data: heck, the FBI is doing that already from Facebook, 

and of course Chinese hackers stole my OPM file a couple years ago, along with the OPM files of over a million military and gov't employees. We were told it was criminals, but hey it was the Chinese gov't who now knows all about us.

The answer might be to take cellphones away from vulnerable kids.

My sister in law forbad facebook years ago because her daughter's skating team was ridiculed so much it was putting her into a deep depression. I should note that since then, she has skated with a professional ice skating company for one season, but now has switched to being a physical therapist instead of a PhysEd teacher for team skating.

I stopped going to facebook about four years ago because it was full of hate stuff posted by friends and relativesm, and have had to limit my tweeting viewership because of this extreme partisanship distorts reality.

And hey, with the election coming, it will get worse.

awaiting being thrown off of twitter

I am reading that Musk will censor any tweet that says decolonization.

it is his way of fighting those who hate him for opening twitter to all voices (read Republicans and anti vax propaganda). Certain groups are already pressuring X by pressuring companies to remove their ads.
 

it is aiming at the anti Israel hatred of the mindless there, who insist that Jews are colonizers of Palestine.

But I tweeted: you know, the word decolonization can be used to describe other countries. 

Since the 1940s, the Han Chinese have colonized Tibet, and are settling their ethnic group in western China to replace the Uighar population.

Hence the anti Chinese demonstrations against Xi in San Francisco. (and the usual anti American useful idiots are there in force of course).

In between chants of "People over profits," or "from Palestine to the Philippines, stop the U.S. war machine,"

translation: Let China take over the Philippine resources (oil, fish) in the west Philippine sea, and presumably later presumably take over Luzon or have their proxies take over the government and let China loot all our resources.

forward to 49 minutes.

and follow the money? Powerline finds who is funding codepink and the islamicist riots.

and don't forget how Omidyar, a suspected CIA front, funded opposition to the pro Russian president of the Ukraine and the anti Duterte site Rappler here. 

in other words, they all do it.

Hurricane devestates Mexico.

 I have a life so vaguely heard that Alcapulco Mexico was hit by a hurricane last week, but I didn't realize it was this bad:

Newsweek Oct 25

Hurricane Otis made landfall as a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane early on Wednesday morning, smashing into Mexico's southern Pacific coast.

the problem? It went from an ordinary storm to a category 5 hurricane within 12 hours.

"This is pretty much a worst-case scenario, as residents have little time to find a safe shelter and protect life and property from this life-threatening storm," weather analyst Colin McCarthy said.

and things continue to be bad. Aid is getting there, but it takes time and the locals are lamenting about the lack of food etc. and blaming the government.

 And the press is blaming Global warming of course. 

Sigh.

Been there, done that.

In our prayers.

headlines? nope. the backstory is more important

 latest StrategyPage discussion has a lot about China.

.....

and their essay on the Philippines has a lot about the Chinese aggression stealing the Philippine resources in the West Philippine Sea.