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. 

well you believed the BBC?

 

Now do the lies to paint Israel as evil, believing Hamas lies....

Why did it accidentally have a documentary on Gaza narrated by the son of a Hamas official ?

 Why did it accidentally broadcast an apparent Hamas rally live from the West Holts stage of Glastonbury? Well now we know. They were all in on it. Mission accomplished. Bob Vylan has pulled off the unthinkable.

am interview with the UKTelegraph reporter:

BBC Bias: nothing new. Now try Lancet

 

when I lived in Africa, our only source of news was the BBC via shortwave. And they lied about Reagan all the time. Supposedly Reagan was a cowboy who was going to start World War III...

well nothing seems to have changed:

As for Lancet: Remember when they posted a letter by a bunch of experts saying Covid did not come from WUhan: written by the head of Ecohealth, the organization that gave Wuhan labs the money to do gain of function research?

the MSM ignored Asian casualties of Hamas: It wasn't just Israelis

I sort o found this story when some were finally released but the MSM never mentioned it. 

I am not up to writing and researching it again, So I asked Grok: ,,,,,posted here for my own information

 

### The Story of Thai Farm Workers in the October 7, 2023, Hamas Attack on Israel

In the early morning hours of October 7, 2023, Hamas militants launched a massive surprise assault on southern Israel, breaching the border fence with Gaza in multiple locations. What began as a barrage of thousands of rockets was followed by ground incursions involving gunmen on motorcycles, paragliders, and trucks. The attacks targeted civilian communities, including kibbutzim (collective farms) and agricultural sites near the border—areas where thousands of migrant workers from Thailand were employed. These Thai laborers, drawn to Israel by promises of steady wages far exceeding what they could earn at home, suddenly found themselves in the crosshairs of a conflict they had no part in. Their stories highlight the vulnerability of low-wage migrant workers, who were neither soldiers nor settlers but essential cogs in Israel's agricultural machine.

#### Why Were So Many Thai Workers There? Thailand has been Israel's largest source of foreign agricultural labor since a 2012 bilateral agreement eased visa processes for Thai migrants. Prior to the attacks, around 30,000 Thai men—mostly from impoverished rural regions in northeastern Thailand—worked on farms across Israel, with thousands stationed in high-risk border areas near Gaza. These workers, often in their 20s and 30s, picked crops like avocados, strawberries, pineapples, and peppers under grueling conditions: long hours in the heat, low pay (about $1,300 a month, or five times Thailand's average rural wage), and inadequate shelter from rocket threats. Many lived in basic barracks or trailers on remote kibbutzim, far from bomb shelters, and their remote locations made them easy targets when Hamas fighters stormed in. Families back home depended on their remittances for basics like food and education; one worker's wife described their dream of building a house as shattered in an instant.

It remains unclear if Thai workers were deliberately targeted—Hamas claimed the assault was against Israeli military and settlers—but their proximity to the border and lack of security made them collateral victims in a war not their own. Other Asian migrants, including Nepalese students and Filipino caregivers, suffered too, but Thais bore the brunt as the largest group.

#### The Horror of October 7: Attacks on the Farms As dawn broke, Hamas gunmen infiltrated kibbutzim like Alumim, Be'eri, and Nir Oz—agricultural havens turned killing fields. Thai workers, many off-duty and relaxing in shared quarters, had little chance. In Kibbutz Alumim, militants hurled grenades and fired into a shelter housing Thai farmhands and Nepalese students; 12 Thais and 10 Nepalis were slaughtered, while four Thais were dragged away captive. At a poultry farm near the border, 30-year-old Withawat Kunwong fought hand-to-hand with an attacker who slashed his throat, leaving him for dead in a pool of blood; he survived only by playing possum until rescuers arrived, his scars a lifelong reminder.

Elsewhere, workers like Ubon Namsan, 27, watched rockets streak overhead from his strawberry fields, initially dismissing the alerts as routine—Gaza barrages had been sporadic for months. But then came the gunfire. In one avocado grove, 26-year-old Kong Saelao was picking fruit when militants arrived; he was shot and killed, his last selfies amid green trees a heartbreaking contrast to the violence. Katchakon Pudtason, chased across dusty roads, took a bullet to the knee while fleeing on foot; his colleague remains in a coma from head wounds.

Families watched the chaos unfold in real-time via Facebook Live. Suntharee Saelee saw her husband Gong's posts from his day off at an avocado farm: rockets arcing toward distant cities, intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome. Then silence—he was among those kidnapped, his wife raging at Hamas for turning "innocent workers" into pawns. By day's end, the toll was staggering: at least 39 Thai workers killed (later revised to 46 including war-related deaths), 31 abducted (the second-largest foreign group after Israelis), and 19 injured. Hamas fighters even sabotaged irrigation systems, dooming crops in a calculated blow to Israel's "desert bloom" economy.

#### Kidnappings and the Agony of Uncertainty The abductions were brutal and opportunistic. Workers were bound, beaten, and herded into Gaza on makeshift vehicles, their fates unknown for weeks. Natthaporn On-kaew, a 26-year-old, was one of the first confirmed Thai hostages, his parents clutching his photo in despair. Families in Thailand, often in one-room homes with dirt floors, bombarded embassies with pleas but received little clarity—many couldn't even confirm if loved ones were dead or captive due to bureaucratic fog. One father learned of his son's kidnapping from a grainy video circulating online.

Of the 31 taken, 23 were released in phases: 17 in November 2023 during initial truce talks, and five more—Pongsak Thaenna, Sathian Suwannakham, Watchara Sriaoun, Bannawat Saethao, and Surasak Lamnao—on January 30, 2025, amid a fragile ceasefire. These men, farmhands from quiet villages, endured 15 months in tunnels and cells, emerging gaunt and traumatized to emotional reunions at Bangkok's airport. Two died in captivity, and one—Nattapong Pinta—remains missing as of early 2025. Their release wasn't tied to major deals but leveraged diplomatic pressure from Thailand, which condemned the attacks while aiding evacuations.

#### Aftermath: Exodus, Trauma, and Resilience The attacks triggered a mass exodus: over 7,000 Thai workers fled on government-chartered flights, leaving coffins draped in flags at Ben-Gurion Airport and farms crippled by labor shortages. Israel, expelling Palestinian laborers and losing Thais, scrambled for replacements from Sri Lanka and elsewhere, while offering bonuses to lure workers back—despite ongoing rocket fire.

Survivors like Jakkrit Noiphoothorn ("Thon") and Korawit Kaeokoed ("Kuay") returned to Alumim's fields in 2024, tending cowsheds amid nightmares: "It's always in my mind. No matter what I do, it won’t go away." Withawat, now home, touches his neck scars gingerly, vowing never to return. Advocacy groups decried the "business as usual" pressure on workers to resume amid peril, and Israel pledged more shelters and €4.7 million in border-area compensation.

Thailand provided 50,000 baht ($1,400) in aid per returnee, but the human cost lingers: shattered families, PTSD, and a stark reminder of migrant workers' invisibility in global conflicts. As one relative put it, "We have nothing to do with their war." By 2025, with a ceasefire in place, the released hostages began rebuilding, but the scars—of body and soul—endure.

.....

So what about Filipinos?

Again from Grok

### The Plight of Filipino Caregivers in the October 7, 2023, Hamas Attack on Israel

On October 7, 2023, Hamas militants breached Israel's border with Gaza in a coordinated assault, firing thousands of rockets and storming southern communities, including kibbutzim (collective farms) and residential areas. While the primary targets were Israeli civilians and military sites, the violence ensnared vulnerable migrant workers, including Filipino caregivers who formed the backbone of elderly and disabled care in the region. These women—predominantly from rural Philippines—had migrated to Israel seeking stable wages (around $1,500 monthly, triple what they earned at home) to support families through remittances. Stationed in border-adjacent kibbutzim like Be'eri, Nir Oz, and Nirim, they lived with their employers, often in modest homes lacking robust defenses. Their proximity to the Gaza envelope made them unintended casualties in a war zone, exposing the fragility of migrant labor in conflict areas. Unlike Thai farm workers, who faced mass killings in fields, Filipinos endured targeted home invasions, their loyalty to patients turning heroic acts into tragedies.

#### The Role and Vulnerabilities of Filipino Caregivers Israel hosts about 30,000 Filipinos, 90% as caregivers for the elderly, disabled, or infirm—roles formalized through bilateral agreements since 2013. These workers, mostly women aged 30-50, provide round-the-clock care: bathing, feeding, medicating, and emotional support. Many resided in southern kibbutzim, drawn by employer-provided housing and salaries that funded homes, education, and debts back in provinces like Pangasinan and Pampanga. However, their isolation—far from urban shelters in Tel Aviv or Haifa—left them exposed. Homes had basic safe rooms, but not all were fortified against armed intruders. Caregivers often prioritized patients over flight, bound by duty and contracts, only to face gunmen who viewed foreigners as collateral.

Initial chaos amplified fears: Families in the Philippines tracked loved ones via WhatsApp, only to encounter silence amid rocket sirens. The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) scrambled to account for all, but unverified social media reports of kidnappings sowed panic. By October 8, over 2,000 Filipinos had marked themselves safe online, yet a "handful"—fewer than 10—remained untraced in the south.

#### The Attacks: Stories of Loyalty and Loss As militants rampaged through kibbutzim, caregivers sheltered with charges, barricading doors against AK-47 fire and grenades. Their decisions echoed a cultural ethos of "utang na loob" (debt of gratitude), but at fatal cost.

- **Angelyn Peralta Aguirre, 33, from Pangasinan**: A newlywed on her first contract, Angelyn had worked six years in Israel, sending money for her family's farm. On October 7, Hamas gunmen stormed her kibbutz home near Gaza. She refused to flee, staying with 73-year-old employer Nira—locking them in a safe room. Militants blasted through, killing both. Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum hailed her "unimaginable honor in the face of evil," noting Angelyn's chance to escape but choice to protect. Her body was recovered days later; her husband learned via embassy calls, clutching her last voice note: "I love you."

- **Paul Vincent Castelvi, 42, from Pampanga**: A male caregiver (rare in the field), Paul planned a holiday surprise for his mother. At Kibbutz Nir Oz, he herded his elderly patient into a bomb shelter as gunmen approached. Shots rang out; both died in the barrage. His sister identified him via photos from community leaders. Paul, a father of three, had scrimped for his kids' tuition.

- **Loreta Villarin Alacre, 49, from Negros Occidental**: Loreta, a veteran caregiver, attended the Nova music festival near Kibbutz Re'im for a rare break—her first since arriving years prior. Hamas militants massacred 260 attendees; she was among them, shot fleeing the stage. Initially misidentified as a kibbutz worker, DNA confirmed her death on October 13. Her Cadiz City family, in a one-room home, mourned via Facebook tributes, her remittances their lifeline now severed.

- **Grace (Mary Grace) Prodigo-Cabrera, from an unspecified province**: The fourth confirmed victim, Grace died in her kibbutz residence during the incursion. Details emerged slowly; her sister Mary June repatriated her remains in November 2023. Like others, she embodied quiet sacrifice—caring for the vulnerable while far from her own.

These four were among six initially missing Filipinos; their deaths brought the toll to four by late October, all caregivers. One injured worker, shot in the arm, was treated and repatriated. No abductions were confirmed—unlike Thais, only one Filipino hostage overall, released in the 2023 ceasefire.

#### Aftermath: Grief, Repatriation, and Enduring Bonds News hit Philippine shores like aftershocks. Families in shanties and provinces gathered at DFA offices, demanding answers amid bureaucratic delays. Vigils in Manila's Christ the King Church and tributes at the Philippine Embassy drew crowds; on November 28, 2023, relatives of the four convened for a memorial, sharing photos and sobs. The DFA condemned the attacks as "barbaric," raising Israel to Alert Level 2, urging voluntary returns.

Over 100 Filipinos repatriated via chartered flights by November, debts (up to $3,500 for recruitment fees) chaining some to stay. Israel offered lifetime benefits to victims' kin—pensions, therapy, honors—declaring them "part of our family." Ambassador Ilan Fluss praised their heroism: "They run the lives of our elderly... full trust." A fifth death, a festival-goer, was verified in November, but caregivers bore the brunt.

Survivors like Lourdes Levi, a 20-year veteran in Tel Aviv, stayed despite sirens: "It's my duty—no one else to care for them." In Kibbutz Nirim, caregiver Camille (surname withheld) faced a gunman at the safe room window, pleading, "Take our money, not us." She hugged 95-year-old Nitza for 2.5 hours until rescuers came; both survived, her 1,500 shekels ($370) savings spared.

By November 2025, with ceasefires holding, repatriations continue—over 200 total. Families receive 200,000 pesos ($3,500) aid from OWWA, but trauma lingers: PTSD, lost breadwinners, shattered dreams. As one widow said, "She went for us, died for them." Their plight underscores migrant invisibility—heroes in hostels, footnotes in wars.

walter duranty would be proud

 the hoaxes of Hamas are echoed by the MSM

I have worked in war zones, and this angers me because it is distorting what is going on to stay in power, 

and the more they get their useful idiots (to use Stalin's term) to parrot the propaganda to get allies to their side (they support Hamas out of compassion because they believe the propaganda), the less they will be willing to negotiate an end to this war, and the more people will die.

This reminds me of the propaganda about Viet Nam, where the lies ignored both the corruption of the south's government and the open atrocities of the North Vietnamese soldiers who were fighting to impose communism. The naive were manipulated and pressured the US withdrawal thinking the result would be peace, but where as soon as the war ended, the MSM and the public looked the other way while millions were killed, died fleeing, or put into concentration camps by the communists.

what angers me the most is that they are weaponizing compassion: as Neibuhr observed, the naive children of light underestimate evil and by doing so allow evil to win.

Indeed, with the Europeans now not only condemn Israel for non existant genocide,  they are saying they want a Palestinian state by those very same murderers who started the war and stole aid money to buy weapons to go to war.

The Europeans, unlike the other Arab countries are not stating who should run it. But what is worse, by playing into their cynical manipulation/psychological warfare, they essentially are encouraging, Hamas to leave the negotiations for peace last week, and hence prolong the war and suffering of their people. Because hey, they are essentially outsiders who are puppets of Iran's plans to take over the Islamic world, and don't care for their people.

Legal Insurrecton has an article on the top Pallywood hoaxes.

 Here are two examples

one:  the exaggerated number of dead:

98% of global outlets use the death toll figures provided by Hamas. 

And Hamas would never lie, would they?  

 Even then, Hamas’s numbers — under 60,000 fatalities, three quarters of them are men between 13 and 55 — do not satisfy the anti-Zionist true believers.

In other words, most of the dead are militry age men, or soldiers, not civilians. But of course this is ignored by the True believers.  

In a manner reminiscent of the unstoppable global warming hype, a group of activists took it upon themselves to extrapolate from projections.

italics mine. 

Last summer, the British magazine Lancet published a statement speculating that the total number of fatalities could be as high as 186,000.

Lancet is not merely a British magazine, but used to be an esteemed medical journal, and traditionally medical journals are supposed to be scientifically accurate. But in the last 30 years, these journals (Lancet, BMJ, NEJM, JAMA9 have allowed activists to publish politically biased articles to manipulate the public  not just here but in the Gulf war and Covid. 

The author Martin McKee soon admitted that the figure is “purely illustrative.”

translation: Made up. 

His piece was not an article, but a non-peer reviewed letter.

In other words, no one checked his data. And no one bothered to point this out as his opinion was pushed as fact by the MSM.

Nonetheless, it made headlines and gave Anti-Zionists an opening to say that, according to the most prestigious medical journal in the world, the number of casualties in Gaza is much higher than reported....

this is not the only time that the "most prestigious medical journal in the world", i.e. Lancet was behind a hoax to push a psyop for the powers that be.

 Lancet publishing a letter that Covid was not a lab leak? How dare you suggest maybe Chinese lab was careless (even though there had been other known lab leads in China in recent years).

And only later did they retract part of the lttr since this letter was sponsored and written by the head of Ecohealth, who were funding the wuhan lab's research... 

Place Fauci and Big Pharma conspiracy theory here. In the past it was the Democrats who would have noticed and investigated this, and lucky for the USA, RFK Jr., a Democrat, is willing to do this for Trump, an ex Democrat...

Nor is this scandal an isolated case:: even science Magazine noted the biased ar icles against drugs that could treat covid.  

The same here, and the same thing happened in reviewing using medicines to treat covid: Bad data, but hey Trump pointed out that maybe these medicines should be used, so the journals decided to itnore science becuse orange man bad.

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

and another hoax that is being trumpeted is against the US/Israel food distribution. 

The other NGOs are mad because this was started because they cooperated with Hamas, i.e. let them smuggle in weapons with the food, and also let them steal the food and sell it for a profit. 

A good reporter would notice this, but hey most of AlJ's reporters and the NGO reporters are Hamas patsies.

again from LI:

In late May, Hamas began alleging that the Israeli Defense Forces were firing on Gazans congregating near GHF distribution points, killing hundreds.

I believe the source of this hoax was some deaths shooting rioters who were attacking the food distribution center. So there is a splinter of truth. 

But of course like the civilian deaths, it is being distorted out of context and with exaggerated numbers. 

why do I say this? Because of the dog that didn't bark...

Despite the fact that every Gazan has a cell phone, no such event has been documented. Pallywood didn’t bother to fake videos of the diseased or stage funeral processions.

 

Israel’s own footage confirmed that no bullets were fired at the crowd at the time of alleged massacres. Yet plenty of recordings of Hamas stealing aid and abusing Gazans are flooding social media. Hundreds of trucks worth of aid are left undistributed.

In the meanwhile, the aid supposed to be given out by the UN and the NGOs is just sitting there. Why? 

Although the IDF found no signs of it, some observers believe that the terror group is trying to engineer a famine in the areas it controls in order to create diplomatic pressure on their neighbor.,,

and here it the way the heirs of Walter Duranty are imitating their hero: 

Western media today is increasingly allied with Qatar’s Al Jazeera on the question of Jews.

 

Media malpractice is nothing new, but when people are being lied to like that, it’s usually because they are being prepped for a genocide.

not just of Israel but of Jews world wide. One only has to look at what happened in universities against students because of their Jewish ancestry.

And alas even the Catholics are in on spreading the hatred: The Pope accepted the lies of Israel destroying a church (which didn't happen: a photo shop showed smoke from a nearby fire and focused the photo as if the church was burning). Well, I know from experience that the Catholic church is full of leftist idieologues who want to take over the church. But here, unlike the Latin mass and pedophile controversies, the Trads are also full of anti Semites who seem to believe long debunked conspiracy theories about the Jewish community.  

Sigh. 

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

They all knew but remained silent

 The big kerfuffle in the USA is that reporters are claiming they didn't know President Biden was becoming senile. 

and the ones who should have invoked the constitutional amendment to remove an incapacitated president remained silent: and it was George Clooney, not a Democratic party leader, who saw how the debate exposed Biden's incompetence, and who ended up writing the editorial saying Biden shouldn't run because of his mental problems. 

And Clooney took a lot of flack for it

 But the question is why didn't Pelosi or Shumer or Kamela or Clinton do this? Instead the establishment and press gaslighted the public about what was going on.

And we still don't know if Jill Biden or Obama minions were the one running the country

But you know this wasn't the only cover up of incompetence.

Why was the incompetence and problems of Pope Francis covered up?

From Eliz Yore via complicit clergy website (a site that reports on abuse cases).

They breathed not a word about the man, who subjected the Catholic Church to 12 years of brutal tyranny, blatant material heresy, vindictive psychopathy, and rampant predator protection. Only now, the truth emerges from his collaborators that Bergoglio is safely and securely entombed. 

,,,Deep censorship existed in the religious and secular media outlets about the widespread unpopularity and instability of Jorge Bergoglio. Those of us who criticized his bizarre actions and troubling statements were branded as fringe outcasts, unmerciful and uncharitable malcontents. Some were even excommunicated-daring to speak the truth about the reality of Bergoglio...

Yup. And now we will be gaslighted as if this never happened.

As for the new Pope, Yore's article quotes Bishop Ganswein:

 

Now a new phase opens. I sense some widespread relief. The season of arbitrariness is over. We can begin to rely on a papacy that can guarantee stability and rely on existing structures, without overturning and upsetting them.”

so is this true? I mean, the new pope was the one who went along with the dirty work to fire Bishop Strickland for being too Catholic, and for tweeting that the Pope was "undermining the Deposit of faith": 

but even Strickland sort of supports him and has urged Catholics to pray for him.

 So it is a full court press of loving this new pope except for the radical trads who hate everyone to the left of Pius IX

But maybe there is hope: the modern Jeremiah, Ann Barnhardt, has some questions but she admits that her grassroots sources in Rome say that the average cynical easy going Roman citizens are happy with this pope and happy to see the end of Pope Francis being in charge.

And that is good news for the church.

O Lord Jesus Christ, Eternal High Priest,

Thou hast permitted Pope Leo XIV to ascend the Chair of Peter at a time of great confusion and suffering for Thy flock.

We place him into Thy Sacred Heart, praying that he may be conformed ever more deeply to Thee, governed not by the… pic.twitter.com/3ouseVaK1D

— Bishop J. Strickland (@BishStrickland) May 11, 2025

Factoid of the day

the serious minded types who never had a teenage son were upset at some of the jokes posted on the internet by one of the nerds finding misuse of millions of dollars at USAID.

So the press is pouncing on his sardonic comments and nickname.

But they got his nickname wrong: 

 
I guess none of them were AD/DC fans. 

The balls in the lyrics were dance parties, but actually was a satire of rich folk, and of course full of double entendres

double entendre

Defintion: A phrase that has two meanings, especially where one is innocent and literal, the other risqué, bawdy, or ironic; an innuendo.

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

Update: The guy with the nickname Big Balls is not the same nerd who posted sardonic jokes interpreted as racist. But the news stories were not clear.

Anyway, here is the Vance telling a Congresswoman to calm down:

For the sake of both of our kids? Grow up.

Racist trolls on the internet, while offensive, don't threaten my kids. You know what does? A culture that denies grace to people who make mistakes. A culture that encourages congressmen to act like whiny children. https://t.co/xpLjhfk6Bz

— JD Vance (@JDVance) February 7, 2025

It''s Christmas: Time to insult the VIrgin Mary

 I've been seeing hit jobs on Christianity in the MSM for the last fifty years, usually printed at Christmas or Easter time of course.

So we see this again this year. Ho hum. nothing new here folks just move along.

first the NYTimes editorial wants to instruct you that 2000 years of belief in Mary is mistaken. Is this being done to undermine the faith of believers? Is this being done to instruct those ignorant of what Christianity taught for 2000 years? Of course not. It is aimed at bridging America’s God gulf.

italics mine. 

translation: presenting the hip version of the faith to those seeking God: by using a straw man argument and quoting those who are trying to remake Christianity into a faith pleasing to the elite mindset as if they represent the belief of ordinary Catholics. Presumably he couldn't find any believing Catholics in New York City.

Nope: he goes to the experts in academia who are busy destructing Christian beliefs...quoting Pagals, an expert in the Gnostic gospels that date back only 1600 years

   Jenkins book, which I have in my personal library, has a lot of details about this trend 

Jenkins places the recent controversies surrounding the hidden gospels in a broad historical context and argues that, far from being revolutionary, such attempts to find an alternative Christianity date back at least to the Enlightenment. And by employing the appropriate scholarly and historical methodologies, he demonstrates that the texts purported to represent pristine Christianity were in fact composed long after the canonical gospels found in the Bible. Produced by obscure heretical movements, these texts offer no reliable new information about Jesus or the early church. They have attracted so much media attention chiefly because they seem to support radical, feminist, and post-modern positions in the modern church.

and the NYT writer also quotes liberal Protestant writer who is busy influencing Bible believing Protestant churches to do the same.

Hmm... sounds like some of those theologians trying to hijack the Pope's synodality stupidity by changing dogma on several levels while the Pope says good things then contradicts himself by letting these guys destroy the faith of ordinary Catholics. 

Sigh.

and then to add insult to injury, Netflix puts in their insult. 

And unlike the NYTimes, someone spent a lot of money to make this film, 

Some of it is inspired by some of the pious early  writings called gospels but never accepted by the church (again, see Jenkins book) but of course Netflix writers give them a gnostic flavor. 

Father Leo, best known as the cooking priest from EWTN also teaches at an American seminary, and has started a podcast on religion in culture, and he puts his two cents in.

 Bishop Barron discusses Youtube theology:

bad reporting and censorship and ignoring future economic issues.

a cyberattack (not glitches) tried to stop it, the EU sent threatening letters, etc.

trying to shut down fringe parties is one thing but failing to report on a major candidate for US President? Uh, what about issues? Much of the talk was of economics (not screening those trying to enter the USA is about economics. I don't agree with Trumpiboy but he is a pragmatist and like Reagan will solve it pragmatically (my daughter in law is a proud US citizen thanks to Reagan's amnesty).

I read in despair the spin of the news about this meeting. Apparently the talking points were out there before the talk started

Here’s what the mainstream media is saying about the #ElonMusk & #DonaldTrump Interview pic.twitter.com/NR1aGF8LdP

— Valuetainment Media (@ValuetainmentTV) August 13, 2024

So do I believe what I saw, or the spin in the papers?

so does Twitter allow hate speech? Well, a lot of Hama propaganda are on my twitter feed, but hey that's because I want to hear both sides of the story.

but why do I worry about the censorships? Because of what happened with the covid policies, which censored problems.

and by the way, while all this smoke and mirrors is happening in the US presidential campaign, we are facing increased Chinese aggression, which  has spread from harassing fishermen and Philippine coast guard vessels to now bullying the airspace.

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

remember: this would affect not just the Philippines but the international shipping and now international flights. True, shipping and flights could detour, but that would cost money and raise prices.

Sigh.

on the other hand, one wag noted that if China blocks this shipping route, either in the West Philippine sea or (what they plan later) the straits off of Singapore (with it's large Chinese population, if Taiwan falls, could Singapore be next?), there is an alternative route: Thanks to global warming, the northern shipping route could be an alternative. Trumpieboy is aware of this: remember when he trolled that he would like the US to buy Greenland? That was about bringing attention to China investing in one of their ports and in their mining interests. And the war in the Ukraine is leading Russia to help China in this area.

Trump as an international businessman is aware of these things. Is Harris? She has no expertise in running a business or even in running a state. So except for the press adoring her and pushing her as the joyful candidate, what are her positions on international issues? Will she talk with Musk about these things?

So you see, there is a reason that who becomes president will affect the world.  

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.

the MSM who quotes the propaganda

 this report seems to point out the details that are not being reported. Videos on social media? don't question the propaganda.

Spiked article discusses the question 

...Who was it that decided to use this former city of civilians as a launchpad for war? Who was it that posted their military commanders there, hid their ammunition there, fired their missiles from there, dragged hostages there? Who was it who hid the machinery of war among the women and children of Rafah, knowing full well bloodshed would ensue? It wasn’t Israel. Israel helped to facilitate the evacuation of over 900,000 civilians. No, it was Hamas....

 The IDF is surely right that Hamas’s use of Rafah for arms storage, hostage-keeping and missile-firing represents a ‘systematic exploitation of humanitarian facilities and spaces’....

One is reminded of the dog that barked in the night:  

When Inspector Gregory asks, “Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” Holmes responds, “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” But, protests the inspector, “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” To which Holmes delivers the punch line: “That was the curious incident.”

the lesson is paying attention to what is not there. 

all the news coming out is from Hamas and their allies (including AlJ, the UN workers who looked the other way when aid was stolen or stored in civilian areas, or directly from Hamas.

Where the hell are the neutral observers?

maybe look at the aims of Hamas? Nah. Violence porn Propaganda is preferred

LINK

Link for book at Amazon

. ..

...

.

.. . .

The May 2021 conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas generated headlines around the world.

However, much of the reporting ignored the history, funding, political dynamics, and other key components of the story.

Hamas initiates conflict every few years, but the reporting rarely improves.

Social media has only further clouded the picture. Hamas is rarely held responsible for its use of "human shields," blindly firing rockets at civilian areas in Israel, or diverting aid that should benefit the people of Gaza.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism, has been the primary patron of Hamas since the group's inception in the late 1980s.

Hamas has received additional assistance over the years from Qatar, Turkey and Malaysia. These countries are fomenting conflict, while others, such as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, have tried to minimize it. Gaza is therefore ground zero in a struggle for the future stability of the Middle East.

The Biden administration has important choices to make. Its intent to re-enter the Iran nuclear deal could have significant consequences, given that sanctions relief to Iran will likely yield a financial boon for Hamas, along with other Iranian proxies.

The Biden administration must also come to terms with "The Squad," a small but loud faction of the Democratic Party that seeks to undermine US-Israel relations.

 

The propaganda of showing the wounded civilians, and the high number of casualties that stress civilians not soldiers killed, is being used to undermine the backstory: That if Hamas is not stopped, it is not just a threat to Israel but to the Arab countries in the Middle East.

Iran's used of the Houthis to bomb Saudi has been going on for years, and now is being used against shipping, which is threatening not only to raise prices for the west, but is a direct threat to Egypt's economy.

Yet none of this is being discussed, and as to the press: if it bleeds, it leads.

Israel did not release photos of the dead and mutilated by Hamas in their attack against civilians, out of respect for their families. Yet the MSM has ignored what happened then, since that story is now "old"... too often the press and the social media prefer to just repeat press reports from Hamas propaganda outlets, often echoed by tainted UN reports, or reports from the clueless left, who has decided to turn on Israel and promote gangsters.

Sigh.

This is a war of civilizations: Not Islam vs the West, but of a radical form of Islam that has more in common with the Nazis and Marxism than with the beliefs of the majority of Muslims.

And the propaganda war is more about persuading these Muslims that they are victims of the west and need to join them.

The fact that Iran is the puppetmaster behind all of this is ignored of course.

By the way: Did you read that the UN just condemned Iran for their human rights violations against women?

Iran’s “repression of peaceful protests” and “institutional discrimination against women and girls” has led to human rights violations, some of which amount to “crimes against humanity,” according to a United Nations’ report.

Such violations and crimes include “extrajudicial and unlawful killings and murder, unnecessary and disproportionate use of force, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, torture, rape, enforced disappearances, and gender persecution,” the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a press release Friday.

Sigh. 

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

update:

the frustrations of fake news

 Was the George Floyd story manipulated?

..restraints of people fighting you is dangerous for both the patient and the caregiver/cop, (those who never worked with violent people naively don't realize this).

and of course, with a criminal, it could be a ploy to escape.

but pressure on the lateral neck does not impede the airway. and saying you can't breathe doesn't mean you can't breathe.

The danger of fentanyl overdose is that when you pass out, your tongue falls back and you can't breathe. So to stop this you either have to open the mouth, pull the chin forward and insert an airway, (something very hard to do with a combative patient)... the alternative is to put the person on their side to keep the airway open and it also makes it easier to clear the vomitus from the mouth.

this is called the recovery position.

..Now I know this and indeed any medically trained person who has worked with combative overdoses knows this....did anyone write about this when the story happened? You have to remember that I live in the Philippines so don't have all those cable news channels discussing such things so it makes me wonder.

......

the UK Economist: asks if the NYTimes lost their way.

every one of his (Trump's)  political lies became more powerful because journalists had forfeited what had always been most valuable about their work: their credibility as arbiters of truth and brokers of ideas, which for more than a century, despite all of journalism’s flaws and failures, had been a bulwark of how Americans govern themselves.

The average Yank who saw Trumpieboy on his tv shows knows he bullshits a lot, so you don't take him seriously when he exaggerates. Indeed, if you read his books, he teaches this as a negotiating tactic in business.

But one does expect the MSM to be a bit more truthful...

It is sort of like when I read AlJezeerah on Gaza, I know they are based in (Iran friendly) Qatar and will be biased and not question the narrative, so I take what they reports are true but not the whole truth. They truthfully report the Hamas press releases, and have articles by reporters who admit they are in Gaza to report on the bad Israelis. In other words, one side of the story, and maybe from Hamas liars (500 killed in a hospital that was bombed? whoops. Make that half a dozen in the parking lot killed when a nearby missile misfired). 

Indeed, a lot of the lies about Gaza are by folks crying genocide: based on Hamas press release. Without verification.

Attention: Wars are nasty and a lot of innocent people are killed in the crossfire. But when one side aims to keep weapons in civilian areas, stop civilians from fleeing, and to use civilian dead as propaganda, maybe they aren't the good guys they are pretending to be.

And I have nothing but contempt by those crying genocide... probably half of the dead are soldiers, and  ten thousand dead from a population of two million is not genocide...

Ah but the anti semites in the US are ignoring the real genocides in the area in Syria, Lebanon, against the Kurds by Turkey, not to mention the Rohingye and Uighars.sigh.

attacking normal people doesn't bode well for the Democrats, but only John Fetterman (!) dares to warn them. 

Me, I remember 1968... and that is how you got Nixon.

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

I won't go into all the censorship on covid, where real experts were censored and even lost their jobs for not going along with the narrative.

Sigh.

I did read the book Work Racism.

The problem? I was working class and indeed there is racism out there. But the Archie Bunker racists tended to work with other races and cultures, and much of their crude language was not echoed in their deeds.

But for the upper class white elite, it is good that someone points out the errors in this mindset.

But when doctors lose patience with poor people who are destroying their lives with bad behavior, you can see how this could be twisted into a racism meme, even though the druggies etc. in many areas are white. It is economic bias.

That is why I understand where my patients come from, but I will not be silenced when the PC pretend not shutting down mass demonstrations in the midst of a Covid epidemic, or nowadays not shutting down gay raves spreading monkeypox because of political correctness, or the failure to point out the severe side effects of hormones and GNRH antagonists on both the body and emotions is quite severe and might be part of the reason for the high suicide rate in the children who are trans (or maybe claiming to be trans because doing so gets you a lot of emotional support and positive feedback). 

Sigh

never mind.

Don't know much about history: Smallpox and Fort Ticonderoga

a couple of years ago, I watched  the miniseries John Adams to learn about the US Revolution. 

And they have a short segment when Abigail innoculates her kids with a mild case of small pox to protect them from getting a full blown case of the disease. 

this was before Jenner discovered innoculating a person with cowpox would give you immunity: Before then, the only prevention was innoculation. of the actual smallpox germ: which could of course kill you but usually only give you a mild version of the disase.

And there is an argument that Washington saved the revolution because he ordered all of his men to get innoculated before joining the army fighting near Boston which was in the middle of an epidemic.

such films are a way to teach history, but still when we see a major TV commentator be clueless (and no one dares to correct him) it makes one wonder about the vericity of American news programs.

It was called the American Revolution. We were successful. We won. https://t.co/cOuJzkCfVl

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) August 3, 2023

a more recent miniseries is moving into the timeline of the US revolution:  Outlander, 

Well, anyway, in this season. Jamie and Claire fight the Battle of Ticonderoga.:

P

The good news of the day

 Facebook is down.

and the BabylonBee comments:

Hackers Warn That If Demands Aren’t Met They Will Reactivate Facebook

 

"NOOOOOOOO!" screamed everyone in horror at the thought of being doomed to once again scroll through Facebook's clinically addictive interface, depressing newsfeed, and angry arguments with Aunt Guthrie. "Please! PLEASE! Make Facebook stay gone! Don't let it come back!"

My daughter in law has long banned facebook from her computer after toxic attacks on her daughter's ice skating team made her daughter upset.

I stopped reading facebook because of the toxic stuff posted by my right wing and left wing friends. I mean, I only went there to keep up on the news about my grandkids and to use messenger, not to read every day that Democrats were the spawn of Satan or that all Christians were racist bigots and should be ostracized from society.

Alas, it means I can't keep up on the relatives news, but it is worth it.

And the way things are going, I am wondering if I should just stop reading the news altogether. 

Sigh.

I also read that a couple million people had their personal information hacked from Facebook, but hey, since China already hacked my OPM government file, no problem.

But that hack might explain why my email password was hacked and my  email account used for pfishing attacks. Sheesh.

well well well

 

Peter Ortega

...President in exile visits the first responders.in NYC

I link to this because the press reported he was planning to do commentary on a boxing match.

and then there is this:

Biden visited the crash site in PA

Credit: Facebook @Jana Musser

'

MSM punked again.

The Brazil and British variants are here

Dr. Campbell discusses the more dangerous mutation of the Covid virus that happened in Brazil, the P1 variant. It is now spread to 20 other countries.

...

 There have been several mutations of the covid virus, for example, the one ravaging the UK is more infectious but not more lethal.

The bad news: the P1 varient, a mutation that happened in Brazil, is not only much more infectious but it seems to be more lethal because reports say it is killing "low risk" people there. 

Early reports say that the US/European vaccines do prevent this strain (ah, but what about the Chinese vaccine, which the Philippines seems to be buying up instead of alternatives. The Chinese vaccines have a 50 percent prevention rate).

This Brazilian variant has been a real danger because it is spreading in South America and reports from countries there are worrisome. LINK BBC and the NWO blames the president there with only a hint in the middle of the article say it might be due to the new mutation.

and reports from Mexico are now revising their data upward LINK

everyone is pointing fingers at the presidents, but this is absurd: the virus spread here shows that it will spread even if masks etc are used.

Ah, but if you blame the local officials, you don't have to notice where the virus came from, and how a major country allowed it to spread outside the local area and into the world.

Here in the Philippines, we are in the second wave: the British variant (P3) is here and is believed to be more infectious but not more lethal and this might be partly to blame, but now we are seeing reports of the more lethal Brazilian variant too (P1), which could be a real danger.

There is a report with lots of technical details on the various strains and where they are found in this article from the PhilStar.

So how did it get here?

The P.1 variant, which was first detected in four travelers from Brazil in Japan, was detected in a sample taken from a returning oversease Filipino (ROF) with an address in Western Visayas. The ROF came from Brazil, DOH said in a statement.

sigh.

it is a world wide scourge, but don't name the country that let it lose on the world by it's lack of prevention when it was first reported. 

If you name that country, you will be banned by the social media and called out for Asian hatred.

Given the Chinese aggression in the West Philippine sea, one suspects that the pushing of the idea that China will let us get their vaccines in order that locals see China as their "savior", not as an aggressive bully.

And of course the shenanigans in the DOH which is buying the Chinese vaccine but failed to do the paper work to get the US Pfizer vaccine in January (although we might get the Moderna vaccine by May) or the delays is getting the India vaccine, one does wonder.

and given China's aggression against Taiwan and the Philippines, one does wonder how much of the "Anti Asian" stories which are making headlines in the US and elsewhere is part of a deliberate anti American propaganda aimed at America's Asian allies.

 (by the way, the Asian hate crime meme was in our papers over a week before the shooting of the sex workers in the USA... making one think it had something more to do with a deliberate propaganda campaign than with reality, especially since most of the hate crimes against Asians are by other minorities. )

alas, the "side effect" of the MSM promoting propaganda and opinion instead of hard news is that in Europe and the USA people have stopped believing in the media and in the experts advice.

On the other hand, we wear masks religiously here, and we are having another outbreak.

I can't even walk the dog now without both a mask and a face shield, even though I rarely get closer than six feet to anyone when I do so.

Sigh

Sars-CoV-2 causes coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), which has infected more than 119 million people worldwide as of March 13, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. More than 2.6 million people had died.

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

 

Ivermectin use analysis:

Is it news, or is it fake news?

 the computer was being used by the secretary, so I am not surfing the "news" as much as usual.

And then when I read headlines, I figure maybe I should just shrug and say WTF at the headlines.

Let's start with the entertainment field. 

The Grammies had open pornography, and no one objected, leading the  satire site Babylon Bee ("Fake news you can trust") to note: 

In Edgy Grammys Performance, Fully Clothed Woman Sings Beautiful Song March 15th, 2021 

Audiences were shocked at the 63rd Grammy Awards after watching an "audacious", "daring", and "edgy" performance by a fully clothed woman who sang a beautiful song.

... CBS executives have apologized for the "inappropriately decent and appropriate" performance and have promised to add more stripping and profanity to next year's show.

actually, that is not quite true: a couple years ago, Lady Gaga sang a duet while fully dressed with Tony Bennett, but now I guess she has moved on to more civilized songs.

------------------------------ 

One of the more absurd stories pushed by the MSM was that Trump was seeking to overthrow Georgia's election by insisting some official "find" (i.e. illegally make up) a couple thousand ballots. 

Most of us who read the censored aka "fake news" sites knew he was taking about fraudulent counting and fraudulently destroyed ballots, but that's not how it was portrayed when they tried to impeach him for the umteenth time.

But now, the esteemed WaPo ("truth dies in darkness") has had to pull the story when a tape of the conversation was found and it proved Trump's side of the story was correct.....

The absurd part of this is not about the votes (which is absurd enough) but about how they found a tape of the conversation ...in the trash can. No, not the metal trash can under the desk, but the one that saves your deleted files in case of an "opps".

Thank God that those stealing the election didn't ask their 12 year old grandkid on how to destroy files. 

Instapundit has more on Voter Fraud link link2

if true, it puts the  Hello Garci scandal to shame... 

now, if only the MSM would find what was on Anthony Wiener's computer or on Epstein's videotape collection...both of which presumably have been disappeared by a professional...

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

If you are wondering what is going on here in the Philippines, read the entire essay about the Philippines on StrategyPage.

a lot of it is about China's attempt to bully us, but hey, it also notes all the others who are busy bullying the Philippines. Why? Because they can. A dozen dead drug dealers, and voila, human rights SJW get their knickers in a know. A million Uighars in concentration camps, Hong Kong democracy fighters arrested, and the Catholic church there being made a puppet? No problem, because if you diss China, they bite back. But the Philippines? Hey, Dirty Harry is a hated figure by the left, and only beloved by those of us who are now not worried about being shot in a druggie home invasion or kidnapped by gangs for ransom.

SP points out that Duterte is popular here because we are safer, but that the world wide SJW lament the aggression against drug pushers. The SJW include the UN, The Catholic church (who laments cops killing drug pushers but had no problem in giving a fancy burial to the ex mayor behind the hit job that killed our nephew), and of course, the State Dept/CIA (Omidyar, who many believe is a CIA front, who funded the Ukrainian revolution by manipulating their news via money, helped fund Rappler, a website that is very anti Duterte... )

That nonsense has made Duterte more anti American: And this has geopolitical implications, not just for the USA but for Japan and Korea who rely on the open sea lanes in the West Philippine Sea.

and when it comes to the Vaccine, we are very slow in getting the shots even to protect our main line workers:

first the paper work to import the Pfizer vaccine in January wasn't signed so the US was unable to deliver it, and now we see a push to get the lousy (50 percent effective) Chinese vaccine.

Chinese offers to provide the SinoVac covid19 vaccine backfired when it was discovered that China was charging the Philippines three or more times per dose as other customers in east Asia and Africa were paying. Moreover, the SinoVac vaccine appears to much less effective than Western vaccines also available to the Philippines. Worse, all these negotiations and delays in Chinese deliveries have meant that the Philippines will be the last nation in the region to receive enough vaccine to suppress the covid19 threat.

Sigh.

 in the meanwhile, China illegally gave the shot late last year to about 100 thousand local Chinese working here. But hey, don't expect the US State Department to try to get shots to their ex pats here, who are mostly either military veterans, guys married to lovely Pinays, or Balikbayans.

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

I am staying out of the vaccine antivax kerfuffle: x number of deaths always in the headlines, but not presented as a tiny percentage of the total number of people who got the shot (2 or 3 per 100 thousand shots).

But those insisting everyone should get the shot are hitting a wall since there is so much anti vax stuff out there (from Chinese and Russian Bots but also from the Democrats when Trump was pushing the vaccine) that trust in the sytem has been lost.

My take as a doc? 

Give the shots to the high risk folks: Caregivers, front line workers, the elderly, the obese, the diabetic, etc.

If a person refuses, well, okay. 

So what about travel restrictions? Well, the "vaccine" passport used to be routine for cholera, small pox and yellow fever, so no big deal.

But it should be given not just to those who completed the vaccine series, but to those who tested positive for antibodies, meaning they are immune and won't spread the disease.

That lasts group could be as high as one third of Americans...

as for here in the Philippines; Yes there is a lot of suspicion of the shot, thanks to the bots on the social media that had been spreading anti American Anti Wesetern vaccine smears, and of course, the failure to get paperwork done by some in government so we didn't get the western vaccine... one suspects China was behind this, so they could get credit for their "help"..... But no one trusts the Chinese vaccine either.

but given a choice between getting the shot so you can work or starving, well, poor folks don't have much choice... now if we can only speed up the vaccination plans.