Urban combat: The Battle off Marawi

This Australian military site has a long analysis of the Battle of Marawi in 2017, when Islamic terrorists tried to take over a small mainly Muslim city in the southern Philippines, and the battle that ensued after the AFP tried to take out their leader.

In May 2017, Islamist insurgents swarmed through the city of Marawi, taking the population of 200, 000 hostage and announcing it as a new ‘Capitol’ for Islamic State in South-East Asia.

This wildly ambitious, unprecedented move triggered a State of Emergency. As a result, from May to October 2017, fighting echelons of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFoP) deployed to Marawi in the Mindanao region of the Southern Philippines.

The Southern Philippines has proven a haven for Islamist terrorists for many years, however, anecdotal evidence suggests the region has also seen a recent increase in activity due to an influx of foreign terrorist fighters from the Middle East.

Prior to Marawi, the AFoP had limited experience in urban combat, with their training historically focusing on jungle operations to suppress various Islamist groups and the National People’s Army (NPA), a rebel communist group.

As a result, with almost no notice, the soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen and women of the AFoP were required to adapt to this new environment extraordinarily quickly.

The lessons learned by the AFoP from grinding combat in a large, broken, crowded city are important. The Australian Army has sound doctrine and training packages for combat operations in the urban environment, but it must learn everything it can from the AFoP’s vicious Marawi experience to ensure it is best prepared to operate, fight and win in similar urban conflicts.

lots of detail for military types about tactics etc.

Urban fighting is one of the most dangerous types for soldiers, since the defenders can hide and kill you. And the article notes that the AFP are famous for their jungle warfare skills, but had to switch to entirely different tactics here.

and this small snippet shows how the AFP was able to innovate:

Ground-Up Innovation Observation: In the Battle of Marawi, the Marines of the PMC had little to no access to smoke grenades. This posed a significant problem for mobility, primarily due to the sniper threat down firelanes (streets and alleys in particular). As a result, innovation was required to deny enemy observation and enable urban manoeuvre.

To conduct crossings, the marines of MBLT10 would carry a long piece of fabric, the height of a marine. They attached one end of the fabric to one side of the obstacle, and had a runner sprint across the fire lane, trailing the sheet behind him. He would then tie it off, taught, to the other side of the obstacle. This then enabled the entire platoon team or combat team to cross with relative impunity, especially as the resource-poor enemy wouldn’t risk wasting ammunition by ‘drake-shooting’ at the sheet.

It is nice that a "five eyes" state notices the bravery and expertise of the Philippine military here.

StrategyPage, while the fighting was going on, in July 2017 has an article about the background for the battle. Those behind the battle were hoping all the Muslims in the south would rise up and join them, but this did not happen... and this sent a message to the world wide terrorist types:

For years the Philippines had a reputation as a place Islamic terrorists could hide out. Everyone wants to make it clear to Islamic terrorists worldwide that the Philippines is not a place you come to find sanctuary, it where you come to die.

The US/EU MSM sort of ignored it, yet outsiders provided both money and personnel and equipment to these "insurgents"...and it notes they had prepared for it by building bunkers and tunnels. 

In other words, this was not an internal political fight but an attempt of the international bad guys to take over the area, similar to what was done in parts of Syria and Iraq.

headsup VoxPopuli (NSFW).

related stories:

March 2018 story in the Rappler about AFP and Australian joint training operations.

It assisted the Armed Forces of the Philippines during the 2017 Marawi siege. It flew surveillance planes to locate enemies inside the battle area and helped give crash course on urban warfare to Filipino troops used to fighting in the jungles.

Actually, most of the high tech help to the Philippines comes from the USA (the AFP don't like Yanks to do the fighting because they are proud, but US does train with them and assists the AFP).

However few Americans are aware of the fact that the Australians are doing a lot of this in nearby Indonesia (June 2018):

Since the 2002 Bali bomb attack that killed 88 Australians, the neighbor has been in close counterterrorism cooperation with Indonesia, helping the latter to fight the Jamaah Islamiyah terrorist group responsible for the bombing. Today, Indonesia faces new threats from the Islamic State, which is trying to have a foothold in Southeast Asia.

NYTimes Magazine from May 2019 about joint training exercizes between the US and the AFP.

You wouldn't know it from this article, but this is about the annual Balkitatan exercizes they hold every year here. And although it is the NYT, it is not really a good article, being militarily naive. For example:.

Lt. Col. Jonathan Pondanera, the Filipino officer helping to coordinate the exercise, said that he hoped the training would help fix some of the issues that plagued his elite forces during the siege of Marawi in 2017, like Manila’s overreliance on the smaller, better-trained special operations units in lieu of regular foot soldiers force and a difficulty radioing in accurate airstrikes.

The battle went on for months after Islamic State fighters took over much of the city, holding out against government forces and airstrikes before they were eventually routed.

yeah, urban warfare is a bitch. But the reason not mentioned: The alternative was to flatten the place and kill a lot of civilians. (many of whom were unwilling human hostages). So dangerous house to house combat was done instead.

And the NYTimes does mention that Chinese naked aggression against the Philippines is a threat, but not in detail. Never mind that the international courts said China's takeover of the islands nearby is illegal: The US MSM sees this merely as a difference of opinion. Presumably they will say the same if the Chinese invade Pagasa island or Luzon in the next few years, because... orange man bad and Bribery? what  bribery?

As for Marawi: alas the city has not fully recovered from the battle.

Has the Voynich manuscript been decoded?

Live Science discusses the theory t

He claims that rather than just a mix of meaningless words and symbols, the manuscript was written in a proto-Romance language that was often used in medieval times, but rarely written in official documents...

According to Cheshire, parts of the text reveal that the manuscript was compiled by a Dominican nun as a reference book for Maria of Castile, the Queen of Aragon in 15th-century Spain. According to his code cracking, the manuscript contains information on herbal remedies, therapeutic bathing and astrological readings; and it also talks about reproduction and parenting, among other topics.

but not everyone agrees: UK Guardian article.  Apparaently although the article was peer reviewed, the author was not a fully qualified academic.

Here is an old video about the manuscript:

Classroom rules

Medjugorje

the Pope is allowing pilgrimages to Medjugorje, and the "trads" are getting their knickers in a know about this, because 30 years ago, one famous trad writer wrote a book taking things out of context and exaggerating trivial problems, and a lot of people believed him.

and of course a lot of nut jobs started to hang around at the fringe of those going there and made other people suspicious.

However, the great majority of folks going there are ordinary folks, and find it a place of grace.

I went there 30 years ago and also found it a place of grace.

however, I have lost touch with what is going on there, because the civil war in Yugoslavia started then and then I was working on the "res" where we didn't get a lot of news...but many continue to report pilgrims still find it a place of grace.

if you have a chance to go there, I would recommend you go.

Ironically, I went with an Orthodox prayer group that included coal miners and steel workers and other "deplorable" types. The Orthodox priest who led the group had the permission of the local Orthodox bishop.

Half of the members of that group were Catholics: why didn't they join a Catholic prayer group, you might ask? Because there were none in our small town. We lived in the Altoona diocese and the bishop discouraged prayer groups... the few good priests hanging on trying to care for an increasingly cynical flock were pressured not to encourage people to pray, be it old fashioned novenas, newfangle Charismatic prayer groups, or Eucharistic adoration. (Enneagrams  and atheistic bible studies held by pc nuns were okay however).

Mark Mallet has a bit of information about the background of this place of pilgrimage, and covers their objections. LINK

the best secular report on the early apparitions is Spark of Heaven, by BBC writer Mary Craig.

and the 1986 BBC report here:

Cat item of the day

Movie of the week

audiobook here:







ebook here at internet archive LINK

Lee's friendship with Truman Capote included her help with his research in writing In Cold Blood, and she is one of the characters portrayed in the film Capote

stories below the fold

StrategyPage has an article about the Ebola epidemic in the Congo.

Alas, terrorists (both Islamic and ordinary thugs) have been attacking clinics trying to treat folks there.

and they go into the real problem: Corruption.

Science magazine has an article about the epidemic also. They have been using a new vaccine to stop it from spreading.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will expand its use of the experimental Ebola vaccine that more than 110,000 have already received to try to stop an unusually stubborn outbreak of the disease. New vaccination strategies will attempt to reduce the security risks faced by health care workers in the outbreak region, which is home to nearly two dozen rebel groups—some of which have attacked response teams.

the problem? Not enough vaccine.

One way the vaccine is being used is to give shots to contacts and to contacts of contacts: but it doesn't seem to be working here,

I wonder if this is maybe because not all cases are caught early enough or maybe because the large number in extended families/friends are not all found.

cross posted to my medical blog.

Bring out the antacid and eat

Madhur Jaffrey is interviewed for the FLOP podcast. Her books on Indian cooking are great.

Lauded as the “queen of Indian cooking” (Saveur), Madhur Jaffrey is largely credited for bringing her home country’s cuisine to America with 1973’s An Invitation to Indian Cooking. She has since authored more than a dozen James Beard Award–winning cookbooks. Also an acclaimed actor, Jaffrey won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 1965 Berlin Film Festival for her role in the Merchant Ivory film Shakespeare Wallah. With more than 70 easy-to-replicate recipes, her new cookbook offers a guide to making Indian cuisine with one of America’s new favorite kitchen gadgets. Join us to hear stories from her long and varied career.

mp3 link

my best friend when I was in training was from Southern India, so I ate and learned to cook mainly vegetarian dishes.

Jaffrey however is not vegetarian so includes meat in some of her dishes.

here she explains how to cook Tandori Chicken.






more at the BBC FOOD website

if you register to internet archives, you can borrow some of her cook books LINK

Notre Dame relics

one of the stories coming out of the Notre Dame fire is the story of the priest, a chaplain for the Paris Fire brigade,  who rescued the Blessed Sacrament and the relics inside the church.....

UKGuardian article on the priest's background.

Fournier previously spent seven years with the French armed forces, including a tour in Afghanistan. His bravery was noted after the 2015 Bataclan (terror) attack, when he tended to the injured and prayed over the dead.

and the article goes on to list the historical and religious relics inside the cathedral that were saved.

I am always sceptical about relics, but here is a discussion of the crown of thorns via National Geographic.

  ===================

and here is an older documentary on the place of Notre Dame in French history

The heretic pope?

two years ago, four high ranking Cardinals asked Pope Francis to clarify confusion in his document on marriage, where a footnote was inserted that implied adultery was okay and that those living in this sin could receive the Eucharist, as if the holy sacrament was a "feel good" thing, not about humbly receiving the body and blood of Jesus. This is not just Catholic tradition: even Paul said receiving the sacrament "unworthily" was a no-no.

The controversy was called the "Dubia" question and to this day, and the blunt questions of the Cardinals has yet to be answered by Pope Francis, while his minions go around ridiculing those who dare to bring it up.

A few weeks ago, Pope Benedict released an essay about "sexual abuse": which he blames on the weakening of the idea of holiness in the church and the moral collapse of recent times.

Benedict originally sent it to be discussed when Pope Francis met with the bishops about the pederasty crisis, but of course it was ignored. 

So Benedict released the essay for publication in a "minor" church journal, and it was picked up by the Catholic branch of the Catholic blogosphere on the internet and was discussed by many lay people worried about the church.

The latest discussion of Benedict's essay is in the CatholicThing: the author noticed that Pope Benedict answered the "dubia" questions. And her analysis suggests that Benedict is saying that Pope Francis is indeed going against 2000 years of church dogma and morals to please the situational ethics of the modern PC world:

Whatever the reason, the world watched, read, and missed the answers to the dubia proposed by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in his April essay, “The Church and the Scandal of Sexual Abuse.”

In offering a three-part response to the crisis in the Church, he indirectly answers the five dubia that Cardinals Brandmüller, Caffarra, Meisner, and Burke presented years ago to Pope Francis. The pope emeritus fulfilled a duty that Pope Francis has not, namely, to maintain the bishops and all the faithful in the unity of the Church’s constant teaching on faith and morals.

What did the pope emeritus say? He gives the Church and the world an unequivocal No, Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes. Five questions, five answers.

Why worry about dogmatic trivia?

Here is just one snip that gives an example:

Dubium Three: After “Amoris Laetitia” (n. 301) is it still possible to affirm that a person who habitually lives in contradiction to a commandment of God’s law, as for instance the one that prohibits adultery (cf. Mt 19:3-9), finds him or herself in an objective situation of grave habitual sin (cf. Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, Declaration, June 24, 2000)?

Benedict’s response: Yes. “A society without God – a society that does not know Him and treats Him as non-existent – is a society that loses its measure. . . .Western society is a society in which God is absent in the public sphere and has nothing left to offer it. And that is why it is a society in which the measure of humanity is increasingly lost. At individual points it becomes suddenly apparent that what is evil and destroys man has become a matter of course.”

read the whole thing because it has a lot to do with the collapse of civilized society in the modern world.


John Paul II went "over the heads" of the lazy bishops to strengthen the church, but now things have become much worse as Francis seems bent on destroying anyone who opposes his fancy church of sexual liberation, ecology, and niceness.

and I won't even go into the scandal of his cover up of bishops who are (fill in blanks here...  Yup. pass another "code of conduct" but don't fire them or punish them.

The problem is basic ethics: but the basic problem is is philosophy more than theology: it has to do with the question if there is truly a right and wrong, or is it relative, and left to the conscience of the individual. 

This problem is blamed on the 1960s but goes a lot further back.

Gresham college had a lecture series that discusses the reason modern atheists and others rebelled against the church as an evil restricting institution and that rejects traditional morality because it limits their "freedom".... Full series here.

so is there hope out there?

One is reminded of the conclusion of Cahill's "how the Irish saved civilization" that notes often the civilization is often saved by the least likely folks who often are at the margin and ignored by the self important.

The Gresham lecture on Christ vs Hitler notes this too: 

To many people it is incongruous, even embarrassing, that the twentieth century’s bestselling work of fiction is an excessively long, apologetically archaic and sometimes self-indulgent fairy-tale written by a philologist who was a very traditional Catholic, and whose most devoted readers were and remain teenage boys. But even if you share the now-receding literary disdain for J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, there is no gainsaying its cultural importance.

Tolkien himself had no patience for allegory as a literary form, and vigorously denied that he had written one, but if his War of the Ring does not mirror the Second World War which was raging as he wrote the book, it certainly refracts it.

Tolkien was an early and staunch opponent of Nazism in general and Nazi racial ideology in particular, in part because he felt the Nazi appropriation of his beloved Nordic mythology as a personal affront.

But while he never doubted the righteousness of the Allies’ cause, he was also a veteran of the Battle of the Somme, and knew that this war was, like any war, ‘an ultimately evil job’: so he told his son in 1944. And he used his own developing myth to explain what he meant: not only that there were ‘a great many Orcs on our side’, but that ‘we are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring’. Such a war might end in victory, but a victory whose effect would be ‘to breed new Saurons’.

Whatever we make of that as a political judgement, as a cultural prophecy it has proved uncannily prescient. Western culture has been breeding new Saurons ever since. 

so who is filling the gap identifying the new Saurons and encouraging opposition to them when the Popes and bishops won't take a stand?

As I have noted, in the Catholic wing of the Catholic church there are internet podcasts and blogs that fill in the gaps, from EWTN to  Father Ripperger to Father Z to Bishop Barron.

Yet they do not reach the unchurched population. 

but there are others there doing this: the most famous is an obscure psychology teacher from Canada who sort of stumbled into the frey.

Internet types like Jordan Peterson are busy trying to clarify things by fighting the nihilism in youth who watch him stealthily because he is not politically correct.

Like Benedict, and like the Gresham lectures, he is so nuanced that you have to listen/read it twice and ponder these things.

Here is his latest, which I am listening to as I write.

at 1:25:00 he discusses how a woman who wants a family is being ridiculed by modern "feminists" because having children destroys the environment. 

Sad.

Philippine news

StrategyPage has a podcast on the recent news from the Philippines that pretty well summarizes what is going on:





They note China's economic push that includes bringing their own workers, and then using "strategic debt" so that when it can't be paid back they can grab the country's resources.

There is a lot of resentment against China for these things: as I noted in a previous post, they have 100 thousand immigrants here to do jobs Filipinos can do.

and SP notes what is true: Locals resent this.

Heck, locals hate the Chinese for their manipulation of the economy. Many of the oligarchy families that run the place have Chinese ancestors and bribes would help them to look the other way, but the locals resent the Chinese lock on the economy because it makes it hard for locals to succeed in business.

In other words, if you work hard, you still remain poor, which means too many of our best and brightest migrate elsewhere to support their families, either as permanent immigrants or as temporary workers in the Middle East or in East Asian countries.

Too many here know that in the Chinese language press the Chinese claim Luzon is one of their lost provinces... and locals are aware of this, even if the western MSM ignores it. And locals resent the Chinese illegal grab of our maritime resources: we won in court but Obama just shrugged and wouldn't help then president PNoy stop them.

 Duterte is buddy buddy with China is one of the reasons Duterte might be in trouble in this election.

on the other hand, his anti drug push remains popular,

and here, local elections is usually about which clan/ family member will be elected in the local election.

Happy Mothers day

the priest gave a special blessing to mothers at the end of mass.

Here, motherhood is still honored, as the heart of a family.

Joy gave me some flowers, but went to her mom's house for the family dinner. I was invited, but I don't really feel comfortable at parties, so stayed home.

Kuya took me to Shakey's for mother's day pizza after afternoon mass. Yes, we have Shakey's here (and McD, And KFC, and local franchizes Jolibee and Greenwich).

when I first came here, the nearest McD was 30 miles away. But things are looking up: Lots of traffic, lots of new homes and shops, and alas lots of "second homes" in what used to be rice land, for middle class families in Manila who want to get away from the city for weekends.

The election is being held Monday: Not much violence here, because the mayor is running unopposed: but lots of other offices are being voted on.

This AP article in a Japanese newspaper says it is about Duterte, whether or not the congress will support him. It has the usual memes against him, but the real reason he might win is found at the end of the long article:

Village guard Jose Mondejar, who lives in a Tondo community heavily festooned with elections streamers and posters, said Duterte's anti-crime campaign has reduced daytime robberies by drug addicts of passing cargo trucks by about 70 percent in his neighborhood. "Criminals once even opened fire on our village hall because we were cracking down on them," he said. "Now you can walk around here without being pestered. Duterte's campaign has worked."

lots of vote buying, and lots of worry of manipulation of the ballot boxes, all of which is normal.

Pigs and chickens and the US/China trade deal

The US news is full of political nonsense while the real stories are being ignored.

for example, the Democratic kerfuffle/fantasy and talk of impeachment has undermined the US/China trade talks (not to mention negotiations with North Korea). This is a good argument for putting Fox news on cable in Asia so other governments can discern reality from political spin (we have CNNPhil, Fox, BBC, and AlJezeerah on our local cable, plus local news shows and news on the Korean and Japanese English language stations).

One aspect of the China trade war discussion is the implication that China might fight back against US tariffs by refusing to import US food. This is being spun as Trumpieboy's fault  by the press for political reason. But things are more complicated than that.

Complicating this story is the recent decimation of China's pig population due to African swine flu.

The SCMP reports something usually left out in the US politicized MSM: That China's pig population is in the midst of an African swine flu epidemic.

China’s African swine fever outbreak and US trade war combine to create perfect storm for Chinese economy Beijing placed 50-70 per cent tariffs on US pork imports to punish farm states that support US President Donald Trump But with African swine fever threatening 200 million pigs, the biggest consumer of pork in the world is facing a shortage as demand and prices rise

China's tariffs on US pork is making pork too expensive for locals to buy. And a more affluent China uses a lot more pork than in the past.

And the trade deal which is supposed to increase soy bean imports from the USA now hits a snag because much of this is fed to pigs, but now there are fewer pigs to feed.

read the entire article for the economic analysis. China's pigs are usually produced in smaller farms, which complicates the matter. Not to mention the coverups and corruption that mean the reports might not be accurate.

Luckily, so far the Philippines hasn't been hit: pork imports are banned from infected countries to stop the spread here.

The bad news? Bans don't stop illegal smuggling. And it would only take one infected pig to decimate our pig population.

The Manila Times discusses.

The epidemic began as a minor outbreak among 400 hogs in Shenyang last year, and has spread despite efforts by Chinese officials to keep it in check.

So far this year, about one million hogs have been culled, and experts are estimating that at least 100 million will be exterminated this year. The US Department of Agriculture has forecast that China will lose 134 million hogs this year between the disease and efforts to stop it; that is almost twice the entire pig population of the US. The first effect of the epidemic sent global pork prices soaring...

so what does this mean for the Philippines? Will we take advantage of the anti US tariffs on pigs and export our pigs to China?

Ah but that would mean a pig shortage here, and higher prices for our folks.

One result is that China is now switching to Chicken for their meat needs.

SCMP notes that US and many European countries had Bird flu in their poultry, so China has banned imports from these countries until recently.

The answer of course is to breed more chickens in China. But there is also a glitch here :

China relies on imported breeding stock for production of white-feathered broiler chickens, which account for more than half the country’s chicken supply. 

We used to run a chicken farm and yes, we raised the white feathered broilers for local restaurants. We would be sent thousands of one day old chicks and feed them up, and then after 60 days harvest them.

Alas, we never made a profit because it was cheaper to import chickens from Vietnam, whose wages were lower. And then the chicken houses were flattened by a passing typhoon, so we didn't rebuild: instead we decided to concentrate on our organic brown rice.

However, this area still has quite a few chicken farms to supply the nearby Manila area.

The Philippines is off the migrating bird corridors, so we were bird flu free for quite awhile, until Bulacan got an epidemic in poultry (ducks, guinea fowl and chickens) in 2017. The epidemic was quickly controlled so we are now bird flu free.and can export chickens and eggs. But broiler exports are down and may never recover. LINK

the Poultrysite has an article on the pork/chicken dilemma in China, and goes into technical details.

the greens hate "big agri" and are probably happy about this, and it is true that this shows the weakness of uniculture in Chickens. However, the greens don't have a viable alternatives to supply cheap protein foods to the growing poor inner city populations (insisting on only free range chicken would be too few and too expensive to do this).

But uniculture means easier spread of disease.A lot of this is technical, so I won't go into cross breeding and breeding native chickens with the help of gov't subsidies, and I won't go into the GM genes that could make mass chicken farms resistant to bird flu and other diseases.

So what is the alternative? Fish? Tofu? The answer is that the poor will develop protein malnutrition and be vulnerable to epidemics, not to mention political unrest.

This article summarizes the world wide spread and the consequences of the swine flu epicemic. and notes that so far there is no vaccine to stop the spread, so quarantine and killing the infected pigs is the only way to stop the spread.

the only  good news in all of this is that the experts say that African Swine flu cannot spread to humans.

unless, of course, the virus mutates...

Angels unaware

did you ever get an inner impulse to do something, such as give to a begger or stop to help someone?

Professor Podles relates his experience in this:

Ed was from a Croatian family. He told me that his grandmother and mother had instructed him always to be kind and polite to the poor, because Jesus and Mary wander the earth in the guise of poor persons to test how merciful we are.

When I was working and supporting a family of nine on 35,000 a year...  I walked past a deserted storefront. In the alcove an older woman and her dog were sitting. She was not begging, but merely petting her dog. I gave her a dollar. I walked away and I swear I felt a hand on my shoulder turning me around and a voice whispering not enough. I returned to her and gave her a twenty (which hurt). At that very moment a young man walked past and saw what I was doing and said God bless you. What was going on? I still wonder.

here, we see poverty but most locals have families so ask for help from family or come to the door to beg from rich families.

Sigh.

Chivalry

CSLewis on Chivalry:




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

Headsup from Father Z, who is blogging from Guantanamo (of all places) where he is filling in for the local priest who is taking time off.

Ironically, the plane that ;skidded into the river last week carried that priest, and it seems to have had problems when Father Z took it on it's next to last flight.

When heroes defend the helpless

NYTimes article on the man who stopped a shooting in the Coloroado incident last week.

shootings tend to be "copycat" crimes by the mentally unstable, but the Times also notes another trend: Fighting back:

Mr. Castillo’s actions as the latest act of self-sacrifice by students who now find themselves on the front lines of fighting off gunmen in America’s schools. His death came only a week after a student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte was killed as he stepped in to stop another gunman on campus.

Kendrick Castillo was killed while trying to stop one of the assailants during a shooting at his school in Highlands Ranch, Colo., on Tuesday.CreditCreditRachel Short, via Associated Press

Right now, the meme of "toxic masculinity" is big among the so called feminists in the media, but there is a counter story, about Masculinity being about protecting the weak from harm.

This meme is as old a Siegfried the Dragon killer, or as new as the latest Avengers story, where Ironman dies to save his fellow avengers and the world.

Yet most films are about serial killers or revenge, making the murderers and drug sellers the hero of the film. And justifying murder as revenge.  What's wrong with this picture?

and of course, the internet is full of sites that become an echo chamber or hatred that assure the mentally unstable that their hatred is justified, as is a violent revenge on those they hate.

Sigh.

GetReligion has the backstory: The killers were copying the original Columbine killers, aiming at Christians students and deep into Satanic things on the internet. They were primed by the anti Christian memes that Christians hate gays and trans, so it's okay to kill them. But of course no one will say this out loud.

one short comment:

After Columbine, I remember two girls telling Larry King on CNN that the shooters shot a girl after she said she believed in God. This became quite a meme until the press and cops debunked it, saying the tapes contradicted the story. Apparently the Christian girl (two were named as the possible victim) were not heard saying anything on the surveillance videos.

So the meme disappeared and Christians were ridiculed if they suggested that their Children were killed for their faith.

Months later, a Catholic girl who had been hit and spent weeks in ICU recovered and confirmed her reply was the source of this "urban legend": She was crying "God save me", and when confronted, admitted she believed in God and was shot point blank with a shotgun blast for saying this.

Sigh.

---------------
update: CNA report on Castillo and his family.

Starbucks is everywhere (take two)

Starbucks is everywhere

Someone spotted a starbucks coffee cup on the latest episode of Game of Thrones...

don't ask me: It is on HBO here but I don't watch it: too violent and nasty...

 But similar gaffes have occured in other films too:

 

Philippine news

StrategyPage has a long analysis of China' economic problems and a possible trade war with the USA.

they also cover the Chinese war against their Islamic minority, a story that has been pretty well ignored in the western press.

even the Muslim nations are keeping quiet about it. Hmm...
 follow the money?

Nearly a million of these Moslems have been sent to reeducation camps and that has become an international issue, but not with Moslem nations who are usually quick to complain about any real or imagined slight by Western nations. The silence of Moslem critics was not because China has restricted journalist (Chinese and foreign) access to Xinjiang because that has not completely kept news of what is going on there from getting out. Thus when it became known that at least 50,000 Kyrgyz Chinese Moslems were also in the reeducation camps there was outrage in some Central Asian nations that had people they could identify with those in the camps. But even these Central Asian nations were not officially critical of the Chinese. The lack of criticism from Moslem nations is mainly about money and the realization that China is able and willing to maintain or withdraw investments depending on how recipient countries behave towards China.

they go on to describe how the Chinese use internet tools to spy on their population.

lower down in the essay they discuss China's bribery attempt via promising investments to the Philippines: Not something popular with folks here, who hate the Chinese...

and in a previous post I mentioned my escape plans if China tries to take over Luzon (tongue in cheek), but the article notes:

The current effort with the Philippines is all about how much China has to pay to get the Filipinos to fold. China is well aware of that American link and as is their custom the Chinese are avoiding any direct confrontations that risk leading to violence. This is a potentially dangerous game but so far the Chinese have been successful at it. Until the Americans agree that the Chinese aggression has triggered the mutual defense treaty the Philippines has no option other than trying to be friendly with China while documenting the growing acts of Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. The current American government has demonstrated a degree of resolve and aggressiveness that China is not used to. Fortunately, the Americans hold presidential elections every four years and China is looking forward to possibly getting a more compliant American leader in 2020. If not then there is always 2024.

the article also mentions how China's one child policy and the abortion of millions of girls has resulted in kidnapping/buying of women from nearby countries... and that now includes buying wives in Pakistan.

The Chinese development aid to poor countries is not just money but includes thousands of Chinese workers (so much for helping the local unemployed).

The DOLE here is checking out such business investments here that import Chinese labor, instead of hiring locals who are qualified for these jobs, something that is required by local law

In the online gaming industry alone, of the 138,000 foreigners employed by Philippine offshore gaming operators, 83,760 workers were issued SWPs by the Bureau of Immigration, while the rest were AEP holders. Read more: https://business.inquirer.net/270022/dole-to-check-on-chinese-only-establishments#ixzz5nHE47Nbn

includes this comment:

Noticeable were subcontractors of Huawei and other chinese telecom contractors who usually deploys their CHINESE WORKERS at NIGHT SHIFT to AVOID BEING NOTICED!!! It seems this was the advice of BI officers who allowed them entry into our country for employment purposes...

finally, right in time for senatorial elections next week, the videos claiming Duterte took oodles of millions of dollars of bribes surfaced.

Well, there have long been rumors about some in his family, but the amount of money mentioned seems a bit exaggerated to say the least, and of course, the timing is a bit suspicious.

Ah but the NBI investigated and caught the ones behind the story: this sarcastic editorial in the Inquirer tells the story.

Let it not be said, given that impressive performance, that government agencies are inept, indifferent slowpokes. The government machinery can move quickly—if that is what the bosses want. Within hours of the arrest of one Rodel Jayme, for instance, the NBI appeared to have bonded with him so swimmingly that Jayme was already singing a familiar song, leading investigators and the curious public toward the direction of the opposition Liberal Party as supposedly the culprit behind the mysterious videos. ...

...Jayme was described as a 27-year-old blogger who created a website, metrobalita.net, that the NBI said was subsequently used to upload the Bikoy videos. Still, Jayme was a catch, if only for his eagerness to tell a tale so tantalizing to the administration and its supporters. While denying any hand in producing or uploading the videos, Jayme clearly remembered being a volunteer of Liberal Party presidential candidate Mar Roxas in 2015.

Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121200/the-real-issue#ixzz5nHGAJ21J Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook

Unlike the USA, where libel against politicians is almost impossible to prosecute, libel here is taken seriously.

but as the sarcasm of the editorial implies, no one is taking the accusations seriously for some reason (hint hint), and the public just shrugs and figures the politician are all crooks, so what's the big deal.

the election next week is the big story: And in our area, elections are often associated with hits on rival politicians by shooters hired by unknown people (/s).

I haven't been out for a few days, but usually this means we see lots of cops and soldiers on the street to protect folks, and in the past we had outside poll watchers from international NGO's here (they were eating at a local restaurant that specializes in local food... I was tempted to warn them that this restaurant, now closed, tends to keep the lunch food warm for hours, so if you ate in the evening often you got diarrhea).

GMA report about this:

An estimated 800,000 personnel from the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine National Police, Commission on Elections and Department of Education will be deployed for the midterm elections.

Of these, 98,000 are soldiers and 143,000 are policemen... 

Aside from 800,000 from the government, some 350,000 officials and volunteers from the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) and other institutions and organizations will also play role in the elections. 

keeping our fingers crossed, since our nephew was killed in the crossfire of a political hit ten years ago, and another hit was on a politician on the way home from another cousin's funeral a few years later... so our family could be peripheral damage if things get rough.

But another big story here in the news is that Duterte said if Canada doesn't take back their garbage he will declare war.

The garbage was dumped here years ago, so what's the big deal? Maybe because Baby Trudeau claims to be pro ecology: so stop dumping your stuff on us. Or maybe because he didn't sweeten the hands of local officials enough. Or maybe because Baby Trudeau is seen as the only world leader weak enough to back down when threatened.

I mean, China's not going to get upset when pro ecology types here complain about their destruction of the seabeds in our fishing areas, are they?

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

update: AmericanThinker has a report that the US gov't is forcing China to sell their interest in the port of Long Beach.

and notes this:

China operates six of the world's ten busiest container ports. The Chinese government has also funded the construction and operations of 43 ports in 35 countries under its "One Belt and One Road" (OBOR) initiative launched five years ago, according to China's Ministry of Transport. As part of its efforts to gain asset dominance, China has directed its state-owned companies to exclusively buy products and services from other Chinese state-owned enterprises. As a result, China International Marine Containers Group has become the world's largest maker of shipping containers and Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries has gained a 70 percent international market share for port cranes, and now exports to 300 ports in 100 countries.

I am trying to find out if China's control of the Panama canal could block traffic, but most of the articles are from right wing sites. But this one at the UKGuardian is about China's interest there, and there are vague news stories about how China moving into Latin American and is helping to prop up Venezuela and plans to take over their oil industry.

But China's artificial islands in the West Philippine sea could block trade to Japan and Korea, and their expansion into Southern Pakistan and east Africa could make them able to strangle shipment of goods.

Family news

thunderstorms in the afternoon today, meaning maybe the monsoon and cooler weather has arrived.

The streets got badly flooded from the storm, probably because the trash and mud in the drainage ditches/sewers accumulates during the dry season until a few storms move it along into the nearby rivers.

In the last few weeks, the stores are changing to paper bags. This should help with the plastic bags that are discarded and clog up the sewers/drainage ditches and irrigation canals, but instead we are carrying our groceries home in a box.

Emie is back in the hospital, with pneumonia but seems to be improving. She is on dialysis here: there is a dialysis unit at the local hospital, but because Medicare doesn't pay for most medical care in the Philippines she has to pay for it herself. She could move back to Chicago to live with her daughter and have Medicare pay for it, but since she moved here to retire she prefers to stay here where two of her siblings live nearby.

Here we are healthy, but my house is full of sick dogs and hyperactive half grown puppies who aren't always house trained.
George the cat killing Labrador is completely blind now from cataracts, but is getting over an infection and is able to navigate via lights and shadows, but Blackie is not eating well and doesn't move a lot. And the small dog who we just got fixed after three litters in two years has dehissed her wound (due to poor healing from low protein diet and too many puppies) so we have to keep her inside and bandaged until it heals.

The four half grown puppies tend to eat shoes so we can't leave them inside the door as is the custom, and they learned how to jump up and get the dishtowels to play with. The real problem is when they get into the garbage and bring it back as a gift.

and the cats? Our three regular cats are fine, but now we have lots of visitors: probably because George no longer chases them. They sneak in and get the food we leave out for the puppies at night.

Joy and Kuya are busy with the rice business: with the rain, the fields have to be prepared, which means getting organic fertilizer and minerals to enrich the soil where needed. Usually we use a handplow but we still have one waterbuffalo. Later will come the planting of seedlings, which is still done here by hand.

The local democrats sent an email with a quote from AOC about celebrating Mayday. Yes, just ignore the 100 million dead from communism. And of coruse, if AOC had her way with the new green deal, we would have to give up petrol based fuels and water buffaloes who fart. Presumably we'd go back to using a hoe and pestle/mortar by hand.

StrategyPage has a good summary of China's pushing the Philippines around: They moved in and built artificial islands on shoals because PNoy (under pressure from Obama) didn't stop them, and now they are threatening a Philippine island with "fishing boats".

Many Chinese fishing ships are part of an unofficial but organized and paid naval militia. The Chinese maintain this force with subsidies (for building new fishing boats) and assurances that the navy will assist Chinese fishermen in gaining access to foreign fishing areas and exclusive use of fishing grounds in international waters. The fishing boats are the most numerous and aggressive component of this militia

their artificial islands have destroyed the ecology (no Greenpeace protests of course: They might get shot), and they have been taking endangered species out of the area, not to mention overfishing.

China is taking the slow and steady and stealthy aggression against everyone, and although Trumpie boy might slow them down, in the long run they figure they will out last him.

They are pulling similar stunts against other countries in the area, even as far south as Indonesia: but Indonesia is pushing back.

Sigh.

I already warned my son in Florida if war breaks out he might have us on his doorstep. He thinks I am paranoid, but since I had to leave Africa (twice) when wars broke out I am keeping my options open.

/s

Audiobook of the week

several of the Poldark audiobooks have been posted on youtube. Listen before they get found and removed by the copyright police


 







I love the new series, but also loved the original BBC series, which is available if you check it on youtube. Here is the first episode:

the story of the horse

the story of the horse at Archeology.com

(Courtesy Jean Clottes)

Painting, Chauvet Cave, France, ca. 30,000 years ago

The earliest evidence for encounters between humans and horses is found at Paleolithic sites in Eurasia. Butchered horse bones indicate that early peoples used horses as an important source of food. But these swift and spirited animals also clearly fired the human imagination in ways other animals did not. Depictions of them abound in Paleolithic cave art, where horses appear more frequently than any other animal.

and they are more likely to live through the harsh winters of the Central Asian Steppes:

“Horses are easier to feed through harsh winters than sheep or cattle,” says Hartwick College archaeologist David Anthony. “They are well adapted to winter on the steppe, and can break through ice and snow with their hooves to reach winter grass to feed themselves.” There is indirect evidence, such as bone carvings depicting horses together with cattle, that people on the steppe took advantage of this trait and began to maintain herds of horses for winter meat.

Anthony's book The Horse the Wheel and Language discusses this and many other aspects of the steppe culture that led to the Indo European dispersals. You can download it from Archive.org:

LINK 

I have read parts of it: My problem with ebooks is that they are hard to browse to find the parts you are interested in (so you can ignore the rest). But since getting a hard copy is beyond my means, I have ripped it to an mp3 via balabolka, and have excerpts on my "insomnia lectures" that I play when I am trying to sleep.

or just listen to his lecture:




more here:

It's May

May is Mary's month, and I
Muse at that and wonder why:
Her feasts follow reason,
Dated due to season—

Candlemas, Lady Day;
But the Lady Month, May,
Why fasten that upon her,
With a feasting in her honour?

Is it only its being brighter
Than the most are must delight her?
Is it opportunest
And flowers finds soonest?

Ask of her, the mighty mother:
Her reply puts this other
Question: What is Spring?—
Growth in every thing—

Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,
Grass and greenworld all together;
Star-eyed strawberry-breasted
Throstle above her nested

Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin
Forms and warms the life within;
And bird and blossom swell
In sod or sheath or shell.

All things rising, all things sizing
Mary sees, sympathising
With that world of good,
Nature's motherhood.

Their magnifying of each its kind
With delight calls to mind
How she did in her stored
Magnify the Lord.

Well but there was more than this:
Spring's universal bliss
Much, had much to say
To offering Mary May.

When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple
Bloom lights the orchard-apple
And thicket and thorp are merry
With silver-surfed cherry

And azuring-over greybell makes
Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes
And magic cuckoocall
Caps, clears, and clinches all—

This ecstasy all through mothering earth
Tells Mary her mirth till Christ's birth
To remember and exultation
In God who was her salvation. 

Gerard Manley Hopkins

The Catholic crisis

To the news/MSM, it is about "pedophilia", but actually the problem is a loss of holiness in the church. Which is why although a lot of people with "no religion" are ex catholics, so are a lot of ex catholics joining evangelical or orthodox churches.

It is about the loss of the idea of holiness because anyone who loved God (heck, any honest ethical atheist) wouldn't harm children (uh, millstone anyone?) or seduce vulnerable young teens while pretending you are helping them with their conflicts about gay inclinations (which is the official psychiatric line on why this is okay).

Benedict XVI gave this letter to the Pope for his meeting with the bishops to discuss the problem, but it was ignored, so it was stealthily released to a minor journal and got published and publicized via the Catholic wing of the Catholic blogosphere.

Essentially he said the church is losing the idea of holiness and noted that when the church opened itself to the world, it was at at time when the world was destroying the ancient sexual morality and destroying the strict idea of right and wrong.

this has pretty well been ignored by the Vatican, (as was the earlier letter by Cardinal Vigano about bishop pederasty).

so the latest protest is a letter by a bunch of theologians, mostly lay folk or retired clergy who in essence say the Pope is saying a lot of things that would be considered heretical, and he needs to correct what was said or else resign.

The 20-page document is a follow-up to the 2017 Filial Correction of Pope Francis that was signed originally by 62 scholars and which stated that the Pope has “effectively upheld 7 heretical positions about marriage, the moral life, and the reception of the sacraments, and has caused these heretical opinions to spread in the Catholic Church,” especially in light of his 2016 exhortation Amoris Laetitia.
The authors of the open letter state in a summary of their letter (read below) that it has now become clear that Pope Francis is aware of his own positions contrary to the faith and that the time has come to go a "stage further" by claiming that Pope Francis is "guilty of the crime of heresy.”
"We limit ourselves to accusing him of heresy on occasions where he has publicly denied truths of the faith, and then consistently acted in a way that demonstrates that he disbelieves these truths that he has publicly denied," the authors state. 

they also name names of those clerics who are around Pope Francis who promote heresy or have been silent about abuses of the faith in their diocese (and some, who should have known about sexual abuse but kept quiet about it).

Pretty strong words, and they released it on the feast of Catherine of Siena,

This was sort of a "hint hint" to Catholics who know history, since she was famous or writing a lot of letters to the Pope in her day, telling him to go back to Rome. Catherine was essentially a laywoman, known by all as a mystic and charity worker, so when someone asks: who can correct a pope? the answer is: a saint.

Crisis magazine goes into details.

and publisher Father Fessio discusses it here:

Explaining the the Pope may not be pushing heresy but just pushing the margin and saying ambiguous things then looking the other way when others, including bishops, go all out and push the heretical interpretation.




my take? Francis says a lot of nice things, but confusion is a sign of he diabolic, especially when it is being done by someone who is supposed to clarify dogma. 

Is Francis so stupid he doesn't know this, or is he just a manipulative narcissist?

Don't ask me, I'm just a doctor. 

but when Francis repeatedly ignores those who ask him to clarify things, I wonder...

Family news

We've had the city fiesta over the past 2 days.

I didn't go to the parade: Too hot.

In the past Lolo always had his friends here for 2 or three days drinking, talking and playing cards... and as WWII vets they would march in the parade as an honor. Then there were fewer of them, and they sat in a car instead. Now only one is left, alas,

in other local news, the cops shot two men: the cook said they had robbed someone and the cops found them and shot them trying to arrest them, but the maid said they had delivered drugs from Manila and the cops caught them and shot them trying to get away...probably the second story is true, since it is mentioned in this news story.

there is an election later this month so we are hoping no political murders in the next two weeks. Sigh.

Audiobook of the week

Cider with Rosie, chapter by chapter, is available on youtube: link



,,,,,,

another version:

the only problem? Read with a deep British accent.

tv miniseries here: