Is the FBI so politicized that they are unreliable?

 Trumpieboy is pushing the stolen election stuff all over, and some polls suggest that this exaggeration is starting to be believed.

But drip by drip, information is leaking out that the federal government DID interfered on many levels against Trumpieboy: as shown in the Durham investigation.

MSNews

After 4-year probe, Durham report slams FBI for actions in 2016 Russia investigation

but don't worry. No one will be punished for this. 

Durham's final report examining the origins of the Russia investigation brings to a close a four-year probe that failed to produce any major convictions despite the expectations pushed by Trump and his allies.

Heh. Sounds like the Philippines, where politicians never quite get convicted of suspected crimes.

So what did the FBI do wrong? 

,,,"In particular, there was significant reliance on investigative leads provided or funded (directly or indirectly) by Trump's political opponents. The Department did not adequately examine or question these materials and the motivations of those providing them before opening a full-scale investigation."

 cops (and doctors) get a lot of fake information and you have to probe deeper to find the truth. But here, what happened was a failure to question if the information was true, and the investigation was full of inaccurate and illegal leaks to the press to blacken Trumpieboy's name.

Heck it was Trump. Everyone knows he is a lying manipulative SOB ("you're fired") who nevertheless gets things done...I am sure they could find stuff on him (or maybe not: he has good lawyers)... the real question is why did they rely on leaks that were unbelievable? 

But add to this the news about how the federal government controlled social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, whose rich owners donated to the Democrats only, and who allowed their apps to be manipulated to push their favorite candidate...and you have a major problem for ordinary folk who just to elect someone who can run things, and who rely on institutions to be honest.

One does expect lies and manipulation in politics. 

But as a doctor, I am horrified at how the social media (and the medical establishment) censored information on Covid (and individual doctors, not just nut cases but people who had credentials who should not have been censored). 

Science is a process, not a religion that cannot be questions... and now as a result of that manipulation we see a collapse of trust in the medical profession, big Pharm, and vaccines.

The Tuskegee experiment led to the Black community distrusting the medical establishment for 80 years.

The fallout from the Dengue vaccine fraud led to a lot of children here in the Philippines dying of preventable diseases because they didn't get their routine baby shots. and you see the problem. 

Well, now you have a worldwide distrust of covid vaccines that will spill over into distrust of vaccines for measles, polio, tetanus, diphtheria, etc that can cause thousands of deaths. 

But hey, don't listen to me. Yes, I am a registered Democrat, but I am also a middle aged Catholic lady who is prolife, and the Feds have decided we need to be listed as possible terrorist.

It's not just the radical trads who are upset at this: So are the Jesuits.

From the (Jesuit magazine) America:

Two former agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who went on to hold leadership roles in the church say a recently revealed and subsequently retracted memo characterizing Catholics with a devotion to the Traditional Latin Mass as possible domestic threats is a troubling example of the law enforcement agency not following its own guidelines.

“It’s one thing if a journalist writes this in an opinion piece,” Kathleen McChesney, a former head of F.B.I. field offices in Chicago and Portland, told America. “It’s another thing when it’s in a government document.” Ms. McChesney, who previously held the third-highest role in the F.B.I., described the memo as “a terrible analytical document” and “antithetical to F.B.I. professional practices and guidelines.”

Of course, Catholics can be so called terrorists: during the VietNam war, I attended a small religious meeting that was also attended by one of the Harrisburg 7, who had peacefully vandalized an office and destroyed draft records.

And no, I am not worried that the FBI will send someone to our rural Philippine town to arrest me for posting bad stuff. 

However, Someone reported me to blogger, who is now watching my blog and told me I have at least 7 blogposts, many over 10 years old, that don't pass the test for political correctness. 

No, blogger, that acronym means Moro Islamic Liberation Front, not Mothers ILF....

Don't waste the food says ChatGPT

AnnAlthouse has a discussion with AI about if people get upset when food is thrown at someone in a movie.

What I learned from this is that ChatGPT etc has no sense of humor.

has anyone seen this done in real life? I haven't. 

 But both ChatGPT and all the commenters left out this classic scene:

-----------

according to IMDB: 

The pie fight scene lasts four minutes and was shot in five days. It is the longest pie fight sequence in movie history. At first, the cast had fun filming the pie fight scene, but eventually the process grew wearisome and dangerous. Natalie Wood choked briefly on a pie which hit her open mouth. Jack Lemmon got knocked out a few times: "a pie hitting you in the face feels like a ton of cement". At the end of shooting the fight, when Blake Edwards called "Cut!" he was barraged with several hundred pies that members of the cast had hidden, waiting for that moment.

About 4,000 real pies were used in the pie fight scene, and the cast ate many of them during filming. However, during a weekend break in filming, the pies spoiled. The stink was so bad that the building required a thorough cleaning and large fans to blow out the sour air.

During the pie fight, the Great Leslie remains clean while everyone else is covered in pie. Tony Curtis was actually changing clothes several times, because he all too often got hit with pie during filming.

Mental Floss has a history of pie throwing.

According to Hopes&Fears

, the first known pie fight appeared in 1909’s Mr. Flip, in which an obnoxious general store manager gets his comeuppance in the form of a pie to the face. Though the film itself is forgettable, other filmmakers of the time were inspired by the pie throwing scene—a visual gag perfectly suited to the then-soundless medium. Almost instantly, the pie fight became a staple of silent films. Just like the police chase (made famous by the Keystone Kops), an epic pie fight was an easy way to end a film.

debunking experts

 

.....,,,,.....

family news

 Kuya is almost finished the harvest. So we now have money can can pay back some of what had to be borrowed from the government to harvest the last crop, with some money left over to prepare the fields for the main harvest once the monsoon starts.

 
We now have money so the roof is being repaired. With plastic wrap for now, which will work until the next signal 3 typhoon hits.

we replaced the koi in our small fountain three times, each time most of them died at ten days (usually a sign of new fishtank high nitrogen), but the last group survived. 

 But the fountain kept losing water, probably from a leak (due to settling) so they now decided to fix the fountain and removed the fish. '

I am a bit mad about it: the fish are a joy to watch, and keep the mosquito larvae down. So why didn't they fix it after the last group of koi died from the weather/typhoon/prolonged loss of electricity for the pump that keeps the fountain oxygenated? Because no money. The money for last year's major harvest was stolen by the rice dealer...

Joy is busy: She was on the radio for an interview on Friday about the latest education program for the young about how to run a small agribusiness and manage their small farms.

The gov't here pushes organic food, which is good. But this is labor intensive and more expensive than growing food with machinery and chemical fertilizer/herbicides. but there is a market for this because of the growing middle class, and they are seeking a way to export it to get a higher price.

The bad news is that the ecocrazies are now trying to stop everyone from growing rice because it is a major source of greenhouse gas,...

in other news: dog fights over the lady dog in heat, but not as severe last night because Barry, our large dog, won the fight. And we blocked the area in the garage where he was going out to seek love from the ugly dog (mange) down the street, so we only hear the neighbor's dogs fighting over her.

Dr. C keeps talking about excess deaths in the UK. we are having a lot of deaths here, but most are old people with heart, kidney, or lung disease.

Me, I am high risk: and my immune system must have been poor because I had complicated dengue and fatigue etc for six months afterward. Then I got shingles without a rash. So now a big shot Senator in the USA is shown coming back to work after a shingles attack. My sympathies lady, but I also noted you are cachexic so wonder what messed up your immune system. Lolo had shingles ten years before his leukemia showed up, and my aunt had severe shingles six years before her lymphoma showed up. Me, I figure dengue messed up my immune system. And no, anti vaxxers: I didn't get the Pfizer shot: I got the AZ shot which only kills with blood clots, and that was two years earlier.

Science below the fold

 The NIH is restoring funding to EcoHealth so they can fund bat virus reseach in the Wuhan lab.

Nature:

NIH reinstates grant for controversial coronavirus research

Researchers who spoke to Nature applaud the renewal, adding that this type of research is essential to avert the next pandemic. They claim that the NIH’s termination and subsequent suspension were politically motivated, and that, although long overdue, this renewal ends — for now — a drama-filled exchange between the agency and EcoHealth.

Yes it was just politics... 

but WTF? 

Scientists at Boston University have developed a form of coronavirus that killed 80 per cent of the mice they tested it on — reigniting the debate over the use of experimental lab research involving deadly pathogens. Amid the furore, the university hit back at “false and inaccurate” media coverage that “sensationalised” the research.....

a lot of the articles still assume that no, the virus didn't accidentally come from the Wuhan lab so there was no reason to stop such experiments. But they also ignore lab leaks and infections from these labs in the past.

As for Wuhan: One argument against the accidental release is that two variations of the virus spread from the wet market to people.

So how could a leak travel a mile from the lab to the market if it were a lab leak?

That was puzzling, until I read an article that some lab personnel were diverting lab animals to be sold (either live but infected, or dead, what we in the Philippines call double dead meat).

to tell you the truth, corruption is a problem in China to a degree that would shock the average Yank. But those of us familar with corruption that is common here in the Philippines just laugh at that rumor, because it is believable.

as for EcoHealth: Last Sept there was a report that Eco health wanted to build a lab here in the Philippines.

three projects currently being undertaken in the Philippines. This includes PREDICT, bat conservation and EIDR (Emerging Infectious Disease Repository). The PREDICT project seeks to “identify new emerging infectious diseases that could become a threat to human health” while EIDR seeks to “unravel the origins of Emerging Infectious Disease (EID) events.”

The PH Government should look into the extent of these projects in the Philippines, particularly EIDR, as it is funded both by the US DTRA and USAID, both agencies which have various program objectives other than purely scientific research.

Biolabs are important, both for human and animal health. They are needed to identify ordinary germs and then advise how to stop the spread, or maybe devise a a vaccine to stop the disease. (FMD, African swine flu, and bird flu to just name a few that are affecting the animals here in SEAsia, and other diseases that are a chronic danger, like Anthrax or brucellosis).

But the lies and coverup by China and the lies of the US experts to coverup that the US was funding this dangerous research ( because it was banned in the USA) have lowered the trust of ordinary people.

that is why conspiracy theories about the Ukraine biolabs is floating around, pushed by a Russia who has had it's own problems with lab leaks in the past.

But there is a fine line between investigating disease that could cause an epidemic, in order to stop it, and doing research for biowarfare. 

but the dirty little secret of biowarfare is blowback: You can't keep it from killing your own people.

That is why no one outside of really rabid conspiracy theorists think that Covid was a deliberate biowarfare attack by the Chinese government.

Finally, the decline of trust in the Public health establishment is a problem. We see it here after the Dengue vaccine debacle, where a few kids died from the vaccine given to the wrong kids, but the result was a mistrust that resulted in parents deciding against routine vaccines, and that resulted in hundreds dying of easily preventable diseases.

and we see it now, where a lot of folks are horrified that the same WHO types who stopped many epidemics (yellow fever and Ebola come to mind) have lost public trust because they seemed to lie to coverup the Wuhan virus. 

yet now we are reading that the WHO wants to tell all the world's governments that they need to obey the WHO policies. This would be needed for example if a new smallpox epidemic or black plague (or super flu) hit. But their credibility is now low, and so the usual suspects are seeing this as a power grab.

No I am not going to post a Tucker Carlson video about this: just read the article for his rant.

But thoughtful people are worrying about this too.

Here is Dr. C's video of a UK MP discussing the problem of the WHO's latest power grab;

Video of the week

 forget the raplike forgettable tunes of Hamilton.

Watch this and try not to dance.

...

Internet: Starlink now in the Philippines

 According to the Manila Bulletin, we now have the option for Starlink.

...this Sydney Australia news article (May 4 2023) explains:

The future of the internet depends on who controls the South China Sea

More than 486 undersea cables carry more than 99 per cent of all international internet traffic globally, according to the Washington-based research firm TeleGeography. The bulk of them are controlled by a handful of American technology giants, namely Google-owner Alphabet, Facebook-owner Meta, Amazon and Microsoft.

South-East Asia’s internet economy is expected to reach $1 trillion in value by 2030. Whoever controls the Asia-Pacific’s subsea cabling infrastructure will not only dominate this booming economy, but control the global internet. ... As such, the world’s subsea cabling infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable not only to sabotage but also to espionage – spy agencies can easily tap into cables on their own territory.

That’s why geopolitical rivalry between the US and China has increasingly focused on controlling the world’s subsea cabling networks.

and this is the backstory of why China is trying to figure out how to destroy the starlink satellites. 

Grescham's law: Synodality pushes out good Christians

A lot of folks watched when the Anglican bishop crowned King Charles III.

But while he was busy strutting his stuff, did the press notice that his policies are chasing many believers from the church (not including of course those who just see the church believes in nothing, so why bother to pay attention to it) 

GetReligion quotes the Anglican bishops of Africa correcting the oh so very politically correct head of the British Anglican church, saying 

“We have no confidence that the Archbishop of Canterbury nor the other Instruments of Communion led by him … are able to provide a godly way forward that will be acceptable to those who are committed to the truthfulness, clarity, sufficiency and authority of Scripture," warned the Global Anglican Future Conference, which met April 17-21 in Kigali, Rwanda. GAFCON IV drew 1,302 delegates from 52 nations, including 315 bishops.

Welby will try to finagle around charges of heresy, and rejecting the ten commandments in favor of the latest perversion pushed by the twittermob trendy mentality... this is nothing new in the Anglican church.

But the important part of this is the statement:

(Leaders who) are able to provide a godly way forward that will be acceptable to those who are committed to the truthfulness, clarity, sufficiency and authority of Scripture.

For Catholics, we would say: acceptable to those commited to the truth and the beliefs of tradition for about 2000 years (3200 years, if you include the ten commandments).

Grescham's law states that bad money drives out good. Meaning that if you debase the coinage, the good money will be diverted (hoarded or melted down but not used in circulation).

This is an observation of why a lot of Catholics are leaving the trendier than thou churches for churches that actually believe in God.

I mean, doing social work etc is fine: But you have to start with personal reform. And stressing social work as the only way to be a Catholic ignores the people whose holiness is found in the deeds of ordinary life: being faithful to one's spouse, caring for children, praying for each other, etc. 

The so called little way of St Therese, where you do ordinary things with love as a prayer. Because it is easy to go out and feel self righteous demonstrating for the cause of the day: It's a bit harder to change the diaper of your kid in the middle of the night, or clean up the garbage left behind after the riots.

So now the big thing for Catholics is the synod on synodality, (what ever that means). But what it seems to mean is to get the well organized and well funded Catholic left take over these meetings, while ordinary Catholics who have a life and have stopped being active in "parish work" run by these types, already know their concerns are not welcome.

They can use fake meetings with prechosen outsiders who don't want to follow Christ but want to change the church (read hijack the church institututions) all they want to, pretending they are "welcoming" outsiders (read those who have a political agenda to take over and change the church) but in reality they are driving out "those who are committed to the truthfulness, clarity, sufficiency and authority of scripture (and tradition).""

Those bent on reforming (deforming some might say) the Catholic church figure that Catholics will just obey, and if they don't, they will be sidelined and told it is wrong to criticize the pope (tell that to Catherine of Sienna or St Athanasius).

But this movement in the Anglican church is a warning to the Vatican that believers are being sidelined by the StGallen mafia takeover of the Vatican to reform it (read destroy dogma, moral rules, and belief in God) will simply stay quiet, or maybe even leave the church.

 Because these synodality meeting are about hearing the objections of people who don't like to hear that hard stuff about not boinking your neighbor's wife, or not killing your unborn child, or in places like the Philippines, reminding people not to take drugs, or take bribes, or steal money meant to be used for public works.

Such things are not acceptable to those who see the church's mission is to provide a godly way forward that will be acceptable to those who are committed to the truthfulness, clarity, sufficiency and authority of Scripture  the traditions of the Christian church for two thousand years

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

update: One reason that the Pope hasn't been thrown out is one: He says stuff the MSM/ NWO and the so called reformers like, and Two: He does say stuff that is in line with Catholic dogma, although often what is reported is distorted, so a lot of people give him the benefit of the doubt.

So he says A and it's correct. But then he informally says B and lets heretical bishops push B without correcting them, confusing the ordinary Catholic. 

Here is an example: Most secular reports on the Pope's visit to Hungary seem to be about letting in Muslim refugees, and not much else. 

But this report by Hungary's ambassador to the Vatican, points out that the Pope actully praised Hungary for their help with the huge number of Ukrainian refugees. 

And he also notes that Pope Francis gave a strong condemnation of transgender agenda, something that resulted in the is silencing all and sundry in the US and Europe.  

But give it time, and he will say something like "who am I to judge" (which was a comment about a pederast), and the press will shout it from the rooftops that the church will change it's rules.

Save the CInema: Film review

Every once in awhile, one runs across a film about ordinary people just trying to make their small part of the world better.

This is the story of Save the Cinema, where a hairdresser who with the help of some friends saves a cinema from being destroyed in the name of progress.

the preview really doesn't give you an idea of the charm and humor of the film.

the people in it are seen as trying their best to keep the cinema open, because art is important. And it shows how a community can be reminded that their history and heritage might be more important than development to become modern.

So enjoy.

I give it a four out of four stars.

Musical interlude of the day

....

Chinese threats escalating

China is slowly moving to threaten war.

...#PRC: Detaining foreign nationals is the business plan Stephen Yates, chair of the America First Policy Institute's China Policy Initiative. @GordonGChang, Gatestone, Newsweek, The Hill....

the discussion mentions this could be a prelog to conflict.

UKGuardian article on this:

The Reuters analysis of records on exit bans, from China’s supreme court database, shows an eightfold increase in cases mentioning bans between 2016 and 2022. China last week beefed up its counter-espionage law, allowing exit bans to be imposed on anyone, Chinese or foreign, who is under investigation.

But you know, it's not just against Chinese businessmen and international business community: there are a lot of Filippine OFW there:

Wikipedia says only 12000 in mainland China, but a lot of OFW are caregivers, nannies, nurses and blue collar workers in Taiwan and Hong Kong (and Macau).

Wikipedia:

Hong Kong	165,000
Taiwan	147,234

So now China is hinting they could be used as pawns if the Philippines doesn't obey them.

CNN PHIL headline:

Solon condemns China’s ‘threat’ vs. OFWs in Taiwan,,

“The Philippines is advised to unequivocally oppose ‘Taiwan independence’ rather than stoking the fire by offering the US access to the military bases near the Taiwan Strait if you care genuinely about the 150,000 OFWs,” Xilian said.

The background of this is a ten year slow war against the Philippines in their territorial claims to the West Philippine sea,

President Obama encouraged then President Aquino not to aggressively stop them when they started chasing out fishermen and digging up the seabed to build artificial islands: Instead the US told him to take it to court, where the Philippines won the case, but no one was around to enforce this decree by international law.

So the next time you read the MSM spin about this is the evil USA starting a confrontation against China, just remember that China has been pushing around the Philippines and VietNam in this area for over a decade, and their artificial islands have reached the point that they could threaten vital sea lanes.

After years of Duerte, who saw the US wasn't helping, and tried to make nice with China (and who hated the CIA ...long story) he found that China was screwing him with fake promises. So now that we have a new president Bong Bong Marcos, the alliance was reset, and now there is an agreement that the US will be posting troops into northern Luzon (see video in previous blogpost).

The US/Philippine alliance is a delicate matter, because the Philippines doesn't like being told what to do by their former colonial masters. However, the hatred of the Chinese is centuries old. ,,,in SEAsia, it is the Chinese who essentially run the economy (most entrepeneurs are part Chinese ancestry) and so a lot of Filipinos who can't get ahead in business blame them for the elite families monopoly of the economic sector. 

But the present crisis is that the Biden administration has finally decided that hey maybe they need to stop China before they invade Taiwan (and later, Luzon and VietNam and Siberia?)

Hence US troops are now being allowed to reside on Philppine military bases 

And China is also continuing their threats in the West Philippine sea: and this ten year old slow war in open sight is now being written about in the MSM.

From the Inquirer:
 

Aggression in West PH Sea: China’s maritime ‘Great Wall’ plan

well, duh. anyone with a map of sea lanes know that their artificial islands could block major shipping routes from the Indian Ocean into the Pacific.

And now they are trying to expand their control from passively building artificial islands in the shallow shoals to actually being aggressive. They use huge numbers of what they claim are fishing boats, but are actually part of their naval militia

but hey if you attack them (or they sink your fishing boat "accidentally" well, you can't blame the Chinese government>.............

Read the above Inquirer article that has maps of how they could use their militarized islands not only for naval operations but for bombing small countries nearby. And don't forget the internet cables, which if cut threaten not just the Philippines and SEAsia but India.

....

an additional complication: lots of military aged Chinese men working in the local casinos, (wikipedia estimates 100 thousand and adds:

Filipino security officials have raised concerns regarding Chinese-affiliated POGOs in the Philippines, particularly those near police and military installations. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has said that POGOs could be used in espionage activities.

Electricity: Small Nuclear reactors to the rescue?

 A few days ago, I posed about a company seeking to put solar panals on valuable rice growing land in our area.

I was skeptical: I have little problem with solar panels on unused land, but wouldn't investment in agriculture be better?

 But part of our farm land is on high ground hard to irrigate, so placing solar panels there could help us to meet the budget (since the high diesel and fertilizer prices, expensive equipment, and fewer farm laborers mean higher price to grow rice and less profit).

Not enough electricity is a growing problem here in the Philippines: a growing population but also less poverty, meaning that people will now want electricity for lights, TV, cellphone charging, fans, and more commonly, air conditioners.

Alas, a lot of electricity here comes from fossil fuel or coal (70 percent), which the world is trying to eliminate. And a lot of our local electricity comes from hydro electric power. (15 percent)

Whoops: It is dry season, meaning the water in the rivers running the hydroelectricity is low, and since it is also "tag init", i.e. summer, before the monsoon rains cool you off in the afternoon, it means more electricity is being used.

So we have rotating brownouts. Another one scheduled this Thursday. 

The city uses this time to repair the aging spaghetti electric wires and replacing them with higher energy cables and transformers (that explode or are hit by lightning once or twice a year, but hey, the alternative is spaghetti wires sagging and being snagged by passing rice trucks, another problem we see a couple times a year). 

We have a large generator that we just fixed, and two small ones that right now need to be fixed, so no problem. But the old folks in the poorer area, where no one has a generator, will be dying of "asthma" and heart attacks from the heat.

Sigh

Well, anyway, what else can be used intstead of coal/NG/Diesel to generate power? Solar panels... hydro electricity...and nuclear...

Nuclear?

Headline in the Phil Inquirer:

US firm plans to build small nuclear power plants in PH

..WASHINGTON — NuScale Power Corp., a publicly traded American company that designs and markets small modular reactors (SMRs), on Monday (early Tuesday in Manila) disclosed plans to build SMRs worth up to $7.5 billion in the Philippines. ..SMRs are a fraction of the size and cost of a conventional nuclear power reactor and can produce low-carbon electricity at about a third of the generating capacity of traditional nuclear facilities, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

More here about this new technology that is starting to be used in the USA and Asia, from the Straits Times (Singapore newspaper):

The future of the industry will likely rely on small modular reactors – or SMRs – similar to the ones currently powering submarines.

SMRs have been promoted as a cheaper option than legacy reactors, with shortened construction time and less fuel needed to power them, which translates into less nuclear waste.

I had heard about these small reactors in isolated towns in places like Alaska, 

The technology is sort of similar to that in nuclear subs, and much smaller, much cheaper, and more reliable than traditional nuclear power plants, many of which are now reaching the end of their useful life and being decommissioned all over the world. 

Several designs are being developed, so you read a lot of articles hyping this, but the real test is: Will they work? Will they be cheap? Will they be safe?

All this sounds good, if they aren't lying. It comes down to trust. And here, there is more trust in US and Korean/Taiwan/Singapore/Japanese companies than in Chinese companies, because of the high rate of corruption in that country 

The bad news is that China could steal the technology and build these things cheaper, and these would be bought by countries with tight budgets (and whose bureaucrats might be influenced by small gifts from Chinese companies).

Nuclear power has been pushed here in the Philippines in the past, under under the old Marcos administration, when a huge nuclear power plant was being made in Bataan. Activists stopped it from being finished, because it was suspected as being given permission to build from bribery, but mainly because it had been built on an earthquake fault. Duh. 

The Three Mile Island and Chrnobyl nuclear accidnts were human caused accidents, but  the ultra sophisticated Fukushima power plant was destroyed by an earthquake. So safety is a big issue.

but the SNR are safe, we are told, and there are several versions, some using water and some with salt, which is even safer.

so is the Philippines being sold a technology that has been proven safe and efficient, or is just a guinea pig for big business to see if these reactors are feasable in plans to stop using a carbon based economy? 

BusinessMirror has the usual gobbly gook explaining how these fit into the world's no carbon plans but no details. 

The NuScale version has been approved to be set up in Oregon, but not on line yet.

So will it work? Enough big money interests are willing to pour money into these projects, so maybe.

But then I remember: WHOOPS!

TimeMagazine:1983

Whoops! A $2 Billion Blunder: 

Washington Public Power Supply System Fallout from a record default spreads from Washington State to Wall Street

...With its coffers almost empty, WPPSS or Whoops, as everyone now calls the agency, formally declared that it could not repay $2.25 billion in bonds used to finance partial construction of two now abandoned nuclear power plants in Washington State....

wikipedia page here.

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

this is a short video about these small nuclear reactors. 

As Doc McCoy would say: Don't ask me. I'm a doctor, not a nuclear scientist.

Homer Simpson, call the office. We have a question for you.

musical interlude of the month

;;;

I am old enough to remember when the USA had May processions to crown the Virgin Mary in the month of May. 

We still do such things here in the Philippines, but are these things still done in the USA, where the liturgists destroyed all the warm and fuzzy folk customs in the name of being modern?

The modern church post Vatican II often frowned on such folk piety, but now the US Catholic bishops are recognizing that this often speaks to the heart more about God's love than dry sermonizing.

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

In western Pennsylvania, our church had the weekly novena to Mary for the safety of the men working in the mines and a lot of folks had small shrines to Mary in front of their homes: Something that the sophisticated disdainfully call bathtub madonnas, because some of them buried a bathtub in the ground and placed Mary under the overhanging part to protect the shrine from rain and snow.>

 Photo by Joe Schallan, August 15, 2004.

but don't mock these pious folk too loud in that area: Our next door neighbor, a coal miner with five huskey sons, had a small shrine in front of his house.

Here in the Philippines, it is common for folk to have a small shrine of the grotto with the statue of our Lady of Lourdes in the garden of their homes. 

we also have a table with the statues of the favorite saints inside the bedroom, right next to the photos of our loved ones... and then they often have a picture of DaVinci's last supper in the dining room.

Why not? Because here, Mama Mary, Kuya Jesus and the Holy Spirit are all part of the family.

and indeed, Mama Mary is credited for stopping Marcos the elder from arresting a very Protestant General Ramos when he decided to support Tita Cory Aquino as the winner of the election. Marcos sent in troops from his area of the Philippines to do this, but  thousands of civilians sang hymns to stop the troops.

the troops did not shoot the protesters, and they explained that they saw a "beautiful lady in white"who came up to them and said "Don't shoot my people".

Many believe this was Mama Mary protecting her people.

Much later, Cardinal Sin (yes that's is name) who led the protest was asked about it,and he said: Well, it might have been one of the nuns dressed in white who they saw, but I know all those nuns and none of them are good looking". (This is typical Filipino humor).

In those days of the cold war, the belief was that the US should keep Marcos in power to stop the communists. and the liberation theology types said only a communist take over would help the Philippines.

But apparently prayer and a courageous Tita Cory resulted in a third option: the chaotic democratic country we have today.

the church on the EDSA now has a huge statue of Mary to commemorate the incident, commonly called the ugly Madonna, because it is the ugliest Madonna in the world.

there is another shrine that gets a lot of visits: Our Lady of Bon Voyage. Returning OFW (overseas foreign workers) like my husband usually visit there to thank her for their safety. 

may you live in interesting times

 This video with maps explains some of the background to China's need to take over Taiwan (and control the sea lanes and internet cables nearby).

but like most of these reports, they ignore the years of China being aggressive in the West Philippine sea, building their artificial islands, destroying the ecosystem to do so, Stopping Filipinos from fishing there, making it impossible to develop the large Natural gas resources there, militarizing the islands, and threatening anyone who says hey these are international waters.

Yes, I am sure it's just a coincidence that the Catholic bishops in the Philippines are insisting not to invest in fossil fuels, (translation: let China steal these resources by "investing" in their development). And they are are now opposing mining of coal: something that is very polluting but the alternative is mom and pop mining that is even more destructive of the environment. 

And notice my report a few days ago about taking rice land and converting them to solar panel farming? Who benefits? And guess who will sell us those solar panels?

In the meanwhile, Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, who revolutionized an Amazon like delivery system for rural folk and became rich, (and then criticized the regime and got in trouble) has surfaced again as a college professor in Japan. Hmm... wonder what was the back story here. He is friends with the head of the SoftBankGroup in Japan...

so what is going on?

Alibaba said on Tuesday it would split into six units--Cloud Intelligence Group, Taobao Tmall Commerce Group, Local Services Group, Cainiao Smart Logistics Group, Global Digital Commerce Group and Digital Media and Entertainment Group.

so letting the government use these digital platforms to spy on you.

Most of the videos from investor sites seem happy about this. Hmm...

in the meanwhile, China is pushing an alternative to the US dollar, and the overspending and printing money and going into debt is undermining the US econonmy. Hmm.. sounds like what happened under Jimmy Carter.

It's enough to wonder if Biden's minions are indeed being funded by China to destroy the USA.

And I won't even mention groups that are trying to provoke a civil war in the USA, something that would weaken the USA even more and allow the PC in the EU and China to lead the world. 

yup. it's those white nationalist groups that no one ever heard of causing trouble again. 

on scanning youtube, I see lots of propaganda videos out there explaining why we should all use bicycles (right. In Minnesapolis when it is minus ten and snowing or in Houston when it is 100 degrees in the shade). And comparing how green are these very small European countries to a large diffuse and multi ethnic USA.

How many of these education type videos are funded by whom?

And then you have the destruction of the catholic church into a NWO NGO that insists you are only Catholic if you work for social justice (leaving out the poor, those working hard to support their families, the elderly etc. who are made to feel as if they are second class Catholics).

I thought this article was a bit ironic, since it is from Crux, one of the approved sources of Catholic news: The Pope is making the Church into an NGO that has nothing to do with Jesus, except as quoting him out of context

Competing Versions of Christianity on Display Between Pope and Hungary’s Orbán

there’s no getting around the fact that the two men represent contrasting versions of Christianity — one focused on identity, tradition and family values, the other on welcome, dialogue and the social gospel.

why is this considered an "either or" thing? Catholicism is both. It is those with a life of prayer to sustain them that actually help the poor, while promoting honesty and ethics improve the economy, and strengthening family life by promoting sexual self control. 

But of course, what is behind this visit to Hungary is about Hungary promoting Christian values in opposition to the EU plans, and of course insisting they let Islamic refugees into Hungary to work as a fifth column against the locals. 

Pope Francis used the word “doors” a robust 10 times in his homily Sunday morning, urging against closure: “Please, open the doors!” he said, in a clear if indirect challenge to Orban’s broadly restrictive policies on immigration.

The problem? He is opening the doors not just to all the straying sheep, but also letting the wolves inside to prey on them, in this case  Islamic young men claiming to be refugees to a country that remembers the last time this happened.

Manipulating the Catholic church

First Things magazine has Father Murray daring to say: That synod of synodality thing is about changing church teachings by listening to outsiders who want their sins to be seen as okay, while marginalizing believers.

The just-below-the-surface assumption here is that fidelity to the Church’s teaching needs to be re-imagined and re-worked so that various people will not feel that they are being excluded and rejected. Church teaching is put on trial. ....

The synodal process is an exercise in “platforming” the grievances of selected “Catholic” interest groups that unapologetically reject the Church’s teaching.

The claim that this out-in-the-open subversion is the work of the Holy Spirit speaking to the Church today is a gambit to insulate this revolution from criticism. 

italics mine. 

What is happening is an attempted power grab by those who want to change the Catholic Church’s teaching according to their worldly views about power, sex, and anything else they decide is important. That this is happening is a scandal and a disaster. We must pray that God spare us from this calamity.

And it doesn't stop there.

The latest scam by the pope is to destroy the council of bishops by salting the meeting with chosen lay people to make sure they conform to the plan. 

Backstory: In a previous meeting the summary of the meeting was already written to approve of letting people in irregular marriages receive the sacraments. But the bishops were alerted to this, and rejected that part and so it had to be removed. But it was snuck in as a footnote that was overlooked when the final document was approved.

This is discussed in a recent Papal Posse discussion on EWTN. 

You can see why a couple of the liberal bishops are trying to ban EWTN from their diocese, but it is still on Youtube. 

Hmm... wonder how long until they are thrown off of that platform?

Gresham's law states that bad money drives out good. In today's world, this means that when an institution accepts woke policies, it will drive out the normal people, who will quietly vote with their feet.

When it comes to churches, this means that the destruction of the idea of the holy and living a holy life is being pushed out of the church in favor of woke policies, the result is that Catholicism has lost a large number of people: half to non religion, but another half to Protestant Bible churches.

And of course, it is easier to push a woke agenda against a fragmented Christianity than it is against a strong prophetic Catholic church. Hence, the many  conspiracy theories about the election of Pope Francis being a political coup by the German reformer and the StGallen mafia....

So who will stop this? The bishops or no one.

A lot of people think a schism will result, similar to what is happening in the Anglican church, where third world cardinals are saying they no longer agree with the British boss.

These church schisms have geopolitical implications.

the pushing of ecoreligion by the Pope and some bishops is diverting the church from it's role in proclaiming Christ, but also promoting the "you will eat bugs and like it" policies of the climate change leaders.

 pressuring countries to get green policies by those without experise in either economics or agriculture will push policies that impoverish a lot of people in poor countries by raising the price of food, something I have written about in earlier blog posts...

And just ignore the Chinese are benefitting from this, not the children who dig for blood cobalt.

And don't get me started on the destruction of the Catholic church by China, a deal that was brokered by the pederast and now defrocked Cardinal McCarrick.

And the Pope pushing the idol of a pagan goddess pachimama will not encourage people in the Amazon to stay Catholic, but like liberation theology, (trendy marxism among the elite) will merely increase the number in Latin America joining Protestant churches.

The recent electoral successes of socialism in Latin America is partly from the loss of Catholic opposition, but also because of manipulation of elections, and because China is offering bribes all sorts of goodies to let them take over their resources.

Let's kill grandmom update

A Japanese ethicist at Yale (an American university of course) suggested that one solution for Japan's elderly problem was to encourage the elderly to commit suicide.

Well, that's one way to solve the problem of too many old people. And it's a lot cheaper than the alernative: Hire more Filipina caregivers, or use Robo nurse to care for them.

Japan has a complicated history of accepting suicide as a solution, but Christianity, Judism, and Islam do not see this an an answer: Because life is seen as a gift of God, and murder, including self murder, is considered evil. Also, these religions stress altruism and care of the poor as part of their core dogma (in contrast to modern capitalism that sees cost effectiveness and profit as the goal of life).

So we are seeing this idea pushed in movies and the MSM, and now people who feel isolated thanks to the destruction of family ties (a side effect of the sexual revolution) and who no longer had a deep belief in karma or God's will in your life are the ones vulerable to the proselytizing pro death organizations (that are often well funded by the usual suspects. Place conspiracy theory here).

Sigh

Dr. Campbell discusses the covid jab lies (again) but they also discuss euthanasia.

yes, depressing.

Back in the 1990s I researched the ethical literature for a paper on this trend in medical ethics. Actually what was going on was three trends: 

1:Limiting medical care for those with poor quality of life, 

2: insisting that a person is not a person unless they meet the criteria for personhood, and

3: eliminating the idea of a religious viewpoint in medical ethics. This weakens the idea that we are responsible for our neighbor, because it is one of those things the deity thinks we should do.

I was getting a bit paranoid about all of this, until Pope John Paul II wrote an encyclical that noted the same thing: follow the money. The encyclical is easy to read, and covers all the trends behind what he calls the cultures of death, but one of the arguments is that medicine harms people by keeping them alive too long. 

There is a nuance on refusing extraordinary treatment that goes back a couple of centuries in the church, and blurring the line is also part of the pro euthanasia rhetoric.

That is why JP2 also inculdes the reminder that

It needs to be determined whether the means of treatment available are objectively proportionate to the prospects for improvement. To forego extraordinary or disproportionate means is not the equivalent of suicide or euthanasia; it rather expresses acceptance of the human condition in the face of death.

This distinction is important:  often naive pro life types fail to see the difference and think you have to do everything available. But also with minorities who distrust the medical establishment because racism: (no not paranoia: the Tuskegee experiment, the Red Lake Strep study, the Oklahoma city non treatment protocol for meningocoels all come to mind).

Ironically, Tucker Carlson got it right. It's about a world view that thinks there is a God and alas a lot of American trends are about the ME ME ME idea of narcissistic egotism.

No I have never watched him: I live in the Philippines and rarely watch the inane discussions on CNN or Fox on our cable TV, although I do watch local ANC news and the BBC when I need to find out what is going on.

Traditionally the Catholic church has stood in the way of these societal planners to eliminate useless eaters.

But now, I fear it will be the next tree to fall as anti Pope Francis destroys the Catholic church

He does this by saying the good stuff while letting those around him say heresy and immoral acts are okay.. these ideas are then quoted and pushed in the MSM, and if they get pushback by bishops etc. the issue is either ignored, or you are gaslighted by other officials saying they didn't say that.

At the same time the Vatican is placing hand picked members, including lay people, into those Synodality meetings, and even the Bishops meetings, and then they will change things as planned, and say it was because of the inspiration of the "holy spirit". 

And if you believe that the spirit behind this is the Third person of the Blessed Trinity, then  I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.

The latest slow train wreck has been the reforming of a Vatican think tank on life issues: PopeFrancis has included non Catholics who oppose traditional Christian morals, and the latest is that the head of this think tank has just said killing grandmom is okay because it is a multicultural society and gee, don't expect the Catholics to oppose murder.

This caused quite a few Catholics to say: WTF are you saying? So the obedient Catholic press office is busy gaslighting you on what he said.

This is the same guy who told the American bishops to stop pushing abortion as an issue. Figures.

But of course, this is how things are done by the Pope: 

Push confusion, don't correct those who push the "reform", and then when a lot of bishops object, sneak the idea into official documents that are so wordy and long and poorly written that it isn't noticed at first.

A couple years ago, the agenda was to allow people in irregular marriages to receive the sacraments. 
But someone alerted the more naive bishops of what was going on, so they rejected the idea.

And when the synod rejected it, they took that part out of their already written report, but put it in an overlooked footnote, and when someone asked Pope Francis was that okay, he essentially said, hey it's just a little bread and wine.

It's only bread and wine? As Flannery O'Connor sarcastically quipped when told that the Eucharist, which Catholics believe is the body and blood of Christ, was merely a symbol:

 I then said, in a very shaky voice, ‘Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.’ That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that 

it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.

One sees a similar trend about pushing the legalization of homosexual acts by reformers via the so called synod on synodality: We will have to change church law because the german bishops decided we have to agree with them.

Never mind whtn the Pope tried to hint of this in a recent African trip, he was told this was something that was not welcomed in Africa,

My point is that the main voice of morality in the world is being corrupted at a time when the NWO is pushing a lot of scary ideas.

Sigh.

to paraphrase Archy  Bunker: Boy we could use a man like Bishop Von Galen again.

Family news: fiesta time

 Kuya is at the harvest. 

Joy is supervising and teaching agribusiness skills in Bulacan.

Here, the cousins are visiting for town fiesta which is Sunday: the Divina Pastora, a madonna of Spanish origin of Mary the holy shepherdess. 

A big fiesta.

Story here.

but of course fiesta means everyone comes home for family reunions.

since covid is no longer a problem, the relatives are here visiting. Alas, I am still pretty well home bound post dengue fever, so I will probably just say hi and skip the parties.

But parties and fiestas are part of the cultural goodness of the Philippines

Parties. And food. And bonding with relatives by eating together.

Yum. Lechon.

Triggered by Mother's day (it's the baby stupid)

 Instapundit notes that some companies are trying to eliminate Mother's day.

HotAir notesl the real truth about such emails: We erase them without reading them.

This is ironic in many ways, not the least of which is that a lot of us find going to our email boxes because facing 20,082 unread emails–not including what wound up in “Junk,” is “difficult,” “challenging,” and “sensitive.” Personally, I would be happy if they sent me fewer marketing emails.

But why the push? This not just that they are deciding to cancel a beloved holiday if mentioning upsets you, but because many of these twitter threads use the exact same language, suggesting that it part of an organized campaign.

twitter thread here.

Something very strange is happening with Big Corporations. Out of nowhere, @kroger owned @FrysFoodStores, @KayJewelers, @Hallmark, and now @DoorDash have all sent "Opt out of #MothersDay" emails to their customer base. This is not organic.

This reeks of anti-family activists. pic.twitter.com/4pkKqGUooW

— Arizona Informer (@AZInformer) April 23, 2023

hmm... More here:

 

>>>>one twitter thread blames a waPo columnist for starting this trend, because she tweeted she just lost her mother and these ads reminded her of that sad event. 

https://t.co/Uq4NKsg9x6

— Arizona Informer (@AZInformer) April 24, 2023

So sympathies to this lady...but there are not a lot of people who lost their mothers in the last few months, so why do this for a small number of these customers when anyone with a lick of sense (or who have friends that are normal) will be pissed at you for doing this?

these things take time to plan, and  notice they use almost the same wording in these tweets?

Yup. This was planned: And I suspect like the pushing of transgender people and other family unfriendly actions, it was pushed from above by activists, not by their customer base.

 Coincidence? 

So who is triggered by Mother's day? 

Well, those who lost their mothers recently and are mourning them.

Those who hate their mothers.

Some women who have a difficult relationships with their mother? That is again a problem that happens with teenagers, and yes there are toxic mothers (my husband's ex is a prime example of this) but most people over the age of 30 learn to live with them and even care for them, (and learn to ignore the toxic mothers who manipulate them instead of getting hysterical about mother's day).

but I hate to say this, but why Mother's day triggers many of the feminist upper middle class white women (aka Karens) is this: 

Mother's day reminds them of the missing baby.

Some women lost their children through miscarriage, accident or disease.

They might be triggered because they mourn their lost child.

And some waited too long to have a baby, and then faced the hurdles of infertility treatment? And when that failed, they are triggered by the sight of a baby, especially one with a happy mother.

But you know, these reminders are part of the mourning process, and in the long run help people to heal.

So why this hatred of Mother's day (and that is what this is hatred of the normal, hatred of the family): these trends are the same ones behind the gender wars being fought in the USA.

and you know who these activists consider the enemy:

 But there is a darker reason for some women to hate motherhood:

because mother's day reminds them that they aborted their children. And alas there are more of these ladies than those in these other categories.

And despite all the talk of abortion being good, and a free choice, or having no emotional effects on the mother, the dirty little secret is that often the woman was forced into this by those around her, and often she laments her abortion and mourns her child that was never born.

Sigh.

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

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