Merry Christmas

  

Red one: Superheros save Santa? Duh

if you have two hours to waste there are worse ways to do it than watching Red One, a silly action packed/CGI filled film about the head E.L.F. and a hacker saving Santa, who was kidnapped by Gryla, the evil witch of anti Christmas, who wants to save the world by getting rid of everyone on Santa's naughty list.

caution: Too much cartoonish violence for young kids but Rock and Chris Evans play the story straight (not tongue in cheek), and if you can ignore the absurdity of the North Pole as a super Amazon store that delivers all your present on time it sort of makes sense.

Uh, did Santa have computers in the third century Turkey, where the original St Nicholas lived? 

or did he get them when the Yanks evolved the Dutch legend into Santa Claus?

the traditional Santa Claus was first depicted as a jolly man (not a bishop) when Thomas Nast drew a picture of him in 1863, based on the poem Twas the Night before Christmas, published in 1823.

a lot of the Nordic mythological creatures associated with the Christmas season are in the film Red One.

for example, there is Krampus, which the film suggests was Nick's brother, based on the monster who travels with the bishop St Nicholas in Austria.

But I was not familiar with GRYLA, who comes from Icelandic folklore.

,,,,

Atlas Obacura has a list of the monsters of Christmas

As for Santa: yes, there was a real bishop named Nicolas, who was famous for his charity to the poor.

his Wikipedia page notes he is the patron saint of

 sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers, toymakers, unmarried people, and students in various cities and countries around Europe.

and so how did he evolve into Santa Claus? 

His reputation evolved among the pious, as was common for early Christian saints, and his legendary habit of secret gift-giving gave rise to the folklore of Santa Claus ("Saint Nick") through Sinterklaas.

By the way, it was recently  reported that archeologists found his tomb.

drones

 

DOGE vs pork: The drama is over

 I follow US politics but not in depth since I have a life with other interests.

But I did check the debate about the latest bill on twitter, and I actually tweeted against the part that funded gain of function research (what was that doing in the bill?).

The MSM is lamenting that Musk stopped the bill, and that billionaires shouldn't boss Yanks around that way (except for Bezos, Zuckerburg and all the Soros funded NGOS).

I am old enough to remember when a similar huge bill was passed and Nancy Pelosi said we will have to pass it to find what is in it.

and this bill was originally 1400 pages long, so who had time to read the whole dang thing? It sounded like the regular kabuki politics: lots of pork hidden inside the bill and if you didn't vote for it you were killing kids or somethings else which was in the bill (while no one was talking about the pork or controversial parts in public because hey, who had time to read the dang thing when Congress was given 24 hours to vote for it, and the MSM didn't read it either or tell us what was in it).

Enter DOGE.

Uh, Vivek did read it: presumably with the help of AI. And then the questionable parts that had nothing to do with a budget were tweeted out by Musk and there was a twitterstorm and lots of folks who trusted Musk not to lie about what was in the bill contacted their congressperson.

Fast forward: I'm not sure of the details but here are the tweets: apparently they did pass a bill, and it did include disaster relief for the hurricane/flood victims of Appalachia.

🚨 #BREAKING: The third spending bill has PASSED the House of Representatives, with Democrat support

A government shutdown has been avoided.

This bill was 118 pages. Down from over 1,500 pages.

𝕏 may have cut the pork out of this bill, but now we must get to work cutting the… pic.twitter.com/kwNmjKVmGk

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) December 20, 2024

....

plastic money

 a couple of months ago, we started getting plastic 1000 peso notes. They don't fold as well as the paper ones, but in a hot humid climate the paper notes do get worn out quickly. 

So now they plan to replace the smaller notes with plasticized money.

yes we are starting to use apps on the cellphones to pay for things at the malls and high end restaurants and fast food outlets.

Me? I sometimes use my credit card on line or at the mall etc. but since we buy locally it's easier to use cash.

Yum. time for parties and family meals

nine days before Christmas starts the custom to go to mass early in the morning in preparation to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Lolo would attend but it was too early for me.

lots of young people attend, and afterward the young folk walk to the city plaza to buy breakfast (from Jolibee or at the locak kiosks) and flirt with each other.

Hence this commercial:

lots of folks travel home for the holiday (either from the city to their native towns, or from overseas). So lots of Christmas parties, but the big one is the feast after midnight mass. In the Philippines, God is the Father, Jesus is Kuya (older brother) and Mama Mary is the mother. So just like we celebrate the birth of our children, we also celebrate the birth of baby Jesus. 

And how do Filipinos celebrate? Food and family.

Noche Buena is Christmas eve, when the feast is after midnight mass.

Hence this song

....

and in our town,the town plaza is decorated, as are the nearby streets. At night there are lots of people there enjoying themselves.

Here are some videos on Philippine food of the season:

 

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History lesson of the week: India: Not just important for spices but for ideas

Modern historians often stress world history that fill in the blanks of what happened in the past, including trade, ideas, technology, etc.  

Much of the emphasis is about China and the silk road, much of it because China is pushing the idea they are a noble civilization who ought to run the world like they did in the past.

The Arab world was involved in trade before the prophet (who was a spice trader).

but a lot of the histories tend now to leave out a vital piece of the history of world trade: India.  

Not just in spices which encouraged trade, but in the importance of ideas and religion:  

William Dalrymple unmasks a fascinating lens on ancient India as a profound and energetic hub in his new book, 'The Golden Road.' Exporting ideas, language, science, trade, knowledge, belief. Shaping, inflecting, changing the world.

\

book review of the Golden Road LINK.

Not my area of expertise, but another book for later reading.

Movie of the week

Before there was TopGun, there was this film that asked: What would happen if a modern aircraft carrier was at Pearl Harbor in 1941?

epic dogfight scene

:

Facts webpage has some trivia about the film: the USS Nimitz was the aircraft carrier in the film. And the film explores some philosophical questions": can or should you change the past?

the full movie is on various streaming services, or a low pixel version can be downloaded at internet archives.

The irony? from PearlHarbor org:

The Japanese hit and sank some of the ships, (sinking the USS Arizona, but not the more important aircraft carriers, which were at sea at the time)...

They also but ignored the important logistics of fielding a naval fleet.

they failed to pay any attention to other important assets. The dry docks in the harbor and the fuel depots were largely ignored by Japan’s assault force and both proved imperative in the relief, rescue, and repair efforts that followed.

Musical interlude of the day

 

Syria: will things get better?

So the murderous regime of Assad in Syria (supported by Russia and Iran) has fallen to rebels. That's the good news.

The bad news: the rebels leader and a lot of the soldiers are ISIS types, because although the revolution started with a middle class rebellion helped by Obama, the bad news is that the ISIS types among the rebels were the most ruthless, and took the revolution over...

Assad's atrocities were well known (Amnesty international reports here). So few are mourning his overthrow. But is this replacing the devil you know with the devil you don't know? And maybe worse (sort of like replacing the Shah of Iran with an Islamic state because the Shah jailed or exiled or killed the moderate opposition).

So those taking over promised they would let everyone live in peace. And they wouldn't lie, would they?

Uh, maybe... a lot of us suspect the ISIS which is a  Sunni radical faction that will take over and decide  to have an Islamicist state government that puts ladies in veils, and chases out the moderate Sunnis, the Shiites the Alawites, the Christians, the Kurds, and the Yazidis... 

The turmoil in the middle east is blamed on Bush II invading Iraq, but folks forget that there were a lot of atrocities in that country in the past three thousand years or so.

The Syrian civil war was an actual genocide. How many dead are we talking about?

Wikipedia says half a million dead, half of which are civilians, and 6 million refugees who fled to safer areas in Syria and another 6 million who fled the country.

Sigh

Trumpieboy says stay out of it, and I sort of agree, because these atrocities have been going on for centuries. and well known by those who pay attention to it. But the news tends to be reported mainly in human rights sites or religious news sites...so that I suspect few Yanks, especially the self righteous who are pushing Jewish hatred over Gaza are upset with the slow ethnic cleansing and massacres to local religious minorities, including the Christians.  ... but now of course both sides have access to the internet it's not like relying on   CNN who ignored Sadam's atrocities for years, and one can get both sides of the story to counter the present day Hamas propaganda machine that spews out stories against Israel that leaves out vital details like the bombs hidden in mosques and hospitals and exaggerates the casualties.

 

But today's battles have both ethnic and religious roots that go back 3000 years but made worse in the last 1000 years by  a strain in Islam that has been there for centuries and pops up on and off when those wanting power decide to weaponize those portions of the Koran to inspire their followers to kill their enemies.

No I don't know a lot about this. But let me relate a podcast that horrified me.

 the other day, I was listening to discussions by Tom Holland, who has a podcast that I follow on Youtube.

His latest book is about Roman and Christian influences on Western culture, but in one discussion he discusses the atrocities against the Yazidi by ISIS in Northern Iraq.

This is an excerpt from the Socrates and the City podcast: Fast forward to five minutes:

Sigh.

He is not exaggerating: 

 start by reading the UN report on the Yazidi massacres from ten years ago.

But it's not just Yazidis: The ethnic cleansing of the Iraqi Christian community and diaspora of the Christian Arabs never quite made the news, but is covered by Church news reports.

This report is from last year:

 

Wikipedia article here..

The local Christian community is worried of persecution and ethnic cleansing similar to what happened in Iraq after the fall of Saddam...

...

One hint on how dangerous war zones are is checking if the Filipino workers are fleeing...So far the Philippines is not evacuating the OFW from Syria, but merely says stay in safe areas.

But now the plans are to send home Syrian refugees from Europe ( 1 million in Germany alone) and Turkey (3 mlllion refuges) are making plans to return the Syrian refugees back to their homes, despite warnings that this move might be premature.

but there have been peace initiatives that might help stop the repeat cycles of violence: The Abraham accords by Trumpieboy and the initiatives of Pope Francis, both of which stress the commonality of the Abrahamic religions.

In my prayers...

A reminder to not believe everything is terrible

 The best scene in a Christmas movie is this opening scene:

that classic movie is probably too sentimental but is truer to life than most of the hatred we see all over the internet.

Turn up speakers and dance!

Time for a happy post.

 This is an iconic scene from the comedy Ferris Bueller's day off.

Turn up speakers and try not to dance.

.....

So how was it filmed?

Y Entertainment has details.

the parade scene was shot over two weekends — first at an actual parade, but the second merely as a start-from-scratch, on-location film shoot that required hundreds of extras.  

more trivia about the iconic scene here at Ranker:

The parade scene was filmed at Chicago's annual Von Steuben Day parade. Von Steuben Day is a German-American holiday honoring Baron Friedrich von Steuben. Von Steuben was a Prussian general who lent his aid to George Washington during the Revolutionary War....

 

... The second day of filming continued a week after the actual parade took place. The crew needed a large number of extras to convince audiences it was a full and authentic event rather than an empty movie set. The filmmakers asked radio stations to put out announcements for locals to appear in a John Hughes movie. Around 10,000 people reportedly showed up

and what about the dancing construction workers? That was spontaneous:

Construction workers and window washers can be spotted jamming out to Matthew Broderick's lip-synced rendition of "Twist and Shout." These were not choreographed dancers or extras hired to play a part - instead, they were just people going about their everyday jobs. When they noticed the parade and heard the music, they joined in with everyone else. Hughes asked camera operators to film them alongside the actors and extras.

December 8th a day that will live in Infamy.

No, I didn't get the quote wrong:

 Today is Dec 8 in the Philippines, and for us, it is the day that the Japanese attacked Manila. 

MacArthur was expecting an attack, which is why he asked for the New Mexico Nat Guard unit to man anti aircraft units. That unit by the way was multicultural before multiculturalism became PC, with Navajos, Apaches, Mexican Americans, cowboys, miners, etc.

 

They joined the local Philippines Scouts, and both groups fought well, and many ended up as POWs after the Bataan Death march. 

American films rarely remember the Philippine people in their history books, alas. But although most locals don't want to be seen as obeying the USA, and often see themselves as an ant caught between the fight of two elephants, nevertheless, Americans are popular, whereas China is seen as an aggressor, and there is a lot of dislike on a personal level of the local Chinese population (who are seen as monopolizing the economy). 

China's continued aggression in the West Philippine sea doesn't help this attitude:

Something to remember the next time people complain that the US should let China take over the West Philippine sea and not help the Philippines oppose their aggression.

Viruses: We haz them

 Scientific American news article:

After years of rumours that the virus that causes COVID-19 escaped from a laboratory in China, the virologist at the centre of the claims has presented data on dozens of new coronaviruses collected from bats in southern China. At a conference in Japan this week, Shi Zhengli, a specialist on bat coronaviruses, reported that none of the viruses stored in her freezers are the most recent ancestors of the virus SARS-CoV-2.

so who did the investigation? Yup. the good lady herself, not a neutral third party from an outside and trusted not to cover it up.

And of course scientists never lie, do they?

the SciAm article does admit:

The latest analysis, which has not been peer reviewed, (italics mine) includes data from the whole genomes of 56 new betacoronaviruses, the broad group to which SARS-CoV-2 belongs, as well as some partial sequences. All the viruses were collected between 2004 and 2021.

uh collected by whom? The ones who run the lab of course. And since the collections were collected before 2021, but not examined until recently, there was plenty of time to destroy the evidence. But never mind. Don't question the science (/sarcasm) 

“We didn’t find any new sequences which are more closely related to SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2,” said Shi, in a pre-recorded presentation at the conference, Preparing for the Next Pandemic: Evolution, Pathogenesis and Virology of Coronaviruses, in Awaji, Japan, on 4 December.

italics mine. Hmm... I thought the next pandemic was supposed to be bird flu but the few cases reported in the USA only caused pink eye and mild flu like symptoms. 

 The good news (not just for her but for Fauci and EcoHealth) is that this seems to be the experts pushing back to cover their posteriors before Dr Jay takes over the NIH.

but Dr Batflulady was not punished for the leak: Indeed, the article notes:

Earlier this year, Shi moved from the WIV to the Guangzhou Laboratory, a newly established national research institute for infectious diseases.

Hmmm...part of a psyop? 

JoeRogan discussed this a few days ago:

discussing censorship... fast forward to 1:20 minutes

 

and waiting in the wings: A new UN health treaty that will let the WHO order every country in the world to obey them.

True. this was turned down a month or so ago but what happens is that those who want to pass it will just rewrite it a bit and then ask for another vote.

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everyone is predicting a new epidemic.

Well, epidemics happen every so often. What I worry about as a physician is that when the experts exaggerate the danger of an epidemic to expand their power, what happens is that people lose their trust in the system. 

Sort of like what happened here in the Philippines after the debacle of the Dengue vaccine that caused some children to die: The result was parents stopped all immunizations for their kids, and in the next few years we had over 600 kids die of measles. 

Like the story of the boy who cried wolf, the danger is that if a really bad germ gets lose, no one will believe you.

so I keep reading about the next big epidemic that will kill us, except that the warning seems out of proportion to the real risk.

 So far, bird flu hasn't lived up to the hype, and even your naive Christian grandmother knows MPox doesn't spread easily except via naughty sex practices.

So what else is out there?

Uh Oh: 

There is a new virus in the Congo: 

Why are all the deaths of young folk? This suggests that older folks had immunity from past infections.

developing....

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and Psyops are not new: Trivia fact: Paul Linebarger, aka science fiction writer Cordwainer Smith, has a book discussing psychological warfare, written after WWII...

Ignoring the real epidemic

 From the CDC:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Developing....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Backstory:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Discussing the reality of evil

 I thought this would be about the psychology of religion, but it starts with the discussion of evil.

Freedom of speech: why some hate Trump's selections

 this is from 3 years ago and explains why Nunes and Patel are feared.

Nunes was the point man in Congress, but congress investigates but can't get the evidence or do anything about bad stuff?

here is a follow up from two months ago:

Nunes got destroyed with a bimbo eruption problem, but presumably Patel will also be threatened.

this spying must be going on today because one other of Trump's proposed selections is getting a full court press trying to destroy him that includes a private email from his mother from eight years ago telling him to calm down.

On Wednesday, Pete Hegseth’s mother accused the Times of making “threats” by calling about its story on an email she had sent to her son six years earlier that criticized his treatment of women. Penelope Hegseth sought and received an interview on Fox News Channel to support her son, whose confirmation chances are threatened by a series of damaging stories about his personal conduct. At one point, she said she wanted to directly tell President-elect Trump that her son “is not that man he was seven years ago.”

So who hacked his private email. Isn't this a crime?

and who released this email to the mainstream media? If an anonymous person tried this, the reporter would ignore it. So one suspects the one who leaked the email had known connections either to the government or to a large organization who felt they were above the law.

Alas even while these illegal misuse of government power for political reasons is being brought to light, the manipulations continue.

and it's not just email: You might find you can't open a bank account or find that your bank account is canceled.

The first happened to Melania Trump 

But the second, about canceling the bank accounts of Faith related organizations.: as CBN reported last year:

An increasing number of Christian and conservative organizations say they're being 'de-banked.' Accounts are closed, payment processors are turned off, or some are placed on a donor 'blacklist.' Banking and financial services have become weaponized. Christian and conservative groups labeled 'high risk' can be denied financial services, and it's happening under the cover of federal banking laws.

the article sites several small organizations, but this one, the National foundation for religious freedom, I am familiar with because they fight for religious freedom.

Senator Brownbacks article on what happened LINK

But abuses to stop freedom of speech and freedom of religion go beyond banks worried about these organizations laundering money etc. which of course happens (faith based organizations are naive and tend to be targets for fraudsters. Heck, the infiltration of the Mafia into the Vatican banks has been an ongoing story for 100 years.)

But it goes beyond banks: Catholic newspaper NCRegister, article from last week on the Biden's push against religious organizations and individual people of faith.

So where do you get the news? A lot has been published about Trumpieboy going to Joe Rogan and how the takeback of Twitter to make it open to free speech has changed things. But religiously linked news organizations have followed the story too: CBN and NCRegister are Christian and Epoch news was started as a way to get out the news of China's persecution of the FalunGong and grew into a major source of news.

let the masters run the world

 when democracy means Oligarchy? video explains: start at 29 as he notes the international institutions are learning to cooperate to make a decent world...

I am familiar with the concept from taking a course in diplomacy in Africa during college. Without these institutions we ended up with World War I because no one was talking to each other.

On the other hand, he then talks about the NGOs who are now doing this stuff with money from the Governments or rich guys.

Factoid: Rappler was founded by Omidyar money to oppose Duterte.  (Omidyar money also helped manipulate the press to overthrow the pro Russian president of the Ukraine)...And when this was pointed out as illegal, she pushed the idea she was a martyr and given a nobel peace prize.

That is the backstory. The CIA was worried that Duterte would make nice with China. Duterte hated the CIA for their connection with one drug lord they got out of a jail where he was mayor. But Gloria tried to make nice with China but the free press here caught her in time, but hey she went to Georgetown with Bill Clinton. 

True China has lots of propaganda too. So does Russia. But when the US lies and gets caught, they simply increase the willingness of people to listen to the bad guys, and since there is no equivalent of twitter they can get away with lies more successfully.

Cross posting medical posts

 I have a medical  blog where I post about disease and public health. 

Here are some recent posts:

Memes and stuff post.

about how the pushback over medicalized tyranny in covid is now being rejected. Blame Trumpieboy. Biolab paranoia noted too.

Being a healer.

a lot of stuff is pushing doctors to be turned from treating the sick into preventing disease by becoming nagging authoritarians. This is discouraging the idea that we need to be compassionate to the sick

Latest cancer cure: FenBen and Ivermectin?

Dr Campbell is discussing and indeed there are papers suggesting this needs to be researched

Dr. Jay to the NIH.

most of the hype is going to RFK Jr, who is a bit of a nut job, but Dr Jay has the scientific background that makes him credible critic of the Covid lockdown etc.

NanoSpaghetti to the rescue

a new way to manufacture thin strands that could be used for various things.

another article on Fenben and Ivermectin.

In this and the later article I link to medical literature that explains the physiological reason why these cheap drugs could be repurposed for cancer and other diseases.

Oreos for high cholesterol

from the satire site Improbable research. Oreos will lower cholesterol for a small subgroup of people with high cholesterol

Is RFK Jr good or bad? just a tweet discussiong the stuff that maybe he got right., more here.

simple things that save lives. 

remembering the guy who invented

WHO Rehydration fluid for diarrhea.

  posts on Tuberculosis now and in history LINK LINK2   LINK3

Illegal gold mining in South Africa

ALJ report one: AlJ reports:“So far, more than 1,000 miners have surfaced and been arrested,” Ramaphosa said last week, calling the site in Stilfontein “a crime scene”. “Those in good health are detained and will be processed according to the law. Those who require medical care will be taken to hospital under police guard,” he said. Illegal gold mining is widespread in South Africa, a one-time mining giant. Thousands of people routinely search for gold deposits in abandoned mines that are no longer deemed viable or safe. More than $1bn is lost annually in revenue because of illegal mining, according to the government.