NDE's

US News article. with lots of examples and discussion.

seeing family members by the elderly and dying is not uncommon.

hallucinations are pathological (psychotic patients hear voices, but seeing visions is usually organic, i.e. drugs or brain damage).

However, normal people have such experience too.

The AmerIndian patients said this was being in contact with "The other side"... and we held ceremonies periodically in our nursing home to keep away the bad spirits that sometimes haunted them.

Some of this might be partly from drugs or isolation: my aunt used to enjoy visions of her family in the nursing home, and even talk to them: when my mom arrived, she would simply come back and be perfectly oriented to reality, so it was not a psychotic experience.

but how about people who are not dying?

Andrew Greeley, in one of his books, commented that he included a "throwaway" question about this in several of his social surveys and said five percent of people have such psychic visions, and most of them tested as mentally normal in the rest of the survey.

however, most folks stay quiet about these things, for fear of being crazy. However, the ones who have psychiatric problems are more open about it, which is why such experiences get a bad reputation.

Catholics consider most of these things as a vivid imagination. But of course God can work via dreams and imagination (and via speaking tongues or inner inspirations, i.e the small quiet voice of conscience and memory). In only a small percentage of cases are such phenomena supernatural: most are a variation of normal ways of perceiving things. (related to art and music creativity).

In some culture, these visions are seen as "real": and here the danger is pride before they decide to get followers to follow them (e.g. cults). The trick for doctors (and clergy) is to discern what is going on: good, harmless, or (in rare case) evil.

but the great majority of such happenings are just part of ordinary life.

yes. And often widows/widowers see or feel the presence of their deceased spouse.

RESULTS:
Overall, evidence suggests a strikingly high prevalence of PBHEs - ranging from 30% to 60% - among widowed subjects, giving consistence and legitimacy to these phenomena.

Via Instapundit, who comments:

This happened with my dad at the end.

My mom would have incidents of what would happen in the future, mainly as dreams.

Me, no. However, as a doc, if I got a bad feeling about someone, I found that I should pay attention to this. Instinct from experience? probably...

Human trafficking 101

The latest podcast from StrategyPage is on human trafficking. LINK

for fun and profit (and sex).

criminals and NGO's tra la.

if you go to the first link, there are also podcasts on the Philippines, nuclear weapons, NoKorea, Russia, and Iran in Syria.

update: A couple of books by Jim Dunnigan are available to borrow (free subscription) at internet archives.

Easy guide to the background of what is going on.

Drama of the week

An oldie but goodie from the BBC: Four parts but part one is here:


\



author's background HERE.

the book can be borrowed (free sign up) from internet archive: LINK

Mocking Trump? Too late

The hysterics in the UK are putting up a huge baloon of Trumpie as a baby having a tantrum, presumably to embarass him.

Except of course, that Trumpieboy, like the baby having the tantrum, will probably get his way.

I had to laugh: at his news conference, Trump pointed out that insisting the rich Europeans pay their share of defending themselves was not new: that President Obama told them the same thing.

So the press stories either imply Trump is a bully for telling Europe to pay their fair share, or (althernative fake news) saying: well Trump didn't do anything here, so if they do pay their fair share, it is thanks to Obama, not him.

Ridiculing Trum doesn't work well, of course.

A lot of Westerners laughed at the Chinese Trump as chicken.

The original "Trump Chicken" was actually put up in front of a mall in China, but westerners thought it was mocking him, proving the proud American elites are culturally illiterate.

You see, in Asia, it was the year of the fire rooster:

Rooster, not chicken. As in "fighting cock". Here, cockfighting is a major sport, and a lot of our neighbors have their fighting cocks outside under a small shelter so they can eat bugs etc. rather than keeping them in cages.

now, we don't have a leash law, so one would think that these chickens would soon be killed by stray dogs, but they aren't: Because they are very aggressive, and the dog would probably lose.

and in Asia, roosters also announce the dawn, so are seen as responsible, and of course, roosters are "alpha males" and like women. More on the personality of fire roosters here.

So when the snowflakes sought to embarass Trump with their rooster, they had it wrong: it was a compliment.

people (aka the MSM) all talk as if Trump had a "thin skin": but it's not that: He fights back, and like the Bronx kid he is, he fights dirty.

His tweets send educated "better dead than impolite" types up in arms, but the rest of us just laugh: they take him literally, and don't see the joke, or that by tweeting he gets his message out to ordinary folks past the babble of the network talking heads (both left and right).

so anyway, the baby trump isn't going to embarass him (although I wonder why it was allowed: Isn't it a hazard and a security threat? well, probably not as dangerous as a terrorist with a drone I guess).

Trump in the USA has been around for decades, and is well known to those who read the tabloid instead of the NYTimes.

And he is able to mock himself: Ann Althouse posted this on her blog, after posting her horror that there is going to be a "Green Acres" broadway play instead of something edgy, like praising the Marquis de Sade (the original #me too SOB... he tortured maids and other lower class women, but never mind).

yes, that's Trumpie boy.





rural uncoath hayseeds making fun of effete Europeans/ city folks has been a mainstay of American comedy since colonial days.

Giving away the Crimea and parts of the Philippines

I was watching part of Trumpieboy's news conference, and when they asked about the Crimea, he reminded them that it was President Obama who let Russia take over that area, and that they have invested millions of dollars into the area.

well, at least the Crimea was historically part of Russia.

But the Philippines was never part of China, and the West Philippine sea was never part of China, unless you mean that Chinese pirates who harassed, destroyed and captured slaves were part of China.

Obama also essentially let China take over the shoals in the West Philippine sea, because when they started their slow takeover, President Aquino was told by the USA not to try to stop them while they did their slow take over, but to take them to court.

(Slow takeover: first, put up barriers against our fishermen, then move in and harass them, then move in and dig up the sea bottom to build artificial islands, then militarize the islands).

So the courts decided in our favor: it is the anniversary of our winning of the court case, which occurred shortly after Duterte took over. Big deal. So what next? Should the tiny Philippines try to attack them to get them out? They now have airbases and weapons on those artificial islands.

Actually, VietNam has gone to war with China in the past over similar aggression: Viet Nam lost, but the message was sent.

But of course, VietNam was actually part of China once, and they remember that. This is the backstory of their ethnic cleansing of their Chinese ethnic population after the communists took over.

So on the two year anniversary, these banners were put up all over Manila: ABS-CBN:

Photo Credit: Ronald Gustilo
22 hours ago

heh.

But of course, the Philippines was never part of China, and the last time they Chinese tried to take over Luzon, it was by Chinese pirates, not their gov't. Like the Japanese, they figured the Filipinos would prefer another "Asian" overlord, but they were wrong: The locals helped the Spanish throw them out. (They threw out the British too, but that's another story).

however, throwing out a bunch of pirates is not the same as throwing out a nation with nuclear weapons and a couple million soldiers and lots of technology stolen from the west.

and the banners were not put up by China, but by the opposition, to troll Duterte who is trying to make nice with China, given the fact that it would take a war to get rid of them now.

One does doubt that Duterte will copy Indonesia's pogrom of their Chinese community, who was seen as a fifth column for communist takeover back in the 1960's, but the animosity is there, and with China using the Chinese diaspora community as part of their aggression against neighboring countries, things could get bad quickly.

The idea that "Peace for our time" will be achieved by giving the aggressor a little bit of land, and he will remain quiet didn't work for Chamberlain, and now Obama's policy of non aggression against a Chinese grab of islets belonging to the Philippines is showing the same thing.

And by the way: The Chinese moves are destroying the ecosystem in the areas, meaning it is destroying the Philippine fisherman's livelihood (while Chinse fishermen try to fish all over, overfishing the areas owned by other countries).

Inquirer story about that here(July 2018):

Filipino fishermen have accused their Chinese counterparts of destroying the coral reefs and harvesting giant clams at the shoal.

residential spokesperson Harry Roque has said the Philippines will not protest the destruction of the reefs and instead bring it up in the next bilateral discussion with China.

But Batongbacal said the Duterte administration should have a “more urgent effort” to change its policy “from a passive observer to being an active protector.” “We really need to protect the fishery habitat and fish stocks in the West Philippine Sea,” he said.

so who cares if China destroys the ecosystem?

Not the environmentalists, of course.

But one does wonder why Korea and Japan didn't notice that a militarized base on an artificial island in the West Philippine sea might enable China to block their shipping lanes.

You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free

from a comment on this essay about the newfangled Vatican religion.

Since plastic is the new “Enemy Number 1,” its use has been forbidden in all of the offices of the Dicastery: all employees and officials will now bring glass beverage containers from home, use only metal cutlery, and so forth.

what? Why not just encourage the use of chopsticks: either "green" ones from bamboo, or the reusable ones.

And since Catholics are by nature missionaries, the intention [of the Dicastery] is to extend this initiative to all of the Vatican offices. But that’s not all: because of their infinite desire for the good, the Secretary of the Dicastery has also announced the objective of becoming “carbon neutral,” or neutral from the point of view of carbon anhydride emissions which – according to the theory which sees human activity as the primary cause of climate change – are alleged to be the cause of global warming.

So you mean they will cut off their airconditioning in those hot Roman summers?

The Pope says they don't need airconditioning, but a lot of Asians beg to differ. Luckily they aren't Catholic....

the Economist: Half the airconditioners used today are in Asia.

And here in the rural Philippines, the local stores are selling lots of them: local price lists starts at 8000 pesos for a small one.

Yes, the minimum wage is 300 pesos a day, but remember: Lots of people are now middle class, and often money from OFW is used to upgrade their houses: concrete houses that won't be eaten by termites, LPG stoves, televisions/DVD player, and of course cellphones are now common. But the middle class is starting to buy wash machines and airconditioners as they move out of poverty.

This article say China is buying a lot of them, but  but it's okay: They set the temperature to higher than those dang Americans who are "addicted" to lower temperatures.. Duh. (but not mentioned is the reality: You don't run the Aircon that low because the price of electricity is too high to stay really cool. For example, I turn mine on when it hits 85).

---------------
another related item:

The Federalist checks out the screaming headlines that Trumpie boy hates breast feeding.

my take here.

again, the problem is modernity and complex. Breast feeding is lifesaving in poor rural villages, where other sources of protein for children is unavailable.

But things are changing: And the world is getting more urban and richer.

Presumably the critics see all third world women as slaves to be forced into the traditional lives (which is the real basis for the modern feminist screed the Handmaid's tale: Only good for breeding and feeding.)

No, I haven't seen the TV screed, but from the descriptions it sounds more like a distortion of the problems women faced in poor countries where dire poverty (not the evil patriarchy) gave them little "freedom" if they wanted to eat.

again, without seeing modernity and the economic improvements of the last 50 years, Trumpieboy's arguments make sense for the increasingly common urban middle class woman in the third world, who now can decide to remain single, or limit their kids to 2 or 3, or to run a business but need "Yaya s" and milk formula to raise the kids.

Dogs at work

Stories behind the hyped headlines

StrategyPage has an article about Syria: about the implications of the 5 million refugees (mainly Sunni) and how this is changing the face of the Middle East in nearby countries.

for example, it could lead to another civil war in Lebanon,
and about why most nearby countries want the Iranians gone.

For later reading.

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

SP also has an article about China's attempted take over of the sea routes, not just by aggressive take over of the shoals in the West Philippine sea, but by "lending" poor countries money to upgrade their port facilities, and then taking these ports over when those countries can't pay back the loans.



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

yes, your smart TV is spying on you.

But hey, if you have a Chinese cellphone, that has spyware in it so they can watch your moves.

The Chinese surveillenace of their people in cities makes London look like a wimp.

SP has had a couple of articles noting this "backdoor" spyware has made the US military wary of Chinese cellphones and computers, but the latest report is that the quadricopters now being used says the brass is worried these also might also be vulnerable to Chinese control.

Don't ask me: I don't have a cellphone.

but my Chinese made computer did have spyware on it, and when someone found that out and it got publicized we removed it.

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

heh. Trump pardoned ranchers who were framed by the FBI.

not in the article: The judge threw the case out of court a couple months ago

Navarro rebuked federal prosecutors — using the words "flagrant" and "reckless" to describe how they withheld evidence from the defense — before saying "that the universal sense of justice has been violated" and dismissing the charges.

heh. So while the MSM is hyperventilating about the newest SC nominee who might actually follow the law instead of making up law by fiat, Trumpie boy sent a clear message to the people in the west who are mad at aggressive gov't land grabs, while also giving a finger to aggressive prosecutors who break the law to get their man.

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

Uh, build the wall?

NPR.(May 2018) notes that Mexico has a border problem with Central America, and enforces the law sometimes.

Rather than amassing troops on its border with Guatemala, Mexico stations migration agents, local and federal police, soldiers and marines to create a kind of containment zone in Chiapas state. With roving checkpoints and raids, Mexican migration agents have formed a formidable deportation force. Since the Southern Border Plan launched, Mexico has deported more than half a million Central Americans, including almost 82,000 last year, according to data from Mexico's Interior Department. Since 2015, Mexico has deported more Central Americans annually than U.S. authorities have, in some years more than twice as many.

LINK:(Crisis Group.org, May 2018)

Kidnappings have soared across the south since 2015. Not only are the border states now the main conduit for cocaine trafficked from Colombia’s Pacific coast, but violence is fuelled by the fragmentation of the once dominant Zetas and the Sinaloa Cartel, combined with the rise of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the spread to southern Mexico of Central American street gangs, notably the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13).

The proliferation of cartels and gangs has intensified turf battles over protection rackets. Long the victims of crime while travelling north, Central Americans must now run an extended gauntlet of criminal organisations ready to kidnap, physically and sexually abuse or kill them. Gangs have even staged raids on migrant shelters.

Yet, in many border towns, locals perceive Central Americans themselves as responsible for the rise in crime, prompting a backlash, including calls for southern Mexico to build a wall of its own. Refugees and migrants face increasing discrimination and are often trapped between erratic state institutions, predatory criminals and alarmed locals.

the answer is, of course, controlled immigration, but never mind.

the best answer is to actually fight the criminals and make it safe for people to stay home, but hey, when Duterte does that, the internaional SJW get into a tizzy and try to make him out a monster.

but it worked in Colombia, so it could also work here.

And the Diplomad2.0 blog says Mexico's newly elected president is a leftist/populist who has links with Mayor Guilliani.

--------------------------------
related item: Border control agents in New England? Yup. to catch criminals and drug smugglers.

and not just drugs: one of these agents, a lowly grandmother, saved the lives of thousands when Customs agent Diana Dean thought he was acting suspicious so searched the car, and stopped the Milleneum bomber from coming into the USA.

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

Israel is planning to go to the Moon.

the geeks behind this were inspired by the Lunar X prize.

The project began when young engineers — Yariv Bash, Kfir Damari and Yonatan Winetraub — decided to build a spacecraft and take part in the Lunar Xprize competition sponsored by Google, which originally included a $20 million prize for the first group of contestants to land an unmanned spacecraft on the moon.

and yes, Elon Musk's SpaceX is also mentioned.

Place Mel Brooks joke here:

Good news:

The boys from the cave have all been rescued.

and the article explains the origin of the different animals: They represent the individuals and countries who sent help.

from the facebook site of the Thai Navy Seals:

Typhoon update

There is a slow moving but huge typhoon 300 miles off the east coast that has been bringing rain and thunderstorms here for the past 2 days..

Latest report is for more heavy rain. but the typhoon's winds are weakening and it is not expected to hit us: just flooding due to "enhanced monsoon rains".

it's been overcast and rain on and off for the last few days, but so far so good.

I just got back from shopping: mainly for snacks and coffee for all of us, plus soap and cleaning stuff for our house, i.e. stuff not covered in the cook's budget.

Conspiracy theories

The BBC talk show yesterday on our tv was lamenting about Trumpieboy daring to tell Europe to pay for their own defense.

The broad in charge of the panel spouted all the anti Trump talking points, and essentially said they should ignore him because it will be business as usual after the next election.

Actually, their snotty anti American bias is not as bad as when Reagan was president (I lived in Africa and we got the news via the BBC shortwave). Reagan was a stupid cowboy who was going to start World War III.

Only one person mildly tried to explain American politics to her, but didn't do it forcibly.

Attention BBC:  a lot of Americans think: Why should I pay my hard earned money to keep you rich snotty European elites safe when you won't defend themselves?

And the isolationist feeling in America didn't start with Trumpieboy: President Obama was popular because he was also removing troops from overseas and told them to pay for their own defense. (UKtelegraph2016):

Mr Obama warned that states are failing to pay their “full share” of spending two per cent of GDP on the military. “I’ll be honest, sometimes Europe has been complacent about its own defence,” he said. 

But never mind. Must push memes.

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

The Federalist pushes back against the meme that Americans are losing their religion, and actually has the hard data from Harvard to prove it. pdf

what is happening is that the lukewarm are no longer going to church, but the believers are leaving lukewarm churches and going to churches where people actually believe and practice their faith.

don't tell the Pope this: He actually thinks his newfangled episcopal lite church is the way of the future.

Mainline churches are tanking... hemorrhaging members in startling numbers, but many of those folks are not leaving Christianity. They are simply going elsewhere...

The percentage of Americans who attend church more than once a week, pray daily, and accept the Bible as wholly reliable and deeply instructive to their lives has remained absolutely, steel-bar constant for the last 50 years or more, right up to today. These authors describe this continuity as “patently persistent.”

----------------------
related item: Magister has a long article on another theologian who blasts the Pope's initiatives, including pointing out the shennanigans he used to push "change".

one thing is clear: that a large majority of the fathers had not developed the conviction to change the traditional discipline....

But - here is another small step - they drafted formulas of an indefinite tone that, while not providing for access to the sacraments, changed the atmosphere so to speak.

Thus the “non-opposition” to those hesitant formulas (which had trouble getting two thirds of the votes) was enough to allow another subsequent small step: a couple of ambiguous little footnotes in “Amoris Laetitia,” which do not affirm or deny but hint at a certain direction.

This further passage smashed the interpretive boundaries, until in the autumn of 2017 - another step - there came the pope’s official approval of the “Criteria” of the bishops of the region of Buenos Aires on chapter VIII of “Amoris Laetitia.”

But these criteria, if one is honest, are not a simple interpretation of “Amoris Laetitia.” They add and say things that are not to be found in “Amoris Laetitia” and that, above all, had never been approved at the synods and never would have been. […]

and this, of course, is just step one of the agenda to shift the Church  from being the bride of Christ proclaiming the good news, into becoming a NGO doing social work. and those groups pushing the PC agenda are organized, and funded by the new PC Francis loving bishops in the US. (if you read the link, notice the utopian marxist language used).

In effect, the Catholic church is in real danger of a schism, but the MSM cheerleaders won't mention this, or notice that this weakness in moral teachings are the reason behind the huge shift of Catholics in South American and the Philippines away from a church that pushes the green agenda/NWO/liberation theology, into evangelical churches that push actual Christian beliefs.

this is not new: Mother Angelica pushed back on this agenda in 1993.



Sorry if this bores you, but a schism in the church has a lot of geopolitical implications.

and the usual suspects are worried that it isn't fast enough.

heck the daily beast, a publication founded by a lady who lamented that if she moved out of NYC she might have to meet Christians (presumably she didn't see the invisible men and women around here: you know, the cops, cleaning ladies, nurses, clerks etc. who live in that city and attend chuch).
Now they laments that there are some believing Catholics around that are a big danger to America. 
Al Smith, call your office.

Conspiracy theory on the NWO planned takeover of the church. Yes, it's from a conservative Catholic site, but the speech was given by the former president of the Vatican bank.

he even dares to name names. NSSM200 anyone?

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

update: Father Z detects a conspiracy. or at least connections of Pope Francis with some very troubling people.

And he links to this troubling article on Catholic bioethics.

Many of Francis’ public statements on bioethics, especially as developed in Evangelii Gaudium, appear to adopt a weak postmodern position; that is, a position that avoids directly underscoring an objectively true moral-theological position.

Such a “weak theology” does not require Roman Catholicism to confront secular bioethics directly, much less to convert the world to Christ. This short paper outlines the dramatic change in framing context that Pope Francis proposes for Roman Catholic theology, which will also subtly but substantially change the character of Roman Catholic bioethical concerns. 

hmm...
----------------------------------

the Manafort kerfuffle is about smearing Trumpieboy, but the actual thing he is charged with predates Trump's run for the president of course.

so who is the "hapsburg group" and why were they bribed?

He was lobbying for a pro Russian president of the Ukraine, and paying bigshots in the European establishment to help.

I am not up on this, because I have a life, but you know, to us ordinary peons, 2 million Euros is a lot of loot.

 and whoops this conspiracy site got the memo that released some of the names of bigshots who took the loot.
---------------------------

Four more boys out

CBS story here.

UKGuardian

or as the Bangkok Post puts it: Two days, eight Boars. (the boy's team was named the Wild Boars).

'Two days, eight boars'

BANGKOK POST AND AGENCIES

video Four more boys are safely brought out of Tham Luang and sent to hospital shortly before PM Prayut arrives in Chiang Rai 'to boost morale'. update

Hello Bishops!

Duterte, who has cursed out the Pope, the Catholic bishops, and even said he didn't believe in God, told the bishops to get their own house in order before they pointed fingers at him.

He's trolling them, of course, for their hypocrisy

So yesterday, 18 of them had a big and very public meeting with ex President Arroyo of "Hello Garci" fame.

Wikipedia on Hello Garci.

GMA (2008): Corruption scandals under GMA cost the Philippines 7.3 billion pesos.

In a statement, IBON said with six corruption scandals so far, including the $329.48-million ZTE broadband network scam, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has become the most corrupt president the country has ever had. ...

Other scandals under the Arroyo administration were the P728-million fertilizer scam, the Jose Pidal bank accounts, the Northrail project, the $14-million IMPSA power plant project, the P1.3-billion poll automation project, and the Macapagal Boulevard project.

Inquirer (2011) lists various scandals: including some missed from the previous post.

the appearance of bishops socializing with powerful politicians is not limited to dining with Gloria, alas.

and  the bishops assure the president they are not trying to destablize the government.

The bishops were pushing back against a statement by Pastor Saycon, a member of the government’s dialogue panel with religious groups, that he was not discounting the possibility that the Catholic Church could be used to destabilize the Duterte administration.

Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1005399/no-destabilization-plot-say-bishops#ixzz5Knp2G35Z Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook

Duterte plans to meet with a representative of the bishops to make nice, so the story is ongoing.

but he is promising a "moratorium" on his tirades.

Other Asian news

The big news is the rescue of the boys in the cave in Thailand.

Four out so far.

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


In Japan, heavy rain caused flooding, landslides and the evacuation of over a million people. LINK2



in our prayers.

Trolling the church (Duterte strikes again)

Duterte quipped if there is a god, prove it.

The press, especially the establishment press in the USA etc. jumped on it: Blasphemy!

but of course, he is merely trolling them, and hinting at their hypocrisy.

They are trying to separate Duterte's lower and middle class supporters from backing him, of course.

The latest scandal here is the assassination of a couple of officials, some in our area.

Nothing new with this: being a politicians here is always risky, since political violence is alas common.

But the latest shootings are a bit suspicious: the opposition is pointing to Duterte's war on drug dealers and "dirty Harry" type killings of those who help them but will never be convicted due to a slow judicial system, but now the suspicion is that maybe it is indeed a plot to destabilize him. This (pro business) Manila Bulletin article points fingers at the NPA.

One was a rifle shot from a distance by a sniper, meaning someone trained to shoot, which is why a lot of folks point to a hit squad, probably ex military. But of course, the NPA, which has been sort of decimated in recent years, has a lot of their unemployed ex members who will kill for money. And of course, a lot of fired crooked cops also have that expertise and need money.

However, the usual way to kill the person who dissed you, or whose job you want, is a drive by shooting from a motorcycle rider, so the sniper hit was unusual and raises eyebrows: low level thugs don't have this type of skill.

but of course, even if you find the killings had nothing to do with vigilantes against drugs (two of the officials had no known drug links), Duterte will be blamed because his drug war caused a "culture of lawlessness"....and like the US Democrats, they figure if the cops stop killing bad guys, sweetness and light will break out.

Sen. Bam Aquino said the assassination of Lubigan showed the extent to which violence had become the norm.
“For violence to stop, the government must stop using force. If they keep using violence as the solution to the country’s problems, our society will not be peaceful and safe,” Aquino said.

Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1008295/killings-create-climate-of-lawlessness-lp#ixzz5KiIlfuUu Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook

As for Duterte's "blasphemy": He is trolling the Catholic bishops of course, telling them to stay out of politics or at least get their own house in order.

The bishops here "found their voice" condemning the drug killings and reaped praise from the international press, who usually hates them for opposing abortion.

But Duterte is not amused:

Criticisms like this from the Catholic Church are something that Duterte does not relish. He blasted priests in the past for their inaction on the country's drug problem and for their supposed "hypocrisy." 

heh: he must have read Jordan Peterson. (clean your room bucko)

in the meanwhile, only a few of the bishops notice that crime hurts the poor.

They mourn the dirty Harry killing of drug pushers, but not the families decimated by drugs.

The children neglected by druggie parents are usually taken care of by relatives (something that we saw in the USA also), but when the parents moved from their villages into the big cities, these kids end up as streetkids.


Like the US Catholic bishops, who suddenly discover illegal immigrants are being sent home after years of silence when Obama did the same thing. the bishops have found something they agree on: Killing people is wrong.

But you know, the the killings of low level politicians, clergymen, activists, and reporters is not exactly new here in the Philippines.
LINK  LINK2 LINK3

Usually only locals and family member "know" who is behind these hits.

But the dirty little secret is that justice is often delayed for years, and often corrupt politicians end up by getting off because some court decides the case has "flaws" or the witnesses aren't around any more.

to take a well known political massacre: Those politicians behind the Manguindanao massacre are still waiting for trial...

On November 16, 2010, the international non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch issued a 96-page report titled "They Own the People", charting the Ampatuans’ rise to power, including their use of violence to expand their control and eliminate threats to the family’s rule.[60] The report links the Ampatuans to at least 56 other killings over the last 20 years, apart from the November 23, 2009, massacre.[61]

LINK... they'll get justice one of these days.

our family knows about using "trial delays" and other tactics to protect big shots who order murders.

and the ex mayor behind the hit on his rival (which killed our nephew ten years ago in the crossfire) was buried in an expensive mausoleum after a big funeral mass, complete with a Knights of Columbus body guard ten years after he ordered the hit:

The bishop can't say he didn't know: The guy was under indictment at the time for ordering the hit, but hey, he was a good Catholic and gave money to the church. (just ignore the widows and children of his victims).

Stories like this, multiplied by hundreds, is one reason the average (non elite) Filipino shrugs with the orchestrated outrage against Duterte.

So do you mourn the druggies killed or do you blame the drug dealers for being the cause of the innocent people killed in robberies, carnapping, home invasions, or by druggie boyfriends?

And the drug scourge is not limited to big cities.

Reports from our farm areas is not good: Kuya reports he has had to fire a lot of our hired farmers in the past few years because they didn't plant and harvest correctly, or would steal part of the crop at harvest time, and often diverted money he gave them (for irrigation and fertilizer) into buying drugs. Sigh.

The last one he "fired" actually was replaced because he had disappeared back to his native village shortly after he badly planted the summer crop of rice seedling. It turns out that he was involved in the drug trade, and two of his fellow drug dealers had been killed by persons unknown recently, so he decided to disappear, probably back to his native town in the Visayas.

But multiply this by hundreds, and you see the problem:

How many families are left destitute because the parents get hooked by drugs and can't hold a job?

How many businessmen lose money (and can't expand their businesses or even go bankrupt) due to drug related crime.

And how many businesses have to hire security guards because of widespread theft, meaning their business expenses are higher than they should be?

Part of the fallout of the drug problem is that when parents are drunk/drugged, the kids have no one to care for them.

Luckily, as in the USA, most of these neglected kids here in rural areas are taken care of by their extended families, but some, especially families who moved to other areas like Manila to get jobs, end up on the street.

and it's not just drugs and bribery that are harming poor people:
Wikipedia notes 1.5 million street kids who are vulnerable to be sexually abused, and many young girls seeking jobs end up as sex workers ("often by crime syndicates").

 but in our modern cyberworld, it doesn't stop there:

The Inquirer has another article about the growing cyberporn business, which often includes child molestation in front of cameras.

(Second of three parts)CEBU CITY—Online child pornography has become a “cottage industry” in isolated parts of the country, according to authorities.
Parents are lured by the easy money while some children are left believing that there is nothing wrong with what they are doing since there is no actual sexual contact.
Data from the International Justice Mission (IJM), a US-based nonprofit that fights human trafficking and child exploitation, showed that more than 300 children in the Philippines have been rescued since 2011 after law enforcers stepped up their campaign against cyberpornography.

At least 133 suspects nationwide have been arrested as of April 2018—77 percent of whom were parents, relatives, and close family friends of the victims.

Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1008285/the-cat-and-mouse-game-to-stop-cyberporn#ixzz5KiMll53Z Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook

the local quip about the Philippines: 300 years in a convent and 100 years in a brothel Hollywood.

Yup. that sounds about right.

Another day, another typhoon

no, not hitting us, thank God, but off the coast and near enough to cause rain and to "enhance" the usual monsoon rain. and it will be closer to us tomorrow, so the rains will continue.

right now we are having heavy rain. The problem is flooding, of course. and not just flooding with the ground being soaked, but the run off from the mountains north of here, especially if the irrigation dams fill up and they have to let out water so they don't collapse.

The squatters along the rivers will be flooded out, but also there could be floods in the houses in the lowlying areas, meaning the poor will lose a lot of their stuff, and have to move in with relatives and friends (although we do have an evacuation center at the local gym up the street, which like our house is on higher ground). And of course, the streets will flood in Manila.

Our new sewers are still being put in... the one near our house was put in by the ex mayor (right before election time) but now they are putting in larger pipes to drain the streets near the Palenke.

We are on high ground and in the ten years since I moved here, our house only flooded once (and that time only a couple of inches).

the good news, of course, is that we won't be hit with winds... the typhoon is a big one and could be devestating. On the other hand, it's still early in the season.

Chinese trade wars: It's not just Trump who objects

NPR story about China stealing trade secrets/software so they could manufacture windturbans.

Sinovel was the largest customer of American Superconductor Corp. And then the Chinese company suddenly began rejecting shipments of American Superconductor's electronic components in 2011. The Massachusetts tech company learned that Sinovel was using a pirated version of the software it made in the wind turbines it installed.

The ordeal left American Superconductor in perilous financial shape, and Wall Street analysts wrote it off as dead. The U.S. Department of Justice said that the company lost more than $1 billion in shareholder equity and 700 jobs.

they note that Trumpie boy is using this as an example for why he is getting into a trade war with China.

Two comments:

One: it is an open secret that China bribes people to steal trade secrets, or steals them from companies who decide to manufacture there.

Two: Trump was right. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

more HERE.

in the thrid world, they flood countries with their cheap, shoddy goods, that under price local manufacturing and make it impossible for local companies to prosper. This is helped by their artificial manipulation of their currancy.

And it's not just manufactured goods: our local onion farmers went broke when cheap chinese onions were imported (and smuggled in). I have no proof, but I suspect this was done the usual way: with the help of bribes to local politicians and officials to look the other way.

ManBul (2016):

Bongabon, Nueva Ecija — Over a thousand of onion farmers in this province marched last Friday along the main streets of this municipality, reputed as the “Onion Capital of the Philippines,” to call on government to put a stop to massive importation which is now killing the livelihood of the local farmers. Onion farmer Rodrigo Odon from Bayombong in Pangasinan who traveled together with 50 other farmers to join the rally said that importation is a burden that has caused a cut by more than 50 percent in the original price of locally-produced onions because of the competition with cheap imported onions.

Inquirer (2018) discusses "Chinese" cartel behind the onion problem:

But a succession of problems has been plaguing onion growers. In 2000, about 700 farmers in San Jose City allowed their harvest to rot because the buying price was only P2 to P3 per kilogram. Many in other towns stopped harvesting their yellow onions.

translation: The middle men wouldn't pay proper prices, so the farmers refused to sell.

Also adversely affecting the industry were the results of a Department of Justice investigating team showing that one agricultural group was given 305 of the 585 import permits issued by the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) from 2011 to 2013. The team also found that certain cooperatives sold to Chinese traders the import permits granted them by the BPI. Unreasonable importation

 On Nov. 11, onion growers in northern Luzon gathered in Cabanatuan City to stage a rally against what they described as unreasonable importation, which had affected the price of their crops.

Save the Tigers (kill the people)

Not my headlines: This is from AlJ, who has an article on how people are hurt by the conservationist push to "save the tiger".

Today, as conservation efforts become more and more militarised, state-sponsored actors are not only evicting and restricting the movements of indigenous community members, but also killing them for allegedly trespassing on their own ancestral lands. In India, conservation violence seems to be on the rise.

the gov't pushes the local indigenous people off their ancestral land to make it into reserves for the endangered tiger... and those trespassing or protesting sometimes are killed.

 For decades, India's Forest Department officials - aided and abetted by the omnipotent National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) - have been implementing a violent policy of "people-less conservation" resulting in human rights violations. But, of course, people-less conservation is not a problem specific to India. Across the world, governments have long been using the need for the conservation of land and wildlife as an excuse to remove Indigenous communities from their homes, sometimes with the support of large international conservation groups. 

such as the WWF: World Wildlife Federation.

the indigenuos are at risk all over the world, caught in the middle of a fight to use their resources (oil, timber), the wish of others to move into their forests to farm, and of course, the wish of the animal rights type to save the rain forest and either chase out the people or insist that no one help these people to cope with modernity by improving their lives.

Not an easy subject.

Apartheid, ethnic cleansing, or assimilation?

A lot depends on what locals want.

on the other hand, a lot of times "what locals want" means what those who left and got educated into marxism/liberation theology decide they want, or the wishes of the elders, some of whom prefer to be the boss over a group of people who they can control instead of looking for what is best for their people.

The Little House is now taboo

The SJW who run some library association has decided that the Little House on the Praries series is "racist" because Laura was afraid of Indians, who happened to be pushing back against settlers at that time, but never mind.

but the audiobook of the series is on Youtube.

My favorite: The Long Winter.............




update:

The harsh reality of food in the Little House series (Atlas Obscura)

Pioneer food was often stodgy, plain, or altogether absent. While Laura’s family is concerned throughout the book with packing away stores to make it through harsh winters, Wilder tends to gloss over the risk of famine or even death. In summertime or fall, pioneers might feast on bear meat (Laura’s favorite), buffalo, venison, elk, and antelope, unconstrained by the big game laws of the Old World. But in winter, when nothing grew or could be hunted, pioneers were vulnerable...

... Out on the open frontier, or deep in the woods, there was no market economy or community to fall back on during difficult months.

In On the Banks of Plum Creek, a plague of grasshoppers destroy the family’s wheat crops and force them to move. Later, in The Long Winter, Wilder describes a brutal 1880 winter in De Smet, South Dakota, that lasted from October to April...

Ma and Pa spend almost all their time simply trying to keep the family alive. For Ma, each day is taken up with menial upkeep of the home (washing, ironing, mending, churning, cleaning, baking), usually while pregnant. Meanwhile, Pa is out in the woods, hunting whatever he can find and avoiding the wrath of hungry bears. By contrast, salt-rising bread, sugar cakes, and maple syrup candy are perhaps prominently featured in the books precisely because they were such rare occurrences.

Via TeaAtTrianon.

and Little house webpage has a long article putting the fear of Indians into perspective.

and the Wikipedia page on the Dakota wars of 1862, the culmination of the war between the encroaching farmers and the Indians who saw the land as where they could hunt freely.

like most wars, there is enough blame to go around on both sides.

And a lot of modern "wars" are similar arguments on who owns the land and if migrants should be able to just move in without the permission of those who lived there first.

Headlines below the fold

Strategypage on Indonesia's growing terrorist problem.

While PKS is led by Moslem clerics it has managed to hold onto it voters by playing down Islamic lifestyle rules and concentrating on reducing corruption and promoting what Westerners would see as a socialist economic platform. PKS also encourages more foreign investment and economic expansion.

Yet lurking in the background is the fact that Islamic scripture (depending on who is interpreting it) approves of and encourages violence against non-Moslems and Moslem heretics. Islam is the only major religion to be burdened by that and it is a persistent problem that no one has found a permanent fix for.

Indonesia, however, is the only Moslem majority nation that deliberately prohibits Islam from dominating the nation.

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Austin Bay writes about the uprising against the corrupt gov't in Iran.

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Anthony Esolen's essay on the pervasive normalization of perversion of modern culture, and a church that is too weak and mushy to notice. And points fingers why.

(headsup FatherZ)

Professor Podles has a similar take. his book is here.-

related item: And you thought Harvey Weinstein was evil.
At least Weinstein didn't kill those he abused.

headsup GetReligion.

caution: Don't read any of these articles if you are under 18 or have a weak stomach.

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related item: How Pope Francis is destroying the Catholic church by  U turns.

He does something that horrifies Catholics but pleases the "reformers", then does a U turn on the issue. (with a wink that means they know they can go ahead with their plans). And example three is probably why.

update: It's not a pope winking at and promoting immorality, heresy and apostasy: it's a "paradigm shift".


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