China typically harasses Filipino fishermen in the West Philippine sea by having their own fishing boats (read fishermen paid by the Chinese govt to do this) and sometmies their "coast guard" to sail near them and harass them.
Several fishing boats have been damaged and life lost but hey when the Philippine gov't complained, China shrugged and said hey it was an accident.
So now, Philippine government boats bringing supplies to our outposts on the shoals that are within the Exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, have been attacked with strong lasers.
Carpio, who has been using his legal expertise to champion the country’s control over the West Philippine Sea, said the CCG’s use of lasers flouted the 1998 Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons, which China and the Philippines both signed with more than 100 countries.
The Philippine Coast Guard has accused the Chinese Coast Guard of temporarily blinding its crew with a military-grade laser.
China, which has used lasers to blind rival militaries before, didn’t deny the laser attack.
China likely won’t face serious consequences for the attack.
But this isn't the only recent Chinese use of lasers. A report from Australia from last year notes:
Just after midnight last Thursday, a transiting Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA-N) vessel shone a military-grade laser at an Australian air force plane conducting coastal maritime surveillance.This did not happen in the South China Sea near China’s coastline, but rather in the Arafura Sea, within Australia’s exclusive economic zone off the north coast of the country. From what we can ascertain, this is the closest an attempt at military intimidation by China has gotten to our shores.
Why would they do this? Well, Australia is one of several nations that are joining the US in "Freedom of Navigation operations" in the West Philippines Sea: A way of telling China that no, legally they don't own the area, and no, they do not have the right to block shipping in this area.
The US Naval Institute blog has a lot of interesting stuff on it: Most of it I don't understand, but I keep an eye on it since my grandson is in the USNavy.
Today they discuss a little known incident during the Viet Nam war, where an officer faked a lot of stuff for his own glory: Told in a book the Arnheiter Affair.
Read the whole thing if you are interested in that part of history.
key quote to keep in mind when you read today's news:
. . . the captain would demonstrate once again that if you make a hoax look and sound plausible enough, a lot of people will believe you. You must know how to play upon fears and prejudices, to exploit motives and limitations. Arnheiter was adept at this. The captain took naturally to fraud because his mind had difficulty distinguishing reality from delusion and right from wrong. The deliberate lie blurred into the unconscious fantasy.
the question is partly WTF are these balloons doing
The second question is: if the amateurs in Montana hadn't publicized the photo of the Chinese baloon, would anyone have known about it?
And does this mean that this has happened before, but was kept secret because why?
The "leak" that several of these occurred under Trump but later it was admitted that no one told Trumpieboy about them sugggests this was so.
And maybe not just balloons flying and spying. Drones anyone?
Instapundit links to a 2021 article that mentions drones.that mentions this has been going on for years and that the experts in the Defense Dept are not doing much about it.
Yes, I realize that the idea that an adversary is penetrating U.S. military training areas unmolested, and has been for years, using lowly drone technology and balloons, is a big pill to swallow, but as one of the people who have repeatedly warned about the threat posed by lower-end drones for a decade...'
Nor is the fact that the Defense Department is still playing catch-up when it comes to the realities surrounding the drone threat, and not just to its forces abroad, but also to the homeland overall. The utter lack of vision and early robust interest in regards to this emerging threat will go down as one of the Pentagon's biggest strategic missteps of our time.
more here:
....
...then there are the green laser attack on Hawaii. What is that about? UKMAIL:
Scientists from the National Astronomical Observative of Japan (NAOJ) tweeted late last month that their camera had 'captured green laser lights in the cloudy sky over Maunakea, Hawaii on January 28.'
Video footage showed a number of mysterious green beams shooting across the dark sky.
The lights, wrote the agency, were likely from a NASA satellite.
On February 6, however, NAOJ backtracked and said that the lights were 'likely' from Chinese satellite Daqi-1/AEMS.
so they were reported by Japanese civilians at a US observatory, not the US DOD. Figures.
So what is this about?
Lasers are frequently pointed at planes and helicopters in the USA, most out of mischief but some might be a form of terrorism.
The lasers blind the pilots when they are preparing to land, meaning it could cause a crash. So are the green laser screens also a way to blind pilots in the area of Hawaii?
lasers are also used to make topographical maps. so maybe they are doing this to plan investing in real estate (/s).
But you know, the Chinese are using green lasers to blind the sailors in an area that is within the internationally recognized exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, to stop them from resupplying small military outposts on islets in the West Philippine sea.
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) has accused a Chinese coast guard ship of directing a “military-grade” laser at one of its vessels, putting the Filipino crew in danger.
The PCG vessel was supporting a rotation and resupply mission of the Philippine Navy in Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal in the West Philippine Sea on Feb. 6.
......................
I mentioned the arrest and trial of Cardinal Zen in a previous post, but he isn't the only enemy of the Chinese state from being punished.
HONG KONG--The trial of 16 Hong Kong democracy activists charged under a national security law imposed by Beijing began on Monday with security tight for a case that some observers say will be a test of the city’s judicial independence.
The defendants are those who pleaded not guilty out of 47 arrested in a dawn raid in January 2021 and charged with conspiracy to commit subversion for participating in an unofficial primary election organized by democracy supporters in 2020.
this is only the latest trial of protesters of the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong, and those in the media who try to report the news
The staff members of Apple Daily were arrested last year during a crackdown on dissent after Beijing imposed the sweeping security law in response to the widespread anti-government protests in 2019. They were charged with conspiracy to commit collusion with foreign forces to endanger national security.
---------------
update: Drones can be scary
----------------------- Balloons used to spy on Americans by the American govt: UKGuardian 2019cle
Up to 25 unmanned solar-powered balloons are being launched from rural South Dakota and drifting 250 miles through an area spanning portions of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri, before concluding in central Illinois.
Travelling in the stratosphere at altitudes of up to 65,000ft, the balloons are intended to “provide a persistent surveillance system to locate and deter narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats”, according to a filing made on behalf of the Sierra Nevada Corporation, an aerospace and defence company.
The balloons are carrying hi-tech radars designed to simultaneously track many individual vehicles day or night, through any kind of weather. The tests, which have not previously been reported, received an FCC license to operate from mid-July until September, following similar flights licensed last year.
I posted earlier about the minor kerfuffle protesting the FBI designating Trad Catholics (i.e. those who want the Latin Mass, but also groups that oppose the Vatican II reforms) as a possible source of white supremacy violence.
Well, to understand why a lot of Catholics (even Catholics on the liberal side of the church) got their knickers in a knot on reading this, you have to know a bit of history.
The church has long been a source of opposition to political tyrannies that oppress ordinary folk.
There has been a bit of political turmoil in Latin America as socialist presidents are being elected, and sometimes the right wing leaders are pushing back.
And both sides Right (Peru) and Left (Brazil) are busy imprisoning opponants on trumped up charges.
Most of the Catholic bishops are either neutral in these things, or even sympathetic (Liberation theology), but not all, and of course, the conservative opposition to these socialists are mainly found among the Protestant and middle class.
But not all: and if Nicaragua is an example, the bishops may have to walk back their love of socialism and environmentalism to protest human rights being destroyed by regimes that stop freedom of speech.
The socialist president of Nicaragua just deported a bunch of priests and other political dissadents for opposing his government.
Alvarez, bishop of the Matagalpa diocese, was convicted of treason, undermining national integrity and spreading false news, among other charges.
During Friday's court hearing it was also announced that he would be fined and stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship.
the background: Nicaragua's president is silencing all opposition, and the Catholic press and radio are part of that opposition. Usually church groups are given respect, but hey, Ortega was a communist in the good old days and loved by the American left, and now that he has won an election (probably rigged election) he is going full force cleaning out the opposition.
this video is from six months ago and reports on the background of the story:
He isn't the only bishop in trouble for defending human rights.
After the communist Chnese takeover of Hong Kong (which by the way was not just illegal but opposed by a lot of locals, whose massive demonstrations were supressed ) Cardinal Zen was arrested under China's security law last May, along with several other HongKong citizens, BBC report from May12 2022.
Cardinal Joseph Zen, 90, is one of four people detained for being associated with a now-defunct organisation that helped protesters in financial need.
The others are a Cantopop singer and actor Denise Ho, ex-legislator Margaret Ng, and academic Dr Hui Po Keung.
They are accused of colluding with foreign forces.
If found guilty, they could face life in prison.
...Hong Kong Police told the BBC that the group was suspected of appealing to foreign countries or organisations to impose sanctions on Hong Kong, hence threatening China's national security.
The Catholic press has a long history of being an alternative voice against those who threaten human rights, especially in lands where the press is essentially controlled by the government.
So you can see why the FBI might be targeting the right wing trad Catholics as a possible threat to their monopoly.
Tita Cory, call your office. The FBI wants to silence dissadents.
-------------
I should add that there might be reasons to silence the Trad Catholic sites on the internet.
Some Trad Catholic sites were anti vax and reported on sudden death etc problems of the mRNA vaccine before it hit the MSM.
And some are pointing out the folly of the Ukraine war and how the west pressured Russia into starting the war, and how the war is mainly benefitting the Military Industrial complex, and how Biden's pro Ukraine ties before the war make them wonder if a lot of that money sent to help the war effort is being stolen by the corrupt there.
I don't agree with these things, but as an old leftie, I recognize these types of stories from many years ago and yes back then the FBI was trying to infiltrate the Catholic wing of the anti Viet Nam war effort for similar reasons.
----------------
update: It wasn't just the French and Mexican Catholics who were pushed to violence by a regime trying to destroy the faith:
The Western Rising of 1549 was the most catastrophic event to occur in Devon and Cornwall between the Black Death and the Civil War. What started as an argument between two men and their local vicar grew into a determined attempt by ordinary English people to halt the Reformation. Speaking with Emily Briffett, Mark Stoyle reveals how thousands of 16th-century men and women rebelled to defend their faith.
after a rebellion on the Shimabara Peninsula that involved many Christians in the late 1630s, thousands of rebels were executed and a full ban on Christianity became strictly enforced. Only small pockets of "Hidden Christians" continued practicing their religion in secret.
why are these revolts ignored? becaue the big state won over the ordinary folk, and history is written by the winners.
And of course English Language books have an automatic Catholic bias because Elizabeth I was a bastard by Catholic law, and she was in charge.
Can't have Middle Eastern terrorists in films, because anti Islam.
Can't have black bad guys because... racism
Can't have the Mexican or Central American cartels as bad guys because why? Maybe because it might suggest Biden's open border is a bad idea
So The Philippines to the rescue!
In the Plane, the pilot has an emergency landing in the Muslim area of the Philippines and they have to fight off terrorists. Of course these are Muslim terrorists, but I guess no one is supposed to notice, so it's not Islamophobia.
....
Much of the plot is unbelievable, but hey, it's Hollywood. Yup. They manage to land the plane without crashing, so I guess that part is believable, but then they manage to take off later? That is... unbelievable.
Then we have Uncharted.
,,,,,,
That film kowtowed to China and insulted the Philippines by showing an America map that just happened to show China's dotted line meaning it pretended that the areas in the West Philippine sea belonged to China.
That made both the Philippines and VietNam mad, so both countries wouldn't allow the film to be seen here.
the plot has them looking for Magellen's lost gold, and if so, they are looking in the wrong area of the map, since Magellen landed on the eastern coast. And if they found it, it would belong to the Philippines, not treasure hunters. It's almost as if they don't think anyone lives here would notice them.
Again, this is s thriller that has nothing to do with local people, and is full of scenes showing people hanging on ropes while airplanes etc were going hundreds of miles per hour. Right.
Finally, we have Shotgun wedding where a wedding party at an exotic resort on a private island somewhere in the Philippines is taken hostage.
......
Like the bad guys is "Plane", the "pirates" presumably are the Abus in the south, many who come from nearby Indonesia to prey on Filipinos. They just caught the guys who kidnapped some western tourists in 2015, so it does have a smidgen of truth behind the tale.
But I can't review it because I haven't seen it, but it looks like a typical one that concentrates on the westerners, and ignores the staff, including the security guards who are not there... hmm.. I wonder if the security guards were already killed by the pirates trying to defend the guests?
Never mind. It's Hollywood.
the irony is that none of these films were filmed in the Philippines, even though we have an active film industry who would make this possible.
Is this because they fear crime? Or more likely because corruption might complicate things. And of course most were filmed during Covid when we were shut down.
So maybe Marcos Jr. can tap his father's Hollywood friends on the shoulder and tell them we are open for business.
You see, the last famous American film that was made here was Apocalypse Now, and it was made with help from Marcos Sr. and the Philippine military (because the nearby Americans who still had a base in the Philippines back then, refused to cooperate with the anti war film).
Luckily for them, Hospital care was available to save the life of Martin Sheen when he had his masive heart attack and was promptly airlifted to a Manila Hospital.
February 6, 2023: A massive earthquake registering 7.8, on a scale where anything over six is considered major, devastated the Turkish-Syrian border in northeast Syria. This has long been a major combat zone on the Syrian side of the border. Most of the earthquake damage took place on the Turkish side. Total deaths soon grew to over 20,000 and the total won't be known until the massive numbers of collapsed structures, especially in residential areas, are searched.
There is a minor hopeful result of the earthquake:
The quake brought a halt to combat in Syria and Turkish military operations in the area
But alas it meant this:
as well as the food and other aid for the many civilians trapped in the Syrian Idlib province combat zone.
Israel and Iraq have both sent rescue and relief aid to Turkey. Iran ordered its Islamic terrorists support units (Quds Force) in the area to provide any quake relief they are capable of. Some other Islamic terrorist groups did the same....
The logistics will be a big problem: a lot of untrained helpers are worse than useless and will get in the way, but the main problem is getting aid to whrer it is needed.
WSJ article about the logistics is behind a paywall.
That area of Turkey produces a lot of steel, and the company that has plants there has this article about the earthquake damage to the infrastructure that will need to be repaired: things like gas lines, electric lines, roads, etc. and notes that there is damage to the local ports (meaning it might be a problem bringing in needed supplies).
Every time there is a major earthquake, Filipinos feel sympathy, because we are in an area prone to major earthquakes, and of course we are constantly suffering from disasters from volcanos, typhoons, etc.
The 85 member rescue team and 31 emergency medical responders are probably only a small amount of help, but it is a way to show we are grateful for the help Turkey has given us in making peace in the southern Philippines.
I already linked to a video of the Hornblower series:
The 1951 film, with Gregory Peck, that is about his later exploits can be found at internet Archives....
But I also found that Youtube has the Sharpe's Rifles series there: about a lower class guy who becomes and officer. The background is the Spanish war against Napoleon.
The Sharpe series does note the atrocities of Napoleon's soldiers after Napoleon replaced the king with his brother, and the locals rose up against them.
The Sharpe and Hornblower sagas are pro British and show one side:
But the problem is that alas too often the deaths and destruction of Napoleon's wars are sort of air-brushed over because too many historians support the narrative that he was destroying the old monarchies and replacing them with the good ideals of the French revolution that promised to remake mankind and impose a government instpired by reason.
You see, the culture wars didn't start with Justice Bork: They date back centuries.
The common narrative of too many history books ignores that what was being imposed was radical and destroyed little things like freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and ignored the objections of the ordinary folk who didn't support these ideas that destroyed their way of life.
The opposition of the Spanish to Napoleonic takeover is the one best known to the west because the British government helped the rebels, and the atrocities by the French against civilians in the countryside were finally documented by Goya's paintings remind us.
But opposition to the radical ideas of the revolution predated that part of the war: and although the royalist attempts at uprisings are often portrayed as greedy nobility seeking to keep their money (see Hornblower number four) , this is only partly true: It ignores the uprising of ordinary folks back then.
When Simon Shama's book Citizens was published, I remember many reviewers were not aware of the genocides against ordinary citizens who opposed them as happened in the Vendee. Amazon link here, or Internet archive has his book to lend.
Like the more modern Cristero rebellion in Mexico, the Vendee was an uprising of ordinary folk against a regime that was imposing atheism on the country because they saw the church as a symbol of the older regime, and as a superstiious cult that needed to be destroyed because it opposed their utopian ideas.
Listverse has a list of the ten atrocities of the revolution. The Vendee is number three.
The war there went beyond defeating the rebels who took up arms:
In the Vendee, however, the people rose up to protect their priests and churches from the new revolutionary government. When the government ordered them to form a conscript military unit, they rebelled, joining together in local militias which were collectively known as the Catholic and Royal Army.
This alarmed the new government, who sent the army to tackle the problem. After a series of pitched battles, the Catholic and Royal Army was defeated.
end of story, right? But it wasn't. The revolution was to remake the world, and so needed to destroy any opposition. And like the destruction of the Kulaks or the Holdamar, they decided that the entire population of the area needed to be punished.
But the government didn’t stop there. Determined to prevent another such uprising, the government sent General Louis Marie Turreau with twelve columns of troops to destroy to Vendee. Farms, villages, supplies and forests were destroyed, and the soldiers killed without restriction. When it was over, General Francois Joseph Westermann wrote a letter back to the government saying: “There is no more Vendée…"
and voila, the massacres of innocents was ignored by many historians.
and given the ferocity of the reviewers who dislike it, makes one suggest that the film might actually break through the wall of silence on this first genocide of revolutions that want to remake the world.
In a war between normal and crazy, with little outcry from those afraid of being the object of mean tweets, or even losing their job for saying the emperor has no clothes. their open opposition to the cultural revolution being pushed on the USA makes them the enemy.
Because, unlike the more polite mainstream Catholics, they might be like the Child who says: But he has no clothes.
And that is why they must be watched carefully by the FBI. No, not because they are violent racists, but because they probably won't bow to Moloch.
At the beginning of his podcast Dilbert discusses his frustration with his printer's software problem, which took him so much time to figure out that he is trying to decide if he should just destroy his printer and buy a new one.
He says he is just too old to waste a lot of time on such things.
Sounds familiar.
I took hours arguing with my government TSP pension trying to have them find me after they did an update of their softwars and changed my sign in.
The problem was that they gave you only two weeks to update your stuff and the program was slow.
So after wastsing a few hours trying to get them to find my policy, I gave up and I waited a few weeks and voila, found the problem: the spelling of my last name. Fixed it, but not before I had to have them mail me the password since it wouldn't give it to me on line. So now I get the smaller payment by mail instead of direct deposit.
But my latest computer fight is with McAfee anti virus, which has me listed as having three policies, and I am trying to stop the automatic repayment so that they don't keep billing me. Part of this is that I own most of Joy's business computers and provide her antivirus software,. Long story.
So I am paying for computers no longer in use.
autonatic assistant doesn't even recognize the word duplicate programs, so after an hour I gave up and just cancelled my automatic payment,
The problem is that I paid for anti virus for Joy's computers, and I don't even know they official names to check which policy covers them.
the easiest thing would be to just cancel the antivirus, and when she notices the problem, just install the anti virus under the new program.
My main problem being I can't cancel the old program, but only the automatic renewal part that updated them automatically.
I did this, I think.
Yes, I could ask my grandkids to do this, but alas they went back to college last month and are no longer here.
Ah, but do you think they might have a human being? Yes. they do have one.
And from experience I know this means being put on hold for an hour (long distance rates of course since it is in the US and I am in the Philippines).
Sigh.
even here in the Philippines we are getting all that modern computer stuff for buying and selling.
And the universal computer code stuff is even in our area, where you can scan your computer for cash at the mall, and if you want a McDonald's hamburger, you have to go to a kiosk and order it. So all that money saved by not having a human being has to be paid to the girl who helps you do input your order electronically.
Sigh.
Just wait til China cuts the internet cable south of Taiwan and we are offiine for six weeks like we were in 2006. The Philippines is scheduled to get starlink, so presumably Mr Musk could position his satellites over Luzon if China pulls some stunts, like he did for the Ukraine.
But what about if a EMP, Solar flair, or just an ordinary typhoon wrecks the internet and electricity for awhile?
Ann Althouse notes that a famous anti Viet Nam war protester died, and notes he was once married to Joan Baez.
The comments are on point. It was about ME ME ME (don't draft me) not about helping people, because after the war, crickets... or as one commeter writes:
A pox on all these people. They were frauds from the beginning, willing enemies of the best interests of people around the world, not least in their own nations. The millions of so-called "Boat People" escaping Vietnam speak volumes about how wrong these assclowns were. Ever note how little they did, to help those refugees? Anywhere?
Alas, true. And they still pat themselves on the back for their trendy anti Viet Nam war protests, and none did didlysquat to help the chaos afterward...
One notable exception:
Folk Singer Joan Baez, who was married to this twit, was one of the few who did help. From UColArchives:
Legendary singer-songwriter Joan Baez is also well-known for her activism. In addition to performing at Woodstock, Baez was highliy visable in anti-war marches and encouraged draft resistance at her concerts.
So, it was a considerable surprise to many when she publicly spoke out against the Vietnamese Government’s persecution of suspected pro-American populations in the south after the fall of South Vietnam in 1975.
A number of her former anti-war colleagues denounced her bitterly in the press, describing her defense of the boat people and incarcerated Vietnamese, as well as her criticism of the new Vietnamese government as a betrayal of her old stances.
Italics mine.
Case closed.
More about Baez:
In 1979 Baez set up Humanitas International to focus attention on prisoners in Vietnam. She developed this human rights committee to attract attention to the plight of refugees in Cambodia, Vietnam and later in South America as well.
Video from four years ago:
...
Now, if they only could regulate the border so refugees and honest people who want to immigrate to get jobs could enter the USA safely, without the chaos that is going on now, a chaotic situation that makes the criminal cartels rich, and allows dangerous drugs to be smuggled into the USA to kill people.
Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 detected in Philippines
MANILA, Philippines — Philippine health authorities have detected the first confirmed case of the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, which is said to be the most contagious variant of the virus causing COVID-19.
Meanwhile, one country will be donating more than 300,000 doses of the COVID-19 bivalent vaccines to the Philippines, the DOH said Tuesday....
These additional doses of the second-generation vaccines targeted against the Omicron variant will be on top of the 1,002,000 doses that the COVAX facility has committed to donate to the Philippines.
but if you read the whole article you will find that most people have had two basic doses, quite a few had boosters, but that there are literally millions of doses of vaccines becoming outdated and going to waste.
The problem? Omicron is a mild version of covid, and once that hit, healthy people didn't die of it as they did after routine covid.
So except for students who need it to go to school, most folk are not getting the shot.
I read that in many countries there is an increase in non covid deaths this year. I wonder if that is true here. A lot of old folks are dying of their chronic health problems such as high BP and diabetes, or of cancer. Then there are other illnesses: I just got over a bad case of Dengue fever, and now have shingles, making me wonder what is going on with my immune system (routine tests are normal, I am not a diabetic and my cholesterol/liver/kidneys are find).
Most Filipinos either had the shot or the illness, so unlike China, who shut everything down to stop the spread I suspect most Filipinos have some immunity for covid from an earlier infection that maybe they didn't even bother to see a doctor for.
There is not a lot of testing for covid here in the rural Philippines: the only time I was tested was in the ER waiting to be admitted for Dengue, since if it was positive I would have had to go to a hospital with isolation beds. (Dengue is spread via mosquitoes so not spread person to person).
So people are not being tested, and few will see the doctor for cold symptoms unless it evolves into pneumonia type symptoms.
I HOPE WE’RE NOT TOO MESSIANIC, OR A TRIFLE TOO SATANIC: CBS Deletes ‘Ready to Worship’ Tweet After Blowback.
Turns out, one of America’s biggest TV networks saying it was “ready to worship!” right before a literally Hellish performance didn’t go over so well. The blowback was quick, with the normal criticism from the left of those who dared to object to what was considered objectionable. Apparently the whole “my feelings are more important than your rights” schtick is a one-way street for leftists. Who would’ve thought it?
But the pressure from those who found CBS’ tweet about Smith’s performance to be unbecoming worked, because by Tuesday morning CBS had deleted its tweet:
Tourism in Africa is about lions and wildlife, right?
Wrong. And Zimbawe is opening to tourist now that covid epidemic has weakened and travel is allowed.
I wrote a long over- wordy post on my African blog about the archeology on the stone structures and terraces in Zimbabwe. Not just the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, but other evidence of a sophisticated civilization, including the people who built extensive terraces in the eastern part of that country. Zimbawe had a sophisticated empire in the middle ages, but it later declined due to climate change, famine, disease, and the fact that locals rebelled againt the tyrants., leaving it empty for the racist Cecil Rhodes to send settlers there and claim the area for Great Britain.
and again, Rhodes empire decline because people rebelled against the tyranny of the white minority running the place.
BBC:A banner marking the 300km walk was unveiled to welcome the pilgrims
A group of about 60 Catholic pilgrims are recovering after spending nine days trekking through war-torn South Sudan to see Pope Francis in the capital, Juba....
One pilgrim, who was shedding tears as she arrived, hinted at the trauma the years of fighting have brought to this country.
"When you have smelled and seen death and hopelessness, then you will search for peace with all the might that you have," said the woman, who did not want to give her name.
"I have lost enough, but along the way I saw love and we all spoke one language - that of peace. I really pray that even after the Pope leaves, we will still be like that," she continued.
"He is a prophet and whatever he prays in the next few days, while on our soil, will come to pass. Things will be different. We are going to be one people."
...Pope Francis is spending three days in the country and will hold a Mass on Sunday.
In a historic first, he travelled with two other Christian leaders - Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland Rev Iain Greenshields.
Longer report here
...........
Many years ago, in 1980, I worked with a physician from the South Sudan.
He had fled to a refugee camp to escape the fighting, and the Seventh Day Adventists rescued him and arranged for him to study abroad. He became a physician and hoped to help his people, but the war there made that too dangerous, so he was working with me in a private clinic in Liberia for awhile until he found a job at a nearby Lutheran hospital.
Alas, I lost contact with him because I had to leave that country, and shortly after that, there was a coup that resulted in chaos and civil war for years.
The story of how charities try to rescue some of the refugees to resettle and get an education in the USA is told in this film:
When Elon Musk proposed that they should end the war in the Ukraine by letting Russia keep the eastern areas with a lot of ethnic Russians and keep the Crimea which is not historically part of the Ukraine, he got hammered by the press.
The Pope, of course, just calls for peace and reconciliation.
So instead of selling weapons to the Ukraine why is President Biden not trying to stop the war?
Actually he is,
President Biden proposed the same thing: which Newsweek calls giving the land to Russia, while ignoring that these areas are historically Russian or ethnically Russian.
Those peace proposals, of course, make the Ukrainian president mad.
As the saying goes: "Blessed are the peacemakers, because they are hated by both sides".
Most wars historically are stopped when countries get tired of all the destruction of people and things. But when there is an aristocracy or a leader who doesn't have to answer to anyone, and who desires something (usually territory that contains something they need, in this case Russia needs access to a warm weather port) the war will continue.
Sigh.
That is why the Hunter Biden laptop story is important: Because it hints that lucrative business deals for the Biden family from the Ukraine might let Biden be open for blackmail.
The background of this story includes Trumpieboy asking the Ukraine to investigate these ties: but the Congress tried to impeach Trumpieboy for asking this because politics.
The backstory of the Ukaine war is that China is watching what is going on. The US help, and the willingness of the Ukrainians to fight an invasion by Russia hints at some of the problems that China might face if they decide to invade Taiwan.
And that could affect the Philippines.
the US has finally decided to increase military presence here and help the Philippines try to stop China from grabbing the sea lanes in the West Philippine sea.
The nearby nations who actually own this area are upset at China because they are losing fishing grounds and possible economic profit from the natural gas deposit in the area, but the geopolitical reason is about control of the sea lanes, meaning they could block ships going to Korea, eastern Siberia, and Japan, and of course could use that to blockade ships going to Taiwan in case of war.
The Philippines and the United States have agreed to restart joint patrols in the South China Sea, resuming an activity put on hold during the Duterte administration and prompting an immediate objection from China.
...Austin and Galvez have described the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (Edca), the governing pact allowing American access to Philippine bases, as a key pillar of alliance cooperation...
translation: Some US military will be allowed to us Philippine military bases but the US will not be allowed to make their own bases, something that would make a lot of Filipinos mad, especially the left.
And China is hyperventillating about the whole thing: just ignore that even an international court said their claim to the area is not valid.
StrategyPage has a long essay on Chinese aggression, which is slow and patient but persistant. Most of the essay is about Taiwan, but includes this observation:
The Philippines has military detachments on nine of the disputed islands or reefs. These are part of an effort to oppose the illegal Chinese claims.
Since 2020 the Americans have taken a stronger stand against Chinese aggression in the South China Sea by declaring Chinese claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea unlawful, as is the Chinese campaign of bullying to control these resources.
what happened? Well, Duterte hated the CIA (and the CIA worked hard to destroy him over the overhyping of murders in the war on the drug cartels here). One result is that Duterte stopped the joint patrols and tried to make nice with China. Alas, China screwed the Philippines in many ways, so even Duterte turned against them.
back to the article about Chinese aggression against the Philippines:
In 2016 an international court ruled against China and stated that occupying uninhabitable rocks and building artificial islands did not confer an EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone). Ownership of “rocks” gets, at best, 22 kilometers of territorial waters from the edge of each rock rather than 360 kilometers for EEZ rights.
however, to keep the sea lanes open:
...The Americans did continue to carry out aerial and naval FONOP with warships to assert the right of innocent passage. This annoyed the Chinese, who claimed most of the South China Sea was under Chinese control and no foreign ship or aircraft could enter without permission.
tranlation: they claim they can control the sea lanes --and airplane flights over the area.
But everything might not be honkeydory in those artificial islands.
Chinese government officials seeking to save money are questioning the usefulness, cost and risks of continuing this expensive and increasingly vulnerable islands.
Why are they vulnerable?
Shoddy construction and shoddy materials, according to the National Interest website.(article from 2020).
So will the Chinese artificial islands implode because they were built from lousy concrete? This video is from last year, and mentions the problem of the islands concrete deteriorating... fast forward to minute 6 for those rumors.
We all know about lousy Chinese cement here in the Philippines.
A couple years ago, the mayor started putting concrete covers on the open air ditches that function as sewers near our house and near the downtown palenke.
But the concrete was lousy and the coverings are slowly deteriorating and breaking, usually under the weight of the rice trucks or from cars parking on the side of the road. We spotted two more new holes this week in the coverings, which are only four inches thick.
The city has reinforced the coverings where the heavy medium sized trucks carrying rice etc. travel. But two months ago, one truck got too close to one of the older covers of the ditch near our house when he made a right turn, and his wheel went through the concrete. So we are waiting for the city to repair that hole, but in the meanwhile they just flagged the hole to warn the truckers not to get too close to the hole.
Since China produces much of the world's concrete, unless this problem is fixed, a lot of buildings and dams could collapse, not just in China but also those built by China in the third world.
we were flooded here when a small irrigation dam upstream collapsed, but that was small and during a typhoon, so a lot of people near the river had already evacuated.
Now imagine what could happen if that happened at a major dam upstream from a major city.
the Pope is in Africa and huge crowds are greeting him.
No, not a white European but a South American Pope visiting Christians who have suffered war, famine, and religious persecution.
Missionaries, who in the past were revered, are now usually condemned because of the anti Christian culture of the media. Spreading white culture: Except when it isn't. Dour bigoted snobs, except when they aren't. And don't get me started on the Poisonwood Bible, which the author admits was not inspired by what she saw when she was a child there, but by Marxist polemicist books.
But what is ignored is that your local missionary might not be who you think: In the past we had Irish priests in the US, but now they might be from Nigeria or Colombia or VietNam or Poland.
My African friend who taught me the local language went to Mozambique to teach theology and English after the communists there threw out all the educated Portuguese and foreign missionaries from Europe.
And Koreans and Filipinos can also be found among their ranks: not just as official missionaries, but as OFW working in other countries while doing outreach to other workers or locals even in Muslim countries.
So KBS program my neighbor Charles (that covers the lives of foreigners living there) has a program covering the work of twin Catholic priests from India.
,,,,,,and one of the most under reported religion stories in the western MSM is the explosion of Pentecostal worship all over the world: Not only in small churches but in mainline churches including Catholic ones.
:.
The chopsticks are actually a set of massive arms that will be used to recover the giant Super Heavy booster as it lands, catching it as it comes back down to Earth. ..
I read a lot of absurdities about censorship in Academia, much of it full of bias and a bit of hysteria.
I am most familiar with McWhorter from his books on linguistics (some lectures are on youtube, or you can find his books via Scribd or you can find some on Internetarchives). He is a clear writer and a good teacher.
the Twitter revelations show a lot of censorship of opinions and how US government offices intervened to destroy the political opposition of the democrats. So Musk got some old fashioned JFK liberals (who are left wing but believe in free speech) and you can follow it there.
LOL. So when do we JFKliberals retake the Democratic party from the extremists? Oh, never mind.
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I have noted in other posts about the censorship of covid.
It wasn't just in the USA: bit scandal in the UK Press is a whistleblower who showed that government did the same thing.
.
..
77th Brigade was involved in countering misinformation online relating to Coronavirus
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023...
The Army’s “information warfare” unit
Monitored covid lockdown critics
The 77th Brigade, specialist to counter disinformation,
and other online activity deemed harmful to the UK,
..................
,a discussion of the background that inspired Orwell's 1984...
ScottAdams (Dilbert) comments about recent reports that Measles is capable of wiping out immunity for other diseases and wonders if Covid might do the same thing.
Uh, Scott Scott Scott: the effect of measles on the immune system has been known for years:
A JAMA article in 1932 noted that children with measles often had their latent Tuberculosis become active. And when I worked in Africa 40 years we knew this: Often the kids who didn't die of measles would develop TB or croup/RSV a couple of weeks later. Indeed, a recent article in Nature wrote about this in 2019
In the podcast, he discusses long covid and wonders if this is also associated with immune problems, but mainly he wonders how common is long covid, where people are weak, tired, and have various symptoms that interfere with their ability to work.
But actually a lot of diseases do this: the problem of mononucleosis causing severe fatigue in college students is well known. And I've seen it after viral/mycoplasm pneumonia. And now there are reports from India about a similar problem after having Dengue.
So is my lack of energy due to lazyness, or long Dengue?
By the way: There is a huge Dengue epidemic in Asia going on right now. But it is being ignored in the western press because most people don't die of it, and it is not spreading so far to the west.
Yes, there is a vaccine for Dengue but it has potential lethal side effects, something that the Philippines learned about only after they were used as guinea pigs to test the vaccine. And no one wants to publicize this embarassing episode for fear of making people distrust vaccines that actually save lives. We saw this in the Philippines, where parents hearing about the problem refused to get their kids routine immunizations, so kids died of measles and other diseases that routine baby shots prevent.
Sigh.
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If you liked Covid, you'll love the next "we are all gonna die" epidemic:
Bird flu is resulting in the death of millions of chickens and other birds, but Nature magazine notes it now is spreading mink to mink at a farm in Spain and the problem is that minks are mammals. What happened?
Genetic sequencing showed that the animals were infected with a new variant of H5N1, which includes genetic material from a strain found in gulls, as well as a genetic change known to increase the ability of some animal-flu viruses to reproduce in mammals. The new variant puts bird flu in “uncharted territory”, says Wendy Puryear, a virologist at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. Researchers have warned that, without careful precautions, the disease might eventually spread among people.
the same scientists who still insist that covid came from nature, not a lab leak, (and condemning you if you dare to suggest otherwise), are now on record defending bird flu manipulations. To save live of course.
The government really has a strong interest on behalf of all of us, in the public, in knowing when researchers want to make a virus more lethal or more transmissible, and understanding how that would be done and why that would be done, and whether the benefits are worth it," says Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Oh, but scientists would never manipulate bird flu to make it more transmissable to humans, so why worry.
Except they already have.
...in 2011, there was an outcry after government-funded researchers altered a bird flu virus that can be deadly in people. Their lab work made this virus more contagious in the lab animals that are stand-ins for people.
italics mine.
Critics said they'd created a super flu. Proponents said that viruses sometimes have to be manipulated in the lab to see what they might be capable of; in nature, after all, mutations occur all the time and that is how pandemic strains emerge.
and these same scientists are annoyed that the US Government dares to try to stop them from similar experiments in the future.
...Ron Fouchier, the virologist at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands, whose lab did the bird flu experiments over a decade ago, said in an email that he'd hoped the experience of going through a pandemic would simulate more research, not "unnecessarily delay or restrict it."
why? Because SCIENCE.
"I am avidly, absolutely pro-science and pro-research, and in particular pro-infectious disease research," says Inglesby.
But he says there's a very small part of that research "where there is the potential for very high risk if things go wrong, either by accident or on purpose. And so we have to get the balance right, between the risks that could unfold and the potential benefits."
update: The Houston NPR article has been edited yesterday, but the original one can still be found on Miami NPR:
this video is from 8 years ago:
Murphy's law says that if anything can go wrong, it will.
And lab accidents releasing pathogens are so common that there is a Wikipedia page about it.
Captain Trips call your office. They are at it again.
If you have a scientific background you might want to read the whole thing.
Virology under the Microscope—a Call for Rational Discoursetranslation: IF you question our positionn, you are irrational.
But they do list a lot of success stories by similar research.
The problem? Few of these examples were gain of function research that mutated viruses to make them more lethal or more easily transmissable. Much of the examples are about making the viruses weaker, or how to use viruses to enhance the immune response for vaccines (as was done for the British AZ vaccine and some of the Ebola vaccines).
