Human trafficking: So it's not a Q conspiracy if international orgnizations admit it is a problem?

when the same group that gave you the Chosen released an independent film about the trafficking of children to the international sex trade, the powers that run the internet and media were quick to condemn it as a Q conspiracy and did their best to pretend it was all lies.

Sigh

Alas human trafficking goes on and is getting worse as the anti family forces are pushing sexualization of chilren as a policy, and not just in the USA: See this article about Mexican parents burning these textbooks in protest. And of course, one of the unreported stories is that many of the countries backing BRICS are doing it partly out of protest against a US State department who pushes promiscuity population control and gay rights as human rights and will punish the country if they don't go along with this agenda.

Witch hunts are always a worry here: When abuse goes on, we also see people pushing an agenda by exaggerating the problem for their own reason. 

but child porn and the exploitation of street kids, both boys and girls, for sex or for cheap labor, is a huge problem in poorer countries nor is it a new problem: but outside of reports by missionaries it is rarely noticed in history: one exception: it is the plot behind Dicken's Oliver Twist for example, which exposed the dirty underbelly of Victorian London,

.

But human trafficking goes beyond prostitution: it includes exploiting workers and encouraging people to migrate. Because do gooders see this as a charitable thing to help these desperate people who merely want a job to support their families, many of these organizations overlook that they are helping criminal organizations and ignoring the seedier side of the migrant surge.

So I am happy to see Dr. C talking about the problem, and including links to the original articles to back up his claims:

watch the entire video, and check his list of websites that cover the problem for the source of his data.

some of it sounds crazy, but it is documented in his notes, so check out the stories.

Another place that publishes the stories of the problems of legal (and illegal) migrant workers: Migrant Rights.

many of the stories are about legal workers in Middle Eastern countries.

And of course, missing is any data from China. Wikipedia article.

the UK Guardian posted an editorial by the exPM of the UK about the problem last week:

Business is booming for human traffickers because they know they’ll get away with it

Business is booming for the criminals who engage in human trafficking, forced labour and modern slavery, not just across Asia, Africa and the Americas, but in mainland Europe and across the Channel into Britain too. Every day, traffickers are pushing desperate men, women and children into the hell of modern slavery in the knowledge that their crime is almost cost-free. There should be no hiding place for criminals who trade in people, but the likelihood of criminal exploiters being put behind bars is remote. While there are 50 million people living in modern slavery worldwide, only 15,159 traffickers were prosecuted in 2022 and just 5,577 guilty verdicts were returned, equating to one conviction for every 8,965 victims.

Sigh.

Mr Wilberforce, call your office. We need your voice to publicize this evil. 

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update: 

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

The porn psychopaths need to be stopped https://t.co/AB9tLJStEj

— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) September 9, 2023

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From the Phil Inquirer: Cyberporn in the Philippines... article from 2014.

Cyberpornography is prevalent throughout the country that law enforcers consider it the No. 1 crime in the Philippines—more menacing even than the illegal drug trade.

“The data speaks for itself. It is now the No. 1 crime in our country. We have to act on this,” said Senior Supt. Gilbert Sosa, director of the PNP Anti-Transnational and Cyber Crime Division of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (ATCCD-CIDG). This practically makes the Philippines among the top 10 countries where cyberpornography is rampant, he said.

 

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From the SunStar Sept 2023:

Half million Filipino children exploited in livestreams, new abuse images, videos in 2022

MANILA – In 2022 alone, nearly half a million Filipino children, or roughly 1 in 100 children, were trafficked to produce child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) for profit, according to estimates from the pioneering Scale of Harm prevalence study by International Justice Mission (IJM) and the University of Nottingham Rights Lab.

Complementing other studies that broadly investigated online sexual abuse and exploitation of children, the Scale of Harm study specifically measured the prevalence of the production of CSEM, especially livestreamed child sexual abuse, for profit. In this crime, a local trafficker sexually abuses a Filipino child in person while a foreign offender, typically from Western or developed countries, watches the abuse happen in real time

film of the week

 they are starting to put a lot of old classics on line and here is a tear jerker for you viewing pleasure.

Newstyle war: Drones and cluster bombs

 I usually don't follow the Ukraine war because there is so much fog of war out there you don't know what to believe, although I do trust StrategyPage analysis on what is going on...

many of their articles are about the social backgroud for what is going on, such as their latest one about the Ukaine war affecting world food prices.

 this article implies that the military industrial complex is using the war to test their newest weapons. Or maybe I am just being paranoid.

But I also follow AlJ news and today ran into two tweets:

One, they note Russian drones are hitting the Ukraine.

Russia-Ukraine war: September 5 updates ⤵️

Russia has launched a drone attack on Ukraine’s Danube River port of Izmail, leading to widespread damage to infrastructure, according to the region’s governor.

🟠 Follow our LIVE coverage: https://t.co/eeC0TFcglX pic.twitter.com/HCFZ9bIQDe

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) September 5, 2023

when I see drones, I think of the quad drones you can buy in department stores, and the variations of toy airplanes that  you could fly around with radio controls that we played with 50 years ago.

but now I am reading about kamikazi drones, and even cheap cardboard drones.

BBC article from Feb 2022 discusses the various drones in warfare.

Strategypage article from Aug 2022.

 Wikipedia article here.

of course they have civilian uses too:

Heh. I don't think that this has reached our rural area yet, although delivery of all sorts of stuff via motorcycle messanger is routine since Covid hit.

but Pizza delivery by drone reminds me of an old story where some terrorists in the southern Philippines had their hideout found (and bombed) after they ordered a pizza delivery.

Another story that ALJ tweetd today was about Russians using cluster bombs.

Cluster bombs? I seem to remember a big outcry when Biden released some for the Ukraine to use, but was not aware that Russia was already using them too.

Ukraine saw more than 900 cluster munition casualties in 2022 due to Russian use of the weapons, a monitoring group said.

🟠 LIVE updates: https://t.co/0F9Qe5h8i2 pic.twitter.com/d0XSASCTjS

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) September 5, 2023

 and unlike drones, I don't know of any civilian uses for cluster bombs

Sigh.

update:

Discussion of drone use by thugs and criminals.

“The significance of the institutionalization of weaponized aerial drones by criminal armed groups… can as a result present a more profound threat to the state and its security forces,” John P. Sullivan, researcher at C/O Futures, told The Daily Beast. “Future potentials might include targeting law enforcement and customs and border patrol officials on the frontier,” Sullivan said.

and then there is this article discussing Israel's use of new anti drone tech

 

Musical interlude of the week

 

Thanks for the Song and rest in peace.

Migrant problem in Panama? psst it is also the fertilizer (and the US Navy)

 

Michael Yon discusses the Darien gap in Panama where the illegal immigrants enter a trail to go to enter the USA illegally.

But there is more about this: Notice he mentions the fertilizer and therefore food prices are affected by the drought that is making it hard to go through the Panama canal.

And all these immigrants are destablizing Colombia and Central America.

No one is talking about who is funding this migration: The drug cartels are benefitting of course by running people smuggling, but now the deluge is getting worse, and many of these countries along the pipeline are being destablized by the deluge... Venezuela's leftist government led to a huge influx of refugees into Colombia and Brazil and now those two countries voted in marxist governments who think nothing of throwing out these refugees to head north.

and of coures, the so called drought is slowing the transit of ships going through the Panama canal (which is now essentially run by a Chinese company) slower than normal.

this has implications not just of the supply chain being slowed down, but a major threat to freedom of the seas because it could block the US Navy and US shipping from going through the Panama canal.

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

and the global food problem is one of the big reasons that people want to migrate.

But a lot of the fertilizer/food problem is artificial.] there is green pressure against fracking, so the US no longer is a major exporter of NPG thanks to Joe Biden's green policies. The man made war in the Ukraine is making things worse of course. And there is international pressure to "transition"fertilizer use to less polluting ways to fertilize the soil, never mind that this will cut the ability to grow food.

oh well. 

Too complicated for me.

But none of this seems to be mentioned in the US MSM, so the complicated solutions are not going to be discussed.

Indeed, until Texas startes bussing the migrants to northern cities the entire deluge of refugees was ignored.

and as I noted in a previous report on the Rohingye, the problem is world wide: And often has more to do with corruption and politics than with hunger.

follow the money?

 

Joe Rogan & Bill Maher Discuss How Pfizer Sold Their 100% Effective Claim & Why Ivermectin Was Demonized

“I didn’t believe that. I said that’s bullsh-t. Then Robert Kennedy, Jr sent me an email with the actual studies and I read it and I was like holy sh-t!”@joerogan… pic.twitter.com/GQDXxgZDhM

— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) September 2, 2023

 

.

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

Headsup Ann Althouse.

I guess if Bill Maher knows this it isn't a right wing conspiracy any more.

and this was noted a short while back by Dr. C:

Guess where is the world's largest refugee camp

 AlJ has a long article about the world's largest refugee camp: of the Rohingye, who were Muslim Bengalis whose ancestors moved to Burma a century ago and are now being expelled by that country, and many live in make shift shelters in Bengldesh.

the article is not just a vague "ain't it awful and I talked to one person sob sob" type of report that too often is how it is framed in western media sites, but gets into the nitty gritty of the logistics. (one latrine for 54 people, how many people in each makeshift hut, and how do you build them from tarps and bamboo, etc.).

the plan is to send them back, but Myamar/Burma doesn't want them because they never assimilated, and there was a worry about Islamic terrorism being spread from these areas (this may be an exaggerated worry)... and of course where would they go if they return? and their homes have been destroyed so where would they go?

sigh.

and conditions are made worse with heavy monsoon rains that flood the area of the camps.

most of the videos are from five years ago when attacks on their villages resulted in many fleeing.

Speaking truth to power

 

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

this interview predates the punishment of Petersen for bad speak.

The entire interview is interesting, but the reason I posted it is for what was discussed toward the end.

at 57 minutes they discuss nasty girls who destroy other girls in school, and that the cancel culture is essentially letting these types power.

This is devestating to young immature girls in school, which is why my sister in law banned facebook (before the days of tictok) for her daughter: Her daughter is on an ice skating team (and later skated as a team in one professional touring group). But in high school, when they posted photos the comments were devestating and upset her, so her mom banned her from using it and told the other girls on her high school skating team not to post photos there. 

What made it worse: She was wearing a back brace for scoliosis, and a lot of the comments were that she was fat and ugly (she is not... the posters were jealous for her talent of course but this is her weak spot of course).

Not a new problem, even in the olden days before feminism and political correctness, which is why I preferred to hang up with boys in school since I was good at science and wanted to be a physician to help people.

the irony? as soon as feminism became popular in the 1970s, these same type embraced it and used feminism as a club to destroy those of us who didn't embrace the hate men and abort our babies ethos of feminism.

Back to the video.

The remarks on nasty girls controlling cancel culture is followed by comments on the global warming hysteria.

Now one would think that someone who sees how pollution by big business affects the poor, and whose family grows organic food, would be an ecology freak.

The problem? It's being used as a cudgel to change the world's economy in a way that will devestate the lower classes and, if Sri Lanka is an example, even lead to starvation. And one wonders how China and India will become leaders of this, given the powerlessness of the majority of people in those countries.  and given the pressure by the world leaders to implement such policies.

Will BRICS help them counter the over the top bullying by the western leaders, or will the western leaders crash their economies to punish them for not kow towing to the WEF?

don't ask me. I am a physician, not an economist.

we Catholics know where the Pope wants us: to kowtow to the WEF and their climate change agenda, by getting rid of fossil fuels.

Does that guy have any idea what would happen if that was done?

Our older farmers still know how to plant with waterbuffalo and plant and harvest by hand, but there is a shortage of farm workes because, thanks to land reform, their kids got educated and got jobs in the cities or as OFW. So we are transitioning to growing rice with farm machinery, which of course is run on diesel. 

wait a second: one does not have to obey the Pope outside of faith and morals, and even that good Catholic Dante put two political popes in hell in his book the Inferno; and much of the Pope's so called reformist agenda is being pushed by Europe, (he just complained a lot of Yanks oppose him. How dare they? It's the influence of Mother Angelica Catholics, who stayed in the church instead of fleeing it as happened in South America when the liberation theology types took over).

the claim that climate change is causing poverty ignores how much of the world has climbed out of poverty under capitalism in the last 50 years.

But I am mainly angry because when the bishops push this here in the Philippines, it means they are aiming for the rich kids, and ignoring how cheap LPG/Diesel is necessary for poor people.

Indeed, our farm is probably going to lose money because of the high price of diesel and fertilizer (we are organic, but with the high price of artificial fertilizer it means lots of folks are buying organic fertilizer and the prices of all types of fertilizer is soaring)

So we might not make much of a profit with the rice crop, and that is assuming the typhoons and rain won't destroy the crop.

we are so short of funds that kuya is thinking of leasing a rice field for solar panels that are being put here. the bad news? The thugs are already threatening the farmers to sell their fields for this.

now if you don't think it is bad policy to put solar panels on the most productive rice growing area of Luzon, at a time when famine from high prices of food lurks in the near future, well that's because you don't believe in the cult of green technology.

But of course, the real problem behind third world poverty is not fossil fuel or even capitalism, but corruption. You know, the greed that all the Old Testament prophets used to condemn?

Hey pope: corruption is a moral issue you know. And a lot of the pollution is from corruption that keeps people poor.

so if you are an advocate for the poor, you can't just push the green agenda as the Pope is doing: that is what caused a major famine in SriLankha a few years ago.'

That is why the Philippine government is investing in farmers to grow organic rice and veggies, which is sold to the middle class, and growing it allows small farmers to make a profit.

But the poor in Manila? They rely on imported rice, and importing rice is vulnerable to corrupt business practices.

the president is trying to cap the price of regular rice at 40 pesos a kg. ,

sigh.

Right now I saw on twitter a hospital in Manila had an ad for transitioning girls by removing breasts.

Unless they are doing this for tourists, it means that some of our schools, probably the elite ones in Manila etc., are pushing the gender craze, along with tictoc etc.

Here in the provinces we have other problem.

Dengue is still around, as is summer diarrhea. And a lot of elders are dying of old age stuff like heart and kidney problem.

But it's not just the elders who are sick.

my seamstress' daughter, five months pregnant with a huge goiter, just died of pneumonia and also was found to have amoebic dystentary.

She was only going to a hilot local traditional midwife for her prenatal care, so these other medical problems didn't get seen.

I try to give small amounts of money to those who need money to buy medicine or get rabies shots, but of course, goiter treatment is expensive and for poor people this means going to the crowded government hospital in the next town. So she didn't go to the hospital until she was very sick and it was too late.

the economy is starting to improve, and Marcos is sucking up to the US hoping to get help. but as long as a lot of aid is stolen or diverted, it is a problem.

And of course, the LPG fields off of Palawn that could help the economy are untouched because of China's illegal claims. Indeed, that is one reason for the recent increase in China bullying the PhilCoast Guard there.

Sigh

New Covid Varient: Don't panic. Its no worse than the old omicron

 there is a new covid varient out there, 

and don't forget your towel 

The reference is to Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy.

Well, anyway, I did post about it on my medical blog here LINK

and it seems to be mild,

So it could kill or make high risk elders like myself very sick, but the ordinary folk will just get mildly ill and should be okay.

And I had the AZ (adenovirus) shot, so this part won't affect me:

and don't panic: President Biden is ordering a new vaccine for y'all.

 and although having a new vaccine sounds nice, there is now question about the mRNA vaccine lowering your immunity to a different strain. 

There are questions if the mRNA vaccines might make you more prone to get sick because of subtle immune system changes.

That part about the immunology from the mRNA vaccine that might mean your risk of getting covid is higher is a bit technical and is over my head, but the discussion on the imunology behind this problem is discussed on Science magazine here.

and Dr. Campbell discusses the immune problem here

All of this is sort of above my head since these discoveries on how the immune system works was not known when I studied medicine 50 years ago.

but the cynics are there already memeing the new varient.

 there is an election coming up.

or as the BabylonBee (a satire site) announces:

Sigh. I am getting cynical in my old age.

Musical history of Danny Boy

a famous Irish lament is about saying goodbye to a loved one, knowing that maybe you might never see him again.

but the actual history of the song is a bit more complicated: like a lot of songs that have their roots in tradition, it sort of evolved to the present version:

 

A lot of us remember that it was the theme song for the Danny Thomas Show, aka Make Room for Daddy, a 1950s sit com.

the irony? Danny Thomas was not Irish, but an Arab: A Catholic Lebanese American.

But for doctors and parents of children suffering from cancer, his best known role was as the one who was behind St Jude's Children's hospital.

From Wikipedia:

As a "starving actor", Thomas had made a vow: If he found success, he would open a shrine dedicated to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes. After becoming a successful actor in the early 1950s...to help raise funds to build St. Jude Children's Research Hospital....With help from Dr. Lemuel Diggs and close friend Anthony Abraham, an auto magnate in Miami, Florida, Thomas founded the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1962.

Why Memphis? His original idea was to put the hospital in California where he worked, but doctors pointed out the lack of such hospitals in the rural South of the USA... 

A lot of us are old enough to remember when childhood leukemia was a death sentence. And then a breakthrough occured: a miracle.

Smithsonian magazine has the story of the hospital and one of the men behind the breakthrough: Don Pinkel.

Pinkel recruited the staff. He devised the protocols. He forged the relationships. He coaxed the drugs from the pharmaceutical companies. He wheedled the grant monies from the federal agencies. In its first years, he kept St. Jude afloat, though it had few success stories and sometimes could barely make payroll. “Don had a clear and noble vision,” said Simone, “and he created a culture of daring.” Perhaps most important, it was Pinkel who decided, from the outset, to put the conquest of ALL(Leukemia) at the heart of the enterprise.

Said Simone, “Don’s the one who realized: It doesn’t do any good to extend the lives of those kids by a few months. You have to go for broke. You have to go for the total cure.” And he did. In 1970, just eight years into his tenure at St. Jude, Pinkel was able to make an extraordinary pronouncement: Childhood leukemia, he said, “can no longer be considered an incurable disease.”

Read the whole article (and don't forget to have a handkerchief handy). 

Training for war?

a follow up to yesterday's post.

no, not a neocon exercize: China has been stealing the shoals in the West Phiiippine sea for over a decade, and they are now facing a president here that might not try to make nice and compromise because China didn't keep any of their promises.

However, the big news here is the start of the school year, 

and a typhoon up north that is bringing rain showers and flood dangers.

Lots of Navy news: are they wargaming the next war?

Lots of news about the various Navys out there.

Here is StrategyPage discussing some of the issues.

Like in WWII, the Philippine is in the way of the fights between world powers.

I already posted about the aggression of China against the Philippine Coast Guard, but this has been going on for years: First China tribed to bribe our lovely president in the ZTE scandal to take over the resources there, and then under another president, they started chasing the fishermen, surrounding the shoals and then destroying the ecosystem by digging up and building artificial islands, which whty have since militarized.

sigh

This is not just about the Philippines: their takeover threatens the sea routes from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific

China is not the only one who is playing cold war games in the western Pacific:

A detachment of Russia’s navy warships returned from more than three weeks of joint-patrolling of the Pacific Ocean with Chinese navy ships, the Russian Interfax news agency reported on Sunday. | @Reuters https://t.co/eiJjRKfSCO

— Inquirer (@inquirerdotnet) August 27, 2023

PhilINquirer article here.

During the patrol, the Russian-Chinese detachment passed along the Kuril ridge, the agency reported. The islands, off the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, are known in Russia as the Kurils and in Japan as the Northern Territories and have been at the core of decades of tension between the neighbors.

The Russian-Chinese warships also circled part of the Aleutian Islands archipelago. Most of the Aleutian Islands belong to the U.S. state of Alaska, but the Commander Islands near the Kamchatka Peninsula are part of Russia.

Few Americans are aware of the big naval battle in the Aleutians in WWII, to control the upper Pacific Ocean.

    

Of course two can play the game of "Look at us we are scary":

LOOK: The Japanese Navy’s JS Izumo (DDH-183) and the US Navy’s USS America (LHA-6) are at Pier 15, Manila. | @FMangosingINQ /PDI pic.twitter.com/Df5Ee1ZNwn

— Inquirer (@inquirerdotnet) August 27, 2023

A yahoonews articlefrom last week says:

U.S., Japan and Australia plan joint navy drills in disputed South China Sea, Philippine officials say

Of course two can play the game of "Look at us we are scary":

LOOK: The Japanese Navy’s JS Izumo (DDH-183) and the US Navy’s USS America (LHA-6) are at Pier 15, Manila. | @FMangosingINQ /PDI pic.twitter.com/Df5Ee1ZNwn

— Inquirer (@inquirerdotnet) August 27, 2023

A yahoonews articlefrom last week says:

U.S., Japan and Australia plan joint navy drills in disputed South China Sea, Philippine officials say

it is a response to the increased Chinese aggression in the West Philippine sea. Earlier aggression in the area was ignred: in the past, China had their civilian proxies block the Philippine ships going to their small outpost, and last month they shot lasers at the supply ships (which could blind those on board). But of course, both incidents could be written off because China would say it was an accident. But using a water cannon weapon is close to the line of an act of war, because it could have sunk the ships, and there is no way it could be blamed on an accident.

this is not just about stealing the fishing and natural gas resources of the Philippines and being able to block the sealanes and internet cables: this is about Taiwan, of course. Frightening the Philippines not to cooperate with the Yanks is the aim.

It might not work.

Duterte had a feud with the US because of CIA shennanigans when he was mayor in Davao, and the CIA did their best to demonize him via manipulating the press to paint him as terrible, but the end result was to push him into getting needed help from China and Russia.

But even Duterte was not China's lackey, and didn't give them the west Philippine sea, especially after their promises to fight drugs etc went sour.

But Marcos has a different history. His father was supported for years by the USA, and although the US told him to leave when there was a peaceful uprising after he tried to steal the election, Marcos father was allowed to just move to Hawaii and not jailed

Marcos the son is persuing pro American policies, and although most of the Chinese take over in the West Philippine sea was done under PNoy and Duterte, he is now not letting China take over.

I am waiting for the left to start protesting this, but even the left here is anti China more than anti America.

In the meanwhile, the economy seems to be booming at least in our area.

Building all over, including new shops and businesses.

and Kuya reports he is negotiating with the firm that is putting a lot of solar panels in our area.

Most of our rice fields are too productive to sell or lease (although with the high price of fertilizer and diesel for farm equipment, our profit margin has gone down).

But he has some land on slightly higher ground that needs irrigation even in the rainy season (which costs money) so he is negotiating with them to let them use the land for solar panels.

By the way, this explains why the farmers there were visited by thugs saying someone wants to buy the land, and the farmers refused to tell them where we lived. (meaning they were not local thug: everyone here knows us).

The Philippine is devoted to ecological and green policies. and lots of solar panels being put all over the place.... and with the booming economy, there is a great need for electricity.

Library of Congress lectures

 I won't have time to watch them all, but the yearly Book festival is going on in the Library of Congress, and it has a lot of interesting lectures there about recent books.

Human rights: Uighar and forced to work in the USA:

and this one is about modern medicine: and cancer treatment

how about horror books?

Lots of discussion with best selling authors... Most of the lectures are on cutting edge topics in fiction and non fiction (e.g. history).

Tea in history

Right now I am reading the Tale of Genji: and it got me interested in medieval Japan.

Aside from seducing lovely ladies, and playing music at parties there is not a lot of discussion about the food they ate.

one thing I noticed: they didn't live very long, making me wonder why (discussed here). Yup. Low protein diet so unable to fight off TB and other infectious disease was my take too.

Now, if you read about the history of infectious disease, the introduction of tea helped increase the life span in Europe, and I seem to recall a lecture that mentioned a similar decrease in certain diseases in Japan in the 1300 or later and again attributed it to the spread of tea drinking.

 Is it the medicinal value of the tea itself, or is it because you have to boil water to make it, and of course boiling water kills germs.

One thing modern folks forget is that drinking water was deadly because contaminated water spread diarrhea, cholera, typhoid, etc. This is why Paul warned Timothy to add a little wine to his water "for his stomach's sake", and it's why wine and beer were the beverages of choice in ancient and medieval days (although the wine was usually mixed with water, and the beer was often low alcohol beer).

I didn't run across a lot of tea drinking in the Tale of Genji, so I started checking on line for articles about food customs. Because of Buddhist beliefs, meat was supposed to be shunned, but the Wikipedia article notes that in the Heian period, the nobility did eat meat and seafood...

But there is no mention of what they drank. 

Then I ran across a book about how Tea was introduced into that country

A Bowl for a Coin is the history of tea cultivation and drinking in Japan.

Originally introduced by Buddhist monks via China, but it was originally only for meditation or for medicine, but gradually the farmers learned to roast it (and later steam the leaves) so they would not be so bitter. And gradually drinking this brew spread from the nobility to ordinary people.

So anyway, Kuya was wondering if we could grow tea here. Presumably we could, so it made me look into tea growing etc.

a Wikihow article on tea leaf growing and processing the tea is found HERE.

most of the how to grow tea videos are wide eyed new agey ladies who don't look as if they ever had to make a living running a farm instead of a small garden, but here is a good old boy instructing you on how to grow and process your own tea.

What is interesting is how he instructs several ways on how to process the tea leaves, and it sounded vaguely familiar: because it is similar to how the medieval farmers in Japan processed tea.

don't forget the bad guys

 the CIA/Crack connection like most of the other conspiracy theories has a small basis of truth (to get information they work with the bad guys and some of them get corrupted) 

But drugs are actually a world wide problem.

so there is a real dilemma in what to do to fight the drug war without hurting the feelings of those who are SJW promoting human rights.

But one does have to wonder why there was an over the top hysteria against Duterte's drug war, because what is rarely noticed by such human rights types is that the murder rate only went up a small amount but the crime rate went way down. 

And one does wonder why these human rights folks never noted the many deaths from drugs: deaths of druggies (overdose or family violence) or of innocent people killed by druggies in robberies etc. who were not counted in the statistics (three incidents in our neighborhood alone).

Here drugs continue to be a problem, but crime remains lower: it is still safe for me to go out (so far). In the past, kidnapping was a real danger, as was robbery. (not just purse snatching but home invasions with violence to those in the home). 

We had kidnap gangs in the area in the past: The security guards at the bank would always laugh when I would go there with the cook, who is 75 and weighs 90 pounds, because I told them (with a wink) that she was my security guard. They thought that was funny, but the truth is that she has connections with all the local tricycle drivers in town, and knows everyone in the area, including most of the NPA of course, so yes she protected me.

Here, every shop has security guards. And sometimes they shoot people, or are shot protecting businesses and politicians, alas. We do have cops of course, but the security guards are more for prevention: a warning to the bad guys not to mess with that business.

well, anyway, this is an old 2016 Reuters article about the elephant in the living room that few reports on Duterte's drug war mention: Chinese gangsters. 

Of 77 foreign nationals arrested for meth-related drug offenses between January 2015 and mid-August 2016, nearly two-thirds were Chinese and almost a quarter were Taiwanese or Hong Kong residents, according to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA). Known in the trade as “cooks” and “chemists,” meth production experts are flown into the Philippines from Greater China by drug syndicates to work at labs like the one at Mount Arayat.

 

China isn’t only a source of meth expertise – it is also the biggest source of the meth and of the precursor chemicals used to produce the synthetic drug that are being smuggled into the Philippines, according to local drug enforcement officials.

If this sounds familiar, it is because it is similar to how Chinese gangsters are working with the Mexican cartels to bring fentanyl etc. into the USA. 

Before Duterte started his drug war, there was a real danger that the Philippines could have become a narco state. We have OFW going to and from the country to all over the world, and many are poor so would become mules to move the drugs.

and of course, corruption is rampant in both the Philippines and in China.

read the article and you might find some parallels to what China is doing with the Fentanyl to the USA.

and the reason I brought this up?

Because China has been going all over the world investing in poor countries (often to steal their resources while helping them. Yes, I know: Europe did this during colonial times too.)

StrategyPage notes that along with Chinese investments come Chinese gangs and criminals.

August 24, 2023: As more Chinese companies invest in LAC (Latin America and the Caribbean) countries, there is an increased need for Chinese security firms to deal with local threats from local organized crime gangs as well as general lawlessness. When there are a lot of Chinese businesses in an area, that usually means Chinese gangsters are not far behind... This is a problem for the Chinese firms and for local police. The locals often can’t tell the difference between Chinese businessmen and Chinese gangsters and adopt an anti-Chinese attitude that makes trouble for all Chinese in the area. Chinese firms came up with a solution; Chinese PSCs, or Private Security Companies.

There are a lot of these private security groups: think of them as the Chinese version of Blackwater or the Russian Wagner group.

sigh

Actually this is the new normal, and I don't blame China for trying to protect their people. 

 I am ambivalent about Chinese investments because I am aware of how Europe looted third world countries for years while also developing them into modern countries. 

But now with all the green agenda in western aid projects (not to mention that the green agenda has infiltrated some western charities and NGOs) that doesn't want to change the lifestyle of all those nice people who seem happy living in dire poverty a low carbon lifestyle...and of course western government aid programs have string attached: to get it you have to implement the western amoral sexual agenda human rights).

So yes, one might be sympathetic to  Chinese investment that sees promoting "human rights" and preventing pollution etc. as a lesser important than promoting projects that will lessen poverty and starvation...

I am posting this because too often the complexities of crime and criminal enterprises is seen as merely a western problem, and the conspiracy types don't see this as a world wide problem.

Dang we forgot to block their cellphones

 This is hilarious.

China used a water cannon to stop a supply ship within the Philippine economic zone, and someone caught it on a video, meaning they couldn't get away with lies and diplomatic pressure that pretends an area 197 miles off of Palawan is not part of the Philippines territory (EEZ is 200 miles).

So now they have changed their tactics. Why?  They got caught on a video camera and the confrontation was put on the internet for all to see.

The Philippine Coast Guard said China is now concerned about the “optics” of its actions, which is why it has shown a less aggressive response in the latest resupply mission for BRP Sierra Madre. | @JEMendozaINQ https://t.co/65xCJtjIwE

— Inquirer (@inquirerdotnet) August 23, 2023

oh heavens. They aren't worried that they committed an act of war against the Philippine Coast Guard in an area that is legally Philippine territory. They are only worried about the optics of the film that recorded their aggression.

“I think this has something to do with optics — they want to show the world na kunwari (that it may seem) they are not really that aggressive in preventing our resupply operations,” Tarriela said in a public briefing. The official attributed this to PCG’s “approach of being transparent and publicizing the aggressive behavior of China on the previous resupply.” 

 Read more:here 

Duh. 

Presumably the next thing that will happen is an internet or cellphone problem so that those wiley internet savvy Filipinos can't film and transmit the next incident of open aggression against a smaller nation.

Hmmm... I wonder if the PCG has access to Starlink....

so where do kids come in?

 Many years ago, in the chaos of the 1960s rejection of normality, I read the praise of the modern way to see the world, The Aquarian conspiracy that saw people channeling their own thing and then networking to make utopia. Ebook here.

a lot of what she wrote about has since then come true, but maybe those inside this revolution are too close to it to see what I saw as a problem: It is about self actualization. But there is no place in it for children, babies, caring for the sick and elderly  because sacrificing your own wants for the family or spouse, etc, is not part of the Aquarian ideals...Indeed, there was no place in their utopia for the weak or inferior.

What stood in the way in the USA were the churches. 

Hence the infiltration of Vatican II, and now the struggle of the Catholics against an anti pope who talks a lot about nice charitable stuff that I agree with, but if you look closer, appoints minions whose goal is the opposite... His agenda spouts charity work, but it is tone deaf to Jesus. I mean, he tells people to follow the green religion and help the poor but ignores that this means the poor are outliers, sort of pets for the strong to dabble with so they feel virtuous, and alas too often destroy when they put their green agenda in front of stuff like growing cheap food because that requires fossil fuel. And there is nothing in it about serving God in the humble everyday tasks of life.

Oh well, I have ranted about this before.

The second thing that has to be destroyed to promote a utopian societyis the family.

Judism, and it's daughters Christianity and Islam, have always defended the strong family, and to do so insisted on limiting sex outside of the family and puts crimps into women who seek to do their own thing free of family ties.

the limitation of both men and women's outside goals is part and parcel of a stable family life: nor is this just a western idea: Confucius, confronted with chaos and societal breakdown wrote strict rules to follow to reestablish the family.

well, anyway, the Trojan horse to destroy the family is gay marriage. Too often, we only read the theological objections that seem to be out of touch with out touchy feely generation: Love is love isn't it, and so let them marry. 

Except apparently no one has looked at the deep roots behind that agenda.

Real Clear Investigations has an expose on gay theology in the major theology schools that apparently has gone on for thirty years without a lot of publicity.

read it and weep.

and two podcasts from First Things magazine discuss these changes.

firstthings · Queer Theology

firstthings · The Sexual Revolution

r=

Tolorating the third sex is not the same as pushing the gay agenda: we manage to do this here in the Philippines, where baclas and tomboys and third sex are accepted as part of our extended family: not approval of their behavior or letting the radical agenda to destroy the family (despite the US State Dept pressure to do so by pushing laws on gay rights, abortion and divorce) but acceptance as part of our family.

But one only has to read the dissadents who the present anti Pope is letting run things behind his nice rhetoric to see their agenda is to change church dogma to push this PC agenda.

We need inclusion they cry. (i.e. everyone except Catholics believing what the church taught until Francis took over are welcome). 

One sees this in his latest stunt, aka the synod on synodality, which is being touted as including lay people and women, but if you look closely, most of these outsiders have an identical agenda. so the meeting is not about an honest discussion, but  will merely be a way to rubber stamp the already chosen agenda of the so called reformers.

LINK

 Steven Mosher interviews Dr. Thomas Ward, president of the John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family, who warns that the upcoming Synod on Synodality could lead to a 'radical paradigm shift on Catholic morality on life and the family.'...

Dr. Ward himself, along with a number of other outspokenly pro-life members of the PAV, was asked to leave the Academy by the incoming Archbishop Paglia, who has since taken the Academy in, it is fair to say, a very different direction than JPII intended.

read the whole interview: An excerpt: 

Steven Mosher:  Dr. Ward, as the President of the JPII Academy for Human Life and Family, how do you and other members of the Academy view the upcoming Synod on Synodality, which will be held in Rome from October 4 to 29?

Dr. Thomas Ward:  I and many other members of our Academy are deeply concerned that the Synod on Synodality will be used to affect a radical paradigm shift on Catholic morality on life and the family.

Steven Mosher: That’s a bold claim that will shock many. Can you substantiate it?

Dr. Ward: Yes, I can. Let me quote the words of senior churchmen who are openly working for this radical paradigm shift in Catholic morality, starting with Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, whom Pope Francis appointed to head the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV). In the words of Archbishop Paglia, the role of PAV is to accept the invitation contained in paragraph 3 of his Apostolic Constitution Veritatis Gaudium (the Apostolic Constitution on Ecclesiastical Universities and Faculties) for a radical paradigm shift in theological reflection. … to render a service to the Magisterium by opening up a space for dialogue that makes research possible and encourages it.

 

Steven Mosher: So that striking phrase, “radical paradigm shift,” comes from Francis himself.

Dr. Ward: A paradigm is a conceptual framework. Paradigm shifts in science arise when the dominant paradigm is thrown into crisis by new information. The result is that the previous paradigm is replaced by a new conceptual framework or system of beliefs. But bear in mind that in this case the “paradigm” in question is our system of Catholic beliefs.

 sigh

imagine that

Hope he doesn't get canceled for posting that video.

Ivermectin works for a lot of stuff: including  for head lice. 

Nature magazine:journal of antibiotics:June 2020. early studies suggest ivermectin might work against a large number of viral infections.

The bad news that no one wants to talk about: The studies to prove it are expensive and the drug is generic, so there is no profit in it. So no drug company wants to spend a million dollars to prove it works and do all the paper work, because they will never get their investment back.

link2:poor water solubility means that oral ivermectin might not give a high enough dosage.

And we found it worked for mange in dogs: we treated a neighbor's ugly dog who was thrown out of the house because of mange, and she is now improved...

musical interlude of the week

 

and for we elders, we remember this train song:

and remembering the trains linked people and opened the west to be settled?

?

and as kids we all sang this song:

history of weather

in Oklahoma, (and Texas) even the poor had airconditioners so having a day of 100 plus degrees is not a big thing.

So is the present heat wave new? Or is the news being manipulated because of the way they measure the temperature at ground level, not five feet in the air and away from buildings and cement as it was done until recent years?

The History guy has this report of a heat wave that has been forgotten:

and along with the heat, there is always a danger of fires: Mainly from lightning. I lived in New Mexico when half the state was on fire, and we had one near us that luckily (thanks to local fire fighters) didn't destroy our town. But the one in the northern part of the state destroyed part of Los Alamos and got most of the publicity.

Sort of like this fire, which few know about because it happened the same week of the great Chicago fire.

then we have the haze from the Canadian fires.

yes that has happened before:

then you have this. Yup he blames the drought:

just ignore what really caused the fire

sigh.

If you let the undergrowth grow unchecked, then the chance of catastrophic forest fires is worse. But if you burn it, you risk such secondary fires.

As for grass fires: they can go fast. So when I had bought a plot to build a house, I was told I had to irrigate it because dry grass was a fire hazard, but fresh green grass would lessen the risk of fires. But since unchecked growth would include weeds etc. that could spread seeds to the nearby farms...I was told I had to graze animals there to keep the grass and bad weeds down. So I bought some goats and a calf to do this.

Several movies show grass fires as part of the plot: This one in Return to Lonesome Dove shows how fast they can spread and destroy houses, crops, etc. Fast forward to 1:24,

Luckily now I live in the Philippines, where forest fires might happen in the mountains, but here in the plains our main danger is earhquakes, volcanoes, typhoons, floods and Dengue Fever.