Feb 042020
 


DPC The heart of Chinatown, San Francisco, after the earthquake and fire 1906

 

China Death Toll Hits 427 As New Cases In Hubei Increase By Record High (SCMP)
Coronavirus: China Admits ‘Shortcomings And Deficiencies’ (BBC)
Chinese Military Takes Control Of Medical Supplies In Wuhan (SCMP)
Coronavirus Tally In Epicentre Wuhan May Be ‘Just The Tip Of The Iceberg’ (SCMP)
‘Striking’ Coronavirus Mutations Found Within One Family Cluster (SCMP)
Coronavirus Found On Doorknob Of Infected Patient (ZH)
Gordon Chang: Chinese Authorities Falsifying Coronavirus Death Toll (SAC)
Crisis-O-Rama (Jim Kunstler)
Press Freedom Is At Risk If We Allow Julian Assange’s Extradition (G.)
2019 Was Record-Breaking Year For Supertall Skyscrapers (DeZeen)
Unprecedented Cybersecurity Measures To Safeguard Iowa Caucus Results (DMR)

 

 

Lots of Wuhan corona again today, how can I not? For coverage of the Dems boondoggle, see the bottom of this aggregator.

Quite a few articles from SCMP (South China Morning Post), which appears to be “opening up” its news on the crisis. To suggest that what we know about Wuhan may just be the tip of the iceberg is some statement for a Chinese paper. Just last week they could have been arrested for spreading false rumors. SCMP may be based in Hong Kong, but it is owned by Alibaba.

Today’s numbers:

• 20,670 cases (was 17,480 yesterday)

• 427 deaths (was 362 yesterday)

• Mortality rate for city of Wuhan has reached 4.9%. Mortality rate for Hubei province is 3.1%.
– Mortality rate is predicted by doctors to drop because extra medical attention is available, but that extra threatens to be overwhelmed right away. Shortages of beds, equipment, test kits, protective clothing etc.

• New cases in Hubei province reach record high

• First death in Hong Kong, first case in Belgium

• 171,329 cases under observation, up 18,629 overnight, along with 23,214 suspected cases. (These are very fluid numbers)

 

 

 

 

“The latest figures come as the number of daily casualties – and levels of global fear – rise sharply.”

China Death Toll Hits 427 As New Cases In Hubei Increase By Record High (SCMP)

Health authorities in Hubei announced on Tuesday that coronavirus fatalities in the province had risen to 414 after 64 deaths were reported overnight – yet another daily record. In figures current as of midnight on Monday, the health commission of Hubei also reported 2,345 new cases of infection. Of those, 1,242 were reported in Wuhan, the province’s capital and epicentre of the deadly contagion, also known as 2019-nCoV. There have been 425 deaths caused by the virus in mainland China and one in the Philippines. The latest figures come as the number of daily casualties – and levels of global fear – rise sharply.

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, America’s leading public health institute, on Monday defended what it called “aggressive actions” it is taking to control the US spread of the coronavirus. These include tough warnings against travelling to China and mandatory federal quarantines for those arriving from the Wuhan area where most of the cases come from. Beijing has criticised the US steps. Meanwhile, the economic fallout from the virus continued amid growing concern that global growth could suffer. CNBC reported Monday that Goldman Sachs was cancelling its annual partner meeting in New York this week over concern that Asia-based partners wouldn’t be able to travel.

The US Department of Health and Human Services notified Congress that it may need to tap some US$136 million to combat the outbreak. On other economic fronts, oil fell to its lowest level in over a year during the US trading day Monday on declining Chinese demand.

Read more …

Apparently, Xi has punished over 400 “servants” for failure. When’s his turn?

Coronavirus: China Admits ‘Shortcomings And Deficiencies’ (BBC)

China’s top leadership has admitted “shortcomings and deficiencies” in the country’s response to the deadly coronavirus outbreak. The Politburo Standing Committee said the national emergency management system had to improve. A crackdown on wildlife markets, where the virus emerged, has been ordered. [..] Chinese television early on Tuesday local time reported new figures from Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak, adding another 64 fatalities and 2,345 more cases. The number of deaths in China, excluding Hong Kong, now exceeds the 349 killed on the mainland in the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2002-03.


Reports of the standing committee meeting, chaired by President Xi Jinping, were carried by the official Xinhua news agency. It said lessons had to be learned from what had been a “big test” of China’s governance system. “In response to the shortcomings and deficiencies that were exposed responding to this epidemic, we must improve our national emergency management system and improve our abilities in handling urgent and dangerous tasks,” the report said. One area to be tackled is the trade in illegal wildlife, which should be “resolutely banned”, while supervision of markets should be strengthened. It is thought a market in the city of Wuhan in Hubei province was the source of the viral outbreak. On Monday, a study by a Chinese virologist said bats were the likely source.

Read more …

Any way, Xi and the CCP have seen enough. I see everyone talk about that new hospital built in 5 minutes, but with 18,269 added to observation alone in one night, maybe that focus is misplaced.

Chinese Military Takes Control Of Medical Supplies In Wuhan (SCMP)

China has deployed hundreds of military officers to control the flow of medical and essential supplies in Wuhan, ground zero of the deadly coronavirus outbreak, state media and sources said. A People’s Liberation Army logistics team of 260 officers, with 130 military trucks, started delivering basic supplies on Sunday, according to state broadcaster CCTV. It said they delivered 200 tonnes of supplies to supermarkets in the Hubei province city of 11 million people on the first day. The team is made up of officers from the PLA’s airborne troops and air force stationed at the Wuhan garrison, and ground force troops from local military academies.


The logistics operation began the same day as 1,400 medical personnel from the PLA were sent to staff the first completed temporary hospital in Wuhan. The Huoshenshan hospital, which was built from scratch in eight days in response to the crisis and will be controlled by the military, was due to open on Monday. A defence ministry statement said the medical staff deployment had been personally approved by President Xi Jinping. A source close to the PLA, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the logistics team was there to make sure donations to charity organisations like the Red Cross Society reached their intended recipients. “The Beijing leadership realised that almost all the donation points in Hubei and Wuhan have had delivery problems, that there are some opportunists using this crisis to make money,” the military source said.

Read more …

“Testing kits are in short supply, meaning only the ‘fortunate’ who test positive are admitted to hospital for treatment…”

“A doctor at the Union Hospital in Wuhan, who declined to be identified, said staff could only test about 100 patients a day, and they had to wait 48 hours for the results.”

Coronavirus Tally In Epicentre Wuhan May Be ‘Just The Tip Of The Iceberg’ (SCMP)

The official number of coronavirus cases in Wuhan might not reflect the true scale of the crisis as there may be many patients who are undiagnosed and not reported, medical experts said. Wuhan – the city of 11 million people where the deadly virus outbreak began in December – has so far reported more than 5,000 confirmed cases of the pneumonia-like illness, or about one-third of the total number across mainland China. But some medical experts have expressed concern that the real number could be much higher because cases are only classified as confirmed once a patient has twice tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus. Given that there is also a shortage of coronavirus testing kits, the figure could be much lower than it actually is.

Professor David Hui Shu-cheong, a respiratory medicine expert from Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the official tally in Wuhan could be “just the tip of the iceberg” because it only reflected the acute cases where patients were admitted to hospital. “There are many community cases that remain undiagnosed – unlike in Hong Kong, where cases are more carefully handled, including the mild ones. Of the 15 confirmed cases [in Hong Kong], 10 of [the patients] didn’t even need to be put on oxygen,” Hui said. “So we’re talking about different denominators here. For an actual picture, one usually has to wait until after the outbreak settles for a general population, zero-prevalence study to be carried out – where blood tests would reflect the number of positive cases containing the antibody without presenting the symptoms,” Hui said.

[..] A doctor at the Union Hospital in Wuhan, who declined to be identified, said staff could only test about 100 patients a day, and they had to wait 48 hours for the results. “When the National Health Commission announces the numbers, they’re already two days old,” the doctor said. “We also have to turn away patients with mild symptoms, knowing that many of them will return later [when their condition worsens]. But we don’t have the space in the testing centre, or the hospital beds.” [..] “There have also been many patients who died of undifferentiated respiratory and undiagnosed pneumonia symptoms in Wuhan since December – before the virus testing kits were made available,” Tsang said.

Read more …

This is what worries the experts. Any mutation can mean a more infectious and deadly virus.

‘Striking’ Coronavirus Mutations Found Within One Family Cluster (SCMP)

Chinese scientists say they have detected “striking” mutations in a new coronavirus that may have occurred during transmission between family members. While the effects of the mutations on the virus are not known, they do have the potential to alter the way the virus behaves. Researchers studying a cluster of infections within a family in the southern province of Guangdong said the genes of the virus went through some significant changes as it spread within the family. Viruses mutate all the time, but most changes are synonymous or “silent”, having little effect on the way the virus behaves. Others, known as nonsynonymous substitutions, can alter biological traits, allowing them to adapt to different environments.

Two nonsynonymous changes took place in the viral strains isolated from the family, according to a new study by Professor Cui Jie and colleagues at the Institut Pasteur of Shanghai. This case indicated “viral evolution may have occurred during person-to-person transmission”, they wrote in the paper published in the journal National Science Review on January 29. “Close monitoring of the virus’s mutation, evolution and adaptation is needed,” they added. Cui’s team also detected a total of 17 nonsynonymous mutations from cases around the country between December 30 and late January, they wrote.

[..] theoretically, mutations can make recovered patients sick again and cheat existing detection methods because they target only a small segment of the viral genome. A study led by University of Minnesota researcher Li Fang predicted that a single mutation at a specific spot in the genome could significantly increase the virus’s ability to bind with cells on the surface of the human respiratory system, according to their paper published in the Journal of Virology on January 29.

Read more …

Lovely. Now we have a 2 week incubation time and 5 days on surfaces.

Coronavirus Found On Doorknob Of Infected Patient (ZH)

Until now, the prevailing conventional wisdom was that China’s coronavirus epidemic, which has spread to over 20,600 people around the globe as of February 3, did so by air or, according to some recent and unconfirmed speculation, human feces. That may be about to change. According to the Global Times, new ways of transmitting the coronavirus have been reported, and virus nucleic acid has been detected outside human bodies, sparking public fears that the virus could be transmitted in unknown and undetected ways. Concerns emerged after scientists found coronavirus nucleic acid on the doorknob of a confirmed Guangzhou-based patient’s house, the first case of novel coronavirus detected outside the human body, Guangzhou Daily reported Monday. The finding was confirmed by China’s Health Commission, which said on Monday that the coronavirus can survive for five days maximum on smooth surfaces under suitable circumstances.


That would mean that mobile phone screens, computer keyboards, faucets and other household objects may indirectly transmit the virus, experts said. A man from Northeast China’s Jilin Province, who was confirmed with coronavirus infection on Monday, shared his experience, saying he had used the same microphone with another confirmed patient during a meeting in January. In another case, a 40-year-old man from North China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, who lives upstairs of a confirmed patient, was also diagnosed with coronavirus infection on Saturday. Aside from respiratory droplets and contact transmissions, the person has no clear contact histories with people from other cities, patients, or wild animals and has never been to a market, according to the local health authority on Sunday.

Read more …

”..what we are witnessing is essentially a breakdown in government and keeping accurate statistics is a very minor part of their priorities right now.”

“This is only going to get worse,” Chang concluded, adding the virus will likely not be contained until “April or May.”

Gordon Chang: Chinese Authorities Falsifying Coronavirus Death Toll (SAC)

Local Chinese authorities have just lost the ability to pick up corpses due to a breakdown in government,” said Gordon Chang, a well known expert on China on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” “So really what we are having right now is, they are completely overwhelmed,” Chang added. “They are not able to keep accurate statistics. So what we are witnessing is essentially a breakdown in government and keeping accurate statistics is a very minor part of their priorities right now.” Chang said that while he understands the preventative measure, he believes the quarantine has “made the problem worse.” “I can understand why they want to quarantine but remember, the Wuhan mayor said about 5 million people from his city left before the quarantine was imposed,” he said.


“Also right now the quarantine has aggravated a problem and that is [that] people can’t get to hospitals, so they are at home…they are dying.” “They are infecting other people in their households because they are not, in a sense, quarantined from wives, husbands, brothers, sisters,” he continued. “The quarantine has made the problem worse. It’s also created panic. That panic has had consequences on, for instance, social cohesion which is absolutely necessary if you want to beat an epidemic.” “It’s not just Wuhan,” he said. “Many Virologists think that [conditions in] Wuhan will be duplicated in cities like Shanghai, maybe even Beijing. Clearly there is fear everywhere throughout China right now.” “This is only going to get worse,” Chang concluded, adding the virus will likely not be contained until “April or May.”

Read more …

Releasing a virus to hide economic issues seems a bit far-fetched for now. Not impossible, but we’d like to see some proof.

Crisis-O-Rama (Jim Kunstler)

[..] there’s also a theory that the Coronavirus affords a cover for cascading failures in China’s corrupt and shifty banking system. The country had already stepped across some frontiers in demographics, energy consumption, and industrial growth that were shoving it toward contraction for the first time in two generations. Coronavirus has shut down a lot of production in big things like cars and big-little things like cell phones, and supply lines are shutting down to world markets. This amounts to the first big test of the integrated global economy, as well as the world’s debt-saturated business model. When a lot of parties and counterparties can’t pay each other because their revenue flows are cut off, the securities, currencies, equities, and other abstract representations of wealth go south.

The US and Europe are no better positioned for a crisis in their banking arrangements, and confidence is starting to crack. Both economic mega-regions have relied on central banking hocus-pocus to prop up stock markets and maintain the illusion that the logic of bonds still applies. The first thing to go moneywise in a contracting financial system is the magic of compound interest. The US Federal Reserve has been massively gaming the Repo markets — overnight lending that uses bonds as collateral — since September, raising suspicions that more than one of its “primary dealer” banks are insolvent. Juicing them with “liquidity” is like painting over sheetrock infested with black mold. Looks good for a week or so, and then you’re in intensive care.

Nobody knows yet what the effect of Britain’s escape from the EU will do to the Union’s remainers, but Europe’s bonded debt arrangements are even dodgier than America’s, since there is absolutely no EU central control of each member’s fiscal affairs.

Read more …

I kid you not, the Guardian of all outlets has the gall to run a story supporting Julian Assange by a guy named Roy Greenslade. He even quotes editor Kathy Viner, who all but tightened the noose around Julian’s neck along with writer Luke Harding, but now says:

“State power should never be used to suppress the actions of whistleblowers and investigative journalists pursuing stories that are clearly in the public interest. The US extradition case against Julian Assange is a troubling attack on press freedom and the public’s right to know.“

It was the Guardian’s stories on Assange through time that were a troubling attack on press freedom. If you still keep your subscription to them after this, you are lost.

Press Freedom Is At Risk If We Allow Julian Assange’s Extradition (G.)

Later this month, a journalist will appear at a London court hearing in which he faces being extradited to the United States to spend the rest of his life in prison. The 18 charges against him are the direct result of his having revealed a host of secrets, many of them related to the US prosecution of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They included the “collateral murder” video which showed a US helicopter crew shooting 18 people in Baghdad in 2007, including two Reuters war correspondents, Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Among the files were thousands of military dispatches and diplomatic cables that enabled people in scores of countries to perceive the relationships between their governments and the US.

They also showed the way in which American diplomats sought to gather personal information about two UN secretary generals. Unsurprisingly, the revelations were gratefully published and broadcast by newspapers and media outlets across the world. “Scoop” is far too mundane a term to describe the staggering range of disclosures. By any journalistic standard, it was a breathtaking piece of reporting, which earned the journalist more than a dozen awards.

So, you might think that this press freedom hero, now incarcerated in Belmarsh prison, would be enjoying supportive banner headlines in Britain’s newspapers ahead of his case. Thus far, however, coverage of his plight has been muted. Why? The answer is that our hero is none other than Julian Assange, the man who skipped bail to avoid an extradition order to Sweden over an allegation of rape, which he denies, and took shelter in the Ecuadorian embassy for seven years until police were allowed to enter and arrest him last April. Many falsehoods were told about Assange during his time inside the embassy, including bizarre stories about his smearing faeces on the walls, ruining the floors by skateboarding and torturing a cat.

Read more …

It’s really a shame that the term “tall-building syndromw” was already taken by another phenomenon.

2019 Was Record-Breaking Year For Supertall Skyscrapers (DeZeen)

A record 26 towers over 300 metres were completed in 2019 according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, while there was a drop in the number of 200-metre-tall buildings completed. Of the 26 new supertall towers the 530-metre-high Tianjin CTF Finance Centre by SOM is the tallest. It is the seventh tallest skyscraper in the world, along with its sister tower the Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre. The record-number of supertall skyscrapers in 2019 beat the previous year’s 18 supertall towers, which was also a record at the time. Following the Tianjin CTF Finance Centre, the second tallest building completed in 2019 was the RMJM-designed Lakhta Centre in Russia. At 462 metres high it is currently the tallest building in Europe.


Lakhta Centre, Russia, by RMJM and Gorproject

Algeria set the record for the tallest building on the African continent with the 265-metre-high Great Mosque of Algiers, or Djamaa el Djazaïr. Designed by China State Construction Engineering, the mosque also has the world’s tallest minaret. Another notable supertall was the Exchange 106 Tower in Kuala Lumpar. The £7.6 billion project stalled during the Malaysia Development Berhad embezzlement scandal. At just over 445 metres it was the fourth tallest to complete last year. Overall there was over a 13 per cent drop in the number of buildings completed that were over 200 metres. In 2019 there were 126 of these skyscrapers built compared to 146 in 2018. The CTBUH report suggested this was due to the lag from projects cancelled during the 2008 financial crash, and not a result of more recent global events.

Read more …

Hard to believe in many ways. Robby Mook? Why not, and next you’re bringing back Oliver North?!

Unprecedented Cybersecurity Measures To Safeguard Iowa Caucus Results (DMR)

Both parties in Iowa and their app and web development vendors partnered last fall with Harvard’s Defending Digital Democracy Project to develop strategies and systems to protect results and deal with any misinformation that’s reported on caucus night. They worked with campaign experts Robby Mook and Matt Rhodes — as well as experts in cybersecurity, national security, technology and election administration — and simulated the different ways that things could go wrong on caucus night. Mook, 2016 campaign manager for Hillary Clinton, and Rhodes, Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign manager, helped develop a public-service video to alert campaigns to the warning signs of hacking and misinformation.

It was released in 2018, days after a federal indictment detailed how Russian intelligence operatives hacked Clinton’s presidential campaign, the DNC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2016. According to the indictment stemming from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference, Russian officers targeted state and county offices in several states, including Iowa, to steal voter data and other information. They were successful in Illinois, but not in Iowa. Ever since, both parties in Iowa have been working to safeguard caucus results and held training sessions to assure caucus leaders know about heightened security measures. Party officials acknowledge the 2020 election cycle poses a heightened threat of disinformation. But “until Mitch McConnell decides to act on the bipartisan-passed House of Representatives election security bills sitting on his desk, cybersecurity prevention will continue to play a growing role in our elections,” Price said.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle February 4 2020

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 40 total)
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  • #53471

    DPC The heart of Chinatown, San Francisco, after the earthquake and fire 1906   • China Death Toll Hits 427 As New Cases In Hubei Increase By Rec
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle February 4 2020]

    #53472
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    While I have no use for skyscrapers and the thinking behind them, the image of the Lakhta Center takes my breath away, partly from acrophobia emerging as I age. (Young, I delighted in heights.) Thanx for the thrill.

    #53473
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Looks like we’ll be out or Iraq ere long:

    Baghdad Wants Russian s-300 Missile System

    #53474
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    DPC The heart of Chinatown, San Francisco, after the earthquake and fire 1906

    Wow. Desolate to say the least; such an excellent photo…

    #53476

    Tall buildings are signs of bubbles and looming busts:

    bubble

    #53477
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    That.is.fascinating. The tall bldg/econ crisis correlation. Well, looking at it from a poetic metaphor perspective. Rationally, it’s logical that when there’s too much illusory wealth easy had, it will go up because there’s a) literally no room, and b) hubris tends to aim skyward.

    If we put that energy into building underground, we’d have something worth the effort.

    #53478
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Epstein is probably trafficking under age bats in Wuhan.

    #53479
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Brother Dave was beyond category. While he catered in some respects to narrow-minded, vindictive, bigoted Southern attitudes, he started off doing so in a way aimed to lift them above their native surroundings and see beyond. Eventually, his Southern audiences turned on him for denouncing LBJ and making open criticisms of cherished Dixie notions. Likewise, he got in trouble in the north for using drugs.

    Being a child of the South raised in the North, I take a more nuanced view of such things than most people, or so it seems to me. (Subjective objectivity is a motherhummer.) People reflect the attitudes prevalent where they were raised. We stand where we sit, said someone important enough for it to become an academic proverb. How they respopnd to those attitudes is what is most important to me, and to expect people to flatly reject their upbringing is to expect people to deny their roots, which are a part of whom they are. Easier said than done.

    In the late 60s, when he was bitter and staying seriously high, his act purportedly became openly and crudely racially bigoted. I believe this was true but haven’t heard the material myself. But then, during the 70s when he was seriously strung out on cocaine, David Bowie was a huge Hitler fan. I can envision a bitter Dave Gardner pandering to the cruder common denominators of his Southern base partly because he’d been done the way they’d done Lenny Bruce. Getting shot down from being on TV because you were busted for pot, and blacklisted from much of your Southern audience because you dared knock LBJ’s Holy War in Viet Nam that was suppoed to “fight communism”, can lead a bitter renegade to decide he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb while simultaneously rubbing his Southern audience’s nose in their own racially bigoted shit.

    But he was also this guy:

    “Yeah, times change, as do tastes. In the late ’50s and early ’60s, Gardner was considered to be “the Lenny Bruce of the South,” and was popular with white and black audiences. Later on, though, he became much more strident and openly racist, some say because of his drug and alcohol use. Still, As a kid in Mississippi in the early ’60s, I remember trading Gardner’s punch lines in dialect with my black friends, much to the amusement of their parents.”

    Anyway, Brother Dave is hilarious in a kind-hearted way, and sheds unique light on social attitudes at the turn of the 60s. Keep an open mind and remember that we’re all human, and you’ll find this time capsule uncommonly revealing about the South’s chronic inferiority/guilt complex called “Southern Pride”, while also experiencing moments of transcendental brotherly love between bizarre giggle fits.

    Ain’t That Weird

    Brother Dave’s wiki

    Bonus vintage comedy trivia:

    “(Jonathan) Winters was schizophrenic, so much so that he spent some time on (as he so appropriately put it) “the funny farm.” He was actually committed to an institution for the mentally ill a couple of times.Reportedly, the first time he was committed, he was stark naked and climbing the mast of a schooner in San Francisco harbor, saying as he looked skyward, “Wait! Wait! I’m coming!”

    I can only admire and applaud. That’s the way you do it if you’re gonna get yourself committed.

    #53480
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Epstein is probably trafficking under age bats in Wuhan.”

    I think that deserves a bronze plaque.

    #53481
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Here’s a nuanced mini-bio of Brother Dave that supports, in my mind, the notion that what caused his Dark Period (see how our culture inherently enshrines lighter tones? a love of light is healthy but darkness is just as important lest ye go sunblind and be sunburnt unto oblivion) was a combination of rejection by a hypocritical white racially bigoted entertainment industry as well as by a hypocritical racially bigoted Southern community, a whole buncha money (he was pretty swank for awhile) inflating the inevitable narcissism that comes from too much booze and speed, and being caught up in the usual Libertarian fever dreams (see his relationship with Texas oilman H.L. Hunt) like that sold today by folks like the Koch Bros while they themselves practice corporate socialism.

    Mini-bio

    Miles Davis gets a lot of post-mortem heat for his bitterness toward white dominance of society and the music industry, but if you’d gone through what he’d gone through, you’d probably feel similarly.

    As for his self-admitted physical abuse of women, something he tried to justify in his autobiography, what can I say in his defense? Nothing. But I can say this: women ought to take a baseball bat to men who smack them around like that. It only takes once for a bully man to learn. Just because men on average are larger and have greater upper body strength is no excuse to lie down and take it.

    “Big man beat a little man every time if he’s in the right and keeps on coming.” (allegedly an old texas Ranger expression) I think this applies to little women versus big men too.

    Kinda like Little David and Great Big Goliath:

    D & G

    #53482
    John Day
    Participant

    I’m late for work, gotta’ get on the bike, but I wanted to send this out this morning.
    http://www.johndayblog.com/2020/02/fruit-bat-roundup.html

    Joe sends this article about the inserted genetic sequences in Wuhan coronavirus 2019-nCoV. It seems like part of this sequence is available online for under $100, worked out during 2008 research into SARS corona virus. The big insertion is the spke protein, that binds to ACE2 receptors deep in human lungs. This is the smoking gun of genetic engineering. The article goes into the firing of the Chinese employee from the Canadian level-4 viral research lab, suspected of borrowing the bat coronavirus without permission.

    On the Origins of the 2019-nCoV Virus, Wuhan, China

    Dr Francis Boyle says Wuhan coronavirus is an engineered bioweapon (but who did the critical engineering?)

    Dr. Francis Boyle Creator Of BioWeapons Act Says Coronavirus Is Biological Warfare Weapon

    Here is an interesting study with an innocuous enough name, published Halloween 2019, just after that Event 201 simulation of coronavirus pandemic was done. Filovirus is the family containing EBOLA. They looked at antibodies to filoviruses in bats and humans involved in a traditional yearly bat-harvest (roundup) in Nagaland, India. It looks like the humans caught these from the bats and made antibodies.
    Filovirus-reactive antibodies in humans and bats in Northeast India imply zoonotic spillover
    https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0007733

    #53483
    Dr. D
    Participant

    So the expert on world bioweapons says Wuhan is a bioweapon? And they (Gilead) already have a vaccine for a bioweapon they themselves created? Huh, who’d a thunk.

    “Experts debunk fringe theory linking China’s coronavirus to [bioweapon]”
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/29/experts-debunk-fringe-theory-linking-chinas-coronavirus-weapons-research/

    Oops, wrong link. It was the WaPo who was printing fake news and debunked. Because: Not journalists.

    “Dr. Francis Boyle Creator of BioWeapons Act Says Coronavirus Is Biological Warfare Weapon”

    Dr. Francis Boyle Creator Of BioWeapons Act Says Coronavirus Is Biological Warfare Weapon

    As have many others, citing several compelling and technical reasons within the RNA.

    “Xi has punished over 400 “servants” for failure. When’s his turn?”

    Mandate of heaven.

    So, that U.S. sure is lucky! Somehow China got four – count them, 1, 2, 3, 4! – pandemics at the same time. Rest-of-world before now? Zero. So Cheeto authorized running down China since they won’t negotiate and nobody wants a war? Why not? That’s what Marine Generals think and do. What they live for. Presidents authorize secret ways to kill people? When did this start? https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-17/obamas-covert-drone-war-in-numbers-ten-times-more-strikes-than-bush https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_intervention_in_Chile
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contras
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change

    Ah, but there’s not enough paper in the world to cover this subject. And you think we’ll walk away from this?

    Unprecedented Cybersecurity Measures To Safeguard Iowa Caucus Results (DMR)

    How long before we blame RussiaRussiaRussia for the Iowa caucus app built by Sachs?

    “My estimate is that Bernie Sanders won Iowa, then the state Democratic party establishment ginned up a “systems failure” to deny him”

    I fear they may be right. He was maybe 6% ahead going in.

    #53484
    Dave Note
    Participant

    Coronavirus: Three Truths

    From Dr Chris Martenson

    #53485
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    ““My estimate is that Bernie Sanders won Iowa, then the state Democratic party establishment ginned up a “systems failure” to deny him”

    I fear they may be right. He was maybe 6% ahead going in.”

    Being someone who was very involved with and observant of Bernie’s ’16 campaign, I can say that he has kicked their butts in just about every poll done once his campaign gained steam. Of course he won that caucus.

    Tulsi is smart to have stayed outside the ring.

    But I’m curious: why the concern on whether the coronavirus is bioweaponry or not? We have no control over our government. We have no control over free-range microbes. We only have control over ourselves, limited as that control is. The virus is loose. It will call the shots.

    #53488
    zerosum
    Participant

    Progress
    • Chinese Military Takes Control Of Medical Supplies In Wuhan (SCMP)
    Of course.
    That is the only way to prevent profiteering by those not in the military establishment.

    —–
    “My estimate is that Bernie Sanders won Iowa,
    Here comes Hillary to be nominated as his V.P. ( Needed to balance his out-of-reach-ideas)

    #53489
    zerosum
    Participant

    Something is wrong with the numbers

    Only Chinese have been declared dead from the coronavirus.

    Canadians are still stuck in the epicenter of the coronavirus waiting to get infected and thereby become transmission vectors.

    Canadians will be fighting to get a 14 day all paid vacation in an army base in Trenton.

    #53490
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    If Bernie Sanders is cheated again he could teach the DNC a lesson by standing as an independent!

    It could split the Democrat vote giving Trump an easy victory.

    Or he could actually win!

    #53491
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Question: if we had the National Guard dispensing necessities in a national emergency, how quick would you be to assume our boys were involved just so they could rip off their fellow Americans?

    There are periods in a nation’s periodic cycles when the military is blatantly corrupt internally. The Civil War in the USA comes to mind. (It being a Civil War in a morally schizophrenic national era practically guaranteed such corruption.) There are periods when the military feels like its doing what it must to protect the homelad. WWII comes to mind. Of course, parasites exist at any time.

    China is currently in a cycle of great national pride, whatever its faith in its ruling establishment is or isn’t. I think it’s too easy to expect the worst of the Chinese military in a case where their own people are simply trying not to die of an illness that could –and will — easily kill military personnel. It’s always fun to throw stones and assume the worst motive.

    Would you rather trust the insanely corrupt Chinese business community?

    Some times people do the right thing for the right reason. They rarely do it very well, because humans are fuckups, but sometimes they actually mean well.

    Cynical skepticism is not the same thing as automatically assuming the worst. Accusing parties of wrongdoing without sound factual reason only gives them more reason to prove you right since you obviously insist in believing they’re wrong.

    It’s like the situation with today’s constabulary. Corruption has always been a problem with cops since they hold so much authority with so much free license. But some times are worse than others, like now, after many decades of militarizing police as if they were occupying troops in a hostile foreign populace, while setting standards aimed at preventing candidates with IQs higher than 110 to become cops. With racial profiling quotas amid a growingly corrupt government on all levels. SOme times assuming the worst is only logical.

    But China went through its worst times in that regard. The Cultural revolution is not as old in China as USA’s last period of uber-corruption at home (the 20s black market corruption via Prohibition and 30s corruption via too much poverty). The Chinese are looking to be better than their ancestors were, and compared to that awful past, not doing too badly. This is a nation shattered to dust 80 years ago now rebuilding itself, however foolishly in the long term, since then.

    Maybe, just maybe, the bulk of Chinese military involved sees this as the sort of thing they don’t want to evilly profit from. We certainly wouldn’t trust the Chinese constabulary, which is still mired in its secret police licentiousness. I’m hardly a fan of our military abroad, but at home, I tend to see them as our friend. Part of their essential job description and conditioning.

    So maybe we should not point the finger at them, especially when our domestic situation is so rotten.

    #53492
    zerosum
    Participant

    If Joe isn’t a political opponent, does that mean that its okay to investigate Joe’s son for corruption in the Ukraine?

    #53493
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    VIRUS

    I do not see how this disease can be contained. It is almost perfect :

    – Infectious before symptoms show
    – Some of the infected [and infectious] do not develop the disease
    – Easy to transmit
    – Estimated that each infected person infects four others – exponential
    – Virus may linger in the environment

    My question now is how dangerous this disease is. One article suggested that 80% of the affected just have a mild illness, but 20% have ‘complications’.

    The figure which concerns me most is the number of deaths versus number recovered. Deaths outnumber recovered implying a death rate of over 50%! My hope is that the reported cases are just those with complications which reduce the death rate to about 11%.

    ‘Complications’ seems to mainly affect the elderly, one article suggested the average age of those dying was 75. Not so good for a few presidential candidates [or me!].

    I am not too concerned about the figures being under-reported as it does not change reality. Also you do not want to panic the population into ‘fleeing’.

    There is a horrible fascination with reading about this slow-motion disaster. It will change the world.

    #53494
    hostebbe
    Participant

    The CDC https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm estimates that so far this season in the US there has been 180,000 to 310,000 flu hospitalizations resulting in 10,000 to 25,000 deaths. The lowest death rate per hospitalization that one can calculate from these numbers is one death for every 31 hospitalizations or 3.2%. From what information I can glean from the web, the number of nCoV cases that China is reporting as confirmed cases should correspond reasonably well to what CDC calls flu hospitalizations. According to the website https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 , mainland China has 20,492 confirmed cases of nCoV that has resulted in 425 deaths for a death rate of 2.1%. Hubei province, which is the centre of the epidemic and accounts for 414 of the deaths, has a death rate of 3.1%. The rest of mainland China has had only 11 deaths for a death rate of 0.2%.

    Death rates will likely change as more numbers come in but so far it looks like one has more to fear from the usual seasonal flu than from 2019 nCoV. On the other hand, China has implemented containment measures that are certain to have a very large negative effect on the economy. ?????

    #53495
    Rototillerman
    Participant

    Here’s a nuanced mini-bio of Brother Dave that supports, in my mind, the notion that what caused his Dark Period…

    Bosco, what was the point of the Dave Gardner bit?

    #53496
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Bosco, what was the point of the Dave Gardner bit?”

    I just think he’s a mostly forgotten unique bit of treasure. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but to some ears, a source of unusual joy. Joy is self-explanatory. Nothing to do with any current hot button issues.

    But I felt it did shed warm clear light on commonly perceived certain liberal/conservative stereotypes, for both stereotypes existed within dear Brother Dave.

    “Death rates will likely change as more numbers come in but so far it looks like one has more to fear from the usual seasonal flu than from 2019 nCoV.”

    Not if you’ve been vaccinated. Vaccination doesn’t always work, but still… one would think that most of the flu infections this year happened to non-vaccinated people.

    We don’t have a vaccine for the coronavirus.

    Now, look at that spike:

    spike

    About two months in, the hospitalization crosses over to the vertical axis side of things.

    Without vaccination, the contagion rate will steadily ramp upward because we have no vaccine and coronavirus has a long latency period with no apparent symptoms while nonetheless being infectious. However, as big a problem as actual infectins/illnesses/deaths, etc., is the impact on the global economy at such a fragile time.

    I certainly do not wish to sow panic even with the hardest forecast outlooks. Panic is for suckers. But panic is already steadily being sown. Panic sells news, shows, mags, rags, ads. Panic is *intersting*, and the populace is fascinated by things that are “big” and “scary”.

    AIDS was a very bad mofo. But when oit broke out, it was the “queer disease”. It took p[olitically-minded Hollywood movies to get to=hrough people’s denialism that this thing infected anyone who fucked anyone who has it, and homo saps are always fucking everyone they can get their hands on, often secretly, drunkenly, even forgottenly.

    This is an airborne virus spread by things as mindane aas hand to doorknob to hand contact, sneeses, maybe even farts. So people have no cognitive bluffers on this. Panic herd behavior is a very likely prospect, and very likely to happen pretty soon.

    We didn’t shut down airline routes because of AIDS. We didn’t even shut down gay bathhouses. But China has shut down an entire city and has the military dispensing supplies and maintaining curfews/quarantines. Even if this is martial rule opportunism (I doubt it), it’s panic fodder.

    #53497
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Without vaccination, the contagion rate will steadily ramp upward because we have no vaccine”

    Without PREVIOUS vaccination, the contagion rate will steadily ramp upward because we have no vaccine YET AVAILABLE TO BEGIN VACCINATIONS. and it looks like it’s a tricky one to mace vaccine from.

    #53498
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    One could add this to reasons to be conerned about kung flu:

    USA Health Care Eval

    “U.S. suicide rate highest among wealthy nations – U.S. outspends other high-income countries on health care but has lowest life expectancy”

    Not unlike our current, hyper-priced, misused, and increasingly impotent military defense system. If taken at face value, this means that China has a more effective health care system than we do.

    #53499
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    The kids are still alright:

    After all, we made them

    “Conservative and liberal capitalists often attack a supposed lack of gratitude among the disaffected. Among the young, among environmentalists, socialists, take your pick. It’s said that they don’t appreciate the pleasures and securities that the modern world affords them. Their dissatisfaction is a mark of lack of awareness.

    “But this seems to me to be a coded attack, which uses ‘gratitude’ to wrap up and disguise servitude. The attack isn’t really on a lack of awareness, but on a lack of conformity and subservience.

    “I know of no one more appreciative of warm duvets than the most dedicated eco-activists I know. When you’ve spent days or weeks up a tree in February to prevent it being cut down, or huddled in a dank tunnel to protest an airport expansion, your gratitude for creature comforts inevitably dwarfs the numbed appreciation of the willing slave to modern life.

    “Ever since I began to fully appreciate the perilous trajectory of our voracious dependence on fossil fuels, I’ve never been able to ease myself into a hot bath without a deep, reflexive surge of gratitude. No bath is taken for granted; each one conjures images of futures without such luxuries. This consciousness works to both reduce my use of luxuries, and to intensify my appreciation of them.”

    #53500
    hostebbe
    Participant

    Latest numbers from Hubei are 16,678 confirmed nCoV cases and 479 deaths–a rate of 2.9%. So far the death rate is going down not up.

    #53501
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “So far the death rate is going down not up.”

    It should.

    1) People are paying more attention to symptoms and taking better care as soon as they feel the first touch of illness.

    2) Professional medical acumen for effective treatment should be increasing.

    The lowering of the floating average death rate is not entirely good. One good thing about Ebola is it kills so well it tends to burn itself out. It has a 90% kill rate. Even though its latency ranges from 2-21 days, a wide ambiguous spread, once it takes hold it in an area it makes itself admantly known, and authorities take major measures that people generally go along with because they don’t want to die bleeding internally and out their bodily orifices.

    It ramps up mighty fast and then ramps down fast, in terms of contagion, because it is so obvious. With a 90% mortality rate, nobody fucks around and debates whether its worth quarantining the area. People evading quarantine risk getting shot not just by authorities but people outside the quarantine. Most folks realize and accept their bad luck in being inside the quarantine zone during the outbreak.

    Increased lethality spurs cooperation. Just ask the mafia.

    #53502
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    This seems relevant:

    Jailing Anti-Vaxxers

    “A controversial group currently in the crosshairs of the establishment, which was also discussed at Event 201, is known as the Anti-Vaccine Movement. And now we see the UK Government working on a new law to jail people who spread “Anti-Vaccine Propaganda” online. Currently, people are protected from prosecution if they sincerely believe the misinformation or propaganda is real, but the government is looking to reform this provision and make it a criminal offense to post anything online, particularly social media, which is deemed to be “Anti-Vaccine.”

    “Where does the CDC stand on this issue? Well, when we examine a CDC document published at the National Academies website, we see what they call, “A Recipe for Fostering Public Interest and High Vaccine Demand.”

    “The CDC document appears to contain outright talking points and a strategy to be carried out and propagated to the public via health officials and the media.”

    Whatever devious, Cthullic agenda might inform such actions behind the dark curtain, it is only to be expected in the light of so many viral pathogens currently ruckusing the planet.

    The only alternative I’ve seen to serious massive civil unreast of a highly destructive nature is an increase in authoritarianims bordering on totalitarianism. It remains to be seen if our government can pull this off, at least in a manner less destructive than good old fighting in the streets.

    #53503
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    squidly

    #53504
    WES
    Participant

    The Iowa Dem vote is hilarious!

    Bernie got more votes but had to share them with everyone else!

    That is what communism is all about! Sharing!

    That way nobody loses! Nobody’s feelings got hurt!

    Everyone won!

    And everyone gets a Participation Trophy!

    #53505
    John Day
    Participant

    About coronavirus vaccines, as contained in the green-spky article I posted above this morning, they kill an inordinate percentage of lab animals, so don’t try then on people you want to save:

    The very researchers conducting studies on SARS vaccines have cautioned repeatedly against human trials;

    “An early concern for application of a SARS-CoV vaccine was the experience with other coronavirus infections which induced enhanced disease and immunopathology in animals when challenged with infectious virus [31], a concern reinforced by the report that animals given an alum adjuvanted SARS vaccine and subsequently challenged with SARS-CoV exhibited an immunopathologic lung reaction reminiscent of that described for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants and in animal models given RSV vaccine and challenged naturally (infants) or artificially (animals) with RSV [32], [33]. We and others described a similar immunopathologic reaction in mice vaccinated with a SARS-CoV vaccine and subsequently challenged with SARS-CoV [18], [20], [21], [28]. It has been proposed that the nucleocapsid protein of SARS-CoV is the antigen to which the immunopathologic reaction is directed [18], [21]. Thus, concern for proceeding to humans with candidate SARS-CoV vaccines emerged from these various observations.” – Tseng et al.

    #53506
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “And everyone gets a Participation Trophy!”

    Damn straight. I want something to put in my swag bag form playing their game.

    #53507
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Well, here in LOS (Land of Smiles) the virus count is 25 and counting…
    Meanwhile our orchids are blooming; just gorgeous.
    …and so, life goes on, until it doesn’t…

    #53508
    boscohorowitz
    Participant
    #53509
    zerosum
    Participant

    LA-LA-LAND – Trump

    #53510
    WES
    Participant

    I really admire how the DNC went about preventing Bernie from winning Iowa last night! And hiding Biden falling off the cliff too!

    I thought for sure they would blame the Russians but instead they blamed Iowa!

    They certainly pulled the red carpet out from under Bernie!

    The amazing thing is everybody deep down knows the DNC is out to get Bernie!

    The only unknown part of this Dim soap opera is exactly how and when are they going to kill Bernie!

    #53511
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “I thought for sure they would blame the Russians but instead they blamed Iowa!”

    *snigger-snorkle*

    The states of the United States of America meddled in the election and stole the election from the government!

    There is nothing left to do but weither build a wall between each state (Trump’s new platform)… or blame Canada!(Hillary’s scheme)

    Upcoming imaginary events:

    The Million Homeless Man March/Hiway Shakedown Brigade

    The Noveau Poor/Perma-Squatters Movement

    Landfill Wars

    Ghost Satellites

    Survival BUnker Dumpster Diving

    New Concrete Jungle Tribes!

    #53526
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Jailing Anti-Vaxxers”

    Part of the new heresy laws. Being contrary to Science!™ even though like religion, Science doesn’t know what it’s saying, argues, and contradicts itself constantly. So if you’re a Scientist™, are you allowed to argue with other “Scientists”? A: no. The orthodoxy will cut your grant and bounce you even from tenure. Just like the Church™.

    “Opinions are Treason!” “When I want your opinion, I’ll beat it out of you!”

    The only crime is asking questions and thinking for yourself.

    “I really admire how the DNC went about preventing Bernie from winning Iowa”

    Yes, that was amazing, a tour de force. First get the app so you can get data first, veto, perhaps even turn on the microphone and spy weeks ahead as there is essentially no security on any phone device. P.S. do NOT have the app vetted by anyone ESPECIALLY the DHS or they will find all these embarrassing “accidents” and close them. Then when Bernie wins, rig the vote…oh wait: Bernie wisely placed a person IN EACH OFFICE, fully expected a rigged count. Oops! They all meet in the principal’s office for a pow-wow, with Biden stomping his feet and refusing to allow any count at all, ever.

    The app — which is about to get double-checked AND fuel GOP calls for voter registration and paper trails in 2020 – then compromises on their crimes by counting ONLY the offices where Buttigieg won…barely. Then suddenly, Lo! Lights out! The DNC sweeps in to count, which will take weeks, preventing Bernie from winning by 6%, taking that momentum into other states, and buying some time. P.S. 106% of all possible voters voted in Iowa last night…in 10 different areas, particularly Dallas — a city district, wot a coincidence! A little bad at maths, are we?

    Um, guys? So…you think Bernie Bros are going to go all-in for #MayorCheat, #NeverWarren or whatever? What are you smoking? That’s what burned you last time…and P.S. did NOT burn the GOP, much as they hated, protested, detested, running the candidate who actually won.

    …Because they were planning to lose to HRC anyway, so who cares? Ask your Cruz – Rubio all-RINO tag team about that.

    How do you know all this is true? They did NOT blame RussiaRussiaRussia for something. 1st time ever and the smoking gun. …Oh and would launch DoJ investigations run by Bill Barr, Trumpers, and mouseketeers with a fine-tooth comb.

    #53549
    Professorlocknload
    Participant

    Until we receive accurate stats on this virus thing, we can only speculate,,,,,and be left on our own to draw conclusions upon which to act.

    That said, ya’ll do what ya gotta do, and good luck. Myself, I’ll give it until next Wed to convince me that there ain’t nuthin’ to see here. If still unconvinced, I’ll be heading for the cabin out in the boonies.

    ps, be advised that sometimes .gov action can be as bad,,,,or worse, than what ails us 😉

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