Weekend Unthreaded

Just….

9 out of 10 based on 19 ratings

187 comments to Weekend Unthreaded

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      dinn, rob

      Geting to the root of the issue though is another matter: who ever heard of synthetic viruses, synthetic DNA, synthetic vaccines? Raise your hand.
      Besides being somewhat polite here and somewhat organized, there is a tendency at this site to whirl along and whirl along. Nothing wrong with diverse opinions and levels, nothing wrong with chatter and chirping; I do that too. But there are many deeply rooted issues that the nations led by the West, esp. USA, are simply approaching cavalierly. The light of this Earth must rise somewhere out of the East soon or else all go down in the pleasure-seeking, success, power-money cults, the blindness, short-sightedness, me first, vanities, so forth.
      We in America are hardly practicing free speech though it is Constitutional, but I experience here at nova’s blog a degradation of free speech, free press on a site that purports to be a champion of truth. Bah. You are not in action as a group and as a discussion very true yet. One person can convert the rest if highly devoted, tenacious, patient, cheerful. I cannot do it, so far, as I have found across these years at this site. You here are at a crossroads: you will never cut through being just fun-loving and not really disciplined to the core because it requires a tremendous energy to cut through to the core. That you must learn. I wish you well, but don’t try for the truth if you are just more gamers amusing yourselves. Be honest (especially inwardly, take quiet airy walks) especially when you are already divided at your root which is motivation. Do you know what your priorities even are? Someone must rise to real and consistent leadership that puts values in the right alignment. Alignment to what? Find out, for Christ’s sake.
      Now China attacks no one, says Tdef. ha ha. this won’t do. Tdef uses intelligence often. how can he say such a thing though? i will attempt to answer that. the panda-hugger crowd. nevertheless true China will rise; nevertheless true Russia will rise. but the rest of the world will suffer greatly unless we get some real faith back. aloha oe.

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        Huh!

        The longer I live the more I see that Nineteen Eighty Four has become a playbook.

        However, what is actually occurring is straight out of Atlas Shrugged!

        Tony.

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          Spetzer86

          The sad thing I’ve found is when you can read a chapter of Atlas Shrugged and then a couple of current event stories on the web and not be able to see much difference.

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        TdeF

        I am not defending the Chinese Communist Party. The China observation was made once by the late and very respected President of Singapore, Lee Kwan Yew. Singapore is comprised largely of people of Chinese ancestry and very successful. This was his opinion and he could justify it from history. When asked who to fear, he nominated the North Koreans whom he labelled as ‘crazy’.

        China the country and not the party is in fact so big internally, four Americas in population or four entire Europes, that it is enough to control. So many really huge cities too, some bigger than countries, like Shanghai with 37 million. Despite the outsiders’ view that all Chinese people are the same, that is not their opinion but a form of reverse racism. Historically China has not been the aggressor in any war. The invasion of Europe and India and Europe was by the mongols, not the Chinese. And the mogols enslaved China too.

        China has been effectively enslaved by many foreign powers including in the 19th century France, Britain, Japan and America. Then by Japan. The Boxer rebellion was against the heroin trade conducted by Britain in exchange for tea, until tea was smuggled to India. Then the proxy wars against America in Korea and Vietnam.

        History is on the side of a China which really wants to trade and be rich and peaceful. As a nuclear armed country which has landed instruments on the moon, they are far ahead of most countries. My view is that their internal struggles are likely endless and enough for any politician. Yes, they collectively want to be the world power they are, but individually they want what every one else wants. And the Nixon/Kissinger rapprochement after the Vietnam war seemed to change everything for the better.

        This virus disaster has come from amazingly idi*tic overreach and arrogance by the leaders of the Communist party and President for life Xi and then a childish attempt to hide it all using WHO. We have yet to see the full repercussions of this thing but you can be sure that decades of hard won respect have been thrown away.

        And the world dependence on Chinese manufacturing already threatened by ballooning wages will be threatened again by the flight to safety by world manufacturers and a real distrust and dislike of the rampant Chinese tourism and business tourism used to spread this deadly pathogen. A world war is unthinkable. Except perhaps by North Korea where Kim Jong Un is a god. I just wonder if he is not now replaced by a double.

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          Leo Morgan

          Your claims surprised me. So I asked Google. It replied:
          Has China Ever Invaded Another Country?
          Invasion Of Manchukuo in 1945. …
          Invasion Of China in 1949. …
          Invasion Of Tibet in 1950. …
          Invasion Of South and North Korea in 1950. …
          Invasion Of India In 1962. …
          Invasion Of The Soviet Union In 1969. …
          Invasion Of Vietnam In 1979.

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            TdeF

            That depends on your point of view. The Chinese and the Koreans and Vietnam are enemies. In WWII the Russians and Chinese allied against the Japanese and the Russians overwhelmed the Japanese in the Manchurian puppet state (Manchukuo) and were ready to invade Japan when the bombs were dropped. It was a major reason the Japanese surrendered. The Russians were heroes in Manchuria/Manchukuo and they gave it back to the Chinese after perhaps fifteen years of Japanese domination. The ruling dynasty in China for hundreds of year was in fact Manchurian in origin (Manchukuo) so it was hardly an invasion of a foreign land.

            Then the Korean war, initially between the South Koreans and the North Koreans supported by the Russians and their Migs and tanks. The South won but China did not want another puppet state on their doorstep, so they committed and lost vast numbers of troops which led to the stand off we have today. To paint this as a Chinese invasion is wrong. They reacted. They went home.

            Similarly with the domino theory where buddist Vietnamese revolted against the dominant Catholic Chinese upper classes who ran the place with them as serfs. The Vietnamese were communists and were the traditional enemies of the Chinese but accepted help in defeating the Americans and the South Vietnamese who were previously a colonial state under the French. Again when the war was over, the Chinese went home. In fact a war started between the Chinese and the Vietnamese.

            Legend has it that the CIA predecessor was against the Colonial powers in the region, particularly Britain and France. So they trained insurgents, including one Ho Chi Minh to eject the French from Vietnam. It worked but then the Americans stepped in to protect what was the ruling class against the communist North Vietnames, run by the same Ho Chin Minh. If they had realised they forced China and Vietnam to cooperate, they would have stopped but the Americans had had an economic empire to worry about too, starting with the Phillipines were they were the de facto colonial power.

            There are conflicts on all the border with China except the deserts but they have been quiet for sixty years. And their neighbours are equally acquisitive. What is unquestionable is the overwhelming of Tibet and I have no idea what drove this. A more unliveable place is hard to find. If you had to invade for wealth and power, you would leave it alone as it has none of this.

            So regardless of what Dr.Google classes as invasions, Vietnam and Korea were not and they remain fiercely independent countries. Manchuko was always Chinese not an invasion. If anything, the Manchurians had already conquered China.

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              Bill In Oz

              TdeF In the interests of accuracy I have to say you are wrong when you write this”the dominant Catholic Chinese upper classes”.

              1 :The Chinese migrants in Indochina were rich but had no political power.

              2: The Catholic converts were virtually all peasants in the Red river delta in the North. Poverty & starvation was rife. So the missionaries found many willing rice christians.

              3 Politically the French ran the whole show.

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                TdeF

                Interesting. Not at all what I understood at the time. I think you are talking about poor Chinese migrants, not the Diem family and friends who ran the place.

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                TdeF

                Chinese migrants? The Chinese had dominated Vietnam since 1000AD.

                And I am supported in the belief by many. I hate to quote Wikipedia but there was historical domination by the ethnic Chinese as there is today throughout SE Asia. It is still true in Thailand and Indonesia.

                And this boomed under French rule. The ruling classes were French educated, Catholic and Chinese. That is what I remember from the time. Most of the Vietnamese refugees after the war were French speaking, educated, Catholic and ethnic Chinese.

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                TdeF

                And in conversations with people, the group which was most successful were the Hokkien. This is a group from Fujian province who are the traders of SE Asia. Very clever, hard working and successful, they dominate SE Asia and their families are the crazy, rich Asians. As such they are greatly resented. Again we suffer from this reverse racism where we see all Chinese as the same people. They do not.

                So your poor Chinese peasants in the delta are not the Hokkien people.

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                Bill In Oz

                No sorry TdeF…
                There was a small Vietnamese Francophile elite who sort of took up Catholicism. But they were tiny compared with the rice christian converts in the North.. Remember in 1954-55 about 1,000,000 refugees fled to the South from the red river delta..Nearly all of these were catholic. The men of this group were recruited into the army of Ngo Dinh Diem.. And they became the back bone of the resistance to the Viet Cong from 1958-75..
                And most of the refugees who fled post 1975 ( boat people ) are from the same group..We have lots of them here in Australia where they have fitted into Australian society well courtesy of being integrated into the Catholic church & school system

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              Kalm Keith

              TdeF the Vietnam situation is complex but a few points.

              Obviously China and Vietnam have a common border up near Guangdong province.

              There’s a lot of trade now.

              The locations you mention Fujian and the Hokkien dialect go together as part of China but apart from trade I don’t think they had much political influence in Vietnam itself.

              It’s funny you mention talking to Chinese Vietnamese refugees.

              What year did they get to Australia? After the initial influx of political Vietnamese refugees there followed some time later a group of ethnic Chinese Vietnamese and they behaved differently to the native Vietnamese.

              Progression.

              In turn Vietnam was “colonised” briefly by the Portuguese, then the French, then the Japanese during world war 2 then the French up to 1954 when for some reason they decided to leave.

              The Vietnamese separated from China a very long time ago, thousands of years ago, pre Julius Caesar.

              Payback.

              War is never free, and this might be more relevant to the reason America supported the non communist South against the North.

              Yes, they, the US, were fighting Uncle Ho but the Russians wanted power and influence out of it. In a very strong sense the US was fighting Uncle Ho, the Russian proxy.

              Are you aware that after 1975 Vietnamese students were forced to learn Russian?

              Russian tourism is still big in Vietnam even after the symbolic Tourism event that occurred some years back.

              http://joannenova.com.au/2014/11/fossils-show-models-cant-predict-how-climate-affects-animals/#comment-1623141

              As for China, I learned only recently that after 1975 there were 200,000 Chinese in North Vietnam who wouldn’t go home. Uncle Ho got upset.

              There was eventually a post Vietnam war War with China. It was ugly but relatively short compared with the effort to remove the French.

              Life is complicated and made more so when history is adjusted or vague or hidden.

              KK

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                TdeF

                All good points.

                And none which change my proposition, which is that China did not invade the neighbours. It is far more complex. It is like saying France invaded Italy. Or Italy invaded Spain. Or Poland invaded Russia. Or Spain invaded Mexico. They are all true and endless combinations of these.

                The relevant point of Lew Kuan Lew was the China was rarely a military power seeking expansion and hegemony over neighbours. The sheer size of China meant leverage and involvement as the Chinese business classes moved all over Asia. China the country was far more the invaded than the invader.

                Then you get the religious invaders, like Buddhism from India and sanskrit, Isl*m and arabic, Christianity and Latin. The point is that China just wanted trade, not conquest. I think it is the same today.

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                Kalm Keith

                True that China didn’t invade Vietnam but there was something very fierce driving China to provoke a post 1975 war with Vietnam.

                China also took over Tibet and if I remember correctly pillaged the forests there for a quick buck.

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                sophocles

                … and Uncle Sam had war industries with huge capacity whose products the US wanted to sell. After WW2, many of the allies wanted to disarm because a world at peace didn’t need war materiel. Armaments are hugely profitable so war(s) were necessary to a) keep the income from arms and 2)keep the industries afloat.

                The US were intensely anti communist so everything they could do to block communist expansion they did: don’t forget Churchill’s “ An Iron Curtain has descended around Europe.” The armaments manufacturers and suppliers wield strong influence, especially monopolistic ones.

                South Korea and North VietNam were wars to:
                – scare allies to buy (US made) armaments
                – wars to contain that terrible communist expansion
                – wars to keep the huge profits from armament industries (the Military-Industrial Complex)
                – wars to maintain and “advance” American political interests

                That closes the ring …

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              Kalm Keith

              This is a bit off kilter.

              “Similarly with the domino theory where buddist Vietnamese revolted against the dominant Catholic Chinese upper classes who ran the place with them as serfs.”

              Dominant Chinese in Vietnam politics??

              Vietnam separated from China a very long time before the current era.

              As an example, the Vietnamese originally used Chinese script for writing but modified its use to the point that the Chinese could not understand it. Probably a bit of both design and evolution.
              This script was used up to the end of world war 2.

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          yarpos

          The Germans I have met and worked with are generally nice people that want just what everyone else wants too. But for the adventurous ancestors I am only two generations away from being German or Danish depending where they chose to live if they had stayed in Europe. It doesnt take a great number pyschopaths and a bit of conditioning of the population (things like totalitarian control and social credits and propaganda) to whip things up. I think a world was is unlikely but not unthinkable.

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        I raise my hand. back in the early 90’s PCR really took off and it relied on 20-30 base pairs of synthetic DNA. Some labs even had machines to make them before it cose a negligable amount to have a commercial enterprise send them to you overnight.

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          Peter C

          back in the early 90′s PCR really took off and it relied on 20-30 base pairs of synthetic DNA

          Now I need you need to explain professor:
          1. PCR= polymerase chain reaction?
          2. 20-30 base pairs of synthetic DNA? I am familiar with 4 bases which form 2 pairs; what are the other base pairs?

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            1. Yes
            2. Oligonucleotides – lengths of single stranded DNA used to initiate replication. DNA dependent DNA polymerase requires a double stranded end (ie the oligonucleotide pairing with a genomic strand) for it to start replication. The “Oligo” is designed to be specific (ie it targets) so that you amplify a desired region of DNA. Other key words here are anti-sense and 5 prime to 3 prime.

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      farmerbraun

      Totally misleading headline – should read:-

      New Zealand Prioritises Economic Transformation : Ditches Climate Change as Preferred Mechanism.
      FIFY Eric 🙂

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      PeterS

      Yes misleading title. Should be “Due to the economic crisis as a result of the pandemic the transition to renewables will continue at a reduced rate”.

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        el gordo

        I think they’ll follow Australia and dump renewable subsidies. The tide has turned sharply because of the pandemic and the Trots at the ABC have been exposed.

        ‘Climate activism within the ABC has been laid bare in a treasure trove of emails unearthed by an FOI application.’ Oz

        Once balance returns to the national broadcaster, our world view will change dramatically.

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          Serp

          “Once balance returns to the national broadcaster” is simply wishful thinking without demonstrating any evidence of impetus towards that verity; let’s simply defund the climate troika (ABC, BOM, CSIRO).

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          Bill In Oz

          EG Fascinating !
          What do these emails from the ABC say ?
          The Oz is paywalled.

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            Serp

            Ita Buttrose twice directed that ABC employees not form an in-house Climate Crisis Group six months ago; the FOI would have been following up on proceedings related to the defiance which obliged Ita to reiterate the policy.

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          sophocles

          Enquiring Minds are requesting links …

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            el gordo

            Getting behind the paywall is above my pay grade, so I just imagine what the emails say.

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    RicDre

    ABC: “Climate change talk has been around for 30 years. Where’s the action?”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/05/16/abc-climate-change-talk-has-been-around-for-30-years-wheres-the-action/

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      TdeF

      The ‘tree ring problem’ has become clearer. They call it a ‘divergence’ which must be a scientific term for being wrong. Mann’s tree rings have been exposed as often wrong. So much for his infallible single species hockey stick.

      Besides, where is that incredible warming? We need incredibly accurate measurements to find any trace of warming at all, which hardly makes it a matter of concern after 33 years of imminent Armageddon.

      Even grumpy Greta now has to be an expert on Flu to earn a living.

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    The literally several readers all over the globe who loved Part 1 and Part 2 of The History of the Climate Debate can now find a massive new installment over at CliScep.

    My thanks go out to our hostess, who midwifed, midwived and generally lent major maieutic support to the project over the course of what seems like years (LOL). Much appreciated, Jo.

    Spoiler alert:

    Those who prefer the future to come as a complete surprise will probably want to avoid researching the past, seeing as, in human affairs, there is no progress (only an endless and sublime recapitulation).

    So if you’re one of those people that enjoys going to movies, foreign countries and romantic liaisons with as little foreknowledge as possible, please be aware that once you read The History of the Climate Debate, nothing that happens from now on can ever truly have that coffee-sneezing Shock of the New that makes life so fun, funny and life-threatening.

    Otherwise, enjoy!

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      Even as a joke this is bad in my view.

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        Even as a joke this is bad in my view.

        Thanks David. But just to clarify: you’re conceding the possibility that my post is NOT a joke, in which case it would be even worse than “bad”?

        How much worse? Would it be of roughly similar badness regardless of whether it was real news or fake? Or is it, in your view, really really bad if it’s authentic?

        And can you think of any way by which it might be possible to confirm its veridicality or otherwise, in your view—or are we forced, as partiscient humans, to simply take a guess?

        I know, how about looking at a section whose authenticity you can assess “for yourself,” as kids these days redundantly say: the bit about Heartland.

        2012
        Dr Peter Gleick knows only too well that once he releases the ‘Heartland Institute Strategy Document,’ it could define his entire legacy. The water scientist, climate informer and paid ethicist spends several minutes wrestling with questions of legality, morality and font choice.

        Gleick is a scientist first, but he’s also a man, and it is as a man that he has a vendetta against Heartland, for which he makes no apology. (The animus is mutual; someone inside the think-tank apparently produced a long memo parodying Gleick’s writing style. Sources call it an “uncanny impression” of his idiosyncrasies.)

        By hitting Print, the McArthur Genius will ultimately sacrifice his career and reputation to make HI’s agenda on climate known far and wide, saving the Institute most of its annual media budget.

        (I should also remind you, in case this section fails to jibe with your own unmediated experience, not to fall into the easy trap of Gell-Mann Amnesia!)

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      Curious George

      I love regurgitated 2016 news.

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        OriginalSteve

        All we have to do is call out lies as being lies, and what can the purveys of misinformation do if no one believes them? The jig is up.
        I guess they could just start jailing people for doubting The Party line, then it will really kick off.

        As the long suffering Russians under communism used to say :

        “They used to pretend to give us the “news”, and we pretended to believe them.”

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        George,

        didn’t you find it especially curious how, all the way back in 2016, I managed to pre-say the facts of 2018–2020 with such sooth? Strewth!

        In case I was unclear before—and let’s face it, I was—my post has accreted new strata with each elapsing year. The timestamp at the top is obsolete. 🙂

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      A fair summary of teh science.I’d say.

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        Peter C

        And I would agree Beth.

        What is Brad saying? Or Not saying?

        “I’ll have to think twice, three times before believing anything a climate scientist says now,” reads a typical comment.

        The same could be said for an anti climate scientist, or maybe any scientist!

        I give it a big tick.

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          Peter, great to see you mate.

          What is Brad saying? Or Not saying?

          If you think you know, you probably don’t.

          If you don’t you probably do.

          \;-)

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    TdeF

    On Wuhan Flu, our national number of new infections yesterday totalled 8. The same as a month ago. In the middle Victoria did all the damage, first with the Cedar Meats disaster, utterly avoidable but somehow they stayed open and no one was told and even doubled production before a worker lost a finger. Then the McDonald’s centre in Northern Melbourne, again totally avoidable.

    Now to zero and three weeks at zero. Then it is gone. And I am looking forward to cheap airfares to Australian winter holidays, in Australia. Especially Broome where it is a hot 30C in mid winter, unlike the South Pacific.

    Otherwise we are starting to wish for some Global Warming in Melbourne. It warms up dramatically as the sun comes up. You would think that a 50% thicker CO2 blanket would make a difference, but it doesn’t. So much for ‘the Science’. Everyone knows it doesn’t work in winter. Apparently the CO2 blanket only works in summer on the very hottest days and then only instantaneously. You have to have super fast instruments to find it.

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      TdeF

      Speaking of McDonalds in Melbourne, they have now closed 12 stores for cleaning because a delivery driver tested positive, connected with the original store.

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      Plain Jane

      Funny enough, I have also been looking at Broome as a possible get away. Life might be OK if we get this thing eradicated in Oz and those idiots in Canberra can bring themselves to do their job and protect our borders.

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        WXcycles

        QLD’s border with NSW will remain closed until Sept. A vote of no confidence in southern travelers coming north this Winter?

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      yarpos

      Even when they were shut the management called an all staff meeting attended by 2/3rds of the employees. They come from the same school of management genius as Andrews and his ministers.

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    TdeF

    On a very different issue, few seem to know Donald Trump’s mother was Scottish. Barack Obama’s father was Kenyan although it seems Barack himself just managed to be born in Hawaii, apparently. So apart from Obama, the last President with a foreign parent was Herbert Hoover in 1933. The other six were three Irish, English and Canadian and another Scot.

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      GlenM

      His surname indicates German. Trump/Trumpf ? Any Reyes or Hernandez in the future?

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        TdeF

        Surprisingly a great proportion of Americans have German surnames. It seems an Irish/German/Scottish/Italian country, like Australia.

        Before Germany existed in the 1870s and after the fall of Napoleon, the whole area was at endless war and people fled overseas in the 1860s, taking what they could.

        However after two world wars against the new Germany, overseas Germans changed their names in England, Australia and elsewhere, but not in America. Here Mr Ruhl became Rule. And notably the Battenburgs became the MountBattens and then the name Windsor was taken from the castle. Better than Gotha Sax Coburg either way.

        So American Generals include Eisenhower and later Swartzkopf. In fact most of America’s population certainly in the West is no older than Australia given the gold rushes in both country and the crises and mass deaths and expulsions in Ireland, Scotland and Germany. Italians fled after the two world wars when people were openly starving. Italy lost a million people in WW1 and I always wondered what they thought of their alliance with the Germans against their former allies and just twenty years later. No wonder they didn’t want to fight.

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          yarpos

          yep, about when one side of my family arrived in QLD. A lot of Germanic names around Maryborough and environs.

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            TdeF

            My wife’s family in Tasmania was German. They celebrated 150 years in Tasmania only a few years ago and the German ambassador came. Similarly with mass settlements in South Australia, around Hanhndorf and the Barossa valley.

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            WXcycles

            Scotts around Maryborough too with those Germans and the English. I got a mix of all of them (plus an appetite for eating whiting, flathead and mud crab for Breakfast, Dinner and ‘Tea’).

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      Don’t forget Obama was also the first President to have partially-black kids since Thomas Jefferson.

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        Bill In Oz

        A uniquely US perspective where RACE is such a huge part of consciousness.
        I say “So bloody what”

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          A uniquely US perspective where RACE is such a huge part of consciousness.

          Ooh, racist.

          😉

          I say “So bloody what”

          Strewth yeah, identity politics sh!ts me to tears too mate, it’s for flamin’ drongos, fair dinkum! I only raised it because they actually made an election platform of the fact that “he doesn’t look like other Presidents.”

          If only MLK had lived long enough to see a person of half-color asking America to judge him by the half-color of his skin, he’d have assassinated himself just so he could spin in his grave.

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        Orson

        Actually, the Jefferson-Sally Hemings claim of lineage is complicated by the fact that Thomas Jefferson’s nephew spent more time with slave Sally, and could have been the seed source. But back when the possibility that TJ could have done the dead, this contrary fact was pushed radically aside to score…points, apparently.

        A number of historians of my acquaintance and a few Professors of US history, including black US history, were all aware of the pushback and the reality of this more complex story that cannot be told because…reasons.

        It’s only gotten much much worse. I had the chance to enter the historians guild, but complex chronic health hurdles in middle middle age defeated my doctoral hopes. Given the decline of Truth seeking, loss of honesty, and chasing away of genuine professionalism in the field, it is just as well.

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    RicDre

    Aussie MSM: Heavy Industry Not Seeing the Advantages of Low Cost Renewable Energy Opportunities

    From the article:

    According to the Sydney Morning Herald, one of Australia’s leading newspapers, aluminium smelters and other heavy industry is just not seeing what their role could be in our renewable energy powered future.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/05/17/aussie-msm-heavy-industry-not-seeing-the-advantages-of-low-cost-renewable-energy-opportunities/

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      Another Ian

      Ummm?

      Isn’t most of that power cable they’ll need to string together all that new RE mostly aluminium these days?

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    Rafe Champion

    WEEKEND WIND DROUGHT IN VICTORIA! A GREAT ADVERTISEMENT FOR THE TRANSITION TO NET ZERO!
    http://catallaxyfiles.com/2020/05/16/good-luck-with-the-re-transition-dan/

    Sunday morning. The source is the Fuel Mix tab on the AEMO Data Dashboard. It lags and it was updated overnight to end at 4am yesterday (Sat 16). It shows zero (o%) for the 4MW of power from the Victorian windfleet at 7pm on Friday evening.

    At 6am the number was 25.5MW at 1% of the installed capacity (2.45GW). This comes from the Wind Energy display on the ANEROID site that is a separate entity, set up years ago by a private agency with information from the AEMO presented in a way that people could understand. That prompted the AEMO to lift their game.

    At 6am across the SE the wind was providing 9% of the electrons, in SA it was 30% at 16% capacity of their 2.1GW windfleet. Interesting! they have been overtaken by Victoria, the new wind leader!

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      Victoria – 19 wind plants. Total Nameplate – 2451MW

      On Sunday 17May2020, from 10AM till 6PM, a total of eight hours. Total power delivered to the grid in Victoria – MINUS 50MWH.

      Not only were all those wind plants at zero, they were drawing around 6MW in total constantly for those eight hours.

      If Loy Yang A (Nameplate 2210MW) had all four Units drop off line like this, for five minutes, let alone eight hours, Dear Leader Dan Andrews would have left his Sunday morning church service to have a hastily organised news conference to rail loudly against the inefficient coal fired power plants.

      Eight hours – ZIP.

      Tony.

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    Travis T. Jones

    Four Corners, ABC, attempts to get the climate gravy train back on track, tonight, 18 May 2020:
    Climate Wars – https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/climate-wars/12247494 (trailer, 30 sec)

    It features an interview with former Australian Chief Scientist, Penny Sackett, who predicted in 2009 that Australia had only five years before “disastrous Global Warming” was here: http://joannenova.com.au/2014/12/only-three-days-left-to-save-the-earth/

    >> Will they ask Prof. Sackett what evidence she has that would convince any rational person that disastrous Global Warming is now been here for 6 years,?

    Or will Prof. Sackett move the goal posts to the future?

    My money is on the end of the century (this century, not the last).

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      Greg in NZ

      Either/or neither/nor:

      Crisis? What Crisis? Supertramp.

      Virus? What Virus? Supertrump.

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      yarpos

      Clearly the impacts have been delayed Travis, but this only means that they will be even more severe and unprecedented. Pretty sure it will go something like that. Bit of spin of recent drought and fires and there you go.

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      PeterS

      It really is time for PM Morrison to call out the ABC for promoting a cult as I would have thought it’s against their charter. There can be no doubt that CAGW is a cult and not a science.

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      • #
        el gordo

        A pseudo scientific cult with high priests using models which have the ability to predict the future. History is littered with similar examples.

        The ABC is a disgrace and should be dismantled, but only after they inform the masses that global warming stopped 20 years ago.

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    • #
      Bill In Oz

      We have a choice not to watch this ABC fake scare story.
      Let’s all just ignore it.
      And give it no oxygen.
      It’s the last decade’s ‘scare story’.

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    • #
      sophocles

      It certainly seems the Disaster is arriving but where has it left the Global Warming?

      20

      • #
        Bill In Oz

        In the solar minimum deep freeze Soph !
        G W may be revived from that freezing
        in 15-20 years when the solar minimum is over.

        47

        • #
          Bill In Oz

          Come on Red Thumb gangers !
          Only three here so far..
          That comment is worth far more red’uns than a miserable 3.
          🙂

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  • #
    PeterS

    China is not just warning Australia. China is warning other nations too and not just about the pandemic investigation. It was to be expected with a dictatorship like the CCP. Cool heads need to prevail but if history repeats itself it won’t be possible to do so. Of course the rest of the world should strive to progress with caution and come up with a peaceful solution as best we can. It’s always a very risky business dealing with a ruthless dictatorship. We can’t assume the rivers of gold from China will continue much longer. For example:
    China says it’s opposed to latest US rules against Huawei

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      • #
        el gordo

        Its feels like a new cold war is looming.

        40

        • #
          PeterS

          Looks that way. Even Russia is not happy. Tensions are rising between the two over the pandemic issue.

          60

        • #
          Orson

          Actually, the New Cold War is here.

          Oxford historian, Niall Ferguson – who moved stateside to Columbia, then Harvard, and most recently Stanford University – has been using the phrase ‘China’s New Cold War” for over a year now in class rooms and his syndicated columns.

          I thought he was premature. I’d thought that after a new economic trade agreement with the US got signed, “War” terminology would be an obvious mistake. Last year, so I thought.

          This year it’s very different. First, because Ferguson has also been teaching regularly at a university in Beijing. And secondly, because last month I’d learned that he says that no official from China has ever objected to his use of the New Cold War term applied to China.

          And thirdly, most obviously, China hurried the first round of US trade deal talks to a conclusion and signing last December and early January – that is, days before declaring in the WuFlu and emergency and still denying that it could spread elsewhere. And, in fact, demanding that it be spread outside China!

          In later April, at the Daily Mail online, there appeared a story Economist Says China Committed Act of War (use these search terms to find it, if interested; I did to check it, days ago). While I had never heard of the economist or her outfit before, she went on to explain that the US-China trade deal has an Act of God provision “out” for the Chinese that they insisted on! (I haven’t checked on this detail in the agreement text yet).

          So, China’s New Cold War is true and ongoing.

          What will Trump do about it after the CV19 epidemic in the US quiets down? One bit of speculation by a Hoover Institution fellow is this counter-move: the US will create an alliance and free trade zone from South Korea, Japan, allies in Australia and New Zealand, Indonesia and India. Then build out to SE Asia. (Duarte in the Phillipines wants China in.)

          On hearing that, I thought it sounds logical. Ambitious, needed, but natural. It also builds on historical strategy of the original strategy of the Cold War by its architect, George Kennan: encirclement, but of China in place of the Soviet Union.

          How does this sound to you? For things to negotiate over the months to come?

          20

          • #
            el gordo

            Its different to the Cold War between the US and the USSR, the two opponents had little to do with each other commercially, whereas China is more involved in world commerce.

            ‘Though China is an authoritarian nation and does not share the same worldview as the US, the two countries are far more intricately connected – especially on an economic level. Before the coronavirus pandemic, China held $US1.09 trillion in US debt, surpassed by only Japan as the US’s top foreign creditor.’
            Business Insider

            Australia may become more self reliant, not wishing to upset the Alliance leader or our biggest trading partner. Not sure how this parallel universe will pan out.

            00

  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    The Real Climate Science Deniers

    “(R)esearchers recently found numerous Viking-era artifacts along a Norwegian mountain pass that had been heavily traveled for at least 700 years, but then was buried beneath the ice and lost to history for 1,000 years.

    Within the treasure trove were tunics, mittens, horse shoes and bits, remnants of sleds used to haul food and gear over winter snow, a small shelter, and even the remains of a dog with a collar and leash.
    They all came to light because the glacial ice is again receding, as Earth continues its post Little Ice Age warming.

    Alarmists insist the warming is due to fossil fuels, and deny that it is just part of natural climate cycles”

    https://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2020/05/16/the-real-climate-science-deniers-n2568909

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    • #
      el gordo

      It was the cool Dark Ages.

      ‘The search resulted in the discovery of a host of artifacts, 60 of which have been dated to between the years 300 AD to 1000. Analysis of the artifacts suggested there were two kinds of travelers through the pass—locals and long-distance trekkers. The researchers suggest locals used the pass to travel between summer and winter homes. Some of the artifacts also suggested that the pass was used mostly during the times when it was covered with snow—the very rocky terrain would have made walking or riding horses difficult. Snow would have smoothed the trail, making traversal less difficult.’ Phys.org

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  • #
    TdeF

    Malcolm Turnbull’s Snowy II is silently going ahead, wasting billions. Meanwhile few people know that Tumut3 was the first pumped hydro station in Australia and built in 1973. It has hardly been used in fifty years, so we are building more. All in the name of saving carbon dioxide even though the water will be pumped uphill with coal at a 40% loss overall, meaning nearly twice the Carbon dioxide of just using the coal power directly. Malcolm Turnbull’s schemes make Rudd’s Pink batts seem sensible and cost effective.

    All are dwarfed by the $80Bn slow submarine project to slowly build the world’s most useless and slowest diesel submarines. You have to wonder where they are going to get the diesel in a Green world and Australia no longer makes diesel, so we will have to bring it in by boat.

    As Tony Abbott said, they are worse than what we already have, so why are we planning to build them? Surely we could do more with the money? And what exactly are they supposed to do? You could hardly build a slower, more useless weapon in the nuclear missile age. I do hope we paint them green, perhaps with an ab*riginal flag? More than a century after the Germans laid mines in the Great Australian Bight, they are stone age weapons after all.

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    • #

      Ho hum!

      Malcolm Turnbull’s Snowy II is silently going ahead, wasting billions.

      Go and look at the image at this link.

      That ….. is a 1000MW generator being put in place at the Baihetan Hydro plant on the Jinsha River, just one of 12 hydro plants (and actually, there’s probably even more on this River, as I’m still looking) on this, the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and upriver from the Three Gorges.

      This Baihetan hydro plant has 16 of these 1000MW generators, so a Nameplate of 16,000MW.

      Okay, now you have seen the generator, look at the walls either side of where it is. This will be the turbine room where eight of these generators will be situated. This turbine room is carved out of the ….. inside of the mountain on one side of the ravine where the river flows through. The other eight generators will be in the turbine room inside the mountain on the other side of the river.

      These 16 generators with a Nameplate of 16000MW will be 2.1 times the total Nameplate of EVERY hydro plant in Australia. All up, the total power delivered to the Chinese grid will be 4.3 times the total hydro power delivered to the Australian grid.

      What the Chinese have done, as part of the contracts for their hydro plants, is to utilise the expertise of the ‘big manufacturers’ the Alstoms, the GE’s etc to make the first one or two of these generators, and then they take over and build the rest of them. They started out with generators around 600MW in size from these big guys and have now engineered generators of 1000MW in size.

      They did the same with coal fired plant generators and now do it with all their power plants, just make their own ones.

      It must be nice to have the topography of what is the third largest river on the Planet, to construct many many humungous hydro plants along this and all those other rivers that flow into the Yangtze.

      And we marvel at the technology of Snowy 2.0

      TOny.

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      • #
        Bill In Oz

        I guess they don’t know Tony that the snow & ice cap on the Tibetan plateau is going to melt
        And the river will then dry up.

        Or maybe they know better ?

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      • #
        TdeF

        I do not marvel at Snowy II Tony. I marvel at the sheer waste. Tumut3 was the first pumped hydro in Australian and it has been hardly used in 70 years. So we are building more? Just to try to make windmills viable? Because it certainly does not reduce CO2. And what other reason is there to waste. The Chinese hydro will be fully utilized. They waste nothing.

        It’s also ironic. We buy all these windmills and generators from overseas. With what? The profits from selling coal. It’s like Saudi Arabia putting in windmills to reduce CO2.

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    OriginalSteve

    Yup…

    If hydroxycholoquine and other things are working, you don’t need a vaccine…..problem is that the globalists appear to be pushing very hard to basically force a vaccine on everyone…

    https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/italy-uk-send-stark-warnings-the-world-cannot-wait-for-a-vaccine-20200518-p54ttg.html

    “Soave, Italy: In separate, stark warnings, two major European leaders have bluntly told their citizens that the world needs to adapt to living with the coronavirus and cannot wait to be saved by the development of a vaccine.

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  • #
    OrignalSteve

    And in what appears a clear message to the relevant players, possibly both unknown “others”….we have,….

    A shot across the bow?

    https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle-east/chinese-ambassador-is-found-dead-at-home-in-israel-20200518-p54tth.html

    “Jerusalem: China’s ambassador to Israel, who took up his post in February, was found dead at his home on Sunday morning in a coastal suburb north of Tel Aviv, officials said.

    “The ambassador, Du Wei, was found in his bed in Herzliya by an embassy worker, officials said.

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    • #
      RickWill

      I doubt it matters much. The only thing that matters – Is the daily number of deaths coming down? The answer to that for the USA is yes. However a few States are yet to demonstrate an ability to control the spread and then there is the pressing need to get the economy back to some level of normalcy and that could result in some loss of control.

      I learnt on the weekend that any aged death in Belgium is being reported as dying of CV19; without even a test to verify. However the answer to the important question for Belgium is a resounding YES. Daily cases have reduced 8-fold since the peak 35 days ago.

      Globally, rate of new cases is near the crest; just before, at it or just past it. Brazil appears to be the location to watch. It has a substantial population and no indication that it arresting the exponential rise. Mexico appears to have a measure of control but daily cases still increasing.

      Once the reproductive rate is below 1 in any population it does not take long to all but wipe the virus out. I doubt there will be any merit in developing a vaccine for CV19. Maybe the process for vaccine development will be refined to be used for the next pandemic.

      Sweden remains the basket case but it appears the reproduction rate is now lower than 1 as there has been a very slight decline in daily cases over the past 3 weeks. By September, Sweden may be looking better.

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      • #
        Graeme No.3

        But is the decline in Europe due to walmer weather? More people outdoors raising their Vit. D levels?
        As for Brazil I note that it comes 25TH in the table of deaths per million.

        30

      • #
        yarpos

        Basket case Swden which runs about the middle of the pack in Europe in terms of excess deaths. A basket case because it doesnt conform with the correct think.

        42

        • #
          RickWill

          A basket case because it doesnt conform with the correct think.

          No a basket case because it is the only European country that has not turned the corner. It still has many more deaths to come. Daily cases in Belgium are half of that in Sweden now and 1/8th of what it was at the peak. Sweden is still up near its peak of 600 cases per day. . The other Nordic countries have a tiny fraction of the deaths that Sweden has and deaths are still occurring at 70 per day in Sweden.

          Belgium also state anyone who died with flu like symptoms was claimed in their CV19 count, without need for any positive test according to the government spokesman Prof Steven Van Gucht:

          Belgian officials say they are counting in a way that no other country in the world is currently doing: counting deaths in hospitals and care homes, but including deaths in care homes that are suspected, not confirmed, as Covid-19 cases.

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  • #
    Slithers

    Your ABC does it again,
    https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/coronavirus-misinformation-and-confusion-plagues-health-workers/ar-BB14dtE9?ocid=msedgdhp

    A Fake news item about fake news about fake medical advice from Fake Medical practitioners with agenda’s who pronounce that ‘Treatment’ does not work, when given to patients suffering from advanced COVID-19 disease!

    “How to talk about conspiracy theories”

    Vitamin D3 with K2, and hydroxychloroquine are recommended Prophylactics against SARS-CoV-2 and most causes of ill health.

    They are NOT treatments for COVID-19

    The ABC journalists need to look up the meaning and use of Prophylactics.

    Condoms are effective before sex not after!

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  • #
    TdeF

    And recommended by meteorologists, a Norwegian weather site I now use which is far better than the BOM. Again, what are our BOM doing? Fiddling historic temperatures to please the IPCC? As the weather recording becomes fully automated, the BOM is losing track of its reason to exist by playing climate stories and having an ab*riginal weather forecast with ‘indigenous weather knowledge’. Are they serious? They couldn’t boil water. As the winter sun rises over a frozen Melbourne at 6C and heads to a lovely 18C, we have a group of public service Green scientists who think we actually control the world’s temperature?

    And incidentally also believe without proof that we humans control CO2 levels which would be completely unchanged in a century without our tiny input. You have to wonder what sets CO2 levels if we don’t?

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    • #
      Annie

      We have been literally frozen most of the last few mornings TdeF.
      The last five, we’ve had -1C, -1C, 0C, 1C and -1C this morning. Misty, frosty mornings and yesterday, a thick fog until c. 1300. When the sun appears it is beautiful; happily it has now appeared today.

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      • #
        TdeF

        Yes, 18C today. That is why I now delay everything as we gain 2C per hour in the brilliant autumn sunshine. And bayside Melbourne is always warmer than inland. I have to warm up the cavoodles.

        Only a month to the winter solstice and we are on the flat bottom of the sine curve. That is why I recommend the Norwegian site, it gives temperature every hour. How they do this, I do not know but it really helps plan your day. Unless you love being frozen and I have yet to meet such a person.

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        • #
          Dennis

          Mid NSW Coast 17 degC at 10.30 am Monday

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          • #
            TdeF

            Yes the area mid NSW has my ideal weather. Each place has their strengths.

            According to the profiteers of doom, we should all be living in Antarctica by now. Too bad the average height is 3.5km above sea level on a block of ice the size of South America.

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      • #
        Bill In Oz

        Same in Mt Barker Annie.
        early cold Winter in May !

        49

        • #
          TdeF

          And we were not supposed to get any rain, where we have already had more rain than the whole of 2019. The BOM should stick to improving their immediate forecasts and not preppers worrying about the fate of the planet.

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    • #
      Steve of Cornubia

      I had to check out this ‘indigenous weather’ thing. A few years ago, I would have simply assumed you were joking, but not now. And sure enough, there it is. Our BOM now seeks weather guidance from indigenous peoples.

      Which makes me wonder what all the expensive instrumentation is for, and why BOM employs ‘scientists’ to produce their daily weather guesses.

      Also on that page is mention of BOM’s ‘Reconciliation Action Plan’. I couldn’t bring myself to read it, but I did wonder what date they would pick as the date the evil invaders stole the natives’ weather and, now bereft of their own weather, is every day exactly the same for them, or do they have to put up with white man’s weather?

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      • #
        yarpos

        There is a whole mythology being created that makes our ancient people meteorologists, great maritime explorers, astronomers, hydrologists and land manaagement experts. All without a common language, a written language , a wheel or permanent dwellings. No claim is too outlandish anymore becuase any sign of doubt is heresy or racism.

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        • #
          Bill In Oz

          Myths for children
          Or at least the childlike.

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          • #
            OriginalSteve

            Its the whiplash reaction you get from years of programming by the socialist media that makes snowflakes to be treated carefully.

            Attached to a childs mind is a fully functioning adult.

            I’ve experienced it first hand in the office when I mocked climate change….this guy was a big boy who started to arc up. I can handle myself, I decided it was wise to de-escalate it, as it could have ended quite badly.

            You cant reason with brainwashed people.

            You wonder how the 3rd Re ich got away with so much, you only have to know that people now, like then, will snitch on neighbours for social distancing “breaches”.

            My wife was telling me in her cousin’s govt workplace, $1000 fine shave been handed out to workers who dared lapse away from “The Party’s” social distancing edict….

            People ask why I get so cranky over stuff like this, I say its not the virus that’s the problem.

            The virus “war” was, believe it or not, the easy bit .

            This is just my take on it – the peacetime after the “war” is going to be the tough bit to make sure we dont lose our freedoms, which IMHO are under threat.
            Right now with all this talk of travel bubbles and being hit with $1000 fines for some arbitrary unenforcable indescretion of standing too close to someone –
            is a control freaks dream come true.

            Now is the time to put extreme pressure on govts to make sure they return our freedoms which have been temporarily “suspended” to “be returned when the time is right”.

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  • #
    Plain Jane

    I put this in the previous threat but now realize it is more appropriate here. Someone posted that the US govt had spent $10K per head population in a few weeks, and was going to spend $10k more soon, and this was the fault of old folks. In reply I put the following.

    I dont have a particularly cogent argument here, just an idea and a feeling. I call BS on the massive financial cost directly caused by the virus itself. How can it cost $10K per individual in the USA already, when those individuals dont earn, or produce $10K worth of value in that time. I dont get how it is useful to give squillions of (computer generated, we are past printed) bucks to your banker mates within the first few weeks of lockdown or else what? The banks go broke? Yeah, right, sure. This is not thought through by me, but maybe the economic crisis is being created by governments, maybe just like the biologic crisis of the virus itself is created by governments. I think the Chinese are possibly pee’d off by being accused when its likely the Chinese and USA made this thing together. Both countries financed and worked on the project. Fauci did say in 2017 it was coming after Trump got in. The Chinese and the Swamp in the USA both hate Trump. The USA and the UK response could hardly have been worse and spread it more if they had wanted to, and I think they did want to spread it around their populations. Very convienient for subduing populations and getting around annoying outdated things like constitutions and the Magna Carta.

    The virus plays into the hands of Big Government everywhere. Letting the virus get out of control and kill lots of oldies is NOT going to stop the destructive governments spending invented money and invading our lives. Lots of people here are calling for the virus just to be let loose, as if doing that is going to stop governments financially destroying their own economies. Opening the borders again to free international travel with no restriction, and getting rid of all actions to control the virus will not stop the governments having a spending holiday now on the work of the plebs in the distant future. Like Jo says – this is a perfectly good civilisation going to waste.

    There has supposed to have been an economic meltdown coming for ages. Now world governments have an excuse that it is not their fault when the crash does happen. I call BS on the economic crisis and extent of economic damage – if Co2isno is right and the american govt spends $20K per citizen in the first few weeks of lockdown it does not make sense to blame that on the lockdown. It does not cost that much to put up soup kitchens. That amount of megabucks is going back into the Swamp of public servants and cronies and banking and is being used for the destruction of civil society, not its support.

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    • #
      Plain Jane

      By saying I call BS on the economic crisis – I am not meaning there is not massive economic damage going on. I mean the extent of the economic crisis, as in spending too much money by governments since the lockdowns as directly caused by dealing with the virus itself, as opposed to handouts to bankers and interest groups.

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    • #
      Peter Fitzroy

      The bounce in the US stock market is equal to the amount of the US stimulus. Look there for your answers

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      • #
        Plain Jane

        That is the sort of thing I am thinking. There are lots of people blaming protecting the old folks for the economic problems. I think this might be an example of bait and switch. If the money is going to the bankers and the stockmarket mostly, just how is opening up borders and letting virus into old folks homes going to stop the money going to the bankers????

        20

        • #
          Peter Fitzroy

          For the last few economic downturns, the response has been to drive down interest rates, and to issue gov’t debt. This is called modern monetary theory, which says that if you have a reserve currency (like the US) you can print as much as you want. However, like traditional forms of protection, the industry being protected becomes more and more inefficient. You can see that in steel production in the US. In the banking industry the protection offered by the supply of essentially free money, with the banks as the gatekeepers, means that money is directed into non productive avenues like stock buybacks, and asset stripping.

          Old folks, with their reduction in consumption, are an easy bait and switch move to keep your attention away from the way in which the stock market is being privatised, just look at Amazon and Bozos.

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          • #
            el gordo

            Europe is going to borrow $500 billion to get their economies moving after the fog lifts, not sure where that is coming from but I suspect its China because they can print money too.

            00

  • #
    Plain Jane

    And I DID say its not a well thought out idea.

    It is just that I have a very strong smell of rats around now.

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  • #
    TdeF

    And as for the ‘Coronavirus probe’ (aka Wu Flu), who needs an international investigation? It is utter nonsense.

    The Chinese government has already and openly destroyed the evidence, now faked a virus DNA, eliminated early whistleblowers and has Wuhan under lockdown, again. And threatened international sanctions against anyone who dares ask questions. What more does anyone need? And what more would any investigation find which is not already public knowledge? The scourge is already worldwide.

    What the world’s countries including Australia need to do is create a non partisan medical WHO, one which does its sole job of stopping pandemics. Not one which aids and abets and hides their creation under clear direction from China. And prosecutes Tedros Adenhom for crimes against humanity at Den Hague. It takes only one country to bring this accusation to the court. Then let China defend him.

    At the very least, Adenhom should not still be President of WHO, speaking on behalf of all countries! He is not a doctor but a ly*ng revolutionary opportunistic politician from the Ethiopian dictatorship supported in turn by other African military dictatorships and the Chinese Communist party. And we are paying his wages.

    We do not need another pompous politically motivated inquiry. Tedros lied as President of WHO, again and again. And so far has cost a third of a million lives and untold and ongoing commercial costs. Whatever we are paying for WHO, it is too much.

    Australia should cut off the funding and propose a new body, not engage in foot stamping. A new body with qualified real medical doctors in charge, not someone with a PhD in ‘Community Health’ from the University of Nottingham and who had form as Health Minister in twice hiding cholera outbreaks.

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      It seems quite a few powerful players on the world scene have been caught with their pants down, and have thrown a huge childish tantrum after being issued with “please explain” letters….

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  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    Date: 17 May 2020.
    Place: Their abc – Climate change talk has been around for 30 years. Where’s the action? evidence?

    “I can’t tell you what I was doing on June 23, 1988, though I can take a guess.
    Because on June 23, 1988, James Hansen, a climate scientist at NASA, appeared before a US Senate hearing with a warning for the world.
    The IPCC’s first assessment report came out in 1990.”

    Richard Aedy has been a journalist for more than 30 years.
    He’s been concerned about climate change for most of that time.
    He’s been at Radio National since 1998.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-17/climate-change-action-has-been-missing-hot-mess-richard-aedy/12200196

    Oh dear.

    1989: “UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.
    He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control.”
    https://apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0

    maldives 1988- 30 years until drowning
    https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/102074798

    >> Best all sharp objects are removed from Richard Aedy’s immediate vicinity when he finally realises he has been taken for a fool.

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  • #
    Bill In Oz

    Meanwhile in Brazil, where 16,000 people have died from Covid 19,
    China’s viral ‘gift’ to the world,
    Bolsanara the president is doing really weird stuff. ;;
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-18/brazil-overtakes-spain-and-italy-in-confirmed-coronavirus-cases/12257920

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      From the article

      “Others have called for broader release of chloroquine, an anti-malaria drug touted by Mr Bolsonaro as a coronavirus treatment despite a lack of scientific evidence.”

      But wait…..

      https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bst/14/1/14_2020.01047/_article

      https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0

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    • #
      yarpos

      mmm thats a lot , almost 1% of total annual deaths in a country of 212 million ish

      11

    • #
      Richard Ilfeld

      So was the governor of Minnesota, until the folks caught on that he has clueless.
      He has finally recognized that the folks who hunt, fish, and play golf are a different risk factor
      than the 50,000-1000,000 from Somilia crowded into Hennepin County. Protest organized by gun rights folks scared
      the hell out of old gov Walz, truth be told. Very glad I no longer live in southern Minn; its oughta control….
      San Francisco in the heartland.

      30

  • #
    Richard Ilfeld

    It was easy to waste money on bad choices when there was at least some funding for good ones.
    Making real choices is well above the the pay grade of echo chamber progressives, as many are proving.
    Pretty funny that the comfortable and secure (who presume to be champions of social justice) are
    enforcing a lockdown on the lower & middle classes, and are tone deaf to their voices whilst presuming
    to speak for them. It would be funny if it weren’t tragic.

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    • #
      Kalm Keith

      While flicking through a newspaper from a few days back I came across an article about a young business couple who looked to be barely 30 years old.

      A photo and the byline:
      couple looking at a $600,000 black hole.

      I didn’t read it but suspect that the story would be:
      they mortgaged their home to fund the purchase of a business and stock, then CV19 hit and destroyed their business and not much chance of reviving it. Tragic.

      Can a pair like this bounce back?

      30

      • #
        Richard Ilfeld

        In the US, yes.
        The purpose of bankruptcy laws is to allow legal ad financial slates to be wiped clean.
        On balance, a vast number of great fortunes and spectacular social achievements have come from people whose
        senses were finely honed by the life changing experience of bankruptcy, with a minimum of fraud.

        00

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    • #
      RickWill

      Clearly pushing own agenda. The Morrison government did not get in for the reason to take Australia into surplus. It got in because the alternative was too fuzzy and overconfident.

      Economic activity in Australia is on the rise again. People are smiling; excited by the prospect.

      Not much has changed in Sweden – still a basket case but a hint that they are past the worst.

      There will be comparisons possible after all countries are back to something like normal, with a few exceptions. No economy is going to come out without a blip. Taiwan will likely show the least damage. The difference in forced quarantine versus voluntary quarantine will be possible comparing countries like Australia and Sweden by the end of the year.

      Any commentator suggesting that quarantines were a waste of time in the battle with CV19 simply display their ignorance and short memories. They need to answer two simple question – did they run out of toilet paper? – if not, why not? If so, why so?

      The great toilet paper rush of 2020! It symbolises the CV19 pandemic for me.

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      • #
        yarpos

        If you insist on riding the Sweden hobby horse into the ground why not compare with a balanced group of non cherry picked peer countries in Europe? It would make sense than comparing with another continent, in another season, that happens to be a sparsely populated island. Might not give the desired answer but at least it would be rational.

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    OriginalSteve

    Its a bit like a hostile takeover of ever aspect of life.

    Good luck with that…

    Just sayin’…

    https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/your-horror-commute-to-work-revealed/news-story/4a3f9ff611e3e72958ea55bf3e3fc42d

    “Under the new strategy, bus drivers will limit the number of passengers on board to 12, and trains will be limited to 32 people per carriage.

    “Ferries will also run at a reduced 45 person service, and police will be monitoring train stations for crowds, and will temporarily close train stations that get too busy.

    “Transport NSW will be using stickers to guide passengers to where they can and cannot be seated, and services will run at a limited capacity with social distancing taking place.

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    Steve of Cornubia

    Where is the CSIRO? Can’t say I’ve seen anything from our esteemed (and very expensive) ‘national research organisation in the media. rather like the WHO, I would have thought Covid-19 was CSIRO’s chance to shine, and show us how useful it is in times of crisis.

    You have to visit their website to find out what they’re up to regarding Covid, and what you will see is pretty underwhelming – basically amalgamating everybody else’s research and testing potential vaccines produced by others.

    One page on their site did jump off the screen though, the one promising to speak about the origin of Covid-19. I clicked the link, wondering how the politically-compromised CSIRO would deal with the question of China, given that they collaborate with China on a large scale and Chinese researchers are to be found almost everywhere inside the organisation.

    Well … surprise! Other than saying SARS was first discovered in China years ago, that’s pretty much all you get. Some blather about what viruses are and how bats are carriers. Yes, those viruses can jump to humans, as seen where? Why, in Australia of course! No mention of Wuhan’s role, nor the viral research done there.

    Useless.

    [Thanks Steve. Good point. Where is CSIRO? – Jo]

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    TdeF

    There is a mandarin word Kowtow, a loan word. It is what we are expected to do, like everyone inside China.

    “Kowtow borrowed from koutou in Mandarin Chinese is the act of deep respect shown by prostration, that is, kneeling and bowing so low as to have one’s head touching the ground. In East Asian culture, the kowtow is the highest sign of reverence. It was widely used to show reverence for one’s elders, superiors, and especially the Emperor”

    In this case Emperor Xi. So stop asking who created the Wuhan Flu and stay silent. We already know the answer. But an emperor does not want to be embarrassed publicly.

    So demand the immediate removal by the UN of the WHO President Tedros Adhonom. That would not only be sensible but a huge embarrassment for Emperor Xi, domestically and internationally. The rest of the world would agree.

    Then refer Tedros Adhanom founding member of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front dictatorship to the International Court for crimes against humanity. There’s no shortage of evidence, even in Eritrea.

    That’s the opposite of kowtowing, but much more subtle diplomatically and tactically than outright confrontation which will achieve nothing because of the loss of face.

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    • #
      Bill In Oz

      Xi has presided over a huge unnatural bloody stuff up.
      Traditionally in China such an event was seen as evidence that the “Heavens had withdrawn it’s mandate’.
      That would undermine Xi’s regime completely.
      So news of it must be suppressed.
      So the best the West can do is make sure that news of this reaches all Chinese everywhere.

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  • #
    dinn, rob

    13,000 “death scientists” in 400 laboratories in U.S. and abroad making new strains of offensive killer germs
    https://balance10.blogspot.com/2020/05/13000-death-scientists-in-400.html

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    Kalm Keith

    Age distribution a possible effect on CV19 spread.

    I suspect that one of the most interesting factors at play in Vietnam could be seen in the population dynamics.

    At the end of the Vietnam war in 1975, the population of the country was about 43 million.

    Currently it is just over 95 million.

    This means that at a bare minimum there are at least 52 million under the age of 45 years.

    Assuming that half of the original population has passed on, it is entirely likely that upwards of 75 million Vietnamese are under the age of 45 years.

    From the known behaviour of the virus elsewhere it would explain the low rate of serious issues.

    Also, given the absence of nursing homes, there is not the large number there just waiting for the CV19 to come calling so another factor to help reduce numbers.

    I believe that an area near Saigons main airport was used to hold incoming passengers after a certain date, for quarantine.

    Although the Maccas- Pizza Hut syndrome has struck, the bulk of the population still probably doesn’t present with the “large” western profile that seems to attract the CV19 bug.

    The border shutdown with China was enforced to the point that component parts from China for use in Vietnam’s factories were unavailable. This caused factory shutdowns and unemployment initially but there may have since been a workaround.

    KK

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      Bright Red

      I suspect if accurate data was available for Africa we would see similar demographics with not to many old or susceptible people In the population and a lack of nursing homes as well. Strange we don’t hear anything about Africa in the MSM.

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      • #
        Kalm Keith

        Yes, interesting comparison with possibly a genetic issue raising its head in Africa. Reflects part of the problem in New York.

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    Serp

    I’m of the confiscate and expel faction but short of a hot war I cannot see that it can be done legally so we’re doomed simply to cop it sweet and await the next sneak go.

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    Slithers

    It seems that everyone and his dog are H*ll bent on confusing the general public.

    https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bst/14/1/14_2020.01047/_article

    Your immune system does not stop or in any way affect the COVID-19 disease!
    ALL treatments affect the Viral infections progression!
    Your immune system attacks and neutralizes the Virus SARS-CoV-2.
    The inflammation created by your immune system in effect starves infected cells of oxygen and they die, thus causing damage that has to be repaired. Cell repair is not fast and not always 100% effective.
    If your immune system fails you get very sick and then have to have expensive ICU/respiratory treatment to keep you alive while your immune system fights the good fight producing antibodies to prevent yet more SARS-COV-2 Viruses marauding through-out your body and being expelled to infect other unprotected people.
    As if and when a vaccine is available it will NOT cure COVID-19!
    A Vaccine provides your immune system with ready made ammunition to kill the Virus SARS-CoV-2 and prevent COVID-19 infection.

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    Another Ian

    “The Covid Lockdown and CO2”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/05/17/the-covid-lockdown-and-co2/

    “Maybe, just maybe, anthropogenic emissions just don’t make that big of a contribution to the increase….Maybe abandoning fossil fuels and all the advantages of modern society isn’t a solution to rising CO2.”

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    • #
      AndyG55

      ” a solution to rising CO2.”

      A solution to a NON-PROBLEM. !!

      In fact, the very last thing we should be attempting.

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      • #
        TdeF

        I have always been interested in the residence time of CO2 in the air. As predicted in this 1960 paper, it can be accurately estimated from the decay of the doubling of C14 after the bomb blasts. And we now know it is 7 years, where the original estimates were 10 years. This totally destroys the IPCC argument that CO2 is trapped for thousands of years and the CO2 stays in the air for 80 years or thousands of years.

        However I have realised it is impossible for CO2 to be trapped in the deep ocean. The C14 can only be added in the upper atmosphere but the deep ocean CO2 is full of C14. The atmosphere is 1/400th of the weight of the ocean and there is 50x as much CO2 in the ocean as in the atmophere and say only 1/10th in the upper atmosphere where N14 is converted to C14 by cosmic rays.

        For the bottom of the ocean to have substantial C14 means it was once at the top of the atmosphere, a chance of 1/10th of 1/50th so 500:1. Which means CO2 cycles from the deepest points of the ocean very quickly, not over thousands of years as the IPCC argues.

        So once again CO2 is rapidly absorbed by the ocean, from top to bottom. The reason CO2 has gone up by 50% is that the ocean is slightly warmer. And our pitifully small output of CO2 is drowned in the normal equilibrium flows determined solely by ocean surface temperature, according to Henry’s law.

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        • #
          TdeF

          To put it another way, the chance a CO2 molecule makes it from the bottom of the ocean to the top of the atmosphere is 500:1. If it takes a thousand years for deep CO2 to get to the atmosphere, it would take 500,000 years to ‘infect’ all of the CO2 in the ocean with C14. With a half life of 5,400 years there would be NO C14 at the bottom of the ocean. The fact that the ocean is full of C14 based CO2 proves the IPCC is completely wrong. Again.

          There is so much absolute proof that the IPCC is wrong, that our CO2 is negligible and does not accumulate. Slightly warmer water with 50x as much CO2 as the air releases a little CO2. Nothing more.

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          • #
            Peter C

            TdeF,
            Have you worked out how much ocean warming is required to raise the atmospheric CO2 from 280ppm to 405ppm, using Henry’s law?

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  • #
    TdeF

    And I have achieved a certain status, where I get three red thumbs no matter what I say. This must be out of the CCP playbook. Still, it’s a form of recognition even when I offer a defense of the Chinese, Chinese history and not the Chinese Communist Party. So go ahead. The square root of 4 is 2. So there.

    610

    • #
      Bill In Oz

      Congratulations TdeF
      Wear it with a badge of honor.
      It means that you are seen as a threat by the CCP trolls.
      I occasionally get 4or5 red’uns. I add them to my collection.
      I’m aiming at 100 per post.
      Bill

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      • #
        TdeF

        Actually I think it is the same person logging in under different names. It’s too consistent, not that I care in the slightest. I have been red thumbed for stating a fact, so it is mindless. And I like that my dissertation on the concentration of the carbon 14 isotope at depth in the ocean is so disliked.

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  • #
    Eddie

    Quite a speech in the Italian Parliament. I’ve heard nothing quite like it since Britain left the EU.

    Sarah Cunial is a member Italy’s Five Star Movement, the largest single party.

    https://youtu.be/QnsYcsCjLWI

    30

    • #
      TdeF

      Amazing. The stress levels in Italy are understandably running high with such a disaster. No mention of the Chinese tourists or the Chinese government though. You would think the Wuhan Flu was created by Bill Gates. That does not make sense except emotionally.

      33

    • #
      joseph

      Eddie,
      I didn’t get a chance to watch it until this morning. Thanks for posting!

      10

  • #
    Orson

    News story, UK medical authorities now recommend that if a patient experiences anosmia, the loss of taste or smell, they ought to immediately self isolate. This signal is in addition to other traditional signs life persistent cough or fever.

    Here’s a twitter link to the statement
    https://twitter.com/rachaelvenables/status/1262325009982382082/photo/1

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  • #
    Speedy

    Off topic but, hey, it’s supposed to be unthreaded…

    A hydrogen atom walks into a bar and says to the Barman – “I think I’m turning into a proton.”
    “Are you sure?” says the Barman.
    “Yes, I’m positive…”

    Patttishhhh….

    60

  • #
    RicDre

    Climate change is fueling extreme weather that lowers cancer survival rate and threatens prevention

    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/18/climate-change-fuels-extreme-weather-that-lowers-cancer-survival-rate.html

    10

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    RicDre

    Death and disease from climate-sensitive diseases and events are small relative to those from all causes, and getting smaller

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/05/17/death-and-disease-from-climate-sensitive-diseases-and-events-are-small-relative-to-those-from-all-causes-and-getting-smaller/

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    Lucky

    https://www.news.com.au/world/breaking-news/who-set-to-host-assembly-amid-controversy/news-story/c7e491a4cbc023033dd7493144cbfe9b

    News item 1.
    China has approved the study to investigate the CCP19 virus. It is to be done by the World Health Organization. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has promised an independent evaluation of the global coronavirus response.

    News item 2.
    The new agricultural lab in Wuhan has announced a new breed of pigs with wings.
    (Ok, fake news)

    Choose one, an independent evaluation, or flying pigs.

    20

  • #
    RicDre

    And for all of those AOC fans out there:

    According to press accounts and tweets, when asked by columnist Jonah Goldberg about the cost of the Green New Deal (GND), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded: “’Totally get it if you’ve never bothered to read the legislation you’re commenting so authoritatively on,” She continued by noting that the GND is a “non-binding resolution of values” and “costs us $0 if passed.

    Regardless of the accuracy of the report: given that the proponents of the Green New Deal fail to distinguish between electricity generation that is dispatchable (reliable) and nondispatchable (unreliable) and promote unreliable generation, one can respond that Zero is the value of the critical thinking that has gone into the Green New Deal.

    From:

    Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #409

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/05/18/weekly-climate-and-energy-news-roundup-410/

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  • #
    Another Ian

    “+7C Global Warming by 2100: CMIP6 Cranks Up the Climate Sensitivity Estimate for COP26+7C Global Warming by 2100: CMIP6 Cranks Up the Climate Sensitivity Estimate for COP26”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/05/18/7c-global-warming-by-2100-cmip6-cranks-up-the-climate-sensitivity-estimate-for-cop26/

    “Even worse than we thought ™ – global warming estimates have been raised, just in time for next year’s COP26 conference. But one of high end CMIP6 models, CESM2 (highlighted above), has already been invalidated by a paleo study.Even worse than we thought ™ – global warming estimates have been raised, just in time for next year’s COP26 conference. But one of high end CMIP6 models, CESM2 (highlighted above), has already been invalidated by a paleo study.”

    00

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    Furiously curious

    Andrew Bolt highlighted the latest doomster meme – Climate Grief ! Two words…….. Emotional Masterbation.

    20

  • #
    Kevin a

    WD, Toshiba Lose 6 Exabytes of NAND Due to Power Outage.
    June 28, 2019
    Western Digital says that the 13-minute power outage impacted wafers that were processed, the facilities, and production equipment. The company indicates that the incident will reduce its NAND flash wafer supply in Q3 by approximately 6 EB (exabytes), which is believed to be about a half of the company’s quarterly supply of NAND.

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/14596/toshiba-western-digital-nand-production-partially-halted-by-power-outage

    00

  • #
    Orson

    The GWPF has a fresh and informative video out on the Gibbs and Moore movie “Planet of the Humans”. Dubbed “Planet of The Greens – why eco-activists turn on each other.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=447&v=jgpxnFQI-fk&feature=emb_logo

    A nine minute expose of the conflict, power, propaganda that dominates the tribal mind.

    Refreshing, and sobering,

    20

    • #
      Orson

      Yesterday, GWPF also has a new video and detailed briefer on the solar minimum, by astrophysicist David Whitehouse (also narrating, I believe). His point is that the climate consequences over the next 10 to 15 years are going to tell us a lot about at least two or three theories of climate change, enhanced greenhouse effect by added CO2 as well as Svensmark’s cosmo climatology theory.

      In short, if we’re cooler or close to no net warmer, the CO2 alarmists lose. If the reverse, then Greta’s got a great gig in her future!

      00

  • #
    el gordo

    Brazil and China are in conflict because of the Covid impact.

    https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/15/chinas-diplomats-are-going-on-the-offensive-in-brazil/

    The death and dislocation caused by the pandemic should be enough to keep everyone occupied, but no, they also had a UFO flap recorded on numerous cell phones.

    It went viral and the authorities had to move quickly to pull them off the interwebs and twittersphere, but I can report that they were spherical and one of them may have crashed.

    00

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    el gordo

    Brazil and China are in conflict because of the Covid impact.

    https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/15/chinas-diplomats-are-going-on-the-offensive-in-brazil/

    The death and dislocation caused by the pandemic should be enough to keep everyone occupied, but no, they also had a UFO flap recorded on numerous cell phones.

    It went viral and the authorities had to move quickly to pull them off the interwebs and twittersphere, but I can report that they were spherical and one of them may have crashed.

    10

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    StephenP

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/19/pay-price-sometimes-australian-man-could-face-14500-fine-rescuing/
    Glad to know the UK isn’t the only country with rulebook obsessives.
    I’m pleased the whale calf survived.

    10

  • #
    robert rosicka

    More problems for solar panel owners , AEMO wants to be able to switch off your solar remotely on days where stability is an issue .
    Wow talk about intermittent energy ?

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-20/concerns-over-plan-to-switch-off-household-solar-panels/12267162?fbclid=IwAR2RE5nse9cPvRO2CWGTAgvPb55lkaca_xlGHox46Daqxl8wxUQ2bARtvtE

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    Orson

    The success state of Florida! How did they do better at staunching Covid-19? Better than the populous Northeast. Even better than the more rural Southeast USA. But how? They learned from the positive successes of South Korea and implemented them, and avoided the messes made in Italy and New York City.

    Florida did the right things in a lot of places which others haven’t. And the Governo there has been denigrated in national media for making such adaptive decisions as crazy and dangerous.

    I’m teasing my post for later today or tomorrow because Jo has several fine posts up now, and may start a new unthreaded soon or by the weekend. More details to come, then.
    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/374581/

    00