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August 16, 2020
The MoA Week In Review – Open Thread 2020-65

Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:

  • August 12 – 'Western' Media Falsely Claim That Russia's Covid-19 Vaccine Is Ready To Go
    Related:
    The international part of the phase 3 trial of the Russian vaccine had already been announced. Now there is more on the Russian side of the phase 3 trial (machine translation):

    Post-registration studies of the Russian vaccine against the new type of coronavirus can begin in 7-10 days, reports TASS with reference to the director of the National Research Center (SIC) of Epidemiology and Microbiology named after N.F. Gamaleya of the Ministry of Health Alexander Gintsburg.

    Several tens of thousands of people will take part in the post-registration studies, Gunzburg noted. He added that research will be carried out on the territory of the Moscow region.

—
Other issues:

Covid-19:

On July 13 we wrote:

Covid-19 – New Quick Tests Are Coming

> These kind of tests are comparable to quick pregnancy test. They are for use at home or at points of care for quick screening. The usual turn around time for such tests is some 15 minutes and they do not require special equipment.
…
[T]he advantage of the antigen tests is their simplicity, speed and the mass production costs of about one dollar. They can be integrated into normal life processes like international travel without causing long delays. That the tests have some false negatives does not matter much. Epidemiological modeling shows that when often used these are superior to other methods of epidemic surveillance. <

Now these tests are finally there:

FDA clears saliva test for Covid-19, opening door to wider testing – STAT
Quick and affordable saliva-based COVID-19 test developed by Yale scientists receives FDA Emergency Use Authorization – Yale News
Cheap, frequent COVID tests could be ‘akin to vaccine,’ professor says – Harvard Gazette

Faltering empire:

Once upon a time people from outside the U.S. were very eager to get H-1B visas which allow one to work in the U.S. and to maybe become a citizen. There were even profitable scam sites which promised their customers that they could get preferential access to such visas. Those times are gone:
Shocking no one, not enough foreigners applied for H-1B visas this year so US govt ran a second lottery – The Register
Watching mushroom clouds from the beach in LA. Apocalypse…maybe not now, but soon! – Yasha Levine

> We’re living on the edge of a slow-moving apocalypse — surrounded by pristine beaches, multi-million dollar homes, homeless encampments, and a slow-burning pandemic. But that’s the Los Angeles way. Just pretend the world beyond your lawn doesn’t really exist — or, if does exist, it’s all the fault of some malicious foreign power. 

I’m sure buying that extra Tesla will get us out of this. That, and using unredeemable prison labor to fight fires. And of course bringing democracy to Belarus… <

Turkey in trouble:

Congress has secretly blocked US arms sales to Turkey for nearly two years – Defense News
Turkey slams Biden's past call for U.S. to back Erdogan opponents – Reuters
Foreigners Flee Turkish Stocks at Fastest Pace Since March 2019 – Bloomberg
Money for Nothing: currency crisis in Turkey – Yetkin Report

> Based on the numbers as of the end of July, the CBRT’s gross reserves were 90 billion USD. After we account for liabilities, net reserves decline to 26 billion USD. As we adjust for swaps, net reserves decline to -33 billion USD. <

Piracy:

Officials: US seizes Iranian gas heading for Venezuela – Al Jazeerah

> US officials tell AP Trump administration seized cargo of four tankers transporting Iranian fuel to Venezuela.
…
Iran's ambassador to Venezuela, Hojad Soltani, pushed back on what would appear a victory for the US sanctions campaign, saying on Thursday on Twitter that neither the ships nor their owners were Iranian. <

Tankers de-flagged for using Iranian sanctions-busting tactic – Lloyd's list

Four tankers among 16 discovered manipulating AIS to show a vessel is in one place while it is actually at another loading Iranian crude

Javad Zarif @JZarif – 14:02 UTC · Aug 15, 2020

"Pirates of the Caribbean" have their own judges and courts now.
Sadly for them, stolen booty wasn't Iran's. Fuel was sold F.O.B. Persian Gulf. Ship and flag weren't ours either.
Hollow, cheap propaganda doesn’t deflect from miserable failure of US diplomatic malpractice at UN.

Use as open thread …

Posted by b on August 16, 2020 at 12:31 UTC | Permalink
Comments

Re: Posted by: Mao | Aug 17 2020 1:12 utc | 88
Yep — it amounted to a total of 2.1 million tons of bombs, in a country of one million population.
That’s 2.1 tons of bombs for every man, woman and child in the country.
Fred Branfman, who spent several years volunteering with the Laotian people, wrote a book called “Voices From the Plain of Jars,” consisting of comments from the ordinary folks of the country. In it he also solicited drawings from children, asking them to draw pictures that showed what the word “America” meant to them. Almost universally, they drew pictures of bloody bodies on the ground, with arms and legs blown off.
Well, those bombers were six miles up, after all — no way to see or hear where or from whom those bombs were coming.
I met Fred when I was working in Tom Hayden’s US senate campaign in 1976. Hayden had given Fred an office in our state campaign HQ, and I would see him every time I passed his open office door, typing frantically away, a cigarette clamped in his lips with the ash dribbling down the front of his shirt, working feverishly to alert the US population as to what we’d been doing in Laos.
No one cared, it seemed. No one had ever heard of Laos — there were only a million or so people in the whole country — and his book did not sell well.
Tragedy compounded . . .

Posted by: AntiSpin | Aug 17 2020 2:27 utc | 101

Richard Steven Hack 103
That makes sense. Spalling was a big problem in early tanks.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 17 2020 2:36 utc | 102

What It’s Like to Go Into Lockdown for the Second Time
We’re back under curfew and heavy restrictions in Australia

I can only go outside once per day for an hour of exercise. The state regulations require me to wear a face mask if I go outside my home. There are police and military in the streets and in beautiful natural settings like the Yarra River. They’re positioned there to ensure people are wearing face masks and to ask them why they are out. If a person’s answer is not one of the four reasons we’re allowed to leave home — to provide care, get to a medical appointment, go food shopping, or exercise for one hour — then officials are instructed to issue hefty fines of up to $5,000. On a bad day, you can see videos on the news of the police exerting their new powers and tackling anti-maskers or curfew-breakers to the ground in order to arrest them

That last is interesting. We’ve had similar rules in San Francisco for months, but I’m never seen a cop enforce them.

Then there’s the panic-buying and food shortages. I never imagined I’d worry about food running out. But I do. My girlfriend and I have become doomsday preppers — we hoard food. We’re told not to by the government, but then you get to the supermarket and shelves are empty.

I took part of my stimulus check in May and the extra $111 I got from food stamps for the last four months and stocked up on another month’s supply of food (possibly longer if I can stretch it). Preppers are warning that given the economic issues and the destabilization of the supply chains due to lockdowns and alteration of the population’s normal behavior that food shortages in the US – and food prices – are only likely to increase. Canadian Prepper, a guy I follow on Youtube, has been putting out videos saying he’s stocking up on freeze-dried foods and MREs for sale in the coming months in his store.
The US will be back under lockdown eventually, regardless of what Trump “wants”. And if any serious food shortage hits, there’s likely to be at least sporadic violence, which is why preppers are saying keep buying food preps so you don’t have to be at risk of riots in grocery stores. As one put it, you want to be watching the food riots on TV, not being in one.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Aug 17 2020 2:41 utc | 103

His conclusion: There is no proof it works.
A Review of (For Now) Every Hydroxychloroquine Randomized Trial for Covid-19
And he does address the zinc issue:

A few final caveats. Yes, only one of these trials reported on the use of zinc with HCQ — no effect by the way — but two things on that particular issue. First, we know that many individuals take zinc supplements, so if, as the argument goes, HCQ IS a miracle cure when given with zinc, you’d still see a benefit in an HCQ trial because a subset of people — maybe 25% — are taking zinc.
The zinc issue falls into this no-true-scotsman land of HCQ studies. Any negative study can be dismissed “oh you didn’t give it early enough, or late enough, or with zinc, or with azithromycin, or on Sunday or whatever”. That’s not how science works. I’m not saying any of these studies are perfect. Just that they are the best evidence we have right now. The burden of proof is to show the drug WORKS. Though I’m sure pharma would be stoked to be able to argue that their latest negative trial can be ignored because their billion dollar drug wasn’t given in concert with vitamin C or whatever.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Aug 17 2020 2:51 utc | 104

Richard Steven Hack
The only reason we have military on the borders and on the streets now is because “we are not an authoritarian country like China”. bloody fuckwits. If they had of enforced quarantine right at the start there would be no covid19 in oz.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 17 2020 2:53 utc | 105

Both the security at ‘quarantine hotels’ and many of the privatized oldies homes are low paid immigrant workers… But a thousand healthcare workers have been spreading the bug. After all this time, four day minimum time for test result, N95 grade masks kept under lock and key… political healthcare at its finest.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 17 2020 3:00 utc | 106

Fact-Checking President Trump’s ‘Historic Coronavirus Response’ Brief
To no one’s surprise, almost everything he claims is a lie. If there was ever a reason to impeach – and preferably throw in jail – Trump, his handling of this pandemic is it. I am always amazed at how each President reduces the ability of Americans to spot utter corruption and stupidity and maliciousness on the part of politicians by being so obvious that everyone just assumes it’s “the new normal”. Trump has probably been the most egregious President since Nixon. The fact that he was even seriously considered for President in 2016 is a condemnation of the entire US electorate (and that Hillary Clinton was deemed an appropriate opponent even more so.)

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Aug 17 2020 3:01 utc | 107

Mao #88

There were approximately more than 580,000 bombing missions on Laos between 1964 and 1973, that’s one every eight minutes, every day, for NINE YEARS

I was at one with the earth, the air, the upland fields. the paddy and the seedbeds of my village. Each day and night in the light of the moon I and my friends from the village would wander, calling out and singing, through forest and field, amidst the cries of the birds. During harvesting we would sweat and labour together, under the sun and the rain, contending with poverty and miserable conditions, continuing the farmer’s life which has been the profession of our ancestors.
But in 1964 and 1965 I could feel the trembling of the earth and the shock from the sounds of arms exploding around my village. I began to hear the noise of airplanes circling about in the heavens. One of them would stick its head down and, plunging earthward, loose a loud roar, shocking the heart as light an smoke covered everything so that one could not see anything at all. Each day we would exchange news with neighbouring villagers of the bombings that occurred: the damaged houses, the injured and the dead….
The holes! the holes! During that time we needed holes to save our lives. We who were young took our sweat and our strength, which should have been spent raising food in the ricefields and forests to sustain our lives, and squandered it digging holes to protect ourselves.”

The story by a 26 year old nurse from the village of Xieng Khouang as told to Fred Branfman in his book ‘Voices from the Plain of Jars’. Cited in ‘The People’s History of the United States” Howard Zinn.

Thank you Mao for reminding me to look this up and read it all again. One of the countless USA crimes against humanity. Sobering and sad.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Aug 17 2020 3:03 utc | 108

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 17 2020 3:00 utc | 111 Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 17 2020 2:53 utc | 110
Yup. Sounds just like the US – except slightly more draconian, which I guess is due to Australia’s national culture.
Thank God for all the hot actresses you’ve exported to the US, however! LOL ‘Cuz we don’t have any native actors anymore, or so it seems. They’re all either British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealanders – even the Indians are getting involved (Supergirl show had I think two or three Indian actresses one season.)

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Aug 17 2020 3:09 utc | 109

Peter AU1 #110

If they had of enforced quarantine right at the start there would be no covid19 in oz.

My sympathies are with you.
Who was that security company? who are its directors? if Vic Health did not contract them – then who did? have the directors assets been frozen and confiscated by the state – yet? Why not?
If your government can fine $4K for no mask or reason to be in public, then what is it doing to prosecute these directors of this culpably negligent company.
Name these people so that we may all observe how justice unfolds in the bunya nut republic.
Citizens in bunyastan can petition their state parliaments and even a petition of one signature is sufficient for it to be tabled and commence a debate if that is what the minority parties are capable of there.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Aug 17 2020 3:26 utc | 110

Richard Steven Hack
Not so much draconian as a complete mess. You either stop the virus in its tracks or go full herd immunity. military security at quarantine .. draconian perhaps and was not done. Instead people are allowed to infect others and then they cop a fine if caught? Now that many are infected, we have the military helping enforce regulations. Not so much gun toting rambos as in the US but more in the line of civilian policing from what I can make of it.
Physically enforcing quarantine? Would have been better before the virus escaped than after. Sort of like doing something after the horse has bolted.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 17 2020 3:35 utc | 111

Wasn’t thinking much with that last comment. I remember a year or two back, an Australian woman in US called the cops because she thought someone was snooping about or trying to break in. The cops come around and shot her. Problem solved.
The cops here strut around with guns on their hips now, but as yet haven’t really taken up the practice of simply shooting every problem.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 17 2020 3:44 utc | 112

“Moronically echoing an anecdote you read on the internet to advance your “Escape From New York” fantasy is not waiting “for time and history to process this event with clearer viewpoint. Currently it is all a clusterfuck and I refuse to take a narrative stance until then. ”
Posted by: Sidney Caesar | Aug 17 2020 1:07 utc | 86
..
Try not to get your panties in too much of a bunch big boy.
Your reading retention could use improvement as your assertions bear no semblance to my comments.
Nothing I said came from internet anecdotes.
Cannot fathom what someone would be doing working ER who is incapable of basic reading and listening skills that you’ve displayed. Do you berate patients and students with your compassionate care? Why so hostile? Need a good bitch slapping for your angry pouting?
Are you craving “hero” status for front line fighting against the evil virus? Chill the fuck out.

Posted by: CitizenX | Aug 17 2020 3:55 utc | 113

Trump’s trade war with China has had unintended consequences for a number of Australian rare earth mining companies, some examples have had spectacular share price hikes in recent days, one 23% up, with more likely to follow soon.
China has a near monopoly on rare earth production.
https://www.australianrareearths.com/asx-listed-rare-earth-companies-wth-jorc-deposit.html
Australian nickel and cobalt miners are also doing well. All of these rare earths and minerals are useful for a variety of hi-tech uses including cell phones, battery cars, advanced jet engine technology and military use.
It is claimed a new F35 Joint Strike Fighter uses over four hundred kilos of rare earths.

Posted by: Paul | Aug 17 2020 3:57 utc | 114

uncle tungsten
bunyastan is about right. We’re not far off yankistan in a number of fields. Read extracts from a diary quite a few years back of a fealla who when he was a kid went up into the mountains with the aboriginal people for the bunya nut. They camped there for awhile apparently. A time of plenty.
“Citizens in bunyastan can petition their state parliaments and even a petition of one signature is sufficient for it to be tabled and commence a debate if that is what the minority parties are capable of there.”
I’m not sure if reality teevee and game shows cover this sort of thing.
My daughter grew up in the the bush so somewhat pragmatic, did a couple degrees and now works in a private hospital. She was thinking of volunteering to come down here but was shocked at the lack of suitable PPE. A bit of a learning curve for her I guess on our vaunted western civilization.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 17 2020 4:08 utc | 115

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 17 2020 3:44 utc | 117 The cops here strut around with guns on their hips now, but as yet haven’t really taken up the practice of simply shooting every problem.
Give ’em time. It will get progressively worse. I mean, in the US it was always bad. But with the militarization of US cops, it’s gotten much worse. Cops are cops world-wide, it’s just that some governments prefer to keep the overt oppression down at least a little to avoid too much electorate resentment possibly becoming a problem. That is, the ones that *have* an electorate as opposed to just a beaten down population too weak and starving to do much of anything.
The US is on track to becoming that. Get a few food shortages here to help it along over the next year or so. Anyone who thinks the US electorate is going to rise up and go socialist are deluding themselves. Even the wannabe Rambos with their ARs and plate carrier vests are deluding themselves if they think any significant proportion of the 330 million Americans – even the 80-100 million who actually do own guns – are going to rise up if the oppression gets worse. Look at countries with way worse oppression – *their* leaders are still in power. It’s next to impossible to get a real revolution going – other than some faux revolution – that doesn’t end up putting the same sort of people in power. China is old, has had lots of power changes, the population is used to it and they adapt to whoever is in power. A lot of other countries are the same. The US has had *no* serious power changes or even threats in its history – even the Civil War doesn’t count. The brainwashing that we don’t do things “that way” is too deep and the ignorance of possibilities is too massive, thanks to the carefully constructed educational system. By the time that changes, the US electorate will be too weak, and probably disarmed if the anti-gun Democrats have anything to say about it, to do anything about it.
I couldn’t care less. My plan is to become Harry Harrison’s “Stainless Steel Rat” (without the part of about joining the cops!)

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Aug 17 2020 4:18 utc | 116

Paul 119
US MIC is a money spinner. Rare earths is now a pentagon priority so anyone in five-eyes with a handful of rare earths will get a share of US military budget.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 17 2020 4:18 utc | 117

@ADKC | 58 / @ptb | 59
Great reads.
It’s the first time I’ve heard of the four seas initiative, but several people have spoken about the US alarm that China has reached / is reaching the Med.
The Caspian sea ( and Black Sea?) routes will free up a lot of necessary trade in both directions, very positive moves, especially and immediately for Iran’s agricultural sector in the North. ))
Need to read around this some more.
Whatever happened to Iran’s great canal plans to connect the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea? Have they been permanently ditched?

Posted by: AtaBrit | Aug 17 2020 4:20 utc | 118

CitizenX 118
SARS-CoV-2 is a virus for which there is currently no cure and no vaccine. It knocks off oldies like Mortien downing flies. Plus a few others. Plus a small percentage that will experience long lasting health problems.
I guess it all comes down to whether you think a community should look after the sick and old, or if it should be like Sparta and knock weak looking babies and children on the head

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 17 2020 4:26 utc | 119

New Zealand’s Rapid Response to New Cases Is What Pandemic Leadership Looks Like
Auckland is under strict restrictions after four new cases of Covid-19 popped up

On Tuesday, New Zealand confirmed four new coronavirus cases — its first since May 1. That means there were 102 days during which there was no community spread of Covid-19 in the island nation. Within the same period of time, the United States reached record high numbers of new cases. Today the U.S. recorded 48,690.
It’s obvious from the rapid way New Zealand responded to the new cases how the country managed to keep its numbers so low for so long. The night the cases were confirmed, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced in a public address that the city of Auckland, where the new cases were discovered, would be put under Level 3 restrictions on Wednesday. The rest of the country would move to Level 2 lockdown…
“One of the most important lessons we’ve learned from overseas is the need to go hard and go early and stamp out flare-ups to avoid the risk of wider outbreaks,” she said. “As disruptive as it is, a strong and rapid health response remains the best long-term economic response.”

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Aug 17 2020 4:27 utc | 120

The Staggering Scope of the Global Coronavirus Misinformation Epidemic
Scientists identified more than 2,000 false claims about Covid-19 in circulation
Half of which we’ve probably read here…

In an interview with CNN last week, Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and head of the White House’s coronavirus task force, said, “There is a degree of anti-science feeling in this country,” adding that “it’s almost related to authority and a mistrust in authority that spills over, because in some respects, scientists, because they’re trying to present data, may be looked at… as being an authoritative figure.”

Goes deeper than that, Fauci…

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Aug 17 2020 4:33 utc | 121

And Trump wants all the schools open…
One Man Infects 91 People, Including 18 Children and Teens
Case study reveals the risks of indoor gathering and the role of infectious kids

More important, the case study shows, as scientists have already found, that even small children can catch, carry and transmit Covid-19 quite efficiently. Kids 10 and older are now thought to be just as likely as adults to spread the coronavirus, and younger kids perhaps about half as likely, as I reported recently.
It’s not the first superspreader event involving children. At a sleepover camp in Georgia this summer, at least 260 kids and adults contracted Covid-19, including at least 51% of those ages six to 10.
Though children are less likely to suffer serious outcomes from the disease, they are not in any way “immune,” as President Trump recently suggested.
Covid-19 has killed 15 infants, 10 kids ages 1–4, and 20 kids ages 5–14, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Coronavirus in Kids project, which investigates cases beyond what’s found in the official numbers, estimates that nearly 2.5 million American children 17 and younger have been infected, and 1,011 have been admitted to pediatric intensive care units. There have been 97 deaths of kids and teens up to age 19, based on data from just 26 states, according to the group’s analysis.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Aug 17 2020 4:37 utc | 122

Richard Steven Hack @Aug17 2:51 #109:
A Review of (For Now) Every Hydroxychloroquine Randomized Trial for Covid-19
The (no-so) good doctor has nothing to say about the flawed methodology and dubious ethics of those conducting these studies.
Each of the trials has comments that call into question the results. But the doctor fails to take note. Examples:

  • The study that included Zinc in the results simply asked participants if they had taken any Zinc during the study period.
    A quick look at the chart the doctor provides at the end of his article shows that none of the studies actually formally included Zinc.
  • One study found participants via social media. And I think also included an over-weight of healthcare workers – wouldn’t they be more likely to know if they took HCQ or placebo? Would they be inclined against HCQ for political or professional reasons?
  • Another was done by Oxford researchers who claimed no ethical problems despite the fact that Oxford has joined with AstraZenica to market a vaccine that already has billions of dollars of orders from UK govt and others.

And he does address the zinc issue
Does he? His argument is rather lame for someone that is supposedly trying to clear the air with rigorous RCT studies.
Funny how the anti-HCQ folks cry “not proven!” then hand waive important details like Zinc.
<> <> <> <> <>
Dr. Fauci recently sidelined the large-scale RCT study with the best chance to conclusively determine if HCQ+Zinc+Z-Pak was an effective treatment when it was days away from starting.
Yup. The U.S. government will spend billions on new ventilators and unproven vaccines but will not conduct a trial that could determine the efficacy of the best candidate for low-cost treatment.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 17 2020 5:21 utc | 123

I just read a Reuters piece (no link) about Trump saying he is considering pardoning Snowden.
The take-away quote
”
“I’m going to start looking at it,” Trump told reporters about a possible pardon, speaking at a news conference at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club.
”
Beside the obvious election support fishing effort there is the issue of Snowden not having been convicted yet of anything to be pardoned for….isn’t that how it works?
Then there is the response by Snowden to such a political gambit with his life….do folks really think Snowden can come back and live safely in the East coast suburbs anytime soon?
The shit show continues.
What do we get in this next week?
More about the France invasion of Lebanon perhaps?
The US House Congresscritters are coming back into session to respond to Koch/Trump leadership implant DeJoy who is currently gutting the Postal Service in advance of increased mail-in voting by many states. This is especially perfidious given that the USPS was created by the Founding Fathers as their support of mixed economy socialism examples of the day…..too bad they were not as clear about finance….sigh
Since we have seen so many pictures of the Belarus protesters, when are we going to see comparable pictures of the supporters from the same day?
If the anxiety level gets high enough will sewage treatment plants, water supply systems and the current electrical generation/distribution suddenly stop working? Just because all these preppers have fear management issues do the rest of us have to buy into doomsday scenarios? Its my study of history that when the shit hits the wall, local communities are the most resilient form of survival, not individual preppers living in their basement with their guns and food wondering if any will notice when they run their generator….

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 17 2020 5:58 utc | 124

RSH@105
“Heart images taken 10 weeks after people contracted Covid-19 found 78 of 100 had some sort of inflammation or other abnormalities, even if the people had few or no preexisting cardiovascular issues, researchers reported July 27 in the journal JAMA Cardiology.”
Proved absolutely nothing. First off, no control. Second of all, those with chronic inflammation are more seriously affected by COVID. These are elderly, obese , diabetics and other comorbidities like ckd which cause or are caused by systemic inflammation. If you imaged those without COVID who were old or had comorbidities no doubt you would find inflammation

Posted by: Kay Fabe | Aug 17 2020 6:18 utc | 125

RSH. So glad you are worried about the kids
During lockdowns weekly deaths of infants fell from 350 to 200, presumably due to fewer vaccinations.
This suggests as many as 7000 infants per year are being killed by vaccinations. Perhaps we should look into vaccines
As for COVID deaths in children. Sadly there are unhealthy children as well as adults. With 700 children dying per week of all causes the numbers you point to for COVID deaths are not significant, and whether the deaths are a direct result of COVID or NOT is questionable as are those many adult deaths.

Posted by: Kay Fabe | Aug 17 2020 6:41 utc | 126

@uncle tungsten | Aug 16 2020 20:35 utc | 45

I wish the hegemon good riddance and I have confidence in the revolutionary and violent spirit of the USA citizens to achieve that.

The spirit of violence in the US is not subject to debate, but where is the revolutionary spirit? All I see is violent reactionaries pretending to be ‘progressives’.

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 17 2020 7:01 utc | 127

@ADKC | Aug 16 2020 22:23 utc | 58

Is the Beirut blast really all about China’s BRI (and Syria’s 4 seas strategy which links up with BRI)?

Thank you for that post, it makes a lot of sense. If true, it confirms the blast was no accident, and the implied question is then what kind of explosive it really was. It also provides a more credible motive than the nonsensical explanations offered so far.

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 17 2020 7:02 utc | 128

@CitizenX | Aug 16 2020 23:08 utc | 63

I have a sneaking suspicion we may see some near future event that will kick-in Americans amnesia on Covid and “disappear” it’s prominence. I could be dead wrong about that- how long it will be used to destroy lives, economic classes, social control remains to be seen.

I have the same suspicion. The covert-19 story cannot be sustained forever, but nothing will ever be admitted. So the only perceived way out is to overshadow it with yet another event.

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 17 2020 7:09 utc | 129

@uncle tungsten | Aug 17 2020 3:03 utc | 113

The story by a 26 year old nurse from the village of Xieng Khouang as told to Fred Branfman in his book ‘Voices from the Plain of Jars’. Cited in ‘The People’s History of the United States” Howard Zinn.

The ‘Plain of Jars’ in Laos is a special place which even the US bombing crimes were unable to obliterate completely. Those who have not heard about those jars should look it up. It amounts to hundreds and hundreds of multi-ton huge stone jars in the plains of Laos. These enigmatic jars are likely many thousands of years old and implies a society with a technology that conventional western history writing does not allow. Plain Of Jars – Laos, Part 1 of 3

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 17 2020 7:54 utc | 130

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 17 2020 5:21 utc | 128 Does he? His argument is rather lame for someone that is supposedly trying to clear the air with rigorous RCT studies.
Well, I note that his addressing the zinc issue did seem a bit of hand-waving. I also note that all of the trials were all over the place on dosages and durations of treatment. In my view, “replication” of an experiment requires *precise* replication of the actual experiment under investigation. That doesn’t seem to have been done, I agree.
Nonetheless, I note that without the *proper* randomized trial, we still do *not* know that HCQ works better than chance or any other treatment. The main issue remains that *any* treatment done *early* in COVID-19 without a *proper* cohort of those *not* so treated (and randomly selected as the doctor correctly notes) can *not* be used to prove anything, as it remains possible that all surviving subjects would have recovered on their own.
I await such a trial. If it never happens due to medical incompetence or political interference, well, there it is. Nothing anyone can do about it unless they have the money to set it up themselves.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Aug 17 2020 8:18 utc | 131

«anti science feeling» in the US?
sure it has nothing to do with the education system and with the religious lobbies distillating their fantasies at all levels of society..

Posted by: Mina | Aug 17 2020 8:21 utc | 132

“Indigenous people call on Elon Musk to boycott Nornickel”
The company that recently made international headlines for causing environmental disasters on the Taimyr Peninsula by spilling 20,000 tons of diesel fuel into a river in the fragile Arctic ecosystems is under increased pressure.
In a letter to Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, the Aborigen Forum urge him not to buy nickel, copper and other products from Nornickel until the company conducts a full and independent assessment of the environmental damage caused by its production.
Elon Musk caring for indigenous people? The indigenous people of Bolivia will be glad to hear that and therefore can ignore all the empirical evidence around them. ‘Elon We will coup whoever we want Musk”. I’m sure Mr. Musk will leave Bolivia as clean as he found it before he mines, or should I say rapes the country. Just ignore the bodies of indigenous who died fighting for democracy in the wake of Mr. Musk’s coup.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/ecology/2020/08/russian-indigenous-peoples-call-elon-musk-not-buy-battery-metals-nornickel
https://www.rt.com/news/495820-musk-coup-bolivia-lithium-tesla/

Posted by: Tom | Aug 17 2020 8:25 utc | 133

Posted by: Kay Fabe | Aug 17 2020 6:18 utc | 130 If you imaged those without COVID who were old or had comorbidities no doubt you would find inflammation
I would assume the researchers accounted for those factors. I haven’t read the paper, so take it up with them.
Posted by: Kay Fabe | Aug 17 2020 6:41 utc | 131 During lockdowns weekly deaths of infants fell from 350 to 200, presumably due to fewer vaccinations.
You “presume” this. Well, I “presume” otherwise. See how easy “presumption” is? And then you build your whole case on “no kids are dying” on that “presumption.”
Don’t waste my time with any more bullshit.
“There are unhealthy children as well as adults.”
“There are *millions* of kids with ailments that render them susceptible to this virus, as I’ve pointed out numerous times here.
“whether the deaths are a direct result of COVID or NOT is questionable as are those many adult deaths.”
Yet another “presumption” on your part – the same old bullshit about “questionable deaths”, which has been debunked repeatedly by people who actually work in the medical field.
Again, don’t waste my time with bullshit.
And just to remind you, the point of the piece was that kids infect adults and adults infect other adults, and then someone dies – despite your “presumptions” otherwise.
Moron.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Aug 17 2020 8:27 utc | 134

Posted by: Mina | Aug 17 2020 8:21 utc | 137
Indeed. That is why I said Fauci doesn’t get it. It’s not just “American anti-authoritarianism”. It’s active development of authoritarianism of several different kinds, political, religious and social, which leads to anti-rationalism and the actual inability to reason beyond tying their shoelaces which afflicts the vast majority of Americans.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Aug 17 2020 8:31 utc | 135

Beirut blast consequences?
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/376830/Egypt/Politics-/Search-for-missing-people-continues-after-Downtown.aspx
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/376847/Egypt/Politics-/Egypt%E2%80%99s-prosecution-investigating-collapse-of-thre.aspx
Alexandria, Cairo and Asiut, in a couple of days…

Posted by: Mina | Aug 17 2020 10:35 utc | 136

RSH
Indeed, and the EU is just 10 years behind the US, with the Brussel’s lackeys busy implementing here everything that has failed there.
We start to see the results on the youth.
Ultra-violence is high in France now; ppl get attacked or killed for saying to someone to put a mask to ride a bus, etc.

Posted by: Mina | Aug 17 2020 10:37 utc | 137

Jackrabbit #90
“Seymour Hersh’s detailed reporting makes no mention of Assad’s Four-Seas and BRI. The US-Saudi-Israeli concern was focused on Iran and on Syria as an ally of Iran.”
Just because Hersh doesn’t mention something doesn’t mean that it is irrelevant. Hersh essentially reproduces what he is told by “informants”. His reports depict an irrational US causing wars for the “well-intentioned” or “misguided” reason of countering Iran and for no apparent material benefit of the US.
Projects like Assad’s Four Seas and the modern silk roads go back long before 9/11. For example, Russia recently announced a new project centered on the Port of Lagan on the Caspian Sea. This project will improve trade links with India and Iran and will link up with the Four Seas and BRI and it will reduce transport costs significantly and will cut-out the Suez canal route. It was originally planned way back in 1989 but the collapse of the Soviet Union stopped the project.
Maybe the Beirut blast was an accident but if it wasn’t then consider its most important material effect (which is shrouded by the allegations that it was Hezbollah’s fault or that it was an Israeli secret weapon) and that is…the destruction of the Port of Beirut which obviously negatively impacts on the plans for the BRI.

Posted by: ADKC | Aug 17 2020 11:18 utc | 138

RSH, JR, Peter Au1, et. al.
It will be interesting to see if there will be a “second wave” in Sweden. Many, like Whitney, have suggested that there won’t be because of the lack of a lockdown.
https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/codename-operation-virus-identification-2019-the-elitist-plan-to-remake-society/
Personally, I have always claimed, from March on, that the lockdowns in many countries have been badly handled, the US and UK being the most obvious cases. Wilfully or incompetently damaging national and global economies because of a virus that by March, at the most, had known properties, and affected known populations, suggested that protecting the vulnerable and a minimal, if any, lockdown was all that was necessary.
The problem wasn’t/isn’t anti-science, but fraudulent science, perpetrated for political economic reasons. One needs to look at the opportunistic elements here and consider who has benefitted most from the the lockdowns and fearmongering.
It was clear early on, certainly by March, that this was all that was necessary.
1. Wearing masks and social distancing, if only as a courtesy to others was sensible.
2. Protecting the most vulnerable was also sensible, and was badly done even in no lockdown Sweden.
3. Seeking out known drugs that might mitigate, if not cure, the effects of the disease, like HCQ, and using them appropriately was also sensible medical science practice. The fraudulent propaganda attacks on this inexpensive drug that was/s/is being used with some apparent success in over 60 counties certainly suggests that the agenda was not science.
4. Tracking, testing and quarantining when necessary, especially for those having had recent contact with those having Covid 19, was essential. Turkey seems to have done this particularly well. Then using drugs like HCQ with Zinc or azithromycin, and Favipiravir to hopefully help reduce the effects of the disease made medical sense, if not for Big Pharma and its financial benefactors.
5. Restricting inessential travel to or from areas with significant Covid 19 cases. This would prevent a potentially large influx of cases into an area. The UK and US seemed to be particlarly bad at this.
No, it wasn’t anti-science, but some incompetence and seemingly wilfull fraud that has led to the political economic and health problems we have now. In this sense, Sweden could be interesting to observe this coming coronavirus/flu season.

Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Aug 17 2020 11:20 utc | 139

One more for the “China is going to starve anytime soon, because they’re communists!” series:
China drought, heavy rains spark concern over grain supply as Xi Jinping launches campaign against food waste
Not even a week ago, the Chinese detected SARS-Cov-2 on Brazilian chicken. It immediately threatened to cut its import. The Brazilians almost went into despair, and practically begged the Chinese to not do that (they even called the WHO to the rescue). After the WHO reiterated there was no evidence (yet) of transmission through frozen meat, the Chinese backed down and stated imports of Brazilian chicken would continue as normal for the time being.
Seriously: the Chinese don’t have a food problem. It would take a massive embargo, the kind of Venezuela is suffering right now, for some food insecurity to come to China. Even then, it wouldn’t be socialism’s fault, but fruit of a capitalist counter-revolution (alien threat).
After the ridiculous pork prices story, I think the likes of the SCMP would smart up a little bit. I was wrong.
–//–
Still on the SCMP, it seems the disease of Western Hypocrisy also affects the honorary westerners/yellow westerners from HK, SE Asia, Japan et caterva. From the front page right now:
“TikTok US sale gives Trump legal stranglehold on ByteDance: analysts
ByteDance faces an array of legal, political and technical problems in securing a sale of its US business to meet the Trump administration’s demands.”
To the right of this:
“Japan moves to secure rare earths to reduce dependence on China
Tokyo is to increase its stockpile of the strategic minerals – which are vital to the defence and tech industries – amid fears China could use its exports as ‘a political tool’.”
So, Trump expropriates a Chinese capitalist like a gangster and it is just “legal, political and technical problems […] to meet Trump administration’s demands”.
But the Chinese hint at cutting its rare earths exports (whose extraction is extremely damaging to the environment) and it is “a political tool”.
–//–
Japan, the gift that keeps giving:
Global report: Japan hit by biggest GDP fall in 40 years, Australia suffers deadliest day
The article is paywalled, but you can clearly see the number as -7.8%. Against Q4 2019 the fall is -9.1%, which is clear indication Japan already was declining before the pandemic broke out.
Other countries’ fall in GDP, vs. Q4 2019:
Spain: -22.7%
UK: -22.1%
France: -18.9%
Mexico: -18.3%
Portugal: -17.3%
India: -17.2%
Italy: -17.1%
Canada: -14.2%
Brazil: -14%
Germany: -11.9%
USA: -10.6%
Australia: -8.3%
China: +0.4%
Source: Oxford Economics/Haver Analytics
As you can see, there’s no direct correlation between lockdown and the degree of economic decay.
The only correlation we can observe is capitalism vs socialism (China being the only socialist country of the list).

Posted by: vk | Aug 17 2020 11:54 utc | 140

If Vladimir Putin gains de facto control of Belarus and the ability to station Russian troops in that country, he could put at serious risk NATO’s ability to defend its Baltic members and, thereby, the credibility of the entire alliance. by: librul @ 27 <= such a result could only mean that the USA govenors will no longer need to send troops and build military bases in NATO nations. Each of those nations can then pay for their own defense. Ureaka!. America needs the boys the USA sent to NATO nations back home, and the taxpayers need the money those bases cost to help pay off the national debt. There are also people here that fight that disinfo with truth and a wider perspective. It is a valuable service and I commend them. by: Jackrabbit @ 45 <= without systematic approaches in identifying, sorting and indexing truth disinformation will always be allowed to intercept rational argument. Unless extensions of narrow view are indexed into referenced libraries of wider understanding, and unless both are allowed to mature to documented, evidence based sorts or recognized peer reviewed findings.. nothing happens but the bar sells more throat juice. Observation.. No where in the Constitution of the USA are "lies or disinformation" discussed. neither are prohibited or allowed, and the power of the USA to control either by law or action are not mentioned. Amendment IX of the Bill of rights says the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others (other rights) retained by the people. The Supremes interpret the Constitution from the prospective of what does the Constitution mean to the USA, but no court I am familiar with interprets constitutional rights from the prospective of those the USA claims it has the right to govern. . I have not seen or heard of the ninth amendment in any dialogue among the Supreme s? There seems to be a wide open hole, a gap, between the powers enumerated for the few to use to govern and the rights of those governed to protect themselves from those who govern. How can the governed exploit those un-enumerated rights? Is it possible the governed could develop their own court and define and interpret the constitution from the prospective of the governed? Can it be possible that constitutional silence on truth and disinformation means the governed have the right to insist on the truth and to deny the deployment of disinformation? Along the same line Amendment IV(Constitution), suggest tracking and using what people say, post, write or express while surfing the Internet from home violates the IV amendment and infringes on the rights promised by the Bill of Rights. That means tracking anything done in the home by a Internet User is protected by the IVth amendment? Read it and opine on whether or not you believe technology that collects, gathers or processes information done by a user on a home computer or a personal phone or watch is not a violation of the constitution? The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Posted by: snake | Aug 17 2020 12:05 utc | 141

Blue Dotterel 139
I have no problem with lockdowns when they are used to get an outbreak under control. China shut down the very big outbreak in Wuhan in matter of weeks, going from thousands of new cases per day to virtually zero.
What I am pissed off about is that after getting it under control the first time, the government through incompetence let it spread from quarantine centers then through medical or health care staff, through to the aged care homes.
Takes very little to get an outbreak under control, but through utter government incompetence we will probably end up with never ending lockdowns until a vaccine turns up

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 17 2020 12:11 utc | 142

Norwegian @ 129
The covert-19 story cannot be sustained forever, but nothing will ever be admitted. So the only perceived way out is to overshadow it with yet another event
yeah, but the mindfuckery will have to be even more convincing…
the mask-wearing séance will wane when the absurdity and insalubrity of running around with a soppy, ill-fitting piece of whatever sorta covering your mouth, and maybe even your nose, goes viral.
but what happens when they take their hidden tech, wipe an entire town or city off the map, indict the ocean of emptiness, and sell us saviours assurance?
the demo worked out pretty well, i mean, for an ill-fated voyage…
ever seen Herzog’s, Aguirre, the Wrath of God?
check it out

Posted by: john | Aug 17 2020 12:46 utc | 143

@114
“China has a near monopoly on rare earth production. ”
True and false. The rare earth are in fact not rare. They are rare because they was little incentive to mine them for it is is not eco friendly and china production was enough and cheap. But things are changing, new producers pops here and there. So there is no way China may obtain anything from pressure US using this.

Posted by: murgen23 | Aug 17 2020 13:00 utc | 144

https://www.ladepeche.fr/2020/08/15/lourdes-65-le-pelerinage-du-15-aout-atteint-sa-limite-des-5-000-visiteurs-simultanes-9021250.php
France allows the celebration of the Virgin’s pilgrimage of Lourdes
while South Korea has a new outbreak from a church gathering.
Keep on, folks!

Posted by: Mina | Aug 17 2020 13:05 utc | 145

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 17 2020 12:11 utc | 142
Pertaining to health care workers. This was an area that was really mishandled through the health care systems, with the lack of PPE to deal with such an outbreak. Again, oddly, Turkey’s experience was a little better than some 5-eyes countries who seemed to lack health care vision.
As far a China was concerned a significant lockdown was necessary given the unknowns at the time. Yet, by March, there was enough data from China and S. Korea concerning the disease and those most vulnerable that other countries ought to have been able to manage less drastic lockdowns, reducing the economic fallout, and certainly have been better prepared to protect those most vulnerable to suffering significantly from the disease.
This is why I think certain individuals, groups in various countries saw an opportunity to increase their wealth and power, and interfered with any rational assessment of policy. Of course, there would be some incompetence, also.

Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Aug 17 2020 13:11 utc | 146

Deadly clash reported between U.S. and Syrian forces

Posted by: ADKC | Aug 17 2020 14:01 utc | 147

Deadly clash reported between U.S. and Syrian forces

Posted by: ADKC | Aug 17 2020 14:01 utc | 148

More fake news from Sputniknews and the RT:
Lukashenko Says Presidential Election Will Be Held in Belarus After New Constitution Adopted
When you click on the headline, another, completely different headline, appears. The hidden headline tells the true story.
Lukashenko promises fresh elections in Belarus after new constitution is adopted via nationwide referendum
This time, TASS tells the whole story:
Lukashenko: Re-election out of question, power to be delegated only through constitution
It quotes Lukashenko fully:

“You speak about unfair elections and want fair ones?” the president asked. “I have an answer for you. We had the elections. Unless you kill me, there will be no other elections.”
Meanwhile the incumbent president vowed readiness to redistribute power through a constitutional process. “Of course, I will go away someday. In a year or two. But we can’t give up the constitution to some nobody. Because it will be a disaster. This is what I am afraid of the most,” Lukashenko pointed out, as cited by the BelTA news agency.
Reiterating readiness to “share” powers, the incumbent head of state was clear though that this would never happen under pressure. “We need a new constitution. I’ve been proposed two variants, but rejected both of them, because they barely differ from the current one. The work on the third variant is underway. Come, let’s sit and work on the constitution and put it to a referendum. And I will relegate my powers to you by the constitution. But not under pressure and not through the streets,” he said.

Posted by: vk | Aug 17 2020 14:13 utc | 149

Posted by: ADKC | Aug 17 2020 14:01 utc | 148

The incident occurred Monday south of Qamishli, a city in northern Syria near the Turkish border, when Syrian troops refused to allow a U.S. patrol to cross a checkpoint near Qamishli air base, according to the Syrian regime and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) war monitoring group

Looks like the yanks got their egos bruised …

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Aug 17 2020 15:16 utc | 150

Posted by: snake | Aug 16 2020 21:08 utc | 48
Often the most obvious answer is the right one … considering the contempt that the zionists have for the human life of others and their “immunity status” I believe that in the end it went like this..Everything happened with perfect timing in the kosher project to isolate and hit the Shia.

Posted by: LuBa | Aug 17 2020 15:46 utc | 151

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Aug 17 2020 15:16 utc | 150
Syrian regime???

Posted by: notlurking | Aug 17 2020 16:00 utc | 152

Posted by: notlurking | Aug 17 2020 16:00 utc | 152

Syrian regime???

Their terminology, not mine.

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Aug 17 2020 16:07 utc | 153

Mao @82: “Hopes the world economy can grow itself out of the mountain of debt being accumulated…”
Someone had posted an interesting link a couple months back in which the supposed “V-shaped recovery” was discussed. The point of the article was comparing economic recoveries after epidemics with recoveries that follow wars, with the author noting that post-epidemic recoveries are often much faster, with the epidemic often not resulting in lasting economic distress. I believe the author may have missed an important distinction between recessions caused by wars and those caused by epidemics.
Epidemics/pandemics are largely random “black swan” events. They do not synchronized with capitalist economic cycles, so the chances of one occurring right when the global capitalist economy is entering deep crisis is small. Wars, on the other hand, are caused by capitalism entering crisis, so naturally they coincide with recessions.
So wars certainly cause economic contraction, but that contraction occurs on top of contraction that is occurring anyway. Pandemics usually occur at other points in the economic cycle, so the underlying economic fundamentals remain strong even if the pandemic causes contraction while it is going on.
So for economic recovery from a pandemic all that is required is for the pandemic to get out of the way and the economy resumes growth from its underlying strong fundamentals. To recover from economic downturn from war, on the other hand, the underlying economic fundamentals themselves must first be restored. This is why war results in such longer periods of recession.
With this in mind, note that many posters, VK in particular, have pointed out that economies were in decline before the pandemic occurred. In other words, as is more typical of wars, the economy was already in decline and the economic fundamentals weak in the months leading up to the pandemic. This suggests that the economic recovery from the pandemic will follow the course that we normally see following wars, which is to say that the recession will be prolonged.
Of course, for a pandemic to erupt at precisely the point in a developing economic crisis that we would expect a war to become imminent must be a coincidence. It cannot be because the pandemic itself is the result of an act of war, even if the Chinese and Americans both responded to the emergence of the virus like it was an American biological attack.

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 17 2020 16:17 utc | 154

ADKC @Aug17 11:18 #138
The port of Beirut has not been obliterated. It is still operating albeit at a bit lower capacity. It will likely be restored to full capacity in a relatively short time ( a few years later). Long before any great volumes of traffic due to BRI.
And if the port of Beirut WAS destroyed, BRI would just find a different port.
The more immediate problem for Israel and the West is Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s deterrence ties their hands. And Hezbollah’s recently increased influence on the Lebanese government creates other headaches for them.
If Hezbollah is pushed out of Lebanon, the biggest winner is Israel. IMO, hyping Beirut’s future potential role in BRI and the Western (ex-Israel) agitation at that prospect is just pointing fingers (away from Israel). IF, and I stress IF, the Beirut explosion was deliberately arranged (sabotage) then it’s likely that many countries supported that move and/or had a hand in it, but the prime suspects would be: Saudi Arabia, USA, Israel, France.
This counter-BRI narrative strikes me as akin to the hype about four US aircraft north of Beirut. Upon closer inspection, these aircraft were almost certainly just surveilling Russian bases in northwestern Syria, not Beirut. It makes no sense for the perpetrators of a WMD event to signal their participation with surveillance aircraft. But it serves to direct the gaze of ‘conspiracy theorists’ away from Israel.
Those ‘conspiracy theorists’ should instead look past the misdirection and ask if the Beirut explosion was timed to coincide with regular USA surveillance flights. Who might be so devious?
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 17 2020 16:24 utc | 155

Thanks, james, on the previous open thread, for your link to the series of ‘Smiley’s People’ and for the link to the Metaphysical Bible folk. I looked at their work, and do see it is Western Christian oriented, which my own earlier studies were as well. (At college, we had a lecture given by one of the Revised Standard Version compilers, a delightful elder that piqued my interest, involved as we all were in liberal arts studies at the time. So metaphysics indeed is a good avenue to pursue. I looked at the enterprise’s first verses of John’s Gospel – interesting!)

“All things were made through him. Divine Mind creates under law; that is, spiritual law. Man may get a comprehension of the creative process of Being by analyzing the action of his own mind. First is mind, then the idea in mind of what the act is to be, then the act itself. Thus the Word and the divine process of creating are identical.”

My own route is going through the eastern Christian texts, just keeping ‘mind in heart’ as is the saying there. So I am not so much creating for myself, or looking for, a definitive english translation, as trying to absorb the layers of meaning within the original Greek, which is John’s personal account of his living experience (or Matthew’s, or one of the others.) So, I’d critique the above as being a bit more analytical than my intention, for myself is. And I wouldn’t really say ‘First is mind’ as that’s the Cartesian model. I’d say ‘first is mind in heart.’ That’s the Eastern Christian Fathers’ model. And I’m not even sure we can make the comparison of our mind to God’s be what John is intending to say here, because he is making a link to the incomprehensibility of Creation itself as Moses puts it in Genesis, rather than establishing a ‘law of the Spirit’.
I hope that’s in some way clear. It’s a slightly different path, simpler I think. More on the level of personal relationship than mindful understanding. But thanks for showing me that! We might end up at the same place in the end.

Posted by: juliania | Aug 17 2020 17:06 utc | 156

@ William Gruff | Aug 17 2020 16:17 utc | 154 Just to say that you put the matter beautifully!
” It cannot be because the pandemic itself is the result of…”
Pure gold, old man. The experiences of 1952 and thousands of years of becoming Chinese, well, these are not a bunch of chumps, they’re smart, lots smarter that, ahemm, some others. Inevitably one compares the Chinese with the “experts” of some others.
That may include those intrepid leaders who brag about lying cheating and stealing…which persons must remind our Chinese brothers of bandits on the ancient road. They seen ’em come, and they seen ’em go…

Posted by: Walter | Aug 17 2020 17:24 utc | 157

Tikhanovskaya should invites Juan Guaidó Venezuela, HongKong, Agnes Chow, Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, to her inauguration. A beautiful speech she gave in a video..
“I have never had any illusions regarding my political career. I have never wanted to be a politician. However, destiny had other plans, and I have found myself on the front line of the fight against iniquity and injustice … You had trust in me and gave me force … I am ready to take responsibility and act as a national leader in these tough times to help the country calm down and enter a normal period. We need to set free all the political prisoners and quickly prepare a legal framework and conditions for a new presidential election, which will be fair and transparent and will be unequivocally recognised by the global community”, Tikhanovskaya said in a new video address. …”

Posted by: JC | Aug 17 2020 17:45 utc | 158

Israel lobby group deletes call to blackmail Lebanon using aid
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-lobby-group-deletes-call-blackmail-lebanon-using-aid

Posted by: Mao | Aug 17 2020 17:50 utc | 159

William Gruff @154–
As for the pre-Pandemic condition/state of the Outlaw US Empire’s economy, I refer you and other barflies again to Shadoewstats GDP Chart that shows continual Real GDP shrinkage since 1990 as even Shadowstats counts some negatives as positives–an amount equal to about 2% of GDP annually–Balance Sheet growth for the .1% while everyone else is posting a loss. And that brings us to the observations made in this Global Times article:
“According to The Record of Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2019, issued by China’s State Council Information Office in March, the US is the only developed country where millions of people are hungry, and people at the bottom are living in distress. It is a fact that the COVID-19 has again exacerbated the severe marginalization of poor Americans. Many Chinese netizens now view the US as a ‘deluxe version’ of India – there are two parallel worlds, one for the rich and the other for the poor, and living conditions of the elites and of those at the bottom are poles apart.” [My Emphasis]
Hard to argue with that truism. I’ve written before that the USA has regressed to a point almost as bad as 1937 when FDR made his One-Third of the Nation speech–those that haven’t enough food, clothing and shelter. The article concludes with what ought to be obvious:
“The difference is obvious. China launched a large-scale poverty alleviation campaign and quickly controlled the epidemic, while the US left millions hungry and let the epidemic spread. The US’ so-called human rights have collapsed, and have lost their moral high ground.
“The Trump administration has been promoting “Make America Great Again.” But for now, make Americans healthy again, make Americans employed again, and lift Americans out of hunger seem to be more pragmatic goals.”
The question begged: Has the USA at anytime in its history actually held the moral high ground?

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 17 2020 18:35 utc | 160

Below is a posting title at Reuters….projection much?
U.S. watching ‘terrible’ situation in Belarus closely, warns Russia not to meddle
How long will humanity put up with the seemingly obvious projection of “Don’t do what we do, do what we say!”

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 17 2020 19:46 utc | 161

@ juliania | Aug 17 2020 17:06 utc | 156.. thanks juliania.. i think i understand… the way the word ‘mind’ is used today, it is usually completely heartless and intellectual, devoid of much else… i think they imply universal mind, as opposed to the individual mind, but i am just speculating.. enjoy the process you are involved in.. it sounds rewarding! i only wanted to note that christianity has it’s own more mystical and metaphysical approaches that have been cultivated by a number of authors and groups – unity- which was started by charles fillmore, being one example.. joel goldsmith, neville and a number of other authors take a very different view of the bible then the one that is generally regurgitated by the more literalists who have undue presence in the orthodox christian churches of today which i would include many of them in..

Posted by: james | Aug 17 2020 19:51 utc | 162

@ Mina | Aug 17 2020 10:37 utc | 137
” . . . ppl get attacked or killed for saying to someone to put a mask to ride a bus, etc.”
We hear constantly, from certain types of people, the cry that the enforced wearing of masks “violates my constitutional rights!”
Well as it happens, they are absolutely correct, according to the provisions of the long-lost, little-known and now all but forgotten Article VIII of the U. S. Constitution, which reads as follows:
“Article VIII
The people of the United States of America shall have the absolute and unrestricted right to spread infectious and deadly diseases throughout the population, and shall not be compelled to participate in saving the lives of themselves or others through efforts such as the wearing of masks.”
So there!

Posted by: AntiSpin | Aug 17 2020 20:03 utc | 163

William Gruff @Aug17 16:17 #154

Epidemics/pandemics are largely random “black swan” events. They do not synchronized with capitalist economic cycles, so the chances of one occurring right when the global capitalist economy is entering deep crisis is small. Wars, on the other hand, are caused by capitalism entering crisis, so naturally they coincide with recessions.
. . .
Of course, for a pandemic to erupt at precisely the point in a developing economic crisis that we would expect a war to become imminent must be a coincidence.

Too many coincidences for my taste:

  • ARAMACO did their IPO about two months before the pandemic hit oil prices.
  • Trump said he wouldn’t do an interim trade deal with China .. then he decided to do one just before the pandemic was recognized. A trade deal with terms that China is now having difficulty satisfying.
  • Trump Administration classified pandemic discussions early-on and was so inept in fighting the pandemic that we must consider that he wanted the virus to spread … now Trump blames China for the “China virus” that has killed nearly 200k (possibly more) in USA and the “China plague” for the wrecking of the US economy.
  • There are nagging questions about whether USA was the source of the virus (Ft. Detrick, Wuhan Games, the number of virus strains in US compared to China, etc.);
  • USA has been planning their strategy for confronting Russia and China since at least 2014. Empires have not been shy about mass murder when it is in their interest.

Note: This is not meant to be an exhaustive list.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 17 2020 20:04 utc | 164

The question begged: Has the USA at anytime in its history actually held the moral high ground?
Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 17 2020 18:35 utc | 160
Simple answer; No!
When I was 15 yo(1960) I wrote an essay on the violent history of the U.S., beginning with the “pilgrims” in their wars against native Americans.
I was soundly scolded for my efforts.
Fortunately, I knew I was correct and never accepted the scolding as justified.

Posted by: V | Aug 17 2020 20:07 utc | 165

Norwegian #130
Thank you for that plain of jars video reference.
Here is vlad9vt video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=59GTs0T5N7A
I can recommend this site for recording some extraordinary parts of our planet. Some find the music odd but that is easy to silence.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Aug 17 2020 20:14 utc | 166

“Taleb is the subject of a new profile in The New Yorker entitled “The Pandemic Isn’t a Black Swan but a Portent of a More Fragile Global System.” It leads off with his adamant denial that the novel coronavirus is a “black swan” event. He should know: Taleb coined the term “black swan” in his 2007 book of the same name to refer to “an unpredictable, rare, catastrophic event.” The New Yorker piece describes Taleb’s irritation:
Besides, the pandemic was wholly predictable—he, like Bill Gates, Laurie Garrett, and others, had predicted it—a white swan if ever there was one. “We issued our warning that, effectively, you should kill it in the egg,” Taleb told Bloomberg. Governments “did not want to spend pennies in January; now they are going to spend trillions.”

Posted by: spudski | Aug 17 2020 20:14 utc | 167

spudski @Aug17 20:14 @167

Governments “did not want to spend pennies in January; now they are going to spend trillions.”

Don’t forget the part where those governments piss on you and tell you it’s raining.
All the misery that could’ve been avoided is being blamed on China. To drum up a good ‘ol war fever.
More pain is already baked in.
<> <> <> <> <>
We’re not supposed to notice these craven game-playing. And when we do, trolls rush to assure us that Trump innocently failed to see the developing crisis, that pandemics are “black swans”, and … hey look over there Biden picked Kamala!, etc.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 17 2020 20:26 utc | 168

Went looking for any reports about the paper that Xi published in the journal Qiushi on Marxist Political-economy and how China will continue to implement it with Chinese characteristics. One very brief sketch is available here with the following being the most important excerpt:
“China must support and develop its publicly owned economy, while supporting other types of ownership, he said:
“’The dominant position of public ownership cannot be shaken, and the leading role of the state-owned economy cannot be shaken.’”
The Economist has an article that’s mostly behind a paywall, but calls China’s system “State Capitalism.” Unfortunately, we’re unlikely to get any informed writing on the subject from those two prejudicial sites.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 17 2020 21:19 utc | 169

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 17 2020 18:35 utc | 160
“…Many Chinese netizens now view the US as a ‘deluxe version’ of India…”
That’s made my day! Thanks for your postings Karlof1.

Posted by: tucenz | Aug 17 2020 21:43 utc | 170

@ pyschohistorian @161.
I’ll wager that is the most pathetic ‘ threat ‘ Russia has heard for a long time. Mind you if it’s from Reuters, a Brit set up, so it’s probably just propaganda.
As if the U.S. is stupid enough to get into a hot nuclear war with Russia over a small land locked state like Belarus…
Oh, I forget, they are…

Posted by: Beibdnn | Aug 17 2020 21:50 utc | 171

This week’s Renegade Inc program as usual provides eye opening viewpoints about our condition that we may not have contemplated. One guest, Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, is the author of an essay,“The revenge of the places that don’t matter (and what to do about it),” that looks at regions within different nations showing the same behavior. The other guest is the founder of the Scandinavian Kakanomics festival Jan Inge Reilstad, which will occur if COVID allows from 21-24 Oct, and was quite a success last year. It was begun in Norway in 2017 in an attempt to get policy makers to listen to the public. I was completely unaware that Kakanomics seems to be a developing movement within Northern Europe. A quick search found little in English, although here’s the 2017 Festival Program lineup and here’s Renegade Inc from the 2019 festival interviewing Steven Keen. The Renegade Inc programs are only 27-28 minutes long and usually quite dense with the material and ideas covered. I’ve yet to find one not worth watching. The linked PDF essay’s 40+ pages, which might take 90 minutes.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 17 2020 22:39 utc | 172

Jackrabbit @155
“…if the port of Beirut WAS destroyed, BRI would just find a different port.”
The point would be to keep China out of Lebanon. If this isn’t the case then there is no reason why the Lebanon Government shouldn’t take China up on their offer of 21st June 2020 to extend BRI projects to Lebanon.
“…is just pointing fingers (away from Israel)” & “…it serves to direct the gaze of ‘conspiracy theorists’ away from Israel”
Everybody, even Trump (effectively) pointed the finger at Israel. Perhaps the motive for this was to provoke a rash response from Hezbollah.
“Those ‘conspiracy theorists’ should…ask if the Beirut explosion was timed to coincide with regular USA surveillance flights. Who might be so devious?”
Oh no, those pesky Israeli’s are framing those good natured, trusting but dumb Yanks yet again؟
“The more immediate problem for Israel and the West is Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s deterrence ties their hands.” & “If Hezbollah is pushed out of Lebanon”
Hezbollah cannot be pushed out of Lebanon. To remove you Hezbollah as a problem they would have to be crushed militarily so badly that they would surrender and agree to disarm. Unfortunately, the US and Israel are so incompetent they can’t even create a convincing pretext to invade South Lebanon and destroy Hezbollah even when they take the trouble to blow up a whole port؟
—oOo—
The BRI is an existential threat to the US and the West. The US is gearing up for conflict with China. IF the Beirut blast was sabotage then Matthew Ehret is quite right to state that China and the BRI is the probable motive, and, if so, this would mean that the main suspect is likely to be the US.

Posted by: ADKC | Aug 17 2020 22:52 utc | 173

Turns out the essay I cited and linked @172 was published in Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society in 2018, and can be found with a collection of similar essays here. Amongst them is this look at BRI: “Globalisation redux: can China’s inside-out strategy catalyse economic development and integration across its Asian borderlands and beyond?.”
Given that Development is the main point at issue with the articles and the West’s economic stagnation, the hope many have pinned on BRI, and the utmost effort being made by the Outlaw US Empire to stop it from maturing, perhaps it’s best to try and take another angle in examining the problem.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 17 2020 23:37 utc | 174

How China Avoided the Domino Effect of a Local Bank Crisis
The banking collapse theory is one of the oldest “China collapse” theories in the West. It is almost as old as the “middle class uprising” theory.
Well, we don’t know if China’s first bank bankruptcy (a private bank from Inner Mongolia) would result in said collapse. That’s for comic book fans to speculate (they’re fans of parallel universes, after all). What we know is this: the CCP stifled a banking crisis.
–//–
From MoA’s Twitter:
On Belarus, by Craig Murray
It seems there was an internet fight over this post, as one commenter harshly responded to him. Here’s Murray’s replica:

I just wrote the following in response to a comment below, and I think it usefully explains an important bit of my thinking: and not just on Belarus.
“I think the difference between myself and many of my readers is that while we both recognise “western” government as plunder by the capitalist elite exploiting the working class and a fake democracy controlled by a media serving the elite, you and others seem to think that governments are a lot better just because they are anti-Western.
Whereas I believe that many anti-Western governments – Lukashenko, Assad and yes Putin – are also plunder by the capitalist elite exploiting the working class and a fake democracy controlled by a media serving the elite. Just organised a bit differently. And with a still worse approach to civil liberties.”

Very touching response. Except for the fact the commenter, whoever it is, is right: Murray’s piece on Belarus is a show of hypocrisy and blind ideology.
The problem here is not in moral judgements: everybody has a set of morals.
The problem lies in the fact that Murray’s concept of democracy is not scientifically (historically) correct. By his conception of “democracy”, no country in the world could be considered democratic. For example: what was the sabotage of Corbyn’s campaign, if not de facto blocking a candidate? FDR was elected three times, and only stopped governing the USA when he died. Was he a dictator? Every MSM in every country is heavily biased. Are they dictatorships, too? Gaining popularity with the State machinery (often, through the distribution of beneficia) is the most practice tactic of liberal democracies. Are they covered up dictatorships?
Reversely, if a popular petition with the signatures of the vast majority of a country’s population, listing objectively all the achievements of a head-of-State (all the policies, not subjective factors of charisma), asks for him/her to continue in power, would that be populism?
It would be fine if Craig Murray published that text as a philosophical exercise (“democracy should be this or that…”), but, as he put, it’s just plain liberal propaganda. It’s made even worse because he openly states he was part of the British propaganda warfare when he was a diplomat or whatever – and that he still doesn’t see anything wrong with that. It’s made even worse because he suggests Russia is waging propaganda warfare against the UK, which is patently false – reactive propaganda war is not offensive propaganda war; when the enemy is literally trying to kill you, you have to try to kill your enemy first – that’s basic biology, not ideology.
You may be thinking I’m being creative in my interpretation of Craig Murray’s post, but he himself wrote that ” I should state very plainly, as I have before, that I think it was absolutely wrong of Putin to outstay his two terms, irrespective of constitutional sophistry and irrespective of popular support.”. He should spare us from his sophistry first.

Posted by: vk | Aug 17 2020 23:43 utc | 175

UConn Health Researchers Find a Simple Oral Rinse Can Inactivate the COVID-19 Virus
https://today.uconn.edu/2020/06/uconn-health-researchers-find-simple-oral-rinse-can-inactivate-covid-19-virus/#
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5986684/
very diluted solution of iodine in water has been proven 99.999999% effective in killing the Covid-19, SARS, PVP-I gargle/mouthwash diluted 1:30 (equivalent to a concentration of 0.23% PVP-I) showed effective bactericidal activity against Klebsiella pneumoniae and Streptococcus pneumoniae and rapidly inactivated SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, influenza virus A (H1N1) and rotavirus after 15 s of exposure. and many other viruses.
Basically, put a few drops of brown iodine into glass of water and gargle.
BWAHAHAHAHA! We have been doing this for decades in Eastern Europe! it’s a well known folk remedy.

Posted by: Hoyeru | Aug 17 2020 23:54 utc | 176

ADKC @Aug17 22:52 #173
… even Trump (effectively) pointed the finger at Israel.
No, he didn’t. He hinted by saying that it looked like a bomb. The hinting of an Israeli attack is meant to suggest that Hezbollah is ultimately responsible because they use Beirut and the Lebanese people as a ‘human shield’.
It is a means of turning the Lebanese against Hezbollah and I doubt it will stop at just that. The anti-Hezbollah forces
The hinting is also part of a campaign to eliminate sabotage as a possibility. Western MSM has decided that the explosion was an accident while alt-media has been fed the possibility of a Israeli strike against Hezbollah. We are not supposed to think of, or discuss, the possibility of sabotage.
=
… this would mean that the main suspect is likely to be the US.
Whereas I believe that the main suspect is “all of the above.”
Just like with the Syrian conflict – there’s no one country that’s responsible. A group of countries conspired against Syria and a number of others KNEW and remained silent.
So it’s very difficult to finger a single country. But there seems to be an effort to ensure that one country in particular (Israel) is free of suspicion.
=
Hezbollah cannot be pushed out of Lebanon.
Maybe but I’m not so sure that the effort wouldn’t be made. And that effort would likely include air support by France and possibly USA/UK. Such a scenario is a lot smarter than Israel taking on Hezbollah directly, don’t you think?
Even if unsuccessful at pushing Hezbollah out, a renewed civil war would severely disrupt Hezbollah operations. Maybe enough to allow Israel to conduct a nuclear strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities? (Something USA can’t do because Russia has warned them away.)
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 18 2020 0:16 utc | 177

Snake @141 said–
“. Each of those nations can then pay for their own defense. ”
Do you actually believe that the US troops are there to defend these countries?
LOL

Posted by: arby | Aug 18 2020 1:07 utc | 178

In my two years spent in Turkey, 2010-2012, the idea of an alliance of MHP (the nationalists) and AKP (the Islamists) would have been absurd. But the charismatic Erdogan has performed this merger whilst also purging the AKParty of the substantial Gulenist faction (blamed for the attempted coup). He is elected, but rules. Erdogan is decommissioning secular Turkey, and disapproves of displays of “Kemalism”, of which there are many in the Turkey of Attaturk. Erdogan is a proud man, a second Attaturk but on a larger stage. Vanity is his vice. He has probably not heard of the saying “pot calls the kettle black.”
Islamist he may be, but observant rather than spiritual. Nonetheless he conflates power and Islam, and he’s on the move.
He’s done a terrible thing to his neighbour Syria. Furthermore, he wants to “annex” a part of it in which terrorists fighting the Syrian state will be settled. He figuratively stabbed in the back the president of Syria. (Perhaps it is Christian prayer that has saved the honourable secularist Dr Assad?) Unfortunately the stab in the back was real for Muammar Gaddhafi. And at a time when Libya and Turkey had good economic relations.
His belligerence with Greece could provoke a littoral war. He is at war with Col. Haftar and the LNA in eastern Libya. But maximum animosity must be aimed at president Sisi for foiling the installation of the Brotherhood in Egypt.
Erdogan is the mister big of the Brotherhood and it seems as if his ambition is to rule (or “unite”) the MENA Sunni world via brotherhood governments. Could a Saudi Arabia that no longer “greens” the Turkish economy be challenged as custodian of the holy sites? Could Erdogan’s ambitions, his personal “jihad” be that fantastical?
Shias have demonstrated collective resistance, a noble goal. It is the essence of being Shia. But it cannot be denied that there appears to be empire creep with the Iranians under Rouhani. Rouhani and his associates have a long relationship with certain members of the US and European establishment and could be said to be “embedded”.
Is this the preferred outcome for the globalists – Turkey runs the Sunni world, the Iranians the Shia? And the Christians of the MENA be damned?
Politics, or more precisely the advancement of power, makes a travesty of religion. Zionism is the template, but ironically Theodor Herzl anticipated that a Jewish state would liberate the Jews from the tyranny of the rules for Jewishness. The two-state solution was never meant to work, so those forces that promoted that zombie process should redirect their energies into demanding genuine democracy in an Israel that includes Arab Muslim and Christian Palestinians as equal citizens. One state-call it Israel if you must, but Eretz Israel cannot be part of that discourse.
There is so much confusion in the geopolitics of the MENA, and as the smoke dissipates some agendas can be discerned. Fantasies of empire simply cannot be allowed to take hold, and it seems that the only way to thwart this is incrementally, through leverage.
I would like to think that the UAE’s recognition of Israel is an example of this tactic.
Sent from my iPad

Posted by: Australian lady | Aug 18 2020 1:33 utc | 179

Posted by: arby | Aug 18 2020 1:07 utc | 178
Yup, those Okinawans must love hosting all the rapes, violence, disease, pollution, waste of limited space and the grand privilege of getting blown up by a thousand Chinese missiles when their “defenders” do something stupid in the region while fleeing away like the brave heroes they are.
Prime target for a regime change with overwhelming popular support, so why isn’t NED et al doing anything about it? I wonder. (sarc obviously)

Posted by: J W | Aug 18 2020 1:42 utc | 180

JR @168, you’ve got your antennae tuned!! It’s a minor point but Taleb has gone to great pains to take exception to “the pandemic is a black swan” notion. Otherwise though, I mainly appreciate (and agree) with the comments of our MoA diamond in the gruff.

Posted by: spudski | Aug 18 2020 2:03 utc | 181

Answer to Arby @ 178.. no.. present to protect ambassadors who are handling out government contracts.
Thanks to ADKC @ 148 for his link.. Deadly clash reported between U.S. and Syrian forces; <= when you add this to the situation in Lebanon, Yemen, Western Iraq, Afghanistan.. Belarus and consider the Agreement between Netanyohu and UAB, think in terms of virus infection and prevention drills you see the preparation for total global war in progress.... everywhere infection proof Trojans have been planted. Richard Steven Hack @ various, vk @ 140 RF correlates to infection rate in infected cell to un infected cell during infectious contact. Quarantine done right right at the start would be no covid 19 in oz. by: Peter AU1 @ 105 The pandemic itself is the result of an act of war, by: William Gruff @ 154 Yes, I think you have it. But "infection prevention" not "curing the patient" is the purpose of most quarantines.. what I have seen is not prevention but many efforts to be sure everyone is infected..continuing to fly commercial airlines, etc. even in the hospital environments sufficient prevention activity is lacking.. What do you call a person who has been infected with a SARS CoViD 19 virus ? <= a patient. What do you call an economy that promotes vial infection of its citizens? <=a wall street gold mind.

Posted by: snake | Aug 18 2020 2:14 utc | 182

spudski @Aug 182020 2:03 #181

It’s a minor point but Taleb has gone to great pains to take exception to “the pandemic is a black swan” notion.

And I agree with Taleb. Read my comment again.
Also see my comment @Aug17 20:04 #164.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 18 2020 2:17 utc | 183

Ah, thanks, james @ 162, and yes, the early eastern Christians had studied Greek philosophy, as did I in college. And metaphysics is the branch that Aristotle authored, while what the eastern Christians gravitated to more was Plato. The two are very different in style, if not in some of their theories since Aristotle was taught by Plato. I always think of the difference in that Aristotle himself taught Alexander the Great, whilst Plato was actually unsuccessful in motivating princes according to his instruction, being more concerned, I think, with the character of the individual persons he was teaching.
But that’s just me pontificating. On a more humdrum level, I am simply enjoying seeing the Greek word order of well known phrases in the New Testament. Matthew starts out with lots of ‘having done such and such, he did so and so’ in the early going, but then switches quite dramatically to straight sentences as he brings John the Baptist onto the scene. I guess my approach is more as a literary work – which doesn’t denigrate its importance to me, since I became Russian Orthodox after reading Dostoievski. And the Bible, I do think, is from the greatest author of them all, just faithfully recorded by devoted scribes. It’s their voices I’m trying to hear.

Posted by: juliania | Aug 18 2020 2:27 utc | 184

I understood that you agree with Taleb, I was referring to another guest, sorry if I wasn’t clear!

Posted by: spudski | Aug 18 2020 2:55 utc | 185

previous comment was addressed to JR@183. Apologies.

Posted by: spudski | Aug 18 2020 2:56 utc | 186

Australian lady 179
My thought on Israel is that it cannot be pulled into line until US has lost its military and economic power and preferably its veto power at the UN.
France is a wannabe player in the middle east and Africa. Seems to have its own agenda there to a certain extent. A piece by angry arab was linked in one of these threads and he thought Macrons move into Lebanon after the explosion was to ward off Turkey. Erdogan offered citizenship to any Lebanese that identified as Turk or Turkman.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 18 2020 3:46 utc | 187

Regarding the covid epidemic, I must say I’ve never so much hemming, hawing, disputation, and general fear, uncertainty, and doubt about a putatively scientific question since the Great Climate Whatever Wars.
A little anecdote: I reads me in some ‘scientific website’ where it is asserted that some alphabet encoded substance allows zinc to enter into human cells, albeit it’s not as potent as ‘some other things’. So I ventures out into the wild world beyond my humble doorway to the local health food & vitamin shop, and buys me a goodly supply of ‘green tea’ that the website claims contains this substance. But being a supposedly ‘good guy’, I make the stupid mistake of telling the shop’s resident expert about this ‘green tea’ thing. I should practice being more of a normal selfish SOB, since when I went out to the shop three days later… ‘green tea’ is all sold out!

Posted by: blues | Aug 18 2020 4:13 utc | 188

blues
Didn’t know green tea was high in zinc. Oysters are supposed to be good for making babies… no wonder the Chinese are so prolific.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 18 2020 4:18 utc | 189

@ Peter AU1 | Aug 18 2020 4:18 utc | 189
I am afraid you read my post too quickly. The science website did not say ‘green tea’ contains zinc. It said it contains a substance that transports zinc into human cells. For zinc I take zinc gluconate. One thing: If you take lots of zinc constantly, it can compete with (block) copper absorption, which you need about 1/10th as much as, but the body must have it also.

Posted by: blues | Aug 18 2020 4:35 utc | 190

blues
Copper blocks molybdenum. Zinc copper molybdenum is the go.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 18 2020 4:40 utc | 191

@Richard Steven Hack | Aug 17 2020 3:01 utc | 107
“(and that Hillary Clinton was deemed an appropriate opponent even more so.)”
…by you…I suppose
And if she had threatened to start a shooting war with Russia?
And she threatened it multiple times.
Over a long period of time.
Including during her campaign.
And from stage.
“an appropriate opponent even more so”
Isn’t that what you said? (rhethorical question)
Threatening it once and you are disqualified for life.
She threatened it multiple times.
Over a long period of time.
Including during her campaign.
And from stage.
“an appropriate opponent even more so”
You aren’t alone.
Most of the electorate doesn’t even remember her threat.
It didn’t register. It couldn’t.
If the herd isn’t talking about it — and they weren’t — then it doesn’t exist.
What a surprise they would have gotten (had they survived the first blasts)
when it rained nuclear ashes.
“an appropriate opponent even more so”

Posted by: librul | Aug 18 2020 5:12 utc | 192

hmm..
@192 (continued)
Did I trip up on an ambiguity of yours, Hack?
You meant to have a comma before “,even more so”?
That is, you were dissing the electorate “even more so”
rather than saying Hillary was “an appropriate candidate even more so”.
Either way, it was WWIII Hillary.

Posted by: librul | Aug 18 2020 5:19 utc | 193

librul 193
I think you will find, in no uncertain terms, that hack is not an admirer of clinton. 🙂

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 18 2020 5:33 utc | 194

Juliana
Thanks for your comments and correspondence with James. I am also interested in the Hellenic qualities of the language of the New Testament. It gives that beautiful story wings.
And thank you for posting one of my favourite poems, Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “Pied Beauty”.
Praise Him!

Posted by: Australian lady | Aug 18 2020 6:52 utc | 195

vk@175 I agree with you on Murray.

Posted by: John Gilberts | Aug 18 2020 7:13 utc | 196

A lot of chipset manufacturers will be doing it tough with new US sanctions. Probably a minimum of two years for China to develop their own leading edge chipset manufacturing equipment. Will be less than that though cos there will be some pissed off out of work techies that will sell it to China. With Trump’s cold war 2.0, industrial espionage will also be open season.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-huawei-tech-supplychain/new-u-s-sanctions-to-slam-huawei-further-roil-tech-supply-idUSKCN25E0KU?il=0

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 18 2020 7:17 utc | 197

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 18 2020 7:17 utc | 197
Please be patience, wait for 10-12 September when Huawei developer conference in Shenzhen announces what’s in the bags for Huawei’s future. I’m prepared to buy an Honor wireless charging 450mah battery. 8Mbg Ram, 256Mbg ROM, Global version, ZERO Google Android if available. If cannot buy in the States, may ask someone in SEA buy for me. Fucking Trump trying to chock off USPS from China to States. I meant every word I said here.

Posted by: JC | Aug 18 2020 8:32 utc | 198

Correction 8Gb Ram, 256Gb ROM

Posted by: JC | Aug 18 2020 8:36 utc | 199

On Canadian “court” corruption: Morneau is out so why isn’t Trudeau? https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/lilley-morneau-is-out-so-why-isnt-trudeau
The Jester-in-chief should follow: Justin will do less damage as medical clown.

Posted by: Antonym | Aug 18 2020 9:57 utc | 200

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