Alt Left: Socialism for the Win!

Socialism beating all capitalist countries!

You guys wonder why some of us are socialists. Well, here ya go.

As you can see, Cuban socialism beats all of its capitalist competitors in administering COVID-19 vaccines to the largest number of people in the shortest period of time. And keep in mind that the US has, I believe, a GNP 15 times bigger than Cuba’s and it still totally failed in this competition. In addition, many of those countries have social democracies with attendant socialized medicine, but even that didn’t seem to do very well against socialist planning in the health sector. Cuba beat the UK, Europe and North America as a whole, and the combined groups of high and upper middle low income countries.

I don’t have anything against socialized medicine in social democracies, but it does seem to fair worse against a pure Communist system. And in the UK and parts of Europe, public health is under relentless attack by the capitalists under the rubric of austerity and budget cuts.

The UK in particular has been devastated by these cuts which the Tories have been doing for decades now. Nevertheless, the idiot Brits appear to be ready to march off to vote Tory once again in the next election. The entire media combined to promote the Tories and destroy Labor’s left candidate. The current candidate is a centrist named Starmer and he’s so bad, he loses to pathetic Tories like the clown Boris Johnson. But hey, at least Starmer cleaned out the antisemites in the party! That’s all that matters, right Jews. You all would rather have a damned Tory government than a left Labor government unfriendly to your precious little hate state over there.

I’m not sure about the rest of Europe, but I know that public health has been devastated in Greece. The Left Syriza ran on an anti-austerity program but changed and went Centrist as soon as they got in, supposedly due to “forces beyond their control.”

This shows how hard it is to change the system absent an actual revolution as happened in Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Without a truly revolutionary party as we had and have in those countries, the forces of capitalism will simply assert themselves and any Left candidate will be boxed in. This is already happening to Castillo in Peru, who finds his options limited more and more every week by the forces of the military, the big capitalists, the media, and the population in media, which is really all the same thing and could be called the Peruvian oligarchy or in US terms, the Peruvian Deep State.

And we can see how this is happening in the US as Biden progressively scales down his promises. At first he rejected Sanders’ Medicare for All, though it has majority support. Then he rejected Sanders’ free college education, a staple in many countries, including places like Mexico! In its stead he offered free community college. Well, he just got rid of that, too. What’s next, Joe? Free ice cream on Sunday?

Really, I don’t blame him. America is still a terrifyingly reactionary country, and in fact it is nearly a fascist country as about half the population is perfectly willing to vote for fascism and the Republican party is now an undemocratic authoritarian fascist party along the lines of the Latin American Right. It follows because the Latin American Right is run by the oligarchies that run those countries, and increasingly, the US is also an oligarchy and is no longer a democracy at all.

Nor are our elections free and fair. They’ve been hopelessly corrupted since the advent of computerized voting and gerrymandering and serious obstacles placed in the way of voting means that we are absolutely not a democratic country anymore.

Democratic countries do not allow partisan gerrymandering, attempts to steal elections, obstacles placed to discourage voting, and open theft of elections via computerized voting machines. I wonder if we ever had a democracy in this blighted country. Perhaps from 1965-2000, we had a pretty democratic system, but under Reagan, the Justice Department under Sessions interfered to keep voting restrictions against Blacks in while putting Blacks who worked for voting rights in jail. The FBI did this, if you can believe that. And you wonder why I despise feds so much.

Alt Left: Why Conservatives Oppose the COVID Vaccine

Anti-vaxxers 10 years ago were leftwing hippies. Now most of those are apparently getting this COVID vaccine, or they’re quiet about it. But in fact, on the Hard Left, there is a lot of opposition to this COVID vaccine. I’m not sure if it’s as bad as on the Right, but it’s bad.

Normally, conservatives don’t get

However, this COVID vaccine, like most things in this idiot polarized to death country, has been politicized in a completely asinine way that makes no sense.

The Roots of Conservative Opposition to the COVID Vaccine

Apparently this all has roots in the fact that conservatives don’t care about anything except for money and the economy. The economy = money. The definition of a conservative is someone who values money more than human life. And conservatives always, always kill people for money. Disgusting people!

So conservatives went against this disease itself due to the threat to the economy. They boxed themselves into a corner like morons, but they always do that. Because after the restrictions were all lifted, the only objection came down to vaccines. Conservatives had decided to lie about their motives and frame their pro-economy project as a phony “freedom and individual rights” issue. This is the fake basis on which they opposed all of those mask mandates and lockdowns.

So now all there is left is the vaccine. Normally conservatives would care nothing about any vaccine, but like I said, they backed themselves into a corner. They said there was no such thing as the disease, so they had to say the vaccine would be useless or even harmful. They were already way down the road to saying this whole disease was nonsense, and they could not change horses in the middle of the stream.

And this time they fell back once again on the lie that this all about individual freedoms, which conservatives never care about anyway. Look who packs and jails and prisons with chickenshit crimes? Conservatives!

Conservatives Are Authoritarians, Not Individualists

Conservatives are authoritarians. They actually not individualists! They are the opposite of individualists because individualists would score low on authoritarianism. But they hate government due to their love of money over all else because the state gets in the way of making money. So they are authoritarians who hate democracy and believe in minority rule like their brethren in Latin America while framing their hatred of the state as “individualism.”

Conservatives obey their leaders much more than liberals do. Conservatives are like dogs. Liberals are like cats. Liberals don’t obey. Conservatives do. And whatever nutball idea that comes down the pike and gets labeled conservative dogma, conservative puppies blindly follow it like kids after the Pied Piper. They are incapable of opposing a conservative agenda. If their leaders told them all to walk off a cliff, they would literally do just that. They can’t think for themselves. All they can do is follow the leader.

Interesting Search Terms

I get to see all the search terms people use to navigate the treacherous and polluted waters to make it to this sick, fucked up abattoir of a website in the lowest depths of Net. Even if you have a fairly normal site, you often get some pretty weird search engine terms in your stats.

Here’s a couple just from the last two weeks.

“Gay men wear diapers.”

LOL no way did I write about that? Or did I? I hope I didn’t.

It’s an interesing question. Gay politics and the straight anal sex crowd will tell you that this is a myth and it’s something that never happens. For some sick, evil reason I’ve been researching this. I have no idea why I do this as I am not a fan of this type of sex on either end, especially playing catcher. Not that a few women’s fingers haven’t made their way up there. Right before orgasm, it’s inside you massaging your prostate. Unbelievable orgasm. Try it sometime, unless you’re too homophobic, which I get.

Well the truth is that sadly, some gay men do indeed have to wear diapers. It’s called anal incontinence in case you were wondering. There is a gay Catholic man named Joseph Scambria who has written quite a bit about that. He was asswrecked at age 29, apparently through extensive scar tissue, and now he has to wear diapers. The scar tissue was probably from repeated untreated STD infections. These can then cause an abscess if untreated, which can transform into a fistula if you don’t deal with.

On his comment threads, I have seen three other gay men in their 40’s and 50’s all say that they were asswrecked too, and they were also all in diapers. One said he has to time it just right when he leaves the house so he’s not gone too long or an accident might happen. All of them were bitter. I haven’t the faintest idea what sort of Ass Acrobatics they were doing do land themselves in Anal Purgatory like this, but apparently it’s possible. Perhaps if it goes on long enough, you can work off enough gay sin to make it in the gates. No idea.

I also saw a young White woman in her early 30’s say she used to have lots of anal sex, and now she has to wear a diaper. And a 70 year old woman who was bitter for similar reasons.

Ok, that’s six so far. Four gay men and two straight women, all chronic cases. I guess it happens, but it seems to be rather rare. Are there other cases that are more occasional or negligible? Probably.

I haven’t the faintest idea what sort of Sexual Assholery you have to do engage in for what length of period to end up in this particularly unpleasant state of affairs, but it looks like it’s not a myth after all. Butt (Get it?) permanent anal incontinence does not seem to be a common side effect of even decades of receptive anal sex, despite the extreme homophobic boneheads blathering on about it.

Second search term:

“What does a naked 12 year old girl look like?”

Jesus Christ! Did I write about that? I hope not. What do they look like?

I guess it looks like a naked little girl, and I’ve seen a few of those. Back when I was a kid, naked young kids used to run around all the time in backyards and especially at campgrounds in the woods. My Mom insists this was never true, but I have many memories of naked kids, boys and girls, running around naked in my boyhood and adolescence back when people were sane before the whole West went crazy about stupid shit. I never thought anything of it, and it had no effect on me because as a boy I had no sex drive, and as an adolescent, I couldn’t think of anything more boring and antisexual than a ridiculous naked little girl.

But even back then, once they got to 11 or 12, it seemed like they didn’t run around naked anymore. And adolescents never ran around naked. Just little kids, because everyone assumed, unlike in these sex-panicked times, that there was nothing on Earth less sexual and more boring and banal than naked little boys or girls running through the damned sprinklers on a summer day. Who the Hell would get turned on by that? Sure, a pedo would, but we never thought about weird stuff like that back then, unlike now, when it’s on the tip of everyone’s idiot tongue.

When I was 13, my 12 year old cousins got this 11 year old girl to strip for us. It was one of the most idiotic spectacles I have ever seen, and the look of utter stupidity on her face the whole time played a good role in that. She did go into the robot mind-controlled zombie role, which is what mature females do when they’re horny, so maybe there’s something universal there. She sure followed orders all right, like we were drill sergeants. More women need to be like this!

She stood there in front of us naked, looking like a complete retard. My cousins and I were all clothed, and we all had huge erections which were all discussing. Neither of us touched the girl or vice versa. I have no idea if we should have.

Sexual stuff between 11 and 12-13 year olds pretty much falls into “childhood sex play” because this extends barely into adolescence. But no one cares about that nowadays, and the sex offender lists are overflowing with people put on there as minors presumably for childhood sex play bullshit. Another reason that Nazi list needs to be burned. I’m pretty sure if I was 13 today and we had just done this yesterday and gotten caught, my cousins and I would be headed for the list as pedophiles and child molesters. That’s how stupid this shit has gotten.

But the searcher wants 12 year old girls, not 11 year olds! Sorry! Perhaps they look different? I’ve never seen a naked 12 year old girl in the wild, even in my wasted youth, nor do I care to see one.

We had a hebephilic commenter with an obsession with 12-14 year old girls who was on here for a bit. He hadn’t had much luck with women, but he got some money at age 30 and started taking vacations all over the world, apparently paying to have sex with 12-14 year old Lolitas in various shitholes around the globe. He said he had met many men on his journeys who had traveled to those locations to do exactly what he was doing. It wasn’t rare at all. Which doesn’t surprise me, but I figure the market for girls under 12 must be dramatically lower.

Like an asshole, he left a link to child porn in my comments. He had uploaded it to Youtube like a jerk. 12 year old girl stripping naked in the back of a bar in Colombia. Probably one of the most boring videos I’ve ever seen. The whole time I’m thinking:

Why the Hell would anyone get turned on by this shit?

Huge turnoff. I watched it and reported his hebephilic ass to Youtube for uploading illegal stuff. So, as far as the search query goes, yes, I have seen one. And I must say, a naked 12 year old girl is one of the most boring and unsexy things I could possibly think of. Why everyone thinks this is the most evil thing on Earth is beyond me. It’s a naked human. You know, when we take our clothes off, we are actually naked skin creature mammals? A naked human is a naked human, no matter the age. It’s a perfectly natural state of affairs. Why is this the image of ultimate evil?

PSA: How Some Straight (?) Guy Got An Anal Fistula

This is a story about how one of my best friends started fucking fags like a dipshit and within no time, had the misfortune of getting an anal fistula. Let this be a warning to my depraved straight male readers.

My idiot best friend, D., got blackmailed into gay sex by a depraved West Hollywood faggot, R., he had the stupidity of moving in with. By the way, never take a room from a gay man if you are a straight man, especially if you are very goodlooking. You’re asking for it. I’ve had a couple straight friends who ended up in this blackmailed mess.

I spent the night over there in October 1981 after we’d been chasing model and actress types in at the Lingerie Club in Hollywood.

We struck out as usual because that’s usually what happens when you chase actress and model types in Hollywood. They’re cream of the crop, and competition is savage. I might have gotten laid or at least gotten a number from the hottie across the table if I tried, but I chickened out like a big pussy idiot.

I gave my friend my car keys to go sit in the car because he hated the show. Of course, being an asshole and a drunken asshole at that, he stole my car and drove it home. I came out with no wheels. I tried to get rides home or couches to sleep on from the women we sat with and from random males. My female table partner, who had been practically propositioning me from the other side of the table not long before, turned me down for a couch apologetically. All of a sudden my car showed up, driven by the fag, R., an older man in his 40’s. My stupid friend was in the car. By the way, he was drop dead handsome, and they say I was too back then. They tell me to get in.

“You shouldn’t have done that, D.,” the fag said scoldingly. My friend looked smug, like he didn’t give a shit, but he always looked like that. After all, he was an asshole.

We go home and have coffee at 3 AM and the fag acts really weird, like he’s trying to convince me I’m gay. I’m not convinced. I’m just confused. Turns out he did the exact same thing to another friend of mine. I’m not sure if they really believe this crap, or it’s just some scam they use to get into a straight dude’s pants.

The couch pulled out and I was asleep on it. I wake up in the middle of the night to some truly disturbing sounds. Then I smell cum. I can’t see either of them, but my friend seems pissed somehow. Apparently my best friend just got fucked in the ass by a disgusting fag right under my nose. For some reason, I processed this trauma and went back to sleep.

I was up early and the fag was back with his:

“You’re not really straight. Don’t give me this shit, Bob. Face it, closet case! You’re a fag! Just like me!”

That’s not very pleasant to listen to, and I must admit it was traumatic. The whole morning my friend had this attitude like:

“So what! So I just got fucked in the ass by a fag! What are you going to do about it!”

Totally unrepentant. Which was gross.

Later that morning, I lost a contact lens. My friend and the fag used this as an excuse to “find the contact lens” by putting their hands all over to “find the contact lens.” My friend had turned gay, I guess, because he was giggling the whole time. Obviously, they weren’t “looking for the contact lens,” but I let these two idiots have their perverse fun. It was rather flattering that a couple of goodlooking humans, albeit males instead of females, thought I was hot enough to be worshiped like a Greek statue. Their hands never got too weird, so I just let them have their perverse kicks and didn’t give a shit.

Later, I said goodbye to my friend, and my mind said, “Hey, I still love you, brother. I don’t care if you’re doing this gay shit.” Mistake.

Later I told my other friend, DJ, about it, and we were are both amazed that our mutual friend is fagging out like a dipshit. DJ, DN, and I had all grown up together, and we were tight as thieves. I told DJ about the weird, “You’re really gay, Bob. Admit it, dammit!” vibe I got off the fag, and DJ is flabbergasted.

“Bob! You won’t believe this! I got the exact same vibe off that guy!”

The weird thing was he hadn’t come right out and said it. It was just this weird vibe floating over the interaction and conversation that I picked up on, nonverbal and extraverbal (voice tone) communication. I’ve always been pretty good at reading minds.

I told my friend that DN seemed unrepentant and he agreed that he had seemed that way to DJ too. He shook his head incredulously. Weird thing is we all grew up together, and we were all completely straight. DN and I had talked about gay stuff because gay guys were trying to screw him 24-7, but we both always said, “I’m not into that stuff.” We almost had a blood pact together that no matter how bad things got in our lives, we were not going to stoop to faggotry. That was one bridge too far.

DN loved women almost more than any man who’d ever lived. At age 23, he’d already screwed a battalion of him. Even after he started fagging off, he was still with women, and the last I heard he was living with a woman in Santa Barbara. I honestly think he prefers women. Most of these bisexual guys lean pretty heavily one way or the other. Pure bi men are rare.

Eight months later, summer 1982, I was a mess, heading into a 3-4 year long nervous breakdown during which I was working, going to school, and getting advanced degrees the whole time. You can accomplish a lot when you’re nuts as long as long you’re not too crazy. As long as you keep it all in your head, no one cares too much.

DN was back at home at his old parental home. He was being an asshole of course, but he was always an asshole. That’s one of the things I liked about him, being a bit of one myself.

He’s living there with his very handsome brother, BN, who was also an asshole, probably even a bigger one than D. Their parents were gone on vacation for the whole summer. Their father was an executive for an oil company and from what I could tell, he was an asshole too. But how can you be an executive for an oil company without being an asshole? Is that even possible?

They had called this really hot female saleswoman over to the house and were ordering fine wines from her, splurging like trust fund kids. They were putting on a big show of being rich for this hot chick, but the whole thing is ridiculously fake, a big act on a stage.

We were all fawning all over her like a bunch of slavering beasts. DN was acting like a puppy dog because that’s how he acted around women a lot. That’s totally lame, but somehow he got laid quite a bit anyway. Most have been the good looks.

She knew but she didn’t care because all us guys were Chad. Chad gets to slaver all he wants, you know. She was acting like she might just fuck the whole room, except she never did. That was another act on that stage that day.

DN never had a nickel because, being an asshole, he was also a deadbeat and a derelict who couldn’t hold a job of course, which is probably why he turned into a rentboy for rich fags. By the way, quite a few very handsome straight (or bisexual?) men become male prostitutes or rent boys for rich gay men. I guess they are just acting like women, whoring themselves out sexually to the highest bidder and offering to do pretty much anything for the green. Very goodlooking straight men have the advantage of getting to do what women only can usually do, except I’m not sure that’s an advantage. Straight gigolos are rare.

I was wondering how these idiots got all this money to be ordering all this fine wine, seeing as they were both deadbeat assholes who couldn’t hold a job due to being assholes. Then I see DN flashing around credit cards. He was using his parents’ credit cards while they were gone on a months-long vacation! No surprise. Hey, I told you he was an asshole, right? Someone pointed out he was using his parents’ cards. He laughed and acted like he didn’t give a shit, but that’s how he acted about everything. Assholes don’t give a shit, remember?

Anyway, the woman left at some point, and then we were all talking. Somewhere in the conversation, DN noted that he had a fistula in his ass. Once again, he acted completely unrepentant.

“I got it from driving a truck. Truck driving gives those to you,” he lied.

Like Hell it does, I was thinking. Maybe from letting guys drive mack trucks up your ass, you idiot! Which was obviously how he got it because that’s about the only way a man gets one. You get fucked in the ass by fags, get an STD. You don’t treat it and it goes into an abscess. You don’t treat the abscess and it goes into a fistula. Wa-la! Now you have a fistula, genius!

So, as you can see, a mere eight months after my idiot friend turns bisexual and starts getting fucked up the ass by fags, he already had a fistula in his ass. Let this be a warning to my straight male readers. Stick with women, ok? Do yourself a favor.

Shortly thereafter, I broke off all contact with DN. A number of our other  mutual friends made a big gay pride show of remaining friends with him, and I was condemned as an evil homophobe for voicing my disgust at his voluntary decision to become a particularly low degenerate, a degenerate fag of all things, so low that even I wouldn’t go there.

But thinking back on it, I had to quit hanging around with that guy. When your best friend turns into a fag, you need to cut him completely out of your life, no exceptions. There’s no way you are going to be able to continue to hang out with him. Things will get real weird real fast and if you don’t watch what you are doing, you might get roped into their faggy games real quick. Maybe more on that in a future sick post if I ever feel low enough to write it.

I’ve actually found this a bit hard to live down. It was a black mark on my history. I’m over it now because people aren’t so insanely homophobic thank God. Back then, this is how people thought:

“You see, if you’re a real man, you have real man friends, and they don’t turn into fags. If you’re best friend turns into a fag, that means you must be a fag. Because who else would be best friends with a fag except another fag.”

I’m not ecstatic about gay men, but extreme homophobes that go around accusing straight men of being gay are 10X worse.

Cuba, A Failed State?

President Biden insists that Cuba is a failed state.

Nope.

They have the best education system in Latin America.

The highest rate of physicians to population on Earth.

A medical system so good that extremely rightwing anti-Communist fanatics all over Latin America gave been flying there for years. A lot of people now fly there for medical tourism, but the state charges them.

Cuba is a world leader in the medical technology field, and it competes well against capitalist corporations.

They still make the best cigars on Earth.

A very high

This tiny island with noting under a total blockade just marketed an excellent Coronavirus vaccine, and it has four more in the pipeline.

Its COVID rate and death rate is the lowest in Latin America.

It has the highest number of agronomists per capita on Earth.

Some people are making good money with their small restaurants, especially the ones they set up in their homes or as bed and breakfasts. There are parts that are so prosperous you would think you were in Europe.

They’ve eliminated rural poverty.

And best of all, Cuba is beating the US in life expectancy and infant mortality! Pathetic! Cubans live longer and have less important mortality than we do, a country that is nine times wealthier!

Tell me again how great US capitalism is. We are an order of magnitude wealthier, and they’re beating us in essential health figures. US capitalism is pathetic! We’re getting our butt kicked by some tiny, impoverished, blockaded island! If our system is so great, why can’t we beat Cuba?

Alt Left: Malcolm X on Gusanos (Worms) or Anti-Castro Cubans

Alt Left: An Overview of Modes of Transmission for the COVID-19

I definitely read this somewhere, but after I read it, I could not find where I had read it when I went back to look for it. So you will have to take my word for it.

Pre-symptomatic – New infections coming from an infected person who has not yet developed symptoms: 4

Symptomatic – New infections coming from an infected person who has already developed symptoms: 4

Environmental – New infections comes from some environmental contact with the virus: 1

Asymptomatic – New infections come from a person that will never develop any symptoms:

As you can see, almost all infections come from people in the pre-symptomatic and symptomatic phases of the infection. Few infections come from touching infected surfaces and even fewer come from asymptomatic persons who never develop illness.

“Oranges and Lemons,” by Alpha Unit

Humans are among the few mammal species unable to synthesize Vitamin C from glucose. All of our Vitamin C has to come from our diets. If you were somehow to end up with no Vitamin C in your diet whatsoever for a prolonged time – say, three or four months and counting, indefinitely – it is no exaggeration to say that the repercussions could be dire.

Without Vitamin C we can’t make collagen, and without collagen your body can’t repair your skin, bone, cartilage, ligaments and tendons, blood vessel walls, and teeth. You need fresh food in your diet, either from plant or animal sources, to get this done.

Wherever you find people going without fresh food for long periods, you’ll find Vitamin C deficiency, or scurvy.

Scurvy has been prevalent throughout much of human history. It likely began to occur in humans during the development of agriculture. According to biologist Thomas Jukes, once people in temperate zones adopted an agrarian lifestyle they were able to store grains for use during winter. They were also able to spread into other temperate regions previously uninhabitable due to the lack of food supply during winters.

But because stored grains are extremely low in Vitamin C, it is likely that these ancient peoples developed scurvy during the long winter months because grain dominated their diets.

During long journeys or overland campaigns, such as the Crusades, scurvy inevitably appeared.

The first written account of a disease likely to be scurvy comes from the Eber Papyrus of ancient Egypt, dated to 1550 BC. The Papyrus not only diagnosed scurvy but prescribed that its victims be given onions, which contain Vitamin C.

Throughout maritime history, people had to figure out not only how to transport themselves across seas and oceans but how to stay healthy along the way. They were clearly relatively successful at both. Millennia ago, Austronesians were the first humans to invent oceangoing vessels; they colonized a large part of the Indo-Pacific region. Early Polynesians were superb seafarers and traveled thousands of miles exploring and settling the region we know as the Polynesian Triangle (drawn by connecting the points of Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island).

Somali seafarers developed extensive trade networks, and Somali merchants at one time led commerce between Asia and Africa. Chinese merchants sailed the Indian Ocean and traded throughout Southeast Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, and East Africa.

How did ancient seafaring peoples deal with scurvy?

Stefan Slater writes that Polynesian seafarers relied on freshly caught fish, crustaceans, and octopi, and would sometimes slaughter some of the animals they were transporting for breeding stock. Jin Ding, Chaojan Shi, and Adam Weintrit report that the diet on Chinese sailing ships included green tea, which contains more Vitamin C than black tea. They also say that Chinese ships began to carry gardens with them, growing soybean sprouts, which are high in Vitamin C.

So there is some evidence that ancient seafarers knew the importance of keeping fresh vegetables and meat in their diets on long voyages.

For Europeans, it wasn’t until the Age of Sail that the problem of scurvy truly came into focus. Wealth and national interest were at stake in ways they hadn’t been before.

Advances in naval technology and a rush for exploration and conquest brought Europeans the “plague of the sea.” Scurvy was the main occupational disease of what historians call the European Age of Exploration. More sailors died of scurvy than all other causes combined, including battles, storms, and other diseases.

Jason A. Mayberry makes the case that a unique confluence of conditions made scurvy and seafaring a deadly combination for Europeans. In his essay “Scurvy and Vitamin C,” he draws upon the work of Stephen Bown, author of Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentleman Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail.

First, countries had difficulty maintaining sufficient crews for their naval vessels, so they relied on impressment: the taking of men into the military by compulsion, with or without notice. It had been legally sanctioned in Britain since the time of Edward I.

It was basically kidnapping. Gangs of men would go into port towns looking for “recruits.” They would club a man and drag him back to the ship. The man’s family might have no idea what happened to him, and many of the men never made it back home.

Some had experience at sea, some didn’t. Some were in poor health to begin with, being homeless, convicts, or elderly. On average a third of a ship’s crew was made up of impressed men.

Even the men who volunteered for naval service were often in poor health. Many would volunteer in order to secure a place to sleep and get regular meals. Sometimes boys who were orphans or runaways would join.

A second reason that Vitamin C deficiency was hastened during this period were the working conditions on ships. Discipline was harsh and included flogging, keelhauling, and starvation. The body needs more Vitamin C when it is under stress, and sailors had heightened stress in the form of physical exertion, exposure to the elements, fear of battle, and sleep deprivation.

The third and main factor in the development of scurvy was clearly the diet onboard ships. What mattered most for food supplies was that the food be storable for long periods without spoiling. The nutritional content of the food was of little concern for those in charge. What was most important to them was to maintain a suitable labor force at the least possible cost.

A typical weekly ration for a sailor, according to Bown:

  • 1 lb. hardtack (biscuit) daily
  • 2 lbs. salted beef twice weekly
  • 1 lb. salted pork twice weekly
  • 2 oz. salted fish 3 times weekly
  • 2 oz. butter 3 times weekly
  • 4 oz. cheese 3 times weekly
  • 8 oz. dried peas 4 times weekly
  • 1 gal. beer daily

Sometimes the rations included dried fruit or barley meal. But the lack of fresh fruits and vegetables left the diet almost completely devoid of Vitamin C.

Compounding this problem was that even the food sailors had access to wasn’t always fit to eat. Spoilage was a huge problem on ships. Ships were a dark, damp, and sometimes waterlogged environment for sailors and their food, and this led to moldy, worm-eaten bread, or other dried foods. Meat would begin spoiling almost as soon as it left port, no matter how salt-laden it was.

European navies did provide surgeons and surgeon’s mates on ships, but most of a surgeon’s time was spent caring for battle wounds instead of focusing on the treatment and prevention of disease.

All of these factors made scurvy the leading cause of death during the Age of Sail.

The onset of scurvy is a slow progression, Bown and others inform us, usually appearing after 60 to 90 days of a Vitamin C-deficient diet. This is when the body’s lingering stores of Vitamin C are depleted. The initial symptoms are fatigue and muscle aches. Upon waking, a scurvy victim’s joints will ache.

During the second stage, his gums begin to swell and will bleed with slight pressure. The teeth become loose at the roots. He also feels pain throughout his joints and muscles.

During the third stage, the gums begin to rot. They also bleed profusely. The victim’s flesh becomes gangrenous and will spontaneously hemorrhage. His skin, especially on the legs and feet, develop ulcers that turn gangrenous. As connective tissue fails, long-healed broken bones begin to refracture, and long-healed wounds begin to reopen. The legs cramp so severely that the person cannot walk.

At this point the person is in excruciating pain.

In the final stage of scurvy, the person gets a high fever. His skin develops black spots and he begins having tremors. He will drift in and out of consciousness for a while, and then he dies.

An estimated two million sailors died of scurvy between the 15th and 18th centuries. The science at the time was of very little use in treating them – even though various people throughout European history had made the connection between citrus fruits and the prevention of scurvy.

On July 8, 1497, Vasco da Gama set sail from Lisbon, Portugal, in search of a passage to India. On January 11, 1498, the fleet anchored off Mozambique. After five weeks at sea, the crew began showing the symptoms of scurvy.

Fortunately, some weeks later, they arrived at Mombasa, on the coast of Kenya, where they met local traders who traded them oranges. Within six days of eating them, the crew recovered. Da Gama left Africa and began his voyage across the Indian Ocean to Kozhikode (or Calicut to Westerners).

After staying in India for four months, da Gama left for a three-month journey at sea in which scurvy killed many of his sailors. On January 7, 1499, the ships anchored at Malindi, Kenya, where the sailors, remembering their previous cure in Mombasa, asked for oranges. Still, more sailors died of the disease “which started in the mouth.” Six months later the survivors made it back to Lisbon.

Did Vasco da Gama alert any ship owners or controlling authorities of what he had discovered about treating scurvy? No one knows.

Sir Richard Hawkins had discovered a cure for scurvy in 1593 when it appeared in his crew in southern Brazil. He reported that oranges and lemons had been a remedy for his men. To whom did he report this? What did they do with the information?

The Dutch had known about the value of citrus fruits since at least the late 16th century. According to J. Burnby and A. Bierman, who wrote “The Incidence of Scurvy at Sea and Its Treatment,” the Dutch East India Company bartered for lemons in Africa and also established vegetable gardens and orchards in their colonies to provide fresh citrus to their ships. How did the Dutch manage to keep this knowledge to themselves? Was that their intention?

Burnby and Bierman also write about an Elizabethan merchant, Sir Hugh Plat, who had an interest in botany and gave bottled lemon juice to the commander of the first fleet of the English East India Company. It was only the crew of the flagship, Red Dragon, which received a daily allowance of lemon juice. It was also the only crew that remained relatively free of scurvy. What did the English East India Company do with this information?

In the early 1600s John Woodall, a surgeon for the same East India Company, described the symptoms of scurvy and recommended that ships’ surgeons inform Governors of “all places they touch in the Indies” that the juices of oranges, lemons, limes, and tamarinds be used as medicine for scurvy.

The East India Company actually supplied “lemon water,” as it was called, for its ships until 1625, when the Company chose not to provide it because “the woman supplying it wanted 12d. a gallon above the usual price.” The return voyage of 1626 was badly afflicted with scurvy because they had bought tamarinds in the East Indies which they presumed to be as effective as lemons. All sour fruits and even acids such as vinegar were erroneously thought to be cures for scurvy.

J. F. Bachstrom, a Lutheran theologian and physician, wrote in 1734 that there was only one cause of scurvy – the absence of fresh fruits and vegetables for a long period. No drugs would help, nor would mineral acids. Were any companies or government entities aware of his findings? If so, did they take them seriously?

Europe was slowly making headway against this problem nevertheless. In 1739 James Lind, a former physician’s apprentice, volunteered for the Royal Navy and was designated a surgeon’s mate. After seven years in that position, he was promoted to surgeon on HMS Salisbury. It was on this ship that he performed his famous scurvy experiment.

Lind showed an insight ahead of his time by understanding that, to develop a cure, treatments must be compared simultaneously in similar patients. He had envisioned the concept of clinical trials, as rudimentary as his idea might have been.

After eight weeks at sea, and when scurvy was beginning to take its toll on the crew, Lind decided to test his idea that the putrefaction of the body caused by the disease could be prevented with acids. He divided 12 sick patients into six pairs, and provided each pair with a different supplement to their diet: cider, vitriolic acid (diluted sulfuric acid), vinegar, sea water, two oranges and one lemon, or a purgative mixture.

Only the pair who took the oranges and lemons improved.

You would think that Lind had established a clear connection between citrus and scurvy and that the Navy would have taken immediate action. But neither happened.

Lind continued to believe that there were multiple causes of scurvy. He also advocated a method of preserving the virtues of oranges and lemons that involved boiling the juices. Unbeknownst to Lind, boiling destroyed the active ingredient in citrus juices – Vitamin C. When the boiled juice was tried on ships as a preventative measure and found lacking, people began to dismiss the whole idea that citrus fruits were effective against scurvy!

In 1753 Lind published his Treatise on the Scurvy, considered a classic of medical science. But it took the Royal Navy over 40 years to adopt Lind’s recommendations. This happened under the direction of Sir Gilbert Blane, who had been appointed Physician to the Fleet.

Blane was familiar with Lind’s work and had the power and initiative to bring about change, Mayberry states. He organized an experiment on HMS Suffolk on a 23-week trip to India. The sailors were given a mixture of rum, water, sugar, and lemon juice. A few sailors developed a slight case of scurvy. They were given additional rations of lemon juice and the scurvy was quickly cured.

With the results from the HMS Suffolk and the power of his position, Blane was able to ensure that fresh citrus juice became a staple in the British Navy. For the British, scurvy had finally been conquered.

The question remains: why did it take so long, when so many had found the cure time and time again?

Burnby and Bierman note that there was the view among ship owners and government authorities that seamen were expendable. They also suggest that seamen themselves might have been reluctant to take part in experiments that might have settled the issue. But they mention other considerations, mainly the problem of “sheer impracticability.”

How does one store many thousands of oranges and lemons on an overcrowded man-of-war laden with guns, gunpowder, and shot? Using the juice of citrus fruits was certainly a space saver but it readily became moldy, especially under poor storage conditions, which were usually the case.

Speaking of practical considerations, how long can it be practical to treat your work force as if they are expendable? There were no sailors’ advocates at the time to make it impractical for businessmen and governments to do so. Nothing stopped or even slowed Europe’s exploration and colonization, so losing sailors to scurvy was just one of the costs of doing business.

Another Republican Lie: The War on Poverty Failed, Made Blacks Poorer, and Much Worse Behaved

Doug: Jason, the compassion comes after we see facts clearly. I’ve mentioned countless times that we need vocation schools at the high school level to train those kids that are not college-bound in some kind of useful profession.

The Left will never allow it because those schools would be about 1/2 Brown/Black and 1/2 White kids…in other words, too much for them to admit. Instead we keep denying the obvious. Teacher’s unions, a pillar of the Left, would also not allow it either. They literally don’t want any choice for kids–from charter schools to vocational schools.

Another rich example of compassion would be to admit that Johnson’s $21 trillion “War on Poverty” has not only failed but it’s INCREASED poverty amongst Black persons. At least 3

There’s TANF, Section 8 housing, Food stamps, Medicaid, AFDC, Head Start, hiring quotas, set-asides, and sharply lowered standards in police and fire departments and colleges and grad schools. “Free money” student loans that will never be repaid. We have free breakfasts for Black children and even free lunches.

Taken together, US Blacks live in a state of “custodial care” by Whites because they can’t take care of themselves.

Nothing has worked. Nothing ever will. This money is paid to the most unworthy people in the world by the most worthy people in the world. Until people take responsibility for themselves, families, and communities, nothing will ever work.

All this because our society cannot admit that Black intelligence is too low, they have a bad attitude, and have too little logic. Black criminality is far too high to support any higher level of civilization.

But what’s worse is that all this money and it’s perverse incentives (to break up marriages) has worsened Black life in America since 1964 and we can’t admit that either!

Since the start of the War on Poverty, black kids are not doing better in school, housing projects built for ghetto blacks are all slums (a complete lack of personal responsibility), drugs, gun violence, incarcerations, STD infections, and abortions remain at epidemic levels. Black high school completion rates are about the same as ever, ie., <5

Black culture is actually much worse now. Black culture is in virtual collapse with 7

“Reparations” has help cause a complete and utter Black cultural collapse.

The result of the cultural collapse is evident from appalling crime statistics, 7

You can throw all the money in the world at social programs, but laziness, addiction, bad attitudes and decisions, low intelligence, little impulse control, and high levels of violence, they will override any and all social programs. Of course the Left never wants to hear about personal responsibility when they are the most irresponsible. They want to blame our economic system and take more and more of your tax dollars and piss that money away on programs that aren’t working.

Black kids will never be hired when they often can’t speak or dress right and have no self-respect, no discipline and no education. This is the problem today, and it was the problem yesterday and 50 years ago. No amount of money or bureaucracy can fix this. Why don’t we admit that we’ve failed?

Instead, you get 10

First, the parts where I agree with you.

hiring quotas, set-asides, sharply lowered standards in police and fire departments. Sharply lowered standards for college and grad school admissions. “Free money” student loans that will never be repaid. We have free breakfasts for black children and even free lunches.

There aren’t any hiring quotas or set-asides. They’re mostly illegal. I know Affirmative Action is banned for the federal government. I also know it is banned here in California, the most liberal state in the country. Some private businesses and corporations have their own goals or whatever, but no one is forcing them, and all evidence indicates that this has not caused a lot of problems for US businesses. If it did they would stop doing it.

Standards have not been lowered for much of anything, although they are still being lowered for Blacks and Browns to get into elite universities. Standards have been lowered for the Bar Exam in California, but that applies to everyone. Most tests to get a police or fireman job are still pretty hard.

But I absolutely oppose all mandated affirmative action by the state and and all lowering of standards on testing to let more non-Whites in. I’ve had to take tests all my life. Had to take an SAT test. Had to take tests to graduate college with a BA. Had to take tests to get into grad school. Had to take more tests to get into education grad school. Then I had to take more tests to get a teaching job. Then I went back to grad school. I had take tests to even get through the program. Then I had to take a truly murderous test to get my Master’s Degree.

I don’t think people realize how significant those tests are. I had to pass them. If I didn’t pass them, I flunked. I wasn’t admitted to the program. I didn’t get the degree. There was no coddling, no, oh Bob is disadvanted and part of some dumb race of people so we have to lower standards for him. Hell no. I don’t pass and I’m gone. It’s do or die. Pass or fail. And I passed, without anybody lowering one damned standard to let me through. If I had to go through all that crap, the rest of  you have to go through the exact same thing. I never got a break or a lower barrier to jump over.

Why the Hell should you? Because you’re dumb? Bad answer. Because you’re part of a dumb race of humans? Bad answer. You’re not all dumb. I see smart Blacks, Black attorneys, physicians, Blacks doing every high level job Whites do, every time I turn on my TV. In my recent courtroom adventures, I saw four Black attorneys, two male and two female. They graduated law school. And they passed the damn bar. If they can do it, maybe you can do it. If you don’t do it, don’t cop out and blame racism. Go into some field where you can do well. It’s not that hard.

I’ve mentioned countless times that we need vocation schools at the high school level to train those kids that are not college-bound toward some kind of useful profession.

The Left will never allow it because those schools would be about 1/2 brown/ black and 1/2 white kids…in other words, too much for them to admit.

I definitely agree with you here, but I have no solution to this whatsoever.

Teacher’s unions, a pillar of the Left, would also not allow it either. They literally don’t want any choice for kids–from charter schools to vocational schools.

Charter schools don’t work. That’s now conclusively proven. The idea is that with charter schools, we get rid of the teacher’s unions, and then the kids will perform so much better. In other words, somehow teacher’s unions cause kids to fail in school!

It didn’t work because getting rid of teachers’ unions and presumably cutting their pay and benefits doesn’t make teachers work harder (Shocking!), and getting rid of teachers’ unions doesn’t make students perform better (Duh!). Teachers’ unions could care less about vocational classes. I taught school for many years. I met many vocational teachers. No one cares about them and their classes. Nobody wants to get rid of them.

Since the start of the war on poverty, black kids are not doing better in school…

A lot of falsehoods here. Black achievement has skyrocketed since the War on Poverty. Blacks have closed 1/3 of the achievement gap. Black Computer Science students saw their scores improve every year through the 2010’s. Black IQ’s skyrocketed since the War on Poverty. Their IQ’s are now 16.5 points higher than they were in 1965. Incredible!

Now we have “flash mob robberies” and “knockout assaults” that are overwhelmingly black crimes.

Anti-White flash mobs and the knockout game are not going on much anymore that I know of. That seems to have been a few years ago.

There are two groups of Blacks. One is ghetto culture, maybe 1/2 of Blacks. Obviously this culture is failed in all sorts of ways, but I can’t see any way to improve things. Surely cutting off all their money and making them vastly poorer won’t help a thing.

The other group is middle class Blacks, which may be up to 5

Black culture is actually much worse now. Black culture is in virtual collapse, with 7

Why did the single parenthood rate skyrocket? Because this is how Black people act in a free society. You want them to act better? Ok, put them in chains again like under Jim Crow. That’s literally how you do it. The single parenthood rate supposedly rocketed up due to “welfare,” but Blacks already had welfare since 1935. The Great Society didn’t increase welfare payments one nickel.

There were food stamps, Section 8, and Medicaid in the Great Society. So Black parenthood collapsed because now Black mothers could afford enough food to eat, to rent an apartment and to go to the doctor? Well, that’s just terrible! How dare they get all those things necessary for them to survive!

Black crime has collapsed. Sex crimes are 6

Section 8 housing

Section 8 rentals are not slums. They’re tearing down the housing projects. Now Section 8 is just a voucher that you take around to any renter who will take it. In this complex, a certain number of apartments are Section 8. I don’t know which they are or who rents them, but there are not many Blacks in this complex (thank God). It’s mostly Hispanics, a very few Whites, and yes, there are a few Blacks here and there and they’re at least a bit Ghetto too.

This is a beautiful complex, looks brand new, very well kept up. And there are Section 8 people here. The landlord does not tolerate any crap from anyone, and any tenants who act bad are quickly tossed.

The result of the cultural collapse is evident from appalling crime statistics, the fact that 7

AIDS cases are mostly Black? Well, those are mostly Black gay men I assume. Please tell me how the War on Poverty made Black gay men catch way more AIDS than non-Black men. By letting them survive? So if you let Black homosexuals survive, then they turn suicidal, go get fucked up the ass by a hundred guys, and get AIDS. Right? Just checking on your logic here.

STD rates are high among Blacks everywhere on Earth. A lot of Black people screw anything that moves, and they probably don’t take many precautions to keep from getting an STD. They also don’t go to the doctor like they ought to. This behavior is typical amongst the Ghetto Blacks. I’m not sure middle class Blacks are sexually any different from the rest of we White sluts and manwhores.

STD rates are extremely high in the Caribbean. They’re off the charts in Africa, where no Black gets a dime of social spending.

Fine. Take all the money away from social programs for Blacks and yell at them to take responsibility for themselves. Like millions of Bill Cosby’s like me haven’t been yelling at Black people every day for years to get their shit together? Is it working? I don’t think so. So your project to pull all that evil survival money away from Blacks so they have no money, no food, no place to live, and no way to go to the doctor.

And this will make them act better.

Yeah right.

And then you will holler at them, “We took all your free money away, now you’re on your own, and you have to get your shit together!” And Black people are suddenly going to act way better and get their shit together.

This is the Republican fantasy about Blacks, and it’s about as insane as the Left’s fantasies about Blacks seen via Critical Race Theory.

The Great Society was never intended to turn Black people into White people. All it was intended to do was to allow people of all races to survive at a basic subsistence level. Do you know what it is like to live on one of those programs? Or even be to poor enough to qualify for them. You never have any money. Life blows, every day, forever. You are living in a world of shit in a sense. Why the most pathetic people on Earth are the subject of all this vitriol is something I will never understand.

Head Start

Head Start is preschool. That’s all it is. It’s preschool for poor people. I know a guy who drove a bus in Eastern Pennsylvania. Part of his route was taking the kids to and from Head Start. 10

Also, if Head Start doesn’t work (false), then preschool doesn’t work. Then why on Earth are all these White parents so insistent on preschool for their kids? Are they are all stupid? What about all the studies showing how preschool benefits kids? They’re bad science? If preschool doesn’t work, a lot of Whites are wasting their money.

And it’s not true that Head Start doesn’t work. The intention was never to turn Black people into Norwegians and Japanese. That’s not going to happen (though my co-blogger is about as deferential and polite as a Japanese woman). You can’t turn Blacks into Whites, not with our present tools. The only thing we can do is try to turn Black people into the best versions of themselves that we can.

Let’s try another one. Head Start works great for White people, but it doesn’t work for niggers for “whatever X reasons.” Why doesn’t it work for them? And they are different species? Are they all born with an anti-preschool gene? Come on. What works for Whites works for Blacks too because Blacks are humans. What works for one group of humans works for another group of humans.

Head start works. Not only that but it’s cost effective. Blacks who go through Head Start are less likely to drop out of high school, be incarcerated, go on welfare, or have an IQ below 70 (so it even lifts IQ’s at the low end). It seems like what Head Start does is lift up the group of Blacks that fall on the tail end intellectually and behaviorally. It lifts up the bottom. And as I said, it even pays for itself.

TANF

Welfare (TANF) pays $300/month. You trying to tell me that women actually don’t keep men around because it’s so easy to live on $300/month? You’re crazy. Tell you what. You Republicans say it’s easy to live on $300/month. Cool. So you do it. Live on $300/month for a while and then get back to us and let us know how it went, ok?

A lot of White people use all these programs. The lie is that this is White people’s tax money going to a bunch of no-good niggers and beaners. However, lots of Whites are on all of these programs. 3

The biggest lie of all is that the War on Poverty failed. I’m sure people on food stamps are eating a lot better than they were. I am sure that people on Medicaid are getting more and better medical care than they were. I am sure that people on Section 8 are happy to be able to rent a place rather than being homeless. I am sure that women’s little kids on WIC are eating a lot better than they would.

None of these programs were intended to solve any basic problem with Black people or with any race of people. We weren’t throwing money at any problem. The programs were intended to give some very poor people a basic, very low, no-fun level of existence so they could survive.

There were some problems that got solved.

Food stamps was because a lot of people didn’t have enough money for food. Now they do. Problem solved.

Section 8 was for people too poor to even rent an apartment. Now they have a roof over their heads. Problem solved.

Welfare (which was started in 1935, not by the Great Society but anyway) was based on the idea that all children must be supported. By taking welfare away you are saying that kids have no right to be supported and they should just die if their mother is poor. It’s not about the mother at all. It’s all about the kids. Problem solved, basically.

Welfare didn’t cause single parenthood. We’ve had welfare since 1935 and there were no problems. It’s not some new thing that the Great Society started.

Medicaid was for people who could not afford to go to the doctor at all. Now they can. Problem solved.

WIC was initiated because a lot of women were so poor that their kids were not eating right. So it enabled them to buy food to feed their little kids. Problem solved.

All you people who object to WIC, I’ve got a question for you. You got a problem with little kids getting enough food to eat?

Not one nickel has been thrown at the education system to try to lift up Blacks and turn them into White people. All schools get the same amount of federal dollars. They are funded by local property taxes. If any money was spent it was simply to support schools in Black and Brown areas at a level similar to that of White areas , in other words, to provide Blacks and Browns with a basic low level education. What’s wrong with that?

“Welfare” hasn’t caused any of those problems you described. Let’s look at welfare, now TANF. We got rid of it. Yay! That was cool, man! Why didn’t I think of that! The idea was just like above, take the free money away from those damned niggers and yell at them that now they’re on their own and they have to get their shit together or else. That’ll show em! That’ll make em get their shit together!

Guess what? It didn’t work. At all.

It didn’t improve any social pathology factors, not even one. There were no societal benefits at all. The only thing that happened was that those women (and their kids!) got even more poor. A lot of them went homeless along with their kids. It was a huge failure.

Tell you what. Let’s try an experiment! Let’s look at places like the Caribbean and Africa where there are none of these evil social programs at all. There’s nothing, no social programs, zero. No money, you don’t eat, and then you die.

Ok, Blacks should be free of pathology right? Nope! They act way worse! The fewer social programs they get, the worse they act.

Let’s look at Blacks in Brazil. Few social programs. They act far worse than they do here.

Let’s look at Blacks in Europe. Especially those from Africa act at least as bad as our Blacks and probably even worse.

Fact: Black people have these pathologies you describe everywhere they exist on this planet.

Now why that is is up for grabs. Maybe it’s genes, maybe it’s environment, maybe it’s something in the air. I don’t know. That’s for the social scientists, if there are any honest ones left, to untangle. Not my job.

I figure these social programs are sort of “buy off” programs to buy off Black people who would ordinarily act pretty bad. The more we support them at basic levels, the less poor they are, and they happier they are. If you take away these programs, they would probably act far, far worse and they might even riot so much that they wreck the country. We are buying them off, giving them money with the caveat that they need to act better now, and it seems to work.

Alt Left: The China Is at Fault for the Coronavirus Lie

I will here prove that the “China created the coronavirus by ignoring it and delaying a response when it first came out is a lie. Hence, not the coronavirus, instead the China Virus.

This entire post was taken from a Chinese or pro-Chinese poster on the Net.

On December 30, Li Wenliang sent some messages to a private Wechat group with a few of his friends, claiming that he saw patient scans and that “There has been 7 confirmed cases of SARS”

Li Wenliang was an ophthalmologist (a doctor specialized in eye disorders), who claimed that the virus outbreak was confirmed to be SARS. This was objectively false information spread by a doctor in an unrelated field, obviously he would get censured for spreading rumors. Also, contrary to popular belief, he was not arrested at all, only told by the police to stop spreading rumors and sign a notice. He was reportedly at the police station for only an hour, hardly as serious as Western media have made it sound.

Another important point that counters the “coverup” theory. He was called down to the police on 3 January, four days after China had already informed the WHO.

This post goes into further detail debunking the New York Times claim that Li Wenliang was a whistleblower and shows how they twisted the story to suit their narrative:

2019-12-01 – a viral pneumonia patient with an unknown cause was hospitalized at Jinyintan Hospital. This patient was the earliest known case of 2019-nCoV infections. The patient did not have any exposure to Huanan Seafood Market.

2019-12-27 – Dr. Zhang Jixian, ICU doctor at Hubei Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, files report to Wuhan Municipal Health Commission on pneumonia patients with an unknown cause. Investigation opens shortly later.

2019-12-28 – Three more patients arrived to the hospital, all of whom were related to Huanan Seafood Market.

2019-12-30 – Li Wenliang, an eye doctor, sent messages to private Wechat group about 7 cases of unknown virus, (wrongly) claiming it was SARS. He was not a whistleblower but instead one who had very early information on the little known virus.

2019-12-30 – Notice issued and public health announcement made by Wuhan Municipal Health Committee of an unknown viral illness.

2019-12-31 – China receives genome results from commercial lab.

2019-12-31 – WHO is informed of mysterious pneumonia cases in Wuhan China with unknown cause. Wuhan City authorities put out public notice and is reported by CCTV and CGTN.

2020-01-01 – Seafood market shut down as potential cause of outbreak. Chinese researchers at the CCDC publish an article on suspected outbreak.

2020-01-03 – China reports a total of 44 suspected patients with the mystery disease.

2020-01-03 – Li Wenliang called into police department and warned to stop spreading rumor and is made to sign a letter to that effect. Note that WHO was already informed about the virus four days earlier.

2020-01-03 – National Health Commission classified the virus as a highly pathogenic virus, orders all labs to either destroy samples or transfer them to higher level labs (cited as evidence of coverup such as by NY Post).

2020-01-09 – For the first time, Chinese labs confirm the existence of the new virus. Genetic sequencing work starts.

2020-01-09 – China reports first death linked to Covid-19. A 61-year-old male in Wuhan with several underlying medical conditions.

2020-01-11- China shares the genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus to international database.

2020-01-14 – WHO reports there is “limited human-to-human transmission between close contacts. WHO assesses that there was no clear evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission.

2020-01-20 – Zhong Nanshan confirms human-to-human transmission after medical staff were infected.

2020-01-21 – WHO confirms human-to-human transmission of the virus.

2020-01-23 – China declares complete quarantine of Wuhan.

An article quoting the New England Medical Journal is frequently used as evidence that China covered up information about its transmissibility. The journal states that “there is evidence that human-to-human transmission has occurred among close contacts since the middle of December 2019.”

This Vox article quoting Lancet presents two cases of human-to-human transmission before January 20. One is the wife of the first person who died. The other is a family in Shenzhen.

Yes, both China and WHO knew about these cases and did not declare the virus was human-to-human transmissible at the time.

That is because “limited human-to-human transmission between close contacts” is not the same as declaring it “human-to-human transmissible”. For it to be officially declared “human-to-human transmissible” there had to be evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission.

Alt Left: Almost No One is “Questioning” Their Sexual Orientation

The Gay Politics branch of Identity Politics has a dirty little secret. Homosexuals are trying to increase their numbers. It makes sense. Hell, if were gay, I’d probably want to convert as many straight men as possible to bisexuality and this is exactly what the majority of gay men want to do. In my experience, this is why friendships between gay and straight men are not possible, even if you think it might be a good idea. They simply never stop trying to hit on you.

One of their lies is the “questioning” lie. There are gay, bisexual, pansexual, queer, and a score other micro-categories of deviates. And in this group they also put the “questioning.” These are people who are questioning whether they are gay or  bi or not.

I think Gay Politics wants to encourage as many straight men as possible to “question” their sexual orientation. No straight man will conclude he is gay, but quite a few might conclude that they are some type of bisexual or that they like the idea of sex with men. I’ve already met some men like this, and it seems to be getting more common all the time. Mostly they seem to be interested in oral sex. In other words, I am seeing more straight men who like to suck cocks. Whatever.

Men who are into anal sex tend to be pretty damn bi or simply gay. That’s a bridge too far for most predominantly straight men. It’s the ultimate in emasculation.

I don’t think anyone goes round and round about their sexual orientation. Any gay man will tell you that all gay men know they are gay. The ones that don’t know are simply in denial. Period.

I work in mental health. I give a scale to my clients, and they instantly pick a number. It’s a great scale, better than the Kinsey scale.

I met three males who were not sure if they were gay.

One was a 15 year old boy, a client. He had strong attraction to men and zero to women, though he was attracted to one girl who looked like a boy. But that doesn’t count. I told him he was absolutely gay, to quit worrying and feel good about it, it was biological and unchangeable, and to go out and live the greatest gay life he can.

One was a 33 year old man. He was simply in denial about being gay, and he was trying to be with women. I listened to him tell me about what turned him on, and I flat out told him he was gay, and he needed to accept it, be happy, and go out and live the greatest gay life ever. He was a 25-75 on my scale, but nevertheless he had no real attraction to women at all.

The 25-75 score is not very instructive. This man told me:

  • He never looked at woman. Not even one time.
  • He never fantasized about having sex with women. Not even once.
  • He never masturbated to fantasies of having sex with women. Never had either.

He had been closeted his whole life, so he had been hanging around with straight men all this time and pretending to be straight. But he told me hat when the other men talked about sex, he never joined in. Not even once. By the way, that’s a dead giveaway that a man is probably gay.

Another was a 35 year old man claiming to be bisexual. I figured him out real quick and told him he was hiding behind a bisexual label and in fact he was gay. For instance, his gay identity was progressing (this is how it works; it tends to grow greater with time), and now the only way he could have sex with his girlfriend was by looking at gay porn to get hard. Any man who has to do that is gay. Period.

He wanted to be a husband and father, and his family would disown him if they found out he was gay. That made me feel very sad.

He was with girlfriends but they were very angry about his “bisexuality”. I mean furious, crazy homophobic. This goes along with my experience.

Most straight women do not wish to date bisexual men, let alone gay men. I saw one forum with all young women, and 19 out of 20 said they would never date a bisexual man. And you can see on the Internet many bisexual men complaining that women refuse to go out with them on account of their orientation.

This may be changing somewhat in this newer generation of women, Millennials and Gen Z’ers. I have a 31 year old female friend who has a crush on a famous bisexual man at the moment. She’s dated other bisexual men, and she doesn’t mind at all.

I think women dating bisexual men is a health hazard, sorry. They’re much more likely than straight men to have all sorts of STD’s, and many bisexual men have transmitted HIV to the women in their lives. This is particularly the case in the Black community where most gay and bisexual men are closeted and the “down low” phenomenon is huge.

I flat out told him he was gay, not bi, his relationships with women will never work, and he needs to quit dating women (it’s bad for both him and the women). He needed to accept being gay and and be happy.

I also told him:

 “You know what? You being gay is the greatest thing in the whole world!”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because it’s you being you. You’re not trying to be something that you’re not. And you being you is the greatest thing in the whole world.”

You can see here what a horrific homophobe I am, huh? I swear my critics are morons.

I sent him to a site perfect for people like him called Empty Closets, and he seemed to start coming out a bit. I saw his first couple of posts there, and I felt very happy for him.

As I said, all these men who “can’t figure out if they are gay” are just in denial. Real simple. I don’t blame them, but closets are for clothes.

Discussions about the Risks of a Shutdown

First of all, this is all moot anyway because we’re already opened up as it is, so I don’t understand why it’s even a discussion. Also, I have not yet seen a good discussion from the Left about to what extent we can shut down the economy and how we could get away with it, if at all. So I don’t know what I’m talking about here. I don’t know how long or to what extent we can lockdown the economy and the risks that might flow from that. So the things I’m suggesting might not even be feasible.

Here is another problem. You can open the economy back up all you want, but a lot of people are just going to boycott it. A lot of people are almost too scared to even go outside and are limiting their trips out of the house, shopping expeditions, socializing, etc. So if you open up but everyone stays home out of fear, you’re still stuck in a lockdown.

Gathering venue employees are clubs, bars

These are open but it’s not working. They’re spreading a lot of disease. They don’t need to be open if they are physical Typhoid Marys.

Regardless, they are securitized (turned into an investment for others) and resold. Small business loans are often securitized as well.

That should not even be allowed. Those are toxic investments that caused the last crash. They can fuck off to Hell and back.

No not really. The big banks already made their money on the loans.

Nope, the mortgages are all owed to banks, I believe. Or yeah, they securitized them and then sold them off to suckers? Ok, that’s what caused the last crash. It ought to be illegal but if that blows up again, it’s fine to me. Also I would imagine that almost 10

It’s small banks,

No such thing.

credit unions,

They don’t loan out a lot of money. I’m not sure that they do a lot of mortgage and large business loaning. They’re owned by their customers. They’re mostly just there to serve us, as we own the place anyway. I’m a member.

depositors

Ever heard of a thing called the FDIC?

investors that can get fucked

You mean the top 1

Lehman and Bear Sterns were allowed to die. That’s not happening again.

We can just take some banks over and make them public. It’s a better idea anyway. Most of China’s banking is public. Works great last time I checked. Also, they did better weathering that 2008 crash than any other country for the very reason that their banks were public.

In Japan, the commanding heights of the economy are owned by the state as they were in Nazi Germany.

In South Korea, the corporations and the state are all wrapped together in things called cheobols.

Get rid of the stock market. Germany barely has a stock market. They have a sort of a market, but almost all of the stocks and investments are owned by 2-3 large banks. That’s probably the way to do it. The stock market is toxic and evil. Shut it down.

Coronavirus Kills 30,000/Month; Unemployment from Lockdown Kills 1,200 Month

Claudius: Also, stimulus can’t go on forever. It’s borrowed money.

It can go on for some time. We print our own money you know. And if we are borrowing it from ourselves as Japan does, it’s not important.

And what about business who can’t service their debt.

I don’t know. Maybe we can freeze the payments for a while. It’s all owned to bankscum anyway, right. Fuck em.

Claudius: I care about household mortgage payments and businesses making loan payments.

Mortgages can be frozen and loan payments can be frozen too. They both just go to banks anyway. The banksters can go fuck themselves.

Claudius: Credit is what fuels the economy to a large degree.

Last time I checked, they’re still loaning out money. It’s not 2008.

Claudius: Yes, we can hold out the whole summer if need be. But what good does that do? The virus won’t go away. We’re going to reopen sooner or later.

Easy. We get it down to where it’s not killing so many people.

Claudius: We might as well do it now and not destroy three more months of the economy.

The economy’s opened up anyway. What’s not open?

Claudius: I doubt we can save any more lives at this point.

We are saving lives.

Corona kills 30,000/month. Unemployment from lockdown kills 1,200/month.

Claudius: All we can do is kill, hurt and maim people through economic disaster.

But it doesn’t kill, hurt, or maim many people. The virus kills 30X more. You do what kills less.

Claudius: It seems mostly restaurants

I believe they are open now in California in some way or other. They’ve been open for takeout for some time and business has been pretty good.

Claudius: gathering venue employees

What’s that?

Alt Left: Which Kills More, COVID or the Lockdown?

Claudius: A different but related issue: What is worse, to destroy the economy and people’s lives, or accept that many elderly people may die sooner rather than later? This isn’t a rhetorical question. It’s a question we must answer now. Because if we wait a little longer, the economic disaster will hurt more people than Covid-19.

Locking people won’t make the virus go away. We need herd immunity for that to happen or a vaccine. Can we develop a safe vaccine before we destroy the economy? The economy is what feeds people not authoritarian policy.

It’s not true that the economic problems are killing more than the virus. And as soon as the economic problems are killing more than the virus, I say absolutely open up and stay open as long as it stays that way. If the economy is killing more than the virus, open it up. If they virus is killing more than the economy, shut it down a little or a lot.

Unemployment from the lockdown will kill 14,000/yr last time I checked. COVID death toll is 119,000, but it’s actually 145,000 if you look at the 3

14,000/yr. 145,000/4 months.

Looks like COVID is killing a lot more than locking down. This opening up is bullshit. All they’re going to do is kill lots more people that wouldn’t have died otherwise.

And my Mom’s 87 years old, and I don’t like the idea of her dying sooner rather than later of this bullshit illness.

There is no herd immunity anywhere in the US. Doing the “herd immunity” option will end up killing millions of people unnecessarily. Only New York City has anything close and they are only at 2

The economy won’t get destroyed. The state can keep giving people checks. Those checks and the $600/week unemployment checks are the only thing that has saved our economy so far. We would be so SOL if not that for that. The stimulus was also very helpful to the economy.

As far as feeding the people, nobody’s starving due to this bad economy last time I checked.

Alt Left: Rightwingers Are Wrong: COVID Deaths Are Not Being Artificially Inflated

Claudius: I don’t know what the true fatal rate is. It doesn’t seem to be 7x greater than the flu at all because the numbers from democrat cities are probably bogus. The majority of Covid-19 fatalities have come from Democrat states. So either Democrats are incompetent when it cums to public health or they are liars. Probably the latter.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/

The figures from Democratic states are just fine.

Let’s say they were amping up the COVID deaths. Let’s say Democratic states had 50,000 COVID deaths, but it’s really 45,000 due to messing with the statistics. Even taking that into account, the death rate is 3

Actually a lot of doctors wanted to list COVID as cause of death but were not allowed to by supervisors.

EMTs went out to many obvious COVID deaths every day, but they were not allowed to list even one of them because they weren’t able to test for the virus.

In Republican states, many COVID cases are not being counted.

Meatpacking plant figures are not being counted in some Republican states.

Florida, a Republican state, is accused of their own COVID statisticians of low-balling the deaths.

In a number of states, deaths in nursing homes or at home were not listed. Only deaths in hospitals were listed. Many COVID patients were sent home prematurely and ended up dying at home. Those deaths were not listed as COVID deaths.

Alt Left: Clearing Up Some COVID Misconceptions

CLAVDIVS AMERICANVS: Some flu seasons have been as deadly as Covid-19 in recent times.

No they haven’t! The deadliest one was in 1959 with 116,000 and we just beat that one. 1959 was a catastrophic year. Last year the flu killed 14,000 people over a whole year. We are eight times that in only three months. So the death toll is 24X worse than last year’s flu season. Before the 1959 pandemic, I have no idea, but the 1918 pandemic killed 500,000 Americans.

CLAVDIVS AMERICANVS: It’s not the plague the media sold us. It is dangerous; about 2-3x deadlier than the average flu season.

No, latest chart I saw on IFR or Infection Fatality Rate was .7. That’s funny seven times more deadly than the flu. When was the last time you heard of anyone dying from the flu? How many deaths have you heard of from COVID? I’ve heard of lots.

CLAVDIVS AMERICANVS: If it weren’t for the novelty and the fact that it came from China, nobody would have batted an eyelash.

I don’t agree with that at all. Do you care if you get it? Why don’t you go out and get infected and then come back and tell us how harmless it is?

I don’t trust NYC’s numbers. Many hospitals are under a perverse incentive to claim a death as Covid-19 related if the patient tested positive even though they may have died of something else, Covid-19 infection being totally incidental.

I don’t think that false positives are a problem. If anything, New York’s toll is quite a bit higher than it’s figures, 3

By the way, readers are allowed to take a COVID skeptic stance on here. I won’t ban on that. It’s not that important.

Alt Left: Libertarianism and the Alt Left: Prospects for an Alliance?

CLAVDIVS AMERICANVS: Peronismo definitely won’t fly in Libertarian circles. Argentina is used as a case study for a failed nationalized protectionist economy.

That’s probably not even true. They did great during the Peron years.

I think that the Trump years in general and this COVID-19 response in particular, both of which have been characterized by neoliberal or Libertarian policy and a Libertarian response to a crisis, respectively, has proven the abject failure of the neoliberal or Libertarian model. As if it had not been proven failed by the 2008 crash, which was caused wholly by this model.

CLAVDIVS AMERICANVS: To unify all the nomadic tribes of the Alternative Steppe, three things are need. First, a rejection of central economic planning would have to be declared by right and left wingers. Second, constitutional or legislative limitations on the power of government to regulate. Essentially, castrate the FDA, FCC, FAA etc.* and legalize drugs

I absolutely will not go for either of those. Central planning is working great in China. Even South Korea, Japan, and Germany engage in central planning.

And we will never go along with gutting regulations. Alt Leftists are regulators. We are really Big Government types in a lot of ways.

CLAVDIVS AMERICANVS: And third, a solution to the immigration problem.

There is no solution to this problem.

CLAVDIVS AMERICANVS: The social-economic model, even if never explicitly stated as such, would be capitalism for corporations, socialism for individuals, and tyranny at the border, which is the inverse of what we have now. Warren Buffett agrees.

It’s the capitalism for corporations part that we are going to object to. That’s the whole problem right there.

CLAVDIVS AMERICANVS: The Democrats will stay hopelessly in shambles for the next few elections until minority GDP and population both over take that of whites.

I wouldn’t count on that if I were you.

CLAVDIVS AMERICANVS: Deregulation is hard for leftists to accept because of the strong tendency to falsely conflate wealth redistribution with government regulation.

It is in fact that only thing that redistributes income at all. Absent that you just have never-ending growth of inequality until you pretty much have feudalism. Neoliberalism (or Libertarian economics) has failed everywhere it’s been tried. It’s only success stories are when it’s mixed with socialism. Most of the world rejects neoliberal economics. The US is a holdout. There aren’t many others.

CLAVDIVS AMERICANVS: I suggest aptitude AND loyalty testing for immigrants to keep the stupids or anti-westerns out.

That’s fine.

CLAVDIVS AMERICANVS: No explicit racism, but it would effectively bring in only Christian Caucasians from Europe, Africa and the Middle-East, liberal East Asians and light-skinned Hispanics.

We would object to this part. Of course we want mostly high-quality immigrants, but they don’t have to be any particular race. High-quality immigrants of any race should be just fine.

CLAVDIVS AMERICANVS: Currently, strong regulation of consumer goods & services exists because, ex post fact, individuals can’t afford to sue companies for the damages their products may have caused. As IQ’s, automation, access to on-line information, and personal income increase worldwide, people could rely less on byzantine jurisprudence.

I don’t understand any of this.

CLAVDIVS AMERICANVS: But as I see the tsunami of technology and globalization approaching to totally demolish the justification for our current system, I can’t help but take preparations for the utopia. We must agree on which anarchist utopia to usher in, lest our system turn into a Blade Runner dystopia.

The future will not be any type of anarchism. In fact the future will see a greater role for the state.

Alt Left: Myths about the Coronavirus – Eating Bats

Um, eating bats didn’t cause the COVID virus. Eating anything probably doesn’t cause any virus. The virus started in bats and then jumped to pangolins, but those are Malaysian pangolins from Malaysia imported for food and medicine.

But if you have all of those things together alive in crowded, stressed, Hellish conditions in that market, perhaps the virus could have jumped from bats to the pangolins there.And perhaps from there onto the humans in the very same market in the same conditions. We’re not sure.

We’re not even sure that the virus started in the market. The first cases in November had no connection to the market. The first market case was on December 1 and there were a number of cases before that. But it definitely went wild when it hit that market all right.

Nevertheless, I firmly believe that those markets need to be shut down.

These markets may not even be necessary to spread these diseases. The real problem is the loss of wild areas and humans moving into areas where wildlife live to where people and wildlife have much more contact now than they used to.

Alt Left: What Will Be the Future Post-Coronavirus?

Rishi Ji: This blog has been my companion and a source of intellectual nourishment since 2012. I go around posting links on India and Hinduism all over YouTube, and I bet Robert gets a lot of hits through that alone (rabid Indians coming over). I demand, in these tough times that Robert pay me a small amount of money (Just kidding hehe).

On a serious note what do you guys think the future is gonna be like? Can Robert create a topic on this subject? This virus has had a traumatic effect on us as a species the likes of which I doubt have ever been seen. Bigger than 9/11 or even WW2 in my opinion.

What will be the future once (hoping) things resume? Will there be a renewed kindling of all people or we will revert back to the same baloney we were used to? Will China be held accountable in any way?

Surely globalization as a concept will take a hit. I would love a topic- a philosophical one on this subject here. Last month this time I was chilling with my joint pondering which game to play on my PS4, and now it looks like the apocalypse. Robert- you fear death? You are above 60, does the thought enter your mind?

Great comment from Rishi Ja here.

I will let the rest of you all use the comments section to comment about the important questions that Rishi is bringing up.

Thing about aging is you start to think about death a lot. I think about it all the time, pretty much every day and even quite a few times throughout the day. It’s not a terrifying thought like it used to be, so I suppose I have come to some peace about it. It’s not really depressing either. It’s hard to say what I think about it. I just do is all. It’s hard to explain.

It really is good to frame your mortality in your mind as you go about your life. Ideally, it should enable you to try to get as much out of life as possible.

Of course I am very worried about this virus. But I’m a bastard and a rebel, and I pretty much rebel against everything, in part because I’m sort of an asshole, and nobody tells me to do anything. As a matter of fact, I have a date tomorrow and a hot young 22 year old cutie says she’s driving up here to visit me. She’s 40 years younger than me! She explicitly stated that she wants to fuck when she gets here.

We are all supposed to be quarantining, but I will make an exception for dating. I don’t think dating is a big deal. Dating is one on one and that’s not a huge risk. The real risk is crowds. Not only that but close contact with infected people. Close contact has been defined as 10+ minutes within 6 feet or closer to an infected person.

8

I don’t have any symptoms. Well I do, but they are due to allergies (cough) and asthma (shortness of breath). I know these symptoms very well, and I am certain that the COVID-19 symptoms are quite different.

I am keeping my fingers crossed. People are social distancing in lines at the grocery store. Workers all wear gloves. At the local clinic, workers wore masks and sometimes gloves too. They were shuttling all patients out of the waiting room to individual rooms or out to their cars to wait to be called. Grocery stores are only letting in 50 people at a time. A gas station has a plastic window up between customers and the cashier. Gas stations are deserted.

I was out on Sunday morning, and the town was dead. Most of the people on the streets were homeless, and they were quite prominent. Never realized we had so many in this city. The freeway is almost deserted.

So far this county of 100,000 people has 6 cases, five (or up to 7-8) of them connected to one man, a police officer who works in a nearby county, who probably got it on the job and gave it to his father who lives with him. They then gave it to three more people. In addition, 2-3 more of their contacts have symptoms. All cases are in this city of 60,000 where I live.

The first case in the county, an elderly man in the foothills, has recovered. Five of the six active cases are hospitalized, no doubt in the local hospital where I have elective surgery coming up with pre-op on Thursday. I am wondering whether to cancel it.

One thing I have noticed is how very friendly everyone is when you go out. Cashiers and other workers, fellow shoppers, even just people walking about. Everyone is so nice and kind, even people who are not normally like that. Not sure if I get it except that maybe disasters tend to bring people together, as we finally realize that we are all in this shit together and how much we all depend on solidarity with each other to stay alive and function.

It’s a great time for socialist consciousness, and it’s really exposing how utterly bankrupt neoliberal capitalism really is and how it is literally an out and out death cult.

My phone company is forgoing all bills and late fees for two months, but I think I will pay anyway, as we will probably owe more at the end. Utility company is doing the same, and all cut-offs will be stopped for two months time. Credit card companies don’t seem to be giving breaks. Might be nice if the landlord would blow off the rent, but that’s probably asking too much. I hope to pay my Internet and utility bills anyway this month.

Really this quarantine bullshit is not so different from my day to day life sadly, so this is really nothing new for me.

Coronavirus Has an Affinity for Cold Weather

SHI: Many Asian cities are very urbanized, and there is also a lot of air travel. We will have to watch out before concluding more about patterns. Who would have thought a month ago that Wuhan, the origin of this virus, would now be returning to normalcy. Even as we speak, the number of cases in India, Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, etc. is rising very fast. I still don’t think it will get as bad as Italy in these parts.

It’s rising a lot faster in colder parts of the world than in hotter. Even in China, Southern China is not much affected. Nor is Taiwan, SE Asia, Philippines, Indonesia, or even India for that matter.

In Italy, it mostly hit the mountainous north. The south has hardly been affected.

In Austria, most cases were in the Alps in the west.

In France and Germany, most cases were in the Alps SW Germany and SE France.

Switzerland was hit bad.

Netherlands and Belgium were hit hard.

In Iran, it is hitting mostly in the mountainous north of the country.

In the US, it has hit Washington State and the Northeast very hard. In California, it has hit the Bay Area and Sacramento for the most part.

The Southern Hemisphere is being spared.

Africa and the Middle East are little effected outside of Iran, which is a cold country.

Central and South America and the Caribbean are scarcely effected.

There are 25 countries in the Southern Hemisphere. If it hit the South as easily as the North, there would be 12 countries in the South in the above average sphere and 12 in the below average sphere.

Instead, 3 nations in the South are in the above average sphere and 22 are in the below average sphere.

An easy explanation is that the South is experiencing summer right now, or late summer anyway whereas we are in winter or late winter anyway.

SHI: By the way, anti-malarial drugs such as chloroquinine have been found to be effective cures for Coronavirus although not laboratory-tested fully. What do you make of that?

By the time you are going to the hospital, you pretty much can’t breathe. At that point, drugs will do fuck all. You’re going on that ventilator, unless you are in Italy where they will decide if your life is worth saving or not. If you are being placed on that ventilator prone as you see in some of those videos out of Italy, you are in pretty bad shape, I guarantee.

There are lots of drugs that are being found effective for this illness. What all of that boils down to right now, I don’t know because here in the US, they tell you it’s viral pneumonia, and there are no drugs to treat it because it’s a virus. Also US rates are very low because many, many people are being refused tests due to a test shortage.

Locations of Madera And Fresno County Coronavirus Carriers Revealed for the First Time

There is presently two persons infected with coronavirus in Madera and Fresno Counties, one in each. Both are elderly men who caught it on the Princess Cruise Line. People are wondering who and where these people are because authorities are not releasing information about the person’s location. Both carriers are elderly men who are self-quarantining.

I pinned the Madera County man’s location down to Oakhust, a Madera County community in the Sierra foothills. I tracked the single Fresno County infection to the Sierras too, possibly near Shaver Lake. I used the coronavirus case map of the US to pinpoint these locations. The Oakhust and Fresno County dots denoting a disease patient were located right at those two locations.

The virus is presently not spreading via community transmission in Fresno or Madera Counties that we know of. Certainly it is not spreading anywhere in the Valley in those two counties, nor is there a single case in the Valley yet. Or at least it’s not known to be spreading there. Perhaps it is and we don’t know. Also, perhaps it will spread in Fresno and Madera Counties in the future.

I did some research on this virus, and it is one ugly virus all right. It is extremely contagious and quite virulent in terms of disease. 1

People below 60 have a less than average death rate, and the 18-20 death rate is about the same as the overall normal flu death rate. More people have underlying conditions than you think. I am 62 years old and I have asthma. I have a 1

Alt Left: Eight Negative Arguments Smearing China’s Virus Fight That Must Be Refuted

Eight Negative Arguments Smearing China’s Virus Fight That Must Be Refuted

The COVID-19 outbreak in China has begun to decline outside Hubei Province; meanwhile in some countries it is on the rise. This shows that the epidemic is a challenge faced by all humanity and needs to be addressed by all countries. China’s experience in combating the outbreak shows that timely, accurate, and authoritative information disclosure is crucial.

However, “negative energy” arguments in the public opinion sphere which undermine the solidarity and cooperation between human beings and even create panic out of nothing will harm the efforts to fight the epidemic and can be called a “tumor” in the public conversation about the epidemic.

Here we summarize eight typical “negative energy” arguments in international public opinion and reveal their absurdities, hoping to provide a mirror to show the other side of these arguments about the epidemic.

1. The Economic Fall of China Argument Ignores the Complete Picture

During the coronavirus epidemic, the streets in Chinese cities were empty for a time, and as a result, there is no doubt the economy will be affected to some extent. However, to claim that the fundamentals of the Chinese economy have changed and that growth will plummet from mid-high speed to zero or negative is an overstatement.

For example, the New York Times published an article on February 11 titled “Like Europe in Medieval Times”: Virus Slows China’s Economy suggesting that the epidemic has put the Chinese  economy into low gear.

This coronavirus epidemic has been widespread, and many industries such as catering, tourism, and film and television have been severely impacted. However, it should be noted that the impact of the epidemic on China’s economy is mainly reflected in the restriction of the demand side resulting in a short-term structural imbalance between supply and demand.

In the long run, the means of production are still there, and production equipment and technology have not been affected by the outbreak. So the outbreak will not dent the internal dynamics of the Chinese economy. International Monetary Fund (IMF) spokesman Gerry Rice stated at a press conference on February 13 that “over the medium to long term, we remain confident that China’s economy is resilient.”

The IMF expects a V-shaped recovery for the Chinese economy in which a sharp decline in economic activities would be followed by a rapid recovery. With improvements in containing the epidemic, the supply side will gradually return to normal, while at the same time the potential demand suppressed during the epidemic will be released, and there will be a large rebound in future economic growth.

Structural transformation has given China a strong and resilient economy. First, consumption has become the primary driver of growth. In 2019, consumer spending contributed 57.8 percent to economic growth. Second, the proportion contributed by the service industry keeps rising, and the proportion of value added by tertiary industry to GDP in 2019 is 53.9 percent.

The third is a shift from an excess of savings to an absorption of savings which has led to a continuous increase in disposable household consumption. Fourth, via a huge wave of innovation, the current digitization and intelligent transformation of various industries has led to the rapid development of online business.

Although the epidemic outbreak has increased short-term downward pressure on the economy, the long-term positive trend of the Chinese economy has not changed.

2. The China-US Decoupling Prediction Is Farfetched

During the coronavirus epidemic, the resumption of work in many factories in China has been delayed, which has affected the global supply chain. But it may be delusional to talk about international companies fleeing China and to think that the US and Chinese economies will decouple as a result of the outbreak.

For example, US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross told Fox Business Channel on January 31 that the novel coronavirus epidemic helps “accelerate the return of jobs to North America, some to US and probably some to Mexico as well,” adding that factors such as this will prompt US companies to reevaluate risks such as the supply chain of China-related businesses.

It should be noted that in the face of the epidemic, the Chinese government has demonstrated its firm belief in winning the battle. It is believed that the outbreak will not last long nor will it cause lasting damage to the economy. Business confidence in the future has not disappeared. The experience of the SARS epidemic in 2003 also shows that after the epidemic, people’s desire for consumption will erupt and the economy will see rapid growth.

Compared with the US, where the tertiary industry accounts for 85 percent of the total economy, China’s tertiary industry only accounts for just over 50 percent. There is still more room for development. Naturally, companies will not lose sight of this and abandon huge development space to go to a place where competition is fierce.

The US government’s push for the return of manufacturing is not new. It began during the Obama administration, but the real results have been poor. This is because China is the world’s largest manufacturing base with a complete upstream and downstream industry chain and a large and diversified consumer market.

Only by being close to the Chinese market can companies accommodate cutting-edge demand, have faster production speed, and ensure more reliable product quality.

Of course, China’s industry is in a period of transformation and upgrading, and some enterprises that can no longer adapt to China’s market will leave. This is the natural law of economic development, and it is by no means the exodus that Ross is talking about.

3. The Collapsing Image of China Meme Is Baseless

Under the coronavirus epidemic, some voices in international public opinion have tarnished the image of China.

For example, on February 6, under the headline “This is Not a Coronavirus, It Is an Official Virus,” a Deutsche Welle report stated China’s governance system is not modern, so it was vulnerable in the face of the epidemic.

On some overseas social media, some people have hyped the argument that China’s national image has collapsed in order to disparage China’s image as a responsible power. They even claimed that China would not be able to build a moderately prosperous society as planned.

It is clear that the above slander is groundless and based on a play of words. The “China threat theory” is a virus in the field of international public opinion.

After the outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic, the Chinese government quickly set up a special team to deal with the problem, deployed team members extensively throughout the country, and assisted relevant countries in evacuating personnel. These things could only be achieved by an excellent governance system with modern capabilities.

Compared to some advanced economies, China has also done a much better job of reducing the risk of the disease spreading globally.

On February 16, in response to the shortcomings and deficiencies exposed in the response to the epidemic, the Chinese government again made a “two-handed” deployment, improving the biosafety law, the national emergency management system, and the distribution of production capacity of key materials.

China’s epidemic prevention measures have been praised by the international community. French President Macron expressed admiration for China’s effective measures and the country’s openness and transparency in fighting the epidemic.

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised China for taking many prevention and containment measures that go far beyond the relevant requirements for responding to emergencies. This has set a new benchmark for epidemic prevention in all countries. The speed, scale, and efficiency of China’s actions reflect the strengths of its system.

4. The Sick Man of Asia Metaphor Rekindles a Century of Discrimination

Amid the outbreak of the COVID-19, governments, enterprises, and people from dozens of countries have donated humanitarian aid to China to support the country’s fight against the epidemic. Meanwhile, some people have maliciously taken the opportunity to spread discrimination against China. For instance, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia” on February 3, hurting Chinese people’s feelings.

We should not only refute such absurdities with a comprehensive victory over the epidemic but also continue increasing China’s public health services and national capabilities, throwing the discriminatory views like the one above into the junk heap of history.

China was once weak due to its seclusion and was taken advantage of by Western powers which derogatorily called China the “sick man of Asia.” Such contemptuous words have been a scar on Chinese people’s  psyche. With unremitting efforts of more than 100 years, China is much stronger than it was, and people’s general health status has reached a new high.

After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the country has been improving its public health status, eliminating malignant infectious diseases such as smallpox and cholera and developing a cure for schistosomiasis, which once threatened Chinese people for a long time.

A comprehensive medical system has been established in China, covering all rural areas. China has also sent medical teams to help African countries battle against epidemics such as Ebola. As China is completing the building of a moderately prosperous society, the country is rapidly increasing the budget for medical treatment and public health, assuring residents in cities and towns have basic medical insurance.

Currently, Chinese people’s average life expectancy, which continues to grow, has surpassed that of Americans. Through international medical and health cooperation including the building of a Health Silk Road, China’s experience in medical treatment and public health has been widely recognized and accepted.

5. Yellow Peril Hysteria Is Pure Racism

On February 1, the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel had a cover headline saying the novel coronavirus was made in China. At a crucial time when the world is jointly fighting the epidemic, the German magazine inhumanly spread Yellow Peril hysteria, at the core of which is the West’s fear of the East.

The Western world regards the Eastern world as a threat, fears it will lag behind the latter, and thus refuses to accept the fact that the East has become more developed and much stronger than it once was. The West wants to safeguard its dominance in the world.

Hence some nationalists in the West have taken advantage of the COVID-19 epidemic to spread this particular form of racist hysteria.

In the era of globalization, human civilization should no longer engage in zero-sum games between the East and West and between races but rather in building a community of shared future where people can co-exist and jointly develop. In the face of this public health emergency, no one can really escape and remain isolated. Only cooperation, solidarity, and mutual help can help people win the fight against the virus.

It is high time to put an end to the farce of Yellow Peril hysteria that encourages people to play a “hunger game.”

6. The Comparison with the Novel 1984 Obscures Reality

To fight against the COVID-19, China has adopted various high-tech measures such as Big Data and artificial intelligence to control population flow and reduce cross-infection risks. However, some Western media outlets seem to be frightened by China’s governance capability. Real Clear Politics published an article on Thursday saying, “China’s Government Is Like Something out of ‘1984.’” There are two reasons such viewpoints echo in the West.

First, people are more likely to believe stories they are familiar with. George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 is well known, but not many people know the real China. Therefore, Chinese people find it hard to persuade their Western friends that China is not something out of 1984. This is like giving a friend who has never seen a real panda a toy panda, and the next time you mention pandas, this friend will think of the toy rather than the real panda.

Second, the media always caters its subscribers with reports that draw attention, even though their viewpoints are abnormal. For those media outlets, a frightening China is obviously more effective than a normal China at attracting an audience.

Using 1984 as a metaphor, those Western media outlets can spread fear of China among Westerners and thus make more profit. This is why a very ordinary story with an eye-catching headline can be forged into something that is scary and strange about China. As many Western media outlets are driven by business interests, it is not hard to understand Western people’s stereotype of China.

What 1984 describes can happen anywhere people live. The novel was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual. George Orwell’s masterpiece is not banned in China. Instead, his books have been among the bestsellers in China since the country’s reform and opening-up. China is moving forward in a broad way using Chinese people’s accumulated experience rather than something out of a novel.

7. The Biochemical Weapon Conspiracy Is Pure Fantasy

Conspiracy theories are a constant reality in the international public opinion field. Once there is a disturbance, they will surface.

On January 31, US senator Tom Cotton tweeted “It’s more urgent than ever to stop travel between China and US,” and “MESSAGE TO ALL AMERICANS IN CHINA: GET OUT NOW.” He also claimed that the virus might have originated in a super laboratory in Wuhan.

The Ministry of Heath of Russian Federation on January 29 published a guideline for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the novel coronavirus. The handout stated that COVID-19 was recombination of a bat coronavirus and another coronavirus from unknown origin, triggering speculation that the virus had been developed by the US as a biological weapon.

Although such arguments have been common, even in mainstream Western public opinion, there are few experts who agree.

The Washington Post on January 29 published an article entitled “Experts Debunk Fringe Theory Linking China’s Coronavirus to Weapons Research,” with interviews from five experts from prestigious US universities and research institutes. All of them rejected the idea that the virus was man-made.

An expert on chemical weapons said he and other analysts around the world had discussed the possibility that weapons development at the Wuhan lab could have led to the coronavirus outbreak in a private email chain, but none of them had found convincing evidence to support the theory.

A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology also pointed out that a good bioweapon in theory has high lethality but low, not communicability, but the opposite is true with the coronavirus. He also described the bioweapon theories as irresponsible misinformation.

The Lancet, the world’s leading general medical journal, released on February 19 a Statement in Support of the Scientists, Public Health Professionals, and Medical Professionals of China Combating COVID-19 signed by 27 top public health experts around the world.

The statement strongly condemned conspiracy theories saying that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin and stated that scientists from multiple countries overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife. The statement also called on the World Health Organization (WHO) to promote scientific evidence and unity over misinformation and conjecture.

8. Questioning WHO’s Impartiality Is Destructive

China’s valiant efforts and achievements in fighting the epidemic are obvious to all. Everyone with a realistic attitude will make a fair evaluation. However, some in the international community have been looking at China through colored spectacles and have even stooped to slander those entities and individuals who have praised China.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ affirmation of China’s performance has been described by certain media outlets as skewed in China’s favor.

Tedros was asked on February 12 whether the Chinese government had approached WHO and asked it to praise China’s efforts in confronting the virus and if there was there pressure put on WHO to make statements along these lines, considering how important the notion of saving face is in China. He responded, “China doesn’t need to ask to be praised…because we have seen these concrete things that should be appreciated.”

He noted that he has observed China’s tremendous efforts to stop the virus from spreading to the rest of the world, including notifying other countries of those confirmed cases with outbound travel history.

State leaders and public health experts of various countries have applauded China’s efforts and transparency. Tedros has also called on the international community to stop stigmatizing China and stand in solidarity with the country in fighting against the common enemy, COVID-19.

Similarly, former WHO Director General Margaret Chan Fung Fu-Chun was also criticized in 2015 for taking sides with South Korea in combating MERS.

WHO’s remarks and actions are based on information reported by the government at the epicenter, the latest data generated by the organization, and suggestions given by the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee. Clarifying and dispelling rumors and misinformation is also part of its job.

Moreover, the WHO has already taken action to prevent the coronavirus epidemic from triggering a dangerous social media ‘infodemic’ fueled by false information and to try to curb rumors, lies, and misinformation.

Along with China, the Singaporean government is also urging citizens to stop spreading rumors.

Authors: Wang Wen, Jia Jinjing, Bian Yongzu, Cao Mingdi, Liu Ying, Liu Yushu, Yang Fanxin, Guan Zhaoyu, Wang Peng, Liu Dian, Chen Zhiheng, Zhang Tingting, and Zhang Yang from Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

Alt Left: The Made-Up Problems of Male Circumcision

Polar Bear: We’ll never know if we’d of liked foreskin more or less. Famous pornstar Rocco regrets getting cut.

There are absolutely a whole lot of risk factors associated with keeping a foreskin. #1 is you have the ugliest dick around. Even if I was a fag, I would not have anything to do with an ugly dick like that. I’d say gimme Rocco’s dick any day ha ha.

How women tolerate those ugly foreskin dicks, I have no idea. I met this Jewish woman and started dating her. One of the first things she asked me after she asked me I was impotent (I was 48 years old when I met her, and it’s already starting up at that age) was if I was cut. I said Hell no and she said, “Good, I don’t like cownecks.” Ha ha, funny word.

You have to clean the damn thing all the time which is a PITA. This disgusting stuff called smegma accumulates under it which is grosser than gay porn. You have to keep cleaning that pond scum off your dick. Also, it sets you up for being at risk of different things: getting HIV from a woman, penile cancer, and other things.

It’s cut off for health reasons, and you never remember the cut.

Men who say there is “trauma” associated with memories of your dick getting cut at age zero are just victimfags (Great new word I just made up!). Great big pussies who love to whine about how they’ve been victimized their whole lives. Oh boo hoo! Poor babies! Man up, who dontcha?

The stink that antisemites and MRA’s make about circumcision is completely irrational. For antisemites it’s yet another perfect reason to hate Jews, which they want to do anyway. For MRA’s it’s just another notch on their victim belt. One wants to hate Jews for a dumb reason, and the other wants to be a victim for a dumb reason.

I’ve had a circumcised dick my whole life and it’s been awful damn sensitive the whole time. I don’t even think I’d want a more sensitive dick. It might turn alive, become a penile serpent, and try to crawl out of my pants. Can you imagine the embarrassment?

Color me unimpressed.

Alt Left: 100% Fact: Donald Trump Has Dementia

Check out this guy’s Twit thread. There are also many physicians chiming in in  agreement. The poster says he has gotten many messages from physicians who agree with him but don’t want to go public. He has the same thing that Linda Ronstadt has, but he’s farther along. This is simply 10

This poster also says that Trump’s dementia is declining so rapidly that he probably will not even be able to run for re-election in November. I absolutely despise Trump as much as anyone, but even I do not wish this horrible disease on anyone. Dementia is the worst. I would not wish it on my worst enemy, sorry. Some diseases are just too fucked up, beyond the pale.

Coronavirus Update

My first coronavirus post. I hope to have more later on.

Look here for the best site on coronavirus numbers, updated daily and even more often than that, every hour and often even at intervals in the hour.

Presently worldwide:

  • 20,639 confirmed cases
  • 427 fatalities

Breakdown:

  • Over 600 critical
  • 2,788 serious
  • 632 recovered
  • 23,214 suspected

The virus appears to be much worse than reported or reported at the moment. Thread discussing that here. There are reports of 1 million infected and up to 30,000 dead. It’s really a serious matter. The Lancet estimates that there are 74,000 infections, and that was several days ago. There are videos of nurses in China saying that there are 90-100,000 people infected, and that was a week ago.

There are videos of people literally dropping on the streets. There are other videos of people just lying in the streets or hospital corridors until someone takes them away. There is a video of a hospital with three dead people in the hallway. They’d been there all morning.

There are reports that Wuhan’s crematoria, which normally burn four hours a day, have been burning 24 hours for days now. These reports also state that bodies are being burned without being identified as coronavirus cases. There are also reports that many coronavirus cases are simply being diagnosed as pneumonia.

However, in support of the Chinese government, there is a huge shortage of test kits, which were only recently developed anyway. They only have 2,000 test kits in Wuhan, so they can only test 2,000 people a day. Until they test someone, they cannot diagnose coronavirus.

On the other hand, it may be important for the government to cover this up, at least for now. Let the truth come out later.

If they tell the truth, the resulting total panic all across China will probably kill more people than the virus. The Chinese economy, already taking a hit from this, will blow up. A lot of countries will refuse products from China, especially fruits, vegetables, and meats. Many of the large corporations who have overseas factories might close up or even move to another country.

Everyone knows this is a big deal. The whole city of Wuhan is locked down. When you to the supermarket or any state building, a government employee is standing right there to take your temperature. The state is delivering free meals to many people who are stuck in their apartments. Cars were banned, but the resulting uproar caused them to be unbanned. The roads going out of Wuhan are all blocked with barricades. No one can go in or out.

And now a number of other cities in Hubei Province are locked down too. For now, the problem is mostly confined to Hubei Province, especially Wuhan. There have been a mere eight deaths in the rest of China.

The Chinese government incredibly enough built a huge hospital in Wuhan with 1,000 beds in only six days! There is another new hospital in Wuhan due to come online on Wednesday, February 6, with another 1,000 beds.

Existing hospitals have only 30 isolation units per hospital. People who are severely ill need to be in ICU units, but those are also in severe undersupply. But that’s not uncommon. In the UK for instance, there are 6,000 ICU units for the whole country of 80 million people. How would the UK fare with an epidemic the size of China’s? Pretty poorly.

The state has massively ramped up the manufacture of surgical masks, as there are shortages everywhere. There are even shortages in places like Australia, as local Chinese are mass buying surgical masks to send back home. Many physicians and nurses from all over China are converging on Wuhan. Many are Communist Party members.

Hospitals are overflowing with people wanting to be tested or worried that they might have the virus. There is a shortage of beds and isolation units, so the hospitals are having to triage and just focus on the worst cases and forget about everyone else.

A lot of people who seem like they have the disease are simply handed some pills (or maybe not) and told to go home and wait it out. A number of people have died in their homes. Everyone in Wuhan and many in other parts of China are wearing masks. Hospital workers are completely suited up.

There has been a huge hullabaloo about China arresting eight physicians who reported on the case very early on. They are being called whistleblowers. There is a lot of anti-China propaganda going on about these whistleblowers.

However, the whistleblowers all got released and had compensation paid to them. The Supreme Court ordered it. So you can see there is quite a bit of democracy in the party, and there are even some separation of powers in the government.

China’s not a complete dictatorship. There are 500 legal demonstrations in China every single day. There are all sorts of organizations that have sprung up about just about every issue or interest to some area: dialects, flooding, pollution, you name it. Most are legal and local Communist Party (CP) officials are often involved.

Also if China is so horrible, why does the CP have 8

Surgical Procedure Today

Hi folks, just had a surgical procedure in the hospital. Colonoscopy to be exact. Been ages since I had one and at 62, you need these things. Also I have been having rectal bleeding these days. The surgeon asked me how long I have had this bleeding, and I told him 20 years. He was a bit stunned but then he said we’ll look into it.

I never thought it was much of anything as I always just assumed it was hemorrhoids. Well, turns out I was right after all. I’ve got hemorrhoids! Piles! Or whatever you want to call those little buggers. I assume they are internal, not external. Any advice on how to get rid of these pesky critters accepted with gratitude.

I also have diverticulosis. You can look it up. Well, by age 50, 8

But they eat a very high-fiber diet, and we eat a low-fiber, high-fat diet which leads to diverticulosis, polyps, colon cancer and other cool diseases. Also their shit isn’t hard. Ever noticed those hard shits you have? Well, that ain’t normal. Africans don’t have those. Their shits look more like tapioca pudding, albeit brown tapioca pudding to be precise.

The shit is supposed to move through your intestines pretty quickly. Meat and high fat diets slow down the intestinal freeway so you end up with an intestinal traffic jam. Result is constipation, polyps, colon cancer and other groovy stuff. Eat a lot of fiber and the shit just cruises on through 55 mph with no slowdowns.

Anyway diverticulosis is nothing, everyone has it by the time you get to middle age, and it usually has no symptoms. However, diverticula can get infected, that is, something, say a watermelon seed, gets stuck in one of those darned pouches and can’t escape or even call for help. It’s just SOL and this can result in an infection, which is called diverticulitis. This is what my 84 year old aunt has now. It’s quite painful. Not sure how it’s treated. Maybe they cut it out.

Anyway spent a fun morning in the hospital today from 5:30 AM – 10:30 AM. They gave me a shot of something and I was awake and chirping like a bird and the next thing I knew, two seconds later, it was an hour later and I was waking up for a very weird short-long sleep thing. Actually I was unconscious.

Knocked out by Fentanyl. Yes, that Fentanyl, that’s killing thousands of Americans every year. And they shot it right into my vein like any self-respecting IV drug user does. Except I’ve never done needles, drug fan that I am.

Don’t know about this Fentanyl high. Doesn’t feel like much of anything really except I am pretty calm, happy, and friendly, but that’s generally the idea with mild doses of opiates. Also a lot of my chronic pains went away. Thank you, heroin! I mean Fentanyl. Oh well, it’s all the same, trust me.

They said don’t drink for 24 hours, but you really think that is going to stop a determined drinker like me? You kidding?

Die with your boots on! That’s my attitude, baby. And live dangerously!

A little research showed me that there’s no interaction with booze and Fentanyl, so here I am, drinking Tequila like a proper roue, or aging degenerate, pick your adjective. I don’t know about this Fentanyl stuff.

Good high if you want to go to sleep so fast you don’t even  realize it when you knock out I guess. But I go to sleep most every night anyway. Why take a drug that makes you go to sleep? What’s the point? It’s like taking a drug that makes you breathe, eat, or piss. With some things in life, we don’t have much choice you know. It’s pretty much do or die.

Oh well, over and out. Sitting here wasted on Tequila and Fentanyl and not feeling much pain in either my mind or my body.

Do  you want me to write about the Iran-US war situation? I can do it if you want. I have a lot of information, along with a journalist source who is close to the top levels of the Iranian and  Iraqi governments, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. And  what he told me is pretty much the exact opposite of the crap lies that the US government and  (((media))) is feeding y’all these days.

You’re Not Going to Get HIV from a Woman

Just forget it. If you like to worry, please worry about something else, something more reasonable preferably.

This is from my notes. It is a comment I got from a commenter who said that he had been on HIV forum. There were HIV researchers on there who had been studying HIV risk for many years and they had yet seen a single case of a man getting HIV via being an insertive partner to an HIV-positive woman as long as the man wore a condom.

Although condoms do break at times, he had never seen a single case of a condom break resulting in a man getting infected from fucking an HIV-positive woman.

I was reading some stuff on there saying that they have never seen a insertive partner test positive from a condom breakage in their many years of doing risk assessments.

You guys can quit worrying now, please.

Alt Left: “The Pentagon’s “Mother of All Bombs” (MOAB) Dropped on Afghanistan (2017): Devastating Health Impacts, Ruined Farmland,” by Abdulhaq Omeri

These armaments are ridiculous. War is supposed to be fair. Both sides are supposed to have a chance to escape from attacks. Drone armaments, conventional bombs, RPG’s, grenades, anti-aircraft missiles, anti-tank weapons, all manner of artillery and mortars, all small arms, and even IED’s, suicide vests, car bombs and suicide car bombs all have an element of fairness about them in that it is fairly easy for the enemy to escape from these weapons.

None of these weapons wipes out whole neighborhoods and cities. That’s ridiculous. The idea is that if you have an army that is superior in size and armaments, using conventional warfare tactics, typically involving invasion of enemy territory, you should usually prevail. But you are going to lose some men. So will the other side. Well, you wanted to fight a war, right?

You simply cannot have bombs that blow up whole cities and whole neighborhoods. Those are rightly called WMD’s. Napalm and white phosphorus, cluster bombs, dum dum bullets, and land mines (mine fields in particular) are all banned weapons of war.

This damned thing is a WMD. Ban it. And ban fuel-air explosives too. Those are absolutely WMD’s. And depleted uranium munitions should have been banned long ago

The Pentagon’s “Mother of All Bombs” (MOAB) Dropped on Afghanistan (2017): Devastating Health Impacts, Ruined Farmland

In April 2017 the US Air Force dropped its most powerful non-nuclear bomb onto a Daesh stronghold in Nangarhar.

Almost two and a half years after the United States dropped the “mother of all bombs” onto a Daesh hideout in eastern Afghanistan, locals say they have been afflicted by “many diseases” and agricultural lands are not yielding crops.

TOLOnews reporter Abdulhaq Omeri interviewed residents of Mohmand Dara village in the Achin district in the eastern province of Nangarhar. Omeri witnessed many children and teenagers suffering from skin problems and listened to many residents speak of the bomb’s lasting effects.

In April 2017, US Forces dropped a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) on a Daesh stronghold of caves and tunnels in eastern Nangarhar province. The bomb, nicknamed the “mother of all bombs” is one of the most powerful conventional (non-nuclear) weapons in the US arsenal, according to the US Department of Defense.

MOAB is a concussive bomb, meaning it detonates above ground rather than penetrating hardened defenses. Anyone within 300 meters will be vaporized, experts say, while those in a one kilometer radius outside ground zero will be left deaf.

Nangarhar residents said the bomb has had a lasting effect on the area.

“The ‘mother of all bombs’ was dropped here,” said Pacha Shinwari, a local resident. “You can see that the stones can be broken easily, the plants are dry, the trees are dry, the nearby houses are all destroyed–40 or 50 of them.”

“The government evacuated the people (before the bomb was dropped), but when we came back, we saw that the houses were destroyed,” local resident Mohammadullah said.

Some teenagers are suffering from skin problems following the bomb explosion.

“Many diseases have emerged in this area after the bomb was used. Most of them have skin problems such as acne and skin irritations,” local resident Jam Roz said.

“The agricultural yields are not the same as in the past. The harvests are lesser,” said Aminullah, another resident.

Medical doctors and analysts interviewed by TOLOnews said the use of such bombs leaves an impact on areas where it is dropped.

“There are some concerns about the emergence of diseases after the use of the mother of all bombs in Achin, but so far the public health directorate has not recorded any disease that is related to the bomb,” said Zahir Adil, a spokesman for Nangarhar’s Directorate of Public Health.

“This bomb has three effects:

  1.  It impacts the eyes. People will feel irritation in their eyes.
  2. It impacts the inner organisms of the people who breathe the air where it has been used. It also impacts pregnant women and newborn babies… Afghanistan is a laboratory now.
  3. It has an impact on lungs,”

military affairs analyst Atiqullah Amarkhil said.

President Ashraf Ghani’s advisor and state minister for Human Rights and International Relations, Sima Samar, confirmed that the use of the MOAB in Nangarhar has had long-term effects on residents of Mohmand Dara village.

“It inevitably impacted the health of the Afghan people, especially in areas where explosives are used a lot, including the ‘mother of all bombs,’ which has left its mark on the lives of Afghans,” Samar said.

Featured image is from Tolo News

Alt Left: India and China: A Comparison

SHI: The Rapeublic of India is taking a leaf out of the PRC book when it detains Kashmiri politicians and opposition leaders. So every time I read about the Uyghurs in China, it rings close because the Indian fascist regime is engaged in closely similar tactics.

They’re different countries. China is a Communist dictatorship. Commies don’t mess around. They kill people, put lots of people in prisons, etc. It’s just what they do.

India is theoretically a democracy. They should not be acting like a totalitarian state. That’s way out of line.

To me, China runs on the Maoist principle of serve the people. They are also one of the countries on Earth (unlike us) who believe in the greatest good for the greatest number. They really are out to help everyone, with a special emphasis on the poor. Does India (or the US for that matter) work on the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number? Of course not.

India has utterly failed its poor. India and China were approximately equal on most social figures in 1949. Since then, China has leaped far ahead of India.

And the Indian capitalist system has resulted in 200 million excess deaths compared to China since 1949. That is, if they had followed the Chinese model, 200 million lives would have been saved. There are still 4 million excess deaths in India every year compared to China. Check out Amartya Sen’s work. That’s where I got most of these figures.

Further, at least 30 years ago, 14 million people died of malnutrition and hunger-related illnesses every year in the world. Most of those deaths were in South Asia. In my opinion, most of those deaths are tied into the private ownership of land (I am talking farmland here).

Neither India nor Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Nepal ever did a proper land reform. The issue comes up from time to time in India, but the Indian state is ruled by large landowners (instead of  corporations), so it never gets implemented. India’s going to have terrible problems until they do a proper land reform.

for Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Pakistan still has semi-feudal land relations with debt bondage and sharecropping, and it also has always been ruled by large semi-feudal landowners.

The Secret to China’s Success – The Capitalists Are Kept out of Politics

China isn’t really a capitalist country. Why not? Because the capitalists are not in politics. They don’t run the country. The market or the capitalists are a tool to develop the forces of production instead of a form of Politics as they are most everywhere else, where they manage to conveniently screw up most everything for the masses.

The Communist Party rules China and the Hell if they are going to let the capitalists take over their country and run it into the ground like they do everywhere else. Instead the market is simply a tool, and the capitalists are barred from politics as they ought to be.

Capitalists should just make stuff. They’re pretty good at that. Once they gain political power, they seem to blow up everything and turn it all to Hell. Want some evidence? Open your eyes and look around at the capitalist world. See?

In China the capitalists have to go along with the Communist Party’s plans. New labor laws? Suck it up, capitalists. New pollution controls? Better fix those smokestacks, capitalists. The capitalists don’t have any say in this because if you let them take over, they always vote to ruin labor and destroy all the environmental laws because that’s what the profit motive demands.

Capitalists in China have to follow the Party’s five year plans. They have to do what the government says, or orders, for that matter. If the capitalists defy the party and don’t do as they’re told, the Party will just go in and confiscate all their property.  They’ll steal all your stuff. So that’s good motivation to get along and go along. Then they will either nationalize it or turn it over to one of their friends who is a bit more obedient.

There is a Party committee that sits on the board of directors of all large corporations. Large corporations are frequently bought out and nationalized. The state must own a proportion of all foreign corporations that set up shop in China. Apple wants to set up a factory? Fine, but the government gets a piece of that.

The banking is almost all controlled by the state. This is how China among a few other countries weathered the bankster economic crash of 2008. The state owned the banks so China was not plugged into world capitalist finance.

Japan is similar. There are a few very large banks at the top of the economic pyramid, and they are owned by the state.

Like in Korea, economic decisions about the development of the country are made by teams made up of the government and corporations. Korea’s giant conglomerates are nearly state-owned in part.

The Russian government is similar. It either owns outright or owns 5

A number of China’s state corporations are among the largest companies on Earth. They are right there in the Forbes 100 or even in the Forbes 50. They are immensely profitable and they generate a tremendous amount of money for the state, which is then used to develop the country or distributed to the people in one way or another. What’s wrong with that?

The Chinese state spends a staggering amount of money developing their country.  They do things quite easily, quickly, and even cheaply there – such as developing deep water ports or high speed rail systems – that either take forever and cost a fortune in the US or are simply not done, as they are economically unfeasible.

For instance, the US has decided that high-speed rail is not economically feasible in the US. How is it economically feasible in China, Japan, and Europe then? That argument is senseless.

China is presently pouring vast amounts of money into the rural areas, as they have been neglected. A lot of rural people move to the cities to seek their fortune. A lot of them don’t make it. China allows them to keep their farms as insurance when they do this, so rural folks who don’t make it in the cities always have the fallback of moving back to their farms. Hey, at least they can eat and survive.

This is where having the state own all the land in China comes in. Since the state owns all the land, the rural farms can remain as a backup insurance policy for rural workers who migrate to the cities and don’t make it.

If land in China was privately owned, that backup would not be available, and Chinese cities would be teeming with awful slums made up of rural dwellers migrated to the city. This sad scene is typical all over the capitalist world. But maybe it’s not necessary.

As noted, all land in China is owned by the state. Every inch of it. This is important as the private ownership of land is one of the main reasons that the India – Pakistan – Nepal – Bangladesh South Asian region is such a shithole. The best single thing India could do would be to abolish the private ownership of land.

In China, you get to own your house but not the land it’s built on. Sure you can lease out state land, even for a long time, but you can’t own it. In Netherlands, similarly all land is owned by the state. It’s not a bad idea.

A vast amount of the Chinese economy – 4

The state owns the vast irrigation system that underpins the entire rural economy. If that were privatized, all Hell would break loose. Think about it. You can’t have private corporations running the irrigation networks. Hell, we don’t even have that in the US.

The state used to run small schools and even medical centers in most rural villages, although they are getting away from that. Education is free through the graduate level. This also helps free graduates from being mired in poverty in debt for years or decades after they graduate. They keep their money to spend in the economy instead having most of their money go via debt bondage to parasitical bankers who don’t create anything of real value anyway.

Most capitalist banks in the West are giant loan-sharking institutions or casinos in the sky. Speculation isn’t real investment. It’s like going to the casino. If everyone just goes to the casino, this is good for the economy how? This is what happens when all that’s left of your economy is the economic mirage called “finance.”

Similarly, China now covers almost all typical medical care that people need. The state pays 8

This is a black mark to me, but it’s still better than our for-profit medicine system that wastes incredible amounts of the productive forces on overhead and executive payouts.

Medicare’s overhead is

Once again, when the state covers your medical care, workers can not only relax, but they also don’t have to go into debt, bankruptcy, and poverty to  pay their medical bills. All of which helps whom? The vultures called for profit hospitals and insurance companies?

Why should sick people be financially ruined and living on the streets because they were so sick that they had to give every time they owned to some human shark in a corporate suit? In what possible world is this a just or even acceptable outcome?

Instead of being ruined, losing everything they own, and going homeless due to medical bills, with state health care, workers can keep working at their jobs and keep their money and their wealth as the state foots the doctor bills. So these workers remain productive and continue to spend money in the real economy. Win-win.

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