COVID19: Slowly Countries Waking Up

I've noticed that countries are beginning to open their borders. There really is no option, either we start to open up or the global economy will collapse and millions, possibly billions will starve. Yes, COVID19 is serious, but it appears it isn't any more lethal than a bad flu. We cannot go on experimenting with people's livelihoods, tell the scientists to shut up and let the rest of us get on with our lives. I couldn't put it any more bluntly.

Lady Colin Campbell's New Book

The new book out about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle looks to be something of a page turner. You can buy it on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Meghan-Harry-Lady-Colin-Campbell/dp/1916131719

A review of the book said this: "Meghan and Harry will end up as a tragedy...or the greatest success story of our time."

Facebook Boycott

I don't belong to Facebook, haven't got the time. But this boycott craze that's kicked off is a double edged sword. Some companies jumping on the bandwagon are known to resent Facebook, they're likely trying to bring them down to size. This could have the effect of reducing business sales,  and therefore employment numbers across a range of sectors. This can't be good as we're in the middle of a Depression.

Then we have Woke and Joke, aka Harry and Meghan Markle, aka the Harkles, jumping on the back of the truck for a ride. They missed out on that whole BLM thing, so this will do I suppose. Yes, I have a jaundiced eye when it comes to that pair of entitled twits.

My message; be careful what you wish for. No doubt you can find some pretty nasty stuff on Facebook, but it could come in handy when you really need to get the word out. If Facebook is compromised, then you may find your hard fought freedoms impacted unduly and that'd be worse than wading through conspiracy theories.

COVID-19 - The World Economy After Lockdown

The Hustle of the Harkle Hoaxers

Found this website, called Harry Markle, it contains a useful timeline of what has happened to date in the ongoing shambles that is Megxit. 

https://harrymarkle.wordpress.com/2020/06/22/the-hustle-of-the-harkle-hoaxers/

What emerges is a clear pattern that everything was planned beforehand. Interesting.

Prince Harry Back in the UK?

Word coming in is that Harry has been sighted arriving back in the UK. He is said to have taken a private jet and was picked up at the airport in a car with blacked out windows. I wonder, is this the beginning of the end of Woke and Joke?

It could be visa issues, he may have to leave the US before applying for a spousal visa. Or they're getting a divorce. If the latter then this is exactly the timeline I've outlined. Meghan Markle has to move Harry out and be up and running again in Hollywood before she turns 40. After that date she's over the hill in Hollywood, so she has to get a deal or some major endorsements of cosmetic labels and the like before then. Harry would just be in the way. Crudely put, she can't be constantly worried about what the Royals think of things.

Two predictions: Meghan Markle will never set foot in the UK again, and if Harry is back in the UK, his friends and family will go to work to turn him off his wife and it'll be over anyway, even if she hasn't thrown him out. Oh and watch the narrative, Meghan will frame everything so she's the victim, Harry just had too many issues. You know how it works.

WWII: Pearl Harbor Civilian Pilots

A little history note, if you've ever seen the 1970 movie Tora Tora Tora, about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, then you may recall the scene early in the movie where a female flight instructor is teaching a male student how to fly in her trainer biplane, when what do you know, but Japanese warplanes heading in to attack fly right past them. The instructor takes control and dives the plane out of the way. Most of the scenes in the movie are based on fact, this scene is pretty accurate. There were actually two women flying that day, they and other civilian aircraft were attacked, you can read about it here:

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2016/december/07/civilian-pilots-under-fire-at-pearl-harbor

Australia Under Cyber Attack

We all know this is China attacking Australia, Australia are too polite to say it. Thing is, 60% of China's iron ore comes from Australia so it's about time Australia cut them off. Team up with India and give China a lesson in diplomacy. Oh and cancel the lease on the Port of Darwin that China holds while they're at it. Things are definitely heating up.

Biggest Ever Social Experiment

Funny, I was having a discussion with someone over the weekend, and she asked me; was the global response to COVID-19 the biggest ever social experiment?

I was a little surprised to hear someone put it like that, although I had certainly thought so privately. I paused and replied, yes, it is the biggest ever social experiment. It's the only explanation available I'm afraid.

And what do we now see? Riots, some industries wiped out (airlines), massive unemployment, you name it. No doubt this will be replaced by regime change. Either the world has gone mad, which is very likely, or someone very clever and scheming cooked the whole scenario up, which is unlikely as people are never that clever. But who knows, all I do know is a lot of people are much poorer in 2020 than they were in 2019.

J.K. Rowling Essay

People interested in reading the essay by J.K. Rowling on gender issues can read it here: https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/

If I was marking this essay I'd probably give it an A-. She loses me when bringing her own experiences of domestic violence into the debate. I don't exactly see how this fits. As an aside, I've only read her first book and did form the impression then that she'd been the victim of abuse. I can't point to any one piece of that work, it's just an overarching feeling that emerges.

Where I think her argument stands up well is her addressing issues around privacy. There are real concerns that any man can now instantly claim status as a woman and turn up in a swimming pool changing shed amongst the girls, or anywhere they like really. Often laws that are now proposed entrench that new right. And what of girls? Do they have no say in any of this, or their parents?

While her essay is a thoughtful work, I'd like to have seen more argument around these gender and sex issues, rather than an account of her own life experiences. Otherwise, a good effort. Note, I'm not saying I agree with her in everything she's saying, just assessing her ability to say it and her absolute right to do so.

Brazil Stops Reporting COVID19 Numbers

Brazil is no longer reporting COVID19 numbers according to news media. It makes sense, there is no need to whip up hysteria. While the virus is serious, it turns out to not be anywhere near as lethal as was first thought. Countries don't give daily press briefings about influenza and nor should they COVID19. If every death or serious illness led the news cycle, there would be panic.

And why the reporting of raw numbers of those infected and those that have died? As a proportion of world population the numbers are actually quite small. When looked at as a raw number the number of deaths look scary. But as a proportion of the world population, the numbers would look inconsequential.

Fred Reed's Warning from 2002

Found this on the internet, please read. It sounds like the world we live in now, especially after the COVID-19 panic:

https://truebluenz.com/2020/06/01/warning-from-2002-doing-the-dc-bob/

In Washington, it’s everywhere, like God and mendacity: The DC Bob. As people talk, in fern bars, in eateries, on the sidewalk, an incorrect thought occurs, something that might upset Them. You know who They are: The racial, sexual, religious, and political groups that One Doesn’t Offend, the ideas and policies one mustn’t mention, the simple observations of fact that one may not make. We all know where trouble lies. And we are careful.

The incipient malefactor leans forward. He’s getting closer to his hearers to avoid eavesdroppers. Next he drops his chin and looks furtively over each shoulder in turn to see who might be listening. This is the DC Bob. It is routine. People don’t even notice that they are doing it.

The heretic whispers, “I’m sick of affirmative-action hires. We can’t get anything done in my office.”

The DC Bob. You have to watch what you say in America.

A while back I attended a party of people in government. I didn’t know them. They knew me indirectly from this column. We clutched Heinekens in the kitchen and chewed cheesy stuff on crackers. Pretending we weren’t, we felt each other out to be sure none of us was with the thought police (another ritual in Washington). The conversation came around to the deterioration of American society. The subject is common. In fact, it is close to inevitable.

One fellow finally said approximately, “I don’t get it. We all know what’s going on. Why can’t we even talk about it? This isn’t the Soviet Union.”

Ah, but, yes, actually, it is the Soviet Union. When people have to look over their shoulders before speaking in public places, when they are afraid to utter reasonable criticism of very questionable governmental policies, we’ve reached the suburbs of Moscow. I’m not trying to be cute about this. Ours is very much the same system of social control, but without the truncheons. It’s cleverly done, so that we have no way of revolting and nothing really to revolt against.

Yes, the penalties for political transgression are here lighter than in the USSR, but methods vary little. If you criticized Stalin, you got a bullet in the nape of the neck. Rubber hoses served their soothing purpose, and there were the Gulag and psychiatric committal. We don’t do these things here.

They aren’t necessary. To enforce conformity, the threat need not be extreme, merely adequate. Here, if you say the wrong thing, you lose your job. The years toward retirement vanish. The press savages you. You don’t get tenure or, if you have it, you are shunned by the rest of the faculty, including those who secretly agree with you but are afraid of the same treatment. This is enough. We don’t need thumbscrews.

Intimidation depends not just on penalties but upon the certainty, or near certainty, of their application. In the Soviet Union, people knew they would lose if they transgressed. They couldn’t run. The police were faster. They couldn’t hide. The police would find them. They couldn’t even die gloriously to make a statement. The government wouldn’t broadcast it. Hopelessness breeds passivity. People may rebel against long odds. They seldom rebel when they can accomplish nothing.

The same is true here. We can’t win, though the penalties are not grisly, and do not always come from the formal government. If we take the wrong position on the wrong subject, the federal EEO apparatus will crush us. The feds know they can and drag a case out for a decade spend us into submission. Institutions, companies, universities — will force us to apologize and publicly humiliate us. If we go to another university, apply for another job, the word will have gotten around and we won’t be hired.

The fewer the people you can trust, the greater the intimidation. In the Soviet Union, children were encouraged to rat out their parents. Under Stalin, it could be fatal. Things aren’t so bad here. Our kids are only occasionally asked to inform. (“Do your parents have guns?”) But in school, children are steeped unendingly in Appropriate Thought. In communist countries, it was more openly done, being honestly called Marxism-Leninism or Mao Tse Dung Thought. In our schools it’s packaged as immanent self-evident Goodness. The effect is to erect a police wall between parents and children.

Do I exaggerate? Try telling your kid that Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman (whoever she was) were perhaps not the central achievement of Western Civilization, that there is an astronomical lopsidedness by race in commission of crime, or that universal illegitimacy may involve both immorality and irresponsibility. The tad will likely be horrified that you are such a racist. Don’t teachers and the telescreen say so?

And so many parents speak carefully at home, checking to see that the children aren’t listening. As in the Soviet Union, indoctrination is the unspoken purpose of schooling.

Here, as in the USSR, the press — in particular the ever-whispering screen, half-ignored, babbling like a brook, slowly depositing assumptions, views, unnoticed beliefs — is the key to social control. Russians knew they were being lied to, but they didn’t know how much. Our telescreens lie more subtly, and thus more effectively. The principle is that if people absorb one lie in two, tell them three. Soon they will believe, enough. That is all it takes.

American journalism isn’t as controlled as that of the Soviet Union, but it is controlled enough. In the media the punishment for deviationist thought is swift and sure. We in the trade know exactly what we can and cannot say. Criticize the wrong things and you will lose your job and be, for practical purposes, blacklisted.

Many journalists of course know what is going on, assuredly including editors of major publications. But, being intimidated, they intimidate. Thus what we know we don’t write, and what we write we don’t believe. Editorialists and columnists argue pointlessly within understood constraints, like ping-pong balls bouncing between two walls. The walls are there. One doesn’t step beyond.

Yet there is more to it. Editors do not control the content of publications. Advertisers do, advertisers and the owners. If you buy important amounts of advertising, you have veto power.

Sometimes the influence is quietly explicit. A major upper-middle-brow magazine once assigned me a story that might have involved criticism of defense contractors. The editor asked me to go easy on McDonnell-Douglas because it advertised. This is not uncommon. But usually writers just know what They don’t want. And they don’t write it. They are afraid.

Looking over our shoulders, dealing cautiously with strangers, doing the DC Bob.