Han Genocide continues
April 29, 2020 § Leave a comment
In March 2019, the Uyghur Human Rights Project identified at least 386 Uyghur intellectuals detained and disappeared since 2017.
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The lying about Russia by its enemies never ends.
April 29, 2020 § Leave a comment
“Unfortunately, while the West was ignoring Russia”
The lie is “the West was ignoring Russia”.
A couple of lies>
What is “the West” here I deem it to be the US government and the corporations it promotes. The West invaded Russia upon the collapse and arranged the pillaging of the Soviet State and created the plutocrats.
Another lie by omission:
“Although many factors contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union, from the bankruptcy of communist ideology to the failure of the Soviet economy, the wider context for its dissolution is often overlooked.”
These liars ”
- Serhii Plokhy
- Bill Browder
- Dmitri Trenin
- Nargis Kassenova
- Alexander Cooley
- Andrei Soldatov
omit to mention that the West had economically warred on the Soviet Union except when it needed the Soviet Union to defeat Hitler which the West had aimed at the Soviet Union.
One can reasonably suggest that had the West not economically warred on the Soviet Union from 1918-1941 and 1946 to 1991, that it might have developed as successfully as say China.
Such intellectual dishonesty is hard to match.
It’s a Two Party Swindle Political System
April 23, 2020 § Leave a comment
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/23/bail-a23.html
While big restaurant chains and other firms whose stock is traded on Wall Street gobbled up large portions of the “small business” relief money, and the major Wall Street banks pocketed $10 billion in loan fees, family-owned restaurants, barber shops, beauty salons, retail stores and other small firms were pushed to the back of the line or denied relief outright.
The program ran out of funds last Thursday, less than two weeks after it was launched, leaving hundreds of thousands of small businesses high and dry and their millions of laid-off employees facing destitution. Now the Trump administration and Congress are rushing to inject an additional $310 billion into the PPP.
On Wednesday, the Senate passed by unanimous consent a new $484 billion bailout bill, whose central component is the renewal of the PPP. At the urging of the Democrats, looking to provide a “progressive” fig leaf to the pro-corporate measure, and with the agreement of Trump, the bill tacked on a totally inadequate $75 billion for hospitals and a derisory $25 billion for COVID-19 testing.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has announced that the Democratic-controlled chamber will vote on the new bill on Thursday. On Tuesday, she hailed the passage of the bill in the Senate, declaring that the Republicans “have seen the light—and we had a great victory for the American people.”
Among the businesses that have received low-interest PPP loans, which are to be forgiven if the firms use 75 percent of the money to keep their workers employed for eight weeks, are:
- The Ruth’s Chris steakhouse chain, with some 5,000 employees at over 100 locations in 2019 and $468 million in revenues. It received two PPP loans totaling $20 million. The total compensation for CEO Cheryl J. Henry was $6,105,629 in 2018. The stock price of the chain’s parent company, Ruth’s Hospitality Group, has risen by 112 percent over the past month.
- The Potbelly Sandwich Shop chain, with around 6,000 employees at 474 locations in 2019 and revenues of $410 million. The company received a PPP loan for $10 million. Total compensation for CEO Alan Johnson in 2018 was $1,668,251. Potbelly stock has risen 70 percent over the past month.
- The Shake Shack restaurant chain, with some 6,000 workers at 254 locations in the US and internationally and $595 million in revenues in 2019. It received $10 million in PPP loans. Total compensation for CEO Randy Garutti in 2018 was $3,805,410. Shake Shack stock has risen 40 percent over the past month. On Sunday, Shake Shack announced it was returning its PPP loan.
- The J. Alexander’s restaurant chain, with 2,700 employees at 46 locations in 2019 and $304 million in revenues in 2016, received $15.1 million in PPP loans. Total compensation for CEO Mark Parkey was $591,000 in 2019. J. Alexander’s stock has risen by 2 percent over the past month.
Other large firms that received PPP loans include:
- The Ohio-based biotech company Athersys, which raised almost $60 million in a stock offering on Monday. Its shares have nearly doubled in 2020.
- Indiana-based coal operator Hallador Energy, which received $10 million after it laid off 60 workers in March.
- Data storage company Quantum took $10 million.
- Nicola Motor, backed by giant hedge funds and asset management firms and valued at $4 billion, received a loan of $4 million.
The losingest military in world history…
April 21, 2020 § Leave a comment
Ige, a rare smart move… Let’s see if he sticks to it. Changsha versus Wuhan.
April 21, 2020 § Leave a comment
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2020/04/20/hawaii-sees-just-new-covid-cases-all-neighbor-islands/
But in a news conference, Gov. David Ige said Hawaii isn’t yet ready to begin re-opening its economy.
Here’s an example of how smart plays work out:
Wuhan to Changsha: 340 kilometers or 211 miles.
Wuhan CV-19 casualties: “Officials placed the new tally at 3,869 deaths from the coronavirus in the central Chinese city, an increase of 1,290 from the previous figure. The number of cumulative confirmed infections in the city was also revised upward to 50,333, an increase of 325.
Changsha casualties: Essentially zero. But at the provincial level. Changsha, Hunan. Wuhan, Hubei
Province—————— Confirmed——————- Recovered—————- Deaths
Hunan
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1,019
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1,014
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4
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Hubei
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67,803
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64,014
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3,212
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[https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=changsha+coronavirus+stats]
Changsha swiftly went into a complete lockdown. Everything shut for 8 weeks. It is now [15 April] reopen and operating normally.
Lesson:
the longer the lockdown the safer we all are.
Magical thinking kills
April 20, 2020 § Leave a comment
Magical thinking — you could call it denial — hampered the ability of even some of the most seasoned infectious diseases experts to recognize the full threat of what was bearing down on the world.
The months of magical thinking: As the coronavirus swept over China, some experts were in denial
Cato Institute. A one note band.
April 10, 2020 § Leave a comment
A “one-note” band is a musical group that can play only one note.
The Cato is a “one-note” propagandist for “open markets”.
It is a blindness to the complexity of how the universe works. For example, this statement.
“Eliminating trade barriers is essential to the task of containing the COVID-19 pandemic and minimizing its human and economic costs.”
What is the mechanism by which “elimination of trade barriers” “contains” a plague?
Cato presents no evidence and it seems to me that in times of plague you would want “barriers” generally to slow down transmission. Even in times of no plague barriers slow things down. Often slowing down is a “good thing” from a quality of life perspective.
Or take this ‘argument’
“Yet dozens of governments have imposed restrictions on exports, and others appear to be taking steps toward “repatriating” medical supply chains to achieve self‐sufficiency in critical items. These actions are compounding a time‐to‐market problem caused by preexisting policies such as tariffs on medical goods, divergences between governments in regulatory requirements, and rigid intellectual property protections of medicines and devices.”
Starting a sentence with “yet” is a tipoff that what is to follow likely is not evidence but propaganda.
“Yet A of B have imposed C on D and E appear to be taking F toward G [when something is in “” there is a falsehood nearby] H to achieve I in J.”
Since when is “self-sufficiency” in times of plague a bad idea?
“Please join us for a conversation and learn how the strategic stockpiling of medical supplies, the World Trade Organization and other international bodies, the easing of regulatory restrictions through mutual recognition, and fresh approaches to encouraging medical innovation can all play important roles in the effort to rein in the crisis.”
And this is just a bunch of empty phrases strung together.
D vs. R
April 8, 2020 § Leave a comment
Election 2020-Dotard [Dem.] v. Retard [Rep.] The oligarchy is happy with either outcome as it assures nothing changes. The only difference is things get worse more quickly or more slowly. Trump may be God’s justice on Americans for permitting their government to become an empire that is murdering its way around the planet.