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newstfionline · 4 years ago

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Thursday, June 24, 2021

World’s most expensive cities for expats in 2021 revealed (CNN) Ashgabat in Turkmenistan is the most expensive city in the world for overseas workers, according to this year’s Mercer Cost of Living Survey. The annual report ranks 209 cities based on the comparative cost of expenses including housing, transportation, food and entertainment, with New York City used as a baseline comparison. The Turkmenistan capital, which was number two on last year’s list, is something of an outlier in the top 10, which mostly features business hubs like Hong Kong (last year’s priciest city and this year’s second priciest), Tokyo (number four for 2021), Zurich (number five for 2021) and Singapore (number seven for 2021). Perhaps the biggest change from last year’s Mercer survey sees Beirut rising from the 45th most expensive city for international workers in 2020 to the third priciest for 2021. Mercer puts this development down to Lebanon’s economic depression, which was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Port of Beirut explosion in August last year. Meanwhile, as the Euro gained almost 11% against the US dollar, European cities were ranked comparatively more expensive than their US counterparts. This led to New York City dropping out of the Mercer top 10 altogether, while Paris climbed the rankings from number 50 in 2020 to number 33 in 2021.

Pressure builds to open U.S.-Canada border (Washington Post) A Florida man takes out ads to call out the U.S. and Canadian governments for failing to lift border restrictions. Lawmakers use salty-ish language. Business owners worry about losing a second lucrative summer season. As restrictions on nonessential travel across the U.S.-Canada land border enter their 16th month this week, pressure is rising on both sides for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Biden to crack it open—even a little—or to provide something, anything, about what a reopening plan might look like. Ottawa on Monday did announce some changes at the border, to start July 5. They’d allow Canadian citizens and permanent residents who are fully inoculated with a Health Canada-authorized vaccine, and who test negative for covid-19 before and after arrival, to bypass some quarantine and testing requirements. But the announcement means most fully vaccinated foreigners, including Americans, who hope to enter Canada for nonessential purposes are out of luck. And a growing number of lawmakers, residents and business groups on both sides of the world’s longest undefended border are out of patience.

GOP filibuster blocks Democrats’ big voting rights bill (AP) The Democrats’ sweeping attempt to rewrite U.S. election and voting law suffered a major setback in the Senate Tuesday, blocked by a filibuster wall of Republican opposition to what would be the largest overhaul of the electoral system in a generation. The vote leaves the Democrats with no clear path forward, though President Joe Biden declared, “This fight is far from over.” The bill, known as the For the People Act, would touch on virtually every aspect of how elections are conducted, striking down hurdles to voting that advocates view as the Civil Rights fight of the era, while also curbing the influence of money in politics and limiting partisan influence over the drawing of congressional districts. But many in the GOP say the measure represents instead a breathtaking federal infringement on states’ authority to conduct their own elections without fraud—and is meant to ultimately benefit Democrats. The rejection forces Democrats to reckon with what comes next for their top legislative priority in a narrowly divided Senate.

The Cuba embargo (Foreign Policy) The U.N. General Assembly is expected to vote to condemn the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba, in a resumption of what has become an annual tradition at the body following a pandemic-related pause in 2020. Up until last year, the assembly had overwhelmingly voted to admonish the United States over the embargo each year since 1992. The United States and Israel tend to be the only two nations to reject the resolution, although Brazil joined them in 2019. The vote coincides with increased U.S. support for a temporary suspension of the embargo during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a recent poll showing 66 percent of Americans surveyed supporting a suspension in order for Cuba to export its home-grown vaccines. On Monday, Cuba announced that its Abdala vaccine—one of several vaccine candidates—was roughly 92 percent effective at preventing COVID-19 infection.

France’s Macron Pushes Controls on Religion to Pressure Mosques (WSJ) President Emmanuel Macron is redrawing the line that separates religion and state, in a battle to force Islamic organizations into the mold of French secularism. In recent months, his administration has ousted the leadership of a mosque after temporarily closing it and poring over its finances. Another mosque gave up millions in subsidies after the government pressured local officials over the funding. A dozen other mosques have faced orders to close temporarily for safety or fire-code violations. The government has taken these actions as a precursor to a much broader push to rein in the independence of mosques and other religious organizations across France. Mr. Macron has submitted a bill to Parliament, called the Law Reinforcing Respect of the Principles of the Republic, that would empower the government to permanently close houses of worship and dissolve religious organizations, without court order, if it finds that any of their members are provoking violence or inciting hatred. In addition, the bill would allow temporary closure of any religious group that spreads ideas that incite hatred or violence. Religious organizations would have to obtain government permits every five years to continue operating, and have their accounts certified annually if they receive foreign funding.

Can pandemic recovery plan end Italy’s years of stagnation? (AP) The COVID-19 pandemic hit Italy especially hard, killing more than 127,000 people and sending the European Union’s third-largest economy into a devastating tailspin. Yet out of that tragedy may come solutions for decades-old problems that have held back growth and productivity—and with them, a new sense of stability for the euro, the currency shared by 19 of the European Union’s 27 members. Backed by 261 billion euros from the EU and Italian government, the country’s plan for recovering from the pandemic calls for a top-to-bottom shakeup of a major industrial economy long hampered by red tape, political reluctance to change, and bureaucratic and educational inertia. The challenge is formidable: Italy has failed to show robust growth in the more than two decades since it joined the euro currency union in 1999. Execution of the recovery plan remains a risk given Italy’s often-fractious politics. But “if they succeed with even half, it will have a big impact,” said Guntram Wolff, director of the Bruegel think tank in Brussels.

Militias in Afghanistan’s north are taking up the fight against the Taliban (Washington Post) A sweeping Taliban offensive across northern Afghanistan, unchecked by overstretched government forces, has triggered a sudden resurgence of anti-Taliban militias in half a dozen provinces, raising concerns that the country could plunge into a prolonged civil war. President Ashraf Ghani has endorsed the sudden call to arms by former ethnic rival groups. The Ghani government hopes the added support will shore up the beleaguered national defense forces, which have struggled to send reinforcements and supplies to troops facing repeated Taliban attacks. But the prospect of unleashing a hodgepodge of rogue warriors to repel their old enemies also raises the specter of civil war, a state of violent anarchy that Afghans remember all too well from the 1990s. And although the armed groups have pledged to coordinate with government forces, it is also possible that effort could unravel into confused, competing clashes among purported allies. In the past several days, fighting has been reported in nine provinces across the north, and armed militias or civilian groups have formed to repel the insurgents, often fighting alongside state forces. All are loyal to local leaders from minority Tajik, Uzbek or other ethnic groups that have no love for Ghani, a member of the dominant ethnic Pashtun group based in southern Afghanistan.

China prepares for Communist Party centenary in secret (AP) Chinese authorities have closed Beijing’s central Tiananmen Square to the public, eight days ahead of a major celebration being planned to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Communist Party. The square, which normally attracts tourists from around the country, was barricaded Wednesday and will remain closed until July 2. The party will showcase the country’s rise from civil war and disastrous political campaigns in the early years of communist rule to market reforms that have created the world’s second largest economy, with a superpower status rivaled only by the United States. Old habits die hard, however, and arrangements for the July 1 anniversary remain shrouded in secrecy. Around Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City former palace complex and other scenic sites are also closed. Flyovers by air force squadrons suggest an aerial review is in the planning, but authorities have yet to release details. The ruling party was established in secrecy in 1921, following the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1912. It held its first session at a girl’s school in Shanghai, and later moved to a lake boat to evade agents of the local warlord.

Apple Daily Shuts Down (Foreign Policy) On Wednesday, crowds of Hong Kong residents gathered in support outside the headquarters of Apple Daily, one of the last bastions of media resistance to Beijing, as it sent its final edition to print. The paper announced it would close after the arrests of senior leadership this week under the draconian national security law introduced last year. Banks froze the newspaper’s assets to avoid being charged themselves. The rollout of the national security law has seen successive groups targeted: first protest leaders, then democratic politicians, and now journalists. More than 800 Apple Daily staff have lost their jobs while Hong Kong has lost its long-cherished freedom of speech. But the impact of the closure goes far beyond journalism in Hong Kong. Each move like this raises the stakes for other sectors, especially academia and entertainment. Any challenge to the government has become a risk, making self-censorship even more likely. This kind of sweeping coercion has long been the norm on the mainland; in Hong Kong, it provides more proof China has shattered its promise to maintain “One Country, Two Systems” until 2047.

Tokyo shapes up to be No-Fun Olympics (AP) The Tokyo Olympics, already delayed by the pandemic, are not looking like much fun: Not for athletes. Not for fans. And not for the Japanese public. They are caught between concerns about the coronavirus at a time when few are vaccinated on one side and politicians who hope to save face by holding the games and the International Olympic Committee with billions of dollars on the line on the other. Japan is famous for running on consensus. But the decision to proceed with the Olympics—and this week to permit some fans, if only locals—has shredded it. The official cost of the Tokyo Olympics is $15.4 billion, but government audits suggest it’s twice that. All but $6.7 billion is public money. The IOC chips in only about $1.5 billion to the overall cost. The pressure to hold the games is largely financial for the Switzerland-based IOC, a nonprofit but highly commercial body that earns 91% of its income from broadcast rights and sponsorship.

World Powers Gather for Libya Conference (Foreign Policy) World powers gather today in Berlin to discuss a path forward for Libya, ten years after a NATO-led coalition helped oust former leader Muammar al-Qaddafi and eight months since warring factions agreed to a cease-fire in the country’s six-year civil war. The group of countries last met in January 2020. Since then, the October cease-fire has been followed by the selection in February of a transitional government. Today’s discussion will focus on the next steps in Libya’s transition, including preparations for elections in December and the removal of foreign fighters still active in the country. According to United Nations estimates, more than 20,000 foreign fighters and mercenaries from Syria, Russia, Sudan, and Chad remain in Libya. Although today’s meeting is a time to improve on positive developments, Libya is still far from a functioning state. Nearly 20 percent of the population is in need of humanitarian assistance, and the country remains a magnet for human traffickers as they move desperate migrants across the Mediterranean and into Europe.

Witnesses say airstrike in Ethiopia's Tigray kills dozens (AP) An airstrike hit a busy market in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray village of Togoga on Tuesday, according to health workers who said soldiers blocked medical teams from traveling to the scene. Dozens of people were killed, they and a former resident said, citing witnesses. Two doctors and a nurse in Tigray’s regional capital, Mekele, told The Associated Press they were unable to confirm how many people were killed, but one doctor said health workers at the scene reported “more than 80 civilian deaths.” The health workers spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. The alleged airstrike comes amid some of the fiercest fighting in the Tigray region since the conflict began in November as Ethiopian forces supported by those from neighboring Eritrea pursue Tigray’s former leaders.

No laundry day in space (AP) On the International Space Station, there is no such thing as laundry day. Right now, an astronaut needs about 150 pounds of clothes in space per year, and will wear their clothes—gym, underwear, all of it—until they cannot stand the smell, and then throw the clothes away, ejecting the shirts to eventually burn up in the atmosphere. A new study, a collaboration between NASA and Procter & Gamble Co., will attempt to find a good way to clean clothes in space.

#headlines #news

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newstfionline · 4 years ago

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Headlines

Virus numbers show normal life still far away (AP) South Africa was poised on Saturday to join the top five countries most affected by the coronavirus, while breathtaking numbers around the world were a reminder a return to normal life is still far from sight. Confirmed virus cases worldwide have topped 14 million and deaths have surpassed 600,000, according to Johns Hopkins University data, a day after the World Health Organization reported a single-day record of new infections at over 237,000. Death tolls in the United States are reaching new highs, and India’s infections are over 1 million. Iran’s president made the startling announcement that as many as 25 million Iranians could have been infected, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Saturday. Iran has seen the worst outbreak in the Middle East with more than 270,000 confirmed cases. South Africa on Saturday could join the U.S., Brazil, India and Russia as the most badly hit countries as its cases near 350,000. Current case trends show it will surpass Peru.

Millions of kids told full return to school in fall unlikely (AP) Millions more children in the U.S. learned Friday that they’re unlikely to return to classrooms full time in the fall because of the coronavirus pandemic as death tolls reached new highs. It came as many states—particularly in the Sunbelt—struggled to cope with the surge and governments worldwide tried to control fresh outbreaks. In a sign of how the virus is galloping around the globe, the World Health Organization reported nearly a quarter-million new infections in a single day. In the U.S., teams of military medics were deployed in Texas and California to help hospitals deluged by coronavirus patients. The two most populous states each reported roughly 10,000 new cases and some of their highest death counts since the pandemic began. Big numbers in Florida, Arizona and other states also are helping drive the U.S. resurgence that’s forcing states to rethink the school year.

Stress rises for unemployed as extra $600 benefit nears end (AP) A major source of income for roughly 30 million unemployed people is set to end, threatening their ability to meet rent and pay bills and potentially undercutting the fragile economic recovery. In March, Congress approved an extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits as part of its $2 trillion relief package aimed at offsetting the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. That additional payment expires next week unless it gets renewed. For Henry Montalvo, who was furloughed from his job as a banquet server and bartender in Phoenix in mid-March, the expiration of the $600 will cut his unemployment benefits by two-thirds. He uses the money to help support his three children and pregnant girlfriend. “Now that it’s about to end, that grim and uneasy feeling is coming back and really fast,” Montalvo said. The unemployment insurance program has emerged as a crucial source of support at a time when the jobless rate is at Depression-era levels. In May, unemployment benefits made up 6% of all U.S. income, ahead of even Social Security.

Half of Oklahoma is ‘Indian country.’ What if all native treaties were upheld? (The Intercept) The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision last week that altered the map of Oklahoma. The eastern half of the state, including much of Tulsa, is now, for legal purposes, Indian country. The Supreme Court decision was uncommon—Indigenous people have seen few victories so sweeping in the high court—but treaty violations like those that occurred in Oklahoma are not. “The rule of thumb is every treaty’s been broken,” said Matthew Fletcher, director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center at Michigan State University. Going back to the original treaty texts would make broad swaths of the nation Native territory. That means Indigenous people would have a stronger voice on environmental enforcement, more of a say on fossil fuel infrastructure construction, be able to better control the fate of Native children removed from their parents’ home, and less likely to be tried in local courts where district attorneys are elected using racist, tough-on-crime politics. Beyond control over the land itself, the treaties lay the groundwork for obligations requiring the federal government to provide adequate resources to support health care, safety, and education—which have never been fulfilled.

Mexican cartel shows its might as president visits its heartland (Reuters) A video depicting a sprawling military-style convoy of one of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels circulated on social networks on Friday just as President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador visited the group’s heartland. In the two-minute clip, members of the fearsome Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) stand in fatigues alongside a seemingly endless procession of armored vehicles. The video’s release coincided with Lopez Obrador’s visit to the states of Guanajuato, Jalisco and Colima, some of the cartel’s strongholds. “They are sending a clear message... that they basically rule Mexico, not Lopez Obrador,” said Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Panama extends suspension of international flights by a month due to coronavirus (Reuters) Panama’s civil aviation authority said on Friday it will extend a suspension of international flights by another month due to the coronavirus crisis. International flights were first suspended in March as the spread of the virus prompted authorities to impose measures to better contain it.

Richardson meets with Maduro, but fails to secure release of American prisoners (Washington Post) Former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson concluded a four-day special mission to Venezuela on Friday, succeeding in opening a direct channel with President Nicolás Maduro but failing in his immediate objective: the release of eight high-profile prisoners being held in Caracas, including seven Americans. In a telephone interview with The Washington Post—his first since leaving Caracas—Richardson, an elder statesmen of the Democratic Party and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said his initial optimism about securing the rapid release of at least some of the prisoners had turned to disappointment after catching Maduro “on a bad day.” The trip nevertheless amounted to the most significant diplomatic effort in Caracas by an American since Washington severed ties with Maduro and shuttered the U.S. Embassy there early last year. Though officially a private humanitarian mission, the trip was “coordinated” with the U.S. government, Richardson said.

EU tells US: Stop threatening our companies with sanctions (AP) The European Union is warning the Trump administration to hold off threatening trade sanctions against EU companies involved in the completion of new German-Russian and Turkish-Russian natural gas pipelines and instead discuss differences as allies. This week, the Trump administration warned companies involved in the projects they will be subject to U.S. penalties unless they halt their work. The move has further increased tension in already fraught U.S.-European ties. “I am deeply concerned at the growing use of sanctions, or the threat of sanctions, by the United States against European companies and interests,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement, adding similar attempts had already been made in cases involving Iran, Cuba and the International Criminal Court. “Where policy differences exist, the European Union is always open to dialogue. But this cannot take place against the threat of sanctions,” Borrell said. “European policies should be determined here in Europe, not by third countries.”

Greece’s great declutter at battle coastline (AP) Greece is commemorating one of the greatest naval battles in ancient history this year at Salamis, the claw-shaped island skirting the mainland near Athens. It’s where the invading Persian navy suffered a heavy defeat 2,500 years ago, their large vessels unable to properly maneuver in the narrow seaways. Salamis, now known as Salamina, has become an extended suburb of the capital, a blue-collar retirement and summer home spot. It still looks out over a fleet of sunken and partially sunken vessels. Heavily rusted cargo ships and tugboats, battered sailboats and fishing trawlers are scattered and abandoned between Salamina and Greece’s largest industrial zone with oil refineries, shipyards and a massive Chinese-owned container port. With the main commemoration events just months away, Greece is in a race to declutter the coastline and has already salvaged dozens of ships, which are dragged to shore, cut up and transported to scrapyards in central Greece.

Mass protests rock Russian Far East city again (AP) Tens of thousands of people in the Russian Far East city of Khabarovsk took to the streets on Saturday, protesting the arrest of the region’s governor on charges of involvement in multiple murders. Local media estimated the rally in the city 6100 kilometres (3800 miles) east of Moscow attracted from 15,000 to 50,000 people. The protests against the arrest of Furgal have taken place every day this week, with hundreds of people rallying in the city center every day, and reflected widespread anger over the arrest of the popular governor and a simmering discontent with the Kremlin’s policies. Furgal, a member of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, was elected governor in 2018. His unexpected victory in the gubernatorial election reflected growing public frustration with President Vladimir Putin’s policies and marked a painful setback for the main Kremlin party, United Russia.

China says it’s not trying to replace US, won’t be bullied (AP) China isn’t seeking to confront or replace the United States as the world’s top technological power, but will fight back against “malicious slander” and attacks from Washington, a foreign ministry spokesperson said Friday, responding to a litany of recent accusations from the Trump administration. Hua Chunying said China’s chief concern is improving the livelihoods of its citizens and maintaining global peace and stability, despite what critics say is an increasingly aggressive foreign policy that looks to expand Chinese influence in the military, technology, economic and other spheres. Her comments came in response to a speech Thursday by U.S. Attorney General William Barr in which he cautioned American business leaders against promoting policies favorable to Beijing. He asserted that China at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic had not only dominated the market for protective gear, exposing American dependence on Beijing, but had also hoarded supplies and blocked producers from exporting them to countries in need. Barr also accused hackers linked to the Chinese government of targeting American universities and businesses to steal research related to coronavirus vaccine development, leveling the allegation against Beijing hours after Western agencies made similar claims against Russia. “The People’s Republic of China is now engaged in an economic blitzkrieg—an aggressive, orchestrated, whole-of-government (indeed, whole-of-society) campaign to seize the commanding heights of the global economy and to surpass the United States as the world’s preeminent technological superpower,” Barr said.

Major Beirut medical centre lays off hundreds as crisis bites (Reuters) Zawqan Abdelkhalek, a nurse at the American University of Beirut’s (AUB) medical centre since 2012, was laid off on Friday along with hundreds of colleagues as even hospitals buckle under the weight of Lebanon’s economic collapse. “I have a baby daughter, I need to get her food and water and pay for her vaccines,” the 29-year-old said. A currency crash means his pension in Lebanese pounds is now worth just around $500, he said. He blamed the ruling elite for daily power cuts, skyrocketing prices and pushing the country to the brink. Local media and employees said the AUB, one of the country’s oldest universities and a regional medical hub, laid off more than 500 workers. At least 220,000 jobs in the private sector were shed between October and February, a survey by research firm InfoPro showed, with the figures only expected to get worse.

#headlines #news

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uk-news-talking-politics · 4 years ago

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Cummings and Johnson are breaking down the entire notion of democratic legitimacy

By Chaminda Jayanetti

The government that acted unlawfully by shutting down parliament has set its sights higher - breaking international law. The move by Boris Johnson - no doubt following the advice of Dominic Cummings - to contravene the EU withdrawal agreement will breach Britain's international legal commitments. It's Global Britain, just not as we know it.

As Britain combines a shambolic coronavirus response with looming economic depression and an increasingly likely no-deal Brexit, this government of permanent victimhood is casting around for others to blame.

The list of targets now includes Labour, Remainers, the EU, civil servants, immigrants, the BBC, critical journalists, academics, students, judges, lawyers, and anyone deemed 'woke'. That list is non-exhaustive - so frequent and illogical are the attacks, it is difficult to keep track. The one constant is that none of the targets are members of the government or responsible for the government's decisions.

The Tories, aided by pliant six-figure scribes in the right wing press, are preparing to follow up this bluster with action. 'Activist' lawyers are demonised to provide a basis to curtailing the right to judicial review. Britain's membership of the European Convention on Human Rights looks insecure. The BBC faces a barrage of government attacks - on its journalists, on its finances and on its future. Journalists deemed critical are locked out by government press offices. Civil servants are forced out for defending their independence. Should the House of Lords obstruct the government at any stage, doubtless it will be in the line of fire too.

The government is entirely self-serving in when it goes on the attack and when it doesn't. Having essentially slept through the exam results crisis, Johnson popped up to launch a broadside at the BBC over the confected Rule Britannia row amid dark mutterings of left-wing bias, but then made a great show of defending the free press when climate change protesters blocked the distribution of mostly right-wing newspapers.

Then there is the law-breaking Brexit legislation itself. Tory politicians who have spent years demanding the hardest of Brexits as 'the will of the people' now want to rip up the very withdrawal agreement they won a mandate for last December in the name of the self-same people. Perhaps it was predictable. That doesn't make it any less shameless

The collateral - or maybe it's the point - is the steady erosion of the principles underpinning British democracy. The freedom of the media, the independence of the courts, civil servants and academia, the rule of law and the convention on human rights - all are steadily chipped away at, or at times fully assaulted. This is in addition to the undermining of the integrity of British elections, as detailed by the journalist Peter Geoghegan.

Prime ministers frequently contravene some of these principles. Few prioritise statesmanship over statecraft. Tony Blair's aides waged war on parts of the media, and on anti-terror laws he often clashed with the courts. Margaret Thatcher was highly political in her handling of the BBC, and outright abolished the Greater London Council for being too left wing for her taste.

But to act against all such principles at the same time, deliberately and zealously, is new. A government of ministers who can't shut up about Magna Carta attacks the tenets of our constitution like a latter-day King John. These people have no red lines beyond their own power and an ideological project. As an approach to government, it is different. And it is dangerous.

It seems odd that the Conservative and Unionist Party should play so fast and loose with Britain's constitution, institutions and even the Union itself. But the party is no longer conservative, in the sense of wanting to conserve things. It is now overrun with politicians and advisers who know Thatcher not as a prime minister but as a founding myth, an ideological exemplar and radical idol. They know everything she changed and nothing she kept the same. They memorise her Budgets and immortalise the miners' strike but have never heard of John Moore.

As a result they believe in a kind of permanent revolution, with a Gramscian obsession with bulldozing one boundary after another in an endless war on non-belief. They see their 80-seat majority, won off the back of Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn, as a mandate to fulfil fantasies nurtured since private school.

Chief among these fantasists are unelected advisors. Many criticisms can be made of our MPs, but some of the main instigators of instability in British politics since 2010 have had no electoral mandate at all - Steve Hilton, Matthew Elliott, Fiona Hill, Nick Timothy, and Cummings himself. Of these, only Elliott - founder of both the Taxpayers Alliance and Vote Leave - has not worked directly in government. The others were all advisers to Tory prime ministers in the last ten years, and each was notable for a complete inability to handle disagreement. Hilton was a crank, Hill and Timothy bullies, and Cummings is bent on replacing the civil service with socially maladjusted misfits and biddable yes-men.

It is hard to avoid the suspicion that they see checks and balances as the enemies of the people partly because they are unaccountable to voters themselves. Unelected lobbyists and advisers live in a bubble, their only exposure to the public coming through focus groups. They see democracy as an opportunity, not a mandate. They assume votes cast in a general election are carte blanche for their every whim. Anything that gets in the way is in the way of The People.

They are not Trumpists, though they are often Trumpish. Unlike the fascistic US president, there is no plausible prospect they would refuse to accept the result of an election. But their commitment to democracy is nominal - it stretches no further than the existence of elections. They have little regard for the democratic process, which takes in not just elections but how those elections are conducted, the role of money in politics, legal checks and balances, the free press, human rights - the whole infrastructure of transparency, safeguards and protections that make democracy actually function.

The former Conservative activist David Herdson, who quit the party the day Johnson became leader, recently wrote: "Democracy tends to be as fragile or robust as the desire of its practitioners to maintain it. The public understands neither the 'what' nor the 'why' of a lot of the essential system that supports it."

We will soon find out what our current practitioners desire. It takes self-belief to make it to the top - but it is a dangerous thing if those at the top believe in nothing but themselves.

#boris johnson

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gikairan · 5 years ago

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A leaked recording of EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier further poured cold water on Johnson’s ambitions, admitting during a closed meeting that the UK’s timetable to wrap up trade talks by 2021 is “unrealistic” and suggests negotiations will drag on until long after the end of next year.

... You may also recall the Tories’ promise to “introduce an immigration points-based immigration system”. But what you may not know is that commitment means precisely nothing; we have had a points-based system since 2010, thanks to Labour. More importantly, such a system is not, despite assurances from the Tories, dependent on “getting Brexit done”. ...

And let’s not forget page 48 of the manifesto, ironically subtitled “Protect our democracy”, where both introducing voter ID, an unnecessary measure suspected to serve as a means of restricting certain members of the electorate from exercising their democratic rights, and getting rid of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act are proposed as a means of upholding “democracy and the rule of law”. As Gina Miller pointed out in November, the manifesto also proposes stopping the “abuse” of judicial review in order to “conduct politics by another means, or to create needless delays” – again, more doublespeak for making sure that Johnson gets his way one way or another.

The party’s approach to the climate crisis is just as disappointing. It mentions the issue only 10 times – which shouldn't be a surprise, given the PM's unwillingness to join the Channel 4 climate debate during the campaign, but it nevertheless alarming. Especially considering the fact that the Tories have pocketed more than £1m in so-called “dirty money” from investors in the fossil fuels responsible for the climate emergency.

Laughably, this government has also pledged to “seek to protect those persecuted for their faith”. Though how it will do that while both refusing to take Islamophobia seriously, and deporting asylum seekers fleeing religious persecution, doesn’t quite add up. Nor does its promise to “eradicate human trafficking”, while failing to end the practice of criminalising, wrongfully detaining, and deporting trafficking victims.

...

Which brings us to the NHS. Aside from the the rhetoric and number fiddling over the number of new nurses, there is little in terms of a tangible plan for improvement. Missing entirely from the manifesto, as predicted, is the much-discussed prospect of more privatisation, which the government denies will occur despite having already handed £15bn worth of NHS contracts to private companies since 2015.

The party’s announcement of what is actually an old pledge to cram 10,000 more people into prison a year, as well as plans to enforce longer sentences is worrying too. Rather than helping to curb reoffending, experts have warned that such moves will make an already dire situation worse. And it’s no better when it comes to extending stop and search either – a practice that already disproportionately discriminates against black men.

...

This, fellow citizens of the United (for now) Kingdom, is just the tip of the iceberg of issues that await None of us deserve what’s in store.As depressing as this is, however, it’s not too late to fight against this government’s extreme agenda. This is, after all, a democracy.

#ukpol #uk politics

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evilelitest2 · 5 years ago

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Do you know of any good resources on how and why Reagan won? He seemed to have a lot of resistance from the Republican old guard and all four of my grandparents absolutely despised him. But he somehow won with what sounded like was a very unpopular platform, and I don't understand exactly what happened.

I mean most electoral histories will have you covered, are you looking from a cultural perspective or an electoral perspective, or just a general overview of the 1980 election? Personally I recommend the book “Backlash” on the larger reactionary movement of the 80s which is in no way relevant today...

But in short there are many reasons why Reagan won, many of them depressing familiar today

1) Ronald Reagan was an actor and was a really charismatic speaker, specifically he was very good at seeming friendly, approachable and non condescending. It was extremely easy to understand Reagan’s message if you weren’t paying attention and he didn’t seem like some sort of elite who understood policies or knew where Cambodia was on a map, because he didn’t either. With the possible exceptions of JFK, and OBama, Reagan is likely the most charismatic president in the last century and that makes a big difference in the election

2) Jimmy Carter was a bit of a mess. I love Carter and I think he is one of the most moral people to ever be president (judging on a scale) but...his administration was extremely chaotic, inept, and really bad at messaging.

3) Reagan cheated. At his most famous debate with Carter, it turns out Reagan’s team had actaully managed to get Carter’s debate plans before hand, so Reagan knew exactly what Carter was going to say which is why Reagan seemed so invincible in the debate

4) The Economy. Due to a wide variety of reasons including but not limited too the fallout of the Vietnam War, the OPEC oil crisis, the natural eb and flow of the market, and the failure of Kenysian economics meant that when the 1980 election was happening, America was in a pretty bad economic place. Unemployment was high, inflation was spiraling and for many white people it was the first time they had ever experienced an economic downturn

This wasn’t really Carter’s fault, just like the economic boom in the 80s wasn’t really Reagan’s fault (though the initial crash certainly was) but that is how it was perceived.

5) The Failure of Kenysian Economics. Now when I say “failure” i don’t actually mean “this is a bad system” Kenysan economics got us out of the Great Depression after all and lead to the largest economic boom in US history. However they aren’t the end all, especially when politicians running things don’t really understand what they are doing. So while they aren’t nearly as awful as the Free market economics that would follow, people were becoming disillusioned with the prior economic model

6) Vietnam. Oh dear god Vietnam. Reagan would be the first president who didn’t preside over Vietnam in any way, which meant he wasn’t tainted by the total fuck up that was that war. America was still reeling from losing our first major war to a small nation that nobody had heard off before they started to kick our ass, and the battle over Vietnam has basically torn the country apart. A huge amount of people felt pissed and humiliated over the defeat, and rather than question why we went to war or the morality of our tactics, blamed protesters and leftists for not supporting the war enough, a stabbed in the back myth if you will. Also Vietnam was a Democrat fuck up, Republicans weren’t in power when it started under JFK and LBG, who collectively created the horrific circumstances of the war. The republicans who oversaw it were the comparatively (to Reagan) more ‘moderates” of Nixon and Ford. So American both felt humiliated and weak from looking a major war to a people we saw as inferior and was blaming everything associated with the left for it. Reagan’s “Make America Great Again” message was extremely attractive to a lot of people, and since he didn’t have anything to do with the war, you couldn’t blame him for its failure.

7) The Soviet Union. The presence of the USSR hung over every US election since Woodrow Wilson, but after Vietnam a lot of Americans felt like the USSR was winning. This was ironically utterly untrue as the Soviet Union would collapse only 11 years later, but the perception in America was that the US had been defeated by COMMUNISM and needed to get our groove back for round II. And Reagan was by far the most aggressively confrontational anti Communist president we have had since FDR, so much so that he accidentally almost triggered a nuclear war and destroyed all of civilizations...whoops. But that is what American wanted back then

8) The rise of the religious right. For most of the 20th century, while religion was certainly a thing which effected politics, the US political landscape was largely secular, religion being evoked more than it made its own demands. But due to rise of the Counter Culture movement, religious folks sort of went into panic mode and suddenly conservative fundamentalist Christianity was one the rise. And Reagan embraced them 100%, leading to the fundementalist cancer that lives with us to this day

9) The death of the Counterculture. At the exact same time as the Religious Right came into power, the group it was opposing had largely collapsed. I mentioned this before when talking about the civil Rights movement, but once overt legal segregation had been outlawed, what was left were the far more serious, complicated and unclear problems, which lead to a lot of hippies burning out, falling into infighting, declaring victory and going home, or turning to more radical and largely ineffectual approaches. And since so much of the counter culture was linked to to its fashion and aethetic, as the Hippie style/music/clothing/demeanor became lame and uncool, the causes behind them were seen as uncool as well. Also the most dedicated leftists quickly turned to auto cannibalism and spent more time fighting each other rather than focusing on their enemy a dynamic which the left can always be counted on (cough what happened to Counterpoints cough)

10) The larger cultural backlash. America as a whole was feeling threaten by the left, and by extention the progressive made for women, racial minorities, and sexual minorities, and was pushing back against them. The 60s and 70s was a moment of sudden shocking change which took the old guard by surprise and they didn’t know what to do, but once the left had burned themselves out a bit, the Right was able to reorganize, refocus their efforts, and remake their arguments to reassert the oppressive systems they so valued. And for a lot of Americans who were passively bigoted, the incredibly fast pace of change got them scared and they sought comfort in the return of the familiar. Again Reagan wasn’t just an actor, he was a cowboy actor from shitty kitch family films. And as we’ve seen before in terms of Whitelash or Male Fragility, fear of losing privilege can get people to vote against their own interest (cough union workers cough)

11) America was facing a big choice. After WWII, we were basically the only major nation with a good economy, which we were able to turn into a great economy, and had an over 20 year post war high. But other nations started to compete with us (most notably Japan) and our status as the singular nation started to be threatened by the EU, India, China, Latin America, and our own changing history. For the first time, Americans started to realize that maybe, not right away, but eventually, we would just be one nation among many again, rather than the only superpower. Simultaneous, the threat of Climate change first started to be noticed, and Americans started to realize that maybe we should tone down the materialism, the consumerism, and the reliance on fossile fuels. Carter infamously wore sweaters in the white house to save on gas and put solar panels on the roof, which was seen by many Americans (idiots) as weakness.

Basically we had a choice, we could either

A) Prepare our nation for the transformation period we were going for, and slowly start to move off oil as our economy changed and we had to make adjustments for it

B) FUCK THAT. THIS IS AMERICA AND WE DON”T COMPROMISE FOR ANYTHING. YOU KNOW WHAT...LETS BE EVEN MORE RECKLESS

Americans were asked to choose between accepting an uncomfortable reality or embracing a comforting delusion.

12) The Iran Hostage crisis. This made Carter look weak internationally and everybody knows that America looking weak is worth destroying our own internal economy.

13) The Democrats were in the middle of a civil war. The Civil Rights movement and the Great Society had torn the democrats apart which means Carter was never really able to get his own party to obey him like the Republicans did. WHats worse is that the aftereffect of the Vietnam War had basically crippled LBJ’s Great Society Program, meaning the Democrats were really chaotic

14) Finally, it is important to remember, the Democrats had held power from 1932 all the way to 1980s, the US was kind of a single party state for most of the century, and a lot of people were pretty sick of them. Corruption, incompetence and hypocrisy are around in every party and the democratic congress in particular was widely hated, so the Republicans felt like this new exciting thing, something which could maybe bring a new era in America. “Its morning in America”

And of course, Reagan was in many ways what white America wants, a giant self congratulatory message that lets us avoid dealing with real issues....

#Ask EvilElitest2 #Ronald Reagan #American Politics #1980 Election #Jimmy Carter #Vietnam War #Counter Culture #HIppies #Backlash #Republicans #Democrats #The Great Society #OPEC #enviromentalism

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behind-stories · 5 years ago

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REVEALING THE SECRET BEHIND THE DEAD VIRUS CORONA

A SENIOR CHINESE MILITARY INTELLIGENCE OFFICER WHO COULD NOT CONTAIN THE PAIN OF LOSING HIS ONLY CHILD, HAVE DECIDED TO REVEAL THE SECRET BEHIND THE DREADED VIRUS (CORONA )

I am a senior Chinese military intelligence officer and I know the truth about the coronavirus outbreak. It is far worse than the media are telling you.

I am a Chinese citizen in Wuhan who occupies — or perhaps occupied — a high-ranking position in military intelligence. I am also a member of the Chinese Communist Party. As a senior official near the top of the Party, I have access to a great deal of classified information and I have been involved in many top-secret government projects. I have a doctorate from a leading university in a western country, which is why I can write my account in English.

I have information that I believe could lead to the overthrow of my government. It is also relevant to billions of people outside of China, all of whom are now in existential peril.

It will not surprise you to hear that if my identity were to be revealed, my life would be in grave danger, as would those of my wife and son. I ask you to respect the fact that I have stripped out of this account all facts that would make it easy to identify me.

By now you will be familiar with the recent outbreak of 2019-nCoV, also known as NCP, or simply “coronavirus”. You will have heard that it originated in Wuhan, an industrial city in China and that it came from an animal — most likely a bat or a pangolin — that was sold in a wild animal market. You will have been told that it is an influenza-like illness that can in severe cases cause pneumonia, respiratory failure, and death. Finally, you may have heard that although the disease is highly infectious, it is dangerous only to the elderly or to those who have a compromised immune system. The official lethality rate is approximately 2% or so.

All of that is a bunch of lies concocted by the Chinese state with the tacit support of the U.S. deep state and its friends in the European Union, Russia, and Australia, and spread by the docile media in all of those countries.

Let me start by telling you that the world does not operate the way you think it does. Although countries like the US and China vie for global dominance, that competition is restricted to certain limited areas. In most ways, the two countries are more interested in cooperation so that they can stop other competing countries from gaining more power. They also have a shared interest in keeping real power out of the hands of their “ordinary” citizens. To this end, they have many different mechanisms by which they control the overwhelming majority of their media outlets. The Americans, in particular, have perfected the art of creating made-up “divisions” between their two main parties which are designed to hide the fact that both serve the same masters.

These same nations also possess technology that is far more advanced than you can imagine and which is kept carefully hidden from public view. This includes advanced artificial intelligence capable of undermining and deciding any election in the world; biological and chemical agents that can manipulate and control the thinking patterns and behaviours of citizens to terrifying degrees; highly sophisticated manipulation techniques using hypnotic practices entirely unknown to the public; and other things that I will not go into now. My point is that the great nations do not compete so much as they work together. Their principal goal is to shield the true workings of the world from the “uninitiated” public.

Just to give you one example, there aren’t any nuclear weapons anywhere in the world. The U.S. and the Soviet Union scrapped them all in the 1970s, as did their client states. Everyone realised that those weapons could not be used without destroying the whole world, so there was no need for them; but by pretending that they still had them, the big players were able to keep the non-nuclear powers in line.

Let me return to the virus.

Last year, large-scale anti-government protests erupted in Hong Kong. The Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party considered these to be a grave threat to the integrity and stability of the motherland. The U.S. government and the EU both knew that the Chinese were secretly working on a biological agent that was supposed to make the protesters docile and obedient. Without going into detail, I worked on that project. We tried to develop a sort of spray that could be dispersed from helicopters or drones and that would lead to mental retardation and behavioural change.

Naturally, as Hong Kong is one of the most open and international cities in the world, the Party decided that it was too risky to release the agent in Hong Kong without first testing it. For this, it needed a great number of human guinea pigs. Two groups were identified for this.

First, we rounded up a large number of so-called “Islamic radicals” in Xinjiang Province and took them to what we called “training camps”. We had already been using these camps for human experimentation for several years, but the Hong Kong protests meant that we redoubled our efforts. We exposed the inmates to various “alpha” experimental agents. As these were odourless and invisible, the subjects were not aware that they were taking part in medical trials. The resulting high rates of cancer, premature dementia, suicidal depression and death by organ failure could easily be suppressed, as the camps are located in very remote parts of our motherland.

Once the initial experiments had yielded a “beta” agent, it was transported to Hubei Province, where it was deployed in a special military testing facility outside the city of Wuhan. This was not even a particularly well-kept secret: the existence of this facility has been reported in international news. Even the fact that it is located close to the wild animal market is a known fact.

By then our President had already introduced a “social credit” system that allowed us to identify disloyal, counter-revolutionary and bourgeois elements in our society. Using the social credit scores — which are taken from online activity, electronic shopping behaviour and reports from informers in civil society — we selected some of the worst offenders. These included human rights lawyers and activists, Christians, homosexuals, artists, intellectuals, people who speak foreign languages, and other undesirables.

Once these troublemakers had been collected and placed in the testing facility, we exposed them to the Agent, which is biochemical and spread in an invisible aerosol, akin to certain viruses. Initial results were encouraging, as we saw significant cognitive decline and reduction in higher mental processing facilities. Essentially, our undesirables were becoming mildly mentally disabled, which is precisely the effect we wanted to produce to pacify the restive population of Hong Kong.

Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that the Agent also had other effects. About one week after the retardation set in, our subjects developed major anxiety and panic attacks. Eventually, they developed symptoms akin to those of paranoid schizophrenics. At that point, their bodies rapidly deteriorated. They developed massive internal bleeding; the walls of their arteries dissolved; they bled out of their eyes and orifices, and their tissue disintegrated.

To put it in a more direct Western manner, they started to melt.

Death usually occurred through multiple organ failure. This was preceded by at least five days of severe agony which could not be alleviated by painkillers. It was at this time that I first violated our protocol: one subject, an elderly lady who had published defamatory cartoons of our President, begged me for death with such insistence that I took pity and shot her. I was reprimanded, but fortunately, the complaint was dropped when I agreed to reimburse the cost of the bullet. I swore to myself never again to show such unnecessary emotion.

We decided that our Agent was unusable. It was far too destructive for our purposes. We wanted the population of Hong Kong to submit to us; we did not want to exterminate it.

Naturally, our American friends had by then taken an interest in our work and asked us for a sample for their research and testing purposes. They hinted that they wished to use it to resolve certain difficulties in Venezuela. Normally we would have agreed, as we maintain friendly relations with the CIA, but given the extremely toxic nature of the Agent, we declined.

This, as it turned out, was a grave mistake. The CIA was convinced that we had developed something very powerful and wanted to keep it to ourselves. They offered a great deal of money to one of our researchers. Foolishly, he agreed to sell them a specimen. We found out just in time for the handover and tried to stop it from happening. In the ensuing shoot-out — don’t bother to look for it in the news, it was never reported anywhere — several dozen people were killed.

More importantly, however, the Agent escaped.

The shoot-out took place at the wild animal market which has been reported as the location of the “animal to human” transmission that started the outbreak. But of course, there was no such transmission; it was just the location where the CIA was supposed to receive the sealed vial containing the Agent. The vial shattered when it was dropped by the traitor who had agreed to sell it to the Americans.

By now I understand you will be sceptical. If I am who I say I am, why would I be sharing this information on the internet? Let me assure you that I am no friend of the Western system of governance. I love my motherland and I am loyal to the Communist Party. It has lifted hundreds of millions of my compatriots out of squalor and poverty. However, I am also a human being and I have a conscience.

Most importantly, I have a wife and a son.

Once we realized that the Agent had escaped and would start to spread, we swiftly put all of Wuhan into lockdown. I was one of those tasked to manage the fallout of the contamination. Of course, we could not keep such a huge undertaking secret, so we decided to order our state media to report that a “coronavirus” had broken out in Wuhan.

In reality, of course, there is no “coronavirus”. It was all made up.

It was one of my colleagues who came up with the genius idea of pretending that people with the common flu suffered from the coronavirus. This allowed us to hide the true nature of the disease. Let me explain.

It is currently flu season in China. When we realized that we could no longer control the spread of the Agent, we sent our men to all the hospitals and instructed all doctors to diagnose every case of the common flu as “coronavirus”. We came up with a new name — 2019-nCoV — and handed out “factsheets” that described a made-up illness.

The result of this decision was that tens of thousands of individuals who were simply suffering from a cold or flu were now diagnosed as having a mysterious coronavirus that, although infectious, was not often lethal. While this frightened the public, it allowed us to push the narrative that the disease was not that deadly; it also gave us time to prepare for the catastrophe that was sure to come by imposing a lockdown on Wuhan and other cities in Hubei Province.

You have not heard this in the news — and given the size of Wuhan, with its population of 11 million, it is not known even to many of the residents — but within days thousands upon thousands were infected and before long they suffered the agonizing deaths that I have already described. Within a week, there were so many corpses that we did not know what to do with them, so we ordered the surviving social credit prisoners to drive the bodies into the countryside and bury them in mass graves. But it was very difficult to keep this activity secret, and we could not even keep up as there were so many corpses. We planted a story that five million residents had “fled” Wuhan. In reality, of course, many of those people had died from the Agent.

I was working around the clock helping to orchestrate this cover-up. When I think back to my actions now, I feel great shame. At the time I still believed that I was fighting for my motherland and that the rule of the Party was right and just. But deep down, I had already begun to have doubts.

My faith in the Party was shaken even more deeply when I learned what had happened to Dr Li Wenliang. He was one of the few doctors who refused falsely to diagnose flu patients with the “coronavirus”. As a punishment, he was sent to help transport dead bodies to mass graves. The expectation was that he would be infected with the Agent and die an agonizing death, but to our great surprise, he did not contract the illness.

You have of course read that he died of “coronavirus”. You have been misinformed. A sergeant of the People’s Armed Police injected him with a mixture of heroin and mercury that caused his lungs to deflate.

When I found out about this I became unsure whether or not I was doing the right thing. While I believe that it is appropriate for a government to rule with a severed hand, I do not think that it was right to kill Dr Li. He was a compassionate and kind man and he cared about his patients; how can our motherland not benefit from having such a doctor?

I shared my concerns with my wife, but she convinced me that I should not say anything to my superiors. She said that it was too dangerous; that they valued loyalty above everything else; and that I would only find trouble if I admitted to my doubts about their practices. She also pointed out that we benefited from the priority of medical treatment. As senior officials, we received regular supplies of the highly-sophisticated hazmat masks that are the only known technology that can prevent infection. She implored me to think of our son, who is still small. If I spoke out and were caught, our lives would be at risk.

Around the same time, it became clear that the Agent was entirely beyond our control. It was spreading like wildfire throughout Hubei Province and beyond, infecting tens of millions and causing them all to die.

I understand that what I just said is difficult to believe because you have been told that there have been only about 50,000 infections and far fewer deaths. But these are the influenza infections that have been falsely passed off as the non-existent “coronavirus”. The Agent is far, far more contagious than that, and its fatality rate, unlike the “coronavirus”, is not 2%.

No, its fatality rate is 100%. Nobody recovers from it. Everybody who contracts it dies.

And a lot of people are contracting it.

Hubei Province lies in ruins. The various travel restrictions and lockdowns that have been imposed were not created to stop the spread of the Agent — none of them can stop it, not embargoes, not face masks or hand sanitizer — but to stop the survivors from seeing the catastrophe with their own eyes.

I am part of the greatest cover-up in human history: the hiding of the deaths of tens of millions. Very soon, Hubei Province will be no more than a giant mortuary, and the truth will come out.

For me, the turning point came when the Party told yet another lie, and that lie was too dreadful to even for me to accept. You may have heard that China built a new hospital, called Huoshenshan Hospital, in Wuhan, to provide additional quarantine and isolation facilities for infected patients. You may have heard that they built it in only ten days.

That too is a lie.

Sure, they did build something in six days. But it was not a hospital. The true nature of the building was top secret. Initially, I was naive enough to believe that the Party was demonstrating its compassion and care for the people. But then my superiors sent me to Huoshenshan. I was shown around the installation by a military police officer called Corporal Meng (this is not his real name). It was there that I saw the truth.

As I have mentioned, the only way to protect oneself from the Agent is by wearing a special protective mask that is entirely unlike those available commercially. Even medical professionals do not have access to it. It is available only to biomedical warfare researchers and it contains extremely advanced technology.

These masks need to be kept at a particular temperature to offer full protection and lose their effectiveness very quickly. As I have also already said, one of the benefits of my position was that both my family and I had access to regular supplies, which is why were safe when compared to civilians, doctors and even lower-level government officials, all of whom wore utterly ineffective surgical masks in the misguided belief that they would protect them.

And so, wearing this special equipment, I went to Huoshenshan with Corporal Meng.

Whatever you want to call that place, it is not a hospital. Sure, the entrance looks like a hospital and in the ward at the front of the complex, there are what appear to be normal medical beds. There, thousands of infected patients lie, all of them in the early stages of the disease. I walked along those long, white corridors next to Corporal Meng, his angular face dispassionate in his military fatigues, and saw hundreds upon hundreds of identical hospital beds on which squirmed the terrified and diseased inhabitants of Wuhan. Their cries and pleas haunt me in the long nights in which I now am unable to sleep.

But this was merely the beginning. Eventually, the Corporal took me to the rear of this front section. There, locked metal gates led to what he called the “middle section”. The patients in the front are unaware of its existence. It is there that the more advanced cases are kept, in what most closely resembles a mental asylum.

Immediately upon entering this part of Huoshenshan, I was struck by the dim lighting and stench of vomit and human waste. Here the unfortunates roamed freely, their minds gradually disintegrating in endless panic attacks and psychotic episodes. Here too there were no more doctors, merely gorilla-faced men in black uniforms who belonged to some secret branch of the military police I had never heard of.

They appeared to have been selected for their cruelty, for they beat and degraded the patients in the most sadistic manner. Many of the inmates had regressed to childlike states and lay on the floor weeping like infants and begging for compassion that they did not receive. There was a cruel pleasure in the eyes of these thugs as they brutalised the unfortunates. They beat them with batons, sprayed pepper spray into their eyes and kicked them with their steel-capped boots. As I was from military intelligence, the guards did not even attempt to hide their activities. They even invited me to join; in every way, they treated me as one of them.

Yes, one of them. I stood in the grey staff bathroom of Huoshenshan and looked into a cheap mirror and asked myself — is this really what you are? Are you like them?

But the violence was not merely an expression of sadism, for the poor inmates were not there to be cared for.

They were there to work.

There was one more set of doors, and beyond them lay what the Corporal called the “Core”. And it was there that I saw it — piles and piles of dead bodies, stacked on top of one another to the ceiling. There were men, women, and children, elderlies and toddlers, rich and poor, beautiful and misshapen, proud and humble.

They were all of them dead. Our Agent made no distinction between any of them.

I gasped when the Corporal led me to the Core. I cannot count how many there were, but it was many, many thousands. And amid the piles of corpses was a kind of path, and I heard a roaring sound in the distance. The miserable patients from the middle section picked up the dead and carried and dragged them away into the dark, even as the guards beat them with truncheons.

It took me a little while before I grasped what was happening. I simply could not believe what lay at the end of that path in the Core.

It was an enormous furnace, with great fires roaring within.

One by one, their minds destroyed and their bodies twisted, the dying men and women carried the corpses to the furnace and cast them inside in a doomed attempt to hide the dreadful truth. I saw several of them collapse from exhaustion only for their lifeless bodies to be added to the mountains of corpses on both sides. In a seemingly endless line they went, their emaciated bodies clad in grey overalls, their backs bent under the weight of their dreadful cargo. Many howled and groaned in terror and their voices joined in a sorrowful cacophony that lingered over the roar of the fires.

In deep shock, I stared at the boundless horror before me. Beside me stood Corporal Meng, his freshly-shaved face as emotionless as before. When I turned to face him, he looked at me. His mouth smiled, but his eyes did not.

“We use the energy to operate Huoshenshan,” he said. “We save the state considerable resources in this way. And look,” — he waved at the gallery of the dead — “there are so many of them here. You could almost describe it as renewable energy.” He laughed and waved his hand in a strangely camp gesture.

I stood speechless and stared at the infernal scenes before me. Men in black uniforms screamed like daemons at the wretches who were disposing of the corpses for them. They stripped the dead of anything that had value — jewellery, cash, expensive clothing — and tossed these items onto an enormous pile next to the furnace. When I asked the Corporal what would be done with the items, they said that they would be used to pay for the “healthcare expenses” incurred by the patients’ stay in Huoshenshan.

I vomited in the toilet. When I flushed and came out of the stall, Corporal Meng stood by the door and looked at me. His face was as blank as before, but in his eyes, I thought I registered a very faint trace of contempt. You are ten years my senior, the look said, but you are soft.

I thanked him for his service and went home.

When I arrived, I saw that I had received hundreds of updates on the encrypted device the Party uses to communicate to insiders. The news was unimaginably grim. The State Legal and Economic Commission had allocated funds for the construction of dozens of facilities like Huoshenshan throughout China. The Agent had spread not only to every single province of the motherland but to most other nations in the world. Fortunately, we had agreements in place with other governments — they agreed to pretend that the infections were due to a coronavirus. They were just as worried as we were that panic might break out in their countries. The Americans, in particular, were terrified that the S&P 500 might decline. This, they said, would be unacceptable in an election year, so we could count on their full support.

Of course, the World Health Organisation also helped us. For a long time, the only issue with the WHO has been that we have been locked in a contest with the Americans about who bribes them more. They released all sorts of sophisticated misinformation about having decoded the DNA of the so-called coronavirus. All this has allowed us to stave off a global panic.

For now.

Yet the situation was worsening with astonishing speed. I am reluctant to reveal too much on this point, as it would make it too easy for my enemies to identify me, but we quickly began to implement measures to protect our most senior leaders. If you look at the world news, you will see that Xi Jinping, our President, disappeared for approximately one week after the outbreak, before being seen again with the leader of Cambodia.

You should know that the person who met the Cambodian leader was not President Xi. It was a body double who had, for many years, been trained to look and sound just like our President. President Xi is of course not careless enough to risk his death. He is safely ensconced in a secret bunker underneath Zhongnanhai, the headquarters of the Party in Beijing.

Nor was he the only leader who is in hiding. I can assure you that over half of all senior Party members are currently being imitated by trained actors who are following instructions given to them via special implants. Do you think that our Prime Minister would risk his life by going to Wuhan?

All of this means that our government has become utterly paralyzed and the functions of the state have been taken over by the military.

It became clear to me that our efforts were pointless. Yes, the lockdowns, travel bans and targeted assassinations of rebellious journalists allowed us to hide the true situation in Wuhan; but I knew that this would not last. Once the mass deaths begin in the rest of the world — in our estimation, this should happen within the next week or so — everyone will know the truth. It will become clear that we cannot protect ourselves from the Agent. Surgical masks, hand sanitizer, gloves — nothing can stop it. Nothing except the special hazmat masks, but those cannot be produced in anything like sufficient quantities. You, an ordinary person, will never even receive one, let alone a sufficient number to see you through the coming holocaust.

For those of you reading this, therefore, all I can suggest is that you keep your loved ones close to you. Hug them, tell them what they mean to you. Enjoy the time you have left with them. It is not typical in Chinese culture to express one’s feelings in this way, but I have learned the importance of such gestures.

I promised my wife that I would show this document to her before I posted it.

Yet I broke my word.

I hear her weep in loud, hoarse sobs in the bedroom, and the keyboard of my laptop is wet with my tears. Not long ago, we received results of the regular tests that are part of our “priority medical treatment”, and we learned that my son had been infected with the Agent.

The military police that has supplied me with the special protective mask had been giving expired and ineffective masks to my son, masks that senior officials had already worn and then discarded when they ceased to protect them. My masks, on the other hand, had always been of the necessary quality.

I suppose they decided that my son was of lower priority than me. I suppose my son could not help them with their cover-up.

We had long ago decided that we would be different — we would be honest with him, always. And so when he asked us, we told him the truth. We told him that he was very sick. He asked more, and we told him he would not get better.

He continued asking, and we told him that he would die. He is very small, but he was old enough to understand.

His terrified wails will haunt me for the rest of my miserable days in this world.

Let them come. Let them do with me as they will. I no longer care.

@behind_stories

#coronavirus #covid19

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pierrehardy · 5 years ago

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COVID-19 x Poor Countries

This is a short post on the effects of the Covid-19 on poor countries. This is an essential focus because even though richer countries are being ravaged, historically, it is the poorest that gets the worst of it. Poor countries cannot whip out $2 trillion [1] like what the US did. As John Nkengasong said, the director of Africa CDC, for poor countries, this is a “national security crisis first, an economic crisis second, and a health crisis third.”

I’ll keep it short and concise so you can get a clear picture quickly, but I’ll include sources at the end to serve as a reading list if you want.

First, I will enumerate the problems that the pandemic is causing in poor countries. Second, I will TRY to look at the “bright side” of things. Third, the possible solutions. And lastly, I’ll end with two examples of doing their part in taking this seriously.

Problems

Poor people cannot social distance. It’s simply impossible if you live in the slums. [2]

Hand washing is a difficult habit to form if you live in a place with no running water. [3]

The poor cannot isolate themselves at home. These are people who live day to day, and without going out to work, they will not have food to eat. If the government forces them to stay at home, a riot is bound to happen. What the virus can’t kill, hunger will. [4]

Some countries, usually the better off, are becoming nationalists and shutting down their exports. The last thing a global pandemic needs is for global trade to get gummed up. [5][6]

The spread of fake news. Most notably, the two kinds: religious fake news and quack cures. For example, Tanzania’s president refuses to close down churches because he believes the virus is Satanic and cannot survive in a place of worship. [7] He is not alone in thinking this way. Another is the false information that garlic, ginger, and lemon can cure the virus. This is false and does nothing but drive up the prices for these goods. [8]

There has been a rise in xenophobia among countries as they start to attack foreigners and immigrants. [9]

There have been opportunistic autocratic wannabees that are taking advantage of this mess. They will use the virus as an excuse to ban political rallies, postpone elections, and increase the surveillance of its citizens. [10]

Several companies and businesses cannot survive this and would need credit to stay alive. [11] This can mean a lot of lost jobs.

Lastly, which is the worst problem, is the fact that poor countries are, well, poor. The healthcare system of poor countries can barely function without a crisis, the pandemic makes it worse [12]. And for a quarantine to work in a poor country with a population that needs to work every day to feed their families, they require social safety nets in the form of food or allowance from the government. Similarly to businesses affected by this, they need a lifeline of credit from the government to stay alive. In short, it is expensive, and poor countries can’t afford it. [13]

To make it worse, the sources of income of poor countries are taking a hit too. Many of these countries rely on tourism [14], which is obviously dwindling [15]. They count on commodities like raw materials and oil, whose prices are fallings. [16] (To clarify, the low price of oil is not primarily caused by the virus but by the price war that Saudi Arabia and Russia are having. [17] It is likely that this will last beyond this pandemic). Remittances can also get affected, as overseas workers can’t work too [18]. To top it off, foreign investors are fleeing from developing countries and into safer investments, aka richer countries [19]. This caused a depressing outcome of making credit cheaper in wealthier countries and more expensive to poorer countries. This pandemic is shaping up to be worse than the 2008 financial crisis.

Bright Sides (there is none, really)

Most poor countries have younger populations (only 5% of Africa is old while in Europe, it’s 24%). So if you’re morbid, you may find comfort in this. But not too much since most of the youth in poor countries are malnourished and don’t have a robust immune system.

Most people in poor countries are in rural areas, where it is less dense and is better for social distancing. But again, a caveat is that it’s only a matter of time before the virus arrives in rural areas.

Most poor countries are hot, and the infection spreads slower in warm countries. Then again, findings for this are inconclusive at worst, and the effects are modest at best. [20]

Nations hit with a health crisis tend to keep the excellent hygiene habits they were forced to form.

Possible Solutions

The simplest one that is absolutely necessary is transparent information. That means no cover-ups, no downplaying, no arresting of people exposing unsavory news. [21]

There’s no going around it. The richer countries must help the poorer countries, either through credit or forgiving debt. [22] Three main motivations for rich countries: (1) Compassion, (2) if you leave the poor to deteriorate, the poor will inevitably reinfect you, and (3) whoever helps the poor now will dictate their allegiance in the future. The poor will remember who helped them.

Positively, the rich world is doing just that. The IMF readied $1 trillion in aid. [23] The G20 pledged to inject $5 trillion to the world economy. [24] China has been active in giving assistance [25], and so is its richest man, Jack Ma, in donating testing kits, protective suits, and masks. [26]

Positive Examples: Brazil and Africa

The president of Brazil does not take the Covid-19 seriously. Nonetheless, congressmen ignored the president’s downplaying of the virus and declared a state of calamity anyways. LGUs have locked down several cities and turned football stadiums into hospitals. Universities and private labs have dedicated their efforts to producing testing kits with private companies supplying the required materials for free. A brewery in Brazil has also started manufacturing hand sanitizer. Activists have been roving around with loudspeakers, telling people to stay in their homes. They have also proposed turning empty schools into quarantine centers and with renting mansions to house the elderly in a far off district. Even the gangs of organized criminals have imposed curfews in their territories and stopped selling drugs in open-air markets. They’re doing all of this while being heckled by their president, whose approval ratings have tanked as a result. [27]

In Africa, the governments’ actions were much swifter compared to Europe. Sierra Leone declared a state of emergency for the whole year, even before confirming a single infection. Uganda locked down schools even before being infected. South Africa locked the country down earlier than most European countries. They also immediately beefed up testing facilities. They now have 40 countries capable of testing, from only 2. This can all be attributed to Africa’s experience with epidemics (like Ebola). [28]

To summarize: basically, poor countries are especially vulnerable to the pandemic. They would likely require the assistance of wealthier nations to survive this and still have a livelihood afterward. Keep in mind the nine main problems we face so that we can form a more informed solution. Thanks for reading, I hope you learned something new today.

References

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/world/coronavirus-news-live.html

[2]https://www.rediff.com/news/special/how-can-there-be-social-distancing-in-slums/20200324.htm

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51929598

[4] https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/28/social-distancing-is-a-privilege/

[5]https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-eu-limit-exports-medical-equipment/

[6] http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-03/25/c_138913230.htm

[7]https://www.voanews.com/science-health/coronavirus-outbreak/tanzanian-president-criticized-refusing-close-places-worship

[8]https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/04/who-pushes-back-on-coronavirus-misinformation-and-bogus-cure-claims.html

[9]https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/03/coronavirus-covid19-xenophobia-racism/607816/

[10]https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-and-autocrats-never-let-pandemic-go-to-waste-11585400400

[11]https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/business/economy/coronavirus-business-credit-access.html

[12] Personally visited the Philippine General Hospital in the past.

[13]https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-is-advancing-on-poor-nations-and-the-prognosis-is-troubling-11585149183

[14]http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20130320-how-tourism-can-alleviate-poverty

[15] https://www.unwto.org/tourism-covid-19-coronavirus

[16] https://www.fastmarkets.com/commodities/coronavirus

[17]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/the-saudi-crown-prince-s-plan-to-win-the-global-oil-war

[18]https://think.ing.com/snaps/philippines-remittance-growth-hits-4.1-in-2019/

[19]https://www.wsj.com/articles/emerging-markets-take-hit-as-investors-flee-for-safety-11584529200

[20]https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/12/asia/coronavirus-flu-weather-temperature-intl-hnk/index.html

[21]https://www.euractiv.com/section/coronavirus/news/commitment-transparency-pay-off-as-south-korea-limits-covid-19-spread/

[22]https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/03/rich-countries-must-protect-developing-nations-coronavirus-pandemic/

[23]https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/imf-says-its-ready-to-mobilize-its-1-trillion-lending-capacity-to-fight-coronavirus.html

[24]https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/business/g20-leaders-pledge-usd-5-trillion-united-response-to-coronavirus-crisis/articleshow/74835666.cms

[25] https://time.com/5812015/china-medical-aid-pakistan/

[26]https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/16/africa/jack-ma-donate-masks-coronavirus-africa/index.html

[27]https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2020/03/26/brazils-president-fiddles-as-a-pandemic-looms

[28]

https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/03/26/africa-is-woefully-ill-equipped-to-cope-with-covid-19

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lhs3020b · 5 years ago

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Some notes on recent polling developments (long, fairly depressing)...

The YouGov MRP figures came out last night. This is notable because in 2017, the multilevel-regression approach was the sole one that spotted the possibility of a hung parliament. We all ridiculed it at the time - I'll confess that I side-eyed it too. And then - well, we all know what happened to Theresa May, don't we? So, the MRP thing deserves to be taken seriously. And unfortunately, this year, it's looking grim for us. Briefly, the MRP is forecasting a Tory majority. They're also predicting that all opposition parties (bar the SNP, who only stand in Scotland) will lose seats. Labour in particular look in the danger-zone for a collapse, and contrary to their bullish predictions, the Liberal Democrats are also forecast to lose seats. (Note that this is with respect to their current strength - technically, the MRP result gives them a gain of 2 seats on where they were on the 9th of June. They currently have 19, due to defections from various other parties.)

I'll admit that I don't want to believe the MRP results, but this has never been a data-denialist blog, and I don't intend to start on that road today.

One caveat is that the reporting on the MRP results has ben remarkably-bad. The actual YouGov page is here: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/11/27/yougov-mrp-conservatives-359-labour-211-snp-43-ld- Buried a long way down the page, they say this: "Taking into account the margins of error, our model puts the number of Conservative seats at between 328 and 385, meaning that while we can be confident that the Conservatives would currently get a majority, it could range from a modest one to a landslide." As far as I can tell, the "majority of 68" figure is derived by treating 317 as a working majority and assuming that the Tory vote lands right at the upper end of their confidence-interval. This is poor statistical practice for a variety of reasons. It's also a bit questionable in terms of parliamentary arithmetic - the "working majority" thing depends on how many Sinn Fein MPs Northern Ireland elects (they don't take their seats, so count toward neither Government nor Opposition tallies). And we won't necessarily know how many that is until, well, December the 13th.

(Also, a further health-warning is that apparently the model isn't able to fully-represent some local phenomena, such as independent candidates, and the effect of the Brexit Party's partial stand-down is also apparently somewhat-unclear. The last caveat is that the analysis assumes data that has already been collected - that is, if public opinion changes between now and polling day, then obviously existing projections could become obsolete. This will still be a possible source of error even if the MRP sample is statistically-unbiased and the underlying theory/analysis is all sound.)

However, even the best-case scenario for us gives the Tories 328 seats, which is both a working and a (very small) absolute majority.

Obviously, this is not a good situation for us.

While not quite a landslide, nonetheless an inflated Tory majority will be devastating for this country. The stuff they'll do will be awful. Brexit will happen. There'll be a bus crash late next year, when the transition period ends. (No, they will have no plan for this - they won't feel they need one, as they'll be secure in power until 2024.) There'll be a Windrush for resident EU citizens. They'll trash the economy. They'll probably crash the NHS - the only question there is whether they do it through accidental negligence or through deliberate malice (say, an ideologically-driven trade "deal" that gives President Trump everything he wants on a silver platter). Nothing will be done about the country’s escalating housing crisis. They'll double down on all the maddest of the madcap "law-n-order" stuff - expect an explosion in jailable offences, accompanied by lengthy minimum-sentence tariffs and further restrictions on legal aid. They'll also resuscitate their plans to manipulate the parliamentary boundaries, and change electoral laws in their favour. The media? Expect no surprises from them. The newspapers are largely already Conservative Pravdas. The BBC - nervous about its precious Royal Charter - seems to be in the process of declaring itself for the Tories too.

Bluntly, if the Tories get re-elected this year, they'll gerrymander things so you have little chance of getting rid of them in 2024.

Perhaps this is the key thing to understand about Boris Johnson: really, he's less Britain's Trump, and more Britain's Victor Orban. He'll leave just enough vestigial democracy intact to make what he's doing plausibly-deniable, but he'll busily rearrange the furniture to favour himself and his friends. If he gets re-elected this December, you can expect to be seeing his face into the 2030s. The only reason I put the cut-off as early as that is that I expect the coming climate-crisis will wreak havoc with the Tories' internal coalition. (Oh you've built all your luxury millionaire mansions by the seaside? How nice for you, especially now that the sea is literally in your parlour. Umm, whoops.)

What can be done? Well, the first thing is to reiterate some discussions I've seen on Twitter recently. The TL;DR of them is that hope doesn't have to be something you feel - it can be something you do. (And that's just as well, because I'll admit that 2019 has destroyed what traces of social optimism I was clinging to. I'm dreading the bad end that's coming to us next month, but I also fully-expect it.)

So, my advice remains as it has been: on December the 12th, turn up, and vote for whoever you judge most likely to beat the Tory.

Remember, the MRP approach is fallible. "Mortal, finite, temporary" is absolutely in play here; no model is any better than the data that went into it. Or, indeed, the date when it was calculated. And at the end of the day, the only poll that genuinely-matters is the one on December the 12th, and that hasn't actually happened yet. (Though admittedly, given the storm-surge of pre-emptive grief that's flooding Twitter today, you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.)

As for the horrible mess that are our opposition parties, I'll repeat what I said in 2017: it's OK to vote for a least-worst option. You're not perjuring yourself or committing any moral sin, rather you're trying to be a grown-up. Part of the package of being an adult is making the best of bad situations.

It absolutely does suck - believe me, this is one of the most soul-destroying election campaigns I've ever seen. Every single party has clown-show'd itself. All of them have done things that are ridiculous, inept or otherwise ghastly. (Well, maybe not the Greens - I haven't heard of any specific scandals surrounding them - but their cardinal sin is that they have no plausible prospect of winning the election.) But even then, the barrel we're going to have to stare down is going and voting for them anyway.

(As a related case-in-point, one factor that seems to have helped the Tories win their unexpected 2015 majority was that a contingent of left-wing voters simply stayed at home on the day. While it's hard to find concrete statistics on, nonetheless anecdotally, this absolutely was a thing. A lot of people were demotivated by Labour's confused and incoherent campaign, left cold by all the bothering about fiscal rules, and alienated by things like the mug with "controls on immigration" on it. All of those are 100% valid criticisms. Except, except, except ... it helped an even worse party back into office. The theory of "if the choices are bad, sit it out" has been tested to destruction. It turns out that looking the other way is also a choice, and not necessarily the best one.)

I would add that there are also real questions to be asked about the utter vacuum of political strategy of people nominally on the anti-Tory side - it seems the Opposition spent the summer fixated on the minutiae of House procedures, while never stopping to ask why they were on this battlefield to begin with. Meanwhile the Tories largely-ignored Commons process, and instead sent a political appeal straight to Leave voters. It lost them a lot of individual legislative battles (and I'm not minimising their defeats - they were important!), but it put them in a good strategic place to win an election. And in the long run, it turns out that was what mattered.

It's hard not to feel bitter while thinking about the events of spring and summer. Perhaps if Jo Swinson had been less blinkered about Jeremy Corbyn, perhaps if Labour could have had the minimum sense to call a Vote of No Confidence when BoJo was vulnerable, perhaps if the collective Opposition had been able to recognise the huge wave of unharnessed political energy washing through the country during the petition back in March, perhaps if Change UK had managed to be something other than an unfunny joke, maybe if Corbyn had taken the anti-semitism problem seriously in 2018 and had actually done something instead of sitting on his hands and letting it metastasize to the point where it derailed his election campaign ... but, no. That's for some other, better timeline, not the one we live in. We seem to live in the world that resolutely and firmly chooses the wrong fork in every road. I don't know whether our timeline quite qualifies as the Bad Place, but it's certainly a place full of bad choices.

In a weird sort of way, though, this brings us back to the key theme. Whatever you might think of what's happening in this election - and goodness knows I'm as appalled as anyone else - nonetheless, your vote matters. Use it. As we're seeing, this is the ultimate limitation on their power, and the one chance we have of stopping them.

So once more, let me reiterate: turn up. Vote against the Tory. Do it as a hopeful action, even if you don't feel hopeful. If nothing else, do it so that when the bad things happen, at least you can say you tried to stop it. I wish I had something less bleak to offer here, but this is where we are.

#UK internal politics #diary of a disaster #needed to get that wail of despair out of my system really #still feeling quite despairing though

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earlgreytea68 · 7 years ago

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Maybe it's bc I'm from a country whose gov wiretapped innocent people they saw as their enemies but I can't believe people PAY MONEY to get spied on so they what? Don't have to press a button?! I'm not angry or anything just absolutely baffled at how many people ACTIVELY choose this dystopian nightmare shit. Things are bad enough already so I just wonder how both those things (anger about fb&owning alexa) fit together. Not attacking you, just genuinely wondering about the thought process (1/2)

Valid question! Here’s my thought process:

First, the Facebook thing is actually less about the collection and sale of my data than...a really, really long tortured relationship with Facebook that needs to end now. Not that I agree with the collection and sale of my data! Because I don’t! But you should know my long history, because I think it explains my thought process.

I registered for Facebook early, when you still had to have an edu email address. I thought I had it locked down, private, friends-only. Then, a few years later, my boss walks into my office and closes my door and gives me a talking-to about “inappropriate Facebook posts.” To be clear, I was never a person, like, posting topless photos on Facebook or something, nor was I complaining about my boss really. It was more like, “Ugh, I have to work all weekend, sorry I can’t go to this party!” And she was like, “THAT IS PRIVILEGED INFORMATION THAT YOU WORKED ALL WEEKEND.” And I was like, ...how are you even seeing my Facebook, you’re not my friend? So (a) I was spooked, because when your boss yells at you because of Facebook, it’s terrifying, and (b) I was completely bewildered that she could even see my Facebook. Upon investigation, it turned out that at the time (and this was a decade ago), if you put down where you work, EVERYONE who also put that place down could see your Facebook, even if they weren’t your friend and your Facebook was friends-only. (I think Facebook has changed that policy now.)

So, terrified, I deleted my Facebook. But this was back when not having a Facebook caused this whole public outcry thing and my friends freaked out and so I gave in and re-started a Facebook, posting very little because I was terrified. But I still used it. Until I got depressed and started therapy. My therapist told me to keep a stress journal, where I wrote down whenever I felt a spike of stress, and going on Facebook consistently showed up in the journal as a source of stress. So, upon my therapist’s suggestion, I stopped going on Facebook. I still kept it instead of deleting it because I didn’t want people to freak out the way they did the first time, but I stopped using it.

Fast-forward many years, and in January of this year, I tried to open a Facebook for the psuedonym I use for novels. Facebook immediately flagged me as suspicious and asked me to prove I was me by uploading a photo. And I was kind of like, ....Why do you need my photo? What’s that going to prove? All I can assume is that, of course, they have a database of what we all look like. How they know I’m not just grabbing a random photo of the person I’m trying to impersonate off the internet is another question entirely. But I was like, Fine, whatever, I don’t feel like fighting with you, Facebook, so I gave up on having a pseudonym page.

And then I started thinking: Why did I still have a Facebook? I never go on Facebook. All the stuff had happened with the election, so it wasn’t like people would freak out anymore if I deleted it, they’d totally get it. And I kind of no longer wanted to give Facebook bragging rights about how many users it has by counting me when I don’t actually use it. And Zuckerberg’s attitude seemed to be that if you didn’t like Facebook, you shouldn’t use Facebook. I COMPLETELY disagree with this sentiment on his part because I think it completely ignores how many people can’t opt out of Facebook at this point, but luckily, I can opt out of Facebook.

...Or so I thought.

Except that I requested deletion of my Facebook, and they confirmed deletion and said I was scheduled for deletion within two weeks, and then...just never deleted my Facebook. Which I only know because they keep sending me emails about me being tagged and people sending me messages (even though I also keep requesting to be unsubscribed from those emails). (And also my friends still on Facebook confirm for me that I’m still on there.) I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to get in touch with Facebook but...you can’t. It’s impossible. Try not being on Facebook and finding ANY contact information for Facebook other than a paper mailing address. If you find the contact info, please let me know!!! They have zero available email addresses, they don’t respond to their Twitter, and the phone number that circulates online is a dangerous scam stealing your social security numbers (which Facebook knows and warns you about but still doesn’t provide you with any way to contact them).

So my anger with Facebook isn’t just about gathering and selling my data, it’s the culmination of years of mistrust and knowing it’s not healthy for me in general and then BEING DENIED MY RIGHT TO DELETE IT AND BEING RENDERED COMPLETELY POWERLESS. Like, the longer this has gone on, and the longer I have realized that there is literally nothing I can do to get Facebook to delete my account, the angrier and angrier I have gotten.

So. That’s Facebook. As for the Alexa, well. You’re right. It sits in my house and is probably recording everything that happens in the house. Which is...basically nothing. I’m only home a few waking hours a day because I work full-time. I travel most weekends, so I’m not there on the weekends. I live alone, so I don’t talk much in my house. I have people over maybe two or three times a year, and then I can unplug the Alexa and stick it out in the garage and I feel relatively okay about that???? I might be kidding myself there, but, if worse comes to worst, I can throw the Alexa out entirely, and I think I’m okay. So I feel mostly in control of Alexa and its eavesdropping on me.

I worry more about the fact that I’m supporting Amazon in the first place, since I disagree with most of Amazon’s policies. I feel really guilty about that and do want to extract myself from the Amazon dependency I developed. My only shopping option in my town was Wal-Mart, and at the time when I moved there a few years ago I thought it was better to support Amazon than Wal-Mart. Now I’m not so sure about that (although I guess the lesson I’ve been learning is that there is no company I really want to give my money to).

I also worry more about the fact that I have a smartphone than an Alexa. I was very, very late to adopt a smartphone--years and years after everyone else had them--because I was very wary of them. I’m used to them now, but I don’t like how much information the smartphone has on me. I’ve given up a little bit, because I just...did. But the information the Alexa has is tiny compared to how much my phone has. And we all know that we have our suspicions that the phones are listening to us the whole time. And I *do* talk on the phone. I don’t talk much in my house, but my phone is the device I use to talk on (I talk a lot while walking around the neighborhood, waiting between classes at work, etc.). So the phone is getting every conversation I have, not the Alexa.

All that said: I don’t know that I can completely disconnect now. I shouldn’t have a smartphone, or a Twitter, or a Tumblr, but I decided that at a certain point what I’m really going to strive to do is be conscious about this technology and work to shape it in better ways. Is this naive and idealistic of me? Yes. Undoubtedly. I have nothing I can say to defend myself on that point. I absolutely should just unplug...but that’s difficult to do, and I do feel like (as the EU is trying here) there are ways to make this technology less dangerous.

Anyway. That’s my thought process. I think we all make the decisions we feel fit what we’ve considered. I don’t care much for Facebook, so it’s easy for me to disconnect (well, it would be if Facebook would let me, which is part of my major Facebook problem). I find Alexa useful and because I don’t do much around it and it’s connected to less stuff than my cell phone to begin with, it doesn’t bother me as much, and I feel like I can change my mind and get rid of it fairly easily. Of course, I could be wrong about that. I always thought I could delete my Facebook at any time, too.

Everyone might get done reading this and think, Wow, EGT is an absurd human being who makes zero sense. That is a completely true statement.

#long post #Anonymous

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newstfionline · 4 years ago

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Headlines

Canada’s other health crisis (Washington Post) The novel coronavirus was on the march across Canada, but it was a different public health crisis that turned Shannon Krell’s world upside down. Her brother hadn’t shown up for work, which was unusual. She called the police to have someone check on the 46-year-old, but a friend arrived first and made the sad discovery. Ryan Krell had died of an accidental drug overdose—another life lost to a crisis that has killed more than 15,400 people in Canada since 2016. Their number has increased in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic. British Columbia, the epicenter of the crisis, recorded its deadliest month in May—and then surpassed it in June. Nearly four times as many people in the province have died of a suspected overdose this year as have died of the coronavirus. Overdose deaths in the Yukon territory this year are double last year’s tally. Paramedics in the city of Saskatoon last month responded to a record weekly number of overdose calls.

Taller cubicles, one-way aisles: Office workers must adjust (AP) Bergmeyer, a design firm in Boston, has erected higher cubicles, told employees to wear masks when not at their desks and set up one-way aisles in the office that force people to walk the long way around to get to the kitchen or the bathroom. “The one-way paths take me a little out of the way, but it was easy to get used to,” said Stephanie Jones, an interior designer with the company. “It actually gives me the opportunity to see more people and say a quick hello when I might have just walked directly to my desk before.” Around the U.S., office workers sent home when the coronavirus took hold in March are returning to the world of cubicles and conference rooms and facing certain adjustments: masks, staggered shifts, spaced-apart desks, daily questions about their health, closed break rooms and sanitizer everywhere. Employers in some cases are requiring workers to come back to the office, but most, like Bergmeyer, are letting the employees decide what to do, at least for now. Some firms say the risks and precautions are worth it to boost productivity and move closer to normal.

Postal Crisis Ripples Across Nation as Election Looms (NYT) Each day, when Nick Casselli, the president of a Philadelphia postal workers union, sits down at his desk, his phone is full of alarmed messages about increasing delays in mail delivery. Mr. Casselli and his 1,600 members have been in a state of high alert since Louis DeJoy, a Republican megadonor and an ally of President Trump’s, took over as postmaster general in May. Overtime was eliminated, prompting backups. Seven mail-sorting machines were removed from a nearby processing center in West Philadelphia, causing further delays. Now, post offices are being told to open later and close during lunch. Similar accounts of slowdowns and curtailed service are emerging across the country as Mr. DeJoy pushes cost-cutting measures that he says are intended to overhaul an agency suffering billion-dollar losses. But as Mr. Trump rails almost daily against the service and delays clog the mail, voters and postal workers warn a crisis is building that could disenfranchise record numbers of Americans who will be casting ballots by mail in November because of the coronavirus outbreak. At risk are not just the ballots—and medical prescriptions and paychecks—of residents around the country, but also the reputation of the Postal Service as the most popular and perhaps the least politicized part of the federal government.

California power problems (NYT) A heat wave is scorching the Southwest and has forced intermittent power shut-offs in California. Thermometers are cracking 110 degrees Fahrenheit in some cities. Californians used so much electricity trying to stay cool Friday night that, for the first time in 19 years, the agency that oversees much of the state’s power grid shut off power to hundreds of thousands of customers for several hours to avoid a damaging overload. The National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning for much of the West Coast. The sweltering heat comes as coronavirus cases are on the rise in California, creating a dilemma for those who could not stay cool at home.

Bald Eagle Sends Government Drone Into Lake Michigan (NYT) A squabble in the sky over Lake Michigan left one bald eagle victorious and one government drone mangled and sunken. Hunter King, a drone pilot at the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, was surveying an area of the lake near the state’s Upper Peninsula last month when the $950 drone started “twirling furiously” after it indicated that a propeller had been torn off. “When he looked up, the drone was gone, and an eagle was flying away,” said the department, whose name is abbreviated E.G.L.E. The department speculated that the eagle could have attacked because of a territorial dispute, because it was hungry “or maybe it did not like its name being misspelled.” Julia Ponder, executive director of the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota, said that it was likely because the drone had encroached on the eagle’s territory. “They’re the king of the skies,” she said.

National Debt To Surpass $78 Trillion By 2028 (Forbes) The coronavirus pandemic pushed the government into the proverbial corner, prompting it to borrow heavily from the future to ward off a serious threat today. Without this intervention, the U.S. economy would be in a much worse recession or possibly even a depression. Even though borrowing excessively may have been the lesser of two evils, the burgeoning debt will have ramifications in the future. With the debt approaching $27 trillion, and projected to rise to $78 trillion by 2028, it will present significant challenges.

French government pushes for wider mask use (AP) After France recorded its highest one-day rise in virus infections since May, the government is pushing for wider mask use and tighter protections for migrant workers and in slaughterhouses. But France still plans to reopen schools nationwide in two weeks, and the labor minister says the government is determined to avoid a new nationwide lockdown that would further hobble the economy and threaten jobs. France’s infection count has resurged in recent weeks, blamed in part on people crisscrossing the country for weddings, family gatherings or annual summer vacations with friends. Britain reimposed quarantine measures Saturday for vacationers returning from France as a result.

Lukashenko under pressure as rival protests planned in Belarus capital (Reuters) Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko was under growing pressure on Sunday with rival protests due to converge on the capital a week after a contested presidential election that has thrown his country into turmoil. Lukashenko, in power for 26 years, has faced down a week of street demonstrations and refused demands for a re-run of an election protesters say was massively rigged to disguise the fact that he has lost public support. Often emotional in state TV appearances, the 65-year-old leader has alleged a foreign-backed plot to topple him. Russia, which has had a troubled relationship with Lukashenko, is watching closely as Belarus hosts pipelines that carry Russian energy exports to the West and is also viewed by Moscow as a buffer zone against NATO. The EU is gearing up to impose new sanctions on Belarus in response to a violent crackdown in which at least two protesters have been killed and thousands detained. Protesters show no signs of backing down.

Campus-based Thai protest movement extends reach to streets (AP) Anti-government protesters gathered in large numbers in Thailand’s capital on Sunday for a rally that suggested their movement’s strength may have extended beyond the college campuses where it has blossomed. Thousands of people assembled at Bangkok’s Democracy Monument, a traditional venue for political activities. Hundreds of police were also present, as well as a small contingent of royalists opposed to the protesters. There was no reliable estimate of the crowd size, though it appeared to be one of the biggest demonstrations in several years. The student-led movement has three core demands: holding new elections, amending the constitution and ending the intimidation of critics of the government. Thailand has experienced a successful coup roughly every six years on average since the army toppled the absolute monarchy in 1932 and replaced it with a constitutional monarchy. But it has been under military rule for much of the time since then.

10 killed in Somalia in extremist attack on Mogadishu hotel (AP) A Somali police officer says at least 10 people have been killed and more than a dozen others injured in an ongoing siege at a beachside hotel in Somalia’s capital where security forces are battling Islamic extremist gunmen who have invaded the building, Capt. Mohamed Hussein told The Associated Press that the attack started with a powerful car bomb which blew off the security gates to the Elite Hotel.

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