[NYPOST] The feds have disrupted hundreds of internet domains that cybercriminals have used to commit fraud and other crimes by taking advantage of the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... pandemic, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.
The FBI as of Tuesday received more than 3,600 complaints related to COVID-19 scams, "many of which operated from websites that advertised fake vaccines and cures, operated fraudulent charity drives, delivered malware, or hosted various other types of scams," according to a statement.
"To attract traffic, these websites often utilized domain names that contained words such as ’covid19,’ or ’coronavirus.’ In some cases, the fraudulent sites purported to be run by, or affiliated with, public health organizations or agencies," it added.
Law enforcement and several private-sector companies — including several internet domain providers and registrars — cooperated in the effort to disrupt the efforts of the cybercriminals, the feds said.
Among the illegal coronavirus-related sites was one pretending to solicit and collect donations for the American Red Thingy and others that spoofed government programs to trick people into entering personally identifiable information.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2020 00:00 ||
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#1 - got one this AM with a password harvested during that LinkedIn data breach a couple years ago. Supposedly I was doing naughty things on my (non-existent) webcam. I was almost tempted to send a pic of my @nus, but didn't want to confirm that email address was active
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2020 12:35 Comments ||
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#5
Facebook itself is being shutdown? Oh wait, fraud there continues.
#8
I don't know Mercutio, did I make it on my own?
Herring was born in 1933 and attended the University of Oklahoma, but did not graduate, before enlisting in the Air Force, where he flew B-47 and B-52 bombers. He flew 288 combat missions in Vietnam, eventually becoming a B-52 squadron pilot and a squadron aircraft commander. He earned numerous decorations before retiring in 1973 as a lieutenant colonel and starting an auto-detailing business.
#10
Mr. Herring - I think Mercutio's reference was to your sister's (Elizabeth's) use of false facts to gain preference and steal from ACTUAL, you know, American Indians? I don't think your facts as stated do? Thank you for your service, but since you're the dead guy, you can't read this?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2020 19:19 Comments ||
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[FoxNews] Citing draft documents published accidentally by the World Health Organization, the Financial Times reports that the study was the first randomized clinical trial of the antiviral to treat coronavirus.
The Chinese trial did not improve patients’ condition or remove the pathogen’s presence in their bloodstream, according to the FT. The trial compiled data from 237 patients, it said, 158 of whom received the drug. Their progress was compared to the remaining 79 patients in the study. Significant side effects were also reportedly seen in some patients, which meant that 18 were taken off the drug. "Nope, doesn't work. Now this generic we've patented with the same formulation. THAT works"
Health news site STAT also reported on the document, noting that the data from the study are likely imperfect. The trial, it reported, was ended prematurely, which could have affected the results.
In a statement obtained by Fox News, a Gilead Sciences spokesperson said the WHO documents "included inappropriate characterizations" of the study:
We regret that the WHO prematurely posted information regarding the study, which has since been removed. The investigators in this study did not provide permission for publication of results. Furthermore, we believe the post included inappropriate characterizations of the study. Importantly, because this study was terminated early due to low enrollment, it was underpowered to enable statistically meaningful conclusions. As such, the study results are inconclusive, though trends in the data suggest a potential benefit for remdesivir, particularly among patients treated early in disease. We understand the available data have been submitted for peer-reviewed publication, which will provide more detailed information from this study in the near future.There are multiple ongoing Phase 3 studies that are designed to provide the additional data needed to determine the potential for remdesivir as a treatment for COVID-19. These studies will help inform whom to treat, when to treat and how long to treat with remdesivir.
The studies are either fully enrolled for the primary analysis or on track to fully enroll in the near future.
#1
For all the braying about the need for studies as the only source of actual evidence, people forget just how ambiguous studies can be. As a particularly egregious example, just consider nutritional studies. Are eggs good for you?
#2
Yes. Like polls, it's all about who is asking, what is being asked and how it is being asked. Oh, and then the results have to be normalized.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/23/2020 15:15 Comments ||
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This is sorta important:
Health news site STAT also reported on the document, noting that the data from the study are likely imperfect. The trial, it reported, was ended prematurely, which could have affected the results.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/23/2020 15:29 Comments ||
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BLUF: WHO overexcited about a partially completed small-scale preliminary study that may or may not provide meaningful results, unlike the much better studies that are to come.
Scientists, in one metaphor, are ants, each bringing her crumb to the ant hill. Eventually there are enough crumbs to make a feast.
[Townhall] Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on Monday led a bicameral letter sent to House and Senate leadership calling for an end to taxpayer funding of the Wuhan Institute of Virology laboratory. It is believed that the Wuhan coronavirus started in the lab, despite lab director Yuan Zhiming denying such claims.
Thank you for your leadership to confront the threats posed by the coronavirus pandemic. We are writing to urge you to ensure that no stimulus funding is sent—directly or indirectly—to China’s controversial bio-agent laboratory the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
We were troubled by recent media reports that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been funding secretive and dangerous laboratory research at the WIV for many years. According to the NIH’s website, the WIV is currently authorized by the NIH to receive taxpayer funding for animal research (Assurance ID# F16-00279).
You may be aware that the WIV is the only facility in China designated as a biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) laboratory, meaning that it handles extremely deadly pathogens and biological agents. According to peer-reviewed research publications, the NIH has funded research at the WIV in recent years that involves capturing and handling coronavirus-infected bats from the same caves COVID-19 is believed to have originated from. In some cases, infected bats were killed and transported to the WIV for lab experiments. The research studies state that they were funded by an active NIH grant that has received $3.7 million in taxpayers’ money to date.
To make matters worse, a highly disturbing new report indicates that U.S. State Department cables from 2018 warned of "a SARS-like pandemic" risk related to the WIV’s treacherous and sloppy coronavirus research on bats.
We’re sure you agree that taxpayers’ money should not be sent to a dangerous Chinese state-run bio-agent laboratory that lacks any meaningful oversight from U.S. authorities and is run by adversaries with a history of lab leaks, including SARS, and deception about the causes and extent of deadly disease outbreaks, including COVID-19. 8 Although President Trump has stated that his administration "will end that grant quickly," we hope to ensure that WIV will not receive federal funds in any future spending packages.
Thank you for your efforts and assistance in this matter. We look forward to working with you to ensure stimulus funds intended to help American taxpayers and businesses recover from the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic are not misspent. If you have any questions regarding this request, please contact Ed Kim in Senator McSally’s office at 202-224-2235, or Devin Murphy in Rep. Gaetz’s office at 202-225-4136.
In addition to McSally and Gaetz, the letter is signed by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), James Lankford (R-OK), and 48 additional representatives.
#1
Evidently after 47,684 US deaths, the 'disadvantages' of outsourcing bio research have now become abundantly clear. The impacts of funding termination on our on-site monitoring and source reporting remain unknown.
I am still awaiting the publication of the comprehensive intelligence community report which will detail precisely how this CV-19 unpleasantness came about.
#3
“It was part of an overall $3.7 million funding program that went to six years in sites in China, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Myanmar,” Cruz said the NIH reported to him.
#4
is our motto now "Keep Infectious Waste In the USA"
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/23/2020 8:25 Comments ||
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Move virus research into orbit, where it belongs.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
04/23/2020 8:42 Comments ||
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We have a number of ships in dry dock, some are pretty big. Seems to me having a lab on a ship in the middle of the ocean would be the ideal way to work with this kind of material.
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/23/2020 12:11 Comments ||
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[Washington Examiner] The coronavirus won't stop some drivers from starting their engines this weekend in South Dakota.
Two of the state's racetracks will be hosting races this weekend in front of a large, but limited crowd. The Park Jefferson International Speedway sold all 700 tickets for its race on Saturday night in the venue that typically holds 4,000. The New Raceway Park sold 500 tickets for its Sunday night race. That venue usually holds 1,800 fans.
Sporting events across the nation have been shut down over concerns about the spread of the coronavirus. South Dakota is one of the few states that did not issue a stay-at-home order. Republican Gov. Kristi Noem urged South Dakotans not to attend events with more than 10 people, but she has said she would not shut down the races scheduled for this weekend.
Dennis Moore, the man organizing the race for Sunday night, told people concerned about the event to stay home. He noted that he believes the state must begin to return to normal, adding, "This country’s going to be on its butt if we don’t open this up."
Terry McCarl, the organizer for the race at Park Jefferson International Speedway, said the track plans to abide by social distancing guidelines. He told KELO, "The way we figured it, we could probably have a little over 900 people with 6 feet apart between each person, and we’re actually only selling 700 seats, not even 900, we actually went way less than that just to give people more room."
[Jpost] The novel coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... circulated in January in Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,, weeks earlier than thought, and early deaths were likely mistaken for the flu, a county health official said on Wednesday.
A 57-year-old woman had died of COVID-19 on Feb. 6, far earlier than any other reported cases in the United States, said Sara Cody, the health officer in Santa Clara County, California.
It was previously thought that the first US death from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, was in Washington state on Feb. 29.
News of the deaths in California could improve public health officials' understanding of how the outbreak took hold in the United States.
A 57-year-old woman had died of COVID-19 on Feb. 6, far earlier than any other reported cases in the United States.
Additional early deaths may also be discovered in California, further changing public health officials' understanding of the virus' progress. On Wednesday, Governor Gavin Newsom said that he had asked medical examiners from all 58 counties in California to research deaths that might have been COVID-related back to December.
The California woman's death and two other early cases - a 69-year-old man who died Feb. 17 and a 70-year-old man who died March 6 - were confirmed to have been COVID-19 by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after it tested tissue samples.
The county had previously identified its first case of community transmission - infectious spread among people who had not been to China or other early hot spots - on Feb. 28, Cody said. But none of the three patients who died had traveled.
"What these deaths tell us is that we had community transmission probably to a significant degree, far earlier than we had known, and that indicates that the virus was probably introduced and circulating in our community far earlier than we had known," Cody said.
Because the region was undergoing a bad flu season at the time, many cases may have been misclassified as influenza, she said.
The cases were likely "iceberg tips," Cody said, indicating that many more people were also infected.
The three cases were discovered because the county medical examiner's office was not satisfied that it had found the correct cause of death, Cody said. Because coronavirus tests were not available, they saved tissue samples, which they sent to the CDC.
The testing parameters at the time by the CDC restricted testing to individuals with a known travel history and who sought medical care for specific symptoms.
US coronavirus deaths topped 46,000 on Wednesday, doubling in a little over a week and rising on Tuesday by a near-record amount in a single day, according to a Rooters tally.
The United States has by far the world's largest number of confirmed coronavirus cases at more than 830,000.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2020 00:00 ||
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US COVID-19 deaths have been running about 2000 per day (+/-) for the last 16 days. New cases have been about 30,000 per day, with what looks like a slight decline. Total fatality rate (total deaths over total cases) has showed a steady rise. No idea what all that means.
[NEWSWEEK] early 2,500 employees at one of Michigan's largest health care systems learned on Tuesday they would be furloughed, due to particularly dire financial circumstances related to the novel coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... outbreak.
Beaumont Health, which has 38,000 employees serving eight hospitals in southeast Michigan, announced that most of the 2,475 members who were temporarily laid off filled administrative roles unrelated to the care of patients afflicted with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus strain, according to a Stamford Advocate report.
The company also permanently eliminated 450 positions and initiated salary cuts to top executives.
Beaumont Health CEO John Fox, who is taking a 70 percent pay cut, said the health care provider experienced first-quarter losses of $407.5 million in net income revenue as of March 31, and a decrease of $78.2 million in operating revenue during the same period.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2020 00:00 ||
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administrative roles unrelated to the care of patients
Different time, different disease...in my 6 month study, I found @30% of my interactions were unnecessary or ineffectual.
#3
Beaumont Health CEO John Fox, who is taking a 70 percent pay cut
Good for him
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2020 12:29 Comments ||
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If the corona virus is really as deadly as they say it is, why aren't there people piling into these hospitals for care? Especially with the federal government paying for uninsured corona cases, demand for medical care should be way up.
Something definitely does not add up.
Posted by: Tom ||
04/23/2020 12:47 Comments ||
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^ try adding this up, Major Tom: the Bay Area i.e. San Fran-Oakland San Jose, which ought to be Ground Zero for the COVID epidemic, has a grand total as of this am of 239 COVID fatalities.
239. Out of 8 million people.
And this population includes the largest concentration of Chinese, with thousands of travelers every day arriving from China including directly from Wuhan, during the 6 weeks of the virus's initial spread in Dec-January before the travel ban.
Plus thousands of homeless literally shitting all over SF's streets.
By our fearless leaders' doomsday models, SF and the rest of the Bay Area should have surpassed 10,000 deaths by now, and be well on our way to 50,000 Bay Area deaths. Remember: we're the leading edge of the disease's spread for the US, and we have extreme population density and every sort of high-vulnerability population imaginable -- almost a million Chinese, thousands of homeless, hundreds of thousands of illegals.
Instead of tens of thousands of COVID fatalities the 8-million pop. Bay Area has tallied 239.
[NYPOST] The letter was heartbreaking as it recounted the death of an 88-year-old woman in a New York nursing home. But it was also angry and accurate about a strange New York policy that is fatally wrongheaded.
"I am wondering who will hold Gov. Cuomo accountable for the deaths of so many older people due to his reckless decision to place covid19 patients in nursing and rehabilitation homes," the letter began. "I am writing as a daughter who lost her beautiful 88 year old mother who was receiving physical therapy at one such facility."
The writer, Arlene Mullin, went on to recount examples of the governor promising to protect the elderly because of their known vulnerability. She noted that he named his stay-at-home order after his own mother, Matilda Cuomo, and talked several times about protecting her.
Mullin had another complaint, too — that the media never asked the governor about an order mandating that nursing homes admit and readmit patients who tested positive for the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... , despite the extraordinary number of deaths among the elderly.
That drought ended Monday when The Post’s Bernadette Hogan asked about the policy at Cuomo’s daily briefing. His answer was stunning.
"That’s a good question. I don’t know," the governor said.
He turned to Howard Zucker, the state health commissioner, who confirmed the policy, saying "if you are positive, you should be admitted back to a nursing home. The necessary precautions will be taken to protect the other residents there."
The second part of Zucker’s answer is debatable, the first part is not. The disastrous results speak for themselves.
Picking and choosing who lives or dies. Sick. How anybody still has a job after this initial decision is beyond me.
New York City has passed the peak of new infections, so they can start returning to normal procedures instead of strict triage.
[NYPost] New York state officials have scrapped controversial new guidelines that directed emergency service workers not to attempt to revive anyone without a pulse when they arrive on a scene during the coronavirus pandemic.
State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker "rescinded" the "do-not-resuscitate" order put out by his Bureau of Emergency Medical Service on Wednesday — just hours after The Post exclusively reported on it.
...Also because it looks bad in the glare of sunlight.
"This guidance, proposed by physician leaders of the EMS Regional Medical Control Systems and the State Advisory Council — in accordance with American Heart Association guidance and based on standards recommended by the American College of Emergency Physicians and adopted in multiple other states — was issued April 17, 2020 at the recommendation of the Bureau of Emergency Medical Services, and reflected nationally recognized minimum standards," the Health Department said in a statement. "Look at all the acronyms and Orgs that recommended this. No actual humans were involved and don't blame me"
"However," it added, "they don’t reflect New York’s standards and for that reason DOH Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker has ordered them to be rescinded."
Paramedics were previously told to spend up to 20 minutes trying to revive people found in cardiac arrest before the state had issued the drastic change.
New York City's Fire Department and first responders never adopted the no-revival directive from the state and kept using the traditional 20-minute policy.
The nixed state health memo said the change was "necessary during the COVID-19 response to protect the health and safety of EMS providers by limiting their exposure, conserving resources, and ensuring optimal use of equipment to save the greatest number of lives."
First responders were outraged over the move.
"They're not giving people a second chance to live anymore,'' Oren Barzilay, head of the city union whose members include uniformed EMTs and paramedics, fumed of state officials.
"Our job is to bring patients back to life. This guideline takes that away from us," he said.
#1
DOHCommissioner Dr. Howard Zucker . Who appointed him, Homer Simpson?
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/23/2020 5:30 Comments ||
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This explains the additional non-COVID death spike in MUC this year.
For every COVID death there's been another needless death - i.e. one that would not have happened in prior years - due to the ban on use of hospital resources for surgeries and the diversion of urgent care resources.
#4
proposed by physician leaders of the EMS Regional Medical Control Systems and the State Advisory Council — in accordance with American Heart Association guidance and based on standards recommended by the American College of Emergency Physician
[TheHill] More than 7 in 10 voters fear losing freedoms due to the coronavirus pandemic, though exposure to the virus topped concerns overall, according to a Hill-HarrisX poll released Monday.
Eighty-three percent of registered voters in the April 6-7 survey said they are worried about being exposed to the coronavirus, while 74 percent said they are concerned about losing freedoms.
Seventy-three percent said they fear having to go to the hospital and 48 percent of voters said they are concerned about losing their job.
Thirty-five percent said they are concerned about having to re-locate due to pandemic.
Over the past week, protests against social distancing restrictions have broken out in several states. Many of those protesting have argued the restrictions are hurting the economy too much. Some have also suggested the restrictions are an over-reaction.
Public health officials, including members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, have advised that people should follow the restrictions to prevent the coronavirus from spreading. They say the economic costs if there are new outbreaks from the virus could be even worse.
Polling officials say the coronavirus pandemic is likely to raise more questions about civil liberties and government interventions.
"I think that's going to be one of the really important crossovers in the post-COVID era, between civil rights and public health," Mohamed Younis, Editor-in-chief at Gallup, told Hill.TV.
"Hopefully those concerns will be alleviated when there is a vaccine and people are able to move more freely but in the short term, I think every major democracy is going to be grappling with the fact of how do you find a balance between having people tracked on their cell phones in order to control the virus and who turns that off?" he added.
The Hill-HarrisX poll was conducted online among 1,000 registered voters on April 6-7. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
#3
When, all knowing, all mighty State mandated the rules for transgendered, they didn't fear. When quotas for women & minorities, capable or not, were announced - they didn't fear. But when their government is doing its job implementing emergency measures to save their lives - now they worry?
[Martin Armstrong] What's the old saying about taking flak when you are above the target?
The censorship being imposed by YouTube, Facebook, and others trying to crush any resistance to being locked-down. This documentary has been out for years. They are now reviewing anything that exposures the truth of the World Health Organization and the corruption that is systemic. We need to write to everyone in Congress and demand an investigation into WHO. If we do not do this, we have lost all our freedoms.
Taking this documentary down which has been out for years is a major warning of how we are entering an era indistinguishable from the old Soviet Union and Pravda — the Truth. Nobody removes conspiracy theories about aliens or alien abductions. So why remove anything that calls into question vaccines and the World Health Organization. I bet is anyone came out with a YouTube post calling into question Bill Gates and his wife and what they are making from vaccines it would be removed.
The ONLY reason to remove anything that calls into question the WHO or vaccines and the truth of the coronavirus scam is that it is hitting too close to the real truth. They are counting on people being obedient to authority and willing to surrender all human rights because the mob acts like a herd of sheep waiting to be told what to do next.
I would love to see a REAL poll taken about who believes this virus on a week by week basis.
[American Thinker] Talk radio great Jamie Allman filed a Sunshine law request for the actual emails of St. Louis County residents who've snitched on local entrepreneurs trying to make a living. Most of the complaints were unfounded, involving people "turning in" companies that were deemed essential by the county.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/23/2020 00:00 ||
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companies that were deemed essential by the county Like Lottery sales outlets...
[KhaamaPress] The Indian Army is readying a team which is expected to be deployed to Afghanistan in a bid to help with the fight against the novel coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... (COVID-19) outbreak in the country.
Official sources said Tuesday that similar teams are being prepared for the deployment to Sri Lanka, Baghladesh and Bhuttan.
This comes as the Indian Army sent a tam to Maldives last month to help the island nation set up coronavirus testing laboratories and train local medical professionals to fight the pandemic.
The Indian Army also deployed a 15-member team to Kuwait earlier this month as part of bilateral cooperation the two countries, according to Economic Times.
The sources said the teams for Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan are being readied as part of India’s policy of extending helping hand to all friendly countries in the region to fight the pandemic.
This comes as the public health ministry of Afghanistan announced Monday that the officials have recorded more than 1,000 positive cases of coronavirus across the country.
[KhaamaPress] The Ministry of Public Health confirmed confirmed that the new cases were recorded in 11 provinces of the country.
Waheedullah Mayar, a spokesperson for Public Health Ministry, said the officials recorded 28 new cases in Kabul, 3 in Herat, 2 in Ghazni and 4 in Kapisa province.
He also added that 6 other cases were recorded in Nangarhar, 3 in Kunr, 1 in Parwarn, 1 in Bamyan, 1 in Laghman, 1 in Paktiya and 1 in Farah.
According to Ministry of Public Health, the new cases increase the total number of COVID-19 cases to 1,143 which have been recorded since the outbreak of the disease in the country.
#3
They're the Army Medical Corps. They go everywhere for this sort of thing. The UN often calls on them for some of the shittiest jobs, like in Sudan.
Sadly, 'soft projection' is all we're willing to do. Because we're surrounded by sasquatch republics and wannabe caliphates, we end up ultimately treating the Ummah. I don't see what strategic advantage there is in this idiot altruism; especially dragging the military into it.
#4
SFOD-A, ah yes, the MTT! wherein you get to go to remote areas and build hospitals for people who believe only and resolutely in black magic, build airborne schools for men who only want your jump wings for the ju-ju, and start commando schools for the first 50 guys they round up off the street.
In calmer, whiskey soaked moments I heard it theorized that such excursions were a reverse morale builder. Much in the way that the Foreign Legion tends to starve the men to create a state of pure meaness and aggression, the real purpose of going on MTT's was to engender an absolute disdain for the countries involved and a cheerful willingness to kill their citizens.
Posted by: John Frum ||
04/23/2020 17:28 Comments ||
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#7
My impression is that Chinese COIN was 'big' of Corruption (bribing elites) and Slaughter (killing provinces full of peasants as a 'Show of Force')...
[PUNCHNG] Fourteen people were killed Wednesday in festivities between the security forces and armed members of a sect in southwest DR Congo, government sources said.
The violence occurred in Songololo, near the key RN1 highway linking the capital Kinshasa with the country’s sole outlet to the sea, said Lievain Mayala, a bigwig in the General Directorate of Migration.
"At present there are 14 dead and three seriously maimed," Mayala said, adding that the festivities involved members of the Bundu Dia Kongo, a political-religious group claiming to represent the Kongo ethnic group.
Two coppers were believed to be among the casualties, Mayala said.
Security forces intervened overnight against BDK followers who "were preparing an operation to kill the administrator of the territory" and attack non-Kongo inhabitants, Mayala said.
"When they heard about this, local people in Songololo went and burned down the BDK church," said Mayala, whose organization controls the link between Kinshasa and the twin Atlantic ports of Matadi and Boma.
"Right now, calm has returned, but it’s relative calm because local people are afraid of reprisals by the BDK, some of whose men have fled into the forests."
It is the third clash in recent days on the RN1, a 350-kilometre (200-mile) umbilical cord by which Kinshasa, a city of some million people, is supplied.
Ten people died in two incidents in mid-April.
In late March, police in Kinshasa dispersed a BDK rally that breached anti-coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... regulations at the time, under which any gathering of more than 20 people were banned.
Bundu dia Kongo means the "Kingdom of the Kongo" in the Kikongo language.
Founded in 1969, the BDK is led by a former MP, Ne Muanda Nsemi, whose declared goal is to restore a monarchy within the boundaries that existed in the 15th century before European colonisation — a vast area that extended from modern-day Angola to Gabon.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2020 00:00 ||
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[Reuters] - The British government came under sustained pressure over its coronavirus response on Wednesday when members of parliament got their first major opportunity in a month to hold it to account.
With the latest hospital death toll from the virus rising to 18,100 in the United Kingdom and persistent reports of a lack of protective equipment for staff in hospitals and care homes, stand-in leader Dominic Raab faced a barrage of tough questions.
"Something’s going wrong," new opposition leader Keir Starmer said during the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions session, where Raab was deputising for Boris Johnson who is recovering from COVID-19 at his country residence.
"There’s a pattern emerging here. We were slow into lockdown, slow on testing, slow on protective equipment, and are slow to take up these offers (to supply equipment) from British firms," said Starmer, the new leader of the Labour Party.
#3
Of course you were slow. Nationalized healthcare.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
04/23/2020 16:51 Comments ||
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#4
Mr Starmer is supposed to reunite the Jewish/Israel-supporting and Jew-hating wings of the Labour party, which strikes me as a Sisyphean task if ever there was one.
Full story on Asia Times (at link) has active links and references all through the story. Go there if you want to dig deeper. David Goldman (major owner in Asia Times) told an ex-Slashdot moderator he stands by the author on this. (yes the author does have a history of supporting the CCP).
[AsiaTimes] US-funded $3.7 million project approved by Trump's Covid-19 guru Dr Anthony Fauci in 2015 after US ban imposed on 'monster-germ' research.
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded bat-coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China to the tune of US$3.7 million, a recent article in the British newspaper Daily Mail revealed.
Back in October 2014, the US government had placed a federal moratorium on gain-of-function (GOF) research — altering natural pathogens to make them more deadly and infectious — as a result of rising fears about a possible pandemic caused by an accidental or deliberate release of these genetically engineered monster germs.
This was in part due to lab accidents at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in July 2014 that raised questions about biosafety at US high-containment labs.
At that time, the CDC had closed two labs and halted some biological shipments in the wake of several incidents in which highly pathogenic microbes were mishandled by US government laboratories: an accidental shipment of live anthrax, the discovery of forgotten live smallpox samples and a newly revealed incident in which a dangerous influenza strain was accidentally shipped from the CDC to another lab.
A CDC internal report described how scientists failed to follow proper procedures to ensure samples were inactivated before they left the lab, and also found "multiple other problems" with operating procedures in the anthrax lab.
As such in October 2014, because of public health concerns, the US government banned all federal funding on efforts to weaponize three viruses — influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
In the face of a moratorium in the US, Dr Anthony Fauci — the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and currently the leading doctor in the US Coronavirus Task Force — outsourced in 2015 the GOF research to China’s Wuhan lab and licensed the lab to continue receiving US government funding.
The Wuhan lab is now at the center of scrutiny for possibly releasing the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and causing the global Covid-19 pandemic.
It is understandable that the Chinese lab likely struggled with safety issues given the fact US labs share similar problems, and indeed in January 2018 the US Embassy in Beijing sent cables warning about the safety of the Wuhan lab and asked for help.
Additionally, the embassy warned that researchers "showed that various SARS-like coronaviruses can interact with ACE2, the human receptor identified for SARS-coronavirus," meaning bat coronaviruses can be transmitted to humans to cause SARS-like diseases.
#4
It's obvious no one really watches this stuff closely:
8 May 2007 Excerpt: At this time a unique opportunity was available to review statistical data on influenza, (a program to computerize disease information to derive trends, cycles and predictions had already been initiated under a CIA Project called BLACKFLAG); the current epidemic in Hong Kong was causing the highest incidence since the first Asian Type A2 epidemic of 1957. While the epidemic appeared to be progressing in a new way, initial curiosity subsided when a laboratory report from Hong Kong identified the strain as the common Type A2 variety.
#8
Inasmuch as vaccination was not practical, an antiflu drug, amantadine HCL, which had been shown to help prevent the disease was recommended for these teams. During February 1971
Not all bad, some side-effects might be desirable for old codgers and the economy: unusual urges including gambling, sexual, spending money, binge eating, and the inability to control them.
#9
(1) Closer to the contagion reservoir; (2) cheap labor; (3) far from US lawyers; (4) 'kickback' bribes to Chinese interests (check the billing records for money laundering); and did we say cheap labor?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2020 17:53 Comments ||
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#11
"As such in October 2014, because of public health concerns, the US government banned all federal funding on efforts to weaponize three viruses — influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)."
If so did we support Wuhan research on same? Without federal funding, how did this happen?
Posted by: daniel ||
04/23/2020 18:30 Comments ||
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#12
Because the Obama administration brought us Fast and Furious, Uranium One, Haiti Relief, Cash for Clunkers, Cash for Mullahs, Egyptian Coup and Rise of the MoBro, which brought us ISIS, the Death of Qadaffy and The Great Libyan Abyss, etc. etc.
[BREITBART] The global oil price collapse is a historic “opportunity” to “bottom out” Chinese energy assets and increase reserves, the communist country’s state media reported on Tuesday.
The Global Times article was published after news on Monday that China – the world’s top importer of crude oil – nearly doubled crude oil storage inflows in the first quarter of this year, compared to 2019. The coronavirus pandemic decreased oil demand, and there was news on Tuesday that China has granted additional oil import quotas for private refineries, Reuters reported.
United States oil-future prices went negative on Monday for the first time in history, as oil demand plummeted amid disruption in global supply and demand chains caused by the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. Government-mandated lockdowns meant to curb the spread of the Chinese coronavirus have forced the effective shutdown of economies around the world.
“Analysts say the historic drop in oil prices offers China, a major source of oil imports, a good opportunity to ‘bottom out’ certain oil assets and scale up strategic reserves,” Global Times, a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda newspaper, said on Tuesday.
Instead of reducing imports, China responded to the drop in oil demand by increasing crude storage flows. The country nearly doubled the rate at which it put oil into storage in the first quarter of 2020, compared to last year, Reuters calculated.
Although the CCP does not release official data on flows into strategic and commercial stockpiles, Reuters estimated a figure by subtracting the amount of crude processed by refineries from the total volume of oil available from both imports and domestic output.
According to customs data, China’s crude oil imports were 10.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first three months of 2020.
Domestic output was 3.74 million bpd, allowing for 13.94 million bpd in available crude for the first quarter of this year.
Refinery output for the first quarter was the equivalent of 11.96 million bpd, which means that 1.98 million bpd of the total available crude was not processed by refineries.
The same calculations for the first quarter of 2019 show imports of 9.83 million bpd, domestic production of 3.84 million bpd, and refinery processing of 12.6 million bpd, allowing for 1.07 million bpd in available crude.
Thus, China practically doubled the rate at which it puts oil into storage in the first quarter of 2020.
For perspective, Reuters points out that China’s storage flows, at about 2 million bpd, are 25 percent higher than the total crude consumption of the United Kingdom, the world’s sixth-largest economy.
China is on track to import at least 9.35 million bpd of seaborne crude oil in April, up from 8.8 million bpd in March, according to Refinitiv vessel-tracking data, Reuters reports. Seaborne imports exclude pipeline volumes from Russia and central Asia, which were around 843,000 bpd in March.
In the coming days, China will issue more crude oil import quotas to nonstate refiners in its second batch of allowances for 2020, several sources at five independent refineries told Reuters on Tuesday.
China’s Ministry of Commerce plans to issue quotas totaling 393.32 million barrels “within a few days” the sources said, after viewing documents outlining the allocations.
[MSN] The alarming messages came fast and furious in mid-March, popping up on the cellphone screens and social media feeds of millions of Americans grappling with the onset of the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... pandemic.
Spread the word, the messages said: The Trump administration was about to lock down the entire country.
"They will announce this as soon as they have troops in place to help prevent looters and rioters," warned one of the messages, which cited a source in the Department of Homeland Security. "He said he got the call last night and was told to pack and be prepared for the call today with his dispatch orders."
The messages became so widespread over 48 hours that the White House’s National Security Council issued an announcement via Twitter that they were "FAKE."
Since that wave of panic, United States intelligence agencies have assessed that Chinese operatives helped push the messages across platforms, according to six American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to publicly discuss intelligence matters. The amplification techniques are alarming to officials because the disinformation showed up as texts on many Americans’ cellphones, a tactic that several of the officials said they had not seen before.
That has spurred agencies to look at new ways in which China, Russia and other nations are using a range of platforms to spread disinformation during the pandemic, they said.
The origin of the messages remains murky. American officials declined to reveal details of the intelligence linking Chinese agents to the dissemination of the disinformation, citing the need to protect their sources and methods for monitoring Beijing’s activities.
#2
We're truly in Orwellian territory with this media bullshit about Russian and Chinese subversion.
All those foreign agents are doing is repeating the vitriol and nonsense that's spouted, 24/7, by our own America-hating shitheads. They're just amplifiers for Kaelernick and his cop-hating shtick; Madcow and her conspiracy-mongering; Mule Chompers and her anti-fracking shtick; Ratshita and Omar and their various slurs and smears.
The foreign agents are doing the same thing the hippies used to do when middle-aged tourists rolled up in tour buses to Haight-Ashbury in the late 60s: hold up mirrors so we can see how ugly our shittiest public figures truly are.
#2
Small 'sole proprietor' businesses are mostly not getting paid (or not much) and many will lose those businesses. And since they mostly don't get to file for unemployment compensation they probably are not included in that '565' number.
#3
^Businesses going under now is nothing compared to businesses going under if/when divestment from China is implemented. Ditto, for end to illegal immigration.
In the eyes of the Dems, their media shills and the NeverTrumpers, yes-- if a Depression succeeds in booting Genghis Mango-Mussolini from the White House.
Remember, these are the maniacs who spent the better Bart of the last 3 1/2 years pushing us to the brink of war with Russia, without a shred of evidence for their idiotic claims.
They're deranged, deluded, determined to take back power. By any means necessary.
[NYPOST] Tribune Publishing, owner of the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News and Baltimore Sun, is instituting furloughs for employees making as little as $40,000 a year in its second round of cuts this month.
All non-union employees making $40,000 to $67,000 a year will be furloughed for one week per month, CEO Terry Jimenez said in a memo obtained by The Post.
The latest move comes only 10 days after the company instituted pay cuts of 2 percent to 10 percent for all of its non-union employees making more than $67,000 a year as the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... axes ad sales.
The company, which also owns the Orlando Sentinel, among other papers, said it’s negotiating with NewsGuild chapters for cuts at papers that are unionized, including the Tribune, the Hartford Courant and Baltimore Sun, among others.
The Daily News newsroom is not unionized.
The latest cuts follow voluntary buyout offers that went out to all newsroom staffers in February before the coronavirus shuttered the economy and shriveled ad revenues.
Hot Air
The Swedish reporting of new cases has been extremely variable from day to day. If you look at historic charts of the reporting, you can see small plateaus where reporting would drop off for the weekends. That has made it harder to trust the day to day variation because while the numbers tended to look good on the weekend and even on Monday, there was often a surge midweek as those declines were filled in. In any case, earlier this week Sweden’s public health officials were saying it looked to them as if Sweden had flattened the curve:
But the optimism was apparently misplaced. Tuesday the death toll jumped by 185, the highest total in a single day, and Wednesday saw the second highest jump with 172 more deaths. The number of deaths increased by 84 today bringing the total to 2,021. That’s significantly higher than any of its neighbors. The number of deaths in Norway (which has about half of Sweden’s population) stands at 191. In Denmark (a bit more than half Sweden’s population), the figure is 394.
Yesterday, Sweden’s Public Health officials retracted a study which claimed that for every confirmed case in the country, there were another 999 people who had the virus but didn’t know it. As Allahpundit pointed out even before the retraction, the "multiplier" in that study was obviously wrong. Why? Because there were 15,322 confirmed cases at the time. Multiply that number by 999 and you have over 15 million cases. The population of Sweden is just a little over 10 million people. Today officials corrected the record and said the actual multiplier was much lower I wonder how they got these numbers: I Ching, Ouija board, casting the runes? It's difficult to know what's going on when you're dealing with superstition-ridden savages.
[Forbes] - The Swedish Public Health Agency made international headlines yesterday by estimating that one-third of Stockholm residents would be infected with the coronavirus by May 1. Less than 24 hours later, the Agency has taken a dramatic u-turn and withdrawn the report.
The decision was announced via Twitter: "We have discovered an error in the report and so the authors are currently going through the material again. We will republish the report as soon as it is ready."
While the nature of the error was not disclosed, the Agency also said they would share more information about it once the revised report was complete.
During yesterday’s press conference, the deputy state epidemiologist Anders Wallenstein announced the report based on data models that indicated the spread of the coronavirus was much higher than previously thought. Among the claims were that for every one person tested positive for COVID-19, up to 999 others could also have the infection without knowing. We have this fact from consultation with tribal spirits?
Swedish journalist Emanuel Karlsten Not to be confused with Karlsson who lives on the roof
queried this during a Q&A session at the press conference. Given there are more than 15,000 confirmed cases, the Agency’s estimate would mean that the total number of likely infections would be greater than the entire population of Sweden. In Sweden journalists are better at arithmetic than state officials?
Another Swedish report on the coronavirus spread in the capital has also been withdrawn by its authors. The preliminary findings by researchers at Karolinska University Hospital and the Karolinska Institute estimated that at least 11 out of 100 blood donors in Stockholm had already developed antibodies to the coronavirus. Where's Emil of Lönneberga when you need him?
#9
Gee, all this because America's dairy farmers are filling ponds with milk, feeding produce to hogs and cattle, killing herds of chickens and forbidden to gather and worship God at BBQs?
If I remember right, it was posited the virus would attach itself to particles in the air like smoke. If that is the case, a nicotine patch won't work - have to break out the Gauloises.
#7
Nicotine is structurally similar Nicotinamide (B3)
wonder if that has anything to do with it
Posted by: Bob Grorong1136 ||
04/23/2020 11:40 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Apparently there are no statistics concerning non-smoking tobacco and/or nicotine users (chewing tobacco / nicotine patches & gums) and China virus disease.
If there's something to this it could be caused by a low dose of one of the other chemicals in tobacco smoke.
#2
Read today (someplace down the memory hole) that you can ID Chinese products by the leading 3 digits of the bar code. 690-695 are numbers to boycott.
Numbers may be displayed as "6 90" rather than "690"
#3
The problem is they make too many of everybody's intermediate products. Ingredients and chems that go into making many household, pharma, industrial things.
That's where they do real business, and that's where we must hurt them. Practically all Chinese stuff has been left sitting in supermarkets in India. And now there are attempts to expedite the production of intermediate goods domestically, or source them elsewhere.
It's the cheapness that the profiteer goes for, that gives them the edge. But cheapness has it's own minuses.
#4
Read today (someplace down the memory hole) that you can ID Chinese products by the leading 3 digits of the bar code. 690-695 are numbers to boycott.
Saw something about that a while ago (Dude, it was this morning!). Someone replied that the leading digits of the code show where it was registered. Not clear to me if that makes it a kinda-sorta proxy for being Chinese goods.
Contrary to a popular myth, you can't identify a product's country of origin simply by reading the first two or three numbers of a barcode. You can, however, determine which country issued the barcode number.
[Ynet] An 86-year-old elderly man who last week was released from Baruch Padeh (Poriya) Medical Center in Tiberias after recovering from COVID-19, was hospitalized early Thursday after testing positive for the virus.
#1
Virus testing is done by throat swab, but we know it's prevalent there in the early stages, then moves on. Easy to imagine that a throat swab comes up negative while other viral reservoirs still exist in the body. Would love to see data on whether people who tested positive for antibodies get reinfected.
#4
They have done this a few times now and it's being treated like breaking news this time? Quote regarding touchdown celebrations, attributed to various famous college and pro football head coaches: “When you get to the end zone, act like you’ve been there before."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/23/2020 16:49 Comments ||
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h/t Instapundit
[vice news] - Racist plaques depicting Winnie the Pooh holding a bat with chopsticks have begun to pop up around Atlanta, and police have no leads as to who is responsible.
The round, bronze and teal plaques bearing the words "Wuhan Plague," referencing the Chinese city where the coronavirus originated, first appeared April 13 on an electrical box in Inman Park, according to Atlanta police. Another appeared three days later at a coffee shop in the neighborhood of Reynoldstown. The most recent incident occurred on April 18 at Atlanta’s Candler Park Market. I'm not asking if Besoeker has an alibi.😎
Leave it to a desperate little stringer/freelancer for Vice named "Trone" to concoct a rayciss angle for a story that properly belongs in the Humor or "Living" section of USA Today
[CATO] Once you notice this pattern of regulation and resiliency you begin seeing it every day. Yesterday, in a piece of truly welcome news, it was announced that the Food and Drug Administration has approved the first at‐home test for COVID-19, from laboratory giant LabCorp. At‐home testing, with its potential for speed and convenience, holds great promise for making up lost time in the area the feds most thoroughly botched in responding to the pandemic; a version of it also figures in Bill Gates’ ambitious plans to combat the virus in Seattle and beyond. Early, limited supplies will initially be made available for two of the kinds of workers who need it most, health care staff and first responders, who will be able to obtain their results online with no need to go through a doctor’s office.
If you go to the LabCorp site promoting the new kit, however, you’ll notice a warning: “Not available in MD, NJ, NY, and RI.” As it happens, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island are four of the states hardest‐hit by the virus. As the Associated Press explains today: “Those states have laws prohibiting testing with at‐home sample collection kits, according to LabCorp.” [Update: a Maryland health official says notwithstanding the AP description, his state’s law does not ban the home kit.]
Why? As a Maryland resident, I know only too well that my state’s legislature is like those in states like New York and New Jersey in having deep‐seated interventionist and regulatory instincts. (These often bring it into conflict with Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who tends to favor a lighter touch.) But why ban home testing in the first place? This 2017 Technology Review article gives some background, following a controversy over an abortive plan to distribute free genetic tests to fans at a Baltimore Ravens game at M&T Stadium. It says “Maryland and New York’s laws are meant to protect consumers from companies making dubious claims about DNA tests and also make sure people receive proper advice and counseling from their doctors about their medical results.”
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
[Townhall] Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on Monday led a bicameral letter sent to House and Senate leadership calling for an end to taxpayer funding of the Wuhan Institute of Virology laboratory. It is believed that the Wuhan coronavirus started in the lab, despite lab director Yuan Zhiming denying such claims. 
Evidently after 47,684 US deaths, the 'disadvantages' of outsourcing bio research have now become abundantly clear. The impacts of funding termination on our on-site monitoring and source reporting remain unknown.
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
The global oil price collapse is a historic “opportunity” to “bottom out” Chinese energy assets and increase reserves, the communist country’s state media reported on Tuesday.
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
