76 solutions to climate change

We have all the solutions we need to avoid catastrophic warming, right now, claims a new report by Project Drawdown. And, not only are they easy to implement, they're far cheaper than doing nothing.

The Drawdown Review is a comprehensive analysis of the currently available solutions to the climate crisis, based on the work of scientists and researchers around the world, across many sectors, from finance to climate science. 

The aim of the nonprofit Project Drawdown is to guide us all towards a future where the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to decline - the moment they refer to as 'drawdown'. That means we must start extracting fossil fuel emissions, such as CO2 and methane, from the atmosphere as well as stop spewing them into it.  

 … In what has come to be a heavily debated topic, the report maintains a role for nuclear in a rapid progress towards a carbon-free future.

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“Over here…you missed a bit!”

McLabrador offers technical advice to his boss. Scotland 2010

Random man mowing random lawn, somewhere in Scotland during our trip there in September 2010. 

The Lab reminded us of our very own Basil

Covid-19 virus update, 9 March

Not really what we wanted to read…
“Epidemic likely to persist all year”

From Worldometer
Harbinger? Drop in number of new cases. China only 40

Asian markets opening down. US market was hammered trashed overnight and ditto for Futures.

ADDED (18:00 HKT): it’s now a BLOODBATH!! Markets down 6 - 10% in a day! Oz mkt amongst the worst. Overall worst since 1991. US futures 5% down. Crude prices collapse 20% (remember “peak oil”?). Shades of 2008, but feels kinda worse.

Bureaucracy slowed responses
Italy death rate soars
Good news if true: Coronavirus dies at high temperature
Xi Jinping is responsible for the virus spread
WSJ: Detailed: the missteps blow-by-blow (Registration needed) 

From our visit to the “Museum of Illusion” in Edinburgh (September 2010)

I’m beside myself with excitement…. Heh!
(Housekeeping my old photos, posting some for fun)

Bridges to Boats and Back

Covid-19 virus update, 8 March

“Infections outside China will soar tenfold every 19 days
unless tough steps are taken, scientists warn”

From Worldometer 

Another record number of new cases though only 45 for China
US complacency
Leaving Hong Kong. Vision needed
Emergency in New York
Milan and Venice quarantined. 60 16 million people in lockdown.

OT: Speaking up for the Jews of Kaifeng. And the website

Bernie and Basil: we have the same carpets!

On the left, Basil the dog by Persian carpet from Keshan, which I got on my 70th birthday recently.
On the right, Bernie Sanders, candidate for president of the United States, sitting on a chair in the middle of his Keshan carpet, in a photo posted by his son Levi.
Basil, the dog, hard at work protecting our house in Discovery Bay. Bernie, the candidate, hard at work protecting America ....
Note colour of Basil.  And Bernie’s hair. (And chair).
By the way, that book “Deep Time Dreaming” is not a set up. It just happened to be there. A gift from a recent houseguest, result of our discussion of Aboriginal Australia’s pre-European level of industry, prompted by the book “Dark Emu”, which has take Australia by storm.  But isn’t it somehow perfect, for Bernie? His dream? His deep time?
[On close inspection, the carpets are extremely similar but still different. Hand made, or so we are guaranteed] 

Covid-19 virus update, 7 March

Goodness me, let’s hope so. Today’s front page

From Worldometer   By the way, this is my own spreadsheet.
It’s the new cases and no. of deaths that are from the Worldometer

Nearly 4,000 new cases, the most since I started recording in January. Of which China 99.

I’ve had it with the constant upsets. First our local protests, self-harming, now a novel virus hammering the world.
Then again, as soon as I start thinking “enough!” I just have to watch BBC or CNN and see what’s going on in Idlib, random bombings or in Turkey-Greece, the thousands of spurned refugees, to put our our “troubles” into perspective. They fear for their lives. We are still safe and comfortable. Were I a believer I’d be thanking God, or Allah. As it is, I thank our luck to be privileged. As we are.

And now on CNA, the WHO is saying we can’t assume that the virus will disappear in the summer as they have in the past.
While…
Disruption to China and Korea worse than thought. Biggest jump in Malaysia
Progress in China 
21 new cases on cruise ship in California
Financial havoc
The truth about toilet paper 
“It’s all fake!”  Wuhan’s Potemkin estate
Vaccine by April 
WHO estimate death rate 3.4%, while HKU estimates 1.4%. SCMP print version says “children as vulnerable as adults”.

OT: “What a baby!”  Tide turns on swimmer Sun Yang

Are we at the “end of days”?

I just remembered Joe Biden is fine

Alexandra Petri in the Washington Post:
This is a little awkward, but better late than never! I suddenly remembered that Joe Biden is a dynamite candidate, something I had forgotten over the past few months of watching Joe Biden campaign. Joe Biden is the best hope of the party and its logical standard-bearer! I am embarrassed that I forgot this for so long. I am here with Joe Biden now!
Joe Biden is fine! He is the best hope. I know I said something about how his is the politics of the past and how his rallies put me into a state of abject gloom, that when he opens his mouth and starts to say things, you never exactly relax until he has put the microphone down, but, well — that was all malarkey, and I guess I was a lying dog-faced pony soldier. Which, it turns out, is a good thing!
Actually, he is great. Actually, I feel good. He is the comeback kid. He wants things for the country in the same amount that I want them, and I feel confident that manageably sized vision will bring people together.
For a long time, I said things like “He is not a good candidate,” and “This idea that America will just snap magically back to a time that never truly existed is not the way,” and “I sure wish he’d stop massaging people’s shoulders,” but I just remembered that, actually, he is, and it is, and he should not!
I feel so confident in Joe Biden, now that he is doing so well. He has that momentum that I always knew he would have, for sure.
Please don’t show me any footage of Joe Biden saying or doing things. Or of me saying or doing things about Joe Biden, pointing out what I erroneously thought were major and obvious flaws in his candidacy. I forgot: They were not.
Biden! Obama-Biden! Obama! Doesn’t that name just fill you with confidence! Say it soft and there’s music playing! Just listen to that name and think how much you recognize it! I am endorsing him now.
We can all unite behind a candidate who definitely is charismatic maybe!
What I said before about how surely, surely the party had something better to offer — I was wrong! It does not! Happy Tuesday!

Thanks to Kyle Smith
[Related: Kevin Williamson lays in the boot]

Backlash in China over draft rule on permanent residency for foreigners | SCMP

I've often said we have to distinguish between China as government and China as people. Between the “appalling communist waxworks”in Beijing [*]  and the average Zhou in the country. Between the authoritarian nastiness of Xi Jinping in Zhongnanhai and the open friendliness of Lao Wang at the noodle stall.

So it's disappointing to read of the raging racism, the xenophobia, the antagonism of Chinese netizens to Beijing’s plans for an easier path to Permanent Residency for foreigners.

Of course, if all you knew of the United States was through Twitter, you'd conclude they're a bigoted, racist, crude lot, too. The perils of online lives: Social media crudifies everything. 

Still, I'd have hoped for a bit better. It's disappointing. 

I doubt these Chinese xenophobes know the numbers. Only about 700 foreigners per year get Permanent Residency. In a country of 1.4 billion, that works out at 0.000053% per year.
[That compares to 1 million Green Cards the US issues each year, over 1,400 times as many as China]

And for that, Chinese netizens go into meltdown?

Shame on them. 

A proposed regulation to make it a little easier for foreigners to get permanent residency in China has caused uproar online, with many Chinese expressing strong opposition to the move.
China's permanent residency requirements are some of the toughest in the world, and foreign applicants would still need to meet strict education and investment conditions under the draft released by the Ministry of Justice last week. But it was announced at a time when nationalist sentiment is rising – stoked by state media propaganda on the coronavirus epidemic

***********

[*] Hat-tip Prince Charles, 1997

Gnomes, Sages, Fish and Flowers… found in our backyard

(Some) Houseguests meditate by our koi pond. As fisher fishes…

… and as Zhuangzi and Huizi play Go on the banyan tree root

Dancing Lady orchid

Rain drops on hibiscus

Rain drops on bougainvillea

Hong Kong’s city flower: the Bauhinia

Wild orchids in a traveller palm hollow

“Nizhny”, bought in Nizhny Novgorod, 2013. Pig is “Mogo”.
Others from Airport Mall. I purchased them “ironically"… promise!

Covid-19 virus update, 6 March

This morning’s headline. Surely good news, not yet reflected in
stock markets which are down in America and Asia.
World should be learning from China, which offers to share

From Worldometer   Only 21 of 2609 new cases are in China.

My summary to date: way worse than SARS in 2002/03.
David Buick: “normal life is on hold for a while”.  Airline Flybe collapses. Costs already in the many Trillions. Parliament may be shut. And more. UK’s TalkRADIO 02’-18’.
China: Aviation industry collapse.
Schools shut here in Hong Kong awa Japan, Korea, Italy. At least.

There’s a guy saying what I said weeks ago: that if we hadn’t known about the virus, we wouldn’t know.  Meaning: it’s not obvious (like Ebola) and it’s not a major killer (like MERS/ Ebola). We wouldn’t notice a few people with a cough, or a few more old folks, mainly men my age+, dying early. True dat! Yet there’s now talk of shutting down the London Tube… and closing Parliament, (20’ in). In Japan, of postponing the Olympics. Does any of this make sense in the face of the actual risk?

Italy shuts down schools, cinemas, churches, all major gatherings, bans kissing, makes one square metre distance mandatory. All sorts of international gatherings being cancelled. Air travel down to almost nothing. Even if we shouldn’t be panicking, people and governments are panicking. Markets hammered. As money flees Stocks to Bonds, bond yields plunge to lowest ever levels.
But don’t worry! There’s always Allah. Iran Supreme leader says prayer will do it … really! And Pence action team pray. Duly mocked:

While…
This is not a drill
Communist Party’s Achilles heel. But… will be ‘bigger and stronger’
‘Infodemic’: spreading panic by smartphones
Hardship in America 

OT: More depressing news: this winter in Europe its warmest on record. 

Covid-19 virus update, 5 March

From Worldometer where many details

Discovery Bay bubble update: all fine and normal here. No more panic buying. Still it seems more than the normal number of outward removals here in DB. The figures for HK suggest 40% increase in numbers looking to emigrate. Hmmm…   Certainly things seem quieter around the Plazas. Many going to Australia

Korea, Iran, Italy all have more new cases than China
The overall death rate (above chart) is likely lower than 3.44% because many undiagnosed cases. EG: children are not badly affected, may not be diagnose.
Hence…Death rates vary: Korea 0.6%, Iran 3.1%, Italy 3.3%, US 6.9%. Here.
The United States doesn’t have the testing kits hence low number of cases which gives the high death rate. China, by contrast, is testing millions. So the US death rate is almost certainly too high, and will come down as new cases are recognised.
Bloomberg TV: Dr William Heseltine, professor emeritus Harvard Medical School, says the US response has been very poor, right up to now, in getting testing kits in the hands of doctors and clinics. China, he says, gave the world some (breathing!) space to get our act together, by its quick action, but the US missed the chance. Only now getting its act together.
Still: Don’t buy into the politics of fear. Vigilance, not panic! Wash those hands! Long enough to sing “Happy Birthday” twice (says Boris)
Foreign firms fleeing China.
Glimpses of the obvious from the IMF: “global growth will be hit”.
In other news…

Sam Pak Wan north beach, Discovery Bay,
Hong Kong. Yesterday

Basil (11) in between snoozles 

Pollution map

[Mouse over countries to see detailed figures]

I posted this because some people are saying that the virus has spread in places with higher air pollution: China, Korea, Italy, Iran. I’ll give you all but Italy, as I’ve lived there many years and I thought “huh?”  They claim Italy is the most polluted in Europe. It’s not, as the map above shows.

This led me to look at air pollution world wide, mainly at the PM2.5 measure which is explained here.
[I can think of another reason Italy may have got so many cases: the close relationship between the Italian clothing and fashion industry — concentrated in Northern Italy — and Chinese manufacturers]

Turns out there’s an air quality monitor you can buy and which will send info to a central place that publishes a real time measure of AQ worldwide. I’ve ordered one of the monitors, here. 

This is good citizen involvement. 

Settling in for a Super Wednesday…

… Super Tuesday in America.

[ADDED (5/3): summary: a monster win for Joe Biden which gives him huge momentum. “Joementum”]

(09:00 HKT): Results so far from Eastern states, Virginia, Vermont, North Carolina, etc and so far it’s looking like Joe, Joe, Joe. [NC and VA]
But the big states are hours away from results: Texas and California.
Watching the team  on CNN, moderated by Anderson Cooper, with the redoubtable Andrew Yang. And my other favourite, Van Jones. David Axelrod is pretty good too. Who days it’s “the empire strikes back”, with Joe’s results. Yang says Bernie is a “unifying figure” because the Dem Party is unified against him!
The results for Joe really are strong. Even in Bernie’s home state of Vermont, where it seems Joe has trounced him. [whoops! “Sanders wins VT”]
Here’s a thing: at 77 Joe is the youngest male still in the race… imagine!
While the Koel is driving me mad. He must be mad for a mate.

Orchids

Home grown orchid, on tile table from Ravello
on the Italian Amalfi Coast. Outside: African Lily

With lady bought on Gold Coast above
Charlie the chihuahua from Ravello.
Calligraphy by Pan Zegao bought Peking, 1976

A purchase for Chinese New Year 

Covid-19 virus update, 4 March

From Worldometer where many details. 50% jump in Italy

Virus brings more decoupling?
Third doctor dies
WeChat censorship
Israel Covid-19 vaccine
Selling up at huge losses
The Times ($):Coronavirus is today’s 9/11

OT: listening to BBC iPlayer, ”In the Studio” with Madeleine Thien, struggling with her new novel after her last prize winner

And… all things considered, I think the world is way over reacting to this virus. Leaders are in a bind: if they don’t take robust action they get criticised for doing too little. But the precautions and the stock market plunges are way worse than the reality of the virus, which overall is affecting older people with pre existing conditions. And in all countries appears the peak will be tens or hundreds or low thousands of cases with two digit death tolls, not millions or even hundred of thousands.

OT: Alex Lo to protesters: “Leave the family of Chan Yin-lam alone”.  It’s collective madness …

Covid-19 virus update, 3 March. Between Scylla and Charybdis

From Worldometer where many details.
Outside China the death rate is 1.7%. Nine times more new cases
outside China than in China (WHO)

BBC: Head of WHO says we are in “uncharted territory” but “the virus can still be contained”

CNBC: Hong Kong retail 21% down

China lowest increase since the beginning

Trump Xi romance going strong
More deaths in Washington state
Chinese women in virus firing line
WSJ: Apple Inc takes viral hit
Hong Kong caught between Scylla and Charybdis

Charybdis, (“Ch” = K) mythical Greek monster, based in the whirlpool in the Straits of Messina, where we have sailed. They’re pretty scary…

Covid-19 virus update, 2 March

From Worldometer where many details

French experts say the death rate is 1% but I don’t know where they get that figure from. The above are the latest most reliable figures we have. Death rate 3.4%. [UPDATE: outside China it’s c. 1.7%]
In Worldometer Korea has twice the number of new cases as China (~400 vs 200)
WHO Chief: Markets should calm down. (Deepest weekly drop — $3.6 Trillion — ever)
CNBC: China manufacturing index (the PMI) worst drop ever.
Despite which, regional markets seem seem to be on the up. Apart from Oz and NZ.
While Europe falls out of love with China. At least Xi Jinping
Feverish imaginations (what I’ve thought all along. It’s serious but we are overreacting)

Meanwhile, Basil is on the case…

… guarding against the virus

Coffee and viral news

Watching Joe win South Carolina…

… so his firewall” worked. Joe got about 50% of the vote. Bernie about 20%, Tom Steyer 12% and then Pete and Liz and Amy. Bloomberg wasn’t in it.
So that keeps Joe in the race going into Super Tuesday, the day after tomorrow.
CNN has their usual panel. I like Andrew Yang and Van Jones. They alsways have something to add, new perspectives.
Yang tell “us that the Bloomberg has a campaign with the data down to each individual ward, each street and they know exactly which numbers they need to hit and where. Tuesday will tell.
The panel is wondering if now it’s not time for the “stop Bernie” faction to coalesce around one candidate, presumably, though they don’t say it, Joe.
Tom just announced he’s pulling out. So that’s one of the “stop Bernie” gang gone. I guess his campaign was always just about raising the issue of climate change. He says “je ne regrette rien”, or English equivalent. An amazing experience, he says. I guess if you’ve got the FU money, why the hell not…
CNN Panel saying Bernie lost by much more than he’d hoped.
Delegate count:
South Carolina: 54 Delegates. Joe gets 24 and Bernie gets 8. Still to be apportioned: 22
Total delegates to date: Bernie 53. Joe 41. Pete 26. Liz 8 . Amy 7.
Biden: “Democrats want a nominee who’s a Democrat”. (Bernie joined the party only to race for president. He was a member of the Democratic-Socialist Liberty Union party, then independent).

CNN are trying not to show bias, but are clearly delighted Joe won.

Update (3/3): Amy is out and Pete is out. Liz still in for reasons that elude. Ego, I guess

Covid-19 virus update, 1 March

From Worldometer  where many details 

Repeat: WHO sponsored independent delegation report 16-24 February. Key points 5’ in to 20’. Here.

Vox: CDC testing kits snafu
Battling the viral infodemic
Bad trend: rise in helper sackings
Oh dear… don’t bank on virus stopping in summer
Korean church surge 
First death in America, a man in his fifties. Trump says ‘don’t panic’
Keep your distance
Pomeranian patient 
Fear itself

5 Reasons Why We Need Sweden's Democratic Socialism | We The Internet TV

Lou Perez is the founder and owner of We the Internet TV. He’s a New York based comedian, politically left of centre.

Here he is, above, going to Sweden to check out the line that “Bernie is not really a socialist. He just wants something like Denmark or Sweden”.

Catching up on all the bad news

In our Hong Kong back yard

Some of that bad news being Trump’s deal with the Taliban to withdraw from Afghanistan. Giving a fixed time that US troops will leave, seems to say to the Taliban you’ve only got to wait a while and it’s all yours, O bearded ones. Not much Art in that Deal…

At home in the maelstrom …

Our new table. Recycled teak. 

… of protests and viruses. Reading about Ghosts and Woks. 

‘No, Not Sanders, Not Ever‘ | David Brooks

David Brooks in the New York Times frets about a Bernie presidency:

We all start from personal experience. I covered the Soviet Union in its final decrepit years. The Soviet and allied regimes had already slaughtered 20 million people through things like mass executions and intentional famines. Those regimes were slave states. They enslaved whole peoples and took away the right to say what they wanted, live where they wanted and harvest the fruits of their labor.

And yet every day we find more old quotes from Sanders apologizing for this sort of slave regime, whether in the Soviet Union, Cuba or Nicaragua. He excused the Nicaraguan communists when they took away the civil liberties of their citizens. He’s still making excuses for Castro.

And gets hammered in the comments. Click screenshot below the fold to enlarge:

Covid-19 virus update, 29 February

From Worldometer where a lot of detail

We were wondering last night: what if China had never told the world of the coronavirus? Would we even be know it existed? Would we even notice some few hundreds of people around the world who got the flu and some few elderly people died of it? Don’t think so.
While the world economy is hammered, stock markets sinking, and heads of state could lose their positions because of it.
There are bizarre theories out there, like it’s caused by 5G, or by… the joooz! (of course)
Best to keep up to date: the World Health Organisation site
And also Snopes.
Or here…
Where WHO says risk of spread is ‘very high’. BUT STILL: don’t panic! Practice Universal health measures: wash your hands regularly and don’t go out if you’re sick. Repeat: don’t panic. Stock market plunge likely overreacting but has galvanised people’s attention.

‘Disaster’: Hotel Occupancy drops 90%
Korea cases exceed China for third straight day
Bad signs: Shanghai virus sequencing lab closed down for ‘rectification’
Bad signs: Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai arrested
OT: Louisa Tam gives a Cantonese lessson

Covid-19 virus update, 28 February

From Worldometer where many details

UPDATE: A 25-member international independent team of medical experts, under the auspices of the WHO, gave its report on 25 February and that is on YouTube here. It’s rather long, shorter versions by googling Dr Bruce Aylward (one here), the team leader and international expert on viral diseases.

At least listen to the first twenty minutes all about the amazing things being done by China to control the outbreak.
Cable and social news people especially in the US, who relentlessly bash China ought to take note. America is doing nothing like China and doesn’t even know how many cases it has because CDC had been making a hash of testing.
…
The new cases are mostly now outside China. 80-some countries now have Covid-19 patients.
There are doubts about the source of this coronavirus. Was it really the wet market in Wuhan? Was it Wuhan? Was it even China ?  (I’m not conspiracy theorising here. There is genuine puzzlement in the international experts’ community). 

Meantime we’re learning that the US has tested very few people with the proper kit (under 500), so actual cases there could be much higher.

ADDED: according to WHO (link above), Guangzhou, China, has tested over 300,000 and found 0.012% positive. Wuhan tests 20,000 per day. Korea tested 50,000 last week. China just sent 40,000 test kits to Japan. Experts are still uncertain as to patient zero. By contrast America has tested fewer than 600 up to this morning. 

While Trump is tweeting unhelpfully and (at times) incorrectly* about the virus which doesn’t help to quell concerns about a pandemic. He’d be better to leave matters to his Health Secretary and the CDC, but who can tell that man anything?

Titania McGrath: weighs in. “As a vegan and a humanitarian I welcome refugees of all species. And, yes, that includes the coronavirus”. On bigotry against viruses. (Nod,/wink… she’s a spoof).

Go here to see the tweet. Or click on screenshot

In other viral news:
Stock market virally volatile. Dow’s biggest one day drop. Hitting supply chains
The good, the bad and the ugly of authoritarianism
France braces for epidemic. And California
Israel can help
While… OT: crimes rise and arrests drop as police busy with protests
[The Titania exchanges are so funny, I’m posting the screenshots below the fold...]
* EG, below the fold, below Titania. It’s not under control...

Predictions on Democrats

1.  Bernie will be the nominee
2.  The Democratic Party will swing behind him.

Sure, there are plenty of Democrats who are scared witless by a Bernie nominee (and here and here because they know (a) 160 million Americans don’t want to lose their health insurance and (b) most Americans are not fond of Socialism. So they are hammering him.
But what are they going to do once he is the nominee? Are they going to keep hammering him? Which would ensure four more years of Trump? Unlikely.
After 2016 Republican primaries, Trump hammerers like Lindsay Graham quickly fell in line behind Trump when he became the nominee and more so since the election.
The Bernie Pivot involves (a) Medicare For All, but “you can keep your doctor” (as Obama promised, but didn’t quite happen). And (b) Bernie is not really a Socialist. Not the nasty type but the Democratic Socialist type, like Denmark and Norway. David Axelrod said that yesterday on the CNN post debate panel. Bill de Blasio said it this morning with Sean Hannity.
Of course (a) Bernies MFA does mean no private insurance and therefore no choice of doctor. It’s on his site. And (b) he is indeed a Socialist in the rather more serious meaning of the term: state control of the means of production. For Bernie that’s Energy, Transportation, Banking, Telecoms, Internet… phew! Enough?  He called himself a Socialist in 1980 and he hasn’t changed.
But the Democrats pivot involves: “we don’t want to re-litigate the 1960s”.  [yeah, but what about the 80s?]. And “Bernie is not really a Socialist, he’s motivated by a deep concern for the working people”. Right… and “the road to hell…”
ADDED: Bernie has two lines: (1) Medicare for All and (2) Billionaires bad.  It used to be “billionaires and millionaires" but he dropped the “millionaires” after he became one himself, one with three houses.

My first prediction will be tested this weekend at the South Carolina primaries.
And my second will be tested after Super Tuesday, March 3.
Fun days ahead for US election junkies.

Watching Live: Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren Town Halls in Charleston SC. Amy certainly comes over better singly on stage than on the debate stage. Liz comes across as strained. Some will see it as passion. I see it as false sympathy. False smile. Poor jokes. 

Covid-19 virus update, 27 February

From Worldometer

Stubborn refusal for infection rate to decline, and worrying increase in death rate, currently 3.41%

The Worldometer link has lots of detailed information country by country.
Life goes in here in our Discovery Bay bubble. Eggs are out of stock at one supermarket, but not the other while the basics, rice, toilet paper, are back in huge supply. I learned that half of world airfreight is in the holds of passenger planes, so as passenger flights have been slashed — by half on some routes — so freight capacity has dropped.  This impacts supply chains.
Trump says: “wash your hands”. And he’s right! The single best thing individuals can do is not touch common areas, lift buttons, railings, etc, and wash your hands!

Where the phrase ‘Sick man in Asia’ came from. (Re the controversial WSJ article. And it’s not the west). Like “long time no see”, “lookee lookee”, “taiphoon” “ketchup”…all from Chinese.
Enforcing  wildlife trade bans
Virus spread to Brazil
$US 1,500 cash to every Hk adult, in yesterday’s budget. (Which happened after SARS, but didn’t do much for the economy)
Repeat: sharing and collaboration. AND deluge of scientific papers
Repeat: Finally! China bans trade in wild animals 
Meanwhile, reading on the patio…

Home on the stoop. Cool and breezy. Safe…

Stone Sentencing Ends Russia Collusion, Part I

Hehe!

The Roger Stone sentencing farce is as fitting an end to the Russia Collusion saga as one could conjure up . . .  though it might be more fitting to call it the end of Russia Collusion, Part I. No sooner did the first flick conclusively bomb than the media-Democrat complex was issuing the casting call for Russia Collusion, Part II.
In the sequel, you’re asked to believe that Putin is manipulating the chesspieces to steal a second term for President Trump – somehow preferring an incumbent who beefs up the U.S. armed forces, pressures NATO allies to beef up theirs, imposes painful sanctions on Moscow, provides lethal aid to Ukraine, ramps up U.S. energy production, and seeks to thwart the Kremlin’s coveted natural-gas partnership with Germany, over an unabashed socialist who honeymooned in the Soviet Union and whose policies would wreck the American economy, end the resurgence of American energy production, and hollow out the American armed forces. [Andrew McCarthy in good form....]

Ok, McCarthy is a registered Republican, with a few out-there theories about Obama... but these are still good points, aren’t they? They’re factual and to me powerful arguments against the “Trump as Russian stooge” narrative. 

And if we look back at the whole saga of “Russian collusion”, ending in the Mueller Report, which found none, isn’t it CNN, et al, who have consistently misread the situation? So, as they are likely doing now: their take being that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election in favour of Bernie, so that Bernie will be the Dems nominee and make it easier for Trump to win!  Pretty baroque.  

When the alternative is that Russia are funding Bernie (if indeed they are), because they prefer Bernie?  

I mean, Occam’s razor and all.