This week’s Open Thread.
EDIT: Well I am sorry for maligning ~20% of my readers – actually explanation is that we have not only been zucced, but also Googlehammered.
So why do you think @UnzReview has been zucced and Googlehammered? https://t.co/CO0PuVpBrN
— Anatoly Karlin (@powerfultakes) May 25, 2020
Blackpill – even on a “based” website such as The Unz Review, it appears that too many of our readers are weak Facebook drones. My visitorship/viewership stats this May have collapsed to late 2019 levels, when I was hardly blogging. Or 2017 levels more generally.
There’s an old solution to the vagaries of what the Zuccs and @jacks of this world want you to see and what they don’t: RSS feeds (you can access mine next to the 
symbol). If you have a dozen or more blogs or blog-type people (e.g. columnists) you regularly follow, at a certain point it becomes more convenient and reliable to follow them via a dedicated “RSS reader” (e.g. Feedly or Old Reader). On most readers, you can categorize your feeds by topic; search them all; sometimes even retain access to deleted posts.
This is what everyone was doing before the early 2010s when social media began to eat away the blogosphere like a venereal disease.
This is the current Open Thread, where anything goes – within reason.
If you are new to my work, start here.
Anyone who hasn’t bookmarked this blog doesn’t deserve its takes.
Our host AK argues well for a 1% covid-19 fatality rate … but what percentage of those fatalities have grevious pre-existing conditions, plus usually being elderly, or serious obesity? – About 95% to 98%, so IFR for healthy people getting covid is .05% or about a 1 in 2000 or even less chance of dying.
In other words, functionally minor risk, with zero justification for lockdown / economic destruction. If half the world – 4 billion people – eventually get covid, the number of healthy people dead will be 2 million randos, in a world where 50 million plus people die every year, trending toward 100 million a year as populations age.
Even that does not justify economic destruction for billions of people, with outright starvation underway for millions.
At ground zero of what is claimed to be the worst covid per capita death rate nation on the planet (see chart below as of 19 May) – Belgium –
There is very little anxiety about covid, or criticism of the government about all the dead bodies allegedly stacking up
Belgium’s ‘over 9000 dead’ is the equivalent of more than a quarter million dead in the USA … yet people in Belgium are relaxed
Belgians are fussing over things like how vacations will go this summer … if they criticise Belgium’s Jewish-heritage Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès, it is a minor complaint about how she presents the various remaining covid rules in a confusing manner
Small countries can be like villages, where most people somewhat half-know what is going on
It seems as if Belgians have taken the view, that covid merely makes for a minor seasonal acceleration in the death rate of the sick and elderly, the stats showing around 11% higher, consistent with a bad flu season
Although about 1 in 1250 Belgians is already allegedly dead from coronavirus, the conversation regarding the deceased tends to be like this: ‘Yes, they counted her as a covid death … she’d been sick for a long time … she was age 79’
Even Belgian news media have largely folded up the tent of trying to scare people … In the middle of the ‘world’s worst covid death zone’, people essentially act as if covid is an annoying quasi-nothingburger
Top Flemish political leaders are saying they will not allow another lockdown in Belgium … next time, it will be only the sick in quarantine, not healthy people
The May 19 cumulative fatality rates –
https://i.ibb.co/jvvmmJz/covid-deaths-per-million-19-may.jpg
Maybe you would start getting 10 times more comments if you posted corona conspiracy or anti-lockdown articles, judging by how many responses they get here?
People like you should be subjected to mandatory ebola, cholera, smallpox injections when you turn 60.
I do read via RSS, and therefore am not visible in your visitorship count.
Scored from a technical standpoint, Karlin’s corona posts are very good. However, there is an aspect of the big picture for which all of us who feared the worst can be faulted on. From February through April we were really gloomy, implying that there was no fairly simple way out of the crisis. But, it appears moderate mitigation steps are enough for life to go on and the spike in deaths of elderly people will not aggregate into a national traumatic event. Based on the example of Belarus, it appears the spread of the virus can be slowed down to a manageable pace with only moderate mitigation. Instead we thought Lukashenko was nuts for his approach.
The video below shows a tourist going through Belarus on Victory Day and gives a street level view of what moderate mitigation looks like.
https://youtu.be/j_UAkHQFcgA?t=533
The number of cases is increasing by 3-4% per day in Belarus. Karlin has noted Belarus is diligent on testing so the testing numbers are meaningful. Cases are doubling by every 3 weeks and it looks like life goes on as pretty much normal.
For middle income countries with old populations like Belarus, Russia, and China moderate mitigation with stricter rules for big cities might be the optimal approach. For low income countries with youthful populations, corona should just be ignored. For rich countries, there is a large war chest to spend time figuring out the right approach.
China completely eradicated the virus but it has popped up again in the Northeast and another lockdown is contemplated in two provinces. China is unwilling to take any moderate mitigation path because everybody is really scared of the virus and so much has been invested in attaining perfection. It goes to show perfect suppression becomes a millstone preventing life and GDP growth from getting back to normal.
Here is a clip from 2003 predicting the modern day Pandemic is predictive programming. This is similar to the clip from X-Files that predicted the WTC collapsing.
https://youtu.be/RkjudtP2sZc
Here is a comic book commissioned from 2012 that predicts the pandemic:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/bizarre-eu-funded-comic-book-predicted-pandemic-globalists-saviours
This is by far the stupidest conspiracy theory meme.
If this were the case, there would not be such a spike in mortality
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYc0OvrWsAANmx7.jpg?name=orig
Facebook offers nothing of value to those on the right side of the curve.
If you’re an American and you aren’t anti-lockdown at this point, then you’re a fool. Even our host merely claims that a strong early lockdown, rather than an extended pro-Globohomo American lockdown, was the correct course.
Or, if you’re not a fool, maybe you’re a chuch-burner: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/22/us/mississippi-church-arson-coronavirus.html
Not that the two are mutually exclusive.
Saying this sort of thing here will just get you death wishes from drones.
I agree, a lot of conspiracy theories have some merits, but I can’t understand the “predictive programming” one.
What possible benefit would there be for the “elites” in revealing their plans through fictional films and TV series? If they really did that, wouldn’t that be more likely to make the public think that there is something suspicious about these events and potentially backfire on the “elites”?
If it is true that China now has more cases after previously eradicating the virus, it proves a strong early lockdown does no good unless it goes on forever.
Australia is the model. Don’t let sick foreigners get off planes and not go into quarantine.
Apart from that you might as well do nothing because nothing you do will matter, besides the blind luck of places that just don’t catch it.
Russia is an example of this too. What good would a strong early lockdown do if you don’t catch it until 3 months later?
Illinois is also an example. As of June 1st our mask mandate expires and there is no more will for shutdown or mitigation efforts.
Uh oh. I hope Kadyrov didn’t infect his cats.
https://www.intellinews.com/chechen-strongman-kadyrov-admitted-to-hospital-with-coronavirus-183865/?source=russia
https://dailystormer.su/trump-addresses-video-of-black-man-torturing-old-white-man-in-nursing-home/
Interesting that Trump talks about this, might be throwing some more red meat to his base before the elections though.
I think this was already confirmed a hoax.
Anyhow, Ramzan is one of the very last 43 y/o’s I’d expect to die of Corona.
Re: https://www.rt.com/russia/489498-zhirinovsky-sell-lenin-body/
Reminded of when Seselj in Serbia, proposed giving a half each of Tito’s corpse to Croatia and Slovenia.
———————————
Walesa quoted in Tass:
https://tass.com/world/1158407
Old age has been known to make some more reasonable. The Tass piece is in contradiction to the image of contemporary Russia ignoring past negatives, while only highlighting the positives concerning Russia’s Soviet era.
———————————
Countering a sovok view on a WW II matter:
https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/2020/05/14/wishful-democratic-thinking/#comment-32596
———————————
Regarding minority issues in Ukraine:
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-bulgaria-clash-district-lines-ethnic-bulgarian-region/30627605.html
that means they were “passerby’s” anyway. If they can’t find you normally, tbh they’re too dumb to follow you anyway
I think it offers nothing to any political sides. Just a propaganda organ at this point.
Anyone know what happened to English-language Vesti News? 106,000 loyal YouTube followers, and three months ago, they simply went ghost. I suspect some penny-pinching United Russia bugman is behind this. He should be fired on the spot and replaced with someone who understands soft power.
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/03/29/12/4AAA994F00000578-5558193-image-a-67_1522323374419.jpg
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/03/29/12/4AAA995700000578-5558193-image-m-66_1522323340090.jpg
Barcelona from above: Possibly the most densely populated square kilometre in Europe – it contains 53,000 people
At least they were not banned yet, unlike Anna News and South Front.
Maybe it can predict lottery numbers, or what my next fortune cookie message will say.
https://www.amazon.com/Reign-Quantity-Signs-Times-dp-0900588675/dp/0900588675/
Guenon is gone but he would consider your quality reader enhancement to be pure gain no pain.
Probably because of the implicit threats over the years that Anglo media will be banned from Russia if anyone touches RT, Sputnik, and the like. This vulnerability, at least, the Kremlin has handled well, but there is no question that Russian soft power in the West depends to a frightening degree on the whims of loony SJWs in Silicon Valley. This must be dealt with sooner or later.
My reference was to the Bell Curve.
“Might?” If you still haven’t come around to the conclusion Trump is a bait and switch conman and buffoon I’m not sure there is anything that can convince you.
What do you think of this response to the Katechon Hypothesis?
https://media.8kun.top/file_store/290bf489e9283d19da114f0f65274a0b884a1c9a45b94031c3eb88e5d4ebeb77.png
The censorship will only get worse with time, eventually all sites the ADL does not like will be banned. They will do the same as they did with the the Dailystormer, all the the main hosting companies will not be allowed to do business with the banned sites, no payments will be allowed by any company.
There is competition now. There is a significant Russian segment of the Internet, and there is a Chinese one, smaller, but growing fast. Besides, there is Latin American Internet, and Latin Americans have a visceral hatred for the US and Israel (often unreasonable, but it’s there). So, ADL, like the Empire, is on the road to isolating itself.
Your work is not new to me , on the other hand I and my views aren’t new to you . Open thread ? I’m a hope to die antisemite and racist . Exterminate the brutes before they do the same to us .
Earlier in this century, a local NYC PBS channel carried a daily half hour Vesti news feed in the Russian language with English subtitles. It got nixed in favor for something called Polish and Slavic News. According to that affiliate (WNYE) Vesti decided to not continue on the fee arrangement.
Sometime thereafter, there was a Russian government involved radio station (might’ve been the pre-Sputnik, Sputnik), which was carried in the NY market for a brief period. RT had a similarly brief moment in the NY market, before getting nixed with a Chinese station – not CCTV.
Jut found this:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/05/yvonne-lorenzo/does-the-termination-of-russian-youtube-channels-mean-impending-war/
Meanwhile in Sweden…
https://metro.co.uk/2020/05/19/girl-17-decapitated-boyfriend-ended-relationship-12723956/
She had a picture of Tupac Shakur as her Facebook cover page. Moved from her house at 15 to live with a 21-year-old Muslim refugee and her good progressive parents allowed it.
As the late Lawrence Auster used to say, the modern progressive world is basically a machine to kill white women.
But hey, they beat corona without a lockdown yay.
Maybe Confucian societies just care more about their old people than Westerners do? The phenomenon of abandoned elderly is a recent one, and caused Western cultural influences among the younger East Asian generation, China until recently did not have an old age pension because it was assumed that the job of caring for the elderly fell to their children and not the state, and the children just abandoning their parents to die alone just did not enter into the equation. I do not think think there is an equivalent Chinese word for old geezer, or if it is it is not spoken of like in the West. Basically because of cultural Confucianism, traditionally old people are venerated in East Asia, and ancestors are worshiped in ancestral shrines, which is why when you go to a traditional overseas Chinese home you will find pictures of their ancestors along with incense and some food. As for dementia, people just treat it as something that happens to a lot of people, and that some old people have a tendency to revert to a second childhood, thinking as such makes it less stressful for the caregivers.
The density makes it look more like some third world slum than top tier European city, at least from above.
Southern Europeans are well known for caring for their elderly rather than expecting the state to do so, so not caring for the elderly is not specifically a “Western” thing.
Lothar really got the better end of the deal with his brothers.
Bullshit. Southern Europe’s entitlement spending for geezers is part of what got them in the mess they’re in, economically.
No, I am just saying that traditionally, in East Asian cultures, it is the DUTY of the children to take care of their elders, if it is not like that now, that is due to Westernization making young people more individualistic and selfish, that was my point.
I find it odd how the situation in the UK is now worse than Italy or Spain, yet judging by the media coverage (or more accurately lack of), you’d think nothing was happening in Britain and the situation was relatively good.
It does seem that the same outbreak in Italy and Spain was reported in the media as a global catastrophe and tragedy, while in Britain the same numbers and death rate is just “statistics” not worthy of the same media coverage. I suppose the UK is inherently less inspiring of sympathy than countries like Italy and Spain?
Virus too weak to end the Idiocracy, despite the attempts of the latter.
Anatoly – I’m watching Vitebsk vs Dinamo Minsk (0-1 at the moment) in the Belorussian League (Russian TV coverage) and I notice the advert breaks are dominated by “bet online NOW!” adverts, just as they are in the UK.
This stuff is huge in Britain, where betting of any kind was illegal outside of racecourses until the early 1960s, but then expanded hugely under the Blair regime. You can’t advertise cigarettes or alcohol on TV here, but you can swamp the airwaves with gambling advertising. While even middle class folk can get addicted, it’s overwhelmingly the poor who feed the profits. A tax on stupidity.
Who owns the Russian online betting industry? Is it dominated by ethnic Russians or ‘fellow whites’?
I’ve seen it claimed that Western governments are happy to destroy the tobacco industry because ultimately it will affect American tobacco farmers who are predominantly old stock English Americans, not Jews.
In contrast the gambling industry is highly associated with the “financial services” industry, ie Jews.
How does that explain anti-vaping?
Is there much serious anti-vaping sentiment in the media? I see occasional articles questioning the health effects of people breathing vapourised e-liquids into their lungs, especially considering the production of it is not particularly well regulated, and also whether huge vapour clouds are anti-social or not, but on the whole not that much of a concerted effort to turn people against vaping.
https://patch.com/california/calabasas/vaping-ban-likely-calabasas-health-safety-residents
The worst outbreaks (deaths per 100,000) were in Wales. The London media struggle to identify such a place.
An absolutely surreal story from Riga (in Russian).
tl;dr: straight on the heels of a two-month Corona quarantine in a homeless shelter, one of said homeless (?) gets behind the wheel of an old Mercedes (!), drives on red, headbutts a trolleybus, which in turn makes a two-meter hole in the wall of the nearest house; wherein, no one is hurt. Moral of the story — Jesus saves:
https://images.la.lv/uploads/2020/05/1343c48f-180e-d8e8-4d82-5e535c9f22cc.jpg
Most foreigners don’t seem to give a monkeys about anywhere in Britain, be it London or deepest darkest Wales. Countries like Italy and Spain attract far more outpourings of sympathy and well wishing.
The discrepancy in the way the death rate in Italy/Spain and Britain has been reported internationally has proved this to me beyond doubt.
Mr K, there might be a connection between this –
and this –
Fortunately there is a remedy, though admittedly not a comfortable one: admit you got it wrong. You, like several billion others, believed too much of what mainstream sources were pushing. The wheels on the Coronahysteria bandwagon are getting more wobbly by the week. You – and your credibility – gain nothing by waiting.
This might help you along,
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html
The CDC’s “current best estimate” implies an IFR of 0.26%. How much lower will it go, I wonder?
I’ve always refused to use bookmarks. My position is that if I’m not able to memorize a website’s URL it can’t be that important anyway.
Armond White, nutjob
Well, the reason why people use it is to keep in touch with their old schoolmates etc. It’s interesting who has children, how many, where does he live, and so on. I have organized a couple high school reunions, one of them before Facebook, and Facebook is a big help, believe me.
Thanks that is a perfect example of its uselessness.
Loser
Also local community and buy/sell groups. I keep it for that, even having turned off notifications of all my friends’ personal posts (if I care about them I look them up by name). You get answers to your questions like “Where to find a good fridge repair guy in our area?” or multiple competing buyers for your old stuff almost immediately. Saves you a lot of time and hassle. I think it’s silly to dismiss such practical benefits and explain the popularity of Facebook with people just being fools.
Fuck you.
Thor needs to clarify who that comment was directed at. I interpreted it the other way.
Yes, but it was a reply to me. If he meant it for reiner Tor then he should have directed it there.
If I misinterpreted it I appologise.
Why can’t a site meter count RSS calls? Maybe it can’t identify that Sam Hardwick is behind it, but I don’t see how the server can send data without knowing it is doing so.
The “predictive programming” theory might have some merit if applied to the globalists themselves rather than to the public at large. In other words, you have a bunch of relatively powerful and influential people: the Gateses and their Foundation and hangers on, the WHO, the EU, etc., and they are all in the habit of communicating with each other, attending confabs together, etc. where they discuss about all the “world saving” things they can do together, one of which is to respond to a pandemic. They even make a comic book about it, and are consulted by entertainment script writers about it. After some years of this, a situation finally comes along that seems like it kinda sorta matches what they have been talking about all this time and so they throw their preconceived plans into motion, whether or not they really are appropriate for the current situation. They have “predicatively programmed” themselves.
Seen this way, it is not really a fringe conspiracy theory, but just a banal description of how influential, self-regarding groups of people go about doing things.
It’s kind of like reading the communications of the German General Staff prior to WWI. They frequently discuss the Schlieffen Plan that they will implement in the event of a certain type of European conflict. Finally, the conflict they are expecting seems to arrive and so they implement their brittle plan, whether or not it was the right approach to the emerging situation. That’s all fairly mundane and uncontroversial, but to claim that the Schlieffen Plan itself “predicatively programmed” the population at large to get into a global war would be an irrational and overwrought conspiracy theory.
So you could say that the WHO’s, CDC’s, Gates Foundation’s, Fauci’s tunnel-visioned reaction to coronavirus was due to the globalist health authorities’ Schlieffen Plan for pandemics. That’s not a conspiracy theory. That’s just bureaucratic rigidity and inertia.
The comment was specifically directed at you–a loser.
I’m not on Facebook myself as I don’t care to be used by Zucc, but the utility described by the Magyar Miracle (as well as Toronto Russian) cannot be denied.
What ultimately happens in my case is effectively that I rely on other people (or, more typically, their girlfriends and wives) who do have Facebook so that I don’t miss out on things like class reunions.
Having zero interest in class reunions suggests you had no friends in school or that you’re ashamed of what you’ve done since then.
So it’s Okay for your friends to be used by Zucc for your gratification. You are a lowlife scum…your friends are unfortunate to have your acquaintance…I am fortunate to not.
Your ad hominem response shows you are truly a stupid fuck…so fuck you twice.
You obviously interpreted it wrong…he is a goddamn prick.
See my response #69.
My response #69 is to you.
There are things better left unsaid.
Like the fact that this virus is most probably bioengineered.
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/tracing-origins-covid-19
And that if it did happened once, then it might happen again with another bioengineering / genomic optimization approach applied to some other virii.
With the obvious long-ranging implications.
We entered the Age of Cyberpunk with contact tracing Apps, QR codes, Big Data mining and Social Media deplatforming, we must also recognize that bioengineering is also reaching milestones that will be of historical significance.
So welcome to the Age of Biopunk.
Keep Calm and Carry On.
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1264941311020408837
Other:
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcQ816zDV08r0FHf3In4d-5pjy8We0rKHcTbZw1ECzOP_VgLRAhm&usqp.jpg
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcSp8_5vXzjP7bLc1E5rwe9p495KgiyUXca_NoRhJAebQaMoOAhi&usqp.jpg
Keep fighting the good fight Ron Unz.
So American – this obsession about who is a winner and loser.
It is only viable if you had been in an elite school, come from an elite city, or live in a country where it can be assumed that the majority feel like they are winners, and that most of your classmates are not yet disillusioned losers by age 25 at the latest.
If you are from a nonelite school, from a normal city, in an averagely unsuccessful country, – you can be more like the strange one if you have a bit more ambitions than the majority of classmates.
I received an advert this week about a new release of a “modernist” CD boxset from Sony.
I’m quite knowledgeable, and never even heard of these people.
How much of a hipster do you have to be to listen to the symphonies of Luigi Dallapiccola, Ernst Krenek, Elliott Carter, İlhan Usmanbaş and Lukas Foss? I don’t feel like my ears are missing anything from not knowing their existence, although it would be a nice pretentious decoration of the bookshelf.
https://i.imgur.com/G0pMXNF.jpg
Have to confess a strong temptation to press buy after writing those sentences…
https://youtu.be/eD-SABImqtI
I think you misunderstand the term.
“Loser” can have many different shades of meaning. In high school, it means someone who is “uncool” — who isn’t popular, who is too into nerdy things (chess, computers, physics), who dresses unfashionably, listens to weird, uncool music, no girl would go out with him etc.
In adult life, it retains this meaning to a certain extent, but different perspectives on life will each have their different conceptions of a “loser.” So for greenies, say, a duck hunter would be a “loser” (or perhaps a duck hunter combined with an other off-putting quality or two, eg a bad dresser). For outdoors-y types, a corporate hack would be a “loser.” A lot of the time, just consistently being a sourpuss is enough to get you tagged a “loser.”
Hi Anatoly, long time reader here, a very occasional commenter. Two questions, if you don’t mind:
1. Are there any indications on when Russia is going to open the borders to foreign travel? The national tourist portal https://russia.travel/travel-notice/ redirecting from the Russian consulate page still says “closed till May 1”. Same on https://www.russiatourism.ru/en/contents/turistam/information-for-visitors-to-russia/safety-and-health/
I was hoping to take my family to Москва and Санкт-Петербург this summer (spend half of our summer vacation in Serbia, which is home, and half in Russia), so this is forcing a change of plans, which is a bummer.
2. Any comment on the manifesto that Зюганов published a few weeks ago, Русский стержень Державы? https://kprf.ru/party-live/cknews/194458.html
It affirms that Orthodoxy is the foundation of Russian civilization. (I read an abbreviated Serbian translation.) Is this a new position for КПРФ, or not? It seems pretty genuine. It would be great to read your take on it.
Great news. Apparently the US has “demanded” that Prince Andrew be sent to it for questioning regarding the Epstein affair. Why is this great news? Because it might bring the UK to its senses. I believe that the UK will, rightly, tell the US to take a jump. And, I hope, while they are on it also advise that it, the UK, is no longer a US vassal.
Covid insanity; nobody is using the only proper metric to measure impact. “Deaths” is a worthless measure(but good for hiding the truth). The only worthwhile metric is Quality-Adjusted Life-Years lost. And also, that measure should be related to COST of action to achieve results.
All significant actions should be measured in cost/effectiveness.