Chapter 1. Prologue

Today is not one day more than yesterday, it is a new creation. If you fall asleep on a couch, as I expect to do this evening, I will most likely find myself on this same couch when I wake up. I ass-u-me that because our creases match that there has been some distance in time the couch and I have traveled together like John Glenn in his spaceship.

I arise in the same room, the same cats staking the same chairs. The same ink stain is on the orange felt tablecloth and I am still upset with the pen that did this to it, and the tablecloth that let this happen.

Everything is just as I remembered it, my wallet is on the lamp table, I fit into my 7 day-a-week jeans just as I should and my 7 day-a-week sneakers take me in just as they did when we were separated hours before. It’s all very simple and effortless.

In the 1300s, the Bewarshire Governor, famed artist and anatomist Leonardo da Vinci assembled hundreds of people as the unwilling subjects of his diabolical experiments. Every 24 hours the townsfolk were shuffled into a new name, body, home, family, education and profession, it was all changed. The blacksmith that was, became the farmer, and then became something else, and something else, and something else and so on. Blue eyed father of 5 Giovanni did not know that he fell asleep as brown eyed beggar Niccolo.

The experiment was only discovered after da Vinci’s death, in his will he wrote “free the musical chairs” with a sad face emoji, and that led to an inquiry and the whole unpleasant affair revealed.

Chapter 1. China timeline, inception

Inception

Covid-19 had its incipiency in Wuhan, China, a country frequently affected by epidemics and where “truth is hard to find“.

Chapter 2. Prologue

I grew up on the lower east side of Manhattan. Almost every night we ate dinner at Leshko’s on 7th street and Avenue A.

The restaurant is gone now. I have reached an age that I can say, like an earlier generation might have said about the Fillmore East or some other artifact, ‘the young folk have no idea how it used to be’.

It wasn’t just a restaurant, it was an observatory. It was a safe place to watch the East Village in the late 60’s and 70’s.

Chapter 2. Timeline of US intervention

Chapter 3. Prologue

I lived on 4th street and Avenue A in the Ageloff Towers. On the corner of the building, maybe 20 feet to the right of the entrance, is a brass door and on the other side of that  was an after hours nightclub. I didn’t know much about it other than that it was protected by the Italian mob and I think they killed at least one of our doormen.

One night I looked out our living room window and I saw a person in front of the club door, three stories below, trying to burn our building down. He had set a garbage can up against the building and set aflame whatever its contents were. I was scared but after a while I learned that burning down a building ain’t as easy as it looks.

Chapter 3. Media Timeline

The flu’ists.

December, January, February and into mid march all these “news” companies were on their “right side of history”

They were spreading disinformation…

 

Here’s a helpful visual, turn it into kitchen table placemats or a table cloth and let the fun begin.

Chapter 4. Prologue

At night, after my parents had argued themselves to sleep, my older sister and I would  slip out of the apartment, walk up to 8th street and then turn west.

On that yellow brick road was the Underground Bookstore. They had bins of Soldier of Fortune magazines, on their shelves were some awesome literature like the Anarchists Cookbook and a bunch of other books that explained the mechanics of how Shakespeare tragedies are made.

Chapter 4.  World Health Organization Timeline 

WHO has had many failures, where to begin?

Chapter 5. Prologue

Clark is: Attentive, focused, obsessive, bright, sarcastic, polished, fiercely loyal, devoted, bland in appearance, never heard cursing, complementary, birdlike appetite, yellowed teeth, straight angular face with a strong jaw, a sound biter.

He has an immense collection of purloined moments, perhaps it is the world’s largest and best.

They are his now his, cataloged and cross referenced quite completely. Late night talks with mom, with dad, fears, sorrow, laughs, jokes, friends, social, bar, books, every trivial dialogue, all here and meticulously filed.

Each conversation that he possesses are better and more instructional than those cataloged in himself. These recordings have become his scripts.

Should he be in a bookstore he will ask for the same book as 351 did at the 4 minute, 17 second mark. When he orders food it’s just as 721 did at 11 minute, 5 second. Should someone ask him the time he’ll them “time for you to get a watch” just like 535 did and with that same jovial menace. If he ever did get married and his wife cheated on him with a famous anchorman and he caught them at a library he would say the same things as 625. They are all here.

His first girlfriend was 73, he met her on a blind date arranged by friends on tape 261. He gave her flowers, she told him” they’re beautiful, you are so thoughtful” and then he tells her “beautiful flowers for a beautiful woman” as the soundbiter watched her blush from one restaurant table away

Chapter 5. Mid March, “ok doomer”

“this is like the tenth end of the world I’ve been through.” Ron Burgundy

The world changed when Neil Ferguson of Imperial College revealed his models forecasting tens of millions of deaths from Covid-19

• March 11: Angel Merkel gives a speech implying that in the U.S, roughly 215 million Americans become infected and 2.2 million people die. She was Greta’like
• March 11: the same day Merkel is telling the world we’re gonna die, Tom Hanks announces he has Coronavirus Odd timing. Good publicity
• March 18: “Merkel: Coronavirus is Germany’s greatest challenge since World War II” 

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Chapter 6. Prologue

Theodore cannot read to himself. It was one of the many reasons listed as grounds for divorce. His wife did not share his passion for the classics

In fact, Theodore did not want to read to her but being as she was in bed with him and he suffered from the described condition, if he was to read she was to listen.

He had made the mistake, early in their marriage of telling her that the floors were so clean that you “can eat off of it”.

That was when he met her left fist for the first time. It came crashing above ear and sent him concussed to the floor. “It’s time to eat,” she said as eggs, bread and cereal land atop him.

Being that the violence was new to them both, they were startled. She apologized, he forgave

There have been several beatings since. He would crouch down and think of himself as water accepting the merciless onslaught of a thousand desperate paddles. She would assault his stomach and as he cowered to protect the vital organs contained within she would amply beat his unguarded face.

Whence he did attempt a rather feeble fight back, she became more enraged, declaring that she would “smote on him”, and then made a show of rolling up her sleeves and proceeded with a Charles Dickens type of thrashing.

Despite this awareness of what she could do – he read in their bed.

“Shut up!” she said

“I can’t – I have an affliction” he read more, awaiting Darla’s inquisition. Murmuring, lips drop tears that had trailed from eye, around nose, over cheek, mouth, finally landing on his naked chest.

Thankfully, yet without the explanation that he desired to provide and the compassion he desired to receive, she fell asleep.

The next day, while at work as a taxi dispatcher, from the law firm of Mercenary, Unprin, Cipled, and Son, hand delivered by messenger – received by the receptionist, brought to the cruel manager, opened and inspected (as is the manager’s privilege)  then put into the hands of Theodore who sits in an unpleasant chair forced into a small cubicle submerged in harsh fluorescent light.

“Sorry” said the manager mixing sympathy and sarcasm.

Within a year, X and wife were no longer. He had no money, no car. Credit card bills arrived daily and found safe haven in a kitchen drawer shared with dusty utensils.

Chapter 7. Neil Ferguson, Imperial College 

Neil Ferguson is an epidemiologist. Whats that and who is he? Lets discuss…

Epidemiology isn’t the same thing as medicine, they can be computer programmers who specialize in applied mathematics, not doctors in the hospital sense. For example Prof Ferguson did his PhD in theoretical physics. 

A key criticism of epidemiology is the way it in which it elevates abstract mathematical calculations above the experience of people with on-the-ground medical experience.

Neil Ferguson’s bio that is not on his Wikipedia:

Chapter 8. Prologue

Clark is first one in and the last one out every day. He has 14 crystal “go home” awards on his desk, each prize awarded at the company’s annual convention. Success has not spoiled Clark; instead it fills him with purpose.

Entering the building is a brass pole at waist height and positioned in such a way that someone otherwise distracted would meet it painfully. It is Clark’s third rail, fastened to the floor and it escrts him to the elevator bank, then once his fearful ride to the top is complete, it is there again, twisting, bringing him to his office.

It was inside the elevator that Clark first met the Big Boss, the runner up for the “go home” award. It was a morning, 13 years ago and a time before the rail. The Big Boss was coming gin a bit earlier than usual and Clark was arriving a bit late.

They both waited impatiently for the elevator to open and both had planned to stand closest to the doors so that when it opened up on the 51st floor, they could be the first to touch the office rug.

Chapter 8. Tyranny of plastic words

“Flattening the curve” is a term everyone now knows, It’s our best example of ‘plastic words’

Plastic words begin as scientific terms with highly specialized meanings, they migrate back into the vernacular, stripped of their specialized meanings. They displace more precise words with words that sound scientific but actually blur meaning and disable common language. paraphrasing the work of Uwe Poerksen

Chapter 9. prologue

Inside the elevator, Clark held the rail to the side of the button panel. The big Boss watched the ascending floor displays above, standing at the seal of the doors, a gargoyle guarding a treasure. Clark watched the Big Boss get ever more ready to sprint. 

At the chime, as the crypt opened, the Big Boss breath whistled into his nostrils and he burst out. 

Clark’s feet touched the rug first.

This is also a time before the office rail had been installed. Clark pressed his back to the corridors, his heels dug in deeply into the baseboard, his arms groped to the wall at his sides, adhered and inching forward, an octopus exploring its surroundings. He turns left and disappears.

Later that afternoon the Big Boss contacted his Human Resources director, “We have an employee who’s walking walls, who is that?” So began the relationship between himself and Clark. The next day he installed the rails, right down the middle of the hallways, the staff understood this as lanes meant to divide their traffic and they dutifully obliged

Chapter 9. NonExperts, Mismatched Experts and some are fine people

“In the future, everyone will be a world-famous virologist for 15 minutes” – Andy Warhol 

Scientist: uses the professional language of the sciences unambiguously and free of connotation. They use abbreviated symbols, proper names, and Greek or Latin words, which prejudice the concept as little as possible and allow it to stand only for its freely defined content.

Specialist works within a narrow and restricted field sphere and also uses the linguistic precision of the scientist

Expert: Someone familiar with scientific and technical matters who wanders back and forth between specialized fields and society at large. They are the point at which knowledge is put into practice.

And the rest

There is a market demand for “experts” who can fool the public into believing that they have great knowledge. The ones who do this best are those who have fooled themselves. They are instruments of manipulation, blueprinting a new reality, tools for the laboratory of the real.

When it comes to complex systems “Experts” and pundits become indistinguishable, they have demonstrably little predictive power.

MISmatched expert: Presented as a credible authority. they rely on a deception of mismatching credentials, whereas they have no relevant peer-reviewed academic papers, on the precise subject at hand.

NONexpert: Derives authority from the language of a nonpartisan scientific specialist, thereby gaining distance from the layperson and through this distance wins adherents and persuasive effectiveness. Example a venture capitalist speaking convincingly of infectiology

The tricks of their trade

1. The opacity of specialized vocabularies. This strengthens their position and divides the world into experts with something to say and others who may hardly speak.
2. Replicating science by utilizing passive sentences, neutral word choices, and using props such as mathematical tables, logarithmic scales, exponential graphs as serviceable substituents for stupid
3. “Scientization” of the vernacular. Moving the vernacular closer to the language of mathematics, in the sense of becoming ever more precise and transparently logical they alter science in a vernacular context. It becomes contradictory, doctrinaire, and imperialistic.
4. Monumentalization of science. Arguing in the tradition of the Enlightenment. They try to capture the prestige that has historically belonged to the language of science as an instrument of the Enlightenment. 

“Enlightenment ideas like reason and science are beginning to flip into their opposites.” Science and technology “have turned into a new type of theology.” – Ian Bogost, Georgia Institute of Technology

Prologue. Chapter 10

From school back to home is a 7 minute car drive, or 16 minutes by bus, 43 minutes walking. It takes 2 hours on a sunny day to cling his way home. Today it was raining, it took an extra 30 minutes. Clark opened the front door and began his course into the living room.

“It’s go time, grab him”. There was no reason for them to be so forceful, but they were. Clark let his body go limp and he thought of a puppy being carried by its mother.

When he was released from the mob he was on on the ground in the backyard, encircled

“The mirrors” says Dr Belker.

Each person picks up a full length mirror from the ground in front of them. Clark is flat on his back in the yard, encircled and encumbered . “look at the mirrors Clark, see how you really are”, their words are the slick surface of a wall that he cannot secure himself to, his mind wasted by Dr. Belker’s prescribed overdoses. 

“This is your intervention” they say in practiced unison

Grandma sings, the family hums loudly:  “Am I sinking fast, Could a person be so mean, as to laugh and laugh. On my own, Could you ease my load, Could you see my Pain, Could you please explain, The Hurting”. The family hums along and applauds when she finishes. Clark doesnt think she was very good, he does not applaud this makes them angrier.

“now you have to tell him, let him know how his actions have affected you. Mother is first.”

She steps forward still holding the mirror, Clark is on his back looking straight, his mother is where the sky should be.

“you’ve embarrassed me in front of all my friends. Because of you I’m laughed at. Who am I supposed to be friends with now, the mothers of all the others crazies at the loony bin? Why won’t you let me drive you to school and home everyday?! Why do you want people to see you be freak crawling, wall walker. Because of you I’m going to have a heart attack” She sobs too loudly as she retreats back into the formation  Clark’s compassion floats above, unobserved.

“Excellent way to begin…I’m proud of you. Clark’s father may begin”

“OK doc” he steps forward, filling Clark’s sky where his mother had just been

“you’re a shit!”

“stop, that’s not what we discussed.” Dr Belker interrupts. “Only discuss how his actions affect you. Remember we’re here to be supportive. Now stick to your script, just like you wrote it.”

Pa resumes, “you’re an asshole. You’re an embarrassment! If I hear anymore abut your fucking floating I’m going to puke on myself”

He points down to Clark accusingly, “Oh hold me“ Pa mimics his son, “Get a grip, I don’t feel your pain shit, why don’t you feel mine? I gotta defective kid. Ok try that on! What did I do to deserve you? You’re right here kid, your on earth, now get over it” 

“Well done, bravo” Dr Belker says, “Sister, it’s your turn” Pa walks the 5 steps backwards, keeping the mirror reflecting Clark.

Sister’s route to Clark is the same, holding mirror, she moves “Everybody thinks you’re a freak. They all laugh at you ad that hurts me because I know you and I love you. But when they see you outside they all tease you and that makes me sad. “they say it’s because you want attention and that you need to be different. Like you remember when I used to wear a bandaid on my hand. We all want to be different” she steps back returning to the phalanx

“Grandpa you’re up” says the dr.

“Boy I’m old. real old. I’m 81 years old next month and you know where I am today. I’m in a fucking backyard holding up a mirror I had to pry off the fucking closet because some punk kid thinks he’s Peter fucking Pan. You;re a thorn in our paw and we gotta pull you out. 81 years old. I been through too much to be here today with this shit. Look at yourself, you’re on the ground, you aint floating away, everything is here. Look”

Clark looks at grandpa’s mirror, he is on the ground, filthy from the dirt and rubbish his hands and clothes collected on his crawl home. He is also looking down from where he floats. Above and below he is terrified.

“good, good, well said” says the dr. Grandpa turns, returns to the angry mob. He nods to grandma now at his side

Grandma unlike the others does not have a bathroom full length mirror, hers is large, wooden, she bought it at an estate sale. Grandpa helps, he picks up the heavy mirror, carries it forward and plants it like a flag in the wet ground in front . 

Grandma steps forward, she is wearing an evening gown, a pearl necklace, matching earrings, her black pumps sink into the grass on each step forward..

“It’s your time” 

With the mirror facing Clark and firmly planted into the ground, she turns her to fans, her singing begins and she imagines herself in Las Vegas on stage, a career she feels cheated out of 

“It’s not unusual to be loved by anyone

It’s not unusual to have fun with anyone

But when I see you hanging about with anyone

It’s not unusual to see me cry, I wanna die

It’s not unusual to go out at any time

But when I see you out and about it’s such a crime

If you should ever want to be loved by anyone

It’s not unusual it happens every day no matter what you say

You’ll find it happens all the time

Love will never do what you want it to

Why can’t this…”

She takes a bow for  her 5 fans, walks over to Clark. “Look at yourself”. Grandpa comes over, pulls out the mirror, brings it back to the group.

The doctor speaketh “You’ve said you need to feel attached, this family loves you, this is why we did this intervention, to tell you. You  say you have to grab things or else you’ll float away, you’re still here. You’ve said you do not feel human, shut up with that. This intervention is complete”

Chapter 10. The Real Experts

“For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert” – Thomas Sowell

Actual experts and scientists were shut out of the narrow Overton Window. They were accused by carpetbagger NON and MISexperts of being uninformed, irresponsible, or being motivated by unworthy purposes. 

1. John P.A. Ioannidis, Departments of Medicine, of Epidemiology and Population Health, of Biomedical Data Science, and of Statistics, Stanford University published many papers arguing against the governemtn meausres, such as Coronavirus disease 2019: the harms of exaggerated information and non-evidence-based measures
2. Knut Wittkowski Internationally renowned epidemiology professor says the measures taken on Covid19 are all counterproductive, and that isolation would cause a “second wave“ later. 
3. Professor John Oxford of Queen Mary University London, one of the world’s leading virologists and influenza specialists “Personally, I view this Covid outbreak as akin to a bad winter influenza epidemic.
4. Frank Montgomery, President of the World Medical Association Frank Montgomery and Yale professor David Katz called for quarantines and curfews to be lifted quickly
5. John Lee Retired professor of pathology “…most respiratory deaths never have a specific infective cause recorded, whereas at the moment one can expect all positive Covid-19 results associated with a death to be recorded..this is not splitting hairs. Imagine a population where more and more of us have already had Covid-19, and where every ill and dying patient is tested for the virus. The deaths apparently due to Covid-19, the Covid trajectory, will approach the overall death rate”
6. Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, Professor Emeritus of Medical Microbiology at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz:

…the mistake is being made worldwide to report virus-related deaths as soon as it is established that the virus was present at the time of death – regardless of other factors. This violates a basic principle of infectiology: only when it is certain that an agent has played a significant role in the disease or death may a diagnosis be made. The Association of the Scientific Medical Societies of Germany expressly writes in its guidelines: In addition to the cause of death, a causal chain must be stated, with the corresponding underlying disease in third place on the death certificate. Occasionally, four-linked causal chains must also be stated….How, then, is a distinction to be made between genuine corona-related deaths and accidental virus presence at the time of death?”

Prologue. Chapter 11

It’s not easy to tell a person that their life will soon be over, to announce the same thing to 16 billion requires no intimacy nor bedside manner. It’s mathematics, this and that equals you will all die.

That’s the way it will be later today

Chapter 11.  Covid-19 death inflation

“The only means to fight the plague is honesty”
Albert Camus, The Plague (1947)

If it stopped moving, it was a death by coronavirus: 

Prologue. Chapter 12

He rehearsed the speech for months, practiced it in front of the counsel and his wife. They made suggestions, some helpful, mostly not. None of it made it into the final.
There were several focus groups and he stood in front of them, it could have been done remotely but it would have missed nuances, small twitches that add to the severity of a statement, but also bestow compassion to its speaker. He hits that mark with biting his lower lip, firm posture, not the slight tilt he had rehearsed, his eyes should not be watery, he should lower his eyelids a bit. His hair kept a bit longer then the tight crop he preferred, now it curled at the bottom and was lightly tousled up up top, a curl dropped from his forehead and was kept on his forehead.

Chapter 12. Covid-19 celebrities

Meet Eric Feigl-Ding:

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He’s one of many people that have become coronavirus game show  famous.

Eric is one of Twitter’s Leading Authorities on Covid-19. People believe him to be one of their infectious disease messiahs, his credentials and malformed commentary transfer offline. He is frequently in the press and has had multiple CNN appearances. 

He is a media privileged panic mongerer.

His critics include Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard and director of the university’s Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics he calls Ding a “charlatan exploiting a tenuous connection for self-promotion” “80% repeating conventional wisdom, 20% promoting wacko pseudoscience, and 100% derivative.”

Eric Feigl-Ding’s bio: Graduate of Harvard 2007. He is not an infectious-disease epidemiologist and he is not a virologist.Eric Ding has a 1 year, unpaid visiting-scientist in the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Prologue. Chapter 13

He will make the speech from his office, images of his own family around him, the focus groups liked this effect, it shows that he too will confront death, lives that are dear to him will be lost, everything gone.

For so long they had all been told this day would come, almost all of the institutions scholars, academics, scientists, celebrities. “If we don’t do this, we will all die”

But, “we did not”, and that’s what his speech will remind them, that this didn’t have to be. What was once tomorrow is today, almost.

Chapter 13. Harvard, Health and Money

The Harvard School of Public Health was renamed the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in 2014 in honor of a $350M donation from Gerald Chan & Ronnie Chan, the sons of T. H. Chan, a Chinese developer.

Who is Ronnie Chan, the son of the deceased T.H Chan?

(from an article about Chan and the Asia Society)

Ronnie Chan, the son of the late T.H Chan is a dual US-China citizen whose wealth derives from a Hong Kong property empire built by his father.

“Chan has used this to promote his own Chinese nationalism, political as well as ethnic, to decry core American values of democracy and the rule of law, and generally act as though he were a key member of the Communist Party of China’s United Front…Chan and his family are major donors at influential institutions in the US, including Harvard University and the University of Southern California”

Did Chinese Communist Party money infused into Harvard influence this, ahem science?

“Researchers at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health say ‘Prolonged or intermittent’ social-distancing measures likely needed until 2022″

Prologue. Chapter 14

Clark leaves his apt, its very early morning, as it is everyday he leaves, just as it is very late when he leaves work.
It is a long route, but perfect as it only has one crosswalk to navigate without being secured to a building, or the ground, or a parked car. At the crosswalk he prepares himself for 8 seconds of his body pulling into the air above.

He lets go of the lamppost, runs. In one second he feels his spirit pulling away from his body. By the third second it has shed his body and watches him from above. His frenzied dash takes him 8 seconds, he fastens his hands around the opposing lamppost in the precise spot, just as he has done thousands of times before, his handprints have bent in the metal every so slightly, this is the best he can do. He pulls his wandering spirit back in.

30 minutes later he is at work, grabbing the rail that takes him into his second home, here, at his cramped desk.

He fastens his seat belt around the chair which is bolted to the floor. He feels better now.
He presses play, it is number 714, beginning at 9.17 and ending at 11.05, it is a staple of his life.

Chapter 14. Harvard loves ‘em some China Communist Party money

• January 28 2020: U.S. charges target alleged Chinese spying at Harvard, Boston institutions” Prosecutors charged Charles Lieber, chair of Harvard University’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, with lying about participating in China’s Thousand Talents Plan, which aims to attract research specialists (spies) working overseas.
• February 6, 2020: Harvard Leads U.S. Colleges That Received $1 Billion From China
• Feb 13, 2020: Harvard, Yale Accused Of Failing To Report Hundreds Of Millions In Foreign Donations. “…$6.5 billion in previously undisclosed foreign money, much of it from China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates…”

Chapter 15. Prologue

By early evening formica was the world’s number 1 most searched word on Google. People donned their bomb removal suits and ripped and gutted every speck of that danger from their homes, all of it finding the most expedient route to the sidewalk.

Stores and businesses did the same.

People stayed in their homes, watching tv’s off bare floors, meals too, most beds have formica, uncomfortable, but so is death.

By early evening thousands of bomb sniffing dogs were set loose on the streets, unrestrained they searched, and urinated and shit. Mounds became small hills as each new threat from the alphabetical bomber brought more danger to the street. 

Every item that had explosive elements necessitated the 1000 ft radius be evacuated.

When will it end, what happens after Zyzzyva?

Chapter 15. Chinese propaganda and #Resistance porn

NYTimes launders Chinese propaganda and #resistance porn

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Headline, NY Times: “Most New York Coronavirus Cases Came From Europe, Genomes Show“

Body of article: “The majority is clearly European,” said Harm van Bakel, a geneticist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who co-wrote a study awaiting peer review.

Adriana HeGuy, the person cited as an expert says Trump’s response has been a “disaster”. 

That’s an odd thing for a scientist to say, its not a clinical term.

Why did she say this, let’s dig…

In fact, She is a #resistance, white supremacist job secured academic of the Left type. Antifa without the mask

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Chapter 16. Prologue

The countdown began when he got to the podium, he spoke over it.  “He is my only son, leaving us with our last slivers of energy. Now that we are gone, he will survive us all, one day he will tell our story”

His last words on stage were so all could hear “3,2,1, liftoff”.

A planet cried. And the rocketship left Krypton.

Chapter 16. NYTimes, all the Chinese propaganda that’s fit to print

Does the NY Times get money from the Chinese Communist Party?

You Betcha. They have a deep, interwebbed and prosperous relationship.

China Daily, an official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, has published hundreds of propaganda articles designed to look like ordinary news stories in some of America’s most influential newspapers. China pays way above market rate for the ads, does it dictate what NY Times writes about?

Does the NY Times advocate for opening up the economy? Nope

The NYTimes editors wrote “This is a false choice. While policymakers must sometimes make trade-offs between life and money, this is not such a moment. The American economy needs to be shut down in order to preserve both human life and long-term prosperity“

Xi agrees wholeheartedly

Prologue. Chapter 17

The transport vehicle burnt away and became dust entering earth’s orbit, it released its cargo, a tiny pod, that landed safely on the grass where it was discovered by local townsfolk, delivered to the police, when nobody claimed, brought to an adoption agency, and finally adopted by the Kent family that wanted another child and the price was right, as he would require continued medical care. he was on sale, it was a bargain.

For years they bragged to anybody who might entertain their bragging, about their good deal.

The boasting stopped when Clark was about 10.

Chapter 17: Lies, damn lies and statistics

Covid-19 celebrities  tweeted new infection numbers and crossed their fingers. Panic mongering 101

Reality: The development of case numbers is only meaningful if they are continuously compared to the number of tests carried out.

Scenario:

• 10,000 tests are performed in one week and 1,000 infections are found
• 20,000 tests and 2,000 infections in the next week,

There is no higher spread of the Covid-19 virus, but only a larger number of measurements. Looking at the number of cases detached from the number of tests is simply misleading.

It is also important where the measurements were taken.

Severe cases are measured in hospitals, the number of infected and dead people is much higher than if primarily mildly ill people are tested. However, it is NOT clear from the currently widespread data which groups were tested to what extent.

Scientific comparability is therefore lacking.

Without a precise knowledge of the number of tests carried out and the severity of the disease of the test persons, no serious statements about the death rate are possible.

Prologue. Chapter 18

Although the end was quickly coming, it was demanded people stay at home, anything outside, any door open, any cracked window was punishable by death. There were good reasons for this, sound policies from the counsel of Krypton.
Meteors crashing into people on the street would cause splatter, that’s irritating, nobody likes that.
Volcanoes spewing lava could ignite kryptonians who would then scream loudly and run, likely setting others on fire, at the minimum causing widespread headaches, lesser than death, but nonetheless unwelcome.
Tidal waves consuming millions, the only chance to survive a bit longer is to stay in a sealed environment, which every kryptonian had installed the latest scotch tape to seal their windows and doors.
Wild animals roaming dense metropolitan areas in search of new food sources. “Have you ever seen your entire family eaten by a blizmo, you wouldn’t like it, i can assure you of that” – Jol-Em

Chapter 18. Fake News

“If reading a story in several different news outlets makes a story true, this story was true” Theo Dalrymple

Fake news v real, a sampling

• Fake news: Trump calls coronavirus a ‘hoax”
• Real news: Trump was calling criticisms of his administration’s response to the coronavirus the “Democrats’ new hoax”.

• Fake news: The Washington Post publishes an opinion piece “I ran the White House pandemic office. Trump closed it.”
• Real news: In 2018, the White House’s National Security Council was reorganized and consolidated from three directorates into one, the new Directorate of Counterproliferation and Biodefense. Not a single staffer lost their position.
  

Fake news: ABC news makes a huge splash with: “Intelligence report warned of coronavirus crisis as early as November: Sources”

Did ABC do any vetting of their explosive story? Did they, in advance, as the relevant agency about it? Read on

Lets look into this story, ‘m quoting from the article:

• “Analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event,” a source said
• “…according to four sources briefed on the secret reporting”
• “…according to two officials familiar with the document’s contents”
• “…one of the sources said of the NCMI’s report”
• “…the sources described repeated briefings through December…”
• “…appeared in the President’s Daily Brief of intelligence matters in early January, the sources said”
• “The timeline of the intel side of this may be further back than we’re discussing,” the source said of preliminary reports from Wuhan”

One problem, it wasn’t true

• Real news: Col. R. Shane Day who heads the medical intelligence unit, issued a stern denial saying the COVID report cited by ABC doesn’t exist. “…media reporting about the existence/release of a National Center for Medical Intelligence Coronavirus-related product/assessment in November of 2019 is not correct. No such NCMI product exists.”

Why would ABC do this?

• ABC is owned by Disney. And, Disney has big plans in China: “Bob Iger tells us about Disney’s $5.5 billion bet on China” MSNBC interview
• Disney also owns ESPN. And, ESPN has big plans in China: “Stanley Rosen, a political science professor at USC and an expert on China, said the region represents “the last big frontier” for ESPN, and if the entity can make deep inroads there, it could lead to significant financial rewards.”

Prologue. Chapter 19

The first time the alphabetical bomber struck it was an ascot, the voice mail he left for the detective seemed to be a prank, it was covered by the media as a human interest story that the news anchors heckled their way thru.

Several days later an old man was preparing for his date with Millie, the pretty woman from the senior citizen building next to his own, rumor is thats shes a “good time girl”, went shopping, He liked the yellow sweater, the green corduroy pants and the purple ascot, it mad ehim look ten years younger. It also killed him.

The next week the alphabetical bomber left a new voicemail, “the word is banana, b-a-n-a-n-a. Would you like another delicious banana”
Several days later, Mel, an incautious fellow who dismissed the media reports bit the ripe fruit and his head blew up.

A week later it was death by couch. It became the lead story everywhere.

Chapter 19. More Fake News

“History stopped in 1936” – George Orwell, Looking back on the Spanish War

“I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened”

With a scarcity of actual deaths by the end of March, far below even the mildest of the NONexpert expectations, media and punditry sought woe. Where there’s demand, there’s supply.

Reporting covid-19 deaths: Fake news v real

• Fake news: Headline: 21yr old football coach dies of coronavirus
• Real news: “Upon his arrival at the facility, Garcia was found to be suffering from a form of leukaemia which made him more vulnerable to the virus currently sweeping the globe” Reality is he died of undiagnosed leukaemia

• Fake news California teenager dies of coronavirus after being denied treatment over lack of insurance
• Real news: Drug overdose. CNN broke the news gently to its fans

• Fake news: Coronavirus a contributing factor to Lehigh Valley patient’s death, coroner says
• Real news: Cause of the man’s death was a head injury from a fall at home, but the virus was listed as a contributing factor to his death.

And the media endlessly misreported capacity and activity in NYC hospitals.

• Fake news: CBS captions a viral video , a “nurse” claiming she had to quit for    her safety cos the hospital did not have enough masks and protective gear.
• Real news: Instagram model who quit a year earlier. Her posts reveals she is bi-polar and suffers anxiety. She posted the video on her first day back. It was also her last day back.

 

• Fake news: CBS shows a NYC hospital at a frantic capacity
• Real news: CBS used footage of the worst hit hospital in Bergamo, Italy and then identified it as New York

 

Prologue. Chapter 20