Reposted from the Fabius Maximus Blog
By Larry Kummer, Editor / 16 April 2020
Summary: COVID-19 teaches us about the propaganda and arrogance that hobble us. The cost in lives and money might be worthwhile if we learn from it and make a better America.
A nation lit only by propaganda
This “it’s China’s fault” campaign (details here and here) is eerily similar to the hysteria whipped up – manufactured – by the US government against Iraq before the 2003 invasion. The press were uncritical cheerleaders. Much of the US public became a mob (or more accurately, a flock). Calmer voices pointed out that the evidence was weak and that we were being manipulated. Manipulated again, as we were with the Tonkin Gulf incident and the invasion of Afghanistan (9/11 was plotted in Germany, with training in Florida).
The same tactics are being used against us again. Again with equally obvious motives – to arouse people against a new Cold War foe (to justify our massive military spending) and distract people’s attention from the massive failures of the Trump administration during the COVID-19 epidemic.
The saddest aspect of these campaigns is how easily our elites stage them. Can a people so easily manipulated and so unwilling to learn from experience govern themselves?
Climate Science to the rescue
Many climate scientists have been vocal during the pandemic, with unsolicited offers of their expertise. For instance, in this article by James Annan (h/t to Climate Etc). Here is the money paragraph.
“We have been doing a very straightforward MCMC calibration of a simple SEIR model (equivalent of energy balance box model in climate science, pretty much). The basic concept is to use the model to invert the time series of reported deaths back through the time series of underlying infections in order to discover the model parameters such as the famous reproductive rate R. It’s actually rather simple and I am still bemused by the fact that none of the experts (in the UK at least) are doing this. I mean what on earth are mathematical epidemiologists actually for, if not this sort of thing? They should have been all over this like a rash.”
Well, something here is like a “rash.” When a layperson is “bemused” that experts are not doing what seems obvious to him, it probably means that he should ask an expert and dial down the self-confidence. In the climate wars, such statements often precede “analysis” showing that there is no greenhouse effect or that the world is totally doomed really soon.
The staff at CDC and WHO frequently discussed this issue that bemused Annan, explaining that R0 is of little use for laypeople. It is a variable, not a model parameter in the sense Annan appears to use it. Rather than being simple to calculate, R0 is complex. It varies by circumstances and can change over time. The CDC often cites a paper saying that it is “easily misrepresented, misinterpreted, and misapplied.”
More broadly, there are many fields using quantitative models (e.g., macroeconomics). Personally, climate scientists are among the last I would consult. The most obvious similarity of climate models to epidemiological models of COVID-19 is the Imperial College model made famous by Prof. Neil Ferguson. Created 13 years ago, undocumented code, unvalidated, lacking peer-review (per Ferguson) – but it made headlines and had a massive influence on UK public policy. Although it now appears grossly flawed (as seen in the “actual results don’t matter” justifications), it made him famous and resulted in a shower of grant money.
More broadly, the COVID-19 crisis has followed the same pattern as the public climate wars. Experts are center stage. Then they are displaced by a wider pool of authorities. Then wild claims by laypeople dominate, displacing actual experts (such as those at the IPCC and WHO). The climate wars reached that point after 3 decades. COVID-19 reached that stage in only 14 weeks, as claims that “It Is China’s Fault” increasingly dominate the news. This suggests that our dysfunctional response to major crises results from deeper problems in our society. If not fixed, we might have difficulty coping with more serious threats than COVID-19.
For More Information
Ideas! For some holiday shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon. Also, see a powerful and disturbing story about “Birth of a Man of Steel …for the Soviet Union.”
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about Reforming America: steps to a new politics, about the importance of clear vision, and especially these…
- Important advice: Learning skepticism, an essential skill for citizenship in 21st century America. About “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof”.
- Important: Our leaders so often lie, but we still believe them.
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- We have been blind, but can learn to see.
- A new phase of the epidemic begins with propaganda.
Propaganda rules America! Read all about it!
Propaganda by Edward Bernays (1936). “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”
Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda by Noam Chomsky (2002). “Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.”
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“The cost in lives and money might be worthwhile if we learn from it and make a better America.”
There is no 10 trillion dollar lesson in this fantasy escapade of stupidity. So, no, we will never get our money’s worth out of this travesty.
Now that the Stanford researchers have found that the pool of positive cases is 50-80 times as big as the number testing positive, the whole epidemic could actually be an anxiety epidemic with a soup of flu viruses creating the deaths:
The whole pandemic could be an illusion based on anxiety. Media makes anxiety for covid rise at the same time as testing proficiency rises. People have to be sufficiently worried to want to be tested. This fear can easily rise exponentially. And since there is at least 50 times as many infected as confirmed tests, there is no shortage of test positive individuals in a cross section of worried persons. After a while the pool of worried people is exhausted, positive tests flatten and this makes the fear in the population lower. Fewer are motivated to be tested and there is an exponential decline in cases.
That makes too much sense, want to try for something more speculative and outlandish?
Now that the Stanford researchers have found that the pool of positive cases is 50-80 times as big as the number testing positive, the whole epidemic could actually be an anxiety epidemic with a soup of flu viruses creating the deaths:
sorry their study has a large test design flaw
Sure, in fact it has more than one flaw, but it’s also consistent with the German test, and with anecdotal evidence from Great Britain and the Czech Republic. The order of magnitude is in question, but the evidence provides a strong suggestion that this is endemic in the population, and all the quarantine restrictions are over-blown. Where it tends to be a public health problem is in low-income, high density areas, that also have a disproportionate number of multi-generational homes, and “stay-at-home” orders do nothing to curb the spread.
Low income, high density areas such as India and African cities tend to have a dirth of the obese and/or elderly, who appear to be the people that are vulnerable to this virus… making lock downs doubly stupid in these places, particularly as they’re unlikely to have much in the way of the savings they’ll need to rely on to buy food whilst they’re economically unproductive sheltering in place.
That being said – SOMETHING is causing an illness that is filling and overwhelming our ICU wards, so even if Covid-19 is much more prevalent than currently believed, it still needs to be taken seriously.
But AS seriously as our leaders are taking it with their predictions of year-long lockdowns? I think not.
Sort of like the BEST garbage, eh Steven?
The alleged huge percentage of infections (with no symptoms) made my personal BS meter explode. I don’t believe the claim.
Most flu cases have very mild symptoms. The reality is this may be a big nothing burger to people who have a healthy immune response. That’s why it’s so hard to estimate the actual number of infections in a year
Richard
Rarely does the media say anything about the false-positive rate of the tests. At the moment, there is some concern about people in Korea who had apparently been infected, and subsequently tested negative, are now giving positive tests. Might this be a result of inaccuracies in the tests? Little is being said about this.
I see anything by Chomsky I see leftist propaganda. Sorry, if there is any propaganda going on here it is saying we shouldn’t be taking a long hard look at China. That doesn’t mean we can’t look at ourselves too. China did this because we let them.
Bypass Chomsky – go directly to Dr. Joseph Goebbels. He had no inhibitions.
“China did this because we let them”
Assumes that “we” (presumably the U.S.) are able to “let” China do anything. Which I find doubtful. China does what China does.
Point taken, by let I mean we moved our critical supply chains to China and placed ourselves in a position of being vulnerable to them exploiting a bad situation.
Smart
I agree it is a bit hubristic to suggest that you or anyone can “let China” do anything. As a sovereign country with perpetually hostile enemies they do what a few in charge consider to be in their best personal and national interests – just like other countries. Seriously, is the USA any different?
The big lesson from the pandemic is that unless the WHO is replaced by an institution that responds to global interests, this disaster will be repeated 100 times in the next century. There is only one planet to share, and we cannot have national interests dominating our global interests, precisely because they can be manipulated for the benefit, or harm, of other portions of humanity, in the absence of a strong, honest global institution.
The WHO is a UN related body. The UN is clearly in need of reform – urgently. It was created in 1948 to prevent war between the major powers. Well, what is this? Whats the difference? Pandemic controls are a global responsibility. Clearly we need global cooperation, not as a country club, as a single species. The island nation is dead.
Chomsky is hopeless when it comes to economics (and climate change) and suffers badly from TDS, but his knowledge of State propaganda and the various crimes of the Anglo-American empire is encyclopedic.
So on this topic, I would say Chomsky can be trusted.
His analyses of the implications of those facts – to bash capitalism or markets, say – would be suspect, of course, but his basic facts tend to be pretty solid.
Chomsky is a hard-line anti American pro-Communist agitator. He has done nothing worthwhile since the mid-1950s. Merely citing him as an authority disqualifies everything Kummer has to say.
I thought Chomsky was dead.
Marx is dead, and wrong. Yet some people seem to think he was a visionary of some sort. Now there’s nothing wrong with being dead, but being both dead and wrong – that’s an accomplishment.
Marx was a visionary, for the marry-a-rich-woman-and-spend-her-money crowd! John Kerry took the doctoral course in that.
Only the good die young.
I can’t resist:
Thought, hoped, I mix those words up all the time.
Sobchak: “Merely citing him as an authority…”
Nice. Using your rapier logic we should abandon Newtonian gravity and calculus because he was an occultist and an alchemist.
Do you really believe this kind of binary, Manichean thinking is how one solves problems in complex systems? Wait, don’t answer
Newton was a great mathematician and physicist. Inside his lane he was very good. As a theologian and an alchemist he was a nut case, although he did great work as the Master of the Mint.
Chomsky was a minor league mathematician with a contribution to computer science. Outside his lane, he is nuttier than Newton was outside his. Citing Chomsky on politics is like citing Newton on theology.
I simply can’t believe the level of ‘tone deafness’ that Larry Kummer demonstrates in this propaganda piece of his own. His lede is accusing the Western world of propaganda, without addressing the clear propaganda and overt lies pumped out of China. His silence on China is deafening… and damning. Following that up with shameless shilling for his blog just adds to the urge to ‘tune him out’..
If I’m reading Larry right.
He’s arguing that since he’s convinced himself that everything the news media reported prior to the resumption of the Gulf war was a lie (It wasn’t, but that’s the lie leftists like Larry cling to) therefore everything Trump says now is also a lie.
Can’t actually show any failures by the Trump administration? No problem, just proclaim it loudly and frequently enough, and your myrmidons will believe it.
Worth watching: The Epoch Times Documentary on the Origin of CCP Virus (Coronavirus).
JoNova: “The Epoch Times are an organization of dissident reporters, staunchly anti-communist. They interview medical and political experts and we also find out the Chinese lab was set up with some US funds and with a lot of French support. Obama cut off funds in 2014. But the West has made it as easy as possible, offering help, expertise, and training.”
Their video makes a damning circumstantial case that the coronavirus escaped from the Wuhan virology lab and that the CCP has been covering up, deflecting blame, and emitting false statistics ever since.
https://youtu.be/XMJ0EmMfb3U
Here is climate contrarian Jo Nova’s very recent thread on this topic, including text repeating the claims in the video:
“The first Synthetic Pandemic? Man who discovered HIV says Coronavirus is man made. CCP destroyed the evidence.”
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/04/the-first-synthetic-pandemic-man-who-discovered-hiv-says-coronavirus-is-man-made-ccp-destroyed-the-evidence/
I tuned him out long ago. Never read anything from him, but I love the comments.
For a completely different take, you might want to set aside an hour and a half to watch this:
Kummer’s article is not worthy of WUWT and is basically garbage. But this video was interesting!
Fabius is very fond of dictators and “international” organizations. He also drips with disdain for “non-experts” and the common man
He does seem to have a little too much trust in the degree to which experts’ expertise and impartiality can be relied upon.
Plus 1000
Thanks, this is eye opening and troubling. It gives pause when you consider the direction we are being taken with the Gates Foundation and the push for vaccinations.
Everyone should watch this.
Shiva is brilliant explains the science motivation and end game… This is the best video on YouTube explaining the epidemic and what we can expect… Highly recommend!
Bird Flu
‘Last month (2005) Neil Ferguson, a professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College London, told Guardian Unlimited that up to 200 million people could be killed.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/30/birdflu.jamessturcke
Only 455 were killed. Neil Ferguson is a leading UK government expert for coronavirus who claimed 500K would die in Britain. Not even climate scientists are that awful.
Human infection with avian influenza A(H5N1) virus (WHO).
Globally, from January 2003 to 26 March 2020, there were 861 cases of human infection with avian influenza A(H5N1) virus reported from 17 countries. Of these 861 cases, 455 were fatal (CFR of 53%).
http://shorturl.at/lEOV4
I too considered mob mentality and how we were duped into Iraq.
However, I am find the conclusions offensive and sorely supported. It brings up several situations from which it attempts to draw false parallels.
The title suggests we can learn something – but then it drags the reader to bad Trump wants to lead us to world war three.
There is no prescient context or information here.
Several true things that are in-cohesively strung together and draw horrible and clear anti Trump conclusions.
The article’s title should have been more honest. We think Trump built the military and put forth a terrible response to Covid 19 ergo he will fix that by starting a war with China.
China is the new global bully. The USA is the toughest ‘good guy’ in the schoolyard. My feeling is that someone has to start standing up to the bully, and Trump send to be the first to really do it.
I very much doubt it would come to a physical war, but certainly an economic, and probably cyberspace, one instead. If Trump gets another 4 years (almost certain against Biden) then he may get to do that and even win. Just my opinion, however.
Good comment, thanks.
Yes: They will say Trump wants to start a war because we no longer will allow unfair trade, and ill behavior.
Trump’s Terrible Crimes are:,
1) America will walk away from business unless you play fair.
2) We will hold up donations to the W.H.O. because they are using our money unwisely.
I am sick of dull propaganda disguised as saving us from dull propaganda.
Yes, I see what you mean. The head poster’s whole premise here is “Orange Man Bad, About to Start War With China”. Somehow this virus coming out of China means the U.S. White House must be manipulating everyone?
Yes Kummer is a terrible source of poorly written misinformation. He and his ilk are bad for the country and world. Based on hate, he strings together words like a an adolescent without understanding how to debate or conduct proper research. He thinks opinions in and of themselves are facts.
“China is the new global bully. The USA is the toughest ‘good guy’ in the schoolyard”
The average grunt may be a “good guy” who signed up to stand up to global bullies like China, but he’s being duped to enable the US to be the biggest global bully.
Once the US empire collapses from over-reach and exhaustion – as all empires do – hollowed out by its leaders diverting too many resources to continue plundering abroad, I expect the Chinese will expand and replace it as regional hegemon, and I wouldn’t want to be under their control.
But let’s not pretend that the US is in some way benevolent. Plenty of its citizens are, but they’re not the ones in charge of foreign policy.
Observer
You presciently claimed, “Once the US empire collapses from over-reach and exhaustion ..”
Do you care to assign a date to that?
What American Empire? You keep using that word but don’t seem to understand what it means.
Who has been plundered?
If the US actually was the evil empire that haunts your imagination, you wouldn’t be permitted to write the nonsense that you write.
The odds of Biden actually getting the DNC nomination grow less every day even as the odds of him being replaced before the actual election increase geometrically.
The plan is that Biden will be replaced at the last moment, even just before the election, by someone in moderate standing (Cuomo?) who comes riding in on a white horse in silver armor.
St. George against the orange Dragon.
My money is on Shrillary! It is her turn, ya know. And she is so good at losing, almost got to an art form.
“China is the new global bully. The USA is the toughest ‘good guy’ in the schoolyard. My feeling is that someone has to start standing up to the bully, and Trump send to be the first to really do it.”
In one of the links I posted upthread it’s stated that India is considering suing China for $1 trillion in an international court for its carelessness in letting the coronavirus virus out of its lab.
Duped? Saddam was not acquiring yellow cake?
[invalid email-mod]
500 tons found.
Maybe he needed it for a research reactor, for Science.
Or to make molybdenum-99 for medical purpose.
niceguy
Make a list (it will be quite long) of possible uses. Then assign a probability score to all of the items on the list.
Keep in mind, that he was attempting to convince all of his hostile neighbors that he had, or soon would have, nuclear capability. He was interfering with UN inspection teams. That could have been to keep his neighbors from finding out that he wasn’t close to that goal, OR the interference was to keep the world from finding out that he was pursuing nuclear capability.
How many hospitals did he have that had advanced nuclear imaging capability requiring Mo 99 supplies? Enough to justify 500 tons of yellow cake? Were there also stockpiles of HEU or the chemical reagents and infrastructure necessary to extract molly-99?
Didn’t you know? Saddam was a nice, friendly chap who only wanted the best for everyone and us horrible Westerners were basically jealous of his greatness. It amazes me how easily the left have been able to re-brand an attempt to remove him as an all out war with Iraq, which it clearly wasn’t. It was handled poorly, but we never went to war with Iraq- but just try saying this in public….now that’s top notch propaganda!
Presumably then, you believe Hitler never went to war with France, only its leaders.
Or the allies never went to war with Germany, they only went to war with Hitler… or, at most, the Nazi party.
The whole point about a government is that they have broad control over their population, and to get rid of that leader you’re going to have to kill large numbers of that leader’s subjects.
You might not understand this, but believe me: the neocon psychopaths who have hijacked the foreign policy apparatus of the US understand it.
That has to be one of the greatest non-sequiturs of the century.
Why not actually true and disprove anything written. If you can.
RE: “…neocon psychopaths….”
You’re right. I don’t understand your hysterical mental cramps.
Recommend you take a Midol and have a nap.
he was also not violating multiple no fly zones (that we had been enforcing/paying for) for many years. funny how many people forget how much that was costing.
he had to go.
its how we went about it that was the problem.
There was no other way to go about it.
The leftists both in the US and abroad were demanding that the sactions regime be lifted.
The choice was invade or let him go.
Yes, Saddam bad. And Yes we were duped into a never-ending poorly orchestrated regime change effort while also not using a correct set of rules of engagement. War should not be run the way we ran it. You don’t want war. But if you need to go to war, it needs to be brutal and fast and done. Not the rules of engagement that unnecessarily put our soldiers in terrible harms way. So we were duped to react wrongly and paid the dear price.
Mario, just on Iraq – remember that those weapons inspector ‘experts’ the world (UN) entrusted to inform us all about Saddam’s wmd (firstly Richard Butler, later Has Blix), both reported that Saddam was hiding wmd and seeking more.
Both later qualified their views, but not timely enough to quell the predictable alarm conditions that set the hounds running towards forming the ‘coalition of the willing’.
And the rest, as they say – is history.
So if we are to learn anything from recent histories such as this, it should be that “experts” and their handler bureaucracies (eg UN) can’t help salivating at an opportunity to impose themselves into any situation that might bestow power, control and funding on them.
And being unaccountable, they will never let past failures deter them from pursuing every future opportunity.
Yes, we should also recall that regime change in Iraq was official U.S.policy since 1998, when President Bill Clinton signed it into law.
Saddam had been pushing his luck with the United States for a long time. He ended up hiding in a hole in the ground.
Saddam Insane deserved everything that happened to him. He brought in upon himself with his insane actions.
Absolutely agree. I’m tired of feeling the need to defend brave soldiers from both sides of the Atlantic fighting and dying to protect our freedom from the likes of Saddam.
Lulz. I can’t tell if you’re being serious or satirical! Perfectly played.
A much better policy would have been to offer Tariq Aziz, the comedian Foreign Minister who was on TV giving a news conference on Iraq’s might the night when the bombing began, that he would be made President if he would just give up Saddam’s location a few days earlier, and we put one of their own SKUD’s down Saddam’s chimney. We could have done regime change without tearing the country of Iraq apart. In hindsight, we picked the wrong country anyway; it was the Iranian Regime of the Mad Mullah’s we should have straitened out. Turns out that Iraq is now a close ally of Iran anyway thanks to Obama and his weak kneed policies on Iran and China. All that blood and treasure for nothing and then abandoning Syria on top of everything else. Thanks in part to Obama, is why the world is in much of the latest mess we are today both with Iran and China.
Which “elite” is blaming China? The elite are sucking up to China and the WHO.
Must be some code words here that only progressives can understand. When I read between the lines, the message is normal Americans are dupes or stooges but we progressives know better.
“Don’t be THEIR dupe; be OUR dupe.”
The left don’t have dupes. That would take away the jobs of all their useful idiots!
How were we “duped”into Iraq.
WMDs were found.
Mothballed WMD programs were found.
As others have mentioned, Israel previously bombed an actually being built nuclear power plant in Iraq that would at some point start producing weapons grade plutonium. If that isn’t proof of all WMD attempts including chemical weapons use, then what is? Saddam was guilty as charged, and should have been taken out by internal resistance that were open to and aided in dealing with the West. But Saddam was so savage, that he managed to quell that. Hence there was no option but to invade at some point. With hindsight, one can always see how it could have been done better.
The Osirak plant (nickname: Oh, Chirac!) was specifically designed by the French CEA to not be able to produce usable plutonium. (Saddam asked for another technology that would have allowed to produce military quality Pu.)
Of course, acquiring nuclear technology and expertise means that you get a lot closer to building your own plutonium production reactor…
As did the French when they supplied Israel with their nuclear civilian electricity generating fleet in the mid 1960’s so that Israel was fully and completely able to generate weapons grade plutonium within a few years thereafter.
Actually French military plutonium technology was teleported to Israel. As were French scientists.
God did it, probably.
Noam Chomsky ???
You must be kidding.
I hope so. This reads like the Babylon Bee.
Charles – how about a little /sarc tag on some of your articles, an introduction or a comment or two.
Carpet bombing articles from other sites without context or comment give the reader zero idea about where you stand on issues.
You might think it’s cute – staying in the shadows, but annoying as heck on a Friday afternoon.
JTL
I try not to have a point of view when selecting articles, especially when it becomes this politicized.
Larry emails me. He is sincere. We disagree on a lot of things, but I’ve always tried to allow all points of view.
The sarcasm tag ruins jokes the same way as explaining a joke after telling it.
I wonder if you’re being used for link juice. Sincerity can only go so far before it becomes clear you’re in *foul-expletive*boy territory:
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/relationships/a10368869/am-i-being-used/
It’s happened to the best of you. Kummer is and has been for the most part a moron with the majority of “his” (h/t Jeff Alberts) posts here. /nosarc
No, I won’t offer “further” evidence, to do so would require putting forth the effort to separate the wheat from the chaff when there’s no wheat at all. One can only read just so much chaff.
I still believe you’re a rockin’ moderator, not that it matters in the slightest what I believe.
@Charles Rotter on behalf of sycomputing:
To elaborate on this point, sometimes I’ll bounce ideas off myself just to try to get an accurate gauge of how truly brilliant I really am.
Gotta be a short in this thing, I keep having to replace the batteries . . .
If WUWT readers can’t make up their own minds – IOW if everything has to be fed to them with instructions on what they have to think – then there’s no point in having WUWT; we might as well all join The Conversation. Charles is right, IMHO.
Yes . . . yes I think I’m with you Mike:
https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-shows-we-are-not-at-all-prepared-for-the-security-threat-of-climate-change-136029
CR:
I’m all for multiple points of view, but…
In this particular case, 40 years of China watching tells me that Larry basically exonerating China and shoving the mess into DT’s shoes, like the WHO makes him a prime example of what Lenin apply referred to as “useful idiots”.
Whatever merit the rest of his story may have, vaporizes right there.
CR – agree 110%
It’s like otherwise rational thinkers exonerating the Climategate cabal as “work buddies just shootin’ the sh!t”
We must ALL be ever vigilant against descending into personal “useful idiocy”
Larry reminds me of the Democrats who back in February who declared that Trump was both over reacting and a xenophobe for banning flights to and from China, but are now castigating Trump for not doing enough back in February.
The same ones two weeks ago were going apoplectic when Trump declared that he was the one who would decide when states could open up. They are now declaring that Trump is passing the buck when he concedes that it’s the governors who have the final authority in that area.
Charles Rotter – there is absolutely no need for you to be apologetic about publishing this article. And I do not believe you published it just because Larry Krummer is “sincere”. His article is exceptionally intelligent and clear-sighted – that is why you published it.
WUWT is one of my very favourite blogs – but the moment you begin shows any reluctance to publishing opposing opinions for fear of offending somebody, I will immediately unsubscribe.
I didn’t apologize. I elucidated my decision process.
You should. In my sincere opposing opinion.
What opinion was put forth? That the author is a conspiracy nutter? After the intro I stopped reading, because even though a broken clock is right twice a day, I’m not going to wait all day hoping to see it. I’ve seen this same pattern so many times before, the person who thinks everything is a false flag attack, and/or done for some nefarious reason, and/or the US is behind every bad thing that ever happened, sometimes even before it existed. These type of people are without logic. Why don’t you just repost all the sky dragon articles if your trying to publish “opposing”opinions for the sake of publishing “opposing” opinions.
Charles,
Keep up the good work! Censorship is neither needed nor desirable at WUWT. Articles like Kummer’s help keep the BS meter calibrated and certified.
“and distract people’s attention from the massive failures of the Trump administration during the COVID-19 epidemic”
oh sheesh! who writes this shi..
let’s add on – And the massive failures of the Eu administration-
The same people who demand that Trump listen to the experts are castigating Trump for listening to the experts.
The end of the Iraq war? Or the beginning of the Greater Middle East War with the subsequent administration? Iraq, Iran, Libya, Ukraine, Syria, etc.
China as a first-order forcing, hiding actions under a layer of privacy (their choice), cannot share/shift responsibility for catastrophic anthropogenic climate change, but there are functional enhancements through globalism, immigration reform, political congruence/correctness (PC), and spreaders of social contagion that have forced mismanagement of resources and cross-pollination.
Kummer: Voice of Asia “gives no sources, other than hand-waving and wild guessing, to claim that China has underreported the number of COVID-19 cases. ”
NYTimes Headline: ‘China Raises Coronavirus Death Toll by 50% in Wuhan” 17 April, 2020
Sometimes Larry Kummer can be such a self-righteous windbag! You don’t have to be a Pentagon MIC shill to object to obvious misinformation and deception from the Chi-Coms.
Coolio – Gangsta’s Paradise (feat. L.V.) [Official Music Video]
This wow…
Sober rationality shines out from your article, Larry Krummer. And over the centuries ahead of us, human civilisation will slowly learn the painfully difficult, primitive psychology of homo sapiens sapiens. Mass communication and instant mass participation in all sorts of social, scientific and political affairs have really changed decision making this last quarter century – and not for the better.
Andy, you really should label your sarcasm.
Well it will be well worth the 10 Trillion if the US learns not to base its whole economy on foreign goods. Multiple administrations have given away or jobs and trade secrets to appease the globalists.
The US has never based “it’s whole economy on foreign goods”. Not even close.
It’s just that some people don’t believe the people of the US should ever be permitted to buy anything that wasn’t made in the US of A.
So, Larry, let me get this straight. China DID NOT hide the actual start date of the local epidemic, DID NOT claim and push through WHO that person-to-person transmission was impossible when they knew the contrary to be true, DID NOT stone-wall USCDC requests for samples of the virus, DID NOT… You know, I give up with you. In the US, if you are promoting foreign interests, you have to register as a foreign agent. Got your paperwork in yet?
General Flynn was only credibly accused of writing one op ed in favor of Turkey. One.
(The rest of the accusation against Flynn was bunk.)
This mishmash of simplistic half truths and leaps of logic is not worthy of WUWT.
The thing to learn from this is to use simple common-sense, not socialist think-tank/group-think in dealing w/it. Perhaps shutting down big urban areas (like NYC & its suburbs in this case), but NOT shutting down areas that don’t have crowded conditions. You cannot shut down almost all of the frackin’ country because big cities are having problems.
But we all know this has been done to take advantage of a crisis & try to discredit the President. Talk about blatant, even deadly treachery….
Some pretty damning evidence came from the Taiwan email, from the nature of the Chinese sponsored WHO boss and from the Nobel prize winner who says the virus was made in china
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/04/the-first-synthetic-pandemic-man-who-discovered-hiv-says-coronavirus-is-man-made-ccp-destroyed-the-evidence/#comments
Tonyb
This posting is not worthy of WUWT.
Very disappointing to see this nonsense on WUWT
You’re right. We had abundant evidence back then of Saddam Hussein’s violation of UN resolutions, his mass murder of his own people, his exploration of a nuclear weapons program, his attempt to assassinate President George H.W. Bush (by itself, a sufficient reason to remove him from power), his use of chemical weapons against Iran and his own people, firing on coalition aircraft enforcing no-fly zones after his 1991 invasion of Kuwait.
Similarly, we have abundant evidence of the Chinese Communist leadership’s nefarious deeds: invading and claiming other countries, increasing their dominance of the South China Sea by staking claim to and occupying islands that belong to other countries, threats against our allies, their massive industrial espionage and technology theft, their currency manipulation and state-sponsored destruction of industrial competitors and domination of certain industries, their brutal, murderous oppression of protesters and dissidents, their ethnic cleansing of Uyghurs. Oh yeah, and their lying and cover-up of a virus the became a global pandemic.
The difference is—and it’s a subtle one—we’re not planning to invade China. We’re just pulling back the curtains on them; what every US President has declined to do going back 3 decades. But not this one. He fights to protect American interests in the face of the nebulous and questionable goals of “globalism.” We’ll be moving manufacturing and vital industries back to the U.S., you can be sure of it, and we will impede the Chinese Communist Party’s attempt to infiltrate global communications via deployment of 5G networks.
Not only that, Saddam was enabling Islamic terrorism, a sufficient reason to prevent the undoing of sanctions. Sanctions would have to be removed no matter what without an intervention. Saddam was going to hide his uranium stock building program.
Let me know when you find the WMDs… meanwhile, have you written condolences to the 5000 servicemen sacrificed in Iraq… and paid back the $7 T this War Crime cost?
The use of chemical weapons by Saddam against the Kurds and his own citizens was an WMD.
Well let’s just say overturning dangerous dictators and Marshall Plans isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and we’ll need to be much more careful and selective about that in future. It’s definitely not one size fits all with Marshall Plans and Arab Springs is what I took from it but to pay more heed to the Israeli stance in these matters. What about yourself?
Sure, as soon as you write a written condolence to the mother of the small child found clutching a red and white ball in a mass grave in Iraq. May be hard since she was found lying next to the child. Or does that not rise to the level of “war crime” by you? Or is it you just choose to only be offended by those “war crimes” that fit your political narrative?
It’s not like we gave him 10 years to move anything before we went in to commit this ‘war crime’ against such a peaceful humanitarian is it?….
WMDs and WMD programs were found. You can read about if you wish.
Here’s some good reading material:
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GPO-DUELFERREPORT
A possible way to calm the hysteria is to look at the figures. For *England the daily number of new cases confirmed positive by a laboratory test is approximated by a simple formula: 4000 exp(-(t/15)²) where t is the number of days BEFORE April 5th. By Farr’s Law this symmetrical formula can be expected to apply for days AFTER April 5th, leading to expect a rapid fall. Whether “social distancing” or “lock-down” had any significant effect on the progress of the epidemic will probably be argued for years. There is always a threat of a “second wave” which doubtless will be used to counter any push to “re-open” the UK and free us from house-arrest. What astonishes me is the absence of any economic model of the effects of the lockdown, and the alacrity and meekness with which the public accepted it and indeed went on to enjoy it, even delighting on grassing up or social-shaming neighbours for going out for escaping for an hour.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
Italy, Spain, France and the state of New York together have more CoVid-19 deaths than the entire rest of the world combined.
Italy, Spain, France, the state of New York, Great Britain, Belgium, Iran, Germany and New Jersey together have more Covid-19 confirmed cases than the entire rest of the world combined.
CoVid-19 is not a global problem.
CoVid-19 is not a US national problem.
Covid-19 is a problem for the political, social, medical, financial s**t holes listed above.
The medical and political bone heads who slammed the car door on the world’s economic fingers were stampeded into the precautionary principle by the lying, rabble-rousing, fact free, s**t stirring, fake news MSM propaganda machine and its pretentious talking heads intent on taking out Trump.
Remember that come this November (maybe).
Say it plainly: it’s a COUP by the medical crowd. In France, the unions even took it to the French court of fundamental freedom (Conseil d’état) to remove fundamental freedom to protect the fake right to live.
There is no right to not be contaminated or not come in contact with contaminating people, period.
Is anyone defending Saddam again?
Saddam was the good guy, or the bad-but-not-that-bad guy?
Saddam was the non Islamic leader, again? (Because Baas I guess?)
That’s BS.
That, and there was a ceasefire that persisted through the nineties, with one and more recorded violations, and finally concluded… would have concluded in the following decade: the end of the Iraq War, but instead it progressed and metastasized throughout the greater Middle East in one adventure after another.
If Saddam was so innocent why did the Israelis have to go in and level nuclear facilities, once in Iraq and then again in Syria and where did Assad get his reactor? Where did Assad get the stuff he used to gas his own people? Personally, I think Saddam clearers out Iraq of stuff and sent it to Assad. Bush certainly gave hime enough advance warning the Americans were coming.
“where did Assad get his reactor?”
The North Koreans.
This is the Friday Funny?
WUWT has wandered from being one of the best blogs on climate change. A lot of articles re Covid 19, astronomy and politics etc… Also doing a lot of what we accuse the ” climate alarmists ” of doing.
For example much analysis of the Diamond Princess. Only 7 deaths proving only 1% death rate concluded early on. Well now there are now 13 deaths. Too quick to conclude with incomplete data.
Much early comparison with flu and how at least 20,000 die every year in USA and how few deaths from Covid 19. Well now approaching 40,000 deaths attributed to Covid 19 and counting, most likely more in reality. How would you like to be in a long term care home right now? Lots of statements that there are multiples of people with the virus but not showing symptons, yet data I look at shows big majority of tests are negative. How many more deaths if nothing done? How do we actually return to some normality without some resurgence?
Wonder what would be said here if infectious desease experts adamantly expressed their thoughts on climate. Many times on this blog the climatology credentials of authors have been dismissed.
Perhaps we should stick to climate issues here.
We can only deal with incomplete data. Not only that, often biased data.
In almost every field. I’m pleased with WUWT dealing with the current crisis.
Totally agree. Anthony Watts has some knowledge of climate issues – there is no evidence that he has put any personal effort into mastering the issues around COVID-19.
‘There is no evidence to show that the 2019 coronavirus is more lethal than respiratory adenoviruses, influenza viruses, coronaviruses from previous years, or rhinoviruses responsible for the common cold.’ (Dr Pablo Goldschmidt , virologist specializing in tropical diseases and Professor of Molecular Pharmacology at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. Interview on Clarin.com, 9th March 2020)
– It is has been well reported that in Italy, US and the UK just about everyone who dies in hospital is recorded as a coronavirus death – the authorities are quite open about this.
Despite this, Lord Monkton has been presenting on this blog models based on this fake data.
– Diagnostic tests are useless: see the manufacturers’ instructions, also this from a doctor, yes I know it’s anonymous (https://stovouno.org/2020/04/09/if-you-want-to-create-a-totally-false-panic-about-a-totally-false-pandemic-pick-a-coronavirus/).
– Almost without exception those who die are old AND sick (in New Zealand the average age 85, all with underlying health conditions). The old and sick do die of seasonal flu, but this year it is often questionable whether the virus had anything to do with their deaths at all.
– According to this study from Stanford University, the absolute risk of death from COVID-19 even in the highest age category >80 to-date and even in the hot epicenters does not exceed 0.24% in any location and in most locations it is 0.1%. https://t.co/txU0XyCAdS
It’s a serious worry that so many people who have been following the climate issue have learned absolutely nothing outside the detail. The strategy in creating hysteria over COVID-19 is an almost exact replica of the climate hoax, from the huge sums spent on buying up/founding institutions starting with the IPCC and the WHO to the gaslighting and misinformation from the corporate media to the moral blackmail (if you point out the the only people who die of Wuflu are those who are dying anyway apparently you’re a psychopath). If anything Bill Gates has outdone David Rockefeller, in that the lockdowns make dissent that much more difficult.
https://stovouno.org/2020/04/03/covid-19-bill-gates-engineers-a-global-crisis-from-seasonal-flu/
The whole point of this blog is to disseminate information on a host of topics, as is listed About (WUWT) as per the upper header in this website. It isn’t about whether Anthony is an expert on this issue, but for sure, there have been many experts here writing about this Wuhan Coronavirus issue and many people have learned a lot from it, including me. Just like when I can click on your name, and read your blog, some of which I agree with. I am sorry to hear that NZ is becoming a Police State, but that appears to be one of the attractions of this virus to nebulous leaders such as your PM Jacinda Ardern, which will probably try to be emulated for the climate crisis next. Such is the nature of socialist/marxist leaders that will never let a good crisis go to waste.
” . . . in New Zealand the average age 85, all with underlying health conditions”
++++
Not only that, they’re all described on TV news as “tragic” deaths, the news reader completing the picture with tilted head and furrowed brow. Seemingly, “tragic” has slipped down the scale to sit alongside “sad”.
If someone used the time-honoured phrase “the old man’s friend” for bronchitis, these people would no doubt be frozen with horror.
Still , it’s not quite the “80,000 NZers could die from this” that the bird-brained P.M. of NZ , Jacinda Ardern alleged on public TV, purely for the purpose of encouraging the acolytes to lock themselves away, and to accept blinly their new label i.e. “Non-essential”.
It’s actually less than a score as we speak.
One of the posters here assured me that the death toll would never reach 20,000 and probably wouldn’t break 10,000.
“Earthling2 April 17, 2020 at 6:59 pm
I am sorry to hear that NZ is becoming a Police State,…”
NZ has been a police state for a long time.
Given the number of comments on the COVID-19 and astronomy articles, I find it hard to believe that most posters here are as disinterested in these topics as you wish to believe.
“The strategy in creating hysteria over COVID-19 is an almost exact replica”
…of pro vax hysteria with measles, an obvious con, as the same pro vax authorities admit there were no more than 30 death from measles PER YEAR in France before mass vaccination.
Although nearly every time these statistics are mentioned by a vaccine skeptic, it’s “fake news”. In fact every time a skeptic mentions something not pretty from the official data of vaccines promoters, he is accused of lying or misleading!
Yet many on WUWT are vaxxists, that is, brainwashed and deranged.