I have two meetings that were cancelled today because the people I was supposed to meet are sick with COVID. It’s impossible to care about COVID at this point but what’s happening? I vaguely heard something about a flareup in China, I think, or am I inventing this?
Does anybody know anything?
Clarissa's Blog 
“something about a flareup in China”
Are they sick sick or just have to isolate because of a positive test?
I’ve had a few students out in recent weeks… (mostly very weak or no symptoms)… which is pretty much to be expected as it winds down (with massive spread of a weak variety).
Hong Kong is in rough shape since zero covid policies just make it that much worse when it manages to break through (as it will… viruses gonna virus and all that).
Supposedly outbreaks in mainland China but… who knows? I put no faith in any info from the Chinese government….
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I heard there are some minor flareups around, but things are mostly on the decline. A few coworkers got hit very hard a month or two ago, but it’s mostly back to normal.
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In Hong Kong, where the government used COVID as an excuse to crush opposition by locking everybody down for 2 years under the fantasy policy of zero COVID, where virtually everybody is “fully vaxed”, they are having an outbreak of Omicron, which is very mild everywhere else, but somehow is proving deadly there, almost exclusively among the vaxxed.
A March 14th email from Alex Berenson: “[Hong Kong] is suffering the worst coronavirus epidemic anywhere since New York City in April 2020. For two weeks straight Hong Kong has had the equivalent of 10,000 American deaths a day…. Along with its strict anti-Covid rules, the territory has reported arresting more than 10,000 people for anti-government protests and prosecuted at least 2,500 of them.”
So, if – big if – this news out of China is accurate, a city completely locked down and vaxxed up is in the middle of a die off from a very mild form of COVID. One wonders if egregiously undertested experimental gene therapies relabeled as vaccines and then forced upon entire populations might have ‘unforeseen’ negative outcomes? Unforeseen because if you test for 3 months, the most you could possible know is what happens for 3 months.
Assuming any of this is accurate.
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It’s China. They could just be eliminating the opposition and calling it Covid.
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Hong Kong has pretty much the same vaccination rate as the US, and a similar covid19 mortality rate – remember that you’re not dividing today’s deaths by today’s cases, but by the cases 3 weeks ago, since mortality lags cases by 3 weeks. I got 2.85% death rate in HK and 2.72% in the US.
What happened to them was a classical Omicron wave that’s already decreasing, basically, but it’s the first time China or any of its claimed territories gets hit with out-of-control COVID. The situation hasn’t been helped by the authorities’ insistence to hospitalize everyone testing positive, which made them quickly run out of resources to help actually sick people.
I’m entirely not worried about this, but one thing to keep in mind is that Hong Kong neighbours Shenzhen – the electronics capital of the world. Shenzhen is now in a preventive lockdown (since cases started appearing there as well, and unlike HK SZ is connected enough with the rest of the country that, should a full on epidemic start there, it’ll quickly spread to the rest of the country, especially since their vaccines are far leakier than Pfizer/Moderna). This is likely to cause supply issues for anything containing electronics in the following months, so if there’s anything you think you’ll need to buy/replace in that period, now’s a good time to buy.
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Now to be fair anything containing electronics is still difficult to find—getting a new car is still nearly impossible.
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Likely going to get even worse, esp if the Shenzhen lockdown continues/propagates to the rest of Guangzhou.
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Great. We’ve already been waiting three months for a new dishwasher. I bet it gets pushed back even longer.
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My brother is an appliance repairman. He says business has never been better: people are willing to pay for repairs now, that previously would have been expensive enough to warrant replacing the appliance.
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Yeah, our dishwasher is over 25 years old now and is currently beyond repair.
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Are you certain? That was pre-energy-star-ratings, so it’s likely to be the kind that actually got dishes clean!
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(this is complicated by some serious issues with parts availability, though)
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Arestovich said a day or two ago that China is citing a Covid spike to create a graceful way of refusing to help russia.
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Ah! OK, good for them. I’m glad.
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Found a new interesting author vit_r and wanted to share with you. For instance, loved this post from the series titled “Про Северную и Южную Кореи”. He writes well too, in addition to being highly educated interesting person.
Европейская психология считает, что отклонения происходят в обработке информации и из длинного каталога различных отклонений выбирает то, что больше — обычно меньше, у западного психолога тоже мозги набекрень — подходит к наблюдаемому индивиду.
Восточная психология считает, что практически любой безумец действует совершенно рационально, просто у него картина мира немного… искажённая. Патологию надо искать в восприятии.
…
Башни Кремля давно поехали крышей. Они уже много лет живут в неведомом нам мире. Они в нём залипли и совершенно не могут выйти. В этом мире они планируют все свои действия.
Кремль честно по-великодержавному предлагал Штатам поделить мир на зоны геополитического влияния и совершенно не понимал, чего это Запад артачится. Особенно после финта с Косово. И выживший из ума мудозвон Бидон вызвал у этих ушедших из нашего мира в полнейший виртуал Башен Кремля обострение, совершенно органически вписавшись в создаваемую больным воображением картину мира.
Америке сказочно повезло с Трампом. Если отвлечься от блеяния диванной интеллигенции, после “Новичка” и полония в Британии для гебешников Кремля уже не осталось никаких моральных ограничений на применение тактического ядерного оружия. (Стратегическое — пока ещё священная корова, но неизвестно, насколько далеко российская картина мира отойдёт от реальности.)
То, что по Вашингтону ещё не ударили водородной бомбой — были только в мультфильмах по Флориде — целиком и полностью заслуга Трампа.
Не испытываю никаких тёплых чувств к Рыжему. Не потому, что он “говорит для дебилов” или “не заклеймил кого надо”, а чисто из-за морально-политического облика и, естественно, за то, что предал генерала Флинна.
Однако, вынужден признать за Трампом одно качество, совершенно отсутствующее у всей этой швали, именующейся политиками, и критически важное на сегодняшний момент: Трамп уважает тараканов в чужой голове.
https://vit-r.dreamwidth.org/1152839.html?style=light
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The post started well but ended with the standard Russian propaganda. Everything is as usual.
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// The post started well but ended with the standard Russian propaganda.
When he started criticizing Zelensky, Poroshenko and the development of Ukrainian army?
Ukraine had been at war since 2014. Couldn’t they have done more for their army during those years? Why are they still asking for planes, have no drones and so on?
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More??? The army that is beating the Russians’ ass was created out of nothing in such a short period of time and with constant military skirmishes. What was done in Ukraine is nothing short of a miracle. And remember that it all had to be done in secret. Every piece of weaponry, every military training was going to be used by Russia as an excuse that Ukraine was about to attack them. Creating what is now clearly the best army in the world in secret, with no money, and in only 8 years is an incredible achievement that now these propagandists are trying to diminish.
And it’s not just the army. The reforms were absolutely incredible. So much was done. For several years, every daily conversation with my father started with him listing for me every new thing that was built and accomplished in Ukraine. It was amazing stuff. My fault for not writing about it as it was happening.
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Re vit_r ‘s post, I quoted only a small part of it, but it’s worth reading whole.
He put a list of links to some posts here (Пошто Обамка в лифте нассал? is the third from the end):
https://vit-r.livejournal.com/906939.html
Another very decent and interesting person is navlasov, историк-германист, преподаватель одного петербургского вуза. For instance, he wrote 3 posts re
Калигула. Исследование римского императорского безумия (1)
https://navlasov.livejournal.com/220481.html
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Под перестук половецкой пляски
Весна меняет на каски маски.
Живём, как в сказке. Да вот у сказки
Финал утрачен.
И ворон мира застыл над бездной,
Вдыхая запах тоски уездной.
О чём задумался, друг любезный?
Чего так мрачен?
Мы все – массовка в банальной драме.
Те, кто фартовей – уйдут дворами,
Зарегистрируются в «стограме»,
Запостят фотки.
На фотках сцены былых застолий,
В карманах крошки простых историй,
Что наполняют ещё истомой
Помимо водки.
Кого сегодня накроет знамя?
Не надо, ворон, висеть над нами.
Мы общий вектор судьбы узнаем
Из аннотаций.
Отчизна явно на всех забила.
Когда из тени выходит быдло,
Пора осваивать слово «было».
Поздняк метаться.
В таких сценариях нет интриги.
Очкарик, чтобы не видеть зиги,
Взяв узелок, где табак и книги,
Дверь закрывает.
Он насмотрелся на эти рыла.
Ну, что ж ты каркаешь, чернокрылый?
Всего делов-то, что жизнь накрылась.
Но так бывает.
Sergey Plotov, March 16, 2022.
An earlier poem by the same author:
Я никогда не выстрелю в человека!
А ипотека?
Ну, разве что, ипотека.
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“Под перестук половецкой пляски” – Thank you! A wonderful poem.
Found him on FB.
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He’s worth following for the poetry.
This is what’s so frustrating. Talented, smart people with well functioning brains but constantly, historically in the deepest shit, always. Any culture can fuck up. God knows, Germans did. So did Italians. And others. But Russia is consistently, relentlessly, badly fucking things up for centuries. They have everything to do better. But all they ever do is worse.
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Informative (and short) post:
Расскажу немного о Мелитополе.
Мелитополь – среднего размера город на юге Украины, близ Азовского моря. На восток от него – Мариуполь, на запад – Херсон, на юго-запад – 200 километров до Крыма. В Мелитополе 150 тысяч жителей; для сравнения – в Херсоне в два раза больше, в Мариуполе в три раза.
Сразу с началом войны из Крыма поперла мощная группировка российских войск, довольно быстро взяла Мелитополь
https://avva.livejournal.com/3428444.html
What do you think re kungurov’s analysis re lack of formal war between the countries?
Странности не-войны
https://telegra.ph/Strannosti-ne-vojny-03-16
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