40 Replies to “August 4, 2020: Reader Tips”

    1. Eventually their military might will be tested, where and how hard is anyone’s guess at this point. An overpowering counter action will be needed , not one of equal response silliness. Then we (the world) will see just how many people think freedom is worth fighting for.

      1. And the weapon that will ultimately limit Chinese effectiveness in taking over the world, is one they’ve built to perfection, loaded with a full magazine, and turned upon themselves. The U.S. is far, far in debt – it will certainly never scramble out of the many-$trillion hole it has dug itself – but China has leapt to an unenviable world-leadership; both in percentage and in totals, it’s the most indebted country in the world. It cannot afford Xi’s grand, Sino-centric vision.

        Back a couple of years ago, everybody was decrying Obie’s free-spending, put-the-voting-masses-on-my-welfare-tab habits; he well more than doubled the U.S. national debt in his eight years. Adding a $trillion a year to the deficit was permissible only in the light of buying the vote – why not, I mean that’s exactly what Little Potato* is doing – but China added $1.4 trillion (U.S.-dollar-equivalent) in one bad quarter during that period. This is not exceptional for them.

        China currently has three nooses tightening around their own windpipe, none of which bodes well for a multi-generational cold war with the West:

        1) – they’re WAY in debt, and getting steadily worse; and their economy exists to sell baubles to the west – their own consumers can’t afford that $hit. And for quite awhile – and accelerating rapidly after COVID – the world market is starting to view “Made in China” as a synonym for “Do Not Buy This”. This is a reaction the CCCP has only themselves to blame for; and without the money coming-in for their exports, their debt problem is gonna’ get REAL worse.

        2) – IAW the article, they’re opening new ports on the Indian Ocean and building pipelines from Gwadar to Xinjiang. These pipelines – will they be proof against Tomahawks? – thought not. The article says that Djibouti can be a thumb on the world’s windpipe, but that works both ways; with fracking at home, the U.S. is now exporting oil – so they don’t need Middle-East oil anymore. In the old days of the cold war, the American concern was to keep the Strait of Hormuz open; now they need only close it. Sure, China can interdict oil to Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Australia, but that’s a double-edged sword that can be easily used against them – without getting any oil themselves, they can’t do it for very long.

        3) – The West has played this game before. There’s not a lot that China can dream-up, that the Soviets didn’t try during our cold war with them – and just like the Soviets did after WW2, the Chinese are now throwing their weight around. You’d think they’d’ve learned from the last one – but no, they’ve alienated all their neighbours and (once again, especially after COVID) caused the rest of the world to sit-up in alarm. Big companies are moving out, and new corporate ventures are looking elsewhere. I have to confess, a totalitarian surveillance State does far better in weathering adversity; but the march of technology means woe for any who fall behind – and China, despite Xi’s rosy predictions and stern-jawed declarations, cannot develop its own high-tech. It can’t; and the greater part of China’s technology budget goes, not into research, but into improving its methods of spying on the West. Been there, done that; and as China’s intentions become clear, western universities close to Chinese students – and China-affiliated researchers find themselves under arrest. Trump has delivered a mighty kick to Xi’s exposed weakness by turning-off the flow of computer chips with American technology inputs – these are still doubling in capability every five years, which means indigenous Chinese-supplied high tech will rapidly become non-competitive in the world.

        It ain’t a sure thing – a dice roll never is – but China showed its hand too early; and the rest of the world is turning against it. And as I said, we’ve played this game before.

        * – lest we forget – “Little Potato” was a moniker bestowed on Justin Trudeau by the Chinese; obviously pejorative, but he was flattered by it. A glimpse into a mind of child-like mediocrity.

        1. Further to 3: The CCCP and CCP both make the mistake of believing the reports brought to them about how strong and productive their nation is, forgetting that those managers who don’t lie to them will soon be dead managers.

          I asked a low/mid level Chinese bureaucrat how the CCP would avoid the Soviet’s mistake. “Our culture prides itself on honesty. If you lie, you lose face.” He seemed to believe it, but it might have been because the rest of his family was “back home”.

          1. That’s the biggest reason China can’t develop its own high-tech (incidentally, a typo in the above, which naturally I spotted after the “amend” expired – in (1) I called the CCP the ‘CCCP’. Fat fingers…)

            In good old days of Soviet Union, the Soviets developed 3% of their own high-tech – and stole the rest from us, at pennies on the dollar. They came-up with some brilliant stuff on their own, notably the high-off-boresight air-to-air missile, for which we’d’ve had no counter in a shooting war – at least not until we developed new tactics; and it’s hard to get into dogfighting range with an AWACS over the horizon. But the West actually laughed when they came-out with fighters that (on paper) matched the F-15, because it had taken American know-how over a decade to get the F-15 flying well – and the Soviets did not have that sort of technical expertise. Then when the Iron Curtain began to crumble, one of their physicists emigrated to the U.S. and brought us Stealth.

            The West has been there before – many early-WW2 pilots learned to their cost that you did NOT dogfight a Zero – but two new tactics (“One Pass, Haul @$$” and the Thach Weave) largely nullified it. Against second-rate airforces with outmoded equipment, the Zero and the Oscar slaughtered them; but against the well-trained USN, the less maneuverable Wildcat came-out ~even; and the Hellcat and Corsair were in advanced prototype by then. By the time the Japanese came-up with another world-matching fighter (the Shiden-kai), it was late 1944 and they could only build a few of them.

            Now imagine you’re a Chinese manufacturer – why would you even bother researching anything? You can have a “government” “friend” give you a tippo on latest western tech, saving you the research budget so your heavily-overleveraged company can skip straight to production. Or, you can invest the money you need for bribes to “government” “friends” into researching your own innovations – and your next-door-neighbour, who has relatives on the city council and is married into the Politburo, will just come-along and steal it, and likely take-over your assembly line while he’s at it. Feel like complaining, Comrade? – you’ve been tissue-matched, and the international kidney market is hot right now…

            So the Chinese are really eager to promote friendship societies and get their students into western universities, just like the Soviets were in their day – the Soviet cultural delegation to Iceland had more staff than the U.S. Embassy there. But if you read a few of Viktor Suvorov (the GRU defector)’s reminiscences, it was well-known in GRU and KGB circles that a good spy scandal would cause western cooperation to freeze-up and slow to a crawl. We’re getting there now with China – ask Huawei. Literally everything they do is directed by the PLA and focused on stealing our tech or crushing our opposition to them doing so, and the world is not only recognising a clear and present threat – they’re getting heartily sick of it.

            Come-up with something new, only to have it show-up out of China three months later for mere pennies on your research dollar? Theft of intellectual property, my friend – enjoy your early (unfunded) retirement. And I gather the USN is getting sick of seeing new Chinese construction pointing all their own radars and missiles right back at them. Meanwhile, the Chinese fishing fleet trample the ocean like they own it, and steal any other nation’s fishing rights without so much as a “meh” – 300 Chinese fishing boats have come all the way across the Pacific and are lurking just outside the Galapagos Islands nature preserve, clearly intending to rush in and vacuum-up the (endangered) hammerhead-shark breeding season. Environmental protection – what’s that, and who cares? “All your resources are belong to us!”

            This may not end well for us – it will not end well for the CCP. The good news is that, while fiercely patriotic (like the Japanese were), the Chinese are also getting heartily sick of it; this will only accelerate as the debt situation worsens, and State Tyrannies work until they don’t. “Five of the ten bloodiest interludes in history were civil wars in China” – not strictly true, but if you throw-in the Great Leap Forward, it is.

        2. Another interesting bit regarding the debt issue. A lot of Chinese money went into buying western debt. That means that in addition to the Chinese debt, a lot of their assets are merely holding western debt.

          Most western countries have some form of enemy alien act which allows the cancelling of all debts owed to enemy aliens. A declaration of war would both reduce western debt and Chinese assets. I believe that Chinese investments in the US, and many other western countries would be forfeit, as those assets would be seized.

          Still hoping on a failed dam uprising to displace the CCP.

        3. Y, you seem to forget just what China is. They will never worry about debt or paying anything back because they will not have to. They are communists and as such own everything they lay claim to including the people they enslave.

    2. “The Israeli prime minister would make his own mad dash for Beijing to negotiate the place of Israel in the new, Sinocentric Middle Eastern order.”

      What place? What would he hope to negotiate?

      For the Jewish people to be exterminated only after the Uighurs?

      To not have the corpses fed to humans as cheap pork and not to actual pigs and dogs?

      The Chinese are convinced, on the basis of nothing but their own ignorance and vanity, that theirs is the Middle Kingdom—the centre of the universe—and that they are the race with a mandate from “Heaven” to rule the world with an iron sceptre.

      They want no rivals.

      There will be no place for Jews in a Chinese dominated world even as slaves.

      That, of course, means China’s attempts to conquer the planet will only succeed in destroying civilization. The Israelis have made clear that the next attempt at a Jewish Holocaust will be the last.

  1. The Liberal Party’s CBC website is outraged this morning that a private Christian university in Hamilton Ontario, doesn’t allow sex before marriage and only believes in the marriage of normal people. Gay activists are demanding that this evil university be taken to court by the federal government. I can remember when gay rights were being put into law and politicians assured everyone that Christian institutions were not going to be effected, and people who thought otherwise were ridiculed.

    1. The Libcomms like to ridicule the Christian churches but those WE revival parties with all the Trudeaus dancing and prancing around beat the hell out of any christian revival meeting.

      And wasn’t it the Libcomms that handed out free red and white condoms at their annual meetings?

      Actually there is a quote in a Cdn political book that said:
      ‘If you want to make policy, you join the Conservative party.
      If you want to get laid, you join the Liberals.’

      Screwing the tax payers is what the Libcomms do best.

    2. I’m not aware of a single Christian pastor, priest, or other religious leader that spoke out against Bible and cross burning in Portland last week.

      I’m also going to guess that weakness will be shown here. They will take a knee to the woke ‘philosophy’.

      Like lambs these modern Christians.

      If it were an Islamic college, with exactly the same values about marriage and homosexuality, they would get a pass.

      1. I’m not aware of a single Christian pastor, priest, or other religious leader that spoke out against Bible and cross burning in Portland last week.

        The church has become infested with commies and SJWs, thanks largely to the heresies of “liberation theology” and “social gospel”.

      2. Alecincgy, I fully agree. It boggles the mind that they hammer against Christian values, but the group that hates the Jewish people, hates and murders homosexuals, mutilates the genitals of it’s females, and insist they cover themselves from head to toe, and in some counties will not even allow them to be educated, commits jihad on the west, and kills without conscience for the smallest slight. This so called, “religion of peace”, is an Evil of the highest magnitude.

  2. Wow – Look at how well behaved these BLM protesters are, they even have the courtesy to THANK the police as they pass by. Suddenly no more calls to de-fund police here!

    “Indiana Residents Hold Guns as George Floyd Protesters Pass By” – 1 minute clip.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEK_FeTXR4c

  3. Blacklock reports that the Liberal government awarded a multi million dollar contract for face masks, to a Quebec company that doesn’t have a factory in Canada.

  4. Kate, you really need to take a bow for your staunch support for us pro-choice farmers in getting rid of the choke chain called the Canadian Wheat Board.
    This little item shows how the grain industry has changed since Harper got rid of the CWB in 2012.

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/craft-beer-sales-rising-in-sask-1.5672023

    Craft beer has taken off in the prairie provinces with the easy ability of crafters to buy the malt barley directly from the farmers.
    As well, it looks like the wheat exports have increased by at least 1 million tonnes per year.
    There has also been an increase in the number of hi-thru put elevators in most areas.
    And this yr, the railways are blowing thru west coast exports record partly due to less competition due to the virus lessening other rail traffic.
    All in all, I think the craft beer guys should reward your efforts with free beer for a year. LOL
    Good on you!

    1. “Corn don’t grow at all on Rocky Top
      Ground’s too rocky by far,
      That’s why all the folks on Rocky Top
      Get their corn from a jar…”

    1. DCH….Well done.
      Says it all IMO.
      The mug shots look like a Roxham Rd Graduating class.

  5. While listening to the “Covid Show” featuring Dr Tam and many other “experts” ,I learn that they are maudling along through their “modelling” of the virus.
    These people are giving a whole new meaning to “Competence” and not a good one.
    Meanwhile our Politicians see this situation as an opportunity to steal ,like ever before..
    The taxpayer may not work,on pain of financial abuse and even imprisonment..
    Meanwhile the parasitic hordes get a pay raise.

    And the goal posts moved yet again,now its wait for vaccine,except vaccine will not release the citizen from the authoritarian grasp of the Helpers.
    So apparently this “emergency” will never end.
    For our own good of course.

    To protect us from a plague that has supposedly killed 7000 people since March.
    Now never mind that nobody seems to die of any normal causes during this time period..7000 people out of 30 million is 7 in 30 000.

    We will all be better off,physically ,mentally and financially if we took Mencken’s advice;
    “Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”.
    Because we are being manipulated by the clueless and useless to no benefit at all.
    And they openly admit they will never voluntarily give up their new found power.
    Multi Year Pandemic.

    And now masks work, for this week anyway..
    As a contractor I need to know,which mask?
    Filter number?
    Where is mask needed?
    What is the Safety ritual?
    How do I decontaminate said mask?

    Or is any face covering acceptable?
    Perhaps we should all wear bug hats?
    There is a fine face covering,protects you from projectile vomiting and blood suckers.
    OK most blood suckers,except the human parasites.

    Is it just me?

    Or has government shown near total incompetence on this matter?
    Public Health has been farcical.
    “We are ready,we have everything we need”
    “We are out of PPE for medical staff”.
    “Masks will not stop this virus,worn improperly they will do more harm than good”
    “Wear a mask of else”.
    “The lockdown is necessary to prevent hospitals being overrun”
    “Stay home till a vaccine is found”
    “Oh and sorry about laying off medical staff and the panicked cancelation of other medical services”.

    The W.E excuse,we had to break every rule and breech every ethical principle to ensure the party workers could be paid for their selfless work volunteering..
    Beggars my contempt and hatred for our effete elites.
    We are long overdue for a loving little reset,of the sort the French carried out from 1788 on.
    The parallels are astounding.
    “For in 2020 the treasuries are run dry.”.

    We need to truly reward the creatures of “good government” for how they serve us.
    Firing 50% of them every 6 months would be great revenge.
    As for pensions..F U..if a private employee “served their employer” like these people do,they would wind up in jail.
    Only in a welfare basket case of a country would we pay pensions for service this crappy..
    The minions are so proud of how well they have destroyed this country that they will loudly insist we “Owe Them”..
    Indeed we do.
    Power is a beast,those who volunteer to hold power are without fail the least suited to do so.
    .

    1. Computer models were the reason any of this shit began. The models were not accurate because no models ever are. they are still using models even though the numbers on the ground prove the models wrong, they just keep doubling down on their level of stupid. People had better start saying no to them or there will be violence in the streets. people are tired of the lies and bullshit.

      1. True, OWG. I work with mathematical (geology) models all the time. The two things to remember about mathematical models is that they are always wrong, and that if you test and validate the begeezus out of them you can prove that they’re within the margin of error of how you plan to use them.

        If my work went to the stock market with as bad of validation and checking as I’ve seen on global circulation models my P.Eng. would be taken away and I’d be in jail for fraud.

  6. Why will Susan Rice be Joe’s VP pick?….She knows who ordered the Snipers @ KIEV… She has Joe & Jug Ears by the balls… She could go into the Witness Protection Program….YEP! She owns JOE

  7. Very well stated John Robertson. However, as to “the treasuries are run dry” we no longer need a treasury, but a debt ministry. One that has a large basement with printing presses running 24/7! Oh wait, we have that already!
    At some point all this debt will slam all of us into a rock wall. Perhaps in reality, that may be a good thing, as we would have a massive reset, and most of us on SDA would welcome that. It would be painful, but it’s already painful. Sometimes you need to carve the green mold off the cheese, to get at the fresher stuff!

    When you have a bad case of flesh eating disease, you need to cut it off in a overt and dramatic fashion.

  8. Blackie’s loyal CBC is in full defence mode for their hero tonight. Their ass kissing political show had an old clip of a Conservative MP talking about not being able to have testimony from PMO staff during the Harper years.

Navigation