Aung San Suu Kyi gets a word
Girls! Boys! Class! Stop all that giggling and settle down for our class for Tuesday, April 19, 2022.
Burma's (Myanmar's) Tatmadaw dictators open the mic for Aung San Suu Kyi for a moment.
She called for national unity, although the military plans for her to die in prison.
Her first kangaroo court verdict is due next week. The charges: corruption, centring on allegations that she accepted bribes of cash and gold.
Suu Kyi has denied wrongdoing. She and her lawyers are under gag orders.
https://bityl.co/BqMv
Thailand's military-directed regime has a Plan
And it's sticking to it.
On Canada Day, Thailand will declare to citizens and the world that
the pandemic is over
there is no epidemic
Covid-19 has put the country into an endemic state.
According to the so-called 'ministry of public health', headed by a rich man with no medical training, the average number of people who died due to Covid-19 over the past seven days was
107 per day. 90% were elderly.
https://bityl.co/BqNW
Full Story: https://tna.mcot.net/english-news-925192
I will not mention names here (yet) but we have reliable reports that some people are not reading the Roger Crutchley Sunday column.
And this is a situation up with which we cannot put.
When I first set foot in Thailand back in pre-historic times, it happened to be the opening days of the Songkran festival although I was blissfully unaware of it.
The first hint that something was going on occurred while walking in the Makkasan area with fellow overland traveller Clarence Shettlesworth. On the street we were greeted by assorted middle-aged ladies dancing the ramwong.
When they spotted us there was plenty of giggling as foreigners were not such a common sight in those days, especially funny-looking ones like us.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/2295878/
The men and others at the very tip-top of the Royal Thai Police (RTP) said on Monday they are thrilled to bits by results of the 7-day highway 'safety campaign' for Songkran.
Here are the final numbers. See if you agree.
It's no longer unusual to hear of someone getting Covid-19 even though they're fully vaccinated and boosted.
https://news.yahoo.com/covid-vaccines-not-meant-prevent-093005674.html
In a single 24-hour period (Monday) leaderless Thailand recorded
16,994 new Covid cases
124 more deaths
PHOTO: This arena at Safari World Bangkok in Khlong Sam Wa district is packed with people during a special Songkran show. They're all masked and fully vaccinated, right?
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2296370/
Define "fully vaccinated".
Bet you can't.
https://www.thaienquirer.com/39431/songkran-traffic-accident-death-toll-at-230/
The following is not an advertisement for Thai architects or Thai workmanship.
The new roof of the new bus terminal at the old-ish Don Mueang airport collapsed. It seems there was just too much rain.
Now calm down, no one was killed and no buses were injured.
They were planning to use the area as a 'service hall for tour groups' but that plan won't work, for now.
PHOTO: The roof of a newly built bus terminal at Don Mueang airport north of Bangkok collapsed in heavy rain on Monday.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2296542/
Here come the drugs!. BE CAREFUL.
Pfizer's Covid-19 pill Paxlovid is extremely effective in preventing severe Covid-19.
However
Paxlovid 'can interact with many other medications'.
https://www.popsci.com/health/paxlovid-covid-pill-side-effects-drug-interactions/
Thailand's ruling junta showed its leadership abilities on Monday.
No member of the band of military dictators as the country had
16,994 new Covid cases,
124 more deaths.
Monday's figures did not include 8,276 positive results from antigen tests on Sunday. This would raise the total to 25,270.
While the junta took a day off, it did order underlings to order all companies order all workers to Work From Home for a week.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2296370/
Kavi Chongkittavorn
Asean-US to meet amid great challenges
U.S. president-in-waiting Kamala Harris and secretary of state Do Tony Blanden make special ASEAN tours.
Both blew off Thailand like an ex-boyfriend. And there is still no U.S. ambassador to Thailand.
Meanwhile, six months of tussles have finally set a mid-May date for a US-ASEAN summit
There really needs to be better coordination from the US side.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/2296734/
Columnist Atiya "Ann" Achakulwisut
'Soft power' is not built upon sweet music
After spending months of harassing and trying to throw rapper Milli into prison Prayut is rushing to claim her California performance and highlighting sticky-rice and mangoes was actually his idea.
Prayut's appointed 'minister of commerce has also rushed in to share this 'soft power' spotlight.
The whole situation is too awkward for Prayut, who obviously cannot respond to it in a more meaningful way.
Milli's self-taunting line "I don't ride an elephant" may sound a bit old but her rapping about how "the country is good, people are good, our food is good but the government is bood," seems to have struck a chord.
"Bood" in Thai means rotten.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/2296758/
The always dependable Gordie Chang goes straight for the throat of the Chinese-Biden censorship nonsense:
To deter China, U.S. Should Arm Taiwan to the Hilt - Now
It is time for the United States to ditch decades of misguided policy. Among other things, Washington should, on an emergency basis, begin arming the island with the weapons it urgently needs.
As Wang Dan, a Tiananmen Square-era student leader, wrote late last month, "We should not expect rational decision-making from dictators and totalitarian regimes."
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18435/us-arm-taiwan
Closely related, and also by Chang:
In Shanghai, Covid-19 has become China's political disease
The inhumanity of China's near-total lockdown of that metropolis - the Party says it maintains a "dynamic zero-Covid policy - is not some aberration. It is the logical extension of the ruling organization's you-must-put-politics-in-command system.
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/3270498-in-shanghai-covid-19-has-become-chinas-political-disease/
THE EAST IS RED-FACED:
China Censors Its Own National Anthem amid Growing Unrest with Coronavirus Lockdowns.
Sina Weibo (roughly China's heavily censored Twitter) has banned a hashtag and many searches that refer to the first line of the anthem:
Stand up! Those who refuse to be slaves!
Makes sense. The goal of the Chinese Communist Party is slavery, and you can't allow citizens to resist that goal.
Totally, completely related
LOCKDOWNS DON'T WORK, BUT POLITICIANS LOVE THEM.
THAT'S TRUE BUT 'ZERO COVID' IS DUMB AS STICKS
Starving Shanghai residents lose confidence in regime as lockdown grinds on. "It's so bad that even Chinese state media feels obliged to acknowledge the 'doubt, anxiety and fatigue' among Shanghai residents.
There's no sense pretending otherwise: Despite the best efforts of government censors, Chinese social media has been overrun by complaints and criticism of Beijing's response to the crisis.... Why, it's enough to make a Chinese citizen question the wisdom of the Communist Party. Which many seem to be doing.
https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2022/04/16/starving-shanghai-residents-lose-confidence-in-regime-as-lockdown-grinds-on-n462804
You want state medicine... THIS is state medicine.
While U.S. military veterans Die Waiting, VA Will Focus on LGBT Right
Bear in mind that the broken system of the U.S.A. Veterans' Administration encourages exaggeration, often extreme. But this straightforward article is worth a read and a thought.
Point One: The waiting list scandal that emerged under Obama was never actually fixed. But neither was much else.
https://robertspencer.org/2022/04/while-vets-die-waiting-va-will-focus-on-lgbt-rights
Point Two:
Veterans can now identify as transgender, nonbinary on their VA medical records
https://www.washingtonblade.com/2022/01/13/veterans-can-now-identify-as-transgender-nonbinary-on-their-va-medical-records/
Seriously. Do not lose sight of the China-Taiwan kerfuffle.
China stages military exercises as US lawmakers visit Taiwan
[ASSOCIATED PRESS] TAIPEI, Taiwan
China said its military has staged exercises to reinforce its threat to use force to bring Taiwan under its control, as U.S. lawmakers visiting Taiwan made a pointed and public declaration of their support for the self-governing island democracy while issuing a warning to China.
The Americans met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and the island's defense minister.
Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey: "It is a country of global significance, of global consequence, of global impact, and therefore it should be understood the security of Taiwan has a global impact for those who would wish it ill."
Anyone who says Taiwan is a country goes to the Top of the Chinese Communist Party's Shit List.
And if you don't believe that, ask John Cena.
PHOTO: Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen (right) and U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham pose at the Presidential Office in Taipei.
https://bit.ly/384wzd2
REMINDER
The Big Guy at the head of the Zhou Bai-din has worked tirelessly to ban the use of 'Taiwan' and 'country' by all Americans. (cf pro rassler John Cena)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57241053
The always dependable Gordie Chang goes straight for the throat of the Chinese-Biden censorship nonsense:
To deter China, U.S. Should Arm Taiwan to the Hilt - Now
It is time for the United States to ditch decades of misguided policy. Among other things, Washington should, on an emergency basis, begin arming the island with the weapons it urgently needs.
As Wang Dan, a Tiananmen Square-era student leader, wrote late last month, "We should not expect rational decision-making from dictators and totalitarian regimes."
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18435/us-arm-taiwan
Closely related, and also by Chang:
In Shanghai, Covid-19 has become China's political disease
The inhumanity of China's near-total lockdown of that metropolis - the Party says it maintains a "dynamic zero-Covid policy - is not some aberration. It is the logical extension of the ruling organization's you-must-put-politics-in-command system.
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/3270498-in-shanghai-covid-19-has-become-chinas-political-disease/
THE EAST IS RED-FACED: China Censors Its Own National Anthem amid Growing Unrest with Coronavirus Lockdowns.
Sina Weibo (roughly China's heavily censored Twitter) has banned a hashtag and many searches that refer to the first line of the anthem:
Stand up! Those who refuse to be slaves!
Makes sense. The goal of the Chinese Communist Party is slavery, and you can't allow citizens to resist that goal.
Totally, completely related
LOCKDOWNS DON'T WORK, BUT POLITICIANS LOVE THEM.
THAT'S TRUE BUT 'ZERO COVID' IS DUMB AS STICKS
Starving Shanghai residents lose confidence in regime as lockdown grinds on. "It's so bad that even Chinese state media feels obliged to acknowledge the 'doubt, anxiety and fatigue' among Shanghai residents.
There's no sense pretending otherwise: Despite the best efforts of government censors, Chinese social media has been overrun by complaints and criticism of Beijing's response to the crisis.... Why, it's enough to make a Chinese citizen question the wisdom of the Communist Party. Which many seem to be doing.
https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2022/04/16/starving-shanghai-residents-lose-confidence-in-regime-as-lockdown-grinds-on-n462804
[NOTE: The following is a terrific and inclusive round-up of ISIS in Syria, particularly the savage and pathalogical British.]
ISIS member convicted for role in 4 American deaths, including ex-Army Ranger
In convicting El Shafee Elsheikh, the jury concluded that he was one of the notorious “Beatles,” Islamic State captors nicknamed for their accents and known for their cruelty — torturing and beating prisoners, forcing them to fight each other until they collapsed and even making them sing cruel song parodies.
PHOTO: Alexanda Kotey, left, and El Shafee Elsheikh, who were among four British jihadis who made up a brutal Islamic State cell dubbed "The Beatles," speak during an interview at a security center in Kobani, Syria.
On the right, El Shafee Elsheikh who is in custody at the Alexandria Adult Detention Center.
https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2022/04/14/isis-member-convicted-for-role-in-americans-deaths-including-an-ex-army-ranger/
Yes, an excellent question, and not only in Canada, but pretty much worldwide.
What price will kids have to pay for our decisions on Covid-19?
And not just kids - grandkids and great-grandkids for sure.
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2022/04/17/what-price.html
DIED
At 69 at his home in Cambodia of something-or-other, Bretton Sciaroni, an unpleasant American who has been a favourite of Hun Sen for well over 30 years.
Although he tried to deny it, he was the author of a controversial "white paper" in 1997 justified Hun Sen's coup of that year and angered royalists and other political opponents of the Cambodian strongman.
Hun Sen made Sciaroni a Cambodia citizen and "special adviser" to himself and his cronies.
Sciaroni was well-known and was intensely liked or disliked by just about everyone hoping to do business or diplomacy with Hun Sen - particularly Americans.
He is an especial groomer of politicians - a task that began when he was a White House adviser to U.S. president Ronald Reagan.
[NOTE: There should be a book and a movie about this guy. At a minimum.]
PHOTO: For 40 years, Sciaroni (right) to his patron Hun Sen (left).
https://www.usfijitimes.org/news/international/bretton-sciaroni-influential-american-in-cambodia-dies-at-69/
https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/brian-stelter-fired-rumors
IS CHINA'S PRESIDENT-FOR-LIFE AFRAID OF A COUP?
Something Is Rotten In The State Of Shanghai's Latest Covid lockdowns.
Make no doubt about it, there's something seriously disturbing about the state of the recent Covid lockdowns taking place in Shanghai. Even for China.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/something-rotten-state-shanghais-latest-covid-lockdowns
Can we get a double-check. It looks like a misspelling of 'loonier.'
IPCC Scientists: Climate Change Doom is Doomier than People Realise.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/04/16/ipcc-scientists-climate-doom-is-more-doomier-than-people-realise/
On the way to a fednapping.
