Thailand tries the Hail Mary virus cure
Well, howdy there, folks. It looks like a good Sunday (32 Canadian degrees), March 20, in Thailand, but carry your bumbershoot.
True story
Only 60 countries in the world have happier citizens than Thailand.
... Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, said that at the very bottom of the ranking, the research team found societies that suffer from conflict and extreme poverty.
Ranked at the bottom is Afghanistan (146), where its people evaluated the quality of their own lives as merely 2.4 out of 10. Lebanon was in 145th, just below Zimbabwe (144), Rwanda (143) and Botswana (142).
"Data considered in the World Happiness Report offers a snapshot of how people around the world evaluate their own happiness and some of the latest insights from the science of well-being," said Associate Professor Lara Aknin, of the Department of Psychology at Simon Fraser University.
Thailand's top medical experts met on Friday, and talked and bloviated and debated and decided:
To order millions of tablets of Favipiravir, on the off chance they might help to stop the relentless and murderous fifth wave of Chinese Covid—19 coronavirus.
It's a last minute hope for a miracle to try to slow the advancing virus, which on Saturday:
infected yet another 25,804 disease victims
caused another 87 deaths, the most in more than a year
has hospitalized 24,000 people every day for two weeks
Of the 87 victims on Satuday, 59 were aged 60 and above. But the victims ranged in age from 2-90.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2281751/
Favipiravir is a drug most commonly used in Japan to lower the body temperatures of influenza victims.
It is one of several drugs considered by "Thai medical experts" to try to ameliorate early onset of the Chinese Covid— 19.
It's a Hail Mary, without doubt.
A Department of Disease Control's statement said it has no strong side effects and is safe for pregnant women.
The drug is also available OTC under the brand name Avigan.
PHOTO: Junta agencies will control stockpiles and dispensing.
https://www.thaipbsworld.com/thai-disease-control-dept-insists-favipiravir-is-effective-in-treating-covid-19/
America's newspaper of record:
99.9% Of Americans Support Sending Mitt Romney To Fight In Ukraine.
https://bityl.co/BOCP
2021: Biden calls Saudi Arabia a pariah state.
2022: Biden calls Putin a war criminal.
2022: Biden warns Xi personally that if he supports Russia in the current invasion of Ukraine, "there will be consequences".
I don't think even Joe "NO ASIANS" Biden thought that out too well.
Saudi Arabia says 'to hell with the U.S. dollar' and sells oil for Chinese yuan.
As the enormously influential Hindustan Times put it, short and sweet.
Saudi dumping Biden for Xi.
The official East Asian Headquarters of the Institute of Important Studies (IIS) in Chom Thong district of Bangkok has determined that the country that invented the Covid-19 coronavirus has refused to talk about it.
Until now.
On Saturday, China claimed it had recorded two Covid-19 deaths in the town of Jilin.
It's hardly revealing. The omicron variant continued to spread across the world’s most-populous nation, and the Chinese Communist Party thinks that
if it doesn't talk about it people will forget it happened.
The figures that China reveals to its World Health Organization or to the public are as laughable as they are meaningless.
On Saturday, Beijing claimed that nearly 90% of China’s 1.4 billion people fully vaccinated and more a third having received booster shots. Great. But useless.
PHOTO: President for Life Xi Jinping used the Chinese sexting software Zoom to chat with U.S. Resident Joe Biden. Xi said if Biden 'mishandles the Taiwan issues', he'll be sorry.
Biden kept both hands visible throughout the call.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/china-xi-says-improper-handling-taiwan-issues-will-hit-china-us-ties-2574026
https://bityl.co/BOJj
Not that Thailand has a single moment of achievement to brag about.
But at least it's almost never lying. Like, on Saturday, authorities reported:
There were yet another 25,804 new Covid-19 cases, and, 87 more deaths by Covid-19
But N.B.
These figures did not include 16,658 positive results from antigen tests, which unofficially raised the total of new cases to 42,462.
Thailand also reports at least once per day on the nation's road and highway crashes and results. On Saturday:
46 deaths and 2,314 injuries
84% of deaths were motorcyclists
The road accidents caused the death of one child.
Overall:
3,191 deaths during the first 77 days of 2022, or, to put it another way:
41 deaths/day on the oh-so-dangerous roads and highways of Thailand.
The figures compare with the 80 coronavirus-related fatalities and 27,071 new cases reported for Friday.
Fortune magazine re-recaps what everyone knew two weeks ago.
But wait!
It illustrates beautifully how to hide all that bad news with deceptively good news.
PHOTO: Two paid male models pose at Hanoi airport.
Help the Russians! And Ukrainians.
[NOTE: The alleged 'prime minister' has nothing to do with this. It is completely deniable, not to mention neutral.]
The government has assigned state agencies including the Tourism and Sports Ministry (Mots) to help 8,000 Russian and Ukrainian tourists who are stranded in Thailand, says government spokesman Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana.
"The prime minister has pledged to help all nationals in Thailand as the country remains neutral to all parties.
"The government also believes in the importance on humanitarian grounds of assisting both Russians and Ukrainians with the utmost effort," said Thanakorn.
Worth a read...
The annoying hactivist hackers 'Anonymous Group' have resurfaced.
And they really don't like that Vlad Putin guy.
The hacktivist collective has claimed responsibility for disabling Russian government, corporate, and news websites.
The Important Part
Russian dweebs claim they have taken down the Anonymous website.
Problem for Russian dweebs: Anonymous doesn't have a website.
https://fortune.com/2022/03/18/anonymous-cyberwar-on-putins-ukraine-invasion/
And an interesting follow-on...
Chinese state hackers are now targeting Ukraine. (Bleeping Computer)
And Europe. And, uh, basically everyone else. So this might be aid to Russia, or it might just be the ongoing low-level warfare we've come to expect from them.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/google-chinese-state-hackers-target-ukraine-s-government/
This is the best recent piece about Ukraine's Holodomor and the criminal media who caused and glorified it.
The reporter who covered up the Ukrainian famine
Now is the time to de-Pulitzer Walter Duranty, who ran cover for the Soviets
https://spectatorworld.com/topic/walter-duranty-reporter-covered-ukrainian-famine/
The above reminds me so very, very much of the pointy-heads and fabulists who did the same thing for Pol Pot as Duranty and The New York Times did for Stalin - Gareth Porter, George Hildebrand, the despicable Michael Vickery and arguably the worst, and indictable, Noam Chomsky.
Coming soon to Thailand. And not just Telegram...
Brazil has banned Telegram for - basically - completely ignoring Brazilian court rulings. (Bleeping Computer)
Which seems reasonable on both sides.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/telegram-banned-by-brazilian-supreme-court-over-missed-emails/
A rare MSM admission.
John Thornhill of Financial Times reveals that war and war reporting are messy.
He learned all about that stuff on Wikipedia.
Ernest Hemingway was left spinning.
PHOTO: The source of all news for today's timorous combat reporters.
https://t.ly/aIXG
Related - Sunday Jackassery
Completely unreliable Politico tries to plagiarize the great Bill Broyles essay of November, 1984, 'Why Men Love War'.
And botches their criminal act beyond description.
Politico Opinion: Why Journalists Love War
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/03/17/why-journalists-love-war-00018137
As an honest, real war correspondent (Vietnam and elsewhere), I think both headlines are worth exploring and reporting.
It's just that Broyles had it completely right and Politico hasn't a clue.
PHOTO: In late 1984, in Esquire magaine, Bill Broyles broke down one of the great truths: Why don't veterans talk about the war?
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a28718/why-men-love-war/
No Muslim is on your side.
This is a must read for Sunday.
Vaid calls the LGBT movement a "colonial tool of global oppression, domestic coercion, and social domination."
Is he wrong?
Read it, and then look into your own community and nation.
==
Vaid's argument has four main points:
Muslim political advocacy for LGBT rights is "fundamentally immoral" and "inimical" to Islamic ethics;
the political rationales for such activism offered by his ideological opponents are unconvincing;
the Muslim community's ambivalence is making it easier for the "LGBT" persons to prey on young Muslims already struggling to negotiate their identity; and,
not taking a firm stance against issues such as homosexuality will "only deepen" the theological crises within the Muslim community.
PHOTO: The issue is active in Indonesia.
https://www.meforum.org/63101/islamist-partnership-with-lgbt-groups
The China-owned World Health Organization, maintained by the Chinese Communist Party, issued a statement on Friday.
Its occasionally informed spokeslady said this:
"We are definitely in the middle of the pandemic
Translation: Here in Geneva, our jobs are secure for years to come.
The U.N. health agency has previously said that the acute phase of the pandemic could end this year. But it was factually wrong again.
PHOTO: Marxist army major-general Tedros. Yes, he has job security, but seriously, why is he laughing?
https://www.reuters.com/world/covid-19-pandemic-is-far-over-who-official-2022-03-18/
Worth a read. Arguably mandatory.
Putin's Thousand Year War:
... Even if Putin is somehow ousted from power, the generals and security mandarins who surround him are just as vested in his aggression as he is. And already, Russia is almost as isolated economically as it was during the Soviet era.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/12/putins-thousand-year-war/?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Hands up if you knew that Moscow TV has comedy shows!
Putin’s Speech At Massive Rally Cut Off On State TV, Technical Glitch Blamed
https://deadline.com/2022/03/putin-tv-speech-rally-cut-off-glitch-1234982208/
Yep, we noticed.
Opinion | America Has a Free Speech Problem
The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/opinion/cancel-culture-free-speech-poll.html
“Why Men Love War” reminds me of your comment once about never feeling more alive when they’re shooting at you.