Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

This piece concerning COVID in Hong Kong caught my eye:

Something very strange is happening in Hong Kong. I am not the first to write about it, but I wanted to do a good job compiling the information and informing my readers so this post is somewhat complete. I will include additional reading below.

Hong Kong’s stringent “Zero Covid” policy, stopped to work in mid-February and a “wall of cases” curve exploded in the territory.

It’s pointed out in the piece that the vaccination rates in Hong Kong are comparable with the US and Israel but not the results

Cases between Feb 13-Feb 17: 18,493

Deaths between Feb 28-March 4: 895

Calculated Case Fatality Rate: 4.83%

The relevant case fatality rate in the US for our recent Omicron peak is roughly 0.3%, or 16 TIMES lower.

Slow down and let it sink in: the case fatality rate in Hong Kong is 16 times HIGHER than in the US. That should make you curious.

It does Igor it does. Igor continues about various things in the piece concerning variants and the different policies in place to handle COVID but to my mind there is one basic question and it has nothing to do with vaccination, quarantine status or anything else along those lines.

Exactly WHO are the people dying?

Does it not occur to anyone that China might take advantage of a spike in deaths to remove people they consider troublemakers, activists, pro-democracy folks, strong Christians and those who don’t follow the official state version of the Catholic Church from Hong Kong and blame their death on the virus?

This would seem such an obvious question given that these deaths are taking place under the communist rule that brought you the Cultural Revolution and the great purges that slaughtered tens of millions that one wonders how it was not asked before.

I would bet real money that the COVID plague throughout China over the last two years disproportionately affected enemies of the state.

Quite unexpectedly of course

I am completely convinced that the grief the world in general and our country in particular is facing is due to our “Post Christian” Society. The world is designed to chew people up and spit them out, and if you choose to face it without the protections and or comfort of God he will reluctantly comply with this request. That’s what free will is.

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There is sudden word that there might be a breakthrough both in the MLB talk and between Putin and Ukraine. The way the talks between the MLB owners and players were going it would not have been a bad bet to say that Putin and Zelensky will settle their differences before the players and owners do. That these idiots can not come to terms on how to split the huge amount of money they get for playing a game instead of having to do arduous physical labor or boring repetitive work for 1/10 of what they lowest paid MLB player gets is beyond me.

Furthermore if the owners aren’t happy I suspect there is a long list of very rich people and groups who would be happy to take any team off the hands of any owner who doesn’t want it.

None of this is a surprise, if they haven’t figured out how to promote the greatest game ever invented why should they know how to split the cash from it.

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The magnificent Debra Henie has penned a must read piece on the COVID vaccines and information that has come from studies and FOIA requests that prompts me to make a prediction.

Sometime over the next four years that media is going to pivot and start calling the COVID vaccines the Trump vaccines. When this happens that’s when you know the most damming information and/or side effects from the current crop of vaccines will be so apparent that it can’t be hidden from the public.

I still think they were worth developing given the emergency and our lack of knowledge but the failure of both medical and government authorities to be straight with people and trust their judgement is (see 1st entry btw) is in my opinion going to have even greater long terms consequences than the disease or the vaccine.

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When I saw this at Twitchy my first thought was: “There’s a vagina museum? What do you look at there, old vaginas?” Of course that little one liner pales before their inability to figure out what a woman was.

It really never ceases to amaze me that there are a bunch of people who thought that those who were so intent on redefining “marriage” to suit their proclivities thought that people would stop redefining words at “marriage”.

Now “man” and “woman” are redefined to the point where people are afraid to say basic truths and this small comedy clip from a classic movie

is now “hate speech” which I define as any speech the left hates.

The inability and the fear to speak the truth is again a sign of a post Christian society and I submit and suggest it is completely by design.

FYI you know you’re getting old when a movie from 1990 is a “classic” movie.

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Finally WQPH 89.3 FM Shirley Fitchburg is looking for someone to sponsor their booth at the Catholic Men’s conference April 2nd at Assumption College in Worcester MA. It’s about $600 so if you or your organization have an interest in sponsoring all or part of that cost click here to go to the site and donate. Specify that this gift is going toward sponsoring said booth. I’ll be there doing interviews and taking prayer requests

Speaking of WQPH the show that I host on the station Your Prayer Intentions Saturday at noon is going to be rebroadcast at Midnight the same day starting either this week or next. If you wish to have a prayer request included on the show head over to the WQPH prayer wall here and post it. You can also include the names of the deceased that you want included in our monthly indulgence calendar. In fact if you do the sponsorship I mentioned it can be in the name of or in memory of a loved one.

That reminds me I forgot to include this months indulgence calendar in a post on the site. That’s what I get for doing it so far ahead of time. If you want to download it (PDF format), it’s here.

Michael Corleone: What’s the trouble between you and Mr. Joe Zasa?

Vincent Mancini: Just trouble. I’ll take care of it.

Michael Corleone: That’s foolish of you.

Vincent Mancini: Foolish of me? It’s a little foolish of this guy don’t you think? Right? RIGHT!

Michael Corleone: Temper like his father. Vincent, Mr. Joe Zasa now owns what used to be the Corleone family business in New York. Out of the kindness of his heart he gave you a job with his family. Contrary to my advice you took the job. I offered you something better. Something in the legitimate world. You turned me down. Now you both come to me with this bad blood. What do you expect me to do? Am I a gangster?

Vincent Mancini: No, no, you’re not a gangster, Uncle Mike.

Connie: Michael, that’s Papa’s old neighborhood now it’s a sewer. Zasa runs it like a disgrace the ladies told me.

Joey Zasa: I earned that territory with my talent. The commission gave it to me. You approved.

Michael Corleone: Yes.

Vincent Mancini: Hey, Uncle Mike, I’m just here for the party. I didn’t come here to ask for help. I could just kill this bastard. He’s the one who should be asking for help.

Michael Corleone: Then kill him. What does this have to do with me?

Godfather III 1979

I’ve spent the last week or more thinking very hard on Ukraine, the Russian Invasion, the Surprising Unity of the West on the subject and the almost Totalitarian response to anyone who questions things.

Like any normal person the sight of Russian column hitting another sovereign country, even one that was an integral part of Russia for a century before there was ever a Soviet Union rubs me the wrong way. It’s wrong and Putin should turn around his columns and head home.

I’m also however disturbed about what I’ve been hearing has gone in Ukraine BEFORE Putin went in. I got a little background from Lee Stranahan and this piece from Peter Hitchens talked about changes he had started to see in Ukraine around 2010 who put a lot of this in perspective:

Until that point, Ukraine had been a reasonably harmonious country in its 20-odd years of existence. After that visit I saw big trouble coming, both in the Crimea and in the Don Basin, where I also travelled that year.

Then of course came the 2014 Obama backed coup and the stuff that Hitchens was worried about escalated, to the point where you have a defacto Civil War with the two eastern provinces in revolt.

This is bad, and the fighting that has been going on their is bad but it raises a point.

Ukraine is a sovereign country, if they are making a mess of it, if they are mistreating their Russian Minority and if said minority is , at least in the east in revolt, does that give another country a right to go in? b

Stranahan thinks it does, he thinks Putin is basically cleaning out Nazis, I however think that Vlad is much more interested in reconstituting the old Russian (not soviet) empire and sphere of influence. I think he is using a legitimate grievance as the basis for a casus belli to get involved toward the goal that I have stated, reconstitution of the old Russian Empire and I think he felt safe to do so because of the green light the west in general and the Biden Administration kept signaling on his moves concerning the two eastern parts in rebellion, not the signals from that week mind you, but the signals for months. He saw an opening and decided to go for it.

As I’ve written before the west was caught completely off guard by the decision of the Ukrainian leadership to bravely stand and fight rather than to take the money and run. This threw everything into chaos in terms of Western Reaction and what to do next.

After seeing the reaction to all that’s gone on, how so many have gone into lockstep, how suddenly the media began to sing with one tune, how others suddenly moved in lockstep and more importantly how so many elites on different side were all using the same playbook all I could think of was this exchange from the classic movie The Three Musketeers 1948

Richelieu: The Jewels were presented to Buckingham only last night by the queen.

Lady DeWinter: Oh so he reached the Queen. How comical despite all your precautions.

Richelieu: I leave the making of Rochefort and his excuses can be quite imaginative. It’s his claim that some lone monster named D’Artagnan annihilated all my men.

Lady DeWinter: Oh no what a catastrophe!

Richelieu: It takes a good man to prevent a catastrophe, it takes a great man to profit from one. You and I are rare new creatures in this ancient world of impulsive men. We have intellect, we think and when we think our impulsive enemies are helpless.

I think the elites, the global warming crowed, the Soros’ of the world and those looking for graft see an opportunity here. Millions, maybe billions in aid to milk, millions maybe billions in pressure to increase their power and empire, an empire without borders.

And then there is Communist China, still actively communist, ready to take advantage of weakness in the west, weakness in Russia and the uncertainty all of these things bring.

In short it’s my opinion that Putin, Soros and others are playing a 21st century version of what used to be called “The great game”. I think they see a chessboard and us as pawns to be moved and played and sacrificed for their goal, of wealth, power and status.

The only way to win is not to play, so I’m not playing.

What should happen? Ukraine should treat it’s Russian citizens like citizens and let them be and stop repressing their opposition parties. Russia should pull out of Ukraine and keep the promise they made to respect Ukraine’s borders when they gave up their nukes and stop repressing their people. Foreign countries and leaders should stop using Ukraine as a personal graft playground (see Biden , Hunter) and let them live their own lives and function for the benefit of their own people.

That is what should happen if the world was populated by angels, and it’s not.

What will happen? Well in my opinion the best case scenario at this point is Russia pulling out of Ukraine because of losses and accepting a deal where Ukraine becomes India / Pakistan the nationalists in the east get their completely Ukrainian land and the ethnic Russians who don’t want to be a part of it are able to live in peace. If we’re really luck the Russian speakers in the western part who help resist the invasion will be accepted by the Ukrainian nationals and be able to stay where they are and be treated like full equal citizens of a free country.

What do I think will actually happen? I don’t know. I think Putin doesn’t want to admit defeat and I think the people pulling strings in the west to choke him want to be sure that there grift goals are achieved. I also think that if Russia looks like it could take the whole country Poland, Finland and the Baltic States are not going to sit by and let Ukraine be conquered and I think people with agendas here and elsewhere are going to do what they can to secure those agendas even if it means a longer or wider war.

The biggest losers are going to be the Ukrainians who are being killed, having their cities and villages attacked and their lives ruined, the 2nd biggest are the Russian conscripts who are being sent to do it. Here in America the big losers will be the regular people who will find life more expensive further widening the class divide into the masters and serfs.

All of that stinks, but as I said the only way to win this game is by not playing so I’m not. If other choose to do so or think differently, that’s fine but it’s on them.