RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/mystery_in_north_korea.html

Since September 1987, millions of children, old as well as young, have amused themselves by searching in a series of puzzle books titled Where’s Waldo (Wally in England and Charlie in France) to find a young man, wearing a red and white striped shirt, decorated ski hat, and glasses, hidden in the group of people and surroundings in the text.  As the books continue, Waldo becomes smaller and harder to find.

Today, millions are looking for clues in the serious game of Where’s Kim Jong-un, the 36-year-old supreme leader of North Korea, who has not been seen publicly since April 11, 2020, when he chaired the meeting of the Workers’ Party politburo. He was conspicuously absent from the commemoration event at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, honoring his grandfather Kim Il-sung on April 15, the most important day in the Korean political calendar.  The international community is searching for him, or wondering where he is.  Commercial satellite images are being used.

In a speech and broadcast on October 1, 1939, Winston Churchill referred to the Soviet Union as a “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”  North Korea may not be as difficult to discern as the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, though it does resemble the former country in a number of ways, especially by its misleading or deceptive state media reports and by giving clues of the existence of power struggles.  The deaths of the two preceding supreme rulers in 1994 and 2011 were not immediately reported, and the world was not informed until several days after.  Nevertheless, the non-appearance of Kim resembles the Churchillian riddle of the hidden ideological debates and power struggles that may be occurring in North Korea.  On the other hand, the fact that other senior N.K. personnel have also not been seen in public suggests a simple explanation: they may all be trying to escape COVID-19 by social distancing.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/05/dedicated-emily-jones-age-7-katie-hopkins/

Dear Mrs Jones,

I am sitting in my kitchen in my dressing gown, waiting for my little world to wake up. And I am thinking of you, as I often do. Worrying for you, worrying about you.

You don’t know me, of course. I am just a mum like any other, sitting here looking down at my dressing gown, reminded that it could probably do with a wash, listening for little footsteps padding down the hall stairs. Sat waiting for my sleepy little boy who will come and snuggle in for reassurance at the start of another day.

I think of you listening out for those little padding feet, knowing they will never come. Waiting for the soft face to appear from behind the kitchen door, looking at you like you are the answer to everything. Except now all those questions can never be asked.

It is over a month since your daughter was killed. You know, I am never sure under this infernal lockdown whether time stands still or is passing at breakneck speed. Days have lost all meaning for the rest of us; I feel sick thinking what they now mean for you.

Most people will avoid talking to you about Emily’s death because it is too terrible. The things we know are too shocking to mention in front of a grieving mum.

That your child was a happy little thing playing on her scooter in the park with her family on Mothering Sunday when she was stabbed to death, her life ended in one blow by a Somali woman, a stranger to you and to this land.

If these words are too brutal for the grieving, how is it possible these things can happen to the living, on an otherwise normal day?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/rising-u-k-death-toll-from-coronavirus-draws-scrutiny-11588273558

The U.K.’s official death count from the new coronavirus is rapidly rising toward that of Italy, Europe’s worst-hit country so far, intensifying the scrutiny of the government’s efforts to tackle the disease.

Critics have linked the high death toll to government decisions to delay imposition of a lockdown until March 23, after many other countries took action.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, appearing Thursday at his first press conference in weeks after being absent for most of April with a serious case of Covid-19, vigorously defended his government’s record. “I think, broadly speaking, we did the right thing at the right time,” he said.

He said that the peak of the pandemic had passed and that he would outline a road map to ease restrictions next week. The number of daily deaths has been falling since about April 8, but the decline has been slow, with 674 new fatalities reported Thursday.

In mid-March, while much of mainland Europe went into lockdown, the British government held off, arguing that it was only worth taking such steps once the virus had started to take hold in communities. It also delayed building out mass-testing capacity.

In other European countries “lockdowns were a lot more serious and a lot earlier,” said Matthias Matthijs, a professor of international political economy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.  The deaths of Britons who likely caught the disease in late March while the country waited to lock down is now buoying the death toll being recorded today, he said.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-allied-plan-to-depend-less-on-china-11588288513?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

The Covid-19 pandemic is prompting reconsideration of issues that were thought to be settled. One is the wisdom of China as a hub in vital supply chains, a reality driven by cost considerations and the belief that integrating China into the global economy would moderate Beijing’s behavior. Unfortunately, China hasn’t moderated. Beijing has been an unreliable supplier that pressures trading partners.

Roughly three-quarters of American companies report supply-chain disruptions in China, according to a spring survey conducted by the Institute for Supply Management. The Japanese and Australian economies have been severely hurt by China’s lockdown of Hubei province and other supply interruptions. China’s official Xinhua News Agency has threatened to exploit Beijing’s control over medical supply chains as retaliation against U.S. efforts to hold China accountable for its actions during the pandemic.

A re-examination is overdue. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has set aside $2.2 billion of Tokyo’s stimulus package to assist Japanese companies in relocating production from China to Southeast Asia. The White House’s Larry Kudlow has suggested that the U.S. government could pay moving costs for U.S. companies that leave China. South Korea appears to be planning to shift several important factories from China to India.

Washington and its partners in Asia should set up new supply chains, restructure trade relations, and start to create an international economic order that is less dependent on China. A multilateral “coalition of the willing” approach would better align trading ties with political and security relationships. It would also help India and nations in Southeast Asia develop more rapidly, becoming stronger U.S. partners.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/seeing-the-invisible/a-critique-of-neil-fergusons-the-imperial-college-pandemic-model/

A critique of Neil Ferguson’s (the Imperial College) covid19 pandemic model: “much less intrusive, but targeted interventions could have led to similar results to what we are seeing now, with lockdowns”

A few weeks ago our party assembled a team to audit pandemic models that are being used to inform public policy. Team members have a mathematics and programming background, enabling them to examine whether these models’ assumptions are valid.

As part of this independent work, our team has provided input to University College London’s Tim Colbourn on his draft paper on mass-testing in the UK. We also contacted Neil Ferguson of Imperial College and asked him whether he had looked at the option of isolating the elderly as part of his model. I have alluded to his response in an earlier article.

Neil Ferguson has provided his model and source code to a few independent experts. We understand from news reports that he expects to publish it soon on Github, which will enable our team to more thoroughly examine his model.

In the meanwhile, Nirmesh Mehta from our team has made a few observations about the Imperial College model that I believe are wroth sharing at this stage to inform public debate.

Introduction

The 16 March 2020 Imperial College paper, entitled, Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce Covid-19 mortality and healthcare demand, has been one of the most influential papers in shaping policy responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 40 days after it was published, we are in a better position to judge the accuracy of its predictions.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/29/its-time-to-boycott-china/

President Trump says he expects China will pay a “substantial” amount of money for damages caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

You can’t help but suspect the Chinese Communist Party deliberately withheld crucial information and hoarded protective supplies needed to prepare for the virus in order to wreak maximum damage both mortal and material on the West.

When asked if he will submit a bill as Germany has done, Trump demurred, saying “We have ways of doing things much easier than that.”

You bet we do.

Consider: Every dollar the CCP would possibly pay us in damages would be a dollar we gave them in the first place.

We can save ourselves the trouble of trying to collect the bill by not sending them the money in the first place.

Let’s say it out loud: Boycott China.

China’s Communist dictators have been waging economic warfare against us for decades, launching missiles from their mines, mills, and factories in an attack that has destroyed our industries as effectively as any precision-guided munitions.

Now the pandemic has wrought further destruction.

They have succeeded in effectively stopping our way of life. We can’t let them do that again.

How?

Just as the CCP has waged economic warfare against the United States, we can do the same.

The Chinese Communist Party lives off the money we send them, and we send them a lot.

We should stop sending them our money. Americans should boycott China.

Our government should boycott the CCP.