… might still be a crackpot.

The Chinese Communist Party is a pack of degenerate villains who should be locked up and perma-banned from holding any sort of political office. Still: that doesn’t mean that anyone who opposes the CCP is necessarily good. Iran was bad; didn’t make Saddam any good. Hitler was bad; didn’t make Stalin a hero. And the ChiComs are bad; but that doesn’t mean that the Falun Gong cult is any less of a whackadoodle cult. Taken on it’s own, most people would – I hope – recognize Falun Gong as nonsensical Oriental Weirdness based on superstitious bullcrap of no more actual value than astrology or the teachings of Madame Blavatsky, Ray Comfort, Uri Geller, Jim Jones or Karl Marx. Unfortunately, the people running the cult are quite good at their jobs and have a really quite good PR arm, including many online and IRL projects that you might not recognize as part of the Falun Gong cult. This includes the “Epoch Times,” which *appears* to be a reasonably traditional conservative American news outlet. And much of the news there *is* trad-con stuff, with a perhaps noticeably heavier than usual dose of anti-ChiCom coverage. But they remain under the control of a cult, and this should not be ignored.

The video below covers the cult and a number of their outlets. Same feller did a video that I posted about last year covering those “Shen Yun” shows.

An interesting take on Machiavelli:

I read “The Prince” a long, long time ago. Looks like I need to read it again.

As pointed out in the video, taking the story of Jesus of Nazareth as an example of how to live your life is a disastrous idea: Jesus’ life story is one of ultimate failure. Those who believe that Jesus became King of Kings and lives forever believe this occurred due to divine intervention, *not* because living an ideologically pure life of niceness will actually lead to a good outcome. Being the nice guy will get you kicked around and nailed to some lumber.

You wouldn’t normally think that you’d need a tutorial on how to wash your hands, but here we are. The PinkoPox has led to a re-evaluation of such things, and so here’s all you need to know in order to help stave off the Commie Cough:

Foamy says what needs sayin’.

Bill Maher on the Chinese Wuhan Kung Flu, and what to call it:

Trump signs executive order to support moon mining, tap asteroid resources

Good.

I have difficulty imagining President Biden supporting something like this; I imagine a President Sanders would actively oppose it. From the White House:

Executive Order on Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources

Space Policy Directive-1 of December 11, 2017 (Reinvigorating America’s Human Space Exploration Program), provides that commercial partners will participate in an “innovative and sustainable program” headed by the United States to “lead the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations.” Successful long-term exploration and scientific discovery of the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies will require partnership with commercial entities to recover and use resources, including water and certain minerals, in outer space. …

Americans should have the right to engage in commercial exploration, recovery, and use of resources in outer space, consistent with applicable law. Outer space is a legally and physically unique domain of human activity, and the United States does not view it as a global commons. Accordingly, it shall be the policy of the United States to encourage international support for the public and private recovery and use of resources in outer space, consistent with applicable law. …

The United States is not a party to the Moon Agreement. Further, the United States does not consider the Moon Agreement to be an effective or necessary instrument to guide nation states regarding the promotion of commercial participation in the long-term exploration, scientific discovery, and use of the Moon, Mars, or other celestial bodies. Accordingly, the Secretary of State shall object to any attempt by any other state or international organization to treat the Moon Agreement as reflecting or otherwise expressing customary international law.

Overall it seems pretty good. It calls for the international recognition of economic exploitation of space resources and the repudiation of the execrable “Moon Agreement,” which the US somehow, astonishingly, failed to get sucked into. Some examples of just how bad the “agreement” is:

- Provides a framework of laws to establish an international cooperation regime, including appropriate procedures, to govern the responsible exploitation of natural resources of the Moon. (Article 11.5)
- Bans altering the environmental balance of celestial bodies and requires that states take measures to prevent accidental contamination of the environments of celestial bodies, including Earth. (Article 7.1)
- The orderly and safe use of the natural lunar resources with an equitable sharing by all state parties in the benefits derived from those resources. (Article 11.7)
- The placement of personnel or equipment on or below the surface shall not create a right of ownership. (Article 11)
- There shall be freedom of scientific research and exploration and use on the Moon by any party without discrimination of any kind. (Article 6) Samples obtained during research activities, are hoped to be made available to all countries and scientific communities for research. (Article 6.2)
- Any areas or regions reported to have a special scientific interest, shall be designated as international scientific preserves. (Article 7.3)
- State parties shall ensure that non-governmental entities under their jurisdiction shall engage in activities on the Moon only under the authority and continuing supervision of the appropriate state party. (Article 14)
- All parties shall inform the United Nations as well as the public, of their activities concerned with the exploration and use of the Moon. (Article 5)

The Moon Agreement would, if the US signed it, mean that if SpaceX started mining asteroids for unobtainium, Venezuela gets a share… not only in the riches produced, but in the running of the operation. Nopenopenopenope.

Much to my very great annoyance, my fellow Americans are generally world-leaders in the dubious field of inventing and buying into bullcrap nonsensical anti-science conspiracy theories. But this time, it seems the Brits are leading the charge. the claim? 5G transmitters are magically creating the coronavirus.

Ayup.

Thunderf00t takes this one down. You wouldn’t think such a patently absurd notion would need debunking, but welcome to 2020. Bonus: religious nuttery.

You can always rely on the British to lay it out with the most flowery of all possible language…

An elderly Londoner lady, speaks out about corona:
Warning: Her lingua franca is arguably, a tad exotic. pic.twitter.com/HdDQgVPqPX

— Dr James Kent (@DrJamesKent3) March 16, 2020

Yeah, this ain’t rational:

Panic shoppers line up around the block for hours amid coronavirus fears as stores are forced to tighten rationing of disinfectant wipes and toilet paper

An article from the Daily Fail describes and illustrates with a number of photos from Costco stores on the east and west coast that, apparently, a lot of people are freaking the fark out and buying mass quantities of things that they think they’ll need during the forthcoming plaguepocalypse. Somewhat rationally, disinfectants of various kinds – as I’ve mentioned – are in great demand. But so are toilet paper and bottled water. Why bottled water? Frak if I know. Things would have to get *real* bad before metropolitan water supplies either shut down or become tainted. Toilet paper? Ehh, I suppose that’s not *quite* so loopy as TP has a long shelf life and is something you’re eventually going to need anyway… if you can stock up a reasonable amount at normal prices, then, shrug. But going buggo and buying a carload of the stuff is not only silly, it’s *rude.* A lot of people might be legitimately just about out of TP, and if they can’t resupply because you wandered off with a truckload of the stuff… well, there’ll be unhappiness. THIS ARTICLE talks to some shrinks to try to figure out why people go buggo for TP, and according to them the reasons are all (SURPRISE!) psychological.

But it’s not just the US. Australia and Britain are also joining in the fun:

‘It’s crazy’: Panic buying forces stores to limit purchases of toilet paper and masks

I’ve seen a lot of panic buying over the years as people go bugnuts over fears of a major winter storm, or a hurricane, or a petroleum shortage, or a gun ban or an ammo ban, and joy unbounded, now I get to add fear of a pandemic to the list. Curiously, I did some grocery shopping today and found that at a local grocery store not only was toilet paper fully stocked, it was on sale. But if things continue, then it’s safe to assume that these buying panics will spread further. The toilet paper manufacturers will of course bump up production to meet demand, but once things settle down I wonder if they might be hurt by this. Because there will be a *lot* of people with a *lot* of toilet paper and no need to buy more for months or even years. A healthy profit this year might not help if their sales plummet soon after.

Note: a whole buncha Tweeter posts after the break. some informative, most darkly amusing. Some refreshingly uncivilized Brits.

By which I mean, “let’s toss Socialism out on it’s rotten, democidal and vampirish ears and go to 40% nuclear power for our electricity.”

Below is a video made by comedians who are far, FAR more honest than those lying jackals in the Democrat party who extol the “virtues” of Scandinavian socialism success stories, without ever mentioning that socialism almost destroyed Sweden so they got rid of it. The fact that they got rid of socialism without resorting to bloodshed is, I think, what has allowed the fact that Sweden is a free market capitalist system to slip under the radar. Consider that: what makes Scandinavian socialism a “success” is that it failed to result in gulags and pogroms, and they managed to *escape* socialism.

This would seem to be a good video to share. Perhaps even with lefties who drone on and on about how great it would be to have Nordic-style socialism in the US.