More ties to Wuhan lab, police bloody teen girl in Starwars costume for toy blaster: Links 1, May 5th, 2020

1. Tanzania: President queries kits after goat, fruit test positive

(Will the WHO ask all goat fruit to remain 6 feet apart on the branch?)

2. UK finds itself almost alone with centralized virus contact-tracing app that probably won’t work well, asks for your location, may be illegal

Updated Britain is sleepwalking into another coronavirus blunder by failing to listen to global consensus and expert analysis with the release of the NHS COVID-19 contact-tracking app.

 

On Monday, the UK government explained in depth and in clearly written language how its iOS and Android smartphone application – undergoing trials in the Isle of Wight – will work, and why it is a better solution to the one by Apple and Google that other nations have decided to adopt. It has also released a more technical explanation.

 

Unfortunately for folks in UK, while the explanation is coherent, calm, well-reasoned and plausible, it is likely to be a repeat of the disastrous “herd immunity” approach the government initially backed as a way to explain why it didn’t need to go into a national lockdown. That policy was also well-reasoned and well-explained by a small number of very competent doctors and scientists who just happened to be wrong.

 

Here’s what’s happening: there are broadly two types of coronavirus contact-tracing apps; those that are centralized and those that are decentralized. The first takes data from people’s phones and saves it on a central system where experts are trusted to make the best possible use of the data, including providing advice to people as and when necessary.

 

The second, decentralized approach, as set out by Apple and Google, puts users in more control of their information, and alerts them automatically with no intervention from a third party. Apple and Google have also banned apps that use their anonymized API from accessing location services to track and identify people, despite pressure to do so. And they have said they will only allow one app per country, or state in the US, to use the interface.

(Based on what can be learned about a person on metadata alone, it is difficult to understand why they need an app at all)

3. 2016 NYT article about some of the Chinese ‘business men’ that attended a Trudeau fund raising event that looks a little more ominous now than it did then.

[…] Among the nonpaying guests was Zhang Bin, president of the Beijing-based China Cultural Industry Association, a promotional agency under the control of China’s minister of culture. Not long afterward, Mr. Zhang and his group’s honorary president made a joint donation of 1 million Canadian dollars, or about $741,200, to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, which includes Justin Trudeau’s brother among its board members, and the University of Montreal law faculty. The donation included funds for a statue of Pierre Trudeau, the former prime minister and Justin’s father, at the law school.

The article was the latest in a series by The Globe and Mail that suggests, opposition members of Parliament say, that donors get privileged access to members of Mr. Trudeau’s cabinet in exchange for cash, which can sometimes be as little as 500 Canadian dollars, or $370. Mr. Trudeau has maintained that no rules have been broken or ethical boundaries crossed.

4. More tyranny in Canada

5. The Project Veritas video on CBS News malfeasance

(Not sure why they disguise his voice when you hear his real voice on all the hidden camera segments. But its interesting anyway)

6. Louder with Crowder fact checks the experts who’s predictions result in policy

7. U. Texas under investigation for possible ties to Wuhan biolab

The Department of Education sent a letter to the University of Texas requesting all records pertaining to its dealings with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

 

The Department of Education’s Office of the General Counsel sent a letter to University of Texas Chancellor James Milliken on April 24 requesting records related to the University’s dealings with Chinese state-owned companies and universities.

 

“Unfortunately, the more we dig, the more we find that too many are underreporting or not reporting at all.”
The letter states that the University of Texas had “substantial contractual relations” with a Wuhan based maximum biocontainment laboratory (Wuhan MCL) also called the Wuhan Institute of Virology. MCLs “operate at the highest level of biological containment to diagnose, perform research on, and validate cures for life-threatening diseases.”

(Related: Number of Profs allegedly in cahoots with communist China quickly mounts)

7. Canadian politicians attack a blog for asking the question as to why muslims get a special exemption from laws and bylaws for call to prayer, but no other religious group does.

(It’s a good read)

8. Leaks show China knew about human to human transmission weeks earlier while they were claiming it could not happen, virus researcher killed.

9. Calgary has longest bitter cold streak since records began. Must be Global Warming.

The COLD TIMES are returning. This isn’t a conspiracy theory. Prepare.

As vast pockets of the planet currently battle anomalous May cold, it’s come to light (via iceagenow.info) that the cosmopolitan Alberta city of Calgary has tied its longest stretch of temps <20C (<68F) in recorded history:

The stretch ran from Sept, 23, 2019 to April 28, 2020, and not since 1932/33 –and the solar minimum of cycle 16– has it been this cold for this long.

 

A tweet dated April 29 from Calgary Weather Records confirms the record: “Streak over. After 219 Consecutive days with maximum temperature <20°C in #Calgary, the maximum temperature was 20.1°C today. We tied the all time record before the run ended.”

For an actual understanding of the climate and temperature with real predictive value, check out the Danish Scientists who are featured in the excellent documentary, The Cloud Mystery

10. Report: Fines issued for breaking pandemic measures top $5.8M, questions raised over ‘snitch lines’

11. Gotta add this one. Police in Canada bloody a teen girl as they tackle and cuff her for having a blaster and a Star Wars costume on May 4th as part of some promotion at a coffee shop.

Methinks the divide between government and police Vs. the people is starting to look more like tyrants and their paid thugs Vs, the law abiding. The illegals and criminals are having a pretty good time of it though. I don’t know how after $6M in fines being given out to moms pushing swings, refugees sitting on a bench and kids skateboarding alone in an unmarked park, how we come back from this thinking the police are a force for good.

Typically people on the right are on the side of the police. The EDL used to make a very strong point about that.

Here is where they all lacked insight.

Typically people on the right are pro law and order. We believe in equality before the law, and that police should use due process and also should be protecting the rights, property and defence of the law abiding public. When the police do that, we are pro-police and the left is against them.

When we have a tyrant in control and police are retasked to break and enter, conspicuous selective enforcement of fiat laws that are punitive to people in a way that seems arbitrary but in reality cumulatively are destructive of all our democratic rights, and when police act as state thugs for illegal orders, well then those same people will be anti police.

The truth is, none of us should ever be pro or anti-police. We are pro or anti certain interests and the people that advance, preserve or attack those interests.

The resulting contempt that will likely be felt for ‘law enforcement’ as this thing progresses may not be an easy thing to come back from.

Thank you M., Wrath of Khan, Richard, ML., M., EB., C., MissPiggy, EB., and all who sent in materials this week.