Re my post 116:

A better summary of this book is here: https://cryptome.org/2013/03/deep-state.htm

You will see what I mean by difficult style.

I will put that book on my list.

Coincidentally, over recent months I finished reading these two books:

The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War" by Stephen Kinzer (2013).

I read that after trawling thorough the volumes of The Pentagon Papers that covered the America's involvement in Vietnam in the early years (1940 to 1954) and wanting to get more details on how the CIA operated during the long reign of Allen Dulles. I was shaking my head in disbelief about every second page. If you want to know how the USA created international situations that have bedeviled it ever since, this is the book to read.

"The Great Crash, 1929" by John Kenneth Galbraith (1955)

A great look back at the lead up to The Crash and its aftermath. Written in the wry humorous style that Galbraith was known for.

Some time ago I heard or read that sophisticated mathematical modelling of the mutation rate of its genes shows that COVID-19 may have been in the population of Wuhan way before January, but I could not find that reference afterwards. Now a paper has been published about which its main author, Dr Peter Forster, a highly distinguished geneticist, says:

QUOTE: the latest work suggests that the first infection and spread among humans of COVID-19 occurred between mid-September and early December.

This tends to lend support to the American military intelligence reports that an out of control epidemic was in place there back in early November.

Yes I read that ! But who is surprised !

This Article is an AUSTRALIAN Nurse on the front line in the USA.
Warning us .

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-10/australian-nurse-plea-from-us-coronavirus-hotspot/12141170...

Warning: Having served in WWI Grandfather, and many others, had all the proof needed to confirm that Military Intelligence, especially British, was an absolute Oxymoron.

Military Intelligence, especially British, was an absolute Oxymoron.

Another book that I've read in recent months is:

Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War 1941–1945 by Leo Marks, who at the age of 22 was hired by Churchill's Special Operations Executive (SOE) as a cryptographer. He documents the sheer incompetence of the men put in charge of the various departments of SOE (especially the Netherlands department), leaving readers -- including this one -- with the suspicion that at least one and maybe two of those department heads were working for the enemy. Some have said that SOE really stood for Supply Our Enemies.

MI6 (home of Kim Philby) treated SOE as a bunch of amateurs, which they were, and there's a suggestion that MI6 salted SOE with at least one known double agent whom they rejected because of his history but recommended highly to SOE, who didn't vet him at all.

All that said, the agency in discussion here (NCMI) is tasked with monitoring health situations globally:

"The National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI; formerly known as the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center) is a component of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The role of NCMI is described in DoD Instruction 6420.01. Headquartered at Fort Detrick, Maryland, NCMI's mission is to monitor, track and assess a full range of global health events that could negatively impact the health of U.S. military and civilian populations."

The incompetence apparent in this situation resides in Washington DC.

I do love the spy vs spy of WWII. The Germans near the end could not understand how the Russians had a T34 welcoming committee at every turn they tried to make.

Of course the Brits were reading German messages like "The Times" over breakfast. However Churchill refused to have that info passed to Russia. That of course was of no consequence as the Russian spies embedded in British "intelligence" passed the relevant info on to Moscow & they then thwarted the Germans every move.

Churchill refused to have that info passed to Russia

When Churchill was desperate to get the USA involved in the war, he made the unprecedented decision to share Ultra (Enigma machine) decoded traffic and methods with American intelligence. Until that time, no country ever shared its intelligence info with any other country. The wonder is, Ultra remained secret for decades afterwards.

I do love the spy vs spy of WWII

Same here. In fact the book I'm reading right now is Spy vs Spy: Stalking Soviet Spies in America by Ronald Kessler.

The point of Ultra was to use the info sparingly.

Imagine being a German u-boat captain surfacing in mid-atlantic to find planes and destroyers waiting for you.

The point of Ultra was to use the info sparingly.

The Brits were careful, where possible, to send out "spotter planes" some time before attacks and apparently it fooled the Germans every time. There were other occasions where they had to make the awful decision to allow ships to be attacked in order not to give away the fact that they knew about the U boat locations and orders.

I was just listening to the Radio and they said that in America they have now had 20,000 deaths from the virus .
It's so bad they have mass graves to cope with the 2000 deaths per day.
I don't think it's sunk in to us here in Oz how bad it really is ,I guess because it's not that out of control here yet. The virus tends to kill men more than women and men who smoke or over weight are higher risk.
The doctors advice on the radio was get fit and healthy incase you get it .
Medically it seems we are still a bit in the dark ages !

One of the ways to get out of the dark ages as I have said is tell the UN where to shove this interdependence crap and start building us back to where manufacturing was: We are an island & look at the issues we now have without manufacturing. Then of course at the rate we are going we won't need a Parliament as we won't own the place.

Next elections we need to be a lot more apolitical & selective about who we elect. A lot of what we have is unworthy.

I have said it before, the designer virus seems to have target areas, compromised immune systems is one. Smoking compromises the immune system. I am quite sure that apart from the thinner number of human Monkey's to the cubic hectare out side cities. Living dirtier on the Farm & not drowning everything in disinfectant and getting more sun (Vitamin D) actually strengthens the immune system.

Some of the old radios as I have stated before that turn up here are in themselves a massive bio hazard, which is why they are banned from the house.

Marc, the issue you raised then affects just about every previously industrial nation. It got us first because we had a piss-weak bunch of imbeciles in power in the 1970s and at the time they thought no harm would come of deindustrialisation.

Even the British Secretary of State said today that he was pleased that medical masks and gowns were once again being manufactured locally instead of imported from China. To an extent, we are doing the same. What are the chances of this lasting though? Both Australia and Britain are free markets and when things are built down to a price instead of up to a standard, people will ultimately spend less.

We do have anti-dumping laws but they clearly need broadening and we need to whack tariffs back on goods we should be making locally.

The US, Britain and Australia should man-up to China. They buy our coal and iron when they want it and not before and they've been demonstrating that as a pay back for us sailing our navy ships through the contested South China Sea. We should do the same to them and buy their crap when and only when we need to.

Don't expect this to change just because of who we all choose as our local members though. There's few that have the gumption to stand up when needed. Then there's fringe dwellers like the Greens that would sell this country out to China in a flat second if given half an opportunity.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

Why am I not surprised?

QUOTE: The sale of wild animals such as bats, civets, snakes, monkeys, ostriches and pangolins, and rhino horns was prohibited in China itself on February 24 as a "potential risk to public health" in the words of China's state media.

But Beijing is allowing its wildlife traders to sell these and other wild creatures to the world. And not only allowing it but promoting it using tax incentives.

This is so mindbogglingly reckless that it seems like a prank. But no. The Wall Street Journal broke the news on Sunday that China's "officials are offering tax incentives to the multibillion-dollar animal-products industry to ship some of the creatures overseas, according to Chinese government documents".

https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/chinese-authorities-latest-wildlife-trade-outrage-is-mindbogglingly-reckless-20200413-p54jas.html

Stupid is as stupid does:

QUOTE: He practised what he preached — then he died of coronavirus.

An evangelical pastor in America died of COVID-19 just weeks after proudly showing off how packed his Virginia church was — and vowing to keep preaching “unless I’m in gaol or the hospital”.

In his last known in-person service on March 22, Bishop Gerald O. Glenn got his congregation at Richmond’s New Deliverance Evangelistic Church to stand to prove how many were there despite warnings against gatherings of more than 10 people.