Quick notes: Vaccine efficacy | Amateur sleuths...

• Low efficacy: Early adopters of Chinese vaccines see case surges; China plows ahead anyway.



• Amateur Sleuths Expose Entrenched Media: For most of last year, the Wuhan lab leak idea was largely dismissed as a racist conspiracy theory of the alt-right.
  
  The Washington Post in early 2020 accused Senator Tom Cotton of "fanning the embers of a conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly debunked by experts." CNN jumped in with "How to debunk coronavirus conspiracy theories and misinformation from friends and family." Most other mainstream outlets, from The New York Times ("fringe theory") to NPR ("Scientists debunk lab accident theory"), were equally dismissive.
  
  The people responsible for uncovering this evidence are not journalists or spies or scientists. They are a group of amateur sleuths.. One of them is a 20-something Bengali man who calls himself The Seeker, an expert at searching the back alleys of the web

A very good read: The murky origins of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the causative
agent of the COVID-19 pandemic | By P. Balaram, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru https://t.co/hS5Vtht65q pic.twitter.com/K8RteAq7Ks

— The Seeker (@TheSeeker268) June 7, 2021




• Dr Monali C. Rahalkar and Dr Rahul Bahulikar: How an Indian scientist couple worked to trace origin, course of COVID-19.
  
  "Mysteriously, several databases of WIV which were online are now offline. The most important of all was a viral database which had information about 22,000 coronavirus samples, 16,000 of them from bats! This database went offline in September 2019. The reason, according to Shi’s statement to a WHO-China joint investigation team, was that there were more than 3,000 hackers. The question is, what were the hackers seeking in September 2019, when there was no trace of the pandemic?"

An Indian science teacher
An Indian researcher
A Spanish business consultant
A Russian-Canadian entrepreneur
A French data analyst
Various anonymous people

These are the amateurs who have found stuff that well paid scientists, journalists, intelligence agents failed to find https://t.co/w8bQ7wUVcQ

— Matt Ridley (@mattwridley) June 4, 2021





• TecHalli: New name for erstwhile 'silicon valley' Bengaluru



• G7 tax consensus and India's Digital tax: India had in 2016 introduced a 6% equalization levy on advertisement services by offshore digital firms to Indian businesses. Last year it expanded this to cover other e-commerce supplies by non-resident firms but at a lower 2%. It covers all sorts of digital e-commerce transactions in India and transactions which use Indian data.
  
  Six countries, including India, are on a US target-list for retaliatory tariffs. China never allowed foreign social media companies and hence is exempted from punitive tariffs by the US!




• Rights for nature: How granting a river ‘personhood’ could help protect it. “Designating the river as a legal person was the clearest message we could send.. The idea that nature is a sentient being isn’t new to Indigenous and other traditional peoples. The vision of the Innu is that Nature is living. Everything is alive,”



• Russia did it first: Sans space and vaccine, best inventions by Russians to know about



• XPeng vs. Tesla: The Race for the Best EV Tech: Chinese automaker XPeng is betting that driving assistance features and other tech will be the key to winning new customers. . . . . . India?

Quick notes: Reliance Jio | Equalisation levy...

• The other virus: Facebook eyes multi billion dollar stake in Reliance Jio. . . Learn from China. No compromise on national security.



• Twitter police: Beijing’s c-virus lies are just fine.



• Revolt against Xi Jinping? “An official call to arms against Xi: The clown who insists on wearing the emperor’s new clothes.”



• Equalisation levy: Foreign-owned e-commerce players will have to pay equalisation levy from the next fiscal. The levy, which hitherto was applicable only to digital advertising players such as Google, has now been expanded to cover “e-commerce supply or services”. Setback to Chinese e-commerce players like AliExpress, Shein and Club Factory selling in India.



• Papaji: Wake up from the dream




• Uncontrolled binge-watching: Netflix, Youtube, Facebook to cut data traffic in India to ease network congestion



• Two Types Of COVID-19: Type-L is more virulent and was responsible for the intial outbreak in China. Type-S is relatively less aggressive.



• Cuba’s ‘wonder drug’ Interferon Alfa-2B: Interferon drugs are man-made versions of the proteins that the human body creates. The drugs equip the body to tackle viruses, preventing them from multiplying in the body. Interferon drugs first emerged for cancer therapy. Interferons have also been used in the treatment of HIV and AIDS.



• Radical left: Kick NYT out of India before they turn into nuisance.

The New York Times changed headlines 3 times in order to satisfy the Radical Left. What should have been a good story got “worse & worse”, until the headline alone made it very unfair. Fake & Corrupt News that is very dangerous for our Country!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2020

Quick notes: Madhavan Nair, Media's war...

• G Madhavan Nair: Isro ex-chief may head BJP-backed front in Kerala



• Media Wants Riots: The media in India and the West has been in an aggravated and now near-permanent state of war about what is happening in India.



• India’s Energy Crisis: Simply to keep up with rising demand for electricity, India must add around 15 gigawatts each year over the next 30 years.
  
  The practical job of dispensing power was made more difficult by the victory in February’s municipal election of the Aam Aadmi Party, which ran on a platform of steep discounts for water and power. Promising free water and electricity, without specifying a way to pay for it, is an old tradition in Indian state and local election campaigns. Under the Aam Aadmi Party’s platform, Delhi families will get 20,000 liters of free water a month, and those who use less than 400 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month will get a 50 percent discount on their electric bills. Those subsidies will cost the government up to 16.7 billion rupees ($250 million) annually—and they will not help the discoms run profitable businesses.



• Hindus don't count?:

How many #Indians think of our own 700,000 #Kashmiris Pundits who are displaced in their own country? #realitycheck https://t.co/sAXLzH59a8

— Chitra Subramaniam (@chitraSD) October 6, 2015

• Declining soda sales: Pepsi is starting to give up on soda.

Making cigarettes less appealing

Australia's logo ban on cigarette packs has proven to be effective.
Compared with smokers using brand packs, those buying plain packs were more likely to judge their cigarettes to be poorer quality.

New Scientist: It's official: we're seduced by cigarette packaging

Political correctness taken to an extreme

Violent demonstration by illegal
Bangladeshi Moslem infiltrators
== Secular.

Mere presence of law enforcement officials == Communal.

Seditious solidarity with Jihadis
in Assam & Myanmar == Secular.

Lathi charge by police == Communal.

Desecration of Amar Jawan Jyoti, a memorial to martyred soldiers == Secular.

Molestation of Female police constables on duty == Secular

Waging war against the nation == Secular

Expression of indignation by policewoman via poetry
== Communal

http://m.timesofindia.com/city/mumbai/Inquiry-ordered-into-hate-poem/articleshow/18091690.cms


A woman inspector Sujata Patil, attached with Matunga traffic police, called last year's Azad Maidan protesters as "snakes" and "traitors" in her poem and suggested that their hands should have been "chopped off". TOI was first to report the news. In her poem, captioned Azad Maidan, she wrote: "Hausla buland tha, izzat lut rahi thi...himmat ki gaddaron ne Amar Jyoti ko haath lagane ki, kaat dete haath unke toh faryad kisi ki bhi na hoti...Saanp ko doodh pila kar, baat kare hain hum bhai-chare ki. (Their morale was high, (women) were being dishonoured. The traitors had the audacity to touch Amar Jawan Jyoti. Had we cut off their hands nobody would have complained. We feed milk to the snakes and then talk of harmony."

What could possibly be objectionable about Sujata Patil's poem. She has forcefully articulated the sentiments of hundreds of millions of patriotic Indians. There is not even a remote mention of any particular community, their religious faith, leave alone anything offensive about the core tenets of that creed or its central figures.
(Apparently, the Razakar party of Hyderabad has a monopoly over true hate speech in the Deccan).

The poor lady constable is being
hounded by the "Secular" Nazis
for her articulate poetry. Why is the "Hindu nationalist" BJP missing in its defense of nationalism? This constable has given voice to nationalistic sentiment better than their dimwit President, Gadkari who hails from Maharashtra as well.

Balasaheb Thackeray would certainly have thrown the weight of the Shiv Sena, had he been alive. Hindus in Maharashtra and the rest of India are already feeling orphaned by the demise of the Tiger of Maharashtra.

Homicidal Catholics murder Hindu woman in Ireland

http://m.thehindu.com/news/international/savitas-death-triggers-irish-backlash-against-antiabortion-law/article4099008.ece/?secid=2780

Her last words were "I'm neither Catholic nor Irish".

They killed the poor woman by their deliberate and obstinate refusal, on religious grounds - to perform the necessary medical procedure.

This is pre-meditated homicide, plain and simple - Insomniac Manmohan Singh better lose some sleep over this - he is usually exercised over the fate of expatriate Desi Jihadis in Australia, England etc.

John Dayal, Cedric Prakash and their ilk - even the "Shroud of Turin" need to be held accountable for this outrage - as representatives of the Catholic church in India.

Where is the "Pink Panty brigade" of Karnataka when a woman from that state has been killed by Christist bigots?

Question: Have the Irish been brainwashed by Aamir Khan's diabolical propaganda about
"Hindoo foeticide".

The broker media in India is busy minimizing and rationalizing away the Christian/Catholic motivation behind this crime. After all, don't we all know that Christism is a
"religion of Love" (TM)?

Dalal Dhimmi media

About a week ago, a deranged person, possibly a racist bigot went on a rampage attacking a Hindu place of worship, a Shia Islamic center and an African American church - in the New York area with Molotov cocktails, ostensibly motivated by "personal vendetta".

I was watching the news on TV.
Even CNN, which usually exhibits a condescending and derisive attitude toward anything Hindu - thought it appropriate to report the incidents as a possible hate crime, including the attack on what turned out to be a Hindu priest's home where people congregated occassionally for Bhajans and ceremonies.

Browsing through channels in between advertisements, I switched to Nehru Dynasty TV (NDTV, if you didn't get it) where
a "breaking news" item was reported from the U.S. A Detailed account of the Molotov cocktail attack on the Islamic center followed. I waited for Burka Dutt's channel to mention the attack on the Hindu place of worship - but there was none!

Nehru Dynasty TV simply omitted any reference to the incident - in keeping with the long (7 decade long) tradition of Nehruvian Stalinist negationism and distortion of history pertaining to iconoclasm against Hindu objects of reverence, practised by invading hordes of the binary death cults.

Is there any reason not to conclude that NDTV considers Hindus as a sub-human class of people - whom it is ok to oppress, attack and denigrate?
Hate crimes, even terrorist attacks against Hindus are to be simply NEGATED, to be treated as too trivial to report?
Hindus are to be considered unworthy of respect, sympathy or fundamental human rights?

There needs to be full disclosure regarding:
Burka Dutt's marital & religious antecedents. Isn't it a fact that Burka is married to a Kashmiri Mohammedan called Haseeb something?

There also needs to be full disclosure regarding NDTV's sources of funding, ex: are there any Saudi or other Gulf Arab investors as in the academic prostitution in JNU, facilitated by the late, unlamented Arjun Singh?

The non-neutral, pimp/dalal nature of NDTV, Burka in particular as the running propaganda dogs & fixers of the
Nehru dynasty is already evident from the Nira Radia tapes. The ideological and/or pecuniary considerations underpinning
NDTV's unique brand of intellectual masturbation needs to be inquired into.

UPDATE: To "Unknown" commenter.(updating post because of issues with blogger interface)

What more evidence of NDTV's anti- Hindu bias is required other than viewing a few hours worth of their
"content"? To our chatterati, seeing is believing. How many people bother to go read the "content" on their website? When they are enthralled by Burka & company's journalistic dishonesty. What evidence do you have that you are a neutral observer, given your odd
pseudonym "Unknown"? Please provide evidence to the effect that you are not a NDTV troll on Burka's pay or otherwise

Beyghairat Brigade - 'Aalu Anday'

A satirical music video put up on Youtube by some youthful Pakistani pop music artists calling themselves the "Beyghairat Brigade" (Dishonor Brigade) has gone viral.



For the Punjabi-impaired, you'll have to read the subtitles on the bottom of that video. And for the politically-impaired, here is an explanation of those subtitled song lyrics:

http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/18/enjoying-aaloo-andey-with-the-people.html

The song, entitled "Potatoes and Eggs" starts off with the motif of some schoolboys disgusted with getting the same thing everyday for lunch. But the song soon shows its true intent - to take aim at the stale political myths routinely propagated by the mainstream media in Pakistan, in service of the Pakistani establishment.

The Death of Saleem Shahzad

The New Yorker has an interesting article on events leading upto the murder of Pakistani journalist Saleem Shahzad. Here's an interesting excerpt:

The trouble, he said, had begun on March 25th, the day that he published the story about bin Laden’s being on the move. The next morning, he got a phone call from an officer at the I.S.I., summoning him to the agency’s headquarters, in Aabpara, a neighborhood in eastern Islamabad. When Shahzad showed up, he was met by three I.S.I. officers. The lead man, he said, was a naval officer, Rear Admiral Adnan Nazir, who serves as the head of the I.S.I.’s media division.

“They were very polite,” Shahzad told me. He glanced over his shoulder. “They don’t shout, they don’t threaten you. This is the way they operate. But they were very angry with me.” The I.S.I. officers asked him to write a second story, retracting the first. He refused.

And then Admiral Nazir made a remark so bizarre that Shahzad said he had thought about it every day since.

“We want the world to believe that Osama is dead,” Nazir said.

Bin Laden was still alive, his whereabouts presumably unknown, when that conversation occurred. I pressed Shahzad. What did they mean by that?

He shrugged and glanced over his shoulder again. They were obviously trying to protect bin Laden, he said.

“Do you think the I.S.I. was hiding bin Laden?” I asked him.

Shahzad shrugged again and said yes. But he hadn’t been able to prove it. (The I.S.I. calls this claim an “unsubstantiated accusation of a very serious nature.”)

Perhaps the US should abduct Pakistan's Rear Admiral Nazir, and give him a thorough interrogation on the issue of how much Pakistan knew about Bin Laden's whereabouts.

My 9-11 Flashback

10 years ago, I was chatting online in the EFnet #politics chatroom on IRC, when the planes struck the towers. The logs of our chat were recorded here:

http://www.ircpolitics.org/911-logs.html

You can see my comments from back then, posted under the name "sanman"
Even as it was still happening, right away I blurted that I knew it was Osama.
Memories have come flooding back.

What a grim and tragic anniversary.

NYT Announces Indian English-language Site

NYT has announced that they are creating a subscription-free english-language site focusing on news for India. No other country is getting this type of special attention, only India. Gee - lucky us.

Personally, I think that this move by NYT may have been partly spurred along by the recent upsurge in mass-activism in India, as shown by the recent anti-corruption protests. They know that India is a lot more important than Egypt or Ukraine in the larger scheme of things, and want to keep a closer eye on us.

I was looking at Lydia Polgreen's latest piece, and it's interesting to note that even after NYT rubbished Hazare and the anti-corruption protests, they still want to draw attention to hunger strikers in separatist regions. How predictable.

Whitehouse Has Intelligence Showing ISI Murdered Saleem Shahzad

The Whitehouse has intelligence which shows that the ISI ordered the torture and murder of journalist Saleem Shahzad.

Cosmetic Makeover?

I was going to post about the fiasco over the crackdown against Baba Ramdev's followers in Ramlila, but I came across Barking Mutt "discussing" it on NDTV, and couldn't help but notice her new look:



Her normal pug-faced appearance is now suddenly replaced with what looks to me like a new cosmetic makeover. Has she had surgery, or something? Unlike SRK's gradually Aryanizing face, it seems like she's had some sharp modifications. Besides the new hairstyle, she looks like she's gone in for some liposuction, like Star Jones from The View. Like Michael Jackson, maybe she'll eventually try to go all the way - blonde perhaps?

Public Journalism, Civic Action

I came across this Youtube video piece by a group calling itself "Video Volunteers":




We really need to promote public journalism by ordinary people, to improve civic action.

The biggest corruption scams may be at the state and federal levels, but the most common routine corruption is at the local level.

Sure, everybody complains about corruption, but documenting it is the best way to really put the guilty on the spot and in the spotlight.

The corrupt ruling party and their rentable media mercenaries have gotten a free ride with their "India Shining" mantra, but if enough public journalism can put their lies to shame, then it will significantly curtail their latitude to commit excesses.

We may talk about the potential for cellphone-led Jasmine revolutions in China nextdoor, but if we can put our own house in order, we'll be much better off for it.

Pak Journo Reported on AlQaeda-Military Links, Now Dead

A Pakistani journalist who had recently reported on the close ties between AlQaeda and his country's military has now been found dead, with his body bearing torture marks.

Apparently, ISI doesn't want certain secrets to get out.

Edit: Here's an editorial by international political analyst Pepe Escobar.

More:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/31/missing-pakistan-journalist-found-dead

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13608971

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/world/asia/01pakistan.html

Maher Asks Clarke About Pakistan

Comedian and nightly talkshow host Bill Maher asks former Whitehouse National Security Advisor Richard Clarke about Pakistan:



Here's the whole interview:

Talk Abottabad Excuse! ;)

Here's a provocative cartoon - no, not the blasphemous kind:

Star Trek Episode: The Alternative Factor

There's an old episode of Star Trek which I remember watching as a child - I'd always found it to be quite memorable and intriguing:



What was particularly interesting was the dark ending of the episode, where Kirk grimly wonders aloud to Spock, "How would it be, to be trapped forever with a raging madman at your throat... how would it be?"

How indeed, Captain.

US to Launch Urdu Sesame Street

USAID will fund an Urdu-language remake of the children's show Sesame Street for airing in Pakistan.

Maybe they think this will cut down the number of child suicide-bombers being sent to attack them. Hopefully they will script the appropriate skits for their target audience:

"Remember kids, if a strange man comes up to you, and plants explosives on your body in ways that make you feel bad, then be sure to tell your maulana!"

Mystic India, 1950s Newsreel

This old American newsreel from the 1950s made me chuckle: