November 2020 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Li Chenxi, from 13 years old in China, tells her story -- re "Will Confucius Marry Marx"..
by Zenaan Harkness 02 Jan '21

02 Jan '21

[[Courtesy an adjournment on the Court's own motion...]] Want an understanding of the human qualities which may be developed in the face of suffering, persecution, living in fear and the rest? Need a reminder of where things can go? Nothing quite like a true story. See 'Tube below for the true story of Li Chenxi, beginning when she was 13 years old in China in 1998, and her family were arrested and her father was beaten in front of her for participation in a "home gospel reading". In this retelling, she walks us through this and subsequent big events in her life, including jail, humiliation and torture, up until around 2014 "In China, a sense of fear permeates everything." Create your world, ----- Forwarded message from Zenaan Harkness <zen(a)freedbms.net> ----- From: Zenaan Harkness <zen(a)freedbms.net> To: pepeusa(a)mac.com Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2020 22:06:28 +1100 Subject: re "Will Confucius Marry Marx".. Dear Pepe Escobar, I really appreciate your writings, and most recently your piece "Will Confucius marry Marx?" posted at Asia Times and reposted at The Saker and Zerohedge.com (at least). With the descent of the USA empire into significant chaos and uncertainty, the cries against (e.g. Trump) of "so much Sinophobia" have felt a little unbalanced over the last year. This article of yours has brought some genuine balance to this public conversation - there are real, even foundational idiological, issues re China, and it is counterproductive to sweep them under the rug and thereby imply "don't worry about China, trust China, China is just fine". The first step to moving to solutions to problems / to a better future, is understanding the problems of today, and to this end your (and others of course) work in deconstructing and analysing these problems around the world, is really valuable. So thank you, I appreciate your work. A good friend recommended the following, which I have just watched: 2020 Christian Movie | "Branded" | 28 Years of Bloody, Heart-rending Persecution by the CCP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF-eQwccT1c It's a retelling (or dramatization I guess you call it) of one girl's true story of being a Christian in China beginning when she was around 13 years old in 1998. If you have not seen it yet, it is a historical snippet that is part of a jigsaw. It appears to me on this viewing that the CCP is sowing the seeds of its own demise. Kind regards, Zenaan, from Australia ----- End forwarded message -----

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Vaccine
by jim bell 01 Jan '21

01 Jan '21

Coronavirus vaccine still years away, experts warn https://www.yahoo.com/gma/health-experts-warn-life-saving-coronavirus-vacci…

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Schlicter: "attack the enemy in a manner the enemy can neither limit nor control" - [PEACE]
by Zenaan Harkness 30 Dec '20

30 Dec '20

Kurt Schlicter on the war path, oh it's on muh gritty muffaduckas :D It’s Time for Us Conservatives to Riot https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2020/09/28/its-time-for-us-c… ... It’s a lie. They have nothing real. They have no combat power, no tactical control of anything besides a few square blocks, and they only have that because the cops are held back by liberal city leaders. They have no more than the power we give them by fearing them and reacting to them. So, civilians kicking their sissy tails is a meaningless exercise. For us, a riotous riot gets us nothing. Plus, we own the stuff that would get burned down. That means a traditional riotous riot is a dumb strategy for us, a counterproductive move that would play into the left’s nearly-nonexistent strengths while exposing our weaknesses. Instead, we should riot our way. That is, attack the enemy in a manner the enemy can neither limit nor control and both cause real damage to its forces while demonstrating, as part of our own information operation, that we are in control. There are two components to our riot. The first is a riot at the ballot box. We need to ruthlessly eliminate all opposing candidates of either party. That means mobilizing to turn out votes and to vote viciously. Your nice city councilman who is kind and gentle and sort of squishy? He cut the ribbon at the petting zoo and send you emails about a library book drive? Yeah, he needs to go in favor of the bomb-thrower who wants to buy the cops a new armored personnel carrier. No Democrats, not ever. No soft Republicans, not ever. Only harsh conservatives who loudly live the dogma. Elect conservawoke candidates who understand the threat, and who savor the opportunity to use their political power to harm the left in every way they can. ...

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Tippi Degre - animals and children - Soul Cookies - [PEACE]
by Zenaan Harkness 30 Dec '20

30 Dec '20

It's been a long haul people. Sometimes one needs to take a few days off. Peace, https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tippy+elephants https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chito%20crocodile https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=kangaroo+friend

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Behind the curve. The mathematics of deaths.
by Peter Fairbrother 30 Dec '20

30 Dec '20

Please recirculate freely. Behind the curve. The mathematics of deaths. The present United Kingdom strategy on COVID-19 was to initially try to contain the virus with a weak containment policy, and when that failed to move to the "delay phase" we are in now to try to slow its spread. This delay would place a lower maximum load on healthcare, spread heathcare requirements over time, and thereby allow more per-patient care. An underlying assumption and consequential end result of that policy is that practically everybody in the UK will inevitably eventually catch the virus. And the Red Death will hold illimitable dominion over all. The strategy made sense if, as was believed when it was made, there would be no way of eventually stopping the epidemic by containment, something I myself believed. However, that does not seem to be the case: the disease is not quite as infectious as at first thought, as recent evidence shows that the Chinese have managed to slow it almost to a stop using strong confinement. If they succeed in containing the disease, as seems very likely, then most Chinese people will never catch the virus - whereas if the present UK policy is continued then at some point a majority of people in the UK will catch the disease, and a million people will die unnecessarily [1]. So what new policy should be adopted? Well we have the Chinese example to follow. Strong containment is working for the Chinese, it should work for us. All people entering the UK should be quarantined. The UK has a "moat" in the seas surrounding it, and should take advantage of that. Schools and universities should close. Large public gatherings should be banned. People should be encouraged to wear masks, not discouraged - even a tiny difference in transmission rate can be the straw which will make the difference between the epidemic dying out or growing: that is how the chain reaction of an epidemic works. If each infected person infects more than one other person on average then the epidemic spreads, if on average each infected person infects less than one then the epidemic dies out. We should be taking extreme measures to get that figure of new infections per case down to less than 1. Testing should be stepped up by at least an order of magnitude. Medical staff should have the power to require testing, and if positive then quarantine should be enforced if necessary. But most of all, we have to stop thinking that a million people will die and there is nothing we can do to prevent it. Diligent and intense containment can work if we are willing to pay the price now, the Chinese example is proof of that. Any delay in implementing strong containment will cost lives. Failing to implement strong confinement will result in a million unnecessary deaths over the next few months. [1] "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." - Joe Stalin. The UK age demographic contains more older people than the Chinese, and older people are far more likely to die of COVID-19 than younger people; so the UK fatality rate would be more than the Chinese rate, which works out to a bit over a million deaths if we assume 3/4 of the population get the virus. A delay to provide better health care might reduce the death toll to about a million. Strong confinement now could reduce it to a few thousand. Peter Fairbrother

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UN invitation for Cypherpunks
by Debian Community News Team 30 Dec '20

30 Dec '20

Please come... https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Business/Forum/Pages/2020ForumBHR.aspx and please share

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God is real: Lady Luscious in -epic- burn to USA press corps: "maybe we're visual learners"
by Zenaan Harkness 28 Dec '20

28 Dec '20

The heavens smile today as our new White House press secretary Ms Kayleigh "Lady Luscious" McEnany delivers an epic burn to the USA press corps: McEnany: "Did anyone take it upon themselves to pose any questions about Michael Flynn and unmasking to President Obama's spokesperson?" she asked. Rando journalist: "but buh but Flynn's name wasn't mas--" McEnany: "So I would like to lay out a series of questions and perhaps, if I write them out in a slide format - maybe we're visual learners and you guys will follow up with journalistic curiosity." Oohh. Ouch. Aargh! Epic mic drop !! Absolutely burned! Go you sweet thang :D Yes, CNN and co. are most definitely in the slow class and must be treated as "visual learners". We have no doubt about that m'lady :D She then literally played four (that's the number "4" for the visual learners...) slides each with four simple questions to ask: - "Why did the Obama Admin use opposition research, funded by a political organization and filled with foreign dirt to SPY ON MEMBERS OF THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN?" - "Why was Lt. Gen. Micahel Flynn UNMASKED by Obama's Chief of Staff, Joe Biden, Susan Rice, and others?" - "Why was Flynn's identity leaked - A CRIMINAL ACT - to the press?" - "Why did the DOJ learn about the FBI's interest in Flynn's conversations with the Russian Amb. from a CONVERSATION WITH OBAMA in the Oval Office?" Now, in an even more epic moment, even for the atheists amogst our ranks, this happed shortly before Trump wrapped up his Friday (just gone) press conference, which he called only 13 minutes in advance! Now that must be important - so why was it important? Trump: "Some governors have deemed liquor stores and abortion clinics as essential, but have left out churches and other houses of worship. It's not right." Update (1400ET): President Trump on Friday declared churches to be 'essential', and says he will 'overrule' governors who don't allow them to open "right now." So why is this such awesome news (for those who don't quite get it)? Because this is OUR RIGHT TO ASSEMBLE !! Human rights baby! Yee haw! You have the right to assemble, the right to communicate - and while you're at it, uphold with others your great 2nd amendment too! And for the be-subjugated men amongst us: you can't let a woman Salon hair stylist put you to shame now can you? Live it muffas! Trump Declares Houses Of Worship Essential, Says Governors Must Allow Services Or 'I Will Overrule Them' https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/watch-live-trump-announces-surprise-press… "We're Gonna Do It God's Way!" - Baltimore Pastor Rips Up Cease-And-Desist Letter https://www.zerohedge.com/political/were-gonna-do-it-gods-way-baltimore-pas… A Baltimore County pastor ripped up a cease-and-desist order mid-sermon Wednesday evening after county officials threatened him with a fine earlier in the week for holding in-person services. Calvary Baptist Church's pastor, Stacey Shiflett, tweeted a video clip of the sermon, where he was seen ripping up the cease-and-desist order that informed him if the church continued to conduct services, a $5,000 fine would be applied. https://t.co/klOrD2Bgn7 .. Shiflett's fight with county officials is outlined in our latest piece titled ""Land Of The Free?" - The Polarizing Politics Of A Pandemic Exposed." https://www.zerohedge.com/political/polarizing-politics-pandemic-exposed White House Press Secretary Stuns Journos With Interactive 'Obamagate' Presentation On How To Do Their Jobs https://www.zerohedge.com/political/white-house-press-secretary-stuns-journ… .. https://t.co/FQ475dZOJt White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany point-blank asked all the journalist at the press conference if they had contacted Obama‘s press secretary about the unmasking of general Flynn. Pure silence. .. https://t.co/XakC89gzYz Live free or die ya scurvy dawgs! Live free or die!

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MSM vs Glenn Greenwald: 2:0 and counting - [MINISTRY] [ENJOY] [PEACE]
by Zenaan Harkness 25 Dec '20

25 Dec '20

If you have a moment, this is kinda fun - Greenwald has in the past been, on occasion, apparently not too far removed from the MSM itself, though it seems, judging by his current "demolition derby" win rate against the MSM that he has finally found his freedom from the MSM (and "investors") grenback cocaine control regime. And if this new and improved "finally with steadfast principles" continues, we will be able to say that at least literarily, Greenwald finally found his balls. And THAT, good people, is a very good thing indeed. Go Glenn! Glenn Greenwald Levels MSM Journo Who Claims He's 'Endangering' CIA-Mouthpiece Media https://www.zerohedge.com/political/glenn-greenwald-levels-msm-journo-who-c…

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Boing Boing: What you need to know about police drone surveillance at protests against police brutality
by jim bell 22 Dec '20

22 Dec '20

Boing Boing: What you need to know about police drone surveillance at protests against police brutality. https://boingboing.net/2020/07/10/what-you-need-to-know-about-po.html

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Chloroquine is "highly effective" at inhibiting reproduction of Novel Coronavirus nCov in cell culture.
by jim bell 20 Dec '20

20 Dec '20

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8184997/Doctors-worldwide-say-ma… Doctors around the globe report that the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine seems the most effective treatment they've tried for coronavirus patients - but less than half as many doctors are prescribing it in the US as in other hard-hit countries like Spain. A survey of 6,200 doctors around the globe reveals that while few corners of the world are untouched by the virus, the pandemic is being handled very differently from country-to-country. And in some measures, the US continues to fall behind other nations' responses. For example, an American waits an average of four to five days to get results back after being tested for COVID-19. Half of doctors in Europe and most in China get the test results back within 24-hours. Dr Murali Doraiswamy, an adviser to Sermo, urged that countries should take note of what is working for doctors and governments elsewhere and move quickly to adopt practices that are saving lives. Hydroxychloroquine (pictured) was deemed the most effective coronavirus treatment comared to other options by more doctors worldwide than any other in a global survey =========================================================== On Sat, Feb 8, 2020 at 9:18 PM jim bell <jdb10987(a)yahoo.com> wrote: jim bell [chloroquine is an old-line drug typically used against malaria] [partial quote follows] https://www.asbmb.org/asbmb-today/science/020620/could-an-old-malaria-drug-… ASBMB Today Science Could an old malaria drug help fight the new coronavirus? Could an old malaria drug help fight the new coronavirus? By John Arnst February 06, 2020 Chloroquine might be getting new life as an antiviral treatment for the novel coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, China in late 2019 and has infected some 25,000 people in more than 25 countries. For decades, the drug was a front-line treatment and prophylactic for malaria. In a three-page paper published Tuesday in Cell Research, scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s State Key Laboratory of Virology write that both chloroquine and the antiviral remdesivir were, individually, “highly effective” at inhibiting replication of the novel coronavirus in cell culture. Their drug screen evaluated five other drugs that were not effective. The authors could not be reached for comment. Though the paper is brief, John Lednicky, a professor at the University of Florida’s Emerging Pathogens Institute, found its results intriguing. “It’s interesting in that it really lacks a lot of details but, nevertheless, if you look at the data as presented, at least in vitro, it seems like chloroquine can be used as an early-stage drug,” he said. “It would be very good if these types of experiments were repeated by more laboratories to see whether the same results occur across the board.” Chloroquine is a synthetic form of quinine, a compound found in the bark of cinchona trees native to Peru and used for centuries to treat malaria. Chloroquine was an essential element of mass drug administration campaigns to combat malaria throughout the second half of the 20th century, and remains one of the World Health Organization’s essential medicines. However, after the malaria parasites Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax began exhibiting resistance to the drug in the 1960s and 1980s, respectively, it was replaced by similar antimalarial compounds and combination therapies. Chloroquine is still widely used against the three other species of plasmodium and to treat autoimmune disorders and some cases of amebiasis, an intestinal infection caused by the amoeba Entamoeba histolytica. Chloroquine’s antiviral properties were explored in the mid-1990s against HIV and in the following decade against severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which is closely related to the novel coronavirus. In 2004, researchers in Belgium found that chloroquine inhibited replication of SARS in cell culture. The following year, however, another team at Utah State University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong evaluated a gamut of compounds against SARS replication in mice infected with the virus, finding that chloroquine was only effective as an anti-inflammatory agent. They recommended that it could be used in combination with compounds that prevent replication. Nevertheless, in 2009, the Belgian group found that lethal infections of human coronavirus OC43, a relative of SARS, could be averted in newborn mice by administering chloroquine through the mother’s milk. [end of partial quote] Also: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0 Remdesivir and chloroquine effectively inhibit the recently emerged novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in vitro Manli Wang, Ruiyuan Cao, Leike Zhang, Xinglou Yang, Jia Liu, Mingyue Xu, Zhengli Shi, Zhihong Hu, Wu Zhong & Gengfu Xiao Cell Research (2020)Cite this article 171k Accesses 1108 Altmetric Metrics details Dear Editor, In December 2019, a novel pneumonia caused by a previously unknown pathogen emerged in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people in central China. The initial cases were linked to exposures in a seafood market in Wuhan.1 As of January 27, 2020, the Chinese authorities reported 2835 confirmed cases in mainland China, including 81 deaths. Additionally, 19 confirmed cases were identified in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and 39 imported cases were identified in Thailand, Japan, South Korea, United States, Vietnam, Singapore, Nepal, France, Australia and Canada. The pathogen was soon identified as a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which is closely related to sever acute respiratory syndrome CoV (SARS-CoV).2 Currently, there is no specific treatment against the new virus. Therefore, identifying effective antiviral agents to combat the disease is urgently needed. An efficient approach to drug discovery is to test whether the existing antiviral drugs are effective in treating related viral infections. The 2019-nCoV belongs to Betacoronavirus which also contains SARS-CoV and Middle East respiratory syndrome CoV (MERS-CoV). Several drugs, such as ribavirin, interferon, lopinavir-ritonavir, corticosteroids, have been used in patients with SARS or MERS, although the efficacy of some drugs remains controversial.3 In this study, we evaluated the antiviral efficiency of five FAD-approved drugs including ribavirin, penciclovir, nitazoxanide, nafamostat, chloroquine and two well-known broad-spectrum antiviral drugs remdesivir (GS-5734) and favipiravir (T-705) against a clinical isolate of 2019-nCoV in vitro. Standard assays were carried out to measure the effects of these compounds on the cytotoxicity, virus yield and infection rates of 2019-nCoVs. Firstly, the cytotoxicity of the candidate compounds in Vero E6 cells (ATCC-1586) was determined by the CCK8 assay. Then, Vero E6 cells were infected with nCoV-2019BetaCoV/Wuhan/WIV04/20192 at a multiplicity of infection (MOI) of 0.05 in the presence of varying concentrations of the test drugs. DMSO was used in the controls. Efficacies were evaluated by quantification of viral copy numbers in the cell supernatant via quantitative real-time RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) and confirmed with visualization of virus nucleoprotein (NP) expression through immunofluorescence microscopy at 48 h post infection (p.i.) (cytopathic effect was not obvious at this time point of infection). Among the seven tested drugs, high concentrations of three nucleoside analogs including ribavirin (half-maximal effective concentration (EC50) = 109.50 μM, half-cytotoxic concentration (CC50) > 400 μM, selectivity index (SI) > 3.65), penciclovir (EC50 = 95.96 μM, CC50 > 400 μM, SI > 4.17) and favipiravir (EC50 = 61.88 μM, CC50 > 400 μM, SI > 6.46) were required to reduce the viral infection (Fig. 1a and Supplementary information, Fig. S1). However, favipiravir has been shown to be 100% effective in protecting mice against Ebola virus challenge, although its EC50 value in Vero E6 cells was as high as 67 μM,4 suggesting further in vivo studies are recommended to evaluate this antiviral nucleoside. Nafamostat, a potent inhibitor of MERS-CoV, which prevents membrane fusion, was inhibitive against the 2019-nCoV infection (EC50 = 22.50 μM, CC50 > 100 μM, SI > 4.44). Nitazoxanide, a commercial antiprotozoal agent with an antiviral potential against a broad range of viruses including human and animal coronaviruses, inhibited the 2019-nCoV at a low-micromolar concentration (EC50 = 2.12 μM; CC50 > 35.53 μM; SI > 16.76). Further in vivo evaluation of this drug against 2019-nCoV infection is recommended. Notably, two compounds remdesivir (EC50 = 0.77 μM; CC50 > 100 μM; SI > 129.87) and chloroquine (EC50 = 1.13 μM; CC50 > 100 μM, SI > 88.50) potently blocked virus infection at low-micromolar concentration and showed high SI (Fig. 1a, b).

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