Remember my prediction from this past January?

 Here it is if you've forgotten: my most serious prediction ever...

 

Make a note of this.  January the Sixth, Two Thousand and Twenty-One.  Just before 1 p.m. EST.

If I'm wrong about this I'll eat my fedora.  No really, I will.

Here it is:

I do declare that four years from today, the United States will be in the WORST condition it has been in, in at least the past fifty years.

Hold me to this.  Do it.

I am dead-#@%$ serious.

 

 

 That was ten months ago.  Much less than the forty-eight I allocated to Biden.

Out of control inflation.  Soaring gas prices.  Less food.  Energy costs set to skyrocket.  A military more dedicated to being "woke" than defense readiness.  Americans still stranded in Afghanistan.  Supply chains strangled because of over-burdening regulation on truckers.  Vaccine mandates.  No effective counter to a China becoming more belligerent by the month if not quicker.  The list goes on...

But hey: no more mean tweets!!

"Let's go Brandon."

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Coronavirus: Calling America to the Carpet

Some are almost rubbing their hands in glee at coronavirus: holding to the notion that this is an obvious sign of the Second Coming because Pestilence is loosed upon the land. Though adherent that I aspire to be, my eyes cannot but roll in disbelief. Pandemics are almost as reliable as Old Faithful and will remain so until the end of time. The average span between worldwide outbreaks is around a hundred years. And coronavirus is hot on the centennial of the Spanish Influenza.

No, it is not the time for overzealous fervor to grasp rational thought. But with respect to my fellow Christians, coronavirus is at last the “Come to Jesus” meeting that the United States is long overdue for.

Let’s consider what must certainly be the most serious issue about what coronavirus is now teaching us. We have a woeful, immoral and almost criminal over-reliance on China for our manufactured goods, and especially pharmaceuticals. The vast majority of medication consumed by Americans come from Chinese labs. Many of these facilities, incidentally, have been accused of utilizing manufacturing processes that defy safe and sanitary protocol. Even so, the drugs are being shipped into the U.S. and domestic drug companies care little. After all, it’s easier to charge nigh-unconscionable prices for vitally needed medication when it can be manufactured for pennies overseas. Even cheaply-manufactured medications such as acetaminophen and insulin are now supplied by China. Perhaps ninety percent of antibiotics like penicillin are sent to the U.S. from factories under the ultimate control of Beijing.

Profits are good. Profits drive innovation and research. But the drive for profit in defiance of ethical responsibility has inflicted a grievous wound upon the nation’s self-sufficiency and general integrity. It is a wound that politicians – on both sides of the aisle – have not looked past so much as pour harsh acid upon.

And now comes word that China is threatening to deny America access to drugs that could stem the coronavirus outbreak in our country. It is not an empty threat. Particularly not in the present environment of trade hostility that has already awoken the bear market. Right now the ChiComs are feeling pokey about the U.S.’ international response to the coronavirus pandemic. What happens in the event of a full-blown economic war between east and west? Should China choose to do so, it could cut the spigot off for all distribution of medications to the United States.

Pause and consider what this would mean to diabetics dependent upon their neighborhood drug stores being stocked with insulin, or medications commonly prescribed to address influenza: an illness that far more people each year perish from than will on account of coronavirus. People are now going full- blown paranoid about a shortage of toilet paper. But that can be rationed. With medication, not so much. I myself am now weighing the likelihood of medications running out that I use to manage having manic-depression. The number of Americans who have mental health conditions is enormous. Might a dire deficit of mood stabilizers lead to mass ideations of suicide or harm to others?

It is now clear that America has an over-reliance upon Chinese manufacturing of pharmaceuticals for too long. But our lack of autarky is betrayed again by a spectacle beheld by even the healthiest of citizens: the vast shelves of cheaply-produced goods at Walmart stores dotting across the fruited plain. And also readily available from online retailers. For decades American companies have parceled their industrial capacity to Chinese workers who are underpaid and overworked. We have enjoyed cheap clothing and kitchenware and collectible action figures and Blu-ray players. We have also compromised our economic independence. And though the policies set in motion during President Trump’s administration have yielded enormous rebirth of long-shuttered factories, America is still hurting from decades of job losses. Once the textiles industry in America was one of the mightiest of employers. It allowed families to grow and thrive and allowed countless young people to better their lives with college education. Today textile production in the United States has almost completely evaporated, particularly in the Southeast where it was once towered over all other industry.

If China can cut off medication for one key sector, it can cut off every medication. As well as every other product that comes from there to American ports. And what is America going to deny China in turn? Blockbuster action movies whose studio executives kowtow to mainland Chinese “sensibilities”? Clothing and medication are vital assets. Extravaganza entertainment is not.

The coronavirus outbreak, depending on who one chooses to listen to, is either the dread harbinger of the end times or a momentary blip upon medical history. Six to eight months from now we will likely be laughing about the coronavirus “plague” just as we did about Y2K. But the vulnerabilities it has exposed should be – as some activist leaders have coined the term – a teachable moment for America.

It is time to rediscover anew the virtue that American protectionism is a virtue and not a vice. We are obligated to look after the interests of our own people, and that is absolutely not to be taken to mean that we are a selfish or uncharitable nation. American greatness however has from its colonial beginnings meant looking to ourselves for production of food, goods, and medicine. We have been abundantly blessed with these and many more fruits of our labors. And when the fruits have been so bountiful, we have gladly allowed the people of other nations to enjoy much of our surplus. It is conceivable that World War III was staved off because the Soviet Union came to be dependent so greatly upon American grain production. Had domestic farming capacity during the Cold War been at depleted levels, the possibility would exist that Moscow would have been much more desperate and belligerent toward its western rival. The Politburo was wise enough to recognize its own weaknesses. Why then should the United States be any different?

America has been betrayed by politicians and lobbyists acting in the interest of foreign powers if not being outright paid for services rendered. We have been living on borrowed time and now the coronavirus threat has pulled back the curtain on our would-be industrial masters. Were our international situation a private business, the ones responsible would have long been chewed-out by the company honchoes. And most likely given a cardboard box and fifteen minutes to clean out their desks. Their incompetence would not be lauded and certainly not rewarded.

The attitude toward this land by too many entrenched politicians, corporate opportunists, and foreign sympathizers has gone far beyond incompetence and into the territory of treason. Perhaps the coronavirus will cast long-awaited light upon such treacheries. And perhaps the American people will have eyes opened at last to demand an end to over-reliance on international industry.

If so, in the greater scheme of things the coronavirus may prove to be less a blight and more a blessing.

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Hu Songwen: Kept alive for 13 years by his self-made dialysis machine!

This man is hardcore. HARD-CORE, no two ways about it. MacGuyver ain't got nuthin' on this dude...

Hu Songwen was diagnosed with early kidney failure in 1993. A college student at the time, Hu went to a regular hospital for the next six years on a routine basis to have dialysis scrub his blood of the waste material that a healthy metabolism has no problem with passing out of the body.

But then the money ran out. And Hu could no longer afford those hospital visits.

So left with what he deemed no choice, Hu put together a homemade dialysis machine.

And his self-crafted dialysis has kept him alive for the past thirteen years!

Mail Online has plenty on the story of Hu Songwen, including a bunch more pictures and the technical details of how his machine works.

Gotta love ingenuity and initiative like that. Whenever I find a story like this, it renews my hope in humanity. Here's wishing Hu all the best in a long and prosperous life :-)

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Is China home to most of the world's Christians?

There is an interesting article at the Catholic News Agency's website about the condition of religion in present-day China. Particularly, it presents notable evidence that China will soon have a larger Christian population than any other country.

But in reading this, I am compelled to wonder if the Chinese might already have most of the world's Christians. Maybe more than all other countries put together.

Could that be even possible?

From the article...

During a recent book launch in Rome, a noted theologian said that China will be home to the majority of the world's Christians within the next two decades.

“Interfaith dialogue is something that China, which will have the world's largest Christian population in 20 years, lives with every day,” said Harvey Cox during the presentation at the city's Jesuit Gregorian University.

Cox presented the book “Catholic Engagement with World Religions: A Comprehensive Study, in dialogue with its two editors” on Nov. 30 with Cardinal Karl Josef Becker, a German theologian of the Vatican's the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The editors include Ilaria Morali of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, who also presented the book, and Cardinal Becker.

Cox, who teaches at the Harvard Divinity School in Massachusetts, said the new book “will play an invaluable role” in determining “where we've been in the past, where we are now, and where we're headed.”

“There are two world phenomena happening right now,” he added. “The first is that we can't recognize Christianity as a western religion anymore and the second is that countries with the fastest growing number of Christians don't have a Christian culture or traditions.”

Keep in mind that Cox and Becker are speaking from a Catholic perspective. It is perfectly understandable that they will be presenting their beliefs strictly as Catholics. And though I myself am not a Catholic, I find it intensely fascinating that China might soon have more Catholics than any other nation.

But in terms of Christianity in general... and in keeping with the author's discussion of religious discussion among a variety of viewpoints... I can't but believe that China is home to most of the world's Christians right now.

It has been well known for decades that there is a significant number of "underground churches", or "house churches", which harbor a vast amount of followers of Christ - belonging to no denomination and whose members likely wouldn't even care about denominationalism at all - existing throughout China. We don't know how many Christians in addition to practicing Catholics there might be in that land. There are some who suggest that the population of underground Christians might number in the hundreds of millions. All of whom worship Christ outside the knowledge of the government of communist China. Each practicing their faith in the full understanding that if found out, they risk persecution, imprisonment, and possibly worse. Many are enduring unspeakable hardships even now.

And yet, the body of Christ as counted across the width and breadth of all the followers of Christ, is not only persisting in China but thriving. With a vigor and enthusiasm and sincerity that dwarfs the Christianity... or perhaps "churchianity"... in the western world. Including the Christians of the United States.

What if such hardship and persecution has led to the community of Christians in China becoming far more vast than all of the Christians of America, Canada, Latin America, Europe and Africa... combined?

Yes. Today. This very moment.

And wouldn't it be something if within the lifetime of many reading this blog, that the United States will see an influx of missionaries coming to America from China and other Asian countries to preach Christ to us, rather than sending "our" missionaries abroad?

Because Christianity in the United States... and I can only write about America in this sense because it is the land which I observe every day... has deviated and devolved into something that is fixated more on the material than on matters eternal. We have become a spiritually stagnant people and the church in China, to be honest, puts the "God and Country" brand of our American Christianity to shame. We go into our brightly-lit and brazenly decorated houses of worship every Sunday, listen to "positive preaching" and come out none the worse for wear until the following Sunday, with little or no real encouragement or holding ourselves accountable to God. The believer in China must seek out dim and dark rooms to quietly pray and sing hymns in total silence. But I have spoken to a number of believers from that land, and not one of them has been anything but cheerful and exuberant about their faith in Christ. For them, to seek after Him is absolutely worth the dangers of being discovered by their own government.

And I can't help but wonder what could be if that same eagerness and optimism borne out of love of God and others would catch on at last in my own country.

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Strange things are afoot in the deserts of China...

Bunches of e-mails, tweets and Facebook discussions today about some downright mystifying patterns that users of Google Earth have spotted carved into the floor of the Chinese desert.

Gizmodo has been on top of this story since it first came to light and you can find pics of many more odd structures. Some readers have also pointed me toward SlashGear's discussion of the patterns. Some of these configurations are huge: one has been measured at being approximately 18 square miles (or 29 square kilometers for our Brittish brethren and others using Metric reckoning).

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U.S. economy in peril if Asian countries won't buy debt

"Armageddon" is the word that Tiger Management founder and chairman Julian Robertson says the United States faces for its economy if countries like Japan and China stop purchasing American debt.

"If the Chinese and Japanese stop buying our bonds, we could easily see [inflation] go to 15 to 20 percent," he said. "It's not a question of the economy. It's a question of who will lend us the money if they don't. Imagine us getting ourselves in a situation where we're totally dependent on those two countries. It's crazy."

(snip)

"We're in for some real rough sledding," he said. "I really do think the recession is at least temporarily over. But we haven't addressed so many of our problems and we are borrowing so much money that we can't possibly pay it back, unless the Chinese and Japanese buy our bonds."

Mash down here for more observations from Mr. Robertson.

I'm still wog-boggled about the idea of basing a national economy, even partially, on the selling of that country's debt.

How did that happen?

Nothing good can possibly come of it.

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Factory worker steals motorcycle one piece at a time

So the very next day when I punched in
With my big lunchbox and with help from my friends
I left that day with a lunch box full of gears
Now, I never considered myself a thief
GM wouldn't miss just one little piece
Especially if I strung it out over several years.

-- "One Piece At A Time"
Johnny Cash
(written by Wayne Kemp)

Zhang, a worker in a motorcycle factory in China, was no doubt thinking of Johnny Cash's 1976 hit single when he embarked upon his scheme to steal a motorcycle by smuggling one part at a time home with him. "I don't have that much money, so I came up with the idea of taking the parts home and assembling them on my own," he said.

It took him five years but he was able to pull it off. And then he was pulled over as soon as he hit the road for lack of driver's license and title to the bike. Zhang was fined, put on probation and had to return the motorcycle to the factory (and presumably fired).

(It also reminds me of that episode of M*A*S*H where Radar is trying to mail a jeep back home one piece at at time :-)

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Our tax dollars at work: Training Chinese prostitutes how to drink responsibly

Official policy of the United States federal government is now to refer to prostitutes as "female sex workers" (FSW) and to their pimps as "gatekeepers".

It would almost be funny, except that $2.6 million of our tax money is being spent on teaching Chinese "female sex workers" how to "drink responsibly".

From CNSNews.com...

U.S. Will Pay $2.6 Million to Train Chinese Prostitutes to Drink Responsibly on the Job
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
By Edwin Mora

(CNSNews.com) -- The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will pay $2.6 million in U.S. tax dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly on the job.

Dr. Xiaoming Li, the researcher conducting the program, is director of the Prevention Research Center at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit.

The grant, made last November, refers to prostitutes as "female sex workers"--or FSW--and their handlers as "gatekeepers."

"Previous studies in Asia and Africa and our own data from FSWs [female sex workers] in China suggest that the social norms and institutional policy within commercial sex venues as well as agents overseeing the FSWs (i.e., the 'gatekeepers', defined as persons who manage the establishments and/or sex workers) are potentially of great importance in influencing alcohol use and sexual behavior among establishment-based FSWs," says the NIH grant abstract submitted by Dr. Li.

"Therefore, in this application, we propose to develop, implement, and evaluate a venue-based alcohol use and HIV risk reduction intervention focusing on both environmental and individual factors among venue-based FSWs in China," says the abstract.

The research will take place in the southern Chinese province of Guangxi...

I guess it's only fitting: our government has been prostituting itself to China and just about anyone else for so long anyway.

Feel free to leave comments. Even if it's a joke that would normally be better left unsaid. At this point, I don't care.

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The crisis thus far...

The head of the European Union has described President Obama's plans to spend the United States out of recession as "the road to hell".

Great Britain is running out of money.

China wants to dump the U.S. dollar as the de facto global currency.

And now the United States Postal Service is beginning to beg for a bailout.

What's that Chinese curse? "May you live in interesting times", or something.

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Boy bleeds to death after office chair explosion sends metal shrapnel into rectum

According to a story up on Gizmodo, a 14-year old boy in China is dead following the explosion of a gas cylinder in the base of the office chair that he was sitting in. The cylinder, which is used to adjust the height of the chair, blew up and propelled "chunks of metal into his rectum". The teen subsequently bled to death.

Here's a photo of the culprit chair...

That has to be the most freak accident I've ever heard of involving something as mundane as a chair.

Anyone else thinking of sitting on Kevlar-reinforced seat cushions from now on?

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Mystery: Swiss watch found in 400-year old Chinese tomb

Shades of Michael Crichton's Timeline, or television's Lost: archaeologists are stumped at the discovery of a Swiss watch within a Chinese tomb that was sealed more than four hundred years ago. While excavating the Ming-era tomb in southern China, researchers heard a metallic object hit the floor. When they picked it up they discovered, encrusted with the detritus of time, a tiny watch stopped at 10:06 and with the word "Swiss" engraved on the back.

Four hundred years ago there were no watches. And Switzerland didn't even exist as the country as we know it today. The watch itself is thought to be around one hundred years old.

The archaeologists have stopped with the dig until experts from Beijing can arrive to help unravel the anachronistic riddle.

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Bush spitting in faces of Chinese Christians... again

When he goes to Beijing for the opening of the Olympics over a week from now, George W. Bush will "worship" at a church there, it's being reported.

Now for the part of the story that the Bush Administration doesn't like to talk about...

The "church" that Bush will attend is no doubt going to be one of the state-approved churches that the communist government of mainland China keeps under its control. It will not be a congregation of believers who are free to worship as they best understand the leading of the Holy Spirit. They cannot even appoint their own leaders for their churches: the Chinese government determines who are the pastors and other officials, even installing its own priests for the supposedly "Catholic" churches there.

(By the way, Bush did the same thing almost three years ago and I wrote about it then, too.)

The church that Bush will be going to will be one that puts loyalty to the Chinese government far ahead of loyalty to God.

Meanwhile, some estimate that 40 million Christians in China are worshiping at underground "house churches", beyond the sanction of the government there. They do so at the risk of being arrested, imprisoned, and perhaps far worse.

Those are the believers that our supposedly "Christian" President should be standing in solidarity with. And it would be ridiculous to suggest that Bush attend a service at an "unofficial" church and risk the lives of its congregants. But by announcing that he will attend one of the state-sponsored churches, Bush is gesturing his approval of goverment-controlled religious worship. It would have been better if he had the guts to say "Nope, I'm not going to go in for this farce. You officials in Beijing need to let these people worship God according to their conscience, not your policy."

But then, since when did Bush ever have the guts to do something like that, anyway?

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The photo that may scare you from ever again buying Chinese-made products

Every politician, corporate executive, and management-type in America who believes that globalism is "a good thing" and that there's nothing wrong with outsourcing our jobs to China, had better take a damned good hard long look at this photograph...

This is what passes as a high-grade pharmaceutical plant in the village of Xinwangzhuang, in the Juangsu Province of China. The guy is harvesting the mucous membranes from the intestines of dead pigs.

The tissue is then processed to make heparin: a drug widely-used in surgery and kidney dialysis here in the United States and elsewhere.

There have now been 19 deaths and numerous allergic reactions reported because of the drug.

I defy anyone to look at that photo, and still tell me that China is a responsible trading partner or that it's "sound policy" to entrust it with so much industry that we could be doing far better at home.

Oh yeah, it's "cheaper" to outsource it. Remember that, Mr. Free-Trade Politician, the next time you're having surgery while getting drugs pumped into you that were made in a "lab" filthier than the average gas station restroom.

The New York Times has plenty more about this on their website, if you can stomach such a story.

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Is "Globalization" a merit badge? Lead-laden Chinese products now plague Boy Scouts

Yesterday the following item landed in my e-mail:

Attention Scouters and Parents,

We received notification on Oct. 3 relating to defects in the Cub Scout Immediate Recognition Kit (Item # 01804). It may contain lead levels in excess of U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission standards in the paint on the totem badge.

The Boy Scouts of America has directed all of its Scout Shops to remove it from their shelves immediately. We are requesting anyone who may have purchased the item to remove the Cub Scout Recognition totem badge from their children’s possession and, until further instructions are received, keep it in a safe place where only adults will have access to them. Our highest priority is the safety of our youth members and their families. Boy Scouts of America apologizes for any concern this matter causes parents. BSA is doing everything we can to ensure the health and safety of all those who participate in our programs.

Over there on the right you can see what the Cub Scout Immediate Recognition Kit looks like. It's something worn over the chest pocket (hence the hole for the button). Every time a Cub Scout earns three achievements, he gets one bead. You start out as a Bobcat in Cub Scouts and then you earn your way up to Wolf, and the yellow beads represent your progress toward that. Then after you've earned Wolf you can progress to Bear, and the red beads mark your way toward that.

I've still got my old Cub Scout uniform, including the Progress Toward Ranks thingy with all of the beads. I don't know who made that one (it was 25 years ago when I started in Cub Scouts) but the Cub Scout Immediate Recognition Kit that's being recalled is marketed by Kahoot, a toy company in Roswell, Georgia. According to its website, Kahoot has been around for 22 years so my own Progress Toward Ranks predates the company.

In light of all the Chinese-made products - especially items for children - that are being recalled lately because of how much lead they contain, I wondered when I first got this e-mail if the Cub Scout Immediate Recognition Kit was also made in China. I started looking into it on my own...

...but I didn't have to look for long: it turns out that the Cub Scout Immediate Recognition Kit sold by Kahoot IS being made in China!

Look, I've been an assistant scoutmaster for 15 years now. I've been involved with the Boy Scouts since 1982, when I became a Cub Scout. I earned my Bear Badge, then achieved the Arrow of Light as a Webelos Scout and then attained the rank of Eagle Scout: something that is still quite a rare thing for a Boy Scout to do. I defy anyone to tell me that I'm not loyal to the Boy Scouts and what they're supposed to stand for.

But how the hell is it that the Boy Scouts of America is using products made in China?

Aren't there any companies in the United States that can make these Cub Scout awards?

Did the Boy Scouts of America actively seek out companies to supply them, that have products that are made domestically?

Why is the Boy Scouts of America, in the least bit way, helping not just a foreign economy but one that would like nothing more than for there to be no more America?

I know that, unfortunately, it's not possible to avoid everything made in China at the present time. I wish it were otherwise. There is no reason why the United States cannot produce everything it needs so far as consumer goods go. Maybe someday we will be making things again instead of just buying them as cheaply as possible.

But let's get real: it's a thin plastic badge with synthetic beads and a thong. How really difficult is it for a factory in America to stamp these things out?

In the Boy Scouts there are three merit badges: Citizenship in the Community, Citizenship in the Nation, and Citizenship in the World. All three are among the merit badges required for Eagle, so I had to earn each of them. Something I realized in the course of achieving those merit badges: we as Americans are at our best when we are good citizens in our communities. And we as citizens of this world are at our best when we are good citizens of America. If we take care of what is immediately around us and then apply that to the nation that God put us in, that is how we do our part to be good stewards in this world.

Helping foreign industry, to the detriment of our own, is not showing good citizenship in either our community or our nation. And it's not good citizenship in the world, either.

This kind of thing, of "going with the flow" and not supporting our own industry because something can be bought cheaper (and Lord only knows what kind of labor went into these badges) makes a mockery of everything that the Boy Scouts used to teach about American citizenship.

Maybe that's "globalization", and perhaps someone, somewhere in the Boy Scouts hierarchy is hoping that it will become a merit badge. But the day it does, then I can't be a part of the Boy Scouts of America any longer.

The Boy Scouts need to learn from this. The organization should begin to actively take steps to make sure that the companies it contracts with to produce Scouting materials, as much as it is at all possible, use American industry to produce these goods.

And I'm especially talking about materials with the "Boy Scouts of America" brand on them. If something made for the Boy Scouts of America can't honestly boast of being made in America, then it's not really of the Boy Scouts of America at all. It may bear the logo, but it will never boast the spirit of Scouting.

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