Obambulating over oriental Operation Overlord...

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Hat-tip to the bad cat for this surf session that ended in an amazing history lesson (further hat-tip to Madeira in the comments). 

Delta Airlines (not Omicron Airways [update: but we already have BA.2 right?]) asked a question on Twitter "Name a city that changed your life" and got many 'expected' answers: London, Paris, New York, Moscow, Barcelona, Istanbul and a few less obvious ones...but after a while - as you can guess by the image - the majority of answers became Wuhan, which to be fair has changed [almost] everyone's life so is clearly the winning answer. 

One reply even posted this video, presumably from Wuhan Tourist Board : "Wuhan, a city by the side of Yangtze river with high risen buildings, and connected by many majestic bridges. Countless fun and adventures are hidden in this energetic city awaits for you to discover." ...not a joke, posted in Nov 2021. The video is indeed almost entirely images and film of roads, intersections, traffic and bridges! I really don't think they can expect a rush of tourism, do you? 

The unexpected history lesson was - and how many people have any idea at all? - that Wuhan was strategically firebombed (a la Dresden) in December 1944; from Peter Harmsen's blog 'China in WW2'...The US Firebombing of Wuhan [Part 1] [Part 2]. Wang Shih-chieh, a Chinese politician and scholar, wrote 

"regardless of cost to the city and its civilian population. Wuhan had to be sacrificed." 

The raid used M-69 incendiary bombs, an 'extremely deadly cocktail of phosphorous and napalm just developed for the purpose by scientists at Harvard University'; after this "first experience with firebombing as a tactical weapon to be a successful experiment" it was later used extensively against the Japanese mainland cities. [update comment: those quotes are from Peter's blog, not that M69 Wiki page!]

 

Wuhan was a Japanese hub in WWII, and a launch pad for Operation Ichi-Go, which is important not so much for the eventual outcome of the war but for the turn of events that allowed the Chinese communists to gain against the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China; some have said that 'the impact Ichi-Go had on the political situation in China was as important to the post-war world order as Operation Overlord'.

Update 20:37: not - but almost - forgetting that today is one year on: "January 23rd, is the day, in 2020, when the world changed as China first implemented in Wuhan the novel public health policy that has come to define the COVID-19 pandemic."

Obambulating over oriental Operation Overlord...

---

Hat-tip to the bad cat for this surf session that ended in an amazing history lesson (further hat-tip to Madeira in the comments). 

Delta Airlines (not Omicron Airways [update: but we already have BA.2 right?]) asked a question on Twitter "Name a city that changed your life" and got many 'expected' answers: London, Paris, New York, Moscow, Barcelona, Istanbul and a few less obvious ones...but after a while - as you can guess by the image - the majority of answers became Wuhan, which to be fair has changed [almost] everyone's life so is clearly the winning answer. 

One reply even posted this video, presumably from Wuhan Tourist Board : "Wuhan, a city by the side of Yangtze river with high risen buildings, and connected by many majestic bridges. Countless fun and adventures are hidden in this energetic city awaits for you to discover." ...not a joke, posted in Nov 2021. The video is indeed almost entirely images and film of roads, intersections, traffic and bridges! I really don't think they can expect a rush of tourism, do you? 

The unexpected history lesson was - and how many people have any idea at all? - that Wuhan was strategically firebombed (a la Dresden) in December 1944; from Peter Harmsen's blog 'China in WW2'...The US Firebombing of Wuhan [Part 1] [Part 2]. Wang Shih-chieh, a Chinese politician and scholar, wrote 

"regardless of cost to the city and its civilian population. Wuhan had to be sacrificed." 

The raid used M-69 incendiary bombs, an 'extremely deadly cocktail of phosphorous and napalm just developed for the purpose by scientists at Harvard University'; after this "first experience with firebombing as a tactical weapon to be a successful experiment" it was later used extensively against the Japanese mainland cities. [update comment: those quotes are from Peter's blog, not that M69 Wiki page!]

 

Wuhan was a Japanese hub in WWII, and a launch pad for Operation Ichi-Go, which is important not so much for the eventual outcome of the war but for the turn of events that allowed the Chinese communists to gain against the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China; some have said that 'the impact Ichi-Go had on the political situation in China was as important to the post-war world order as Operation Overlord'.

Update 20:37: not - but almost - forgetting that today is one year on: "January 23rd, is the day, in 2020, when the world changed as China first implemented in Wuhan the novel public health policy that has come to define the COVID-19 pandemic."

Obedible over oppressive obstrictions...

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A quote for you to guess the orator; the home truth about where we are going (as admitted below)

"The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it."

Guess who? And boy are we imitating at a rate nobody expected. 

What a year..."Today on Lockdown Sceptics we mark a year to the day since the world changed forever."

"On February 21st, 2020 the Government of Italy did something no Western Government had ever done before. Something that the World Health Organisation had expressly recommended against only four months earlier."

The rest as they say, is history. Professor Neil Ferguson gave an extraordinary interview in which he and SAGE (you know...those multi failure 'experts') highlighted the "innovative intervention" [Unherd, great comments on there] of an overbearing totalitarian state, we are heading the same way. 

"[China] is a communist one party state, we said. We couldn’t get away with it in Europe, we thought… and then Italy did it. And we realised we could."

Back to LS: "Our best hope is that in time the lesson will be learned that we must never do this again, and next time must be different – we must not panic but must stick to the pre-prepared plan." *

Never, ever. But you know it'll be what? One year, two? Five at the most: they will not give this sort of power back. Not unless they are forced to. 

The past is never dead. It's not even past: ."the appeal of totalitarian ideologies is their ability to present a clear idea that promises protection from insecurity and danger... ...These ideas are fictional and the success of totalitarianism hinges on the regime’s ability to effectively obscure the distinctions between reality and fiction. One way this is accomplished is through propaganda.", reviewing Hannah Arendt: put in a modern context the parallels are scary as hell: 

"totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within"

You have to 'not see' the Nazi and Soviet uniforms etc, just see the COVID cultism. Even before the global pandemic (which ended in May) younger generations were losing the ability to communicate face to face, now with unnecessary and sinister mask-wearing, social distancing etc., personal relationships are fewer and far between. Fodder to be manipulated. The concentration camp guards of the future. The isolation may have started with the social media explosion but is being finished by weak politicians - manipulated (or perhaps eager) to follow a course at speed despite seeing the approaching crash - power-crazed socialist ‘experts’** and an eager, complicit, lying media. 

* The UK's pandemic plan from 2011...assumed 315,000 deaths (x3 Covid), but advised against masks, closing schools, businesses, and mass quarantine. [Tweet] [UK Gov PDF]

** experts with benefits.

A couple more quotes to finish with. How it begins:

"If you say no to your boss, or your spouse, or your mother, when it needs to be said, then you transform yourself into someone who can say no when it needs to be said. If you say yes when no needs to be said, however, you transform yourself into someone who can only say yes, even when it is clearly time to say no. If you ever wonder how perfectly ordinary, decent people could find themselves doing the terrible things the gulag camp guards did, you now have your answer. By the time no seriously needed to be said, there was no one left capable of saying it."

Jordan Peterson

And the classic, so true:

"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it."

― George Orwell

Obedible over oppressive obstrictions...

---

A quote for you to guess the orator; the home truth about where we are going (as admitted below)

"The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it."

Guess who? And boy are we imitating at a rate nobody expected. 

What a year..."Today on Lockdown Sceptics we mark a year to the day since the world changed forever."

"On February 21st, 2020 the Government of Italy did something no Western Government had ever done before. Something that the World Health Organisation had expressly recommended against only four months earlier."

The rest as they say, is history. Professor Neil Ferguson gave an extraordinary interview in which he and SAGE (you know...those multi failure 'experts') highlighted the "innovative intervention" [Unherd, great comments on there] of an overbearing totalitarian state, we are heading the same way. 

"[China] is a communist one party state, we said. We couldn’t get away with it in Europe, we thought… and then Italy did it. And we realised we could."

Back to LS: "Our best hope is that in time the lesson will be learned that we must never do this again, and next time must be different – we must not panic but must stick to the pre-prepared plan." *

Never, ever. But you know it'll be what? One year, two? Five at the most: they will not give this sort of power back. Not unless they are forced to. 

The past is never dead. It's not even past: ."the appeal of totalitarian ideologies is their ability to present a clear idea that promises protection from insecurity and danger... ...These ideas are fictional and the success of totalitarianism hinges on the regime’s ability to effectively obscure the distinctions between reality and fiction. One way this is accomplished is through propaganda.", reviewing Hannah Arendt: put in a modern context the parallels are scary as hell: 

"totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within"

You have to 'not see' the Nazi and Soviet uniforms etc, just see the COVID cultism. Even before the global pandemic (which ended in May) younger generations were losing the ability to communicate face to face, now with unnecessary and sinister mask-wearing, social distancing etc., personal relationships are fewer and far between. Fodder to be manipulated. The concentration camp guards of the future. The isolation may have started with the social media explosion but is being finished by weak politicians - manipulated (or perhaps eager) to follow a course at speed despite seeing the approaching crash - power-crazed socialist ‘experts’** and an eager, complicit, lying media. 

* The UK's pandemic plan from 2011...assumed 315,000 deaths (x3 Covid), but advised against masks, closing schools, businesses, and mass quarantine. [Tweet] [UK Gov PDF]

** experts with benefits.

A couple more quotes to finish with. How it begins:

"If you say no to your boss, or your spouse, or your mother, when it needs to be said, then you transform yourself into someone who can say no when it needs to be said. If you say yes when no needs to be said, however, you transform yourself into someone who can only say yes, even when it is clearly time to say no. If you ever wonder how perfectly ordinary, decent people could find themselves doing the terrible things the gulag camp guards did, you now have your answer. By the time no seriously needed to be said, there was no one left capable of saying it."

Jordan Peterson

And the classic, so true:

"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it."

― George Orwell

Outing obsequious oriental obedientiaries...

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This from the USA but one presumes we have the same problem in the UK and Europe:

"Professors around America have been caught selling secret research to the Chinese Communist Regime. The national media won't cover it..."

And there are more than a few! See Cabot Phillip's Twitter feed for details or easier to read in Thread Reader HERE.



In the UK our vile media is turning into the what the USA is having to put up with, think BBC = CNN and you won't be far wrong except in the UK the public are FORCED to pay for the biased BBC. Here we currently have the Remainer-run Dominic Cummings witchhunt where the bubble and blob are really freaking out: over there, Cabot writes

"We had almost zero evidence of foreign interference in our elections, and half the country freaked out. Now, we have endless evidence of foreign interference on our campuses, and no one is batting an eye."

He adds that "People on campus are afraid to question China's influence efforts for fear of being labeled xenophobic or racist." Sure, but they will also be concerned they'll lose their funding: think of similar to the Arabian Islamic paid influence in many UK and European Universties, but x 10.

Outing obsequious oriental obedientiaries...

---

This from the USA but one presumes we have the same problem in the UK and Europe:

"Professors around America have been caught selling secret research to the Chinese Communist Regime. The national media won't cover it..."

And there are more than a few! See Cabot Phillip's Twitter feed for details or easier to read in Thread Reader HERE.

In the UK our vile media is turning into the what the USA is having to put up with, think BBC = CNN and you won't be far wrong except in the UK the public are FORCED to pay for the biased BBC. Here we currently have the Remainer-run Dominic Cummings witchhunt where the bubble and blob are really freaking out: over there, Cabot writes

"We had almost zero evidence of foreign interference in our elections, and half the country freaked out. Now, we have endless evidence of foreign interference on our campuses, and no one is batting an eye."

He adds that "People on campus are afraid to question China's influence efforts for fear of being labeled xenophobic or racist." Sure, but they will also be concerned they'll lose their funding: think of similar to the Arabian Islamic paid influence in many UK and European Universties, but x 10.

Overtly open operators II...

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Following on from the previous post: 'Why May put Huawei before security', by Bruce Newsome writing at Conservative Woman:

"Here is where the Huawei scandal links back to a larger scandal of machinations to favour the EU over the US, to favour macro-economic vanity over national security, to favour authoritarianism over democracy.

Huawei is already embedded in Britain’s elite..." [...]

..."So there you have the full sordid web of anti-American interests, inter-personal backstabbing, civil service authoritarianism, weak premiership, and economic corruption that make this government put Huawei before security. May’s government is sacrificing national security, the special relationship, and Brexit in favour of Chinese money and EU integration."

A worrying trend in all this is that the UK's unaccountable civil servants - mainly rabid EUphiles are being given far too much power and can pretty much do as they please: Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill being the latest example leading to the sacking of Defence Secretary, Gavin Williamson over the leak of the National Security Council’s decision re Huawei. Sedwill actually sits on the same NSC so that decision stinks too! Treason May is enabling this abuse of power to the nth degree, we saw it re the Chequers debacle, the Withdrawal agreement itself, various other sackings (the Priti Patel ousting too) which entirely coincidentally see pro-Brexit ministers replaced with Remain stooges.



Update: Mark Wallace's take is well worth a read: "Risking our security. Risking our alliances. Opening our infrastructure up to China is a risk too far."

Overtly open operators II...

---

Following on from the previous post: 'Why May put Huawei before security', by Bruce Newsome writing at Conservative Woman:

"Here is where the Huawei scandal links back to a larger scandal of machinations to favour the EU over the US, to favour macro-economic vanity over national security, to favour authoritarianism over democracy.

Huawei is already embedded in Britain’s elite..." [...]

..."So there you have the full sordid web of anti-American interests, inter-personal backstabbing, civil service authoritarianism, weak premiership, and economic corruption that make this government put Huawei before security. May’s government is sacrificing national security, the special relationship, and Brexit in favour of Chinese money and EU integration."

A worrying trend in all this is that the UK's unaccountable civil servants - mainly rabid EUphiles are being given far too much power and can pretty much do as they please: Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill being the latest example leading to the sacking of Defence Secretary, Gavin Williamson over the leak of the National Security Council’s decision re Huawei. Sedwill actually sits on the same NSC so that decision stinks too! Treason May is enabling this abuse of power to the nth degree, we saw it re the Chequers debacle, the Withdrawal agreement itself, various other sackings (the Priti Patel ousting too) which entirely coincidentally see pro-Brexit ministers replaced with Remain stooges.

Update: Mark Wallace's take is well worth a read: "Risking our security. Risking our alliances. Opening our infrastructure up to China is a risk too far."

Overtly open operators...

---

Are you listening Mrs May? Away with you; Huawei with you. Don't take your treason over Brexit to even higher levels by selling our security down the river: I can't believe you (and the Coalition and Cameron before you) and your dumb-arse advisors knew nothing of this. "Vodafone Found Hidden Backdoors in Huawei Equipment". "Europe’s biggest phone company identified hidden backdoors in the software that could have given Huawei unauthorized access to the carrier’s fixed-line network in Italy..."[Bloomberg]

Although this was several years ago and was promised to be fixed, nothing was done.The UK further risks being alienated from our closest allies, 5 Eyes and the Angloshere by such debilitating actions; another reason to get free from the EU and the over-reliance on Huawei: "[it] is simply too important to Europe's telecoms infrastructure. Spurning Huawei would put Europe at risk of falling behind the US and China in the race to build out 5G infrastructure."

"Vodafone asked Huawei to remove backdoors in home internet routers in 2011 and received assurances from the supplier that the issues were fixed, but further testing revealed that the security vulnerabilities remained, the documents show. Vodafone also identified backdoors in parts of its fixed-access network known as optical service nodes, which are responsible for transporting internet traffic over optical fibers, and other parts called broadband network gateways, which handle subscriber authentication and access to the internet, the people said. The people asked not to be identified because the matter was confidential."

Hat-tip: ZeroHedge

Overtly open operators...

---

Are you listening Mrs May? Away with you; Huawei with you. Don't take your treason over Brexit to even higher levels by selling our security down the river: I can't believe you (and the Coalition and Cameron before you) and your dumb-arse advisors knew nothing of this. "Vodafone Found Hidden Backdoors in Huawei Equipment". "Europe’s biggest phone company identified hidden backdoors in the software that could have given Huawei unauthorized access to the carrier’s fixed-line network in Italy..."[Bloomberg]

Although this was several years ago and was promised to be fixed, nothing was done.The UK further risks being alienated from our closest allies, 5 Eyes and the Angloshere by such debilitating actions; another reason to get free from the EU and the over-reliance on Huawei: "[it] is simply too important to Europe's telecoms infrastructure. Spurning Huawei would put Europe at risk of falling behind the US and China in the race to build out 5G infrastructure."

"Vodafone asked Huawei to remove backdoors in home internet routers in 2011 and received assurances from the supplier that the issues were fixed, but further testing revealed that the security vulnerabilities remained, the documents show. Vodafone also identified backdoors in parts of its fixed-access network known as optical service nodes, which are responsible for transporting internet traffic over optical fibers, and other parts called broadband network gateways, which handle subscriber authentication and access to the internet, the people said. The people asked not to be identified because the matter was confidential."

Hat-tip: ZeroHedge