Why people in Hong Kong don’t let the government know of their positive Covid test results. (Basically, they’re not stupid.)
You couldn’t have thought, as 2022 began, that Carrie Lam’s administration still had much more credibility to lose – but oh boy did they find ways to do it. In the last few days I’ve gone from being skeptical that a serious or semi-serious lockdown will happen, to less sure, and now back to cautious doubt that it’ll happen (give or take some light symbolic theatrics).
Latest indication: the Mainland health expert seconded to Hong Kong sounds humble (that is, no mouth-frothing rants demanding lockdowns). Government mouthpiece RTHK reports skepticism from local medics. Science reports signs that Chinese officials are looking beyond zero-Covid.
(Loads of useful HKFP Covid coverage, including info on transport arrangements, here.)
Some weekend reading…
Latest on Hong Kong as tech-hub – a Mainland tech-game company with a Mongkok address operates one of the world’s biggest Bible apps…
Many user actions on the KJV bible app, including pressing the “Amen” button, will lead to pop-up video ads.
Wish I’d thought of it!
Good discussion of Beijing’s future strategy following Ukraine invasion…
China is likely also shocked to watch Western countries butcher 🇷🇺’s economy & isolate 🇷🇺 government. It probably swears never to allow this happen on itself.
Russian chess king (therefore gifted strategist?) and longtime Putin-dissenter Gary Kasparov on what the West should do in Ukraine.
For some light relief, check out Noah Verrier – an artist who does still lifes of such items as hamburgers and jelly beans.
And a three-minute dummy’s guide to the evolutionary, historic and economic theories for male supremacy…
I have condensed the entire literature on the origins of patriarchy into 10 hypotheses.
” It probably swears never to allow this happen on itself.”
It’s really good at doing that. I mean, saying that it won’t let it happen.
This wouldn’t be the world chess champion Gary Kasparov who publicly supports the idea that Jesus was crucified in Turkey around 1200 AD, that Carbon-14 dating is bunk, and that the Vatican, Holy Roman Empire and the House of Romanov were involved in a global conspiracy to suppress world history, would it?
Yes it would!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_chronology_(Fomenko)#Popularity_in_forums_and_amongst_Russian_imperialists
@reductio – Yeah, yeah.. but he’s pretty sound when it comes to Putin and his mob.
Re the Tong Zhao twitter thread:
This is infused with CCP propaganda. For instance:
(1) The line now being trotted out by chinabots that the CCP was “surprised” by the invasion. Total BS. Xi greenlit the whole thing, as long as it happened after the Genocide Games.
(2) The assertion that China wants better relations with the West but questions the West’s “commitment”. LOL. I don’t have to elaborate on this blog.
We must not forget China in all this. Russia bad, but China even more so.
@HKJC Irregular
Yes, he’s a solid guy in my eyes, and he was putting himself in danger by opposing Putin. But how come such a clever bloke can believe such utterly ridiculous claptrap which is even more bonkers than we-didn’t-go-to-the-Moon ludicrousity. The human mind never ceases to amaze.
@reductio: Geniuses in one field have a common tendency to believe that their intelligence makes them immune to being wrong about anything. They are too arrogant to notice when they go off the rails. See: Ben Carson, world leading heart surgeon, believes kooky things about the pyramids, embraces fake Covid cures.
“The human mind never ceases to amaze.”
Indeed. Isaac Newton spent more time working on Alchemy and trying to turn lead into gold than on the laws of motion.
Yes, next week can be worse. The only common sense seems to be coming from Zhong Nanshan who says vaccination has to be the focus and then looking beyong covid. Let’s cross our fingers, on all fronts.
@reductio – the really clever blokes are the ones who make a fortune from peddling ridiculous claptrap – like L Ron Hubbard.
One wonders why politicians put themselves in charge of medical problems and then threaten the population which disgraces itself by not obeying.