Hua Guofang

Oh Russia, you're just so..., Russian! Three Russian doctors fall from hospital windows, raising questions amid coronavirus pandemic By Mary Ilyushina, CNN https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/04/europe/russia-medical-workers-windows-intl/index.html Updated 2233 GMT (0633 HKT) May 4, 2020 Moscow (CNN)Three frontline health care workers have mysteriously fallen out of hospital windows in Russia over the past two weeks, heightening public attention to the working conditions for doctors and medical professionals amid the coronavirus pandemic. Two of those health care workers are dead, and one remains hospitalized. All three incidents, which are being investigated by Russian law enforcement authorities, have prompted intense discussion in the Russian press and on social media. Alexander Shulepov, an ambulance doctor in Voronezh, a city about 320 miles south of Moscow, is in serious condition after falling from a hospital window on Saturday. Local state television, citing regional health officials, said he fell out of second-floor window of the Novousmanskaya hospital, where he worked and was receiving treatment after testing positive for coronavirus. Shulepov was hospitalized for coronavirus on April 22, the same day he and his colleague Alexander Kosyakin posted a video online saying that Shulepov had been forced to continue working after testing positive for coronavirus. Kosyakin had previously criticized hospital administration for protective gear shortages on his social media and was questioned by the police for allegedly spreading fake news. Kosyakin confirmed these details to CNN in an interview. "[Shulepov] is an intensive care unit, as far as I know in a serious condition, last time I spoke to him was on the 30th of April, we checked in with each other," Kosyakin told CNN. "He felt fine, he was getting ready to get discharged from the hospital ... and all of a sudden this happened, it's not clear why and what for, so many questions that I don't even have the answer to." Police have not responded to CNN's request for comment. The Novousmanskaya hospital said in a statement that Shulepov had been taken off a shift as soon as he informed the hospital administration about his positive diagnosis and was offered hospitalization in the infectious diseases ward. Three days later, Shulepov retracted his previous statements, saying that in his video with Kosyakin he was "overwhelmed by emotions." The second video Shulepov recorded featured Igor Potanin, the head doctor of the Novousmanskaya hospital, who said his medical staff has enough protective equipment. "I spoke about this to the department's employees: I won't let anyone go to outpatients or inpatients if we don't have enough means of protection, I told them I'd go myself there, but I will not send anyone," Potanin said. Shulepov was the third health worker in Russia to fall out of a window in the past two weeks. On May 1, Elena Nepomnyashchaya, the acting head doctor of a hospital in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, died after spending a week in intensive care, the regional department of the Health Ministry said in a statement. Local TV station TVK Krasnoyarsk reported at the time that Nepomnyashchaya allegedly fell out of a window during a meeting with regional health officials, during which they discussed turning the clinic into a coronavirus facility. Nepomnyashchaya was reported to have opposed those changes due to the lack of protective gear in the hospital. The Health Ministry's regional health department denied the allegations in a statement, adding that the hospital is in "reserve" for coronavirus patients and its staff has been trained and equipped. The hospital did not respond to CNN's requests for comment. On April 24, Natalya Lebedeva, head of the emergency medical service at Star City, the main training base for Russia's cosmonauts, died in a hospital after a fall. The hospital within the Federal Biomedical Agency, which says it treated her for suspected coronavirus, released a statement that "a tragic accident" occurred, without elaborating. The hospital did not respond to CNN's request for comment. In the statement, the hospital said, "She was a true professional in her field, saving human lives every day!"

Inspirational.

Little doubt that this was a deliberate leak by the CCP to shape thinking in Washington and the capitals of its allies: Exclusive: Internal Chinese report warns Beijing faces Tiananmen-like global backlash over virus https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-sentiment-ex/exclusive-internal-chinese-report-warns-beijing-faces-tiananmen-like-global-backlash-over-virus-idUSKBN22G19C BEIJING (Reuters) - An internal Chinese report warns that Beijing faces a rising wave of hostility in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that could tip relations with the United States into confrontation, people familiar with the paper told Reuters. The report, presented early last month by the Ministry of State Security to top Beijing leaders including President Xi Jinping, concluded that global anti-China sentiment is at its highest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, the sources said. As a result, Beijing faces a wave of anti-China sentiment led by the United States in the aftermath of the pandemic and needs to be prepared in a worst-case scenario for armed confrontation between the two global powers, according to people familiar with the report’s content, who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter. The report was drawn up by the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of State Security, China’s top intelligence body. Reuters has not seen the briefing paper, but it was described by people who had direct knowledge of its findings. “I don’t have relevant information,” the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson’s office said in a statement responding to questions from Reuters on the report. China’s Ministry of State Security has no public contact details and could not be reached for comment. CICIR, an influential think tank that until 1980 was within the Ministry of State Security and advises the Chinese government on foreign and security policy, did not reply to a request for comment. Reuters couldn’t determine to what extent the stark assessment described in the paper reflects positions held by China’s state leaders, and to what extent, if at all, it would influence policy. But the presentation of the report shows how seriously Beijing takes the threat of a building backlash that could threaten what China sees as its strategic investments overseas and its view of its security standing. Relations between China and the United States are widely seen to be at their worst point in decades, with deepening mistrust and friction points from U.S. allegations of unfair trade and technology practices to disputes over Hong Kong, Taiwan and contested territories in the South China Sea. In recent days, U.S. President Donald Trump, facing a more difficult re-election campaign as the coronavirus has claimed tens of thousands of American lives and ravaged the U.S. economy, has been ramping up his criticism of Beijing and threatening new tariffs on China. His administration, meanwhile, is considering retaliatory measures against China over the outbreak, officials said. It is widely believed in Beijing that the United States wants to contain a rising China, which has become more assertive globally as its economy has grown. The paper concluded that Washington views China’s rise as an economic and national security threat and a challenge to Western democracies, the people said. The report also said the United States was aiming to undercut the ruling Communist Party by undermining public confidence. Chinese officials had a “special responsibility” to inform their people and the world of the threat posed by the coronavirus “since they were the first to learn of it,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in response to questions from Reuters. Without directly addressing the assessment made in the Chinese report, Ortagus added: “Beijing’s efforts to silence scientists, journalists, and citizens and spread disinformation exacerbated the dangers of this health crisis.” A spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council declined to comment. REPERCUSSIONS The report described to Reuters warned that anti-China sentiment sparked by the coronavirus could fuel resistance to China’s Belt and Road infrastructure investment projects, and that Washington could step up financial and military support for regional allies, making the security situation in Asia more volatile. Three decades ago, in the aftermath of Tiananmen, the United States and many Western governments imposed sanctions against China including banning or restricting arms sales and technology transfers. China is far more powerful nowadays. Xi has revamped China’s military strategy to create a fighting force equipped to win modern wars. He is expanding China’s air and naval reach in a challenge to more than 70 years of U.S. military dominance in Asia. In its statement, China’s foreign ministry called for cooperation, saying, “the sound and steady development of China-U.S. relations” serve the interests of both countries and the international community. It added: “any words or actions that engage in political manipulation or stigmatization under the pretext of the pandemic, including taking the opportunity to sow discord between countries, are not conducive to international cooperation against the pandemic.” COLD WAR ECHOES One of those with knowledge of the report said it was regarded by some in the Chinese intelligence community as China’s version of the “Novikov Telegram”, a 1946 dispatch by the Soviet ambassador to Washington, Nikolai Novikov, that stressed the dangers of U.S. economic and military ambition in the wake of World War Two. Novikov’s missive was a response to U.S. diplomat George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” from Moscow that said the Soviet Union did not see the possibility for peaceful coexistence with the West, and that containment was the best long-term strategy. The two documents helped set the stage for the strategic thinking that defined both sides of the Cold War. China has been accused by the United States of suppressing early information on the virus, which was first detected in the central city of Wuhan, and downplaying its risks. Beijing has repeatedly denied that it covered up the extent or severity of the virus outbreak. China has managed to contain domestic spread of the virus and has been trying to assert a leading role in the global battle against COVID-19. That has included a propaganda push around its donations and sale of medical supplies to the United States and other countries and sharing of expertise. But China faces a growing backlash from critics who have called to hold Beijing accountable for its role in the pandemic. Trump has said he will cut off funding for the World Health Organization (WHO), which he called “very China-centric,” something WHO officials have denied. Australia’s government has called for an international investigation into the origins and spread of the virus. Last month, France summoned China’s ambassador to protest a publication on the website of China’s embassy that criticized Western handling of coronavirus. The virus has so far infected more than 3 million people globally and caused more than 200,000 deaths, according to a Reuters tally.

Familiar with all of them but Florida. All others are still on the market, as far as I know.

Just found out a family friend in Wuhan died. He was a math teacher that helped poor and troubled kids get an education. He had liver cancer. When the virus hit there were not enough resources available to continue his treatment, he was sent home to die. This is an example of how those who think it's an individual choice for people to put themselves in harms way don't seem to grasp the concept of contagion and that resources to treat the sick and injured are limited. Don't be a selfish arsehole, blinded by absolutist ideology. Your actions have consequences beyond yourself.

I'm sure that there a multiple layers of culture at work as well, but the Chinese people have been conditioned in what to believe for a very long time, well before the CCP turned up. Confucianism is essentially telling adherents to defer to your better - children to mother, mother to husband...., etc. emperor to heaven in order to create harmony and the one that breaks that harmony is the problem. Their idea of justice or fairness is that the weak don't tell the strong what to do, and the strong should be just in using their power. That's a very, very crude summary, but it shows that those down the line are to accept what their told. The CCP just carry that fine tradition to a brutal extreme. I married into China and we don't discuss politics or anything even close with that side of the family. There's no point and there are real risks. However, I have some friends, some just normal people, some less so, that are independent thinkers, given the families they grew up in. They are no idiots; bright, clever, modern and very nice people. Xinjiang, just another crime against humanity that we'll collectively say "never again" to and then turn our back until it's time to say "never again" again. Although, I work with a group of people who work hard on the issue to bring light to it, not so much as an act against the CCP but due to the horror, the loss of culture, to help the innocent and to 'do the right thing'. China isn't a nation, it's a Han empire that takes in many ethnicities and their homelands, such as Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang, etc. Anthropologists will tell you that Guangdong and other parts of China's south are, in terms of language, food, traditions, cultures, etc. are more closely related to Vietnam and Southeast Asia than they are to Han CHina.

When I say that they are damaging US nat sec, I refer only to Epoch Times, not FG as a whole. FG have perpetual protests outside the Chinese embassy and consulates here in Australia (at least they used to, haven't checked for quite a while but I saw one dude doing his thing outside the embassy the other week) and used to have a full setup in China town. We had a Chinese diplomatic staffer, essentially a spy, defect to Australia years ago because of what he was made to do regards tracking and documenting FG in Australia. And the organ harvesting, all indications point towards that it is still happening, they've just hidden it more deeply since being internationally called out (and jailing some scapegoats). How is Epoch Times harming US national security? By publishing wild conspiracy theories about deep state activities to take out Trump, by publishing "special investigations" into the Meuller probe by people who's stated agenda is to support Trump and that are connected to the Qanon conspiracies, etc. etc. They're basically undermining the US intelligence community, the DoJ (excepting Barr), the FBI and the ODNI on behalf of Trump because they say things that he doesn't like, such as that the Russians interfered in the 2016 elections. They're essentially playing the same role as the Russians did, sowing doubt, distrust and unrest in ways that support Trump, as opposed to supporting the public interest. There are a lot of whistles to be blown on the IC (2003 for starters), the FBI, DoJ, etc. they are far from perfect, as is the system in general. But Epoch Times has an agenda other than finding the truth. Their agenda is to assist in manufacturing a truth that supports Trump, regardless. Their aim is to unseat the CCP and it seems that they don't mind if they harm US social cohesion and trust in institutions as a result.

Whoa! Who the fuck called them terrorists??! Yeah, I'm well aware of who they are (lived and worked in China as a security analyst for years, half my family are Chinese, there are people close to me, in China that have been involved with FG) and I'm aware of why the CCP doesn't like them and you've missed the main reason why the CCP doesn't like them - foreign funding is almost irrelevant. Any authoritarian state does not allow potential competitors or any organisation that people hold in higher regard than their govt. That is why the CCP attacks any religion and unions that are not CCP controlled (among many other similar orgs). The CCP doesn't want any group to become organised enough that it can move against it, and that's what FG was. The Party had no idea how deep FG had progressed in Chinese society and that there were senior Party, police and military members that were FGers. The Party started pushing back and one day around 10,000 FGers surrounded Zhongnanhai (the CCP compound next to Forbidden City) and held hands in peaceful protest. None of the Party intelligence or policing apparatuses saw this coming and FG's ability to organise en masse, in the capital, against the Party's wishes were monumental shock to the Party leaders and brought back memories of June 4 1989. Their response was to demonise FG and to destroy them. They succeeded in demonising them to the majority of Chinese nationals but they didn't destroy them and the world, largely sees them as a kooky sect that do breathing exercises. (yes, I know what qigong is) I don't have a problem with FG, I see them as harmless and I see the CCP as the problem. However, that does not change the facts that Epoch Times have gone full retard with MAGA/Qanon because they think Trump is their best bet against the Party (which shows an astonishing lack of judgement on their part). They now print articles which are damaging to US national interests and national security, which, I believe, shows how short-sighted their thinking is. And regards to you suggesting that I repeat Party lines, you have no idea how uninformed that idea is.

If you see a Chinese dance theatre show called Shen Yun, that's also Falun Gong. Don't think it's the same people that do Epoch Times, I think it's a money making venture more than anything, not completely sure though.

Yeah, Epoch Times is Falun Gong. It's their international rag that attacks the CCP. It used to be useful to read in terms of another voice documenting some part of China's existence from a non-censored source, but they have gone off the rails recently. Their owners believe that Trump is the best chance for them to dethrone the CCP so they've gone all in MAGA/Qanon. Some of the shit they've printed is ultra-loony and might as well have come straight from St Petersberg or 8Kun. Regards the 21 million phones accounts that disappeared, there are other plausible explanations for that than just them getting CV19 and dying. I believe that in China, those that run afoul of the CCP censors often have their mobile accounts closed, as part of the censorship. Those numbers referred to in that article may have been accounts that were deleted when the CCP were trying to get a hold of the public narrative around the outbreak.

If I can find that clip you can watch it and we can go from there. It's a while since I watched it and I can't recall all the points that were addressed off the top of my head. But I recall that the journo who dug through it all covered the points that his parents raised and showed them all to be inaccurate. Maybe the issue of the agents being charged were addressed and maybe they weren't, I can't specifically recall. @Kultscan you recall which thread you posted that clip in?

Those claims, which are made by his parents, not an objective investigator, have been debunked. @Kultsposted a good clip that went through all that stuff a few months back.

HAhaha, fucking what? We just gonna ignore the fact that he tried to have people killed?

Life imitates anime ^^^^^ Interesting piece, not sure I agree or disagree, but no doubt that the world is at inflection point Is this the Kindleberger moment? Peter Layton Covid-19 exposes a power vacuum where exceptionalism and tinfoil hat conspiracy theories go hand in hand. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/kindleberger-moment In 1973 Charles Kindleberger wrote his now acclaimed book on the Great Depression. He argued that it was “great” because the global economic system had lost its hegemon – in less exotic terms, its system manager. In the interwar period, the UK was the system manager, but given the grievous financial damage inflicted by the First World War, it could not fully play the role. The US became the new pretender, yet domestic politics meant it would not step up and take control. The upshot was that there was no one running the system, no banker of last resort to provide liquidity at the moment the world needed it most. The depression became “Great”. Chaos ruled. For want of a better term, this could be where we are now, at the Kindleberger moment. Charles Krauthammer at the end of the Cold War famously wrote of the unipolar moment, when America stood like a colossus on the world stage. Today’s Kindleberger moment may be when America forfeits that role and becomes a lesser state, observing the world around it, rather than leading it. Domestically, the Trump administration appears to have handled the Covid-19 pandemic poorly. In an environment of limitless confusion, the president seems to have ceded control, allowing the 50 states to take the lead individually amid a national emergency that has claimed 50,000 American lives in less than six weeks. Reflecting this leadership withdrawal, two new regional governance blocs have emerged: the West Coast Pact comprising California, Oregon and Washington State, and the Multi-State Council comprising Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Rhode Island. The Trump administration’s dismantling of the “deep state” appears to have been successful. Turns out, it was more shallow and fragile than expected. The federal government is now fading from view. For middle powers and smaller states the fragmentation of the international system means we should all now plan on being “home alone”. This decline is nowhere more evident than internationally. In previous global emergencies – financial or medical – the US has taken charge and successfully led global efforts. With the “deep state” dead, and an inward focused presidency, the US has now lost that capacity. As a counterargument, some will say the US military remains world-leading. In technical terms, that may be so, but militaries are extensions of government, not the government. With federal administrations collapsing, America’s national armed forces become less important, even if each state’s National Guard becomes more so. This disintegration was underscored in the truly extraordinary dismissal of the captain of USS Theodore Roosevelt, who on 30 March raised concerns about Covid-19 infections on his aircraft carrier. Three days later, he was fired by the acting secretary of the navy, Thomas Modly, a political appointee of President Donald Trump. Modly subsequently resigned after sustained pressure from Democratic lawmakers. For a Kindleberger moment to occur, though, it is not just about the old system manager leaving the stage, it is also about the pretender not materialising when summoned. If the Trump administration has flaws, so too has Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party. Of course, authoritarian regimes lack moral foundations, and that is to be expected. However, China’s deliberate concealment of early Covid-19 infection rates is remarkable. Moreover, in continuing to actively spread Russian-led conspiracy theories, and in refusing to accept some level of responsibility for Covid-19 deaths and worldwide disruption, China’s global standing is in freefall. With astounding chutzpah, the Party is now sending aid and selling medical equipment to the very nations its inaction has sickened, all the while vociferously claiming credit for being a good citizen of the world. Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party does not have the credentials to be the new system manager. With both superpowers withdrawing by default, the international system is now captain-less. Some may say this is a good thing, but the pandemic highlights the dangers. There is now no one to stave off a repeat, and financial crashes reappear with some regularity in the contemporary capitalist system. In the absence of a competent and widely accepted system manager it is chaos, not stability, which acts as proxy. For middle powers and smaller states, the fragmentation of the international system means we should all now plan on being “home alone” and anticipate that problems requiring global solutions will go unaddressed. The big one already inbound is not the next pandemic or economic collapse, but global warming. The world is at +1C and heading to +3C by 2070. If China and the US have left the stage, then middle powers and smaller states are in serious long-term trouble. All that sounds gloomy – and it is – but the Kindleberger moment is a choice. It is not pre-ordained. Joe Biden might win the presidency in November. However, with US politicians using social fragmentation to win office, far-right media exploiting such fragmentation for commercial gain, and Russia abetting both, the odds are at best mixed. On the other hand, the Chinese Communist Party may reform itself, ditch its new leader, and return to its liberalising (but not liberal) manifestation of 2000–2010. Sadly, that scenario seems improbable. This could indeed be the Kindleberger moment.

Yeah, I think the term 'ruling class' is the key term and to a large degree, I agree. Europe and parts of Asia still have royal families that are born into privilege and wealth, but they are not necessarily 'ruling' when there are governments and parliamentary systems around them and the royals (theoretically) are subject to the same laws as everyone else. However, as you've notioned towards, there are some countries where ruling classes still exist, Thailand is one - speaking against the monarchy is an offence that receives long prison terms. Cambodia still has a royal family as does MAlaysia and the Malaysians still get involved in politics - they were just part of the engineering that had Mahatir removed from the PM's office. Same with Nepal and a number of other countries we can rattle off where the royal families are still politically powerful. China is an interesting one as you have the 'princelings', these are the families of the leading revolutionaries that won the war in 1949. Xi Jinping is a princeling. However, whilst they are ultra-powerful and have access to resources that we can barely imagine, they are no absolute as there is the Tuanpai - the Party youth league and the Shanghai faction that battle for power (Hu Jintao, the previous Gen Sec was from the Tuanpai) and being a princeling won't always save you. Bo Xilai, the son of one of the immortal 8, who was gunning for power, is spending the rest of his days in prison because he lost the power battle with Xi. There are also the European monarchies that still exist in many countries, but I don't think they are part of politics so much these days. Then there are the old money families like the Rockefeller family, the Koch's and similar folk such as them. As to how much they influence politics, I don't really know, but it would seem naive to think that they don't. Interesting discussion, never really thought about this much.

I'm sure y'all have seen them but there are studies that look at the recorded deaths for cities/countries, removes the CV19 deaths and finds that there are pretty huge increases in deaths over expected averages. There's a possibility that the numbers of fatalities might actually rise in time to come. It all just goes to the point that this is a novel virus and that there is still a lot of unkowns.

Yeah, it's a bit confusing as they're using the code U07.1 for CV19 deaths but there are two columns with that code, which added together are around 55,000. I'm not sure if the J12.0 /J18.9/U07.1 column is part of what makes up the U07.1 or if they are calculated separately. Also, my understanding was that it's not actually the CV19 that kills you, it's the pneumonia or something else, similar to the way AIDS worked. I could be totally off on that, though.

MAte, I don't mean to sound like a prick, but there is so much in here that is just wildly wrong. Trump shut down travel between China - No he did not, Check the facts. I already described how he only shut down entry by Chinese nationals. He didn't say that Americans returning from China had to be tested and put in quarantine for 14 days. So all those Americans coming back from ground zero just walked on in, no different than a Chinese national would have, and infected people within the US. Trump was bashed by the Media - so what? Is his job to lead the country or to chase headlines? Every president gets bashed by the media and the opposition, it's completely irrelevant to him carrying out his job to protect the lives of US citizens. The most effective thing that could have been done early on - I'm sorry, but this is where I just start to shake my head. Read my first response, people who had very high chance of being infected were still waltzing into the country without testing or quarantine. The shutdown for people from Europe was way too late, etc. etc. CDC and other folk should be dismissed, etc. - See, this is where it becomes a waste of time writing these posts because you just ignore what's been said. Trump disbanded the orgs in the NSC and DHS that were specifically set up to respond to pandemic threat. He defunded the CDC by a significant chunk. Trump also did NOT follow the guidance he was given by the CDC. Why is that their fault? Masks, CDC, WHO, MSM and what should have happened - The mask issue is a huge red herring. You wear masks only when the initial response has failed to reduce widescale infection and community transmission has taken hold. Shutting down us much international travel as possible AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE, testing and quarantining everyone who comes into the country, mass testing and contact tracing right at the very start, closing down the cities where there are communal transmissions, ban large gatherings, close churches, movie cinemas, etc., large-scale roll out of science led information campaigns about social distancing, hygiene, etc. etc. These are the things that should have been done right away, that were not. The mask issue is meaningless when held against these measures. De Blasio fucked New York by responding too slowly, Seattle is a success case as it responded quickly, shut things down and followed the CDC playbook. Trump did the opposite of what he needed to do at the national level. The seriousness of the outbreak was played down by Trump for a month, there was no funding sorted out for the response until way too late to ramp up on testing, tracing, rolling out PPE where needed, info campaigns, etc. He even held large fucking rallies to try and show that he wasn't concerned about the virus, FFS!! And he didn't shut down international travel until way too late and when he did, he did so in a way that was completely ineffective. His roll was preparing the nation as best as possible for a pandemic, when it occurred he needed to act to stop the virus getting into the country as much as he could and then he needed to support the states to deal with things at the local level - all this needs to happen first, it's the immediate response and everything that happens at the local level happens second in the sequence of events. Trump did none of this. Seriously, Trump actively encouraged travel at the start of the outbreak, he actively made things worse. Localities and the President - sure, carrying out large scale events was stupid, as mentioned, there are great comparrisons between NYC and Seattle, which show the difference between a successful and failed immediate response at the local level. 2 million emplyees in the govt, what, you think they're all virologists and emergency management people? What do people in the govt working on finance/education/infrastructure/etc have to do with responding to a pandemic?! Your comments about bureaucracy really make no sense. It's like It's like blaming the finance dept at Nike for the factories using the wrong glue on the soles of the shoes. I'm going to stop at the part where you compare the US to the EU. The US is a single nation, the EU us a number of nations under a regional agreement for somethings. I can't believe that you compare the two like they are the same. You either think you know more than you do or you are being deliberately disingenuous. Anyway, I'm not going to do anymore long discussions about this as I'm already repeating myself and it's better if I just link to the investigations, inquiries and studies that will be carried out over the coming months that I will bet my magical third testicle on that say the federal response was completely fucking botched, as were a number of local responses, including NYC.

@One Man Banned spotted tonight amongst the craftiest