How to OSINT
Friends tell the truth to each other, especially about the bad news. (Brief & Analytical)
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Word of the day: Court
Court, das Gericht, le Cour, суд, 法院, 法庭
Sadly, the wave of death continues to wash across China. How might we determine the true picture of Chinese deaths from SARS II? We can
look at satellite photos of
graveyards (before and after)
parking lots of funeral homes / crematoria
search for pictures of new construction of crematoria
search for pictures of graveyards between six months ago and now to see how much new construction has occurred; this can be stretched out over several years to compare whether the death rate is not only rising, but rising above the normal mortality rate.
search for pictures of the interiors of
hospitals
crematoria
And then try to summarize and synthesize the observations into something quantifiable for cities, regions, and then the country. Of course that is a much larger task than one person could do. What is needed is a way to distribute the work among many analysts. Basically an authoritarian surveillance state can will and does use new technologies to make authoritarianism strong and the liberal democracies likewise should use the ubiquity of smart phones to hold authoritarian regimes accountable by learning the truth despite any lies, half truths, disinformation.
Basically we can and should look for secondary indicia to see if and how many more are dying than usual, correlate and integrate the data to make at least roughly accurate and reliable measurements and likely forecasts. We might not be able to get an accurate count of the numbers of people dying but we can quickly figure out: it’s bad, very bad.
We then would try to derive conclusions: why are many Chinese people dying? Hypotheses:
The Chinese vaccines don’t work
The Chinese vaccines work, but bribes and fakes mean they don’t always work so well as they would.
The Chinese vaccines are shoddy and fail to completely inactivate the virus and thus are infecting Chinese people
We would then have to develop ways to test these hypotheses.
One key limitation on assessing the information is the language barrier. Very few Westerners speak Chinese fluently, and among them some are in fact illiterate. Machine translation only goes so far, especially if sensitive topics get seeded with intentionally bad translations by the Chinese government, and they do.
The problem of the failure of liberal internationalism to help China build an open society with freedom of speech does not necessarily mean that global trade with China will end. I argue that despite the fact China is a totalitarian dictatorship we ought keep engaging with the Chinese people economically, even as we contain China militarily. This is because China during the past 40 years has not waged a single war nor is China a sponsor of terrorism. We ought not provoke yet another Chinese civil war, with millions of dead and consequent famines but could, whether intentionally or not. The standard of living of Chinese people has grown stupendously in the past 30 years. Trying to destroy China economically as a response to its foolish foreign adventurism is disproportional, ignores the obvious progress China has made, and forecloses any chance at further legal or political reform in China: it is demonstrably impossible to democratize at gunpoint, to force “the American way of life” on people who don’t necessarily want that. If one wishes for another State to take up certain political norms and legal reforms then one must expose those ideas in their language, present their advantages clearly, and encourage the people who live there to voluntarily take up the norms and reforms you think best for them.
In any case, I argue that collective security, deterrence, and mutual trade and investment are the best guarantors of peace. Economic carrots such as trade and investment to reward reform, with military sticks to deter foolish foreign adventurism.
Bad as things are they could be so much worse. Let’s hope China gets well soon!
This article is alarmist and incorrect: Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine will conclude with Putin dead or in the docket for war crimes, and the Russian Federation, a criminal state, will be reduced to Muscovy, its constituent republics like Yakutia, Ingushtan, Dagestan, Bashkoristan, Komi, and Mari republics will become independant countries. This isn’t the outcome I wanted, but this is what happens when a gang of war criminals rapes, robs, and murders its way through the neighborhood: it gets “voted off the island”. If you don’t believe me look what happened to Germany: tragic, but so was Auschwitz. Poka, sukhiy!
France Recalls Amb. from Burkina Faso
Blitz Analysis: U.S. Gets New Ambassador to Russia. I promptly advise her to prepare, as in foster, the second Russian civil war. The various mercenary and military thugs on their crime spree in Ukraine (Patriot, Wagner, Kadyrovits, Syrians, “DNR”, “LNR”, Conscripts and Russian Army are fighting each other for supplies. Eventually one will shoot the other, and when the sharks smell blood they go into a feeding frenzy. Nationalists in the Russian captive republics will then seek independence. All along the way saboteurs and partisans will continue to work destruction in the Russian rear areas most notably at railroads and bridges but perhaps also in metropolitician subways and even aerodromedaries. Good Luck Amb. Tracey, as well as preparing for the end of the Russian regime you also have to start thinking about the Euro-American marshall plan for the ex USSR. This will be similar to ex Yugoslavia even including attempted genocide against Ukrainians, which is already happening. Ugly. Not my fault. I didn’t start it. I will finish it.
Russian court-orders-closure-of-russias-oldest-human-rights-group-a80043
Human rights trial against Russia over downing of flight MH17 to go ahead
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-729654
iran-protests-judges-death-penalty-execution-crackdown/
Some people are slow and think they have ideas about “how to negotiate with putin” Except you can’t negotiate with war criminals especially ones which lie constantly and never keep their word even after you’ve “negotiated” with them. Would you negotiate with Hitler?
classified-chinese-satellite-releases-small
russian-saboteurs-seek-to-hamper-putins-war-machine
only-force-will-move-putin-and-ukraine-is-counting-on-its-allies
“Are we seeing the end of the Putin regime?” / Spoiler: Yes.
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I shall try to do another this weekend as I had no time to do further research today.