I had heard rumours on Chinese social media that they were holding the US responsible for the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan a number of weeks before the story broke. The story goes that a US military team spread the virus during the Military World Games in Wuhan in September 2019.

Chinese Foreign Ministry Deputy Director General Zhao Lijian had tweeted an article authored by Canadian writer Larry Romanoff that the Americans were responsible, so this sparked my interest, I now follow him on Twitter.

The Montreal based group named Global Research claims to be a think tank, but appears to be nothing more than a conspiracy theory webside. Based on some basic internet research, Romanoff appears to not be as well credentialed as he claims to be. No long after, The New York Times ran an article co-authored by Julian E. Barnes, Matthew Rosenburg and Edward Wong regarding Chinese and Russian disinformation. Rosenburg had been awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2018, Wong was awarded a Livingstone Award and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, so they are all well credentialed journalists.

I read an article on Singapore’s The Straights Times that the residents of Wuhan were starting to emerge from lockdown and the general feeling was happiness. They have endured a long two months; however, their attitude seems very blasé and indifferent about the effects of this disease on the rest of the world. So I decided to comment on the article, I had planned to write a post about this very issue and the replies (if any) would form part of my response. Boy, did my comment cause some aggressive replies, whilst I wanted to gauge responses, this was certainly an eye opener.

As a duty of disclosure so people can form their own opinions, my initial comment was “Pride? That’s a new take on national pride… Pride that they infected the whole world with the coronavirus from their unsanitary wet markets but they are doing ok now because Italy and Spain are losing lives on an unprecedented scale.”  I responded to the first comments with this response before shutting down the notifications. “There are horrible rates of infection and death in developed nations. What is looking likely will be truly horrific rates in the undeveloped areas of Africa, Central Asia and South America.”

I had read that Chinese trolls were attacking individuals commenting about China’s culpability in regards to the coronavirus outbreak, subsequent mismanagement and poorly executed cover-up, so I decided to see for myself. Known as the 50 cent party, as it is claimed these online trolls are paid fifty cents for each online comment. There is also chatter they are just government employees seeking to gain influence within their department for promotion.

I am glad I take these responders as fools, these responses are certainly acidic using fake accounts and personal attacks to push their agenda. Fortunately they don’t bother me, I could well understand why a person who is a little fragile could really come apart with disastrous consequences. After an hour or so, I had turned off the notices linked to this article, I wasn’t engaging these angry, nasty people although I wanted to read their responses at a later date. The individuals interviewed were proud of their country and how their superior system was better than the west.

Responding to these people is like stepping in dog shit, you can choose to walk around or you can step right in it. They are all angry and bothered and I am laughing at them, they provide some of the research to the theories I am following up. So the early responses were along the lines of these countries should have followed WHO advice so they will get what they deserve. The Italians were the source of the virus and brought it to China, Italian doctor Giuseppe Remuzzi states he was misquoted in a textbook example of propaganda.

When they worked out I was from Australia, they started on the indigenous angle not knowing my personal background. What these idiots clearly do not know is indigenous communities in central Australia are being heavily locked down to protect these vulnerable people, they are at greater risk than mainstream Australia and this virus could devastate these communities.

There was of course the race based comments, there is no such thing as reverse racism, this will be the topic of a later post. After my initial scan of the comment section, there were no comments about being an ang mo – let’s see if this changed when I check on the weekend. I need a good laugh and the angrier these fools get the better.

People are dying in Italy and Spain, the UK is looking in serious trouble along with France and Germany. The rest of Europe is the new epicentre of the virus outbreak and the US could eclipse them all. How could they be so callous, instead inciting national pride in a disaster of their creation, at time of publishing, there are more than 1 million infections and 50,000 deaths.

I worked in Africa in 2019 so I feel some affinity with the plight of the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it is a harsh life for these people. My concern is the medical systems of developed countries can’t cope with the sheer number of patients, people living in developing countries. This time last year I was riding my mountain bike through their villages so I have a bit of an idea of what life is like for them there, these people were my colleagues and friends. Fortunately I am able to keep in contact with them on Linkedin.

Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party is a nasty piece of work. I cannot believe the bullshit he tried to pull at the G20 meeting, give it a rest dickhead – you caused this mess.

China is not the world power they proclaim to be, this pandemic sweeping the world is a result of lax standards, poor hygiene and a totalitarian society that cannot even enforce their own markets. This is not the first time the deplorable conditions of Chinese wet markets have spurred toxic diseases, this is a common occurrence. What a bunch of losers, they are either a mob of incompetent idiots unable to run their own country or they are so corrupt they only survive due to their insistence on the reprehensible behaviour they encourage.

Had China been proactive instead of implementing their usual pathetic communist policies of secrecy and denial, this world pandemic would not have occurred. Don’t you ever lecture us on how this pandemic could be contained, Xi Jinping and his bunch of bumbling incompetent fools are the cause of this mess – this is on Xi Jinping.

There is no shut down for me yet, we are one of the areas required to stay open and I am ok with that. Within our office, the complaining is incredible, I wished the volume control on my computer was working so I can drown out the whining by putting on headphones – my attitude is just get on with it. I wish they had the same idea, the volume is starting to make my ears ring.

At this point, it is all about personal leadership so I clean my own desk with disinfectant that I brought in from home, I clean the desks of the guys close to me and then I move to the tutorial room I am using. My employer states there is hand sanitiser for people to use – there isn’t. The storeman is playing around mixing methylated spirits with moisturiser for hand sanitiser, this isn’t a winning formula but at least he is giving it a crack. Due to poor planning, we did not order hand sanitiser when we should of, the people responsible for ordering felt we didn’t need any more – difficult to fathom.

Despite what they publish, there is no extra cleaning of areas like hand-rails, door handles or anything. I clean the students desks for them as I noticed in the mornings, if they left their books on the desks the night before, they were unmoved. I clean the door handles, light switch and fan control every morning with spray cleaner.

I try not to respond to Facebook comments anymore, I shouldn’t even be reading these comments as I sometimes feel part of my intelligence is being eroded by some of these opinions.

This occurred when the Morrison government announced increased spending due to the economic shocks of the east coast bushfires closely followed by the impacts of the Coronavirus. We have a long-term situation of low economic growth, albeit positive followed by low wage growth due minimal productivity increases.

The surplus was gone, you can forget about that now, so now the federal government needs to work on stabalising the economy. So when I read a comment on how we all know how trickle down economics never works, I was compelled to reply.

Lindy is describing Gerry (Gerry Harvey Executive Chairman of Harvey Norman) who was asking the government to support local manufacturers (not retailers) in the form of  interest free loans to stimulate economic activity.

The trouble is Gerry when you and your ilk get any money hand outs from the government it just goes to your shareholders or into your pockets….none of you ever employ any extra staff. You just take the money then run and hide. It’s know as the trickledown effect and has been proven never to work.

The term trickle down economics was first coined by comedian Will Rogers describing Hoover\’s stimulus package in the depression. If you are referring to supply-side economics, the Laffer Curve was used to plot the relationship between tax rates and receipts to maximise revenue. This may also be known as Reaganomics. Supply-side economics may also be known as Reaganomics.

Adding to that, supply-side theory originated from the Chicago Booth School of Economics, but really dates back to the Nixon era when stagflation heralded the end of Keynesian demand-side policies. I had to keep my reply short, no point long answers of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Tumblr.

Not that I am necessarily endorsing supply-side economic theory, I am arguing the terminology trickle-down economics, this is not is what is taught during economics classes. Macro-economic theory should explore both demand-side and supply-side theories analysing strengths and weaknesses of both approaches with the intention of generating new ideas and theories.

Keynesian economic theory pulled the world out of depression, that worked up until the 1970s until simultaneous inflation and unemployment peaked in what became known as stagflation, a situation Keynes stated wouldn’t occur. We need new and updated theories, what worked then doesn’t necessarily work now and I agree with Gerry, the government needs to support local manufacturers.

President Trump is getting some flack from reporters calling COVID-19 the Chinese virus, I prefer the term Chinavirus, it just rolls off the tongue easier. All jokes aside, what he is saying is really unhelpful, this is not diplomacy, he needed to handle this better.

I am no fan of Trump, but on this occasion, he is right to call out the Chinese government for their lack of action in closing down this discussion. Let’s face it, they run a command and control structure, they limit social media and they employ state paid trolls to distribute misinformation so if they want to shut this down – they could.

Based on discussions with friends, Chinese social media has been talking up the start of the virus blaming this on US military personnel introducing this virus to China. For fuck’s sake, just own the problem that you created and start to distribute the vast wealth China has accumulated from western countries to address the worldwide problems you created.

Am I personally concerned that I will contract Coronavirus, well not that much actually. Am I trying to do everything possible to not contract Coronavirus? You bet I am as we have obligations to others.

I expect to get sick for a short period and recover, hopefully without too many health complications. To lower the risk, I have adapted the practices requested by authorities of social distancing, I clean my work area with disinfectant, I could only purchase Pine O Cleen floor cleaner as that is antibacterial disinfectant to wipe down my work area and that of my colleagues.

I have hand sanitiser and wash and disinfect my hands regularly, the hardest mannerism for me was to stop touching and scratching my face. I expect to work through this as long as possible, as I am employed in training, I am in contact with a large volume of people so social distancing is difficult. For me, the issues are not spreading this virus – sure, I expect to be ok but there are many in my family and community that are vulnerable. It is my obligation to not pass this virus onto community members and I take this obligation very seriously.

Sitting on the flight waiting for the doors to close, cross-checks performed and push-back to occur is one of the many times I gain ideas, I am ready to write as I busily tap away on the screen of my tablet.

There are plenty of typing and grammatical mistakes but I don’t mind, the purpose is to get as much of the story laid on the screen before my mind begins to tire. Besides, a touch screen is going to cause you problems, but the editing phase can iron out those faults later. I once had to undertake a creative writing session during a professional development day. I was looking forward to that session but it turned out to be a session to write about anything that came into our mind. I was hoping for creative writing strategies, now I will need to seek other methods to gain this knowledge.

However, this is far from my mind at the moment, the cabin is hot, really hot and the Captain has come over the intercom to explain why this is so. Despite wearing a thin long sleeved shirt, I am sweating and concentration is difficult, let’s get this aircraft cranked up and this show on the road as we are all feeling uncomfortable. The Captain informs the tail turbine running the electrics and air-conditioning failed just as the aircraft touched down in Perth at midday, it is now close to midnight and the problem is not yet resolved, I call bullshit, this wouldn’t have just happened.

This is not the fault of the maintenance crews in Perth, we all know South African Airways is poorly managed and on the brink of insolvency so no work order would have been released. Seven CEOs in four years is pretty indicative of a structural failure of the SAA organisation, it is clear that maintenance is being neglected in order to cut costs – I have seen this all before.

A term that really annoys me is the Japanese military term of Comfort Women, utter bullshit. This is a sanitised term to describe forced prostitution and sexual slavery. Comfort for who? Not them – that’s for sure.

The Japanese military was complicit in organising murder, that is a proven fact under war crimes trial proceedings. By the very nature of their actions, Japanese soldiers were not only given free reign to rape and pillage, they were encouraged to do so by their leaders. The key military leadership going all the way to the emperor was responsible for the acts of atrocity committed by the Japanese military of the second world war. Japanese women in occupied Japan in the immediate aftermath of WWII were relatively free of rape and harassment. Yes, rapes did occur by the occupation forces from time to time; however, in a marked difference of leadership, the perpetrators were charged with crimes and punished accordingly by the various commands of the occupying forces.

I am living in an idiotic society, people are no longer resilient, they are self-centred and not community minded. This has been so evident with the stockpiling of toilet paper in Australia – have these people gone mad? Fights are breaking out in department stores over rolls of toilet paper, the police are called and people arrested. There was one case of a woman with a whole trolley full of toilet paper who was unwilling to give up just one packet to a woman who needed it.

In one instance, the police were called, the guy was rolling around on the ground with the police officer and went for his pistol. He was tasered and taken away in handcuffs to be processed. Have these people lost their minds? We are talking about toilet paper here, not life saving drugs. What is laughable is toilet paper is produced in Australia, they have ramped up production 24/7, this is not an imported good, so we can supply internally. We know we are going to be quarantined, that is inevitable, the answer is when. This is based on the best assessment of the government and their medical advisors.

Perth once had a ferry service of sorts connecting the riverside suburbs of Perth to the CBD, that’s the central business district or downtown to the Americans. With the waterway, we should be operating a fulltime ferry service for short trips around the city and surrounding suburbs. We have a number of jetties so the infrastructure is already there and the Barrack Street Jetty that now forms part of the Elizabeth Quay development. Currently there is a short ferry service run by Transperth, the state government operated rail and bus service.

The Transperth ferry connects Barrack Street Jetty to the Mends Street Jetty in South Perth. It is then just a short walk to Perth Zoo, this short service has run for as long as I can recall. A short shuttle around the Perth foreshore from Elizabeth Quay to On the Point and then onto Claisebrook Cove is undertaken by a private ferry service. As the Americans say, a ferry service from the train station at Elizabeth Quay to the new Perth Stadium is a no-brainer.

I am looking more at connecting the riverside suburbs of Perth to the CBD, the Rottnest Island ferries operate from the Barrack Street Jetty and have done so for a long time. The Applecross Jetty, the Coode Street Jetty and JoJo’s Cafe could run a reasonable service much like Sydney’s Manly Ferry to Circular Quay. Possible even the East Street Jetty in Fremantle could be connected to a service that feeds into Perth’s northere suburbs.