As the name suggests Oat Hill Mine Trail is a hiking trail previously used for mining operations. We walked it starting from the trailhead at Highway 29, before the town of Calistoga. At higher elevations you see a lot of burned trees. Here are a few photos:
Ignacio Valley Preserve is a big park and there are various entrances. Still, the directions given by the Google maps were incorrect. The main entrance of the park is at the west end of the Fairway Drive. Here are a few photos taken that day.
Are the Chinese Lying about their COVID-19 Fatalities?
Three weeks ago the total US COVID 19 deaths passed the 400,000 milestone; the race is on towards the half a million mark. Grim, indeed!
Meanwhile, China is reporting a total of 4,636 COVID related deaths so far. How come China has less than one-hundredth of the total US deaths--even when China is allegedly the birthplace of the new Corona virus; even when China has over three times the population of the US; and even when China has almost a five-fold population density than the US?
The usual answer you hear in the west is that the Chinese are lying. That the Chinese are under-reporting their COVID-19 deaths. So, how many dead people is China hiding? Ignoring the arrival time of the virus, if the US with a population of 328 million has 468,000 deaths (as of February 9, 2021), what should be the estimate of the COVID-19 fatalities in China, with a population of 1.4 Billion? Two million dead people?
I do not consider myself an expert on China, but if multiple trips to a country can give one a slightly better knowledge of that country than the understanding of an average person who never went there, I may claim that advantage.
As compared to the country’s eastern part, western China is a sparsely populated area. Back in 1995, when the city of Kashgar was still not connected to the Chinese national railroad system, I took buses to travel from the Pakistan-China border to the big city of Urumqi. As we passed through small towns and vast expanses of wilderness, I wondered what an essentially one-party government was capable of doing with the people it considered the ‘enemies of the state.’ I saw a lot of empty land to build concentration camps on.
Yes, China can possibly do secretive things in a remote area, say in its western region or in deep south, closer to the borders of the Indo-Chinese countries, but COVID-19 is a different animal. This ailment is a contagious respiratory disease, transmitted from one person to another. COVID-19 is supposed to be a high population density disease, an urban phenomenon. We expect it to be a New York disease, a London disease, a Calcutta disease, a Beijing and Shanghai disease.
China because of its ever-increasing involvement in the global trade is constantly evolving. The world is deeply connected with today’s China and especially with its large urban centers. You cannot have over 50 international airlines flying out of the big Chinese cities and have no knowledge of large number of people mysteriously disappearing from the urban centers.
May be the Chinese COVID-19 deaths are really that low. May be instead of doubting the Chinese numbers we should be asking: Why are the US COVID-19 deaths so high?
Tags: The deceptive Chinese COVID-19 statistics
China is hiding its COVID-19 deaths
China is under-reporting its COVID fatalities
Chinese cremation centers are working overtime to cremate COVID-19 dead bodies
China has over two million COVID-19 deaths
China's COVID-19 deaths are a lot higher than the numbers reported by the Chinese Government
China is claiming COVID-19 no more lethal than normal flu
Life has come back to normal in China, but not in the rest of the world
In Wuhan, the bat soup is back on the menu
The Asian people have better immunity towards COVID
Communist countries are hiding their Corona death figures
Totalitarian governments are under-reporting their COVID fatalities
COVID-19: The game of numbers
Wuhan Flu
Chinese Flu
COVID-19, COVID-20, COVID-21
Yesterday, by the time I found out the name of the Toronto Police Service constable investigating Karima Mehrab’s case, he was gone for the day. I was a bit more lucky today; I got to talk to Constable Butt. According to Officer Butt the case is still open but the initial determination has been made about there being no criminal activity related to Karima Mehrab’s death. Did he discover Karima’s dead body? No. But he made the determination (by looking at the body) that there was no criminal activity. Was Karima Mehrab found alive on December 21? No, she was deceased by then. Then why does the TPS web site say, ‘she was located Monday, December 21, 2020, at 9:15 a.m.’? Constable Butt thought I should talk to a different division of the TPS that maintains the web site about this detail.
Labels: Karima Baloch, Baloch activist
Karima Mehrab, a Baloch activist, left Pakistani Balochistan in 2015 and applied for political asylum in Canada. She had been living in Toronto. On Sunday, December 20, she left home for a walk, never to come back. Her body was found the next morning. She was 35. It was not clear where was Karima's body found--most probably floating in the water as the report suggests the cause of death was drowning; the police believe she took her own life. But many Baloch activists and Karima's friends believe she was killed. By who? Some say she was killed by the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI--to silence her, and to teach a lesson to other Baloch activists living in western countries and feeling safe; others say she was killed by the Indian intelligence agency RAW--to eliminate evidence of Indian involvement behind terrorist activities in Pakistan. Who to believe? Till Karima's husband and other family members do their investigation and prove that the Canadian Police version of the story is incorrect, we have no choice but to believe the Canadian Police. Also, if Canada was such an easy place for foreign governments to carry out their clandestine operations, Israel would have taken care of all Palestinian activists living in Canada. Karima Mehrab was fighting depression; some patients of clinical depression do take their own lives. Karima's death being suicidal cannot be ruled out. Still, it is the second Baloch activist death by drowning in the last seven months, and that raises a red flag.
Photo, courtesy of The Guardian.
When the smoke from the forest fires covered San Francisco. That day it was very dark early in the morning, but slowly the growing sun made the day lighter. Here are a few photos from Wednesday, September 9, 2020.
