BruceVC

https://www.reiki-for-holistic-health.com/reiki-healing-with-crystals.html Sup All, has anyone ever had a Reiki session before and what did you think about it? One of our family friends has started providing this therapy and my stepmom did it last week and she felt very relaxed and better afterwards....less anxiety that she suffers from generally about things like crime which has been exacerbated by the virus and the lock-down Anyway all the guys in my family reject this type of thing as absolute nonsense as they basically only believe in science and proven facts. I know nothing about it in the sense I have no idea if it can be beneficial or helpful to reduce stress or other things it can help with. I have session arranged tomorrow with our family friend at 5 pm, I did explain to her I have no known unexplained stress, apart from lock-down frustration, or things I can specifically say are underlying problems but I am still interested in how it may make me feel So any feedback will be appreciated

And she still has the audacity to complain about being forced to stay at home

I have never thought about it like that and it certainly changes things, thanks for this post because I can now see what you mean by the huge difference between commentary and reporting It also answers my previous post about the erosion of freedom of speech in the USA. You dont have to change the USA constitution around what defines freedom of speech because my concerns are always about commentary and not reporting....a huge distinction I have really learnt something new today and that will shape future points I make on this type of topic

When you say the there is no fake news or false news that is on any of these channels that is difficult to understand? I can give you plenty of examples of fake\false news especially on Fox, for example Fox News in the beginning of the virus reported that the virus was nothing but a scam to impeach Trump. How is that not fake\false news ...Im genuinely confused by your argument ? https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/27/media/trish-regan-fox-news/index.html

You Danes are cracking the whip.....you guys becoming dictatorial

Yes but he won the last election convincingly. So our personal view of him isnt really that relevant if the actual citizens of his country voted for him and liked him.....until his virus denialist stance. Here is a good read around why Brazilians voted for him https://fee.org/articles/why-bolsonaro-won-brazils-presidency-in-a-landslide/

Gorthfuscious what news channels do you think this massive, prehistoric microbe watches ?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/colony-of-microbes-as-big-as-greece-found-in-ocean-1948210.html Fascinating news around a massive microbe discovery that is descended from the earliest forms life on the planet billions of years ago

There is another brilliant series on HBO called The Outsider, it is based on a book by Stephen King and is a mystery, murder horror ...very compelling and I have only watched 1 episode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsider_(miniseries)

Hi Melk Bolsonaro overplayed his hand in a most terrible gamble, his virus denialist stance has cost him any political capital or mainstream support he use to have. He will be a lame duck president until he loses the next election if he isnt impeached as you mentioned I also want to add what an appalling president he has become and his arrogance will cost Brazilian lives

Malc why arent the police arresting people or forcing them to adhere to lock-down regulations ?

Sounds terrible, especially when hospitals are focusing primarily on Corona cases My sister broke her foot 4 weeks in the beginning of our lock-down, she didnt realize it was broken and initially just left it thinking the pain would go away. Finally 2 days later she went to the local hospital and after a 6 hour wait due to Corona attention she was helped...she is now wearing a boot and has to just wait for the bones to heal/mend

I dont think thats accurate, I consider Trumps bizarre relationship with NK as the most success any USA president has ever seen...we did see some real negotiations and meetings with NK and the infamous " Hermit Kingdom " starting to meaningfully interact with the outside world Remember this is about the region and what the impact to China, SK and Japan ( and the outcome to the world ) would be if NK imploded or decided on some suicidal missile attack on either SK and Japan. I particularly care about the well being of those countries and if Trump can achieve a semblance of normality we should support that and recognize his effort No one is vindicating the appalling dictatorship of NK, this is about the greater good and sometimes diplomacy is necessary especially under these unusual circumstances, history and leadership of NK? What would you suggest is the alternative to negotiations to get NK to disarm ?

You make a good point and recognizing these historical ties between the USA and Russia are important because they remind us of a time where the unequivocal enemy was the diabolical Nazi regime and there was an alliance between the West and the Russians . So lets focus on what we have in common to build bridges where reasonable going forward, it will lead to a better global world overall and that is something Im sure we all want to see

What do you define as a " failed state " , the USA is the worlds strongest economy and influences many countries on culture and other things and is still the worlds most effective world leader in time of crisis or necessary military intervention I am not suggesting its perfect, no single country is and ever will be, and Trump has made certain decisions that are egregious and negatively impact making the world better but to say its a failed state seems ....extreme ?

Great response, I was hoping you weren't going to be one those people who dismisses all established media but then relies on " Farmer Joes truthful UFO website " for actual information I also watch Al Jazeera and I can say with absolute certainty they do the best job at covering more international news and events in countries outside of the important mainstream 1st world countries than any other news channel. This has become even more evident during the virus where they often show how life is under the pandemic throughout the world that other channels simply dont report on ....so its a good balanced channel for a variety of news. They have there bias or focus on certain global developments but no more than other channels So I watch Bloomberg for global financial updates which is more work related and personal investment information and CNN, SKY, BBC and Al Jazeera for updates around global events. CNN and Al Jazeera I watch the most

" sometimes they do get the weather forecast and sports results correct " ...., good one Gorthfuscious your cynicism towards our modern societies is interminable and knows no boundaries But on a serious note if you dont believe any established media in any Democracy where do you get any news from that allows you to understand current events and developments?

What a nickname and the link to the actual ship made me laugh

https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/avoiding-virus-induced-cold-war-china Here is a really fair and balanced article around the future relationship with China, I agree with basically all of it

This is an egregious suggestion from him and has been heavily criticized, no governor from either party should support this because of what this would mean to the actual control of the state going forward I hope he retracts this statement and clarifies. Why do you refer to him as "cocaine " Mitch?

I find this argument incredibly difficult to understand from an intelligent person like yourself who has access to vast amounts of information that is unrestricted You seem to be suggesting that you trust the Chinese government over the USA government and the free media in the USA, yet the USA government doesnt control the news story unless it impacts on state security and laws which is normal in every country. For example no media in the world can openly report on lets say diplomatic cables marked as " confidential " or openly post secretive military strategies in times of war Countries like China Are not Democracies, no one votes so there is no government accountability unless the CCP authorizes it. A Chinese citizen cannot sue the CCP for example China controls its media and restricts the flow of information. Its always has and always will as they consider this necessary for the greater good of there society China does not have a transparent legal system. Chinese dissidents, who are rare, can easily vanish and the families have no legal recourse to find them The example of WMD in Iraq constantly gets brought up as an example of "how the USA lied ", yes I acknowledge we were not told correct information but Saddam Hussein did use WMD in the past and Iraq did indeed use to have them so the initial suggestion wasn't completely ludicrous. Saddam used chemical weapons against both the Kurds and Iran https://www.thoughtco.com/top-crimes-of-saddam-hussein-1779933 https://sites.tufts.edu/wpf/use-of-chemical-weapons-against-iran/ Interestingly enough the worst misinformation we were told about the 2003 invasion wasnt the WMD for the reasons I mentioned but rather that Saddam Hussein was part of Al-Qaeda, this was complete nonsense as he was a dictator and had no links to Islam extremism and would have been targeted by them in the same way that Saudi Arabia and later on all ME countries were because no ME country actually supports the twisted ideological interpretation of Islam that Islamic extremists support But going back to China, my question is why would you believe what they say about the true nature of the virus over your own country which has a free and independent media ....even if we accept the USA government has lied in the past this is not the same as the state controlled media of China. Surly you can recognize this, its a huge distinction and really important difference between the 2 countries ?

I am taking full advantage of the HBO series available on our local DSTV and plan to watch all seasons of Boardwalk Empire, another brilliant and entertaining series

SA has been on lock-down for 1 month and its time to share an honest assessment of how we doing and what the future possibly holds based on choices we have made and had to make and also the economic future Firstly based on the reality of the corrupt previous president SA before the impact of virus had a deeply problematic public healthcare system and our economy was weak and we had been downgraded fairly by the credit ratings for not addressing imprudent and egregious government spending, greed of the unions around salary negotiations and government not being able to deal with our growing debt to GDP ratio. Basically I was very worried we would not address the virus reality well due to past experiences But as a country and government we have done the best and most effective job we can do under the circumstances based on our reality .....but based on our reality is the key question. We absolutely made the right choice around implementing a proper lock-down " early" and I give full credit to our government for not equivocating around this. Some key developments Trump phoned our president to express solidarity with SA and chat about how we are addressing the spread...Im unclear what was the real reason Trump contacted SA considering his general disdain for how poorer countries do things but this call is welcomed nonetheless The W.H.O has recognized that SA is doing an excellent job at addressing virus spread and heaped praise on us. I think this is actually unhelpful and premature as we honestly have very limited proper testing equipment and we dont even have all the PPE we need, so we dont know the true nature of the virus spread. This is a global problem but worse in SA. I dont want W.HO. to create a false sense of success for SA which in the next few weeks undermines our efforts as we become lax in our efforts or the true spread of the virus becomes apparent We are deploying our ENTIRE army to address the lock-down rules and enforce important lock-down regulations, thats 70000 military personal. As I mentioned I absolutely support the deployment of the army in SA but it concerns me why government feels the unprecedented historical deployment of the army is necessary if things are going so well https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52387962 In summary as far as addressing the virus we are doing the most effective job we can do but our economic future is looking bleak...worse than ever before once the virus ends but that we will have to deal with that later

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Charlottes-Web This reminds me of the famous childrens story " Charlottes Web " Basically a young girl develops a love for a piglet and persuades her farming family not to slaughter it for meat but then as the piglet gets older it naturally becomes a legitimate target for food .....but then a spider saves its life by writing words in its web to create the impression the pig is I suppose divine or special Its a good story because the pig survives being killed

What an interesting link, I really learn new things on these forums