Tales of an aging gamer: Why don’t I pick up a controller as often as I used to?

Despite a wider variety than ever before, video games don’t have the same effect on me as they used to. That might not sound like a problem to some of you, but it is to me. I have played video games from the early days of my childhood, starting somewhere around the late ’80s. I became heavily addicted to my Game Boy as a kid, and I can still remember the thrill I felt the day I bought my first PlayStation 22 years ago.

Gaming was like breathing. It was the biggest part of my life as a teenager, one of my priorities as a college student, and eventually one of my most expensive “hobbies” as a young professional.

Then all of a sudden, after thousands of hours spent playing across genres and platforms, boredom hit me hard for the very first time in my early thirties. Some of my favorite games soon gave me the impression of being terribly long. I couldn’t help but notice all the repeating tropes and similarities in game design between franchises.

I figured it was just a matter of time before I found the right game to stimulate my interest again, but time continued to go by and nothing changed.

My 41-year-old cousin had dealt with the same thing years before me, and he had a simple explanation: “Now it’s you who has to worry about rent and bills, not your dad.” Deep inside I knew he was right. The more responsibilities, problems, and stress in life, the more we lose our appetite for things that used to entertain us, gaming included. But could there be something more to it than that? Games themselves were also changing. As technology enabled things I wouldn’t have dreamed were possible as a kid, it created entirely new platforms for gaming.

On top of that, as people grow older there are inevitable changes that influence how we see games—including things as simple as needing glasses to actually play the game. The gradual loss of focusing ability for near vision as we age, known as presbyopia, makes gaming on smartphones and portable game consoles a nightmare for older people. Happenings like this help explain why devices such as PS Vitas are created almost exclusively for younger players.

So, are the changes I've been experiencing some kind of fluke or an inevitable process for many? Can you in essence age out of gaming?
The blog for this study is some interesting reading.
Enlarge / The blog for this study is some interesting reading.

I’m far from the only former gamer thinking about this reality—there have been several good scientific studies on the matter within the last decade, in fact. One in particular seemed to answer all my initial questions. Collecting information from a staggering 239,000 gamers in recent years, market research company Quantic Foundry has been closely examining how gaming motivations and preferences change with age via its Gamer Motivation Profile.

The research suggests that many things occur as we age, all pushing people a bit further away from gaming. It’s not that we wake up one morning thinking video games are boring all of sudden, but instead everything happens slowly throughout a lengthy process that most of us don’t even realize. Generally, QF found that the older a gamer gets, the less eager they become in terms of gaming—respondents were less likely to label gaming as “very important/enjoyable,” and their preferences shifted toward specific gaming experiences (less social and more solo gaming, for instance) not as popular among younger gamers.

While this could be due solely to a decline in enthusiasm for some, an alternative explanation is that many older gamers—especially when they have longterm partners, become parents, or ascend into highly demanding professional positions—simply have different priorities and less time for gameplay. And when you have plenty of other things to do, it’s easy to avoid activities that appear to be either too easy and thus boring, or too difficult and thus frustrating.

Beyond a simple matter of time, gaming doesn’t necessarily provide a sense of accomplishment, either. There is a general lack of reward when it comes to gaming—at least in terms of how adults interpret the concept of reward. The repetition of an activity that doesn’t produce a visible benefit can decrease the feeling of novelty, and that’s when boredom may strike. Breaking virtual records and topping the scoreboards may be bigger goals for a teenager, but for a young professional in their early thirties, something with a concrete output—think cooking, painting, gardening, or bodybuilding—may appear to be much more rewarding. Studies (like another good one from Florida State researchers in 2014) back this up, showing that certain adults simply don’t view gaming as a productive activity on which to spend their free time. Many people in their thirties and forties may get more out of a dance or yoga class instead.

Cutting down on competition

For those of us who won’t stop playing video games, it bears keeping in mind that game mechanics tend to be defined by the core gaming market (typically male, ages 18 to 30). So if your tastes in games change in a way that mimics the QF data trends, you may find yourself in the broad “casual gamer” category with fewer high-profile new games being specifically targeted to your tastes.

“One long-term trend we’ve highlighted in our talks and blog posts is that we have a generation of folks who grew up with gaming, are now 35+, and most likely won’t stop gaming. However, their tastes in gaming have changed,” cofounder and analytics lead at Quantic Foundry Dr. Nick Yee told Ars.

One of the changes in tastes Yee points to is that aging gamers tend to gravitate toward more casual and less competitive games. “Picking up a competitive shooter takes time to practice and a strong desire to compete, both of which older gamers have less of,” Yee says. Of the 12 motivations in Quantic Foundry’s model used to identify a gamer’s preferences throughout the years, the appeal of competition declines the most with age. It dips faster even than the desire for destruction, excitement, and challenge, characteristics which are usually seen as a young gamer’s motivation.

“The most dramatic shift in gaming motivations (for both men and women) is in competition—the appeal of duels, matches, and leaderboard rankings,” Yee tells Ars. “Gamers are much less driven by competition as they get older, and this motivation drops the most between ages 15 and 25 and levels off around age 32-plus.”

So the QF data shows that competition is a young person's sport. And just as with real sports, competitive titles tend to require time to practice, something that most gamers don’t have in big doses in their thirties and forties. Furthermore, competitive gaming requires rapid reaction times and precise mechanical skills, both of which decline with age.

A University of Michigan study within the last decade confirmed that as we age our brain connections break down, slowing our physical response times. But at what age does a person’s reaction time begin to change enough to have a serious effect on gaming skills?

In the Michigan study, scientists measured the response times of adults over age 65 and compared them against those of a group of players ages 18 to 30. Researchers then used a functional MRI to image the blood-oxygen levels in different parts of the brain, a measurement of brain activity. The physical response times between the two age groups was great—there were no significant differences between a thirty-year-old gamer and a teenager. In other words, gamers in their thirties think they can’t keep up with their younger counterparts and lose interest in competitive gaming. It’s psychological rather than the experience of aging.

Strategy, on the other hand, is a gaming genre that spans generations, according to the data. QF has found motivation for strategy changes the least with aging. If you’re like me, this makes it a little clearer why your once-favorite survival horror, racing, first-person shooter, fighting and massively multiplayer online games have been replaced by real-time strategy games, online puzzles, and brain teasers. So while younger players feel more strongly about other motivations, strategy comes to the forefront as other preferences fade over time. The result is that a lot of older gamers are excited by “careful decision-making and planning” (QF’s survey wording) in a game as opposed to facing real-life consequences when they fail in analogue real-world scenarios.

This seems pretty logical if you take into account that, by the time you’re old enough for marriage or parenting, you usually have to help make decisions that determine the fate of your whole family and not just your own future. Strategizing and planning wisely in the gaming world could possibly help you find new ways to think about the real world, although I might be engaging in wishful thinking in this case.
Gaming can be great as you get older, too.

Despite all the factors lessening the role of gaming in our lives as we age, there may be an upside to consciously pushing against those QF trends. It’s not an exaggeration to say video games could actually help keep the brain agile as we grow old. A recent US National Institutes of Health-funded study involving nearly 3,000 retirees showed that video games could cut the risk for dementia by almost 30 percent. For this study, a training exercise was used to test the brain’s perception, decision-making, plasticity, reasoning, and recall. Impressively, those who played video games appeared to have a 29-percent lower chance of developing dementia.

Even more encouraging are the findings of another study from the Université de Montréal, which showed that elderly people can stave off Alzheimer’s disease by playing video games only 15 minutes per day, three times a week. Scientists describe the results of both studies as really promising, but each team noted they had to be replicated.

Findings like this possibly explain why 48 percent of adults over the age of 50 play video games, at least according to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). The organization’s 2015 report, titled “Gamers Over 50 Study: You’re Never Too Old to Play,” found that 80 percent of these gamers play at least once a week, while 45 percent play every day. Theoretically, those numbers should only increase as a generation raised on PCs and early consoles ages.

Talking with Ars, QF’s Dr. Yee suggests that many older people play video games simply because they consider it a creative and fun way to kill their free time. The majority of them likely ignore (or are simply unaware of) the potential benefits of gaming when it comes to aging. “A group of people who have a lot of disposable time are older folks past retirement age or once their kids are fully grown. So senior-living homes or community centers also provide the perfect context for local co-op/competitive games,” he tells Ars. “Even back when I was studying MMOs [Massively Multiplayer Online Games] in the early 2000s, about 25 percent of MMO gamers were over 32 years old and played on average 20-plus hours each week. I regularly had gamers age 60-plus filling out my MMO surveys.”

However, science doesn’t have an adequate answer as to why so many adults who play video games are hesitant to consider themselves avid gamers. In the same year (2015) that the ESA released the older gamers report, Pew Research found only 10 percent of them self-defined as gamers. One possible explanation is that a lot of our assumptions about gamers are still rooted in the “teenage basement dweller” stereotype. So, despite recent studies showing that a respectable number of people who play video games are mature adults of all sexes, there’s a tendency in society to depict the typical gamer as a male teenager who worships the latest titles. While this appears to be true for certain aspects of the market (looking at you, EA Sports), there’s a reason games like World of Tanks (which, while competitive, is a strategic MMO) remain very popular among gamers age 40-plus, Dr. Yee insists.

So, is my fate sealed? Do a majority of games simply get boring for us at a certain age? At that point, are you no longer a gamer? Beyond labels and self-identification, the data on this shows having a good time and playing games has nothing to do with age, gender, nationality, or any other identifying factors. Instead, the reality looks simple after you zoom in: once we hit a certain age, we are no longer the primary target audience most game developers have in mind. And as our time, attention, and thoughts have other demands beyond gaming, the type of gaming experiences we seek out shift accordingly. The exact same thing likely happens when it comes to music, literature, TV, and film as well, but this doesn’t mean we have to stop listening or watching, right? We just get older and change—or, perhaps how I would’ve once phrased it, we level up.

Bil Gates predicted a pandemic

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.Bill Gates May Have Predicted COVID-19, But it Doesn’t Mean He’s Right About Specifics

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has been in the news a lot lately for having warned how bad the COVID-19 pandemic would get. In April 2018, he said, “there is a significant probability of a large and lethal, modern-day pandemic occurring in our lifetimes.” He cautioned, “even in the U.S., our response to a pandemic or widespread bioterror attack would be insufficient.” He suggested it might be an unknown pathogen, like SARS or MERS, that “is capable of killing millions of people, bringing economies to a standstill, and casting nations into chaos.”

In January, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and World Economic Forum, conducted Event 201, which simulated a global pandemic caused by a new coronavirus. The Center for Health Security strangely claimed that it was not meant to predict COVID-19. On February 28, Gates published an article suggesting COVID-19 could be a “once-in-a-century pandemic.”

But just because Gates predicted COVID-19, doesn’t mean he must be trusted on the specifics. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funds the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which provided a model at the University of Washington with predictions. Derek Hunter, writing for Townhall, observed that the IHME predicted on April 4 that between 120,963 and 203,436 Americans would require hospitalization. In reality, there were only 18,998 (missing a few numbers from a handful of smaller states that had not been counted yet). Similarly, the model predicted 31,057 ICU beds would be needed on April 4, but only 4,686 were. The IHME was forced to drastically cut its predictions.

On February 28, Gates wrote, “[t]he data so far suggests that the virus has a case fatality risk around 1%.” The case fatality rate represents the proportion of deaths compared to the number of people diagnosed with the disease. Now we know that percentage was too high, it’s below 1 percent. Eran Bendavid, an infectious disease physician, and Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine, believe the mortality rate is 0.01 percent. This is one-tenth of the flu mortality rate of .1 percent. Part of the reason mortality estimates were too high is they were based off samples, not taking into account full populations. This may have been deliberately done to overhype the pandemic.

Gates further angered people by calling for a national tracking system. He wrote on his website, “Eventually we will have some digital certificates to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has received it.”

This is no surprise, considering in January 2019 Gates expressed support for a worldwide biometric ID. He praised India’s national biometric ID, and was excited to see it expanding to other countries. He said India has “the world’s largest biometric identification system and has become a valuable platform for delivering social welfare programs and other government services.”

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently funded an MIT study that explored implanting vaccination information into a child’s skin. The project came about due to a direct request from Gates himself.

One of Gates’ main projects in recent years has been funding mass vaccinations. He wants to reduce the size of the earth’s population through that and abortions. In regards to the world’s population being 6.8 billion, he said in 2011, “Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by, perhaps, 10 or 15 percent.” Apparently, his reasoning is that if parents think their children will have a better chance of surviving until adulthood due to vaccines, they will choose to have fewer kids.

And that’s not all of the offensive statements he’s made. Gates said earlier this month that he doesn’t think large gatherings will be able to resume until widespread vaccination has taken place. But he doesn’t predict a vaccine becoming available until the fall of 2021.

Gates criticized President Trump for halting funding to the World Health Organization while the administration investigates the U.N. entity’s dismal handling of the pandemic. The WHO was told by Taiwan on December 31 that COVID-19 could be transmitted from human to human, but hid this information until January 22. Trump also had a problem with the WHO’s advice against curtailing international travel. Trump disagreed and halted travel from China and then Europe, which is widely considered to have decreased the severity of the pandemic in the U.S. Trump didn’t like the WHO’s praise of China, especially since China has very likely issued false, lower numbers of deaths than what really happened in the country. The WHO hid and diminished China’s culpability.

Gates said the move to cut off WHO funding is "as dangerous as it sounds." Gates claimed in a tweet that no other organization can replace the WHO for slowing the spread of COVID-19. The U.S. contributes $400 to $500 million to the WHO each year. China contributes only $40 million. Yet bizarrely, the WHO’s treatment of the pandemic has seemed more favorable to China than toward the U.S.

Gates’ approach to the pandemic would have been a lot more draconian than Trump’s had he been calling the shots. While it’s true he knew enough about viral epidemics to see this coming, it doesn’t mean his advice is better than the top experts advising Trump. Gates is a globalist who trusts the U.N. and has no problem letting the WHO dictate the terms of how countries handle the pandemic. His values and goals do not represent those of the U.S. because they are clouded by his internationalism

COVID-19 and International Best Practices for Free, Fair and Safe Elections

This pandemic may seem like it’s changed everything, but it has not changed the rules of our constitutional republic. Let’s keep it that way.

At the moment, there is a movement afoot to junk in-person voting,

the manner in which the vast majority of American ballots have been cast since before the American Revolution. The radicals behind this, aided by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the federal level, and echoed by some elected officials in a number of states, are using the pandemic as cover for bald-faced partisan skullduggery.

They’re exploiting the pandemic to instill fear in our electoral process, forcing a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist — namely, that people won’t be able to get to the polls because of the coronavirus. This is a patently false assumption, as other countries have learned in similar crises. And, it was not the case in America in 1918 during the outbreak of Spanish Flu pandemic.

Transparently, the motive behind junking in-person voting this November is that big government liberals believe doing so will help them win. Speaker Pelosi even tried to condition urgently-needed coronavirus relief on a wishlist of long-standing electioneering aims, including same-day voter registration, legalized “ballot harvesting,” and mandatory early mail-in voting. Fortunately, congressional guardians of the U.S. Constitution stymied that scheme.

Had Speaker Pelosi gotten her way, states would effectively have been forced to abandon the common-sense measures they currently have in place which prevent fraudulent voting while extending the 2020 elections from one day to a month-long process. Political strategists on the left believe this will help them defeat President Donald Trump, regain the majority in the Senate and keep Mrs. Pelosi speaker.

Despite Speaker Pelosi’s setback on Capitol Hill, the left’s crusade to radically transform the very nature of the coming elections continues unabated, with liberal activist groups trying to advance Pelosi’s fumble.

The partisan motives behind these recent electoral “reform” proposals, along with the manifest opportunities for voter fraud and coercion they present — such as giving partisan activists absolute control over physical ballots — are reason enough to oppose them.

But there’s another glaring issue that’s worth pointing out: contrary to their proponents’ efforts to present them as a necessary concession to the coronavirus pandemic, the new voting procedures are clearly unnecessary from a public health perspective.

The United States has the world’s most mature and developed democratic system, and an extraordinary amount of resources to tackle the problems the coronavirus creates. This pandemic isn’t even uncharted ground. The bipartisan organization of which I am a board member, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), has been involved in similar situations before around the globe. While IFES is not involved in domestic elections, it is recognized internationally as a thought leader in election administration.

In 2014, as the Ebola virus raged in West Africa, the country of Liberia was slated to hold a crucial election. Some argued that in-person voting should be suspended, but that could have thrown the legitimacy of the results into question due to the mere possibility of widespread fraud. Instead, IFES was able to help develop protocols for voters and poll workers that kept them safe while allowing Liberians to participate in a free, fair, and in-person election.

That was the right call in Liberia. Maintaining electoral continuity almost always is. If the rules of the game are allowed to change at the last minute — especially in a way that even seems to benefit one political party over its opposition — democracy itself is cheapened and delegitimized.

If Liberia was able to safely hold an in-person election amidst an Ebola outbreak, there is no reason we cannot do so here in the United States in the wake of this pandemic. It will take planning, resources, and carefully-developed protocols, but adhering to our existing set of electoral rules is well worth the effort.

Besides, there’s no question that America has the resources and institutional knowledge to make this work. In our work abroad, IFES has already worked to create an effective protocol for holding in-person elections in countries dealing with coronavirus outbreaks. If they can do it, so can we.

Even after the worst of this crisis is over, some aspects of our daily lives will be forever altered. We can’t let the coronavirus take away the integrity of our elections. It’s just too important

The Most Insane And Infuriating Inconsistencies Of The Coronavirus Era (Part I)

In the years when the United States fought Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II, life became radically different for everyone. Food was rationed. Supply chains were interrupted. Manufacturing plants, that previously made things Americans wanted, were turned into armaments producers. Millions of young men were drafted and sent off to fight. Hundreds of thousands would never return, and many more would be changed forever by the physical and mental toll. Many women who might have previously stayed home went to work to replace the men on the battlefield. Society was altered and life was different in countless ways from the way things were before December 7, 1941, and yet most Americans were on the same page, reading and acting from the same playbook, united in one common goal.

Today, America faces an altogether different kind of enemy, and our leaders hope to garner the same national spirit we had back then. The way they have chosen to fight the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has certainly altered society in similar but arguably even broader ways than Americans experienced during the Second World War. Yet, today there are strands of unrest, of pushback that only promises to increase the longer things continue. Despite what the media claims, these protests against draconian stay-at-home orders, lockdowns, and closures aren’t simply based on the desire to get out of the house, get a haircut, and eat at one’s favorite restaurant. At the root, they’re based on perceived governmental overreach that doesn’t seem justified as data rolls in telling us the “enemy” isn’t all it has been cracked up to be.

CARTOONS | Pat Cross

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Surely, even those who have lost their livelihoods and their freedoms in one fell swoop could understand and abide by measures, even draconian ones, that made sense in light of the best data available. But for those of us who study this issue and keep track of more than just the hysteria and fearmongering, little about the ongoing coronavirus response makes sense, and that unsettling reality only continues to grow as each day of our continued imprisonment passes. In fact, there are so many inconsistencies on so many levels that attempting to explore several of the most blatant will take two columns instead of one.

Here are the first three:

Let’s fight this ant infestation … by burning down the house

If the literal black plague were sweeping through America wiping out wide swaths of the population, everyone would understand that draconian preventative measures would need to be taken. When people were falling over in Wuhan, Italy’s weak hospital system was getting overwhelmed, and people thought the kill rate for this thing was up to five percent of those infected and that millions could die, few argued with the initial shutdown response, even if some quibbled on the specifics.

However, now that those death rates have been revised down to between .01 and .05 percent of those infected, or slightly higher than the flu, we’re CONTINUING to act like it’s the literal black plague. As the great Walter Williams writes in this brilliant column, there are cost/benefits to every action. We don’t have a five mph speed limit even though it would save tens of thousands of lives because too many other key cogs would be negatively affected. We don’t shut down the country for the flu for the same reason. Yet, somehow, this virus merits an entirely different reaction, one based on our initial apocalyptic beliefs.

The best way to ‘fight’ this enemy, we’re constantly told, is by maintaining strict social distancing measures and shutting down every possible aspect of our economy, then printing and distributing trillions in handouts to ensure compliance. Do this for an indefinite (and seemingly ever-expanding) period of time, we’re told, and we can beat back the coronavirus and “save lives.” But what about the increasing evidence that such lockdown measures do not actually save lives? And what about the countless lives that a second Great Depression would ruin, and the inevitable deaths that occur in a poverty-stricken nation? Apparently, those are simply collateral damage.

Let’s get hospitals ready to fight COVID-19 … by bankrupting them

I’m no Richard Burr, but when all this started I do remember thinking how awesome it would be to have a few extra thousand to put into healthcare stocks. Surely, even if everything else tanked, the one industry that would be hopping everywhere would be anything healthcare-related, or so the line of thinking went. As things turned out, maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t have that extra cash. While hospitals in New York City and other large hard-hit metro areas were strained to the brink of capacity, the rest dropped everything to prepare for an onslaught that never came. “Essential services,” including pain-relieving and life-altering joint replacements, were banned, resulting in budget shortfalls and massive staff layoffs that will have devastating long-term effects on the rest of the nation’s health. Indeed, as Rick Jackson opined for Newsweek, many could end up closing for good. Apparently, Obama was wrong. Catching the ‘rona is the only way any of us get to keep our healthcare.

Sure, the people affected by these government-enforced shutdowns should be made whole, but when legislators added an additional $600 per week to almost everyone’s unemployment benefits, several senators (and at least one plucky Townhall columnist) warned that this could have dire consequences to getting things moving again. “Let’s pay people more than they would be making at work to stay at home,” our overlords told us. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? Already, one small business owner has spoken out about her own employees’ resentment after she took out a PPP loan to keep them on the payroll. By daring to try and keep her business afloat, she’s costing them money. How hard will recruiting be for everything from restaurants to manufacturing facilities when hundreds of thousands are on the couch ‘till the end of July ‘making’ more than they ever would have actually working? As things begin to reopen, we’re about to find out.

There are plenty more where these came from. I’ll get to those next time

China Expert: Covid-19 Probably “Deliberate Leak”; Could Be “Act of War”

Observers might write years ago, as the Financial Times did in 2014, “US v China: is this the new cold war?” Now one China expert is likening the Wuhan virus’s release to an act in a hot one, according to American Thinker. As the site’s Marion DS Dreyfus reports, “We had a Zoom meeting with China expert Gordon Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China, last night and learned that Chang thinks the ‘release’ of the coronavirus into the public sphere was either ‘accidental,’ which he disputes, or deliberate, to gain a march on the U.S., which is out of favor and being degraded and derided by the important media and groups in China.”
Note that this isn’t to say the virus was bioengineered; it’s probably a naturally occurring pathogen. But authorities now believe the virus likely originated in a Wuhan laboratory — perhaps the Wuhan Institute of Virology — where it was used in experimentation.
Dreyfus points out that this “Level 4 Biolab … failed U.S. inspection as far back as 2018,” and U.S. authorities had long feared that an accidental pathogen release could occur there.
Whatever the case, Chang points out that China is not our friend and that we need to economically distance ourselves from it as we socially distance ourselves from each other. We must stop doing business with Beijing, especially in critical areas such as pharmaceuticals and military hardware, asserts Chang, and we should cease treating the nation favorably.

In reality and as I’ve long believed, one of American history’s greatest foreign policy mistakes was Richard Nixon’s “opening” of China. Napoleon Bonaparte once supposedly said, “China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will move the world.” We helped awaken her, and she got rich off our backs. We created a monster, and now Beijing’s malevolence has, pun intended, gone viral.
In fact, the Wuhan virus event “is nothing short of an all-out war,” Dreyfus paraphrases Chang as saying. “Xi knew of, and tried to maximize, our dependency on China to resupply our personal protective equipment and other necessities.”
Elaborating and quoting White House counsel Peter Navarro, Chang also said that before the full virus storm hit America, “Xi made sure to ‘vacuum up all the world’s available PPEs’ — masks, about two billion, as well as gowns, gloves, and the like,” Dreyfus further relates. “As the world’s countries affected turned to obvious sources to secure these PPEs, China charged piratical, extortionate prices up to ten times the cost it had paid for this vital protective gear.”
Of course, China lied profusely, abetted by useful stooges at the World Health Organization (WHO), about the nature and threat of the virus to buy itself time to effect the above scheme.
This also served to sicken the world — and Chang isn’t the only observer theorizing that this actually constituted coldly delivered “biowarfare.” Just consider the Diplomat, which recently explored what could have been Beijing’s thinking.
The “more Beijing cooperated, the less the disease stood to affect other countries,” the site wrote. “This includes countries China sees as a threat to its existence, like the United States. Why should China suffer the effects of a pandemic while others stayed safe — and increased their strength relative to China — based on China’s own costly experience?”
“Such a question is of course inimical to human decency,” the Diplomat continued, writing of what it calls an “unthinkable” calculation. “And yet we must consider that Xi Jinping has produced the greatest program of ethnic cleansing in the world today. He has curtailed freedoms in China severely and is the father of the panopticon state. His incessant military buildup threatens neighbors while using economic and other subversive means to erode the sovereignty of countries around the world.”
Yet that’s just the iceberg’s tip. Beijing has also compelled women to undergo prenatal infanticide, executes more people yearly than the rest of the world combined, forcibly suppresses Christians and other religious minorities, and ghoulishly harvests and sells the organs of political dissidents.
Moreover, as Beijing has projected power abroad, it has succeeded in censoring our movies, bullying our businesses into doing its bidding, and putting Chinese propaganda in our schools.
This has all been enabled, too, by recent U.S. presidents, says Chang; that is, until Donald Trump flipped the script and put the screws to Beijing. (And let’s not forget the other politicians who’ve abetted Chinese interests and gotten rich while doing so, such as presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden and Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.)
In fact, even now, during the Chinese-made pandemic, our politicians (usually Democrats) are continuing the dangerous dance with Beijing. Just consider that 43 law-enforcement agencies operating in 22 states are enforcing social-distancing orders by using drones — donated by a Chinese company.
Many are concerned, mind you, that the Chinese have ulterior motives and that the drones may be transferring information back to China (which is par for the nation’s course). Then again, maybe Beijing is just listening to its better angels and is suddenly overcome with a charitable spirit.
That was sarcasm, of course. Beijing’s spirit is better epitomized by the fact that it still honors Mao Tse-tung, history’s most prolific mass murderer (body count: approximately 60 million), and has his picture hung in various places. That alone should be enough to make us wonder why we ever gave Beijing most favored nation status.
After all, would we look so kindly upon Germany if it still honored Hitler

Penetrating Counter-Air: What Comes After the F-22 Raptor and F-15C Eagle

The United States Air Force is in the process of completing its initial research on a next-generation air superiority capability to replace the Boeing F-15C Eagle and Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor fighters. Once such research is completed, the service will embark on an 18-month analysis of alternatives (AOA) starting this coming January to determine exactly what kind of capabilities it will need to gain and maintain control over the skies in the post-2030 threat environment. By then—in the year 2035—the stealthy F-22 will be 30 years old while most the F-15C fleet will be more than 50 years old. Thus, while the Air Force has not made any decisions on what a future air superiority fighter might look like, the service says that the so-called Penetrating Counter-Air (PCA) capability will be designed to meet threats that an upgraded F-22 and F-15 fleet cannot.

 

“We understand what the threat is going to be like in the future,” said Col. Tom Coglitore, chief of Air Combat Command’s Air Superiority Core Function Team in an interview with The National Interest. “We understand what our current and projected capabilities will be and will compare them to the future threat.  If there is a gap, then we will likely pursue the development of a new capability if we cannot modernize an existing capability to fulfill our need.”
Essentially—as Coglitore explains it—the PCA is the air domain platform component of a future “family of capabilities” for air superiority. But that family of capabilities is more than just the PCA aircraft itself, it includes basing and logistics, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), command and control, as well as other platforms and weapons—both existing and future. Indeed, for the Air Force, air superiority will likely move beyond just the realm of kinetic actions to include non-kinetic effects such as electronic attack and cyber-warfare, Coglitore said.
Basing and logistics—while often overlooked—are a crucial component of modern air warfare, especially as a resurgent Russia and an increasingly powerful China develop long-range precision strike capabilities. China has developed a host of cruise and ballistic missiles that are capable of hitting U.S. bases in the Western Pacific while Russian forces possess long-range weapons such as the Kalibr-NK and Kh-101 stealthy long-range cruise missiles that can threaten U.S. bases in Europe and the Middle East. “We definitely need to be able to operate from locations, and they need to be secure,” Coglitore said. “We must be able to operate out of locations necessary to create the effects wherever they are needed.”
The Air Force is also working on concepts to secure its aerial refueling tanker fleet as part of its future air superiority efforts. The Air Force is aware that both the Russians and the Chinese expect to attack the service’s vital tankers—the very sinews that hold U.S. air operations together—as part of their efforts to defeat any American-led air campaign. Indeed, both the Russians and the Chinese have developed long-range air-to-air missiles specifically designed to attack those critical nodes. While some of the service’s longer-range plans call for developing a stealthy tanker—the Air Force is working on contingencies for the nearer-term to mitigate the threat—which the service takes seriously.

“That is a strategy others have advertised and we’re familiar with,” Coglitore said. “We’re analyzing what potential adversaries have indicated they would do and then we obviously have to come up with our own capability to make sure we can still conduct the mission and create the effects desired. So, we’re aware is the short answer and we will be prepared to counter it.”
One of the potential ways that the United States would counter such threats is by increasing the range and persistence of its aircraft, but the problem is the inherent size limitations of a fighter. “Fighters tend to be small and so their ability to persist can be seen as a limitation, so that’s something that we will definitely be looking at to see if we can change that aspect—or if we even need to,” Coglitore said.

Range and persistence have long been a problem for fighter aircraft—and it is a problem even during operations in relatively permissive environments. One example of that was the 2011 operation over Libya—which was difficult despite the North African nation’s antiquated air defenses because of the sheer distances involved. Indeed, for the Air Force, such distances could drive unaffordable force structures if future platforms have the same attributes as the service’s current aircraft fleet.
“Libya was a challenge for us,” Coglitore said. “The distances to conduct operations in Libya was a challenge. You had aircraft operating from Italy, flying three hours down to the Gulf of Sidra to cover the coast of Libya which is 1100 miles long. You do that math even with fighter airspeeds and you’ll find the surface-to-air threat wasn’t what we were concerned about, the tyranny of distance was itself was the challenge.”
To ensure that the Air Force is ready to meet the challenge, the service will be looking at its tanker requirements as part of the PCA study. “In our examination of the PCA requirements, we will eventually look at the tanker force structure,” Coglitore said. “One could argue that if you have a longer range platform, you could have a smaller tanker force structure.  Conversely, smaller platforms may drive larger numbers of smaller tankers which may or may not be more advantageous.”
The other problem with fighter aircraft is that because of their small size, such machines inherently have a limited payload. Current generation fighters like the F-22 and the Lockheed Martin F-35 carry a limited payload internally, which could be a limitation during future combat operations. “It’s kind of a bummer if you drive three or four hours and you can only carry, say, two bombs or two missiles or whatever and now you have to go home to reload,” Coglitore said. “So the force structure is significantly impacted by that tyranny of distance—or your ability to go far and carry the requisite number of weapons to conduct that mission.”
Thus to solve those limitations, a future PCA might be a significantly larger aircraft that today’s fighters—designed to operate at far greater ranges while carrying a far greater ordnance load. Those requirements for range, persistence and payload will have to be balanced against the need for stealth, electronic warfare capabilities, speed, maneuverability and other traits. “You’re looking at all those trades we’ll be playing in our analysis and presenting to our senior leaders for decisions,” Coglitore said. “I think we’ll have several good options.”
Many of the Air Force’s potential future requirements might seem to be contradictory, but new technology might make such a plane technically feasible. Indeed, a very large fighter with a very large payload, huge range which is also extremely stealthy while being extremely maneuverable would be an extreme technical challenge with current technology. However, new technology such as adaptive cycle engines—which the Air Force is currently developing with General Electric and Pratt & Whitney—will likely solve many of those potentially contradictory requirements. “The bottom-line is it’s going to have to be a variable-cycle engine to meet those kinds of needs and not be a humongous airplane,” Jeff Martin, General Electric’s expert on sixth-generation fighter propulsion told me some time ago.
Stealth will almost certainly play a role in a future PCA—should the Air Force analysis show that a requirement for such an aircraft exists. But the service is also likely to heavily invest in electronic warfare capabilities for the next-generation air superiority fighter. The Air Force sees electronic attack as one of many potential requirements for survival in the 2030 plus timeframe, Coglitore said. The PCA will likely use a combination of stealth, electronic attack and other factors such as speed to survive. “There is a balance out there,” Coglitore said. “There are many ways to achieve survivability.”
The Air Force is also looking at more exotic technologies such as directed energy weapons. However, while the service is looking at the possibility of laser weapons, the technology has thus far failed to deliver on its promise. The Air Force will have to come up with a decision point on when to cut off promising but immature technologies from being included in the program. “That’s beauty and difficulty of this problem we have,” Coglitore said. “There are so many options.  Each new technology could have a cascading effect on several key attributes of a future platform, providing opportunities in different corners of the trade-space block.”
If the Air Force decides to proceeds with developing a PCA, the service could likely field an operational aircraft in the mid-2030s. Increasingly, as Russia, China and other potential adversaries advance their capabilities, current American capabilities are increasingly challenged. Thus, ultimately, the Air Force will need to develop a new air superiority fighter to maintain American military supremacy. “Our adversaries have advanced both in terms of their platform and weapons maneuverability but we have advanced too, and I think that has fundamentally changed how we will conduct air-to-air operations in the future,” Coglitore said.

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The US Air Force’s radical plan for a future fighter could field a jet in 5 years

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force is preparing to radically alter the acquisition strategy for its next generation of fighter jets, with a new plan that could require industry to design, develop and produce a new fighter in five years or less.

On Oct. 1, the service will officially reshape its next-generation fighter program, known as Next Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD, Will Roper, the Air Force’s acquisition executive, said during an exclusive interview with Defense News.

Under a new office headed by a yet-unnamed program manager, the NGAD program will adopt a rapid approach to developing small batches of fighters with multiple companies, much like the Century Series of aircraft built in the 1950s, Roper said.

“Based on what industry thinks they can do and what my team will tell me, we will need to set a cadence of how fast we think we build a new airplane from scratch. Right now, my estimate is five years. I may be wrong,” he said. “I’m hoping we can get faster than that — I think that will be insufficient in the long term [to meet future threats] — but five years is so much better than where we are now with normal acquisition.”

Air Force Prepares to Hash Out Future Fighter Requirements

The Air Force is exploring a variety of technologies to help inform requirements for its next fighter plane.

By: Valerie Insinna

The Century Series approach would be a notable departure from the Air Force’s former thinking on its future fighter. In its “Air Superiority 2030” study released in 2016, the Air Force described a long-range, stealthy sensor-shooter called “Penetrating Counter Air,” which would act as NGAD’s central node networked with sensors, drones and other platforms. The Air Force would use prototyping to speed along key technologies in the hope of maturing them early enough for inclusion in advanced aircraft fielded in the early 2030s.

But what Roper calls the “Digital Century Series” would flip that paradigm: Instead of maturing technologies over time to create an exquisite fighter, the Air Force’s goal would be to quickly build the best fighter that industry can muster over a couple years, integrating whatever emerging technology exists. The service would downselect, put a small number of aircraft under contract and then restart another round of competition among fighter manufacturers, which would revise their fighter designs and explore newer leaps in technology.

The result would be a networked family of fighters — some more interrelated than others — developed to meet specific requirements and including best-in-breed technologies aboard a single airframe. One jet might be optimized around a revolutionary capability, like an airborne laser. Another fighter might prioritize state-of-the-art sensors and include artificial intelligence. One might be an unmanned weapons truck.

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What’s going on with America’s next fighter designs?

The U.S. Air Force and Navy have ongoing efforts to create a new fighter design, but what does that look like?

By: Aaron Mehta, Valerie Insinna, David Larter

But the point, Roper said, is that instead of trying to hone requirements to meet an unknown threat 25 years into the future, the Air Force would rapidly churn out aircraft with new technologies — a tactic that could impose uncertainty on near-peer competitors like Russia and China and force them to deal with the U.S. military on its own terms.

Imagine “every four or five years there was the F-200, F-201, F-202 and it was vague and mysterious [on what the planes] have, but it’s clear it’s a real program and there are real airplanes flying. Well now you have to figure out: What are we bringing to the fight? What improved? How certain are you that you’ve got the best airplane to win?” Roper wondered.

“How do you deal with a threat if you don’t know what the future technology is? Be the threat — always have a new airplane coming out.”

This rendering of a Next Generation Air Dominance aircraft, by Lockheed Martin, shows a tailless stealthy future fighter. (Lockheed Martin)

How does the Air Force get there?

Three industrial technologies enable a Century Series approach for NGAD and will set requirements for participants, Roper said. The first is agile software development — a practice where programmers quickly write, test and release code, soliciting feedback along the way from users.

The second, open architecture, has long been a buzzword in the defense community, but Roper said industry often uses it to describe a system with plug-and-play hardware. NGAD, ideally, would be fully open, with interchangeable hardware and the ability for a third party to develop software for the system.

The final technology, digital engineering, is the most nascent and possibly the most revolutionary, Roper said. While aerospace engineers have used computers for decades to aid in the creation of aircraft, only recently have defense companies developed 3D-modeling tools that can model an entire life cycle — design, production and sustainment — with a high level of accuracy and fidelity. The process would allow companies to not only map out an aircraft in extreme detail, but also model how a production line would work using different levels of manning or how maintainers would carry out repairs at a depot.

“You could start learning so much before you ever bent the first piece of metal and turned the first wrench, so that when you did do it for the first time, you already have learned. You’re already up to a level of proficiency that in the past you would have to be in the 100th aircraft to have,” he said. “And then if you kept going and you modeled the maintenance, then you could go after the part of the life cycle that constitutes the 70 percent of what we pay."

Few defense programs have used digital engineering so far, Roper said. The Air Force is requiring Northrop Grumman and Boeing to use the technique to develop their respective versions of the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent.

Boeing drops from next-generation ICBM competition

This move leaves Northrop Grumman as the sole bidder in the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program.

By: Valerie Insinna

Boeing has also demonstrated the technology with its clean-sheet T-X trainer, taking its design from concept to first flight in three years and beating out two competitors that offered modified versions of existing jets.

During a May visit to Boeing’s production facility, Paul Niewald, the company’s chief engineer for the T-X program, described how the company crafted its digital T-X design with such precision that parts could be joined without shims — the material used to fill in gaps between the pieces of an aircraft — and only one master tool was needed during the plane’s production.

In total, Boeing was able to reduce by 80 percent the manual labor needed to manufacture and assemble the aircraft, Niewald said.

This artist's rendering from Boeing shows one concept for the Air Force's future fighter, known as Next Generation Air Dominance. (Boeing)

But creating a simple training jet like the T-X is much different than manufacturing a penetrating fighter jet like the NGAD, and there is no proof that those new manufacturing techniques will work for a more advanced aircraft, argued Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with the Teal Group.

Aboulafia suggested the Air Force might be “overreacting” to the struggles of the F-35, where a “one-size-fits-all” approach and a focus on software and sensors produced a very expensive aircraft that took almost two decades to develop. But a Century Series approach, he warned, could prioritize the development of new air vehicles at the expense of investments in new weapons, radars, sensors, communications gear or other enabling technology.

“With the F-35, we had too much [emphasis on] systems and not enough [on the] air vehicle. Maybe this is going too far in the other direction,” he said. “Isn’t the truth somewhere in between where you have two or three air vehicles but a greater resource allocation for systems? In other words, the truth isn’t the F-35 and the truth isn’t the Century Series. Can’t we just think in terms of something in between, a sensible compromise?”

Rebecca Grant, an aerospace analyst with IRIS Independent Research, expressed enthusiasm for a new fighter design effort, saying that engineers could push out options for a Century Series style effort “extremely quickly.” However, she added that the choice of engine, the integration of its communications suite, and the decision whether to make the platform manned or unmanned would be key variables influencing the design of the air vehicle.

“[A Century Series approach] strikes me that it truly is traditional in a way because this is how it was done in the past. And I think that’s what they’re trying to get to. They want fresh designs. But the difficulty is always as you start to make the most important trade-offs and identify the most important criteria,” she said. “Those become pretty serious driving functions pretty quickly."

A (potential) game plan

The new NGAD program office will determine the final acquisition strategy for the Digital Century Series — including the length of the development cycle, procurement quantities and contracting mechanisms. However, Roper revealed to Defense News his thinking for how the program might work:

• Put at least two manufacturers on contract to design a fighter jet. These could include the existing companies capable of building combat aircraft — Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman — as well as new entrants that could bring a unique technology to the table.
• Have each company create a hyper-realistic “digital twin” of its fighter design using advanced 3D modeling. Use those models to run myriad simulations of how production and sustainment could occur, hypothetically optimizing both and reducing cost and labor hours.
• Award a contract to a single fighter manufacturer for an initial batch of aircraft. Roper said that industry could build about a squadron’s worth of airplanes per year, or about 24 aircraft. Include options in the contract for additional batches of aircraft. Air Combat Command leadership has told Roper that 72 aircraft — about the number of aircraft in a typical Air Force wing — would be a viable amount for normal operations.
• While that vendor begins production, restart the competition, putting other companies on contract to begin designing the next aircraft.

As it forms the NGAD acquisition strategy, the new program office will also explore how defense primes would be compensated for their work. Most current Air Force programs are awarded to the company that can provide the most capability at the lowest price, leading to a status quo where vendors underbid to secure a contract and reap profits only when platforms are mass-produced and sustained.

Budget watchdog warns this fighter could cost three times that of the F-35

The Congressional Budget Office is warning of an expensive price tag for the US Air Force’s next fighter jet.

By: Valerie Insinna

But if a Digital Century Series construct is adopted, the Air Force may pay companies more money upfront during the design phase and require them to produce planes with a shorter design life; for instance, a jet with a lifespan of 6,000 flight hours instead of manufacturing aircraft designed to be kept in the skies for 20,000 hours, Roper said.

"That opens up the opportunities to do things very differently, different structural designs, not doing full-scale fatigue testing and all of things we do on the geriatric Air Force to keep things flying,” he said. “Where is the sweet spot where we are keeping airplanes long enough to make a real difference but not so long that we’re paying a premium to sustain them or not able to refresh them with better aircraft?”

One obstacle to the Digital Century Series approach may be persuading Congress to approve the necessary funding. The House Armed Services Committee already recommended cutting funding for the NGAD program in the fiscal 2020 budget request, from $1 billion to $500 million — a sign that the committee may not be sold on the Air Force’s path forward.

Roper said the idea has generated a “good response” from the congressional defense committees but acknowledged that lawmakers have questions about the approach. He also noted there will need to be a means to pay the bills, particularly in the early stages of the development cycle when multiple companies are on contract to design aircraft.

“I think the theory is sound, it’s the funding required and how big of an industry base we can sustain,” he said. “I don’t want to leave companies out, but I also don’t want to go so big that we fail because of funding, not because of the soundness of the idea.”

Taos Hum from New Mexico

But the cause ot the strange sound phenomenon remains unexplained. This article gives some clues of what might produce this annoying and sometimes lethal loud vibration.
the hum, the hum mystery, humming noise, the mysterious hum, the mystery humm, strange humming noise, weird noise in the sky, strange sounds
What We Know About The Hum
The mysterious Hum phenomenon is around since the 1950s and plagues people around the world, from Bristol, England to Taos in New Mexico, USA, Bondi in Sydney, Australia and Windsor in Ontario, Canada.
Only 2-4% of people hear the noise. The low-frequency buzz is mostly heard indoors in rural and suburban locations.
The rumbling sound can get louder during the night, and is very location specific: The Bristol Hum, The Taos Hum, The Bondi Hum, The Largs Hum, The Windsor Hum.
What is the Cause of The Humming noise?
The cause for the low-pitched roar is a mystery, although many scientific researchs have been written on the subject.
The most probable theories include:
exposure to industrial equipment;
high pressure gas lines;
wireless communication devices;
electrical power lines;
electromagnetic radiation; and
the mating calls of Midshipman fish
secret military experiments
submarine communication
alien activity.
Medical Origins of the Hum?
That humming noise isn’t tinnitus (Ménière’s disease). No link has been found between both although medical experts still suggest, it’s a form of tinnitus.
Another medical theory suggests that the hum is caused by trembling of the tensor tympani muscle in the ear.
Dr David Baguley, head of audiology at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, estimates that environmental factors such a fridge, industrial fan or nearby factory may be the source of at least a third of cases.
His own theory – based on years of research – is that many sufferers’ hearing has become over-sensitive concentrating the mind on certain frequencies of sound which it perceives as a threat.
What Are the Symptoms of The Hum?
Although it may sound like a minor inconvenience, many people claim that The Hum has had a massive negative impact on their quality of life.
For some individuals, the phenomenon was so terrible, it drove them to suicide.
Symptoms are Insomnia, pounding head, difficulty concentrating, dizziness, headache, burning skin, tension, pins and needles, muscle spasms, heart palpitations, nose bleeds, eye strain, ear pressure, nausea and fatigue, panic and desperation.
Solutions Against The Hum?
High quality microphones cannot record the sound. Moreover, people in the vicinity of the sufferer aren’t hearing anything.
Ear plugs or hearing protectors do not help and in fact only seem to exaggerate the problem.
This suggests that the source makes the whole body vibrate at a frequency of around 10 MHz upwards, which is lower than the average person can hear.
As you may have understood it, there is no rational explanation for “the Hum”. The theories range from motorway noise to the moans of the tormented souls in hell.
For you to learn more about the mysterious noise preparation, I have linked the most interesting lectures below. Enjoy!
Information About the Taos Hum:
The mystery of the Taos hum. Acoustical Society of America
Taoseños’ Ears Still Humming – Albuquerque Journal
Have you heard The Hum, The throbbing noise that just won’t go away? – Mail Online
In Taos, Researchers Can Hum It, but They Can’t Name That Sound – LA Times
Information About the Windsor Hum:
Report: Windsor Hum Likely From Zug Island “Blast Furnace Operations – Windsorite
Windsor Hum is real but its source remains unknown – Strange Sounds
Information About the Kokomo Hum:
The Kokomo Hum investigation – Acentech Project No. 615411.
Expert says hum is not a sound – Kokomo Tribune.
Humming Toadfish Are the Buzz of Sausalito – NBC.
Information About the Seattle Hum:
‘The Hum’ followup: CalPortland installs second silencer – West Seattle Blog.
Seattle ‘Hum’ May Be Due To Midshipman Fish That Produce Sound For Mating – The Huffington Post.
West Seattle’s now-famous ‘Hum’: Apparently NOT a fish’s fault”. West Seattle Blog.
Information About the Wellington and Auckland Hums:
Wellington hum disappears – 3 News.
Singapore’s frigate ‘Stalwart’ source of Wellington hum? – 3 News.
Mystery humming sound captured – Sydney Morning Herald.
Mysterious humming driving Aucklanders crazy – New Zealand Herald.
Auckland North Shore Hum T.J. Moir personal pages.
Information About the Bristol Hums and other UK hums:
Who, What, Why: Why is ‘the hum’ such a mystery? – BBC News.
In search of the thing that goes hum in the night – The Independent.
Have you heard ‘the Hum’? – BBC News.
I’m plagued by a ‘hum’ that no one else hears – Mail Online.
Humdinger – The Guardian.
What’s that terrible noise? – The Independent
Have you heard The Hum, The throbbing noise that just won’t go away? – Mail Online
Expert has the answer to Woodland village hums -The Advertiser Series
Scientific Articles About the Hum:
Humming Noises are Earth Breathing Sounds – Strange Sounds
Low frequency noise and annoyance – Noise & Health
The Hum: An anomalous sound heard around the world. Journal of Scientific Exploration
A Review of Published Research on Low Frequency Noise and its Effects – Defra
Low Frequency Noise FAQ – University of Salford
The effects of low frequency noise on people—A review – Journal of Sound and Vibration
Hum and otoacoustic emissions may arise out of the same mechanisms – .Journal of Scientific Exploration
The Phenomenon of Low Frequency Hums – Norfolk Tinnitus Society
Can some people hear the jet stream? – New Scientist
Tinnitus – American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery
World Map of the Hum
List of strange sounds around the world – Strange Sounds
The World Hum Map and Database – World Hum Database and Mapping Project.

They Can’t Stop Us from Re-Opening America

We’re going to come out of this nightmare whether the Democratic politicians like it or not. The pandemic is subsiding, so America is done with this lockdown no

nsense, and the inevitable re-opening is coming. It will start out slow, then get faster, then get very, very fast, and then get finished. That’s how these things happen. But it won’t happen without #resistance. The lib establishment and its media gerbils clearly think it’s in their interest to have the Bat Gobbler flu crisis continue indefinitely. They think it hurts Trump, plus they really love wielding power over you. Just look into the dead doll eyes of Governor Karen (D-Minncounsinigan) and you can see that forcing big box stores to tape off the seed section gives her a kind of erotic pleasure. It’s kind of creepy.

But people aren’t having any more of this Schiff. We’re done. We could deal with it when it looked like a commonsense thing to do, but now it’s just getting stupid. Things are getting better and they are doubling down on the social distance Stasi act. You got police departments tweeting that protest isn’t essential, but apparently being petty fascists is.

Over it!

We’ve seen the protests being, and we’re going to see more of them, but we’re also seeing silent rebellions. After weeks of disconcerting emptiness, the barren freeways of Los Angeles are suddenly filling up again with people who are voting with their feet and venturing back outside. While this paralysis may be a funfest for loser government workers, journalisandanistas, and other nonessential dorks who, for some reason, are still getting paychecks, it’s a disaster for everybody else and we are about done. We will no longer be the collateral damage of their power tripping.

It doesn’t help that Nancy Pelosi, whose last name is Italian for “Antoinette,” is prancing about on the air with Nimrod late-night hosts in front of her 24-grand dual freezers even as she holds up the PPP loans that we need to the country’s small business backbone alive and many of us employed.

Let them eat artisanal chocolate ice cream with James Corden, whoever the hell that is!

When you get a pink slip from your boss, you should write a thank you note to Nancy Pelosi because it’s her and the rest of the Democrats that are screwing you over.

If there’s anything that Trump knows it public opinion, and that’s why he’s championing re-opening the United States again and soon. I’m not one of those people who thought it was crazy to react to the Wuhan Flu at all, but it is crazy to keep reacting to Pangolin Fever forever. Time to Liberate the USA.

The pols slobbering at the chance to boss us around into 2021 or 2022 better get their heads right. There is no “new normal.” There’s just “normal,” and that’s what we need to go back to. We’re not permanently avoiding each other (literally) like the plague, or wearing those dumb masks forever, or never again gathering in groups of more than five. I’m going to see the Psychedelic Furs, Blondie and the bat-curious goth rockers of Bauhaus in September, jerks, and that’s just how it’s going to be.

Hey, the great Chinese coronavirus panic was fun while it lasted, but it’s done. The curve has been flattened. The numbers are dropping. All good things come to an end, and so must this.

There’s no bright line that we will cross and know it is over. Different places will open up at different paces. There will just be one day when you look around and realize, “Hey, it stopped.” I did a lot of disaster operations with the Army and there’s the early part where you’re out in uniform with guns and chaos reigns and everybody’s freaking out and after a while, it kind of peaks and then suddenly you’re walking around in uniform with guns and everyone else has gone back to their normal life and is looking at you funny. That’s kind of where we’re getting to now. This thing is over.

Yeah, I know the Wuhan bug is still out there, but we’ve got it under control now. We’re going to start getting back to normal, although the Democrats will have to be dragged kicking and screaming because they love this. Power, economic devastation, and the ability to boss people around and oppress them these are the things they live for.

We’re going to see a rush back to freedom. What’s going to happen is conservative states are going to start opening up and they’re going to start opening up soon. Then people in fascist nightmare states like California and New York are going to look over at Texas and North Dakota and the rest of free America that lies outside of the future People's Republic and wonder why the hell they are still getting yelled at for going to the beach. Pretty soon it’ll be an avalanche as people demand to re-open. And then the stock market is going to soar and unemployment is going to come down and we’re going to put this nightmare behind us. And Trump will get re-elected, which they fear more than any virus.

And once this ends, it’s time to reevaluate. It’s time to reevaluate all the science people who couldn’t make an accurate model to save their or our lives. It’s time to reevaluate all the globalist jerks who sold us out to China – hi Hoover Biden! And it’s time to reevaluate all the Lil’ Himmlers who enjoyed this all way too much.

But first we’ve got to re-open America, and that’s going to happen faster than you think.

Editor's Note: Want to support Townhall so we can keep telling the truth about China and the virus they unleashed on the world? Join Townhall VIP  and use the promo code WUHAN to get 25% off VIP membership! You'll get an additional weekly VIP-exclusive Kurt column  AND his VIP podcast Unredacted.

The alternative to reopening is the dystopian blue state future of out my action-packed conservative novels People's Republic, Indian Country, Wildfire, and Collapse! And join up with Townhall VIP for near-daily chats with your favorite VIP reprobates, get my podcast, “Unredacted” every Monday, and also check out my new Hugh Hewitt-5caffiliated Salem podcast, “Fighting Words

Non-Essential Workers? Most Are in Government

There’s a stark contrast in suffering between the private and public sectors in this era of unprecedented government intrusion into American life and business. Millions of mom-and-pop shops are shut

and their income is decimated and large-company employees are furloughed. But we hear virtually nothing about government workers being laid off – or even taking a pay cut.

Let that sink in: the folks whose work and taxes underwrite bureaucrat pay are cut off from livelihood while those they support in government are not only not hurting, but many are being given what are essentially paid vacations. And we’re hearing talk about non-essential workers? The vast majority of non-essential jobs are in government.

Where are all the altruistic Fed, state and local workers who volunteer, as Trump has, to give up their salaries? How about those characters in Congress? We know about the swamp in D.C. There are mini-swamps nationwide which also need draining.

There’s a huge revenue shortfall coming and when this fiasco is over it will be the ideal time to downsize government bodies large and small. Though we shouldn’t hold our breath. Not only are these individuals not sharing the sacrifice now, even if we manage to move some of ‘em out, most have generous – to say the least – pensions, also coming at taxpayer expense.

Astonishingly -- or perhaps not, when you remember that Congress is doing it -- hundreds of billions in relief spending is being distributed scattershot with no employment or means testing. And where is a good chunk of this money going? You guessed it. To the same government workers and bureaucrats who have had no cessation in their paychecks! (Brief government largesse might make a house or rent payment, but it comes at the expense of inflating and devaluing the rest of our currency.)

Private sector people, who make all other activities in this country possible, should chafe at the idea that theirs is a non-essential job. To whom? Certainly not to them and the families who depend on their income. Each day that goes by is a still-intangible cost of the current crisis and a lost opportunity for the satisfaction of a job well done.

Betsy McCaughey, former Lieutenant Governor of New York, writes, "Every 1% hike in the unemployment rate will likely produce a 3.3% increase in drug overdose deaths and a 0.99% increase in suicides according to data provided by the National Bureau of Economic Research and the medical journal Lancet. These are facts based on experience, not models. ... Overall, the death rate for an unemployed person is 63% higher than for someone with a job, according to findings in Social Science & Medicine.”

We're near a tipping point where the cure will be harming more people than the disease.

Benjamin Franklin, the oldest and among the wisest of the founding generation, observed almost 250 years ago that “… when Men are employ'd they are best contented. For on the Days they work'd they were good-natur'd and chearful; and with the consciousness of having done a good Days work they spent the Evenings jollily; but on the idle Days they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with their Pork and their Bread, and in continual ill-humour."

Judging from the discontent and pushback nationwide, it’s time to end the shutdown before it descends into civil disobedience.

America has been can-do from day one. It faced challenges head-on, not cowering and quarantined. Watch this PragerU video about the recovery from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The same situation pertains here. No matter what we do, more people will lose their lives, whether it's directly from the virus or a result of the hopelessness that comes from having no work – as demanded for month after month by Ivory Tower fools with protected wealth or regular government paychecks.

During the Vietnam War, the city of Ben Tre was nearly bombed into oblivion. The oft-misquoted excuse was that the city was destroyed “in order to save it.” We’re doing something similar to ourselves on our own shores.

A great and underappreciated president, Calvin Coolidge, said, “The chief business of the American people is business.” Silent Cal presided over the prosperous part of a decade which came to be known as the roaring twenties. How appropriate that another capable and business-friendly president, Donald Trump, is poised to facilitate a 21st-century ‘20s return to prosperity.

Let’s drain the swamp(s), Make America Great Again, Again, and put this miserable episode in the rear-view mirror

Wuhan Lab?

There is increasing confidence that the COVID-19 outbreak likely originated in a Wuhan laboratory, though not as a bioweapon but as part of China's attempt to demonstrate that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal to or greater than the capabilities of the United States, multiple sources who have been briefed on the details of early actions by China's government and seen relevant materials tell Fox News.
This may be the "costliest government cover-up of all time," one of the sources said.
The sources believe the initial transmission of the virus – a naturally occurring strain that was being studied there – was bat-to-human and that "patient zero" worked at the laboratory, then went into the population in Wuhan.
The “increasing confidence” comes from classified and open-source documents and evidence, the sources said. Fox News has requested to see the evidence directly. Sources emphasized -- as is often the case with intelligence -- that it’s not definitive and should not be characterized as such. Some inside the administration and the intelligence and epidemiological communities are more skeptical, and the investigation is continuing.
What all of the sources agree about is the extensive cover-up of data and information about COVID-19 orchestrated by the Chinese government.
Asked by Fox News' John Roberts about the reporting, President Trump remarked at Wednesday's coronavirus press briefing, "More and more we're hearing the story...we are doing a very thorough examination of this horrible situation."Documents detail early efforts by doctors at the lab and early efforts at containment. The Wuhan wet market initially identified as a possible point of origin never sold bats, and the sources tell Fox News that blaming the wet market was an effort by China to deflect blame from the laboratory, along with the country's propaganda efforts targeting the U.S. and Italy.
U.S. Embassy officials warned in January 2018 about inadequate safety at the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab and passed on information about scientists conducting risky research on coronavirus from bats, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.In this Tuesday, March 10, 2020, photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping talks by video with patients and medical workers at the Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province. (Xie Huanchi/Xinhua via AP)
Responding to the report, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday afternoon: "It should be no surprise to you that we have taken a keen interest in that and we've had a lot of intelligence take a hard look at that. I would just say at this point, it's inconclusive, although the weight of evidence seems to indicate natural, but we don't know for certain."
“Even today, I see them withholding information and I think we need to do more to continue to press them to share,” Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told “America’s Newsroom" on Wednesday, referring to China. Esper added that he wouldn't speak to "intelligence reporting," but that "most people believe it began naturally — it was organic, if you will. I think in due course, once we get through the pandemic we're in right now, there'll be time to look back and really ascertain what happened and make sure we have a better understanding so we can prevent this in the future."
Sources point to the structure of the virus, in saying the genome mapping specifically shows it was not genetically altered.
Speaking to "The Story" Wednesday evening, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo remarked: "What we do know is we know that this virus originated in Wuhan, China. We know there is the Wuhan Institute of Virology just a handful of miles away from where the wet market was. There is still lots to learn. You should know that the United States government is working diligently to figure it out."

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sits down with Martha MaCallum on 'The Story' to discuss the coronavirus pandemic and U.S.-China relations.

Concerning the State Department cables warning about the Wuhan laboratory, Pompeo said the installation "contained highly contagious materials — we knew that, we knew that they were working on this program, many countries have programs like this. In countries that are open and transparent, they have the ability to control them and keep them safe, and they allow outside observers in to make sure all the processes and procedures are right. I only wish that that had happened in this place."
On Thursday, China's foreign ministry pushed back on the suspicion that the virus escaped from the facility, by citing statements from the World Health Organization that there is no evidence the coronavirus came from a laboratory.
Americans were originally helping train the Chinese in a program called PREVENT well before the Chinese started working on this virus. The French government helped the Chinese set up the Wuhan lab.
China "100 percent" suppressed data and changed data, the sources tell Fox News. Samples were destroyed, contaminated areas scrubbed, some early reports erased, and academic articles stifled. 
STATE DEPT LEAKED CABLES RENEW THEORIES ON ORIGINS OF CORONAVIRUS
There were doctors and journalists who were "disappeared" warning of the spread of the virus and its contagious nature and human to human transmission. China moved quickly to shut down travel domestically from Wuhan to the rest of China, but did not stop international flights from Wuhan.
Additionally, the sources tell Fox News the World Health Organization (WHO) was complicit from the beginning in helping China cover its tracks.     

Commuters wear face masks to protect against the spread of new coronavirus as they walk through a subway station in Beijing, Thursday, April 9, 2020. China's National Health Commission on Thursday reported dozens of new COVID-19 cases, including most of which it says are imported infections in recent arrivals from abroad and two "native" cases in the southern province of Guangdong. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Trump announced at the White House coronavirus news briefing in the Rose Garden on Tuesday that the United States will immediately halt all funding for the WHO, saying it had put "political correctness over lifesaving measures." The United States is the WHO's largest single donor, and the State Department had previously planned to provide the agency $893 million in the current two-year funding period.
Senior administrations separately tell Fox News the rollout of the president’s “blueprint for reopening the U.S. economy” will happen Thursday afternoon, first for governors and then briefed to the press.
Meanwhile, Trump's own handling of the crisis has come into focus. On January 24, for example, Trump tweeted in praise of China’s “transparency" on coronavirus.
Though they were not speaking for the president, the sources ventured an explanation, saying it was diplomatic talk to make the Chinese "feel good" while the investigation was ongoing, with trade and other talks happening simultaneously.
In the six days after top Chinese officials secretly determined they likely were facing a pandemic from a new coronavirus, the city of Wuhan at the epicenter of the disease hosted a mass banquet for tens of thousands of people; millions began traveling through for Lunar New Year celebrations.
President Xi Jinping warned the public on the seventh day, Jan. 20. But by that time, more than 3,000 people had been infected during almost a week of public silence, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press and expert estimates based on retrospective infection data.
“This is tremendous,” said Zuo-Feng Zhang, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “If they took action six days earlier, there would have been much fewer patients and medical facilities would have been sufficient. We might have avoided the collapse of Wuhan’s medical system.”