Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Elizabeth Kolbert discusses the immense damage and disruption which we can anticipate if Greenland's massive ice sheet melts due to global warming, while…
China
Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading.- Tarique Niazi discusses some of the geopolitical implications of the intensifying climate crisis. Aaron Whetty offers a reminder that the joint effort by…
China—climate change leader?
In a recent article, New York Times opinion writer David Wallace-Wells poses the question “What... The post China—climate change leader? first appeared on Views from the Beltline.
What The World Needs Most
Great discussion, as always, and a great song. (See the link below, to a podcast interview by one of my top three sources.) Now, maybe a song about sisu, the…
Some countries we like, others … not so much
A recent survey of Canadian attitudes toward various countries by the Angus Reid Institute produced some interesting results. The survey covered nine countries that have been much in the news…
The Hong Kong tragedy
At a time when democracy seems to be losing ground around the globe, even in the United States, one of the saddest losses is Hong Kong. The former British colony…
China—to trade or not to trade
It doesn’t seem that long ago that the U.S. and Canadian governments were assuring us that free trade would be the answer to everything from economic prosperity to world peace.…
Renaissance, Resistance & Revolution
In terms of social movements, the Left is dead, for the time being, at least in the formerly industrialized, formerly “leading”, “developed”, First World nations of the (North-) West. The…
Global Tectonic Shift: The Rise Of China & The Collapse Of The West
To more deeply understand China’s rise, and the decline of the West, see my essay, The Failure Of Propaganda & The Resort To Fascism, which traces the history of the…
Political Philosophy & The Future Of Humanity – In A Nutshell
I will be brief. Fuller elaborations I have already made elsewhere. Here is the gist. Excellent talk, this is, in the video linked below, but incorrect here: “Nobody in the…
Chinese at the border
Perhaps the most famous border in the world is the one along the Rio Grande that separates Mexico from the United States. It is almost certainly the most popular. U.S.…
Talking to China
Winston Churchill is credited with saying “It’s better to jaw-jaw than war-war.” It is very much better indeed when two protagonists are armed with nuclear weapons, say like the U.S.…
The amazing American economy
Reading a very good book recently I was once again reminded of the irrepressible nature of the American economy. The book is Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most…
China’s spending money to undermine Canadian democracy? If they’ll just leave us alone, we’ll take care of it ourselves!
If the People’s Republic of China is trying as hard as the Conservative Party of Canada insists it is to undermine Canadian democracy, it’s hard to understand why they’re bothering.…
Iran and Saudi Arabia make nice
The Middle East has been an ugly place for some time. It has become humanity’s favourite region for killing each other although Vladimir Putin is attempting to return that honour…
Iran and Saudi Arabia make nice
The Middle East has been an ugly place for some time. It has become humanity’s favourite region for killing each other although Vladimir Putin is attempting to return that honour…
Plague Update: Logic Fails
There’s a cartoon showing how many people still think that COVID-19 is just like chicken pox, and you aren’t likely to get a symptomatic infection another time while healthy, so…
Xi puts women in their place
When President Xi Jinping introduced his Politburo Standing Committee at the 20th Communist party congress in Beijing, one thing stood out. Of the seven, none were women. Furthermore, of the…
Time to friend-shore?
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently introduced a concept she referred to as “friend-shoring.” In her words, “Friend-shoring is the idea that countries that espouse a common set of values…
How fares the emperor?
Xi Jinping has it all: general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, chairman of the Central Military Commission, commander-in-chief of the People’s Liberation Army, and the Politburo Standing Committee filled…