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Year: 2018

What does China’s Silk Road really offer Central Asia and Europe?

Over at MoonofAlabama, b (would-be heir to billmon, probably the best socio-political blogger to ever put finger to keyboard) recently penned an engaging editorial, "The West is Past". The headline is creative hyperbole but does make the solid point that the USA and Britain by driving Russia and China together have created for themselves a difficult situation which could result in losing Europe. Not soon as it appears that either the funds to bribe Euro politicians are bottomless or that our politicians are very inexpensive wholesale by the bushel.

What surprised me was not b’s editorial but the reaction of veteran MoonofAlabama commenters. It appears they are died in the wool anarchists. A main thrust of comments on this article ostensibly about the infighting and decadence of the G7 was to cast stones at the Silk Road.

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Letter to a friend about the environment, leadership

The funny thing about those people favouring fracking and who don’t care about the plastic pollution in the oceans or the disappearing potable water is that the environment affects us all. More and more people die from cancer from our toxic environment and food. If we don’t wake up as a species, we will literally destroy our own habitat. There will be very little worth fighting over.

And none of it has to be this way if we were to reshape capitalism to make preservation and improvement of the environment our highest goal. Nothing to prevent us making health care and education a secondary priority. Particularly the second is very environmentally friendly. Young people reading books and improving their minds has very little carbon effect.

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How Long would the American Navy Survive in a Shooting War in 2018

The economic writing on the wall is writ large now. The USA is no longer solvent. Sure, there is cash flow but the trends are so negative that only a world war and an economic reset (reneging on their debts to China and Saudi Arabia to start and the rest of the world to finish, with perhaps an exception for the UK and Israel) will give them a hope of meeting any obligations.

The decision to go down this path was made when the election of 2000 was rigged in G.W. Bush’s favour and the PNAC (Project for the New American Century) warmongers came into power, such as Dick Cheney and John Bolton. While Bill Clinton is a bad who married an evil woman, he has largely lived on his charm. His United States (not his wife’s) was predicated on expanding trade and making friends. While a lot of Clinton’s *bonhomerie* was empty glad-handing and PR, during his stay in power the deficit radically shrank. The USA had a chance of turning its budget and financial situation around on people *wanting to do business* with the USA and doing so of their own free will.

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What sacrifices should parents make for their children to be happy?

The full question at Quora was:

Why did my dad think it was a good idea to get a lower-paying job and lower our standard of living just because he was stressed and tired? Isn’t it the parents’ job to make sacrifices for their children to be happy?

I meant to leave a two or three line answer. The process of answering the question made me think more deeply about the issue. Uncoy is generally about dance, politics, history or photography but if I’m prepared to take this question on Quora, why not here?

Others answered this question very well, with moving stories about uncles or fathers they have lost. The short and effective answer by someone who lost his father to stress: “You have your dad. Can we trade places?”

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2018 Oscar for Best Documentary Film: Things that Go Bump in the Night

Things that Go Bump in the Night has just won the 91st Oscar for Best Documentary Film, following in the glorious tradition of Winter on Fire (2015) The White Helmets (2016) and Icarus (2017) of uncovering Russian crimes across the planet.

While doping, fomenting civil war and foreign intervention are serious human transgressions, they are only the symptoms of Russian rancour not the source of Russia’s malevolence. The producers of Things that Go Bump in the Night have gone further into the darkness of Russian depravity and uncovered its source.

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