Look up Bush v Gore

Dictators have a much better record than you give them credit for. Even when they don’t maintain supreme authority indefinitely, they often secure control for multiple generations. And when they finally exit their post, it’s routinely with their pockets stuffed full of cash. Occasionally, they just stick around as ultra-wealthy landlords that the country venerates purely out of a sense of tradition.

STOP

GOING

TO

THE

BAD

SITE

Just quit going there.

I haven’t seen much to suggest he’s more than Starmer with a palette swap. He makes a lot of the same mouth noises as Starmer from 15 years ago, but still seems fully invested in deficit hawkery and military expansion and propping up of the failing capital enterprises.

Even then, with Reform UK looming over his shoulder and Labour MPs heading for the exits, Idk what he’ll actually manage to do before he loses his majority. I suspect he’s just getting stood up like Ed Miliband, so British News can scream about Far Left Labour come election day.

King In The North! Make Manchester Great Again!

People bouncing off the walls about China’s plan to invade Taiwan for over half a century.

But the US ratcheting tensions into the next Bay of Pigs debacle never seems to crack the front pages.

I’ve always found Taiwan to be China’s Cuba in that regard.

Of course, China’s policy towards Taiwan is nothing like America’s towards Cuba. But hey, maybe it should be?

I don’t think most Taiwanese want war with the CPC

I don’t think they do, either. The KMT, specifically, wants to preserve the China-Taiwan relationship. Most lay residents just want to get on with their lives.

But from the country’s hawks - particularly expats like Elaine Chao and Ted Lieu - there’s ongoing pressure to climb the escalation ladder and return Taiwan to it’s historical role as forward operating base of the Western powers.

Framing an independence movement this way

When you’re asking for long range missiles staged inside your borders and the capacity to close the Straight as a political lever, you’re beyond the point of an independence movement.

We’re in Cuban Missile Crisis territory.

“We must protect our democratic instutitions!”

The Democratic Institutions

It is very funny to see the three major factions of Taiwan shaping out as

• The party that wants a war with China

• The party that wants war in China and regime change in Beijing so they can take it back over from the outside

• The party that wants all the Han invaders from the 1940s to GTFO

And they all hate each other nearly as much as they hate the Chinese communists. But not so much that they are willing to stop doing north of $100B/year in trade with the mainland.

“Regardless of ethnic group, regardless of who came earlier or later, anyone who identifies with Taiwan is a master of the country. Taiwan’s future must be decided jointly ​by the 23 million people of Taiwan,” he said.

George Bush Jr energy, shortly before he sticks the knife in Ted Kennedy’s back.

I wonder how many special forces units are mysteriously disappearing while on vacation.

the US isn’t a one party system

Explain that to the donors

It’s a division of the Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Which makes this akin to the Facebook Page of one of the major US parties.

an animated video posted by the China Daily on its Facebook page

Wait, Facebook is owned by China now? I thought it was just TikTok.

That’s all true. But I’m still firmly of the belief that the correct form of Podcast is some combination of British trans woman, Brooklyn journalism washout, and Philadelphia engineer talking about classic movies, election news, and engineering disasters.

Podcasts are a blight on humanity

They’re just radio shows you don’t need a broadcast station to distribute.

Some are definitely better than others

I don’t relish listening to people talk ad nauseum about inane shit.

Shrug

Nobody is forcing you to

Because it’s a deeply bitter ethnic rivalry between British settlers and Spanish settlers that’s been going on for multiple centuries.

You’ll have to explain that to the NGOs and legislators who continue to segregate it from the mainland for reporting and trade policy purposes.

Tianpin Investment Management Ltd

The full name of the firm is actually Hongkong Tianpin Investment Group Co Limited. And its primary stakeholder is Keppel Ltd. a Singaporean company headquartered in Keppel Bay Tower founded and largely still owned by British commercial stakeholders.

Always curious to see how Hong Kong gets counted as an independent country when we talk about the Fraser Institute Freedom Index or discuss US foreign policy.

But then there’s an environmental disaster for which the holding company is held responsible, and suddenly all that talk about Hong Kong independence and the glory days of British colonial rule fall away. And it’s Beijing’s fault that a company with a Mandarin name is being run by Captain Planet villains.

We’re trying pretty hard to slow down EV and green energy adoption as much as possible in my country, that count?

Well, on the one hand, we’re trying some very heavy-handed bureaucratic strategies to prop up O&G and to undermine domestic green alternatives.

But, on the other hand, we’re fucking up all the major international suppliers of O&G while incentivizing the world’s manufacturing powerhouse to spam green energy grids across the underdeveloped world at below-cost in order to build out a 21st century trade network.

So it’s a double-edged sword, and we’re just pinwheeling around with that thing.

“it’ll cause a negative feedback loop” technically they’re referring to a positive feedback loop

I’ve heard the terms “vicious”/“virtuous” cycle kicked around.