Anna Chen – 3 December 2023 chip tech The US semiconductor technology war against itself US chip tech once more faces government friendly fire, courtesy of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s rant about cutting off China from AI technology. Severance in the same way you might close a stable post equine scarper: is it the door …
Review of Shakespeare’s The Wars of the Roses — Henry VI parts 1 & 2 and Richard III. That’s us, that is.
On this month’s 400th anniversary of the First Folio’s publication, what looks like a simple squaring up of combative parties is more a dodecahedron of feuding interests.
Shakespeare’s history play cycle, a cynic’s take on human relations in favour of the strong leader who will restore equilibrium and God’s order, strips bare the mindset that kicked off Britain’s empire now wheezing into a comeback effort. First time as tragedy, second time top-and-tailing the empire years with added farce.
US state department official arrested and sacked for race-baiting food vendor – When Stuart Seldowitz launched his Islamophobic rant at a New York food truck vendor, he discovered the hard way that his Masters of the Universe privileges had been rescinded. Gloating grotesquely, “We killed 4,000 kids, it wasn’t enough,” he hadn’t reckoned on the public’s collective sense of injustice making the vendor’s video go viral.
The United States of Amnesia is at it again. Blasting China with a whole new round of sanctions and indictments, Attorney General Merrick Garland’s claim on Tuesday, that China is responsible for the fentanyl crisis, diverts from the opioid epidemic caused by American companies Johnson & Johnson and others, “profiting from a flood of addictive painkillers that devastated communities”. As a result, J&J faced a $26 Billion lawsuit in 2021 but we’re encouraged to forget this as the social and health damage deepens.
From US doctors to China, the blame game goes on while the conditions of poverty and despair that breeds drug addiction are allowed to continue.
Asia Times 29 September 2023: Now that the Writers Strike is over, I can pitch my script for that blockbuster version of Cervantes’ classic crying out to be made: Don Quixote in the White House, updating windmills to stray weather balloons, complete with paranoia & moustache-twirling villains. (Oh. Democrats don’t do facial hair?)
The B-story is a light romance set in the world’s seat of power. He loves Xi but the sweethearts fall out over a misunderstanding that Xi wants to ditch him and run off with Europe.
Across the world, every two-bit, dime-a-dozen demagogue, any politician or public figure in need of a reputation cleanser or career booster realizes they can play the China “Get out of jail free” card, ready made for every grade ‘n’ shade of no-goodniks.
Zoo Time at Operation Circe: How the Wolf Warrior was invented, first published by Asia Times, 5 September 2023
Accusations had been blasted at China in a character-assassination broadside by both sides of the House from which neither facts nor history could save it. China, not Trump, had reneged on the trade deal. China was stealing IP. It was a currency manipulator, despite the fact that, far from undervaluing the yuan, China was spending vast amounts of its reserves propping it up. China, not the top one percent of the US that now owned as much as the bottom 90 percent, was the cause of America’s misery.
You might suspect, from all the invective in high places, that the US didn’t actually want a stable relationship with its successful partner.
