Friday, June 26, 2020

For What Do We Need Nations?

What Does China Want under the Leadership of Xi? -The South China Sea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. [Australia] Part 1 of 2

China now is no more aggressive than China in the era of Mao or the post-Mao period. But China is now seen to be more  assertive because it has grown in economic and military capabilities. In the three US-led Western agenda setting issues of the South China Sea, Hong Kong and Taiwan China wants to keep the status quo as much as possible. Continue reading 


Monty Python and the quest for education: Chinese International Students and National Security

A great many Australians appear to have difficulty accepting that Chinese parents might be concerned about the safety of their children who study in Australia even though the number of attacks on Chinese residents in Australia has increased markedly.

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For What Do We Need Nations?

Over the centuries nationalism has swung back and forth as a progressive and retrograde force, depending on historical conditions. In revolutionary France the “nation” started as a wrecking ball against feudalism and the church. Before the “nation” became defined by its limit of concern, it appeared to the Old Regime as terrifying in its limitlessness. Before the “nation” could be for anyone it had to be against specific someones: kings, priests and their enablers. Nationalism became a forest fire of fraternity that Napoleon wanted to control-burn through Europe in order to make fertile ground for the imposition of his uniform Code. – The Point


Autistic women are often the most socially intelligent of anyone, because we have to be.”  (Times of London)


Can crows distinguish different human languages?


 The Greece bailout was 43% of Greek gdp in 2011.


Out of sample alphas for market returns.


Markets in everything: Grateful Dead deodorant.  And $280 an hour to see Las Vegas police cam footage


Folly of following the Five Eyes Anglo-Saxon relic

The main countries comprising this electronic espionage group have made an abysmal hash of responding to the economic and health impacts of Covid-19. Yet the Australian government has chosen them to develop a “strategic” economic response to the Covid 19 crisis.

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Being Kierkegaardian precludes any dutiful fealty to Kierkegaard himself. Unfortunately, a new book misses this point