Democracy is rapidly a disappearing form of government. We will be lucky if we can just sustain soft autocracies. X Marks the Spot… Until recently social media was nothing. Now it’s the thing. So much so that the Supreme Court is getting on the act by accepting a case (would you believe), namely when can when public officials block people on their ...
Who gave the order not to use guns? The Real Stand-Down Order? I usually stay clear of politics; you usually can’t win. But this issue is shouting out so loud to be heard, I can’t avoid it. So here goes. Where were the guns of January 6? I saw the videos of the Congress riots and could see batons and pepper spray galore but no guns. What gives? We ...
What’s the Point? You can predict the value that nonprofits and government are creating by assessing the value-adding behaviors of their leaders. Full disclosure: This references my research into the financial styles of CEOs (see “The Three Financial Styles of Very Successful CEOs”) Government Childcare Program Not Working (Gasp) Did you see this...
Prove it! Let’s not get into politics but I don’t have to tell you that election fraud has been occupying a lot of minds, whether or not it is occurring. And, clearly not just in the US. How about in every country with a voting system, democratic, quasi or not? Even if you don’t have any fraud, how do you prove it? Technology to the rescue, this ti...
I recently wrote about the potential number of Black Swans waiting to swoop in on us. Would a Second US Civil War count as one? Very likely I guess. Divided We Stand I don’t think the US has been so divided since the US Civil War, arguably anyway. Sadly, one of the causes of that war is still the same, namely racial. But of course, there are others...
It looks like BREXIT is a mess. It’s fiendishly complicated. I already posted on this in 2016 (“BREXITed - UK Gain, EU Pain”). My thesis was that BREXIT would hurt the EU far more than the UK. Now I’ve had more time to consider the issue what’s my lowly opinion now? My opinion last time concerned the short-term, what would happen in the next 5 year...
Did you see the one where 95 affordable apartments were offered for rent in Ye Olde San Francisco recently and 6580 people applied? So much for being poor in the richest city in the US. In a similar vein, I keep on seeing all this stuff about foreign heads of state being entertained at Mar a Lago. Hmm, that sounds like there’s a tin ear somewhere...
I just arrived back from one of my regular business trips to China. Here’s my tally: air pollution is even worse, water in rivers is filthy. Yet the built environment is even more impressive and the Chinese people have made giant steps forward over their American and European counterparts in the convenience of their lives. How so? It’s called WeC...
We’ve just seen China approve a lifting of term limits on their leader, an epochal decision. Clearly there’s a move to authoritarian leadership globally. As well as China there’s the usual suspects like Russia, Belarus and North Korea, but now there’s some new/newish members of the club including Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Venezuela, Malaysia and Mya...
We’ve just had the latest Winter Olympics in South Korea. Of course it was overshadowed by the nuclear threats hurled at each other by the US and North Korea. Olympics are supposed to be about peace but this clearly wasn’t a very peaceable atmosphere. Now the Dear Respected Comrade is on an ostensible peace offensive, let’s see how long that lasts....
For lovers of democracy, what’s not to dislike? Dystopian news from Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Ukraine, North Korea and so on. Not to mention German, Hungary, Myanmar. Even (especially?) the US! Could things get worse? You remember “The End of History” by Francis Fukuyama? Liberalism and democracy triumph, nothing left to do until mankind reache...
Just some idle speculation on my part while I was flossing my teeth. You know, thinking about life when I’m not allowed to drive a car, which looks like it could be soon. Ah well… So it looks like self-driving cars are well on the way. Doesn’t that mean there will be a lot less accidents? The statisterati say that 95% of motor vehicle accidents are...
I guess you might have seen that the UN has just opened up for signature a treaty that would ban all nuclear weapons? The big (nuclear) guys have already announced they won’t sign it. What a great start! Dream on. So nuclear proliferation is bad right? We should ban all nuclear weapons? Nonproliferation has been the core principle in international ...
It looks like North Korea really has it in for the US. But what if the Dear Leader’s real target is China? Now that sounds crazy right? China is North Korea’s closest ally. Moreover it is North Korea’s main trade partner. As the media constantly remind us, China will never move against North Korea because it needs the Hermit Kingdom to keep the Kor...
Did you hear about the recent wedding of two people in their nineties (She’s 98. He’s 94. They Met at the Gym). Tells us that you can have love even when it might be thought you were past it. Put it in the sweet news column. It used to be thought that love was a spiritual phenomenon (as distinct from being a spiritual feeling). Then we discovered t...
I don’t have to tell you how serious the North Korea issue is. It’s clearly getting even worse. We are close to the level of severity of the Cuban missile crisis, even beyond. Is there anything to be done about it? So far all strategies have failed. Talks, sanctions, negotiations, threats, hacking. The only thing left is war. But if that happens we...
So I know I don’t have to remind you that we have a family running the US of A. Let’s say that it continues, with or without a gap between other family members also getting into the saddle. That’s what a dynasty is, in both cases. And this is hardly new. In modern times we’ve had the Kennedys, the Bushes and the Clintons. The Roosevelts before that...
We’ve seen some strange things lately in the political arena, what with Brexit, Trump, and the upcoming political upstarts in Europe and so on. So strange in fact that African leaders are now warning global leaders not to copy the West’s political systems, as did Rwanda’s Paul Kagame recently. So strange that Russia’s Putin is now seen as a rock st...
Music streaming is hot. Everyone’s doing it. So why is it so popular? Well, the music is popular and varied, often relaxing. You can live in your own world. What’s not to like? Outside there’s a lot of hurly-burly and especially a lot of noise. Is music streaming a way to get away from the noise? We are all bathed in a constant tumult of noise, unc...
National intelligence has been a hot topic lately. That’s a bit weird given that I have been posting on artificial intelligence. Does national intelligence come even close to AI? Can we trust its analyses? OK so I have a tiny bit of first-hand experience in this. In my callow youth I was actually a junior diplomat for a small power allied to the US...
