HALF-FULL REPORT 05/17/24
China and Russia Decide Their Future
__________________________
Putin's recent trip to Beijing holds great significance and has implications for Russia-China relations, as well as the global stage. China welcomed Putin with open arms, hosting top officials at the conference table.
Notable members of the Russian delegation include new Defense Minister Belousov, military personnel such as Shoigu, and business leaders like Oleg Deripaska, Igor Sechin, and Herman Gref. The delegation's composition suggests a focus on bolstering economic and financial cooperation with China, possibly due to the damaging effects of sanctions.
The ongoing conflict in Ukraine is pushing Russia and China into an economic partnership that could significantly impact the availability of advanced weaponry and prolong the war. The rapid development of AI-based weaponry and production systems, governed by compliant individuals and leaders absolved of personal responsibility, could lead to large-scale global failures.
The importance of nurturing the human element in autonomous systems cannot be understated, as relying solely on rule-based systems may lead to more disastrous occurrences.
The continuing meeting between Russian and Chinese high-ranking military and economic officials may yield an outcome similar to the Covid vaccination program, due to the automatic speed and nature of the AI systems being implemented worldwide. Automation makes errors faster and deeper, and China and Russia may not bounce back from the strategies they are devising this week in Beijing.
The International Rules-Based Order and the Fourth Industrial Revolution just collided. Come on over to this week’s HFR and take a look.
THE WELL OF JOB
We’re all familiar with the sufferings of Job in the Old Testament’s Book of Job. But what happened to Job after his sufferings were ended? All the OT says is that, with his health and riches restored, he lived long enough to see his great-great grandchildren.
The OT says Job lived in the “Land of Uz,” which was “beyond the Euphrates.” That would place it in modern day Iraq. There is no connection between this Hebraic name and the land of Uzbekistan – meaning the Land of Uzbeks, a Turkic people. Yet the Silk Road city of Bukhara in today’s Uzbekistan is thousands of years old.
Jews have lived in Bukhara for 3,000 years, although almost all have emigrated now (some 150,000 Bukharan Jews live in Israel). Thus it is a very ancient legend that during a terrible drought in Bukhara, Job visited the city and struck the ground with his staff – causing a spring of healing water to gush from the ground, and continues to do so today.
A shrine was built around the spring – the Well of Job – and the water is clear and drinkable. One of the many extraordinary experiences in what we call Hidden Central Asia. We’ll be here again sometime soon. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #114 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 05/16/24
Happy Thursday, folks. This week is a short list starting with grave warnings from two of the Supreme Justices about the First Amendment; then a witch-trial witness testifying about visions in the courtroom, followed by a pathological liar – so, business as usual in Biden’s justice system. Biden, himself, stabs an ally in the back and protects our mutual enemy in an attempt to win votes in Michigan. Again, the new normal. But there’s good news about institutions backing off of DEI; and RFK Jr. has clearly proven himself other than moderate, making him Biden’s problem, not Trump’s. Then there’s some gloomy economic news; some common sense from an alleged alien; and we end with a laugh. Jump in!
Justices Thomas and Alito on the state of America:
Supreme Court Justices Thomas And Alito Issue Warnings About State Of America
THE CAMEL MEAT MARKET IN THE FEZ BAZAAR
Sometimes you run across something that no matter how it grosses you out, you have to take a picture of it. The thousand year-old medina or walled city of Fez is a World Heritage Site as the spiritual and cultural capital of Morocco. Uniquely epitomizing this is the stall of the camel butcher in the medina’s vast bazaar. To garner the attention of ladies shopping for their family’s dinner, he proudly displays the head of the camel whose fresh meat is on sale. Traveling in Morocco is always an adventure. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #188 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
PROFIT IS NOT PLUNDER
Frédéric Bastiat in his book The Law distinguishes between profit and plunder.
Profit is financial gain earned through industrious behavior. Business owners make a profit by selling products at a greater amount than what it costs to produce that product.
Plunder, by contrast, is the theft of property through nonvoluntary means, such as theft, coercion, or fraud.
Bastiat noted that while most plunder is illegal, there remains one major exception: the state.
All plunder is an act of aggression against someone else’s natural rights, hence why it is morally wrong.
Regular plunder is a tough business, even for delinquent thieves. There is risk involved in robbing or defrauding someone, leading to no return on the effort of the thief.
There is also the issue of the victim or potential victims of plunder being more aware of and resistant to future attempts at plunder.
Despite the inclinations of a few thieves toward high-risk, high-reward plunder, most thieves prey upon the vulnerable.
ONCE AGAIN, MOTHER NATURE THUMBS HER NOSE AT THE CLIMATE CHANGISTAS
I was in Barbados earlier this year. During our tour, the guide proudly boasted that Barbados’s all-female government had mandated that the whole island will go completely solar by 2035 or something.
I commented to my companion that this seemed like an idiotic idea for a nation that lives in a hurricane zone.
Well, my prediction about combining wind zones and solar panels came true, although not in Barbados (yet) but in India.
The Lokmat Times has the story: “A summer storm on Tuesday….
THE SHRINE OF A SILK ROAD SUFI SAINT
In hidden dunes of the Takla Makan Desert of Chinese Turkestan, you find pilgrimage sites such as this devoted to Sufi saints revered by the Uighur (wee-ger) people who live in oases on the great desert’s edges. The trade route connecting the oases is the Southern Silk Road traversed by Marco Polo in 1273.
Sufism is the ancient peaceful interpretation of Islam. Just as Jesus advised the Pharisees to seek God in their hearts, not through the robotic repetition of religious laws and rules, so do the Sufis. Just as Jesus preached a philosophy of non-violence and benevolence, so do the Sufis. Sufism teaches that the path to Islamic enlightenment is not through compulsion of any kind, but through a personal ecstatic experience of the Divine.
Thus these ramshackle shrines in an uninhabited roadless wilderness – you get to them by donkey cart – are havens of serenity in a chaotic world. This is one of the remotest places on earth, but if you ever manage to get here, you will feel serenity in your heart. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #183 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THAT LITTLE LESSON FROM PANAMA’S ELECTION FOR LAWFARE-OBSESSED DEMOCRATS
Do any of the Democrats engaged in lawfare against President Trump read the news about leftists south of the border who do the same things they are doing?
Maybe Panama's election a week ago would be useful for them to know.
The parallels here are quite striking. A former president who brought prosperity to his country through conservative and free market values from 2009 to 2014, Ricardo Martinelli, was running for a non-consecutive term as president.
The left, which took power after him, made a hash of the economy, and turned Panama into an illegal alien superhighway, leaving voters with only the memory of how good things were during Martinelli's administration.
The Associated Press seemed to think the voters remembered….
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF PRESIDENTIAL PERSECUTIONS
None of the five civil and criminal cases currently lodged against former President Donald Trump have ever had merit. They were all predicated on using the law to injure his re-election candidacy—given a widespread derangement syndrome among the left and a fear they cannot entrust a Trump/Biden election to the people.
These criminal and civil trials are merely the continuation of extra-legal efforts of the last eight years to destroy a presidential candidate in lieu of opposing him in transparent elections.
As such, the current lawfare joins the Mueller investigation of the Russian-collusion hoax. It is a continuation of the laptop disinformation caper and the “51 intelligence authorities” who lied about its Russian origins.
It logically follows from the two impeachments, the Senate trial of Trump as a private citizen, and states’ efforts to remove him from their ballots.
The E. Jean Carroll case, the Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, and Fani Willis local and state trials, and the Smith federal indictment share various embarrassments.
THE SACRED MONKEY FOREST OF BALI
Near the town of Ubud on Indonesia’s paradise island of Bali there is a sanctuary of spectacularly luxuriant rain forest providing a haven for over 1,000 Balinese long-tailed monkeys. Here’s one communing with a group of moss-covered monkey statues that dot the sanctuary.
This is a sacred place for the Balinese people, as it contains three temples over 600 years old, and is devoted to the Hindu principle of Tri Hata Karana – “three ways to reach spiritual and physical well-being” -- harmony between people, harmony between people and nature, harmony between people and God.
There is perhaps no place on earth in which to better experience the blissful harmony of Tri Hata Karana than Bali. It is a marvelous privilege to be here and experience it for yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #106 photo ©Jack Wheeler)