What's in the News

The Intercept Shuts Down Access to Snowden Trove

First Look Media, the company that owns the Intercept, also announced that it was laying off several of the researchers who had been charged with maintaining the documents.

First Look Media announced Wednesday that it was shutting down access to whistleblower Edward Snowden’s massive trove of leaked National Security Agency documents.

Over the past several years, The Intercept, which is owned by First Look Media, has maintained a research team to handle the large number of documents provided by Snowden to Intercept journalists Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald.

But in an email to staff Wednesday evening, First Look CEO Michael Bloom said that as other major news outlets had “ceased reporting on it years ago,” The Intercept had decided to “focus on other editorial priorities” after expending five years combing through the archive.

“The Intercept is proud of its reporting on the Snowden archive, and we are thankful to Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald for making it available to us,” Bloom wrote.

He added: “It is our hope that Glenn and Laura are able to find a new partner—such as an academic institution or research facility—that will continue to report on and publish the documents in the archive consistent with the public interest.”...

 

May 13, 2019.  ADDT's New Method of Durian Beast Containment Works Better Than Expected.  Zero Human Casualties!

The Australian Durian Defense Team successfully dealt with a hatched durian beast in the University of Canberra's library.  Despite integration of durian scent detectors into the building's fire alarm system, there was no warning before it hatched.  Evidently, a human who had been brain damaged by consuming durian sealed a durian egg inside of several layers of plastic and hid it on a high shelf in a remote corner of the library.

In order to minimize damage, flame throwers were not deployed.  Instead, a recently developed alternative method was used.  The beast was temporarily disabled by armor piercing bullets and then immobilized by spraying it with several hundred liters of liquid nitrogen.  It was then transported to a remote location and incinerated.  The ADDT reported that this method worked even better than expected and there were no human casualties.

To prevent panic, the evacuation of approximately 550 people was simply blamed on the stench of durian.  It's believe that none of the librarians or patrons became aware of the horrific danger they were in.  The cover story has been published to reduce suspicion over the incident.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/college-library-evacuated-for-gas-leak-turns-out-it-was-just-the-stench-of-durian-a-horrendously-smelly-fruit/

Sounds like Floridians complaining about tourists.  If the tourists stopped coming, then they could complain about all the shops and restaurants laying off people or going out of business.  Even so, most people in Florida don't like tourists.

 

For economic impact on Australia, India is the new China. Same issues with academic misconduct, same problems with classroom language, but altogether far less perceived risk of government-backed belligerence. Sign up for your free Gandhi Institute classes now!

I keep wondering when English will no longer be the first language in Qz!

And the new world's factory is Vietnam

China's strange strategy

Xi's approach to the rest of the world is predatory, and this isn't a way to make China great

By Gary Anderson - - Monday, August 5, 2019
ANALYSIS/OPINION:

China’s President Xi Jinping has made no secret of his desire to make China a true world-spanning superpower, but he is attempting implementation of that objective with a very strange strategy.

True world superpowers are relatively rare; the Roman Empire, Great Britain from Trafalgar to World War I, and the United States since the end of World War II all qualify. Each had three dominant characteristics. The first was that each possessed the world’s greatest economy in its time, the second was unchallenged control of the seas. Finally, each had a series of alliances and clients to help with the burden of maintaining international stability during their respective periods of international dominance.

With the possible exception of seeking economic supremacy, Mr. Xi’s approach to world spanning dominance is curious indeed. China has the potential for true superpower status, but so did Athens, Carthage, Imperial France and the former Soviet Union. Under Mr. Xi, China appears to be making several of the key mistakes that tripped up past imperial wannabes.

From an economic standpoint, conventional wisdom has it that China will economically overtake the United States in the 2030-2050 time frame depending on who is counting. But even here, China has several fissures that should cause Mr. Xi concern. A few years ago, “60 Minutes” did an investigative report on China’s potentially disastrous building bubble that revealed the construction of whole cities worth of housing which have yet to develop a market.

China’s banking system also shows weaknesses that are the natural result of its uncomfortable mix of a command economy tradition with a largely unregulated banking system. That, combined with an opaque legal system, has all of the elements that have created historical great depressions.

In addition, China’s run of nearly three decades of unprecedented growth has slowed dramatically of late. In many ways, China shows some of the signs that presaged Japan’s economic collapse of the 1990s. Chinese economic dominance is no sure thing.

From a naval perspective, China has been a traditional land power throughout its history, but this did not stop either Rome or the United States from becoming true superpowers by building great fleets to defeat naval threats from competitors. In fact, naval historian Andrew Lambert points out in his recent book “Seapower States” that Great Britain was the only voluntary sea power state to become an unchallenged superpower.

Rome and the United States resisted their natural continental instincts and built great navies out of perceived necessity. China has actually built an anti-navy, and is now attempting to give it power projection aspirations; this is a very hard thing to do as Germany in both World Wars and the Soviet Union in the Cold War found to their dismay.

It is very difficult to imagine China defeating the American fleet on the open ocean beyond the South China Sea or projecting a great army by naval means to a conflict in Africa or the Middle East in President Xi’s lifetime.

Perhaps the greatest impediment to Mr. Xi’s superpower aspiration is in the area of allies. Rome, Great Britain and America built great international security systems upon a series of alliances and client relationships. Although Rome is usually viewed as a conquering imperial construct, its glory was originally built on Italian alliances and the cultivation of overseas clients which allowed it to use military economy of force.

As military historian Edward Luttwak points out, Rome’s military and economic power began to decline once its emperors decided to go it alone from a security standpoint.

Mr. Xi has adopted the traditional Chinese view that the Middle Kingdom has two types of relationships, adversaries and tributaries. It bullies its neighbors in the South China Sea claiming that body of water to be a virtual Chinese lake.

Overseas, the Chinese Great Belt Road initiative is the anti-Marshall Plan. Its loans to potential partners are predatory, and its management of infrastructure building in Asia and Africa is virtually assured of making enemies of local populations. Athens, Carthage, Germany, Imperial Japan and the former Soviet Union failed to achieve true superpower status by treating allies and clients like subjects. China’s Xi seems to be reading from their play books.

None of this means that China cannot become a true superpower, but it will not likely happen under Mr. Xi. Although he has consolidated power in China to an extent not seen since Mao, Mr. Xi’s approach to the rest of the world is predatory. Making China great again may be delayed.


One thing you can say about Trump is his presidency has greenlit this kind of commentary. For the longest time seems like the overarching narrative about China was only ever one of opportunity and positive growth (and some human rights concerns). That narrative, seems like, has shifted in the last year or so.

The “Post-Truth” Publication Where Chinese Students in America Get Their News

On a Monday morning in February, members of the staff of College Daily, an online Chinese-language publication for Chinese students living in North America, gathered in their office, in Times Square, for an editorial meeting. Guan Tong, the editorial director of the New York bureau, reviewed traffic numbers from the previous week. Staring at her MacBook, she seemed satisfied with what she saw. A piece by College Daily’s founder, Lin Guoyu, about the blockbuster Chinese movie “The Wandering Earth,” had garnered more than a million page views; its headline was “Of Course, Only Chinese People Can Save Planet Earth.” The healthy numbers came as a surprise: it was Lunar New Year, which tends to be a slow week for College Daily. “No need to worry about low traffic during Lunar New Year anymore,” Guan said cheerily.

A writer—who, like the other staff members, appeared to be in her twenties—pitched another post on “The Wandering Earth,” which had topped the global box office the previous weekend. (College Daily had already published a dozen posts on the film.) “The Wandering Earth” was proof, the writer said, that “we Chinese don’t emphasize individual heroism—we concentrate our energy to tackle major tasks. . . . Unlike American individualism, collectivism is a Chinese sentiment.” Guan approved the idea.

Guan shifted her focus to a staff writer named Deng He, who was known for authoring baokuan, or “explosive-style” posts—articles that get hundreds of thousands of clicks and shares. College Daily’s office was adorned with photos of Deng, who is twenty-six and nicknamed He-he: He-he flipping his hair and gazing into the camera like a pop star; He-he in a swivel chair, holding a giant container of popcorn. On the same office wall was a list of banned words and phrases (“Falun Gong,” “Dalai Lama,” “Panama Papers”), guidelines for image selection (“Please do not use photos of national leaders. If you have to, please discuss with the person in charge of the article”), and a list of cash awards that writers could earn for writing pieces that brought in clicks; an article that got a million page views could win its author more than a thousand dollars...


Excerpted for -factor:
"College Daily’s success can be partly attributed to its lack of direct competitors. Mainstream Chinese media tend to see Chinese students abroad as an élite class of spoiled children, and sometimes question their allegiances; Chinese-language papers based in America, such as China Press or Epoch Times (which has links to the Falun Gong and is vocally opposed to the Chinese Communist Party), traditionally serve an older, less affluent generation of immigrants. Chinese students will find little that resonates with their daily lives or sensibilities in these publications, and the vast majority of them likely find English-language news inaccessible."

YAY!

China is starting to eat into its emergency reserves of pork

China's pork crisis has gotten so bad that some of its cities are starting to tap into their precious strategic reserves of frozen pig meat.

At least four cities or provinces that are home to roughly 130 million people have begun drawing down stocks to flood the market with frozen pork in an attempt to stabilize prices and boost supply. Pork consumption is vital to Chinese culture, and availability is important this weekend when China celebrates its second biggest holiday of the year.

The release of local reserves is the latest example of how China is trying to deal with the crisis — but even that might not be enough to solve the problem, experts say. The world's largest pork market has been ravaged by an outbreak of African swine fever, and it's lost more than 100 million pigs in the last year, either because of disease or because farmers don't want to restock pigs after they die. The decline in pig supply has driven pork prices up nearly 50% in the last year...


#yummyyummypigeonmeat

USA - Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
China - Strategic Pork Reserve.

Both are important, but I'm happy living in a place with an emergency pork reserve.

You're making up weird arguments again. China has a strategic petroleum reserve too and the US reserves helium and grain, both better for your digestion and comedy storytelling after the apocalypse.

Shane Gillis: Saturday Night Live's new hire fired for slurs

US comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live has dropped a new cast member after videos surfaced online of him making slurs about Chinese people.

Shane Gillis, 31, came under fire soon after his casting was announced when footage resurfaced from a podcast featuring the comic...


Slurs?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf2FmWSFtZc


You can't party with ladyboys? I bet you can.