The News You Didn't See!

Posted By Rich Kozlovich

Here are articles that should generate some reflection.  I don't necessaryly agree with the writers, but if we're to gain understanding we must read all sides of an issue - even when they're clearly wrong or seemingly off the wall.  This gives us the opportunity to develop intellectual responses that exlains why they're wrong. It's easy to say "you're wrong"!  It's an entirely different thing to say, "you're wrong and I'm going to tell you why"!  

Asia

The Great Chinese Exodus Andrew Browne, Wall Street Journal

China's borders are wide open. Almost anybody who wants a passport can get one. And Chinese nationals are leaving in vast waves: Last year, more than 100 million outbound travelers crossed the frontiers. Most are tourists who come home. But rapidly growing numbers are college students and the wealthy, and many of them stay away for good. A survey by the Shanghai research firm Hurun Report shows that 64% of China's rich—defined as those with assets of more than .6 million—are either emigrating or planning to.

more » Obama's China Strategy Is Doomed - Ted Galen Carpenter, National Interest

As Beijing’s power grows, it will become more and more difficult for Washington to continue its strategy of trying to enjoy the fruits of all possible approaches to dealing with that country. There could be other options.

Calling Gordon Gekko: This Is Japan - Noah Smith, Bloomberg View

In general, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has proposed a good package of structural reforms for Japan’s economy. It remains to be seen how many he will be able to ram through the Diet in the face of determined opposition from vested interests. But there is one idea that he and his team may be overlooking: lifting legal restrictions on corporate takeovers.

Energy

Greens are the Enemies of Energy - By Alan Caruba

Here in America and elsewhere around the world, Greens continue to war against any energy other than the “renewable” kind, wind and solar, that is more costly and next to useless. Only coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear keeps the modern and developing world functioning and growing. The most publicized aspect is Obama’s “War on Coal” and, thanks to the Environmental Protection Agency, it has been successful; responsible for shutting down several hundred coal-fired plants by issuing costly regulations based on the utterly false claim that carbon dioxide emissions…….

more » Nobody expects the Spanish solar inquisition! - Anthony Watts

Over at Bishop Hill, there’s a story about an inquisition into the Spanish solar power industry, which was so heavily subsidized and the price being paid for solar power feed-in so much more than conventional power, that some unscrupulous opportunists decided to run solar power systems at night, with the help of a diesel generator:

Global Warming

July 2014 Global Surface (Land+Ocean) and Lower Troposphere Temperature Anomaly Update - Bob Tisdale

This post provides an update of the data for the three primary suppliers of global land+ocean surface temperature data—GISS through July 2014 and HADCRUT4 and NCDC through June 2014—and of the two suppliers of satellite-based lower troposphere temperature data….

Claim: Climate Change will disrupt the Panama Canal - Anthony Watts

Story submitted by Eric Worrall. The Guardian, a green UK daily newspaper, has published a claim that climate change will disrupt shipping in the Panama Canal, preventing children in America from receiving their Chinese manufactured toys. According to The Guardian; …

Cruising the Northwest Passage In Style - Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

While working on finishing the story of my sea voyage last week down from Canada to Oregon, I was surprised to see that there is a new market in the world of marine “eco-tourism”. This one involves burning …

On The Recent Record-High Global Sea Surface Temperatures – The Wheres and Whys - Bob Tisdale

NOAA’s State of the Climate Report for June 2014 included the bullet point under global highlights (my boldface): For the ocean, the June global sea surface temperature was 0.64°C (1.15°F) above the 20th century average of 16.4°C (61.5°F), the highest …

New alarm book pushes the ‘Weather is never just weather’ idea - Anthony Watts

The “King of Cool” writes in our recent Open Thread Weather is never just weather Says Sophie Cunningham in her new book which she is promoting all over Australia at the moment warning us to be afraid, extremely afraid. Why? …

Foreign Policy

What if Hillary Had Won in 2008? - Aaron David Miller, Washington Post

Clinton’s policies would probably not have diverged fundamentally from the ones the president pursued while she was his secretary of state or those he has embraced subsequently. Indeed, Clinton could never have become Obama’s top diplomat and functioned so well in that job had they not been largely on the same page in terms of how they saw the world and what America should do about it. They both are transactors, not ideological transformers — smart, pragmatic centrists largely coloring inside the lines in a world of long shots and bad options……

Obama Should Have Listened to Hillary - Charles Krauthammer, Nat'l Post

Leave it to Barack Obama’s own former secretary of state to acknowledge the fatal flaw of his foreign policy: a total absence of strategic thinking. Mind you, Obama does deploy grand words proclaiming grand ideas: the “new beginning” with Islam declared in Cairo, the reset with Russia announced in Geneva, global nuclear disarmament proclaimed in Prague (and playacted in a Washington summit). Untethered from reality, they all disappeared without a trace. When carrying out policies in the real world, however, it’s nothing but tactics and reactive…..

Hillary's Foreign Policy Views Don't Matter - Zachary Keck, The Diplomat

Hillary’s Clinton may be a foreign policy hawk, but that won’t matter in 2016.

Middle East

Nouri al-Maliki: Stern, Unwavering, Heavy-Handed - Adam Schreck, AP

When a rocket struck in Baghdad's Green Zone in 2007 during a news conference by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the world's top diplomat ducked and looked unsettled. Al-Maliki, however, never flinched, and dismissed the attack as "nothing." A year later, al-Maliki again stayed calm when an Iraqi journalist angrily threw his shoes at President George W. Bush at another news conference. As Bush deftly ducked out of the way, al-Maliki stood by his guest and even raised a hand to try to block one of the shoes. As he leaves office, ...

 

Russiamore »

The Dangerous Mr. Putin - David J. Kramer, The American Interest

The problem with “accommodating” Russia in Ukraine is that Vladimir Putin’s goal is sowing chaos as part of a plan to hold on to power in the Kremlin.