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.
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…….
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 …
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, ...
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.
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