“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Xi remarked.
"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Donald: "we’re all mad here.
I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said Xi.
"You must be," said the Donald, "or you wouldn’t have come
here.”
With apologies to Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Whyl
we idel away yet another spring weak-end, stumbling our way throogh thiss dres
rehearsal for the reel thing, that lies right around the korner, nd weighting
on the french to vote in some frenchie to run most, but knot all off france,
tday ignorence is bliss, specially in the Wyte House, washingtun District of
Crocks.
Dis
weakend, its reely knot ur fault, just cos U weren’t edjukated like wot I was.
Inn todays whirld, ignorance Trumps edjukashon. Wot kud posibli go rong!
“My
IQ is one of the highest — and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or
insecure; it’s not your fault.”
Donald
Trump on the stump, modestly looking for swamps to drain, and prisons to fill
with opponents.
Donald Trump accused of 'shocking ignorance' as he repeats Chinese claim that Korea was part of China
Julian
Ryall20 April
2017
Donald Trump, the US president, has been accused of "shocking
ignorance" after asserting that Korea "used to be a part of
China" shortly after a meeting with Xi Jinping, the Chinese president.Mr Trump made the comment in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on April 12, although the quote was only picked up on subsequently by the online news website Quartz.
In the interview, Mr Trump said of his Chinese counterpart, "Went into the history of China and Korea... And you know, you're talking about thousands of years ... and many wars. And Korea actually used to be a part of China".
The interview with the Journal was the same one in which Mr Trump revealed that the Chinese leader had explained the situation on the Korean Peninsula and he concluded, "After listening for 10 minutes, I realised it's not so easy".
"I suspect that Mr Xi said, in effect, that Korea was part of China because it was overwhelmingly under Chinese influence historically and Mr Trump bought that," said Rah Jong-yil, a former South Korean ambassador to both London and Tokyo.
"It shows his shocking ignorance of the situation in north-east Asia," he told The Telegraph. "That is very disturbing to us".
There is a growing body of nationalist thought in China that ancient Korean kingdoms were part of the Chinese empire and that modern-day nation states should similarly fall within Beijing's exclusive sphere of influence, Mr Rah said.
"It is true that the Korean peninsula was under the influence of China, but that was under the Ming dynasty - which was a long time ago and nothing to do with the People's Republic of China", he said.
"In the distant past, Korea may have looked up to China as a model of political or economic development, but today we consider the communist-led nation to be economically, politically and socially backward."
The bigger problem, he suggested, is that the leader of South Korea's most important security ally is being schooled in the history of the region by a neighbouring power hostile towards South Korea.
"Somebody needs to enlighten Mr Trump about the facts of the region and he should not fall for this sort of silly nationalism from the Chinese," Mr Rah added.
Trump is Like the Weather: Wait a Day and His Foreign Policy Position Will Change
Just days after Trump backed away from a trade war with China, the Trump administration launched a National-Security Probe on Steel Imports.For good measure, Trump blasted Canada over its dairy product policy.
The Trump administration has opened a wide-ranging probe into whether to curb steel imports in the name of national security, ramping up its campaign to give a more economic nationalist tinge to American trade policy.
“Steel is critical to both our economy and our military,” President Donald Trump said at a White House ceremony Thursday with steel industry and labor leaders to highlight the new investigation. “This is not an area where we can afford to become dependent on foreign countries.”
“Over the last 30 years, there has been a very narrow view as to what would constitute a threat to national security,” said Terence P. Stewart, a Washington trade lawyer who represents U.S. manufacturers and has long advocated the more expansive approach to national security Mr. Trump is now exploring.
---- Foreign steelmakers were quick to criticize the move. The U.S. investigation “will be very bad for the U.S. economy, very bad for steel-consuming industries—such as construction and manufacturing, which depend on a reliable supply of steel imports—and bad for foreign steel producers such as the Japanese industry,” said Tadaaki Yamaguchi, chairman of the Japan Steel Information Center, the U.S. voice of the Japanese industry.
Mr. Trump struck a particularly harsh tone Thursday, going beyond the steel measure to take several swipes at Canada, calling its dairy policy “a disgrace” and reiterating his desire to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he branded “a disaster.”
Mr. Trump’s strategy involves significant risks of retaliation. Any unilateral declaration of import restrictions for national security “could have severe economic repercussions,” the White & Case law firm wrote in a recent memo posted on the firm’s website assessing possible measures the Trump administration could invoke to toughen U.S. trade policy. “A target country would likely retaliate with equivalent measures on U.S. goods,” it said.
Self-Imposed Disaster
I side with those who say steel tariffs would be a self-imposed disaster.
Lewis Leibowitz, a Washington attorney who has worked on cases involving the trade act in the past said “For every steelworker, there are 60 workers in steel-using industries. You need competitive steel prices for those industries to be competitive and to export.”
The idea that there is a net gain from overpaying for products is ludicrous. Leibowitz provides the steel math: 60-1.
If Trump follows through, and who can possibly predict what he might or will do, China is sure to retaliate. A cancellation of Boeing aircraft orders just might knock some sense into Trump’s head, or not.
But why bother? Trump is as likely to change his mind on this tomorrow as he is to act on his threat. He has already backed off labeling China a currency manipulator after promising that multiple times during the campaign. He has reversed course on Syria and Russia.
How about the wall? I have heard little of making Mexico pay for it in recent weeks.
The message here is simple: If you don’t like Trump’s foreign policy, then wait a day or so. It’s likely to be more to your liking. If you do like it, you likely soon won’t.
“Mad Donald: “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”
“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Donald said, turning to Xi again.
“No, I give it up,” Xi replied: “What’s the answer?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Donald”
With apologies to Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
“I have absolutely
no idea.”
And while we await
the result of the French vote, a little history from GB and Europe, on just how
tenuous our hold on precious life is. With the planet headed towards 9 billion
persons mid-century, are we really as smart as we think we are? Is ignorance really
bliss?
Great Famine of 1315–17
The Great Famine of 1315–1317 (occasionally dated 1315–1322) was the first of a series of large-scale crises that struck Europe early in the fourteenth century. Most of Europe (extending east to Russia and south to Italy) was affected.[1] The famine caused millions of deaths over an extended number of years and marked a clear end to the period of growth and prosperity from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries.The Great Famine started with bad weather in spring 1315. Crop failures lasted through 1316 until the summer harvest in 1317, and Europe did not fully recover until 1322. The period was marked by extreme levels of crime, disease, mass death and even cannibalism and infanticide. The crisis had consequences for the Church, state, European society, and for future calamities to follow in the fourteenth century.
Famines were familiar occurrences in Medieval Europe. For example, localised famines occurred in France during the fourteenth century in 1304, 1305, 1310, 1315–1317 (the Great Famine), 1330–34, 1349–51, 1358–60, 1371, 1374–75 and 1390.[2] In England, the most prosperous kingdom affected by the Great Famine, there were famines such as in 1315–1317, 1321, 1351 and 1369.[2] For most people there was often not enough to eat, and life was a relatively short and brutal struggle to survive to old age. According to official records about the British Royal family, an example of the best off in society, for whom records were kept, the average life expectancy in 1276 was 35.28 years.[2] Between 1301 and 1325, during the Great Famine it was 29.84 years while between 1348 and 1375 during the Plague, it was only to 17.33 years.[2] The figures do not necessarily mean the average lifespan of an adult, as child mortality was extremely high in pre-industrial societies.
During the Medieval Warm Period (the period prior to 1300), the population of Europe exploded compared to prior eras, reaching levels that were not matched again in some places until the nineteenth century – indeed parts of rural France today are less populous than at the beginning of the fourteenth century.[2] However, the yield ratios of wheat, the number of seeds one could eat per seed planted, had been dropping since 1280, and food prices had been climbing. After favourable harvests, the ratio could be as high as 7:1, but after unfavourable harvests it was as low as 2:1 – that is, for every seed planted, two seeds were harvested, one for next year's seed, and one for food. By comparison, modern farming has ratios of 30:1 or more (see agricultural productivity).[2]
The onset of the Great Famine coincided with the end of the Medieval Warm Period. Between 1310 and 1330, northern Europe saw some of the worst and most sustained periods of bad weather in the entire Middle Ages, characterized by severe winters and rainy and cold summers. The Great Famine may have been precipitated by a volcanic event,[3] perhaps that of Mount Tarawera, New Zealand, which lasted about five years.[4][5]
Changing weather patterns, the ineffectiveness of medieval governments in dealing with crises and population level at a historical high made it a time for little margin for error in food production.[2]
More
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1315%E2%80%9317
----The spread of vomitoxin is concentrated in Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, and parts of Iowa and Michigan, and its full impact is not yet known, according to state officials and data gathered by food testing firm Neogen Corp.
Exclusive: Vomitoxin makes nasty appearance for U.S. farm sector
A fungus
that causes “vomitoxin” has been found in some U.S. corn harvested last year, forcing
poultry and pork farmers to test their grain, and giving headaches to grain
growers already wrestling with massive supplies and low prices.
The plant
toxin sickens livestock and can also make humans and pets fall ill.
The
appearance of vomitoxin and other toxins produced by fungi is affecting ethanol
markets and prompting grain processors to seek alternative sources of feed
supplies.
----The spread of vomitoxin is concentrated in Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, and parts of Iowa and Michigan, and its full impact is not yet known, according to state officials and data gathered by food testing firm Neogen Corp.
In
Indiana, 40 of 92 counties had at least one load of corn harvested last fall
that has tested positive for vomitoxin, according to the Office of Indiana
State Chemist's county survey. In 2015 and 2014, no more than four counties saw
grain affected by the fungus.
And in a
"considerable" share of corn crops tested in Michigan, Wisconsin and
Indiana since last fall's harvest, the vomitoxin levels have tested high enough
to be considered too toxic for humans, pets, hogs, chickens and dairy cattle,
according to public and private data compiled by Neogen. The company did not
state what percent of each state's corn crop was tested.
More
“Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.”
Edmund Burke
“Viva le France,"
and the winners are, drum roll:
Marc-Antoine
Charpentier (1636 - 1704)
"I am here to make an announcement that this Thursday,
ticket counters and airplanes will fly out of Ronald Reagan Airport."
George W. Bush --Washington, D.C., Oct. 3, 2001
"Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."
George W. Bush --in parting words to world leaders at his final
G-8 Summit, punching the air and grinning widely as those present looked on in
shock, Rusutsu, Japan, July 10, 2008
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