August September 2021


AFGHANISTAN

After twenty years the USA has left Afghanistan.  The person intended to be in charge, Hamid Karzai, has fled.  With a pile of $$$$


It is being described in the media as a "Defeat" for the USA.


Not how I see it.


In general the USA is a benign occupying power.  Think West Germany, Japan, S Korea, S Vietnam, Iraq.  Germany, Japan & South Korea benefited incredibly.  South Vietnam maybe not so much.  Maybe compare the USA with other occupying powers like China, Russia (Hungary etc), Turkey (Armenia, Kurds).

I suspect the Taliban will need to rule with an iron fist.  And that the Afghans will regret the USA departure.  Especially the women.



THE BOY WHO CRIED "WOLF"

Look elsewhere for the original Aesop's fable & derivatives.  This is the generalization of the generalization.

The "Boy" in the story is now a class of people who, like the boy want to attract attention and feel important.  And the "Wolf" is anything that might destroy wealth or health.

One example of an hypothetical "wolf" is Global Warming (renamed "Climate Change" by some of the more astute "boys".)

As a Mechanical Engineering student, I investigated Carbon Dioxide in the late 1950's.  When Al Gore blew a whistle, I just waited for real Scientists to blow him off.  I was still waiting when Geoffrey Ridd got sacked, and I began to realize why "wolf" was still being called.

The fact is (You could check all of this online with the links via wikipedia to academic sources ) we are in the first three million years of the Quaternary Ice age.  Every ~40,000 to ~100,000 years during the Quaternary Ice age the world warms up by 10C for ~10,000 years, then drops 10C and the glaciers start growing.  You can see that in my blog figure 2 & Figure 3.  The current Holocene interglacial warm period started 11,700 years ago.

We need to stop the Holocene ending.  The world's temperature is about to drop by around 10 C.  In the worst case of an earlier ice age glaciers reached the equator (aka "slushball Earth"). 

But the "boys" is a very powerful group indeed. There are many news media "Commentators" who thrive on the attention.  Other attention seeking "boys" are our legislators.  So any real scientist who challenges "The Science" like for example Peter Ridd gets sacked.

Which is why, of course, this wolf is still alive.


MEDIA SOURCES

One thing I try to do is get unbiased news.  So instead of just reading Lefty (SMH) Righty (The Australian) and neutral (Drudge Report) I read stuff from Russia (RT.COM), China (SCMP.COM) and Singapore (Straights Times).

Drudge is not just USA but UK.

 I find it interesting to compare the outlooks.

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