Satire is dead

Reality simply can’t be surpassed:

DC Comics announced that Zoe Quinn will team up with artist Tyler Kirkham to write a Batman and Superman spin-off titled The Infected: Deathbringer #1. Quinn’s story will focus on Donna Troy as she becomes infected by The Batman Who Laughs toxin and turns her into the worst version of herself.

Let me guess how the story will go. Donna Troy falsely accuses Batman of sexual assault, so he kills himself. Then Superman falls in love with her and she convinces him to give her his powers. Then he kills himself. The end.

Snicker-snack.

Pewdiepie trolls the ADL

Unintentionally, as it appears. But still, it’s good to see that he’s not funding one of the most shamelessly evil organizations ever to operate on US soil:

YouTube celebrity PewDiePie has canceled his $50,000 pledge to the Anti-Defamation League, calling it a mistake, after his fans wondered if “blackmail” made him back a group that had declared him and other creators anti-Semitic.

Felix ‘PewDiePie’ Kjellberg had promised the donation to the ADL on Monday, in a video celebrating his milestone of reaching 100 million subscribers. On Wednesday, however, he said the announcement was made at the suggestion of his sponsor, the coupon company Honey.

“I made the mistake of picking a charity that I was advised, instead of picking a charity that I’m personally passionate about. Which is 100 percent my fault.”

As a general rule, never listen to anyone else’s advice on where to give your money.

The pivot to China is definitely off

It’s fascinating to see that Spengler is no longer writing about the tremendous respect the Chinese harbor for his people and how amazingly similar they are.

The world will become a Chinese company store: Chinese banks will lend the money, Huawei will build the broadband network and sell the handsets, Alibaba and JD.Com will market the products, Ant Financial will make micro-loans, and Chinese companies will build airports and railroads and ports. As an investment banker for a Hong Kong boutique from 2013 to 2016, I saw this first hand, and reported it here. Among other things, Huawei is building most of Mexico’s new national broadband network, including 5G capability, in a consortium with Nokia financed by a group led by Morgan Stanley and the International Finance Corporation. Huawei also dominates telecommunications infrastructure in Brazil and other Latin American countries. China’s tech dominance in America’s neighborhood, remarkably, has occasioned no official comment from Washington.

In my view, this is far more alarming than what Gertz envisions. He writes, “China will control all deals and win any business arrangements it seeks by dominating the information domain and thus learning the positions of bidders and buyers. All Chinese companies will be given advantages in the marketplace.”

That simply isn’t the way things work. China will lock whole countries into Chinese hardware through state-financed national broadband networks, including Brazil and Mexico, where construction is underway. It understands the network effect that made Amazon and Facebook dominant players in the U.S. market, and will use its financial and technological head start to establish the same sort of virtual monopoly for Chinese companies throughout the Global South….

In China’s view, the “Century of Humiliation” that lasted from the First Opium War of 1848 to the Communist Revolution of 1949 was a temporary aberration that displaced China from its dominant position in the world economy, a position the present dynasty seeks to restore. If we do not want this to happen, we will have to dominate critical technologies, including quantum computing, quantum communications, broadband, Artificial Intelligence, and missile defense.

We, David? There is no we. Your short-sighted, self-centered tribe destroyed America and demoralized Western civilization because it harbors pathological hatred for Greece, Rome, and Christianity. But now you’re finally beginning to figure out that the Chinese are going to be considerably less tolerant of your subversive shenanigans than the West ever was and you’re utterly terrified as a result.

But who is going to protect you when you have chopped down all the trees that might have sheltered you? China is demonstrating the salient difference between power and influence, between external competition and internal subversion.

I definitely prefer Western civilization. But if forced to choose between Chung Kuo and Babel 2.0, I’ll take the former every time.

The fall of the neoliberal order

The demoralization of Europe is complete with a declaration by the President of France concerning the end of Western hegemony.

The international order is being shaken in an unprecedented manner, above all with, if I may say so, by the great upheaval that is undoubtedly taking place for the first time in our history, in almost every field and with a profoundly historic magnitude. The first thing we observe is a major transformation, a geopolitical and strategic re-composition. We are undoubtedly experiencing the end of Western hegemony over the world.

We were accustomed to an international order which, since the 18th century, rested on a Western hegemony, mostly French in the 18th century, by the inspiration of the Enlightenment; then mostly British in the 19th century thanks to the Industrial Revolution and, finally, mostly American in the 20th century thanks to the two great conflicts and the economic and political domination of this power. Things change. And they are now deeply shaken by the mistakes of Westerners in certain crises, by the choices that have been made by Americans for several years which did not start with this administration, but which lead to revisiting certain implications in conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to rethinking a deep, diplomatic and military strategy, and sometimes elements of solidarity that we thought were intangible for eternity, even if we had constituted together in geopolitical moments that have changed.

And then there is the emergence of new powers whose impact we have probably underestimated for a long time. China is at the forefront, but also the Russian strategy, which has, it must be said, been pursued more successfully in recent years. I will come back to that. India that is emerging, these new economies that are also becoming powers not only economic but political and that think themselves, as some have written, as real “civilizational states” which now come not only to shake up our international order but who also come to weigh in on the economic order and to rethink the political order and the political imagination that goes with it, with much dynamism and much more inspiration than we have.

Look at India, Russia and China. They have a much stronger political inspiration than Europeans today. They think about our planet with a true logic, a true philosophy, an imagination that we’ve lost a little bit.

This is the result of the so-called Enlightenment gradually eroding the foundations of civilization. Western civilization ebbs and flows with Christianity because Christianity is the spiritual and intellectual barrier that separates truth from untruth. It should be no surprise that a post-Christian West has not only divorced itself from truth and reality, but in doing so, has lost its historical power and influence.

Mailvox: the illusionists

A lawyer writes to confirm my observations of his profession:

Your recent talk about lawyers hits close to home and is in most cases true. I’m an attorney who works in public contracting. I went to a third-tier law school and am not working for some prestige firm. I’m currently in a litigation defending against a party who has retained a big K Street law firm where all of the attorneys went to so-called “good” schools–we’re talking Ivys and the next level down.

In drafting an opposition to a stay request, I obviously did my due diligence and read the cases referenced by the other party for myself. After all, these cases are cited as precedent in support of their claim. The interesting thing was, the cases either weren’t appropriate analogues to the current situation, or in one instance, the main case the other side relied upon stood for the opposite proposition of what they claimed it did.

Unbelievable. I really need to start charging more.

In my experience, about 90 percent of legal briefs are written by lazy people attempting to bluff other people they assume are even lazier. In most – not many, most – of the legal arguments I have personally read or heard presented in court, there are multiple shameless attempts equivalent to asserting that there are twelve lights when there are only four or to claim that -1 is actually equal to +1. These attempts are easily disproved, of course, but only if your anticipation of their arguments and your preparations for dealing with them are adequate.

The level of sheer sloppiness across the board is absolutely incredible. I would NEVER hire a lawyer and expect him to even do the most basic reading of the primary material; in most cases they simply don’t do it. This is a crucial flaw, because often the significance of a particular phrase or passage don’t leap out at you until the fifth or sixth reading. With the exception of contract lawyers, who are genuinely detail-oriented individuals who actually read the relevant documents, most lawyers are rhetoricians who rely upon their verbal skills to manipulate emotions and win the day that way. And they are almost invariably unprepared for the non-lawyer who actually sits down and does the relevant research involved.

It is said, not inaccurately, that the law is nothing more than a mutually-agreed-upon illusion. And from that, it correctly follows that even the best lawyers are little more than smooth-talking illusionists with professional credentials.

Embrace your extremists

Because you’re going to be defined as one sooner or later.

Earlier this month, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution declaring the National Rifle Association (NRA) to be a “domestic terrorist organization.” Some of us laughed at the absurd move and simply wrote it off by thinking “It’s San Francisco, they’re all nuts over there,” but the sentiment is actually more popular in the Democratic Party than you might expect. In fact, nearly a third of Democrats believe that the National Rifle Association (NRA), the largest gun rights organization in the country, should be declared a terrorist organization, and that it should be against the law for Americans to become members.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that nearly one-out-of-three Likely Democratic Voters (32{9576e478f725cceae1d2658658ad3e64422d2ca740094a2fb07c0611fe338f11}) favor declaring the gun rights group a terrorist organization in the community where they live. Fourteen percent (14{9576e478f725cceae1d2658658ad3e64422d2ca740094a2fb07c0611fe338f11}) of Republicans and 20{9576e478f725cceae1d2658658ad3e64422d2ca740094a2fb07c0611fe338f11} of voters not affiliated with either major party agree. Twenty-eight percent (28{9576e478f725cceae1d2658658ad3e64422d2ca740094a2fb07c0611fe338f11}) of Democrats say Americans should be prohibited by law from belonging to pro-gun rights organizations like the NRA, a view shared by 15{9576e478f725cceae1d2658658ad3e64422d2ca740094a2fb07c0611fe338f11} of Republicans and 10{9576e478f725cceae1d2658658ad3e64422d2ca740094a2fb07c0611fe338f11} of uanffiliateds.

Among all likely voters, 23{9576e478f725cceae1d2658658ad3e64422d2ca740094a2fb07c0611fe338f11} favor declaring the NRA a terrorist organization in their home community, while 18{9576e478f725cceae1d2658658ad3e64422d2ca740094a2fb07c0611fe338f11} think it should be against the law to belong to pro-gun rights groups like the NRA.

When nearly a third of a political party believes that an organization supporting gun rights is a “terrorist organization” and should be illegal to join, it makes you wonder what percentage also oppose free speech, freedom of religion, and other rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution.

They have to go back. And if they have nowhere to go back to, the states, once united, must divide.

The US can’t afford the neoclowns

The US military simply doesn’t have the ability to fight low-intensity wars in the Middle East anymore, let alone engage in a three-front war against Russia, China, and Iran.

The US fleet has not been in a war since 1945, the air forces since 1975. nor the Army in a hard fight since Vietnam. Bombing defenseless peasants, the chief function of the American military, is not war.

In extended periods of peace, which includes the bombing of peasants, a military tends to assume that no major war will come during the careers of those now in uniform. Commanders consequently do what makes their lives easy, what they must do to get through the day and have reasonable fitness reports. This does not include pointing out inadequacies of training or equipment. Nor does it include recommending large expenditures to remedy deficiencies. Nor does it include recommending very expensive mobilization exercises that would divert money from new weapons.

Thus an armored command has enough replacement tracks for training, but not enough for tanks in hard use in extended combat. When the crunch comes, it turns out that getting more track requires a new contract with the manufacturer, who has shut down the production line. The same is true for air filters, there not being much sand at Fort Campbell but a lot in Iraq. Things as mundane as MRATs and boots are not there.in real-war quantities.

GAU-8 ammo is in short supply because theory says the F-35 will do tank busting. The Navy runs out of TLAMs early on and discovers that manufacturing cruise missiles takes time. Lots of it.

And of course some things simply don’t work as expected. Military history buffs will remember the Mark XIV torpedo, the Mark VI exploder of WWII, and the travails of the Tinosa.

This may explain why Netanyahu backed down rather than invade Lebanon after Hezbollah sent clear signals that it would fight rather than retreat. And why the Mad Mustache’s services are no longer required by the White House.

A test of clout

Few races are as convoluted as the one in North Carolina’s Ninth Congressional District, which is — 10 months after Election Day 2018 — the last vote of the midterm elections. Experts see the race between State Senator Dan Bishop, a Republican, and the entrepreneur Dan McCready, a Democrat, as a test of President Trump’s clout in suburban areas.

50.7{9576e478f725cceae1d2658658ad3e64422d2ca740094a2fb07c0611fe338f11} 96,081 Dan Bishop (R) 
48.7{9576e478f725cceae1d2658658ad3e64422d2ca740094a2fb07c0611fe338f11} 92,144 Dan McCready (D)

It would appear President Trump’s clout in suburban areas remains strong. A month ago, according to the polls, Bishop was 17 points down. An eighteen-point turnaround in response to Trump’s campaigning is impressive.

Neocon down!

The God-Emperor axes Mustache John Bolton:

President Donald Trump has fired National Security Adviser John Bolton after a string of disagreements between the two over how the U.S. should handle North Korea and Iran.

Trump announced on Twitter that he had asked for Bolton’s resignation, which he received this morning, after the president had “disagreed with many of his suggestions.”

“I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning,” Trump said on Twitter.

You can probably imagine how the conversation that preceded his departure went:

Trump: How should we deal with Afghanistan?

Bolton: Send more troops! We need more troops!

Trump: Easy, ‘stache. All right, moving on. What about Iran?

Bolton: Bomb them! Bomb bomb bomb them! Then send in the troops!

Trump: How many troops do you think we will need?

Bolton: All of them! Bring back the draft. Draft the girls! And the Canadians!

Trump: I don’t think we can actually draft Canadians.

Bolton: WHY DO YOU HATE ISRAEL?

Trump:  I almost dread to ask this, but do you have any thoughts concerning the trade war with China?

Bolton: All the bombs! All the troops! All the nukes! Rain fire upon the land! Blood for the Blood God!

Trump: (picks up phone) Yeah, Mike, we seem to have a little problem here…