Must be China's turn

A decent summary of the situation in Afghanistan seems to be the one in The Economist, which notes:

The Taliban, thought to number no more than 200,000 soldiers, armed mostly with equipment they have seized from their enemies, have taken all of Afghanistan’s urban centres in little more than a week, generally without much resistance (see map). The answer seems to be that what they lacked in brawn, they made up for in brains, determination and political shrewdness. For the past year, diplomats in Doha had hoped that the Taliban could be compelled to negotiate with Mr Ghani’s government to agree to some sort of power-sharing agreement. The insurgents evidently realised it would be more profitable to negotiate with Mr Ghani’s underlings, city-by-city, and thereby simply pull the rug out from underneath him.

Hence in Herat, a jewel of a city near the Iranian border, Ismail Khan, the warlord who took the city back from the Taliban in 2001, after fighting for days, surrendered and was filmed, in captivity, pleading for “a peaceful environment”. In Kandahar, the city at the heart of Afghanistan’s southern breadbasket and the birthplace of the original Taliban, the governor was pictured handing over to his Taliban counterpart. In Jalalabad, in the east, the Taliban marched in without firing a shot, after elders in the city negotiated a surrender. Mazar-i-Sharif, a northern city which once served as a bastion of anti-Taliban resistance in the 1990s, folded in similar fashion.

In each case, the militants have made wide-ranging promises, to “forgive” those who served in the American-backed government, in exchange for surrender. In Kandahar, former soldiers who surrendered have been issued with laisser passer documents that they can show at Taliban checkpoints. There, throughout Friday night the sound of gunfire echoed throughout the city. According to residents, it was mostly fired in the air in celebration.

The Afghan army, for all its apparent strength, seems to have fallen to what might be called Yossarian syndrome, after a character in Joseph Heller’s second-world-war novel, “Catch 22”. Yossarian was asked what would happen if everyone thought as he did that fighting was pointless, and replied he would “be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?” Similarly, the Washington Post quoted one Afghan officer explaining why his soldiers would not stop the Taliban: “Brother, if no one else fights, why should I?” Afghan military morale was not helped by the government's fiscal crisis, which has led to government staff and troops missing pay for months.

What does the Taliban takeover mean? For all their promises to show mercy in victory, few among Afghanistan’s intellectual elite are reassured. After the militants took Spin Boldak, a town on the Pakistani border that was among the first to fall in late July, credible reports emerged quickly afterwards of dozens of government supporters being massacred. In Kandahar in late July, when the militants began to take the outskirts of the city, they kidnapped Nazar Mohammad, a popular comedian, and murdered him. Reports from Kandahar say that armed Taliban have been going door to door seeking out people who worked for Western governments. In recent weeks, thousands of refugees have collected in Kabul’s parks. Hundreds have mobbed visa-processing centres, hoping for a space in the last-minute evacuations being organised by Western powers.

The Taliban’s political arm in Doha has claimed that they are no longer the bloody theocrats who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, when accused criminals were publicly executed at Kabul’s football grounds, including women who were stoned to death for adultery....

The big geopolitical question arising from this is what China will do.   It's hardly going to be seen as a friend of Islam, given their massive attempt to end its influence in its own territory;  but on the other hand, minerals and money.  US News wrote:

At stake for Beijing are agreements it has already secured from the Taliban not to harbor inside Afghanistan any Islamic extremists with designs to wage insurgencies in parts of western China, notably the restive Xinjiang province – a promise that far exceeds anything the U.S. has been able to extract with regard to the persistent threats of al-Qaida operatives partnered with the Taliban.

Any sort of stability in Afghanistan would also allow China to reap the benefits of prior economic investments in the region, including mineral rights in Afghanistan. Buried in the latest report from the U.S. inspector general overseeing reconstruction in Afghanistan was a little-noticed observation that China has dramatically increased its economic interests in Afghanistan recently, encouraging the completion of a road in the Wakhan Corridor – the sliver of land connecting the two countries. It cited an Afghan Public Works Ministry spokesperson who said, "China has expressed a huge interest for investment in Afghanistan, particularly in the mining sector, and this road will be good for that, too." The Taliban recently seized wide swaths of that territory as part of an apparent campaign to control Afghanistan's northern border crossings. 

China also seeks stability in Afghanistan for the sake of regional infrastructure projects it's already pursuing in neighboring Pakistan as a part of similar investments globally known as the Belt and Road Initiative. 

I get the impression it will all end in tears.

Finally - I will repeat the observation I have made before:  I don't understand how, in modern times, Islamic fundamentalist inspired leadership which is willing to rule on the basis of terrorising its own population retains any popularity at all.   I don't understand these societies.

 

Jam, curry, Wagner and vampires

That sums up an unusual Saturday:   we had an excess of loquats from our tree in the yard, so for the first time in my life, I tried making a jam.  Result at breakfast this morning:  pretty good.  

After that, moved into making beef rendang - sure I buy the paste (I have recommended the brand before), but chopping up the chunk of beef shin takes a while.   

While doing these time consuming activities, I got through the whole of Das Rheingold (the Opera North recorded version) on YouTube on the TV for the first time, too.  That led to me explaining over dinner that it's clear to me now what Tolkien was missing - a wage dispute by construction workers resolved by kidnapping the client's sister-in-law until they get paid.   Oh, and an ugly, lustful dwarf who, in modern terms, goes all incel after being taunted by three women that he'll never get it on, so to speak, with anyone.    Yes, the sexlessness (dare I say - insipidness) of Tolkien has never been clearer.   Then again, I haven't reached the incest in the Ring cycle yet.  Which, I wonder, was part of the reason Hitler was a Wagner groupie?  

Onto another German thing - watched the popular new Netflix film Blood Red Sky.   Yes, it's Vampires on a Plane, but gee, it's made with a heap of energy.     The movie has a poor review on Roger Ebert.com - I haven't heard of the guy who writes the reviews there, but I now know I can safely ignore him.   It wasn't perfect, but it looks great and there's not a dull moment:  I can understand why it has been popular.  

So, quite the day.

Derivative concerns

I mentioned recently that I was a few episodes into the first season of The Mandalorian and finding it enjoyable enough.

Maybe I was just tired last night (I did fall asleep briefly during it), but I found episode 4 was causing me to reconsider - this show seems to just be Westerns I've seen before set in the Star Wars universe.   Oh, there's a little bit of novel mystical cult thrown into it, and a cutesy baby Yoda, but I'm starting to resent the derivative aspects too much.    

Is this a sign of old age?   I mean, it's not as if the very first Star Wars movie wasn't derivative too - but it did seem that the way different old elements were thrown into the mix (especially, in my opinion,  the non denominational mystical religious bit) had given rise to something novel.  Then Empire Strikes Back deepened the best part of it, and after that the series mostly got stuck in various repetitions on the same narrative theme.  Well, I suppose you could say the prequels tried to do something a bit different - but they were botched in their own special way.

And I still agree thoroughly with this assessment I noted in 2019.   If only Lucas had got the Force right... 

Jeez, talk about getting desperate for talent

Alternative title:   HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA*gasp for breath*HAHAHAHAAAAA!

 

 

The conservative authoritarian threat

I seem to have missed this Washington Post article from July:

A new and rapidly growing Christian movement is openly political, wants a nation under God’s authority, and is central to Donald Trump’s GOP

The particular church it highlights is a particularly nutty sounding one in Texas, but Catallaxy taught me it's not just Protestant evangelicals who are really keen on a revival of religious authoritarianism - the conservative Catholic movement has the hots (so to speak) for any East European country with a leader, no matter if he got there democratically or not, as long as he wants to put the gays in their place and does other culture warring to their liking.   (See Hungary, Russia, Poland.)  

Update:  on the latter point, see this post by conservative Catholic Catallaxy fixture dover-beach, in his new blog which is one of the contenders for a Catallaxy replacement:

There is now a coordinated attempt to stifle any resistance to the new hegemonic order emerging in the post-Cold War era both in Europe and the Anglosphere. Consider the effort being expended on the denigration of PM Orbán in Hungary merely for offering his people a reasonable alternative to liberal globalism that would not have battered an eyelid a generation ago. Do not underestimate the viciousness of this campaign; their will to power is terrible. 

No surprise

Yes, I do recommend reading the Julian Sanchez twitter thread on this.

The only surprise is that it's the nutty Washington Times reporting this.

The problem of the Right (continued)

The thing that constantly astounds me is the lack of responsible leadership from anyone in the Republican Party.

I mean, I really doubt - perhaps this is my mistake - that they are all so universally stupid as to reject medical expertise.   But it would seem that no one in any significant position of power will tell their "base" to stop culture warring on it - they need to accept mainstream expertise, even if experts adjust their advice from time to time.  

I mean, does no one in the entire national leadership of the GOP think this is irresponsible??:

Update:  here's Allahpundit explaining the politics:

Each party is gambling that its stance on mandates will be a winner with swing voters, especially the sort of suburban parents who heavily influenced the outcome of the last election. The GOP approach, a la Ron DeSantis, is to oppose mandates of any kind. No to requiring vaccines and an emphatic no to requiring masks in schools. Dems are reprising their “safety first” pitch from last year, claiming they’re doing everything possible to keep kids safe amid a scary new Delta wave by requiring precautions while Republicans obsess about getting back to normal. Which way will voters go on that?

He doesn't seem to be interested in my point:  in a politically healthy country, the parties shouldn't be playing such intense politics over health! 

Some crypto commentary of note

At Axios:

Bitcoin is becoming part of the dollar-based financial system it once sought to displace.

Why it matters: Cryptocurrency is beloved by people who want to transact outside the reach of any government. But it's gotten mainstream enough that politicians and regulators want to co-opt it and bring it squarely within their own fields of influence — even using it to help pay for an infrastructure bill.

The big picture: As crypto assets have grown to be worth well over $1 trillion, investors and financiers have increasingly wanted to get involved in the space — without taking any kind of legal risk. 

• They've been aggressively pushing for regulatory clarity, and often see their expensive compliance departments as a comparative advantage, differentiating them from the early true believers.
• Regulation, however, would defeat much of the original purpose behind the desire to create cryptocurrency in the first place — the dream of being able to create a store of value that's untouched by government interference.

Context: When bitcoin first arrived on the scene, there was a chance governments would crush it, prosecuting anyone who used it.

• Bitcoiners dreamed instead that it would thrive under the benign neglect of the government. While egregious fraud might be prosecuted, they mostly just wanted to be left alone.
• They got their way, in some form or another, for many years. But those days are coming to an end, and we're now clearly at the beginning of the end of cryptocurrency as an anarcho-libertarian Utopia.
• Cryptocurrency's future may be as an integral part of the existing financial system, regulated just as much as any other financial product.

Driving the news: SEC chair Gary Gensler — who previously taught a course on cryptocurrencies at MIT — gave an important speech last week laying out a maximalist vision for the degree to which his agency can and should regulate the asset class.

 I'm pretty sure I can hear Sinclair Davidson sobbing somewhere in the distance...

 

It's taking its time, but this is probably right

A good article at the Washington Post about the Mike Lindell election fraud fiasco, which is happening as I write this:  The Con is Winding Down.

This is how all cons end. Things stretch and stretch and stretch until: snap. So instead of presenting your data, you encode it and obfuscate it and promise that there’s actually something there, but wait, hmm, that is weird, let me see what’s happening. Instead you say things like that there was a medical emergency that slowed things down and just ask everyone to stick with you for a moment. It’s just buying time — like Trump calling senators on Jan. 6 — hoping that if another hour or so passes, you can somehow regain control.

The writer, Philip Bump, also quotes with approval a twitter thread argument made by Julian Sanchez about how conspiracy promotion works.   I'll copy that:

On Monday, Cato Institute senior fellow Julian Sanchez offered an insightful chain of thoughts about the overlap between those who believe false claims about the election being stolen and those who reject the coronavirus vaccine as dangerous.

In both cases, Sanchez wrote, the conspiracy theories “have the superficial trappings of real science. Links to journal articles on the one hand, or on the other, impressively hackery looking hex dumps & spreadsheets full of IP addresses” — a reference to Lindell’s information.

“[I]n both cases, this evidence is absolutely useless to the target audience,” he continued. “They have neither the training nor the context to evaluate the quality or relevance of technical articles in medical journals — or even to understand what the article is claiming in many cases. … They are, however, being flattered by the INVITATION to assess the evidence for themselves — do your own research, make up your own mind!”

Instead of offering their trust on experts in their fields to explain complicated subjects, the audience is convinced that it needs only to trust itself — though, of course, they’re actually simply trusting the hustlers presenting incomplete or misleading information. What the hustlers offer the audience, Sanchez says, “is the illusion of not trusting an authority — unlike all those sheep who trust the mainstream authorities.”

Data from YouGov shows that the overlap of those who don’t want to get the vaccine and those who think that Biden is an illegitimate president is nearly complete. About three-quarters of Republicans hold the latter position and 3 in 10 the former, but a quarter both reject the vaccine and Biden’s election. 

Yes, the appeal to the vanity of the "independent thinker" who is a climate change sceptic has been extraordinarily clear at Catallaxy for many, many years.   They don't recognise the con that is being put over them.

Mind you, if you go to Twitter at the moment, there are still thousands watching Lindell who think he is "killing it" - actually proving something significant.   So it's going to be a while yet before the conspiracy burns up.

Mystery song by singer I didn't know I had heard before

So, I saw reference to this on Twitter, when Phillip Adams asked the twitterverse last weekend to tell him the meaning of life.  (I think he was looking for column fodder.)   Someone in response suggested he look up a song Let the Mystery Be by Iris DeMent.  So I did, and I don't think I had heard it before.  It's pretty likeable:

 

Even though it was new to me, I see that it has been covered at least a couple of times, and look!, there's a version which has David Byrne participating in it (and Natalie Merchant and 10,000 Maniacs):

  

It's a pretty nice cover!

I realised I would have heard Iris Dement before, as she sang Our Town, which was used in the final episode of Northern Exposure: 

 

 I think I probably assumed it was a song by some early to mid 20th century country singer, but Iris wrote it when she was 25 (in 1986.) 

Her Wikipedia page indicates she has put out 6 albums, which isn't a huge amount. Seems her politics are very Left-ish as well: perhaps that puts a limit on country singer success in the US.

It lived up to expectations

OK, so I was feeling like looking up something odd to post, and clicked on the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality.   What are the chances, I thought, that it would feature something about moose or flying squirrels or some other odd animal?   Actually, pretty high:

Assessing Bear/Cub/Otter identity and history of cardiovascular disease among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men in Metro Vancouver 

Otter identity?    

I am curious about the last line in the abstract:

Interventions should target all gbMSM with increased risk for cardiovascular disease and clinicians should be mindful of culturally sensitive prevention and care for gbMSM who identify as a BCO.

What exactly does being culturally sensitive to a gay bear/cub/otter (still ?? about otter) who is looking good for a heart attack entail?   Do they think it's harder to tell a "bear" to lose weight because it's at the core of their sexual identity?  I hope that's not their point. 

Anyway, enough silliness today...

Domestication considered

While I work out which takes on the IPCC report I want to highlight here (there are a lot to choose from), you can do worse than read an article at BBC Future about how animals hanging around humans changes them.

Maybe I should print this out and have it in my pocket every day for the next month...

Treatment of rare cases of blood clotting in brain following COVID-19 vaccination

In other anti vaxxer madness

Pakistan has for years been a hotbed of anti-vax conspiracy belief against even the simplest vaccine available - the oral one for polio.   The government has made a push to get numbers of kids vaccinated:

The most incredible thing in the video is the police person saying that over the last 16  years, 1700 police have been killed in the course of trying to support the health workers administering the vaccine!

It is mentioned in the video that Pakistanis remember how the CIA used a fake vaccination campaign as cover to help track down Bin Laden - but  the conspiracy rumours that vaccines were actually harmful (and a plot by the West against Islam) long predated that.   Look at this quote from a Bloomberg report:

Mehrab Ali, a fruit merchant in Karachi, is one of many across the Islamic republic who won’t step forward after Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday launched the nation’s vaccination drive. The father of six, who also refused to vaccinate his children against polio, argued that Covid-19 is a foreign plot against Muslims.

“Coronavirus is nothing but a conspiracy,” said the 43-year-old, sitting by his pushcart on a road leading to Karachi’s port. “I don’t believe the coronavirus exists nor does polio. I am not ready to accept that Jews and Christians sitting abroad are worried about the health of our children -- no way.”

Just terrible.    

Cause for pessimism?

According to Axios, Republicans are actually feeling very positive about big gains in their coming mid term election, based on a few issues they are able to sell as purely Democrat problems (inflation, illegal immigration, and crime.)

All this at a time when the Republicans are busy ensuring as many of their voters as possible are catching COVID, and an IPCC report about the biggest future danger to the planet is about to drop, no doubt to Republican pooh-poohing. 

What a time we live in - because the Right has gone nuts.  

 

Tongue

My daughter took this pic while the dog had snuck upstairs and got on her bed.  This is unauthorised behaviour. Still, the photo amuses me.

Weed surprise

That Washington Post reports:

The most sought after marijuana being trafficked across the U.S.-Mexico border is now the weed entering Mexico, not the weed leaving it.

Cannabis sold legally in California is heading south illegally, dominating a booming boutique market across Mexico, where buying and selling the drug is still outlawed. Mexican dealers flaunt their U.S. products, noting them in bold lettering on menus sent to select clients: “IMPORTADO.”

Traffickers from California load their suitcases with U.S.-grown marijuana before hopping on planes to Mexico, or walking across the pedestrian border crossing into Tijuana. One car was recently stopped entering Tijuana with 5,600 jars of gummies infused with THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. But relatively few of the southbound traffickers are caught — even as their contraband doubles or triples in value as soon as it enters Mexico.

Oddly, it seems to have status symbol appeal:

“Nobody is going to grow cannabis better than California probably ever,” Bubeck said.

Back in Mexico, he said, especially for younger smokers, the appeal is clear: “You’re showing ‘This is what I’m about. I’m a bad ass. I got this from America.’”

I still have a suspicion that the US is eventually going to regret, or pull back from, its current style of entrepreneurial legalisation.

 

Oh, diddums

In more Creightonism:

In the news:

On Saturday, according to the Centers for Disease Control, Florida reported 23,903 new cases of COVID-19 for the previous day, Friday, August 6, bringing the state's total number of cases to 2,725,450. The Florida Hospital Association reported that 13,348 patients were hospitalized as of Saturday, which is also a record high for the state. 

Florida also reported an additional 93 people have died due to the virus, bringing the state's total COVID-19 deaths to 39,695, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

In yet more rodent news...

It's a big week for rats and mice here.

First, a cute article at the ABC about how lab researchers are tickling rats to keep them happy.

Secondly, a while ago I noted with surprise that mouse sperm can be freeze dried, and still work.   That gets another mention with this twist:

 Scientists no longer have to worry about their bottles of mouse sperm breaking in transit. Researchers in Japan have developed a way to freeze dry sperm on a plastic sheet in weighing paper so that samples can withstand being mailed via postcard. This method allows for mouse sperm to be transported easily, inexpensively, and without the risk of glass cases breaking. The paper appears August 5th in the journal iScience.

And for a final story, rats like to pick their own friends:

Rats choose carefully who they spend time with, according to a new study published today. Published by researchers from the Universities of Portsmouth and Lincoln, the study found that male rats have preferred partners in their groups and they decide who to avoid, too.  

Previous research found that female rats didn't form friendships with other females, so this paper's findings are surprising.

Dr. Leanne Proops, from the University of Portsmouth's Department of Psychology, said that "discovering that male rats don't associate with other rats randomly, but seek out their preferred cage mates and actively avoid others, shows that rats are similar in this respect to other species like birds, primates and bats."

Dr. Teresa Romero, from the University of Lincoln's School of Life Sciences, added that "what's particularly interesting about this work is that it contrasts to the limited evidence available on social behavior in rats and therefore has important implications for the management and welfare of captive rat populations."

24 hours after

So I am about 24 hours since my first AstraZeneca jab.  

The effects are very minor.   I didn't feel sick at all last night, not even a sore arm.   My upper arm is a little bit sore now, and my stomach feels a little bit crampy, but it's nothing much.  I probably would enjoy a nap this afternoon, but I can say that on most days now!   (Even on a weekend, though, I am not good at actually sleeping during the day.)