GEOPOLITICS: THE RETURN OF THE GREAT POWER GAME (LONGREAD)

The world is on the brink of a paradigm shift. The first signs of this new constellation have become visible in the bankruptcy of old alliances and the beginnings of new alignments. There are a number of catalysts: the dawn of authoritarian Communist China as the world's production center based on slavery, and Turkey's aggressive expansionism in the East Med. Yet the Abraham Accords in parts of the Middle East have opened up opportunities that were hitherto unthinkable.

Sep. 22, 2021 Caspian Report: India's masterplan to counter China.

President Trump's vision of peace and prosperty in exchange for political Islam (watch his momentous speech in Riyadh) culminated in the Abraham Accords between the US,  Israel, the UAE, Bahrain. Morocco and Sudan subsequently joined the pact. This enabled the US to withdraw from the Middle East and pivot towards the Pacific with the establishment of a joint Australian and UK naval partnership only last week, auspiciously named AUKUS. 

BABIES' BRAINS DUMB DOWN DUE TO DUMB COVID FEARS

Researchers of Brown University analyzed the cognitive performances of 672 children born in Rhode Island; 188 born during the pandemic (after July 2020), 308 born before it (prior to January 2019) and 176 of them born during its beginning stage (between January 2019 and March 2020) (abstract). They found that children born during the pandemic have up to 20 percent lower IQs than those born before it. This is really no surprise at all!

Aug. 14, 2021 War Room Pandemic - Liz Yore: IQs Dramatically Dropping During Covid.

COVID-19 has been debilitatingly boring for newborns, disturbing new research has found.  (...) “It’s not subtle by any stretch,” lead study author and Brown University associate professor of pediatric research Sean Deoni told the Guardian of the trend. “You don’t typically see things like that, outside of major cognitive disorders.” (More on New York Post)

YOU DIDN'T BUILD THAT! (UPDATED)

Equality is good, right? It is one of the most basic values of modern liberal democratic societies. Basically equality is good, unless it becomes a goal in itself outside the context of a wider moral edifice. In that case the consequences for a culture are dear indeed. Not everyone appreciates the problem; but British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher did. She tried to explain it to the Commons in 1990. 

Nov. 2, 1990 UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher explains the fallacy of equality in the Commons.

Equality is the fundamental standard in Egalitarianism, a standard of good and evil. Equality as an ethical value is rooted in Judeo-Christian and Marxist deontologies. But Egalitarianism demands much more than just that: it wants equality of outcome, in the here and now! This has consequences not everyone immediately gets. Under this ethics program man doesn't deserve equality for whom he is or what he has achieved, but exactly because he IS nothing. Obama lecturing a group of entrepreneurs a few years ago, illustrates this mindset when he told them, "You didn't build that!"

WILL THE CHINA-TALIBAN TRADE PLANS SUCCEED? (LONGREAD)

The Taliban just announced that China will be their gateway to international markets along the Belt and Road Initiative. China has plans for a oil pipeline from Iran through Afghanistan. But as the following longread is pointing out, the going may not be as smooth as the parties are currently hoping for. What are the odds and what are the facts in the real world? 

Sep. 2, 2021 Epoch TV: Bill Gertz, US Withdrawal from Afghanistan a 'Strategic Success' for China.

The fiasco of the withdrawal of the USA from Afghanistan will be dissected for decades to come in the military academies and in many of Washington DC's thinktanks. But most people will ponder who ordered this debacle.