Sadly 126 workers died in a jade mine accident in Myanmar, the country known as Burma in colonial times.
Nine years ago 1 worker died from radiation in the Fukushima accident caused by the tsunami that in turn got caused by an earthquake.
In Germany said Japanese disaster caused the ‘Energiewende’. Nuclear power plants were to disbanded. Yes, 9 years ago climate change already was a thing. Contrast that to the ‘plan’ to stop the mining and burning of coal by, wait for it, 2038.
In 2020 I doubt that parts of the US public would tolerate it well, if a Hollywood movie, helmed by a British director no less, would let people climb around Mount Rushmore.
The monument in Dakota is much less ancient than people might think now. For us it has always been around. Depicting people from the beginning of the US, but it was only 18 years old when Hitchcock created his masterpiece.
I had no idea that during election years gun sales were up. Lets face it: The US is a semi-developed country. Leading in the number of aircraft carriers under sail, nuclear war head, Covid-19 deaths, prison population, entertainment, GDP.
Sometimes a headline exposes the lack of geographic knowledge: I asked myself if Russia and North Korea even share a border. The answer were: No (memory) Yes! (maps) No, not a land border (zooming in)
And, as so often, the headline spawned thoughts in the wrong direction: the event tool place on the ocean anyway.
Even though much of it was brewing before he came into power, he really really really wants to be associated with it:
Edit: Derek Thompson wrote yesterday in the Atlantic about the same topic. Probably much more fun to read his piece instead.
Taking the US covid-19 death and infection graphs from world-o-meter on July 2nd and aligning them in the time axis so that the first peaks match seems to reveal a couple of things:
In light of that situation somebody tweeted this:
If there ever was the essence of a turd-tweet, then this is probably up there. Yes he sputters non sense non stop. Pre reign, or now. It is just all self serving nonsense. What makes this one so bad is that this comes from the person who could save those hundreds of thousands of lives. I am of the conviction that there are no evil or good people per se. Just people in circumstances. But once in a while specific people are in power and put a significant and always unnecessary spike on human suffering by nature of them being in charge. This man qualifies. The US is in deep trouble since a small but ardent part of the population got convinced that his stupid man is the only option if you want ‘law & order’. For them it is him or anarchy. People outside of his camp really could do better in communicating that this is not the case.
on the front page. He is not gonna like it – but it is probably just a google news filter bubble.
The NY Times writes:
The pandemic has turned the world into a giant laboratory of competing systems, each with its own way of fighting the virus and mitigating its economic damage. The contrast between Europe and the United States has been particularly stark.
As somebody who spent more than 20 years living both in the US and Europe in the same time I can only say: Fuck, yes, it did. And that it would was crystal clear since mid January. Right when I would have gone back into the sunshine of SoCal. Timing that I am thankful for.
can have its downsides. I am sure Germany was also somewhat relieved after the last US election that they had shipped their gold back home after the financial crisis. Some thought it took a worrisome long time to repatriate the metal with no uses back into the Heimat.