RB—Mainstream economics did its usual job by providing a supporting BS theory of the relationship between government debt and growth (Bernhart & Rogoff 2010); with a 28 year-old PhD student finding that a column of figures covering twenty countries had only summated 15 of them. Of course a “mistake” that just happened to remove the inconvenient facts that would have destroyed the BS theory, along with the other “mistakes” of omitting countries that did not fit the narrative and very strange weightings between different nations’ data.

KL—Guancha and its Observer Network often interview key people involved in China’s high-tech development a few of which have appeared at the Gym. Occasionally, only a link is provided that a few readers choose to explore; but in this case as in those preceding it, the full article is warranted because of its importance. Previously, China’s tokamak fusion work was reported on several times, while those articles alluded to other companies and processes but never expanded upon. The interview begins with a short bio on Xiang Jiang then gets into the Q&A portion.

EZ—A reported memorandum of understanding outlines sweeping terms, including a U.S. naval withdrawal, massive financial release, and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, as the U.S. president halts military strikes to pursue a breakthrough.
At its core, the draft calls for an “immediate and permanent cessation of hostilities on all fronts, including Lebanon.”

This explicit linkage is a crucial diplomatic victory for Tehran, which has consistently demanded that any agreement with Washington must also constrain Israeli military operations against its ally, Hezbollah.

MC—Every citizen’s individual rights here are protected. Every citizen here is required to behave in a civilized manner in public, which I fully thankfully agree with because it preserved and protects every single person’s freedom and rights in the society. That’s a really good place to live if you ask me. You have NO SUCH PROTECTION of your individual rights in the United States.

There is a straightforward law here in China that every country should have and should enforce.

Feel free down in comments to talk about why you might disagree.

The US has this law too but no longer enforces it…it’s called disturbing the peace…and that includes that no person is allowed to publicly mock, slander, abuse, block traffic, threaten, harass, accuse any other person in public, creating a nuisance disturbing and violating EVERYONE ELSE’S freedom and rights.

This law protects and includes any citizen, your grandmother, your jerk neighbor, your crazy ex, any business man or politician you claim is a jerk, corrupt or owes you.

It doesn’t matter who you are in China…you are not allowed to disturb the peace in public and disturb the life of any other person in public. In other words, everyone’s rights are protected from being violated. That’s a fabulous proper law that protects everyone and every country should have it.

BL—Different theorists of nations disagree over the relationship between nations and nationalism. Most argue that nation-states came first and nationalism develops out of that later. Dugin sides with Ernst Gellner who insists that nationalism is not a consequence of the existence of a nation, but that a nation itself can emerge from the political propaganda of nationalism. For Gellner and Dugin, nationalism invents the nation but still smuggles in ethnos and Narod forms of attachment as a foundation while at the same time nationalists try to suppress ethnos and Narod forms of attachments.