The dark side of cruises

People seem to like going on cruises since it is apparently a rapidly growing business, despite some recent horror stories of norovirus outbreaks on the boats. From what I can tell from the advertisements, these things are a floating combination of hotels and amusement parks. But in the latest episode of his show Patriot Act, Hasan Minhaj says that underneath all the gaiety and laughter, the business model of these companies is based on ruthless exploitation of labor, dumping of waste into the environment, and a massive amount of greenhouse gas emissions, combined with careful avoidance of any responsibility for anything that might go wrong on board, including sexual assault.

Given my slightly introverted nature, I think I would not find cruises enjoyable. Being constantly surrounded by large numbers of people who are determined to have a good time 24/7 and get the maximum benefit from the limited time on board would wear me out pretty quickly. I would likely retreat to my cabin for long periods of time, which would defeat the purpose of going on a cruise.

Boris Johnson is going to prorogue parliament

In his drive to prevent the UK parliament from blocking his attempts to take the UK out of the EU even with no deal, prime minister Boris Johnson has formally asked the Queen to prorogue (i.e., suspend) parliament for five weeks from mid-September. As a constitutional monarch, she had to acquiesce to his ‘request’, disappointing those who fantasized that she might instead ask the royal footman to throw him out on his ear.
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How not to respond to a Twitter critic

If you are at all involved in the world of media, you have to develop a fairly thick skin. But many establishment journalists, long used to not having immediate pushback on what they write, still get up in arms when they are criticized, however mildly, and simply make things worse.

A prime example is Bret Stephens, a conservative columnist for the New York Times. This article tells the story.

It began with a story about an apparent bedbug infestation at the New York Times building. Riffing on the newspaper’s predicament, David Karpf, an associate professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University, poked fun at Stephens on Twitter on Monday evening. The post received nine likes and zero retweets.

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Trump administration seeks to cancel the Flores agreement

We saw how the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Trump administration’s claim that it was not required to provide the detained migrant children with what any normal, decent, human being would consider the basic necessities, such as soap, toothpaste, showers, edible food, clean drinking water, beds and not be kept in very cold rooms with thin blankets and no proper bedding and with lights permanently on even during the night,
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Pete Buttigieg gets a negative endorsement

One of the marvels of the Donald Trump era is to see some of those who cheered on the Bush-Cheney administration in its endless wars and its support of Israel’s repression of Palestinians (Max Boot, David Frum, Jennifer Rubin) now, because they dislike Trump for whatever reason (most likely because he hasn’t signed on to new wars) become much-sought-after commentators on Democratic party politics.

You would think that any self-respecting Democratic presidential candidate would view an endorsement from any of those people as a negative and distance themselves from it. So it was disturbing to see Washington Post columnist Rubin endorsing Pete Buttigieg. Her invoking the desire to see a ‘kinder and gentler America’ is rich coming from someone who cheered the country on in its vicious wars that polarized the country.

A prime example of why the British royal family is a pestilence

Now that Jeffrey Epstein has died, attention has shifted to the others in his circle, like Ghislaine Maxwell. Of course, the more prominent the person, the greater the interest and one of the most prominent is Prince Andrew whom one of the young girls has accused of being forced by Epstein to have sex with him. He has denied the accusation, even though he continued to be intimate with Epstein even after his conviction for sex abuse and stayed at his home multiple times with young women going in and out.
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The Althea Gibson story

When we think of pioneering African-American athletes in sports like tennis and golf that traditionally were played only by white people or where the top tournaments were often closed to non-whites, we tend to think of Arthur Ashe and the Williams sisters and Tiger Woods. But long before any of them we had Althea Gibson, born in 1927 and who overcame a very tough childhood to win five Grand Slam tennis tournaments in the 1950s (French Open in 1956, Wimbledon in 1957, 1958 and the US Open in 1957, 1958). But for some inexplicable reason, her name has been allowed to fade into obscurity without her being give the full recognition she deserves. Unlike her contemporary Paul Robeson, the noted athlete, singer, and actor who was shunned during the McCarthy era because of his outspoken socialist views, Gibson was not political, which makes her neglect more surprising.
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Would Russia and China like to see Trump re-elected?

China yesterday announced retaliatory tariffs on imports from the US.

China threatened to impose additional tariffs on $75 billion of American goods including soybeans, automobiles and oil, in retaliation for President Donald Trump’s latest planned levies on Chinese imports that pushed U.S. stocks and farm commodities lower.

Some of the countermeasures will take effect starting Sept. 1, while the rest will come into effect from Dec. 15, according to the announcement Friday from the Finance Ministry. This mirrors the timetable the U.S. has laid out for 10% tariffs on nearly $300 billion of Chinese shipments.
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An extra 5% tariff will be put on American soybeans and crude-oil imports starting next month. The resumption of a suspended extra 25% duty on U.S. cars will resume Dec. 15, with another 10% on top for some vehicles. With existing general duties on autos taken into account, the total tariff charged on U.S. made cars would be as high as 50%.

China’s tariff threats take aim at the heart of Trump’s political support — factories and farms across the Midwest and South at a time when the U.S. economy is showing signs of slowing down. Soybean prices sank to a two-week low.

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