Why US-North Korea talks collapsed

You may recall that the summit meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un held with much fanfare in Vietnam at the end of February ended abruptly, with a scheduled luncheon of the two leaders canceled and both parties leaving Vietnam immediately after with no joint communiqué. This was a sign that things ended badly but there was no explanation for what happened.

We now have some insight. Reuters says that it has seen a document that Trump gave Kim on that final morning that contained demands that had long been rejected by North Korea and they decided that the US was not serious and that it was not worth talking anymore.
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The Saudi spying operation in the US exposed

Remember the story of photographs of Jeff Bezos that the National Enquirer and its parent organization AMI was trying to use to blackmail Amazon and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos to stop his investigation into how they got the photos and issue a statement saying that he absolved them of all wrongdoing? Instead Bezos went public and gave his investigator Gavin De Becker all the resources he needed to continue his investigation.

Now De Becker says that he has completed his investigation and issued a statement that is quite extraordinary.
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A case study of radicalization

Trevor Aaronson has a fascinating case study that looks closely at the life of Michael Hari, part of a trio that bombed a mosque in Minnesota, to show how some white Christian men have become radicalized in Trump’s America. He says that what Trump has done is ‘flip the switch’ in the minds of these men, turning them from simply feeling disgruntled at their failures in life to seeing themselves as a victimized group that has a mission to save the country from domination by women, minorities, and non-Christians. It gives their lives meaning.
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May goes down for the third time

[UPDATE: The EU has issued what seems like a pretty hardline statement in response to the vote, saying that the ball is entirely in the UK’s hands now to come up with something definite by the April 12 deadline but that a no-deal outcome seems most likely. The statement says that they are prepared for a no-deal exit and will not accept any half-baked proposals. They have scheduled a meeting of EU leaders on April 10 to evaluate whatever May comes up with, though given how things are going, parliament may still be voting up until the 12th.]

The British parliament voted just now to defeat Theresa May’s stripped down Brexit plan by a margin of 344 to 286, a smaller margin than the previous two votes but still a significant defeat. The deadline now shifts to April 12 by which time parliament will have to give the EU a definite plan that can consists of: revoking Article 50; requesting a very long delay of the order of years; or leaving with no deal. The first two options would involve the UK taking part in the EU elections later this year, something that the Brexiteers strenuously oppose.
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Rising tensions in Venezuela

The Trump administration keeps ratcheting up the pressure on Venezuela, even going to the extent of threatening to send in US troops and also calling for a coup by the military against president Nicolas Maduro. Now Trump has told Russia that the troops that they have in that country should “get out”. But the Russians view this as not merely boorish behavior but hypocritical as well, given the fact that the US has troops stationed in so many countries.
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Jesus! Stop her from bearing false witness, Jesus!

Remember the Pennsylvania state legislator I wrote about who started a session with a prayer that had insertions of ‘Jesus’ every so often as if it were some kind of yoga mantra? If you missed it, you really should click on the link and listen because it is a great example of Christian nationalism, a political ideology that hides itself under the cloak of Christianity.
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Brexit memes and physics

A lot of memes have been circulating drawing parallels with the awkward Brexit attempts by the British government, such as this one.

I chose this one to highlight because the person seems to have a common misunderstanding that Galileo tried to clear up a long time ago about the nature of relative motion. Since the man was on the train, he had the same velocity as the train when he jumped off and hence was moving in the direction of the tracks when he hit the ground. It was not allowing for that that caused him to fall. If he had jumped more along the direction of the train’s motion and with a running action in that direction, it would have been much less jarring to him and may have managed to stay upright.

Not that I am recommending anything that dangerous of course!

More Brexit drama

[UPDATE: All eight indicative votes were defeated, all but one of them (a pro-Remain one) by hefty margins, so we seem to be back to square one. I have been watching the livestream of the parliament with great interest. MPs are struggling to figure out what to do next, given the Friday deadline. Pressure is being put on the speaker to allow a third vote on May’s plan but he seems unmoved.]

British prime minister Theresa May has said that she will step down as leader before the next phase of Brexit negotiations, presumably as a last-ditch effort to get recalcitrant Conservative MPs and the DUP to back her plan.

“I have heard very clearly the mood of the parliamentary party. I know there is a desire for a new approach – and new leadership – in the second phase of the Brexit negotiations and I won’t stand in the way of that,” May said, according to a transcript released afterwards.

“I know some people are worried that if you vote for the withdrawal agreement, I will take that as a mandate to rush on into phase two without the debate we need to have. I won’t; I hear what you are saying. But we need to get the deal through and deliver Brexit.

“I am prepared to leave this job earlier than I intended in order to do what is right for our country and our party.”

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