The New York Times reports that Rodrigo Duterte is too busy to go to the White House.
President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines said on Monday that he might not accept President Trump’s invitation to visit the White House, because he was “tied up” with a busy schedule. “I cannot make any definite promise,” Mr. Duterte said, adding, “I’m supposed to go to Russia; I’m also supposed to go to Israel.” …
White House officials said Mr. Trump had called Mr. Duterte in an effort to mend their countries’ recently strained relationship, as a bulwark against China’s expansionism in the South China Sea. Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, said Mr. Trump also wanted to build a united front in Asia in opposition to North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear and missile technology.
A less charitable explanation for Duterte’s overflowing calendar is he’s running from the awkward question: who’s side are you on? There’s no good answer to that question without riling either Captain America or the Mandarin. Duterte, who earlier hitched his wagon to Beijing’s star after calculating that Washington was on the permanent decline is now facing a newly assertive US policy.
He should have heeded Tolkien’s advice about the dangers of getting in over one’s head. “Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger”. This is especially true when wizards have flying Nazgul and Watchers in the Pond, when Duterte does not. But it may be too late for such regrets now. As tensions rise in the Pacific it will be harder to be unavailable.
Nobody trusts somebody who’s put himself up for sale, even the ones who bought him. Just wait till the Mandarin calls.
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The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate, Author Robert D. Kaplan builds on the insights, discoveries, and theories of great geographers and geopolitical thinkers to look back at critical pivots in history and then to look forward at the evolving global scene. The result is an interpretation of the next cycle of conflict throughout Eurasia and a future that can be understood in the context of temperature, land allotment, and other physical certainties. To those who suggest that globalism will trump geography, this book shows how timeless truths and natural facts can help prevent this century’s looming cataclysms.
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, by Timothy Egan. The book tells the story of the dust storms that terrorized America’s High Plains in the darkest years of the Great Depression and the people that held on: their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black blizzards, crop failure, and the deaths of loved ones.
The No-Fuss Bread Machine Cookbook: Hands-Off Recipes for Perfect Homemade Bread, by Michelle Anderson. Finally, a bread machine cookbook that shows you how to use your bread machine for its intended purpose ― convenience! This is the first and only collection of truly easy, hassle-free recipes that give you delicious homemade loaves of bread every time, with more than 150 recipes using easy-to-find ingredients and minimal work.
Modern Prometheus: Editing the Human Genome with Crispr-Cas9, by Jim Kozubek. Would you change your genes if you could? As we confront the ‘industrial revolution of the genome’, the recent discoveries of Crispr-Cas9 technologies are offering, for the first time, cheap and effective methods for editing the human genome. Tracing events across a fifty-year period, from the first gene splicing techniques to the present day, Kozubek weaves together the fascinating stories of many of the scientists involved in the development of gene editing technology, demystifies how the technology really works and provides thought-provoking reflections on the ‘commodification’ of life.
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The War of the Words, Understanding the crisis of the early 21st century in terms of information corruption in the financial, security and political spheres
Rebranding Christianity, or why the truth shall make you free
The Three Conjectures, reflections on terrorism and the nuclear age
Storming the Castle, why government should get small
No Way In at Amazon Kindle. Fiction. A flight into peril, flashbacks to underground action.
Storm Over the South China Sea, how China is restarting history in the Pacific
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