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A Harvard study shows that meeting the Covid-19 pandemic required more than following conventional wisdom.

Fallacies, hard truths, and lessons learned from the global response to COVID-19

Researchers from Harvard and other universities are comparing what went right and what failed in 18 countries’ handling of the pandemic.

The Russians are pushing Biden in Ukraine.

Top US national security officials call counterparts as Russia and Ukraine tensions rise

Top US national security officials have spoken with their Ukrainian counterparts, and America’s top general held a call Wednesday with his Russian opposite number amid concern over Russian military activity in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, including what the US deemed a violation of a ceasefire by Mos…

China to form small group to vet Hong Kong elections: SCMP

The changes are expected to be unveiled later Tuesday.. Read more at straitstimes.com.

HONG KONG (BLOOMBERG) – Chinese lawmakers plan to put fewer than 10 people – all chosen by national security officials – on a committee to vet any candidates for top elected positions in Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post reported.

The report said vetting committee members would be chosen by Beijing’s National Security Office in Hong Kong as well as the Committee for Safeguarding National Security chaired by the territory’s chief executive – two bodies created under a sweeping national security law imposed last year.

Bloomberg

New at the Belmont Club. How does the progressive project advance against China?

Washington mandates and China supplies.

Solar Is on a Roll—and Needs More Sunlight from Washington

Twenty-nine states are already pursuing renewable portfolio standards that require the increased deployment of solar systems and other green technologies.

New at the Belmont Club. Frozen evil loosed upon a sensitive, Woke world. It looks funny but it has a power long forgotten.

North Korea: Lockdown as a Strategy

Too deliberately brutal for sophisticates to understand

Is climate change anxiety codespeak for ‘white fragility’ asks the Scientific American.

Climate Anxiety Is an Overwhelmingly White Phenomenon

Is it really just code for white people wishing to hold onto their way of life or to get “back to normal?”

Stealth destroyer gets turned into a floating command node. Unmanned vehicle doctrine is being tested by the fleet. PACFLEET Preparing for 2021 Unmanned Fleet Battle Problem.

Zumwalt Destroyer Will Control Unmanned Ships, Aircraft in Upcoming Fleet Battle Problem – USNI News

The Navy will get a first glimpse of what future operations could look like, when a Zumwalt-class destroyer manages long-range surveillance and fires by manned and unmanned platforms in an upcoming exercise in the Pacific. U.S. Pacific Fleet will host its most complex exercise to date involving unma…

Progressive intellectuals explain how they could not see monsters in their own ranks because they were blinded by Donald Trump. The dazzle of Trump made them mistake Cuomo for a feminist hero.

It was way too easy for America to be fooled by Andrew Cuomo

There’s a special sting to discovering the man who convinced you he could assure your safety turns out to be dangerous himself.

Biden’s foreign and domestic policy appears to consist largely of virtue signaling. Whether about the border with Mexico, Covid, murders in Georgia, Putin, Uighurs, Burma the signal contains a large measure of Wokeness. The question is whether the policy is all virtue signaling or whether there is something solid behind the appearance.

New at the Belmont Club. Clutching at reality. How epistemology became a modern political crisis.

“Now it’s the Left’s turn.” The radical Democrats make a play for power. Inevitably Biden will be the next target. Can a nonentity who was once Obama’s creature resist?

Andrew Cuomo’s Reign Is Over. Now It’s the Left’s Turn.

After years of bullying, brutal austerity, and massive giveaways to the wealthy, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s rule in New York is finished. His allies are in disarray, never expecting their prince’s fall from grace. Now it’s time for the Left to step up and reshape New York for the many, not the few.

Hell is a place where nothing exists that we cannot conceive. It is a totally sterile place with no surprises and in Shannon’s sense no additional information. Safety is where we know all the outcomes and nothing unexpected happens. And nothing unexpected happens.

The scales fell from his eyes while tormented in Iranian prison

The Princeton Historian Mugged by Reality

Since being freed from Iranian detention, Xiyue Wang has been unrelenting in his criticism of the authoritarian country—and some American elites’ attempt at rapprochement.

File under “barn door” and “horse”. Better luck next time.

SOS signature-matching guidelines for absentee ballots ruled “invalid” by judge

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson put out guidance to county and local clerks for signature matching on absentee ballots in October, prior to the 2020

Beijing plans to press Washington to reverse many of the policies targeting China introduced during the Trump presidency in the first face-to-face meeting of senior U.S. and China officials since President Biden’s election, according to people with knowledge of the plans.

WSJ

WSJ News Exclusive | China Plans to Ask U.S. to Roll Back Trump Policies in Alaska Meeting

For the first high-level session with Biden’s team, Beijing will ask the U.S. to reverse limits on American sales to Chinese firms, visa restrictions and other measures, according to people familiar with China’s plans.

Denunciations don’t convey much status information about who’s in virtue but about who’s in and who’s out.

New at the Belmont Club.

Arson attacks on Sunday against 32 Chinese-invested factories in Hlaingthaya prompted China’s strongest comments yet on the turmoil gripping its neighbour, where many people see Beijing as supportive of the coup.

China’s Global Times newspaper said “vicious attacks” caused damage worth $37 million and injuries to two Chinese employees. Its embassy urged Myanmar’s generals to stop the violence.

Reuters

Military tightens grip, death toll among anti-coup protesters rises as Myanmar seethes

Myanmar security forces shot dead at least 20 pro-democracy protesters on Monday, an activist group said, and the military junta imposed martial law in parts of the main city Yangon, giving commanders wide powers to stamp out dissent.

New at the Belmont Club. Safetyism vs statism. Suppose the future is China, I kid you not Sherlock.

Well if they say so.

China coal consumption tipped to rise despite green shift

Economic growth is tipped to drive China’s coal consumption despite a shift to green energy.