Back in 1997, when the UK’s lease on Hong Kong expired, did it seem plausible that China would maintain a “one country, two systems” policy for fifty years? I was not yet a teenager, so I have no idea what the general thinking might have been. But for the last fifteen years or so, it’s been increasingly clear to me that China’s claims about Hong Kong’s independence were laughable. Once President Xi came to power in 2013 amid a wave of neo-Maoism, surely it was obvious that the old pragmatism was dead–and some of the old pragmatists along with it.
So I was saddened, but not at all surprised, to read that Beijing has decided to impose an anti-speech, anti-protest, anti-democracy law on the island under the guise of public safety.
After steadily eroding Hong Kong’s political freedoms, Beijing signaled that the national security law will be a new tool that allows it to directly tackle the political dissent that erupted on Hong Kong’s streets last year. The months-long and sometimes violent protests began last June and fizzled out only over public health concerns related to the coronavirus outbreak.
The new tactic marks an escalation in Beijing’s crackdown in the former British colony and the clearest indication that it views Hong Kong as a restive region to be brought to heel after last year’s protests.
[…]“The social unrest last year showed that the Hong Kong government was unable to handle passing [national security legislation] on its own,” said Ng, a Beijing loyalist who has for years pushed for a similar law. “Hong Kong’s status will be sacrificed with or without this law if society is unstable due to the protesters’ violence.”
Zhang Yesui, the spokesman for the NPC session, said in comments to Chinese media that Hong Kong is an “inseparable” part of China and that national security is the cornerstone of stability in the country.
(Editor’s note: much–most?–of the violence during last year’s protests was by the police.)
I don’t have much to add.
Afernoonish open thread!
rikyrah
Not surprised, but still????
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Meh.
Hong Kong is Chinese. I’m not telling 1.4 billion people what to do with a tiny subdivision that was barely marginally under colonial control of the asshole Brits for a century.
PsiFighter37
It’s a damn shame. Having paid my first visit to Hong Kong last April (right before all the protests started), it is miles ahead of where Shanghai (the closest thing to an international city mainland China had) is. It’s a very unique place, and to have it devolve into a backwater to Shenzhen – which is what will happen when foreign firms abandon it for Singapore or Tokyo – will be a great loss.
Major Major Major Major
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I must have missed the part where I suggested telling 1.4 billion people (which is a weird way to describe a government that is actually less than 7% of the country) what to do with their island.
And I take it you feel the same way about what they do with their Uighurs?
ETA: also, lol at calling 7.5 million people a tiny subdivision
kindness
With their actions China has guaranteed the only way they get Taiwan is by invading it. I don’t see that happening. I can’t understand that the leadership in China doesn’t see they just shot themselves in the foot wrt Formosa.
trollhattan
The Hong Kong protestors are some of the bravest folks I’ve seen and there’s little doubt in my mind that Beijing will round each up, over time and as circumstances allow. Always the long game, and COVOD-19 provides ideal cover. This Frontline episode from February is well worth an hour. Riveting stuff.
jharp
I was in Hong Kong the day the day the Chinese Army entered to begin the handover.
I saved the South China Morning Post from that day. April something of 1997 with a picture of the Chinese army at the border.
And why I didn’t save two (I have 2 kids) is what young inexperienced Dads do I guess.
HumboldtBlue
Imagine in 1845 or so there no such thing as Hong Kong as we know it, just a small sparsely inhabited island that was then ceded to the British Empire following the first Opium War.
By the 1920s there were more than 700,000 residents and it only grew from there outlasting Japanese occupation and more than one outbreak of contagious disease.
Fascinating story.
Amir Khalid
I suspect that Hong Kongers don’t care for the rule of the People’s Republic, and would much rather be an independent nation. China has this curious possessiveness towards people of Han Chinese ethnicity; I’ve seen it myself in how PRC people interact with Chinese Malaysians. They’ve treated Taiwan like a renegade province for 70 years now, and since Nixon’s rapprochement with them in the early 1970s they have managed to bully the world out of treating Taiwan like a sovereign nation.
trollhattan
Bat signal to Cheryl and Adam for your thoughts on this. Seems ill-considered and thus, Trumplike.
Major Major Major Major
I’ve never seen evidence to the contrary. Although their #1 preference is probably a liberal democratic mainland.
Amir Khalid
@Major Major Major Major:
I suspect that, as aspirations go, an independent Hong Kong is not quite as unrealistic as a liberal, democratic PRC.
Litlebritdifrnt
I served in Hong Kong from 1986 to 1988. I helped write the papers that discussed the transition in 1997. A senior Admiral said to me at the time “they don’t have to worry about China overtaking Hong Kong they have to worry about Hong Kong taking over China” I believe that has proven to be true. The people of China have seen the freedoms that the people of Hong Kong have and are demanding the same. This has resulted in a mass migration of Chinese residents abroad. My home town (Lancaster) is an epicentre of this as thousands of Chinese students attend Lancaster University.
Major Major Major Major
@Litlebritdifrnt: Hasn’t Xi’s tenure very much been a backlash against this?
No One of Consequence
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I daresay our stalwart allies in Taiwan might be alarmed with that cavalier attitude. Taiwan is different than Hong Kong, for certain, but they watch the transpiring events with great concern.
This will not end well.
Peace,
– NOoC
mad citizen
Time was we and the west would be talking up democracy and welcoming any immigrants from Hong Kong.
Anyhoo, the other night I watched the history of the old airport, Kai Tak: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Yisu4nJZYM&t=749s
Yutsano
This is bad. This is very bad. There is no way the Chinese Communist Party gets out of this without committing a massive human rights violation. Or several. We’re talking Uighurs on steroids. And the people of Hong Kong won’t accept this lightly. And the U.S. is headed by a bunch of knucklefucks who couldn’t even care less what happens here. This is going to get bloody. And the world needs to step up here like they’re failing to do for the Uighurs.
The Moar You Know
No. That was a ludicrous assumption and not one person involved with the handover thought, in any way, shape or form, that it would happen. I’d spent time in China, I thought it wouldn’t last until 2000. Little surprised they have paid at least lip service to it until now
@Yutsano: Yep.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: Quite similar to the way Russia treats people of Russian ethnicity.
patrick II
@Major Major Major Major:
Not to mention the ominous foreshadowing of actions towards Taiwan.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
I’ve been particularly distressed with the way PRC treats former citizens who have emigrated and been naturalized in a new country. PRC requires its citizens to renounce their citizenship if they are naturalized elsewhere, which is their right. Now, PRC is acting as if they have a right to police the activities of their former citizens, even though they’re the ones who demanded those former citizens renounce their citizenship. They can’t, or at least shouldn’t, have it both ways.
jharp
@mad citizen:
I flew into Kai Tek numerous times and quite clearly remember nearing touchdown you could look out the window of the plane and easily see into peoples apartments.
Robert Sneddon
@Amir Khalid: Where will the free people of Hong Kong get their food and fresh water if they close the border with China? Hong Kong is totally dependent on survival on the supply of basic essentials such as electrical power from the rest of China, they don’t even have the New Territories to fall back on any more since they were the leased areas that returned to absolute Chinese control back in 1989.
Basically the Beijing autarchs could bring Hong Kong to its knees in three days by turning off the water taps, stopping the food trucks and trains rolling over the border and switching off the lights. They won’t, of course but they could. The protestors too know they won’t but they could. It’s a balancing act, a theatre performance in a way.
Brachiator
No. China was always playing the long game. Hong Kong’s former protector is toothless now, and Trump will do nothing even though he makes noises about breaking China economically.
China is even more patient with respect to Taiwan.
But it has been in China’s interest to support Hong Kong’s business interests and their deep understanding of financial markets. But even here, the government’s patience wore thin and they were able to develop and exploit mainland talent.
HumboldtBlue
@Amir Khalid:
(OT) He’s our center half, he’s our No. 4
Major Major Major Major
And then there’s the Belt And Road Initiative…
Cheryl Rofer
@trollhattan: I wrote about this last August.
Also, if you’re on Twitter, follow @SteffanWatkins for the latest on the Open Skies Treaty.
MomSense
As it happens, this year my son was assigned China for Model U.N. Unfortunately it will be held remotely which makes me sad because he has had such a good time in previous years.
I’m not sure if he has seen this article so I will send it to him. He already wrote his position papers. The paper on human rights was so in character that his teacher zoomed him after class to find out if he believed what he wrote.
This makes me sad for the people of Hong Kong. I have been so moved by the bravery of the protesters.
randy khan
If you’d offered 23 years as the over-under on China deciding to take full control, I’d have taken the under. Eagerly.
But it’s a real shame – the people of Hong Kong never have had the opportunity to decide what they want, and the protests show that they certainly don’t want to be just a part of China.
Amir Khalid
@Robert Sneddon:
Singapore has a similar dependence on food and fresh water from Malaysia. But they know they’re safe, because they were kicked out of the Federation of Malaysia in 1965 and they know KL has no intention of reclaiming sovereignty over them.
Brachiator
@Yutsano:
The Uighurs situation is huge in and of itself. In some ways a greater tragedy than what might happen in Hong Kong.
Unfortunately, it won’t really matter if the authorities decide to clamp down. No one has heard from the Tiananmen Square dissidents.
Unfortunately, Trump admires authoritarian rulers. And China will politely note that they have a right to control what happens within their own borders. Who is going to complain? The US? The UK? Brazil? Israel? India?
Major Major Major Major
@MomSense: In high school we did a sort of reenactment of the 1932 German election and I definitely made sure to get clearance before giving my Nazi stump speech… (parties assigned randomly)
Amir Khalid
@HumboldtBlue:
I worry about Liverpool players going back out to play. Especially guys like Virgil, who have young kids at home.
patrick II
@Cheryl Rofer:
I don’t understand the motivation for wanting to leave Open Skies. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours seems so basic and additive to a trustworthy relationship. What do the republicans see as the Russian advantage that we want to terminate?
And doesn’t it seem totally schizophrenic that a Russian sympathetic president can he persuaded by the far right anti Russian conservatives such as Cotton to make this move?
August West
OT
CNN and MSNBC just aired video of Donald Butthurt getting a tour of a Ford plant. He’s talking to 4 men who are wearing face masks, but macho man in chief still won’t wear a goddamn face mask. This guy is one of the lowest forms of life on this planet.
Cheryl Rofer
@patrick II: Republicans have always been against arms control treaties on principle, because they limit our ability to have all the arms we want. For Trump, it’s “You are not the boss of me.” Which is pretty much the same thing, expressed in Trumpese.
Emma
For wider context, because a lot of people are confused about why the CCP is so terrified of protests and any hint of challenge to their internal power structure, read up on the May 4th Movement of 1919. (TL;DR: mass student protests that overturned traditional thought and gave rise to the CCP, among loads of other things.) Then look at the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests (mass student protests calling for radical change, uh oh is the eventual successor to the CCP going to emerge from this, etc.) Also remember that Xi Jinping and everyone else in currently in power older and a bit younger than him was forced to toil in the countryside in especially harsh conditions during the Cultural Revolution, which was whipped up by, you guessed it, Mao-led mass student protests. (Especially harsh because it was a factional battle between the ideologues [Mao] and bureaucrats [Deng Xiaoping, Xi’s dad, etc.], and Mao held grudges over being kicked upstairs.)
@Amir Khalid: which is funny, because there’s always this attitude of how our Mandarin is so crappy, our accent is horrible, etc. (That is also why Chinese Americans are suspect to many in the mainland.) But you’re right, there’s definitely the notion that we’re all “hua people” and having Han blood.
@Yutsano: Actually, I’m pretty sure that nothing the CCP does to Hong Kong (or Taiwan, for that matter) will ever be as bad as what they do to Uighurs. The Uighurs aren’t Han and are proudly Muslim. From some accounts I’ve read from escapees, the authorities in the camps are basically running their own Unit 731 with some inmates.
@Robert Sneddon: Singapore had this exact issue when relations with Malaysia were at their worst. Enter NEWater! (“The NEWater process recycles our treated used water into ultra-clean, high-grade reclaimed water”) Right now, it recycles 40% of our water, but they aim to get to 100% by 2060. (There are perks to living in a country where they think in decades).
Gin & Tonic
@August West: Ford should have had the stones to kick him out. No mask, no entry.
sgrAstar
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Whoa. That’s surprisingly (?) callous. I’ve spent a lot of time in HK- it’s an amazing city. Beautiful. Complicated. Fascinating. A Beijing clamp-down on HK will suppress, with the goal of eliminating- the unique cultural richness and energy that always made HK and its citizens such a joy to visit. But we all knew this would happen. :(
?
Roger Moore
@Gin & Tonic:
Or the way You Know Who treated people of German ethnicity.
O. Felix Culpa
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Fuck off. Those people have rights which you have no business signing away, just because it doesn’t affect YOU. I could say the same about the rights of people in your corner of the world…they don’t matter because the population is small and irrelevant to me, anyway.
MomSense
@Major Major Major Major:
That must have been a fascinating experience.
mrmoshpotato
@August West: Manbaby Who Trowels On Orange Face Paint Refuses Face Mask
tokyokie
I have a good friend who’s a Hong Kong native, and although his wife (also from Hong Kong) became a naturalized U.S. citizen, he did not, because he wanted to have a Chinese passport instead of a British Colonial one. But then his wife died of cancer, and with that, I think he lost his opportunity to get out of there easily. I worry about him a lot, but I’ve lost touch with him, and with his wife’s passing, haven’t figured out how to get back in touch with him.
O. Felix Culpa
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Mighty white of you to write off the rights of 7.4 million people.
Yutsano
@Emma:
I had to look that up. Yikes. And unsurprising. If they could kill all the Uighurs and flood the ruins with Han they would. But even that is a step too far for them. For now anyway. Who knows what Whinny The Xi is thinking up.
Emma
@Yutsano: yup, flooding an area with Han immigrants is an ancient tactic, although the imperial dynasties certainly never had this murderous rage toward non-Han peoples that the CCP exhibits. I mean, the Li family of the Tang Dynasty descended from steppe peoples, no matter how much they tried to fudge their ancestry.
O. Felix Culpa
@O. Felix Culpa: Sorry for the duplication of angry ripostes…my original post didn’t show up for a while.
patrick II
@Cheryl Rofer:
Ah, thank you. So it seems the abrogation of Open Skies is illustative of the bleed-over from an economic theory that defines all relationships as the sole paradigm used conservative for every issue. Use “Free market” competition, and through competition the more general welfare will be achieved. It seems that here, the free market and invisible hand of economics solves any problem attitudes imbues international relations with winner take all, dominate the other guy in transactional business-like deals in a race to the bottom. Co-operation is a non-starter. I don’t think Adam Smith would find such a piecemeal approach of his economic system so broadly applied to be what he expected.
Other examples: Conservative covid response, climate change response, hungry American children response, etc.
One size fits all.
O. Felix Culpa
@Litlebritdifrnt: We were in Hong Kong at the same time. I lived there from 1984-1990 and 1992-1996.
Major Major Major Major
@O. Felix Culpa: Don’t be silly, they’re distinct and necessary!
raven
Shit, against my wishes my bride was having some girlfriends over to sit in the garden for “happy hour”. Only late today did I learn she was making “snacks”. She managed to stick her finger in the business end of an immersion blended and now she’s at urgent care. Just fucking great. It should really help her sewing and gardening.
HumboldtBlue
Mr. Silverman to the blue courtesy phone, please, Mr. Silverman to the blue courtesy phone.
@raven:
Well that’s terrible, here’s to a quick heal.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Cheryl Rofer: With Trump the motivation is somewhat different, he prefers bi-lateral deals, it’s what he’s used to for “business” and really doesn’t understand multi-lateral agreements.
Major Major Major Major
@raven: Ughhhhh. Hope she’s ok! I’ve been mangled by blender parts before and it’s no picnic. Healed fine after some stitches, may she be as lucky.
Emma
@raven: :((( (although I love how “snacks” is in scare-quotes.) Hope there’s nothing they need to do besides stitching skin back together.
Amir Khalid
@Yutsano:
I take it you never saw The X-Files episode about it, which was titled “731”.
Raven
@Emma: She just texted “glue”!
Raven
@Emma: She asked me to fire up a big redfish filet and I said I didn’t feel comfortable feeding people. Apparently quesadillas don’t count as food.
The Thin Black Duke
@raven: Jesus, man. I hope she’s OK.
Amir Khalid
@raven:
Ouch! I hope she heals up quickly, and there’s no permanent damage.
raven
@Amir Khalid: If only I had agreed to cook.
J R in WV
@raven:
Oh, no… so sorry to hear about this !! From first visit with friends to stitches in your hand at urgent care…. what a bummer.
Best of luck to her, and you take care of the bride!!!
J R in WV
@HumboldtBlue:
That would be Doctor Silverman, please!!! when you’re speaking professionally, like this! ;-)
Immanentize
@Raven: My son had his thumb crazy glued back together when he cut it from tip to almost the cuticle straight through his nail. Ouch. He’s fine. Glue worked.
Amir Khalid
@raven:
You mustn’t blame yourself for an unfortunate happenstance.
Cheryl Rofer
@?BillinGlendaleCA: That’s part of it too. Trump is so ignorant on these matters that I prefer not to try to infer too much reasoning on his part.
dmsilev
(WaPo)
I mean, clearly he’s lying, that’s obvious, but it’s interesting that he felt the need to lie instead of going to his usual ‘I don’t need a mask ever, not even once’ stance.
Cheryl Rofer
@raven: Hope she heals well.
raven
@Amir Khalid: UGH!
Immanentize
@Amir Khalid:
@raven:
I agree, don’t blame yourself at all. She might have fared worse if you had cooked. Cannot know that at all
raven
@Immanentize: Here’s hoping, the gardening and sewing has kept he sane. It’s her trigger finger and instrumental in sewing especially.
J R in WV
@Raven:
That’s a VERY good thing, don’t need a hand surgeon!!! Just close things up…
Keep us posted! Don’t fuss about the who cooked thing. “It is what it is!” — as a manager used to say when bad news happened. A military slogan, I understand.
He spent his whole hitch in the AF under Cheyenne Mountain… bad news there is really bad! A good boss for me… take care down Athens way!!
patrick II
@Raven:
I am sory to hear about her accident, but I think “glue” is good news. (speculation) Nothing detached or too deep. They use glue now instead of stitches, but I am not sure under what circumstances.
Immanentize
@raven: That is really rough. Sorry. I suspect gardening will be easier than sewing for a bit. But when she can again, imagine all the pent up creativity and energy.
HumboldtBlue
sdhays
This was a tiny minority view just a few years ago. All China had to do, really, was not interfere too much. Hong Kong wasn’t a democracy under the British, so there was little expectation of democracy from the masses under the PRC either.
But Hong Kong has experienced increasingly poor governance since the handover. Each Chief Executive has been worse than the last, as Beijing exerts more and more influence. Inequality is extremely high, and the range of opportunities for a lot of people is very limited. Affordable housing is a very serious problem, and there’s resentment from influxes of Chinese migrants (which is a challenge in every big Chinese city).
The heavy handed tactics are coming because Beijing doesn’t want to try to govern better. They just want people to accept what they’ve given.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@raven:
Oh ow. Poor Mrs Raven.
raven
Thanks ya’ll, she just texted and is walking back via the pharmacy. Sometimes living spitting distance from the medical stuff is good.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Cheryl Rofer: I’m not sure it requires much of an inference, he’s left a bunch of multi-lateral agreements and says he wants to replace them with bi-lateral agreements.
Emma
@Raven: hehe, well, lockdown messes with people. Like when I say I’m not going to play videogames before finishing a module on my professional development course, but then I’m like, “Stardew Valley doesn’t count, it’s working on my farm!” update: yay!
HumboldtBlue
@Emma:
What? Of course I’m going to finish this editing before I go back to dominating the medieval world in Medieval: Total War, it’s the first thing on my list!
Elsewhere:
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: Good to hear…see glue is a good thing as long as it’s not prefaced by “I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing…”.
Yutsano
@raven: Hopeful news is hopeful. Here’s to rapid healing! And as said above: don’t you dare beat yourself up over this! The universe does its will regardless of ours.
And BTW how do quesadillas not count as “snacks”? They’re probably the easiest party food to assemble and delicious warm or room temperature.
Immanentize
@raven: Sit her down in the beautiful garden y’all have and make her some nice dinner….
raven
@Emma: Yea, it was a play date with two of our widowed friends who are totally alone so she was trying to make it special.
raven
@Immanentize: I cook every day so I may go get something more special.
Mary G
@raven: Hope she heals fast!
The Moar You Know
@dmsilev: Think I’ve got an answer. Really just pulling this out of my ass, but it’s at least, if nothing else, plausible.
His internals have got to be awful. And it’s all Corona, all the time. His refusal to take COVID seriously and the obvious consequences thereof have just got to be killing his numbers.
But he has a thread to walk. Wear that mask in public, in front of the cameras, and his base will turn on him. He knows that. He will look weak. Because he is weak, but his cultists don’t know that. They will turn on his morbidly obese orange ass and he will be done.
So he is going to lie in staggering convoluted ways that will blow most of our minds, because he is a true narcissist and thankfully, most Americans don’t have a lot of experience with those. He needs re-election. NEEDS it. But that virus…it’s not the GOP, it’s not some porn star he can sue into an NDA, it’s not some subcontractor he can short-pay, it’s not some civil service lifer he can bully with the threat of losing a pension. It’s a virus, and it doesn’t give a shit who he is or what he is, and it’s going to take everything from him…unless he can figure something out.
(Spoiler, he won’t outsmart a virus. Nobody ever has.)
And now he’s fucked himself into a corner with the masks. Do you take this seriously, Trump? Don’t you love America? Wear the mask. Are you some kind of elitist pussy who’s been scamming me this whole time, Trump? Don’t you dare put on a mask to make those libtards happy.
Glad I don’t have to walk that line. I don’t think it can be done.
sdhays
@Amir Khalid: I would put the odds of a liberal democratic mainland as higher than for an independent Hong Kong. The only way China allows Hong Kong independence is if the government is either unwilling or unable to stop it. Under the CCP, it will always be willing to stop it. And if it’s unable, that pretty much means it’s the end of the CCP regime. And if it’s the end of the CCP regime, liberal democracy in all of China is a more likely outcome than Hong Kong independence (the odds of either aren’t very high).
NotMax
@Cheryl Rofer
Based on who he has proven himself to be I wouldn’t be the least surprised to learn he believes it prevents him from deploying ‘flytillas’ of Space Force saucers to hover over foreign capitals.
With stealth tech, so they can be rendered invisible.
Roger Moore
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
But isn’t the argument in favor of withdrawing from INF that it doesn’t include China?
Mary G
I know it looks like the Hong Kongers are fucked, but I do admire the solidarity and creativity they’ve used in keeping up the protests, and it seems from news reports that they do have a useless governor and the people themselves dealt with the COVID19 in a pretty remarkable way. Seems like fighting the CCP has unified them. I hope they can continue to hold out, though it does look like a big crackdown is in the works.
NotMax
@raven
Ouchie. Good thoughts.
Emma
@HumboldtBlue: haha, that takes me back! I used to play Rome: TW back in the old days, and then got the Steam version. It turns out that it crashes frequently on my new computer :( Crusader Kings II used to fill the medieval warfare gap in my library, but it got a bit boring without the joy of commanding horsies in battle…
Gin & Tonic
@The Moar You Know: And now he has violated Michigan law. I hope they fine him.
HumboldtBlue
@Emma:
I have medieval from Steam but I haven’t tried Rome yet because I have an old computer and it would prolly be wasted.
And yes, ya gotta have some horses and men to command for it to remain in the lineup.
Cacti
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
How dare you suggest that the dinks no longer have to act like a vassal state to a dead western empire.
I see you’ve been properly put in your place. ;-)
Steeplejack
@raven:
Damn, sorry to hear that. Hope she’s okay.
Cheryl Rofer
@?BillinGlendaleCA: But this time around, he wants to get China into the mix along with Russia to renew the New START Treaty.
I agree he’s said things about preferring bilateral agreements in the past, but now he’s just using any excuse that comes to hand.
dmsilev
@Emma: I used to play the original Shogun: TW years and years ago. I fondly remember just how monumentally hilariously unbalanced the geisha agents were; all you had to do was get just one infiltrated into to the enemy and she would inexorably kill off every single one of their generals and ruling family, leaving behind a bunch of individual provinces with small independent garrisons that could be picked off one at a time.
WaterGirl
@raven: You can’t go there, raven. If you had fired up the grill, someone could have knocked over the grill and gotten burned. Or you would have fed a bunch of people and then if someone got sick you might feel responsible.
You can’t assume that the alternative would have been peachy.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore:
@Cheryl Rofer: Those were other people than Trump, his rational was Putin was violating it(per Wikipedia).
HumboldtBlue
@dmsilev:
I still have that and there’s a new version of Shogun available on Steam.
Elsewhere, Joe Biden answers some questions.
Mike in NC
@August West: Lower than whale shit, as we used to say.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl:
He does live in in Georgia.
Roger Moore
@The Moar You Know:
Edward Jenner and Jonas Salk would beg to differ.
trollhattan
A bit of pet advice–if your big dog just isn’t big enough, there are pets larger still. “Who’s a good boy? Who wants his nails trimmed?”
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
Ahem. Donald Trump is not quite at the intellectual level of either Dr Jenner or Dr Salk.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
I happen to have Jonas Salk right here. Oh, wait, this is a Jonas brother. Never mind.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
Sure, but they’re evidence that viruses can be outsmarted.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: “A relentless killing machine.”
Stephen Colbert, DFA.
Major Major Major Major
@Cacti: Your comment doesn’t make any sense, though I’m not sure why I’m remarking on something so common.
HumboldtBlue
Nebraska woman sues all gay people, yes, all of them!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: Yeah, but all we got right now is Trump.
NotMax
@Roger Moore
Gotta link it.
Emma
@dmsilev: gurrrl power lol. I never picked up the original Shogun, but when I got Shogun 2 to try, I was very disappointed that they disabled cheating :/ (how am I to maintain 10 full stacks without my money cheats, I ask you…)
dmsilev
@The Moar You Know:
So, turns out he did put the mask on for at least a little while. Amazing; he told the truth about something, if only by sheer coincidence.
debbie
The demonstrations will probably be horrifying.
VeniceRiley
@Yutsano: Quesadillas are either a main or a snack; I think depends on size and complexity.
Who was it several threads ago asking you if its possible to see a nonprofit tax return? Here’s what I used to do: Go to the Guidestar.org website and find the organization’s most recent 990 there. Not the EIN. Search the Foundation Center website’s 990 finder sing only the EIN and you may find 1 or 2 even more recent returns.
Emma
@Major Major Major Major: I remember reading his comments as a lowly freshman in high school way back when and wondering why an ostensibly smart blog run by ostensibly smart adults kept allowing him to comment.
dmsilev
@Emma: The only thing that could stop a geisha was another geisha: they would face off and end up killing each other. Basically, they were the nuclear weapons of the Shogunate and the whole game was an elaborate metaphor for Mutual Assured Destruction…
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Ha!
NotMax
@dmilev
The annual geisha pride parade must have been an internecion.
;)
Realized that haven’t played any computer games since January. 60% through the final chapter of a game I relish so much that I don’t want it to end.
raven
@Yutsano: Turns out it’s her left paw so that’s something good.
Baud
@Emma:
I am somewhat unsettled by the knowledge that 14 year olds are reading this blog.
I wonder if I should set a better example.
Ninedragonspot
Woke up this morning to this horrible news from the two sessions and spent the day in a terrible funk. I’m now looking forward to weeks and months of sleepless nights helplessly watching events unfold in HK. I hope cooler heads prevail, though little in Xi’s history gives me hope for that.
Another Scott
In other news, Municipal Elections in Staunton, VA on Tuesday:
tl;dr – Gains are never permanent without continuous effort. The monsters aren’t ever giving up – we have to fight them every single day™.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@raven: I’m sorry to hear this. Hope she’s not too badly injured.
NotMax
@Baud
Too late.
That ship has long since sailed for the lot of us.
:)
Emma
@Baud: That was back circa 2006, so I don’t know if there are 14 year-olds NOW reading the blog lol. But I’ve always been interested in the interwebz and computer stuff (started playing computer games when I was a toddler in the early ’90s, courtesy of my dad), so naturally, when the “Let 100 blogs bloom” stage of the internet came, I jumped on relatively quickly.
Villago Delenda Est
I visited Hong Kong in 1988. I had to get my passport stamped with an Australian visa (for another leg of the trip home from Korea) so visited the consulate. The place was PACKED with Hong Kong Chinese eager to get out of Hong Kong before 1997 hit. Many people were skeptical about China’s intentions, and time has borne them out.
HumboldtBlue
@Baud:
You comment while only wearing your underwear so that ain’t happening.
Baud
@HumboldtBlue: Not always.
Baud
@Emma: You’re more of a vet than me. I got here in 2010.
MomSense
@raven:
I’m sorry this happened. I hope it heals fully and quickly!!
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: So going commando the rest of the time?
Cheryl Rofer
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I am wary of attributing any motives to Trump beyond narcissistic ones. There is no reason to believe that he operates with anything I would call strategy with regard to international relations. He is totally ignorant of facts relating to other countries and probably doesn’t even know where most of them are. A hundred eighty-four countries, he often muses, who knew there were so many?
Those around him have motives which, stripped down to the basics, are to destroy alliances and any agreements that keep the peace. Trump finds this congenial because any sharing of power, which is what a treaty is, takes away from his power in his zero-sum world. Additionally, any agreement that was negotiated without his imprimatur must have something wrong with it.
He is uncomfortable with anything outside what he has learned in the real-estate world, like multilateral agreements and negotiation that respects the interests of both sides, so that’s another reason for him not to like international agreements.
But rationalizing what he does in terms of anything like a strategy is a bridge too far, imo.
thalarctosMaritimus
@Amir Khalid:
Speaking of Singapore, I’ve always wondered whether there really used to be lions there.
debbie
@raven:
Crummy start to the holiday weekend, but I hope your bride isn’t too injured.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
Or wearing someone else’s underwear.
;)
Emma
@thalarctosMaritimus: Nah, we had tigers. *brushing up on my history* basically, an Indonesian prince was visiting and thought he saw a lion, which was probably actually a tiger, and we ended up with the Malay term Singapura, derived from Sanskrit, meaning “Lion City.” Don’t ask me about the Merlion, though, I think they were drunk when they thought of that.
eemom
@Another Scott:
Here in my neck of the NoVA woods, a twat who wouldn’t answer eedad’s question about whether she’s a trump supporter when she came knocking at our door is now the mayor; and her henchman defeated our neighbor — a good man who would have delivered on the promise to keep them from selling us out to the developers to become another Tysonsesque hellscape — for town council. Good times.
Villago Delenda Est
@HumboldtBlue: If this woman is represented by counsel, said lawyer should be sanctioned for wasting the court’s time.
Amir Khalid
@thalarctosMaritimus:
The legendary founder of Singapore, Sang Nila Utama, said there were lions. Who am I to doubt him?
HumboldtBlue
@Villago Delenda Est:
Oh she’s representing herself.
Another Scott
@eemom: :-(
If I were king of Virginia, these weird irregular election days would be abolished. Everyone should vote on the same day (or period – e.g. 14 days for vote-by-mail). It’s too easy for elections on unconventional days to be messed with in ways that don’t reflect the will of the people.
Cheers,
Scott.
Yutsano
@VeniceRiley: It was Schrödinger’s kitteh, and I COMPLETELY dropped the ball on that so thank you. They are required to be public information so most non-profits post them on their website. I believe they can be searched on the IRS website but I’m not certain how and don’t really have time to look right now. Have a second appointment today.
Villago Delenda Est
@HumboldtBlue: The judge can go nuts, then.
Villago Delenda Est
@Another Scott: I concur. This weird election shit is inherently undemocratic. Yet another thing the VA lege needs to address while they can stuff shit down Rethuglican throats.