Music: Avishai Cohen — ‘Structure in Emotion’
Scorching summer in Europe signals long-term climate changes
The New York Times reports: In Northern Europe, this summer feels like a modern-day version of the biblical plagues. Cows are dying of thirst in Switzerland, fires are gobbling up timber in Sweden, the majestic Dachstein glacier is melting in Austria. In London, stores are running out of fans and air-conditioners. In Greenland, an iceberg may break off a piece so large that it could trigger a tsunami that destroys settlements on shore. Last week, Sweden’s highest peak, Kebnekaise mountain,…
The U.S. education system has produced a society of ‘smart fools’
Cornell University psychologist Robert Sternberg: IQ rose 30 points in the 20th century around the world, and in the U.S., that increase is continuing. That’s huge; that’s two standard deviations, which is like the difference between an average IQ of 100 and a gifted IQ of 130. We should be happy about this, but the question I ask is, If you look at the problems we have in the world today—climate change, income disparities in this country that probably rival…
Kim Jong-un nukes the U.S. in a terrifyingly plausible near-future novel by Jeffrey Lewis
Juian Borger writes: Reflecting on US nostalgia for music from past wars, the musician and satirist Tom Lehrer once joked: “I feel that if any songs are going to come out of World War III, we’d better start writing them now.” Those whose job it is to contemplate the likelihood and impact of nuclear war feel the same way about postmortems. Trying to explain what went wrong after a thermo-nuclear conflict kills millions is the ultimate in futility – a…
U.S. to restore sanctions on Iran after withdrawal from nuclear deal
The New York Times reports: The United States will reimpose sanctions against Iran at midnight on Monday, restoring economic penalties that were lifted under the 2015 nuclear accord and ratcheting up pressure on Tehran while worsening divides with European allies and other world powers. The sanctions are a consequence of President Trump’s decision in May to withdraw from an international deal that sought to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for easing pressure on the country’s shaky economy. Mr. Trump…
UK would run out of food a year from now with no-deal Brexit, farmers’ union warns
The Guardian reports: Britain would run out of food on this date next year if it cannot continue to easily import from the EU and elsewhere after Brexit, the National Farmers’ Union has warned. Minette Batters, the NFU president, urged the government to put food security at the top of the political agenda after the prospect of a no-deal Brexit was talked up this week. “The UK farming sector has the potential to be one of the most impacted sectors…
Facebook to banks: Give us your data, we’ll give you our users
The Wall Street Journal reports: Facebook wants your financial data. The social-media giant has asked large U.S. banks to share detailed financial information about their customers, including card transactions and checking-account balances, as part of an effort to offer new services to users. Facebook increasingly wants to be a platform where people buy and sell goods and services, besides connecting with friends. The company over the past year asked JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and U.S. Bancorp to discuss potential…
China stands up to threat posed by Winnie the Pooh
BBC News reports: China’s film authorities have denied a release to Disney’s new Winnie the Pooh film, Christopher Robin, it’s reported. No reason has been given for the decision, but it’s believed to be part of a nationwide clampdown on references to the beloved children’s character. Chinese authorities have been blocking images of Pooh on social media since last year, after the AA Milne bear became a symbol of political dissent. It’s after the Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been…
Music: Avishai Cohen — ‘Variations In G Minor’
Trump and allies seek end to refugee status for millions of Palestinians
Foreign Policy reports: Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, has quietly been trying to do away with the U.N. relief agency that has provided food and essential services to millions of Palestinian refugees for decades, according to internal emails obtained by Foreign Policy. His initiative is part of a broader push by the Trump administration and its allies in Congress to strip these Palestinians of their refugee status in the region and take their issue off…
Despite tensions, Russia seeks U.S. help to rebuild Syria
Reuters reports: Russia has used a closely guarded communications channel with America’s top general to propose the two former Cold War foes cooperate to rebuild Syria and repatriate refugees to the war-torn country, according to a U.S. government memo. A boy walks along a damaged street at the city of Douma in Damascus, Syria, April 16, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki The proposal was sent in a July 19 letter by Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian military’s General Staff, to…
How deep is the decline of the West?
John Gray writes: In the last chapter of his autobiography The World of Yesterday: Memories of a European (1942), Stefan Zweig lamented a lost world of freedom: Before 1914, the earth had belonged to all. People went where they wished and stayed as long as they pleased. There were no permits, no visas, and it always gives me pleasure to astonish the young by telling them that before 1914 I travelled to India and to America without passport and without…
Why Facebook will never change its business model
Following Mark Zuckerberg’s Congressional testimony in March, Len Sherman wrote: Other companies can only dream of running a company with essentially: No cost of goods sold (individual users and companies provide content for free) No marketing costs (user word-of-mouth and viral network effects spur continuous growth) No selling costs (most advertisements are purchased through a self-service, automated ad placement platform) If you were in charge of such a money-making machine, would you be eager to change this business model? But…
Osama bin Laden’s mother speaks for the first time
Martin Chulov reports: In the corner couch of a spacious room, a woman wearing a brightly patterned robe sits expectantly. The red hijab that covers her hair is reflected in a glass-fronted cabinet; inside, a framed photograph of her firstborn son takes pride of place between family heirlooms and valuables. A smiling, bearded figure wearing a military jacket, he features in photographs around the room: propped against the wall at her feet, resting on a mantlepiece. A supper of Saudi…
The marvel of LED lighting is now a global blight to health
By Richard G ‘Bugs’ Stevens, Aeon Light pollution is often characterised as a soft issue in environmentalism. This perception needs to change. Light at night constitutes a massive assault on the ecology of the planet, including us. It also has indirect impacts because, while 20 per cent of electricity is used for lighting worldwide, at least 30 per cent of that light is wasted. Wasted light serves no purpose at all, and excessive lighting is too often used beyond what…
What Russia understands about Trump
Michael Weiss writes: In March 1986, Yuri Dubinin arrived in New York to assume his post as the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations. Dubinin’s daughter, Natalia, was already a diplomat serving at the Soviet mission, and she picked her father up at the airport and drove him into a city to which he’d never before been. (He wouldn’t stay long—within weeks of his arrival, Dubinin was reposted as Soviet ambassador to the United States and relocated to Washington, D.C.)…