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Sunday, June 30, 2024 - 22:48 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Character Studies

The fallout continues with Malaysia and Thailand's sudden recent interest in joining Team Red's BRICS+, which has been described as "unexpected" - and this with Southeast Asian Team Red mainstays Myanmar and Laos having already registered their interest last year. Considering this, our Foreign Minister's (concerned-seeming) statement that "there is no substitute for ASEAN" on Wednesday, might then be understood based on our "alphabet soup" bodies analysis from May 2022, then referring to America/Team Blue's IPEF.

As Dr. Balakrishnan undoubtedly recognizes, this is a sign of "various blocs concentrating more and more of their rewards within their exclusive 'friend groups'*" and undermining of (more-neutral) organizations (i.e. ASEAN, in this case), as we projected two years ago. Well, the in-depth commentary on the consequences - and perhaps some additional juicy tidbits - will have to wait until the event gets its airing in Twilight Struggle: New Moon, but suffice to say that it's all been going as expected, including our prediction of there being "plenty more utter FAKE NEWS bullshit" about the Pandemic Game, back from January. It shouldn't need to be said, but the revelations on the U.S. military backstabbing their erstwhile Filipino allies on coronavirus vaccines might well have contributed to ASEAN nations doing an about-turn on the Blues...

On a personal note, one of my dates had recently commented on my not smiling much, to which I have got to say that if a guy expects half of what I'm projecting - which is generally on sound basis - he wouldn't be grinning much either. I mean, if it would make you feel better, I could pretend to be surprised; but I must warn you that I'm not a very good actor.


How it's going
(Original source: theonion.com**)


Anyway, the U.S. Presidential election season has finally been heating up once more, and I had resolved to watch at least part of the first debate on Thursday. Well, I have to admit to not using YouTube much these days, and was embarassingly unable to find a livestream. Instead, I settled on watching two fine elderly gentlemen discuss their golf handicaps, which on hindsight was a much-needed departure from doomscrolling politics. Given that the New York Times pled for President Biden to drop out in their op-ed the next day, however, I'm guessing it didn't go too well for him.

On perusing the recording of the debate, I was reminded of my granddad's decline in the lead-up to his overturning his van, and really there's a time for every man - if he lives long enough - that his loved ones should really pat him on the back, and take away his car keys. However, the dilemma for Team Blue Democrats in the American Minigame is that they don't have a ready replacement - Harris is not exactly an inspiring candidate, as analyzed in March 2020 (alongside correctly projecting her being picked as VP), but there may be creative solutions available. Considering that the next POTUS may well be the one to have to give the "long twilight struggle" speech for this generation, some baseline level of energy is called for.

[*Note OpenAI blocking China in the meantime. Anyway, I heartily propose that the organizers just simulate the remaining debates with A.I. language and voice models - it's definitely more entertaining, and probably no less informative.]

[**The Babylon Bee has probably overhauled them, though.]



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