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https://www.straitstimes.com/business/economy/singapore-non-oil-domestic-exports-plunge-173-in-june-as-double-digit-slump-worsens

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"Sidney Bechet - Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives To Me" (Watch on YouTube)

(no subject)

Pierce Morgan, of all people:

And the fact Donald Trump is not just allowing it to happen, but actively encouraging it to happen, is an indefensible disgrace.

The President keeps insisting he’s not a racist, and I’ve repeatedly said that in the 13 years I’ve known him, I’ve personally never witnessed him being a racist.

But since running for the White House, his inflammatory language has flirted ever closer to crossing the line into overt racism, and now he’s crossed that line. Big time.

Let’s be very unambiguously clear: what happened in North Carolina last night was not just racist-fueled demagoguery but bordered on fascism.

There was the President of the United States whipping his supporters into a hyper-animated state of rage about a political opponent because of her ethnicity.
...

What happened last night was a despicable moment in modern America.

There’s no possible defense for such an outrageous racist attack on a young Muslim American congresswoman.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7261101/This-sickening-moment-presidency-Mr-Trump.html

He underestimates the power of motivated thinking when he says "there's no possible defense." Just over the last couple of days, I've read hundreds of possible defenses from people who should've known better.

Furthermore, one of my biggest personal disappointments since the 2016 elections has been the unfading desire of people who think about themselves as "Soviet/Russian intelligentsia" to support ugliest forms of dishonesty, xenophobia, racism, and amorality, as long as the ugliness serves their perceived interests.

Kantian meditation

Of all 
     mental notions, 
                   that of conjunction 
is the only one 
               which cannot be given 
through objects, 

but can be originated 
           only by the subject 
                               itself,
because it is an act 
              of its purely 
                      spontaneous 
activity. 

...the possibility of conjunction 
                      must be grounded 
in the very nature 
                   of this act, 

and that it must be equally 
                valid for all conjunction,

and that analysis, 
          which appears to be 
                             its contrary, 
must, nevertheless, 
                   always presuppose it; 

for where the understanding 
                    has not 
                       previously conjoined, 
it cannot dissect 
                   or analyse, 

because only 
            as conjoined by it, 
must that 
            which is to be 
                           analysed 
have been given to 
              our faculty 
                     of representation.


Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason.