Patrick Chovanec

Indian and Philippine Navy warships begin joint patrols of the disputed South China Sea for the first time

u.afp.com/SMT2

The government takes money from some people and gives it to others who it thinks are more deserving. Republicans used to have a name for this, and it wasn't nice.

This isn't, by the way, the first time he's claimed this. It's not a slip of the tongue. He's been repeating the same line for the past week or so.

Screenshot of a public Facebook post by Clara Mun (wife of Bishop Suffragan Allen Shin of the Episcopal Diocese of New York): “Please pray for YeonSoo Go, daughter of Rev. Kyrie Kim, Episcopal priest in The Episcopal Diocese of New York! YeonSoo is student at Purdue university and was detained by ICE after her visa interview at federal immigration court. This is wrong! #FreeYeonsoo #FreeKetty #Freethemall” Photo of Yeonsoo Go with her mother who is wearing a clerical collar, both smiling, as they stand in front of the altar in an Episcopal church that is decorated for Christmas.

According to my friend and divinity school classmate Bishop Matthew Heyd of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, Yeonsoo Go, daughter of an Episcopal priest, is being detained at a facility with no beds or showers or hot food. ⚓️

I mean, that would be really something. Maybe even worth a Nobel Prize.

"Cutting drug prices by 1500%" means the drug company is now paying you $1400 to take a pill that they used to sell for $100.

Gao Yanei is the Biff Tannen of Chinese literature.

You can either argue that disappointing jobs numbers are real and show why the Fed should cut rates, or that disappointing jobs numbers are wrong because no one has ever seen an economy as strong as this one. Choose one, at most. Not both.

But he doesn't, because he also insists that job-growth is really at record levels, and no one has ever seen an economy as incredible as this.

There is no logic, I realize. He's just performing for an audience of one, who is angry that the latest numbers made him look bad.

Is his argument that the downward revisions are WRONG (and the higher initial estimates were right)? Or that the revisions came TOO LATE (the initial numbers should have been more accurate, i.e., lower)? It's actually two very different complaints.

If you listen closely it sounds like his *logical* complaint is BLS didn't catch the disappointing jobs numbers sooner, not that the jobs numbers aren't disappointing.

But Brazil made him angry, by stopping his friend's coup.

As Napoleon supposedly said, "Never interfere with an enemy in the process of destroying himself."

China is FAR from spotless when it comes to trade. But it has played this all very well, mainly by lying low and not interfering with Trump's America blowing itself up.

What do I do instead? I watch documentaries and informed experts on YouTube. I read books. I travel.

I haven't learned anything new from watching "network" TV, for a very long time. Which is probably why our family cancelled cable two years ago and barely notice it's missing.

The problem comes when people don't know the difference.

There's nothing wrong with promoting mutually-beneficial economic development to secure the peace - whether it be in Ukraine, Gaza, or Congo. But when such profits become the driving force shaping any "deal", it's smacks more of exploitation than peace.

DR Congo-Rwanda peace deal: How Trump wants US companies to cash in The US president is spearheading an ambitious but controversial deal to end a long-running conflict.

Trump claims he "ended" the war in Congo and Rwanda. What he's really been up to is another mineral grab: www.bbc.com/news/article...

When your job depends on saying "yes", no matter what happens next.

The reality TV show formerly known as the United States of America.

I think that's the key question: not necessarily what tools the artist used along the way, but whether they created something that only they were uniquely capable of creating. And yes, that's a judgment call ... but we tend to know it when we see it, because it stands out.

Does Spielberg make movies? Clearly not sitting in a room by himself. He relies immensely both on other people and on advanced technologies that he didn't invent. Yet ... would there be an E.T., Jaws, or Indiana Jones without him? Probably not in recognizable form.

Right, I do think it's an open question. And I'm not trying to argue that anything goes, in terms of claiming artistic or creative credit for something that was actually produced by a computer program. But I also think the creative process doesn't take place in a void.

You said "if didn't paint his painting but hired someone else to paint it, we'd agree he wasn't the real artist." But Michelangelo, Raphael, Ghiberti, Donatello, Brunelleschi etc all hired other artists.

What a policy statement.

You do realize that most Renaissance artists actually managed teams of other artists who did much of the "work", right?

That's because Vermeer wasn't merely tracing. First, he was composing the image to be captured, in a way that was memorable and striking. Then he was using his other skills to bring that tracing to life. Very few could combine all of these elements to produce what he produced.