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Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everyone's face but their own, which is the chief reason for the kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.--Swift


Andrew Sullivan calls the UK vote a "working-class vote against the Left." Writing on Johnson:
"He has done what no other conservative leader in the West has done: He has co-opted and thereby neutered the far right. The reactionary Brexit Party has all but collapsed since Boris took over. Anti-immigration fervor has calmed. The Tories have also moved back to the economic and social center under Johnson’s leadership. And there is a strategy to this. What Cummings and Johnson believe is that the E.U., far from being an engine for liberal progress, has, through its overreach and hubris, actually become a major cause of the rise of the far right across the Continent. By forcing many very different countries into one increasingly powerful Eurocratic rubric, the E.U. has spawned a nationalist reaction. From Germany and France to Hungary and Poland, the hardest right is gaining. Getting out of the E.U. is, Johnson and Cummings argue, a way to counter and disarm this nationalism and to transform it into a more benign patriotism. Only the Johnson Tories have grasped this, and the Johnson strategy is one every other major democracy should examine."
True?

The  World Bank told current and prospective employees of Taiwanese nationality they must present Chinese travel documents in order to maintain or pursue employment. Taiwanese law prohibits citizens from maintaining dual citizenship with China.
Think about that a second.

The world’s largest per capita CO2 emitters are the major oil-producing countries; this is particularly true for those with relatively low population size. Most are in the Middle East: In 2017 Qatar had the highest emissions at 49 tonnes (t) per person, followed by Trinidad and Tobago (30t); Kuwait (25t); United Arab Emirates (25t); Brunei (24t); Bahrain (23t) and Saudi Arabia (19t).

Many of the major oil producers have relatively a relatively low population size meaning their total annual emissions are low, however. More populous countries with some of the highest per capita emissions – and therefore high total emissions – are the United States, Australia, and Canada. Australia has an average per capita footprint of 17 tonnes, followed by the US at 16.2 tonnes, and Canada at 15.6 tonnes.

This is more than 3 times higher than the global average, which in 2017 was 4.8 tonnes per person.

There has been a statistically significant downward, not upward, trend in strong to violent tornadoes over the last 65 years since 1954. 

The climate pamphleteers have a new direction, "production gap." This is the difference between fossil fuel production and the ideal level to prevent their warming predictions. If they can't kill the beast, they want to starve it. All this was in preparation for the new, expensive and well-catered meeting in Madrid. 
Surprisingly China, which has always been ignored in favor of the dreadful West, comes under criticism for their relentless growth policies. 
One can only wonder what the more militant wing of the global warriors would suggest be done with the rogue China.  

The massive curtain of water in southern Africa between Zambia and Zimbabwe known as Victoria Falls is the world’s biggest waterfall sequence when you take into account both width and height. Often ranked as one of the seven wonders of the natural world, the falls are a prime tourist destination, which explains much of the horrified reaction the last few days as news spread that the falls had dried to a virtual trickle. Much of the coverage has centered on claims that the region is experiencing its worst drought in a century.

The black jobless rate is at historic lows (5.4% in October, 5.5% in November) and less than half the average of 11.8% since 1972. 
This is a historic milestone.

California passes a law saying that freelance journalists may not write more than 35 stories per year, which many freelance journalists argue is not enough to survive on and would essentially destroy freelance journalism as a career option. The story seems to be that California wanted to ban Uber from classifying its drivers as freelancers, and the easiest way to do this was just to ban freelance work.
Well, first things first. You don't want to male things hard for government.

“Gosh” = “God” and “darn” = “damn”. But did you know “crikey” = “Christ kill me”, and maybe even “bloody” = “by our Lady”?

On this day in 1913, Norwegian Roald Amundsen becomes the first explorer to reach the South Pole, beating his British rival, Robert Falcon Scott.
And Washington died in 1799.


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Trends in October rainfall at Victoria Falls (left, 1064 m elevation) and Livingstone (right, 986 m elevation) from 1976 to 2016. Livingstone is about 25 miles upstream from Victoria Falls. Image credit: Kaitano Dube.