Armas Weekend Reader

25-26 February 2023

This week: DEI overtakes good governance, the Biden-era experiments that will shape the century, Mexico is a narco-state, the rise of Wagner, Russia’s war at one year, cultural extermination Tudor style, why Chinese drivers kill children, the world’s best coffee cafes, Japan’s island war, the art and subtlety of mahjong in cinema, and more. Let’s go — 

1) “[O]ur government is playing with our lives as it prefers diversity, equity, and inclusion over ensuring the best qualified employees are hired on the basis of racially and gender-blind competitive tests and experience.”

https://amgreatness.com/2023/02/16/destroying-meritocracy-is-deadly/

2) “Few Americans realize it yet, but the trifecta of the Biden-era laws amounts to one of the biggest experiments in how the American government oversees the economy in a generation. If this experiment is successful, it will change how politicians think about managing the market for years to come. If it fails or misfires, then it will greatly limit the number of tools to fight climate change or a recession. The story of the 21st-century American economy is being shaped now.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/12/opinion/economy-ira-infrastructure-clean-energy.html

3) “Which comes to the central question: does this make Mexico a narco state? When traffickers can get 23 tons of cocaine back; when the head of the entire federal police force is working for narcos; when gangsters dress up as police to arrest a rival and hand him in; does this mean the government itself is captured by traffickers?”

So, is Mexico a Narco State?

4) “The conflict has exposed a deep global divide, and the limits of U.S. influence over a rapidly shifting world order. Evidence abounds that the effort to isolate Putin has failed, and not just among Russian allies that could be expected to back Moscow, such as China and Iran.”

https://www.stripes.com/theaters/africa/2023-02-22/ukraine-war-global-divide-9222379.html

5) “[T]he media portrayal of who’s doing the book banning is conveniently backwards.”

https://thefederalist.com/2023/02/21/the-censorship-of-roald-dahl-shows-the-lefts-book-banning-accusations-are-utterly-disingenuous/