To Buy, or To Bully

With President Trump, it is "buy or bully." That might work with lesser nations, like the Arab states, or the Europeans. But China is big, and as rich as the U.S.  It will neither be bought nor bullied. 

Americans, then, are encouraged to look at China as "our enemy." It is neither friend nor foe. China is simply our equal. After having been told for so long of our vaunted "exceptionalism", that must be a difficult pill to swallow. I say, either swallow it, or choke on it. What say you?  

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Speaking of Bullies...

They are now saying that we must begin to make Artificial Intelligence kinder, considering it will one day become more powerful than ourselves, and we will be dependent on its benevolence. Is that the only reason we should want A.I. to be kinder? If the answer is "yes", then I guess that is as good a reason as any.  

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Abraham, Abraham...

ESPN's Stephen A. Smith has decided that California's governor, Gavin Newsom, would make a fine presidential candidate because he "looks so good." Interesting...

I wonder what Stephen A. would have thought of Abe Lincoln? I hear tell a rather homely woman encountered Lincoln on the streets of Springfield, Illinois, and straightaway declared: "I swore that if I ever met a man uglier than me, I would shoot him." Lincoln simply smiled.