Brigadoon Daily Rundown = July 23, 2020

Stephen Daisley: Why Putin wants Scottish independence https://bit.ly/3jvg76y

Today: Secretary Pompeo will deliver a speech on Communist China and the future of the free world at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California, at 1:40 p.m. PDT / 4:40 p.m. EDT. Secretary Pompeo’s remarks will be streamed live on www.state.gov.

Africa starts to have second thoughts about that Chinese money: After years of borrowing on easy terms, many countries in the region are saddled with debt they can’t repay. https://bloom.bg/3hotN1x
 
The inexorable collapse of Lebanon: Once celebrated as the Switzerland of the Middle East, Lebanon is facing a severe crisis. Its economy is collapsing, while electricity and adequate medical care are hard to find. The state has completely failed its people. https://bit.ly/3eU2Ild

America’s backward coronavirus strategy: The federal government’s approach is like a hospital that invests in palliative care while abolishing the oncology department. https://econ.st/3jsfF9g

Did a person write this headline, or a machine? GPT-3, a new text-generating program from OpenAI, shows how far the field has come—and how far it has to go. https://bit.ly/3fMZv8d

Why is the left angry at Republicans working to elect Joe Biden? https://nym.ag/3htrme1

The flexible work fallacy: Breaking free of the 9-to-5 was originally a feminist project. So how did it become part of oppressive 24/7 work culture? https://bit.ly/30twzf2

General Electric entered the 21st century as the most valuable company in the country. Today, the conglomerate is no longer listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and has gotten out of most of its consumer-facing businesses like light bulbs, oil and gas, and appliances. The following is an excerpt from “LIGHTS OUT: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric” by Thomas Gryta and Ted Mann. https://bit.ly/30ATaGE

Businesses in the UK are on average operating at 53% of capacity, the British Chambers of Commerce says.

A brief history of the modern office https://bit.ly/3jpcRJY

Why no one knows which stories are the most popular on Facebook: Facebook’s CrowdTangle is only telling part of the story — and viral tweets about it are driving the company crazy. https://bit.ly/2OOYYH2

The race to beat Tesla at its own game: Government subsidies promoting the purchase of electric cars in Germany are causing demand to skyrocket. VW, BMW, and Daimler are all overwhelmed by the sudden boom. Not only are there too few vehicles coming off the assembly lines, but there aren't enough charging stations around Europe. The companies are now going on the offensive to catch up with Tesla. https://bit.ly/3hkspwS

CNBC: Coronavirus effect on investment in space companies not as bad as feared so far, report says https://bit.ly/39nVSTW

+ Investments in space-based companies totaled $5.5 billion in the second quarter, down 23% from the record highs hit in 2019, Space Capital’s report said.

Top CEOs communicating less on social during COVID-19: The latest annual research from the ECCO network found that global business leaders’ social media use has gone down during the pandemic. https://bit.ly/3hiKpHK

You’re doomscrolling again. Here’s how to snap out of it. In a pandemic that forces us to stay home, bingeing on doom-and-gloom news feels irresistible. These health experts offer ways to break the habit. https://nyti.ms/2CTc9nG

The death of nostalgia: People used to pine for a simpler life. Now they’ve got it—and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. https://econ.st/2E4caFK

Will the coronavirus forever alter the college experience? The answer so far appears to be no. But some online education tools are likely to stick around. https://nyti.ms/3hwIlfD

Brigadoon Daily Rundown = July 22, 2020

Roger Boyes: Britain doesn’t need a Cold War with China: We should confront Beijing over its abuses while using our influence to temper US hostility. https://bit.ly/2WL42R1

Will China control the global internet via its Digital Silk Road? Will Beijing use the Digital Silk Road  — the technology sidekick to the Belt and Road Initiative — to grow its control over global communications networks? As the pandemic shocks geopolitics and the US. China tech cold war drives further decoupling, China has an opportunity to make its “cyber sovereignty” vision a reality in many places around the world. https://bit.ly/32HhwBi

Why globalists and frontier-market investors love Vietnam: It is cheap, and a refuge from the Sino-American trade-and-technology war. https://econ.st/2E6wmaa

India, Jio, and the four Internets https://bit.ly/2OGhD7M

The changed EU landscape: The pandemic has altered the future of Europe, says Brunswick’s Sir Jonathan Faull. After a tumultuous year wrestling with the implications of a global pandemic, the “post-confinement” period we are entering brings a set of critical issues that together may shape the European Union for a generation or more. https://bit.ly/2WKzWNz

No one tried to protect the UK’s Brexit referendum from Russian interference, the long-awaited report shows https://bit.ly/3hnZbwX

Russia report in-depth: A worrying picture of UK’s vulnerability https://bit.ly/30Cubm2

“Russian influence in the UK is ‘the new normal’,” the report says. “There are a lot of Russians with very close links to Putin who are well integrated into the UK business and social scene and accepted because of their wealth. This level of integration — in ‘Londongrad’ in particular — means that any measures now being taken by the government are not preventative but rather constitute damage limitation.”

Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall: The age of strategic instability: How novel technologies disrupt the nuclear balance. https://fam.ag/3jygygL

Free trade and decadence, old and new: The dignity of work is a theme that unites overlapping strands of nationalists and free-marketeers, just as it was in the Scottish Enlightenment. https://bit.ly/3jnM2WN

RIP cable TV: Why Hollywood is slowly killing its biggest moneymaker: As subscribers and viewers flee, media companies that once relied on cable TV are chasing streaming dollars instead. https://bit.ly/3fJdgEV

How Sarah Cooper trumped Donald Trump—without saying a word: TikTok’s favorite mimic knows the key to spoofing the president: Just let him speak for himself. https://bit.ly/3hiTxw0

The wonder wheel of GOOP: How to spin a single product into an empire. https://bit.ly/2WERv1w

Malls are dying, but Nordstrom has no intention of being dragged down with them https://bit.ly/3jtDvl6

Nostalgia reimagined: Neuroscience is finding what propaganda has long known: nostalgia doesn’t need real memories – an imagined past works too. https://bit.ly/30wyO15

Aytekin Tank: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists https://bit.ly/3eKcOFe

The sibling rivalry behind Adidas versus Puma https://bit.ly/3eHWDbf

The app of the summer is just a random number generator: TikTok is on the chopping block. Instagram is pointless in lockdown. The best we can do is a hokey piece of software that takes us somewhere unexpected. https://bit.ly/2BiJc3Y

Sarah al-Amiri: The woman leading UAE's Mars mission: DW reports, a dream was born when Sarah al-Amiri saw an image of the Andromeda Galaxy at the age of 12. In a region defined by turmoil, she never thought it would lead her country beyond Earth's stratosphere and toward Mars. https://bit.ly/39nVSTW

Matt Kandela: Why a calamitous 2020 will spark a design revolution https://bit.ly/3hlGQko

Here's a no-equipment 6-move workout: Use tempo and isometrics to improve your bodyweight routine. https://bit.ly/2ZIPSlo

Brigadoon Daily Rundown = July 21, 2020

Katy Balls: Can Boris Johnson face down his China hawks?https://bit.ly/39gIFwc

A Uighurs’ history of China: The repression in China’s Xinjiang region has deep historical roots. https://bit.ly/2WHL0Lv

The US is out of position in the Indo-Pacific region: The Secretary of State’s recent dismissal of Beijing’s South China Sea claims is just the latest way US officials are calling out Chinese rhetoric and military activity as a threat to a “free and open Indo Pacific.” But from a military perspective, the United States is not well-positioned to affect favorable change or moderate Beijing’s aggressive behavior. https://bit.ly/2CUfbYy

Peter Schechter: Will Bolsonaro survive the pandemic? With Brazil gripped by escalating health and economic crisis, calls for President Jair Bolsonaro's impeachment are growing louder. Even if he survives the political storm, his reform agenda will not. https://bit.ly/2OF48Fq

Alex Wellerstein: What if the Trinity test had failed? https://bit.ly/2OFayVb

Richard N. Haass: The politics of a COVID-19 vaccine: Even if one or more vaccines emerge that promise to make people less susceptible to COVID-19, the public-health problem will not be eliminated. But policymakers can avert some foreseeable problems by starting to address key questions about financing and distribution now. https://bit.ly/2WFhTIE

Experts predict more digital innovation by 2030 aimed at enhancing democracy: Americans and many around the world are not terribly satisfied with the state of democracy and the institutions that undergird it. Experts who were canvassed about the relationship between people’s technology use and democracy also expressed serious concerns about how things will unfold in the next decade. https://pewrsr.ch/32CsHer

"Over the coming years, we can expect a greater debate in civic, academic, and political spaces about how digital life is changing our society."

How Nespresso's coffee revolution got ground down: Nestlé’s sleek, chic capsule system changed the way we drink coffee. But in an age when everyone’s a coffee snob and waste is wickedness, can it survive? https://bit.ly/3hl4e1o

Reimagining marketing in the next normal: COVID-19 is changing consumer behavior in at least six important ways. Here’s how marketing leaders can adapt. https://mck.co/2ZLrlfp

How to be more mindful at work https://nyti.ms/39dYnrK

Douglas Murray: What is the point of the New York Times? https://bit.ly/3fLgveY

Brigadoon Daily Rundown = July 20, 2020

Everybody loves Merkel. Her likely successors? Not so much. The chancellor’s popularity is soaring as she nears the end of her reign. https://politi.co/3hmWU5n

Boris Johnson’s first year in No 10: Election victory, Brexit secured, a divorce, a baby, and a brush with death. Tim Shipman tells the riveting story of the PM’s turbulent debut. https://bit.ly/3hjg1Ns

Arthur Herman: Bringing the factories home: Any new industrial policy has to make the U.S. less vulnerable to Chinese suppliers. https://on.wsj.com/3eP2Thw

China expands its amphibious forces in challenge to US supremacy beyond Asia: China is launching new amphibious assault ships and beefing up its marines. Its main aim is to project power far from home, but it is also strengthening its ability to invade Taiwan. https://reut.rs/3fLaO0H

Watch this: @BBCPolitics #Marr asks Chinese ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming to explain footage from China of handcuffed and blindfolded detained people https://bit.ly/30tv40n

Investors bet Europe’s recovery will have green tint: WSJ reports, shares in renewable-energy companies, and insulation providers have advanced this year. Investors are betting these firms will benefit from the European Union’s ambitious proposal to stop damaging the environment by 2050, which the bloc aims to bake into its economic recovery plan. https://on.wsj.com/30wFwUH

John Lewis, civil rights icon and longtime congressman, dies: After years of putting his body and his freedom on the line as an activist, he spent more than three decades in Congress. https://politi.co/3jovCNR

Pew Research Center: Congress soars to new heights on social media: Democratic lawmakers post more content on Twitter, while the median Republican member now averages more audience engagement than the median Democrat across platforms. https://pewrsr.ch/32Fn7I7

"As a collective, the 116th Congress maintains over 2,000 active official, campaign and personal accounts on Facebook and Twitter (not counting institutional accounts that periodically change hands, such as committee chair or leadership accounts) with over a quarter-billion total followers between them."

"Republican lawmakers tend to receive more engagement on their posts than Democrats when viewed at the level of the median lawmaker. But when viewed as a whole – that is, by examining all the shares, retweets, favorites and reactions to congressional social media posts – Democrats receive the bulk of that engagement."

Marketing and the science of ‘knowing what economists are wrong about’: Rory Sutherland, the British advertising veteran, rails against a business culture that preaches rational, data-driven decision-making over all else. http://bit.ly/2WV1W28

Lee Richardson has proved the perfect fit as Liverpool’s performance psychologist: The man who has gone from the dugout at Chesterfield to a key part of the backroom team at Anfield. https://bit.ly/3fULzcG

For parents who can afford it, a solution for fall: Bring the teachers to them https://wapo.st/2Bjon8E

#BrigadoonGapYear

AP: High school sports face many obstacles as school year nears

"Already some states, including Tennessee, Arizona, West Virginia, New Jersey, and Washington, have announced fall sports will have at least a delayed start. Prep sports heavyweights like Texas, Florida, and California all have big decisions coming up fast."

This LA music producer is obsessed with houseplants: See how they amplify his work https://lat.ms/3fM1JES