China has long had a funny reputation in America. To some of us, it’s a Communist Thugocracy, playing a coy game of psychology to convince idiots that it’s really an efficient, socialist modern country with ordinary people enjoying a marriage of culture and high-tech advantages, when in reality it’s a horrible place quite likely to kill innocent people. To the rest of us, it’s an efficient, socialist modern country, et cetera.

In fact, it seems to be a weekly occurrence: a journalist writes a piece about something nice or worthwhile in China, and someone on social media immediately corrects that journalist with the horrible facts of concealed tragedy. Okay, some of China’s apologists confess, China isn’t all that great, but it’s definitely getting better!

China’s President Xi Jinping has decided to settle that question by deciding that his two-term limit is null and void, and he’s basically Mao for life, now. Ironically, one of the first things China did after Mao died was ditch the leader-for-life system because of all the further misery it brought to an already miserable land. Even grotesque Deng Xiaoping understood this, and while power transition in China has been something akin to musical chairs, at least there was the pretense of novelty.

The apologists are going to have a very hard time with this. Is China expanding her navy? No, they’re just spreading their natural right of…oh hell, yeah it looks like it. Is China oppressing the people in its western regions? No, they’re just encouraging a two-way form of diversity…no, no, that’s probably oppression. Is China undermining American business with secret gateways into software and hardware? Why, that’s just crazy, paranoid delusion with no basis…well, actually, they could, easily.

Worse, this is a blow for socialism and communism. As you know, the defense for those nightmarish social constructs is always some form of denial. “Those examples you give are not true communism, but a distorted, maniacal form of dictatorship.”

Well, guess what China just chose? For all the praise American liberals have for China’s government, China’s government has just decided to become one of those bad examples of bad communism.

Looks like the Cold War 2 has begun.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.