US President Donald J. Trump must feel vindicated by the earthquake in China, which has killed at least 126 people, with 337 injured. It showed that though China had propagated the concept of global warming, with the purpose of stopping America becoming great again, there were other natural disasters which had nothing to do with climate change.
There might be an irony there, for no one has even tried establishing a link between global warming and earthquakes. However, there is a definite link between global warming and fires. On the fires in Los Angeles, everyone seems to have linked them with global warming. California has been suffering from wildfires in its wilderness, and now it has had fires reach its urban areas. Look, Los Angeles is a big town, so its being surrounded by five fires was perhaps just bad luck, but while thousands and thousands of acres of real estate has been burnt, only 11 people have been killed. One estimate of the damage has gone up to $150 billion.
Of course, Trump has been silent, but I’m sure he would look upon the fire as punishment from the Almighty for Californians’ failure to vote for him. (He lost California in all three of his outings at the hustings). It could not, the Almighty forbid, have anything to do with that Chinese conspiracy called climate change.
California has something of history with both earthquakes and fires. There was a notorious earthquake in 1906, s a result of which a massive fire broke out. 3000 people were killed and 80 percent of the city was destroyed. There’s even a disaster movie, San Andreas, based on what would happen if there was an earthquake nowadays. San Francisco was known to be on the San Andreas Fault. California is supposed to be on the edge of a tectonic plate, and after a long time, maybe some hundreds of millions of years later, California will go into the sea.
Some people have already suggested that that will be the time to consider whether California will remain in the USA or not. There is already a movement for California to separate from the Union and become a separate country. Trump might support that, for it would mean the Democrats would lose a large bloc of votes in the electoral college, but then he is not going to run again.
As a matter of fact, he seems to want to expand the USA, bringing in Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal zone, as well as renaming the Gulf of Mexico. It’s interesting that this desire to build an empire was not revealed during the campaign. Was it cunningly concealed, or was it just the wandering mind of an old man? Look, Trump is going to be older than Joe Biden when he gives up the Presidency. Biden was very publicly going gaga, and my fear is that Trump might end up going gaga during his tenure. Trump is of an age to remember World War II. I would expect the German Chancellor and Japanese PM to be very nervous in the next four years. And the Italian PM might hope that the USA does not bomb his country
I see the West Indian team has arrived in Pakistan. Well, we got whitewashed by Bangladesh, so maybe they’re in with a chance. True, Shan Masood played a captain’s knock in South Africa in the 2nd Test, but I can’t get the record defeat against England out of my mind. If the West Indies wins, then one can expect tours by Ireland, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe.
