Category Archives: Sublime Oblivion

“From an ultimate dim Thule”

I’m shifting the bulk of my writing activities to the Arctic Progress magazine. It focuses on the exciting new developments and opportunities opening up in the Far North as the sea ice melts, opening up trade routes, oil and mineral reserves, … Continue reading

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Creeping Caesarism: The Enemy Belligerent Act of 2010

Authoritarianism doesn’t always come with bells, whistles and goose-steps. More typically, it develops in a series of interlocking steps – a state of emergency (“war on terror”) here, a couple of indefinite detentions and Presidential hit orders there, their eventual … Continue reading

Posted in Coffee House, Sublime Oblivion | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Top 10 Most Powerful Countries In 2011

The Chinese have an interesting concept that quantifies Great Power status, called Comprehensive National Power (CNP). This index is produced by processing the economic, military and cultural factors that make countries powerful: GDP, technological development, number of tanks and ICBM’s, as … Continue reading

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New Year Special, Part 2: 2011 Predictions

Carrying on from yesterday’s 2010 in Review, I’ll now lay out my predictions for this year and see how well last year’s stacked up to reality. (1) Last year, I wrote: “World economy continues an anemic recovery, though there are … Continue reading

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New Year Special, Part 1: 2010 in Review

Happy new year to all Sublime Oblivion readers! This blog wouldn’t be what it is without you. In fact, I’d have probably abandoned it after a month or two after a couple of posts as I did with my first … Continue reading

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Our Lady Of Shadows

I was inspired to write this heretical poem after reading Paradise Lost and His Dark Materials. And there shall come a time of wistful woe, When flesh grows weak and spirit fails, Of dark foreboding (and of secret glee), When … Continue reading

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Tales From The Beijing Embassy

Four cables from Cathay, courtesy of this excellent Cable Search tool. The first cable (Cable 1) is one of the last dispatches of Ambassador to the PRC Clark T. Randt, a long, analytical piece from January 2009. But it’s also … Continue reading

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The Collapse Party Fulfills Its Own Name

I founded the Collapse Party one year ago after coming to the hard realization that industrial civilization is unsustainable and that – barring revolutionary socio-political (e.g. “ecotechnic dictatorship“) or technological (e.g. geoengineering) transformation – it’s catastrophic unraveling by the middle … Continue reading

Posted in Arctic Visions, Life in General, Sublime Oblivion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Translation: On Canada’s Arctic Militarization

This is a reprint of a post from Arctic Progress. This is a TRANSLATION of an article by Jules Dufour published September 7th, 2010 at Mondialisation.ca (“Le Canada: un plan national pour la militarisation de l’Arctique et de ses ressources … Continue reading

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Why Russia And China Won’t Fight

EDIT: This article has been translated into Russian at Inosmi.Ru (Почему Россия и Китай не будут воевать друг с другом). Every so often there appear claims, not only in the Western press but the Russian one, that (rising but overpopulated) … Continue reading

Posted in Da Russophile, Sublime Oblivion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 51 Comments