1. Unavoidably, Prince Philip died 2. Imran Khan digs in on jackassery 3. North Ireland, unsurprisingly, is not a happy place post-Brexit 4. More heartbreaking blasphemy accusations in Pakistan 5. Vaccine movements restricted 6. Myanmar ambassador locked out of his embassy 7. Infrastructure week happened in America again, but I was not really paying attention […]
A little prejudiced, perhaps
Was taken aback this morning at this facsimile of Life magazine from the 1940s. Not surprised, but a little shocked.
High quality nose-tapping
Some high-quality nose-tapping by China hawks in the US. …the suggestion by the Republican senator Tom Cotton, a hawk regarding the Chinese threat, that Beijing could opt to attack Taiwan as early as next year. Cotton noted that Russia invaded and occupied Crimea in 2014 just days after it hosted the Winter Olympics. China, he […]
Rare earth
One day is much like another these days, weekend or not. I was working today, unwilling and unable to make much progress. The sun was out, and we went for coffee in the late afternoon, taking a winding way back. Now I am working again as the GF cooks dinner. I listened to an interesting […]
Another America
I worry at 9/11 and the Iraq war as though it were a sore tooth. This time it was on reading this piece about the ways in which the American response to the 9/11 attacks could have been different. The only scenario that I don’t remember even being raised at the time is the last […]
For great justice
Twenty years ago, give or take a few days, one of the original memes spread across college computers. It was everywhere for a while, partly it was novelty as there were not so many other memes competing with it. Strange to think this was before even 9/11. In honour of the days when a meme […]
White hair
It was very cold and bright this morning, though the flat was reasonably toasty. After a quiet start, the GF and I strolled out to see what is up with the flat, and found that the kitchen had been plastered and was looking very light and airy. It will be a shame to fill it […]
Unfunny jokes
Occurred to me today how they are a weapon primarily of the powerful, at least these days. And humourlessness the weapon of the weak?
Weight lifted
Trump is gone, and a weight is lifted. Now America can go back to being its usual bad self, instead of this weird bad self. Though I doubt it will ever be the exact bad self it was. While I see the value of reinforcing the national narrative, there did seem something hubristic about the […]
Thoughts consolidating
My thoughts and opinions about Trump’s deplatforming are slowly consolidating, developing vague outlines. I had a vague feeling that there was something not right, but there is also so much schadenfreude, that it’s hard to think through how. But there is a feeling of an establishment mob to counter the more violent, unruly neo-Nazi mob […]