I'm not saying it's odds on but I think it's under priced. The LDs are no one's first choice but no one's last choice, & their map is much kinder than the Greens, arguably Reforms. In an election where you have five parties on around 15% of the vote they could come thru the middle in a lot of seats
Adjacent to the way in which some random ordinary people now feel they need to give carefully considered and balanced statements on Iran or Venezuela or what have you lest their silence be misconstrued.
There's something weird that's happened with the internalisation of pundit-speak and more broadly the cult of savviness where pretty much everyone, even random members of the public, seems to only be able to engage with politics through the lens of "cosplaying as a senior elected official"
Agreed but lamb is better still (but less forgiving - pretty hard to mess up pork, very easy to turn lamb into rubber)
Would this mark the first time Trump has placed tariffs on Russia?
To be entirely clear I think we need a formal legal process of lustration for culpable officials, and then something like the Kamaraj Plan - a voluntary process of generational renewal - for the rest of us
And not just for this administration but the entire political and cultural class that birthed and enabled it. Half thinking I should head for La Boisserie myself
Lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lustration lus
Presumably the Pentagon is desperately telling him they've agreed to everything and he can declare victory while Israel is equally desperately telling them they've agreed to nothing and he must follow through. And all the while Iran has been contacted indirectly and non-specifically, if at all
The Red Alert franchise is going to some strange places these days
I worry that now there's more money to be made from unpredictability and so I wonder if they'll manage. I think they'll have to make the case better and to a broader array of stakeholders than I've heard thus far...
The other one I've heard is golden age of piracy but I don't like that one. I feel it's trying to place a bright line between the legitimate and the illegitimate, and misses something in its class analysis of the pirates
Quite like your Hanseatic League idea. The other one that resonates for me is the various East India Companies ie a complex disaggregation of trade, security, and governance organised through piecemeal negotiation and latent force/force projection
I think this is partly driving the rash of pieces talking about how we're in the twilight interregnum when actually I feel like we've been in it for the past 20 years and are now finally coming out of it but don't quite have the language to describe what the other side looks like.
Hatzola provide first aid + essential emergency health care for anyone + everyone.
If you can donate to help them get back to helping, link here: hatzolanw.org/support
Tackle #antisemitism with kindness
This is bleak from @richardgowan1.bsky.social. All the more reason to avoid the SC and go to the GA. Altho I do wish the SC would do a bit more to weigh up the harm of the SC becoming Trump's rubber stamp over that of Trump walking away
www.worldpoliticsreview.com/trump-board-...
The thing about a legalistic approach, done right, is it brings a profound moral clarity. Here's a welcome dose of the moral clarity you would expect from Moni Ali Khalil (on what looks to be an interesting Luso-Serbian podcast!)
open.spotify.com/show/1U6JiTl...
Machiavelli
Spaced lampshaded it quite well by repeatedly pointing out how absurd it was that they could afford to rent their palace
My assumption was that all TV shows were made about millionaires because you needed a massive house in order for a camera crew to be able to manoeuvre around it. Otherwise everything has to be shot like This Life with the lens quite clearly squashed between the fridge and someone's ear
Interesting that Labour, Lib Dem, and Green voters have near identical opinions on what the UK should do but radically different perceptions of whether what the UK is doing is correct. And perhaps a little surprising that Lib Dem perceptions match Labours?
I dunno. With Iraq there was a concerted effort by politicians, civil servants, experts, & friendly journos to fabricate evidence & build consensus around establishing a lie as reality. This is cheaply thrown out in full knowledge that neither we nor he believes it or believes the other believes it
Rules of engagement designed to "unleash American power", Hegseth says. “We’re playing for keeps,” Hegseth said. “Our war fighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly. Our rules of engagement are bold, precise and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it. He continued: “This was never meant to be a fair fight and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”
This is that pundit brain thing where the downsides of articulating your strategy out loud for the world to hear massively outweigh the upsides but you do it anyway because demonstrating acumen in front of your peers is more important to you than actually getting a good outcome
This was the BBC, officially painfully impartial and yet subsequently hauled over the coals and its DG forced out for its supposed anti-war bias
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZUl...
It was so much worse
Even pre coalition there were some bruising Lab-Lib battles in marginals which led to some comically visceral animosities. Could easily see a Labour activist in say Birmingham Hodge Hill thinking "if we have to lose we have to lose, but anyone but the party of the antichrist Nokia Nicola Davies"
Here's Belize, a book I probably didn't give a fair shake to but which was very dull (the fact I spend most of the review talking about a printing error is probably not a good sign)
medium.com/freds-blog/b...
Anyone know any good novels from Benin?
- in English
- available on Kindle
Failing that: literally an work of fiction from Benin at all available in translation on kindle?
Excited to reveal the cover for my debut children’s book from @oneworldbooks.bsky.social @rocktheboatnews.bsky.social , y the fabulous Richard Johnson ! #kidlit
