Reading reports today that if you say the L-word in the HoC you get suspended.

Unclear as to whether similar penalties apply to mentioning the C-word in the HoL...

<sigh> I do actual copy editing for academic books.

This time last year i was working on one of those massive tomes with multiple contributors, and had to write down a style guide for contributors that made clear when to use hyphens, when en dashes, when em dashes.

Yes. We used em dashes!

Next door neighbour's young lad (aged 5/6) asked her yesterday if i was a teenager.

That boy will go far!

If you follow military history, you'll find some of the greatest national reverses are the result of failure to pay attention to logistics...

It was, after a few days, obvious, significant, and, in its own way, magnificent.

I can't say insomnia inevitably leads to break down.

Merely, that it can.

And Trump, right now, is not sleeping well...

For both, prolonged periods of hospitalisation and medication followed.

What do i know? I'm not an expert. But in both cases, those who were experts vuted the chronic lack of sleep as a contributory factor.

Because i was close to these individuals, i saw the breakdown close up... in slow motion

Had spent their last night on it unplugging everything.

In both cases, the end was similar. The self-destruction became too significant, too obvious to be allowed to continue. Ambulances were called.

In the second instance, so, too, were police.

In the second, the result was more a sort of megalomania. A sense that they could do anything.

The first turned violent, lashing out at anyone who came near. The second wreaked a different sort of destruction.

They were supposedly supervising an it system, but, as later came to light..

Because, at various points in my life, ive been adjacent to folks that suffered total mental health breakdowns.

In one instance, the individual succumbed to paranoia, sure that the devil was coming to get them, and he and his demons inhabited the electrical systems in their house.

On sleep, on Trump, and on mental stability.

One thing mentioned lately by a number of commenter is how Trump seems to be abandoning sleep in favour of posting nonsensical rants through the night.

It's not front and centre, yet.

Perhaps it should be.

I think of it in #DrWho terms.

Specifically, the Doctor Donna, whose mind now holds such overwhelming knowledge that she must forget everything... lest that knowledge kill her.

I cannot engage...because i cannot cope...

My utter sympathies. It is a feeling i share and is why i have had to step away from almost everything.

If you've felt it, you know.

Image of Trump regenerating as the next Dr Who. While dressed as Jesus.

I understand the Doctor is finding his latest regeneration a little difficult.

Personally i prefer the one where he returned as Billie piper!

#DrWho #Trump #Jesus

So. Now Trump sees himself as an 18th century English poet and satirist.

Have I got that right?

Not entirely sure what that means.

That antipathy to truth telling impacts across the political spectrum.

Or, alternatively, that the seeds of fascism have spread (and taken root) much more widely than we think.

Ye-es. Up to a point. It is clear that right wingers seem to have a near pathological allergy to admitting error.

However, this trait seems to afflict a lot of politicians and bureaucrats much more widely.

Either billionaire allies are manipulating the market... or USians have even less clue than usual.

What the hell is happening to the Dow Jones (and US stock market more widely)?

The neo-liberal claim is that over the long run, markets tended towards an accurate evaluation of real events.

Yet the Dow continues to rise, even as Trump trashes the global economy.

Now, here's a random thought to curdle your cornflakes this fine spring morning.

There is some debate as to the merits of a Vance presidency if the 25th is called.

But if Iran really and truly wanted to fuck with us, they'd assassinate the top TWO, together.

Introducing... president Mike Johnson!

Not at all a fan of horror as genre. However, must admire the prescience of the Omen franchise, which details the rise of the anti-christ to almost the very top of US politics through demonic intervention and corrupt priests.

It seems a new instalment in the saga is unfolding as we watch...

#Trump

Is now a bad time to mention oysters?

Maybe. One of my spare time activities has been translating the ship's log for the Destroyer my father served on during the war... It is fascinating.

...goes back and burns down the police station!

For years i thought that was hyperbole...til i read stories of other Poles being interned under similar circs... and apparently they tended to get quite stroppy... overpowering guards, seizing weapons.

That sort of thing.

This, though, was a doddle, compared to my Dad's experiences of Jugoslavia, where he was on holiday in September 1939.

Gets telegram from his mum: "Germans invaded; don't come home!"

Then gets interned by the local fascists.

Then breaks out and then, according to family tradition...

Abused, in this case, as in bad service. Nothing more serious.

My family has Eastern European history (Poland, not Hungary). In the days when travel was very difficult across from the UK we used to come up with different routes every year, including, one year, a through Hungary route.

Don't ask!

Scuse me! I have been abused by waiters in Hungary, and also forced to sleep in one of the most uncomfortable hotels i have ever known. Also in Hungary.

So, there!

😹😹😹

This is that scene in Blazing Saddles where the sheriff pulls a gun on himself, isn't it?

(And, quick question for folks who know it: should i post a link to the clip given its prolific use of a certain word?)

#Hormuz #Trump

Anyway...

bsky.app/profile/did:...

Now eagerly looking forward to the first US newspaper to use "antidisesestablishmentarianism" in a headline.

NYT? WaPo?

Well, antidisesestablishmentarianism used to be useful for uk politics, because the CofE was and still is embedded at its heart. Less so for the US, whose constitution allegedly excluded religion from politics and the state.

Of late, however, I see it is making a comeback (Trump, Hegseth, etc).