The up-and-down nature of politics and economics can lead one to theorise that the engagement of the citizen in the nonsense is a waste of time: people work all their lives and pay their taxes and cannot leave their children much because of death taxes; they save for a pension and inflation and mismanagement rips…
It Is So Obvious
When he was the 45th president I suggested the fascists in America had learned how to win and the next time they would not choose a fool. It is blindly obvious that Musk is putting himself in poll position to be his replacement in the Republican Party. Trying to be unpredictable and say dumb things,…
Death In Leamington
She died in the upstairs bedroom By the light of the ev’ning star That shone through the plate glass window From over Leamington Spa Beside her the lonely crochet Lay patiently and unstirred, But the fingers that would have work’d it Were dead as the spoken word. And Nurse came in with the tea-things Breast…
Political Theory
There is a theory that democratic governments tend towards a liberalism that produces a kick-back into a more authoritarian regime, which it turn tends towards such extreme totalitarianism that a rebellion produces a more democratic government. This natural political barometer has been seen in part in Syria helped in large measure by outside factors, and…
Poor America
The lining of the pockets will continue apace and everything he said he will do that the people want – getting rid of immigrants, saving companies money on climate change legislation, forcing Ukraine to accept a truce – will be done but the true meaning of the fascist entrenchment in the Whitehouse will not become…
I’m not watching
the inauguration of the Donald second term. It will be far more interesting to see the slew of laws he enacts in the coming weeks than to see a ton of balloons and lots of noise. The laws are going to come so thick and fast people won’t have much time to react to one…
Not All Home
There is a poem called The Prisoner of Chillon by George Byron about the incarceration of François Bonivard, a swiss patriot, for twnety-one years. I remember talking about him in relation to the release of Nelson Mandela because George Byron ends the poem with saying that after so long, a part of François Bonivard’s life…
The Usual News
The BBC and other outlets around the world tend to choose the news items of most relevance to their own countries. If there is any kind of disaster that causes deaths they may run them (they don’t run them all) but in the main it is from their hemisphere or of relevance to their politics….
The Impossible Truth
Men love war and women love warriors. I heard a man talking today about the emasculation of the modern man and how men no longer know what it is to be a man. This had to be the most ridiculous thing I have heard in decades. To prove his point he pointed to the fact…
AI
There is no such thing as artificial intelligence. The computing power we have at present may have the look of intelligence – they ‘do’ things- the intelligence they exhibit is nothing like human and animal intelligence. Even learning by experience is still at a basic level or mobilisation and positioning and nowhere near writing even…