AdamSmith

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_and_the_Stars

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_of_Silly_Walks

Repost.

‘I’m a New Yorker, and I know a con when I see one.’ — Mike Bloomberg on you-know-who

They didn’t ever work very well anyway. (The ship-centric Aegis system was a minor exception, and does in fact work fairly well. But it is exception, not rule.) It is in very large part, as Eisenhower very presciently told us on his way out, that the military-industrial complex is very toxically selling us its profit-driven pixie dust.

Very grateful for your articulating all of this. I knew some of it already but what you say here lays out the whole thing. (Note to readers: @tassojunior & I do not know each other in person. So this is not just an online blowjob. )

I confess to having had exactly that same mordant thought myself, much more than once. Only thing is, in today’s hair-trigger-wired world — politically, psychologically, technologically — one is hard-pressed to see how any nuclear strike could not (within a very few seconds) become impossible to be ‘limited’ in terms of response, counter-response, rogue actors throwing their few but lethal illegally acquired devices into the show, etc etc.

What’s inadvertently hilarious, and almost our only ‘leverage,’ is how much of our sovereign debt they hold.

Much better. Agree entirely. China is who to worry about long-term. To them, their recent 300-year stumble on the world stage is a very short-term goof-up. Their notion of the long view starts with 1000-year periods of history.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomer_Pyle From a niche in the church of St Giles...

And do what instead? ‘Waiting’ is after all somewhat the same as ‘nothing.’ Is it not?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornhole

Thank you. I had been completely out to lunch on how dangerous this new legislation is. Now watching closely how EFF et. al may fight back, & with what success

This is pretty amazing. I spent a semester plowing through all of Milton under his guidance. Fucking astounding mind. First person (besides my parents) who really started to show me how to think. https://www.pbs.org/video/nc-bookwatch-reynolds-price-serious-way-wondering/

Your careful thoughtfulness about these issues and their numerous contexts are very valuable in having an informed think about these certainly alarming developments in the body politic. But I don’t understand how under-age vs of-age, and trafficked vs voluntary, are ‘arbitrary’ binary gradients. I do agree that political, and voter, sentiment are today going crazy, dangerously so, over these things.