Financial Times, February 3 2025 One thing Ireland learned before and after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement – as did occupied Europe after WW2 – is that not every freedom fighter trained to rob banks, forge documents, do blackmail, strong-arm … Read More »
“Biden did the murder. Trump’s just the guy who showed up to help dispose of the body.” * On January 19 I opened a post on the Gaza ceasefire with this: Why did Donald Trump post, on the X/Twitter platform … Read More »
It’s open season on Keir Starmer these days, and rightly so. If the man has a single redeeming feature it passed me by. He’s stupid, unprincipled, untruthful, arrogant in an odiously patrician way – yet oddly thin of skin – … Read More »
Female Mandarin I’d no chance with this next shot. A shutter speed of 1/500 seconds is way too slow for so tiny a bird flying so fast over so short a distance. As for my reflexes, they’re glacial. Still, I … Read More »
Image by Mr Fish Genocide and mass extermination are not the exclusive domain of fascist Germany. Adolf Hitler appeared exceptionally cruel only because he presided over “the humiliation of the white man.” But the Nazis simply applied colonialist procedures hitherto … Read More »
Remind me. Which country has waged virtually non stop wars for more than two centuries? Which one devastated the Middle East in the name of – take you pick – a war on terror which massively amplified and weaponised the … Read More »
Reactions in Western media have been predictable. As the innovations of a pint-size Chinese AI outfit – innovations imposed (necessity being the mother of invention) by US sanctions on high end chips to China – wipe $billions off Silicon Valley/Wall … Read More »
WSJ Tuesday January 28 2025 – more here * I sure did take my eye off the ball on this one! I’d thought DeepSeek a sex position, like cowgirl or doggie, till yesterday afternoon. Returning from stroll, sandwich and pint … Read More »
Eyup, I’ll tell thee a story. In 1988 I was doing a Ph.D on computing tools for writers. I was also teaching a few hours a week in the computing department at a Sheffield City Polytechnic soon to gain university … Read More »
Who by his own hand? Who by his Lady’s command? Who shall I say is calling? Leonard Cohen The US and collective West are in decline: in some countries more rapidly than in others; in some self-accelerated. On the latter, … Read More »