It's not a location. Stalwart journalist Michael Totten reports from the land of Fidel (via Samizdata). His account is full of fascinating information, but I was especially struck by this observation:
I had to lie by omission every minute of every hour of every day just like the Cubans. A person could get used to this sort of thing, I suppose, but that does not make it less alienating. That’s the counterintuitive thing about totalitarian systems. They herd people into Borg-like collectives, yet every individual is savagely atomized.
We've now reached a point where a flailing president, desperate to deflect the opprobrium heaped upon him for the false promise that you could keep your health plan if you wanted to, calls a hasty news conference urging both insurers and the states to reinstate millions of such plans.
Except that he is asking them to break the law. His own law. Under Obamacare, no insurer may issue a policy after 2013 that does not meet the law’s minimum coverage requirements. These plans were canceled because they do not.
The law remains unchanged. The regulations governing that law remain unchanged. Nothing is changed except for a president proposing to unilaterally change his own law from the White House press room.
That's banana republic stuff, except that there the dictator proclaims from the presidential balcony.
Shall I tell you the worst thing about the EU? It's not the waste or the corruption or the Michelin-starred lifestyles of its leaders. It's not the contempt for voters or the readiness to swat referendum results aside. It's not the way that multi-nationals and NGOs and all manner of corporate interests are privileged over consumers. It's not the pettifogging rules that plague small employers. It's not the Common Agricultural Policy or the Common Fisheries Policy. It's not the anti-Britishness or the anti-Americanism. It's not even the way in which the euro is inflicting preventable poverty on tens of millions of southern Europeans.
No, it's something more objectionable than any of these things – and something which, bizarrely, doesn't exercise us nearly as much as it should. Put simply, it's this: the EU makes up the rules as it goes along.
Just think, for a moment, about what that means. It means that any deal you've signed can be arbitrarily altered later. It means that any plans you've made, on the basis of what you took to be binding agreements, can be retrospectively destroyed. It means, in short, that there is no effective rule of law.
A world of arbitrary, whimsical fiat. Laws are for the little people.
"The CCP may not want a conflict with Japan, but it's been telling Chinese youth for 20+ years that Japan is greatly responsible for the '100 years of humiliation.' So now the CCP is stuck; they have to be tough on Japan—even if they don't want to be—because their citizens demand it. The CCP has created an anti-Japanese frankenstein at home that has to be placated. They have to ride the anti-Japanese tiger their education/propaganda has created, or risk a domestic backlash."
"Thor: The Dark World"? No, my darlings. You know how you eat your boring vegetables just so that you can then have a decadently delicious dessert? This movie is pretty much the same thing: we put up with a great many idiocies and narrative missteps just so that we can have Loki in the second half. The title of this movie really should be "Please Tolerate A Lame Villain, a Muddled Premise, a Stupid Love Story, Meaningless Bit Characters, Idris Elba Wasted Again, and Stellan Skargård In Underpants So You Can Have Loki ... Eventually." The flick is worth the price of admission for (and pretty much only for) the indispensable presence of Tom Hiddleston's irresistible, sinuously feline god of mischief now in his third appearance (after Thor (2011) and The Avengers (2012)). OK, here's a more fitting poster:
It's not just music that hath charms to soothe a savage breast! Literature can too. Since Mondays are by nature savage, let's see if we can get some literary therapy to take the edge off the day. I think a whole lot of people would be much more interested in lit if we got more wonderful people to do more poetry readings. I don't even really LIKE e.e. cummings, subject of the first reading, but the reading is remarkable. Reading is a performing art, all right. Let's start, shall we?
Satellite is supposed to crash to Earth between 1:30 and 7:00 today. Stupid cable company, never gives you a precise time. — David Burge (@iowahawkblog) November 10, 2013
Right on time for the premiere of Thor 2: The Dark World, Comedy Central riffs on the delightful series of AT&T commercials with Loki, Norse god of mischief himself (played by charming Brit Tom Hiddleston, previously seen here):
I guess by "this" I mean observing and commenting on domestic and foreign politics. The inmates are running the asylum. Everywhere I turn utter madness is running rampant. Commentary via animated gifs below:
