Best Of

https://x.com/StateDept/status/2037241186503582186

SECRETARY RUBIO: The U.S. is constantly asked to help in wars and we have. But when we had a need, it didn’t get positive responses from NATO. A couple leaders said that Iran was not Europe’s war. Well, Ukraine isn’t our war, yet we’ve contributed more to that fight than anyone.

And Afghanistan and Iraq weren't our wars yet we did far more than the US did in Ukraine. There's no blank cheque to support stupid actions.

Honestly, never has a single group of people all deserved to be punched in the face more than the Trump cabinet...

I think you can divide the world into those who are embarrassed when “their people” are obnoxious to others, and those who cheer it on or find it amusing.

I had one of those epiphanies when Alan Clarke lauded the football hooligans as heirs to the great British martial spirit, yet every time they appeared on telly tearing up European market squares I felt excruciating embarrassment.

MAGA are all of that Alan Clarke type.

I think it's wrong to assume that the Treasury/Tories/Labour/the elite/the deep state/the blob/ the establishment, or whatever you want to call the people who run the country, are unaware of the country's problems. It is simply that they don't know what to do about them. They certainly don't know what to do about them and get elected or reelected on that platform. There are no easy solutions, and anybody who pretends there is is lying. And will probably make things worse.

Of course they know what they need to do. There’s just no political will to do it.

So long as the electorate persist in demanding the impossible from politicians, politicians will continue to promise to deliver it.

The line “They certainly don't know what to do about (the problems) and get reelected.” in OLB’s comment is key.

Our elites now read less than the average member of the population and it shows.

'Britain’s elites no longer look like they did in the 1950s: droopy-moustached old white blokes with a grouse moor somewhere in their background. They are younger, more urban, more multi-ethnic, make rather than inherit their money. That’s all, we may think, to the good. But as The Telegraph’s Great British Class Study discovers, they are less likely than any other sector of society to spend their spare time reading.

For fewer than one in three members of the new “Elite” read for pleasure, according to polling conducted by the opinion-research firm Public First. Too busy with socials, or crypto, or the gym. By contrast, 45 per cent of the “Left Behind” group – whose members typically score the least economic and cultural points in the new system – are readers, as are 60 per cent of the typically older, more financially stable “Quietly Comfortable” class.'
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/news/britains-elites-have-abandoned-intelligence/

I used to read a lot for pleasure.

Then I started reading PB instead.

Yeah, I'm exactly the same. But I feel ambivalent about it. I enjoy the snappy points on PB and the way the arguments develop with many informed contributions but I can't help lamenting how long it is since I read a novel from beginning to end. I seem to be losing the ability to simply be absorbed in a different world and I miss it.

Our elites now read less than the average member of the population and it shows.

'Britain’s elites no longer look like they did in the 1950s: droopy-moustached old white blokes with a grouse moor somewhere in their background. They are younger, more urban, more multi-ethnic, make rather than inherit their money. That’s all, we may think, to the good. But as The Telegraph’s Great British Class Study discovers, they are less likely than any other sector of society to spend their spare time reading.

For fewer than one in three members of the new “Elite” read for pleasure, according to polling conducted by the opinion-research firm Public First. Too busy with socials, or crypto, or the gym. By contrast, 45 per cent of the “Left Behind” group – whose members typically score the least economic and cultural points in the new system – are readers, as are 60 per cent of the typically older, more financially stable “Quietly Comfortable” class.'
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/news/britains-elites-have-abandoned-intelligence/

I used to read a lot for pleasure.

Then I started reading PB instead.