In the alternate universe where we'd bet big on a combined European security solution, we might now be worrying about having tied ourselves to a structure where many of the other participants were sh… (View Post)

To be fair, the circa 2000 world was pretty good. Being born in 1977, my political and general "how the world ought to be" views are pretty firmly shaped by the period when I went to uni, g… (View Post)

Mmm, hasn't the book industry always been this way? Most people read no or few books, and publishers survive because of the small oddball slice of the population who read a lot of books. The breakout… (View Post)

I think the other thing about "benign dictators" is that what they need to do to stay in power pushes against the "benign" part. In a democracy, staying in power means expending t… (View Post)

Not to be loose or hump shunted... (View Post)