miscellany

"The greatest challenge facing societies has always been how to conduct trade and credit without letting merchants and creditors make money by exploiting their customers and debtors."https://t.co/lr7OQUc505 pic.twitter.com/pW9ym1GObQ

— Upupa Epops (@UpupaEp55949188) July 12, 2022

‘When questioned by The American Prospect last year about the fact that the Atlantic Council has received millions from Gulf state monarchies, Fontenrose responded, "Every think tank in Washington gets money from Middle East governments.”’ https://t.co/N9eHs2ZmLp

— jo (@jofromgreylynn) June 6, 2022

These are the kind of people who run the world. The imperial machine is packed to the rafters with sniveling power worshippers of this variety, people who choose to spend their lives clawing their way up into positions of influence within the most depraved power structure on the face of this planet, demonstrating their worthiness by their continual willingness to advocate awful things no matter how reckless or stupid.

This is why the world is as it is. The systems which allocate power and wealth elevate the worst among us to the most consequential of positions, where they are then free to act out their own inner misery on the rest of humanity and keep us in a state of suffering and trauma. Nothing will get better until we change those systems.

What are the royals for? My piece on the queen’s family business @globeandmail with thanks to @itsmarkmedley https://t.co/xKUbd70PHj

— Tom Rachman (@TomRachman) June 2, 2022

To associate yourself with anything that makes you feel less small, that you don’t need to compete for but is unconditionally yours – surely, this longing is understandable, when even the lucky and confident dread where politics is headed and what tech is making us; are stressed about soaring prices, the war in Ukraine, insanity in the culture; afraid of hackers and viruses, both digital and respiratory; bewildered by online trends that seem ridiculous till they obsess millions, and you must join or be left behind. Not to mention the environment.

So, no, it’s not mad to want something to hold onto, something stable, a comfort. For some, the royals are that.

These two playing so well together 🥰 pic.twitter.com/Pz0o9SDfRF

— Madeyousmile (@Thund3rB0lt) May 30, 2022

Automakers are designing in artificial engine noise so America's developmentally delayed manchildren can hear the vroom vrooms that make them feel big & strong. God, US car culture is so embarrassing. https://t.co/QPXuiP5uFd

— David Roberts (@drvolts) June 4, 2022

Jake Johnson, May 19, 2022:

Former President George W. Bush on Wednesday inadvertently condemned "the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq" as he delivered remarks criticizing Russia's assault on Ukraine.

Recognizing the slip, Bush—who in his memoir described the catastrophic Iraq invasion, which he launched in 2003 under false pretenses, as "eternally right"—quickly brushed it off with a chuckle and blamed his age.

"I mean of Ukraine," Bush told an audience gathered in Dallas. "Iraq, too. Anyway. Seventy-five."

Much of the crowd appeared to get a kick out of the 43rd president's blunder, laughing as he moved on with his speech.

"I'm not laughing," Mehdi Hasan said in a brief MSNBC segment Wednesday night. "I am guessing nor are the families of the thousands of American troops and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who died in that war."

source: Common Dreams article, cached*

Metro Vancouver’s last remaining glacier ‘dying in front of our eyes’. Coquitlam Glacier, shrinking due to climate change, will likely vanish by 2050. https://t.co/w4qNpC6bie

— Canadian Geographers (@CanGeographers) April 10, 2022