Of cultural interest
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Carney, Trump and Tariffs
An amusing assessment from an anonymous Australian.
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Tyler Harper on the Arday affair…
…at The Atlantic, and worth reading.
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If Abdul El-Sayd is smart and articulate, Francesca Hong (who, fortunately, lost the primary for Governor in Wisconsin)… (UPDATED)
…is not so much–she comes across as more like a flaky teenager. Someone who thinks the police “promote white supremacy” is not a serious person of the left. And her Twitter blather about Thanksgiving et al. is just embarrassing. Fortunately, the Milwaukee County Executive, David Crowley, prevailed (despite polls showing Hong with a big lead).…
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El-Sayd, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan…
He is obviously smart and articulate, and it serves him well given the “shit” being thrown at him. And here’s a good ad that’s running: I’m worried, to be sure, how anti-Muslim and anti-Arab prejudice will affect the vote, but he seems like a skillful politician, so let’s hope he can pull it off.
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On appeal, employment tribunal affirms that “anti-Zionism” is a protected “philosophical belief” under UK law
We noted the case of Professor Miller at the University of Bristol a couple of years ago. The appeals tribunal has now concurred with the lower tribunal’s ruling that “anti-Zionism” is protected under the UK Equality Law (see paragraphs 132 ff. in the opinion). (Thanks to Joe Cairns for the pointer.)
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Umberto Eco on the Internet
Yes indeed: “The tragedy of the Internet is that it has elevated the village idiot to the status of a bearer of truth.” “Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak—people who once only talked at the bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community. They were quickly silenced. Now they…
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Alex Byrne comes to the defense of the traditional radical feminist theory of patriarchy…
…which does seem far more plausible than the candidate successor. (Regarding the Nietzsche quote which makes an amusing appearance near the end of Byrne’s essay: Nietzsche is obviously thinking of, among others, Kant, who finally confesses that the purpose of the critique of pure reason is to make room for faith.)
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This is encouraging: majority of Americans want to redistribute wealth from AI companies to society
Let’s hope it happens, but this will require the prudent wing of the ruling class, i.e., the Democrats, to ‘betray’ the (short-term) interests of their class, much as FDR did. (As some readers will know, FDR was regularly accused of being a traitor to his class, whereas in reality he saved them from extinction.)
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On friendship (and Chomsky and Epstein)
Philosopher Peter Ludlow comments.
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A fitting July 4th essay for an America in which that malevolent buffoon is still President
Here (the full essay is behind a paywall, alas–but here are some excerpts).
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On the occasion of the opening of the Obama Presidential Center in my neighborhood
A different take on Obama, that makes some fair critical points. He was no progressive, alas. The way he has enriched himself non-stop post-Presidency has been particularly gross.
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Some hopeful trends in America
The Financial Times has always represented the prudent wing of the capitalist class, unlike the imprudent wing that has overwhelmed the Republican Party in America. This piece by one of its regular opinion columnists (who is quite scathing about Trump et al., but knows which class he represents) is revealing: When they go low, we…
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NYC mayor was right to skip the “Israel Parade”…
…which was really a parade celebrating the far right, racist, and pro-apartheid political leadership of Israel.
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The climate change catastrophe: India edition
All 50 of the hottest cities in the world were in India recently (temperatures of 110 degrees farenheit and up are not uncommon right now). Ghastly. And Modi is still pretending… (Thanks to Ruchira Paul for the pointer.)
I wonder if LLMs training on your work increases the chances of your work being falsely flagged by AI-detectors as…