Fascinating election in the UK; besides the wipeout of the Tories, who lost 251 seats and now have their lowest representation of the modern era, the Scottish National Party lost 37 of their 46 seats, almost entirely to Labour. The anti-immigrant Reform UK party did much worse than some early polls had predicted – for a while they led the Tories – winning only 4 seats, the same number as were won by independent Muslim candidates running with support for Gaza as their only issue. I wish the new leaders luck but Britain is in serious economic doldrums with no obvious way out, issues over immigration and identity will continue to simmer, and the national mood is bad, possibly even worse than in the US. (NY Times, BBC, NBC)
The National Portrait Gallery acquires an 1846 Daguerreotype of Dolly Madison that is the first known photograph of an American first lady.
Scott Siskind's fantasy presidential debate, very amusing.
What supreme athletic prowess looks like: Femke Bol of the Netherlands wins the women's 400m hurdles at the European championships, leaving everyone else far behind; and it doesn't even look like she's trying. There is not a single sign of effort on her face or in her movements, just fluid grace. (If you want to check out the video, skip to halfway through for the race itself.)
Restoring the spectacular baptismal font of Siena Cathedral, on which several artistic luminaries worked.
Important Denisovan finds from a cave in Tibet (article, NY Times)
Sea levels are supposed to be rising, but this study (NY Times) finds that low-lying tropical islands are not shrinking. We have the same issue in the Chesapeake Bay; the relationship between supposed changes in global sea level and shoreline erosion is complicated, with some places showing major losses but others a few miles away seeming completely unchanged, with no sign that the water has risen an inch.
Amazing rock art discovered in Venezuela.
Tyler Cowen's thoughts on immigration. "I am struck by the fact that immigration critics do not send me cost-benefit studies, nor do they seem to commission them." Because in economic terms there is no argument against immigration. But there is a downside: "Politics is stupider and less ethical than before, including (but not only) when it comes immigration."
Notes and photographs from a recent visit to Tajikistan. Long, but set up so you can read only what you want, or just browse the very interesting pictures.
Major study finds that how happy people are depends mainly on their personalities. And this: "At the nuances level, low life satisfaction was most strongly associated with feeling misunderstood, unexcited, indecisive, envious, bored, used, unable, and unrewarded."
Kraut on the origins of Social Democracy in Denmark (YouTube, 30 minutes). Sadly for fans of diversity, the ethnic and religious unity of the people was one key.
Veratasium follows Enstein's field equations out to their weirdest limits – black holes, white holes, alternate universes. (30-minute video)
Hoard of bronze axes unearthed in the Czech Republic, the latest in a long line of such hoards found by metal detectorists. I suspect more and more that they were as much symbolic as pratical objects, intended more for giving as gifts to gods or important people than for smashing heads.
Two sticks found in an Australian cave appear to have been used in a ritual just like one recorded in the nineteenth century; one is 12,000 years old, so this find is evidence that one highly specific ritual was passed down for 12,000 years.
A claim that the homestead of the African migrant and former slave known as King Pompey has been found in Lynn, Massachusetts. Background here. It's an awesome story but the news accounts of the archaeological work are unconvincing. If I come across a better description of the evidence I will pass it along.
Kevin Drum on the presidential immunity case: "It's a bad ruling. But it's not the end of democracy." I like to make the point that all US Presidents since Teddy Roosevelt have engaged in conduct abroad that I regard as illegal, but in the US we have traditionally used elections to rule on those matters, not trials.
Ben Pentreath in Scotland. (And Orkney, and some other places)
Conservative lawyer Ilya Shapiro offers advice on what to do if you're canceled.
Ethiopia's sacred forests, maintained by monks.
The Jersey Devil as a folktale of forced motherhood.
One theory of why Cahokia was abandoned focuses on drought, but this recent highly technical study finds no support for this model: "We saw no evidence that prairie grasses were taking over [fields], which we would expect in a scenario where widespread crop failure was occurring."
Ukrainian reporter argues that Russia's recent push for a cease fire shows that they are exhausted by the war and need a break to recoup and rearm. The resumption of US weapon deliveries and the easy defeat of the recent Russian offensive toward Kharkiv has many Ukrainians bullish on their chances for military success.
Ukraine's state-owned weapons conglomerate, Ukroboronprom, announces that they have begun serial production of attack drones with a range in excess of 1,000 kilometers. Russian media have lately reported that 10 to 36 Ukrainian drones are being shot down over Russia every night, so Ukraine's claim may well be correct. Which is what I and lots of others expected, that stalement on the front lines would lead to a "war of the cities" fought with missiles and drones. Russia is obviously trying to wear Ukraine down with steady attacks on both military and civilian targets, but in the age of cheap drones two can play at that game.
4 comments:
Obviously the future will tell whether Drum's Drumism is right about the decision in Trump v. US. My instinct is that a de jure immunity in both domestic and foreign affairs, as opposed to the previous de facto immunity mostly restricted to foreign affairs, will make a big difference. It seems possible to me that we might end up with a sort of serial elective dictatorship/super-strong presidency, perhaps analogous to Peronism.
I have been somewhat bemused by the taken-for-granted notion that kings are above the law. Medieval lawyers and law codes tend to put them both above and below the law, and then would try to explicate this paradox at great and tedious length. Sometimes monarchs did often enjoy a de facto immunity, sometimes for lengthy periods up to and including 2 or 3 generations--but then would come a rebellion in which the rebels would say, again at length and with considerable specificity, that they were rebelling because the kings had broken the law and call for a return to the good old laws of king X. Magna Carta is a type case of this phenomenon, but there are plenty of others. (Incidentally, it is by no means clear that such claims were a simple mask for self-interest; as is often the case in the Middle Ages, political actors' rhetoric could be quite blunt about the self-interest attached to what we would think of as elevated causes. This was notably true in the crusades.)
(They just previous comment about royal immunity was meant as another response on the general issue of head of state legal immunity. I admit the issue of royal immunity is vastly complex; one could spend one's whole life on it and still not be done.)
Kevin Drum on the presidential immunity case: "It's a bad ruling. But it's not the end of democracy."
Hey, Kevin? If put a gun up to your head, and started threatening to shoot you, would you opine that my threats of imminent violence were bad, but not the end of your life?
If I set your house on fire, would you sit idle and smugly quip about how "The smoke filling the house is bad, but it's not like the house has completely burned to the ground yet"? Or would you leap to your feet and start running around trying to douse the flames and prevent an obvious impending catastrophe?
No one's upset because democracy has ended - because that clearly has not happened yet.
They're upset because democracy is being actively attacked and undermined, by the very people whose entire job is supposed to be to defend and bolster it, because the highest court in the land has been corrupted and perverted by power hungry crypto-fascists.
Mr. Drum, your country is on fire. You are staring down the barrel of a loaded gun. I strongly suggest that instead of deluding yourself into thinking everything is and will be fine without action being taken, you rouse yourself from your absurd complacency before it's shattered is a rude awakening for you and all the people who you unfortunately manage to mislead with your reckless and feckless words.
Jesus tap-dancing Christ...
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