▼
Wednesday, January 28, 2026

Driving around NZ ...

›
 Tyler Cowen remembers his time driving around NZ in the early 90s ... New Zealand probably has the highest average beauty of any country I...

"More than two decades on, the speech reads less like a product of its time and more like a warning that New Zealand chose to ignore."

›
  " T oday [now yesterday] is the last Tuesday of January. It is a date that should matter more in New Zealand’s political memory than ...
1 comment:

The Minister for Epsom speaks

›
... ...     " D epressing to see ACT—once upon a time at least ostensibly a pro-market party—apparently opposed to freeing up land use,...
Tuesday, January 27, 2026

"Neo-Aristotelian ethics offers a powerful alternative to modern moral theories that struggle to explain why morality has the authority it does."

›
" I n much of twentieth-century moral philosophy, ethics was rebuilt ... [Once p]hilosophers ... abandoned the idea that things have na...

"Visual Elevator Music"

›
" G enerative AI was trained on centuries of art and writing produced by humans. ... When generative AI was left to its own devices [ho...
Monday, January 26, 2026

A prime example of TDS

›
" N ational[ist] Conservatives have Trump Deification Syndrome (TDS).     "They feel that He works in mysterious ways.     "...
1 comment:
Saturday, January 24, 2026

"The fall of the Iranian regime would be the Berlin Wall moment for the Middle East. Needs to happen."

›
  " T he fall of the Iranian regime would be the Berlin Wall moment for the Middle East.     "Needs to happen." ~ Neil Stone ...
1 comment:
Friday, January 23, 2026

"From bored of peace to Board of Peace in five days"

›
" J ust a few days ago, on Sunday, the president wrote that he no longer felt 'an obligation to think purely of Peace,' since h...
1 comment:

Power politics from ancient Greece

›
" S o many people quote the famous line from Thucydides— 'The strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must...
1 comment:
Thursday, January 22, 2026

"Other countries are not ripping off the US on trade"

›
" T he Trump Administration and I are here to make a very clear point—globalisation has failed the West and the United States of Americ...
4 comments:

Offshore emissions

›
" C an someone explain how the deindustrialisation of the UK and Germany [et al] will save the planet?      "I still struggle to ...
1 comment:
Wednesday, January 21, 2026

Another frickin' housing backflip!

›
C hristopher bloody Luxon has now announced his fourth major housing policy backflip as National party leader. I say "announced," ...
Tuesday, January 20, 2026

Summing up

›
" J ust a reminder that as of now, Iran is still run by cruel theocrats, Venezuela is still run by far-left socialists, Russia is still...

"The stakes could not be higher. As I speak there is despair in European capitals and delight in Moscow. That should tell you everything about the dangerous watershed we’ve now reached."

›
" O n January 18, 2026, President Donald Trump sent a letter to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre. This is not a gaffe or a jok...
5 comments:

"Trump is nothing if not the King of Distractions."

›
" W ith his Venezuelan Victory fresh in the news again due to his new award for protecting world peace, the president also happily anno...
4 comments:
Monday, January 19, 2026

"Israel becomes not just another country among many but a kind of moral index of the age – a stage upon which the world’s conscience is imagined to be tested and revealed."

›
" I n the first nine months after October 7, the New York Times published 6,656 articles about the Gaza War. That compared to 80 articl...

"Trump supporters continue to lie for him." [updated]

›
" T rump supporters continue to lie for him. Tariffs are not about fentanyl, national security, or even jobs.     "They're abo...
1 comment:
Friday, January 16, 2026

"One of the main differences between this Trump Administration and the previous term: he is currently surrounded by people who take his craziest ideas and then come up with elaborate rationalisations for why he should do them."

›
" O ne of the main differences between this Trump Administration and the previous term: ... the adults from the first term either said ...
1 comment:

"The cause of Iran is the cause of humanity."

›
" I magine watching women fling off their hijabs in glorious defiance of the cruel mullahs who rule over them and feeling nothing. Imag...
Thursday, January 15, 2026

"Iran’s Islamic Republic is no ordinary autocracy—it’s a theocratic prison-state exporting death while devouring its citizens."

›
" A s of January 12, 2026, Iran stands at a historic precipice. What began as scattered demonstrations in late December 2025 over skyro...

Checking in on human progress

›
 The start of a year is a good time to do a stocktake. An update. A check-in on how well we're all getting on. Energy maven Alex Epstein...
Wednesday, January 14, 2026

'Trump’s Gestapo is now murdering protestors'

›
" I CE is Trump's Gestapo or SS. They have no proper function, no constitutional authorisation, and are loyal to Trump personally. ...
6 comments:

"All of this is the work of an unlearned, unread, blow-hard, know-it-all narcissist, who rattles around the White House in the dead of night dreaming up barking idiocy"

›
Cartoon by Glen Le Lievre " W hen it comes to the national security front, Donald Trump is flat out losing it. After all, WTF was he th...
1 comment:
Tuesday, January 13, 2026

"I believe in rational self-interest. I believe people want to have happy lives. But they don’t half go about it in some fucking stupid ways."

›
" I get that all human behaviour is purposeful. I believe in rational self-interest. I believe people want to have happy lives. But th...