- Listen (hacking) British and Americans spies break into Belgian telecom
- Read: Opposition to taxes is not just a racist Southern thing in the US. It also has deep roots in Northern industrial opposition to workers. rights.
- Listen: One of my favorite podcasts (“Scene on Radio“) has an entire season looking into the history of our (human) proclivity to over-use the environment. The series — correctly, IMO (read this) — points a strong finger at the West for exploitation (would an Asian country have colonized the world, if Europe didn’t first?) and the US for its oil industry and PR-driven “greenwashing”. Worth a listen!
- Read: “Driver error” doesn’t cause as many car crashes and deaths as bad road design and unsafe (too big) cars.
- Read: In the past few decades (beginning with 9/11), I have regretted America’s mishandling, via ignorance, selfishness, and overconfidence, of its hypuissance (as the French termed it) that allowed me, for example, to travel for five years during the Pax Americana. Now we are seeing the results, not in the (inevitable) rise of China, but in the many annoying, degrading and fatal conflicts within and across borders that are being fed by so-called “middle powers.” For more on how badly this will be for everyone, read Anne Appelbaum’s essay (“the bad guys are winning“) and this Economist briefing, “the menace of midsized meddlers.”
- Watch: Stewart Lee speaks out against religious attempts to limit speech as blasphemy in the UK.
H/Ts to AW and PB