On this day:
Roman emperor Trajan inaugurates the Aqua Traiana, an aqueduct that channels water from Lake Bracciano, 40 km north-west of Rome.
637
The Battle of Moira is fought between the High King of Ireland and the Kings of Ulster and Dalriada. It is the largest battle in Irish history. The high point of Irish warfare.
1374
A sudden outbreak of St. John’s Dance causes people in the streets of Aachen, Germany, to experience hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion. In the modern day, this is called Middle East Negotiations.
1916
World War I: The Battle of the Somme begins with a week-long artillery bombardment on the German Line.
1947
Kenneth Arnold makes the first widely reported UFO sighting near Mount Rainier, Washington.
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Equality of outcomes or opportunity is the hope of simple denial--or worse, ambition.
Equality of permission, in contrast, is quite feasible. Achieving in practice something close to such equality requires only that the state abandon all efforts to dispense privileges.--McClosky
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The socialist success in New York yesterday does not simply rearrange the landscape of political personalities, it resurrects the age-old question of the competence of the agent of democracy, the voter.
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Stephanie Hockridge is still not in jail.
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The Five Eyes cybersecurity alliance, which includes intelligence agencies from the US, UK, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, warned that AI models capable of taking down businesses and governments are mere months away. But the assumed global government-business conspiracy has control of all this, right? Right?
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France-based Prix Versailles announced this week that PIT was named to its World’s Most Beautiful Airports list, joining only six other airports from around the globe. The honor is one of the most prestigious architecture and design recognitions in the world, presented in association with the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, better known as UNESCO. PIT is one of only two airports in the U.S. to make the list.
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"Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!"
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Fight for peace. Buy more, save more. We blockade your ports; no, we blockade our own ports. Our world reverberates with Orwellian weirdness, but nowhere as much as the Middle East, where the intensity of feelings overrides all logic and practicality. Iran has had the very purpose of its government removed by the American air attack. The nuclear destruction of the hated Israelis is no longer possible, and the inability to recreate the circumstances necessary to attempt it again has been revealed.
Now Iran is fighting off its back, violating ceasefires, and allowing Israel to rationalize restarting Iran's punishment. Iran must be convincing even the dithering Press of the danger they present. Iran's willingness to suffer for an unachievable goal should be alarming to all. But their enemies are paralyzed by success. Battered, leaderless, smoldering in smoking defeat, Iran arrives at the negotiating table trim, powered, cologned, and with a condescending smile, like Caesar requesting his daily calendar after his final wound.
If anything, it proves Trump's point and justifies his actions. Iran is beyond all restraint in its obsession. The sensible argument that Iran would not destroy the Straits of Hormuz because that would destroy their own economy and their own people clearly does not apply.
Conniving Israel may be the only reasonable player in the field: Iran cannot be hurt too much.
Ahabism is not in the OED, so we are not constrained by a definition. Our definition of Ahabism: narrow, focused, monomaniacal, tyrannical, homicidal, and single-minded pursuit of a goal that results in self-destruction and risks the ruination of all.
Ahab's destruction is probably deserved, but he does take the Pequod with him.
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