That explosion may have caused hundreds of dollars worth of damage.

The damage to the reputation, the prestige, and the gold-plated hubris of “the greatest nation on Earth ever and for all time” is what’s at stake.

Fortunately, disaster capitalism will generate at least fourteen jobs, resulting in the fortification of this embassy — and all other embassies — at exorbitant cost. The US defense budget will far exceed the $1.5T requested for 2027.

Screw diplomacy, forget peace, pursue power.

At all costs. Until Empire falls.

I’ve never seen Letterkenny. And yet, “Letterkenny cold open” yielded this with the second click.

The only associations I can manage are the following:

1. Canadian.

2. Taught alliteration at school.

3. Friends and family from far down East.

4. The original Alphabet Aerobics, by Blackalicious in 1999 is a fave track of mine.

I guess, in text, I flex the gift of gab.

Not always well.

Riiight.

Attritable, armed aircraft. Add AI autonomy, an authoritarian asshole, and an aggressive alignment — all, appropriately, approaches an ashen Apocalypse.

See, in Seoul, to my eyes, drivers aren’t day-labourers, office workers, company people, or students. They are business developers, cab and bus drivers, delivery agents and the most affluent.

In a city of 45 million, car ownership is very, very low. Parking is very difficult to find — or own as city units must separately rent, lease, buy, or borrow a parking spot for a car.

If any large East Asian city could successfully ration gasoline, its Seoul. Public transportation is efficient and inexpensive. People remember the war and hardship. People respect tradition, unity in struggle, and are willing to fight together.

That’s the Seoul I remember anyway.

They imprisoned their Insurrectionist former President.

For life.

AI can read the Doomsday Clock.

Check also Hoopla and Cloudlibrary. Between those three, I get most of what I’m looking for from my public libraries.

They did get me. I got away. But, it was my own kids.

CIA. Recruiting my own kids against me.

Always has been.

“Canadians say U.S. … is bigger threat [to us] than Russia”

World’s longest undefended border may have something to do with that.

Note: ask any country in Latin America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, Africa, or the Arabian/Persian Gulf who is a bigger threat, you’ll get the same answer. Some might say China is forgotten from the list.

Canadians are breaking through the propaganda, finally. Contra-American sentiment or a political anti-American stance has probably not been this rooted since 1812.

Russia threatens European power. U.S. threatens the Western Hemisphere and

Let’s see: USA has 26.3% of world GDP. They jealously guard that by force of arms, unfair trade deals, and an aggressive propaganda campaign.

Then, the relationship turns truly abusive. America is even inflicting self-harm.

So, the trade partners of thw world want a divorce; to find themselves and reconnect to their core values, absent the frathouse belligerence of USA. Certainly, other powerful and potentially abusive partners are there among the large economies; but the smaller, resource rich countries are looking for better partnerships.

The US’s stars will fade. Their economic power will shrink. They may even lose some of their states to secession.

If I’m not mistaken, this is how the Holy Roman Empire collapsed — into a handful of warring kingdoms and principalities in the middle of Europe. It wasn’t the end of the world. It was the end of that world.

Closed out Children of Men by P.D. James today.

I have a copy of the Left Hand of Darkness, but I can’t read a physical copy in the car while driving. Guess I’ll have to wait for the library to deliver the audiobook.

I think I’ll start Utopia by Thomas More tomorrow.

Bye, Del-cy-sha.

Ok, I don’t wish her harm or any ill will. I just know that, in this meat grinder of international diplomacy, theres a cost if she tries to push back on Lord Farquaad’s wishes. He’s already promised he would harm her — like every other woman he’s ever encountered.

Beneath the politics, almost certainly, Delcy Rodriguez and María Corina Machado both want what will benefit Venezuelans. Or, perhaps, they only want to serve their own supporters. Regardless, neither of these women will gain from participating in the Game of Thrones that Washington has engaged.

Also, Angela Means’s quest to vindicate Felisha has merit. Much is assumed about her. Few, if any, care for her. These are the stories we promote. This is the world we promote.

Read these a few years back; they’re still a monumental achievement. I can’t buy chicken at a grocery store without thinking about the engineered chickens she describes.

I read a lot of great books this year. But, my shortlist goes to one author: Omar El Akkad.

One Day Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This (2025) and American War (2017) were both revelations.

P.S.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine (2020) by Rashid Khalidi. An absolutely vital history in its address of Occupied Palestine, the State of Israel, and the world’s interactions with them. In much the same way Tony Judt deepened my perspective of Europe with Postwar, and Davids Wengrow and Graeber pushed my understandings with The Dawn of Everything, Khalidi weaves family history with world events to lend a sorely lost dimension to a vilified people.

From the past 10 years, in reverse order (from my Goodreads)

• The Passenger + Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy

• Ducks by Kate Beaton

• The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow

• Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

• On Tyrrany by Timothy Snyder

• Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Edit: a few more from the past 50 years.

• The Complete Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

• Two Thousand Seasons by Ayi Kwei Armah

• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

• The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

• Post War by Tony Judt

• A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn

• Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

• Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

12 more drinks.

Honestly, now — not promoting binge drinking or alcohol consumption at all — but that book tears something in you. It can’t be undone.

The Forever War is such an important and great read. I’d put it alongside Catch-22 and Johnny Got His Gun for an anti-war novel.

Maybe Flowers for Algernon? I read this for the first time near when when I read Canticle. I much more connected to Algernon.

MaddAddam trilogy also touches close to home for me, not least because Atwood is Canadian.

I was also late to Childhood’s End and The Chrysalids.

They know that Israel is at the eye of the global shit storm. Iran might close the strait of Hormuz, and the Yemenis are definitely going to take shots at ships heading for Bab-el-Mandeb (Gate of Grief). Iran may start boarding ships as well.

This is a business decision.

The rest of this post is bullshit. If it comes true, well, then, I’m an unprofitable prophet.

Goodness knows how this is going to go once the NATO-backed EU sanctions on Israel hit in mid-July. US will try to sanction/tariff their way around that, an attempt to support their pals, but, surprise! Domestic unrest will force the felon’s hand.

That frees up some space for more integrated transport across Europe, Canada, and emerging markets across north and west Africa, quelling some of the decolonial “unrest” in Mali, Burkina Faso with offers of “trade.”

The wedge in the anglosphere will widen, and the US will be more isolated. They’ll either attack Canada or suffer Civil War by November, about the time people start to realize they can’t pay for their heating this winter and can’t even afford “2 dolls instead of 30” this Xmas.

I look forward to Netanyahu making his case in court and watching every argument evaporate under the sheer gravity of reality. Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, standing beside him, defiant. Gallant gave up.

I’ve read Dante’s Inferno. Two things are true:

1. In envisioning Hell, this is beyond even him.

Though, the ninth circle — betrayal — is where many politicians, pundits, and the president of Israel belong. Frozen in the ice at the center of Hell.

2. Many people deserve to be sent to Hell for this. Perhaps all of us who did not do more to stop it.