Blaise Pascal

One must know oneself. Even if that does not help in finding truth, at least it helps in ruining one's life, and nothing is more proper.

[Blaise Pascal @BlaisePascal74]

"But for all of its engagement of bodily responses, disgust is also an emotion that is at work in creating and sustaining our social and cultural reality". AK

[Aaron Maté @aaronjmate]

Making a deal with Iran would require Trump to formally accept the defeat of his regime change war and return at least some of Iran's stolen ("frozen") assets. He hasn't been willing to do that, so has spent weeks stalling for time. That gave Israel an opening to act as a spoiler, which it seized by escalating its aggression against Lebanon.

Perhaps Israel and the US thought that Iran was desperate enough for a deal to stand down. By striking Israel today, Iran has shown that it will not abandon Hezbollah and south Lebanon.

Now the onus is back on Trump: is he willing to respect Iran and Lebanon as sovereign nations and have peace, or is the cause of Greater Israel worth continuing the war.

[Colter Louwerse @ColterL]

In 1981, the PLO laid down its arms in Lebanon, scrupulously upheld a ceasefire for nearly a year, and offered to recognize Israel via a two-state settlement.

Israel responded with an unprovoked invasion, killing 15-20,000 Palestinians and Lebanese.

[Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah]

When will it sink in? A sovereign country with nearly a thousand years of history is being abolished in a slow-motion revolution. I warned of this nearly 30 years ago, and all I got was mockery and patronising sneers.

[Thomas Fazi @battleforeurope]

Crazy that this is getting barely any coverage. This year’s European Press Prize was just awarded to an investigative report by the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant. It is entitled “What the Wounds Tell” and in it the journalists Maud Effting and Willem Feenstra document the cases of 114 children in Gaza under the age of 15 who were struck by a single bullet to the head or chest. Almost all of them died or were left severely disabled. They chose to document only the cases of boys and girls under the age of 15 (though often much younger: aged 3, 4 or 7) because these are children who can be immediately identified as such. “A single bullet in these parts of the body is a clear indication that these children were deliberately targeted“, the two journalists write.

This is the article: https://t.co/YkZrpqBWBQ

[Philip Pilkington @philippilk]

I assume most financial journalists have taken basic courses in economics. So why can’t they explain that when a price is artificially repressed the demand will outstrip supply and destroy inventory buffers. They are describing just this but can’t join the dots. Bizarre. 🛢️

[William Clouston SDP @WilliamClouston]

Very sad. There are many causes - such as high energy prices and Labour’s tax on jobs but there is something even bigger. In Tesco you can buy Chinese made plates which look unnerving like Denby - knock-offs effectively - at a fraction of the price.

We continue to delude ourselves that ‘free trade’ is fair trade. It isn’t and the long-term costs to our society of this wanton de-industrialisation is devastating.

[Murray Rothbard @MurraySuggests]

The Iranian navy, which has been destroyed eight times, has apparently closed the Strait of Hormuz again, because the United States, for the seventh time, won the war that wasn’t a war, so now the United States has to open the Strait of Hormuz that was already open before the not-war began.

The not-war began because Iran had uranium that was totally, completely, beautifully obliterated, so they can’t build the nuclear bomb they weren’t building, which is why the United States had to start the not-war it definitely didn’t start.

Now the United States, which has nuclear weapons, is threatening to use nuclear weapons to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, because nuclear weapons are far too dangerous for countries with nuclear weapons to allow other countries to have.

If the United States saw the United States doing what the United States does in other countries, the United States would invade the United States to liberate the United States from the tyranny of the United States.

[Lawrence Hunt @huntmj28]

I’ve taken my flat off the market. It was on for 25k less than what we paid in 2014. No one was even clicking on the listing. The only flat which has sold in my building went for a £60k loss and it took a year to complete.

[Michael Rosen 💙💙🎓🎓 NICE 爷爷 @MichaelRosenYes]

My boss. I suggest he spends a few more million on consultants, do some hard work blaming the workforce (us), and make sure he and his colleagues are generously remunerated for sacking us.

[James J. Zogby @jjz1600]

All 3 of Netanyahu’s main opponents in the next election condemned him for surrendering to the US & agreeing to a “ceasefire” in Lebanon. They say he sold out & became a “vassal state” of the US. So if you’re thinking getting rid of Netanyahu makes Israel better - think again

[Brandon Warmke @BrandonWarmke]

I’m sorry but the claim that philosophy’s problems with politically motivated deterioration of standards are “largely confined to a single subfield focused on a charged topic” is a howler. It’s a massive problem across the whole profession.

[AriannadaTodi @AriannadaTodi]

Oggi è la giornata mondiale dei gatti medievali brutti.

[Paul Embery @PaulEmbery]

This exchange is so revealing. Kenyon points out the obvious - that the more people that enter a country, the more houses that country will need. But upon hearing the argument that immigration puts pressure on the housing supply, the Green candidate immediately defaults to her "I'm shocked and horrified you could ever say such a thing!" mode. The funny thing is, she ends up agreeing with him, but even then she tries to pretend he has said something appalling. This is what happens when politics is rooted in feelings rather than facts.

[William Dalrymple @DalrympleWill]

One for @bbclaurak who asked on air "Why would Israel lie?"
A leak has revealed the IDF actually has a programme to train its people in the “fundamentals of psychological warfare, propaganda, deception, legitimacy and public diplomacy." https://t.co/yW2WeZakYA

[Friend of the Talking Bird @DrugGovoruna]

It is a retelling of a similar passage from The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes.

[Joe Paul Kroll @JoePKroll]

The beginning of AJP Taylor’s ‘English History 1914–1945’ famously ‘goes hard’, as the internet puts it, but part of its brilliance is surely that it was written (or rather edited) to fit a single page.

[G. K. Chesterton @GKCdaily]

The frightful punishment of mere sex emancipation is not anarchy but bureaucracy....The total control of human life will pass to the State; and it will be a very Totalitarian State.

[Peter Oborne @OborneTweets]

Netanyahu has repeatedly claimed that Israel is the guardian of Christianity in the Middle East. Here is fresh evidence that claim is false.

[Norma Cohen @NormaCohen3]

Serious Question: Why are leaseholders being asked to underwrite the cost of structural repairs to ANY building when they do not own a single brick in it? https://t.co/Xa0mTqtSZ2

[Harry Scoffin @HarryScoffin]

Service charges are killing flats and spreading negative equity.

Buyers boycotting leasehold as a result.

Yet the managing agents’ trade body refuses to talk about finding efficiencies, or about the commissions, related-party deals and percentage-based fees that inflate costs.