@JamesSurowiecki@TigersJUK Why compare the games? They have beauty (when played well) in the differences between them. Every game played poorly will be boring regardless of each game's unique attributes. Any game will be exciting if there is... ergh! Why am I even writing this?
Mel Brooks is 100 years old today! Many people think that Mel is my father. He isn’t. But what he is is one of the great comic minds of the last 100 years. Happy birthday Mel, from your fake son.
@taipan168 Everything is ok. Calm down. Number your picks. Be disappointed if your pick wins. Be disappointed if it doesn't. Concentrate on what you can control, and leave the rest.
If you can't do that, then put your hat in the ring.
In Barry Blitt's latest Kvetchbook, some life hacks to rectify your reflecting-pool problems.
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Seeing some of the embarrassingly hateful reactions to Starmer's resignation today, I thought it was worth resharing this.
The level of personal hostility directed at Keir Starmer deserves scrutiny in its own right. Not because he should be immune from criticism, but because the tone and intensity of the attacks tell us something unhealthy about the state of democratic politics.
Starmer is a conventional political figure. Cautious, legalistic, incremental. He frustrates people precisely because he is managerial rather than messianic. Yet the reaction to him often goes far beyond disagreement, tipping into visceral hatred more commonly reserved for authoritarians or demagogues.
Much of this hostility is disconnected from concrete policy. It is not about specific votes, proposals or outcomes, but about projection. A belief that Starmer embodies betrayal, bad faith or hidden malice. That kind of politics runs on suspicion rather than evidence.
This matters because democracy depends on the assumption of good faith among opponents. You can think a leader is wrong, timid, or misguided without believing they are fundamentally illegitimate. Once politics becomes moralised to the point of demonisation, compromise is reframed as treachery and pluralism as weakness.
The pattern is familiar. In fragmented, polarised systems, anger concentrates not on extremists, whose intentions are clear, but on moderates, who disappoint maximalists on all sides. The centre becomes the lightning rod precisely because it resists totalising narratives.
There is also a media and online dynamic at work. Incentives reward outrage, not proportionality. Algorithms favour contempt over analysis. Over time, this creates a political culture in which relentless personal attack feels normal, even virtuous, rather than disgusting.
None of this is a defence of Starmer’s decisions, instincts or record. Those should be argued over robustly as you do in a democracy. The problem is the substitution of critique with hostility and the quiet erosion of democratic norms that follows when political opponents are treated as enemies rather than rivals.
A democracy cannot function if every election is framed as an existential struggle against internal evil. At some point, the target may change, but the damage to trust, restraint and culture remains.
James Burrows, the co-creator of "Cheers" who reigned as television’s preeminent sitcom director for more than 30 years, died on Friday. He was 85. https://t.co/drWXrDuZlE
The “Have a good life” goodbye into Sam's fantasy of growing old with Diane is perfectly directed, possibly the best television ever, and certainly as beautiful as a sitcom has ever been, or ever will be
R.I.P. James Burrows
@alexmassie Thanks. I'm even more flummoxed by its illegality now, though.
I've only eaten haggis a few times. A couple of those were from fancy packaged stuff here in Oz. But I remember eating it in Edinburgh once, with a wee dram, and it's weird. And tasty. Felt it needed a sauce though.