Stoat: By the sword you did your work and by the sword you die

By the sword you did your work and by the sword you die¹ will be recognised by all cultured folk as a quote from Aeschylus, spoken by Clytemnaestra to Agamemnon. My reference will confuse no-one I'm sure. But what are we to make of claims that this is a serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty? Lebanon is not, I think, officially at war with Israel; and moreover claims to be a sovereign state; so we must ask why armed forces are, and have been for quite some time, firing missiles from Lebanon into Israel, with no apparent attempt by the Lebanese state to prevent this? The answer I think is that Lebanon is not, despite its claims, really a SovState². Instead it is a very weak state, whose chief problem is an infestation of Hezbollah. If they get really lucky, Israel may help them eradicate it. The real problem is Iran sponsoring all this nonsense of course; without their malignity, Hezbollah would collapse.

Re-reading my past, I find Torture and Terrorism from 2006.

Speaking of culture, you may care to test yours in my "identify the cathedral" test. Hint: it's in France.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellites an ‘existential threat to astronomy’ - predictably, all the ideas are "more regulation". There's not even a thought of cost-benefit analysis: is Starlink a better use than radio astronomy? Or even "would we be better off doing this from space?"

Mario Draghi’s best ideas are those Europe finds least comfortable (full report). But his answers are always things like "unify decision-making on public investments" so its all doomed; the idea of dealing with over-regulation is still-born (he does manage to notice that "innovative firms that want to scale up are hindered by inconsistent and restrictive regulations" but his answer is to unify the regulations, not to think). And as the Economist says, the "recommendations are so numerous that policymakers will be able to pick and choose from among them"; this always happens. As an employee of a USAnian megacorp in the UK, I'm think I'm kinda insulated from the slow death of Yorp.

And then by happy chance, via Xitter, comes Foundations: Why Britain has stagnated. You'll notice, of course, that this compares Britain unfavourably with Yorp, particularly France, so is not perfectly in accord with me; nonetheless it is well-reasoned.

Notes

1. Absurdly, Wiki's article on "live by the sword" insists that the quote is biblical, despite the play preceeding the New Testament by centuries. I tried to correct them but they wouldn't listen.

2. Despite this being the bleedin' obvious, which I said in June, the fuckwitted meeja still haven't realised. Update: this is a fine example: Lebanon's economy minister Amin Salam says "It is very clear if we decide, or if Hezbollah decides, or the whole country decides to take a big risk and gamble more in this war, we will be paying a very, very, very big price that will take Lebanon to a very difficult place, and it will take many, many years to get back from that place". So, errm, why not decide not to take that risk? Why not decide not to fight? The answer, of course, is that he is unable to say "oh shit we have no control of Hezbollah we wish they'd all fuck off but if I say that they'll kill me".

3. Holy Shiite Batman: the Graun actually quotes someone saying "Get the official Lebanese army on the ground on the Israel Lebanon border – not Hezbollah not Iran – get state authority back into the south Lebanon border." Admittedly, buried in other ideas and obvs the Graun doesn't take this up, but even a brief interlude of sanity is welcome.

4, More [2024/09/26] shitty reporting from Politico; the bit they're missing is the obvious: Hezbollah refusing to accept a ceasefire (and no, the fuckwitted tying it to Gaza isn't sane).