The Brexit crisis is more about the UK and less about Europe

The veteran Irish journalist Fintan O’Toole argues that the Brexit mess is less about Europe and more a reflection of internal problems within the UK, and that Brexit is a symptom of its ills rather than a cause. And the main issue is that its current four-nation composition cannot function within its present structure.

Yet in Theresa May’s humiliation on Tuesday, there were prizes for almost everybody else: a glimpse of opportunity for her rivals in cabinet; a revival of their sadomasochistic no-deal fantasies for the zealots; the hope of a second referendum for remainers; proof of the near-collapse of the Westminster order for nationalists; the hope of a general election for Jeremy Corbyn. But in truth nobody has won anything – it is a losing game all round.
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Even if May were a political genius – and let us concede that she is not – Brexit was always going to come down to a choice between two evils: the heroic but catastrophic failure of crashing out; or the unheroic but less damaging failure of swapping first-class for second-class EU membership. These are the real afterlives of a departed reverie.
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The visible collapse of the Westminster polity this week may be a result of Brexit, but Brexit itself is the result of the invisible subsidence of the political order over recent decades.
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Wittgenstein’s ‘defense’ of religion

I really enjoyed philosopher Stephen Law’s 2011 book Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole where he takes apart many common beliefs, including religious ones, and provides tips about how to deal with the slipperiness of the many arguments put forward by believers. (I wrote three blog posts about it that you can read here.) I can highly recommend the book to those who find themselves constantly drawn into interminable discussions of religion with friends and family.
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How straight can you shoot an arrow?

The flight of an arrow is often used as a metaphor for going straight. Xeni Jardin says that Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame has a new show called Mythbusters, Jr. where he teams up with young people to see how straight an arrow flies. He recruits an expert archer Byron Ferguson who can shoot an apple thrown in the air. Pretty amazing.


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Louis C. K. has decided to embrace his inner jerk

None of us are wholly good or wholly bad. We all have our good and bad sides. If we are lucky, we are self-aware enough to know that we have bad sides and work to suppress it. But sometimes it escapes our control and reveals itself to others and we receive criticism. What happens next is the decisive thing. We can acknowledge that we did something wrong, apologize, make amends as much as possible, and vow to try and keep our bad side under greater control. Or we can decide that the revelation of our bad side means that we can give ourselves over completely to it and even revel in it.

It seems like Louis C. K. has decided on the second option. After receiving criticism for the things he said in an earlier return to stand up last month, Stacey Solie reports that he seems to have doubled down, to show that this is who he really wants to be.

So be it.

Light blogging due to travel

I am going to visit my daughter and son-in-law and so blogging will be light for the next few days. I left for the airport particularly early because I had heard reports of long lines at security checkpoints around the nation but at the Cleveland airport there was no line at all, though the TSA person said there had been a line earlier. All the security people were friendly but that is the usual case in Cleveland.

Learning from the pros

Members of the Democratic party have realized that there is a lot they can learn from the millennials in their ranks.

The House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee is hosting a session Thursday morning with Ocasio-Cortez of New York (@AOC – 2.42 million followers) and Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut (@jahimes – 76,500 followers) “on the most effective ways to engage constituents on Twitter and the importance of digital storytelling.”
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“The older generation of members and senators is pretty clueless on the social media platforms. It’s pretty clear that a lot of members have 25-year-olds in their offices,” running their social media, Himes said.

“For younger members, they think of social media as every bit of an established form of communication as print or television or radio,” said Josh Hawley, who, at 39, is the youngest U.S. senator.
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Taking the fight to Republicans

Matthew Chapman writes about the weird right wing obsession with Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and how their attempts to discredit her (such as posting a fake photo supposedly of her in a bathtub) are really pathetic and backfiring badly, as she knows how to respond aggressively and they are only serving to increase her profile, way beyond that of any new member of Congress. I think they are so used to Democrats trying to defend and explain themselves from attacks that they are not used to some who responds by gleefully mocking them.
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Nancy Pelosi knows Trump’s weaknesses

Nancy Pelosi has written to Donald Trump saying that it would be best to postpone his State of the Union address to the joint session of Congress, scheduled for January 29, until after the government shutdown ends or that he could give it in writing as presidents once used to do. She is effectively withdrawing the invitation for him to speak and since the Speaker is the one who controls the event, she has the right to do so. Trump is realizing that no longer having his obedient puppy Paul Ryan as Speaker has real consequences.
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