Friday limerick contest:

Elect Your Poison

https://x.com/infolibnews/status/2037280701444194307

“Iceland’s national flag is fast being replaced by the “Progress flag” — on churches, schools, government buildings and police stations. And the fact that rainbows painted on road surfaces are commonplace, even in tiny villages with fewer than 200 residents, signals a quasi-religious reformation: the teachings of postmodernist theorists Michel Foucault and Judith Butler have supplanted those of Jesus Christ.

The headquarters of the bishop of Iceland is in a purpose-built building in Reykjavik’s centre. I cold-call, hoping to catch Gudrún Karls Helgudóttir, who has been outspoken in support of her own trans-identified child and her commitment to the LGBT community. The church once ran an advertisement campaign featuring a trans Jesus Christ, complete with breasts, on Reykjavik’s buses.“

https://archive.is/PDTVz

When will these Persian coves enter the twentieth century, turn up at the Versailles table and agree terms with Woodrow Wilson for the oil concession?

https://x.com/clashreport/status/2037625852070895694

The older I become the less I like Imagine.

"The Trumpian Age, as a grand saga, is becoming a tragedy and a cautionary morality play. It is the story of a supreme narcissist who came to believe that he could flout the laws of nature and physical constraints through sheer force of personality, like a wizard or an illusionist, conjuring memetic spells to hypnotise his legions of followers. Yet the nature of the bear trap negates any such rhetoric or bluster because it is tethering MAGA to a different form — a different, harder existence.

A fork in the road stands before the American Government. One road leads to a full retreat, defeat and flight from the chaos it created, leaving Israel to fend for itself and facing a rout from the Middle East and severe loss of prestige on the world stage. The almighty petrodollar would be brought into question, and therefore also America’s ability to accrue endless debt.

Alternatively, it is the road toward escalation, a full-blown invasion, and stacks of body bags in what would undoubtedly become a bloodbath that could fail anyway."

https://www.morgothsreview.com/p/series-finale

"It may seem that accuracy in reportage is too elementary and prosaic a skill to merit adult attention. But many adults have never learned it, because their teachers never taught or rewarded the virtue of carefulness. Consequently, we have journalists, politicians and decorated university professors who constantly misrepresent some people, thereby misleading many others."

— Nigel Biggar

https://scottishunionforeducation.substack.com/p/scottish-union-for-education-newsletter-8a0