Commentary
One of life’s paradoxes is how you can improve something until it’s ruined. From Henry VIII’s flagship Mary Rose, rebuilt to such a peak of Renaissance naval architecture and weaponry that on firing a massive broadside she capsized, to artificial flavour in artificial food to AI writing and reading your emails for you, we find ways to progress onwards and upwards to ruin. Including the latest in political rhetoric.
For my sins, evidently egregious, I’m condemned to read endless politician bumf so cunning at saying nothing that might annoy the public that it enrages the public. Like a headline, “Defence spending being reviewed ’top to bottom’ ahead of NATO summit, [Defence Minister] McGuinty says.” Which sure sounds good, right? A thorough and fearless process driven by frank recognition that our critical underfunding of defence threatens our security and infuriates the United States….