Forum
Please register! If you are registered, please log inagain !
[NB: your old dvd forums / digitalfix login will not work]
It has often been said that a desire for power should automatically preclude anyone having such a desire from achieving it.
Thus the problem is that you would exclude anyone who said they were prepared to stand, on the basis that that preparedness indicates at least some desire for power.
This leaves a pool of people who are not interested, and hence would probably not do a particularly good job.
Also, if we had true democracy, we might well have the death penalty, sinking of migrant boats mid channel, and a completely unbalanced budget, with no taxes and enormously increased public spending.
That is such a read!
Interesting article in The Atlantic today, from one of my fave commentators/podcasters, Helen Lewis ... I Watched Stand-Up in Saudi Arabia - What the surreal Riyadh Comedy Festival foretold about the kingdom’s future
Direct gift article below (or archived here).
Saudi Arabia has always seemed to me to be a frightening dystopia.
It now seems that it's a schizophrenic dystopia.
That's a fun read, but for some reason I have an irrational dislike for Bill Nighy, and inwardly groan whenever he appears onscreen.
Maybe he tries to hard, as I can sortof see his acting.
Chuckle-worthy ... Boris’s children - The subject he loves to forget
BoJo: “You try coming up with a system to give a fair exam result for people when they can’t sit exams!” He rolled his eyes, somewhere between Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men and a teenager explaining why the car in the ditch isn’t their fault: “It’s not easy, OK!”
Engaging 3k words ... What Happened When I Asked ChatGPT To Pretend To Be Conscious
https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/what-happened-when-i-asked-chatgpt
Interesting 7k words ...
The Goon Squad - Loneliness, porn’s next frontier, and the dream of endless masturbation
Compare the thirteen thousand films released by the professional porn industry in 2005 to the 4.6 million registered OnlyFans creators last year and you start to understand the bind today’s diligent porn addict finds himself in: there is simply too much to masturbate to.
https://harpers.org/archive/2025/11/the-goon-squad-daniel-kolitz-porn-masturbation-loneliness/
Every Single Movie That Jimmy Carter Watched at the White House
Ronald Reagan is known as the movie junkie president. He was, after all, an actor before getting into politics. But do you know who watched even more movies than Reagan while in office? Jimmy Carter. And Carter only served a single term.
After painstakingly going through the President’s daily journal, which outlined his tasks for each day, I’ve made a list of every movie Carter watched while in office from January 20, 1977 until January 20, 1981. And man, he really did watch a lot of films.
https://gizmodo.com/every-single-movie-that-jimmy-carter-watched-at-the-whi-1728538092
Bloomin' 'eck, this is a tough read. I actually looked away from the screen a couple of times, with a lump in my throat.
Can Anyone Rescue the Trafficked Girls of L.A.’s Figueroa Street? - Inside the effort to pull minors from ‘the Blade,’ one of the most notorious sex-trafficking corridors in the United States.
A 7k-word 'gifted' article from New York Times magazine.
Interesting parallels too with the UK grooming gangs (you'll understand when you read).
