Utopia, you are standing in it!

The Anglo-American alliance was dominated in 1943 by negotiations over the military strategy to pursue in the European theatre and by the basis for the reinstatement of British access to the secrets of the development of the atomic bomb from which they had been previously excluded. Against the backdrop of growing American power and preponderance in the alliance, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt, along with their respective colleagues and subordinates, held a blizzard of meetings, conferences, and trans-Atlantic telephone calls supplemented by a stream of cables and dispatch of various emissaries to Washington and London. Churchill and the British argued in favor of the Mediterranean strategy and reliance on the strategic bombing of Germany, while the Americans supported a cross-channel invasion of the continent in 1944.

Philip Padgett links British support for the Overlord landings with the return to shared development of the Atomic Bomb in his…

As you surely know if you’re a Democrat, the party is fracturing along progressive/moderate lines, with the “progressives” comprising four newly-elected but vociferous members of the Justice Democrats (JDs): Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York, Ilhan Omar from Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib from Michigan and Ayanna Pressley from Massachusetts. Their stance to the left of “mainstream” Democrats has clearly influenced the Presidential candidates from that party, who, in their two debates, seem to compete to see who could be the most “woke”. (Of course, it’s common for a Democrat to campaign left but then, when nominated for the candidate, head more toward the center.)

The three articles below, from the Washington Post (first article) and New York Times (other two), recount the fractious relationship between these four and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. (The Post article is behind a paywall, but is derived largely from Maureen Dowd’s piece in the NYT):

I…

After Jane was proclaimed Queen she refused to name her husband Dudley as king, because that would require an Act of Parliament. She would agree only to make him Duke of Clarence. This was all to the chagrin of her father-in-law, the Duke of Northumberlan, who desired to be the power behind the throne.

The Duke of Northumberland faced a number of key tasks to consolidate his power after Edward VI’s death. Most importantly, he had to isolate and, ideally, capture Mary Tudor, the rightful heir, to prevent her from gathering support. As soon as Mary was sure of King Edward’s demise, she left her residence at Hunsdon and set out to East Anglia, where she began to rally her supporters. Northumberland set out from London with troops on July 14 with the intent to capture Mary. The Privy Council switched their allegiance and proclaimed Mary queen in London, on…

As Israel’s do-over election approaches and political alliances form and reshape, parties on both the right and the left have some big decisions to make. With Ehud Barak’s formal reentry to politics, Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennett’s decisions whether to try their luck again or sit this cycle out, new party chiefs for Labor and Meretz, and the Arab parties’ efforts to reconstitute the electorally successful but politically fractious Joint List, there are lots of machinations taking place. Here are two of the biggest ones to look out for in the slightly more than two months that remain until Israelis vote on September 17.

Where does Barak fit in on the left?

Ehud Barak made a temporary splash with his return to Israeli politics through a new vehicle that he has named the Israel Democratic Party, rather than attempting to rejoin Labor or link up with his fellow former chiefs…

Several times this week I’ve seen people of low character go after Steve Pinker because of his supposed association with accused sexual predator and child-sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. (Note: my own view is that there’s overwhelming evidence that Epstein is guilty and, after a fair trial, deserves to go to jail for decades.)

But that’s not enough. I see articles where, on no evidence at all, scientists and atheists are tarred because they either knew Epstein or associated with him. This innuendo is meant to imply that those people knew about Epstein’s crimes and either ignored them or, perhaps, even participated in them. In other words, they’re complicit. I could reproduce several examples, but I suspect readers have already seen them, and I’m not going to highlight and send traffic to miscreants involved in slander or character assassination.

But this kind of stuff disturbed me so much—since Pinker is a…

On this date in History: February 13, 1542 Execution of Catherine Howard, 5th wife of King Henry VIII of England and Ireland.

Catherine Howard (c. 1523 – February 13, 1542) was Queen of England from 1540 until 1541, as the fifth wife of Henry VIII. She (then 16 or 17) married him (then 49) on July 28, 1540, at Oatlands Palace, in Surrey, almost immediately after the annulment of his marriage to Anne of Cleves was arranged.

Catherine’s uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, found her a place at Court in the household of the King’s fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. As a young and attractive lady-in-waiting, Catherine quickly caught Henry’s eye. The King had displayed little interest in Anne from the beginning, but on Cromwell’s failure to find a new match for Henry, Norfolk saw an opportunity. The Howards may have sought to recreate the influence gained during Queen Anne’s reign…