Recent articles
1. I knew things were bad in Russia, but I had no idea just how bad. The Economist has an excellent article in fascism in Russia. The following is just a very small excerpt:
In the 1930s Walter Benjamin, an exiled German cultural critic, analysed fascism as a performance. “The logical result of fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life,” he wrote. These aesthetics were designed to supplant reason and their ultimate expression was war.
Today the two faces of the war on television, Vladimir Solovyov and Olga Skabeeva, are caricatures of Nazi propagandists. Mr Solovyov is often dressed in a black double-breasted Bavarian-style jacket. Ms Skabeeva, severe and chiselled, has a hint of the dominatrix. They project hatred and aggression. They and their guests decry the West for having declared war on Russia and plead theatrically with Mr Putin to reduce it to ashes by unleashing the full might of Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
This fantasy Armageddon is matched by real violence, the basis of the relationship between the Russian state and its people. A Levada poll commissioned by Committee Against Torture (now itself blacklisted) showed that 10% of the Russian population has experienced torture by law-enforcement agencies at some point. There is a culture of cruelty. Domestic abuse is no longer a crime in Russia. In the first week of the war young women protesters were humiliated and sexually abused in police cells. Nearly 30% of Russians say torture should be allowed.
Atrocities committed by the Russian army in Bucha and other occupied cities are not just excesses of war or a breakdown in discipline, but a feature of army life that is spread more widely by veterans.
Read the whole thing, it’s incredibly depressing. (We should be doing much more to help Ukraine.)
Conservatives like to dump on Sweden. And Sweden is indeed a bit too socialist. But there are far worse things than Sweden.
2. This is good news:
Now, Colombia is calling for an end to that war. It wants instead to lead a global experiment: decriminalizing cocaine. . . .
Domestically, Petro’s administration is planning to back legislation to decriminalize cocaine and marijuana. It plans to put an end to aerial spraying and the manual eradication of coca, which critics say unfairly targets poor rural farmers. By regulating the sale of cocaine, Tascón argued, the government would wrest the market from armed groups and cartels.
“Drug traffickers know that their business depends on it being prohibited,” Tascón said. “If you regulate it like a public market … the high profits disappear and the drug trafficking disappears.”
Of course the US government is opposed:
“The United States and the Biden administration is not a supporter of decriminalization,” said Jonathan Finer, the White House deputy national security adviser, who met with Petro here before his inauguration.
3. This is bad news, but not unexpected:
China’s ambitious students and their parents once dreamed of acquiring an American university education. Now that dream is dying.
During the first half of 2022, US student visas issued to Chinese nationals plummeted more than 50% compared with pre-pandemic levels, according to a Thursday report in the Wall Street Journal. The US isn’t directly limiting the number of visas. Rather, China’s Covid restrictions, combined with the increasingly unfavorable opinion of the US held by younger people, are giving the Chinese second thoughts about a US education. . . .
Chinese with experience living and traveling in the US generally have a better opinion of the country than those who don’t. As their numbers decline, the US and China alike lose a crucial means of bridging the bitter relationship between rival superpowers.
We launch a cold war against China, and then wonder why they don’t like us.
The best way to compete against China is to allow tens of millions of their best educated to move here.
4. This article on housing in Amsterdam and London is almost like parody of wokism from The Onion. Progressivism pushed to the point of absurdity:
Although Europe is making far more headway reducing greenhouse gas emissions than the United States, we can’t follow their lead in how they got there. From what I observed, people of color, immigrants, and low-income people are not prioritized in decision making in these two cities. Climate, impeccable design, and engineering are.
These cities have built exceptional infrastructure for the dominant culture, and that is much of what American tourists experience on their visits.
Throughout the study tour, we heard phrases like “I don’t see color”, and “we are taking care of those people so their voices aren’t needed at the table”. These “color-blind” approaches continue to leave people out and are not going to address the stark racial inequities in our society.
5. This caught my eye:

I dunno. Those social psychology studies never seem to replicate.