what was that? i couldn’t hear you over my freedom

With deft irony, the US president-elect has selected not just another avowed climate-change denier to head the Department of Energy (the government bureau responsible for maintenance and integrity of the nation’s grid electrical grid, nuclear power plant security, surprisingly, the nuclear weapons arsenal and for enticing innovation in the sector by doling out grants for clean-energy initiatives), he selected the one early sparing-partner and opponent, former Texas governor Rick Perry.
Perry infamously pledged that he would dissolve the DoE along with two other departments if elected president—only he could not recall Energy on stage, just Education (selectee Betsy DeVos, Amway Queen and strong supporter of charter schools and voucher-programmes) and Commerce (selectee Wilbur Ross, collector of René Magritte’s works and specialist in buying out distressed businesses). It makes me think of that scene from The Simpsons Movie where Abraham starts speaking in tongues and writhing around in the church aisle, shrieking epa, epa, eeepa! The selectee for the Environmental Protection Agency is Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who has sued the agency numerous times for trying to curtail fracking operations and regulating bovine methane emissions (failing each time) but is more regarded for his stance against other social issues and general litigiousness. Of course, cabinet members serve at the pleasure of the president and usually are not long-lived and there’s a lengthy history of sine cure and mismatched postings but Perry’s immediate predecessors both hold doctorate degrees in physics.

non-state actors

I am indebted to the Happy Mutants at Boing Boing for bringing to our attention a matter of Brexit negotiations first proposed two weeks hence (I suppose none of us can be too hard on ourselves for missing the sensical compromises that present themselves every so often in this shrill and demanding newscape), seeing that we had completely overlooked the notion of ‘associate-citizenship’ that might be extended to UK citizens residing in the EU, so that they might be allowed to stay and afforded the same freedom of movement as enjoyed before.
Coming just as the British government announced a firm date to invoke Article 50, to tender its divorce-papers, this offer shows a tremendous amount of goodwill has been held in trust and whilst corporate entities might not expect nor deserve such kindnesses, it was hopeful to see that individuals might still be able to choose their affiliation with sovereignty independent of their representative governments. It is possible that the current regime might reject the proposal for its potential to undermine the will of the people it’s championing at the moment and the only recourse is paradoxically petitioning one’s local council that was either committed to leave or bremain in the first place. It also has me hopefully, personally, as a long term US expatriate, wondering if I might too be granted such an option, especially considering what by force I might be repatriated to.

i know the kings of england and can quote the fights historical from marathon to waterloo in order categorical

I was very sparing about listening to successive back episodes of the excellent podcast series The Rex Factor, hoping to prolong the experience of their review and rating of all the monarchs of England from Alfred the Great to Elizabeth II since I was a late-comer (my podcast play-list is filling up and it’s hard to find enough hours in the day—especially when something’s more than background noise) and knew that the hosts, Graham Duke and Ali Hood, had covered that material from 2010 to mid 2013. I was delighted to discover, however, that there were more series to follow with more players subject to the signature Rex Factor treatment, including the kings of the Scots, which I am enjoying now, and is on-going to capture some of the supporting actors and even a few fictional characters to see how they’ll fare against some of the real masterclass regents. Do yourself a favour and download a few episodes to get an idea of their well-researched but very accessible and attention-holding approach; I’m sure you’ll want to hear more.

tarnhelm, sorting hat

Entomologists working in south west India have found a new species of tiny spider whose camouflage—designed to disguise it as a dried leaf, to make it invisible like Siegfried’s helmet—and have dubbed it Eriovixia gryffindori after one of the academy’s founders Godric Griffindor.
In the Harry Potter series, Griffindor was renown for his preternatural knack for placing students in the fraternity or sorority house that would best help them thrive, and passed the gift along to his enchanted Sorting Hat to carry on with placement at Hogwart’s after he was gone. The discoverers have been so far silent on what magical properties this little spider might possess.

afturkalla

As the Reykjavík Grapevine informs, former Icelandic interior minister Ögmundur Jónasson granted a lengthy interview to EU think-tank Katoikos, with a warrant to speak for those sometimes feeling exiled in their own or adopted homes, in which he addresses his thought on the rise in nationalism, the financial crisis that ravaged the tiny island nation and—perhaps most sensationally, his standing up and eventual dismissal of the FBI.

There had been some discussion and rumours circulating around the 2011 incident, but Jónasson had not yet spoke about it candidly beforehand. After having been approached (and received in a cold manner, though the message did not seem to go through) in the early summer about touring the servers that were reputed to be hosting some of the data of the WikiLeaks platform. Despite the initial rebuffing reception, three months later, a whole planeload of agents came, with designs on framing the WikiLeaks founder. This act of defiance is certainly significant despite the fact that I wonder if Julian Assange has gone a little stir-crazy and am reminded nowadays of Harvey Dent’s line to Batman: “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Jónasson made it understood in no uncertain terms that the FBI had no jurisdiction here and should leave immediately, the minister far more willing to side with the whistle-blowers over the domestic intelligence agency. At this point in our story, Assange had already surrendered to UK authorities, having leaked his major caches of communiques throughout 2010 but had not yet secured asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London

do the bat-tusi

Sometime ago, I recall noting how all the gadgets and booby-traps from the classic Batman television series were all really conveniently and explicitly labelled. As pleased as I was to discover that the collection is still growing, going back to look at the original post from Dangerous Minds (at the first link), I was now finding myself more perplexed with the nature of such ‘captions.’
Was this running gag something for the benefit of the audience and expedience in the narrative only or was it some sort of meta reference? I could just as well imagine the Boy Wonder telling the Caped Crusader something blindingly obvious—eagerness made all the more supercilious by the labelling. I still suppose it is preferred over something machine-readable only like a bar-code or something with no expository value. Good old Alfred was probably behind of it, but one could also imagine that many a diabolical plot was foiled thanks to basic literacy. What do you think? The items from ACME mail-order catalogue that was always Wile E Coyote’s go-to resource also left no doubt what they were to do as well.