We think that of all morons in positions of power, because it’s difficult to fathom how they got there otherwise. Despite all the proof to the contrary, we continue to think meritocracy is a thing. The prosperity gospel is one of the more overt expressions of that belief: if you’re rich, it’s obviously because you’re just the best, smartest little cookie and you deserve it all. What other reasons could there possibly be?

The inability to use words to say stupid shit does confer a certain air of wisdom, however.

Someone who goes to casinos would come to the same conclusion, thinking that the surgeon is ‘running hot’.

“alleged ‘oppression’ of Palestinians” is a pretty good line too.

I wouldn’t say it’s surprisingly easy. It’s possible, but it comes with substantial costs. Paris is throwing a ton of money at some of the solutions you’ve mentioned and the results are meager at best. Hopefully they’ll improve as time goes on.

Give it a few years and a few more heat waves, all the people living in old buildings which are too expensive to insulate will be getting ac. There’s no getting around the basic need for fresh air, no matter old habits and environmental costs. I’m sticking to ice packs and cold showers for now, don’t know for how much longer though.

As far as Paris is concerned, we’re actually extremely ill-prepared for high heats. Parisians have the highest risk of heat-related death in Europe. Hardware stores are packed with AC units every summer now because people are forced to start using them. Luckily we’ve had terrible weather so far this summer, fingers crossed it stays that way.

To be fair the supposed point of the snap elections is to make the far right seem impotent by forcing them into a divided government (which is already a terrifying “strategy”: just give them the keys to the building and hope for the best?) They’re just refusing to play that game. The fact that the president is playing around with the country’s future like this is a fucking unconscionable disgrace.

Thankfully they only last 10 minutes

I study linguistics and a lot of different languages, and what you said made me think of how the difficulty in learning a second language depends on how different it is to our native tongue, or how accents within our own language are difficult to understand depending on how different and unfamiliar they are to us. Yet people tend to insist that certain languages are ‘simply’ hard, and insist that unfamiliar grammar or pronunciation ‘make no sense’, no matter how many millions of people use them naturally since childhood. I think it’s very difficult to imagine things which are instinctive to us being anything other than immanent truths about the universe, and anything contradicting those instincts feels wrong. What is familiar feels simple and obvious, difference feels complicated and somehow malicious; it’s ‘unnatural’. What is natural is ourself, everything else is crazy.

I’m pretty confidently in the ‘oh well, I’m done’ camp. Where’s my poem 😫

In France there are plenty of people who ask for Dafalgan or neurofen but have no idea what paracetamol or ibuprofen are.

Hey, you leave them and their strawwomen alone!

I think the blade runner sequel had something like this too.

Not if they believe it won’t affect them, and if they can turn their power into connections with rich people willing to part with their wealth in exchange for the promise their civilisational-risk-increasing industries can press on unabated.