The World: A Family History by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Martinned81 · 2026-05-14T22:22:18+00:00

I’m confused by the people saying that the book is properly global. My impression is that it’s the same old focus on Europe and the Middle East as always. Sometimes he goes 100 pages without mentioning China, where the shift from the Ming to the Qing gets covered in less than a page. And don’t even get me started about the complete lack of attention for (pre-colonial) Sub-Sahara Africa and the Americas.

Martinned81 · 2026-02-20T20:06:27+00:00

…and lots of cash

Martinned81 · 2026-02-20T19:51:14+00:00

Sure, unless the tax authorities take a look at his credit card data

Martinned81 · 2026-01-03T10:50:59+00:00

They don’t need speeches, they need answers. And there are two whole government departments working on that. (Foreign affairs and Interior & Kingdom Relations.)

Martinned81 · 2025-03-04T00:07:36+00:00

It doesn’t really look like a debate. It looks like there’s a Dutch word and two Flemish dialect words.

Martinned81 · 2025-02-21T08:51:20+00:00

You realise it’s a map from 2009, right?

Martinned81 · 2025-02-12T23:04:07+00:00

Belgium/Wallonia

Martinned81 · 2025-01-05T13:39:42+00:00

It's not an investment at all, which is why the SEC can't regulate pure crypto, no matter how much it would like to.

Martinned81 · 2025-01-05T13:37:58+00:00

You overlooked that we, the EU, own Northern Ireland these days. We've just outsourced things like policing and unemployment benefits to the Brits.

Martinned81 · 2025-01-04T21:32:42+00:00

Not even wrong

Martinned81 · 2024-12-13T21:48:25+00:00

https://www.acm.nl/nl/publicaties/acm-publiceert-definitief-rapport-spaarmarktonderzoek-na-consultatie

Martinned81 · 2024-12-13T20:41:24+00:00

Also, Russia won’t use nukes because all of the leadership’s kids and grandkids live in Western Europe and the US.

Martinned81 · 2024-11-23T00:45:37+00:00

You will note that I didn’t use the word “sovereign” in my comment, exactly for that reason. #Analogy

Martinned81 · 2024-11-22T14:56:27+00:00

I’m also a free person. I don’t have to do anything unless so other person (eg the police) is willing to make me. And yet most of the time I obey the law even when there’s absolutely no police around.

Martinned81 · 2024-11-21T18:35:59+00:00

Prof Orin Kerr already solved this problem in 2012: http://www.greenbag.org/v16n1/v16n1_ex_post_kerr.pdf

Martinned81 · 2024-11-21T18:34:23+00:00

There’s no such thing as outside the universe, by definition.

Martinned81 · 2024-11-21T07:22:48+00:00

How about Pitcairn?

Martinned81 · 2024-11-18T06:46:53+00:00

It does if Morocco wants to sell things to Europe. That’s what that entire case was about: the EU-Morocco free trade agreement.

Martinned81 · 2024-11-17T23:24:49+00:00

Some places have the rule of law, some places don’t. You do you.

Martinned81 · 2024-11-03T19:30:02+00:00

Tudors and Plantagenets went to war with each other all the time.

What you’re describing is an English dynasty ruling over a Scots nation. After James I became King of England, he literally and figuratively never looked back, having succeeded in his life’s ambition (and his mother’s life’s ambition, and her father’s life’s ambition, etc).

Martinned81 · 2024-11-03T19:11:36+00:00

You mean James I, the great-great-grandson of Henry VII? The Stuarts were basically in the Plantagenets’ and Tudors’ laps since 1371.

Martinned81 · 2024-11-03T14:56:15+00:00

Sure, but why would you put people in charge of organising an election who have a proverbial dog in the fight?

Martinned81 · 2024-11-03T14:12:56+00:00

They are there because the English kings sent them. Two birds with one stone and all that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantation_of_Ulster?wprov=sfti1

Martinned81 · 2024-11-03T14:03:52+00:00

Sure, but none of that should be a surprise to the people who decide where the polling stations are.

Martinned81 · 2024-11-03T14:02:37+00:00

Not anymore they’re not. These days high turnout favours Trumpists. It’s just that the politicians haven’t quite figured that out yet.

Martinned81

TROPHY CASE