Leave It Out

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A weird, somewhat amorphous day today in the aftermath of last night's torrential tempest, which resulted in the discovery of a hitherto unknown point of ingress of rain into our dining room. I've worked out its origin, but the cure might turn out to be more painful [money-wise] than the problem itself. We'll see. I went over to The Bull Inn, Biwmaris, for a couple of pints of Bass [excellent - tip-top condition and served appropriately flat] and a bowl of chips [indifferent]. I spent a pleasant couple of hours over the papers and the beer, sat on a very comfortable sofa by myself, just people watching; a habit of a lifetime that began back in the early 1970s in The Bull Inn, Moseley, in Birmingham, after I had dropped out of school.

One article that piqued my interest in this weekend's FT was by Quinn Slobodian, entitled "Libertarian eugenics is on the rise", which sums up the general tenor of the piece, that the Malthusian mentality of the elites is still alive and kicking and just as nasty and pointless as ever. Editing foetuses to produce a 'better' human being is apparently now a [commercial] thing. God help us on so many levels. Yes, we make choices in the partners we choose to reproduce ourselves with, but extrapolating that simple life-and-genetic choice into the socio-political realm of the manipulation of populations is a bridge too far and one already crossed by truly evil people in the all-too-recent past. If the über-wealthy see the future in terms of a race of Übermenschen, then they really are as bonkers as they seem at first sight, and they are welcome to the nightmare world they would create as a result: just beware the fucking pitchforks, guys. On a lighter note, Wales came back, a man down, in the second half to beat a very good Japan in today's rugby international; not so much übermenschen as just plain determined...

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