This is the exactly kind of thing I joined Twitter to be informed of.  Pinker, it seems, is a Real Photographer, or at least Real enough for me not to know the difference.  I’m sure that The World has known about Pinker’s photoing for as long as he has been doing it, but The World did not include me, until a few days ago.

Also rather Real Photographer is that if you left-click on any of the photos here, you get a little dark rectangle with little blue writing in it saying this:

These photos are copyrighted by their respective owners. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use prohibited.

So I hope that the small and cropped repro that I have included here, of one of the more eye-catching of these photos, of something called a frigatebird, will not incur the ire of Pinker Inc., or whatever it is that might be irate.  If Pinker Inc. does demand the removal of even this little photo, that will happen straight away.

But if it does, no matter.  Follow the above links and feast your eyes and your mind on the weird and wonderful creatures of the Galapagos Islands.

Incoming from Michael Jennings:

Truly, that’s a glorious headline.

Indeed it is:

Enrique Iglesias sliced his fingers on a drone during a concert

The drone was not hostile.  It was part of the show, as was Iglesias attempting to handle it.  It was just that it all went rather wrong:

“During the show a drone is used to get crowd shots and some nights Enrique grabs the drone to give the audience a point of view shot,” the statement read. “Something went wrong and he had an accident. He decided to go on and continued playing for 30 minutes while the bleeding continued throughout the show.”

Iglesias was semi-treated immediately after the accident.

Definitely a future trivia question in a pop quiz.  But the worst that could have resulted from this would have been a couple of missing Iglesian fingers.  This ("NY-bound plane nearly collides with drone, FAA says") could have ended far more grimly.

There will be many, many more drone dramas.  They are colossally useful, and accidents buzzing around begging to happen. 

Another day another Dezeen posting, about some modernistical architecture, surrounded by The Wires:

But this time around, guess what.  Do I believe my eyes.  I must.  For what they are telling me is that, in among this posting’s accommpanying verbiage, is to be found … this:

The gridded monochrome glass facade that wraps around the upper levels was conceived as a contrast to the “chaotic” urban area and criss-crossing electrical wires that surround the site, and features one raised corner covered in dark-tinted glass.

Yes, those “criss-crossing electrical wires” are acknowledged to exist.  Amazing.

The Wires are mentioned, because the architects themselves mention them:

“The area where the building is set is highly chaotic in terms of architectural typologies, textures and colours, so it was therefore chosen to generate a building that would constitute itself as the order within the neighbourhood’s chaos,” explained the architects.

This is architect speak for:

We are going to build the exact same modernistical erection that we would have built had The Wires not been there.  Screw The Wires!  Yes, The Wires are there.  But we will build as if The Wires were not there.  The Wires have no power over us!  The Wires, we spit on you with our modernism!

That’s the spirit.  Unless it isn’t, and they actually only noticed The Wires after they had built the thing.

The point is, whether they see The Wires or they ignore The Wires, The Wires make no difference!

Lexington Green, here:

What if … ?

What would a history of the British Empire look like if it did not use the “rise and fall” metaphor?

What would that history look like if it examined not just the political framework or just the superficial gilt and glitter, or just the cruelty and crimes, but the deeper and more enduring substance?

What if someone wrote a history of the impact of the English speaking people and their institutions (political, financial, professional, commercial, military, technical, scientific, cultural), and the infinitely complex web of interconnections between them, as a continuous and unbroken story, with a past a present … and a future?

In other words, what if we were to read a history that did not see a rising British Empire followed by a falling Empire, then a rising American Empire which displaced it, but an organism which has taken on many forms over many centuries, and on many continents, but is nonetheless a single life?

What if we assume that the British Empire was not something that ended, but that the Anglosphere, of which the Empire was one expression, is something that has never stopped growing and evolving, and taking on new institutional forms?

What if it looked at the unremitting advance, the pitiless onslaught, universal insinuation, of the English speakers on the rest of the world, seizing big chunks of it (North America, Australia), sloshing up into many parts of it and receding again (India, Nigeria, Malaya), carving permanent marks in the cultural landscape they left behind, all the while getting wealthier and more powerful and pushing the frontiers of science and technology and all the other forms of material progress?

What if jet travel and the Internet have at last conquered the tyranny of distance which the Empire Federationists of a century ago dreamed that steam and telegraph cables would conquer? What if they were just a century too early?

What if linguistic and cultural commonalities are more important than mere geographical location in creating political unity in this newly shrunken world?

I recall musing along the same kind of lines myself, a while back.

The important thing is, this mustn’t be advertised first as a plan.  If that happens, then all the people who are against the Anglosphere, and who prefer places like Spain and Venezuela and Cuba and Hell, will use their ownership of the Mainstream Media to Put A Stop to the plan.  What needs to happen is for us to just do it, and then after about two decades of us having just done it, they’ll realise that it is a fate (as the Hellists will describe it) accompli.

Because, guess what, we probably are already doing it.

The other day, and as always with other days it does not matter which other day, I was walking across a road junction on a green pedestrian light, and then nearly got driven into by a cyclist who was ignoring red lights, who then shouted at me for not getting out of his way.

All of which made we want to show you this:

Drunk drivers.  They do what you only want to do.

I’ve just been reminded of another reason why I support Israel, at Counting Cats.  Fidel Castro doesn’t, surprise surprise

The former communist leader published an article in local press in which he said, “The State of Israel’s hatred towards the Palestinians is such that it would not hesitate to send 1.5 million men, women and children to the crematoriums in which millions of Jews of all ages were killed.”

It really is time this lying, tyrannical old bastard died, isn’t it?  Sadly, it looks like being of natural causes and at a very advanced age.

I have long believed that if the only thing you know about something is that the Communists dislike it, then that is a seriously good reason for liking it.  And yes, that is yet another link back to me.  See below.

Antoine talked about the very real possibility of this a month ago:

It sounds like a suitably madcap finale to a zany political season: the “winner-takes-all” Puerto Rican primary. A small Caribbean island ends up annointing the Democratic candidate for president by virtue of its 63-delegate bloc, even though Puerto Ricans don’t get to vote in the general election.

Via this, and this.

A lot of people seem to have been making noises like this lately:

… [T]he celebrations of Fidel Castro´s social achievements usually ignore that Cuba was highly developed before communism. Before 1959 Cuba had more doctors per capita than Britain, lower infant mortality than France and West Germany, more cars per capita than the Japanese and more television sets than West Europeans.

Did they all get it from Johan Norberg?  Or is he merely passing on what he too has recently been hearing?  Norberg supplies this link for those who want to know more.  Me, I’m already convinced that Communism was silly.