‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ singer Bonnie Tyler, 75, wakes up from coma after suffering cardiac arrest a month ago trib.al/MxHefCx

Happy 80 birthday to Slade guitarist and vocalist Noddy Holder!

RT @NeilMegas: יאמר לזכותו של טראמפ שהוא באמת אמר שלא יקבל שום הסכם מלבד כניעה מלאה, הוא פשוט לא ציין של מי

Very sad. Labour through and through, a fine mind and gifted writer, a loyal and hard working deputy to Neil at a vital time in Labour history, and a critical friend to New Labour. Sheffield Wednesday to the very end! RIP Roy

BREAKING: Israel won't withdraw from land seized in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza, its defense minister says, hours after an interim Iran-U.S. deal was announced. Israel Katz's remarks are the first official Israeli comments since the announcement. apnews.com/article/iran-us-w…

Labour’s $18b budget hole vs National’s $56b budget hole (a plague on all your holes) Here is the truth. Labour is good for capitalism. National is good for Capitalists. #nzpol LINK BELOW ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Hatė when people at work ask you what books you are reading for professional development. I am reading books to counteract the effects of being professionally developed. I am reading books that bring me back to being human. Thank you

Struggling to see how this gem is any sort of improvement.More Thatcher than Attlee.

I don't think anybody really grasps how desperate this situation is. University professors are now saying they are unable to teach history because reading long books and passages is how a person learns history. College kids are incapable of reading more than a few pages. Some classes don't assign any reading at all now, only lectures. There is an assumption among the people managing this decline that reading is just a way of receiving information. It isn't. Proper reading is how we build the mental muscle to synthesize ideas and evaluate them. If the catastrophic decline in reading and literacy is not addressed now, we risk losing everything. Western civilization cannot survive the death of reading because it was built by people with the kind of cognitive depth that a culture of deep reading brings: Complex reasoning, extended internal dialogue, the capacity to hold opposing ideas in tension. Our systems and institutions are complex, and they require well ordered minds to maintain them. Reading forms minds, and the West was built by the richest minds in history.

Bob Dylan in the NYT today, in a piece where artists in their 80s were asked to describe the best and worst parts of being that age, and whether they had advice for the president on his reaching the milestone. (Dylan apparently passed on the final question, not surprisingly.)

Fata Morgana seen in Kaikoura yesterday morning. A Fata Morgana is a rare, complex type of superior mirage that distorts distant objects, making them appear to hover in the air, stretch vertically, or resemble hovering "fairy castles" or ghost ships.

This is the UNESCO World Heritage site i Kyiv that Russia has bombed tonight. Founded in 1051. A craddle of Eastern Christianity and one of the most important cultural sites in all of Eastern Europe. Right now the cathedral is burning because Russia has no moral, no values.

A US-Iran deal won't change the reality of this war, which is that a small nation of 90 million people rocked the global economy and now forever holds that card, became a new hegemon of ME and ended 47 years of obscurity to gain a seat on the world stage.

How come if my business puts up a proposal it's just that until signed but Trump's surrender package is treated like a done deal?

"Matthew Hooton". I do like a good consternation.

Yes.That's it.I'm two cats short of literary genius.

Finally, well done Craig MacCulloch on RNZ for pointing out that National only released its full fiscal plan... two weeks ... before the 2023 election.

In the last few weeks I've been talking to clients on the economic outlook in the face of the Iran conflict. I asked them what actions they had been taking - the results are below. Most were keeping a watching brief and reviewing pricing as opposed to laying off staff. Now the Iran conflict seems to be brightening a bit then perhaps we can look forward to people getting back to business sooner rather than later.

ATTENTION: THERE IS NO 'DEAL' TO BE SIGNED. Regarding Iran, on the table now is a mere Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) - not a final accord or treaty. Rather, it's only an acknowledgement of a future process to take place over the next 18 months. The real problem: the word "Deal" used in a diplomatic context is an invention of the Trump regime, it's intententionally devoid of diplomatic context or historical precedent. The Media need to really be slapped for continuing to use this silly & deceptive term. REALITY: Iran's & Trump's competing MOU terms are a literal minefield stretching into the future, that's to say nothing about Israel's numerous announcements about how they will sabotage any ceasefire (which they already have in Lebanon as we speak). The reason Trump keeps using "Deal" is because he is incapable of conducting any real negotiations or accepting any Iranian terms (Iran is the obvious winner & normally winner issues terms with loser, not 'even negotiation' as the clueless sophmoric VP JD Vance said yesterday 🤦), and is disingenuously trying to separate Israel from the wider equation - when we all know it is Israel who initiated this war to begin with. Trump's framing of these endless ephemeral "Deals" is by design - to fool the public and guarantee that any meaningful negotiations fail - which is why he has a string of perennial failures: unwilling/unable to resolve Russia-Ukraine, Gaza, and now Iran. In fact, he's made all of them worse at every stage. A total failure on every level. Trump is one of history's losers. Nothing can change that now because as the world can now see, he's too incompetent, as are the many idiot savants & grifters around him masquerading as a Cabinet.