Author Liam Hogan
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Methodism
THE IDEOLOGICAL BASIS TO the American tariffs, and to whatever else the hell they seem to be doing to their economy and society, has a long-standing history.
Posted | Author Liam Hogan
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Gronk
THE LIBERAL CANDIDATE FOR Whitlam in this Federal election believes that women should not serve in combat roles in the ADF. This is at the obvious level just evidence that the man is a gronk. His views about women are backward, creepy, juvenile, and most importantly, wrong. At a grander level though this man's views aren't about women at all but about manhood and masculinity, part of the Triumph of the Operator:
Posted | Author Liam Hogan
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Managers
THE LONG AWAITED AMERICAN tariffs are announced. They promise to be as catastrophic for the largest economy in the world, whose currency is the global reserve, as anyone had predicted. 'The Markets' as at the time of writing are responding, also, predictably, but as though they could not quite have believed that a politician who made repeated statements that he would do a thing, is on record over decades supporting a thing, once in a position to do the thing, would do the thing. Who'd have thought?
Posted | Author Liam Hogan
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What I'm reading: Intellectual synonyms, and warrior seppuku
Branko Milanovic: 'Do You Want To Be A Synonym?'
I read a part of a book (I definitely could not stomach the whole book) of another famous economist that could have been written in 2000: the same clichés, the same authors, the same discussions interspersed with, for good measure, a mention of Trump here and there. Nonsense on stilts in today’s world.
It makes you realize that intellectual influences are so crucially dependent on time.
Kiran Pfitzner: 'A Modest Proposal For Restoring the Warrior Ethos'
Pete Hegeseth has pledged to restore the warrior ethos to America’s military. The warrior ethos traditionally demands self-destruction as compensation for failure. The Japanese example is the most well-known, but it was also expected for honorable Romans to fall upon their own swords rather than suffer disgrace. If Hegseth wants to preserve his own honor and adhere to the warrior ethos, then there is a clear course of action open to him.
Posted | Author Liam Hogan
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Burger
AMERICA EXISTS AT MANY levels. It's a real nation of people with geographic territory and a federal State, it's the constantly self-referenced ideal of constitutional self-government, it's the religious-liberal experiment of shining lighthood and the city on the hill, it's a historical tradition of progress and of dynamism. It also exists of course as a culinary-industrial tradition admired and imitated around the world, for example by Khrushchev, who ate a hot dog and declared it 'good, but not enough'.
Posted | Author Liam Hogan
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What I'm reading: China
Long Ling, 'Diary: In the new Beijing'. London Review of Books Vol. 47 No. 6 · 3 April 2025
For the purposes of data monitoring, the city is divided into sections, called ‘grids’. Grid workers, employed at the lowest level of the civil service system, are required to know the households in the grids under their jurisdiction: they need to know which apartments have elderly people, which have tenants, which have pregnant women, which have family members overseas, which are in the middle of lawsuits, which have bad relationships between mother and daughter-in-law, which have frequent quarrels, which are rich, which are poor. Even an elderly woman who doesn’t know how to use a smartphone and doesn’t watch TV is constantly feeding data into this network by turning lights on and off, using the toilet or turning on the stove. ‘With this eye of wisdom,’ Li gestured to the building around us, ‘everyone will be looked after.’
Howard W. French: 'Toffler in China'. New York Review of Books, 10 April 2025
How competent or thorough these emerging online means for surveillance and political control will prove to be is still an open question. What is certain is that the enlistment of citizens in the policing of the population has venerable roots in China, dating at least as far back as the Mao period. At that time even family members were notoriously encouraged to inform on one another, and neighborhoods had their own resident inspection committees that reported on every aspect of people’s behavior, including whether or not women were missing their menstrual periods, a possible sign of evasion of strict birth control measures.
The ambition of the current efforts, though, is beyond doubt. The embattled lawyers in Total Trust lay out its scope. “The system uses big data and human surveillance. It divides every community into grids and assigns an officer to each one,” one says. “Each grid officer is in charge of about four hundred households, or one thousand residents,” explains an officer. Equally clear is that the system under construction is not placing all its bets on technology.
Posted | Author Liam Hogan
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Salsipão
A BEER AND A pie at the football was once the Australian norm and tradition, with sausage sizzle as the alternative and substitute for local matches. But now we, in both respect to multiculturalism and market service to gentrified crowds, do better. I went to see Sydney FC defeat Jeonbuk FC in the Asian Champions League (2) at Moore Park Stadium, and ate salsipão with my craft beer on tap. My goodness what a world of glorious sport we live in. True to my dinner, Diego Costa scored.
- Chorizo, barbecued and chopped up
- Chimichurri
- Cherry tomatoes
- Fried onion
Posted | Author Liam Hogan
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Theme
THE BLOG HAS A default theme for now, by popular demand.
Posted | Author Liam Hogan
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What I'm reading: the bazaar is open for business
Jacob Weisberg, The Lucky One (NY Review of Books)
On screen and facing the public, he was a conviction politician. But behind the scenes—as with the arms for hostages trading—the bazaar was open for business.
Ronald Reagan has been a central figure in my reading lately. Rick Perlstein's Reaganland, and the above review of Max Boot's biography, which I think I'll get to soon. Reagan seems to be a central figure also in our current affairs; a world-historical reactionary with a sunny show on his face of American virtue---in which he fully believed---covering over a core of pragmatic transactionism. Reagan's America is the one that endures into the post-Cold War: sunny in speech, dirty in acts, religious and sordid, a dynamic culture in a gerontocratic and ossified political system.
Like everyone else I have been shocked at the United States' rush under its current President to withdraw from its commitments and alliances. Call it a pair to the moral shock of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a moment of sheer clarity, about what the world is and what Australia's part in it is (very little). I don't think we're ever going to see those submarines, no matter what promises are on paper. But the shock is I think less at the unexpectedness than from, in the philosopher's phrase, being at last compelled to face, in sober senses, the real conditions of American realism and transactionalism in the way it treats other countries and its friends.
Reagan's habit of telling stories about American exceptional virtue was based on genuine belief. His practice of acting according to interests, rather than values, was what made him significant. This present moment was always there and the shock of American cynicism is just our own recognition---we knew all along.
Posted | Author Liam Hogan
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Chilli
A HAPPIER BLOG ENTRY with no unpleasant surprises, nor native animals. This is simply the chilli recipe. You will need to light a camp fire. Begin at 3pm to 4pm: this is a key element to the process. First, let the fire get hot, then cool down a bit so it's plenty of coals and a little bit of flame, not too much. Warm up your camp oven or cookpot.
Posted | Author Liam Hogan