When world building, either think about your world–or have it built for you.

Has Star Wars (presumably unintentionally) abandoned its Arian/Gnostic ethos in favor of a more Christian one?

The most important part:

Ultimately, of course, all this is just silly speculation. After all, Star Wars is the work product of secular humanist Hollywood elites who doubtless would be horrified to think that they were telling a tale that can be interpreted as a Christian allegory.

As an aside, my wife and I rewatched Babylon 5, and the idea of a self-professed atheist writing fiction that is respectful of religion seems odd to us today–but it was done in spades for this show. For his writing on The Parliament of Dreams, J. Michael Straczynski received considerable praise from various religious groups. Beyond that, there are several Christian motifs which are common in literature and which we have soaked in for most of our lives: the Christ figure, the Good Shepherd, the Garden of Gethsemane, stories of great falls and great redemptions. Christianity in particular is particularly full of symbolism that we all can relate to, since the image of Christ (being executed on a Roman instrument of torture next to two common thieves) is one of “the highest in the lowest”, and from that great stories of individual heroism and redemption flow naturally.

But you need to do your own world building.

Otherwise others may do your world building for you. And when that happens–or when you forget what your world means to you (for forget to leave notes to your later self), a throwaway line that is supposed to suggest the power of a particular character can blow your entire mythology out of the water. That happened when George Lucas, seeking a way to explain how a child Anakan Skywalker was so powerful, relied on “midi-chlorians,” which completely destroyed the original Star Wars mythos by turning the force from something accessible by all to something that is inherited, like blue eyes.

And suddenly a gnostic universe where anyone can awaken to Reality becomes Nietzsche’s “ubermenche” universe where only a certain select few, selected by having the correct genetics, can elevate themselves.

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Now most authors and movie makers don’t want to engage in the sort of world building that make a story coherent. After all, they want to tell a dramatic story, or a tear jerking story, or a story with spaceships crashing and pod racers running around in circles in a sports arena.

But what differentiates science fiction and fantasy from other genres of fiction is the world building.

And what makes a number of science fiction or fantasy stories and movies powerful is, in fact, the exposition which introduces us to the world that you built. (Think of the first time you see elves in the Lord of the Rings movies, or the way the world of Avatar is introduced. I would suggest a number of Science Fiction and Fantasy movies, devoid of the requirement to introduce the world in which they are set, would be half their length and nowhere near as interesting.)

If you don’t have a consistent world, your story will eventually fall apart–and you may be better off sticking to historic fiction instead. (And that’s okay, in a way: after all, the movie Avatar could have been told in 18th century America on the western frontier with Indians instead of Na’vis, and the U.S. calvary instead of a private security force. Jake could have been a private assigned to work with an anthropologist sympathetic to the Indian tribe being displaced, and the hidden beauty of some canyon (with waterfalls, ‘natch) substituting for the night-glowing creatures.)

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So if you’re going to introduce an element of magic to your story–as is the Force in Star Wars–work out to the nth detail what it is and how it works. Don’t be afraid to dive into gnostic works or theology or works of philosophy in order to work out how your magical system works. Don’t even be afraid of a sort of “Deus Ex-Machina”: that is, don’t be afraid to have your system work thanks to some hidden God-like figure. Just honor the internal logic of your story (and your universe), rather than tossing everything out the window in the third act because you can’t think more than two acts ahead. (The only reason why having a god show up during a Greek tragedy works is because of a shared–but unspoken–understanding of the Greek gods–and would be similar to having a principal of a school show up half-ways through a fight between two high school students. We know what a principal is and what her powers and limits are.)

Again, think of the first time we see the elves in the Lord of the Rings movies. They don’t just flit by, all pretty and glowey, never to be seen again, having no baring on the movie at all. That way is lazy; it just shows you have too much in your special effects budget. No; elves play an important role in the rest of the movies–so we’re not just seeing extra effects budget being burned; we’re getting our first glimpse of a much deeper and more sophisticated–and consistent–universe. A peek of things to come. And even their departure is hinted at but never explained fully in the movies–their departure represents the transition from the second age of angels and divine beings to the third age of man.

It’s also why the very last scene in the latest Star Wars movie was the most signifiant to me, for reasons which will be clear if you’ve seen that movie. (This link describing the scene contains minor spoilers.) We’re seeing the Star Wars movies course correcting: going back to the first movie, hinting that the mysticism of The Force is accessible to all of us, though some of us happen to be more sensitive.

“Wherefor art thou Romeo?” “I have found five nearby businesses nearby; would you like to see a map?” — Siri

iPhone’s Siri accidentally called upon by theater actor on stage

A British theater-goer’s loud iPhone turned one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies into a comedy of errors.

After Edward Stone, playing Cassius in “Julius Caesar,’’ delivered the line, “Sirrah, what news?’’ Siri thought he meant her. “Sorry, I did not understand what you said,’’ Siri replied.

This is why you have to manage your own care, Doctors be damned.

Why New Blood Pressure Guidelines Could Lead to Harm

The first received standard care, which involved trying to keep systolic blood pressure (the higher of the two blood pressure measures) under 140. The second group got more intensive care, which meant trying to keep systolic blood pressure below 120. Achieving the latter, of course, required more therapy, mostly pharmacologic in nature.

The results were significant, with fewer patients in the intensive therapy group having an acute cardiovascular event or death. The evidence was so compelling that the trial was stopped early, so the results could be announced sooner rather than later. This decision itself brought a fair amount of media attention to its findings. The fact that those in the intensive therapy group also had more adverse events, like hypotension, syncope and acute kidney injury, got less attention.

But wait, this gets worse:

Regardless, this is a significant trial, and we should treat it seriously. To generalize its results, however, we have to pay attention to the details of its methods. To be eligible for this study, in addition to having a systolic blood pressure from 130 to 180, patients had to be at particularly high risk of disease. They had to be at least 50 years old. They had to have one of the following health problems: another subclinical cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease or a Framingham 10-year risk of cardiovascular disease of 15 percent or more. Or they had to be 75 years or older.

They also had to have their blood pressure confirmed in three separate readings in which patients were left alone in a room for five minutes. This is important, because patients often have elevated blood pressure just from being nervous when it’s being measured in the office. There’s even a name for it: white coat hypertension.

So we get a study which suggests that under carefully controlled measurement circumstances, individuals with a history of heart disease who are over 50, or individuals who are 75 or older, benefit by trying to bring their systolic blood pressure down to 120.

The bolded part is very important here.

Because unless you are not (for example) a 65 year old man who has a diagnosed subclinical cardiovascular disease (such as diagnosed poor circulation triggered by arterial hardening, stenosis or thickening of the artery wall or from other causes), you are not part of the target study group.

And here’s the stupid part. The study is sold as a revolutionary insight into hypertension–but it has been well known for decades that people who have had a previous cardiac event benefit from lower blood pressure. So this study shows… what? That people who have a subclinical cardiac issue may also benefit from lower blood pressure?

That people who have a diagnosed subclinical cardiac or kidney function disease may benefit from managing the disease?

I mean, this is fucking news?

And here’s the kicker. The part that makes me angry:

Because of white coat hypertension, guidelines for checking blood pressure in both children and adults recommend that after multiple readings in the office, worrisome findings should be confirmed by 24-hour measurement outside the office. This happens far too rarely. Instead, people get their blood pressure measured quickly in the office, are labeled hypertensive, and are then put on treatment pathways.

“Treatment pathways,” which most often do not translate into “relaxing more, taking a regular yoga class, putting in some aromatherapy candles around your bath, and taking a regular afternoon walk”–but into drugs, drugs, drugs.

And these drugs don’t come for free. I don’t mean the monetary component, but the side effects.

Worse, the first drug of choice–for good or for ill–by most doctors to help reduce blood pressure? Well, they’ll check your cholesterol–and if it is even a fraction above, or even if it’s not, they’ll put you on statins.

Because “as we all know”, statins are completely risk free, have no side effects, and can change your life. (The previous sentence is sarcasm, ‘natch; just click on the links.)

Seriously, it’s so bad that my wife and I can generally spot people on them: pasty gray skin, and for longer-term users, the “statin shuffle.” And when people suggest that perhaps you should take another drug to overcome the side effect of the first drug–well, you’re well on the way to death, since all these attempts to balance the chemistry you’re taking isn’t exactly doing yourself good.

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It’s not to suggest you should live a drug free life. There are individuals who need their medication in order to balance a whole host of issues, from supplementary thyroid hormones to insulin. And it’s not to suggest those with real, diagnosed problems such as subclinical heart or kidney disease, should avoid taking drugs in order to manage the problem.

But by applying the results of a very narrow research study that studied a very specific population with diagnosed health problems to the general population, you increase problems. You don’t decrease them.

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Of course, the supposed goal of publicly sharing this study is to increases awareness:

So why alter the guideline at all? The conclusion of an accompanying article argues that the guideline “has the potential to increase hypertension awareness, encourage lifestyle modification and focus antihypertensive medication initiation and intensification on U.S. adults with high” cardiovascular disease risk. In other words, much of the goal is to make news and potentially scare people into changing their behavior.

Unfortunately, this is a tactic that has not been shown to work, at least not for all diseases. A 2015 meta-analysis in the journal Psychological Bulletin looked at all the research on fear messaging. The authors found that fear appeals could change attitudes, intentions and behaviors, but mostly on issues with a high susceptibility and severity. With respect to hypertension, it’s hard to believe we’re not already oversaturated with worry.

So while the goal may be fear mongering–do you really need to be fear-mongered at if you’re a healthy older adult who exercises regularly, monitors your diet, but otherwise has a 20 point swing in blood pressure thanks to “White Coat Hypertension?”

Because the net effect–even in the most ideal case–is to make you afraid of the doctor.

Assuming, of course, they don’t give away statins like fucking candy…

All politics are local.

Post-Roy Moore, Please Spare Us the ‘Blue Wave’ Claptrap

Doug Jones is the newest senator from the state of Alabama. Yeah, I admit, I didn’t believe that was going to be the case. Yet Roy Moore wasn’t a great candidate, as it turns out.

Whoops.

While the Left is understandably ecstatic, it would behoove them to keep a little something in reserve. Reading too much into Moore’s defeat would be idiotic — but they’re doing it anyway:…

Let’s be real.

Today’s Alabama is exactly the same as yesterday’s Alabama. If you thought yesterday “I don’t want to step foot in Alabama because it’s a horrid backwards rural hicksville”, I guarantee you today you’ll find exactly the same Alabama as you found yesterday.

Doug Jones election does not represent a wave of Democrats across the country rising up from the ashes of Trump’s populism, though in 2018 you may find a shift towards Democrats in congress; the pendulum always swings. He represents a Republican candidate who was so weak he couldn’t win in a solid Republican state.

But Doug Jones did not win because he appealed to the tree hugging, crunchy granola, ban all guns, big government types in Alabama, because that would have caused him to lose to a supposed pedophile. No; he won because he represented the better of two choices to Alabama voters–voters who were voting the issues they care about.

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And this is a reminder of the type of candidate someone like Doug Jones will have to be to keep his office for longer than the five minutes left on that senate seat. (The seat he occupies is up for re-election in 2020, since he is assuming the balance of Jeff Session’s 6 year senate seat, won in 2014.)

Remember: when you are a politician, there are issues you care deeply about, and issues you don’t care that much about. For example, I care deeply about economic issues. I also care deeply about personal freedom: thus, I’m pro-abortion, and pro-LGBT issues.

(In short, the power of the legal system is the power of a police officer with a gun to your head, chamber loaded, demanding you obey or have your brains blasted all over the wall. That we are trying to use the power of the gun to affect social issues strikes me as antithetical to any civilized society. If you don’t like what these kids are doing nowadays, the power of the bully pulpit is better than the power of the gun.)

Remember also, as a politician who belongs to a particular party, there are political positions you are assumed to take in public. To use an example, the Republican Party is pro-life, and pro-family–a position that in practice translates as not exactly “anti-LGBT” but at odds with many LGBT issues. (The difference is why you see LGBT Republicans.)

And also remember, there are issues which society as a whole have moved towards, and issues which cannot effectively be changed within our lifetimes. Specifically, the arc of U.S. history has always been towards greater personal and political freedom–we’ve gone from Virginia settlers who believed voting rights should belong only to land-owning white males, and the right to vote should be earned–to today, when we believe anyone over the age of 18 should have the right to vote. We’ve also seen significant progress in civil rights, in women’s rights, with LGBT issues (including legalization of gay marriage), with abortion rights–on the whole, anyone arguing that we live in a less free or less expressive period than any time in history is paranoid, stupid, or trying to sell you something.

And this has been the arc of U.S. History from the beginning, and in nearly every realm of human activity.

Which means there are a number of issues which have been proposed by both sides which simply run against the arc of U.S. history. (In the Republican case, rolling back abortion rights immediately comes to mind. With Democrats, increasing corporate regulation which makes corporations directly answerable to the State come to mind: and here I’m not referring to “socialism”; I’m referring to the 1970’s style price control systems put in place by President Nixon.)

So within this environment, predicting how one should behave in order to thread the needle is fairly straight forward.

Suppose I, a pro-abortion rights person, won an election in Wake County (a conservative region) as a Republican, in a country where abortion rights is solidly entrenched and not going anywhere (except perhaps in fringe cases, such as the partial birth abortion ban of a few years back).

Well of course I’d go out and preach the “pro-Life” position.

Meaning I’m going to go out and preach a position which stands exactly opposite of what I personally believe. Because my voters want it, the Republican Party wants it, and more importantly any position I take in public will not move the needle.

Now if it happens that a bill comes up which strips abortion rights starts circulating in committee. Guess what? I’m going to do everything I can to prevent that bill from making it out of committee, without making my actions public. (That may mean approaching the party leadership with my concerns–but guess what? They have hundreds of others in a similar position, so this is pretty much “par for the course.” It may also mean that I step up to help co-sponsor the bill, but loading it with something others may find objectionable, like perhaps a requirement to relocate Fort Bragg to Wake County.)

Now if the bill makes it onto the floor, guess what? There are hardly any votes conducted in Congress where the results aren’t well known beforehand. So I’m going to take a straw poll of my fellow delegates to determine if it has a shit-chance in hell of winning. If there is absolutely no chance (say, the bill is headed for a 2 to 1 defeat), then I will vote for the bill–because again, my action makes zero difference. And if the bill sounds like it is headed towards an easy win, then I may simply vote for it, understanding that my vote makes no difference, in order to make my voters happy.

And if the bill is a toss-up, then and only then will I vote against the bill (assuming my vote actually does make a difference)–but then I’ll explain it to my constituents as the bill having “technical problems.” It’s one reason why a number of bills are loaded up with unrelated issues: because it gives me an out–perhaps by saying “yes, the bill would have banned abortion under certain circumstances–but it also provides $5 billion dollars in pork, your hard-earned taxpayer money, towards building a bridge to nowhere. And while getting rid of abortion is important, I’m not going to sell you out for a few coins of silver!”

In other words, I may say I’m pro-Life, but my actions will be pro-Abortion, and will be kept as private as politically possible so my voters don’t find out.

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There are many other permutations of these four things: of how I feel, of what my voters want, of what my party wants, and of what I can actually influence.

For example, if what my voters want and what I want are not what my party wants, then I’ll avoid the topic–or I’ll rephrase the topic in a way which implies government involvement is inferior to private action. If what I want and what my party wants is not what my voters want, I’ll lie like a cheap rug. If what I want violates the current vote in the house, I’ll use as many back channels as I can to sabotage the vote–and sometimes if a vote sweeps through in a way that violates my conscience but supports my voters–then I’ll vote for the item, choosing to preserve my seat rather than make myself a martyr: martyrs are only known for dying on a hill, not for lasting the entire war.

And if it is on issues I personally don’t give a damn about–then my tactics will be towards preserving my seat, remembering that I answer to my voters, not to my party nor to the United States as a whole. Hell, I may even haggle my vote with other congress critters, using it (and my voting position) as a trading chip to get other things that I do want.

It may sounds sleazy as hell–but this is politics. This is how sausage is made.

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This is the position Doug Jones faces.

He has positions he undoubtedly holds near and dear to his heart. What those are, only he, his wife, and God knows.

He has positions his party expects him to take.

He also has positions his voters want him to make progress on.

And there are positions where he can make a material difference. And a lot more issues where he cannot.

So, for example, if he’s pro-Abortion and his party is pro-Abortion, but his voters are pro-Life: he simply avoids discussing the issue. Perhaps if he is asked he can talk about the horrors of abortion but take the position the bully pulpit is the right place to discuss abortion issues. Regardless of what he says, the fundamental right to an abortion (perhaps with minor tweaks to the specific types of procedures available) is here to stay–and anyone telling you otherwise is either a partisan idiot or trying to raise money for their candidate.

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So expect Doug Jones to sound like a Democrat, but don’t expect him to actually make changes his voters can’t stomach.

Because Alabama did not change yesterday. They simply voted someone else into office.

Do none of these guys remember Muhammad Ali?

Byron York: Former top spy rethinks: Maybe we shouldn’t have attacked a new president

“Let’s put ourselves in Donald Trump’s shoes,” Morell said to Glasser. “So what does he see? Right? He sees a former director of CIA and a former director of NSA, Mike Hayden … criticizing him and his policies. Right? And he would rightfully have said, ‘Huh, what’s going on with the intelligence guys?'”

“And then he sees a former acting director and deputy director of CIA criticizing him and endorsing his opponent,” Morell continued. “And then he gets his first intelligence briefing, after becoming the Republican nominee, and within 24 to 48 hours, there are leaks out of that that are critical of him and his then-national security adviser Mike Flynn.”

“And so, this stuff starts to build, right? And he must have said to himself, ‘What is it with these intelligence guys? Are they political?'”

The answer to that was simple: Yes, they were political. But the astonishing part of the Morell interview is his admission that at the time he did not stop to consider what was happening from Trump’s perspective, even as the leaks continued when Trump took office. “He must have thought, ‘Who are these guys?'” Morell said. “Are these guys out to get me? Is this a political organization?”

Apparently the entire Federal bureaucratic apparatus–at least high level executives who nominally answer to the President of the United States–never considered what their overtly political actions (and subvertly political behavior, think the IRS targeting scandals)–never considered the results of their actions targeting President Trump as part of the #resistance movement, especially from President Trump’s point of view, and from the point of view of those who voted for President Trump.

Don’t any of those people remember Muhammad Ali’s Rope-a-dope tactic?

To quote Wikipedia:

In many competitive situations, rope-a-dope is used to describe strategies in which one contender lets their opponent fatigue themself by drawing non-injuring offensive actions. This then gives the contender an advantage towards the end of the competition or before, as the opponent becomes tired, allowing the contender to execute devastating offensive maneuvers and thereby winning.

I mean, hasn’t this been exactly what President Trump been doing, to the detriment of nearly all those who have been attacking President Trump?

Isn’t this what we’re seeing in the Mueller investigation of the Trump Administration, as we seen various FBI agents and investigators quietly demoted for their #resistance ties, lack of impartiality, and apparent connections with the Fusion GPS dossier? I mean, things have gotten so bad for Mueller that the Wall Street Journal (not known for it’s pro-Trump stance) has called for Mueller to resign, as Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein continues to resist calls for congressional oversight.

Isn’t that what we saw with FBI Director James Comey, who eventually was dismissed by President Trump after members of both parties called for his head?

Aren’t we seeing that with CNN, who recently perpetrated a non-story by getting a date wrong, and triumphing the non-story as evidence of a crime as a result? Sadly for much of the major media, the “fake news” label (formerly reserved for those marginal fly-by-night web sites which publish what appears to be credible news stories “for entertainment purposes only”) has increasingly started to stick as various real news outlets have allowed their editorial bias color their fact checking.

And we’re only one year into Trump’s Administration. We have at least 3, possibly 7 more years of this.

… And now, Morell admits he went after the new president without even considering what that might mean. “I think there was a significant downside to those of us who became political,” he told Glasser. “So, if I could have thought of that, would I have ended up in a different place? I don’t know. But it’s something I didn’t think about.”

And I think this is the downfall of the entire #resistence movement, as well as the downfall of much of the federal apparatus and the downfall of the major media: in believing President Trump represents an existential threat if he is permitted to continue being President of the United States, they are, in a real sense, committing suicide.

After all, most of our country relies on Trust. We trust our universities to be impartial intellectual educators of our best and brightest. We trust our news outlets to report the news in an impartial way. We trust our federal bureaucracy to operate in an impartial way. We trust FBI agents to investigate and find the truth and enforce the laws in an impartial manner. We trust our intelligence agencies to gather intelligence and present it in an impartial and unbiased manner.

We trust those around us will be impartial.

And when they prove themselves to be biased, not impartial, and disdainful of half of the country–well, that trust evaporates.

Hard earned trust which is hard to gain but easy to lose.

And without that trust, what is left of those institutions?

President Obama: I call Godwin’s Law.

Obama Insults Trump With Thinly Veiled Reference to Hitler

Two notes about the article:

First, in the past, Presidents have been self-restrained about commenting on (or acting on) their successors.

Obama has shown no restraint.

But remember, boys and girls: Trump will someday be an ex-President. And Obama is setting the precedent for Trump’s post-Presidential actions here.

And I think the Left will miss the civility they set out to destroy, once the Right no longer feels compelled to be constrained by that same civility.

Second, Hitler rose to power on the Enabling Act of 1933, passed in order to help “get things done more efficiently.”

Thus far, of two Presidents, Obama passed a series of executive orders which greatly expanded the power of the Presidency. Trump, on the other hand, has been kicking things back to their constitutionally appointed branches; DACA being kicked back to Congress, for example.

And of the two sides: the right and the left, thus far, of the two, I can see the left–lost in a spasm of hate for Trump and for all the horrible things he did–asking for an “enabling act” of their own so they can “undo Trump’s terrible legacy.”

After all, was it a Democrat or a Republican who set aside George Washington’s two term tradition–causing us to pass a constitutional amendment? Of the two, which has sought to reshape society along centrally planned lines with grand-sounding schemes–twice. And of the two, which Presidents have been vocal in public? Did you hear former President Bush start a “resist” movement to stop Obama?

No, President Obama, of the two sides here: liberals who believe in Thomas Sowell’s “unconstrained man”, and conservatives who believe in a “constrained” vision where as a whole will always be fallen and imperfect–I see a hell of a lot more similarities between Hitler’s Third Reich and Democrats.

Of course on the whole we are anti-authoritarian to the core, so any comparison to Hitler will be inherently flawed.

But if I were to bet on a future president demanding plenary powers, I’d bet it would be a Democrat. Not a Republican.

So he can implement a better version of a “Great Society” without those pesky Republicans standing in the way, of course.

New Zealand

I don’t really know what I expected when we came to New Zealand; besides the fact that The Lord of the Rings was shot here, and the Waitomo Glowworm Caves where located here (featured in a National Geographic magazine which led us to come here), I thought of New Zealand as a tiny two-island version of Australia.

Nope. Wrong. Boy was I wrong.

New Zealand was apparently one of the last land masses to be settled by humans–only 800 years ago–and settled by the same Polynesians who also made their way up to Hawai’i. The Maori people make up a significant percentage of the population, such that the Maori language is a second official language of New Zealand. And Maori carvings, greetings, road signs and the rest are everywhere, giving the place an almost “United Kingdom meets Tahiti” sort of feel.

Auckland is a working port. Unlike Sydney (were enough money turned the entire harbor into a playground for rich sailors and yacht owners), Auckland’s port is definitely a working port with shipping container vessels sharing the waters with tour boats and ferries.

Waiheke Island is a very large and picturesque island off the shore of Auckland; it can be reached by a 45 minute ferry ride, and is just amazingly beautiful. Almost reminds me of Capri, but with less money–and more natural beauty.

And the part of New Zealand we’re now in (near the Waitomo Caves) is rural, quaint, and full of cows. I can understand why Peter Jackson picked this location for his “Shire” set in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings; all you need to do is dig a hole in the exposed limestone faces of these gently rolling hills just outside the steeper mountains that frame the area, and put a door on it, and instant Hobbit hole.

I’m not sure the UK is exactly in a position of strength here…

Donald Trump’s ‘working visit’ to UK dropped as tensions with Theresa May grow over president’s far-Right retweets

Yes, I know, the tweet Donald Trump sent out purportedly showing a muslim assaulting someone was fake. But that’s not the point here.

US diplomats have dropped plans for Donald Trump to conduct a visit to Britain in January amid a war of words between the two countries’ leaders.

Mr Trump, the US president, had been pencilled in for a ‘working visit’ in the first month of 2018 to formally open America’s new London embassy.

The trip, a scaled down version of a state visit with no meeting with the Queen, was intended to allow Mr Trump to come to the UK while avoiding the mass protests a full state visit would likely trigger.

However, The Telegraph can reveal that the trip has been pushed into the long grass, with no new date in the diary picked.

Now if I were the leadership of the UK and acting from a position of economic and political strength, I certainly would feel free to flip the US the finger. Because, well, economic and political strength.

But that’s not the situation in the UK, is it?

Brussels may include ‘punishment clause’ in post-Brexit trade deal

The EU is exploring the inclusion of a “punishment clause” in any future trade deal with the UK to allow Brussels to slap tariffs on key British exports to the bloc if the UK government seeks to gain a commercial advantage by lowering regulatory standards.

In a move that would torpedo the post-Brexit plans of the British cabinet’s key Brexiters, any significant attempts by Whitehall to lower regulatory costs to British businesses in one part of the economy could be met by tariffs from Brussels on another.

An attempt to grab a larger share of the world market in aluminium, for example, by loosening regulation and reducing production costs in the UK could provoke a punitive tariff on British beef sales to the EU, a sector on which thousands of jobs rely.

Of course the out here is to strengthen ties with the United States, whose markets are as large as the remainder of the EU, and whose citizens have a strong affinity for England.

Which means the first step would be to… well, have a “working visit” with the President of the United States to explore opportunities for a closer economic and political working relationship to offset the punishments being offered by Brussels.

But no. That “tiny little rock in the Atlantic” has decided to stand on principals or something.

Good luck writing that £50 Billion check.