tomo,
There's a very good reason they *should* be suffering from Imposter Syndrome.

For a fair while, governments' favourite euphemism for "waste" has been "invest" (invest in renewables, etc.). "Lend" is a better sounding euphemism for the Ukraine capers, but the return on the "loan" is going to be the same as the return on the "investments". As for the structure, wordsmithing won't help: Peter will still hate me whether I rob him to pay Paul, give to Paul, or lend to Paul.

Not that I need to tell you any of that.

ABC Radio's Law Report was on AI and the law, with some amusing instances of ChatGPT "hallucination". Quite funny. The German fellow who ended up slandered as a paedophile, gangster, etc., by the mysterious training took them to task. There was no remedy. They applied a band-aid to explicitly block his name from searches.

It's the firewall conundrum again: do you assume it's correct and have a blacklist of bad searches? Seems far wiser to assume all results are wrong, but in various shades of egregiousness.

Not bad Spiked article on the decline of the EU, and the folly of Starmer still trying to get into "lock-step" with it.

tomo,
Conceit is the right word. It's going to be uncomfortable for them when they realise that, yes, they *are* on the world stage, but the role is not as leader, but as buffoon.

At Jo Nova's today, we have the bureaucrats at the Californian Coastal Commission throwing obstacles in Musk's way for plainly political reasons.

No great lover of Musk, but I had to laugh at his audacity, offering $1,000,000 prize daily to a random signatory of his free-speech petition. Cheaper and more effective than a media campaign, and the money is more likely to end up in the hands of someone who deserves it.

tomo,
While it would rate as foreign interference, I suspect the funding originates in the USA, and runs afoul of other laws too. Not very likely to be prosecuted though. Lady Justice has had the blindfold replaced with blinkers: only sees what she's pointed at.

Speaking of which, India's Supreme Court has adopted a new Lady Justice statue. No blindfold, no sword. Interesting, the spin put on it in several articles (including that one). We should probably adopt the same changes. It's not that they're improvements, but it is a more accurate depiction of how the legal system behaves. It's the point in Animal Farm where the sheep change to bleating "Four legs good, two legs *better*".

As to the French Revolution, I've been worried about modern parallels for some time. This time la Terreur may be less civilised. Orwell didn't get to the bit where the other animals started guillotining the pigs — a bit gory for a fable.

Linked at Jo Nova's, Bentley is building new 1930 Speed Sixes. Bit expensive, but you'd fairly get the sensation of speed at 115 mph!

Mailman,
A little parable...

A friend of my dad's (I'll call him Jim) had a knee replaced. Unfortunately, things weren't ideal in the theatre and he came out with an infected joint: swollen and painful. The surgeon acknowledged this, and offered to re-do the operation. Jim was suffering quite a bit of pain and felt that he deserved some compensation as well as the re-do, but the surgeon didn't agree. A lawyer was consulted.

"Yes, that's a serious problem. We can certainly get some compensation from the surgeon" was the advice. Things dragged out. Jim was hobbling pretty badly, but the lawyers pointed out how well this would boost his case in the negotiations. Eventually (couple of years later) a substantial compensation sum was agreed.

Not surprisingly, the lawyers got to pocket about half the sum. Then Jim found that, because he'd received compensation, it was up to *him* to pay for his new operation: no Medicare (NHS equiv), no health insurance. That took most of his cut of the payout. And he was warned the re-do wasn't going to be great, because things had deterioriated while he'd suffered on with the first replacement. His fitness had fallen away too.

Jim regretted not accepting the surgeon's first offer, realised that the lawyers had been the only beneficiaries of his supposed compensation.

Parasites who pretend to be on your side crop up time and again on the bigger stage. Palestine, of course, and Northern Ireland, and the Australian Aborigines all have made some people *very* wealthy, while purporting to serve the worthy cause, all the while doing what they can to perpetuate the problem.

As you say, better to do as the Kurds are doing: make the most of what you have to work with, and forget about fancied grievances.