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There is a protest for those two damn dogs as I write this...

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Reading Lawrence Newport's article on dangerous dogs, you find yourself wondering "What kind of person would even *want* to own an American Bully XL?" Yet such people do exist. I was once taking a bus through a rough part of Dublin. Sitting nearby were some local teenage boys. Outside, on a kind of green, was a dog - I'm not sure of the exact breed, but it was one of those Pitbull-Bully-type things. Not a dog you'd want to stop in the street to pet.

One of the youths, looking out the window, said, longingly "Ah, I want that doggo. He's all muscle." He said it almost dreamily, to himself more than to his friends, the way a young yuppy might talk about a Porsch.

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I very much enjoy these, but considering how prolific you already are, I certainly understand your reluctance to craft these too often.

Not that you need suggestions for content, but if you ever feel a bit of writer's block, I would love for you to write some "favorite history book" articles. I know you already mix in a lot of history, but an essay that is just about "The Best Books on 20th Century British History" would be enjoyable. (Obviously, the answers are Sandbrook and Kynaston.)

You once listed in the comments section some of your favorite Medieval history books and I was very grateful. Loved everyone one of them.

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Thank you. And that's a good idea.

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Great piece! I have really missed these

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thank you. Having said they don't bring subs, this one seems to have done ok on that front. I will aim to produce the next one in two weeks.

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Lyons: Are they not implying that these agents are producers of change and not just “merchants?” Why would “merchandising” change that arises in other areas not be more stabilizing than de-stabilizing?

Pasternak: Plausible and perhaps a bit of the problem, but our ant-Prometheanism, stasis through “safety,” NIMBYism (all my Neoliberal bugaboos 😊) do not in fact seem to me to stem from a age gradient in attitudes. But at least I like this version of anti-population decline better than the not-enough-people-to-support- the-aged version. The latter is more a matter of how the costs of old-age support is financed (more generally the failure to save and invest more) than demographic change itself,

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