THAT MOMENT THIS PAST WEEK WHEN MANY OF US THOUGHT "HOLY SHIT IS THIS WORLD WAR THREE"

If you didn't think that, lucky you! Because you either missed the news about the India-Pakistan military exchange or you don't know the context. In either event, here is that news and that context.

So on Thursday, Pakistan announced that its air force had shot down two Indian fighters over Kashmir, which is of course the part of India that is next to Pakistan which Pakistan says is actually Pakistan and India says "no, fuck you, it's India." (Pakistan made some noise that they had crossed into Pakistani airspace, and... who knows, honestly.) This all dates back to the British decolonization of British India, when after a lot of argument from the Indians and Pakistanis they decided to create two new countries rather than one so the Muslims and Hindus in the area wouldn't immediately begin a civil war. (Of course, because post-partition there were still Hindus in Pakistan and Muslims in India, and there were riots and mass killings on both sides because of course there were.)

Following the partition, it didn't take long for Pakistan to start arguing that the new Indian state of Kashmir should actually belong to Pakistan because Kashmir is majority-Muslim (true) and it only joined India because the local maharaja who ruled it was Hindu and the British left the choice to him (also true), and ever since then the two nations have been having the national level of a staring contest at each other, except for the four times they've gone to war over it. The Indians have won all four of those wars, but the last war they fought, the Kargil War in 1999, was the most limited and short one thanks to international pressure, which existed mostly because that was the first time both countries now had nuclear weapons.

Sure, India has a "no first strike" policy, and Pakistan has a "we will only use nuclear weapons if someone else does first OR we get invaded and we can't stop the invasion" policy. But, on the other hand, they are nuclear weapons and the person who trusts nations to use nuclear weapons wisely is the person who doesn't know that the reason we aren't all dead or nonexistent right now is because of Stanislav Petrov. (Google him if you don't know the name. He is someone worth knowing about.)

Anyway, as you are probably aware, there is not a nuclear war going on right now, mostly because Pakistan returned the (apparently unhurt) Indian fighter pilots and we were all able to unclench a little bit. But in a week where a whole lot of stuff happened (serves me right to complain about a slow week, I guess), this was probably the most important, because while unclenching a bit is the reasonable and healthy thing to do, we're still nowhere near this issue being settled peaceably anytime soon. (Particularly while India has a Hindu nationalist in charge who wink-winks at anti-Muslim violence.)

NOTES FROM A HEARING (ONE)

Jodi Wilson-Raybould testified this week before a Parliamentary hearing and the answers she gave were... mostly what was expected. According to Wilson-Raybould wasn't exactly explicitly ordered by the Prime Minister's Office to come to an arrangement with SNC-Lavalin that would allow that company to escape criminal prosecution, largely in order to keep an election from happening prior to the Quebec election (which, as a reminder, the Liberals lost anyway) - but individuals from the PMO were basically saying "you know we can't TELL you to do this" while miming exaggerated "do this" actions and rolling their eyes in a pointed fashion.

Is this bad? Well, there are two answers to that, because the question "is this bad" is actually two questions. The first question it can be is "was this a bad thing" and yes, of course it's a bad thing, because we shouldn't allow political considerations to dictate the administration of justice, or at least do our best to minimize it (even if, in practice, it happens all the goddamn time).

The second question is "compared to other Canadian political scandals, is this a bad thing" and in that sense the answer is that it is really relatively small-ball as scandals go: the PMO's office was encouraging JWR to lean towards a policy outcome that was definitely allowable for her to do and where there was at least a sort-of-justifiable policy reason for doing so (protecting SNC-Lavalin jobs in Canada that might have been threatened by the results of criminal sanction). Compare it to the sponsorship scandal (millions of dollars funneled to Liberal-aligned companies) or to the ETS scandal (the Tories politically intervening in the awarding of a $400 million government contract) and as it stands right now this scandal is definitely mini-potatoes size at best.

But, on the other hand, Jean Chretien and Stephen Harper didn't run on re-establishing principle in Canadian governance and Justin Trudeau definitely did, and that's probably going to make this a big deal. Trudeau's reaction to the matter - flat denials (which are completely unconvincing) and a cabinet shuffle - continues to appear to be borne out of the belief that they can just skate by this and be fine, and I definitely have my doubts about the wisdom of that course, particularly when recent polling shows that one in four Canadians say this scandal could affect their voting decision.

NOTES FROM A HEARING (TWO)

Also testifying this week: Michael Cohen before Congress, explaining under oath that, yes, Donald Trump is a racist cheating liar. None of this is terribly surprising, of course, and nothing today is going to turn on it. It does matter, though, because Cohen confirmed that there is actual paper evidence of financial fraud and electoral malfeasance in the Trump organization (and provided proof of some of it). Once you get past the jokes that can be made about the various clueless Republican Congresspersons haranguing him for being an untrustworthy liar and convicted felon - when he is a convicted felon because he was caught lying to Congress for the President, and also the former deputy financial chair of the Republican National Committee - it's the groundwork that's really important, because this was only the first subpoena and there will almost certainly be many more.

(Yeah, that's it for this one. There really isn't that much to write about here once you get past the schadenfreude.)

BREXIT, QUANTIFIED

On Tuesday the British government released a report entitled "Implications for Business and Trade of a No Deal Exit on 29 March 2019," which, once you get past the title, is "what happens if no-deal Brexit." To be clear: this is the government, the actual government, saying what will happen, and what they are saying is the following:

The referendum that started this whole stupid thing didn't provide a mandate for a no-deal Brexit; many of the projects necessary to avoid total calamity in the event of a no-deal Brexit are behind schedule; there are no aviation agreements in place so it could end up being possible that there will be no flights in or out of the UK; that the independent trade deals ready to go amount to Switzerland, Chile, Israel, the Faroe Islands and a few African nations; that the UK economy will shrink by in between 6 and 9 percent over the next fifteen years; that the UK's food dependency on the EU (30% of British food comes from Europe) will create skyrocketing food prices; and that the UK's manufacturing, farming and data services sectors will all suffer tremendously. Among many other findings.

Again: this is the government saying this will happen in less than four weeks. The ones who are, more or less, shoving Britain headlong towards it. And here is the thing: it's probably not going to change any minds, and by far the most likely outcome is that it's going to happen. So the next time you want to tell me human beings are rational actors, I promise you I will point back at all of this and then just throw up my hands in a "what the hell are you even thinking" kind of way.

THIS WEEK IN ISLAM

Ahmed el-Tayeb, who is the current Grand Imam of al-Azhar (and although Sunni Islam doesn't really have the equivalent of a Pope or Patriarch or any other singular leader, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar is among the very most important theological heads in Sunni Islam and arguably the most important, depending on who you're talking to), delivered a speech this past week stating that while polygamy was not expressly banned by the Koran, that monogamy should be the rule and polygamy an exception, and that any Muslim marriage, monogamous or polygamous, must be fair to all participants - and that polygamy can be "an injustice for women and children."

Now, this is obviously very qualified criticism, to say the least, because the Grand Imam of al-Azhar can't start a civil war within Sunni Islam - or, if you prefer, intensify the low-grade civil war that already exists between mainstream Sunni Islam and Wahabbism/Salafi jihadism - by angering the relatively tiny minority (estimates are between 2 and 4 percent of all Muslims) of shitty fundamentalists who practice polygamy, plus that always-present larger rump of conservative Muslims who might not practice it themselves but by damn nobody's going to tell them their more fundamentalist brethren are wrong, especially if it's Westerners influencing the Grand Imam to do it.

But - and this is important - it is still criticism, and such that would have been unthinkable to utter even a generation ago. Progress is slow, but it's still progress.

THE ENTERTAINMENT SECTION

Movies watched or rewatched this week:

BlacKKKlansman (2018, Spike Lee, Google Play rental) - 3.5/5

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994, Mike Newell, Blu-ray) - 4.5/5

We've also started watching This Giant Beast That Is The Global Economy, Adam McKay and Kal Penn's comic docu-series about various complexities of the global economy, and two episodes in I can say it's pretty damn good - enough detail to be educational, but not so much that it becomes boring or a slog. They've picked their target topics well.

Until next week, etc.