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Hagar the Horrible, 10/2/19

Usually Hagar and his men are depicted sailing off to raid distant lands like France and Italy, where the society and the economy is more segmented and greater riches are to be found in the fortified estates of kings and dukes. But let’s not forget that in the anarchic Norse states, the kings held only tenuous control over the various Viking bands, who also engaged in quick smash-and-grab raids against local jarls who couldn’t muster adequate forces to defend themselves. In the less unequal Nordic cultures, those petty nobles might be of essentially the class as the Viking raiders just a step or two below them in the hierarchy, and they may have known each other from childhood. But that won’t protect them from the extractive, predatory violence that allows chieftains like Hagar to keep control of their power base, and they’ll be forced to muster counter-raids if they want to maintain their own position.

Judge Parker, 10/2/19

Hey, remember when Sophie’s main interest was how a global hegemon could deploy a secretive force of missile-carrying drones to impose its will on the world without having to incur the domestic financial and political costs that would normally arise from open-ended wars? It’s probably for the best that she’s now become obsessed with disrupting the B&B sector or whatever.