Texas police charged into a crowd of anti‑ICE demonstrators in Austin and made multiple arrests. Governor Greg Abbott: “Texas is not Minnesota.” Police state.

Trump turns his attention to Cuba.

If you think he's going to play nicely in markets/finance then I love that for you. Adorable. My thing this weekend: What is to stop Trump upending the rules in global finance too? - as.ft.com/r/53e52459-8...

In a development that will surprise very few, after Miller et al kicked out / terrorized a lot of workers in a category such that they left or stopped coming the supply tightened and price went up.

Sort of true although we shouldn’t forget those additional 500-odd days they were allies of the Nazis.

This apparently happened at the Leicester Square Hippodrome the other day. Note how a voice off says something about the Supreme Court. Yep, this is where we are right now. Sigh.

Kemi Badenoch calling Greenland a "second order issue" while Labour leaders hide from it is another datapoint for how UK political elites are intellectually and psychologically able to cope with an imploding global order that no longer matches the world they grew up in during the 90s and 00s

Hello all, just sent out my free weekend update. A special one as it’s from Ukraine. It’s clear being here that we are all taking advantage of the Ukrainians. They are fighting for their lives, and we are safe and sound behind them. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

If I was the commander in chief of the Imperial hegemon I would simply not dismantle the network of military and diplomatic alliances, favourable trade deals, and broad cultural paramountcy that had made my nation the most wealthy and powerful the world has ever seen.

Badenoch is fascinating. So busy fighting culture wars online that she considers the very real potential for the break-up of the military alliance on which the UK relies for security to be a fringe issue.

ICE is WHIPPING through my suburban neighborhoods — not uncommon to see them going 50 mph — race through red lights, veer across multiple lanes to get to off ramps, no blinkers. They’re going to hurt or kill someone (else)

Do you know a logician who's trying to give up booze? I just saw the perfect sign!

LETTERMAN: “.. CBS News is a wreck. It’s just gone. .. The integrity of CBS News .. has been trampled on, pissed on and eviscerated by these idiots that have taken it over.” @letterman.bsky.social $PSKY youtu.be/CHYksa07oQA?...

Is this what the world looked like to people on the eve of World War I? People who had lived their entire lives in a world dominated by European empires that divided most of the continent among themselves? Could they imagine a world without the Habsburgs, Hohenzollerns, Romanovs, and Ottomans?

It's almost as if years of relentless media saturation bombing of flat-out lies, demonisation and blaming don't help the public to understand what is actually happening.

Concerns about immigration is always everywhere completely unrelated to actual immigration.

Morning.

Another example of “realist” meaning “delusional”.

Solemnly crossing off "Ayatollahs in Iran" from my "Surviving members of We Didn't Start The Fire" wall chart.

I wish they'd use the Russian Oligarch model. just permanently blacklist every individual that donated to the ballroom. US companies don't get any EU access until the management teams are gone and replaced

it's going to be really something when the US starts doing airstrikes on London because the UK bans Elon's CSAM generation app

They want it formally dead, but NATO is already functionally dead as a geopolitical reality. Even if he backs down (wouldn't bet on it), there's no going back from sending European capitals into a spiraling panic that the US is seriously about to invade one of them. You can't unring that bell.

It's bullshit they didn't do this earlier, you can hit like 15 companies with pretty anodyne restrictions/fees and drop the S&P 500 by like 20% The index is super top heavy with stuff that trades at 50x earnings

A ream of norms are being shattered daily, but as a tech expert this one really shocks me. For a generation CSAM has been *THE* flaming red line for a tech platform. If they spent money on ANYTHING, it was moderating it miles away. To even have the whiff of it was a Federal kiss of death. Now? 🤷‍♂️

2/ When I worked at Twitter, CSAM was *universally,* unequivocally regarded as the MOST toxic, nuclear, all-hands-on deck, third-rail issue that was taken DEEPLY seriously (legally and morally) and would garner an *immediate* prioritized response.

Philadelphia sheriff Rochelle Bilal: “No law enforcement professional wears a mask…No law enforcement professional shoots at a moving vehicle. “What Trump’s private army is doing…is not only against legal law, but moral law.” Vows to arrest agents on site who commit crimes.

Bizarre news alert really. Madrid is the highest ‘proper’ European capital, 650m up on a plain that is famous for being bitterly cold in winter (200m higher than the UK’s highest *village*), with an average January temperature of 6c. Britain being warmer than Madrid in winter really isn’t news!

Meet the caracal. Scientists think this cat twitches its ear tassels to communicate with others (in addition to meowing, purring, hissing, and more). It can jump up to 3 m (10 ft) & can even swat birds out of the air for a meal! Photo: Paul Fenwick, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist

Also, its illegal to discuss gender in some American universities now.

Woke 1.0 was of the word Woke 2.0 is of the deed

more from small-town Maine #IceOutForGood

Rather sad world where this popped up in my Facebook feed and I had to check that it was from Wales and so the last word is actually a word, not an acronym.

At last night’s candlelight vigil for Renee Nicole Good, Bishop Rob Hirschfeld of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire announced he had asked the clergy of the diocese to get their affairs in order and to make sure they have their wills written ...,

Musk calls the UK government "fascist" because it has said the Twitter platform shouldn't break the laws that apply to all platforms. It is important for the government to get across how extreme the unlawful content that X keeps protecting & even coproducing is www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Two days ago I watched a woman lay a single red rose down in memorial. An ICE goon came over, picked it up and put it in his lapel. Then he used it to flirt with a female goon. They were all laughing. She had been dead less than 24 hours and they were desecrating her memorial and laughing about it.

“..has the highest Travel Advisory level – Level 4: Do Not Travel – due to severe risks to Americans, including wrongful detention, torture in detention, terrorism, kidnapping, arbitrary enforcement of local laws, crime, civil unrest, and poor health infrastructure.“

“There are reports of groups of armed militias setting up roadblocks and searching vehicles for evidence of U.S. citizenship..”

Trump running Venezuela didn’t last long

Oops. “US citizens in Venezuela should leave the country immediately… “There are reports of groups of armed militias, known as colectivos, setting up roadblocks and searching vehicles for evidence of US citizenship or support for the United States.”

Crazy Northern Lights tonight!

I would normally have said yes: older cars were built to lesser safety standards. But for the newest cars that make you tap a touchscreen five times to turn on the fog lights, I don’t think that’s true any more.

Hungarians in 1956, Iraqis in 1991 (and probably others) responded to US-sponsored encouragement to rebel. Went very badly. For them, I mean. The Americans did fine.

To my fellow members of the Big & Tall Men's Community, this is our time to shine.

Probably an illustration of shrinkflation, as well as gouging by Kraft/Cadbury and supermarkets. Three years ago the standard bag of Mini Eggs weighed 90g and cost £1. Now, it’s 74g and costs £2. The ‘family pack’ weighed 296g three years ago and costs £3. Now it’s 256g and £5.50.

Possibly the most important discovery since Piltdown Man's cricket bat