"What a great time to be alive, if you love the theatre of the absurd" -David Lynch

In swift coup d’etat this morning British Army secures a peaceful transfer of power back to monarchy. King Charles pledges to restore constitutional government. Americans 🤷‍♂️

Sometimes the universe isn’t subtle with the metaphors

There is no country in the world, not even the most extreme dictatorships like North Korea or Iraq under Saddam Hussein, that puts its leader's face on passports. This appears to be unprecedented anywhere.

Step 1: Ask the Taoiseach a disingenuous question about whether he “believes transgender children exists” on camera. Step 2: Fire the clip onto social media as outrage bait. Step 3: Report on the manufactured outrage you generated as if it was a genuine news story.

I actually think it's kind of telling that despite his many, many failings, Micheál Martin just isn't willing to engage in bad faith fear mongering over trans kids. Because, I suspect like the majority of people, he simply does not see it as any kind of real problem

the anti-trans to anti-neurodiversity pipeline continues to flow. it is obviously absurd anywhere, but it's so detached from reality in Ireland, where we have a massive backlog of children seeking autism diagnoses and no public provision of adult diagnosis at all

<stares in January 6th>

Trump seems to have written this, but any lawyer who signed it should be insta-fired. But what’s maddening is that for years our media has pretended Trump’s idiotic, borderline-illiterate writing style was a perfectly valid register for public communication. Why have we normalized this drivel?

A prediction: Over the coming year the New York Times will also be amongst the publications that writes the *most* about neurodivergence in general, & autism + adhd in particular. It similarly will be amongst the *least* likely to quote humans diagnosed with autism &/or adhd. #epistemicinjustice

I hear Iran are just weeks away from developing a ballroom.

Ah, so when announced it was $200m, supposedly entirely paid for by private donors. Now it’s $400m from general taxation. Another Fell For It Again, America award, even ignoring the BAM-level price inflation. Albert Speer says hello.

Look, all (yes,all) of those temporary giant wall video projection exhibitions are tacky overpriced efforts that don’t even make much of an insta experience, but adding a giant talking statue is simply that Futurama Pharaoh Bender episode. Can’t we just remember Joyce for his brief reign of terror?

Ffs. When will we ever have a government that will finally address the biggest plague in our nation?? In the meantime, men, can you stop attacking women? And other men, if you know friends that are assaulting their partners, have a word, with them or the cops. Rest in peace ❤️🕯️

In the Old Days, fascists ran false flags as thinly-veiled excuses to imprison entire classes of people or invade other countries. Trump, even more pathetic than this (though up for imprisoning entire classes of people), wants his 🙄 Speer ballroom as part of his Reichshauptstadt Trumpmania notions.

The ballroom and the “shooting attempt” are akin to the Reichstag fire that Timothy Snyder talked about in On Tyranny. Don’t be fooled. Everyone should read this book. #WHCD #OnTyranny

phase 1: we need the ballroom phase 2: late night host must be fired

using your second Reichstag Fire-style opportunity to justify a ballroom is a wild move

The White House claims it has secured all of Iran—when it can't even secure one DC ballroom.

🔥🔥And the sickest Trump burn of the year goes to 60 Minutes correspondent Norah O'Donnell:

There’s going to be… an OLD MAN AND THE SEA Lego? With a possibly-affordable 1300 pieces? If they’re going to do more Hemingway Lego, might be fun to offer Brett Ashley or Pilar… y’know, the two cool characters he wrote. beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

I love that the usual word for these in French is le pissenlit. Lookit, obviously in English we happily call them pissybeds as kids, but in France you can actually ask for une salade de pissenlits as an adult… and that’s just wonderful.

No idea who this bloke at the WHCD is, but I like to think that someone with a gun multiple floors and half a building away wouldn’t keep me from my food either. (video from the Straits Times: they haven’t posted it on BS and no idea where they got it from)

The two funny things about last night’s WHCD are Trump flopping on his face as he was being hustled out of the room, like Peppa Pig in a rush The guy sitting at the table, nonchalantly grabbing a few bites while the Secret Service & CAT were doing their thing, like me if I’d paid $500 for dinner.

I go for a nice sleep and… Look, I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist, but

Limerick people: If your scooter has been stolen, or you’ve just forgotten where you’ve left it, it might be this one plopped there & unlocked on Lr Gerald Griffin St. If it’s yours, hope you get it back.

So sad to see an animal caught in a snare trap

i knew there was a far side comic for the news today

"The idea of fuel rationing may sound drastic, but in reality, fuel is already rationed. All goods are. At present, they are just rationed according to price" A great piece and it's mind boggling why our government won't step in and address demand and waste throughout the fuel system

"...t it would be a fascinating stress test of the Irish state’s capacity to answer for the crisis it has spent the last ten years so meticulously maintaining. " It is government policy for Ireland to have a housing shortage, and so the government will do anything but address that shotage.

‘If I get chronic bronchitis, or she does a hip, suddenly it’s AI Clippy going, “It looks like you’re overloading the NHS, can I help you with assisted dying?”’ - funny & tender & beautiful!

#TeamElephant obviously Kinda hoping for a repeat of this with the funeral of Mr Likes To Shoot Elephants And Other Animals To Keep Their Heads On His Wall tbh. Five elephants trampling a funeral would make a heck of an “and finally…” news item

Running Delaware Marathon and losing 1st place because you celebrate too early (volume up 💀)

Indeed, camping out in the back garden waiting for your folks to die isn't a housing policy

Trust me, disabled people feel this hostility acutely.

Every year, seeing this blows my mind. Far side of the fence, grazed by sheep: a deadzone. Our side of the fence: full of wild native trees, flowers, insects, birds. WHY are we not giving hill farmers other livelihood options that *benefit*, instead of destroy, nature, like paying them to rewild?

What a headline

You gotta love how Dastardly Old *checks notes* Joseph Robinette Biden Jr has become the Emmanuel Goldstein / Snowball of the Trump administration. War? Pestilence? Expensive eggs? Stubbed your toe? Why, it’s the fault of Deep State Terrorist Joe Biden, out there blowing up your windmill.

I repeat: tell them to go fuck themselves.

How many solar panels could you buy for the €500m fuel supports for the blockers? How many council houses?

Is the government run by Russian agents or something? Are they actually TRYING to sabotage the country? #speirghorm

Fuck off with your tax cuts and put money into our services and infastructure. No imagination or ambition.

This hotel room has too many beds for one person. I’m not fancy, but will always gratefully take a free upgrade. The upgrade seems to be extra beds. I don’t have the time or energy or inclination to run an orgy. Which would just require one bed anyway. I’ll just use the one bed, I guess.

Watching the Special meeting of Limerick City & County Circ--Council. The Boro Field meeting. Starting at 5pm. Third meeting of today (second one I'm watching). God help me. Follow along if you like.🧵 #CouncilMeetingThread

Watching the resumed abandoned-in-March Limerick Council meeting on a phone screen and also typing this on the same screen. If the meeting starts, might have periodic updates. #CouncilMeetingThread

I could write a piece for Sunday Miscellany on the resonance on that theme tune

Y'all are gonna lose your minds when you hear about horses.

"I have never witness anything as bad as the abuse" -- when this is said by @aidanobrien.bsky.social, it's really worth listioning:

“…Irreversible for hundreds to thousands of years” “Irreversible”. This is infinitely more consequential than Trump, oil prices, Hormuz etc. yet we continue to ignore it.