Indeed. My uncharitable view is that the original sin is the classic 'non-historian reads one book about the Wars of the Roses, laughs at John Ronald Reuel for a bit, starts his own, more "realistic" version, and gradually realises they've dug a dreadful hole for themselves'.

Juan Linz moment as Parliamentary systems confront the fragility of Presidentialism, "can't you just get rid of your mad king and his insane vizers, we would".

Most vindicated people right now are those African Union hippie interns and their Correct the Map campaign against Mercator (correctthemap.org)

It's great how all the global despots are a trillion years old and are doing increasingly psychotic things to achieve their fantasies because they feel they are "running out of time."

👇 Agree with this. There’s a somewhat pernicious “we haven’t presented the British public with this trade-off in plain language but we are going to act as if we have and they have Decided To Be Irresolute”.

i think vatnik brain comes from the imperial mindset more than impoverishment

This would be less true if the UK armed services didn't having a manning and readiness crisis. The lowest hanging fruit right now would be upping base a lot to reduce workforce losses, increase recruitment and offering bonuses to get sailors, airmen etc back into the forces.

Wow so according to recent DNA studies, you can see that in Central Asia, you can see linguistic and geographic patterns, like Tajiks are closer to Europeans than to Mongols. Also kind of runs against the current orthodoxy that all these nationalities were made up by the Soviets.

1️⃣ He didn't say that. 2️⃣ He said it, but you misunderstood him. 3️⃣ He said what you understood, but he was just trolling. 4️⃣ He was serious but he's just negotiating, not going to do it. 5️⃣ He's going to do it for grand strategy reasons I've invented. 6️⃣ Look what you liberals made him do.

"the building became the blackened pile we came to know and love". @jacktindale.bsky.social trigger phrase. www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z8y...

Sorry, Europe hasn't "appeased" the US. This media talk doesn't seriously reflect reality. Officials and most likely leaders are well aware of who they are dealing with. There just aren't any great answers which make it all better straight away.

1. Trump; simultaneously so stupid it must be satire, and deeply sinister and dangerous. 2. Have you forgotten the dictator of a nuclear power launched a genocidal invasion with a stupid essay, then had a televised "villain berating the minions while announcing his evil plans" event?

1. Labour fundamentally doesn't think much of English self-determination. As you'd expect by a party that looks at 33.7% as an endorsement. 2. This is because they half-arsed thinking about local gov. Other than wanting to gerrymander so that only Reform and Labour can win most councils.

SOE, with a professionally appointed CEO. No elected positions or board. The state or relevant subnational entity funding it exerts control through the budget: if there is a dedicated source of funds, like the Ile-de-France payroll tax, then it is broad and can be changed by the elected government.

mad king moment from the PBS Newshour correspondent

"The US wrote the rules of the world in a way to benefit us as the primary goal, that's why we're so rich, the international order is quite literally 'America first'" "Them FURRNERS at the UN n NATO stealin ALL OUR MONEY" "...........jesus christ"

We already saw this with tariffs and predicted economic damage - grandpa levies bajillion percent tariffs on everything from China - economists et al al go "uhhhh holy fuck holy fuck" - naptime defeats tariffs otaku and most stuff reverts to 10% - bunch of people accuse economists of exaggerating

All Independence parties in the Celtic Fringe are de-facto Unionist parties so long as their manifestos and policies for after a Yes Vote are "the UK will continue to exist and send us money, England will continue to not exist outside the UK".

Minishinkansen joins the mainline Shinkansen! bonus to whomever figures out the station.

Again these people say "import the 3rd world become the 3rd world" but "my ethnic interests are more important than the rule of law and due process" is just... very 3rd world lmfao.

London* gets its first Reform MP: Andrew Rosindell. *Admittedly Andrew dislikes being part of London so much he has repeatedly campaigned for his constituency to be moved into Essex.

Yeah Gold Coast line TOD is trashfire bad, but Brisbane's dense core and relative lack of parking craters is radically different than all but a few US cities. Also, Gold Coast light rail TOD is not bad.

I feel like this pretty much sums up the rot at the core of American civic life as a whole. “Hold the fuck up, cowboy. I signed up for the great power, not the great responsibility when I signed up for the church/media/government/think tank complex/etc.”

No offense @sharonk.bsky.social this would merely be one Seldon Crisis among many of the EU's rise. EU expansion has suborned the rumps of British and Turkish empires, neutered the Serbs and Magyars, made CEE 1st world economies, and pushed Russia to a stalemate outside Kharkiv.

A bit like how Putin and co midway through 2013 realise what the EU actually is and that what Ukraine signing an Association Agreement would mean. They freakout, destroying Yanukovych and their position in Ukraine. Russian, US (+UK) theories of the world assume power vacuums in Europe.

Best of three in Anglo-American wars?

🇵🇱💶🇺🇦 Donor comments under an international fundraiser to help Ukraine get through the winter: let's help the little ones and their families have electricity and heat in this tough time! Donor comments under a Polish fundraiser to help Ukraine get through the winter:

Brexit (and the UK) rely on US benevolent hegemony to exist at all, without them, the Hannan universe of the UK as a great power independent and superior to the EU collapses.

The contrast between Zizek and Tooze of Euro-émigré-Marxist-in-US to US elite unis is telling. Zizek clearly enjoys life as trashpanda old-man-yells-at-cloud leftist. + Slavic realism. Tooze is Anglo-German Marxist-Calvinism.

My review of the skyline during the intermission.

2024: can Europe defend itself ALONGSIDE America? 2025: can Europe defend itself WITHOUT America? 2026: can Europe defend itself AGAINST America?

Lmao the tripwire sitcom deployment worked

The photo the BBC are using on their live blog to illustrate the French response is so very good.

hilarious how his invasion bluff was called so he had to go to his emotional support tariff

Richmond, VA widened bus stop spacing to nearly 1300 feet a few years ago as part of a redesign we did. Des Moines and Louisville are doing the same as part of projects of ours rolling out soon. Bigger cities -- where the benefits of respacing are even greater -- should study these examples.

I mean I actually find this less weird than then seeing Islamic Otaku, even Otaku Ulema. Whether that Saudi, Malays and Yakoob from East London, pushing Umma solidarity by day, Oshi-katsuing by night. Americans and Japanese can at least agree on things

So apparently several major Tokyo train lines went down for hours during rush hour because of a maintenance error , where the workers left the grounding strap on, then voltage was applied which caused a massive short and damaged loads of equipment

Operation Breakthrough, a HUD project in the 1960s, produced some significant advances in prefabricated building construction methods and also exposed the need for building code reform.

I've seen a number of organisations and politicians use the data seemingly showing a productivity miracle in large northern city regions, especially Greater Manchester. Something didn't seem quite right. So I take a look in this piece:

this is correct, and I really should write something about how it operates in China.

I've increasingly come to view cynicism as the seedbed of totalitarianism, both because it can paralyze the opposition and because it implicitly validates the might-makes-right ethic of the authoritarian.

Nazis complaining that other country's Nazis be Nazi-ing. www.politico.eu/article/germ...

Won’t someone think of all the obstructed views

Just love how British politics has been obsessed about which fortunate party gets hold of a politician with a minus thirty approval rating and favourables of ten percent.

it’s kinda funny how every single one of these articles is like “neither YIMBYism nor NIMBYism but a secret third thing (NIMBYism)”

This is bad and @sharonk.bsky.social should feel bad about such an opinion. Its Tokyo or urban Kansai (no I can't chose). Fukuoka is more boring than Nagoya. Good ramen and good buses. But no. Just no.

The entire practice of politics and news media since the financial crisis has been frantically propping up one gang of frauds after another to shore up the teetering Thatcherite Consensus, and to maintain the post Cold War order at any cost. If push comes to shove, Reform will get their turn.