Almost all you need to understand current American politics is captured neatly in two Randy Newman songs: Rednecks & Political Science. Enjoy. youtu.be/hTLHxpUQ_B8?... youtu.be/R5mAuPg1ZZw?...

Nobody’s talking about affordable healthcare today, I see

Now what

Cost of living protests. This is not ideological, or religious unrest. This is the kind of protest we could see much more of in Europe and the US before long, anywhere the wealth gap is widening.

Might be time to re-read @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social’s dad’s book. Read it in college about 20 years ago.

Interesting way to think about the impact of mostly consuming content via algorithmic suggestions

1,115 days until January 20, 2029

HAPPY NEW YEAR AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Reading ‘Filterworld’ by @chaykak.bsky.social and loving. Highly recommend - the concepts in it affect all of us now, the chapter on Netflix will peel your eyelids back. amzn.eu/d/6ZnHPsB

"He doesn't swing his arm like a regular American" What kind of editor lets a ludicrous sentence like that out of the building?

Love the nature of interaction here on Bluesky but if you’re invested in or curious about international AI/tech/VC it’s hard to ignore the fact that the bulk of the conversation & content is still back… over there. See more and more people drifting back.

The perfect day.

Can’t get my head around the American far right co-opting Christianity and the right to say ‘Happy Christmas’ when it’s the celebration of a radical Palestinian anti-capitalist who preached tolerance and prioritized caring for the poorest of the poor.

Amazing little Irish detail from The Family Stone, one of the best Christmas movies. Ballybunion!

And we are up to 2GW of installed solar PV, half of which is on rooftops. Need to double & triple this but it’s encouraging.

Absolutely none of this is based on reality. Lack of diversified energy including renewables hurts America’s national security.

Agree with ⁦‪Bill Gurley‬⁩ here: “I don't share this thought that we're all gonna go watch movies that we've imagined that are made just for ourselves.” Simple, direct, demonstrably human communication & content creation is going to soar in value in the AI age. podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/t...

This is the kind of thing that sees your citizens turned away at the border of sane, healthy countries, with good cause.

Poor boomers

I find it wild that choosing the bulletproof grade of your kid's unicorn pattern school backpack is a choice that people make in an advanced society

It does seem like TMTG was just used as a hollow, grift-ready SPAC here – a Trojan horse, with its belly-space auctioned off by the knowing Trojans.

Matt Levine continues to be one of the greatest explainers of complicated money things that ever wrote an email newsletter. If you're not making time for Money Stuff five days a week you're missing out. Levine on WBD rejecting the Paramount bid: www.bloomberg.com/opinion/news...

Journalists will flat out refuse to learn how to write an SEO-optimized headline but will spend hours trying to turn an AI vending machine chatbot communist. www.wsj.com/video/series...

Could not agree more with the words and the sentiment of this. Tech resistance among journalists & professional communicators is insanely self-defeating and something I've sought to combat for 15 years. www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/plea...

Despite Irish podcast consumption being very high, it’s hard to see how we don’t have vast over-supply in here. I ran podcasts for big names in the US market, cash didn’t come easy. Is Ireland so influencer-influenced that it’s worthwhile for all of them? thecurrency.news/articles/211...

Half forgot I wrote this but after years of trying to shave off slivers of attention on behalf of giant corporations it felt good to write. Title stolen wholesale from Bo Burnham (clips included in the post) open.substack.com/pub/markhamn...

Saved you a click. No surprises here.

End your day the right way: by following a link on social media to a stressful article about the 15 habits – many of them related to the phone you hold in your hand right now – that are slowly killing you and that you definitely do all the time. everydayhealthtips.substack.com/p/harvards-n...

People keep wondering why they're going after Venezuela. It's because they want to do regime change and control its oil, then use a big tract of land there to keep a tax free "network state" that looks like Dubai but operates like Rhodesia. They are saying this out loud! Believe them!

There's no meaningfully good reason to do this from a security perspective. This is all about the administration punishing speech they don't like. Once it gets rolling, regular citizens are next. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/t...

The single best piece of writing I've seen on the quesiton of whether or not there's a looming AI bubble. More questions than definitive answers, but that's as good as anyone can offer. www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/default...

Real two fingers to all law-abiding US citizens living overseas, doing an additional tax return to send tax back to the US treasury on their overseas income.

Renewable generation and discharging storage equalled 73% of yesterday's electricity demand, with a peak of 87% at 05:00. Fossil fuel generation (mostly gas) equalled 25% of demand. 3% of generation was exported, 5% of demand was met by imports.

Add it to the pile of evidence that the Trump admin’s understanding of the world is frozen in c. 1989

The British electricity system was over 50% renewables last year The system operator is expecting by 2030 grid companies will connect 34.5GW batteries, 32.1GW offshore wind & 29.9GW solar Considerably more than any of those sectors has operating in Britain today www.ft.com/content/9913...

The number of global deaths of children under-5 is projected to increase this year (from 4.6m to 4.8m) for the first time this century. (FT) The price of aid cuts.

The Financial Times finally covers the Network State cult. Is this tech fascism? "I mean,we are funding companies that will operate non-democratic cities...and if you're not into that you shouldn't move there," says Peter Thiel protégé Patri Friedman.

Just loved Parr’s work. He had this way of poking fun at public absurdity with his camera, without ever exploiting or punching down - he remained kind and empathetic and whimsical. This is the closest I ever got to emulating him. Will spend the rest of my life trying.

Well, this is awfully sad news. Martin Parr, legendary photographer, has died. www.instagram.com/p/DR9mbjtjEj...

Fascinating deck from Matthew Ball on Onlyfans’ success www.matthewball.co/all/onlyfans...

The American mind cannot comprehend, etc

A closer look at yesterday's all-time high for wind power: - occurred during the Friday morning peak - 4671MW, or about 75% of electricity demand at the time - finally beats the 4629MW seen in March 2024 A green day for all the tellies and kettles during the Toy Show! 🪀 #SpeirGorm #LateLateToyShow

Huge kudos to @quoteinvestigator.com - possibly my new favourite website.

"The single biggest problem in communications is the illusion that is has taken place." - George Bernard Shaw? "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets its pants on" - Mark Twain? Neither of these quotes ever happened. markhamnolan.com/strategy/the...

She’s at 25 books now

Well now, there are a few of us to whom this concept is pretty familiar… Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood, etc

The money that flows to these political influencers js really wild. Watched the cash roll in during the TPUSA Charlie Kirk memorial, it was quite astounding.

This borders on predatory behaviour, frankly, and it's been brewing for a decade. @alexis-madrigal.bsky.social back in 2018: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

🚩 👀 💸 thecurrency.news/articles/210...