As the year comes to an end, may I interest you in my favorite book of 2025? It's @adapalmer.bsky.social's Inventing the Renaissance: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo... You think you don't need a 700+ page romp through mostly Renaissance Italy, but you do.

No one has ever been able to adequately explain what Putin is meant to have thought NATO expansion would threaten him with, apart from limiting his expansionist ambitions. "He was worried they'd invade Russia." No he wasn't. He just wasn't. That's not a thing anyone thought might happen.

Heel opvallend bericht in de Telegraaf

Putin said he plans to continue the war because Ukraine "isn’t in a hurry to solve this conflict with peaceful means" So,Putin says,if "Kyiv authorities do not wish to end the issue peacefully,we will solve all the tasks that are in front of us during the special military operation in an armed way"

Extremely funny to call the pope “holier-than-thou”

Sorry, I was about to go to sleep and then this arrived and now I’m on high #DuvetKnowItsChristmas alert

A small (personal) example of this book’s intellectual dishonesty: My father-in-law is reading In Covid’s Wake, and excitedly told me he found a passage where I’m quoted. The quote in question is me saying the FBI worked to censor speech on social media. Huh? When did I say that?!

There is so much revisionist history about the pandemic but this is... I don't even know what to say about this.

"Seven German journalism students tracked Russian-crewed freighters lurking off the Dutch and German coast—and connected them to drone swarms over military bases." Well done by the students. How come the authorities didn't figure this out? Or did they just not tell us about it?

Een verdienmodel opbouwen met het eeuwige klagen over 'de macht van de linkse kerk' (een mythe trouwens), om via dat slachtofferschap een christelijk conservatieve zuil op te richten. En zelf de satire er niet eens van inzien.

The United States is an enemy of the European Union and Canada, they're telling us this straight up.

Will Arnett was on Conan and told a story about how Conan dealt with the death of his parents by accusing Jason Bateman of killing them. It’s so funny.

It's so interesting to me how Makary conspiracy code switches when he talks to podcasters vs national news. This is the kind of stuff MAHA hears from the FDA Commissioner.

Michael Shellenberger, University of Austin expert on climate, whales, UFOs, energy, free speech, homelessness, urban policy, trans medicine, the intelligence community, and 9/11 —and Hugo Chavez’s former PR flak— is going to Europe to lecture them on authoritarianism. Regulating X violates NATO.

Invoking "color revolutions" as a boogeyman like this really goes to show how much these guys have cooked their brains on Russian propaganda specifically.

The most precious commodity you have is your attention. You don’t have to waste it on poor-faith debates or arguments with strangers if you don’t think they’ll be productive. You can prioritize the things that matter to you and make your life richer.

💥Wow: Polish president Karol Nawrocki CANCELS his December 4 Budapest meeting with Viktor Orbán over the Hungarian PM’s Kremlin visit and Hungary doubling down on Russian energy. Is Poland’s populist right finally waking up to Orbán’s real allegiances? We'll see. Statement: x.com/marcin_przyd...

Dus als mensen (eindelijk) op nationale tv Wierd Duk confronteren met zijn wereldvreemde, radicale opvattingen, loopt hij weg. Het heeft veel te lang geduurd dat Duk in het digitale domein de radicale activist kon zijn en op tv zijn gematigde kant mocht tonen. De maskers vallen af. 1/2

I remain genuinely gobsmacked that this wasn’t picked up more. The Alex Jones who *repeatedly accused grieving parents of making up their children’s murders*. Anyway, “after the news we’ll be joined by Nigel Farage & definitely won’t be asking him about any of this…”

Dear Bluesky, www.thenerve.news is still tiny. We launched it with no dirty money (no money at all, lol!). But we're proving what's possible with a small expert team & no billionaire owners. We knew the UK press wouldn't understand or properly cover this story, so we did. Thank you for the support!

It's that time of year

Farage crony Nathan Gill gets 10.5 year sentence for taking bribes from Russia www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c8...

Musk's ego was mortally wounded by Joyce Carol Oates and he's been on a narcissistic supply bender since

NEW: The White House intervened in a DHS investigation. The target? Sex offender Andrew Tate. The WH person? Paul “Nazi Streak” Ingrassia. Who was previously also Tate’s lawyer. A banger from @robert-faturechi.bsky.social & Avi Asher-Shapiro www.propublica.org/article/andr...

Yesterday will mark a major turning point – the collapse of the European Parliament's decades-old centrist governing majority. It's the end of an era, and the beginning of another.

Genuinely sad the extent to which Smith now beclowns himself. He used to be interesting but is now properly brainrotted.

history will ultimately decide this but i think joyce carol oates might have just landed the most devastating burn in human history. like the death star trench run of posting

YOU LET MATT GOODWIN RUN A YOUTH WING?!

"You cannot unify a country by tearing apart millions of the families within it. You cannot bring social peace with brutality and violence on a massive scale."

A Dutch province has asked the US ambassador in the Netherlands to return two panels about African American soldiers to the visitors center of the Netherlands American Cemetery, located in Margraten (Limburg). The two panels were recently removed by the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC).

I’m sorry, but a goofy looking guy who grew up a privileged son of a pediatrician and has a phd in social theory from the university of Goethe and started in tech by investing an inheritance left to him by his grandfather talking about being a “dude” is very, very funny to me.

A great point. If you read the UK press, spend time on X and fall prey to elite radicalisation, you can very easily fool yourself into thinking you represent the silent majority when in fact you are an increasingly extreme minority. It's funny when conservatives scold liberals about their "bubbles"

Yeah so several major Ukrainian cities are in a complete blackout right now. 0 generation from thermal plants and 0 idea when the power will be back. Just please don’t forget us

Whatever you do, don’t ask Palantir’s Alex Karp: “How worried are you about the Nick Fuentes wing of MAGA?” @axios.com $PLTR

If Trump and Orban were interested in understanding war, they’d know sustained offense is harder than defense, and that rewarding Russia’s aggression likely won’t bring peace, it’d encourage more aggression. But they’re interested in seeing Putin succeed and validating their own culture war views.

Are we invading Poland

this should be one of defining images of his second term, because its impossible to tell from looking at it whether he is too indifferent to care or too senile to notice

left-winger wins: BUT WILL HE DELIVER right-winger wins: WHY ARE THE LEFT SO OUT OF TOUCH

This is a particular favourite - the idea that some voter in Crewe or Carlisle will remember in 2029 that their MP sent a tweet congratulating the newly elected New York Mayor and judge on his record accordingly, guys most people barely know who the Prime Minister is, you have Twitter brain rot

Europa als speelbal tussen China en Amerika. Hoe wordt Europa weer een speler? Met @sandertordoir.bsky.social spreek ik over Europa’s strategische achterstand op China en de VS, en wat er nodig is om onze autonomie terug te winnen. open.spotify.com/episode/0vdf...

Osborne deserves a lot more condemnation, for not just doing austerity but doing it so cackhandedly: 1. Not borrowing to invest when borrowing costs were at essentially zero 2. Cutting spending by salami slicing every part of the public sector with no real analysis of where could take it

United Front or bust, people. Save factional infighting for after the emergency. "But he's to my left on economic issues:" or "But he criticizes Israel more than I like." So? He's right on the most important thing: fascism and corruption bad, rule of law democracy good. And Cuomo clearly is not.

The UAE where hugging in public can get you arrested, where human rights barely exist, where foreign workers are routinely abused, where critics of the regime routinely disappear, where an Indian nanny was shot by firing squad in March & where marital rape is not a criminal offence but being gay is.

If you're ever tempted to believe or cite Jonathan Haidt's moral panic crusade against social media, you should consider that he's now also part of Heritage's crusade to criminalize porn.

🚨🚨🚨🚨

I've heard the argument that you can't win an election by opposing a president with a net negative 18 approval—and net negative 39 with independents—and should instead assume the political landscape is the same as before he was in office and had much better numbers. My counterpoint: maybe you can.

LBJ was the last president this concerned with "ball room".

Germany wants to do everything directly with Palantir anyway, even though Microsoft is bad enough. Oh, our neighbors! "Austria's Armed Forces Gets Rid of Microsoft Office (Mostly) for LibreOffice The Austrian military prioritizes independence over convenience." news.itsfoss.com/austrian-for...