Today learnt that the supposed Oscar Wilde quote about socialism taking too many evenings was just made up by Michael Walzer in 1968 quoteinvestigator.com/2019/06/03/e...

last week i filed my Norwegian taxes (i have income there). It was 6 clicks and 1 2FA entry. Less than 5 minutes to check the prefilled numbers, et voila. It should be this simple for the millions of USians who file the minimal 1040. Of course public health and pensions simplify reporting.

when trump was first elected ten years ago there was some expert (forgot who) that said authoritarians usually go down not not from a vigorous defense of democracy but from too much corruption. dems letting that slide has seemed like collusion.

This is awesome: "NYC Opens the First ‘Rest Stop’ for Delivery Workers in the U.S." secretnyc.co/nyc-first-de...

Today's the 100th day in office for Zohran Mamdani. We talked to him, a top deputy, his consumer protection head, his housing director, and more, and found that he's building momentum for bigger fights by proving that government works and getting New Yorkers to participate in it:

Pre-2022 data is like pre-1945 steel.

Always love the free book/office clean out table at work

The Mamdani administration today announced its own click to cancel rule, to make sure that every subscription transaction in the city is as easy to end as it is to start. The FTC did this in 2023, it was challenged in court & Trump's FTC wouldn't defend it. NYC is doing it themselves.

🚨 New WP 📄 (w/ @muzhou-zhang.bsky.social and @winniexia.bsky.social ) We ask which countries people in 🇺🇸🇬🇧🇩🇪🇩🇰🇮🇹🇷🇴 think their governments should learn from and show: 1) Citizens have clear favorites (Nordics top) 2) Performance info shifts what they prefer and how they explain it Comments welcome!

trump is getting a cut

are we going to get to “abolish the presidency” by 2028? because that is, like, the obvious solution

Former MLB player Brad Lidge, who threw the final pitch to win the Philadelphia Phillies the 2008 World Series, is now an archaeologist researching the Etruscan civilization. He is joining the Penn Museum Board of Advisors, calling it a “full-circle moment.” www.penn.museum/blog/major-l...

We prob could have done a whole episode about the huge BYD plant opening in Bahia, Brazil. - built on a former Ford plant site - Biggest EV factory outside Asia - Will make 300k cars a year when complete (big even by Chinese standards) - 50% of components locally @70sbachchan.bsky.social

Old military adage: No plan survives contact with the enemy. Trump: No plan, survives contact with the enemy!

lots more fake ai-generated job ads now

on the other hand, a recall election would be good business for the consultants

New, from me.

aha, there’s your reparations for iran

I wonder if the iran war will end because someone else pays reparations on behalf of america and israel (and then america pays them back for uh unrelated reasons)

ok but the vietnam war was bad

the american voter could also decide the way to get cheaper gas is to elect an even bigger asshole

New paper with Brian Connolly, forthcoming @washulawreview.bsky.social: “Rezoning the Rust Belt.” Contemporary debates about zoning treat it as an issue for high-demand places. Reform is about making NYC and SF affordable, or keeping the Sun Belt affordable. But the Rust Belt needs reform too.

due for an updated and expanded edition

not excited to spend a few hundred thousands dollars sending my kids to (public) college in a few years

Tale of two petrostates. Data from @robbieandrew.bsky.social: robbieandrew.github.io/carsales/

Just rewatching 30 Rock and

taxes aren’t necessary for spending because there’s always the sale of offices and corvée labor (this is a joke about mmt)

Andy Burnham’s “Manchesterism” rightly argues that the loss of public control of essential services worsens the cost of living crisis. This is the “Privatisation Premium”. Our new briefing explains this premium & how to fix it. 🧵 www.common-wealth.org/publications...

NEW ANALYSIS: UK emissions fell 2.4% in 2025 as coal fell to a 400-year low. Incredibly, we used less coal last year than than in 1600, when Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne and Shakespeare was writing Hamlet. All the details in our article: www.carbonbrief.org/...

Is a democratic economy possible? What could it look like and how might we achieve it? Come to LSE on March 30th to discuss these questions and more with @isabelleferreras.bsky.social, @mathewlawrence.bsky.social and me. www.lse.ac.uk/events/democ...

Did the petrostate’s trigger-happy oligarchy read our paper and conclude “Oil price shocks are good and easy to engineer”? We’ll never know. But we know where the profits go. 👇

I know it's not the main issue, but what's the FIFA protocol for when a host nation for a world cup attacks or declares war against a participating nation in the run up to the competition? especially when the head of the host nation is in receipt of your inaugural peace prize?

Teruhide Kato (1936-2005) The 1000 Torii at Kyoto's Fushima Inari Shrine #japanese #woodblock

“no presidents” is good

they’ll bring back DDT next www.theguardian.com/environment/...

the donor class realized their private planes would have to go

flying rodent's Noticing Things view has been helpful

bill gates takes two jets everywhere he goes because he doesn’t want all his servants on the same plane as him

ok vanguard, time for US total market ex-musk index

Always remember that Fernand Braudel just wanted to write about the longue duree but then introduced volume 3 of The Mediterranean basically saying "listen I don't like it myself but the next three hundred pages will be solely about Philip II and his correspondence because he was very important"

a shortcut

you can tell these antisocial losers don't have friends because this is about as complicated as organizing a potluck or a carpool

also marx wasn’t translated into swedish until after universal suffrage

We ran a progressive slate for the Akademikerpension board elections 10 years ago (and won), because we wanted fossil fuel divestment. I don’t think we ever imagined we might one day help trigger a margin call on U.S. Treasuries.

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THREAD. The definitive list of the absolute best interdimensional portals I have photographed on walks in the British countryside. 1. Gateway To The Land Of Leaping Dogs.

who are the sickos who write in pen in library books?

the key to understanding politics