TIL that there isn’t a library in every primary school in England 😳

Wanted to post some 🔥 from John Quincy Adams on the Declaration of Independence: "It was the first solemn declaration by a nation of the only legitimate foundation of civil government. It was the corner stone of a new fabric, destined to cover the surface of the globe. It demolished at a stroke/

If AfD did get power they'd need a 2/3rd majority to change the constitution. They are such a long way off getting near there, even in places like Thuringia where they are the strongest. Under FPTP you can get such a majority on minority vote shares.

I was sent this map by a follower. When was the capital city of South American nations founded?

He's right, and not only that, American civil wars were largely unique in that they were fought "formally" (like OP means). That's unusual even accounting for wider history. It's because when you get right down to it, both were nation vs nation.

No one has done more damage to public health and trust in science and medicine than Andrew Wakefield. 26 years after his wrong and fraudulent paper people are still spouting his nonsense about an alleged link between vaccines and autism. The study was debunked countless times. There is no link.

Who really owns the £5 note in your pocket? youtu.be/8CTy_ia4j5k?... Politicians love to talk about “taxpayers’ money.” But here’s the truth: every pound in circulation is created by the government or banks licensed by it. This video explains why.

The true purpose of Bluesky has been revealed and it's Michael Stipe telling us the lyrics to It's The End Of The World As We Know It

My grandfather was an East Tennessee hillbilly farmer. He had dairy cows. And yes. They always boiled the milk before they used it for anything. Have these people ever been around actual cows?!?

This guy gets it. This is the way.

This is extremely disturbing stuff. Growing up in the Tennessee in the 70's & 80's, I know personally how destructive this sort of racism is and how nasty it can get when it is normalised.

The chance of a >140 m asteroid hitting the Earth (hello 🦕) is more likely than you being trampled by an elephant, but much less likely than you being struck by a car. doi.org/10.3847/PSJ/...

The bank app is telling me to "tap & pay like a boss😏" and "rally my crew". I am 37 years old and you are the bank. Don't talk to me this way.

I’ve been outside the Brussels bubble this summer travelling around Europe, spending time in 🇫🇷🇪🇸🇮🇹🇵🇱🇧🇪🇹🇷🇬🇧🇬🇷. In talking to Europeans, a grim reality has become apparent. We are facing a crisis of confidence in facing the 🇺🇸 threat. How can we make Europeans believe in themselves?

For this article on what generative AI is actually doing to society once you cut through the hype, I referenced, drew on, and engaged with some interesting writing by @cwarzel.bsky.social @tressiemcphd.bsky.social @noupside.bsky.social @garethwatkins.bsky.social @himself.bsky.social.

Totally normal for the President to instruct his lawyers to “go through the museums”

Unfortunately, and as I write about in my current book... British society in the 1930s... and even after the start of the war... influenced by newspapers like the Daily Mail was just as hostile to Jewish German and other refugees of Naziism as their modern descendants are to 'asylum seekers' today.

London is one of the greatest cities in the world. Khan is correct. Its very existence does indeed make a mockery of tribal nationalism.

Ain't this God's own Truth!

just a reminder again that we were told over and over that a 13 year old downloading a Limp Bizkit mp3 was an existential threat to society

100%

Otto English talking sense, as per isual.

It’s like a PhD in your pocket, but it’s a PhD in Hamburglarology from the Correspondence College of Tampa

haha this rules. folks don't know that AIs scraping websites accounts for like half of all internet bandwidth usage right now. Sites get scraped- ie, all the contents downloaded- over and over again, destroying/wasting their bandwidth, often maxing it out. It's like being continually DDOS'd

Truth, y'all. Truth.

Very good thread on the profound asymmetry of our information environment. Beyond ideology, the desire for *control* in the political and non-profit donor class is a huge barrier here, that hamstrings even things that *are* funded with unnecessary oversight and reporting requirements.

Seriously, these guys have fired literally every scientist who could tell them that they don't know what they're talking about, and so we get BS like this. www.politico.com/news/2025/08...

Started watching Jaws and couldn’t stop, not for the first time. Amazing movie even with the hilarious fake shark. If it was remade the shark would look real as fuck, but the movie would suck.

Women have been telling men what they want for decades, and it's pretty basic: partners who are caring and respectful. Sense of humour a plus. Stable finances are nice, but for a lot of women it's not a deal breaker. If men refuse to listen (the sticking point seems to be respect), that's on them.

Preview of Monday's newsletter! One answer to 'why do British political parties keep pretending they have a different core vote to the one they have', I think, is that it would be a lot more ideologically convenient for them if they did.

Reading an essay rn that starts with: "My view, shared by very few, is that the Cold War was distinctly a US project that began in 1946–47 and ended in 1963." Yeah bud, it's shared by very few because it's wrong.

For folks who are thinking about induction cooking, I recommend starting with an induction hotplate, which are like $65 at Ikea or wherever. Most people are really happy with the cooking experience and often move half or more of their cooking to induction, even with just one "burner" available.

Sure, but Huckabee is also a fundamentalist young-Earth creationist Christian, so you know . . .

BREAKING: Trump's FCC approves Paramount-Skydance merger after blocking it Just DAYS after CBS (part of Paramount) fired Trump critic Stephen Colbert Just WEEKS after CBS paid $36 million to Trump to settle his bullshit lawsuit vs 60 Minutes TOTAL AND COMPLETE CORRUPTION

Damn straight.

I don't like when people say I'm darkskinned. Not because I'm offended, but because its a (dis)orientation toward whiteness. In the broad spectrum of human skin colors I'm squarely in the middle. Reorient and recalibrate your understanding of human diversity.

Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath frontman and icon of British heavy metal, dies aged 76

It very much depends on what one considers to be "valuable, productive stuff." One should learn to love & nurture the assets & economies one has, not the ones some wish for. UK music, theatre, & film is 2nd only to the US. UK literature, insurance, universities, software, pharma, aerospace, adverts.

Braverman and others have published a 52-page, 20,000 word booklet on how simple it is to leave the ECHR.

Indeed. Though I tended towards more black-and-white thinking then, I was at my most relentlessly politically engaged between the ages of roughly 15 and 25. Blame The Clash and Dead Kennedys, I suppose!

Indeed.

The best response to Abundance talk is a single tweet from Ruairi Wood, RIP brother.

Meta is building something the size of Manhattan to try to create superintelligence but we already have a superintelligent thing the size of Manhattan and it’s Manhattan and all of the people in it

!!!!!!!!

There is some credibility to the suggestion that openly corrupt countries are more democratic than the West, as every citizen has the opportunity to bribe government officials, whereas in the West, this is mostly reserved for very rich people and companies.

Tech bros don’t want to save the world. They want to own it, brand it, license it, and charge you a monthly fee to visit.

The countryside is (with a few genuinely wild exceptions) as much a man-made working environment as any part of Birmingham.

!