Addressing Europe's security dependence on the US really isn't about money. It is about a massive reorganization of European militaries so they can act and fight as Europe. Right now they all just dock into the US motherboard. Spending more is needed now but doubt 3.5% is necessary w/ major reform

Fukuyama: Trump is a bully who wants to dominate everyone around him. Trying to placate him with concessions is a fool’s errand. He despises weakness. As an American, I say to my European friends: do not back down. Appeasing Trump with flattery has failed and must stop. 1/3

Think it would be easier than people think to get the public to accept real lower consumption if politicians were more forthright about the case for it. People did so for COVID. "Russia is invading eastern Europe and America is run by a mad king, we need an army" doesn't seem that hard a sell.

Per CNN: full message exchange between Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, writing on behalf of himself and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, and US President Donald Trump (shared via @archer83able.bsky.social on Twitter) 4/

Davos starts today. But it’s been seven years since Rutger Bregman said everything that needed saying… and the rich and powerful are still pretending like they haven’t heard a thing.

Neo-royaliam is as much about status dominance as it is about material dominance. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

European Defence readiness: It requires more UNITY in our approach, across three pillars: - material - institutional - political Unity starts with leadership: "Angela Merkel in 2018 called for the establishment of a European Security Council ..." Short read from @andriuskubilius.ec.europa.eu:

Our response to geopolitical security crisis - more 🇪🇺 unity. Unity starts with collective leadership to discuss most important defence issues. We need to discuss setting up European Security Council, first proposed by President Macron & Chancellor Merkel ⬇️ ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

Canada’s China diplomacy can and cannot be replicated by Europe. The broader instinct to diversify is exactly right - and underway, see the EU’s Mercosur deal, and Brussels efforts to cut deals with India and Indonesia. But China is not a logical EU partner 1/

Everything Trump says here is verifiably untrue. During this period of time the number of US installations on Greenland went from 17 to 1 as a result of US determinations that they were not needed.

There are, I promise you, still serious and important people who think that Trump is playing 3D chess — putting on an act to convince his laggard NATO allies to pony up their fare share. But stuff like this is pretty clear evidence that he's *the* immediate risk to our collective security

A source confirms to me that this disturbing letter from Trump to the Norwegian PM is real.

formats over apps

This is not just words on a page. There is a fight going on about the future of international order and the norms that govern it. The US increasingly sees territory as abiut dominance and extraction. Europe is now mobilizing to defend the notion of sovereignty. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Greenland or we end aid to Ukraine. This is not how alliances/spheres of influence work. welcome to Neo-royalism where protection rackets are used for extraction. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

It's increasingly difficult to explain many of Trump's foreign policy endeavors without turning to either variables of personal financial gain or Trump's individual status concerns. Goddard and Newell's neo-royalism offers a framework that I found useful.

🇵🇱 Sikorski: For anyone who thinks Russia can be trusted, I remind you that Putin calls the Ukrainian people "brothers" and then murders them. I remind you that Ukraine and Russia have a border treaty signed by Putin. Budapest Memorandum… If anyone is still unconvinced, please look at the facts.

"... Danish military leadership were concerned that the United States – informally and without involving Copenhagen – was trying to get Danish colleagues in Greenland to hand over information about military installations, ports and air bases in Greenland" www.berlingske.dk/internationa...

it's more or less impossible to find issues that poll this badly and he's decided to make it a major, public priority www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-tru...

If grovelling to Trump is meant to buy us time to end our dependency on the US, you’d expect feverish activity in Europe to rapidly become autonomous. So has Europe made good use of the time it has bought with self-humiliation? It has not. My blog: open.substack.com/pub/sophiein...

"Grovelling is not a strategy. Denial is not a strategy. Procrastination is not a strategy. We need change. We cannot afford the charades any longer. Courage, ambition and vision for rapid and deep integration of the European Union. Playtime is over."

Ooh. Ollama just released Anthropic API impersonation, meaning you can set the endpoint to a local port and be off to the races! docs.ollama.com/integrations...

If I were a military superpower concerned my geostrategic adversaries might seize Greenland, I think what I'd do is enter into a military alliance with Denmark, and build a base on the island, so there would be no way for an enemy to take the place without starting a war with me they can't win.

Nearing 300 stars for Beans. Probably one of the most fun Open Source things I've ever released. Lots of really helpful contributions. Feedback often "cool, this is just like beads, but good". That is what I was aiming for, so reading that makes me very happy!

We’re stepping away from X (Twitter). We’ll continue sharing updates on channels where our community is most active, including Instagram, Facebook, Threads and here on Bluesky. Read our full statement: ow.ly/LVx950XWAlu

These troops could be for Minnesota, or they could be for Greenland. The fact that we have to consider the latter shows Europe is now in a security dilemma with the United States. We are in a security dilemma with our most powerful "ally."

As many others have noted, the 11th Airborne Division are Arctic warfare specialists.

Russian forces pose a greater, albeit better understood threat to Western air capabilities than pre-2022, and Chinese counter-air capabilities are on another level entirely. Long read by me on the key changes to track since 2020: www.rusi.org/explore-our-...

1/ Something which I don't think gets articulated clearly often enough is that a system where countries generally respect international sovereignty and territorial integrity is not pure charity or morality by the United States, but in its direct interests. Despite it being the strongest bear.

Ah yes, I remember it well. #TimeTrumpet

wikipedia turns 25 today! the last unenshittified major website! backbone of online info! triumph of humanity! powered by urge of unpaid randos to correct each other! somehow mostly reliable! "good thing wikipedia works in practice, because it sure doesn't work in theory" - old wiki adage

I am still sort of in disbelief how quickly we moved from "AI is not making me more productive as a programmer" to "of course AI can one-shot advent of code" in less than a year. bsky.app/profile/mits...

Three hours, 2.2 million tokens later with mostly passive prompting hours in the evening, and some overnight "continue" prompts and minijinja is fully ported to go. I linked the single pi session that has all prompts in it. shittycodingagent.ai/session/?29f...

Has there ever been any poll showing the public this united? yougov.co.uk/technology/a...

Thank you @lizforleicester.bsky.social for posting on Bluesky - it's appreciated! Thank you for welcome actions towards applying UK law. BUT: Ofcom's 2025 research says only 14% of UK adults (>=16) use X/Twitter for news: 8 million (not 19). /1

Made a new feed, Top UK MP posts in the past 24 hours bsky.app/profile/0x0....

This is essential: a democracy *must* know who is paying its politicians and where that money is coming from. Cryptocurrency is *designed* to make that impossible. The whole point is to lift payments outside the scrutiny of the state.

Seven Select Committee Chairs have written jointly to the Prime Minister calling for an explicit ban on cryptocurrency donations in the forthcoming Elections Bill. This is not an argument about digital assets. It is an argument about democratic integrity.

“So, no longer speak about “aiding” Ukraine. The Ukrainians are aiding Europeans and Americans by fighting for their survival. We owe them our gratitude, not the other way around.” By @phillipspobrien.bsky.social phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-up...

Totally agree. I have been saying for a long time that Ukraine has been buying time, at a terrible cost, for the rest of Europe to wake up and respond effectively to the Russian threat. Most Western European leaders still seem to be sleeping.

very well-written article on the Sycamore Gap felling; always wondered what came of that harpers.org/archive/2026...

[2019] Great blog about how to create autonomous AI agents by @apenwarr.ca apenwarr.ca/log/20190926

A data model for Git (and other docs updates) jvns.ca/blog/2026/01...

Markets run on trust. If the ref starts live-tweeting the score before kickoff, don’t be shocked when fans stop buying tickets—and investors stop buying stocks.

Read the article, get the details. I always keep it straight to the point.

The fourth pig:

This is a great and instructive story. The book, The Game of Birds and Wolves, is also good, although it somewhat overstates its case.

This is brilliant, joined up thinking! NHS and probation join forces to break the cycle of reoffending Those with mental health and addiction issues will be jointly monitored by probation and NHS experts to address the root causes of reoffending. 1/2

GERMAN PRESIDENT STEINMEIER: “.. the United States has broken with the values that it helped to establish .. “.. we have now moved beyond the stage where we can lament the lack of respect for international law or the erosion of the international order; we are far beyond that, I believe.”

Who’s gonna tell him that 1/ having Trump’s America as a neighbour is a highly undesirable state of affairs 2/. Russia is America’s neighbour….separated by just 2.4 miles. You’d think he’d remember that given he met Putin there (instead of arresting him per the ICC warrant for war crimes).