An excellent reminder that history isn't something in the past, something that is finished (Fukuyama style). It is rather an ongoing process with scary parts every now and again. We are in a scary part- this is what it feels like. youtube.com/shorts/PE8M4...

Nor does it, in Eco's list published in 1995, suggest that authoritarian tendencies can be ascribed to 'right or 'left'. "Right" and "Left" labels are increasingly weakly defined and then, most often, to suit a given agenda.

Four (4) #mass #shootings in the #US over the weekend with at least 12 dead. How many will it take?

Supreme Court justices as TV guests. Aren't they supposed to be above the fray?

Brilliant - from Private Eye Magazine.

Solipsism as a service. www.wsj.com/tech/persona...

More disingenuous bullshit statistics from the Daily Telegraph. The baby trick of compressing the y-axis to give a false impression of significant change. Ten minutes spent with Excel and a bigger range on the x-axis produces the following chart.

Letter sent to Nigel Farage by Patrick Sargent Former Reform UK regional Chairman He is surprised to find out that the limited company he joined: • Has no democratic structure • Is not a meritocracy • Is a Farage vanity project • Has no policies • Is not a professional outfit

Just wait till they find out that the prices will remain high! Defeating inflation doesn't bring prices down. It just stops them increasing as quickly.

“With your patient and rigorous work, you can act as a barrier against those who, through the ancient art of lying, seek to create divisions in order to rule by dividing,” he said. “You can be a bulwark of civility against the quicksand of approximation and post-truth...” apnews.com/article/pope...

Let's acknowledge the calculators, log tables, slide rules or the ready reckoners for their contribution also.

This senile liar who currently occupies the White House does not remember that he was President on January 6th. If you voted for this senile liar, and if you enable him today, you clearly are ok with breaking America. The ruins of our once great nation are because of you.

As an example: AI doesn't understand "no." Because the statements "no ketchup on my burger" and "ketchup on my burger" are almost identical to a machine that does not and cannot actually reason. It's only a 2 letter difference.

Is this making America great again? There is no honor here. No justice. No decency. No law. Just force.

Enlightening video from Vanessa. When will people get that #AI Altman's #SORA vision is a money-suck, a time-wasting #scam. Money that could go to researching disease cures (as a single example) now lets people make shit up about people - some of it no doubt #defamatory. youtu.be/NQEOMgdzBI4?...

When you use companies' communications products they can do what they want. We seem surprised by this! Secondhand censorship (government doesn't censor but merely disapproves and company reacts censoriously) gives plausible deniability.

A valid opinion, but we should remember that the Nobel Peace Prize like all Nobel Prizes is a PRIVATE award, given by a private foundation. It also brings a significant monetary award as well so that the recipient might be better able to focus on the work they do.

God damn, we need criticism. I loved reading this review (almost) as much as I would love overpaying for this stunt-cast version of Godot and forming my own opinions. 4columns.org/krasinski-je...

Russia's war aim is to annihilate Ukrainians as a people and to make a colony of all Ukrainian land. There is no "deal" that can possibly stop Russian imperialism. Only the total defeat of the Russian invaders and their unconditional surrender can stop it.

So much truth here.

You can call political leaders fascist if you do it responsibly. But understand that fascism isn’t a fringe pathology. It’s one of the central ideologies in our culture. You can’t declare fascists beyond the pale and move on. You have to confront them and defeat them politically. 1/2

Trusting an uninoculated immune system never helped those of billions who died from polio, tetanus, mumps or measles and other infections before vaccines were developed. Those who purvey such nonsense should never be given roles in human health. I wonder how many of them are alive due to vaccines?

the falconer? no, we haven't heard anything from him in a while. i'm hearing this for the first time. folks, our gyre is beautiful, some are saying the widest and getting wider. one of the widest ever, in terms of gyres.

I've just spent fifteen minutes on a 150 word section describing the crime scene photo of Mary Kelly's dismembered body. It was legitimately some of the least pleasant writing work I have ever done. At exactly zero points in the process did I think, "gosh, I wish I could get AI to do this for me."

Wait till Trumpy Wumpy gets his brain cell around this idea.

Here's a #silly quasi-feline game. Where does this #cat come from?

As Frank Herbert noted power doesn't necessarily corrupt but it does attract the easily corruptible.

Over 40% of corn grown in Indiana is used to make ethanol that cars burn. One acre of corn yields about 16,500 vehicle-miles per year of ethanol, which sounds high until you realize that one acre of solar yields about 2,700,000 vehicle-miles per year: 16,000% more driving for a given plot of land.

Insanity. We don't have enough ATC staff so we'll sack some.

Female AND Venezuelan. That won't piss him off at all!

Eloquence in the face of state-sponsored terror. Relatives of mine who believed in the project of Israel joining their military, working in kibbutzes would be turning in their graves. youtube.com/shorts/zaEu8...

That’s not how science works dip shit.

I can't imagine Churchill or de Gaulle or Roosevelt or Nehru or Mandela, or, in fact, anyone wanting to be heard as statesman blathering on about whether Vegans ever intentionally or not ate mosquitos. Too many little people with egos and no ideas wanting power for its own sake.

NEW #DoctorWho postcard pack on sale next week. 15 Doctors, 15 debut stories. Artwork based on #DavidPelham’s #PenguinBook covers from the 1970s. Here are the first four —

Simple rule. If you're an expert in climate change and an oil exec criticises you just ignore it (the exec and the criticism).

Yeah, yeah. I know. America is important. But I'm so fucking sick of it absolutely dominating the UK news cycle. I get it. You voted in a turd and now you're swimming in fascist shit. But we have our own rightwing wanklord problems that need more national coverage.

Given that #Hamburgers derive from a place, Hamburg, it's insane to think that the word can be co-opted by one side of the food debate or another. Give the eating public credit for knowing if something is #plant- or #meat-based.

Srars' statement is the very definition of discrimination. This detachment of people in authority from reality is the root cause of current problems.

The power of mythos.

So we've gone from no acetaminophen while #pregnant to no #acetaminophen when you need #analgesia! They're just making it up as they go along and people will #suffer as a consequence. #Cruelty is the point.

Picture of the #girlfriend of #antifa, her best friend and the founder himself - a purveyor of #apples.

A member of the US Congress says it's OK for Trump to randomly order the murder of anyone he wants to. Further, that Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize. Far King L.

The media are too busy becoming the news rather than reporting it. The gap between fact and editorial opinion is increasingly narrow and our politicians are happy to live there like trolls under the bridge.

Josh Johnson is an acute observer of humanity. He's also very funny and empathetic. youtu.be/QU93N7saW_E?...

Given that they interviewed 300,000 people globally from companies employing 1000 or more people when the 160,000,000 employees in the US alone let alone globally, the sample is hardly representative of working life.

"Getting elected to this office doesn't change you, it just amplifies who you are." ~ Pres. Obama

Just remembered this jaw-dropping graph by @oceansclimatecu.bsky.social showing the rate of change in CO2 during the previous two deglaciations of the Pleistocene (which, as a fun aside, featured ~400 feet of sea level rise) as compared with today

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz0o... "The extent to which these very powerful people feel NO sense of #responsibility to ANYthing makes me feel like maybe they shouldn't have this much power". Hank Green #AI taking people’s #jobs isn’t the worst outcome - we managed to find a worse one!