"Whether you’re Persian or American or anything else, it’s objectively weird and sick to be gleeful about the destruction of innocent lives, and cities that hold some of the most beautiful achievements of mankind in art and architecture. This goes beyond geopolitics." x.com/megha_lilly/...

“If in the West Bank the state uses settlers to ethnically cleanse Palestinians, inside Israel they are using organized crime groups” - Aida Touma-Suleiman, a Palestinian Israeli member of the Knesset. removepaywalls.com/https://www....

There’s a reason why even Dick Cheney didn’t do this.

Art nouveau mosaic in Molenbeek from 1909 with a peacock strolling along a yellow brick road through an archway of his own feathers. God bless laudanum.

Brussels Midi before it was wrecked to receive high-speed trains. It lost the restaurant, the tower and the dome of a thousand glass bricks. Design by Adrien & Yvan Blomme with Fernand Petit

Ernest Blerot, architect

Whatever the sector - businesses, courts, lawyers, media, military, parties, universities - the pattern is the same: - the elites mainly collaborate - the masses mainly stay passive - and some everyday heroes resist

The Russians really thought they could roll into Ukraine with no resistance 4 years ago. The footage coming out of Ukraine in these days was quite something. The lost Russian soldiers asking for directions, Russian soldiers getting stuck in death traps, protests, helicopters falling out of the sky.

It’s only February www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

🚨🚨Biggest #EU news of today: #Iceland looks to fast-track vote on joining EU as referendum on EU accession could come as early as August, departing from original plan for 2027 ref. 🧵 www.politico.eu/article/icel...

The American mind cannot comprehend a country where neither the leading party nor its chief rival sit on the left

Just listened to the latest Sam Harris, with him describing Iran as a "more sophisticated culture than Iraq or Afghanistan". There is a part of my soul that shrieks in dismay every time I see the ghost of Samuel Huntington. It annoys me how mainstream & accepted his cultural determinism has become.

a year is a long time in politics

When people say “race is a social construction” it can often seem abstract. The use of “Judeo-Christian” as a seemingly natural ethno-religious category—despite centuries of anti-Jewish expulsions, pogroms and mass killing—is a good example of a political project constructing identity to gain power.

He thought about it.

Gaza Resort vibes

Belgrade Tourism Fair: Ethnically cleansed Bosnian Serb entity proudly promotes as tourist destination Hotel Vilina Vlas, notorious 1992-95 war prison & camp where Bosniak women were tortured, gang-raped & murdered by Chetnik paramilitaries. Can you even imagine Hotel Auschwitz? #CelebratingGenocide

I actually adore how ardently Labour cling to an incredibly 1980s position on drugs. It's wildly, comically unserious and antiscience, and yet apparently not a single MP of theirs disagrees.

And you can learn more about what's happened to Europe's broadcaster here. It's a very sad situation.

So sad seeing euronews at these low levels

as far as i can tell “bio hacking” is just a goofy term for giving yourself some combination of an eating disorder and a drug addiction

The headline does not convey how completely batshit this story is. The Archive Today (archive.ph etc) admin weaponized the site's captcha to attack a blogger who wrote about them and *altered archived screenshots* as part of the attack. arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

The Supreme Court:

I miss the internet when it wasn't so compartmentalized. Blog posts where people shared new music they were listening to, what they were up to, links to other sites, photos they took, just an idea they had or shower thoughts. Branding and work networking has degraded the internet

The Economist making itself look ridiculous again. 🤷‍♂️

you think China is into the idea of "civilizational state" because of some pre-existing tradition? everyone learnt from Huntington. Zhao Tingyang the guy who invented tianxia theory said in interview himself that he was originally a Kantian guy. Then he read Huntington and he thought oh no

If you read one thing this day, this week, let it be this, and think of the thousands of unsung heroes in this country, who are not only resisting this inhumane system, but also display true humanity. Love and respect to all of you. ❤️🙏

this is what your inseam looks like

@mrjamesob.bsky.social Bedford CC dealing with the bigots like an absolute boss.

Look at all their pop art references to lord of the rings, star wars, star trek, superman etc. They completely miss the point of the most didactic material, the only reason they pretend to like classical art is they think it owns “lesser” people even though this is wholly stolen valor

The decline of right wing cultural production is just due to the fact that they don’t like culture, they like the signifiers of culture, ie “classic sculpture means white people are better.” They don’t like art at all except for this purpose. They don’t even like the nerd stuff they whine about

How often does this man think about the Roman Empire?

The concentration camps will not only be for immigrants, documented or otherwise. They already aren't. They won't only be for brown and Black people. The targets will keep expanding. It will not end. The only way it will is if we stop it. Both in and out of the system. There is no other way.

interesting to think that revolutionary era americans understood themselves as making a break with the “old world” and establishing a new civilization. and crucially, this new civilization rested on republican self-government, not “sovereignty.”

douglas adams was our most accurate futurist

"Keir doesn't read. He has no hinterland"

Good day for a winter garden. This one in Saint-Gilles is from 1927. It's by Fernand Petit who also co-designed Midi station.

(worth saying here that this formulation of “western civilization” curiously isolates Europe from the Middle East and Africa, as if you can understand European “civilization” outside the context of its interactions with and integration into those worlds)

Someone has sure already made this observation but the fact they can convert all those empty warehouses into prison camps means they could have converted them into housing, community centers, job training centers or, hell, libraries or schools all along. It’s always a matter of will not resources.

our gender is finally catching a break somewhere, even if it's way over the rainbow where the skies are blue and the dreams that we all dared to dream are now coming true

TV. They've just reinvented TV.

Abbiamo aperto una (1) fattoria in Africa, raga (che vergogna queste veline aziendali pubblicate sul sole24ore) 🇮🇹 🇨🇩

A common feature I've often seen among Very Online anti-trans types is simultaneous insistence on blanket attitudes and policies towards trans folks regardless of individual contexts while also demanding that they personally be considered as an individual and not in context of broader transphobia.

Belpaese #NizzaMonferrato

Reminder that "jaywalking" was literally made up by american car manufacturers to shift the blame for accidents from drivers to pedestrians. "Jay" was a slang term meaning "idiot" or "rube".

Now it just needs some trees 🌳

Brussels NE architect Antoine Aulbur moonlighting in Schaerbeek, 1907. For sale at €850k. Over 7 decades, the address was home to a gas-fitter/electrician then Brazilian coffee roaster, lingerie-seller, brewery rep, pilot, photojournalist, and a printer in the 1970s.

Flat for sale in the once ultra-modern 1940s Alfred Chambon extension to the CGER offices in Brussels ( ground floor now Wolf food market). Includes access to a roof terrace - the curious skeletal stone mitre visible from across the city. www.immoweb.be/fr/annonce/p...

Approaching (🤞)the only outcome there was ever going to be for Gibraltar after June 2016. TEN YEARS of denial. And no end of it in sight for the UK.