6) Float exemptions. 7) Announce exemptions 8) Float more exemptions... etc

All over people changing their votes Along with their overcoats If Adolf Hitler flew in today They’d send a limousine anyway

Reform are surely not stupid enough to not know this? So they are banking on changing opinion, or people liking the rest of the offer enough to forgive them for it?

I don't think NIH's funding system was exactly optimal, I don't think the patent system is exactly optimal, but those both look very close to optimal in retrospect compared to what Trump has done to it

I have defended the BBC again and again. No more.

Once the norm of treating thinly disguised xenophobia as disqualifying was breached, we were always likely to reach a point where we would need to face down ethnonationalism directly to redraw it. That it’s happening while the centre is in disarray is deeply worrying, but we cannot cede another inch

take back control / stop the boats / cheap foreign labour / etc

[I noticed that both PMs of Canada and Australia have accounts here, and used them to announce their recognitions of Palestine, but our PM doesn't and didn't.]

This is a good idea - also I would urge those with large accounts who did starter packs to update them for later discoveries and recirculate.

Reform said the abolition of ILR would save £234bn because of benefits claims. The figures come from a Centre for Policy Studies report that has been withdrawn because of a dispute over the numbers. The thinktank has said its costs “should not be used”. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Second and maybe more important, it’s the Gastarbeiter trend again in the evolution of immigration politics. The “cheap labour” can still come and fill shortages in ageing societies but on terms that can be reneged at any time.

Omg maybe people will be confused and think ‘wtf we already left!’

All reminiscent of liberals’ paralysis pre-2016. Complacency + dismissive contempt for Farage + dislike of incumbents + embarrassment in defending the status quo.

How much damage is done by the lump of labour fallacy!

Just imagine being this brand loyal to a racist nazi site

It's the 'shallow grasp of the issue' aspect, re: the media, which feels particularly worrying, as it's a lack of understanding on the part of the vast majority of us (present company excepted 😉), particularly of consequence, which is the philosopher's stone Farage continues to exploit.

This feels so much like pre referendum times. Opposition proposes crazy, damaging policy [then, Brexit, now, withdrawal of indefinite leave to remain retrospectively...]. Economic arguments made on both sides. Voters can't see the damage of the hypothetical because it hasn't happened...

This episode rather demonstrates the damage you can do by getting it wrong in the first place. Later corrections never make the same splash as the initial 'mistake'.

They always start by saying it's legitimate to be concerned about flows, but ultimately the rage is about the stock. Think I've first said this as a silly quip ten years ago, and well, here we are

The increased craziness of Reform's program is going to affect the economy now. With high poll ratings, and a significant chance of forming a government firms will avoid making long term commitments that would expose them to the chaos of Reform's policies.

Any journalist quoting this absurd, invented £234 billion number cited by Farage/Reform should make absolutely clear that it has been withdrawn by *its own authors* (the Centre for Policy Studies) after they admitted it contained several major errors (1/3)

My analysis here not only explains why the CPS numbers are wrong - but estimates that if they'd got their own arithmetic right, they would have concluded that migrants are a large long-term fiscal *benefit*. (3/3) docs.google.com/document/d/e...

This is why it was completely insane for Dems to laugh off the Twitter purchase. We created a forum with practically every single political and media elite all in the same room together hearing the same things, and then we turned it over to a far-right oligarch

Posting anything 14 words long: fascism Continuing to post on X: based apparently

Lurching, spasmic, incompetent chaos. An alternative—which would be better for all Americans—is careful consideration, public debate, and transparency before extreme policy change. That is why we have procedures for legislation and rule-making, and we don't just sledgehammer with proclamations.

One of the things I find vexing about Kimmel's sacking is how it reveals Disney to be precisely the disingenuous "virtue signaller" the right accused them of being. "BRAVELY" casting The Little Mermaid, so it made them $250m, but voluntarily kissing dictator sphincter, if they stand to lose a cent.

😬

They should probably stop calling people who agree to this journalists. Stenographers would be a better title

These stats are quite startling, but hard to gauge without comparable data for X and Threads.

"In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits." www.computerworld.com/article/4059...

Consoling myself that I will probably live to see a day when there are no more Trump quotes, posts, executive orders, nada.

The 3,000-year-old gold Shropshire sun pendant was dicovered in 2018. Crafted with incredible skill and decorated with intricate geometric patterns, it symbolizes the importance of the sun in Bronze Age society. As scientific analysis has indicated, the pendant...🧵1/2 📷 me #archaeology 🏺

Social media depends on the unpaid labour of thousands of shitposters #WagesForShitposts

when they used to say "twitter isn't real life," what they meant was they thought progressive viewpoints were overrepresented there.

If you have two followers, you are ahead of half of all Bluesky accounts. If you have 400 followers, you are in the top 1%. bsky.jazco.dev/stats

I would be grateful if my fellow Roman Catholics would take a ****ing breath and consider where our all too recent willingness to cosy up to fascist authoritarians got us before leaning forward to kiss their hand again.

Former Meta exec who exposed the company’s China ties and treatment of teens is reportedly near bankruptcy after her book’s release, facing $50k fines per violation of a gag order against criticizing Meta. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Laura K:

“you dont influence anyone on bluesky” buddy, the only way to influence anyone on the internet is by getting aunts and uncles to share completely made up facebook slop

This should have been it if you were on Twitter. I don’t regret a bit of it. This shameful prick deserves nothing but our scorn.

Now go and listen to the full episode and bung us a few quid on ko-fi.com/quietriotpod

This by @jamesomalley.co.uk is good.

In which, remarkably, while talking about the fiscal bind, and even after Jeremy Hunt goes on about acting in the interests of the country, no one brings up the TWO NI cuts carried out largely if not solely for narrow party political ends. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/h...

What "impact"?

Starmer on 'vile lies' of Musk et al: “When populist politicians, convicted criminals + foreign billionaires take to the stage to encourage violence, make racist comments, and threaten our democracy, it casts a dark shadow of fear and violence across our society” www.standard.co.uk/news/politic...

I quite understand why someone with just *1.6k followers *22 follows *140 posts has not the slightest idea why the rest of us who actually share and communicate on BlueSky 🦋get out of it. Nor does he understand why we left Twitter and would not go back.

The Charlie Kirk surge has petered out

Fucksake, this #discourse AGAIN? Yes this platform is smaller, very observant. But I don't spend all day being force fed Nazi slop or getting harassed by Nazis on a Nazi platform specifically engineered to amplify Nazis. It's not a hard decision, let's all just move on.