Good to be reminded in the comments to this of the HIGNFY clip where Mensch's idiocy is pointed up rather wonderfully in a team effort

👀

Bloody hell. Maybe because I never use it, Copilot now comes up with its own prompts? I may have thrown up a little reading this 'short, uplifting poem inspired by my name'.

It’s out bsky.app/profile/snel...

it's extremely noticeable the gap that's opened up between the centrists who stayed on twitter and the centrists who left the main determining factor in whether they stayed on twitter or left being whether or not they're anti-trans, afaict

As always, my point about international law is that either you take it seriously or you do not. It is hardly international law when you invoke it only against some nations but not others. The clue is in the word “international”.

“We cannot say that the United States’ actions are against international law, but we condemn Iran’s retaliatory actions as against international law,” is neither a coherent nor a compelling position.

Over on Twitter, Simon Schama has just sonorously pronounced that "Foucault has been, for decades now, the Ayatollah of academia", so that's how that's going

John Dowland at the Danish court www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

I assumed The New Yorker's app was to remain iPhone only forever, but it turns out there's now an android app 😅 looks sleek and I love the library (save/bookmark) function

I've also been struck by this. The Trump regime is normalising the decapitation of governments it dislikes by assassinating or abducting their leaders. There are good reasons why states have tended not to make this a norm.

Stockport: deeply into the ironising phase of its revival

If what is left of the Iranian regime agrees to become subservient to the US under Trump then the war will end

My exemption in The War on Cars

Legal analysis that is second only to David Allen Green, of this parish

Cemetery spring

If you see this, post a knight

In order to understand UK politics in 2026 you must realise that a plumber & plasterer doesn't represent the interests of the working class because she is left-wing but a wealthy broadcaster & former academic does represent the interests of the working class because he is right-wing. Hope this helps

I assumed The New Yorker's app was to remain iPhone only forever, but it turns out there's now an android app 😅 looks sleek and I love the library (save/bookmark) function

“Like the employees in Severance, we do not question the architecture. We adapt to it. The office model embedded in Microsoft Office is hierarchical, paper-bound, and authority-driven.”

Good questionmaxxing.

MailOnline absolutely undefeated rn

Happy St David's Day, what? photos.app.goo.gl/UgVaE6URZjDp...

Ik ben eigenlijk echt heel kwaad over de besparingen bij De Lijn. En ik snap niet waarom we daar niet allemaal wat bozer om zijn. Ik ga het even – for the sake of the argument – anecdotisch toelichten. Mijn moeder van 84 woont in een plattelandsgemeente waar amper bussen rijden.

Did everyone enjoy an entire 8 hours of sun yesterday? 😱 We put our washing out and everything! 👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums "Geniuses in sun rays", 1914, by Edvard Munch, from the Munch Museum in Oslo Thanks @lipthesp.bsky.social for sharing 😁

They want January 6 in Britain. They're actively rooting for it.

This is consistent with what one hears from serious analysts all around. The US negotiating team, led by two New York real estate developers with a reputation for incompetence at that and no serious diplomats or nuclear experts, were a bunch of ignorant pikers incapable of engaging in serious talks.

Antonio Guterres has been pushing a pencil into his cheek for the last 45 minutes. He’s going to leave a mark

Pressuring Ukraine into an unjust ceasefire while attacking Iran in a „preventive“ strike (after claiming the regime is weak as never before and its nuclear program „obliterated“) DOES NOT MAKE SENSE. So stop rationalizing it.

Hear, hear. Totally.

De Vlaamse overheid verplicht De Lijn om in heel Vlaanderen 35,5 miljoen euro te besparen. Ter herinnering/vergelijking: nog voor er één schop de grond in ging wordt (enkel) de parking onder het Vlaams Culinair Centrum in Antwerpen op 40 miljoen euro begroot. Keuzes, keuzes.

If thousands of my neighbors just died at the hands of their own government and then my daughter was blown up by some chucklefuck on the other side of the planet claiming to help, I would walk into sea. It is hard to fathom the suffering innocent Iranians are enduring. God have mercy.

Can confirm 🍻

I'd worry more about the extent of civilian casualties a Trump administration that has shown no humanitarian qualms in Yemen and the Caribbean is willing to inflict on Iranian coastal communities in order to keep the Strait of Hormuz open

It is sickening to think about what might happen next. Thinking of the people in the path of this folly, and of the people of Ukraine, who could have really used those munitions in year 5 of their brave resistance to Russian aggression. 9/9

i don’t want there to be any nuclear states, and that means i definitely don’t want any new ones, but like you can see why Iran or Ukraine or really any country that is subject to attack or invasion by a nuclear state would be keen to join that club

Still enjoy Industry a lot, but this analysis of how the series developed and to some extent strayed is rather convincing www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

How to understand war with Iran? We must get away from propaganda. Facts suggest two interpretive frameworks: a foreign war as a mechanism to destroy democracy at home; and a foreign war as an element of personal corruption by the president of the United States. snyder.substack.com/p/why-attack...

How hard is it to build a bar at the Pentagon?

Just a reminder: instead of an actual diplomat, we sent Trump’s deeply compromised son-in-law as the lead negotiator to avert war with Iran. popular.info/p/deeply-con...

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... my friend Charlotte here on why reading for “pleasure” is NOT the be all and end all of reading. With a shout out for non fiction too which hasn’t got too much of a look in during this year of reading.

My line on BBCr4 Today on the Iran strikes was this. Last June there were intensive US/Iran talks under way. Aborted by Israeli strikes on Iran which US joined. I think this is similar. The US-Iran-Oman talks seemed to be going well. Netanyahu preempted, and Trump felt he had to follow 1/5

'inside the red-faced hawk is a dove, with an almost physical horror of violence' 'Trump is as close as a pacifist as we've seen in the White House' Pure pundit brain from Ian Leslie in March 2025

Right now, I'd suggest, the focus should be on worrying about the civilians caught in the middle. People just going about their lives who will suffer, and already are suffering. Among other things, this would be an exceptional time for countries to be making sure they can get asylum if needed. 4/

Still a vague ambition of mine to one day get a Toto installed 🥹

CODSWALLOP

No one tries to manufacture more sympathy for Israel than the BBC. Look at this puff piece on the aggressor. Oh no, the poor Israelis can't go to the beach because they're bombing civilians. 'Reporting from Tel Aviv'.