Eventually every populist government resorts to conjuring nonexistent catastrophes to distract people from the actual catastrophes they have caused.

I would like a function that mutes my id's messages to me for 8 hours

A nice metaphor for the effects of civil society activity on political conditions, from the head of Hungary’s society of engineers, who feels newly free to criticize govt policy: “The current also determines its bed.” telex.hu/gazdasag/202...

How did Magyar win? A long running grassroots campaign in rural and small town Hungary; a refusal to be distracted by government propaganda; a focus on economic issues and corruption; a central promise to bring back democracy and the rule of law

After Ukraine, France is the European country most targeted by foreign disinformation ops • Many campaigns come from Russia, which finds fertile ground in France for such ops • Pro-Russian (/anti-US) sentiment is more widespread in France relative to other EU states www.economist.com/europe/2026/...

Develop a hybrid drone submarine aircraft called the Ghost Sharkbat and you are legends

Just noticed that in Israel they use the term “Basic Law” rather than constitution, but in Dutch the term “grondwet” literally means basic law yet we translate it as constitution.

Related question: are priests’ jobs threatened by AI

What I Saw At The Hungarian Election. Autocracy, corruption, democracy, zebra balloons etc podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/e...

Spent today in Szentendre and Budapest watching the most important election anywhere this year. Viktor Orban, a giant, totters and falls. Peter Magyar, a dynamo, may point towards what kind of candidates can take illiberal populism down. www.economist.com/europe/2026/...

Another symbol I learned today that I should have known: opposition folks cut circular holes in the middle of the Hungarian flag in a reference to the 1956 uprising, when protestors cut the red Communist star out of the flag

People outside my hotel in central Budapest are honking their horns "hm-hm-hmmhmm" in the rhythm of "Ruszkik haza", which means "Russians go home"

Regret to inform everyone that Peter Magyar beat the world’s smartest illiberal populist in large measure by working incredibly hard for 2 straight years, meaning the rest of us are just going to have to get off our asses and do shit rather than just complaining.

Orban concedes. Tisza 2/3 majority is probably. Enormous and historic. telex.hu/video/2026/0...

JUST IN: Viktor Orban conceded his defeat in Hungary. The far-right leader & Trump ally will no longer be prime minister. What remains to be seen is the size of his defeat — and whether the opposition wins a supermajority to amend the constitution and reverse Orban’s rule.

The United States seemed not to understand that Iran knew Paul Maud'Dib's lesson perfectly well: the power to destroy the trade that depends on the Hormuz passage is absolute control over it. Why, it's as if there's some analogy to be drawn between the Spice and oil.

Orban optimistically claims that high turnout tends to favor governing parties. Seems unlikely in this election. Turnout as of 11am was an extraordinary 38%, up from 26% in 2022. mandiner.hu/kulfold/2026...

🇭🇺Hungary’s turnout is breaking records: 16.89% by 9am (2022: 10.31%). Areas where the opposition Tisza party did well in last year’s EP vote are overperforming. Urban, strongly anti-Orbán voters—who tend to vote later—are just starting to head to the polls. Follow me for #HungaryElection updates!

The electoral system is slanted towards Fidesz, but it might not be enough to save Orban's skin: www.economist.com/graphic-deta...

Happy Hungarian election day! Our final poll tracker update gives Tisza, the centre-right opposition, a 6pt lead over Orban's Fidesz: www.economist.com/interactive/...

Among the ways Orban tilts the election: Hungarian expats in Western Europe, who tend to vote opposition, must vote in person at a few consulates etc. Ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia/Romania/Serbia/Ukraine, who tend to back Orban, can vote easily by mail

“One might conclude Mr Trump believes in asking for forgiveness rather than permission, if he believed in asking for forgiveness.” economist.com/united-state... from The Economist

Lovely piece by @simonvanteutem.bsky.social: “Strip away the misogyny, the supplements, the snarling podcasts, and what remains is a disarmingly simple promise: you can make something of yourself.” www.ft.com/content/a00c...

I too have written about white conservatives in southern state legislatures rushing through bullshit changes to the law just to thwart the advancement of literally one black man, but I'm a historian who writes about the Jim Crow era South and not a reporter discussing current fucking events there.

20 hours? Marathon? By Brussels standards, the Americans have collapsed on the sidelines wheezing after a 2km jog

The only real world example of the trolley problem is vaccination, which causes adverse reactions in a very small share of people. And yet I’d bet $100 that… 1/2

MAGA district courts really getting high on their own supply lately

The new voter suppression bill—called the "Save America Act"—would require 21 million American citizens to produce passports or birth certificates to register to vote. Most don't have these documents. This is a poll tax by another name. #HandsOffHerVote

There's some palpable shift, let's call it vibes, towards Tisza in the last few weeks in Hungary. I'm careful with vibes but defections like this add some scaffolding.

Good sign that Orban lackeys are defecting from his mafia state in run up to tomorrow’s election www.nytimes.com/2026/04/11/w...

“Join with us in choosing hope over fear, democracy over authoritarianism, the rule of law, lawlessness, ethics over unbridled corruption. Resistance over complacency, truth over lies, unity over division, and peace over war.” -Bruce Springsteen in Los Angeles variety.com/2026/music/c...

Saw Herzog’s “Ghost Elephants” tonight and the part about which I skeptically thought “yeah that sounds like woo-woo romantic white dude orientalizing bullshit” turns out to be completely scientifically correct

Kerry: I was part of the any number of conversations with Netanyahu. Psaki: Pitching the US strike Iran? Kerry: Yes, he wanted us to strike. He came to President Obama. He made a presentation to ask to strike. President Obama refused. President Biden refused. President Bush refused.

🛢️Hungary’s oil company, the MOL Group just approved €600M+ in dividends, timed days before elections. A huge chunk flows not to small investors, but to government-linked foundations tied to Fidesz elites. 2/1

How far is Melania's armored column from Moscow

Europe can't match Russia without Ukraine and Turkey, Zelensky says. If the US leaves NATO, the EU will have to handle its own security – and it's not ready. Russia plans to expand its army to 2.5 million by 2030.

"In a fair system constituencies would contain similar numbers of voters...But in Hungary the average opposition voter now lives in a much more populous district than the average Fidesz voter does. The result is an increasingly pronounced [tilt] in Mr Orban’s favour."

Traffic deaths in the Netherlands up to 759 last year, highest since 2007. Rise entirely men, largely those over 70 on electric bikes. Interesting but not a dramatic trend line, and still far lower than in early 2000s. www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2026/...

From the perspective of my 13-year-old self living in Jerusalem, today’s Israel is something grotesquely distorted. But the same goes for the US and Russia, two other places I know from youth. Maybe this is just what it is to be middle-aged.

Evidence for @eliothiggins.bsky.social’s ideas about disordered discourse. MAGA thinks it is somehow punishing NATO by redeploying more US troops from Spain, Italy and Germany to Poland and Romania. Please don’t throw me in the briar patch www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/u...

EFF says it is leaving X, as "X is no longer where the fight is happening" and an X post now gets less than 3% of the views a tweet got seven years ago (Kenyatta Thomas/Electronic Frontier Foundation) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

Truly a disastrous coincidence for archaeology that the part of the world where civilization first arose happened to be covering enormous amounts of an energy source, unearthed millennia later, that would turn it into a constant war zone.

We do need some kind of baseload capacity that isn't weather-dependent. But this stat is pretty amazing.

I think Jewish strategy on Iran should go back to the old system of infiltrating beautiful sleeper agents and brilliant advisers to ingratiate themselves with the Emperor and reveal the perfidy of his evil vizier

They should demand to be paid in Trump memecoins www.ft.com/content/02ae... Iran demands crypto fees for ships passing Hormuz during ceasefire

A propos of nothing: was listening to a French podcast and a guy talking about his university days said « beh, je vous parle d’un temps que les moins de 20 ans ne peuvent pas connaître » and I said “I know that Aznavour song!” Didn’t realize French people used it as an expression

They oversaw a very important social media influence operation for the Kremlin, got caught, fled. And now they're not just back, they're guests at Donald & Melania Trump's Easter Egg Roll at the White House.

People who set up phone marketing firms have skills applicable to organizing drone kill zones, and I think European countries would do well to draft them and send them to the eastern front.

Unclear what the consequences will be for NATO and Europe. Maybe a respite, perhaps European ships join escorts. But things Trump said can't be unsaid, particularly since they undermine confidence in Article 5, which is the basis of the whole thing. www.economist.com/middle-east-...

Bernard Russell, one of the greats. I also enjoy the works of Louie Wittgenstein