"From Churchill to *this*. Christ."

Which movie do you consider perfect?

Europe will never be taken seriously in security circles until it has a scary animal. American eagle, Russian bear, Chinese dragon, Indian tiger. I back the gryphon, traditionally valid and currently unclaimed

Everyone, from big business CEOs to small business owners to highly paid professionals and lowly paid service staff, has urged the Chancellor to tax someone else. From the new Private Eye, out now.

Politics in most democratic countries today Voters: "We want free lunches" Opposition: "free lunches coming up!" One year later New government: "We can offer a pricey paid lunch" (left)/ "free absence of lunch plus some tasty fascism" (right)" Voters: "You're fired!" [Repeat cycle]

He's doing it with a characteristically British light touch, but Sunder Katwala is drawing attention to the fact that the UK tabloids seem almost determined to will mass race riots into existence. Seems bad.

This is both (with small changes in terminology) the political system of most small towns throughout most of recorded history, and an annoying system to live in. The Chinese Civil War is a striking example of how eventually the victims of such people ganged up to take frightful revenge.

Well after my first long trip around England after Brexit I think I've got a handle on the main changes: 1) Paying a fortune in permits to wait in longer border queues 2) Outside London things look even more run down 3) Most of the friendly Polish baristas are now friendly Indian baristas

This is a vibe shift. Things have gotten so dark in our regular lives that we now need movies to be an escape full of aspiration and hope. We don’t need any more gritty reboots, we already live in one.

OF COURSE I CARE ABOUT ORDINARY PEOPLE I MEAN WHO ELSE IS GOING TO CARRY ME ABOUT IN A PALANQUIN

my hottest educational take is that schools should actively, non-punitively teach students how to admit when they don't know something, aren't sure or have made a mistake, with various teaching frameworks adapted to support this ideal, because people who can't admit fault are breaking the world

Excited to learn how an 8-0 victory could be considered 'a stoppage-time thriller'

What George doesn't understand is that in the UK, we decided in 2020 that 'governing' was actually a tedious distraction from 'speculating about, and positioning for, the next general election'. It's core to our culture and it is *very* disrespectful to criticise it.

Paul Verhoeven has always pitched modern corporate fascism (including its AIs) as ending somewhere cheap, stupid, tawdry & violent. It turns out the boy who partly grew up under the Nazis had the clearest vision

the problem with "AI", which I was fond of pointing out in re: self-driving cars, is that understanding it deeply requires understanding people very deeply but nobody gets into "AI" because they're interested in people

This would be an unironically good idea for anyone who wants to get into any numerate profession. In the vast majority of day-to-day jobs, calculus and above is not much use, but the ability to spot a dud number, a misplaced order of magnitude, etc, is priceless.

The Sesame Street muppets were the absolute gold standard in explaining potentially difficult things to unsophisticated audiences in a way that delights. So please, please let’s have more muppet politicians

In general Democrats should make clear that any 'constitutional' 'innvoations' can & will be tried out on their inventors at the first possible opportunity, even as they are in practice abolished for everyone else

I think calling on the Leader of the Opposition to say more could become a go-to move for Labour ministers under pressure, and I, for one, would also welcome that.

The thing about Europe: it's the actual land of the free now. Whatever problems Europe has - and it has plenty - it is looking pretty damn good by comparison these days. My Charlemagne this week www.economist.com/europe/2025/...

Discworld QOTD, from Monstrous Regiment "The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it."

One of the interesting things about this great performance is that the physique of the male athlete is very much in line with what anyone pre-1900 would have (correctly) come up with if asked to picture 'an extremely strong man' but a modern Westerner probably wouldn't.

It's obviously hard to sustain public services when the tax rate on the average earner drops from 29% to 19%. However, judging by the fury of the Britons in the replies (for even noting the drop) that isn't going to change soon

A very old Soviet joke, from an especially dark time: Foxes are fleeing the USSR in droves. Q: Why are you running away? Fox: The Soviets passed a new law that they’re going to arrest all camels. Q: But you’re foxes! Fox: Yeah, why don’t *you* try proving to the NKVD that you’re not a camel.

Hoping for a real life avatar of one of my favourite fictional characters to come and save the day. Sam Vimes and Granny Weatherwax are also needed. All have a clear moral vision with room for human failings, but also a degree of pitilessness towards those who wreck the world for fun and profit

Subtlety, a regard for good governance plus a willingness to throw threats to good governance into a scorpion pit are the qualities we need now.

Substantially more attention for £80k of wallpaper than the ca. £100bn (at least) in debt that they added with no apparent result. That could have fixed the 2nd leg of HST *and* most of the schools/hospital/courts infrastructure with money spare to kick off the defence boost without the aid cut.

The last government's response to the energy crisis was just an underrated disaster - cost a huge amount of money, people didn't notice it, didn't repair any of the underlying vulnerabilities, was incredibly wasteful.

Terwijl de Nederlandse coalitie verdeeld is en met elkaar overhoop ligt, neemt Europa onze veiligheid serieus en zet de noodzakelijke stappen vooruit! 🇪🇺

Oh I've seen her stuff before! She's very good at her job.

...on essentially every other social media platform these claims do crazy numbers because they're rewarded by the platform's algorithm. You can't really solve for 'people sharing things that aren't right', but you *can* solve for 'putting rocketboosters underneath it'.

“Trust comes on foot and leaves on horseback,” as the Dutch say

A prestige TV take on the First Crusade that just played it dead straight with the historical sources as a vast tragedy of epic proportions would be *amazing*

You first.

always hidden in the often bad faith 'we can't saddle the future generations with debt' line is the fact that that way, you're also never bequeathing them any assets

Yeah, you've got until then to activate the returns policy.

This has been the most horrifying part of the last 5 years. I’ve always had many Russian & American friends and it astonished me how many people there want massive violence done to their neighbours just for the thrill of domination (while in the Russian case accepting massive casualties to that end)

Europe doesn't need any more wake-up calls. It's awake. It's just very comfortable in its warm bed and procrastinating on getting up in the hopes something turns up to magically take care of all the chores it knows it should be getting on with.

There’s a small number of terminally serious things the new US admin could do 1. This (not repay bonafide Treasuries) 2. Militarily attack a previously cooperative country (Panama) for land 3. Plainly disregard a Supreme Court ruler 4. Pardon violent criminals acting on their behalf

In South Africa someone decided 'gingernut biscotti' should be a thing. They were right!

It's worth remembering that the output of a current working life is about £2m. So when we say £200m wasted, that's not one person who spent all of their best years working 9 to 5, sweating, arguing, worrying FOR NOTHING, it's a *100* whose working lives were wasted. That's what this man did.

Ed Zitron wrote an absolutely brilliant essay on the transformation of tech. I’m not sure I recommend reading it though. If you do you’ll see everything more clearly but on the other hand far more daily tech interactions will annoy you as you understand the game… www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgiv...

Worrying signs that the people who own and run most of social media don't expect the Democrats will back in office anytime soon. Disturbing even, given how much say they seem to have in that matter.

Say what you like about Sam Pepys, but sometimes you're just right there in the room with him 360 years ago

Stephen has a lot of correct opinions of which this is an obvious one.

There's definitely a bit of this in how Silicon Valley tech bros look at the world

Pratchett Heyer Banks Cornwell Keegan Clarke

German peasants knew their bible. When they looked for something that would represent a New Deal after the old corrupt order had been violently swept away there was an obvious choice

Really interesting on how it can be both true that grown men should not hit on teenagers, whilst also true that not every adult/18 yr old romantic interaction is a violation with a broken victim.