Feels significant, let’s leave to one side all the perfectly justified “no shit sherlock” and “about bloody time” comments, it’s a very welcome change of tone assuming we’ve not all been victim of an April Fool.

Finally, if you ever wake up from a coma and you aren't sure what time of year it is, here is a helpful calendar👇 We are right on schedule this year!🤣🙄 18/

I have the book and have just looked through the references. There are 12 in total for the entire thing. 5 are to Matt Goodwin’s own Substack, 3 include a reference to ChatGPT in the UTM, and 1 Telegraph article quotes… Matt Goodwin. It’s the academic equivalent of sniffing your own farts.

British politicians all need to be clear that Trump's reckless intervention in the Middle East is responsible for the sharp economic downturn that is about to hit us...

Adverts in mobile phone games are always aimed at the most gullible in society, or just the latest game with inexplicable money for advertising. I have been using a vpn recently, and forgot it was connected in the USA…dear gods…the adverts pitched are SO much dumber…I am legitimately shocked

Discworld QOTD, from Feet of Clay

Am I just getting old, or has it become obnoxiously common that people play media out loud on their phones on public transport now?

Completely secure email basically doesn't exist. It's a category error. If you're trying to stop governments getting hold of stuff, don't use email.

Vote Labour, get Tory policies

THIS This is why policies need cabinet approval and collective responsibility. So no one gets carried away in any direction in their silo that they focus on every day.

I plotted the location of the Minab school (green dot) onto the map shared by the U.S. military during a press conference this week at the Pentagon, for those interested.

I know that one

Trump: "Spain has been terrible. I told Scott to cut off all dealings with Spain. They said we can't use their bases. We could use their bases if we want. We could just fly in and use it. Nobody is gonna tell us not to use it."

🤞 💩 ☠

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free

Not going to end well is it.

I really understand very little about the current version of reality.

I'm seeing people mistakenly claim the gun photo was posted before today, but its just how Google sometimes dates images based on the original date of the thread its posted in, not when it was posted. The photo was posted an hour ago in this 5 day old thread www.reddit.com/r/fivethirty...

My friend who lived in arctic alaska would have to tell people this ALL of the time. I got her a penguin one year as a gag gift. But do you know what there are in Greenland? Polar Bears. Good luck embracing one of those.

HELP REQUEST: Would anyone who speaks Spanish and English be up for sense-checking some subtitles on a short film (<15 minutes) please? I have no budget, I'm afraid - it's a short LGBTQ+ film in English, and it's been accepted into a festival in Spain.

NEW: NEW: Standards commissioner finds Nigel Farage committed seventeen breaches of MPs code of conduct. He failed to declare £333,000 in outside interests (more than 3x MPs annual salary)…

Wow, sure would be pretty crazy if a ton of experts in the artificial intelligence field relentlessly warned everyone about this state of affairs being inevitable over and over for years.

In a screeching u-turn from its Manifesto the Government now backs conversion therapy for trans people. That is what 'supporting' trans youth but denying them the medicine they need to physically transition means.

This small man (in all of the ways) needs to feel big so he commits a battery on a woman who is merely taping him with her cellphone.

Did not expect to make it to 2026, I hope you all have a lovely new year

Definitive proof that the earth is not flat: If it had edges, cats would have pushed everything off them by now.

I think the best way to explain the X vs Bluesky preference is whether a person thinks the left is more annoying than the right is dangerous. The reason so many Noah Smiths end up on the X side of that equation is that while the left annoys them personally, the right mostly endangers other people.

There are huge carveouts in IHT for things like the primary home. So it’s already generous, but such taxes are important to redistribute generational wealth. If you oppose hereditary members of the House of Lords, you should support inheritance tax for the same reason.

Dear @patmcfaddenmp.bsky.social , I make this post with zero political inference, if as a career civil servant, I cannot adequately get your staff to understand that without additional support, I am going to end up unable to work, or dead, within the next year, then the process involved is failing.

According to DWP the disabilities destroying my life, hugely increasing my cost of living to a point of barely surviving, mean I score a total of ZERO on their PIP eligibility. Apparently, a department that wants to get disabled people into work, won't support me until I have worked myself to death

Not just tourism. It ends US global business.

Zelenskyy: “The United States does not want Ukraine to be in NATO. “What separate agreements the US has with Russia — we do not know. “Over time all secrets come to light.”

All those stories of illness spreading? Believe them… Graphed data on coughing levels from all users of the sleep app I use (Blanked out central London to hide my personal location, sorry!)

"womens rights activist" is the pretence for loud misogynists, transphobes, and homophobes, in the current society where such bigotry is government policy.

When elected Pope, they become the head of a country "holy see", do they automatically gain dual nationality? Or does Italy give the equivalent of indefinite leave to remain to all popes by default? Anyone know?

Does anyone know of a site akin to Spareroom for finding people for flatshares in London? In urgent need to avoid being evicted for xmas.

Frustratingly, remainers said this again and again during the Brexit referendum: European states are small and in global terms weak on their own. And Europe’s enemies want it that way. But of course that was talking Britain down and other such delusional rubbish.

It’s weird how much of an influencer Jesus turned out to be; he only had 12 followers! (No offence meant, heard the joke, thought it was funny)

Holy shit. Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

Looking to find someone to share a flat rental in London asap, please let me know if you know someone.

🧵 Ten years after Brexit, data catches up with lived reality. UK 🇬🇧 GDP 8% smaller. Investment ⬇️ 18%. Productivity ⬇️ 4%. GDP/capita 10% lower than comparable nations. Not bc of a single shock, but bc Brexit drained confidence, investment, capacity for a decade. www.euronews.com/business/202...

BREAKING: “The idea that leaving the EU was the answer to all our cares and concerns has clearly been proved wrong." Keir Starmer says that "wild promises were made" about Brexit. He adds: "The same argument is now being made about the European Convention on Human Rights"

Turning Point at OU posted this girl's essay in full and man is it rough

Oh, hello Thursday.

🤞

I am very uncomfortable with this idea, its bringing an even greater populist approach to justice - and reduced legitimacy too.

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

I have failed to sleep for so long I am now too hungry to sleep…AAARRRGHGGGGHHH

Apparently there isn't good evidence that Google uses Gmail to train LLMs — I'm still glad to no longer rely on gmail for email, because I am a skeptic (paranoid?) and just don't trust that what they say is what they do