Today:

Rambling:

It's the logical end point of the duhumanisation of asylum seekers. They're not seen as people with agency, but as problems other countries / nefarious forces are dumping on us

Worth reading this @thebulwark.com article on what ICE did to Chicago. Note the police reports www.thebulwark.com/p/emergency-...

Vote. Protest. Vote. Donate. Vote. Organize. Vote. Talk to your neighbors. Vote. Stay informed. Vote. Keep a sense of humor. Vote. Also, vote

Today:

Rachel Cooke was the Observer's star critic and I'm shocked that she's gone observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

"What is certain, and felt instinctively by almost everybody, is that things cannot go on in their present way" – The Times, May 1975 “It is difficult to imagine a previous period when such an all-pervasive hopelessness was exhibited at all levels of British life” – Professor Stephen Haseler, 1975

Evening.

Labour's political voice risks getting stuck in a timewarp. They simply can't compete with Nigel Farage for the quarter of the electorate that lack all sympathy for asylum seekers. A government struggling for popularity can't afford to pick symbolic futile fights with progressive voters either

Loads of commentary about The Running Man on here. FFS read the book! Bleak, compulsive and he wrote it in 3 days

I'll translate. What this means is that Elon's just read (or re-read) The Player of Games by Iain M Banks, seen the concept of getting slap-droned in the Culture and thought "that sounds pretty cool, why don't I pretend that my tech is going to be remotely capable of doing that?"

Enjoying HIGH POTENTIAL so far. Good cases and gloriously silly - there's even a clue from the moon in one episode as in The Simpsons MacGyver ('Don't thank me, thank the moon's gravitational pull')

Not only that, but if German elites (esp von Papen and Hindenburg) hadn't caved, Hitler wouldn't have been chancellor. People think Hitler rode into office on some big democratic wave, when in fact he snuck in through the side door due to the incompetence of a few men.

The Tories always seem to start from the position of 'What's the best way we can lose this argument?'

I see the NIMBYs now cannot be bothered even to write their own objections! www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

🤬🤬russians struck a gas station in the Kharkiv region with a KAB - five people were injured, including a police officer

House of leaves:

Electricity is back! Yay Oh, and fuck russia!

PLURIBUS 1) I was expecting an ABQ Manifest - something meandering and hard to follow 2) but it's compelling - like a Stephen King apocalypse novel 3) hard to see why critics describe this show as 'slow burn' given the dramatic events of episode 1 4) Mike would have sorted this out in no time

I don't normally read autobiography or life writing but wow Fern Brady's STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER - a bitter, riveting memoir that explained an autistic perspective to me better than anything else I've come across. Recommended

❗️Russian Shahed drone struck a residential building in Dnipro.

This is an amazing, economical post by Matt Pearce, with a great Pericles quote: mattdpearce.substack.com/p/baseball-a...

Evening.

Still, we have things to look forward to

First draft of the John Lewis ad

This is a particular favourite - the idea that some voter in Crewe or Carlisle will remember in 2029 that their MP sent a tweet congratulating the newly elected New York Mayor and judge on his record accordingly, guys most people barely know who the Prime Minister is, you have Twitter brain rot

Is this for real?

Not now, interstellar object spraying something weird futurism.com/space/inters...

Please help at bit.ly/frontlinedef.... Our delegation is currently on way to Ukraine, driving two vehicles + aid for various destinations Shortly before leaving we significantly expanded the aid we're taking. Funds needed to cover the costs We're £2,332 short of new target

The AV Club remembers Stephen King's Entertainment Weekly column: www.avclub.com/stephen-king...

Probably late to the party but just discovered @aptshadow.bsky.social, whose CITY OF LAST CHANCES I thoroughly enjoyed - everything you need for a strange world you can lose yourself in. Recommended

And then allowed two completely unaffordable tax cuts as a desperate election ploy, screwing up the public finances while leaving the overall tax burden still at a high.

'Another told the students in the lecture, many of whom looked confused or otherwise resigned to the disturbance, that 'This lecturer served in the IOF! They are a part of the genocide in Gaza'.' www.jewishnews.co.uk/pro-palestin...

Trump’s America: Thousands of furloughed federal workers in Hyattsville, Maryland waiting in line for food.

Dusk (2):

I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.

Dusk (1):

Russia collapsed a house onto an elderly woman in Kharkiv region. Russian forces carried out an airstrike on the village of Osynove in Kharkiv region, destroying several private homes.

Evening.

Bulwark Member Susan Hook sent in this photo from the #NoKings rally in Boise, ID

The story of Matt Goodwin, 'a person for whom perceived slights or imagined intrigues become sources of lifelong resentment.' Extraordinary read from @jamesbloodworth.bsky.social: a portrait of one thinker, and a story of the last ten years in UK politics. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/philos...

Even an iPhone isn’t good enough but I like the symmetry of the brilliantly lit patch of sky and the LED streetlight-illuminated tunnel of Gledhow Wood Road. Taken at 21:32 on 6.10.25

Dusk (2):

Air raid sirens howling in a completely dark city is some kind of cinematic horror. It’s mornings like this when it’s remarkably hard to believe in any possible better future, I just feel like we’re alone and this is it

Dusk:

Across Ukraine today – lives lost again to russian attacks. Kharkiv region: two killed, seven injured. Dnipropetrovsk: two killed, three injured. Sumy: a couple killed by a drone while feeding stray dogs. Kherson: five injured. Zaporizhzhia: one killed.