The CIA just stopped publishing their World Factbook and took every page, including the archived copies of previous versions! This sucks. It was public domain, so I recovered the 2020 edition (the last one published as a zip file) and shared it to GitHub simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/5/t...

A huge 89% majority of global people [56% even in the United States] want stronger action to fight the #ClimateCrisis, but mistakenly believe they’re in a minority. The “silent majority” for #ClimateAction needs to get loud. People want action. Smart cities need to go much further, much faster.

Gentle reminder that Jimmy Carter once negotiated a ceasefire during the second Sudanese civil war to help eradicate Guinea worm disease 🫡

Only 10 cases of Guinea worm disease were recorded *globally* last year. It may become the second human disease we eradicate, after smallpox.

He just tweeted it out …

I’ve been using the CIA World Factbook online since I was a little kid. What a stupid, pointless desecration.

The CIA World Factbook, a reliable source of information about the countries of the world, has been publicly available since 1997. It is now going away. Please consider supporting @wikipedia.org and @ourworldindata.org. The world desperately needs trustworthy data. www.cia.gov/stories/stor...

I am once again begging people to learn anything about governments east of western europe

I know this is Bluesky and definitely not a place for thinking out loud about this but a fusion Burkean-woke project could be useful!

more like woke chestertonianism--the rightwing project has been one of ripping up chesterton's fence, making a bonfire from the posts, then pissing in the ashes to trigger the libs

The sun rose this morning, which was still somehow more surprising to me than learning that neo-nazi Nick Fuentes just argued that Epstein Island wasn't ACTUALLY paedophilia because (he thinks) the girls were 14-17. A flawless Shibboleth for the worst people on earth.

Three rules in FBI firearm training: 1. Always point your weapon downrange 2. Do not point your weapon at anything you do not intend to shoot 3. Don’t put your finger on the trigger unless you intend to shoot Guns are not for threatening compliance for unarmed people doing things you don’t like

[explaining to a child why they are living in poverty] for every hundredth pint i drink i can get one free pint

"This is very serious. Someone else should do something about it." - Your Prime Minister

New: Together with colleagues I’ve been testing Grok. The chatbot still produces sexualized images — even when told the subjects don’t consent. even when told the photos will be used for public humiliation. even when told the subjects are survivors of abuse. www.reuters.com/business/des...

... and then says something like "To be clear I actually think it very much counts in these people's favour that, in a situation where they could have just massacred innocents, they by and large remained peaceable. But propagandists use this as evidence that they actually liked their chains, so..."

People tend to assume that obviously The Rich must be coining it, if everything around them is shit Nope! We've just had 20 years without substantive economic growth and everyone is worse off

Gervais’s Law: celebrities should never share their political views except in a sitcom, Netflix comedy special or national arena tour where they can pretend they’re just joking even when they’re clearly not

CHOTINER: And the pizza place, what’s it called? ME: Dominos. CHOTINER: Right. And you can order from your laptop? ME: Yeah. Well, I can also use my phone. Sometimes that’s quicker. CHOTINER: And all the food in your fridge and pantry. When do you eat that? ME: Now hang on a second,

Just because it sounds like something we would do, doesn't mean we do. Be vigilant about britmisinfo!

Goodwin literally had a hissy fit when Alan Rusbridger & David Aaronovitch went for dinner after an event they all did together & chose not to ask him. He’s palpably desperate to go to fictional dinner parties that exist only in his warped imagination. Instead he gets to suck lemons with 30p Lee.

Talking to the dead is good. It is, so far as one can tell, bordering on normal. Having an AI pretending to be them talk back is just a recipe for never processing the loss.

Most of Epstein’s victims were either too frightened to come forward, or silenced through legal threats. Oh, and here’s a senior British politician giving Epstein tips on how to silence them

Really striking going through Epstein disclosures just how often British defamation lawyers are referred to: Schillings; Paul Tweed; oblique suggestions to sue to silence Why? Because our libel laws let rich and powerful buy silence Why I signed this last week pressgazette.co.uk/media_law/an...

deep dive into dave the chameleon

oh my god

A fascinating detail in an excellent long essay from Philp Collins as the new editor of Prospect. Given the paywall is down for the next few days this is your chance to fill your boots

Wowsers look at what happened to posts on Twitter/X about London crime after monetisation of posts was introduced… economist.com/britain/2026...

Brilliant letter in The Economist from Professor Ian Wray Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place, University of Liverpool www.economist.com/letters/2026...

I hate the word 'poop' more than I can express www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

This story about David Brooks is one of the most brutal takedowns I’ve ever read. By the late Tony Judt

Either you're happy for people to be killed and injured to save you a couple of minutes on your journey, or you're not. The evidence that LTNs and 20mph zones save lives is overwhelming.

England and Wales has a much lower firearms homicide rate than in most large European countries, Australia and Canada. And obviously a vastly lower rate of firearms homicide than in the US. (Also: no, we don’t have more knife homicides than they do, either.)

Finally got around to a bit of research I'd been meaning to explore, and: There is no documented instance of an ICE officer being identified and assaulted while off duty because he wasn't masked. www.pbump.net/o/ices-excus...

A fun fact I like to share with students is when Border Patrol was founded a century ago, there were more Border Patrol agents on the northern border than the southern border. Because during Prohibition, the US considered Canadian whisky to be our greatest border security threat.

I'm increasingly just thinking of them as the latest high-level programming language. Almost inclined to make a devil's advocate case that they are an incremental rather than revolutionary step from the previous most popular and best high-level programming language, Excel.

*See the shares* 🤨 *See the pollster* 😑

This is quite odd. Even if you, personally, don't like the ideas of Ruth Davidson and Andy Street it's a simple fact that they both consistently out-performed their party in elections. There is also no polling evidence I know of that the wider electorate is in the "mood" described.

At a time when, due to geopolitical ruction, politicians must be increasing willingness to suffer, Labour does the opposite.

AI tools are immensely powerful. The use of AI as a general purpose chat bot that is used like an encyclopaedia is the worst possible use of AI. AI is now, given good instructions from a knowledgeable user, capable of doing absolutely vast amounts of work extremely fast.

It’s inherently right wing because you can’t buy public services & infrastructure with an individual UBI.

It's an old joke, but if you phone up your local cinema to find what time they're showing Melania - The Movie they'll ask what time can you make it. Not a single seat for any of the 14 showings has been sold at Vue in Castleford - I checked.

You're all focused on the first sentence, but I want to talk about the second sentence, featuring what might be the weakest ever constituency link.

Yep there’s research on this. The Anywhere thesis is demonstrably bollocks. www.iser.essex.ac.uk/research/pub...