rob witts

he was literally called sonic, ffs

By blocking Chevening scholars from coming to the UK the Home Secretary has officially put paid to any arguments that her hostile anti-immigration/asylum policies are anything other than right wing xenophobia. These are the best and the brightest, and she is blocking them.

one of the disciples is a tractor

Hi Pepper!

This is how all my nightmares begin now

I did not know that, thanks! I was trying to thing of an equivalently popular performer from the previous generation...

i've stared at this for five minutes and i can't work out if it's bad on purpose or

@threat-notation.bsky.social

Abolish the Home Office

There’s a terrible tendency that any time anyone comes along and starts saying things that are popular from a left perspective, established thinking goes ‘all very nice yes, but it’s not SERIOUS is it’ even whilst all the accepted serious people fail absolutely constantly at the absolute basics.

I mean he's basically in the same drawer as Bing Crosby at this point

Most of this is appalling waste but the piano makes sense and I hope they keep it tuned and well maintained. Get a Moog and a bass as well. Stop buying bombs.

what is the actual point of having Ofcom?

I think you look great! (as do your friends, and dinner)

a picture of a huge, low, heavy cloud of black oil over Tehran

This is the cloud of oil currently hovering over Tehran, released when the US bombed the city's oil depots. A stew of particulate matter, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, benzene, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, heavy metals & volatile organic compounds is raining down into the city right now. 1/2

The Government has tabled an amendment in lieu that would grant Ministers the power to introduce restrictions on children’s use of internet services, following its ongoing consultation on children’s wellbeing. This would give the Government a significant delegated power to legislate in this area, despite the Bill containing very little policy detail explaining how it would work. In practice, the power would allow Ministers to require providers of internet services to impose restrictions on any “specified internet service” for children under a “specified age”. This could extend far beyond social media. In theory, it would allow restrictions on any designated website or category of websites, as well as services such as Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) or AI tools. The amendment provides no detail about the types of restrictions that could be imposed. Restrictions would ultimately be decided by Ministers and implemented through a Statutory Instrument. This would mean that Parliament could not amend the Minster’s decision. Scrutiny would be limited to a short debate followed by a vote to either approve or reject the measure. The proposed provision therefore embodies two undesirable legislative practices. First, it introduces an extensive new power at the final stage of the Bill’s parliamentary passage, when opportunities for debate and amendment are already constrained. Secondly, when Ministers come to exercise that power, the resulting Statutory Instrument would itself be subject to limited scrutiny and could not be amended by Parliament.

Good summary from @hansardsociety.bsky.social on how today's ~the children~ Commons debate on a social media ban for <16s is, regardless of your opinion on the issue, very bad lawmaking and government, rehashing (as I've said) bad ideas which were smacked out of the OSA years ago for a reason.

In London to drive my kids to see Laufey (cos last train home is too early) and we were on a tube with a woman and her 3 dachshunds called Cookie, Donut and Bagel, absolute scenes

This woman, US citizen living in Skokie, was detained at Ohare yesterday, taken to Broadview, then transferred to a detention facility in Wisconsin, now released. We know all this not because of DHS, who repeatedly denied that they even had her, but because her phone was pinging in those locations.

Doing research for next week's episode and learning that Elbit Systems is not just Israel's primary arms manufacturer but one of the largest arms companies in the entire world and thinking about how the British government framed opposition to it as antisemitism against a smol bean Jewish business.

hey @mcmansionhell.bsky.social

holding old timer bats so they can still feel like flappy lads is some real heartwarming stuff

something in my eye rn

These are the 4 things AI can do well:

•Clean up your email inbox (badly)
•Give my shittiest neighbor (Alan) something to talk about at a party
•Tell a 12 yr old to kill himself
•Incinerate a school at 10:16 AM on a Tuesday

You can see why we need to base our economy around it

Thank you!

Yes we can no we didn’t Those who cannot learn from past failures are condemned to repeat them (apologies to Santayana)

I've been fortunate enough to meet many formidably smart, fully committed, & thoroughly decent people who, for years, have strived to try to avert dangerous climate change.

They failed.

Saying that does not lessen my gratitude to them, 1/11

www.technosphere.earth/yes-we-can-n...

I saw the so-called comedy carpet a few weeks ago and it's ok but it's not a carpet?

chalk up another failure for 'bomb them until they overthrow their own government for us' i'm sure it'll work one of these days

adam tickell, who wanted to slay the neoliberal beast but became it instead, a cautionary tale

the best times! have a great day