New at The Empty City
The curious section 3 of the new National Security Act
A broad and vague provision may be a cause for concern -especially for commentators and journalists
Substack version:
emptycity.substack.com/p/the-curiou...
Non-substack version:
theemptycity.com/blog/2026/03...
You know the best way to kill AI? Don't use it. Don't buy it. Don't share it. Don't give the people who use it your labour or your money.
New at The Empty City
The curious section 3 of the new National Security Act
A broad and vague provision may be a cause for concern -especially for commentators and journalists
Substack version:
emptycity.substack.com/p/the-curiou...
Non-substack version:
theemptycity.com/blog/2026/03...
Q: You said the war is 'very complete.' But your defense secretary says 'this is just the beginning.' So which is it?
TRUMP: You could say both
Perfect.
“The surgery was very successful… pretty much”
Imagine the reaction in the US if ~175 schoolgirls had been killed by a targeted Iranian missile. (Or anyone's missile.)
This is an atrocity.
Ho ho
I am not critiquing his grammar - and I am sorry that is not clear.
My point is a very different one.
If one cannot simply say "the war is complete" then it is better not to say anything, rather than garnish it with intensifiers and qualifiers.
Trump: “I think the war is very complete, pretty much."
What the "very" giveth, the "pretty much" taketh away.
No doubt once again Iran's nuclear capacity is obliterated now and for all time.
Trump: “I think the war is very complete, pretty much."
But one could not help noticing that Trump's declarations of total victory were becoming more frequent.
(~ with apologies to Proust, Dumas.)
Public procurement should be dull.
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
It's been 65 days since Donald Trump invaded a sovereign state, abducted its leader, and declared the US will "run" the state indefinitely
It's been 9 days since Trump launched a war (his word) against Iran without congressional approval
No House member has filed articles of impeachment for either
If an official commits an impeachable offense and nobody acts to impeach, it is no longer an impeachable offense.
People who oppose impeachment as “pointless” because it seems unlikely to result in removal do not understand this very simple point and seem unwilling to even try to understand it.
Might just post this every day
Again, a (rhetorical) question: if this were not 25th amendment territory: what on earth *would* be?
We have spent a fortune on players who have come and gone, and 8 of our starting XI are still those who were here under Dean Smith.
It is like a 1970s politburo full of glorious WWII veterans.
Certainly true of Aston Villa, where we haven’t had planned recruitment for years.
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.
Mainstream Israel seems doomed by a certain groupthink, in which force is an answer to the country’s problems. My weekend essay for @prospectmagazine.co.uk on Benjamin Netanyahu's cynical politics of war
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/israel...
Minor point, I know: but how can she be plotting something like this when she is in charge? Planning, maybe - but plotting?
That the headline writer even thought of that word is indicative of a conspiratorial mindset In matters Kemi.
Read the post you are commenting on, and you will see the difference between US and Israel.
That is what the post I am commenting on says about Isreal. My comment and quote were about US.
My point is that you truncated SB's sentence so you could make your "fail to see" dismissal - and I thought that was a little unfair.
"It is [...] hard to avoid the conclusion that the Trump administration has embarked on this operation without a plan, and is making it up as it goes along, as if they killed enough of the right people and destroyed enough Iranian assets everything would fall into place."
Magical thinking.
You seem to have missed off the second half of SB's sentence so as to make your "I fail to see" point.
Why miss out the point about the demographic?
Good point
Perhaps Trump means no conditions need to be fulfilled for him to declare there has been a surrender.
