Rhys Needham

ooh decisions decisions

Hence all the jokes in the Life of Brian.

Socrates. Not the Brazillian footballer.

No written sources of his own.

80s singer Thomas Dolby on raising queer kids: "the eldest is trans, the middle is a lesbian, and the youngest is a drummer"

The 3 genders

Scranton, Pa., Republican

Daily Worker

March 11, 1926: Italy’s Senate approves a law that effectively abolishes unions and gives Mussolini’s regime broad power to regulate industry and arbitrate labor disputes. The dictator calls it “the most audacious, most courageous and most revolutionary” step by Fascism.

Here's @oliverdarcy.bsky.social with a point I should have given more thought to.

David Ellison keeps saying that the “editorial independence” of CBS News must be “maintained." Sounds good, right? But think about it. If you really wanted an independent newsroom would you choose a newbie to run it?

One for @actualnames.bsky.social

6-inch platforms?

Once again, the British electorate finds itself woefully out of touch with the Conservative Party and must apologise.

Preparing reading questions for my students on James Scott's Seeing Like a State, and it's just full of little delights. Such as:

"Telling a farmer only that he is leasing twenty acres of land is about as helpful as telling a scholar that he has bought six kilograms of books."

Laser Kiwi flag - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_K....

Meanwhile over on Twitter everyone is losing their mind over a change to the design on the banknotes that they haven't used in six years.

a man with a beard is smiling while sitting at a desk ALT: a man with a beard is smiling while sitting at a desk

Everything is bad, but at least I can focus on my dissertation chapter about how the British in 1915 didn’t have the navy to force a strait when it needed to because it spent the previous decades funding their army’s misadventures in unimportant areas that turned into expensive quagmires.

Getting the ice cubes stuck up their nose as a result has sent them around the bend even further (an old Lenny Bruce joke)?

There are times I suspect the likes of Alan Brooke and many others in the War Cabinet would have loved to have seen Churchill replaced with a squirrel. An especially inspirational talking squirrel, that is.

istg the first party to promise covering veterinary care for pets under the NHS will rule this country forever

Devastating reporting. Like RFK Jr., Kristi Noem, and Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth is reshaping his department to indiscriminately kill tons and tons of children.

A major throughline of the Trump administration.

Exclusive | Justice Department Probes Iran’s Use of Binance to Evade Sanctions The investigation is focused on money flowing through the crypto platform to a network that backs terror groups, including Yemen’s Houthi militants.

Recall that Binance co-founder CZ was pardoned by President Trump last October.

When I said 'Kemi Badenoch is so partisan, under her the Tories would oppose puppies and kittens if Labour said something nice about them', I didn't mean it literally.

One of my favourite literary put-downs is from Douglas Adams's The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Zaphod Beeblebrox, who often reacts in erratic ways, claims to be “pretty dangerous when I'm cornered,” to which Ford Prefect responds “you go to pieces so fast people get hit by the shrapnel.”

She wore a raspberry beret,
People thought she was in the IRA.

props

Props to anyone who tries to be stylish in Ireland once I wore a beret to a funeral and some guy shouted "Alright Super Ra-io"

Military makes colossal blunders ✔️

Defense industrial base reliant on weirdos ✔️

Everybody’s hooked on deathsticks ✔️

Government filled with degenerate gamblers ✔️

Capital officially “eh?” on slavery ✔️

Robots are sassy distractions, add little ✔️

Heyblibber in operation ✔️

Pakistan fall of wickets vs Bangladesh

Pakistan are bundled out for 114 in the first ODI!

#BANvPAK SCORECARD: bit.ly/BANvPAK26-M1

It was quite explicitly allegorical, wasn't it?

the most thoroughly vindicated man in hollywood.

trade disputes and conspiracies ✔️

republic subverted over sex hangups ✔️

“sand people” killed, royalty indifferent ✔️

naive idiot casts vote for tyranny ✔️

villains with silly names like “dooku” ✔️

powerful clerical order screwing up ✔️

list goes on

It never changes, does it?

Difficult to emphasize just how much a generation of kids has been taught that being dishonest, superficial, and narcissistic is the pathway to attention and therefore success