Good tsar, bad boyars - Wikipedia

Good tsar, bad boyars - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_ts...

I assume Davey G is still crowd sourcing his articles - he can pinch that.

Opening text of a thread by Palantir from X Because we get asked a lot. The Technological Republic, in brief. 1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation. 2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible. 3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public. 4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.

Palantir put out a 22-point summary of their CEO's book The Technological Republic. It's pitched as a defence of the West, but if you read it through the VDA framework, verification, deliberation, accountability, what it's actually doing looks rather different.
twitter-thread.com/t/2045574398...

He's got a plan. #billburr #conan #conanobrien #cruiseships TikTok video by Team Coco

Finally! a positive from this daft war

www.tiktok.com/@teamcoco/vi...

The pope daring to speak on behalf of a supposedly all powerful, omnipresent deity.

Zelensky just out with a long comment after the latest Ramstein meeting. Optimistic and gives thanks to many partners. Not a single mention of the US helping Ukraine.

The Ukrainians are not hiding the fact that the US is no longer their friend.

If you're insisting which person is right about the opinions of a mysterious sky fairy, then you're just as daft as those two pillocks.

Maybe just ask that mysterious sky fairy for his opinion, see if he responds.

Just two idiots arguing about what their invisible friend thinks.

Which is partly why we're in this mess. Eliot Higgins is right - discourse is broken

And a hard drive check too, the wrong 'un

The Offer Viktor Orbán Couldn't Refuse. (Or Didn't.) Who knew that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was on the take from the same Russian mobsters who were laundering millions through Donald Trump's real estate?

“Mogilevich handed over kompromat videos of Orbán to the FSB in exchange for the Kremlin’s agreement to overlook his tax issues… thanks to Mogilevich, Putin had Orbán exactly where he wanted him” @craigunger
open.substack.com/pub/craigung...

That's neither bad not irrelevant?

Also, there are some beautiful licorice chocolates in Scandinavia, such as Frazer Salmoiakki and special editions of Dumle and Marabou

*many people are saying* it sure looks like the White House wrote this for Pakistan’s PM, who posted it then quickly deleted the top part 😬

A photo of the orange clown man who is currently in the Oval Office prior to his move to The Hague.The warmongering omnicunt is wearing a blue suit, white shirt and checked tie. But the camera angle means the large Easter Bunny’s ears behind him look like his ears. The white and pink fluffy ears set against his an oompah lumpah skin tone. A generational shithead looking foolish yet still not as insanely moronic as he actually his. Die soon please.

Nice work, Nathan Howard of Reuters.
📸👏

Yeah sorry - bit of a hasty reply on my part.

Was more a comment on social norms etc. - the naughty word yesterday was the bit that outraged media/news/commentators etc. rather than the desired war crimes.

That doesn't really matter as he didn't say fuck or bugger.

AWKWARD

lmao this one is incredible. “Head of product at X condemns quote-tweeting” my brother in Jira you’re the shift manager at the quote tweet factory

🧵 Democracy feels like it's in a rough state at the moment across the globe, and we hear various explanations, like polarisation, extremism, disinformation, and loss of trust. But what if those explanations are mainly symptoms and we've been trying to treat them rather than the underlying causes?

Swearing is less acceptable than war crimes.

The concept of morality needs a lot of work.

So people avoid thinking about content, context, intent etc.

Look at the words, check that the naughty list doesn't apply. If so, then any horrendous shite can be blurred out by horrendous people, and that's socially ok.

As long as they don't say fuck or bugger

A few comedians have done bits on taboo words. The one that springs to mind is Bill Burr's bit on racism, where certain taboo words give a roadmap for racists on which words will provoke scrutiny.

Having these taboo words just gives people an easy "painting by numbers" approach to right and wrong

I've also been thinking about this a lot - Trump's statement yesterday has offended many. But the thing that caused most offence was not the content, the desire to commit war crimes etc., but his use of "fuckin'".

To me the word is trivial, but the content is horrendous.

Nowt much, people like to repeat things for a short while until the next outrage appears.

Yesterday everyone was posting pictures of marmalade jars.

Given Trump’s Easter threats to carry out new war crimes in Iran, we should think one or two steps ahead about a coup attempt connected to the war. And then deter it. (1/17)

FIFA Peace Nuke has a great ring to it

Reminds me of Ellis's rufty-tufty plea to McClain in Die Hard

Hans* will now shoot Ellis** in the noggin.

*Iran
*Donald

Well at least he's not banging on about marmalade