Have you ever wondered about the history of 20th C. Mongolia, including its relationship to both Moscow and Beijing? Wonder no more!

youtu.be/B3CNKYy7V2w

👇🎯 Today in “Juan Linz was right & presidentialism was a grave mistake.” In a proper normal functioning democracy, all it would take is a few members of parliament crossing party lines in a no confidence vote & this would already all be over.

Trump learning how wars work one mistake at a time.

Martin consults with the four lads over a cup of tea

Everyone stops for a tea break at Abbey Road studio 🫖

The Beatles & George Martin by Norman Parkinson, 1963

Today is #NationalTeaDay, and it's also Parkinson's birthday 🎂

The two have a cup of tea, one in his jacket, the other in shirtsleeves.

The Kray twins take a tea break. They'd just finished being questioned for 36 hours about the shooting death of George Cornell in The Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel.
📷 William Lovelace, 1966

#NationalTeaDay

Ronnie was convicted of Cornell's murder, & died in prison.

Umm - I thought one of the main problems was that constant sonic booms were not something that millions of people living under the flightpath would enjoy.

I remember those buses - if you sat downstairs at the back for any length of time you usually ended up feeling queasy from the exhaust fumes. Absolute death traps. No way they'd pass health and safety today.

“Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.”
Umberto Eco, 1995

I'm not sure my French is good enough to understand the full subtleties of Libé's review of the Michael Jackson biopic

Or you have the kompromat excuse - that somehow they are being coerced to act like this because of the secret dirt that Putin has on them. Nope. This is who they are. Character.

Freeing you Joint Force sounds like a line from some sort of dodgy internet ad pushing toxic cure-all supplements.

English version of today’s judgment now available on Eur-Lex: eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-conten...

First: hilarious.

Second: A core belief of Trump-brand conservativsm is there are and never have been difficult problems, only dumb leaders without the strength to be cruel enough to solve them.

It's why they always look so baffled when pushing the "more cruelty" button doesn't seem to work.

Canvassing also breaks down when you party collapses in the polls. For every voter who shouts at you there are 50 who are polite but don't bother voting for you this time or are too kind to tell you.

People I expected in likes/replies:

- Steve
- wonderful LGBT+ people
- that one former judge

People I did not expect:

- furries
- comic book artists
- Brits salty that this means they will never rejoin EU

The latest video coming from the refinery in Tuapse, Krasnodar region, in Russia shows that basically the entire facility is burning.

I’m saying that this facility is a total loss.

The EU’s Court of Justice has just ruled anti-LGBTQ+, including anti-trans, laws are ‘contrary to the very identity of the Union as a common legal order in a society in which pluralism prevails’.

i know there’s that meme that law people are always like “omg mic drop” and the actual text is just “the court disagrees” this would be the equivalent of SCOTUS severely limiting the entire concept of states rights by saying pride parades are a national shared value

Many of the political “shifts” proclaimed in the media are mainly media adjustments to political reality — and usually only a short phase in the movement to another simplified generalization.

Just a few paragraphs in, and this is already excellent:

"I tried to get out of the conversation as quickly as I could, not least because he seemed frustrated that I didn’t see things exactly as he did — a new behavior and likely a symptom of LLM overuse."

I suspect the people on the UK Right who in response to these polls keep saying "but what about support for joining the Euro, checkmate Rejoiners" will get a bit of a shock over the next few years

The UK must accept it is no longer a global power Starmer has failed to level with the public that Britain’s control over its destiny is limited

Well there’s this

www.ft.com/content/8789...

But the politicians in Westminster don’t believe or accept this, even after Brexit

See Starmer giving a speech in autumn 2024 blaming the civil service for a declinist mindset aka they tell him the UK is a middle ranking country

It feels like everyone knows Starmer's done but that needs to be delayed for another few weeks so he can take the hit for the inevitable local and devolved elections disasters too.

PM of Slovakia Robert Fico continues his quest to arrive in Moscow for the May 9 parade.

After the Baltic States denied him passage, he sent a request to Poland to let him fly through the country.

Last year, he flew via Hungary, Romania and Georgia.

He's running.

I stress constraints more than most and I am still certain that Starmer's operation has made massive, avoidable errors, and that his position has probably been untenable for some time. They have blown a major opportunity. That is on them, and him, and Labour supporters should not be forgiving.

🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈⚖️🇭🇺 A legal earthquake - CJEU finds Hungary to have violated EU law on multiple counts with its anti-LGBT+ legislation (as expected) but also for the first time in history, in an EU law-reshaping precedent, finds Hungary to violate Art 2 TEU in a self-standing manner.

The visionaries As always, if you find value in this work I do, please consider helping me keep it sustainable by joining my weekly newsletter, Sparky’s List! You can get it in your inbox or read it on Patreon…

new toon!
www.dailykos.com/stories/2026...

Why? Some possibilities:
1. Partisan denial ("the polls are dire but our core voters still believe in us, I see it on the doorstep every week")
2. Local denial ("many areas are screwed but *my* area is fine")
3. Reality of losses brought home ("I can't believe my best mate councillor X got beat")