Where?

Not sure wtf we're doing but it definitely doesn't feel like winning.

BBC News December 2024:
‘Farage has meanwhile said that he "might disagree with Mandelson on his politics, but he's a very intelligent man" and would be good choice for ambassador.’

The Last Woman Who Knew Everything: The Omnivorous Mind of Clémence Royer. When Clémence Royer died on February 7, 1902, she took with her into oblivion perhaps the last human brain that believed in and aimed for Complete Knowledge. She had devoted her life to the propositio...

French polymath Clémence Royer was born 196 years ago today. Now she is most known for her 1862 translation of On the Origin of Species which pushed Darwin's ideas into the realm of human evolution, but in her day she was celebrated for her encyclopedic knowledge.

tinyurl.com/5cbam92f

#WomenInStEM

The Brits appear ready to shame the US news media into covering this, distracted as they are by gazing at their own navels ...

Is this why we went to WAR???

#Iran

#Epstein

#EpsteinFiles

Should be Kansas flu. Started there, taken by US troops to the Western Front. From there to spread around the world

Girl, the morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.

We've been rewatching The Thick of It on DVD to get our brains fully in tune with Whitehall

The BBC, like most broadcasters, does not have a dedicated energy editor, which is a glaring omission given that almost everything revolves around energy

I'm still using my stick after more than six years. Actually, my second: I dropped the first under a train at Bologna Centrale a couple of years ago

Buy yourself a stick. I got one after spine surgery in late 2019. It helps me walk and means I am offered a seat on trains and buses; or can ask someone for their seat

Ed Miliband to double down on net zero with measures to combat Iran energy shock As fossil fuel prices soar ‘the era of clean energy security must come of age’, energy secretary will say

Good. 👏

'Ed Miliband will double down on Labour’s commitment to net zero in the face of the Middle East conflict this week, insisting that as fossil fuel prices soar "the era of clean energy security must come of age".'
www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Trump is operating on a false premise.

He thinks that if he threatens "wiping out a civilization," & they don't surrender to the threat, that he is then justified in bombing them into oblivion.

The threat alone is a war crime. There is NO JUSTIFICATION for executing the threat.

Boxing himself in.

WOW: A stunning new report in the WSJ reveals that military advisers intentionally excluded Donald Trump from the command room during the recent high-stakes operation to extract a downed U.S. airman in Iran, because they feared his erratic behavior could jeopardize the mission. 1/

This is really bad stuff.

The information was incorrect but the point was right? I don't see how that works

CPAC Great Britain will be on July 16-18 when all the worst people in the country will be gathered in one place.

The Peak District became the UK's first national park 75 years ago, but the area has been attracting visitors for much longer. One of the oldest tourist attractions is the Devil's Arse - one of four caves in Castleton that are accessible to the public. "It makes a huge farting noise basically," says John Harrison, director of the site, as he explains where its name originates. "It was always known as the Devil's Arse and then in Victorian times, with their sort of prudish outlook on life, it became offensive. "They changed it to the Devil's Hole - which is probably worse - and then Peak's Hole and then Peak Cavern. "When we took it on it was Peak Cavern and we changed it back to the Devil's Arse."

This is why heritage people are my people.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

No. TV sets never lasted 50 years. The cathode ray tube used for screens leaked air, so was no longer a vacuum, and brightness faded. My family's first TV, bought 1956, lasted 15 years max, and in the last few years you had to close all the curtains to see even a dim image

A special treat for @EmpirePodUK members-
The great Avi Shlaim, the Sherlock Holmes of the Israeli archives, talks to @anitaanand.bsky.social & I about his discoveries:
Uncovering The Secret Files of The Arab-Israeli Conflict

I've been thinking about this all afternoon. What if the vetting showed a potential minister in the 1980s was an active KGB agent? Would there STILL be a duty not to disclose? How would that work?

the only two words exchanged between them. The atmosphere was poisonous

I first encountered him in 1996 when I was involved in a government IT conference for the mag I was editing. He and David Willetts were keynote speakers. I was in the greenroom with Judith Church, MP for Dagenham. Mandy rolled up and Judith said "Hello Peter" in such an icy way. And they were 1/2

Right. I'll dig out my DVDs of the Thick of It, and start watching - as soon as we've finished The Other Bennet Sister. Thanks for the prompt

I think people hear 'undergrounding' and think it would be completely undisruptive. It's not, the size of these cables means it's like digging a dual carriageway under the landscape. But often I feel it's just a way of getting green projects cancelled as people know at heart it's not economical.

I so wish I had thought of that, dang.

It’s a great moment to remember that in the leadup to this popular uprising, the first major gut-punch was delivered by Budapest Pride. Poetic justice. 🇭🇺🏳️‍🌈

It's not a counterpunch, guys. The pope didn't throw a punch. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/12/u...