Mort was immediately and has remained my favourite 🥰

Kristen Wiig in an SNL sketch about a 1920s party hostess who asks her guests not to make her sing, and then blithely proceeds to do so, badly, despite no one ever actually having demanded it.

And finally…

“Because we get asked a lot”

Oh, don’t make Palantir fash. Don’t make them fash. Well I suppose if they MUST fash, they must. But don’t make them fash. Oh but they can hardly REFUSE to fash NOW, since everyone is DEMANDING they fash.

20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim. 21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful. 22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?

And then this, right at the end. Noxious, virulent and - for all their fetishising of ‘innovation’ - incredibly old and unoriginal.

The Technological Republic has a theocratic, ethnonationalist tumour growing in its guts. And it’s one they *want* to metastasise.

16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn.

Another tiny violin for the billionaire ‘engineering elites’ that should be ruling us without having to submit to our petty scrutiny. They even name-check Musk. We don’t criticise them *because* they have ideas: we criticise them because their ideas are bad. Or are racist. Or are killing people.

5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed. 6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost. 7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way.

And not just more militarism directed towards crime, of course: a complete re-orientation of the state, commerce and society to serve military aims. (‘Everyone’ sharing the risk and cost always has a way of carving out the ‘right’ people.)

That Mitchell and Webb Look - Kill All The Poor YouTube video by fanvideos4u

I think this is also a clue as to what they mean about too much ‘caution’. It’s a bit like someone watched the Mitchell & Webb ‘Kill all the Poor’ sketch (youtu.be/s_4J4uor3JE?...) and thought it was a documentary about how liberal governments prohibit technocratic innovation.

17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives.

This is why they want to have a freer hand. So much deception and bad faith framing in this paragraph to imply that a ‘Technological Republic’ would do…what, to address crime? I strongly suspect suspend civil liberties, presumption of innocence, due process - the things enshrined to protect us all.

18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within. 19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.

They’re talking about *leaders* - not *workers*. Grace for cabinet members and presidential appointees. Freedom from things like investigative journalism or congressional oversight. They want us to stop examining leaders, and they’re laying the groundwork for more extreme ones to have freer hands.

8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive. 9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.

These are interesting because on their face they make reasonable points. Yes, let’s improve public sector pay and show more grace and forgiveness. Good things.

But you start to realise they don’t mean public sector *workers* - this is them back on ‘elites’ again; the elites they like and are.

13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet. 14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.

Read in the context of the rest of this statement, I think it’s forgivable to conclude that the authors think the advancement of progressive values is the ‘imperfection’ they want to fix. And in that light, I wonder how much they actually value ‘peace’. Tweak the tone and these could be regretful.

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.

12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.

Paragraph 12 is getting a lot of attention for obvious reasons, but coming so soon after paragraph 4 calling out over-reliance on rhetorical flourish, it reads a bit Blair 1998 (‘A day like today is not a day for soundbites, but I feel the hand of history upon our shoulder’)

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.

First sentence: totally fine; even commendable.

Second sentence: hmm. There’s the casual importance given to the implicitly defined social stratum of ‘engineering elite’, but mostly my ears prick up at ‘defense of the nation’: an abstraction that here signals militaristic, not social improvement.

Palantir’s statement (/shill for its co-founder’s recent grift-manifesto) is quite something and I have some (brief) thoughts on bits of it (thread):

twitter-thread.com/t/2045574398...

“It’s a couple of things that work beautifully in concert. First: no music. Audiences are so sophisticated, but what they’re not accustomed to is not being told how to feel,” Wyle says. “You take all that out and it forces a level of engagement where you’re now looking for clues within the frame of the screen, which forces you to look up from your phone. And I think that is extremely engaging, especially to young viewers who aren’t accustomed to being asked to participate in a nonpassive way in the viewing experience.

“Second point, shooting it with almost exclusively 50-millimeter or 65-millimeter lenses, which is the most comparable to the human eye—and only shooting from the point of view of a human being that’s present in this space. There are no cameras on gurney wheels going in the hallway. There’s no cameras on the ceiling looking down from a God point of view. You are limited to the perspective of a participant. You can look away, but you can’t leave, and it becomes an endurance test for you to stay on your feet as long as we’re on our feet. Which [brings me to my] third point: real time. Real time has an aggregate sense of tension that you don’t get in any other form of storytelling. What happened before is happening now, and these two things are going to add up to the next thing. And if we throw more ingredients into this cooker and keep ratcheting it up, it’s going to pop.”

Wyle makes eye contact for his next point, delivering it with a Robby-esque matter-of-factness. “Fourth point: The election went the other way,” he says with a shrug. “We could have been a really good show with a lot of nice things to say in a perfectly normal Kamala Harris universe. And instead we became almost a beacon of hope and humanity in an alternative universe. But in the midst of that, fifth point—this is essentially competence porn. You’re watching really smart, dedicated people do what only they know how to do at a level that you don’t know how to do it, and you’re so fucking glad that they’re there doing it, and compartmentalizing their own stuff to put your broken pieces back together. You’re so reassured by knowing that there are people out there that laugh and joke and have the ability to lock in like that.”

this is fucking unreal stuff from Noah Wyle on the magic of The Pitt. www.gq.com/story/noah-w...

High Potential heard the writing advice “show, don’t tell” and thought: “What if only tell? And often?”

Ewwwwwwwwww

With so, so many deeply depressing, horrifying and maddening things going on, this is just one more thrown onto the log pile. But the long term effects will be huge and devastating: whowhatwhy.org/science/envi...

But why did he only appear naked with Trump?

Republican senators McConnell and Tillis break with Trump on Nato withdrawal They warned leaving the alliance would aid rivals, threaten US security and require Senate approval under 2024 law

If the only two GOP senators willing to go on record and to defend *NATO* (for good or ill, a powerful vehicle for US interests) against Trump’s raving are the two who are retiring, shit really has gone through the looking glass.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

I was literally just browsing some online…

New Subway Promotion To Honor Subtember 11 MILFORD, CT—Citing a wide range of deals customers will “never forget,” fast food chain Subway announced an exciting new promotion this week to honor and commemorate Subtember 11. “With a number of te...

engagement bait prompt: what's your favorite Onion article? I think mine has to be this one theonion.com/new-subway-p...

I think we might be saying similar things. They talk about respect and care but aren’t acknowledging that their *choice* to do this is hurting those guides, or taking any responsibility for that. I think that’s disappointing, and hurtful on top of the decision itself.

I wish they could have expressed even once in this announcement some apology to the trans girls who are being kicked out through no fault of their own.

Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, Hegseth suggested that Thursday would bring the biggest US onslaught so far. “To date, we’ve struck over 7,000 targets across Iran and its military infrastructure,” the defense secretary said. “Today will be the largest strike package yet … death and destruction from above.”

Hegseth, who has previously expressed sympathy for Christian nationalism, ended his remarks with an overtly religious plea for Americans to pray for US troops “on bended knee with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ”.

Ah yes, important counterbalances to the president’s petty vindictiveness: sweaty glee and po-faced Christofascism.

“Hegseth to address media after Trump threatens to ‘blow up’ entire South Pars gasfield”

I’m sure he’ll offer a sober and thoughtful de-escalation.

NYT on Feb. 13, 2026: The visit also demonstrated the relative foreign policy inexperience of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who has made a few overseas trips since taking office but does not sit on any House committees devoted primarily to world affairs. She struggled at times to formulate succinct answers at a nighttime panel session, during which she was asked probing and specific questions about how to respond to international crises. Questioned about whether the United States should send troops to defend Taiwan if China invaded the island, she stalled for roughly 20 seconds before offering a substantive response. “I think that, uh, this is such a, a — you know, I think that — this is a, um — this is of course, a, uh, a very longstanding, um, policy of the United States,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said, before saying that the country should try to avoid reaching that point with China in the first place.

NYT on March 16, 2026: On Monday, Mr. Trump claimed that “numerous countries have told me they’re on the way,” noting that President Emmanuel Macron of France would most likely help in the Strait of Hormuz and was an eight out of 10. “Not perfect, but it’s France,” he said. Others are not demonstrating sufficient enthusiasm for his demands, he said.

Last month the NYT said AOC "struggled" to give an answer on Taiwan and quoted her with "uhs" and "ums" to make her look stupid

Yesterday talking about Hormuz Trump claimed he's heard from "numerous countries" and said "uh" four times. The NYT deleted the "uhs" and paraphrased him to look smarter:

A petri dish of human brain cells is currently playing Doom. Should we be worried? Scientists in the US have uploaded a fruit fly to a computer simulation, while an Australian lab has taught neurons on a glass chip to play a 90s video game. How long before we are all living in a sci...

I resent that a petri dish of brain cells is probably better at Doom than I am.

www.theguardian.com/games/2026/m...

Heard this to the tune of ‘Dancing on My Own’

You must be really, truly awful when even someone who speaks exclusively in hyperbolic lies can only muster ‘numerous’ as one of two words to praise your ‘results’.

I have thrown myself very enthusiastically into never needing to use the ITV streaming service again.