The letter the BBC could send back to Trump A proposal for a reply to his $1bn claim

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The letter the BBC could send back to Trump

A proposal for a reply to his $1bn claim

By me. Enjoy.

emptycity.substack.com/p/the-letter...

Tawny owl

Six weeks ago, I picked up a year-old tawny owl with a broken leg off the main road near our home and dropped him off at our nearest vet.

After a few days, I received one of the most bizarre phone calls I’ve ever had, asking “So when are you coming to pick up your owl?” 🧵

the3million | the3million’s statement on Reform’s plan to scrap indefinite leave to remain | Giving a voice to EU citizens in the UK Life in the UK shouldn’t be only for the rich. A serious government doesn’t play games with people’s lives.

British in Europe fully supports the statement from @the3million.bsky.social published on 22 September 2025 in response to Reform’s attack on the fundamental rights of millions of EU citizens and their non-EU family members living in the UK. 1/
the3million.org.uk/news/2025-09...

"There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People."

Umberto Eco, ‘Ur-Fascism’

A $45 Treatment Can Save a Starving Child. US Aid Cuts Have Frozen the Supply

USAID funded roughly half the world’s supply of ready-to-use therapeutic food. The dismantling of the agency has disrupted the global supply chain that provides the packets, leaving thousands of malnourished children at risk of dying.

It's worse than that: because populism can't deliver its promises, it has to keep finding new traitors & enemies to blame. It has to keep tearing at the walls of its imagined prison.

The more it fails, the more it turns people against each other. And the more it seeks to destroy anything in its way

Unheard works by Erik Satie to premiere 100 years after his death Pianist Alexandre Tharaud performs previously lost material by experimental French composer on a new album

A little write up about my work on unpublished pieces by Erik Satie. Alexandre Tharaud has recorded some of them (Warner Classics digital album out tomorrow), and the whole collection will be in print next week to commemorate 100th anniversary of Satie's death.
www.theguardian.com/music/2025/j...

This thread is spot-on, especially on the constitutional/legal points.

"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist."

~ Hannah Ahrendt

"The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism." -
Hannah Arendt

About The End of Great Power Politics Beyond my New Book: an Attempt at a Strategic Road-Map

This 136th long read on my strategy blog is not a summary in English of my latest book, The End of Great Power Politics, but rather a discussion that builds on it, drawing on fruitful and candid exchanges with friends and colleagues on its main theses.
tenzerstrategics.substack.com/p/about-the-...

Behind the Curtain: Top AI CEO foresees white-collar bloodbath Hardly anyone is paying attention.

At a time when people are understandably focused on the daily chaos in Washington, these articles describe the rapidly accelerating impact that AI is going to have on jobs, the economy, and how we live.

Artificial Intelligence and the Future of the Creative Industries (Gerd Leonhard) I gave a talk on this topic at ScreenForce 2025 in Zurich, a few days ago in German, and may people have asked me to produce it in English as well, so.... he...

👉 Join me at 6pm UK 1pm EST 8am PST etc... today (in 2.5 hours:) Livestream Session on Artificial Intelligence and the Future of the Creative Industries (Gerd Leonhard) buff.ly/zo1HosE

Overnight

If a foreign adversary snuck into our Federal budget and cut science research and education the way we’re cutting it ourselves — strategically undermining America’s long-term health, wealth, and security — we would likely consider it an act of war.

National Care Association's Nadra Ahmed: "Unskilled, low-paid" political rhetoric damages domestic recruitment. International recruitment is expensive and a last resort.

"If we can't get the workforce, we can't deliver the care. If we can't deliver the care, providers will not be in the sector."~AA

The idea that it’s currently easy is also insane. I spent £17,000 over 12 years before I got indefinite leave to remain. Every time I changed visa type—which I needed to do multiple times—it took my time in the country back to zero. Each visa extension costs thousands of pounds.

You’d think they hadn’t thought it through

Law students organize to give Trump-caving firms a recruitment problem By creating a spreadsheet, Georgetown Law students sparked national headlines, along with PR headaches and staffing challenges inside the world's most powerful firms.

The spreadsheet “names more than 800 firms, assigning them to one of five stark categories:

“Caved to Administration”

“Complying in Advance”

“Other Negative Action”

“Stood Up Against Administration’s Attacks”

.. or “No Response.”

@klasfeldreports.com
www.allrisenews.com/p/skadden-st...

This moment when the penny drops that trying to implement bathroom bans is an impossibility for the former Tory Chief Secretary Simon Clarke is delicious.

Four Seasons Total Landscaping is once again ready to host the circus!

“Anyone who builds a wall rather than a bridge to keep out migrants is not a Christian.” - Pope Francis. R.I.P.

A light blue diagram depicting the sea, with the water's surface at the top, and just below it is an outline of the Mary Rose, with the depth (12m, 40ft or 6.7 fathoms). There is a line showing the seabed, which takes a rapid dive into the vertical...

On the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, we thought we'd answer a question that's often asked,

"If they raised the Mary Rose, why not raise the Titanic?"

Allow our scaled diagram to explain...

Oh to be a red-eared snapper turtle sunning oneself in a pond at a centuries-old zen temple in the ancient shogunal capital.

1. White House, Monday, on a 90-day pause: “Fake news.”

2. Bessent, today: a 90-day pause was discussed on Sunday. “This was his strategy all along.”

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

This chart is being shared over on the other app. But it tells the story of how "Buy American" is so difficult and why it would take a decade to do so, and at great cost. This Boeing plane may be "made in America" but it's parts come from all over the world.

Trump has turned his back on the foundation of US economic might What made the US step back from the system that it profited handsomely from for decades?

1/ This is excellent from @faisalislam.bsky.social on the Trump trade fiasco.

Well worth 10 mins of your day as it discusses 2 very different world views

Is Trump really aiming at funding US public spending substantially from tariff income? 🤣

🧵

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

Which means the benefit goes to the owners of US manufacturing, not US workers