Step in to the portal....This morning as the sun shone through St Michael's tower on Glastonbury Tor.

It should probably worry me that value dissynchronisation is now BAU politics.

Choropleth world map of national fertility rates where countries are classified as having fertility above or below the 2.1 births per woman replacement level to show global patterns in 2025. It notes many high-income countries (US, UK, France) have 1.5 to 1.6 live births on average, China has 1 live birth, South Korea 0.8, and Somalia and Chad have 5.9 live births, the highest. Data source: UN, World Population Prospects (2024). License: CC BY.

Which countries have fertility rates above or below the “replacement level”?

Fertility rates — which measure the average number of children per woman — have been falling worldwide. Since 1950, global fertility rates have halved, from almost 5 children per woman to 2.2.

Amy Godliman and Paul Hayes have crystallised a particular feeling of distant memory and childhood nostalgia into a perfect diorama.

作業部屋の引き出しから、作った記憶のない小さいスペースシャトルオービターが出てきました。

The idea that politicians explaining things to people is elitist, and that they should reflect "the concerns of real people" by telling them what they imagine they want to hear is one of the most toxic ideas our elites have internalised

+80% Home Solar system sales in uk march vs. feb 2026 according to octopus

& heat pump orders had more than doubled in March compared with Feb

British gas recorded a 250% increase in solar panel installation inquiries since 28 Feb.

Octopus Energy says heat pump orders had more than doubled in March compared with February, while sales of solar power systems were up almost 80% and new leases of electric vehicles rose by more than 85%.

The International Rescue Technical Operations Manual goes live for pre-order tomorrow and I know for a fact that it answers one of Thunderbirds' most infamous plot holes.

Can you guess what it is??

Zhang Shan won the gold medal for the mixed skeet shooting event in the 1992 Olympics.

The International Shooting Union *immediately* banned women from competing against men.

Politicians just seem to have given up trying to explain the world as it is to people. It's a huge problem.

Deadlock over. The EU just cleared way for the €90-billion-loan for Ukraine and the 20th sanctions package.

Russia’s war economy is under growing strain, while Ukraine is getting a major boost.

We will provide Ukraine what it needs to hold its ground, until Putin understands his war leads nowhere.

Single frame containing two panels. Title: “INVISIBLE THINGS” First panel. Empty frame, captioned “Australian gas, extracted and exported by large multinational companies.” Second panel. Identical empty frame, captioned “The benefit to Australia from the export of our gas.”

Invisible things.
My @smh @ theage cartoon.

‘The movie ACME doesn’t want you to see’ is great.

Three mini jars with white goats sitting on top of the lid. The jars are carved all around using a rounded edged carving tool, creating a circular pattern and adding texture to the jar.

Showing off the lid of the jar as well as the inside of it, getting a close up of the rounded textural patten of the jar on the outside as well as the smooth glossy green interior of the jar.

My little goat jars made it out of the kiln 🐐

Honest Government Ad | The Ensh*ttenment YouTube video by thejuicemedia

The Government™ has made an ad about the era we're living through, and it's surpsingly honest and informative.

“Cleaning up the risk pool” means letting sick people and old people and disabled people die. End of. There is no other meaning here.

Starmer's authority is bleeding away because the behaviour he is exhibiting actively discourages loyalty inews.co.uk/opinion/feck...

EU agrees to unblock €90bn loan for Ukraine after Hungary lifts veto Agreement for urgently needed loan reached after Ukraine resumed pumping Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia * Europe live – latest updates EU member states have reached agreement on unblocking an urgently needed €90bn (£78bn) loan for Kyiv and a new package of sanctions against Moscow after Ukraine resumed pumping Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia, prompting Budapest to lift its veto. Cyprus, which holds the bloc’s rotating presidency, said member states’ ambassadors had agreed to launch “written procedures” for the final approval of the loan and the sanctions package, with formal sign-off on both due by Thursday afternoon. Continue reading...

EU agrees to unblock €90bn loan for Ukraine after Hungary lifts veto

Reading the FT front page story about a Chinese company introducing a battery with a 1500 km range & six minute recharging time & about how two Chinese companies own more than half of the global EV battery market & I am struck by the different realities the US and China occupy. We’ve lost the plot.

Absolutely no mention of which were the mistakes and which were the successes, I note.

You thought you heard a roll of thunder, but it was actually thousands of medical historians cracking their knuckles and rolling up their sleeves to revisit centuries of “dirty immigrant” canards.

Let's call this policy what this is.

It's socialism. It's Leftism. And it's curing actual ills. Righting institutional wrongs.

It's not coming from someone who is infallible, or someone who is always correct.

It's coming from someone who promised to help and is trying to keep those promises.

"This is an important thing to think about."

Britain sidelined in talks on Carney-backed defense bank The U.K. Treasury has expressed little enthusiasm for an initiative to provide lower cost loans to finance the armed forces.

Further evidence of a lack of deep thinking in government about the reality of the world. Or even waist-high thinking.

www.politico.eu/article/keir...

Remember when we learned that not only was tobacco addictive, but cigarette manufacturers had been working to make it MORE addictive…?

Drivers Test in Canada 🇨🇦 #hockey #pavelbarber YouTube video by Pavel Barber

Canadian driving licence test.....

youtube.com/shorts/i-_WY...

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover took this selfie on Oct. 25, 2020, after drilling a rock sample from a spot nicknamed “Mary Anning.” After years of extensive analysis, the sample has revealed the greatest diversity of organic molecules ever found on Mars. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

🚀 Breakthrough on Mars!

Mars Curiosity rover just discovered its most diverse collection of organic molecules yet. 7 of these 21 compounds have never been seen on the Red Planet before, proving Mars’ ancient chemistry was even more complex than we thought. #Mars #NASA #SpaceExploration

1/4

Silo — Season 3 Official Teaser | Apple TV YouTube video by Apple TV

Oh. Hell. Yeah!

youtu.be/C9-_VVX9BvE?...

The Reagan counterrevolution only deepened America's problems. It turned the country against government and against taxation. Remember, after eight Republican years in the 1950s, with George Humphrey as Secretary of the Treasury, the highest marginal tax rate was 91 percent. Contrast that with the situation last year when the rich acted as if raising it from 28 to 32 percent were the end of Western Civilization. So overwhelming is that opposition, that politicians who privately see no other alternative to raising taxes, remain silent, because to favor tax hikes publicly would be political suicide.

the past is another country