One of my better qualities is my complete lack of musical t̶a̶s̶t̶e̶ snobbery

Too recherché.

But moooom no one understands meeeee circa 2005

Brooding millennial vibes slap open.spotify.com/playlist/13G...

How to assess the 2026 local elections A cut-out-and-keep guide of benchmarks for the 2026 council elections

Ahead of the local elections, here's an easy guide of how best to assess the results as they come in, including the best metrics to use and some historical benchmarks.

It's on the longer side, but is split into sections and filled with lots of (hopefully) useful data, and completely free-to-read.

It’s inaccurate to say Mario is brave and Luigi is cowardly

Luigi is afraid of death, so he runs away from danger. Mario is afraid of living, so he runs towards death. Both brothers are cowards in their own way

I was at the tail end of this yeah but not that young :)

Of course

It has taken me over 15 to admit this but My Chemical Romance are good, actually

Making a playlist for a very specific mood

The return of Londonophobia Reflections on an ancient prejudice

“The anti-foreign impulse and the anti-commercial impulse are related. Left and right end up hating the same thing, liberalism, because both movements have at their core a desire to control. To those who think systematically, the city must be offensive.” Super stuff

www.ft.com/content/ba3b... l

Didn't grow up in Britain but I love myself a good diplodocus.

Imagine the sort of conversations behind the decision to have a footnote like “we know pterodactyls and plesiosaurus aren’t dinosaurs”.

Refugee labor market integration at scale: Evidence from Germany’s fast-track employment program | PNAS Governments face persistent challenges in integrating refugees into the local labor market, and many past interventions have shown limited impact. ...

🚨New Paper in PNAS: "Refugee Labor Market Integration at Scale: Evidence from Germany’s Fast-Track Employment Program"

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Ungated preprint osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/px9ew_v3

w/ J Hainmueller, D Hangartner, @niklas-harder.bsky.social & E Vallizadeh

#econtwitter #econsky

Also they’re not in government in Austria.

Péter Magyar's victory in Hungary's election is a vote for a return to normalcy With Orbán's Defeat, Netanyahu Has Lost His Closest Ally in Europe. While Magyar Won't Bring About a Major Shift in Israel Policy, Netanyahu Will Be Especially Interested to See if He Changes Hungary'...

For @haaretzcom.bsky.social, I've written some analysis of why Péter Magyar was able to secure a landslide victory, what it means, and what Viktor Orbán could still do to cut Magyar off at the knees and try and secure his illiberal state before Hungary's new parliament is sworn in.

It’s under-appreciated how important the Cold War was in (temporarily, not consistently) aligning the interests of capitalism and democracy, organised religion and democracy, and arguably also European nationalism and democracy.

I'm going with "yesterday, a great evil was defeated".

Tisza at 137 seats, 4 clear of a supermajority, with 2/3 of the constituency votes counted.

(I'm also thinking about that racist fuckwit who was doing the PhD with me, with Hungarian government money and putting out Orbanist propaganda in the process. I hope he's having a really crappy life.)

Tonight I'm thinking of the many Hungarians I've met over the years - many of them abroad against their wishes, many of them queer - who haven't stopped fighting, for sixteen years. For most of us, Orbán was an on-and-off nuisance on TV - at best. For them, he was a constant nightmare.

Nemzeti Választási Iroda - Országgyűlési képviselők választása Választási szervek - Nemzeti Választási Iroda

vtr.valasztas.hu/ogy2026

Tisza now momentarily with a supermajority (135 seats).

(This is a *live count* with 45.71% of the vote counted, not a projection. Some of the outstanding vote from abroad may be less horrific for Orbán.)

Nemzeti Választási Iroda - Országgyűlési képviselők választása Választási szervek - Nemzeti Választási Iroda

vtr.valasztas.hu/ogy2026

Nemzeti Választási Iroda - Országgyűlési képviselők választása Választási szervek - Nemzeti Választási Iroda

vtr.valasztas.hu/ogy2026?filt...

Tisza now at 132 seats, one seat away from supermajority.

Or Italy. Or Britain. Or *gestures at everything*.

This is great, but I'm teaching democratic backsliding tomorrow and I'm going to need new slides.

Tisza now at 128 seats, 5 away from supermajority.

Tisza now at 125 seats, with 14%+ counted.