In spite of everything that has followed, blowing up the JCPOA remains the most destructive Trump policy in the long run (matched only by PEPFAR cuts).

I'm thrilled to announce that I'll be joining Bluesky as interim CEO. I deeply believe in what this team has built and the open social web they're fighting for. More here: toni.org/2026/03/09/c...

A New Chapter for Bluesky - Bluesky After several intense and incredible years building Bluesky from the ground up, I've decided to step back as CEO and transition to a new role as Bluesky's Chief Innovation Officer.

Some personal news: I’m transitioning from CEO to a new role as Bluesky’s Chief Innovation Officer! I’m excited to welcome @toni.bsky.team as our interim CEO.

More here: bsky.social/about/blog/0...

Hell of a chart, this, from @financialtimes.com. Spot the JCPOA.

on.ft.com/4kSuQYO

Die Zerschlagung der digitalen Giganten wäre ein Fehler – es gibt einen klügeren Weg – Schweizer Monat Amazon, Uber, Airbnb: Als Konsumenten schätzen wir die grossen Internetplattformen – als Bürger wollen wir ihre Macht begrenzen. Das stellt auch das Kartellrecht vor neue Herausforderungen.

«Hält man an der Idee fest, die digitalen Riesen zerschlagen zu müssen, droht ein klassischer Fehlschluss: Man zerstört am Ende genau das, was ihren Wert ausmacht.»

Der Essay von Michael Munger über die Macht der Plattformen und wie man sie begrenzt: schweizermonat.ch/die-zerschla...

This post got thousands of likes on Bluesky despite being published on Mastodon

What I mean by that is not that the Mastodon post was copy/pasted to Bluesky, the post you’re seeing and can natively interact with on Bluesky is literally the original Mastodon post

The power of open protocols

I suspect that this is a common knowledge problem too, partly. If much of the mobilization has come from the bottom up with little elite buy-in, then it is hard to "see" what is happening collectively.

I’ll just note that the US didn’t do this to China, which outright bans US social media websites

10 breakthroughs in medicine in 2025 It’s been an incredible year: the first patient-specific medicine, new antibiotics, transplant breakthroughs — and maybe the first treatment for Huntington’s.

Ten health breakthroughs in 2025.

Also this notion that still persists that state owned companies are somehow inherently better to passengers, somehow fairer

Look at SNCF!

It's 100% state owned, and outright passenger hostile!

OK, the profit goes back to the state, but it's not as if it provides a passenger friendly outcome!

La vie de Nicolas Guillou, juge français de la CPI sous sanctions des Etats-Unis : « Vous êtes interdit bancaire sur une bonne partie de la planète » Six juges et trois procureurs de la Cour pénale internationale ont été placés sous sanctions par l’administration Trump. Dans un entretien au « Monde », le magistrat raconte le poids de ces mesures su...

Le Monde has published an interview with French ICC judge Nicolas Guillou about the practicalities of being sanctioned by the US and the failure of states to stand up to this assault on the rule of law.
www.lemonde.fr/internationa...

A thread with some quotations:

What happens when radical right-wing populist parties are in government? In our op-ed, we summarize some key polisky findings: normalization, curtailed civil liberties, weaker economic performance, greater inequality, and an overall threat to democracy itself www.derbund.ch/adrian-vatte...

Purges and Power: Is China Quietly Rebalancing Its Command Structure? Is collective decision making slowly re-emerging in the CCP?

Is collective decision making slowly re-emerging in the CCP?

With the ending of permanent asylum, taxes on foreign students, two U-turns on income tax, a refusal to listen to business concerns about hiring costs, again I ask ‘who are Labour for?’ What is the vision underlying all these choices other than responding to last week’s polls?

The issue here is a shift to a kind of post-Blair/post-Corbyn pragmatism situated in an ideological space of "markets where they work best/the state where it works best" requires an underlying vision of what an ideal balance between state power and market forces should be within a European society.

I once told someone: „I‘m always happy to hear someone had a good time in my home country [Switzerland].“ They responded: „You must be happy all the time.“

the PRC's perennial problem is that a big corruption crackdown does nothing to alter the dynamics (opaqueness, hierarchy, lack of any outside audit) that creates corruption in the party or the PLA to begin with, so we see this endless cycle.

So pretty much everyone here was already purged or disappeared in the last year; this is just the official confirmation.

Psephologist Sir John Curtice told a Demos-sponsored event at the Conservative Party conference fringe that the Lib Dems “will almost undoubtedly win more seats” than the Tories at the next GE.

“The LD vote is now more geographically concentrated than your vote.”

German asylum claims have halved in the last year. Nothing to do with border theatre; everything to do with developments outside the EU that hardly ever play a role in European countries' domestic migration debates. Still, take the win if it allows you to change the subject.

I wonder if part of that could be explained by age.

regrettably if you try to point this out online you'll get yelled out by 79208 journalists going OH SO YOU WANT JOURNALISTS TO STARVE??? even if you're, say, a journalist yourself, and point out that while there are clearly no easy answers, the status quo isn't exactly working for society

If true, we might as well bury the concept of rule of law conditionality. The EU cannot keep letting itself be blackmailed by Orbán into unfreezing funds withheld over rule of law violations in exchange for lifting his veto, unless it truly wants to lose all credibility as a guardian of EU values

What China Wants With Global Governance While increasingly widespread, the view of China as an existential challenge to the current world order reflects political alarmism more than sober analysis.

No, China isn't an existential threat to the international order

Steven Langendonk and I weigh in on China's goals for global governance and plea for sobriety

thediplomat.com/2025/09/what...

This is the whole thing right here. All these tired fights about whether Dems should moderate are ways of dancing around the real problem, which is the that political parties no longer have any mass constituency.

In terms of political representation, workers critique forms of political inequality and political exclusion: Politicians, as part of the upper class, only serve the upper class; and politics is a self-referential sphere closed to non-experts.

What Life on Mars Will Mean YouTube video by vlogbrothers

Absolutely awesome @hankgreen.bsky.social!
youtube.com/watch?v=iWuF...

This Might Actually be Happening YouTube video by vlogbrothers

I somehow missed that there is new evidence for life on Mars. Here‘s an explainer by the wonderful Hank Green.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=iWuF...

Yulia Navalnaya says foreign tests show her husband was poisoned Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, said that foreign laboratory tests on biological samples obtained from her husband showed that he was poisoned.

Yulia Navalnaya says foreign tests show her husband was poisoned reut.rs/4mqWzj7

It's shocking how much consensus there is amongst tax policy wonks and economists of Left and Right on the tax reforms the UK needs to boost growth & make the tax system fairer

More shocking: they're reforms that are never mentioned by any politicians

buff.ly/rTfNmFC