Politics

2024-10-14

Five Reasons People Who Claim PR Will Help the Far-Right are Wrong: Rebuttal to a common claim that well-meaning opponents of proportional representation in the British electoral system make.

2024-10-10

Trump’s rampant lies about FEMA’s Hurricane Helene response, briefly explained: Once again, disinformation can have deadly consequences.

New enforcement agency will protect workers’ rights as part of ‘watershed’ bill: Big fan of anything that shifts the balance of employer:employee power away from the total dominance of the former.

I’ve missed Sam for a long time (or: Pick Your Battles): A wonderful written tale of what happens when your best friend starts to part ways from you in important ideological ways.

Democrats launch new campaign attack on ‘weird’ Republicans: Seems legit.

2024-10-10: A disappointing selection for the next Conservative leader

2024-10-06

Representation of the People Act 1948: The act that abolished the right of some people to vote twice in UK general elections amongst other things.

2024-10-05: TIL: Until the 1948 Representation of the People Act, graduates of certain universities in the UK …

2024-10-04: 📚 Finished reading The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff.

2024-10-04

MPs to get historic vote on the legalisation of assisted dying: Almost certainly a good idea as long as done alongside a huge improvement in later-life social and medical care.

Labour to commit almost £22bn to carbon capture and storage projects: Glad to see them putting serious investment into something ‘environmental’, tho I don’t know enough about the technology to know if this is is the best option.

2024-10-03

Keir Starmer pays back £6,000 worth of gifts and hospitality: Oh boy, Taylor Swift tickets are real expensive.

Melania Trump passionately defends abortion rights in upcoming memoir: Must make for some interesting conversation around the family dinner table, if they ever speak to each other.

Apple is Silently Removing VPN Apps from Russia’s App Store: Presumably at government request, limiting the ability to access uncensored information and privacy of Russian internet users.

2024-10-02

Tory gasps as Robert Jenrick reveals daughter’s middle name is Thatcher: New level of weird Conservative obsession with Margaret Thatcher achieved.

2024-10-01

Is UK maternity pay excessive and how much does it cost the taxpayer?: No, it’s nowhere near ‘excessive’.

2024-09-30

Maternity pay is ‘excessive’, says Tory leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch: No, ‘personal responsibility’ is not a substitute for statutory maternity pay (tbf she’s subsequently backtracked a bit on this).

‘Not all cultures equally valid’ when it comes to immigration, says Badenoch: I hope this was just bad phrasing, (but I’m not optimistic on that front).

2024-09-29

Iran vows vengeance after assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah: Israel’s assassination of Nasrallah seems destined to be another step on the path of an increasingly terrifying escalation of the conflict.

Rosie Duffield resigns as Labour MP: Furious both at Keir Starmer’s political style and the ‘cruel and unnecessary’ policies that he supports.

2024-09-28

The True Story of “Hidden Figures,” the Forgotten Women Who Helped Win the Space Race: Not all 1960s NASA brainiacs were bespectacled White men.

2024-09-27

Eric Adams charged with taking bribes and foreign campaign contributions: Another US politico-crime first - Adams is the first sitting New York City mayor to be subject to criminal charges.

Twitter Is a Far-Right Social Network: Claims from last year that under Musk’s ‘leadership’ Twitter became indistinguishable from Parler or Truth Social.

Elon Musk says he wants free speech, but his track record suggests otherwise: Elon Musk is only really a ‘free speech absolutist’ when it comes to his own speech.

Twitter is complying with more government demands under Elon Musk: Probably not a bad thing, but it’s definitely a hypocritical thing vs what Musk likes to pretend his values are.