Frederick Guy

Still talking about Epstein

To recap:

Spot on. This is the clearest explanation I’ve seen. It ‘s relatable, and humanizes the issue in a way everyone can understand.

G7 Backs Plan for ‘Side-by-Side’ Tax System to Avoid U.S. Fight

Predictable—and yet shameful and pathetic—capitulation of the G7, who agrees to let US multinationals escape the global minimum tax of 15%

A clear illustration of why we need fundamentally new rules of the game

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/b...

Leadership?? McBride is just attempting damage control, while denying both the depth the nature of the damage.

Trump’s inner circle shifted view to support limited, one-off strike on Iran nuclear sites As Trump considered striking Iran, some advisers adjusted public arguments to suggest quick bombing run

Trump has made an immensely rich and successful life for himself taking everyone for suckers and marks, and he's done it again. His instinctive feel for a world full of people who want to deceive themselves is extraordinary. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

✋ Former US government War Power lawyer here.

The War Powers Resolution does not/not provide any additional authority to use military force.

The Article II arguments for using force against Iran are entirely bogus.

As are any claims that either the 2001 or 2002 AUMFs authorize this attack.

Much as I would not dare to predict the consequences of this war, I do think we can summarize it thusly so far:

A smart and evil man manipulated a stupid and evil man into a war against a fanatical and evil regime.

Difficulty with urban greening, as with cycle tracks, is of course that it competes for space that drivers want - parking, in particular.

We already went through the cycle of unprovoked-attack-and-understandable-counterattack with Trump and Iran in January 2020—it led to 200+ US troops having TBIs from Iranian missile strikes—and MAGAs still went on to vote for Trump later that year

Maybe that very recent history is worth mentioning

This chart is absolutely essential.

It explains why Trump removed America from the Iran Nuclear Deal in 2018.

Because it was *working*.

Trump needed a cause for war, so he manufactured it. This has all been in the works for some time now. He was never "weighing options."

just saw a group of masked men stuffing masked ICE agents into an unmarked car, who were saying "we're ICE we're ICE!" but the abductors shouted to the crowd "no we're ICE!" no one knew who was ICE, so no one in the crowd said anything.

UK government pledges further £590m for delayed Lower Thames Crossing Rachel Reeves calls Britain’s biggest road-building project a ‘turning point for our national infrastructure’

We do not need new roads; we need better transport options. Think of what could be done with £9.2bn, which is to be spent on just 14 miles of road! It could transform bus services and/or cycling and pedestrian infrastructure across Britain. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

There are a lot of material things, intermediate inputs, that a country doesn't produce. Is the attachment to domestic steel production part of a clear industrial strategy, or to a memory of the time when steel production was one of the economy's commanding heights?

The death of writing, gradually then suddenly (This is a chapter that comes late in a longer, as yet unpublished, work.)

Sadly, I don't think scribes will have anything conferring as much recognition as a membership in a caste; being able to read or write anything complex will be just a hobby, an artistic affectation.
frederickguy.substack.com/p/watching-a...

25% tax on Apple products while singling out the CEO by name for retribution, 50% tax on European goods, expulsion of foreign students, bill passed with most debt in history, while hosting a dinner for people who gave you $300+ million. All in the last 24 hours.

The Golden Age.

NASA map shows temperatures up to 160 degrees on Phoenix streets, sidewalks Data from June 19, when the daily high was 106 degrees, shows asphalt across the city that day was between 120 and 160 degrees.

IMPORTANT: NASA map shows temperatures of up to 160 degrees on Phoenix streets & sidewalks. All that unrelenting concrete and asphalt for cars. Not nearly enough trees. They start with ridiculous heat that’s only getting worse with the #ClimateCrisis, & then make it much worse with bad design.

The death of writing, gradually then suddenly (This is a chapter that comes late in a longer, as yet unpublished, work.)

Reflections on reading, writing, and their demise: new blog post, extracted from a book in progress. frederickguy.substack.com/p/watching-a...

Research at risk: Life-saving heart pumps for babies | Cornell Chronicle After receiving a stop-work order from the federal government, the future of a device to help children with heart defects is uncertain.

One of grants frozen at Cornell: $6.7M (4 yrs) to develop heart pumps for babies born w/ heart defects.

It took decades of work to get to point of prepping device for in-human clinical trials. No private company could do this.

The cruelty of the Trump administration is heartbreaking. So to speak.

Johnson and Truss would never have been seen as embarrassments by Tory voters, if they had never held power. Fortunately, in the case of Farage, it should be possible to show him as a Trump lackey, so that his brand can expire without his coming to power.

Troubling trend – reading abilities dropped among children - C-Pen Explore the global decline in children's reading abilities. Discover factors, impacts, and the importance of fostering reading skills.

Could be, but the reading decline is global. How would changes in US curricula explain that?
cpen.com/insights/tro....

High pay for university executives is a direct and unavoidable result of the gov't imposed enrolment competition: make uni management a thankless high stakes numbers game, then you have to pay a lot at the top.

I’m still baffled at how America took one of the basic principles of the presidency — the occupant shouldn’t be able to benefit financially from the office — and just said, nah, that just doesn’t count for this one guy.

Driver alone in a car taking up most of the street space beside a packed city bus, a bike lane that’s too tight, and a sidewalk crowded with people. The driver says “Damn those bike paths and bus lanes taking up all the space.”

This iconic Fabian Todorovic cartoon is still one of the best I’ve seen at illustrating the remarkable amount of space we surrender to cars, leaving little space left for everyone and everything else. The text added later makes the bonus point that many drivers still manage to complain about it.

Lovely thread

This is how you do it, Labour. Much, much more of this kind of thing please.

Dream instead of a train: Novato-Vallejo-Benicia-Martinez-Pleasanton-Dublin; Novato-Vallejo leg above the flood, on stilts. But America can't build anything, except roads.