Keith Johnson

I think about this a lot.

Gorton and Denton was a claymation franchise from the 1990s/2000s featuring a clueless chap from Clacton-upon-Sea and a buffoon with bad hair and worse choices.

It’s payback time for Trump’s tariff fiasco The administration handing out refunds to Chinese companies will be a terrible look

when i grow up, i want to be @alanbeattie.bsky.social. Or at least be allowed to write like him.

www.ft.com/content/57d9...

It's cool how the Trump administration keeps filling roles that require the trust and respect of the American people with total cranks who no one in their right mind would even want to sit next to on a bus.

Chart of the day - from a column by @katie0martin.ft.com on the death of the Trump trade. Chart by @raydouglas.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/cfdc...

YouTube video by Sony Pictures Entertainment MONEYBALL (2011) Clip – Carry the One

"We're still trying to reproduce IEEPA. We could replace it in the aggregate."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gpb...

Berzelius Windrip gets longer-winded

I adore Sinclair Lewis's *It Can't Happen Here*, not least for naming the protagonist Berzelius.
But this manifesto from the good candidate just sends me every time, esp today.

Apologies, but have to share this letter from Sen. Cantwell to Bessent re: refunds. She put so much more care and rigor into this letter than they did into the tariffs in the first place that it makes you laugh.
www.cantwell.senate.gov/imo/media/do...

I was at a couple of different Spanish hospitals this morning (long story) and can attest: There is a galloping problem with people *using* healthcare, not just the over-60 crowd.

I am told that "grit your teeth" is apretar los dientes.
I can say that falls short of the mark.
Agrietar, maybe.
Violentar, absolutely.

I 1000% guarantee you, there is a market for the over-50-crowd which is like massage porn only they genuinely focus on the backrubs.

I'm old enough to remember the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Okay, it went down, after like FIVE HUNDRED YEARS. But it had 19,000 ethnicities, 11 bajillion languages, and 13 septimus hundred religions. Their drill sergeants were weary. Either way, it lasted longer, and did more than South Africa or Musk

Trump Administration Announces That We Don’t Know Where the Sun Goes at Night After deciding carbon dioxide does no harm, it was the logical next move.

They label Petri as humor, but that is too narrow. This is the best take on this administration.

www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

From having been the party of free markets and rule of law, the GOP has now gone to be the party of a pedophilia mafia, tariffs and protectionism and racism.
Do you really believe that you can win elections with such a program?

A Man Turned Up at Hospital With a Live WWI Artillery Shell in His Butt The 24-year-old Frenchman forced the hospital to evacuate. He could've blown up much of Toulouse. We have questions.

Sometimes you fall on stuff that is explosive.
www.vice.com/en/article/a...

Sanctions to Combat Illicit Traders of Iranian Oil and the Shadow Fleet - United States Department of State The Department of State is sanctioning 15 entities, two individuals, and 14 shadow fleet vessels connected to the illicit trade in Iranian petroleum, petroleum products, and petrochemical products. Th...

Cool. Now do Russia's shadow fleet. It's been over a year since you lifted a finger, and that wasn't even your finger.

www.state.gov/releases/off...

Gladys Mae West obituary: mathematician who pioneered GPS technology She made key contributions to US cold-war science despite facing huge barriers as a Black woman.

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition.

Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

What do they teach at Wharton

A lot of people may have thought that Jerome Powell only did good hostage videos, but he is also a stone-cold killer. Reiterating the dual mandate, underscoring the SCOTUS importance [Cook], and highlighting that the dollar is Bessent's problem is curb-stomping.

For many years, ecologists warned that the white-guy-blinking meme was endangered, but nature thrives, and we now have a new one.

I say this as a PSA: If you are arguing before the Supreme Court and can't hold my attention, you are not winning over the justices.

“I haven’t been able to find any wind farms in China”

Ackshually, 30-year yields are spiking.

There is nothing people in Davos are more interested in than Macron's glasses and U.S. new housing builds. (There aren't, because of the lumber and steel tariffs and all but whatever.) ((Also, there was a plan for housing but she lost *in a landslide* which was one of the closest contests ever.))

The Trump-Class Battleship: Worst Idea Ever Donald Trump’s proposed 'Trump-class' battleship would drain billions, weaken the U.S. Navy, and hand China a strategic advantage.

The battleship slobbering is fun.

This, though, is the definitive piece on the insanity of wrong-making the USN.

washingtonmonthly.com/2026/01/21/t...

China's installed wind power generation capacity tops world for 15 consecutive years ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠China's installed wind power generation capacity has consistently ranked first in the world for an impressive 15-year streak, according to the latest data released by the China Electricity Coun...

China's installed wind power is 16 percent of nameplate power

qazinform.com/news/chinas-...

The Declining Economics of the North Sea - Blogpost from Uplift (News) As the debate over the future of the North Sea intensifies, this briefing examines the declining role of the oil and gas industry in the UK’s energy system and economy; the economics of North Sea oil ...

The North Sea oil and gas patch is dead.

www.upliftuk.org/post/the-dec...

gasoline is not $2

Heavy Industry Is Europe’s Trump Card The continent has an upper hand in its looming security competition with the United States.

Trump tried to slight Europe's industrial might.
He did not -- not for the first time -- bring receipts.
@sandertordoir.bsky.social

foreignpolicy.com/2025/03/07/e...

There are only 57,000 people in Greenland. Percentage-wise, this is wild.
bsky.app/profile/noth...