James Wallbank

A caltrop made from two pieces of sharpened steel tube, bent and welded together. A tiny hole through the joint facilitates airflow.

Posted without comment.

If the government wants economic growth it must bring essential industries into public ownership Successive governments clobber households and small businesses by hiking interest rates to manage inflation, but don’t inconvenience corporations.

Thanks

Govts of Australia, Bermuda, Canada, Cayman, China, France, Germany Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Qatar, Singapore, Spain, UAE, US would like to thank UK for letting their entities own UK infrastructure.

Vast profits exported, Britons stare at sewage in rivers.

Bongo the Bengal Cat's right front paw, with terrifyingly pointy claws.

Paw, you say? This is a paw! (My cat is cute, but he's also a professional killer.)

Memo to Future Historians: This Is Fascism, and Millions of Us See It From Chicago to Portland, James Comey to Letitia James, and so much else—this is no longer America.

Memo to Future Historians: This Is Fascism, and Millions of Us See It

From Chicago to Portland, James Comey to Letitia James, and so much else—this is no longer America.

Over 40% of corn grown in Indiana is used to make ethanol that cars burn. One acre of corn yields about 16,500 vehicle-miles per year of ethanol, which sounds high until you realize that one acre of solar yields about 2,700,000 vehicle-miles per year: 16,000% more driving for a given plot of land.

A small number of samples can poison LLMs of any size Anthropic research on data-poisoning attacks in large language models

A small number of samples can poison LLMs of any size

www.anthropic.com/research/sma...

Yes indeed! But really, someone ought to have thought about these aphorisms for a moment longer.

Some people do not pay attention to (8) and take far too many risks. Consequently, (10) is not the case, unless Buddy here is trying to get across that they really should have died sooner.

Nigel Farage accuses teachers of "poisoning our kids" on race issues.

Here's a reminder of what teachers and fellow pupils at Farage's own school remember of his own views on that subject.

www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/nigel-fara...

"Both [Conservative and Reform] parties are led by people who position themselves as guardians of free speech. It’s pretty revealing of the vacuity of such claims…"

That's true. But perhaps we should abandon the notions of "trust" and "credibility" in favour of "verifiability" and "consequences".

I don't want to trust ANY politicians or any media. I want to be able to check. And I want there to be timely penalties if it turns out they didn't tell the truth.

Meet the young Tories dreaming of a bright blue future The Conservatives know they have a problem with Gen Z voters. At the party conference, The Times met a new breed of activists who are embracing the challenge

Charles Amos is the legalise incest guy. Insane they didn't do due diligence. www.thetimes.com/article/8c9a...

Don't get me wrong—I get the idea—and it might be fun, in a goofy, fairytale kind of way.

But why START with two conspicuously ill-thought-through ideas? Why not, say, Jack's Magic Beans? Why not a powerful acid in a glass vial? Both have to be USED to activate—they're both clearly "one and done".

Even more oddly, the first examples of these special, one-off items make no sense.

"It could be a magnet, or a prayer".

Yes, Monte. It's well known that once you use a magnet once, you can never use it again. And once a prayer has been intoned, that's it. It's a one-shot hotline to God.

As I read on, I'm mystified by what media, novels or games @montecookgames.com enjoys.

What engages me about a drama isn't moments when our hero takes an inexplicable item and uses it once, only for it to disappear.

Does this happen? In what tale?

It's not a typical feature of… you know… stories.

Slogan (formatted visually, to exclude people with visual impairment because, presumably, fxck you!),

It reads:

IF SPEAKING OUT
FEELS DANGEROUS NOW,
IMAGINE
HOW MUCH WORSE
IT WILL GET
IF WE STAY
SILENT

My cat *is* a horseman of the apocalypse. (Certainly as far as rodents are concerned.)

Why does he speak about AI like it’s some kind of altruistic effort to save humanity, and not a way of billionaires getting richer off the backs of people who have worked hard?

'Epstein bomb about to drop': Dem lawmaker claims House Republicans ready to abandon Trump Republican lawmakers in the House are ready to abandon Donald Trump because of the fallout over files related to convicted child abuser Jeffrey Epstein, according to one Dem in Congress.Rep. Eric Swal...

Keep the pressure! #TrumpsteinFiles
www.rawstory.com/trump-epstei...

Reading Monte Cooke's "Cypher System"—possibly the most consciously designed game I've ever read—not necessarily a good thing!

Anyway, it occurs to me that the biggest single force now shaping #TTRPG design isn't gameplay, or ingenuity, or mythic or cinematic tropes, it's intellectual property law.

The opposite of fascism isn't antifa

The opposite of fascism is education

Dear CNN,

By posting a 30 year old photo of the LA riots in a context that implies it is relevant to current political protests elsewhere, you have just revealed yourselves to be cowardly propagandists and attention-seeking shills.

I will no longer take you seriously.

Coverage of Jenrick today basically amounts to sane-washing. He didn't criticise judges. He claimed there was a conspiracy by certain judges, who he had discovered and could number, to undermine British law and create open borders.

My view is that the Westminster system is not fit for purpose. But then again, in a context where there's an ever-increasing gap between the ultra-rich and the rest of us, and populist blather is rewarded more than insightful analysis, it seems that all systems of governance are struggling.

I don't think that. Then again, I'm not a joiner—I've never been part of any political party. But I suspect that most members and candidates are of good will, but that doesn't mean they have inspired vision. Then again, I'm pretty suspicious of inspired vision, too!

My point is that, despite the best efforts of the disgusting media, Kemi and Nige are loathing supermagnets.

For Starmer, even if he can get back to where he started—a feeling of vague suspicion and disappointment—he may pull ahead in the polls.

Then again, they may experience some kind of technical bounce from the opposition becoming even more repellent.

Perhaps popularity is an old-fashioned concept, and all that's needed now is absence of loathing.

☝️

In the US, it appears that health care has been replaced with health doesn't care.

This guy is in charge of US health care.

BBC Laura Kuenssberg Show Accused of Anti-Green Bias After Cancelling Zack Polanski Interview The new Green Party leader was the only major party leader not to have been granted a conference interview on the flagship BBC show

The Greens requested an interview on the Laura Kuenssberg Show with Zack Polanski when he was elected leader, but were denied, with a promise to interview him during Green conference instead.

This was then scrapped citing the Manchester synagogue attack. Polanski is both Jewish and from Manchester