Chris Clark

How a Cryptocurrency Helps Criminals Launder Money and Evade Sanctions

Smugglers, money launderers and sanctioned people once relied on diamonds, gold and artwork. Now, criminals have a far more practical alternative: stablecoins, a cryptocurrency tied to the U.S. dollar that exists largely beyond traditional financial oversight.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/07/t...

Trump Administration Says Europe Faces ‘Civilizational Erasure’

It has long been clear that unalloyed racism lies at the core of Trumpism, and he is becoming increasingly explicit about this.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/w...

Over a pint in Oxford, we may have stumbled upon the holy grail of agriculture | George Monbiot I knew that a revolution in our understanding of soil could change the world. Then came a eureka moment – and the birth of the Earth Rover Program, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

1. Some good news at last. This week’s column is about the amazing thing a couple of us stumbled into three years ago, which we’ve now developed into a global research programme. It doesn’t change everything, of course, but it could help change quite a lot. + 🧵 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Here's the transcript. When I say ‘we had a convicted reality star’, you can add ‘who now rules as the most openly corrupt president in American history’ in your head.

downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith...

Covid inquiry live: ‘Inexcusable’ delays under Johnson led to 23,000 deaths Lockdowns may have been avoided if Boris Johnson’s government had acted faster, damning report finds

Having Johnson & Cummings in Downing Street when Covid struck was, just like Brexit, an entirely avoidable disaster caused largely by utterly appalling journalism. And now exactly the same clowns, arses & bigots with bylines are rolling out the red carpet for Farage.
www.thetimes.com/article/1b15...

This plan is simply surrender. It is disgusting nonsense &, typically for Trump & his dozy coterie, stupid. It won't be acceptable to Europe

The Russians have utterly failed to beat Ukraine in nearly three years of trying. The idea Ukraine should capitulate now because of Trump's insanity is absurd

The British library is in crisis: why does nobody care? The widespread indifference to the British Library's crippling cyberattack demonstrates a perilous failure to value the knowledge infrastructure vital for national prosperity

I’ve written a piece on the curious lack of media and political interest in the issues faced by our national @britishlibrary.bsky.social. This is strange given we live in a world where ideas, knowledge and research are a long-term source of innovation and insight
www.cityam.com/the-british-...

This is a MUST READ:

I see there was also an earlier 1st private performance at 1910 Gloucester 3 Choirs, Elgar piano Reed violin though some say Kreisler. seenandheard-international.com/2023/07/elec...

Once every 20 years or so, the director-general of the BBC is forced to resign for being insufficiently rightwing. Alastair Milne in 1987. Greg Dyke in 2004. Tim Davie in 2025. The great irony is that the BBC was in all cases profoundly biased towards established power. But just not biased enough …

The UK Must Urgently Distance Itself From Elon Musk and Space X, Warns Parliamentary Report The UK's infrastructure has become far too reliant on the far-right billionaire, who could 'politicise' our reliance upon his companies, the report warns

🔴The UK Must Urgently Distance Itself From Elon Musk and Space X, Warns Parliamentary Report

The UK’s infrastructure has become far too reliant on the far-right billionaire, who could ‘politicise’ our reliance upon his companies, the report warns

bylinetimes.com/2025/11/04/t...

Reform UK, the Russian spy and rolls of Kremlin cash: the inside story of Nathan Gill How did a former Mormon bishop end up pleading guilty to taking bribes to make statements in favour of Russia in the European parliament?

I knew Gill and Farage and the rest of the UKIP crew in the European Parliament

They were crooks and shysters to a man

They repeated Putin talking points and appeared on Russia Today

UKIP then and Reform now are both a threat to our democracy

www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

The men who raised the flags Nigel Farage says this summer’s movement was led by ‘ordinary people’ expressing their patriotism. That’s not what we found

"it is striking how many of the key players we have looked into — the people who have gone out of their way to put up hundreds of flags — seem anything but ordinary."

manchestermill.co.uk/the-men-who-...

Jnb

The Caerphilly result is what we need to see everywhere at the next election: people coordinating to vote tactically for parties which seek a fairer, kinder, greener country.
Pushing out both those who have betrayed our trust AND those who seek to exploit that betrayal.

This Wreckage Courtesy of the Enshittification Administration: Notes On Late-State Trumpism In 2022, the tech critic and privacy advocate Cory Doctorow coined the term enshittification to describe what's happened on the Internet to a lot of the most widely used platforms: Google, Amazon, Fac...

Enshittification! Not just for tech corporations anymore. My roundup of the shitbomb video, wrecking of the White House, Trump's deterioration, and broader destruction at:

They arrested a giraffe.

Described by critic Andrew Clements as “a bit like The Sound of Music reworked by Kagel”.

My colleagues & I have taken a huge gamble to set up @thenerve.news We’re trying to build a new independent publication from the ground up. Social media is our only distribution for now.

Sharing this article in your networks would make a huge difference. Thank you! 🙏🙏🙏

Lots of stories about Nathan Gill and Russian bribes.

Maybe there's something in this Nigel Farage and Nathan Gill Russian bribes story....

Hundreds of U.S. students quarantined amid measles outbreaks At least 270 unvaccinated kids are staying home from school as measles continues to spread nationwide. "Expect more," one expert said.

The Trump administration has promoted the anti-vax, anti-science movement which has now produced an epidemic www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

100 years ago?

Preview (part 1): Portsmouth Baroque Choir with the Consort of Twelve - Handel and Scarlatti - Music in Portsmouth Portsmouth Baroque Choir’s Autumn 2025 concert with the Consort of Twelve at St Paul’s Chichester on 18 October presents two exemplary and uplifting works written in Rome during the first quarter of 1...

Thankyou Music in Portsmouth!🤓

musicinportsmouth.co.uk/preview-port...

musicinportsmouth.co.uk/preview-part...

🎟️ www.ticketsource.co.uk/baroquechoir

Indeed.

LLMs are LLMs.

Machine learning is machine learning.

AIs are Astro Boy, Robby the Robot, Cmdr Data, the Ghost in the Shell Puppet Master, etc. I will not use the term for anything less.

Don’t feed the hype machine. Don’t call it AI.

Birthday of Dyson and same work featured on 28-05

A survivor from Grandpa’s library, Book of Kells by Edward Sullivan, 1914. A preview shorturl.at/xgDqE of Victoria Whitworth’s book about its origins (Pictish Portmahomack) led to opening at “plant forms of decoration”, “unknown in Celtic illuminated mss of the earlier period”. Now maybe, we know.

Mirliton, c’est moi!

That rising 4-note phrase for solo clarinet that answers the solo trumpet just before the end is high on my list of the most hauntingly beautiful music I’ve ever played or heard.

Kat is still out there fighting four hours after this. I'm just fucking livid.

It’s American in Paris that I’m hearing repeatedly on R3