Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

Still catches my european mind off guard seeing americans post like "noooo gas prices have skyrocketed up from $0.03 to $0.04 cents per swimming pool"

Yes, just as Trump likes starting all his wars at the weekend.

Title: "The Haters" panel 1. Two round characters sit in a cinema. Yellow blob "I hate this!" Red Blob "Me too!" Panel 2. They have left the cinema Red blob "I hated every minute of that film! It was nothing like the book!" Panel 3. "Did you like the book?" asks Yellow. Red replies "I hated it!" then asks "You?" Panel 4. Yellow blob "I've not read it. I hated the film purely on its own merits." Panel 5. Red blob "I'll lend you my copy." Yello blob"That's very kind." Panel 6. Caption: "Later" Yellow, reading the book "I hate this!" Red (happily) "I knew you would!!"

"the Haters" my books cartoon for this week's @theguardian.com

British lessons about American decline Trump and his followers’ time would be better spent examining how Britain struggled with the loss of global preeminence.

Commentary: Britain’s decline offers a warning for the U.S., highlighting how economic mismanagement, political scandals and party-system instability could threaten American power and stability.

Good point - with all the madness, I'd forgotten the Hungarian elections were coming soon. 👍

One thing I've learnt about conflict investigation in this age of open source evidence is you always see the same lies, just dressed in different uniforms. "It can't be my side that blew up the mosque/hospital/school it's a false flag/errant munition from the other side" with scant evidence produced

There’s always a positive side to everything.

Political science (along with history and psychiatry) is currently getting unique empirical data on what happens when the world’s most powerful nation ends up being led by an aged Nero.

'Nobody Could Have Seen This Coming,' Says Blindfolded Administration The Trump administration can't foresee straight.

All wars create unexpected second and third-order effects. One of the appalling things about the Trump administration is that they don’t seem to have thought through the expected effects either. open.substack.com/pub/danieldr...

It's something I've been thinking about, and we all know that there is nothing, nothing at all, that is beneath the monsters in the administration.

We can never just admit it

Enjoy the moment

What is the signal that Trump is sending to the world?

"Be a trusty US ally, and we'll bully you and betray you.

Work openly against American interests, and we'll reward you, as long as Trump personally likes you and gets a bribe out of it."

Ukraine is sending thousands of these drone interceptors to protect US air bases in the Gulf.

The country once told to “say thank you” is now exporting the future of air defense.

Turns out Ukraine had the cards all along.

Pffffft - me squinting at the tea leaves and trying to make sense of them is not to be relied upon.

Some reddish azaleas lining the street

Looking up at the Spanish moss hanging from the oaks underneath a blue sky

A Dalmatian and German Shorthaired Pointer puppy in matching blue sweaters standing on a bench.

I have this theory that dopamine pathways can become addicted to averse emotions too.

i.e. sensationalism, breaking news, outrage, arguments.

Intense levels of pain shortcircuit the brain the same way a high does.

We begin to feel numb - so we seek out intense emotions to feel alive again. /1

Yeah, it's a package deal with the isolation and paranoia that comes with being a dictator. Surrounded by sycophants they start to believe their own bullshit and think they are a demigod. But the one thing they can't control is their own mortality - and it terrifies them
bsky.app/profile/ianf...

As I said:

a group of people standing in a room with the words the benefits of a classical education above them ALT: a group of people standing in a room with the words the benefits of a classical education above them

Oxbridge have a lot to answer for.

These are half a billion

But this is just a guess - nobody knows. I have no special insights.

In terms of command & control, I'd say that there are probably a lot of separate, isolated units acting on their own initiative, lashing out at what targets they can find as part of a vaguely formed pre-war strategy of causing chaos. This statement may be an attempt to communicate & rein them in?

To me, this seems to be an attempt to split the Arab states from the US/Israel. Iran has shown what damage they can inflict upon their economies, offer a pause & use them to pressure Trump. Whether it works or not is a different story.
Also may be they're simply running low on missiles.

"The same article claims that the Enniskillen bomb killed six children. It didn’t; the youngest victim was 20. It claims that Bobby Sands was elected MP in 1981 with 30.4% of the vote. Given that there were only two candidates, this would have been mathematically impossible. In fact, Sands got 51.2% of the vote. In Grokipedia’s main article on Northern Ireland, it says that “on Bloody Sunday, paratroopers killed 14 civilians… initially depicted by some media as unprovoked, though evidence revealed IRA gunfire and nail bombs”. This is the opposite of the truth. Initially, there were claims by the Army that the victims were violent, but evidence disproved this. Other articles contain dangerous open-mindedness about murder. In an entry on loyalist assassin Michael Stone, it posits that “from a loyalist perspective, Stone’s Milltown raid was hailed as a bold tit-for-tat response to IRA aggression, enhancing his status as an icon of defiance and boosting morale among Protestant extremists” while “republican assessments, however, framed the attack as indiscriminate terrorism against civilians”. It claims that “mainstream reporting, while factually recounting events, occasionally reflects institutional biases favoring narratives of loyalist aggression”."

"At the heart of this technology is a black box into which questions go & out of which answers are given —but we’re not allowed to see what precisely goes on inside".

Sobering piece by @sjamcbride.bsky.social on how Musk's Grokopedia is rewriting knowledge
www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/comment/opin...

There was a Russian combined strike on Ukraine overnight, with the Ukrainian AF reporting a total of 509 inbounds.

Those were mostly UAVs but due note that the Black Sea Fleet participated.

While attention is diverted to the Middel East, there is still a major war in Europe.

Star Trek Boldly Goes To Malahide Timewarp in Malahide for the first major Irish Star Trek convention where Mr Sulu is the guest of honour.

Always a good day to share this 🖖

We could soon talk about EU28 again

This is a real video from the official White House account on a war that is currently killing people. I don’t know how the US is going to come back from this.
The post was “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY. 🇺🇸 🔥”

The Rot Is Real And There Is More To It The Atlantic Piece Just Scratched The Surface

Just sent out a free piece to expand on my article in @theatlantic.com yesterday. The signs of rot in US military and diplomatic capabilities are real and even more extensive than I could say in that article. Here are more-and a gift link to the original article. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

In terms of its impact on energy, travel and the global economy, the US-Israeli attack on Iran is like a mini-covid pandemic, but human-made and by choice.

The end of diplomacy - The Boston Globe The US-Israeli strikes on Iran will undermine peace talks across the globe for years to come.

I tell @bostonglobe.com that "it looks like the Trump administration deliberately uses diplomacy as a distraction and as a tool to keep people dangling while preparing for war."

www.bostonglobe.com/2026/03/06/o...