Sam

It's true it seems, with no warning or explanation CIA simply discontinued and removed the World Factbook this week.

I imagine they'd say we have wikipedia now wo who needs it, but check the footnotes and see how many wiki entries get their data from the CIA factbook. Lots.

so, like, uh, billionaires are bad? And extreme wealth inequality is ... is ... a classic symptom of a failing society?? Wow! First I'm hearing of this. Intense. Like, wow.

the irony of the owner of Amazon closing the "Books" section of the WP ...

Unfortunately I was laid off by the Washington Post today. It was my job to tell Jeff Bezos I think bald is better than hair anytime he came into the office. Please let me know if anywhere is hiring for this exact same position.

Osborne is likely also compromised. I recall they were both at 2008 "Yachtgate" dinner in Corfu with Nat Rothschild, where Oleg Deripaska was lurking. And Osborne invited Mandelson for dinner shortly after he was sacked as Washington Ambassador.

Starmer acknowledges that the official security vetting mentioned Mandelson's ongoing relationship with Epstein.

this is very damaging for Starmer. Why did he go ahead with the appointment if he already knew Mandelson was still in contact with the paedophile Epstein, post-conviction?

at least you're going out. I'm in board by ten

and if Reform get into power, they can change the terms again, and in principle they could do something even worse, like remove the write-off at retirement -- there is long-term political risk in these loans.

just look at this.

Journalists being ushered & swept out, while the mad King sits in front of a bank of fawning sycophants who can't wait for him to die

the rest of the quote was "... as long as they pay their taxes".

Let's see if he paid taxes on the various undeclared gifts he has clearly received.

Peter Mandelson: "We are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich"

it just keeps coming ...

In an interview with NPR, Melinda French Gates confirmed that she ended her marriage with Bill Gates because of allegations contained in the Epstein files.

Misconduct in Public Office carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment ...

a suave, glib attempt at misdirection and manipulation from Mandelson. But he's not going to get away with it this time, thanks to the paper trail and the dogged reporting from the FT and others.

Those buildings mostly say "we extracted wealth from an empire"

I'm sure this has nothing to do with NVidia getting cold feet on the deal to pump $100 billion into OpenAI so that they could buy chips from NVidia.

and I hear Google have their own chips, free to those who can afford them ...

the other parts are losing money hand over fist, SpaceX is the one part being held up by Government subsidies.

Not sure there's much to say - looks like a security binfire and very easy to manipulate, probably leading to yet more cryptocoin pump-and-dumps

you do have to ask *why* The Times interview/profile was originally intended to be so supportive, before matters got out of hand ...

its all very icky

just resting. The money. It was just resting in my account.

"a handful of misguided emails"

He took more than $75,000 and in response leaked market-sensitive information direct from the heart of Government to a paedophile.

Who then presumably made money from it - which he recycled into his business of providing girls for the rich and influential.

I noticed the absence of The Times from breaking any of the stories or doing any of the hard work.

Much easier is the journalism of Hello magazine: "For the first time he answers the allegations."

In the UK academic recession, you will be at one of these stages since many unis buy the same cuts model from the same consultancies. It is always the same process:
*Talk of belt-tightening
*Incidental savings (e.g. printing, refreshments)
*Travel budgets cut
*Promotion freeze (1/4)

like a secret agent to his handler

"had a long dream about you last night"

Mandelson to Epstein ... ugh

it's ridiculous and abhorrent that a man who thanks Jeffrey Epstein in his book could land a job at ARIA. This is public money they're responsible for!

here's a "deep dive" into former ARIA Programme Director, Nathan Wolfe bsky.app/profile/coli...

introducing ARIA, the research agency whose Programme Directors are most likely to appear in the Epstein files