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Reeves hopes promise of fairness will cushion potential Budget tax rises People close to the UK chancellor say she has begun drawing up a list of measures she may tighten in the autumn

UK's problems: persistent and stickier inflation than our peers, local government essentially non-existent for most because it is all swallowed up by statutory obligations, much of public realm a mess. Fussing about how you can present tax rises as 'fair' is mad, a fool's errand, won't work.

Philomena Cunk against a collection of classical statues. "Antigone's death is even more tragic than it actually is, which makes her a tragic hero"

Philomena Cunk looking thoughtful. "Goya continued to paint tapestries until 1792 when serious illness left him dead for life"

Philomena Cunk looking thoughtfully into the distance. "Society is slowly becoming more contemporary now"

Philomena Cunk looking into camera on a beach. "Diderot's Tahiti represents a typical male fantasy in which attractive young women are eager to engage in sexual activity with the French"

@gralefrit.bsky.social You have to see these! A friend of mine has been collating a series of images entitled "Things my students have written turned into Philomena Cunk quotes" and they're just glorious.

I usually hold back from long threads like this but I'm really tired of this genre of article in Western media that goes 'we must make hard decisions', but really means 'Ukraine must make all the hard decisions so that we can make all the easy ones'

Somebody on LinkedIn said what we're all thinking.

On the American junker class scale, Cuban is at the less problematic end but the constant remains, what is in it for me if I do the public good and civic virtue

I think Dems should incentivize billionaires by pledging to faithfully uphold an impartial system of rules and laws that hold all accountable equally and thus provide the safety and security to acquire and keep a billion dollars without being extorted by the president or murdered by the public.

I’ll keep saying it but the allure of military “professionalism” is that it somehow makes it less political when I’m fact it’s merely made the American officer corp politically illiterate and thus doesn’t know what to do when they are clearly inserted into politics

The problem with Finland-Ukraine comparisons is that they often focus on Finlandisation which simply isn’t on the table for Ukraine (and the worst idea ever anyways).

What preceded Finlandisation was this. And especially point 2) is what I often worry about if Ukraine feels completely let down.

My version of the advice, which is hard to follow in practice: if you’re not terrified you’re probably not being ambitious enough.

This is finally done. Very happy with the result! But this and a couple other things are why the drops have slowed down.

About to get back to some quicker stuff 🫡

I think the thing that basically nobody outside of academia and certain left liberal circles seems to get is that knowledge has to come from somewhere. You can't search for it on the internet if no one knows it and write it up. Grok can't know it if it's not on a data set to steal.

Putin doesn't care even if 5 M die. Russians won't be protesting anyway, they just suck up all the abuse. To the outside they are apolitical, they have no opinion, etc. On the inside they might be boiling. Yet nothing ever happens.

This "deal" is a poison pill for Ukraine, and Europe.

2/

6/ Putin's reported proposal reportedly demands that Ukraine concede this critical defensive position, which Russian forces currently have no means of rapidly enveloping or penetrating, apparently in exchange for nothing.

More in tonight's assessment: isw.pub/UkrWar080825

Also because I don't really watch the Simpsons any more, I missed stuff like the "that 90's show" episode which moves their birth years up. At some point, the show only made sense as them representing typical parents of whatever year that episode was made.

YouTube video by TheRealJims Simpsons Mysteries - The Simpsons Timeline (the Past)

There are many nice videos about the timeline issues on YouTube, here's one I quite like: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BkQ...

Trump is always one Putin bootycall away from reversing weeks of “progress” on Ukraine and the press fall for it every time like puppies chasing a tennis ball.

“Oooh he said this! 😮 Wowzers and now *he* said that! 😮”. How many times are we going to do this.

As someone who thinks LLMs are both clearly very useful and extremely technically impressive, while also overall bad for society in ways that have little to do with war use, I feel very alienated by both the breathless idiot hype men and people screaming that it is draining lakes but is also fake

a lotta yall still dont get it

ape holders can use multiple slurp juices on a single ape

so if you have 1 astro ape and 3 slurp juices you can create 3 new apes

Tonight's slurp juice mint event is essentially a minting event for both Lab Monkes and Special Forces

YouTube video by fanvideos4u That Mitchell and Webb Look - Kill All The Poor

Reminded me of this:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_4J...

Went out for dinner and put on a YouTube video for the dog. It’s eight hours of ducks. Got home to..

If you click the hashtag at the top, and type "replies" or some such, there are lots that will give you the original type of "Following" feed. I think.

If you know where this cartoon is from, please let me know, as this kind of silly is exactly what I need right now.

Pressure on India/China, nothing directly on Russia seems to be the way Trump's latest move is playing out

And probably most of Europe will cheer him on, while the Russian troops keep moving forwards

I started using YouTube music for podcasts purely because they got rid of the dedicated Google app and shifted me onto it. It's gotten better, but it isn't good.

It would be like if people looked at what the UK did with the Sten during WWII, and thought, "that went well for them, lets make our own Sten". You do not want a Sten!

Is this all YouTube video or does it include YouTube music? I do sometimes listen to podcasts on YouTube (not music), but have the video just switched off as I listen to it on my phone in any case. I can't be alone in that.

This image shows two large U.S. Air Force cargo aircraft parked on an airbase tarmac. The aircraft at the top is a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, and the one at the bottom is a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III. Here’s a quick comparison and description: Top Aircraft: C-5 Galaxy • One of the largest military aircraft in the world. • Distinctive features: • High T-tail. • Four turbofan engines mounted on pylons beneath a high-mounted wing. • Long fuselage with a pronounced hump at the front. • Nose section can lift up for front loading. • Used for strategic airlift missions. Bottom Aircraft: C-17 Globemaster III • A smaller, more modern strategic and tactical airlifter. • Features: • Also has four turbofan engines. • T-tail like the C-5 but with a more compact, streamlined body. • Rear-loading ramp. • Known for its ability to operate from short and unprepared airfields. Visual Comparison • The C-5 Galaxy is significantly larger in length and wingspan. • The C-17 is more compact and versatile for various airlift operations. • Both aircraft serve critical roles in the U.S. military’s ability to deploy and sustain forces worldwide. Also visible in the background are some military vehicles and a few parked cars, suggesting this is part of a larger airbase complex.

You vs the plane she tells you not to worry about

Just remembering the audiobed from @secondcaptains.bsky.social

I would have told my 30-year-old self that all the things I sought from the world - respect, safety, love, esteem - were not out there, and that experiencing those was going to be an inside job. I wasn't going to be able to achieve, own, lease, marry well enough to feel fulfilled for any length of time. That I could stop dancing as fast as I could trying to fill up on all the prizes and rewards and glitter that the world had to offer - because it was outside of me, it was not of lasting value.

I’m a sucker for ‘what you would tell your younger self’ columns but this one by Anne Lamott brought me up short
www.theguardian.com/wellness/202...

Do you think that the Ukrainians, by fighting back, caused the war?