bryn stole

The Brief – How Trump trounced Ursula - Euractiv Sunday's deal is the almost inevitable outcome of a declining great power placing its faith in an economically illiterate, mendacious, image-obsessed narcissist – and then asking that person to negoti...

VdL’s “deal” on tariffs “is the almost inevitable outcome of a declining great power placing its faith in an economically illiterate, mendacious, image-obsessed narcissist – and then asking that person to negotiate with Donald Trump.” www.euractiv.com/section/poli...

On a Weimar Republic-simulating video game, by @brynstole.bsky.social

Issue 15 Extremely abbreviated reviews

Horned-up OnlyFans zombies, human and bovine athletes, Paul von Hindenburg, cow colostrum, and “severe nausea” — read five new Mentions from @devintoshea.bsky.social‬, Sydney Allen-Ash, @brynstole.bsky.social‬, Juliana Adelman, and @return2sanders.bsky.social

www.thedriftmag.com/mention/issu...

I reviewed Giorgia Meloni's weird, weird autobiography and struggled to decide what to make of it: www.thenewworld.co.uk/marie-le-con...

what a cool and unique career!

Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, whose ministry was toppled by prostitution scandals, dies at 90 Jimmy Swaggart, the televangelist whose multimillion-dollar ministry was crippled by his encounters with prostitutes, has died. He was 90.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, whose multimillion-dollar ministry and huge audience dwindled following his prostitution scandals, has died. He was 90. apnews.com/article/jimm...

published alongside this inspiring blurb about the rotting corpse of the newspaper that once made me fall in love with newspapers.

was twitchingly addicted to this for like two months

Issue 15 Extremely abbreviated reviews

late to post this but i was very excited to write a lil mention in the latest issue of @thedrift-mag.bsky.social !!!
www.thedriftmag.com/mention/issu...

published alongside this inspiring blurb about the rotting corpse of the newspaper that once made me fall in love with newspapers.

was twitchingly addicted to this for like two months

Issue 15 Extremely abbreviated reviews

late to post this but i was very excited to write a lil mention in the latest issue of @thedrift-mag.bsky.social !!!
www.thedriftmag.com/mention/issu...

iran is more populous than iraq and afghanistan put together. at least for americans of my age felt worth noting.

likewise: claiming asylum is obviously a perfectly legal process, as much as some people may think it's being somehow abused, and in the end the government's fault if the system is incredibly slow at actually processing those claims.

The civil war in Germany's car sector over saving petrol engines - Euractiv The VDA’s campaign against the 2035 car emissions goals lacks full backing even from within its own membership.

Smart piece on the civil war within Germany's car industry over whether to fight net-zero and rally to save the internal combustion engine. www.euractiv.com/section/eet/...

'Allegro Pastel': An intensely specific Berlin love story - The Berliner Leif Randt's uncanny romance novel 'Allegro Pastel' puts Berlin under a blindingly specific microscope, reproducing the hypervisbility of modern living.

I thought that Leif Randt's novel "Allegro Pastel" was really electrifying and fascinating—uncanny hypercontemporarity!—when I first read it.

Imho the sparkling new English translation will be a big hit & you should read it. My review for @exberliner.bsky.social www.the-berliner.com/books/allegr...

"In the old days, that might have been cause for a corruption investigation. In the modern era, it’s just another Thursday."

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/08/u...

i suspect a really bad meeting resulting in personal dislike might be an issue, but yeah unsure of how much upside there is.

California shows how batteries can supply significant share of power in electrical grid
• Batteries charge in afternoon when solar power is cheap and release energy in evenings
• At daily peak around 8pm (when people get home), batteries provide up to 30% of state’s electricity supply

remain astounded that, despite all the discourse about the reliability of political campaign polls over the past decade, a lot of the same people forge ahead with big sweeping definitive takes based on some exit poll crosstabs.

So he raised the tariffs, paused that raise, paused that pause, then paused that pause of the pause. And no-one knows if it'll be paused again (and if such a pause will be unpaused) or what happens when (or if) the pause whose pause was paused concludes.

what a world we live in

Want your US news through a Berlin lens? Radio this morning says Trump has international students at Harvard "auf dem Kieker" then interviews a Viennese psychoanalyst with a Freud accent about the US president's "narcissistic personality disorder" (he recommends flattery before taking a stand...)

incredible!

Merz backs Nord Stream ban to prevent US and Russia restarting gas link [FREE TO READ] German chancellor worried about reigniting domestic row over Russian gas imports

Scoop alert: on.ft.com/43pOp30 Merz backs Nord Stream ban to prevent US and Russia restarting gas link

this was a pretty stupid time in america.

This is my favorite kind of AI take: phrased as a dunk but immediately grants the central complaint that most people are actually making about LLMs, which is that they do not and cannot do the thing they’re widely marketed to do

Doing Their Own Research | Hari Kunzru In August 2020 Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is now secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, suggested that Covid-19 could be a “plandemic,”

A good line: “Up until around 2016, social media feeds (…) were relatively uncomplicated chronological affairs. Now they are governed by opaque and mutable algorithms, and the experience of being online increasingly induces paranoia.” www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

Replacing US military support in Europe would cost $1T European NATO countries would face a short-term “window of vulnerability” against Russian aggression.

An interesting thought experiment on what it might cost to replace US military capabilities in Europe. But the IISS study also makes some (imho) dubious like-for-like assumptions (e.g.: why would Europe need multiple new aircraft carriers?) www.politico.eu/article/unit...

Finally saw "CONCLAVE": beautiful movie, nice acting but also felt like Aaron Sorkin does Catholicism.