The Other Paul

And the good news is - Cory Doctorow is now on Bluesky

This is a life and death story for the UK – so why is it being brushed under the carpet? | Aditya Chakrabortty The news that healthy life expectancy is in decline in Britain exposes a serious truth about the state we’re in, says Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty

Epidemiologist Michael Marmot: “If our health and life expectancy is in decline, it’s about as clear a sign as you can get that our society is in decline.”

Not over corruption, not with the privatised utility industries, not in the media, not anywhere

Yep, regulators aren't regulating.

Disgraceful

Super difficult choice

The Rome one is well worth a watch - including the deeply weird sexologist.

IPSO is a joke. Where is part 2 of the Levinson Inquiry? Well done Ian Fraser.

The Epstein Files: citizen sleuths examine $1.6 billion i... Citizen sleuths are dissecting Epstein’s money trail, picking up where official scrutiny appears to have stalled

Follow the money. Every bit as important as the sexual abuse.

These findings aren’t as lurid or easily packaged as embarrassing emails. But they point to a broader truth: the DOJ documents offer only a partial view of Epstein’s world. Significant questions remain unanswered.

Anonymous Polymarket Accounts Won $1.2 Million on Trump's Iran Strikes in Suspicious Bets Just six Polymarket accounts made around $1.2 million in profit after successfully betting on the US striking Iran by the end of February.

"It's insane this is legal. People around Trump are profiting off war and death."

No surprise that in a world increasingly run by sleazy grifters this is happening.

Revealed: Thames Water's environmental and financial disaster New research reveals Britain's biggest water company has been illegally polluting rivers at an even greater scale than previously thought.

Putting Thames Water (and the other dangerously failing privatised water companies) into a special administration regime seems like a no-brainer.

Pouring more money into the coffers of distressed-debt buyers makes no sense.

These utilities should never have been privatised in the first place.

Per Wikipedia: Leaving office, in his farewell address Eisenhower implored Americans to think to the future and "not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow", but the large peacetime military budgets that became established during his administration have continued for half a century.

Shattered windows, broken rules ... and victory! The medics who protested against the climate emergency In the latest blow against draconian restraints on the right to protest, six doctors and nurses linked to Extinction Rebellion were dramatically acquitted last week. A play about their trial aims to s...

Bristol GP Patrick Hart - good health doesn't rely on doctors and nurses so much as on the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink. "I can either be just the narrowest version of a doctor.. or I can start thinking about the health of the global population, and the health of the planet.”

So much human potential lost and destroyed, so much stolen from so many, based on different tribes worshipping imaginary deities.

"Humanity hanging from a cross of iron"

"One Way or Another, ICE Will Comply”: Minnesota Chief Federal Judge Not Backing Down A federal judge doesn’t talk this way unless something has gone profoundly off the rails.

Good to see judges genuinely upholding the law by pushing back against performative "law enforcement".

They're responding to ICE flouting the law after indiscriminately/randomly detaining thousands and thousands of people to pretend Trump's lie of "we're deporting the worse of the worst" is real.

Russian newspaper refers to "“the machine of persecution & punishment” in today's Russia YouTube video by Steve Rosenberg

“Everything that a few months ago was not just legal, but natural, is being criminalised.”

Brave press editorial, but most Russians won't see it as the majority get their news/opinions from Kremlin controlled TV.

And more on Putin's doublethink revision of Stalin's brutal and deadly leadership.

America lied about the Iraq war. Then they weren’t believed about Ukraine | Moustafa Bayoumi Will US intelligence learn its lessons from the Iraq war, and just how badly their legitimacy has been undermined?

"Every loss of credibility is a loss of power. And only a fool thinks credibility can be regained through force."

Peter Mandelson, the Russian superyacht and the scandal we completely misread When Britain's most powerful political fixer was caught on an oligarch's boat in Corfu, we called it Yachtgate and moved on. The Epstein files now reveal the full picture: a web of Russian money, paed...

"The full story's not yet been told. We've probably only a fraction of the materials the FBI and DoJ obtained. The public files are still redacted. But we already see a dark realm, set apart from laws, morality and the most basic humane impulses, inhabited by some of the world’s most powerful men."

Watching JeffTube: the thousands of audio and video files... Beyond the Epstein files, there are the tapes: thousands of recordings – many of private conversations

A window into the world of the rich.

Epstein: “I hear gigantic money is given to Tony" [Blair, by Kazakhstan]

Former Treasury secretary Larry Summers says once he'd left government “it was fairly easy to make substantial amounts of money. Not like Jeffrey and some of his friends. But a lot.”

"Russia needs a military alliance" says Russian paper. YouTube video by Steve Rosenberg

The excellent Steve Rosenberg on four years of Russia's illegal war against Ukraine.

Including Moscow reinterpreting history saying it was "restoring constitutional order in Hungary in 1956 & in Czechoslovakia in 1968".

And even some pushback against the Kremlin possibly banning Telegram.

Mixed reviews, 49% on Rotten Tomatoes, the trailer doesn't inspire.

Yes! Power of the press. Please consider supporting these journalists.

Sadiq Khan belatedly realises Aziz's philanthropy is paid for by allegedly exploiting Londoners.

Khan's deputy mayor for housing, Tom Copley, says it's “unacceptable to force Londoners out of their homes for no good reason”.

Drives me crazy: Mumbai residents plead for respite from ‘musical road’ Motorway stretch plays music as a safety feature but those close to it say ‘intrusive’ noise is constant and distressing

Utterly bonkers - noise pollution deliberately created!

Local authorities worldwide should actually be fining the genitally under equipped clowns who fit straight pipe exhausts/mufflers to their vehicles. Speed cameras fitted with noise registering microphones and heavy fines are the answer.

You just know what he was going to say before he said it.

The billionaire philanthropist making hundreds of Londoners homeless He's the London philanthropist who says he's committed to solving homelessness. So why is Asif Aziz's Criterion Capital rushing to make hundreds of Londoners homeless in the coming weeks?

Really not a good look for Sadiq Khan to be cosying up to Asif Aziz given London Centric's reporting on his behaviour as a landlord.

A Labour councillor says Aziz's company is "acting like modern day robber barons who have no interest in the welfare of their tenants or the communities they’re in".

Big companies using technology to rip you off. Should be illegal but won't be because that's not how the world works any more.

This. Every damn bit of it.

Dust off the tumbrels!

Soon to be held at His Majesty's displeasure?

Wagner’s Role in Russia’s Expanding Shadow War Across Europe The latest intelligence reporting out of Europe should not surprise anyone and does not point to any new Russian capability, but rather documents how fully the Kremlin has institutionalized shadow war...

Informed analysis of Putin's shadow war against the west - where's the pushback?

AI Delusions Are Leading to Domestic Abuse, Harassment, and Stalking ChatGPT and other AI chatbots are reinforcing users' delusions about other people — fueling fixations linked to stalking and abuse.

Well researched and deeply disturbing article about some of the horrors that AI is unleashing upon the world.

Governments are not doing enough to counter this and all the techbros care about it is enriching themselves.