one page rpg:
winston churchill vs one otter
you are winston churchill at 90 years of age, and you have been confronted by a single otter. you have four moves: alcohol, genocide by starvation, speeches, and being mean to guests at dinner. the otter has one move, which is to bite you in the ass
We truly had a path to avoid this and the majority of our society just decided not to.
In war, geography matters as much as technology. Iran commands the entire northern shore of the Gulf, looming large over energy fields on its southern shore and all that passes through its waters. Its Houthi allies are perched at the entrance to the Red Sea and along the passage to the Suez Canal; Iran is thus perfectly positioned to squeeze the global economy from both sides of the Arabian Peninsula. Those in command of Iran today are veterans of asymmetric wars in Iraq and Syria. They are now applying the same strategy to fighting the US on the battlefield of the global economy. Drones, short-range missiles and mines setting tankers and ports on fire can have the same effect IEDs had in Iraq, only with greater impact - disrupting global supply chains and sending oil prices higher.
Iran could sustain its counteroffensive more easily and for far longer. Furthermore, a ceasefire alone will not lift the shadow of risk that Iran has imposed over the Gulf, which is now experiencing its nightmare scenario. That is why Iranian leaders are saying they will not accept a ceasefire until Washington fully grasps the global economic cost of waging this war. Businesses, investors and tourists may not return to the Gulf states if they assume that war could resume again. Unless the US is prepared to invade Iran to remove the Islamic republic's leaders and then stay there to ensure stability and security, confidence in the Gulf will only return if the US and Iran arrive at a durable ceasefire. The pressure is building on Washington to seek one. It is not just Gulf states that want an end to the fighting, but also countries across Asia, Africa and even Europe, all of which fear serious economic crises unless the fighting stops soon.
Cheerful stuff in the FT. Trump has started something that he cannot control. This is arguably far more significant for the world economy than the oil crises of the 1970s.
Whale. Wait for it to asphyxiate, then a good shove or a rather laborious process with a pair of (sharp) scissors (or sharp object depending on what the shop has) as you remove it bit by bit
May take some time.
tired: harassing athletes for not covering the spread
wired: harassing journalists for not making things up
Gutters carry water. This is why we call these painted bike gutters and they're professionally bankrupt infrastructure design.
Think this kind of messaging is just self-sabotaging, reinforces the mad meme that “energy costs go up when supplies of energy drop” is about wicked profiteering and not a literal resource constraint, makes government look weak when nothing happens.
Now do Oxford someone:-)
I made up a new form of Capital TYPES OF SOCIOLOGY PAPER ook it s all very omplicated and everythin c natters We made up a new sort of Labor dere going to ring this back In I take a SOCIOLOGICAL approach, unlike SOME people or Evil Reasons Five years of brutal, intensive ethnographic work suggests it sucks to have no money Can you believe there's still more o be squeezed ut of the GSS: Scandinavian Registry Data show mobility dependent on relative oatmeal content of grandparents® diet We got hold of this sweet data from Facebook; lol no you can't have it This seems very weird and bad but you re poor A critique of what I imagine the Economists believe
This is an officially recognized Type Of Paper, btw kieranhealy.org/blog/archive...
it really goddamn bothers me but you all need to learn that GPEW and SGP aren't /just/ autonomous, they are /completely separate parties/
Graph of average annual fees for BA/BSc or equivalent courses in the OECD showing England as the most expensive and Nordics the least
Anglosphere agony vs Nordic nirvana.
(PS Can't believe I'd never seen this graph before, so grateful to @stephenkb.bsky.social for sharing in his fab morning newsletter (www.ft.com/inside-polit...)
I'm trying to think who this idiocy is for, who would say: I wasn't going to vote Labour but now they've blocked a clearly exceptionally bright Sudanese woman from doing a postgraduate course in computational biology at Cambridge, I'm all in?
www.ft.com/content/4493...
The parents in the study were interested in the toy's potential to teach language and communication skills. However, their children frequently struggled to converse with it. Gabbo didn't hear their interruptions, talked over them, could not differentiate between child and adult voices and responded awkwardly to declarations of affection. When one five-year-old said, "I love you," to the toy, it replied: "As a friendly reminder, please ensure interactions adhere to the guidelines provided. Let me know how you would like to proceed."
This is so tragic it's actually incredibly funny
Obviously the reported swings don't give a full picture in this sort of situation
I would like someone - a journalist, a backbencher, an opposition leader - to ask the prime minister to defend this, explicitly.
I want to know if the "purpose of this structure" is defined as "communal beheading of thieves" in the document.
www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/news/people/...
"I have enough unexplained wealth that I'm setting off anti-fraud checks at the bank. Better publicise this to HMRC in an article in the newspaper for some reason."
There was an electoral pact in the district council elections (one LibDem and one Green standing for two seats) but there wasn't for the by election. I think there tend not to be in this situation
Punk news: BrewDog founder James Watt is no longer describing himself as a "punk" in the LinkedIn profile that the multi-millionaire sometimes uses to rail against being asked to pay more tax.
My contempt for these 2 is bottomless.
points at everything and posts this again and again and again
The competition for dumbest Anglophone government remains stiff
'some creative arts graduates don’t appear to earn a significant graduate premium, but the UK’s creative industries are worth £125bn a year or, to put it another way, more than £1 in every £20 in the UK economy – a larger proportion of the nation’s wealth than almost any other country on earth.' 1/3
It seems possible that all the US and Israel have done is prove to Iran that they can’t quickly topple the regime but also that they have little to lose now and some leverage over the world’s economy. Which wouldn’t be great for the region or for things settling down soon
For God's sakes, this coverage!
You know her name, she's the leader of the opposition!
I think I've lost the plot with most pop culture franchises I grew up with as a kid. There are over a thousand Pokémon now. Dave Filoni tells me Glorbo the Shmperpfluggikger will be in the new Star Wars like I'm supposed to feel something other than bafflement.
Natch
Soap is woke
Nor is the world
De Telegraaf, the Netherlands’ largest newspaper, recently published an interview with a woman promoting €1,600 seats on private evacuation flights from Dubai. Bellingcat found that her image was likely AI-generated, and flight data suggests no such plane took off. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...
It's beginning to look like state failure, everywhere you go, part 4533: a weir that had been in place since 1101 collapsed 2 years ago,and the council says it's too expensive to fix: www.essexlive.news/news/essex-n...
