Today my book on the Dutch neoliberal turn is officially out with Verso Books! Thanks for the wonderful blurbs from @quinnslobodian.com, @mkonings.bsky.social, Stephanie Mudge, Niklas Olsen and @ingridrobeyns.bsky.social. Will be presenting the book in september. More info below

No Nonsense

In the 1980s, Dutch politics underwent a neoliberal turn overseen by the Christian Democrat Ruud Lubbers. It formed part of an interna­tional trend, famously spearheaded by Reagan and Thatcher. What w...

versobooks.com

In 2026 you are forced to watch commercials in your BMW so one of the main shareholders can continue to be one of the richest women in Germany…

Ketan Joshi@ketanjoshi.co · yesterday

EV advocacy world really needs to contend with the fact that car companies are hell bent on making them into the most exhausting, enshittified, advertising-infected subscription model oversized junk tanks imaginable www.techspot.com/news/113327-...

“LEO Technologies has launched a pair of AI products that expand correctional surveillance beyond the content of incarcerated people’s communications, allowing agencies to identify speakers through voice biometrics and continuously analyze camera feeds for movements, relationships, and behavior…”

LEO Technologies extends prison surveillance from calls to voices, faces, and behavior | Biometric Update

LEO Technologies adds AI voice biometrics and video analytics to identify speakers and detect behavior, relationships and emerging threats in prisons.

biometricupdate.com

At the end of the day all these lofty AI goals will probably boil down to being inundated with "targeted ads" from speakers you won't be able to turn off because the vehicle will no longer move...always ads (or subscriptions for features you really use), never "a better experience for you"

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 5d ago

Companies are all in on selling folks the idea that it’s in your best interest for your products to “know you” as if you are getting a dedicated servant but what you are really getting is a spy.

Between 1920 and 2018 Bordeaux had 1(!) day above 40 degrees; all the others have been since, including 6 days in 2026 alone-more than the combined total of the previous 100 years!

Important reminder that other than grassroots civil society, big NGOs & foundations will easily sell out to the mighty AI dollar. Stark reminder that the sector is broken & will not work towards sustainable social change.

Katie Drummond@katie-drummond.bsky.social · last wk.

Hundreds of OpenAI and Anthropic employees will soon become extremely wealthy. Among non-profits, competition for their philanthropic dollars -- which will likely number in the billions -- is already fierce:

This article encapsulates everything that is wrong with Louisiana--corruption, racism, neglect of the environment. This state has so much more potential than what greedy capitalism will allow it. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/27/t...

How Meta Got Everything It Wanted in a Secret Louisiana Data Center Deal (Gift Article)

A Times examination details how the Silicon Valley giant used private talks with local officials to start a project big enough to cover nearly six square miles.

nytimes.com

FWIW, Meta was fully aware of how these glasses would primarily be used. The glasses were designed to erase consent, and that is why they exist. Anything that they do that suggests they want to ameliorate this use is an attempt to win the PR battle and manipulate public opinion.

Meta Desperately Trying to Ban Creeps Misusing Its AI "Pervert Glasses"

Meta is vowing to crack down on creeps misusing its Ray Ban smart glasses. Whether it will be enough to regain trust remains to be seen.

futurism.com

Not from the Onion…

The UNHCR archives in Geneva are at risk; reading room already closed - and there's a much broader 'humanitarian archive emergency' ongoing with aid budget cuts. www.aretenews.com/unhcr-refuge...

As aid funds shrink, archivists warn of risks to the humanitarian record

UNHCR's archives are a test case for humanitarians struggling to preserve institutional memory in an era of retrenchment.

aretenews.com

We are given only a limited number of truly perfect summer days in our time on Earth. One of the more insidious cruelties of fossil fuel greed is how it slowly strips those days from us, more and more throughout our lifetimes, perhaps without us even realizing what we have lost.

Another stolen summer day

What are we still waiting to learn?

heated.world

These images of First Nations community members evacuating Collins, Ontario on motorboats are absolutely surreal www.facebook.com/reel/1548244...

Luke LeBrun@lukelebrun.ca · 3w ago

These photos of FNs community members fleeing their homes by boat are genuinely apocalyptic (Photo via Wayne Wastaken of Collins, Ontario, who says his “hometown is gone”) www.facebook.com/share/r/1ArN...

Following the horrifying death of Ann Widdecombe, the former Conservative minister and Reform UK spokeswoman, Professor Stuart Gordon explores what her faith, and her friction with organisations like the British Red Cross, reveal about the deep crisis of trust facing modern humanitarianism.

I disagreed with Ann Widdecombe. But her distrust of charities is something humanitarians cannot ignore - LSE International Development

Following the horrifying death of Ann Widdecombe, Professor Stuart Gordon reflects on his encounters with the formidable politician, exploring what her faith and conservative friction with organizatio...

shorturl.at

Woke up & found myself added to this excellent list. Thank you!

this is a great illustration of one of the fundamental insights of democracy — that there is no such thing as "the people" and that majorities are elusive and ever shifting. no election, no decision, is final and treating an election as a final decision is profoundly undemocratic.

Mark Chadbourn@chadbourn.bsky.social · last mo.

A fifth of Leave voters have died.

If a news platform decides to talk about the climate & heat crisis this way, they are very, very unlikely reporting properly on other topics; you can't be a journalist talking about the "surprising positives" of a heat wave & then turn around and do investigative journalism on the elites...

Lee Hurley@hleehurley.com · last mo.

Completely unserious country [Times]

30, 50, 70, and 100-year sentences for the Prairieland defendants so far. Dark day, man. Truly.

Texas anti-ICE protesters convicted of terrorism charges sentenced to at least 50 years in prison

Activists accused of being part of antifa face harsh sentences in case seen as test of Trump’s crackdown on dissent

theguardian.com

I didn’t want to share it because I thought it was AI slop…

Grantham Research Institute at LSE@granthamlse.bsky.social · last mo.

We regret that our event on Extreme Heat: Improving governance and strengthening action around the world has been cancelled due to the red extreme heat warning issued by the UK Met Office. Our apologies to everyone who was planning to attend the event.

The Onion and McSweeney's didn't want to publish it, so FT took the bait and probably thought "this is so outrageously absurd most people won't find it funny"

Financial Times@financialtimes.com · 2mo ago

Opinion: 'If even I, an implacable opponent of the president, can accept this as the best option, then surely others can too?' writes former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton. ft.trib.al/sjofp0v

Since the launch of ChatGPT monthly submissions to arXiv have almost doubled to 30k & even if the rejection rate has also doubled since 2023, academia is looking at a fundamental crisis of dealing with AI-fueled texts...

The Economist@economist.com · 2mo ago

With just one prompt, anyone can ask AI to write an article (or create a doctored image of himself as Jesus). It has fuelled concerns of “AI slop”. But is it a tidal wave or a trickle? These five charts help explain the changes

A good reminder to call out smart glasses & their owners on every occasion-loud & clear. Let's see how the guys feel when you ask them loudly in public whether filming you & the rest of the bus/tram/train without consent is a good idea...

Fabio Chiusi@fabiochiusi.bsky.social · 2mo ago

“Smart glasses are gaining traction because people no longer feel stupid wearing them” www.pcmag.com/news/smart-g...

G7: We need to end development aid so low-income countries can stand on their own two feet! Partnership not dependency! Also G7: No, we will not equalize global financial rules, give poor countries more weight in multilateral organizations, or drop tied aid genevasolutions.news/sustainable-...

G7 summit: World’s top donors to mark shift from traditional development - Geneva Solutions

Amid the sharp aid decline, the elite club of powerful western economies, and still the world’s top aid donors, wants to swap the traditional handout model for investment and partnerships.

genevasolutions.news

Since the launch of ChatGPT monthly submissions to arXiv have almost doubled to 30k & even if the rejection rate has also doubled since 2023, academia is looking at a fundamental crisis of dealing with AI-fueled texts...

The Economist@economist.com · 2mo ago

With just one prompt, anyone can ask AI to write an article (or create a doctored image of himself as Jesus). It has fuelled concerns of “AI slop”. But is it a tidal wave or a trickle? These five charts help explain the changes

Mein „Job“ bestand heute auch daraus auf diversen Plattformen @gnetzer.bsky.social‘s & Gäste @rasenfunk.social Podcast zu Evangelikalen Strömungen im Fußball zu teilen weil fast der gesamte Sportjournalismus die Arbeit verweigert… rasenfunk.de/tribuenenges...

#129 Evangelikale im Fußball - Tribünengespräch - RASENFUNK

Gruppierungen wie "Ballers in God" oder "Fußball mit Vision" versuchen ihre Auslegung der Bibel gezielt bei Jugendlichen zu platzieren. Mit Hilfe prominenter F…

rasenfunk.de

aaaand we are another step closer to the day when American schools, universities & prisons will be basically indistinguishable in form + function...a privatized panopticon that charges you 50k for access to Teams...

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 2mo ago

“At UCLA, students in a recent sociology class said they were told in an email to ‘procure a mirror large enough to fully reflect your entire desk-area work space,’ and turn on their laptop camera so the professor could watch them during an online test.”

Rest Well, Raul Pacheco-Vega Our community lost the inimitable Raúl Pacheco-Vega this week. Someone who knew him better than me should write a more definitive remembrance and maybe they have in some other corner of the internet. But, I haven’t seen a longer treatment yet (here is a terrific one!),…

Rest Well, Raul Pacheco-Vega

Our community lost the inimitable Raúl Pacheco-Vega this week. Someone who knew him better than me should write a more definitive remembrance and maybe they have in some other corner of the internet. But, I haven’t seen a longer treatment yet (here is a terrific one!), so I thought I’d have a go at a remembrance. Raúl lived his life…

duckofminerva.com

Why doesn't every hot spring resort have a group of raccoon dog superheros representin' them?!?

Mondo Mascots@mondomascots.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Yutapon Red is one of the Yutapon Five, a squadron of raccoon dog superheros, the mascots of Yugawara hot springs resort in Kanagawa.

Of course University of Tennessee requires you to check with their lawyers if you are planning to include a link to a Bernie Sanders Op-ed from 2021 in your email signature, because it's the country where 75% of Substack punditery lives off "free speech"/cancel culture posts...

Nach so einem Abend muss sich auch der härteste ÖR-stan fragen lassen was zur Hölle die Daseinsberechtigung des ZDF sein soll. Das zweitwichtigste Fußballspiel des Jahres im Free-TV und das ist alles was ihr mit dem riesigen Sport-Etat abliefert?

If you think AI sucks, read who sat on the real life panel (...) author, entrepreneur & former chief business officer at Google X; (...) senior director of AI at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, (...) founder and CEO of London-based AI company Synthesia.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 2mo ago

Damn this sucks.