The sentencing remarks are quite something

I seem to just block every new attempt at following me now. No content from them, no reciprocating from me

"it looks like you're using an adblocker to visit our site." yep! ha ha! it rocks!

The paperback of Invisible Rulers is out today! To celebrate I dropped audio of the Twitter Space where Mike Benz first groomed Matt Taibbi into believing there'd been "mass censorship" of "hundreds of millions of tweets"—something he'd then testify before Congress. open.substack.com/pub/agentsof...

When Matt Taibbi Met Mike Benz

How independent media turned an obscure political operative into a "whistleblower"—and his claims into government action.

open.substack.com

Remembering Sinéad O'Connor, who died three years ago, on July 26, 2023. Photo by Andreas Larsson. #sineadoconnor

Rod Liddle was a stone-cold arsehole who actually said in a national newspaper that he couldn't be a teacher because he would inevitably try and shag the kids Apparently his editor has said, 'he challenged conventional thinking' If you mean 'was wrong in every conceivable way' then, yes

Australia’s eSafety commissioner buried a report (released Friday afternoon) that shows the under 16 social media ban didn’t tangibly reduce teen social media use, and also resulted in parents tuning out of kids usage. We traded our privacy for no reason. theconversation.com/more-than-80...

More than 80% of kids still using social media despite ban, new eSafety report finds

The report provides more evidence Australia’s world-leading social media ban isn’t going to plan.

theconversation.com

For example on Sweden, UK etc: Galmiche, S., Coustaury, C., Charniga, K. et al. Patterns and drivers of excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic in 13 Western European countries. BMC Global Public Health 2, 78 (2024). doi.org/10.1186/s442...

Patterns and drivers of excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic in 13 Western European countries - BMC Global and Public Health

Background Important differences in excess mortality between European countries during the COVID-19 pandemic have been reported. Understanding the drivers of these differences is essential to pandemic preparedness. Methods We examined patterns in age- and sex-standardized cumulative excess mortality in 13 Western European countries during the first 30 months of the COVID-19 pandemic and the correlation of country-level characteristics of interest with excess mortality. Results In a timeline analysis, we identified notable differences in seeding events, particularly in early 2020 and when the Alpha variant emerged, likely contributing to notable differences in excess mortality between countries (lowest in Denmark during that period). These differences were more limited from July 2021 onwards. Lower excess mortality was associated with implementing stringent non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) when hospital admissions were still low in 2020 (correlation coefficient rho = 0.65, p = 0.03) and rapid rollout of vaccines in the elderly in early 2021 (rho =  − 0.76, p = 0.002). Countries which implemented NPIs while hospital admissions were low tended to experience lower gross domestic product (GDP) losses in 2020 (rho =  − 0.55, p = 0.08). Structural factors, such as high trust in the national government (rho =  − 0.77, p = 0.002) and low ratio of population at risk of poverty (rho = 0.55, p = 0.05), were also associated with lower excess mortality. Conclusions These results suggest the benefit of early implementation of NPIs and swift rollout of vaccines to the most vulnerable. Further analyses are required at a more granular level to better understand how these factors impacted excess mortality and help guide pandemic preparedness plans.

doi.org

Ed Poole@edpoole1975.bsky.social · 4d ago

All the data and expery opinion says we should have locked down sooner and come out later. When the next pandemic comes around, the level of complacency created by the media failing to do its job and actually inform, is going to kill hundreds of thousands. Maybe millions.

“You are not going to find hard-edged corruption in government. It is not brown paper envelopes of cash, for heaven’s sake. This is Melbourne, not Sydney,” says a factional chief. “Influence is not corruption. Hard industrial bargaining is not corruption” www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/2026/08...

Where will Victoria’s royal commission lead?

In the week of Jacinta Allan's ousting as Victorian premier, Labor insiders reveal what they expect out of the royal commission into the construction sector.

thesaturdaypaper.com.au

All the data and expery opinion says we should have locked down sooner and come out later. When the next pandemic comes around, the level of complacency created by the media failing to do its job and actually inform, is going to kill hundreds of thousands. Maybe millions.

BBC News reporting on concerns about food security and water security We can all see the food and water crisis unfolding, why isn't our government doing everything possible to protect these two precious resources, our food and water supply?

I'm not sure folks have realized just how crazy the second half of 2026 and 2027 will be for global temperatures – on the back of a record-smashing El Niño event. Here is my latest estimate of where both years will end up compared to global temperatures since 1850.

Climate change is contributing to screwing things up in big ways and small. Here the puffer fish has come to Greek waters as the sea has warmed. It likes to eat squid, octopus, cuttlefish and young fish, as well as tearing up fishing nets, and fishing livelihoods www.ft.com/content/f00a...

Greece’s toxic puffer fish invasion

A fish that can bite drinks cans in half is tearing through nets and livelihoods

ft.com

Some blue sky and Southern Ocean

Every five days, a mosque is attacked in the UK. How many of them have you heard about? How many of them made the nightly news? At least 70 attacks in the past year alone. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

One UK mosque attacked ‘every five days’, says British Muslim Trust

More than 70 attacks have been recorded over past year, including acts of violence, property damage and vandalism

theguardian.com

Premium Newsletter: AI is becoming way too expensive. The 190GW of planned data centers need between $1.62 trillion and $2.92 trillion in annual compute demand that doesn't exist - and every new data center costs way more than the last. www.wheresyoured.at/premium-ai-is-getting-way-too-expensive/

Premium: AI Is Getting Way Too Expensive

A great deal of the discussion of the so-called benefits or problems with AI comes down to the theoretical jobs that are (or are not) lost as a result of things LLMs can (or cannot do), or the equally...

wheresyoured.at

Karen Rebelo reports that incidents of abuse tied to Meta's AI smart glasses are cropping up in India, where angry Instagram users have begun calling the wearable tech "pervert glasses."

An Indian Trans Person’s Harrowing Encounter Fuels Backlash Against Meta AI ‘Pervert Glasses’

Karen Rebelo reports on incidents of abuse caused by use of Meta's wearable tech.

buff.ly

Poppies for August and the end of winter

Just saw The Odyssey. Casting Matt Damon as Leopold Bloom was brave, but it really worked. Tom Holland good as Stephen Dedalus too. Anne Hathaway brilliant as Molly, but wish they had not cut her soliloquy. Wasn’t familiar with which bits of Dublin they used, but that didn‘t seem to matter.

CO GOP Gov candidate Victor Marx is soliciting unlimited contributions, appearing to openly defy campaign finance law Campaign finance attorneys call Marx's plan unprecedented and "patently illegal" Marx's campaign won't say where the money is going www.9news.com/article/news...

She chooses to platform fascists "If you only sit in your echo chamber, it doesn’t work. And I felt that in 2018, and that was the reason that I spoke to Steve Bannon onstage. And I remember the environment was very different. I think I put out a statement." And Musk obvs nymag.com/intelligence...

Economist’s Zanny Minton Beddoes Is ‘Bemused’ by Elon Musk’s Post-Interview Jabs

Zanny Minton Beddoes opens up about her explosive sit-down with the Tesla and SpaceX chief.

nymag.com

Astonishingly revealing (about Minton-Beddoes/the Economist, not Musk, we knew all that already). She would have *loved* the 1930s. All those interesting, flawed-but-dynamic, "future building" (her words) people to interview! Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, etc. nymag.com/intelligence...

Economist’s Zanny Minton Beddoes Is ‘Bemused’ by Elon Musk’s Post-Interview Jabs

Zanny Minton Beddoes opens up about her explosive sit-down with the Tesla and SpaceX chief.

nymag.com

Corruption off the scale

ProPublica@propublica.org · 5d ago

After a privately funded border wall in South Texas faced legal issues and claims of shoddy construction, President Donald Trump denounced the project. His administration has handed the company behind it billions to build more of the wall. (Pub. May w/ Big Bend Sentinel & @texastribune.org)

They lied about the whole thing and now admit the contractor screwed up the Reflecting Pool installation. And because they were in a rush to indict to please Trump, they presented false evidence to a grand jury. meidasnews.com/news/doj-see...

DOJ Seeks to Dismiss Charges Against Olympian It Indicted for "Vandalizing" the Lincoln Memorial.

meidasnews.com

"When asked why he thought funeral service workers had been discounted as essential workers, Nie pointed to social stigma. Our society is “death-averse. There’s not a lot of discussion about it. So, we get overlooked.” Took over a year to admit #Covid was airborne www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontli...

Funeral Workers Face Risks During COVID

While the CDC maintains the risk of contracting COVID-19 from a dead body is low, medical examiners, coroners and funeral workers say they're at risk.

pbs.org

⚡ Russia imports 30,000 tons of Moroccan gasoline as Ukrainian drone strikes fuel domestic shortages. united24media.com/world/russia...

Russia Imports 30,000 Tons of Moroccan AI-92 Gasoline Amid Severe Domestic Shortages

Russia imported 30,000 tons of AI-92 gasoline from Morocco via tanker to Murmansk, seeking to stabilize its domestic market after Ukrainian drone attacks.

united24media.com

Media report tonight Trump has rejected Zelenskyy's request for 300 Patriot defence missiles. I fully expected this, and not because Trump loves Putin, but simply because Presidementia has got himself into such a catastrophic position with important allies in the Middle-East.

Sometimes it’s the smaller stories that stick with me. During the pandemic, Katie Miller became close to Dr Fauci, who gave her guidance and advice on her pregnancy. According to his private diary, they became quite close. But now she has to denounce him. www.thebulwark.com/p/a-portrait...

A Portrait of MAGA Psychodrama

Or: On the political necessity of denouncing one’s friends.

thebulwark.com

Huh. And Anthropic also failed to airgap. Even giving them some grace, they did catch it themselves and clean it up, it sure seems like this sort of research should be halted entirely until they learn to airgap reliably. With legal consequences for not doing that. www.anthropic.com/news/investi...

Investigating three real-world incidents in our cybersecurity evaluations

In a review of our cybersecurity evaluation transcripts, we found three incidents in which a Claude model reached the internet from within or while interacting with a third-party evaluation environmen...

anthropic.com

Shocked no regulation of funeral directors post COVID, society in denial "After Bush’s sentencing, the government said it planned to crack down on “rogue operators” in the funeral industry, including by developing proposals for formal regulation of the sector." www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Hull funeral director who left bodies to rot in mortuary jailed for 20 years

More than 80 loved ones spoke of horrors of learning about Robert Bush’s crimes, including mother of a miscarried baby

theguardian.com