An amazing well-preserved floor mosaic covering about 105 square meters and dating back to the fourth century A.D. has been uncovered at the ancient city of Pompeiopolis, Türkiye. www.turkiyetoday.com/culture/105-...
Sherrill Stroschein
@sherrillstroschein.bsky.social
Political Science and other things. Reposts are for information and do not mean agreement.
balkaninsight.com/2026/08/28/g...
German AfD Figure Behind Alleged Serbian Node in Russian Cyber Meddling
BIRN has identified Andreas Maul, a town councillor for Germany’s far-right AfD party, as the man behind a Serbian company sanctioned by the US for aiding a Russian alleged cybercrime service provider...
balkaninsight.com
Friday, House of Commons: Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Second Reading) www.hansardsociety.org.uk/news/parliam...
Parliament Matters Bulletin: What’s coming up in Parliament this week? 7 September 2026
The Commons considers the Health Bill over two days, alongside Second Readings of the Civil Aviation Bill and the Social Housing Bill. Friday brings the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, while...
hansardsociety.org.uk
EXC: Anthropic declined to submit its latest model to Britain’s AI Security Institute for testing before release, the first time a major model withheld from AISI Move has prompted fears in UK govt that tech firms are falling into line with Trump admin’s AI protectionism www.ft.com/content/560e...
Anthropic withheld latest AI model from UK testing agency
Decision to exclude Aisi has prompted fears inside British government of protectionist shift among tech groups
ft.com
This was the point I emphasised about Palantir when I wrote about tech soverignty - their model is to make bits of the state dependent on them and them jack up the price. samf.substack.com/p/sovereignt...
Sovereignty for sale
Tech monopolies and the future of the nation state
samf.substack.com
Amy Borrett@amyborrett.ft.com · 2d agoBritain’s state-owned electricity system operator has awarded Palantir a £21mn contract without inviting rival bids, arguing critical processes are too reliant on its tech to run a competitive procurement process Latest for @financialtimes.com: as.ft.com/r/7fe6c0b7-2...
Britain’s state-owned electricity system operator has awarded Palantir a £21mn contract without inviting rival bids, arguing critical processes are too reliant on its tech to run a competitive procurement process Latest for @financialtimes.com: as.ft.com/r/7fe6c0b7-2...
Britain’s grid operator gave Palantir contract without inviting rival bids
Neso cited a legal exemption that removes the requirement to consider other suppliers if dependencies leave no alternative
as.ft.com
New - Marc Stears, the director of UCL Policy Lab, is joining Number 10 as a special advisor to Andy Burnham. Close to Ed Miliband, Stears has done a lot of work and research recently on the splintering progressive vote, especially stressing the importance of climate
"Surviving an autocracy means not only believing that the unfathomable is possible, but that it’s probably happening, so you better start planning for what comes next."
Sarah Kendzior@sarahkendzior.bsky.social · 6d agoThe Mitch McConnell shit is really weird, and I say this as the person the NYT assigned to write three separate obits of Uzbekistan's president as the state covered up his death: sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/ghost-senate
The Mitch McConnell shit is really weird, and I say this as the person the NYT assigned to write three separate obits of Uzbekistan's president as the state covered up his death: sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/ghost-senate
Ghost Senate
The vanishing of Mitch McConnell.
sarahkendzior.substack.com
It’s a winnable fight and there are already signs that we’re winning in Canada: Toronto’s Board of Health adopting stronger standards. See also the CSA about to make masking mandatory in healthcare.
A Major Win for Indoor Air Quality: Toronto's Board of Health Moves to Adopt Stronger Ventilation Standards
The Ontario Society of Professional Engineers celebrates a major win for indoor air quality with stronger ventilation standards in Toronto.
ospe.on.ca
Matthew Cortland (they)@matthewcort.land · 6d agoShared indoor air has been under the equivalent of a boil-water advisory since early 2020. Six years in, boiling is still the plan. On Taylorr Lorenz mask hate-mobs, what the behavior change evidence actually shows, and the winnable war for clean indoor air www.patreon.com/mattbc/posts...
I do think “every rich person went insane during covid because it was the first time they’ve been inconvenienced in decades” felt a little reductive at first but damn if isn’t more and more compelling as the years drag on
The catastrophic flood in Nepal reminds me of the meeting @profbillmcguire.bsky.social @profmarkmaslin.bsky.social and I convened in 2009 on climate forcing of geological and geomorphological hazards. Back then it was about future risks, now it's a reality royalsocietypublishing.org/rsta/issue/3...
Volume 368 Issue 1919 | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A | The Royal Society
Influential themed journal issues across the physical mathematical and engineering sciences.
royalsocietypublishing.org
www.theguardian.com/science/2026...
How to spot a psychopath: ‘It’s like the difference between a domestic cat and a wild cat’
People with persistent predatory personalities cause an inordinate amount of pain. Recently, our shared understanding of them has grown – and it could help protect us
theguardian.com
By my former professor Austin Sarat, Amherst College fortune.com/2026/07/26/w...
I've been teaching college students for decades. Most of them can no longer finish a book | Fortune
I assume students will do the reading of long, dense texts, week after week. Lately, that assumption has started to feel naive.
fortune.com
Increasingly important to think about in journal editing. Or code writing, or anything intellectual that gets produced and checked these days. silentroom.media/the-machine/...
Wittgenstein Knew Why AI Gets Dumber on Synthetic Data
Model collapse looks like statistics. It's actually Wittgenstein: language means nothing without a form of life behind it. What happens when models only have each other left to talk to.
silentroom.media
Your 'moment of doom' for Aug. 22, 2026 ~ Millions soon homeless. "However, the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol do not recognise people displaced by climate change as refugees. There is no clear definition of a 'climate refugee'." independentaustralia.net/politics/pol...
Climate refugees are not protected under existing international law
No clear definition of a "climate refugee" currently exists in international law.
independentaustralia.net
Every time you see "El Nino," read: "climate change."
If you falsely but strongly believe that your students' intelligence is based on race and gender you will be unable to treat or grade them fairly. This includes giving white and male students too high grades as well as giving Black and female students too low ones
Either every single media organisation in the UK doesn't understand their audience or people are lying to pollsters. I genuinely can't make up my mind which it is.
We're being told that if we sacrifice the rights of some people, then the rest of us get to keep our rights. We all know that's some BS.
Strong contender for most Orwellian headline of the year.
State Department to Partner With Palantir, Anduril on Free Speech Initiative
The Freedom Tech Excellence Program also includes the Bitcoin Policy Institute and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
foreignpolicy.com
A key element in the mainstreaming of reactionary politics was to get mainstream actors to engage with reactionary ideas as if they were legitimate debates Mainstream actors fell for it as they generally "won" the argument but by engaging at all they legitimised the reactionary position 1/
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
London’s low emission zone is working – so why are cities around the world so cautious about clean air?
Similar initiatives have been launched from Barcelona to Bogotá, but they have misinformation, political pressure and vested interests stacked against them
theguardian.com
Some days I just get depressed about the de-professionalization of universities. So much for the Enlightenment, scientific progress, etc. Sigh.
Wildfires burning across Europe have exposed a potentially deadly threat lurking beneath the blackened landscape: rusty bombs and mines from World War I and II.
Wildfires expose — and detonate — buried bombs and mines from WWI and WWII
The wildfires burning across Europe this summer have exposed a potentially deadly threat lurking beneath the blackened landscape: rusty bombs and mines from World War I and II.
bit.ly
