Tom Runnacles
@tomrunnacles.bsky.social
Software developer, philosopher, guitarist, whinger.
Cambridge University should have known better, Fleet Street should have known better, the people hungrily absorbing every bit of news about it, making newsrooms feel like they had to keep going with it as a story, should have known better, horrible horrible horrible
I see that Toby Young had written about an elite university messing up by elevating someone who may not have been actually qualified to be there. Interesting stuff
New post out: There's going to be a lot of talk about wealth taxes in the run up to the budget. So we asked one of the country's leading experts to give us a ten year plan for doing it right. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...
The right way to tax wealth
A 10 year programme for an incoming government
open.substack.com
With the rise of self-driving vehicles, it must only be a matter of time before we get a country song where a guy’s truck leaves him too. 🐢💨
to Iran's land neighbors: if we all stick our dicks in this beehive together we can probably lever mine free
The case for state intervention is discussed at greater length here substack.com/@chrisdillow...
Social care: the fight for economic thinking
Reforming social care isn't a left vs right issue: it's about economics vs prejudice.
substack.com
“Andy has successfully persuaded Shabana to take the brief she has no background in, with a promise that she can continue to do the thing that helped sink the popularity of the outgoing government” Not exactly the most inspired start here
As an academic, I have decided to pre-empt AI taking my job, so I am going to take ITS job! I am going to start hallucinating, lying to my students, and drinking 700,000 litres of water
I don’t think prison is the solution to most of our problems but I do think a judge should order Elon Musk to disassemble these turbines by hand and eat them piece by piece.
Reuters@reuters.com · last mo.Elon Musk's xAI has installed more than double the number of gas turbines than it has publicly acknowledged to power its Colossus 2 data center project, without federal permits, and the pollution is hitting predominantly Black neighborhoods the hardest reut.rs/4bIghEm
New in PN: Lindsey Graham and the rot of modern conservatism "Graham died a coward. From Gingrich to Trump, he embodied the movement-to-racket transformation of the GOP. Has America ever seen a capitulation so self-abnegating as his conversion from snarling Trump critic into swooning cheerleader?"
Lindsey Graham and the rot of modern conservatism
From Gingrich to Trump, Graham was a fixture as the GOP became increasingly malignant.
publicnotice.co
@playtyperguy.com: "What people remember most about Judas is that he betrayed Christ. Their prior friendship ... isn’t exonerating. ... Perhaps Graham’s Democratic 'friends' are willing to give him the Jesus Christ Superstar treatment, but he doesn’t deserve it." open.substack.com/pub/ser1897/...
Lindsey Graham And The Voltaire Principle
South Carolina senator dead at 71
open.substack.com
Steve Schmidt sucks but he had Lindsey Graham dead to rights here and it was brutal
I went to Porto Montenegro to find out why so many Reform money men have businesses registered to a grubby looking office building a stone's throw from the luxury yachts on the glittering marina. Feat. me visiting my first casino. www.opendemocracy.net/inside-refor...
Inside Reform and George Cottrell’s world in Montenegro
Why are some of Britain’s most controversial Reform-linked figures all operating out of a grubby office in a town of 11,000 people in the Balkans?
opendemocracy.net
Ok, last little bit from my notes graveyard, which I am cleaning up this morning: I have a half-written paper on the desirability of the "simple life" that starts like this
Oh, have I not told this one here? Okay. So Grandma had The Charisma.
Hipster Viking Amy@lasrina.bsky.social · last mo.Summoning @tkingfisher.com to tell the story of her grandma getting like five marriages annulled.
"Trump’s fixation on percentages—and on money generally—has distorted the discussion of what an alliance is, how NATO generates collective strength, and what the members must do together to address the increasingly complex security environment they face."
The NATO Defense Spending Canard
There’s nothing magical—or strategic—about the 5 percent number.
lnk.thebulwark.com
This Is Just To Say I told you so about that thing you disagreed with me about of which irrefutable proof has now emerged Forgive me it is too delicious too sweet not to remind you that you were wrong
"What no competent government can deliver is Scandinavian levels of welfare provision sustained on American levels of taxation, with immigration reduced. Yet since [Brexit], this has been the quixotic demand of the UK electorate." Me, on Starmer, Burnham and Brexit: www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/...
Diane de Vignemont writes in clear language about the Society of Saint Pius X, which is hankering for the good ol' days of Vichy France and a Judenrein Paris. "In France, our history won’t let us call it merely traditionalist. We know exactly what to call it."
The Dark History Behind This Week’s Schism in the Catholic Church
By framing the Society of Saint Pius X as quaint "traditionalists," U.S. media coverage is whitewashing the group's record of fascist sympathies and antisemitism.
newlinesmag.com
Hugely going to regret doing an essay based on a @stephenkb.bsky.social rant.
On Picky Bits and National Decline
'Picky Bits' may seem like a harmless phrase, but the mentality behind it explains a lot about the position we find ourselves in.
martinrobbins.substack.com
Compare Alito's description of Trump's racist statements (on the left) to Justice Kagan's anthology of Trump's racist statements (on the right). These are passages from this morning's opinions in Mullin v. Doe.
I wish the media would stop feeding oxygen to Grampa's ranting about the reflecting pool. It's just going to give us all algae.
