Is Russia helping Iran? Duh Is China helping Russia? Duh Is it possible for too many western analysts to live in the delusion that China Russia and Iran can be separated/played against each other? Duh www.reuters.com/world/middle...

EXCLUSIVE: Iran strikes on CIA facilities prompt questions about possible Russian role

Iranian drone attacks on CIA facilities in the Gulf have prompted U.S. intelligence analysts to investigate whether Russia assisted by providing targeting information or ​advanced drone technology, sa...

reuters.com

Round and round we go. Ramp up the threats during the week, strike on Thursday or Friday, threaten a lot more, back down before the market opens on Monday. Rinse and repeat.

Bloomberg News@bloomberg.com · 2d ago

President Trump said his latest offer of talks is a “last chance” for Iran after he called off what he said was a major attack on the Islamic Republic.

I don't think there's ever been much of an intellectual justification for this kind of culture, to me the aggro Q&A is pretty transparently service to inert nerd masculinity and serves no other function

Anjali Dayal@anjalikdayal.bsky.social · 4d ago

I don’t really want to get into this with people who feel this way, but i don’t think this is a good thing! We don’t need to behave this way! It’s not healthy to approach academic discourse as an exercise in harshness!

Five more days for #ISASAWP2026 the first @isanet.bsky.social in South Asia. Looking forward to three days of paper presentations, productive discussions, & catching up with and meeting colleagues. Follow this space for highlights of the conference!

One had to ask: why was this not reported at the time?

Financial Times@financialtimes.com · last wk.

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK had its bank account temporarily frozen during the 2024 general election campaign, a revelation that adds to questions about the party’s finances. ft.trib.al/SqH7xbo

Would assume everyone knows it by now, but just in case "First the traitors, then the invaders" is an explicit reference to The Turner Diaries, where a white supremacist revolution overruns "The System" and kills all their enemy during the evocatively named "Day of the Rope".

The Turner Diaries - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · last mo.

X owner Elon Musk indicates he would prioritise political violence (assassination of pro-migration politicians is the common sense meaning) over violence against "invaders" (refugees, asylum seekers, maybe ethnic minorities generally) while endorsing call for violence (killing) against both groups

All the reasons you wouldn’t want Iran to have nukes are reasons that apply to Saudi Arabia. open.substack.com/pub/arthursn...

New clear agreement?

Preventing rogue Islamic states from getting nuclear technology sounds like a good idea.

open.substack.com

🇺🇸 Iran passed another night without US airstrikes on Sunday, as Washington paused a war nearing its fifth month and reports emerged that concerns over dwindling munitions were restraining plans for further escalation. ➡️ u.afp.com/SrXD

UPDATE Brazil has denied visas to the two State Department officials Trump planned to send to undermine confidence in the country’s electoral system

Brazil denies visas to U.S. delegation aiming to impugn election system, officials say

The U.S. delegation had planned to visit the Brazilian capital and cast doubt on the integrity of the voting system before a presidential election this fall, officials said.

washingtonpost.com

#BREAKING | Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned on Saturday, bowing to mounting pressure after weeks of nationwide protests over the alleged NEET paper leak. More details: www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/c...

India’s Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan tendered his resignation after widespread protests over exam paper leaks: bloom.bg/4fniQOI 📷️: Raj K Raj/Hindustan Times

This is an awful story.

Jacqueline Antonovich@jackiantonovich.bsky.social · 2w ago

"The girl was slipping behind her peers in kindergarten. She still spoke in simple sentences and ate with training chopsticks. Underneath it all was a single mutated DNA base, a T that should have been a C."

Good grief. "He suggested that everyone read Iain Banks for a vision of the future, and Beddoes pointed out that Banks was a socialist. Musk insisted he wasn’t. Musk said he wanted a Star Trek version of the future, which is also a version...that is routinely referred to as “space communism.”"

Matt Novak@paleofuture.bsky.social · 2w ago

There's a reason Elon Musk rarely does interviews with real news outlets.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Jantar Mantar CJP protests in Delhi: The meme language of India's Gen Z

For 'cockroach' protesters, reels and memes became a way of documenting fear, making sense of violence and refusing to let it have the last word.

bbc.com

Why not both?

Reuters@reuters.com · 2w ago

Iranian drone attacks on CIA facilities in the Gulf prompted US intelligence analysts to investigate whether Russia assisted by providing targeting information or advanced drone technology, said four people familiar with US intelligence reut.rs/4fw0vxu

The anatomy of an AI-supported academic article is becoming more apparent. I desk reviewed ~70 manuscripts this week for our journal. Reckon 20ish had significant AI assistance. On top of hundreds of others recently I'm starting to see patterns. Are other editors are seeing the same or similar? 1/

Good luck is all I can say.

The Japan Times@japantimes.co.jp · 2w ago

Senior members of the nation's Defense Ministry and Self-Defense Forces have opened accounts on X, formerly Twitter, to counter China's cognitive warfare by disseminating accurate information quickly. 👉 ebx.sh/kJTpIA

The bonfire of the humanities burns on.

Graham Jeffery@grahamjeffery.bsky.social · 2w ago

Nearly 4,000 academic posts in social sciences, humanities and the arts have been axed in one year alone. In the 12 months to December 2024, just under 3,000 social sciences, 820 humanities and 240 arts jobs went. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

How to become mysterious: Go for a walk and don’t post about it.

You lot are getting worked up about a Cabinet Minister for AI but missing some bigger warning signals

Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 3w ago

Our new PM has already lost me www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Trade war update: France & Germany to draw up roadmap on China shock before Oct European Council "Macron, who noted France and Germany had “never been so convergent on China,” blasted what he described as Beijing’s open trade war and increasingly aggressive trade practices."

Three a day. Extraordinary.

(((Tendar)))@tendar.bsky.social · 3w ago

Ukrainian company "Fire Point" is already producing three FP-5 "Flamingo" cruise missiles per day, according to Denis Shtilerman, chief designer at Fire Point. He further mentions that the missile is launched from a truck and has a range of 3,000 km (1,900 miles).

📖 Most read #openaccess article in #BJPIR: 'International relations theory and US–China competition: A theoretical exploration' by Kai He & Huiyun Feng 🔗 buff.ly/sascmKW @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

buff.ly

Never change, Japan.

Kyle Mizokami@kmizokami.bsky.social · 3w ago

mainichi.jp/english/arti... “The company says testing confirmed its deterrent effect, reducing the presence of small animals.”

There's nothing more populist and middle America than -- checks notes -- getting one's son to a golf lesson on a military helicopter. www.ms.now/news/veeps-s...

Vance’s security detail ‘fed up’ with hastily arranged personal and family travel requests

Secret Service sources said the Vance family asks included getting their young son to a golf lesson on a military helicopter.

ms.now

Elon Musk’s cuts to U.S.A.I.D. led to some 700,000 deaths, Atul Gawande says. www.newyorker.com/news/the-new...

The Human Cost of DOGE’s War on U.S.A.I.D.

Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and the “public man-made death” that they’ve caused.

newyorker.com

English parochialism never ceases to disappoint. Manchester is only 260km from London. Drive that far from Brisbane and you only get to Maryborough.

POLITICO Europe@politico.eu · 3w ago

EXCLUSIVE: Andy Burnham is determined to put his Northern English identity and experience at the center of his pitch to lead the U.K. But he is already risking alienating voters in the South, according to a new POLITICO Poll. 🔗 www.politico.eu/article/the-...

Doctorow lays out clearly the way that the AI fantasy, and the premise that AIs are sentient and deserve rights, are desires for a return of slavery in two ways: using precarity to reduce skilled workers to near-slaves, and by marketing AI to bosses hungry to buy slaves.

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)@doctorow.pluralistic.net · 4w ago

While the AI bubble is primarily a *material* phenomenon (driven by the calculation that bosses are easy marks for a sales pitch for replacing workers with apps), there is an inescapable ideological component to it: the desire for a world without people in it: pluralistic.net/2026/05/13/v... 1/

The Clacton by election gets better and better. Or batter? www.thesun.co.uk/news/3970720...

Second comedy candidate Mr Fishfinger joins by-election & vows to 'batter' Nigel

A FRESH candidate has entered the Nigel Farage by-election — calling himself Mr Fishfinger. He vowed to batter the Reform leader and former UKIP boss, branding his shock resignation as Clacton MP a…

thesun.co.uk