The spectre of ‘remigration’ is haunting Europe. Slovenia in 1992 gives us a blueprint for this state terror. In February that year, the Slovenian government officially deleted 25,000 citizens, turning them overnight into illegal immigrants www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The spectre of ‘remigration’ is haunting Europe. Slovenia in 1992 gives us a blueprint for this state terror | Miha Mazzini

In February that year, the Slovenian government officially deleted 25,000 citizens, turning them overnight into illegal immigrants, says writer and film-maker Miha Mazzini

theguardian.com

I appreciate that Dolly Parton refused to participate in "dress respectability" and, by her own account, modeled her aesthetic after a town "tramp," who she thought was beautiful. She separated aesthetics from character and understood "classiness" to be about how you treat people, not how you dress.

I think about this a lot.

Patrons and Substack subscribers can now read this script written from a place a deep rage about the way Burnham is being treated by the media and segments of the left. Manchesterism will not save us! www.patreon.com/johnthedunca...

Manchesterism: A Neoliberal Death Machine | JohntheDuncan

The UK has a new Prime Minister, and he’s just so gosh darn normal and relatable! You know he has a favourite greggs isn’t that cute!? But w

patreon.com

youtu.be/3ueru3eELi4?... yes

Canto de Ossanha - Baden Powel e Vinícius de Moraes

YouTube video by Túlio Villaça

youtu.be

So. LLMs do syntax [arranging words in order] but don't do semantics [mapping between words and real-world things] or pragmatics [communicative intent]. To grossly oversimplify, this is broadly the same language problems you see with autism.

Arguing that LLMs are anything more than a load of numbers going into a complicated mathematical function and spitting some more numbers out. Yes they simulate. But they simulate *language*. They do not simulate the cognitive processes underlying communication.

George Floyd was murdered, millions of people concluded that something was fundamentally wrong with American policing, and six years later a prominent figure who once spoke to that anger can casually describe the politics that emerged from it as “Woke 1 was crazy.” That IS anti-blackness to me.

You could not in your wildest dreams come up with a better metaphor than Harry Potter fans forcing the desecration of real remains to spare fictional ones

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 2mo ago

Harry Potter fans force relocation of £430m undersea cable to avoid Dobby’s ‘grave’

youtu.be/1A_8uCoNOHo?... yes

Stetsasonic - Freedom or Death

YouTube video by Tommy Boy

youtu.be

Want a book about the end of the southern British Iron Age, the Roman invasion and the greatest king of this island has ever had? If only such a thing existed...🤔 www.bloomsbury.com/uk/caratacus... @bloomsburyacademic.bsky.social January 2027 #Archaeology #AncientBlueSky 🏺

Were I an incredibly rich author I would simply live my life in a way that meant I did not have to send legal threats to Amnesty International.

As a middle-class southerner I can honestly say that I find his mild northern accent very refreshing and, I daresay, down to earth.

Little known fact: Noel Gallagher's a big fan of rapists and wants them to sing Wonderwall.

A values system that views Pete Buttigieg’s time at McKinsey as disqualifying, but Graham Platner’s time at Blackwater as not, has beclowned itself regardless of the subsequent scandals.

My new video where i solve the fascism question will be up tonight at 18:00! I'm very pleased with it so don't make it flop!!!!

John Duncan@johntheduncan.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Manx Mounds of the Viking Age www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8sP...

Manx Mounds of the Viking Age

YouTube video by Archaeodeath

youtube.com

Absolutely baffling that fewer and fewer young people from around the world want to travel long distances and part with huge sums of cash to study in a defunded and decimated HE system whilst living in a hostile and xenophobic environment. One of life’s great mysteries.

Times Higher Education (THE)@timeshighered.bsky.social · 3mo ago

A drop in the number of international students coming to the UK cost the country nearly £3 billion, according to new estimates https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/fall-international-student-numbers-cost-uk-ps29-billion

Glad more people are taking a look at divinity departments. Cambridge is obviously the most heinous, and this has been pretty flagrant for some time.

Josiah Mortimer@josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 3mo ago

A six-month investigation by Byline Times reveals that with the support of Palantir's Peter Thiel, Reform's policy chief James Orr has used the University of Cambridge as a student recruitment ground for a hard-right, theocratic political project aimed at bolstering talent in Farage’s party

It has been criminally underreported but Kelsey Pfendler has just rowed solo across the Pacific Ocean from the US coast to Hawaii in record time. A 2,400-mile unsupported journey in 43 days, 17 hours, and 55 minutes. Notably beating the Men’s record by 9 whole days.

#OtD 8 Jul 1763 General Jeffery Amherst, commander of British forces in North America, wrote to one of his colonels asking: "Could it not be contrived to send the small pox among the disaffected tribes of Indians? We must [...] reduce them". Learn more: shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/...

Wrote about the elections for the paper (which went to press last night): www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

This is actually quite brilliant, up to and including the final sentence 🔥

*irony meter goes boom*

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 5mo ago

Stop plotting to oust Keir Starmer, ex-deputy Labour leader urges MPs

A 2,000-year-old papyrus fragment, discovered in the archives of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology in Cairo, reveals 30 previously unpublished verses by Empedocles, a pre-Socratic philosopher of the 5th century BC.

30 Unpublished Poems From Iconic Greek Philosopher Discovered in Cairo

For over two millennia, the philosopher’s poetic work had largely been alluded to in the writings of others.

gizmodo.com

You have more in common with the people of Iran than you do with anyone in this administration, any member of the technocracy, anyone who is profiting from this war, or any billionaire. When you see Iranians forming human chains outside key infrastructure sites, you should feel a sense of kinship.

The US' siege warfare against Cuba

John Duncan@johntheduncan.bsky.social · 6mo ago

NEW VIDEO! In this one I look at how the big militeristic swings of the US empire might only hasten its end particularly in the context of a "green" transition youtu.be/GG4vLb0gep0?...

This is my favorite climate change chart. Japanese monks, aristocrats, and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years and accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset.