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cmrlj.bsky.social
The Humble Bumblebee
@cmrlj.bsky.social
370 followers 850 following 2.7K posts
Sometimes expressing opinions, but mostly learning from other people's wisdom.
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cmrlj.bsky.social
Of course it’s better to have an open, competitive market. But, in this case, this is not on the menu if American software giants are involved.

This is critical infrastructure. The US government has already shown willingness to wield it as a weapon when they asked the providers to withdraw
garvanwalshe.org Garvan Walshe @garvanwalshe.org · 1d
This is a very French but in my view mistaken policy for Europe to follow.

There are two reasons - first to do with picking winners, the second to do with the nature of information technology 🧵
gesineweber.bsky.social Gesine Weber @gesineweber.bsky.social · 1d
An example other European states should follow. It’s not only about risk management but about promoting European champions. If governments don’t set the example, who should?

You can do the same, there are many European alternatives - link in comments.

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/29/w...
February 1, 2026 at 4:31 PM
Reposted by The Humble Bumblebee
kvsullivan.com
So not so much that AI is taking jobs but companies are laying folks off to pay for AI in the hope it takes folks jobs.
January 31, 2026 at 2:24 PM
Reposted by The Humble Bumblebee
alecmuffett.bsky.social
“The UK war on VPNs is an embarrassment” | Jimmy Wales
https://alecmuffett.com/article/143312
#AgeVerification #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #vpns
“The UK war on VPNs is an embarrassment” | Jimmy Wales
Quote: The UK war on VPNs is an embarassment.  For child safety, we should be teaching children about Internet safety – including why you should use a VPN to protect your privacy, block …
alecmuffett.com
January 27, 2026 at 8:05 AM
Reposted by The Humble Bumblebee
sleeplesscrone.bsky.social
I appreciate those out there protesting at great risk to their lives however i think the nation needs to grind this economy to a dead stop.
It's something everyone can do safely. No spending on ANYTHING but absolute necessities.
I understand some shut ins can not do this but very many of us can.
January 25, 2026 at 3:28 PM
Reposted by The Humble Bumblebee
coreyoneill.bsky.social
January 24, 2026 at 10:30 PM
cmrlj.bsky.social
They are spying more now that the Chinese did, but it's the mates of the greatest President of all times, all the best, most wonderful people, so I'm sure it's all for the best. They must be making a sacrifice for our own benefit, we just can't see it yet, but we should definitely trust them! 🤪
January 25, 2026 at 12:03 AM
cmrlj.bsky.social
I wish we could have a bit of this…
January 21, 2026 at 12:37 PM
Reposted by The Humble Bumblebee
davidallengreen.bsky.social
NEW

The new ICE Age

Me at @prospectmagazine.co.uk on the implications of the transition to lawlessness as general policy

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...
American superhero comics often have masked individuals acting outside the law, and readers are meant to see this somehow as a public good. The premise is that such disguised vigilantism allows people to actively benefit their community. In reality, of course, those refusing both to reveal their identity and to comply with the law will tend to be doing bad things. And in the United States the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) is doing bad things at scale, hiding behind masks and violating the rights of citizens—regardless of their immigration status. In essence: ICE is freely kidnapping, beating up and killing people. That ICE is doing this is not an accident. It is deliberate public policy, with considerable public resources behind it. ICE agents have absolute political protection. Vice President JD Vance said that they have “absolute immunity”—even though legal scholars say that is not true as a matter of law.
January 19, 2026 at 12:05 PM
Reposted by The Humble Bumblebee
jamesrball.com
“Finally a government has come along that is doing everything they warned about – undermining the constitution, deploying the military, sending plain-clothed goons to disappear its enemies, and more. Donald Trump has vindicated the preppers. The strange thing is, none of them seem to have noticed.”
The tough guys who learned to love tyranny
For decades, US survivalists have warned about a future with troops on the street and plain-clothes goons disappearing the White House’s enemies. Now it’s all happening under Trump, they are silent
www.thenewworld.co.uk
January 12, 2026 at 11:03 PM
Reposted by The Humble Bumblebee
thierryaaron.bsky.social
12/ The claim that environmental scientists sold only “hair-shirt misery” is a classic climate-delay straw man

As @wflamb.bsky.social et al show cambridge.org/core/journal...

For 20+ years, #climate bodies have emphasised co-benefits: health, clean air, energy security, resilience, jobs, wellbeing
January 13, 2026 at 8:58 AM
Reposted by The Humble Bumblebee
onestpress.onestnetwork.com
This is a MUST WATCH - you won't regret it.

youtu.be/_FKcP8j010o
Former #Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura comments on the Minneapolis killing
YouTube video by Onest.
youtu.be
January 9, 2026 at 1:00 AM
Reposted by The Humble Bumblebee
kjephd.bsky.social
It's worth taking a moment to think about how, in an era of democratic recession & the growth of autocratic & oligarchic governance, many apologists for these developments invoke elitist justificatory discourses of 'meritocracy' & aristocracy—while the rulers they've empowered are dogshit stupid
January 5, 2026 at 3:37 PM
Reposted by The Humble Bumblebee
sturdyalex.bsky.social
I am not an expert is international diplomacy, by any stretch, but the current argument sweeping Bsky, that "the UK gov't must demonstrate it recognises just how aggressive, dangerous, and unpredictable Trump's US has become, by poking Trump publicly in the eye" is not entirely rational.
January 5, 2026 at 10:48 AM
Reposted by The Humble Bumblebee
antongerashchenko.bsky.social
Kyiv did not sleep once again last night. On the last weekend of the year, the capital should have smelled of mulled wine, cinnamon, chocolate and joy.

Instead, our city was filled with smoke, gunpowder, explosions, screams, and curses.

The Russian attack lasted twelve hours.
December 27, 2025 at 11:38 AM
Reposted by The Humble Bumblebee
youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com
will also add - yes, this is my personal crusade - that turning podcasts into videos implicitly asks women to once again make more effort than men, as the bar for "camera-ready" for one gender is obviously higher than for the other
December 27, 2025 at 10:20 AM
cmrlj.bsky.social
Don't ruin a good thing! I have already started unsubscribing from podcasts that increasingly show videos as part of their thing. I want to listen while I'm walking and doing other things. If I wanted to sit and watch, there is plenty of good content that is properly produced and intended for video!
December 27, 2025 at 10:37 AM
Reposted by The Humble Bumblebee
natashadevon.bsky.social
Last Substack of the year (probably). Wrote about how - without wishing to sound like Badenoch/a Times columnist and diminish VAWG perpetrated by British men and boys - the kids are (mostly) alright - tashthinks.substack.com/p/the-kids-a...
The Kids Are Alright....
...Mostly
tashthinks.substack.com
December 22, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Reposted by The Humble Bumblebee
dieworkwear.bsky.social
Don't need to imagine, Sinatra had something to say about multicultural liberal democracies 🧵
Stephen Miller writes on Twitter: "Watched the Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra Family Christmas with my kids. Imagine watching that and thinking America needed infinity migrants from the third world."
December 26, 2025 at 8:53 PM
cmrlj.bsky.social
Perfection!
emilynussbaum.bsky.social Emily Nussbaum @emilynussbaum.bsky.social · Dec 16
Virginia Heffernan wrote this shortly after the 2016 election and it still holds true
THIS is what makes my head spin: The president is not a moral figure in any idiom, any land, any culture, any subculture. I'm not talking about the liberal enlightenment that would make him want the country to take care of the poor and sick. I mean he has no Republican values either. He has no honor among thieves, no cosa nostra loyalty, no Southern code against cheating or lying, none of the openness of New York, rectitude of Boston, expressiveness and kindness of California, no evangelical family values, no Protestant work ethic. No Catholic moral seriousness, no sense of contrition or gratitude. No Jewish moral and intellectual precision, sense of history. He doesn't care about the life of the mind OR the life of the senses. He is not mandarin, not committed to inquiry or justice, not hospitable. He is not proper. He is not a bon vivant who loves to eat, drink, laugh. There's nothing he would die for - not American values, obviously, but not the land of Russia or his wife or young son. He has some hollow success creeds from Norman Vincent Peale, but Peale was obsessed with fair-dealing and a Presbyterian pastor; Trump has no fairness or piety. He's not sentimental; no affection for dogs or babies. No love for mothers, "the common man"" veterans. He has no sense of military valor, and is openly a coward about war. He would have sorely lacked the pagan beauty and capacity to fight required in ancient Greece. He doesn't care about his wife or wives; he is a philanderer but he's not a romantic hero with great love for women and sex. He commands loyalty and labor from his children not because he loves them, even; he seems almost to hate them — and if one of them slipped it would be terrifying. He does no philanthropy. He doesn't - in a more secular key - even seem to have a sense of his enlightened self-interest enough to shake Angela Merkel's hand. Doesn't even affect a love for the arts, like most rich New Yorkers. He doesn't live and die by aesthetics and health practices like some fascists; he's very ugly and barely mammalian. Am I missing an obscure moral system to which he so much as nods? Also are there other people, living or dead, like him?
December 16, 2025 at 12:07 PM
Reposted by The Humble Bumblebee
jerryedwards.bsky.social
I don't know, Aaron. I think we need to take this seriously. In fact, after surveying hundreds of years of history in the past few days, I've written an article assessing the originalist case here:
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
December 16, 2025 at 3:58 AM
Reposted by The Humble Bumblebee
alexselbyb.bsky.social
Happy birthday to Jane Austen, and to this very on-brand Economist chart
www.economist.com/christmas-sp...
Chart from The Economist showing the annual income in 1798 of various professions and of Jane Austen characters
December 14, 2025 at 12:48 PM
Reposted by The Humble Bumblebee
stevecooke.org
Our entire way of life: democracy, equality, rule of law, & freedom, are threatened by the far-right & a torrent of racism. Yet all our government does is focus groups & triangulation. A left-wing government with a huge majority ought to be a bulwark, they’re barely even trying. I’m furious.
December 14, 2025 at 11:14 PM
cmrlj.bsky.social
Turns out that Farage has the level of dedication to infra-party democracy that his great hero Putin could heartily approve of!

Also a great statement of confidence that the membership wouldn’t want to replace him at some point, when the grift is up! 😂
rentouljohn.bsky.social John Rentoul @rentouljohn.bsky.social · Dec 14
The leader can be challenged only if 50% of members, or when there are more than 100 MPs, 50% of MPs, request a vote of the board 3/9
December 14, 2025 at 10:45 AM
Reposted by The Humble Bumblebee
robinince.bsky.social
Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.
This is the saddest day of my professional life. Today is not only the final recording of the latest series of The Infinite Monkey Cage, it is my last ever Monkey Cage. I never thought that I would have to leave the show. I always imagined going on until | dropped dead under the studio lights due to a brain aneurysm caused by my final attempt to understand notions of quantum gravity or the shock of being told about fly maggot infestations in the sacks of macaque monkeys. I resigned in September, after sixteen years of dedication to the show, A show that I named and helped develop over all those years. Unfortunately, my opinions outside the BBC have been considered problematic for sometime, whether it has been voicing support for the trans community, criticism of Donald Trump, numerous other outlandish opinions, including once gently criticising Stephen Fry. These things were considered to conflict with being a freelance BBC science presenter In a recent meeting where BBC Studio executives again voiced problems with me, I realised my choices. Obedience and being quieter to remain making Monkey Cage, or 'Resign and have the freedom to speak out against what I believe are injustices'. • I chose the latter. It broke my heart. I love this show and I love the audience, and it is because of the audience in particular, that this decision was so difficult to make. I kept thinking about all the extremist voices promoting hate and division. They are being given so many platforms, while voices that represent kindness, open mindedness, empathy seem to be scarcer and scarcer. I felt I couldn't pamper myself with the luxury of silence. One of my many privileges is that I am able to resign and I can speak out even if it is to the detriment of my career. I have thought a lot about my heroes, Sinead O Connor, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and so many more. I think of Sinead's words, "the job of an artist is to be themselves at any cost". James Baldwin said prejudice was really just a word for cowardice. Audre Lorde, viewing her life, wrote that her only regrets were her silences. I think of my father as I resign, he brought me up to believe in fairness , justice and kindness. Though my heart is broken, it is also full of fire. I apologise to our incredible listeners for my departure, your love of the show means a great deal. I am so sorry to let you down. I hope that you can understand my reasoning. I have to accept that I am not what the current BBC expects of their freelance presenters. Despite this I should add that I have always worked far more than my contracted hours to try and ensure the show was always the best it could be, as well as making myself accessible and responsive to the audience wherever and whenever I met them. Every night, we have recorded, I have been filled with determination to make the best show possible. This was not "just a job" I hope that with my departure I can be a better ally to the LGBTQ community, to the neurodivergent community, to activists fighting against those who aim to brutalise society, to those currently in prison on hunger strike, and to all those who fight for a more inclusive world. From many conversations, I know there are many Monkey Cage listeners who support these communities and activists too. The strawberry is dead. Long live the strawberry. B
December 13, 2025 at 12:02 AM