Tony
@tonynicol3.bsky.social
1.5K followers 720 following 6.6K posts
Retired Water Industry Systems Engineer, no longer torturing wood on a lathe or mounting expeditions into the garden wilderness. Soup Dragon, First Class. Political donations are Bribes! Please don't send me crisis appeals, I support via UNICEF
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Reposted by Tony
mistyswoman.bsky.social
Douglas Adams: "It is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it".
bremaininspain.com
No surprise from the man who sold his country down the river just to become PM - a corrupt, useless, self serving lying one at that

Johnson secretly lobbied the UAE for a billion-dollar private venture, amid plans to use an influential contact & senior contacts in the Saudi gov he met as PM
Boris Johnson breached rules designed to stop abuse of contacts made in public office, watchdog finds
Johnson found to have breached rules after refusing to answer specific questions about allegations published by the Guardian
www.theguardian.com
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realcaptainhaddock.bsky.social
Thiel saying the quiet bit out loud
ebharrington.bsky.social
What Thiel is saying about tax havens = what Altman is saying about copyright:

"I can't be rich unless you let me steal from you."

This is how Broligarchs differ from oligarchs of yore: the latter tried to hide their thievery; the Broligarchs trumpet their entitlement to steal as a natural right.
tonynicol3.bsky.social
Very promising, here's a non-paywalled version.

archive.li/VTgER
archive.li
tonynicol3.bsky.social
Very concerning that successive UKGovs have been falling over themselves to get close to someone who is seemingly deeply invested in fantastical mythological nonsense. This is not rational.
localnotail.bsky.social
Peter Thiel has recently hosted 4 lectures about who the antichrist could be + warning that Armageddon is coming. He says the harbinger of the end of the world could already be in our midst + things such as international agencies, environmentalism and guardrails on technology could quicken its rise
Inside tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s off-the-record lectures about the antichrist
The political svengali and investor has been giving lectures on ‘an evil king or tyrant … who appears in the end times’
www.theguardian.com
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danneidle.bsky.social
Every developed country in the world has an "exit tax" - you leave with unrealised capital gains, and you're taxed on them.

Except the UK and Italy:
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zackpolanski.bsky.social
Ever since I finished Question Time, Reform have massively been on the attack.

Including a rant from Richard Tice entirely designed to distract from Reform and Russia.

Everyone should know about Nathan Gill, the bribes from Russia and the link to Reform.
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kaycrosby.bsky.social
As I understand it, the ‘brains develop until they’re 25’ factoid simply means brains continue developing indefinitely, and 25 was the end point of the studies only because it was an age that everyone understood was well into adulthood. We need fewer credulous idiots giving credence to bigots.
clairestranstalks.bsky.social
Part 2 of the Gender Clinic Files is out, looking at the impact if Cass recommendations for adult services were introduced, affecting more than 32k young trans adults just from the current waiting list.

Huge thanks to @wearequeeraf.com & @whatthetrans.com for their work on this series.
Majority of adults waiting for Trans+ healthcare are under 25
Two-thirds of Trans+ people would lose care if all Cass Review recommendations implemented
www.wearequeeraf.com
tonynicol3.bsky.social
He should know, he must have been one himself. 🤷‍♂️
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scientits.bsky.social
It is insane they basically removed every eligible medical condition unless you're immunocompromised

This is based on expert scientific advice, which was provided to the Govt last year and accepted

Covid is now a mild illness for most (apparently)
jasonhazeley.bsky.social
It’s dispiriting that this is what getting a COVID vaccination now looks like to this chronic asthmatic.
tonynicol3.bsky.social
It is! The expert evidence presumably comes from the same flawed SAGE group that got so much wrong during the initial waves. Every Covid infection, no matter how mild, also damages other organs in the body, sooner or later bringing chronic and possibly disabling illness. Wtf!
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jdportes.bsky.social
This from Andy Haldane gets some basic stuff wrong, notably this:

"A £30bn will need to be filled in this year’s Budget,e ven though a stalled economy needs a 1% of GDP fiscal tightening like a hole in the head."

Just wrong. Not how the fiscal framework works at all.

www.ft.com/content/1c4d...
The UK’s failing fiscal framework is a Brexit tribute act
The path and peak of policy uncertainty over the past year eerily mimics sentiment at the time of the 2016 referendum
www.ft.com
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nialloconghaile.bsky.social
More Farage Brexit success.

Jaysus.

davidheniguk.bsky.social
Between 2019 and 2024 in real terms EU exports grew by 11%.

UK exports also grew. By 0.89%.

That's the total. Goods exports were lower in real terms in 2024 than in 2014.
centreeuropeanref.bsky.social
@antonspisak.bsky.social of the @centreeuropeanref.bsky.social, a think-tank, observes that, after Brexit took effect at the end of 2020, Britain’s goods exports have grown less than those of any other economy in the G7 club of rich countries.
tonynicol3.bsky.social
Obviously, the BBC is being used as a right wing mouthpiece. It is supposed to be politically neutral. Why isn't something being done?

Should we conclude that the Beeb is also reflecting the current government's views?
danielsohege.bsky.social
"Surge"? Oh sort yourself out BBC.
A frankly tiny number of people, in the grand scheme of things, with every right to do so coming to UK is hardly a "surge", but such language automatically frames them as a negative and is guaranteed to be used to stoke more division.
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Surge in Chagos arrivals prompts row over housing costs
tonynicol3.bsky.social
Our only visit was a stopover, but I completely agree. Horrible place.
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curlewaction.bsky.social
Today (date), the Slender-billed Curlew was declared extinct. The first bird extinction on mainland Europe in 500 years — on our watch. Extinction is final. No going back. Think about that.
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rostaylor.bsky.social
I still find it hard to believe that a party which has dominated British politics for centuries is dying. And the most extraordinary thing is that one charlatan, who has never held significant power nor any kind of vision, is destroying it.
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autofac.bsky.social
To be clear: corporations are *agents* - they have agency to act in the world, over and above the agency of their constituent human components. But they are not sentient, and have no *moral* agency beyond what is built in by design. In the case of for-profit corps it is actively *omitted* by design.
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edzitron.com
Premium: The AI Bubble's promises are impossible. NVIDIA's customers are running out of money, GPUs die in 3-5 years, most 1GW data centers will never get built, and OpenAI's Abilene data center doesn't won't have the power it needs before 2028 - if it ever does.
www.wheresyoured.at/the-ai-bubbl...
The AI Bubble's Impossible Promises
Readers: I’ve done a very generous “free” portion of this newsletter, but I do recommend paying for premium to get the in-depth analysis underpinning the intro. That being said, I want as many people ...
www.wheresyoured.at