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David Merrett

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H-index: 24
Economics 35%
Political science 25%
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Reposted by: David Merrett

schillingc.bsky.social
As an eternal optimist, I'm hoping that Zelda Williams' (rightly) excoriating takedown of AI registers more widely. Likening it to The Human Centipede is a really effective way to evoke disgust
1 5 66

Reposted by: David Merrett

kierongillen.bsky.social
Statistically Backed Stereotypes for Each 40k Faction. Astounding. Motion for Deathwatch to be renamed to Hotwifewatch.

www.reddit.com/r/Grimdank/c...
Text tong to fit - it's a list of subreddit memberships for each of the 40k factions. Here's a sample... r/AdeptusCustodes: gundam (19.71), airforce (19.20), daytrading (16.56), sandersforpresident (9.82), centrist (6.93). Conclusion: Ex-military guys with schizophrenic politics. r/AdeptusMechanicus: pathfinder_rpg (14.05), adhdmeme (7.27), dankleft (6.07), theowlhouse (5.88), kerbalspaceprogram (5.39). Conclusion: Current stereotypes are pretty much correct. r/BloodAngels: preppers (15.98), airforce (15.74), menslib (9.04), asktrp (9.01), asktrumpsupporters (8.45). Conclusion: Black Templars got nothing on these guys.
53 320 1K

by David Merrett

snakeydave.bsky.social
My second purple (v7)! Faffed around at the end from nerves, but otherwise, it all felt fine.
1

Reposted by: David Merrett, Nathan P. Kalmoe

derek.bike
and scene
a tweet by Dana Gould @danagould that says: Thinking about Rush Limbaugh and how, now that he's dead, you never, ever hear about him. No one mentions anything he did. Because what he did had no value. It contributed nothing worthwhile to the culture. Nothing of lasting value. He just made anger. Every day. Rising, blooming & fading like a fart. Then he died & was instantly replaced by a fleet of little replicas, farting fake fury five days a week. Creating nothing of interest or artistic value to anyone. Seriously, what an awful way to make a living.
90 3.3K 9.6K

Reposted by: David Merrett

michaelhobbes.bsky.social
The media is going to learn absolutely nothing from this. The next time Democrats are in power, conservatives are just gonna rebrand "political correctness" to something new and we're gonna do it all over again.
12 120 1.4K

Reposted by: David Merrett, Rosemary A. Joyce

michaelhobbes.bsky.social
We're getting a wave of articles that are like, "gee willikers it sure seems like the people who complained about 'cancel culture' for years really like canceling people."

Yes! This was extremely obvious at the time and a lot of us pointed it out!
washingtonpost.com
The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 6d
Some say canceling is an act of redress. Others blame it on a mob.

“People have used the word ‘cancel’ so loosely,” Ernest Owens author of “The Case for Cancel Culture,” said, “that everyone’s calling everything a cancellation.”
How cancel culture came for everyone
Few issues in recent years have united the American right as much as their professed hatred of cancel culture. That’s changing.
www.washingtonpost.com
51 710 4.6K

by David Merrett

snakeydave.bsky.social
Cool

by David Merrett

snakeydave.bsky.social
Incredible. I'm probably being dense but 'baking!'? Sound effect? Slang? Reference I'm missing?
1 1

Reposted by: David Merrett

michaelhobbes.bsky.social
This piece gets at something that I've been struggling to articulate: We've seen this exact push-pull before. When Republicans were out of power in the 1990s they invented "political correctness" to pretend they were being censored. Then they went right back to censoring once they had power again.
12 390 1.8K

Reposted by: David Merrett

hangedman.bsky.social
I strongly believe in the breadth and influence of independent art, to grant us oblique angles on the world and ourselves.
But also every indie game is somewhere on this spectrum:
A triangular range chart labeled "Indie Game Vibe Check", where the three axes are "Enpoisoned", "Pumpy's Big Clumpy", and "Misty Cube". Each intersection features a game - Lunacid is the most Enpoisoned, Untitled Goose Game is the most Pumpy's Big Clumpy, and Manifold Garden is the most Misty Cube. Undertale is directly in the center, surrounded by Tunic (Pumpy), Void Stranger (Misty), and Star of Providence (Poison)
21 200 530

by David Merrett

snakeydave.bsky.social
Also, it's so dangerous to turn scientific claims into fodder for political debate because it encourages people to view those claims through a partisan lens.
1

by David Merrett

snakeydave.bsky.social
I'm sorry, isn't this hugely irresponsible of LBC? Those claims were made wholly without merit; there's no reason to grant them the veneer of legitimacy by discussing them in this fashion, let alone clipping it like this. This is, functionally, medical misinformation.
lbc.co.uk
LBC @lbc.co.uk · 14d
"We were told thalidomide was a safe drug and it wasn't..."

Nigel Farage says he has 'no idea' if Donald Trump is right about paracetamol being linked to autism.
1 2

Reposted by: David Merrett, Will Jennings, Steve Peers , and 9 more

lbc.co.uk
"We were told thalidomide was a safe drug and it wasn't..."

Nigel Farage says he has 'no idea' if Donald Trump is right about paracetamol being linked to autism.
410 33 62

Reposted by: David Merrett, Tom Griffin, Christina Pagel

jamesrball.com
I hear endlessly (including right now on the radio) that “the new consensus” is that Covid was “almost certainly” caused by a lab leak.

This might be a political “consensus”, led by the same White House that says tylenol caused autism. But it’s not the scientific one.
16 110 420

Reposted by: David Merrett, Jonathan Portes, Helene Rey , and 2 more

stephangeering.bsky.social
Fantastic piece. This graph particularly caught my eye. What is going on here?
FT graph with data on most Important issues facing the country vs facing you personally showing a huge difference for immigration.
15 54 100

Reposted by: David Merrett

michaelhobbes.bsky.social
Lia Thomas met the NCAA requirements for transition when she started competing as a woman. Did the right accept those standards? Or, if they disagreed, argue that they could be more stringent?

No. They said she was a man who was unfairly competing and pretended that there were no standards at all.
16 200 2.1K

Reposted by: David Merrett, Farah Mendlesohn, Nathan P. Kalmoe

michaelhobbes.bsky.social
As usual with this issue, Harris is calling for a compromise that already exists. Every sporting body has standards for how long athletes must be on hormones before they can compete as women.

The problem isn’t that we’re ignoring ‘reasonable concerns,’ the problem is that republicans are lying.
I agree with the concerns expressed by parents and players that we have to take into account biological factors such as muscle mass and unfair student athletic advantage when we determine who plays on which teams, especially in contact sports,, Harris writes. "With goodwill and common sense, I believe we can come up with ways to do this, without vilifying and demonizing children."
130 1.8K 7K

by David Merrett

snakeydave.bsky.social
I use that phrase far too much, lol.
1 1

Reposted by: David Merrett, Will Jennings, Steve Peers , and 3 more

youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com
think if you're broadly a centrist and were suuuuuper concerned about attacks on free speech from the left and so you decided to give the right a hearing then you need to realise you were taken for QUITE the ride (and don't really have anyone to blame but yourself)
48 390 2.1K

Reposted by: David Merrett, Anna O. Law, Joe R. Feagin , and 5 more

ezrakleinbot.bsky.social
"All I can say for me in the work I do is that I want to create a space that takes our disagreements seriously, that takes the stakes of them seriously, the consequences for people seriously, but does so without deepening our divisions irreparably. We are going to have to live here with each other"
1.1K 10 150

Reposted by: David Merrett, Steve Peers

ezrakleinbot.bsky.social
"I had friends say to me, look, we can oppose political violence without whitewashing this guy. I spent some time thinking about that over the weekend...and my reaction honestly is that it is too little to just say we oppose political violence."
1K 62 320

by Colin Murray — Reposted by: David Merrett, Steve Peers, Margot C. Finn , and 1 more

colinmurray.bsky.social
After the rivers of blood speech, precisely no one in the major parties patted themselves on the back and declared free speech to be alive and well. They declared Powell a pariah, and he was only able to re-emerge in public life as the incongruous unionist MP for South Down.
theguardian.com
The Guardian @theguardian.com · 24d
Scale of ‘Unite the Kingdom’ march shows free speech ‘alive and well’ in UK, says minister – UK politics live
Scale of ‘Unite the Kingdom’ march shows free speech ‘alive and well’ in UK, says minister – UK politics live
Peter Kyle said he was not ‘disturbed’ by huge Tommy Robinson-organised far-right protest but condemns violence against the police
www.theguardian.com
19 150 350

Reposted by: David Merrett, David R. Miller

nicholasgrossman.bsky.social
Do any of the “Charlie Kirk did politics the right way” crowd have the courage to directly defend lying about election results, bussing people to Jan. 6, and advocating pardons of convicted seditionists? Does US politics need more lying, coup attempts and violence?

Or do they always keep it vague?
danancona.bsky.social
Dan Ancona @danancona.bsky.social · 25d
Ezra Klein and @theargumentmag.bsky.social people are in the same very lucrative business that Charlie Kirk was in: serving increasingly elaborate comforting narratives to people and groups in power. Status threat shapes everything in our political culture.
29 150 790

by Patrick Dunleavy — Reposted by: David Merrett, Patrick Dunleavy

patrickdunleavy.bsky.social
James Chapman
“Reform featuring in a quarter of all BBC News at Ten bulletins - far more than the Lib Dems, who have 18 times as many MPs, and far too often policy is unscrutinised, according to an authoritative new study. Something’s gone badly wrong at the BBC” www.theguardian.com/media/2025/s...
BBC under fresh pressure over extent of Reform UK coverage
Nigel Farage’s party featured in considerably more News at Ten bulletins than Lib Dems over six months, study finds
www.theguardian.com
28 240 530

by David Merrett

snakeydave.bsky.social
I grabbed it from a big Tesco before going to a friend's, thinking: "cool, Ghibli, we liked spirited away, something to watch tonight." Cut to us around midnight, lips quivering during the credits.
3

Reposted by: David Merrett

unburntwitch.com
There’s a lot of garden variety white supremacists out there, not every one of them funnels money to hate groups and pays Kyle rittenhouse a speaker’s fee or gets caught coordinating with the GOP to give them college students’ personal info or starts “professor watchlists” or
5 100 790

Reposted by: David Merrett, Shannon Vallor, Brendan Nyhan , and 3 more

ryanlcooper.com
TIL that for some people with irreparably damaged corneas, you can pull one of their teeth, drill a hole in it, install an artificial lens, sew it into their cheek (so tissue attaches), then pull it out and stick it in their damaged eye, and ... it works fine!?! www.nbcboston.com/news/health/...
Man, 34, is no longer blind after tooth is implanted in eye in 'crazy' surgery
Tooth-in-eye surgery sounds like science fiction, but it can help people with severely damaged corneas see again. A patient and his doctors describe what it's like.
www.nbcboston.com
180 730 2.8K

by David Merrett

snakeydave.bsky.social
Yuck, fuck this.
View from the passenger seat of a car: England flags tied to lamp posts.
1

Reposted by: David Merrett, Aurélien Mondon

michaelhobbes.bsky.social
I don't like doing this. It feels fucked up to constantly point out the negative dimensions of someone who just died in a horrific, worrying way. But I would like the media to tell basic truths about this person and his impact on public life rather than resorting to euphemism and outright lies!
29 290 2.6K

Reposted by: David Merrett, Shawn Cole, David R. Miller

judah-grunstein.bsky.social
One thing the media's reticence to label Kirk an extremist has made jarringly clear is how scared they are of the people in power now who share his extremist beliefs.

In the space of nine months, they have internalized a fear of condemning racism, misogyny, homophobia and antisemiticism.
60 900 3.9K

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