We might well not need them! I reckon we’d still have them though: as long as there’s private property at all people will still make gifts to associations they want to support. But societies as rich as the west should be able to provide basic needs for all without depending on private whim.

These “private foundations” are a rort and a blight. Their rich “donors” get an immediate tax deduction, but keep control of the money until it goes to actual charities.

They also help explain why real charities have to spend so much of their time applying to a million different grant-providers.

Screenshot borrowed from @flyingrodent.bsky.social

We could call it The East Wing

It’s a bus! It can take passengers from anywhere, why make them walk past half a dozen widebodies first?

GVA might not be the worst airport in the world, but it’s arguably the stupidest.

Surprisingly large choice for the capital of a country that doesn’t appear on world maps.

She is here stating her opposition to the radical “after we stop digging up fossil fuels and burning them, we go into the ground and fight them where they live” types.

Where'd my alt text go? Anyway "hallucinant" doesn't literally mean hallucinatory—that would be "hallucinatoire"—but there are definitely other French words for "impressive" they could have chosen.

Those nasty Mercians, coming over here… :-)

(Also with free borders your own criminals can leave! Really, there is no sense in which immigration control is crime control.)

It’s Merz, so obviously some of it is going on tax cuts. But frankly even that is better than mindless fiscal tightness.