Andrew Kerr
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andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Andrew Kerr
@andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
660 followers 2.4K following 900 posts
Social liberal, software engineer. #UBI #LVT. May also post about defence and armed conflict. He/him.
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andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
The current Palace of Westminster was built 1830-1876 after its predecessor burned down.

So which tradition is being kept: the current building, or having to build a replacement after the standing Palace of Westminster burns down?
Successive governments have put off a decision on renovating parliament amid fears of a public backlash over the enormous cost. It was estimated at between £7 billion and £13 billion in 2022, but has since risen. The costs of ad hoc maintenance and repairs to keep the palace safe have been rising. Fresh figures obtained by POLITICO show it now stands at £1.56 million a week, or £81.1 million a year, up from £1.45 million a week in 2023.
November 15, 2025 at 7:21 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
www.goodreads.com/quotes/77078...
“But what if someone kills somebody else?" Gurgeh shrugged. "They're slap-droned." "Ah! This sounds more like it. What does that drone do?" "Follows you around and makes sure you never do it again." "Is that all?" "What more do you want? Social death, Hamin; you don't get invited to too many parties." "Ah; but in your Culture, can't you gatecrash?" "I suppose so," Gurgeh conceded. "But nobody'd talk to you.” ― Iain M. Banks, The Player of Games
November 11, 2025 at 11:43 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
By contrast, this is the Oxford (internal) style guide:

www.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/...
Quotation marks • place punctuation before the closing quotation mark if the quote would have required punctuation in its original form; place it after the closing quotation mark if the quote would not require punctuation: ‘Bob,’ I asked, ‘do you like cheese?’ OR ‘Bob, do you like cheese?’ I asked. OR ‘Does Bob’, I asked, ‘like cheese?’ • use single quotation marks for quotations/direct speech/titles and double quotation marks for quotations/direct speech/titles within that: ‘I haven’t got round to reading “Thomas the Tank Engine” yet,’ I said.
November 2, 2025 at 7:03 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Meh.
A roadsign giving directions to the town of Dildo, Newfoundland, Canada.
October 30, 2025 at 7:50 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Relevant from Yougov

Starmer is as under water in approval as any recent PM, but he still beats Farage and Badenoch in "best PM" polls.

He's level with Davey, who's roughly even on approval.

I think a lot of people are dissatisfied without actively hating Starmer.

yougov.co.uk/politics/art...
Who do Britons think would make the best prime minister? Yougov August 2025 Head to head: Starmer 35, Farage 28 Starmer 30, Badenoch 20 Starmer 20, Davey 20
October 28, 2025 at 9:33 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Miller here begins to claim that the President has "plenary authority" in the context of deploying the National Guard onto American streets before clamming up mid sentence.
plenary authority Plenary authority is power that is wide-ranging, broadly construed, and often limitless for all practical purposes. When used with respect to public officials, the more popular term is plenary power. Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/plenary_authority
October 9, 2025 at 7:31 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Automated analysis of:
text using large language model
graphs (follows, interactions)

I'm sure Palantir could cook something up.

With this sort of population monitoring I particularly worry about the medical test paradox:

davidbieber.com/snippets/202...
Suppose 1 in 10000 people have a certain disease, and there is a medical test that is 99% accurate. This means that if you do have the disease, the test comes back positive with 99% probability, and if you do not have the disease, the test comes back negative with 99% probability. It is wrong 1% of the time. If your test result comes back positive, what’s the probability that you have the disease? Probability you have the disease given the test comes back positive is 1% by application of Bayes theorem. Maths rendered by MathJax, which claims to work with screen readers, so follow the link to the full article I guess.
October 4, 2025 at 9:13 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Can't say I've ever rated Ganesh, but this is a decent piece (except for the HS2 comment), and I respect him for admitting to changing his mind.
Second, even Europe must only appease Trump as a bridging tactic to a more self-reliant future. To defend itself in the 2030s, the continent will need not just cash but quicker, less consensual decision-making, perhaps outside EU structures, given the military clout of Britain (which is not a member) and the less pronounced fear of Russia in Spain and Italy (which are). The submission to Trump is only worthwhile if all this reform happens in parallel. The danger is that short-term trade concessions prove so fruitful — Trump said encouraging things about Ukraine on Tuesday — that it settles into permanent statecraft.
September 25, 2025 at 8:33 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Good grief, is this idea still going?

Some autistic people have restricted diets. This causes changes to gut microbiome.

Anyone who hasn't considered that shows their ignorance; anyone who hasn't involved the autistic community enough to know shows their prejudice.

xcancel.com/Autism/statu...
September 23, 2025 at 3:47 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Mikhail Kalashnikov's reputed response was "you must have very clever soldiers".

pic from forgotten weapons
Mikhail Kalashnikov, aged, gray, wearing camo, ear protectors, glasses wielding an SA80 rested on a sandbag. https://www.facebook.com/ForgottenWeapons/photos/mikhail-kalashnikov-with-an-l85a1-reportedly-his-comment-was-you-must-have-very-/1386667411395698/?_rdr
September 19, 2025 at 12:50 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
up right down down down is a Helldivers 2 reference.

Took me about 10 seconds of Googling to find it.

What FBI doing?
up right down down down, in a speech bubble of an armoured character, flexing and feeling their bicep. A super earth broadcast.
September 12, 2025 at 6:09 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Someone else has had the Konami code, but I first thought of the Mortal Kombat cheat so I'm having it.
On the main menu, press down up left left A right down (DULLARD) to acces cheat mode.
September 12, 2025 at 6:01 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
It is widely held on parts of the left that racism and fascism is caused by poverty, and that reducing poverty will defeat fascism.

We should reduce poverty, but I am skeptical that doing so will defeat the fash.

Study of Jan 6th insurrectionists:

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Overall, our findings suggest that white population decline is more important than manufacturing decline as a predictor of violent populism and that counties that voted for Trump were less likely to fight for Trump. Our findings should give us pause in presuming that economic solutions to electoral populism will axiomatically ameliorate violent populism. Although economic factors do play a role, social factors are stronger, which suggests the crucial need to confront the fear among certain whites about becoming a minority and their associated status anxiety.
September 11, 2025 at 5:21 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Greg Bagwell, former Air Marshall of the RAF, proposed a no fly zone over western Ukraine. This is from 2024:

www.forcesnews.com/ukraine/nato...
"If you actually look at the threat scenario, we've put no-fly zones over countries, over the top of their surface-to-air systems, daring them not to fire at us – whether that be Iraq or Libya," he said. "So we have created no-fly zones over the top of a hostile country for years. "We're not talking about that in this scenario. We're talking about putting a no-fly zone, or call it what you will, an engagement zone, over the western half of a friendly country where there aren't Russian aircraft.
September 10, 2025 at 3:20 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Sean Bell, former Air Vice Marshall of the RAF, opines today that now is the time to put a no-fly zone in place.

He doesn't specify what assets would be doing that.

metro.co.uk/2025/09/10/r...
What you should do is immediately shoot them down and immediately take some kind of retaliatory action because otherwise it compromises the safety of your citizens, that should be the No1 priority for any government. The West is providing enough aid to stop Ukraine losing, but not enough to help it win. With America getting more unreliable, the West has got some harsh choices to make; either it lets Ukraine slowly lose or it ramps up its response options. There are many of us, myself included, who think that now is the time for a no-fly zone to be put in place. ‘There are questions there about how much of Ukraine, what the rules of engagement are. I accept it is a ramping up of risk but it’s only matching what Russia is doing anyway.
September 10, 2025 at 3:20 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Here's one suggestion from March 2024 from a former US defence attache to Moscow.

unherd.com/2024/03/is-i...
There are several ways that the West could do this. The least provocative scenario, and one sure to avoid killing Russians, would be to take on the mission of protecting some of Ukraine’s key cities in the western half of the country, far from the front lines. All of the five largest cities still under the control of Ukraine — Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Dnipro and Kharkiv — are attacked regularly by Russian missiles and drones. Of these, Western nations could take on the mission of helping to defend Kyiv, Lviv and Odesa, which lie on or west of the Dnieper River that divides the country running north to south. Meanwhile, Dnipro and Kharkiv, which lie farther east, closer to the front lines, would remain under the sole protection of Ukrainian air defences. What would the new defences look like? The main threats to Kyiv, Lviv and Odesa are ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as long-range drones, which could be countered through a combination of long-range anti-missile systems, such as the US-built Patriot or Russian-built S300/400. Two battalions would provide good coverage for the main parts of a large city, while also being able to intercept and destroy the sorts of missiles that carry tactical nuclear weapons.
September 10, 2025 at 3:20 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
I was highly amused at Adrian Edmondson being in Alien: Earth as I know him mostly from anarchic comedies Bottom and The Young Ones.

But as the series has progressed, I am now thinking that Eddie and Vyvyan wouldn't be unusually foolish if they were amongst the Alien: Earth cast.
Atom Eins in Alien: Earth. Bald, suited (with the turned up collar seen in Aliens), stern. The late Rik Mayal (left) as Richard "RIchie" Richard and Adrian Edmondson (right) as Edward "Eddie" Hitler in Bottom. The show logo is on the bottom right. Eddie is wearing glasses and a hat and has a quizzical expression. He is somewhat less bald that Atom Eins. And he has no idea why his last name is significant. Vyvyan from The Young Ones. A punk, died ginger hair in three mohawk-like blades. Four silver star jewellery pieces on his forehead. Chain around his neck as decoration. Blue denim sleaveless jacket with silver studs on the shoulders worn over a black T-shirt.
September 10, 2025 at 4:48 AM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
From the heavily moderated @askhistorians.bsky.social subreddit:

Hitler wanted vaccinations mandated for Germans but denied to those he saw as racially inferior.

RFK is anti vaccine mandate and undermines their use for everyone.

www.reddit.com/r/AskHistori...
In the field of public health there is no need whatsoever to extend to the subject races the benefits of our own knowledge. This would result only in an enormous increase in local populations, and I absolutely forbid the organisation of any sort of hygiene or cleanliness crusades in these territories. Compulsory vaccination will be confined to Germans alone, and the doctors in the German colonies will be there solely for the purpose of looking after the German colonists.
August 31, 2025 at 1:11 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Hitler wanted vaccination mandated for Germans and denied for those he deemed racially inferior.

RFK is anti vaccine mandate, and his scaremongering undermines their use for everyone.

www.reddit.com/r/AskHistori...

2/2
In the field of public health there is no need whatsoever to extend to the subject races the benefits of our own knowledge. This would result only in an enormous increase in local populations, and I absolutely forbid the organisation of any sort of hygiene or cleanliness crusades in these territories. Compulsory vaccination will be confined to Germans alone, and the doctors in the German colonies will be there solely for the purpose of looking after the German colonists.
August 31, 2025 at 1:07 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Totalitarian regimes do have a tendency to promote the incompetent, because they will be reliant on the regime for their status.

paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-politi...
I speculated about this briefly some years ago, but thought it was an original insight — and worried whether I myself was over the top. But it turns out that it was all in Hannah Arendt. In her classic book “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” she explained why totalitarians — I know, Trump isn’t a full-on dictator, yet, but he’s clearly a wannabe — promote the incompetent: Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty. Arendt also explained, in advance, the Trump administration’s extraordinary hostility to research, the extraordinary speed with which it is destroying America’s scientific base: The consistent persecution of every higher form of intellectual activity by the new mass leaders springs from more than their natural resentment against everything they cannot understand. Total domination does not allow for free initiative in any field of life.
August 31, 2025 at 12:17 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Any statistical analysis to predict criminals makes me very nervous about whether decision makers are familiar with the medical test paradox and hugely overrate the results.

This goes double if the criminal is a terrorist, and the response is a drone strike.

davidbieber.com/snippets/202...
Suppose 1 in 10000 people have a certain disease, and there is a medical test that is 99% accurate. This means that if you do have the disease, the test comes back positive with 99% probability, and if you do not have the disease, the test comes back negative with 99% probability. It is wrong 1% of the time. If your test result comes back positive, what’s the probability that you have the disease? Probability you have the disease given the test comes back positive is 1% by application of Bayes theorem. Maths rendered by MathJax, which claims to work with screen readers, so follow the link to the full article I guess.
August 22, 2025 at 3:58 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
I immediately thought of this absolute unit of a boy cheerleader, his partner, and their dynamic:

www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckin...
August 20, 2025 at 11:09 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
This would also explain why she took issue with Stephen's casual use of the words "mad" and "madness", and then questionning her sanity, which have unpleasant connotations when used in a mental health context.

I have some sympathy for her position.
August 20, 2025 at 10:43 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
Found it!

As charitably as I can, I think Kara is taking issue with the casual use of "mad" and "madness" (she misquotes him as using "insane") to mean "irrational" or "inexplicable", when it has unpleasant connotations around mental health.

Now, there was a mention of "paying money"...
August 20, 2025 at 10:38 PM
andrewkerr9000.bsky.social
These Kiel articles include charts that much more clearly show Europe filling the gap left by US, at least financially, for both military and non-military aid:

www.ifw-kiel.de/publications...

www.ifw-kiel.de/publications...
Monthly averages of aid to Ukraine, broken down by pre and post 2025, and by military and non military aid. US aid post 2025 is near zero. Total aid is very similar, with Europe increasing as the US has fallen. This is true for both military and non military aid. Line chart of cumulative military aid to Ukraine over time for US and Europe. US military aid to Ukraine flatlines in 2025. European military aid surges shortly after, and has now surpassed US military aid, cumulatively.
August 20, 2025 at 7:34 PM