If it's a Russian advent calendar, shouldn't a journalist or opposition leader fall out of each window that you open...?

Are we supposed to be surprised?

the point of camo for a soldier is to obscure their position from the enemy. camo in an urban environment is completely different, and this forest green or desert pattern is functionally useless.

police only dress this way to project an image of power they should not have.

I think he painted himself into a corner before his first day in office… bsky.app/profile/davi...

Starmer came to power on a platform that, in essence, claimed he would make everything better without making any big changes. Apart from being ridiculous when viewed objectively, it also leaves him losing support from one group or another if he tries anything to rectify the situation.

Destroy from your perspective, perhaps, as a functioning commons. From the perspective of those paying for publicists to push views favourable to them, and bots to chaff any dissenting viewpoints, it probably looks almost perfect. ‘Controlling the narrative,’ or something like that.

I don’t think that ‘they’ are that smart.
On the other hand, ‘they’ definitely didn’t like that particular thorn in their sides, and were perfectly willing to shell out silly money (from a valuation standpoint) to get some control over the platform.

[bad link]
"Superior neutralizing response after first versus second SARS-CoV-2 infection in fully vaccinated individuals"
Gonzalo Rivas et al.
Journal of Medical Virology, 2023
doi.org/10.1002/jmv....

We’ve been in the depths of insanity since 2016. It will be 10 years soon! At least the French have good cheap wine to help them through it…

Performative Authenticity?

In modern attention economies, authenticity is monetized. Figures like Weiss, Musk, Peterson, and others discover that narrative identity — the “I speak truth to power” story — is itself an asset. But to keep that narrative alive, they must constantly produce opposition…