First they came for …
‘Commissario Ricciardi’, one of the best detective stories I’ve seen on TV.
‘Commissario Ricciardi’, one of the best detective stories I’ve seen on TV. Set in Mussolini’s Italy, the ominous and sinister presence of the Fascists grows as the murder stories unroll; marvellous sets; engrossing characters; a serious perspective on social class in pre-war Neapolitan Italy.
Streaming on Channel 4 in the ‘Walter Presents’ catalogue.
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-learned-helplessness-of-2026-655
“So many normie friends of mine have just stopped engaging the news. Every day, another headline is like another electric shock we have become used to.”
Not surprising that AI can be ‘trained’ to know what makes an employee effective … and then fire them! Continue reading “Worker Exploitation AI Style”
Just watched the film Nuremberg. Russell Crowe great as always, based on an interesting back story.
The psychiatrist Kelley ended up in a very bad way personally and psychologically. He killed himself in 1958 in a particularly situation that was particularly horrible.
I was struck by the clip where, on a radio show, and already drinking heavily, he is forcefully raising the alarm that fascism is endemic, evil is in us all, Nazis are here!
Reminds me of the ending of 1956 film ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ where the protagonist rushes onto a busy highway screaming “they’re here, they’re here…”. At the time this was read by some reviewers as a reference to the widespread propaganda that communists had infiltrated US society (it was the McCarthy era after all).
So fascists AND communists!!! Hardly any room left for Americans!
(Mind you, not so far off about Fascists. Have also just read ‘Numero Zero’ by Umberto Eco where he writes about ‘Operation Gladio’, a post-war NATO/CIA orchestrated project to maintain organised networks of fascist ‘stay behinds’. Who knew? I didn’t! Chilling stuff. And no wonder we are fucked …)
Excellent write-up of King Charles’ speeches in the US. (Thanks to @johnnaughton for the link)
https://deanblundell.substack.com/p/king-charles-takedown-of-trump-was
Iron served in velvet. Genius! (You can bet its subtlety was lost on the Orange One.)
Blundell’s article made me weep, both for joy and for despair.
Given what we know about Palantir – its carefree devising of remote, automated murder – that it should be associated with the UK health service is truly mind-numbing. Palantir is not to be trusted, And now the UK Labour Party is complicit in this dark enterprise.
I can’t help but see this as ‘creeping fascism’:
It’s not merely the injustice here but the bureaucratic laziness, a wilful torpor, the refusal to even ask the question ‘is this right?’ The willingness to cause hurt; and of course the impact, which is major, on the poor, the powerless victims of indifference (the sort that is encouraged by the likes of Farage and his stoolies) built into the very systems that are supposedly there to provide support.
The Labour government under Starmer is of course where the proverbial buck stops. I always assumed, it turns out naively, that the civil service acted in accord with the government, indeed, was strongly directed by elected policies and strategies, but clearly not. Instead it is a self-serving, covert power centre of weasels. (I am trying to avoid the idea here of a ‘covert state’ – or, as the BigBaby in the Amerikan White House calls it, the Deep State – but it sure feels like an independent hub bureaucratic power.
Dunkelflaute (dark lull) – a useful/fun word? Not too significant but tells you about Germany’s situation with respect to energy supply (specifically its reliance on wind power) and from there is its lack of a nuclear energy infrastructure (versus nuclear weapons,which it isn’t contemplating, except indirectly):
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-02-18/germany-has-a-simple-nuclear-decision-to-make
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Palantir is the ultimate symbol of techno-evil on the planet. Absolutely blood oriented, servile to conquerors and dictators everywhere, greedy and spendthrift.
https://www.ft.com/content/92c3beda-3cb9-4a3b-8563-f869c32bce59
This is one of those fantasies that won’t disappear. The design of ‘cities of the future’ is a techno-fantasy, i.e. the intensive embedding of technology in urban infrastructure. It is usually presented as a hybrid of ‘enhancement’ as well as a ‘solution’ … but people don’t live like this – we like the ragged and the quirky, the private and the park … and above it all is the phenomenon of ‘desire lines’ …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path
https://www.azuremagazine.com/article/messy-cities-planning-for-an-unplanned-city/
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They, and their lackeys, just won’t stop their cruel appropriation …
https://theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/04/florida-ban-west-bank-schools-state-agencies-bill