iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Crazy that when I open X the first thing I see is a post by the leader of Britain First. I don't go on it often anymore, but I'm genuinely amazed that that's something I'm so easily and casually exposed to cf a few years ago. Anyway. Back to revision.

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Regretting the few years I underappreciated Steely Dan's Two Against Nature. Found it a bit too slick but this year it hits the spot — What a Shame About Me is impeccable. (restraining myself from a thread on the song. contract final tmrw is not looking in the 'write a thread on steely dan' state!)

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

We're seeing a pattern in local elections / by-elections where Tories will vote tactically for Reform (like Runcorn) but Reform voters won't vote tactically for the Tories (like here where they've just completely split the right vote).

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

Lots of cases/thought experiments/literature on why we treat and react to acts/omissions differently. Brexit in some tabloids a good one rn! Doing nothing (damaging farmers+other exporters due to onerous checks) is ignored, whilst the active step of opening up fishing to the EU is unacceptable!

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

@themountaingoats.bsky.social currently sat in a small restaurant in the Italian village my mum’s from. The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton just came on — cue an explanation to my Italian family as to why they should be excited!

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

lol at liberation day s&p500 futures

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

no. no. A white witch has to live up to Tilda Swinton as the WW and this just won’t.

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

An on today's episode of 'what were the instructions' — CUBC goes to silk and (conveniently) gets an opinion that agrees with the position they want to argue. Silly stuff as ever by the media. www.thetimes.com/uk/society/a...

thetimes.com

James Cracknell says Boat Race is discriminatory — a KC agrees

The former Olympian, the oldest to compete in the race between Oxford and Cambridge universities, said the row was a result of ‘in-built pettiness’

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

If we eliminated the intellectually lazy habit *some* have of equating 'thinking for oneself' to 'disagreeing with the majority' the world would be a far easier place to discuss things.

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Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 20/03/2025

wow I just spent four hours catching up with people whose company I enjoy without looking at my phone at all and I feel a lot better than when I spend four hours staring at my phone instead? amazing finding, maybe you'll find it useful also

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

Been listening to a lot of the Barbican live version of If You're Feeling Sinister by Belle and Sebastian. Honestly better than the og version, some songs just have a level more energy than they did in the studio and have come to love songs that I'd merely liked! (Mayfly, Me&Major, SeeingOtherPpl)

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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 10/03/2025

In a time of crisis, there is just one who can save America:

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Mujtaba Rahman @mijrahman.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

🇪🇺🇬🇧 Through my first set of meetings in Brussels. The praise for Starmer is overwhelming: “What he has managed to do is not just good for him. It's good for all of us. Absolutely top notch. This is the UK at its best. The UK we have always admired.

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Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 28/02/2025

(on a personal note it's quite striking how quickly I've gone from "generally a bit of a pinko on defence issues" to "and could I just do a monthly direct debit to BAE Systems, would that help")

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

The bits of us constit law I know are quite basic + more along the lines of general principle. Tend to prefer private law too but god I’d love a us constit module rn.

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

This is a poor headline from the BBC. The US aren't offering a "deal" - they want the minerals in return for support already given. It's straight up extortion.

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

“I don't want any other foreign secretary of this country to be talked to or at by a secretary of state in the United States as I have just had in my discussions with Mr Byrnes. We've got to have this thing over here whatever it costs. We've got to have the bloody Union Jack on top of it."

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Mark Hertling @markhertling.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

It continues to amaze me that those who know & have suffered under Putin know who he is & what he does, while too many Americans still believe we can “strike a deal.”

kyivpost.com

‘No Point Negotiating’ With Putin, Says Navalny’s Widow

On Friday, Navalnaya spoke on a panel at the conference with exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Like if you haven't picked up I think it would be bad if Kemi Badenoch became PM, sorry, you just aren't thinking critically enough about any of the media you *choose* to consume! It's alarming!

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

Or, bear with me here, a reason to increase defence spending *could be* that Russia has sought to remake the borders of Europe by force.

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

If you missed today's newsletter, in which I said 'look, come on, we really do need to be increasing spending back to 1966 to 1990 levels and it's mad to think you can get political consent for that without increasing spending elsewhere', don't worry: I will be saying it for most of the year I think

ft.com

Labour will have to ditch tax pledges sooner or later

Spending cuts to fund increased defence spending will not impress UK voters and something will have to give

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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

There'll be no deal about Ukraine without Ukraine. America has no ability to enforce it, any more than it has the right to enforce it. If it attempts to insist on one, it will be one of the most shameful moments in its history. And one of the most humiliating.

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

“Plans have been submitted for a council’s radical multimillion-pound scheme to revamp a town centre bus station - despite fears it will encourage drug users and anti-social behaviour” … by replacing it with a park. Every day I’m more radicalised against nimbys www.kentonline.co.uk/folkestone/n...

kentonline.co.uk

‘It's going to be a nightmare - no one will know where to get their buses'

Plans have been submitted for a new park to replace a town centre bus station, despite fears it will encourage drug users and anti-social behaviour.

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Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.com · 15/02/2025

It's not just fdr. One of the things the epa did not long after it was formed was document the nation's pollution via photography. That can seem frivolous, but generations of Americans have no idea why the EPA was necessary. This broke a million views when we published it in 2017

popsci.com

This is what America looked like before the EPA cleaned it up

A snapshot from America before the impact of the EPA and the effects of rules regulating clean water and air were felt.

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the Mountain Goats @themountaingoats.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Being from Southern California in the 70s it’s always funny to explain to people who grew up elsewhere what a smog alert was as a child I could tell when we were gonna have a smog alert (no playing on the playground) because my chest would hurt on the inhale

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Have many issues w/ the Catholic Church. There's many reasons that I no longer engage with the institution despite being raised Catholic.. But a genuinely beautiful letter by Pope Francis. Worth anyone's time, and a welcome pause to the tone we often hear rn. www.vatican.va/content/fran...

vatican.va

Letter of the Holy Father to the Bishops of the United States of America (10 February 2025) | Francis

Letter of the Holy Father to the Bishops of the United Sates of America, 10 February 2025

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Archie Hall @archiehall.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Latest Substack post now up—which includes a walkthrough of all my poorest predictions on British economic policy in 2024, plus some reflections on Labour's recent growth announcements. ➡️ Take a look here: notes.archie-hall.com/p/all-the-wa...

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SpinningHugo @spinninghugo.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

Sumption's position is upside down. A wholly domestic "human rights" regime is unjustifiable. It falls foulf of all of the objections there are to having legislation reviewed according to an open textured set of values that Parliament should already be weighing when enacting laws. /1

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Robert Colvile @rcolvile.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Sorry to be all 'this is exactly what I said in my book', but it is fascinating - and excruciating - watching traditional politicians (and traditional media) trying to cope with Trump and Musk. (1/?)

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

rare moment I have a lot of respect for goodell

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

If the chiefs opening drive is anything like it was v the bills, I'm just gonna cut my losses and go to sleep tbh

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

I think we’ve got to the point where any link between the past/present meaning of libertarian is broken. The word now means something else. It is now a very American conception. A stand in for radical individualism, for survival of the fittest, for an assumption that we SHOULD be nasty + brutish.

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Henry Mance @henrymance.ft.com · 24/01/2025

Great reporting. The Israeli army said that most people killed in bombing a Beirut apartment block were Hezbollah. The BBC found that nearly all were in fact civilians, and a third were children. www.bbc.com/news/article...

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Wonder how many potential HCs said ‘won’t do it with him’ before they decided to fire Baalke.

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Editing my app essay for the BCL rn. Very fine line between what I feel like is an interesting, persuasive, dare I say slightly novel argument and unhinged content that shouldn’t see the light of the relevant academic debate.

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onion person @junlper.beer · 21/01/2025

it’s becoming increasingly clear the goal of the far right is to defund and buy up every source of reliable information until there is no more objective reality to counter them

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Did Reeves just read Japan Ganesh's column last week before today's announcement?

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

I realise that, in some ways, there is money to be made in some of the Trump memecoins. Equally, I think people buying them as a whole truly are total mugs. You pay a billionaire for a a string of characters, and enrich someone already very, very rich in return for nothing.

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dr peppermint patty @jessespector.com · 17/01/2025

my scorching mike tomlin take is the steelers have had mediocre to bad quarterbacks for the last six seasons and he’s managed to get to the playoffs four times in a division with lamar jackson and joe burrow so he’s probably not the problem and in fact is probably why their floor is so high

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Reminded of @gideonrachman.bsky.social's terrific column this week: "the rights of small nations are not a joke. The forcible or coerced takeover of a country by a larger neighbour is the biggest alarm bell in world politics"

ft.com

Trump risks turning the US into a rogue state

Territorial expansionism and threats to neighbours and allies should set off alarm bells across the world

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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

NEW: How common are UK grooming gangs — and who are the perpetrators? Until recently, a lack of data - and definition - has left us in the dark. There is no specific “grooming gang” offence. But here’s what new police data shows… 1/5 @thetimes.com 🔗 www.thetimes.com/article/13df...

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Once again, black don't crack.

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

really important for notre dame to have got where they are past halfway in the early territory battle #cfp

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

always feel like college football looks a bit wrong in nfl stadiums. I feel like you can just tell it wasn’t made for *this*. Give me a proper bowl any time. #cfp #orangebowl

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Alexander Pitlarge @pitlarge.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

think they may need to improve the hard rock PA system #cfp

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