You probably won’t have read much about these announcements designed to improve people's lives across the UK
Reading
- - -
Fishing apparel mentioned:
- A tarpon-wear shirt
- Old bib-front overalls
- Bow ties and club blazers
- Jean shorts
- - -
It will come as no surprise to longtime readers of Thomas McGuane’s work that while I was speaking with him, I was moved by his kindness, his incisive insight, and, above all, his mischievous sense of fun. The craic was exceptional. We are both writers, anglers, and equestrians, and we’d both recently fished for Atlantic salmon in arctic Norway. We laughed a lot during our conversation: in helplessness, in disbelief, in despair, and at the inherent comedy of life.
“The Birth Rate Is Falling, and It Has Nothing to Do with the Cost of Housing, Health Care, or Childcare. It’s Women”
“The Falling Birth Rate: A Crisis with Many Complex Causes, All of Them Female”
“Women Cite ‘Financial Instability’ for Not Having Children. What Aren’t They Telling Us?”
“Did Feminism Ruin the Birth Rate?”
“Who Is to Blame for the Falling Birth Rate? College-Educated Women”
“Who Is to Blame for the Falling Birth Rate? Non-College-Educated Women”
“Who Is to Blame for the Falling Birth Rate? Women Whose Educational Status We Were Unable to Confirm”
“Experts Agree: The Birth Rate Crisis Is Multifaceted, Structural, and Female”
“Did IUDs Ruin the Birth Rate?”
“We Spent Six Months Investigating the Birth Rate Crisis and Found Women at Every Turn”
“Birth Rates Are Down Across the Western World. One Variable Has Remained Constant: Women”
“Experts Warn the Falling Birth Rate Could Have Serious Consequences for Men”
‘Come to Highgate, I’ll give you a quick guided pop tour,’ writes dandy, flâneur and musician Dickon Edwards in a November 1999 diary entry. ‘Here’s where Keith Moon threw a champagne bottle through a dividing wall and framed it for a photo. Here’s where Jo Whiley nearly got me run over. Here’s where Brett Anderson […]
During the hijab ban, I took pride in my resilience. But the trauma I didn’t name still came for me
- by Safa Belghith
A new way of seeing procrastination helped reduce my self-criticism. But it keeps me honest when I need to be productive
- by Ali Hawken
The right to protest is not a privilege; it is a basic democratic freedom. What we are witnessing now in Britain is a serious and deliberate assault on that freedom. The government’s recent Crime and Policing Bill would hand senior police officers the powers to decide where, when or whether a protest may take place. […]
Phil Armstrong Published online 10th April 2026 Modern Monetary Theory and International Trade: Developments on the Base Case for Analysis Abstract Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)’s approach to international trade …
The post Modern Monetary Theory and International Trade: Developments on the Base Case for Analysis appeared first on The Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies.
Stumbled upon this chart of US corporate profits vs. corporate taxes. The important part isn’t the taxes, it’s the profits. (Note that this is nominal and doesn’t include inflation adjustment, not that American inflation numbers mean anything anyway.) Now let’s look at another chart. This one of his how much profit companies that produce actual […]
Beneath the civic ideal of taxation as a collective, equitable endeavour lies an entrenched hypocrisy: the architecture of modern tax codes serves not the public good but the consolidation of private wealth. The progressivity of income tax is hollowed out at the uppermost tiers, where income is largely derived from capital — taxed at preferential […]
“We are Iranian Jews and we are always ready to sacrifice our lives for our homeland,” Bihdad Mikhail, managing director of the Tehran Jewish Association, told MintPress News as he held back his tears while carrying Jewish religious books that were destroyed by Israeli airstrikes.
The post Iranian Jewish Association Describe Israel as “Ominous Zionist Regime” After Israeli Strikes Destroy Historic Synagogue on Passover appeared first on MintPress News.
Since the end of World War Two, Washington has targeted medical centers in at least 16 countries and Israel destroyed nearly every medical facility in Gaza. The 307 Iranian sites hit does not even come close to the record for the number of hospitals in any country destroyed by American bombs and missiles.
The post US & Israel Bomb 307+ Medical Facilities in Iran Carrying on Long Tradition of Targeting Medical Workers appeared first on MintPress News.
Dear Hiring Manager,
I am setting aside my aspirations and sense of self-worth to apply for the Global Account Project Management Executive position at Capital Ventures. Despite my disdain for and ethical opposition to generative AI, I’ve asked ChatGPT to write this cover letter to fulfill the requirement outlined in your posting. Unfortunately, it spat out nonsense slop, which I have had to edit heavily. I understand this will be “read” by other AI and not evaluated by a human; accordingly, I am including as many buzzwords as possible so that this letter aligns with the company’s mission to expand global accounts, innovate, and drive stakeholder value.
In my previous roles, I have practiced advanced synergetic evaluations of international high-stakes markets and engaged in vague problem-solving. As a nameless cog in a corporate machine, I have worked hours far in excess of those outlined in my hiring contract without overtime pay because I needed health insurance and was afraid of getting fired. I will bring the same fear-based performance to this position.
Underground Artists is an ongoing comic by Ali Fitzgerald (Hungover Bear & Friends) that follows woodland creatures as they create art and search out whimsy in a bleak forest.
- - -
My Dear Third Grader,
I am terribly sorry you got sick at school this morning. I should have believed you when you said you were not feeling well, even if this was your tenth time saying that this month alone. I should have sensed that today would be the day when you would arrive at your classroom, take three steps in, and promptly throw up the entire contents of your stomach. This one is on me.
Yes, I understand it took me thirty minutes to get to your school. I apologize. I had to wrap up a few things so I could continue to work from home. Yes, it is still a workday for me. I’m very sorry. But once we get home, we can get you comfortable so you can relax and take a nap. Don’t tell your brothers, but you can have as much screentime as you would like. No, I don’t want to hear about the contents of your vomit, but thank you. If you want to use your Switch today, that’s fine. We can get you a nice set-up so you can drink some Pedialyte and play Minecraft—wow, an entire carrot? Did you not chew your dinner at all last night?—Sorry. Yes, you can hang out in the basement with me. We’ll dim the lights so you can rest some too.
2. Macro Musings 7. Naked Capitalism 20. Lars Pålsson Syll Lars Pålsson Syll’s blog illustrates his critique of the conventional economics paradigm together with other heterodox economic views. Engaged with the issues of economic methodology, monetary theory and the shortcomings of neoclassical economics, Syll seeks to overturn orthodoxy and calls for more profound understanding of […]
Musical, playful and absurd – how one Icelandic artist forged a philosophy of creativity by simply giving things a try
- Video by Art21
Philosophers and psychologists have puzzled over the allure of tragic art. New findings show how sadness can be a comfort
- by Tara Venkatesan
A journalist from the Wall Street Journal wrote to me a week ago to ask what the numbers that I use in the opening pages of my book Limitarianism would look like today. In particular, she asked whether I could calculate for her the “lifetime equivalent hourly income” of Elon Musk’s current assets today. Short […]
Solar farms, wind turbines and geothermal heat pumps are breathing new life into former collieries. So why don't we hear more about them?
Big Tech’s problem child is running for Congress — and AI super PACs are spending big to stop him.
"We are not going to sit idle while you devalue our work and degrade our society. Our work is not a free input to be fed into your machines."
Guest Post by Nat Wilson Turner Last Fall, I posited that the US and greater West are in the grips of an Interregnum of Unreality that began when Barack Obama successfully papered over the Great Financial Crisis while addressing none of the causes and leaving the very same banksters whose antics caused the crisis in […]