elegurious

einstein, meades, popper, all make me think proper ;-)

[Political Cartoon @Cartoon4sale]

Morten Morland @mortenmorland on Burnham’s first Labour conference speech as leader #AndyBurnham #LabCon @TheTimes – political cartoon gallery in London https://t.co/oN8ijCfCnv

[elegurious @elegurious]

@worstall @David__Osland @SimonMagus Thank you.

[Tom McClellan @McClellanOsc]

If you have not heard this news story, it is pretty big in the chemistry world. Being able to break down polyethylene cheaply is a big deal. It makes waste plastic more valuable, which makes it less likely people will just throw it into rivers where it flushes into the oceans.

[elegurious @elegurious]

@worstall @David__Osland What is the typical % premium for private vs state funded? I know that a Travelodge, same area, is 15% of cost/m2 & ensuite vs not. Maybe 15% of home cost is food? Activity minimal. So 70%? of cost is subsidising state, scale, equipment & "care" @ £50k/yr, which seems a lot.

[Ed Conway @EdConwaySky]

👀 This chart, from the tail end of my explainer here 👇 might be about to become one of the most important issues in UK politics.
How and why did the government allow its emergency stockpiles of diesel to drop to one of the lowest levels in the developed world...?

[Real Counties @RealCounties]

Lancashire’s six hundreds - Lonsdale, Amounderness, Blackburn, Leyland, Salford and West Derby - preserve a territorial geography with roots older than Lancashire itself.

When Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, Lancashire had not yet emerged as a county, but several of these divisions already existed, while Amounderness and Lonsdale were established territorial names in the north.

As Lancashire took shape in the 12th century, these older divisions were consolidated into its familiar six hundreds.

A fascinating reminder that the county was built from an even older landscape of local territories.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

Stop treating the adult population like children and stop allowing adults who behave like despotic toddlers to decree what the rest of us are allowed to watch.

[VisitBlackpool @visitBlackpool]

Adelaide Street West, right outside Showtown, has officially been renamed Sir Ken Dodd Avenue in honour of one of Blackpool’s most treasured entertainers ❤️

The new street was officially unveiled by Ken’s wife, Anne, Lady Dodd.

Lady Dodd said: “He always said Blackpool was the ‘Showtown’ of Britain, so it is especially appropriate that the street on which it stands should be renamed after him!”

Read more: https://t.co/ZBMarWjD2o

[Kathy Parr @KathyParr101]

I wonder: If PIP payments for ADHD were withdrawn, would diagnoses for ADHD drop off a cliff?

[June Goh @JuneGoh_Sparta]

Crude refining margin 101

The price of crude delivered to refinery = Benchmark + FOB premium + freight cost

Benchmark can be ICE Brent, Dated Brent, Nymex WTI or Dubai.

FOB premium is a factor of supply and demand, quality of crude and logistics. If that crude is red hot in demand, FOB goes up. FOB premium is also known as cash diff/differential.

Freight cost has its own supply and demand angle. Right now VLCCs are in short supply due to highly inefficient logistics caused by the war, hence the crazy valuations there.

Crude margins is then the value of the crude minus the delivered price of crude. The value of the crude is also known as gross product worth (GPW). You multiply product cracks with the yields obtained from the crude.

Each refinery values the crude differently due to unique refining configurations. They run Linear Programming (LPs) to obtain these valuations.

In the current climate, refining margin must be ≥0 since refining is short. If it goes below 0, then something in the equation needs to adjust. I.e. either FOB premium or freight goes down, or product cracks rise.

In Sparta, we model all of the above and align 90 crudes to the same delivery window for 8 refining destinations with 3 different refining configurations per region.

Hope this explains the basics of crude refining economics.

#oott

[Jeffery Mead @the_jefferymead]

They’re all for socialism until they’re asked to apply that same concept to their grades..

Funny how that works. Watch this.

[The Spectator @spectator]

'I have never yet heard of an economy being taxed into prosperity. I have never heard of a poor person spending himself into wealth.'

Economist Arthur Laffer explains why he believes Britain has a 'totally dysfunctional' tax system.

Watch in full | https://t.co/WKnWOdhE8w | @realartlaffer | @Simmons__

[Katharine Birbalsingh @Miss_Snuffy]

No one understands how they brainwash us when young. 👇

That’s why schools and parenting matter.

Children make up 100% of the future.

THIS 👇 is the future. 😳😵‍💫

[Rt. Hon Ben Wallace @BenWallace70]

I fear our new PM thinks tick tock videos and dolling out benefits is all it takes to be in charge. This is not some episode of coronation street with “Andy and his chums.” this is the real world where our national and economic security must be placed before social security. @larisamlbrown @haynesdeborah @KemiBadenoch

[The Cult Of British Comedy 🇬🇧 @CultOfBritCom]

What an actress…

#RIPStephanieCole

Patricia Stephanie Cole OBE
5 October 1941 – 18 September 2026

#Tenko #OpenAllHours #ABitOfADo
#WaitingForGod #KeepingMum #DocMartin #CoronationStreet #ManDown #StillOpenAllHours #TalkingHeads #InsideNo9 #Scarborough and so much more…

[Institute for the Study of War @TheStudyofWar]

NEW | SPECIAL REPORT: The Kremlin is conducting a coordinated series of kinetic campaigns targeting Europe, and NATO states must understand and forthrightly discuss both these ongoing Russian campaigns against Europe and the evolving character of the near-term Russian conventional threat. 

The Russian government has long considered itself to be in a long-term conflict with the West — a conflict it has recently escalated through a coordinated series of kinetic campaigns against European targets beyond Ukraine. 

European states must both understand internally and publicly name these campaigns for what they are: coordinated kinetic and non-kinetic attacks against NATO military and civilian targets, not isolated incidents or “provocations.”

European officials’ increased willingness to publicly discuss Russia’s kinetic campaigns is positive, but much of the language NATO and individual European states use to discuss the ongoing Russian campaigns still obfuscates the coordinated and coherent nature of the Russian efforts.

NATO must additionally prepare for the possibility of near-term conventional Russian attacks that would not be militarily existential to NATO but could be politically existential by dividing NATO, and on a timeline faster than those that many European officials currently orient themselves on.

NATO and European states require a shared understanding of the problem to design and execute coordinated policies to defeat ongoing Russian kinetic campaigns and deter the Russian conventional threat. NATO and European states have three overall tasks.

First, NATO and Europe must understand and respond to the ongoing Russian kinetic campaigns against Europe, and must use clear language when communicating about Russian actions to facilitate prompt and meaningful responses.

Second, NATO and Europe must rapidly accelerate efforts to forecast and prepare for the risk of a potential near-term limited Russian conventional attack that NATO is not yet sufficiently taking into account

Third, NATO and Europe must improve ongoing efforts to leverage lessons from Ukraine and forecasts of the changing character of war and strengthen NATO’s ability to deter or defeat the evolving conventional Russian military threat.

These three challenges are interlinked and must be taken as a whole. Open, clear-eyed, and prompt discussion of potential European policy responses are essential to respond to the ongoing Russian threat and the risk of further Russian actions to test or directly attack NATO. (1/2)

[Paul Coleman @Paul_B_Coleman]

Without exaggeration, this is one of the worst clips I’ve ever seen. The arrogance. The ignorance. The lack of empathy. Describing the mass r*pe of young girls as
“a manageable problem” and “an irrelevant problem.” My word.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

The comments on this are quite the best on X for a long time. Kinda restores your faith in British humour/realism.

[National Secular Society @NatSecSoc]

Sarah Mullally has presented an interfaith award to the chairman of the Pakistan Ulema Council - despite his support for Pakistan's blasphemy law and apologism for Bin Laden - in a ceremony held on the anniversary of 9/11.

Read the full story👇

https://t.co/lKHUcSx8RK

[Maurice Cousins @MDC12345678]

Martin Lewis has become part of the problem with Britain’s energy debate.

We cannot solve an energy supply crisis by endlessly rearranging who pays for it. Nor can we solve it by doubling down on the policies that got us into this mess, including our refusal to exploit domestic oil and gas resources.

And by domestic resources, I don’t mean greenlighting Jackdaw and Rosebank. I mean developing Britain’s vast onshore shale gas resources.

But Lewis never goes near the upstream solutions. He has enormous influence, yet uses it to argue about how the costs of energy scarcity should be distributed rather than challenging the domestic policies creating that scarcity in the first place.

Obviously, geopolitics is playing a role. But domestic policy has once again left Britain dangerously exposed to an external energy shock, just as it did in 2022.