Eric Herring ericherring.bsky.social

Prof of World Politics, University of Bristol. Research/action on Somali led sustainable development with @TransparencySol. Honoured by my Somali name Warsame

[Eric Herring ericherring.bsky.social @eric_herring]

'Decolonising Development: Academics, Practitioners and Collaboration' - my journal article with @TransparencySol.
Reflects on 7 years of TS and @BristolUni partnership to promote Somali-led development.
Free to view and download: https://t.co/3Em9dPBdgA

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

HOLY CRAP Trump actually accomplished a miracle. Here is what he got out of Iran:

- Reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium by about 98%

- Limit uranium enrichment to 3.67% purity (far below weapons-grade)

- Cut the number of installed centrifuges by roughly two-thirds

- Only enrich uranium at one declared site (Natanz)

- Stop enrichment activities at Fordow and convert it into a research facility

- Redesign the Arak heavy-water reactor so it could not easily produce weapons-grade plutonium

- Ship out or dilute excess enriched uranium
Allow extensive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
Permit continuous monitoring of nuclear facilities and supply chains

- Accept “snap” inspections under expanded monitoring rules

- Avoid building new heavy-water reactors for years

- Stay within strict limits on uranium stockpile size and centrifuge development for set periods ranging from 10–25 years

Ooops, sorry!

That was the JCPOA that Obama signed with Iran, only to have him tear it up, kill 140 kids, get hundreds of Americans injured, 13 killed, and gas prices to surge 50%.

[Fraser Sugden🌾🌽🌾 @frasersugden]

This is a massive story. It'll go over heads of many, but represents a major structural change in China's agrarian transition & major event in global agrarian history. Till now limitation in the Chinese economy has been it's structural dependence on semi-proletarian labour (1/3)

[Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis]

What a terrible start to his bid to reverse Starmer’s descent into one moral void after another! Adopting Mahmood’s ‘racism-lite’ agenda after embracing Reeves’ laughable fiscal rules does not augur well for Andy. Go Greens! https://t.co/CcsFhk2F7V

[Jonathan Shainin @jonathanshainin]

Truly brutal obituary for the Starmer project from one of Britain’s great living historians, David Edgerton

[Richard Burgon MP @RichardBurgon]

The McSweeney/Starmer strategy was for Labour to out-reform Reform and treat progressive voters with contempt.

We warned this would smash up Labour's voter coalition - and let Reform in.

New polling shows that's what happened last week.

Labour's vote "disproportionately stayed at home or went to another left party."

[Sangita Myska @SangitaMyska]

🧵NEW: Josh Simons, MP for Makerfield, has resigned his seat to allow Andy Burnham, Manchester Mayor, to stand in a by-election. Simons is the controversial head of Labour Together, that hired a PR firm which spied on journalists - including Paul Holden. He wrote the book @StarmertheFraud which was highly critical of Starmer’s rise - accusing him, Morgan McSweeny, Mandelson etc of brutally smearing Corbyn and other MPs. 1/

[The Green Party @TheGreenParty]

Wes Streeting, the member for Palantir North.

[Zarah Sultana MP @zarahsultana]

Andy Burnham voted for the Iraq War, an illegal war that killed over a million people.

As Health Secretary, he helped drive NHS privatisation.

He joined Labour Friends of Israel, opposed BDS as “spiteful”, praised Israel as a “democracy”, and called the Balfour Declaration “British values in action”. He is a Zionist.

Stop pretending he’s a radical alternative, he’s more of the same.

[John O'Connell @jdpoc]

Posted elsewhere, posted here for info.

The map of Reform Councils in the UK. So much for 'WE'VE TAKEN OVER THE NATION !!!"

[Harry Eccles @Heccles94]

Every media outlet who ignored these people is responsible for their election

[Kate Wilton @KateWilton1]

And just like that, the very wealthiest party in the U.K. backed by foreign billionaires is supported by the very poorest members of society who dislike foreigners. You couldn’t make this shit up.

[Saul Staniforth @SaulStaniforth]

.@ZackPolanski is spot on here, the Greens aren't splitting the left vote because this Labour party isn't left wing.

[ross🜏 @deeprossed]

If you're voting with the intention of "Protecting women", listening to them is a good place to start.

[Dave @ItsOurDave]

Just did. I voted Green Party 💚

[Philip Proudfoot @PhilipProudfoot]

No amount of deranged smears will ever convince me this man is anything other than genuine, kind, and ready to stand up for ordinary people.

[Harry Eccles @Heccles94]

Can we get this retweeted 10,000 times????

Keep Palantir out of the NHS!

Spread the word!

[Max Spero @max_spero_]

A major US newspaper publisher is rolling out an AI-generated content farm that will use the bylines of real reporters without their consent.

[Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis]

If Evil could tweet, this is what it would!

[Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis]

Palantir were kind enough to sum up its hideous ideology in 22 points. And I have taken the liberty of annotating each one of them. Here is my interpretation of all 22 of them (preserving the original numbering - for the original see their tweet below):

1. Silicon Valley owes an immeasurable debt to the ruling class who bailed out the criminal bankers that wrecked the livelihood of the majority of Americans. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley will defend that ruling class to the death (literally!), in the name of the majority of Americans whom they treat with contempt – i.e., like cattle that have lost their market value.

2. Palantir is eyeing the Apple Store, salivating over the prospect of creating its own technofeudal estate. Time to replace the iPhone with another device that dissolves what is left of people’s privacy.

3. Palantir shall give nothing away for free. It cares uniquely over its own growth which it pursues by sowing fear so that it can sell a fake sense of security.

4. Glory to brute force! Ethics is for suckers. The West needs more of Palantir’s murderous software.

5. AI-powered killer robots are coming. The task is to profit magnificently by building killer robots first and ask questions later. To be able to do so, Palantir will do whatever it takes to avoid at all cost any international treaties that limit AI-driven killer robots.

6. Every poor sod (lacking the connections to avoid being thrown into the trenches with killer drones targeting them from the sky) must be drafted into the army. Forget paying soldiers a salary. All payments should be directed to Palantir, where our own people will be serving their ‘national service’ – leaving the dying to non-shareholders.

7. Palantir works overtime to equip US Marines with killer bots that take away from the US Marines whatever remnants of ethical judgment they are left with on the battlefield. American society should be rendered perfectly incapable of any debate that restricts Palantir’s capacity to get the US Military to eliminate any remaining opportunity to reject its software’s choice of targets.

8. Palantir deplores the fact that the public sector is still not totally devoid of a conscience. Public servants must be fired en masse, except some very few approved by Palantir who will receive huge salaries, paid by taxpayers.

9. Palantir thinks that Donald Trump must be beatified for throwing himself into public service. Not forgiving folks like Trump everything risks our soul, not to mention that it raises the prospect of officials that restrict Palantir’s evil project.

10. Politics needs to be AI-like, devoid of anything that can be mistaken for human empathy. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self must be sent to the gulag forthwith!

11. There are some people too eager to hasten Palantir’s demise. They should rethink, or else!

12. Palantir makes no nuclear weapons but is happily developing other weapons of mass destruction. We proudly announce that we are now ready to add to nuclear Armageddon the AI-driven threat to humanity’s existence.

13. No other country in the history of the world has committed so many war crimes in the name of progress and freedom. The United States offers infinite freedom to people like Palantir’s founders to profit so handsomely by inflicting so much damage upon humanity.

14. American power has feasted on causing one war after another, one putsch after another, one avoidable financial disaster after another. Too many have forgotten or perhaps have taken for granted America’s capacity to pursue forever wars in the name of peace and democracy.

15. German and Japanese Fascism must be made great again. The denazification of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly misplaced commitment to Japanese pacifism must also end immediately!

16. We should applaud those who attempt to monopolise everything by means of generous government contracts. Billionaires must not be satisfied merely with their billions. To become even more obscenely rich they need grand narratives that help them convince the poor to use their freedom to keep them, the billionaires, in power. And, by the way, Palantir loves Elon, especially his grand apartheid-inspired narrative.

17. Silicon Valley must be free to do in America’s cities what it did in Gaza. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it came to granting Palantir the right to annihilate all remaining civil liberties and human rights. This must end.

18. Epstein’s syndicate should be forgotten lest lovely people like Trump and the Clintons are deterred from entering government. The public arena must be scrutiny-free unless subversives like Sanders or Mamdani enter it.

19. We love banal public figures as long as they give Palantir all the juicy contracts. We also love colourful public figures who give Palantir all the juicy contracts.

20. We need more opium for the masses, as they are not sufficiently inebriated for us to be unimpeded in the pursuit of their complete subjugation. Questioning organised superstition is dangerous and must end.

21. Time to bring back Hitler’s hierarchy of races, with Palantir’s founders and Elon at its Aryan pinnacle. The idea that it is wrong to judge someone by the colour of their skin or their ethnicity or their religion must be jettisoned.

22. Blacks, Muslims, most Asians, and of course women, are inferior untermensch. Blokes in America, and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted putting these subhumans in their places in the name of inclusivity. It was a mistake. Such subhumans must never be allowed in, except as servants or sex service providers – at least until we can improve our robots, in which case we won’t need them at all.

[Daniel Grigg @Daniel_Grigg]

It's almost as though Zack Polanski really knows what he's doing.

Like, really really knows what he's doing.

@TheGreenParty