Nik Shah

Globalist, liberal, green. Staying curious. Opinions all my own. 🇪🇺🇬🇧🇩🇪🇮🇳🇰🇪🇺🇦🇪🇪

[Nik Shah @nikshah]

The world needs some modern equivalent of the monastery where men can go and do cool stuff, chill with other guys in pursuit of something greater than themselves, and be applauded by society for it.

[Yasmina @yasminalombaert]

This is putin casually admitting to what can only be described as a textbook war crime, and he’s doing it with a smug smile on his face.

He literally brags about using Ukraine as a human testing ground.

He openly admits that they didn't fire their "Oreshnik" missile at a military test range. Instead, they fired it at populated areas in Ukraine just because it was "convenient to watch”.

Think about that for a second. He sent explosive warheads into communities, and then sent drones in right after just to count the bodies and measure the craters "down to the millimeter" like it’s some kind of science fair project.

But the scariest part is how he ends it. He casually drops that they are collecting this data so they can figure out how to better use these massive missiles in "urban areas”. That is political speak for densely populated cities filled with civilians, apartment buildings, and schools.
It’s pure, calculated terror.

putin: “After all, we... we used to test such systems at testing ranges. But 'Oreshnik' wasn't tested that way. And this wasn't a combat application. In fact, we haven't had a single combat application of 'Oreshnik' over the territory of Ukraine in the full, so to speak, sense of the word.
And the last one—to be completely honest, I will reveal a major, major state military secret to you. We simply struck a location where it was convenient to observe the results. Well, this concerns Bila Tserkva, and it especially concerns... concerns the DPR [so-called Donetsk People's Republic] area within the perimeter of the main fortified area.
Afterward, our drones flew into that area—the target area we had struck—and simply looked at how the multiple reentry vehicles had landed. They calculated everything down to the millimeter, exactly where everything hit.
For us, this is important in order to make future decisions regarding the full-scale deployment of 'Oreshnik' against designated targets. Including within urban areas.”

[Janis Kluge @jakluge]

Impossible - the turbines at the pumping station are broken, remember? At least that's what you claimed when you cut off Germany's gas supplies in 2022 to create an energy crisis.

[Nik Shah @nikshah]

@akarlin A wingnut magnet

[Nik Shah @nikshah]

@akarlin A twattractor

[Nik Shah @nikshah]

A twattractor.

[Anatoly Karlin 🧲💯 @akarlin]

Putin has built something like the precise inverse of brain drain - not reverse brain drain (where smarts repatriate), but a phenomenon in which the most useless, low IQ, pedophilic, etc. foreign elements are attracted to it like moths to a flame.

[Nik Shah @nikshah]

Amazing thread. Essential reading

[Mikhail Khodorkovsky @khodorkovsky_en]

Remember the pig heads at the Paris mosques? Or the Jewish centers painted green?

I knew exactly whose work it was the moment I saw it. Now — I finally have the proof. 🧵 [1/19]

[Caolan @CaolanReports]

For weeks, Irish politicians have dodged questions about the refinery in Ireland supplying Russia’s war machine.

So I tracked down government minister Niall Collins at a farming show.

He refuses to back sanctions & his stance was worse than I expected.

Avoidance.

[Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion]

This argument against building more housing -- "Where does it all stop?" -- sounds like it makes sense when you first hear it, but when you think about it, you realize it doesn't.

First of all, if you simply apply the logic in reverse, you end up with no housing at all! Suppose no one has a place to live, and people propose building just a few houses. Would it make sense to say: "We shouldn't do that, because where would it stop?" No, it would not.

YIMBY is not a program designed to reach an ideal, optimal, imagined level of density for a city. It's a program designed to MAKE HOUSING MORE AFFORDABLE. If you build more housing, rents go down -- not just in the city where you build the housing, but elsewhere as well!

"Rent is too high, let's build more supply" is the core of YIMBYism. If you aren't so worried about rent, then sure, be NIMBY. But right now tons of places ARE worried about rent!

And one more point: Yes, a city might decide that it values quiet streets and scenic views more than low rents. But WHAT IS THE UNIT at which such democratic decisions should happen? At the block level? The neighborhood level? The state level? The county level? What about just me deciding to build an apartment building on my own property?

NIMBYism seems to assume we should allocate decision making power to the geographical unit that's the LEAST LIKELY to build housing -- implying that it should be a goal of policy to maximize veto power. To me that sounds like a quick and easy recipe for massive economic and political dysfunction.

So no, "Where does it all stop?" is not a good argument against YIMBYism. Building more housing is not a slippery slope.

[Nik Shah @nikshah]

@AndrewBylerPA @expectbetterUK @ItsAndyRyan @pmberry2007 No, we are talking about what is happening right now.

[Nik Shah @nikshah]

@GypsyD24 @theistinthought I live in a walkable city, and I have a car, and a cargo bike. Depending on the trip, load, weather, mood, I might walk, bike or go by car. If I lived in most American cities, I’d have no choice but to go by car.

[Nik Shah @nikshah]

@chrisdo84546069 @LeftYimby @theistinthought Sociophobes are indeed going to have a bad time in cities. Everyone else though…

[Nik Shah @nikshah]

@theistinthought @KingBika1 @cljack You were saying this as a response to people trying to make cities more walkable so that precisely this kind of thing is possible for more people

[Nik Shah @nikshah]

@AndrewBylerPA @expectbetterUK @ItsAndyRyan @pmberry2007 Did the people who gave you nicknames also beat you up, burn down your house and rape your family? Because if not, that might not be a perfect analogy

[Derek Thompson @DKThomp]

This has quietly been a miracle month in medicine.

In the last 5 weeks we’ve got news on:

- retatrutide, the triple agonist GLP-1 from Lilly, basically melting fat and body-wide inflammation at record levels
- RevMed’s new pancreatic cancer drug showing unprecedented abilities to extend life
- small trial of a one-and-done PCSK9 gene editing therapy for slashing LDL cholesterol
- Mayo’s AI-assisted radiology showing vastly improved cancer detection
- this new therapy for metastatic solid tumors

This stuff is at varying levels of evidence. Retatrutide is ~100% on its way, other stuff needs more clinical trial data. But put it together and we’re maybe on the verge of majorly reducing the mortality of heart disease and cancer, the two leading causes of death in America.

[Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion]

Just remembering the time when David Sacks told me that for Ukraine to attack Russian forces in Crimea would be "invading Russia"

[Nik Shah @nikshah]

“Hey Claude, please bomb any zebras you see on the road to Crimea. Only zebras, please. Those guys really suck.”

[OSINTtechnical @Osinttechnical]

Russians have started painting their logistics vehicles with dazzle camouflage in an attempt to confuse AI-assisted targeting systems used by Ukrainian mid-range strike drones.

[Nik Shah @nikshah]

@seconds_0 If it’s all expenses paid though, you should pick the nordics or Switzerland

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

Russia is now threatening other nearby countries far more openly than before. Every neighbor of Russia heard what was said about Armenia, whose people are the only ones who have the right to decide and will choose the future of their country. What Russia says about Armenia is, in truth, not about Armenia alone.

No one can be left without support – Europe has no right to lose any of its peoples, to leave any country behind. Armenia must be supported. Moldova must be supported. The Baltic states. Azerbaijan must be supported. We must find ways to support the people of Georgia as well – and this is a shared European task. No one can be lost.

[Nik Shah @nikshah]

@AlexArborist Also comparing a big city to two countries is bizarre. Do Berlin and rural Saxony or something

[Nik Shah @nikshah]

@AndrewBylerPA @expectbetterUK @ItsAndyRyan @pmberry2007 Maybe. Then again, if you were busy being beaten and tortured daily by the guy who gave you the popular nickname “Baldy McGimpface” and you asked me to call you Andrew Byler instead, I’d maybe excuse the insecurity and just do it.