I promised we would fix our broken railways.
Today Southern, Thameslink, Great Northern and Gatwick Express return to public ownership. Run for the public good, not private profit.
This Labour government is putting passengers first.
"There are few saints in conditions of acute economic scarcity, especially in cultural systems where the rise to eminence of one individual triggers an obligation to provide for the welfare of an entire kinship group " Decalo on why corruption in Africa is stimulated by culture
“E do ah…” has a literal meaning
1. If things go well, I will join and if it doesn’t, take care of yourself
2. When you find your feet, don’t forget me
It’s actually deep than “awwnn” and “I’m happy for you”
Dave Chappelle fires back after backlash over his Saudi Arabia show.
Says no one ever had a problem with Saudi money until “a black man” made “money off the plantation.”
“The United States government does business with the Saudis. Netflix does business with Saudis, everyone. Saudis financed tons of movies. I see them financing boxing matches and all these things.”
“And none of these things were an issue until I went there.”
“Now, why is that? As soon as a black man can make money off the plantation, they try to tell you that the money is dirty.”
FULL EXCHANGE BELOW:
REPORTER: “US intelligence did make it clear that they believe that the Saudis killed Jamal Khāshqujī in the embassy in Turkey. And you knew that when you went, right?”
CHAPPELLE: “Oh, absolutely.”
REPORTER: “You had no qualms?”
CHAPPELLE: “I won’t say that. They asked me to go years before that, and I said no for that very reason.”
“Since that time, the United States government does business with the Saudis. Netflix does business with Saudis, everyone. Saudis financed tons of movies. I see them financing boxing matches and all these things.”
“And none of these things were an issue until I went there.”
“Now, why is that? As soon as a black man can make money off the plantation, they try to tell you that the money is dirty. Well, okay, I’ll go home and spend the money with actual slave owners on it. Where is this clean money you’re talking about?”
REPORTER: “But you said you hesitated for years to go. There are years you didn’t go. So what made the difference for you?”
CHAPPELLE: “Time. Time and circumstance. Time. And the wheels of commerce kept turning.”
“If you want to be that pure about money, then stop driving your car, stop eating, don’t use your cell phone. Everything is tethered to something that’s just terrible.”
“And I can make a million excuses or reasons to deprive that crowd of that show, but, man, when I was standing in front of them, I feel like I did the right thing.”
my ultimate delusion is that i will win. not maybe, not someday, not if things go right. i will win, it’s a certainty. and there’s nothing in this world strong enough to convince me otherwise.
The people in this photo aren't friendlier than you. Their apartments are just smaller. So small that Parisians basically gave up on living indoors and moved their living rooms onto the sidewalk. And that was the whole plan.
In the 1850s, a city planner named Baron Haussmann tore apart medieval Paris and rebuilt it. He widened streets into boulevards, capped every building at five stories, and added one rule that explains this entire photo: the ground floor of every building had to be a café, a bakery, or a shop. The apartments above were intentionally tiny. Some were single rooms carved out of old mansions. No garden. Barely any sunlight. A private balcony was something most Parisians would never have.
So the café became home. You ate breakfast there. Held meetings there. Received your mail there. By the late 1700s, Paris already had close to 2,000 of them. In 2002, there were still 1,907. Even now, after years of closures brought that number to about 1,410, the coverage is absurd: a 2020 city study found 94% of Parisians live within a five-minute walk of a bakery. When COVID shut indoor dining in 2020, Paris ripped out parking spaces, turned them into outdoor terraces, and let 9,800 cafés and restaurants keep them permanently.
An American sociologist named Ray Oldenburg wrote a book in 1989 called The Great Good Place. He had a name for spots like the Parisian café: "third places." Not your home, not your office, but the casual in-between spots where you actually get to know people. Cafés, pubs, barbershops, the corner store where the owner knows your name. His whole argument was that American suburbs were built with only two zones, your house and your job, connected by a car. No sidewalk café, no place to bump into a neighbor by accident.
The U.S. Surgeon General declared loneliness a national health epidemic in 2023. Being alone all the time is as bad for your body as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Half of American adults say they feel lonely. Weekly socializing dropped from 5.5 hours in 2003 to just 4 hours in 2023, and it never bounced back after COVID. Americans between 15 and 29 now spend 45% more time alone than they did in 2010.
The scene in this tweet looks like a personality trait. It is a 170-year-old engineering project that works exactly as designed.