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October 2025

But, but, he’s a bad person!

A prominent anti-DEI campaigner appointed by Meta in August as an adviser on AI bias has spent the weeks since his appointment spreading disinformation about shootings, transgender people, vaccines, crime, and protests.

Robby Starbuck, 36, of Nashville, was appointed in August as an adviser by Meta – owner of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other tech platforms – in an August lawsuit settlement
…..
Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said: “It is appalling that Robby Starbuck was given a hand in Meta operations in any capacity. He peddles lies and pushes extremism, and it is hard to believe any of this will help make their platforms safer or better.

Eric Bloem, vice-president of corporate citizenship at the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, said: “People should be able to find safe, welcoming communities online. Robby Starbuck pushes a dangerous anti-LGBTQ agenda, spreading disinformation and denying the very existence of transgender people.”

There are only going to be so many places getting paid for the grift. How appalling that one of those getting paid is not one of us.

That about covers it.

This is annoying

Recent expressions of interest from the DLA include plans to buy up to $500mn of cobalt, up to $245mn of antimony from the domestic US Antimony Corporation, up to $100mn of tantalum from an undisclosed US company and up to a combined $45mn of scandium from Rio Tinto and APL Engineered Materials, a chemical manufacturing company based in Illinois that has offices in Japan and China.

I used to be (OK long time ago, but) the scandium supplier to APL…..Ho well.

This does mean that they don’t actually produce Sc themselves. The guys at Stanford Materials might be having a good time though. But then they source from China which might not be quite the point of the stockpile….

Analysts at Jefferies said the Rio deal, for around 6 tonnes of scandium oxide, was at a price that was “higher than market expectations”. Global consumption of scandium oxide is around 30-40 tonnes, according to price reporting agency Fastmarkets, with China the leading producer.

Difficult to know where that much is going TBH. I still keep in contact with a few etc and no one can quite work that out. We all have a feeling that it’s bad info, but bad info that keeps getting repeated by people so is the standard assumption. 10 tonnes seems more likely to many….

The price of germanium has soared this year as exports from China have fallen, with western traders warning of “panic” in the market as companies struggled to get hold of it. The germanium issue is one the Pentagon is trying to fix.

That’s easy. Process some more coal fly ash. $10 million will build a little factory to do it, no problems.

Hoo, Boy

There is a fundamental distinction that we have forgotten in how we now think about the economy. It is the difference between work and speculation, which is, in quantum terms, the difference between what is real work and activity that is reversible.

Try reversing a specultion gone wrong and getting your money back.

Also, this from hte guy who insists that we face uncertainty, not just risk. The answer to uncertainty is speculation, of course. Well, if this happens then that – and we don’t know – then we could react by doing this other. We are speculating on what might happen.

Of course SpudMeister insists that we should react to the existence of uncertainty by planning.

Sigh.

More logic, less creative

In some ways, it is scarcely worth responding to Kemi Badenoch’s pledge to end “rip-off” degrees such as – we presume – performing arts, English, design, sociology, anthropology, media and psychology.

Yes, yes, the disgusting engineers are having a go at the luvvies.

Slashing arts degrees because they don’t make enough money, you say? First of all: what on earth do you think the purpose of human life is? Isn’t it something like: “pursue joy, deal justly with your fellow humans, love well, try to understand and see as much of this beautiful world and of the richness and variety of human culture and experience as you can before you die”?

None of which requires a degree of course.

The creative industries are a powerhouse for the British economy. The UK has some of the best talent in the world in film and television (for the benefit of Badenoch, that’s “performing arts”). Not just actors but producers, lighting experts, directors, camera operators, graphic artists, CGI experts, makeup artists, costume creators, casting mavens.

High-end television production companies from around the world come to Britain to make great work. Performing arts is a huge industry for Britain. The creative industries add £124bn of value to the UK; the University and College Union (UCU) called Badenoch’s plans “economically illiterate”.

None of which requires a degree of course.

Perhaps we really should replace all arts degrees with something in basic logic?

China spies!

He said: “Some of this was just translations and some of it was cut-and-paste. A lot of things were from the British media. It was more like a copyright infringement than an espionage issue.”

Brown said he considered that “stronger evidence” might have been presented during the trial that he might not have seen. The Observer understands the prosecution did disclose all the available material to the defence team, which considered none of it could be reasonably described as prejudicial to the safety or interests of the UK.

Well, yes, I imagine the defence would put it that way. They are, after all, the defence.

No to Digital ID

The No to Digital ID campaign previously launched on this blog has gone from strength to strength. Having now 22,000 followers – many of whom here have followed and contributed.

We have launched a digital campaign with advertisements going live in Worcester, Cardiff, Great Yarmouth, Shrewsbury and others. We can do this instantly (within 24 hours).

We’re now looking to expand and looking for donors, or give the twitter account a share that would be great! If you’d can spare a few pounds for a very good cause check out our campaign here:

Check this link for a full list of how the money will be spent: LINK


 

 

 

Reality is wrong

Right-wing commentators claim inequality in Britain is falling. It isn’t.

The Office for National Statistics says the Gini coefficient has improved — but the truth is that it ignores capital gains, wealth accumulation, debt, and inflation that hits the poor hardest.

Given that wealth inequality is also at worst static, if not actually falling, something must be done to deny reality, right? Because how can you justify nicking everything if there’s no justification for doing so?

Cheeky

Venture Global started producing LNG from a facility in Louisiana in January 2022, shortly before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent gas prices soaring amid a global scramble to replace Russian gas.

The American company had contracts to sell the LNG from the Calcasieu facility once it was fully operational to international buyers such as BP, Shell, Galp and Edison at much lower prices.

Venture Global did not declare the formal start of commercial operations until more than three years later in April 2025, however, enabling it to continue selling the LNG itself at higher spot prices in the market in the meantime.

Like those wind farms that haven’t picked up their CfD contracts given that market prices were higher than strike.

Tsk.

BP is seeking more than $1 billion in damages after a surprise arbitration victory against an American liquefied natural gas producer it accused of breaking supply contracts to cash in on high prices during the gas crisis.

Har har har.

Sigh

Donald Trump has threatened to impose additional US tariffs of 100% on China from next month, accusing Beijing of “very hostile” moves to restrict exports of rare earths needed for American industry.

Wall Street fell sharply after the US president reignited public tensions with the Chinese government, and raised the prospect of another acrimonious trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

All of the things necessary to deal with this are already underway. People are already setting up to mine non-China deposits. Make magnets outside China. Separate rare earths concentrates into the individual rare earths outside China. And on and on and on.

Of course idiot governments are going to throw money around and they already have been doing. But markets see? Prices change – as they are doing – and actions change. We’re done.

Sigh.

Err, right

In The Woman in Cabin 10, Netflix’s new potboiler, Keira Knightley plays a fearless justice warrior, a lone voice of dogged truth in a maelstrom of corruption, and this is not her first foray into such terrain: six years ago she played the whistleblower Katharine Gun in Official Secrets, the 2019 film about some pretty dicey US and UK behaviour before the Iraq war.

This time round she’s a journalist, though – and not just any old hack, a Guardian journalist. Exhausted and possibly traumatised by a crusading investigation she has just finished about some bad people doing bad things, she accepts a trip on a billionaire’s yacht for a breather, only to discover that billionaires are also bad. You cannot call that a spoiler, even though it technically is one. You’re reading the Guardian, for Pete’s sake.

Doesn’t work, does it? All Guardian journalists are bigger tits than that.

OK

Adding 3p to the basic and higher rates of income tax would be less harmful than ramping up VAT, corporation tax, or a raft of smaller taxes, the institute said.

So says NIESR. Spud:

But then let’s play along with the question NIESR has set. If Reeves believes she must raise taxes, and she clearly does, for political and institutional reasons, the real issue is not whether to raise them, but who should pay.

OK, then Spud goes on to his wishlist. Ignoring the actual point NIESR make:

The graph below shows the effect on real GDP of a permanent rise in the three taxes we
consider. Although all taxes lead to lower economic growth, the impact varies between tax
options chosen. VAT has the biggest negative impact; real GDP falls by 0.87 per cent in the first
year after the tax is applied. Corporation tax has the second largest impact, with real GDP lower
by approximately 0.15 per cent. Income tax, on the other hand, has the lowest impact, with real
GDP being lower by approximately 0.05 per cent.VAT is particularly damaging in the short term,
but once the economy adjusts to the higher prices, real GDP stabilises. Corporation tax, on the
other hand, has less of a short-term impact but is more persistent and starts to drag down the
economy in the longer term.

Taxes have deadweight costs. We should raise our money – or for MMTers, reduce our inflation by – low deadweight, nothigh deadweight, taxes.

But then Spud’s whole taxing wealth report itself valiantly ignores deadweights. Because of course it does, all Spud’s reports ignore the very point that needs to be discussed. Obviously.

Fair comment

A judge has branded a judicial review application into the use of SAS force in an IRA ambush more than three decades ago as “ludicrous” and “utterly divorced from reality”, The Times can reveal.

Rilly?

However, Roisin Nugent, the daughter of one of the IRA men, Tony Doris, challenged that decision, arguing that Soldier B should have paused after every shot to consider whether it was absolutely necessary to fire another one.

Ah, yes, ludicrous.

There is no need to reach net zero

The people you hope would be best informed about the imminent threat of climate breakdown would be members of parliament. After all, droughts and storms affecting their constituents have been a recurring news item. The need to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 requires an informed debate among parties.

As ever, the actual lesson of the Stern Review is not to have an emissions target. Rather, it’s to hve an emissions *price* and therefore we’ll have the correct amount of emissions.

Now, if someone would like to beat that into MPs be my guest…..

This is a surprise!

Majority of family court cases in England and Wales feature domestic abuse, watchdog says

Erm, what else are family courts going to be dealing with ither than dysfunctional families?

Nearly 90% of cases before the family courts in England and Wales show evidence of domestic abuse, a watchdog has disclosed.

Physical, psychological or sexual abuse of a member of the family or household was uncovered in 87% of cases, according to a review ordered by the domestic abuse commissioner, Nicole Jacobs.

The abuse was frequently not recognised as an “active issue” or taken seriously with regard to the type of contact children would go on to have with the abusive parent, she said. In more than half of the cases reviewed, unsupervised overnight contact was ordered.

‘Mazin’ how the idiots can be even worse than your ingoing prejudices, eh? This is the social workers (or that type) discovering abuse that no one else has noted.

Bad idea

Even more drastic solutions to the crisis are also being considered. According to a new YouGov poll, almost half the Conservatives’ shrinking membership support a merger with Reform UK –

From Reform’s point of view that is. Individuals moving? Sure. But merging the parties would mean inhaling the central features, orgs, of the Tory Party. Every blue rinse LibDem in the country that is.

If Reform is going to stay distinctive – if – it’s got to build its own infrastucture.

No, I am not involved in any of this….

Well, FAFO, no?

A federal grand jury has indicted Letitia James, the New York attorney general, for bank fraud, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Lindsey Halligan, the US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, personally presented the case to the grand jury on Thursday, the person said. US attorneys do not typically present to a grand jury.

“This is nothing more than a continuation of the president’s desperate weaponization of our justice system. He is forcing federal law enforcement agencies to do his bidding, all because I did my job as the New York state attorney general,” James said in a recorded video statement on Thursday.

“These charges are baseless, and the president’s own public statements make clear that his only goal is political retribution at any cost. The president’s actions are a grave violation of our constitutional order and have drawn sharp criticism from members of both parties.”

Her charges against him were clearly politically motivated. But, as sometimes happens, they enraged the bear not killed it. So there’s that.

There’s also the interesting question of whether Ms. James actually is guilty of bank fraud of course.

Oooookay

The first is that she will abolish stamp duty. The aim, she says, is to help young people buy homes. What she has very clearly never done is look at the data on what the impact of changes to stamp duty have on house prices. Almost invariably, cutting stamp duty results in an increase in house prices.

So cutting stamp duty on shares will increase share prices and so increase investment.

The case against the Financial Transactions Tax is proven……

Asymmetric risk

The justice secretary, David Lammy, has ruled out reintroducing charges for employment tribunals after a backlash from unions over the proposals.

The Guardian revealed last week that ministers were considering a plan to charge workers a fee to take their bosses to court as part of negotiations in this year’s spending review. Trade unions responded with fury, labelling the idea a “disaster”.

The employer has to bear all the costs of every attempt. Employees none of any. There are going to be more claims than might really be justified, aren’t there?

How odd

Almost 55,000 children in Gaza are estimated to be acutely malnourished, far more than have so far been identified as victims of the potentially lethal condition, a study published in the Lancet, the respected international medical periodical, has revealed.

You know, given those other claims that 380,000 children are dead already – that is, all the children under 5. Or those other other claims of starvation in droves – and no, malnutrition is not the same as starvation.

This isn’t to say that maulnutrition is good, nor that there isn’t suffering etc. Rather, just to point out that we are subject to all sorts of claims at present and they do not seem to actually agree with each other. Therefore at least some of those claims are wwrong.

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