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jamesrball.com
Tech, policy, politics. Pol ed @ the New European, fellow @ Demos, writer in various other places. Latest book: The Other Pandemic – How QAnon Contaminated The World https://www.jamesrball.com/
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Posts 23 Comments 27

“Elon Musk was presented with a gift of a golden key in a mahogany box as if he were a retiree from a factory after a lifetime of service rather than someone whose time in government was shorter than most internships” inews.co.uk/news/world/t...

submitted 57 minutes ago • 1 comment

Donald Trump and Elon Musk a joint press conference. The vibe? “An announcement from divorcing parents to their children that even though mummy and daddy won’t be living together any more, everything is still completely fine.” inews.co.uk/news/world/t...

submitted 58 minutes ago • 0 comments

Imagine calling yourself a journalist and standing in the Oval Office with Donald Trump and Elon Musk right now and asking ludicrous softball questions about Biden and autopens – immediately after Trump and Musk cut off a question about the NYT before it could even be asked.

submitted 2 hours ago • 2 comments

lots of people are really determined to defend the honor of SE Asian crime networks.

submitted 4 hours ago • 12 comments

Reading this thread I am baffled by how Boundless thought this was going to be viable. Trying the new company out of administration thing was always going to rely on goodwill. That would’ve required (1) VERY clear comms throughout and (2) payments. With neither? How was it *ever* going to work?

submitted 5 hours ago • 3 comments

Just seen Trump’s latest Truth Social post and there’s clearly an increasing chance that @robarmstrong.bsky.social’s TACO coinage – and Trump hearing about it – is going to reignite a global trade war, isn’t there?

submitted 8 hours ago • 4 comments

“Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use.” Remember when right-wing media went crazy over one baggie of cocaine being found in the White House?

submitted 8 hours ago • 4 comments

That’s not the rule and you know it.

submitted 15 hours ago • 23 comments

“Higher education might have been bad at making the arguments, but its campuses are the new factories, or even the new mines, supporting thousands or tens of thousands of jobs. Closures could devastate communities for a generation.” www.theneweuropean.co.uk/james-ball-i...

submitted 13 hours ago • 4 comments

A thoughtful, lucid speech undermined by a clumsy passage www.spectator.co.uk/article/lord...

submitted 14 hours ago • 4 comments

As if I didn’t love Jason Mantzoukas enough already, he brought M Night Shamalayan TWISTS to taskmaster. 14/10, strong recommend.

submitted 21 hours ago • 0 comments

Left my risotto unattended for less than ten seconds in an empty room. Returned to this.

submitted 22 hours ago • 14 comments

submitted 23 hours ago • 2 comments

Dude was born in Cambridge and went to Harvard.

submitted 1 day ago • 151 comments

Whatever you think of the abundance agenda, isn’t that like saying McDonald’s polls better than salad among kids? The populist argument is a soundbite, not an approach – not least because Donald Trump uses the same frame himself, all the time. So it would hardly differentiate democrats.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

“Trump and his White House will publicly, at least, howl with rage at this ruling and vow to fight it. Behind the scenes, at least some of them will be praying that it is upheld by the Supreme Court – as it might be their best chance of staying in power.” inews.co.uk/opinion/ban-...

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

First, they came for Chris Cillizza, and I said nothing. Because it was a sticker, ffs.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

This will extend far beyond writing. There’s lots of things that humans get better at by doing it relatively badly for an extended period of time. If they skip that using AI, they’ll never get better than AI. Short-term, that’s a problem for them. Long-term, it’ll lead to human skill shortages.

submitted 1 day ago • 4 comments

“Qatar is insisting that a memorandum of understanding between Washington and Doha specify that the aircraft’s transfer was initiated by the Trump administration and that Qatar is not responsible for any future transfers of the plane’s ownership, these people said.”

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

the modern information environment

submitted 1 day ago • 120 comments

With the child benefit cap back in the news, @jamesrball.com explored why it's such a divisive issue for Labour

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Any payment here would be a payoff, not a settlement. This lawsuit is frivolous. www.wsj.com/business/med...

submitted 1 day ago • 4 comments

And a Tesla supplier seems to be one of the worst offenders. www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2025...

submitted 1 day ago • 3 comments