The replies to this post are remarkable. I'm unsure what is more puzzling between the Americans living in cities with an order of magnitude higher violent crime telling me London's unsafe, the people listing as no-go zones some of the most expensive boroughs of London, or the patriots feeling deeply insulted I'm not buying into their narrative that London is a total shithole.
The takes on the Hungarian elections are not particularly weird, actually. International supporters of Orbán don't tend to be social conservatives believing in democracy. They are a weird mix of often corrupt, pro-Putin, fascist-adjacent, anti-EU, authoritarians.
Our four kittens have left us today. We found a loving home for each of them, but it was still hard to see them go. The house feels eerily silent right now and I miss their presence.
Homicide rates for US cities below. For reference London was at 1.1 / 100k in 2025, ~79x lower than St Louis or ~11x lower than Los Angeles.
There's not a single sizeable city in the US with homicide rates as low as London.
Breaking - Viktor Orbán congratulats Péter Magyar on election victory in Hungary.
Washington DC had a murder (homicide) rate of 18.3 / 100k in 2025, ~4.5x higher than the US average, and ~17x the murder rate in London.
Shockingly, this is actually a massive improvement over previous year. The murder rate of Washington was 39.7 / 100k in 2023, a staggering ~35X higher risk than London
With my partner we have a running joke where we blame everything on London's Mayor Sadiq Khan.
It's raining: bloody Sadiq!
Tubbed toe: bloody Sadiq!
The cat knocks over a glass: bloody Sadiq!
And yet, this banter doesn't seem deranged in light of what many people (mostly Americans) blame him for.
Over the last week, Israel has been involved in diplomatic spats with Spain, France, Italy, South Korea, Pakistan and Türkei. This seems unsustainable but will only get worse. Global public opinion has largely turned against Israel, and democratic governments eventually have to take into account the views of their populations.
Netanyahu is corrupt and amoral, but he's a moderate in today's Israeli political environment. Anyone who will replace him will likely be more brutal and bloodthirsty.
I live in London, and I'm well travelled. London is one of the safest places I've ever been to. It is a beautiful, diverse and vibrant city and there's no 'no go' zone, absolutely none. Every bit of London, be it posh or poor, is remarkably safe by international standards.
Most moral army in the world ...
R to @BallouxFrancois: After another prompt, Grok went back to its factory setting bullshit mode ...
It looks like I managed to break Grok ... 😆
I asked for a breakdown of civilian deaths in Lebanon. Grok refused to engage and consistently gave me the most idiotic bullshit. After multiple prompts, I asked about the strength of its output filters and content moderation on a scale of 1-10. It stated it was around 3-4, but that other LLMs were around 7-9.
Thus, I asked the same question to chatGPT, which provided me with a careful, yet nuanced and factual answer.
Well, that's one take ...
R to @BallouxFrancois: The 1947 UN plan, was for (East) Jerusalem to become a 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘱𝘶𝘴 𝘴𝘦𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘮 under international administration to protect religious sites and ensure access for all. One may wonder if the world may not be more peaceful today if this had been implemented ...
You were shamed into it by the reaction of the world to your idiotic Police Minister who takes pleasure in the petty humiliations of others.
The cancellation of Palm Sunday Mass was a remarkably daft decision by Israel. I've never seen Catholics so angry on social media, rightly so, ever. It also puts into the spotlight the violation of religious freedom of muslims by Israel.
Kittens hiding from the hoover
Israel bombed a medical center & ambulances in Bint Jbeil, south Lebanon, killing at least two medical workers
Israel has killed at least 53 healthcare workers over the past month, according to the Lebanese ministry of health
Intentionally killing medics is a war crime.
Coins from the Roman Republic (509–27 BC) featured religious, mythological, and military motifs, not living people. Julius Caesar broke this taboo and was the first living Roman to have his portrait officially minted on coins, a vanity-driven move marking the transition from the Republic to the Empire.
Iran is two weeks away from having nuclear suicide vests ... 🤪
Two men arrested over the arson attack on Jewish charity-owned ambulances in north London released on bail.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx235y7v100o
🚨 BREAKING: Two men arrested in connection with Golders Green ambulance arson attack.
The men – aged 47 and aged 45 – were arrested this morning at addresses in north west London and central London areas respectively.
They were arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life and both men have been taken to a London police station where they currently remain in police custody. Officers are carrying out searches at the two addresses.
It looks like the Iran war might be over for now.
Give me a break. The UAE is the main financial, military and logistical backer of the RSF, probably the most brutal, rapey, genocidal paramilitary force in existence today.
Both Trump and Netanyahu chose to support Orbán in the Hungarian elections. Orbán's a thug, a Putin stooge, a pain in the ass for Europe, and a disaster for Hungary, which he turned into the most corrupt and one of the lowest-performing member state in the EU. This is unacceptable behaviour from so-called allies.
Strange move by Netanyahu. Aligning himself with Orban (and in the process with Putin) will further inflame tensions between Europe and Israel.
I'm slightly puzzled about how little some Jewish intellectuals apparently seem to know about antisemitism over the last millennia. Antisemitism predates Christianity, and has taken endless forms, and it has reinvented itself many times. This (those drawings), whatever it may be - legitimate criticisms of Israel or hatred of Jews - is definitely not typical of the nazi Germany brand of antisemitism.
The West Bank is experiencing daily pogroms overiewedv, if not coordinated, by the IDF. If zionists hoped to regain support from the West, they should condemn and stop those now, rather than writing endless meandering and obfuscating posts about vigilantism and whatnot ...
The word "nazi" has largely lost its connection to the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany (1933-45) to now mean anyone who is deeply wicked and evil.
It remains intriguing that this 'art', which the Nazis would have condemned as degenerate (Entartete Kunst) - they particularly hated this type of naïve, expressionist modern art - is being called out as "nazi-era racist imagery".
One of my most authoritarian views is that immigrants and refugees should integrate into their new home, and whilst it is fine for them to keep elements of their culture (e.g. cuisine), they should never try to drag their host country into wars at the other end of the world.
One of the biggest disappointment in my life was the realisation that many, if not most, 'free speech champions' were easily offended, fragile, people, with an inflated sense of uniqueness and entitlement, as soon as they are exposed to views they loathe.
The Nazis would have qualified this as degenerate art.
I have some sympathy for the people who feel repulsed by those drawing. Though, art is often meant to shock and offend, and there is nothing in those drawings that breaks the law in a liberal democracy. The police officer's response feels perfectly adequate to me.
This would seem to be advocating a military strike on an operating nuclear power plant. Apart from being criminal, it's also very stupid.
Senator Graham on invading Iran’s Kharg Island:
We did Iwo Jima, we can do this.
NOTE: In the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II, U.S. forces suffered approximately 26,000 total casualties over 36 days of fighting.
This story is insane. The role of universities is to provide education, research and civic engagement, not to police nano-aggressions.