Jack Bernhardt

(Beartato and Reginald, in a museum, gaze upon the Mona Lisa) BEARTATO: There it is. The Mona Lisa. The most famous painting in history. REGINALD: Wow! What's it do? BEARTATO: It... what? REGINALD: Why's it famous? What's it do? (Beartato thinks.) BEARTATO: I don't know. REGINALD (to nearly museum employee): Excuse me! Sir? What's it do? EMPLOYEE: You're the first person to ask! Watch this! (The employee yanks a pull-string. Mona Lisa's eyes spin around and her mouth opens like a puppet) MONA LISA: Honk honk! Honk honk! (Everyone is delighted. This is true art.)

True Art

Westminster Meeting House raided by Metropolitan Police again. Statement: “For Quakers, faith and action are inseparable. Peaceful protest, prayer and nonviolent action are integral parts of many Quakers' religious life. Whilst we take the planning of criminal acts very seriously, we believe that this incident is a deliberate targeting of committed young people who want to make our country a more equitable place. This raid is part of a systematic stifling of dissent. That this is the second time in a year that the police have raided our meeting house dramatically illuminates the broader trend in the UK of cracking down on those who disagree with the government. The right to protest is fundamental to our democracy. It's a key part of how people make their voices heard between elections.” – Oliver Robertson, Head of Witness and Worship Quakers in Britain, 5 March 2026

Yesterday evening, for the second time in a year, the Met Police raided Westminster Quaker Meeting House and arrested a number of young nonviolent activists.

STATEMENT: www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

During World War 2 the United States sought to use entertainment as a form of propaganda. In 1943 the Office of Strategic Services (a precursor to the CIA) circulated a memo stating the cinema is "one of the most powerful propaganda weapons at the disposal of the United States" and recommended "the voluntary cooperation of all motion agencies not under the control of the JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff]".[4] The United States Office of War Information utilized cinema for its own ends to rally the public behind the war effort. Director Elmer Davis stated "The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people's minds is to let it go in through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize that they are being propagandized".[5] In 1953 US President Dwight D. Eisenhower declared "The hand of government must be carefully concealed, and, in some cases I should say, wholly eliminated" and that "a great deal of this particular type of thing would be done through arrangements with all sorts of privately operated enterprises in the field of entertainment, dramatics, music, and so on and so on."[6][7]

something so grimly funny that the birth of the military-entertainment complex begins with Eisenhower saying "we can never let the American people explicitly make the connection between Hollywood and the US army" and possibly ends with Trump just tweeting it out

it's the kind of thing that will be a primary source in a GCSE history module about The Fall Of The American Empire (1992-2029), and it's the source you'd pray to come up in the exam because it's so on the nose

almost certainly an overreaction, but this feels like one of the most important videos of the 21st century, in the sense that it's the actual White House saying the (admittedly barely veiled) subtext of the military-industrial-entertainment complex of the past 60 years out loud

1967 - Dystopian Sci-fi novel, Don’t Create The Torment Nexus published

1974 - Cult classic BBC mini series

1997 - BBC remake

2002 - Hollywood movie, upbeat ending added

2019 - Nexcon - A Torment Company IPO’s, $324 Billion market cap

2026 - Polymarket bets on who will be tormented next

The House of Lords Digital & Communications Committee just published their report on AI, copyright & the creative industries, and their conclusions could not be clearer.

🧵 1/5

I think this has rubbed me up the wrong way because it assumes the people being bombed should give a fuck about the trivial internal politics of the people doing the bombing. even as a critique of America it's depressingly self-absorbed

The good kind of infighting. Creasy explaining very clearly why the policy sucks. More power to the backbenchers

David Simon The ayatollahs could issue the funniest statement ever today: "Wait. He just appointed the second-most deadbrained Senator to head homeland security and he gave the dog-shooting Barbie some made up job defending the Western hemisphere. And now he wants to name our Supreme Leader? The fuck you say."

"the funniest statement ever"

this post deserves to be presented to you by having an index card moved down word by word with photos taken of your face after every new reveal

As someone who lives down the road from the Spurs stadium, I've gone from laughing at this to genuinely worrying about the effect this will have on the local economy

Markwayne isn't a name, it's a way of stopping England at major tournaments between 2004 and 2016

This time his practical jokes had gone too far, and Wally was finally booted off the hill.

This time his practical jokes had gone too far, and Wally was finally booted off the hill.

the second half of this letter makes it worth perservering through the first half

ooh, no, I've got the Libby App (which I really recommend, free audiobooks from the library!) so I'm listening to Simon Vance reading it

in honour of World Book Day I'm (still) listening to The Warden by Anthony Trollope and I've got to the bit where a hack author called Mr Popular Sentiment (based on Charles Dickens) learns about the events of the book and turns them into a ghastly novel, and it's the cattiest thing I've ever heard

not sure this works on any level but it was in my head and now it's out of it, so

Meme triptych of Duke Leto and Paul Atreides Text: We must not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind. Why not? Because people are fucking idiots, Paul. They're just... incredibly stupid.

It's Burled Wook Day so I've sent my daughter to school dressed as a ripped Chewbacca

VERY strong

God I love that song, memories of listening to that album on repeat on the train going back and forth to uni

probably really throws God off, you know? He's thinking "I don't think I even know this guy but they started with 'and' so I guess we have a preexisting relationship? Better just nod along" and then by the end he's like "this guy sounds so confident, maybe we DID build Jerusalem in Stoke-on-Trent?"

such a power move to start the hymn Jerusalem with "and". All these other hymns are like "ooh hallelujah" and "ahh almighty" but Jerusalem's just like "WE'RE MIDWAY THROUGH A CONVERSATION ABOUT ANCIENT FEET. GET ON BOARD"

The Paralympics start today and WE HAVE A HEIST????

“Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair?”

Aussiemandias

LUTHER VANDROSS: [leaning in for his 954th consecutive kiss] actually to be honest I misjudged this. This is my limit, sorry

MISSPELT GORDIAN LIKE A DICKHEAD but in fairness I posted this from a soft play

War: famously predictable!

Matt Chorley should call his radio show Chat Morely with Matt Chorley. Surely.