The Second Most Relieved Man in Britain Tonight

That would be professional bigot Nigel Farage, who defeated parody candidate Count Binface by 63% to 26%.

The most relieved man in Britain tonight is, of course, Count Binface, who would have had to serve as an MP had he won the by-election. (Count Binface is the bloke making the v sign with his finfers).

The fact that Binface lost by only 37% has to be an embarrassment for Farage.

Good. 

Nigel Farage has seen off Count Binface to win the Clacton byelection in a contest boycotted by every other major political party.

The Reform UK leader in July triggered the byelection in an attempt to shake off a deepening scandal over a £5m gift he received from the cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne.

After a campaign in which a record-breaking 34 candidates vied for the coastal seat, Farage held on to Clacton, with 22,239 votes (63.34%) of the vote.

His nearest competitor, Count Binface, a parody candidate dressed as an intergalactic rubbish bin, won 9,455 votes (26.93%). The turnout was 44%.

Farage had been widely expected to win. A poll from Survation on Monday put Farage on 75% of the vote, with Binface on 20%. Farage declared himself the winner while the votes were still being counted.

I did not expect Binface to win, but I was hoping that he would win.

Today in Weird

Man arrested after dressing up in 'Grim Reaper' costume on hospital roof and staring at patients

—The Mirror

This does seem just a bit surreal.

If someone among my reader(s) is aware of the back-story, I would appreciate hearing about it. 

H/T Comic Sands.

Common Sense in the UK

Given the large number of applications for power connections for data centers that are either never built or delayed, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) is proposing a substantial fee for grid connection requests from data centers.

Given that these requests result in significant costs which are largely borne by the rate-payers, this makes a lot of sense.

Ofgem is seeking feedback on proposals to levy a fee on datacenter development projects at the time they apply for a grid connection.

The move aims to discourage companies from seeking approval for speculative applications that clog up the pipeline and cause connection delays, without ever resulting in finished datacenters.

The UK regulator for electricity and gas says connection applications for electrical supply have surged from 41 gigawatts (GW) to 125 GW in under a year, with datacenters accounting for at least 80 GW of the new demand.

………

Ofgem is proposing a Datacenter Commitment Fee paid by the developers of large server farm projects when accepting a grid connection offer. The fee would be refunded once the facility is drawing power, or forfeited if the project exits the queue early instead.

That refund bit I do not approve of.  Data center power provisioning levies large external costs on the grid, and the AI grifters should be made to pay for that.

They Will Never See the Inside of a British Jail

Andrew Tate and Tristan Tate were arrested in Florida in response to an extradition request from the U.K. for rape and human trafficking.

I do not think that they will be extradited, at least not while Donald Trump in office.

Not only are they friends of the Trump friendly, particularly Barron Trump, but rape friendly obnoxious white dudes is Trump's base.

Andrew and Tristan Tate, prominent influencers in the so-called manosphere, were arrested by federal marshals in Miami on Saturday in connection with new criminal charges of rape and sex trafficking in England, U.S. and British law enforcement officials said.

Prosecutors in Britain said that they were seeking the brothers’ extradition.

The Tates, who have British and American citizenship, were detained “pending ongoing legal proceedings,” according to a statement from the police in Bedfordshire, a county north of London.

British prosecutors had previously charged the brothers with rape, human trafficking and sexual assault. The new charges stem from alleged offenses involving four women that took place between July 2010 and August 2017, Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service said in a statement on Sunday after the arrests.

British prosecutors said the new charges against Andrew Tate, 39, include seven counts of rape; three counts of sex trafficking; three counts of assault; and 19 more charges relating to sexual images of children and “extreme pornography.”

………

The brothers, who have cultivated a large following of young men by preaching brazen masculinity and have made a fortune from online pornography, have faced criminal investigations in three countries.

In Romania, where the Tates previously lived, prosecutors have been investigating allegations that they coerced dozens of women, including a 17-year-old girl, into pornography. They have also investigated Andrew Tate over allegations that he raped one of the women and had sex with a 15-year-old.

Romanian prosecutors had barred the brothers from leaving the country while investigations there continue, but last year they agreed to lift the travel restrictions. The move was the culmination of a yearslong effort by Andrew Tate to forge alliances with President Trump’s advisers and family members, a Times investigation found.

………

Since the travel restrictions against them in Romania were lifted, the brothers have resumed their jet-setting lifestyle, though they have not returned to Britain. Andrew Tate had been advertised as a co-host for a bare-knuckle boxing event on Saturday night in downtown Miami.

Their arrest on Saturday signaled active efforts by British authorities to extradite the brothers, even without a clear resolution to the cases in Romania.

The whole MAGA-sphere is made up of the worst people in the world.

I Love This

It's an all too common story, Nigel Farage conceals a multi-million Pound payoff gift from a crypto billionaire friend, and when Parliament starts looking into it, he resigns and announces that he will run for again in the by-election to replace himself.

The established political parties see this as a transparent political stunt, and so will not be putting forward a candidate to stand for election.

There is a candidate running against him, Count Binface, a perennial parody candidate whose platform includes, among other things, "Moving the hand dryer in the men's toilet at Uxbridge's Crown and Treaty pub to a more sensible position."

While it is almost certain that, for the first time ever, Count Binface will get his deposit back. the UK requires a £500.00 deposit to be refunded if the candidate gets more than 5% of the vote, to stand for election.

It also makes a mockery of the racist charlatan Farage. 

What had been an opportunity for self-aggrandizement is now a battle that he can only lose, because there is no way that he cannot underperform in the elction. 

Count Binface had been looking forward to a relaxing journey back to his home planet of Sigma IX when Nigel Farage dropped a political bombshell on Tuesday.

Instead, Britain’s hottest new political property said he was left with no choice but to perform a swift intergalactic handbrake turn when news broke that Farage had resigned as MP for Clacton, triggering the possibility of a byelection in the English coastal constituency he has represented since 2024.

Farage, the leader of the rightwing populist Reform UK party, has been accused of using the poll to shake off a deepening scandal over financial gifts he has received. But the plan appears to have backfired after his main rivals announced they would boycott the byelection. The Clacton byelection is now likely to be a two-man race between the Reform leader and Binface.

“I didn’t know old Farage was going to self detonate … did I?” said Binface, a veteran of British elections, where the parody candidate is something of a mainstay.The 5,900-year-old leader of the Recyclons is the creation of Jon Harvey, a comedian from Lewisham in south-east London, who has run against former prime ministers including Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson, as well as Theresa May in his previous incarnation as Lord Buckethead.

………

He said that he had been inundated over the past 48 hours with emails and messages from Binface activists offering to knock on doors and deliver leaflets on his behalf in what could yet emerge as an electoral shock on a par with when Hartlepool United’s mascot, H’Angus the Monkey, was elected as mayor of the northern English town. 

Finally, Some Good News from the UK

Unfortunately fro British subjects, the https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c30yrqem5l6o, and not one of the myriad of problems in the island nation.

A yellow eel spotted for the second time in Coventry is "rare and exciting", says an expert, who is appealing for help from the public to track further local sightings.

Alexander Jones, ecology and biodiversity officer at Coventry City Council, saw one in the River Sherbourne in 2024 but was shocked to see a second this year, since the fish used to be one of the most common species locally, but is now one of the rarest.

The second sighting in the river suggests it is making a slow comeback, Jones said.

"We've lost over 90% of our eels in the last few decades, so they are critically endangered," he explained. "The fact we're starting to see them in Coventry is really... positive."

The European eel is a critically endangered species of fish, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

 The British are not yet ready to start serving jellied eel again, but that is a good thing too.

Keir Starmer Achieved All of His Goals as PM

Outlasted by a head of lettuce His goals were to drive the left and labor out of the Labour Party, and then tack ferociously to the right in order to appeal to right wing British thugs.

Unfortunately, it turns out that neither traditional Labour voters nor Farage's Brown Shirt minions found him appealing.

Truth be told, I don't think that anyone found Starmer appealing. 

Britain is to get its fifth prime minister in four years after the current incumbent of Downing Street, Keir Starmer, announced that he would resign.

It was widely expected and came after months of mounting pressure on Starmer, who led the Labour party to a landslide victory in the 2024 UK general election but who has faced months of pressure to quit from members of parliament (MPs) for the centre-left party.

The announcement sets the scene for him to be replaced within weeks by Andy Burnham, who was a minister in the 2007-2010 government of Gordon Brown and, from 2017 until last week, the mayor of Greater Manchester.

Burnham is seen by many in Labour as the party’s best hope of defeating the challenge posed by the populist-right Reform party, led by Nigel Farage.

Nigel Farage is not a problem for Labour, chasing Nigel Farage to the right is a problem for Labour.

If Labour's response to the current situation in the UK is continuing prosecutions of peaceful protesters and inflicting gratuitous pain on immigrants and the transgender while ignoring the plight of the average Briton, Farage will win.

 

Nae True Scotsman?

The Ex-Husband of former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has pled guilty to stealing hundreds of thousands of Pounds from political donations to the Scottish National Party.

The shocking thing is that he spent his much of his ill-gotten gains on the most mundane items, which has become a running gag in Scottish politics.

A political operative’s yearslong scheme to embezzle party funds has become a source of anger and embarrassment in Scotland, but not entirely for the reasons you might think.

What’s really galling to Scots is the culprit’s lack of ambition.

Among the items Peter Murrell purchased with the $500,000 of political donations he siphoned: two toilet seats, seven vacuum cleaners, a four-and-half pound jar of Nescafe Gold Blend, and 108 rolls of toilet paper.

“Who steals instant coffee?” said Brian McNeill, who works in financial services. “He makes us look like a nation of lightweights.”

Murrell, the Scottish National Party’s former chief executive, pleaded guilty last month to taking the £400,000. The plea might have closed a shameful chapter for the government as it pushes to secure Scotland’s independence from the rest of the U.K. Instead, the past few weeks have brought a torrent of ridicule on the 61-year-old fixer and his estranged wife, former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon, as Scots sifted through the 627 individual items listed in court documents.

………

But there’s a longer list of mundane purchases that has sparked a debate about their relative dumbness. Some critics wondered why Murrell didn’t buy better stuff, like a Lamborghini or one of the cheaper Picassos.Many favor the $147 pencil sharpener as the worst offender. Some are partial to the three bird-feeders Murrell bought for $207. Others bemoaned the missed opportunities, wondering why Murrell couldn’t have gotten a Lamborghini or one of the cheaper Picassos. They all pondered what the items revealed about two people who dominated politics here for so long.

Sturgeon, who resigned ahead of Murrell’s arrest three years ago and now lives in London, denied any knowledge of her now-estranged husband’s spending habits, prompting former colleague Joanna Cherry to note her “remarkable lack of curiosity” about the robotic lawnmower and all the stuff being delivered to their home in Glasgow.

She knew.  The legal term for this is wilful blindness, and it makes her an accessory. 

Still, this does seem to be a particularly Scottish sort of scandal, at least on the spending side. 

Replacing Low Value Human Capital

Bill Winters, CEO of Standard Chartered Bank, used that phrase to describe the 8,000 people that he plans to replace with AI.

After his odious utterance, he tried to walk it back.

Hopefully, he won't be able to do so, and he will spend the rest of his life living in fear and paying for bodyguards.

AI has emboldened CEOs to make all kinds of smug declarations that betray their contempt for lowly human laborers.

But Bill Winters, the CEO of the British multinational bank Standard Chartered, said something so viscerally off-putting that he’s now gone into full damage control mode to get the heat off his back.

On Wednesday, he wrote an internal memo to employees attempting to explain away his remark that he would be firing thousands of workers and replacing the company’s “lower-value human capital” with AI.

Yes, you heard that right: “lower-value human capital.” And it clearly didn’t go over well.

“Many of you will have seen media coverage following the investor event in Hong Kong, particularly the reporting around automation, AI, and workforce changes,” Winters said in the memo, per The Wall Street Journal. “I know this may be unsettling when reduced to simple headlines or a quote out of context.”

No, it's not a matter of context.  You told your truth and revealed yourself to be a psychopath.

Gee, You Think?

Following their drubbing in local elections, many in labor are pressuring Keir Starmer to step down.

Considering that he just got his ass kicked by the English version of Fred Flintstone, Homo heidelbergensis specimen Nigel Farage, their arguments carry a lot of weight.

While Starmer has achieved his goals, purging the Labour Party of actual Labour and prostrating the party before the alter of Neoliberalism, it turns out that this is not what the voters want.

Keir Starmer is under pressure to set out a timeline for his departure after a crushing defeat in elections across Britain prompted senior Labour MPs to call for him to step down within a year.

In a disastrous set of results, Labour had lost control of more than 25 councils and more than 1,000 council seats in England by Friday night, many to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which made large gains across the Midlands and the north as well as taking seats from the Tories in the south.

After more than a century of domination, Labour has faced near-wipeout in Wales, where the party’s first minister, Eluned Morgan, lost her seat. Labour could slump to third place in Scotland behind the SNP and Reform. In London, a Green surge meant Labour lost control of councils it had dominated, including Hackney and Waltham Forest.

While the prime minister appeared to have avoided an immediate coup, there was a furious response to the results among senior MPs and the unions, with some warning him to change course or risk electoral oblivion. By Friday evening, 10 more MPs had called for him to set out a timetable for departure from No 10. 

It seems that the campaign slogan, "Better things are not possible," is not a winner.

Meanwhile, in Gorton and Denton

Labour has lost a by-election in the formerly secure constituency of Gorton and Denton.

Not only was it a blow-out, Labour came in 3rd place,behind the Green and the Reform Parties.

They won almost entirely disgust with the Conservative Party and the status quo from a profoundly disenchanted electorate.

One only has to look at the turnout.  Labour received ½ million fewer votes in 2024 than they had received in 2019 with total turnout falling by 3½ from the prior election. 

So Starmer's Tory-Lite policies, particularly when his government appears to be (at best) marginal improvement of Conservative incometence, look to be a recipe for failure.

Labour MPs have said for weeks that the outcome they most feared at the Gorton and Denton byelection was a Green party victory.

On Friday morning, those fears were realised.

The Greens’ convincing win in the Manchester seat gives the leftwing party its best byelection result and its first northern seat. More importantly, however, it gives progressive voters a clear signal that they do not have to vote Labour to beat Reform – a signal that could prove catastrophic for the government in some of its strongest heartlands over the next few years.

“What makes this loss so consequential to Labour is not just the scale of the defeat but the message it sends to voters about future contests,” said the pollster Luke Tryl. “One of Labour’s ace cards had been the hope that, however frustrated or disillusioned progressive voters might be with the Starmer government, the threat of Reform would be enough to bring them back into the fold and reunite the left – a similar approach to President Macron’s re-election against Marine Le Pen [in France].

“But that argument risks collapsing following last night’s result.”

Yes, the, "We're incompetent prats, but have you seen the other guy?"strategy.  

That has worked so well for the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) in the United States.  Just ask President Kamala Harris

………

But for Starmer, Labour’s distant third place is likely to reignite questions about his leadership and renew the criticism of those on the left of the party that he has not done enough to impress its progressive base. It follows a similar result last year in the Welsh Senedd seat of Caerphilly, where Plaid Cymru topped the ballot, ending more than 100 years of Labour dominance in the region.

The prime minister’s decision to block Andy Burnham from running for the seat is likely to come under renewed scrutiny, given many voters said they would have been more likely to vote Labour if the Greater Manchester mayor had been the candidate.

Starmer kiboshed the Burnham because he is a (marginally) progressive politician and a potential rival to Starmer's position in the party.

This is what happens when you stand for nothing. 

Well, this is a first for me

Nearly 2 years ago, around the time of Charles' coronation, I add the whole British Royal Family to my list of, "They who must not be named."

For the first time ever, I have to bring someone back, specifically, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the artist formerly known as Prince Andrew, who has been arrested for allegedly transmitting insider information to Jeffrey Epstein. 

I think that this is significant enough for me to comment on this.

King Charles has insisted “the law must take its course” after detectives took the unprecedented step of arresting his brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

Police took him to Aylsham police station in Norfolk on Thursday morning for questioning about allegations he shared confidential material with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In the evening he was pictured in the back of a car being driven away from the police station shortly after 7pm.

Thames Valley police said he was released under investigation, and searches at a property in Norfolk, Andrew’s home on the Sandringham estate, had concluded. Searches at the Royal Lodge in Windsor, Berkshire, his former address, were continuing.

On an extraordinary day that could have profound effects for the royal family, unmarked police cars and plainclothes officers from the Thames Valley force were seen at Mountbatten-Windsor’s residence at Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate at about 8am. They searched the Norfolk property as well as his former home in the Royal Lodge in Great Windsor Park.

Hours later Charles gave his unqualified backing to the police investigation into his brother, who was arrested on his 66th birthday. The king said the “law must take its course”.

One of the things that people have missed about the whole Epstein affair is that even if one does not consider his child sex trafficking, (Apart from that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?) Epstein was a crook, who hung out with crooks, all of whom saw their wealth as a shield against accountability.

Accountability?  How quaint.

There Is Bad Food, and Then There Is………

Scottish food, which may qualify as a crime against humanity, at least in the case of, "Pizza Crunch," which appears to be an affront to all that is holy.

I bet you thought that I was going to diss English food, but not this time.

Bring on the jellied eel, bubble and squeak, stargazy pie, frogspawn pudding, or mushy peas before I eat that Scottish abomination.

Trump Admin Goes to Bat for Pedophile Welfare Queen

Now that Elon Musk has turned Ecch (Twitter) into a Pedo Porn generator, the UK is seriously considering blocking the social media site as well as the Grok AI tools that are used to generate this material.

In response, the Trump administration is demanding that Great Britain take no sanctions against the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™. 

The State Department is issuing a blunt warning to the United Kingdom: Ban Elon Musk’s X, and the United States could retaliate.

The threat follows increased concern in Britain over a flood of AI-generated sexualized deepfakes circulating on X, including non-consensual images and material that could violate child-safety laws.

U.K. regulators are now considering whether the platform ran afoul of the country’s Online Safety Act, a decision that could trigger a transatlantic standoff—with arguments for free speech on one side and growing pressure to curb AI-fueled sexual abuse on the other.

In an interview with GB News on Tuesday, the State Department’s Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy, Sarah B. Rogers, suggested that the Trump administration is prepared to push back aggressively if Britain takes action against Musk’s platform.

“With respect to a potential ban of X, [U.K. Prime Minister] Keir Starmer has said that nothing is off the table. I would say from America’s perspective, nothing is off the table when it comes to free speech,” she said. “Let’s wait and see what Ofcom does, and we’ll see what America does in response. This is an issue dear to us, and I think we would certainly want to respond.”

Gee, hypocrisy much?  (Ask the owners or TikTok)

Yet Another Example of Fine British Automotive Engineering

Britain is rolling out a new armored fighting vehicle, the Ajax, and in a recent series of tests, noise levels were so loud that some troops participating in the exercise are still unfit for duty because of the noise levels. 

British soldiers who tested the new Ajax armoured fighting vehicle in the summer were so badly affected they can no longer be deployed overseas.

Around five soldiers were medically downgraded and at least two of those are still suffering to the extent they can no longer do their job properly, it is understood.

Ajax armoured fighting vehicles, of which there are six variants, are designed to find the enemy from five miles away, before infantry units and other assets deploy behind them. Using a range of cameras and sensors, the all-terrain vehicle is designed so its crew of three do not have to exit, remaining inside for a week if necessary.

Luke Pollard, the defence procurement minister, said last week that issues with the £10 million reconnaissance vehicles were “firmly in the past”. The £5.5 billion Ajax programme, which first began in 2010, has been delayed for years as trials were paused after hundreds of soldiers suffered hearing loss and other injuries.

………

The MoD commissioned Clive Sheldon KC to conduct a review into what went wrong with the Ajax programme. He found in 2023 that the failings that led to the programme going wrong were “systemic and institutional”. Warnings about the safety of the vehicle were played down or ignored, Sheldon found.

About ten soldiers who took part in a training exercise on Ajax vehicles in the summer, weeks before the vehicle was declared ready for operations, were sent to hospital for problems including serious headaches, loss of balance, motion issues and tinnitus, a defence source said.

The army refused to disclose whether the problems were ongoing but for at least two individuals health issues have persisted, The Times has been told.

………

When The Times visited General Dynamics last week, a meter on a mobile phone showed a reading of 90 decibels from a few metres away. Long or repeated exposure at sounds above 85 decibels can cause hearing loss, and employers must provide protection if that level is exceeded, according to the Health and Safety Executive.

Just as an FYI, the dB uses a logarithmic scale, so 90 dB is about 3 times the power of 85 dB. 

This level of sound is insane.

Predictable Fail

The UK has a law, the Online Safety Act of 2023, which requires all online services to age verify all of their users. 

This has created a market niche for firms which collect user data, images of their identification, and other personally identifiable information (PII) to do this.

Well, one of these verifiers has leaked over 70,000 Discord users PII.

I when this legislation was first mooted, this one of the problems that opponents cited:

Communication platform provider Discord has admitted that around 70,000 users had their government IDs stolen as part of its recent data breach.

The breach, which Discord insists occurred at an unidentified third-party customer service provider, involved government ID scans that users upload to verify their age.

Some countries have introduced legislation requiring platforms to vet users and ensure only those that meet a certain age threshold are allowed access. The most recent example is the UK with its Online Safety Act.

The UK says in-scope platforms, like Discord, must implement mechanisms to verify their users' ages "without collecting or storing personal data, unless absolutely necessary." 

Discord's help article on how users can verify their age details two methods.

The first sees users take a photo of themselves holding a photo ID and a piece of paper with their username on it. This process is completed through Discord itself.

This was foreseeable, and foreseen.

The Tory passed law could be changed to make it less risky and draconian, but draconian infringements on personal rights are kind of a brand for Keir Starmer,  so I would expect any adjustments to make it worse.

Damn

There was a car and knife attack on a synagogue during Yom Kippur services Manchester, England.

The only bright side to this was that it was not in the US, where the attacker would doubtlessly have carried a firearm and killed more people.

Authorities have described this as a terrorist incident, and arrested three people, "On suspicion of commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism."

I'm Sure This Suits Bezos Fine

It turns out that Washington Post publisher Will Lewis was providing political and media advice to Boris Johnson while he was the vice-chair of the Associated Press and Johnson was Prime Minister.

This goes a long way toward how much worse things have gotten at the paper.

Even by the standards of the British press, this is pretty egregious:

The publisher of the Washington Post, Will Lewis, is facing fresh questions over his independence after a cache of leaked files revealed he gave extensive support to Boris Johnson as a secret political adviser when Johnson was prime minister.

The files shed light on how the media executive, who at the time was vice-chair of the Associated Press news agency, worked behind the scenes with Johnson as his premiership was engulfed by a series of scandals.

Lewis’s meetings with Johnson, which took place over a six-month period in 2022, were not disclosed in official transparency records, in an apparent breach of government rules.

In July 2022, on the eve of Johnson’s announcement that he would resign from government, Lewis spent the day in 10 Downing Street and worked closely with Johnson and his advisers.

Lewis appears to have arrived early in the morning, at 7.50am, and took part in at least six meetings during the day, including a gathering of Johnson’s aides to prepare him for prime minister’s questions (PMQs) in the House of Commons.

………

The records are contained in the Boris Files, a cache of documents obtained by Distributed Denial of Secrets, a US non-profit that archives data leaks, and seen by the Guardian.

According to the files, Lewis spoke or met with the prime minister on at least 11 occasions between February and July 2022. In total, Lewis appears to have provided Johnson with at least 15 hours of political advice during this period.

The exposure of the meetings raises questions for Lewis about his proximity to political power and whether his role advising a serving UK prime minister amounted to a conflict of interest with his role at AP.

This does not raise questions, it answers them.  Lewis is a corrupt political hack pretending to be a journalist.  That's what Jeff Bezos hired him for. 

 

 

Like Watching a Battle Between Pol Pot and Slobodan Milosovitch

4chan and Kiwi Farms are have sued the UK to block their enforcing the censorious and draconian Online Safety Act against them.

It appears that the UK ffice of Communications (Ofcom) has been making legal demands 

Let’s be clear upfront: 4chan and Kiwi Farms are not the heroes of internet freedom. [Their community members are nasty pieces of work, with Kiwi Farms arguably being the worst such lot on the internet] Both sites are notorious cesspools that have enabled harassment campaigns, doxxing, and some genuinely awful behavior over the years. They’re the kinds of places where maladjusted people gather to egg each other on toward increasingly toxic actions. Most reasonable people wouldn’t shed a tear if they disappeared tomorrow.

But here’s the thing about free speech principles: they’re not just for the speech you like. And when it comes to the UK’s disastrous Online Safety Act, even trolls can make valid constitutional points.

Last week, the two sites teamed up to file a lawsuit in US federal court against Ofcom, the UK agency in charge of regulating internet speech under the OSA, claiming the regulator’s attempts to enforce British law against wholly American companies violate their constitutional rights. The case highlights the fundamental absurdity of the UK’s approach to internet regulation—and raises serious questions about what happens when every country decides it can regulate the global internet. 

The Complaint: A Surprisingly Coherent Constitutional Challenge

The 22-page complaint, filed in Washington D.C., doesn’t mince words about what Ofcom has been up to. According to the filing, Ofcom has been sending “legally binding information notices” to both sites demanding they comply with UK law, despite having no operations, infrastructure, or legal presence in Britain beyond being accessible to UK internet users.

………

That’s worth pausing on. Ofcom’s first round of enforcement actions targeted exclusively American websites. One can argue that these four sites (the other two, SaSu—or Sanctioned Suicide—and Gab are also among the most controversial websites on the internet) can be seen as particularly problematic, but this sure does feel like an effort by the UK to regulate American companies.

………

The specific demands Ofcom has made are both breathtaking in their scope and chilling in their implications. According to the lawsuit, Ofcom has threatened both sites with:

civil fines, criminal charges, criminal fines, 6 months’ imprisonment when tried summarily, or even imprisonment for up to two years when tried on indictment.

For 4chan specifically, the threats escalated over several months. The complaint details a series of increasingly aggressive communications:

On April 14, 2025, Ofcom sent a so-called “legally binding information notice” to 4chan… The 4chan Information Notice stated that failure to comply with it “may also constitute a criminal offence” and that failure to provide the requested information in readable form to Ofcom “may result in a fine of £18 million or 10% of 4chan’s worldwide turnover, arrest, and/or imprisonment for a term of up to two years, or a fine (or both).” 

The lawsuit claims that this violates both sections of the Communications Decency Act and the 1st, 4th and 5th amendments of the US constitution, and that there was a war roughly 250 years ago that established that Britain has no soverignty over the United States of America.

They claim that the actions of Ofcom, because they are an attempt to regulate commercial entities in the United States, they are not covered by sovereign immunity.

My guess is that the courts will throw this out on the above grounds, it does seem to be an official government act by Ofcom, but we'll see. 

Maybe Lockheed-Martin Rat-F%^$#ery

A British F-35B experienced mechanical problems and was forced to land in India.

It now appears that they cannot fix the aircraft on site, and so they will have to pull it apart and ship it back to the UK. 

This seems a bit extrema, and I'm inclined to believe that Lockheed-Martin's death grip on maintenance for the aircraft is responsible for this.

Either the maintainers do not know how to repair the system, or are not allowed to repair the system because of LM restrictions 

Otherwise, you could just fly parts in and fix it:

The UK’s F-35B fighter jet, currently grounded at Thiruvananthapuram International Airport in Kerala, couldn't be repaired on-site and is now likely to be dismantled, CNN-News18 reported, citing top government sources

According to the sources, the British Navy is sending a larger aircraft to transport the jet and has assured that all dues — including parking and hangar fees — will be settled with India, the report claimed.

I think that this sort of crap is why Boeing got the "F-47" contract.

The USAF does not want to deal with the Lockheed-Martin IP roach motel maintenance model.