Red Hot World

Clement Attlee ignored the Balance the Books BS after WWII. Britain was in debt and on rations. But his government still spent big to create the NHS and a welfare state. 80 years on, those institutions still stand. But today's politicians refuse to follow in his footsteps.

Israel has carried out just one legal execution in its entire history. Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Holocaust, was tried and hung in 1962. Now Ben-Gvir is posting TikToks dreaming of nooses for Palestinians.

London Underground station flooding has reportedly been reduced by around 90% thanks to a group of engineers: beavers. After conservationists reintroduced a family of beavers into a nearby city park, the animals built dams and restored wetlands that now absorb and slow floodwater naturally. Authorities had planned major man-made flood infrastructure, but the beavers effectively created their own system — while also boosting biodiversity and restoring the ecosystem around them.

In September 1943, Italy fell under German occupation. The SS hunted Jews for deportation to Auschwitz. In Assisi, a 32-year-old Franciscan friar named Rufino Niccacci—peasant-born, Guardian of San Damiano Monastery, and someone who had never met a Jew—received an order from Bishop Giuseppe Nicolini. “We are hiding Jews in every monastery and convent in Assisi.” “If we’re caught, we’ll be shot,” Rufino replied. “Yes,” the bishop said. “As many as can come.” Rufino accepted. What followed was one of the war’s most daring rescues. Jews fleeing from Rome, Florence, and the north poured into Assisi. Rufino hid them across 26 monasteries and convents—including the Basilica of Saint Francis and ancient cloistered houses that had never admitted outsiders. They disguised Jews as monks and nuns. Rufino taught them Latin prayers, how to walk, pray, and sit in chapel. Children memorized Catholic rites they didn’t understand. A local souvenir shop owner, Luigi Brizi, and his son printed hundreds of flawless fake identity cards, claiming the bearers were from already-liberated southern Italy. The SS raided repeatedly. They searched monasteries, convents, and homes. They found nothing. For eight months, an entire town kept the secret. Not a single betrayal. A German colonel, devout Catholic Valentin Müller, was stationed there. He loved Assisi’s churches, attended Mass, and even toured holy sites with Rufino—never knowing (or never acknowledging) the hundreds of hidden Jews around him. He successfully petitioned to make Assisi a protected hospital town, removing combat troops. Inside the convents, quiet miracles occurred. Jews observed Yom Kippur with the nuns’ blessing; the nuns prepared the breaking-fast meal. Rufino arranged Hebrew lessons for the children, ensuring they could still practice their faith while pretending to be Catholic. “They were children of God,” he later said. “What else were we supposed to do?” The network nearly broke in May 1944 when the Bishop’s secretary, Father Aldo Brunacci, was arrested and interrogated. He revealed nothing. Vatican pressure secured his release. One month later, on June 16, 1944, the Allies liberated Assisi. All 300 hidden Jews walked out alive. Not one had been caught or deported. They had been sheltered by hundreds of nuns, priests, and townspeople who knew the penalty: priests across Europe were being executed for less. One informant could have doomed them all. It never happened. After the war, Rufino returned to quiet Franciscan life. He founded a settlement for poor Christian and Jewish families, served as a parish priest, and avoided fame. In 1974, Yad Vashem named him Righteous Among the Nations. He planted a tree in Israel and quietly reunited with one of the women he had saved. He died in 1976 at 65, asking to be cremated in solidarity with Holocaust victims. The Church buried him traditionally. Today, few outside Assisi know his name. Yet his legacy endures in the thousands of descendants of those 300 saved souls. An entire town proved it was possible to choose humanity over fear. No collaborators. No betrayals. No exceptions. They did not yield. May all of their memories be a blessing, especially Friar Rufino Nicacci.

China has 1.4 billion people. Yet they eliminated extreme poverty by 2020. Let that sink in. They built 48,000km of high-speed rail, more than the rest of the world COMBINED. Bullet trains gliding at 350km/h connect every major city. Beijing to Shanghai, 1,300km, costs about $50, cheaper than crossing Lagos in traffic on some days from island to mainland via uber. In the Qinghai desert sits the world’s largest solar farm, panels stretching to the horizon, generating power for millions. The Talatan project covers an area bigger than some entire cities. They installed more solar in 2024 alone than the US has installed in its ENTIRE history. Off the coast of Fujian, massive offshore wind turbines taller than 80-storey buildings, some with blades longer than a football pitch, spin silently above the sea, powering millions of homes carbon-neutral. A single one of these giants generates enough electricity in a day to power 170,000 households. 8 of the world’s 10 longest bridges are Chinese. The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge runs 55km across open sea — a feat of engineering Western nations called impossible. The Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge stretches 165km. They build in years what takes others decades. BYD overtook Tesla in 2024. EVs start at $10K. Robotaxis without drivers cruise the streets of 7 cities. Humanoid robots assemble cars, deliver packages, serve coffee. Shenzhen, a fishing village 40 years ago is now a futuristic skyline of drones, AI and skyscrapers that rivals Manhattan. Sun and salt in the desert generating power. Wind and waves at sea generating electricity. Maglev trains floating on magnetic rails. Cities built from nothing in a decade. Meanwhile, resource-rich countries with a fraction of the population sit in darkness, debt, and decay. So how? How does a nation of 1.4 billion pull this off while countries with more resources, fewer mouths to feed and centuries of head-start are still stuck? How do they move this fast, build this big, dream this far? What are they doing that we aren’t?

Father James Carey, who attended to Casement on the day of his execution in Pentonville Prison, called him a saint and said "we should be praying to him instead of for him".

Roger Casement told the world about King Leopold's genocide in Congo - millions worked to death, starved, mutilated - then fought for Irish independence. A true Irish patriot - and the British state hung him after using his homosexuality to poison public opinion against him.

15 years ago, Nick Espinosa tipped a box of glitter over presidential candidate Newt Gingrich at a book signing. "Feel the rainbow Newt. Stop the hate". Within 18 months, Gingrich was telling the Republican Party it needed to accept the reality of same-sex marriage.

A Dutch couple spent 20 years proving handwriting lights up the entire brain. Typing doesn't. Same words, same person, two completely different neurological events. Your grandmother knew what these neuroscientists have now proven. Pick up a pen. 🖋️

Farmers have figured out that the cheapest pesticide is a strip of flowers. When you plant wildflowers through a crop field, not just around the edge but in strips running through the middle, you get ladybugs, lacewings, hoverflies, and parasitic wasps living in the field instead of visiting it. They eat the aphids, the caterpillars, and the mites for free, all summer long. In controlled trials, fields with tailored flower strips had leaf-beetle numbers 40 to 50% lower and crop damage cut by around 60%, enough to drop below the threshold where spraying was even considered worth it. The flowers attract a standing army to our fields. We spent decades engineering chemicals to kill the insects eating the crop, when the insects that eat those insects would have worked for the price of seed.

Sister Emmanuelle asked: "Where are the poorest in Egypt?" They pointed to the garbage dump so she moved in. Built schools, clinics. Raised millions. She started aged 63 and died just short of 100. Hundreds came to her memorial - former zabaleen, now doctors, teachers, nurses.

Every school should have a greenhouse, a native plant garden, and fruit trees. Kids shouldn't just memorize dates and facts. They should grow food, watch pollinators at work, learn how soil actually works, and understand that they can actively help the environment, not just read about it. A garden teaches patience, responsibility, biology, and stewardship in ways no textbook can. Imagine an entire generation that grows up knowing how to care for the land instead of just consuming from it. Seems like basic education for the world they're inheriting.

Gino Bartali won the Tour de France twice. But his greatest achievement: he hid false identity papers inside his bike frame and cycled thousands of km across Nazi-occupied Italy, saving over 800 Jews. He never spoke about it publicly, saying "Good is done but not said."

Sam Altman's apocalypse plan is to grab his guns, gold and IDF gas masks and fly to Peter Thiel's bunker in New Zealand. He should read Ben Elton's Stark (1989) where the world's richest men escape a dying planet only to realise they're now stuck with the worst people ever.

Britain has lost around half its hedgerows since the Second World War. The wildlife that depended on them has followed a similar trajectory. 🌿 The old field boundary — a strip of blackthorn, hawthorn, dog rose, and elder two to five metres wide between cultivated ground — was not wasted agricultural space. It was a functioning ecological system that maintained pollinators, pest predators, and farmland birds across centuries of working land. Each hedgerow is a nesting corridor for grey partridge and skylark, a foraging habitat for brown hares and hedgehogs, a site for solitary bee colonies, and a windbreak for the crops alongside it. The field cultivated to its very edge gives the maximum return this season. It removes the populations of beneficial insects, farmland birds, and small mammals on which stable long-term production depended. The field with a hedgerow yields a few percent less per cultivated hectare — but remains productive across decades without compensatory chemical inputs. The documented declines in grey partridge, lapwing, and skylark across the British agricultural landscape since the 1970s are directly linked to field consolidation and hedgerow removal. Practical equivalents for the garden or smallholding: - A strip of wildflower meadow at least one metre wide at the plot boundary - A clump of nettles in a shaded corner as a habitat base for red admiral, small tortoiseshell, and peacock butterflies - A native mixed hedge of blackthorn and hawthorn in place of post-and-wire fencing - A section of uncut grass between rows of fruit trees #HedgerowHabitat #FarmlandWildlife #NativeHedge #GardenWildlife

South Korea has one of the most brutal work cultures on Earth. In response, a new kind of café has emerged. No wifi. No laptops. No productivity. You pay to sit quietly and stare out of the window at nature. And these "Slowly Cafes" are full.

Spain's tenth largest corporation is owned by its workers. No shareholders. No hedge funds. Democratic votes on pay ratios and strategy. Mondragon has been running since 1956. It's not a commune, it's a major industrial employer with 80,000 motivated and fulfilled staff.

After the end of the USSR, Cuba lost access to industrial fertilisers and fuel. So they turned their cities into farms. Vacant lots and rooftops became veg gardens. Farming went organic because synthetic inputs were scarce. Now it's our turn to learn from Cuba.

I’m 100% confident that Wes Streeting has what it takes to steal Keir Starmer’s crown and become the most unpopular prime minister ever.

Over half of Slovenia's territory is protected land. It’s one of the greenest countries on Earth while still maintaining high living standards and a modern economy. Development doesn't have to mean destruction of nature.

Something I only learned a few years ago: When the DDR was integrated into the Federal German Republic around 3000 women soldiers from the East’s NVA were laid off - because the Bundeswehr refused to have female service personnel.