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Happy Friday everyone,

And more importantly, Happy Black Friday to all who celebrate.

Whilst you won’t find any discounts for an air fryer you don’t really need in this edition, we can offer you plenty of memes and acerbic commentary on the news from the week.

Enough foreplay, let’s get you informed on the politics and business you need to know, all through handcrafted and curated memes.

⏰ Today's reading time is 5 minutes

Quote of the Week

UK is the most expensive place to develop nuclear power, report says

The UK’s nuclear bureaucracy has become so fucked it now makes Britain the most expensive place on Earth to build a reactor, according to a government-commissioned review.

The task force said regulators treat nuclear plants as if they’re all mini Chernobyls supervised by Homer Simpson, with stricter exposure limits for engineers than what dentists use on patients.

The report calls for a “one-stop shop” to replace the current maze of agencies, arguing a radical reset could save “tens of billions” and revive an industry that powers 15% of UK electricity but has eight of nine reactors closing by 2030.

Ministers want new mega-plants like Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C, plus a fleet of smaller reactors, to hit net zero and avoid falling behind China, the US and even France, all of which are revving up nuclear programmes.

Environmental groups say the problem isn’t regulations but that nuclear is just inherently expensive and geopolitically risky.

They’d presumably just prefer to import a shit tonne of gas from Norway and the UAE.

Putin has restated his bid to ‘end’ the war: Ukraine must withdraw from all territory Russia claims, including Crimea and the remaining parts of Donbas

Zelenskyy, who understandably sees “give the mad cunt the land he stole” as a hard pass, immediately rejected the idea, preferring to focus more on one of his top advisors being indicted for record-breaking levels of corruption.

Putin told reporters he’s happy to fight “to the last Ukrainian,” adding that Russia will simply take the rest of Donetsk by force if Kyiv doesn’t walk away.

The problem is that Russia’s current pace of advance is so slow that analysts estimate it would need almost two more years to finish the job.

His comments come as the US, Ukraine, and European officials shuttle around Geneva revising an early peace plan that was initially tilted towards Moscow.

Washington is sending another delegation to Moscow next week, possibly including Jared “The Slum Landlord” Kushner, while Ursula Von der Lesbian Haircut Leyen warns that Putin has no real intention of ending the war.

Teens launch High Court challenge to Australia's social media ban

Australia’s world-first ban on under-16s using social media is heading straight to the High Court, dragged there by two 15-year-olds who say the government has gone “full 1984” (they read about 3 pages then got bored and watched reels instead).

From 10 December, platforms like Meta, TikTok and YouTube must block anyone under 16 from having an account, with no exceptions or parental opt-in.

The teens, backed by the Digital Lobotomise Your Children For Profit Freedom Project, argue the law tramples children’s constitutional right to political communication and disproportionately harms vulnerable groups, including disabled and rural kids, First Nations communities and LGBTQ+ teens.

Their pitch is that the government should regulate tech properly, i.e. do what the lobbyists tell them to.

The Aussie government doesn’t seem to give a fuck.

Communications Minister Anika Wells told parliament they won’t be “intimidated” by people whose prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed kids, courts or Silicon Valley.

Polls show most Australian adults back the ban, though critics warn it could isolate young people or drive them onto even sketchier parts of the internet.

Office for Budget Responsibility leaks the UK budget leaks early in ‘unprecedented’ blunder

Britain’s budget landed around 40 minutes early on Wednesday, as a “computer glitch” put the OBR’s (Office for Budget Responsibility) full economic forecasts online almost an hour before Rachel Reeves announced the government’s upcoming policies.

It gave everyone a sneak peek at a cool £26 billion in tax rises and a tax burden headed for a record 38% of GDP.

The leak triggered an OBR investigation, but Chancellor Rachel Reeves shrugged it off mid-speech and kept faith in OBR chief Richard Hughes, who has since offered to commit seppuku resign as a result.

The leaked numbers painted a grim outlook: growth crawling at 1.5% over the forecast period, thanks mostly to shit productivity.

Reeves avoided saying she was raising income tax rates but extended the thresholds to 2030, pulling millions into a higher income tax bracket, which is effectively the same as raising income tax.

That ladies and gentlemen, is the beauty of fiscal creep.

On the slightly brighter side, the hikes help her double fiscal headroom to £21.7 billion, a buffer Labour sees as insurance against constant speculation about future tax raids and/or giving pensions even more money.

In case you’re interested in making up your own mind as to how fucked or not the UK is, there are brief, objective looks at the Budget available here and here.

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Nvidia plays down Google chip threat concerns

Nvidia’s aura dimmed slightly this week after reports that Meta is preparing to spend billions on Google’s own AI chips and not Nvidia hardware.

Nvidia’s stock promptly dropped almost 6%, while Alphabet surged.

Nvidia CEO Jensen “Ghost Rider” Huang insists they are “a generation ahead” and the only platform that can run every major AI model everywhere.

Google normally keeps its TPU chips for its own data centres, renting access through Google Cloud. Selling them outright would be a notable shift, and a direct shot at Nvidia’s dominance in the AI gold rush.

Amazon and Microsoft are developing their own chips too, providing more competition.

Nvidia, worth more than 10 South Africas, has spent months expanding its reach, cutting deals with South Korea’s government and its corporate giants like Samsung.

But with investment flooding into AI hardware, and Nvidia (so far) being the the only one making real money from it, it explains why the friendly neighbourhood tech giants now smell blood and want to get in on the action.

Volkswagen plans to export Chinese-made cars to more overseas markets but rules out Europe

Volkswagen is leaning hard into c h i n a, with the the firm beginning to export Chinese-made petrol sedans to the Middle East and now eyeing more markets in Southeast and Central Asia.

With China offering cheaper tech, faster development cycles and lower production costs, VW is openly using its China operations to compete against the very Chinese brands eating its lunch back in Europe.

If you can’t beat ‘em, make more cars in their country.

The Hefei hub, where VW has invested billions, can now develop full vehicle platforms without having to worry about cumbersome German bureaucracy, cutting the cost of building a new EV by up to 50%.

VW insists it won’t ship these China-made cars to Europe because the software and electronics don’t match EU 8000-page regulatory framework for appropriately sized cupholders standards.

But it does plan to sell vehicles built on its new Chinese-designed electronic architecture abroad “very soon”, which translated to European timeframes is about 40-50 years.

🍻Half Pints

Quick-fire news you might have missed

Italian of the Week

In what’s been a bad week for Italian manchildren in general, one has been accused of dressing up as his dead mum to claim her pension.

The Italian Mrs Doubtfire allegedly collected about €53,000 annually by posing as his deceased mother, Graziella Dall'Oglio, whose mummified body was found hidden in his home.

The authorities apparently caught him by asking “Graziella” to cook something by himself, which of course as an Italian man child, he was unable to to do.

That’s all for today, but before you go…

We’re always open to feedback (and hate-mail), so feel free to reply and we’ll get back to you within 5 “working” days.

Barring a natural disaster or being kidnapped by the deep-state, we’ll see you next week.

Thanks to Larry and Jake