Number three: (3) "The cult of action for action’s sale. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation." Right-wing ideology is inherently anti-intellectualist. Critical thought is seen as a weakness 🧵

The only reason they never could have imagined was because they weren't paying attention

Beautiful little drawing of a waterfowl in the log of the East India Company ship 'Rochester', ca. 1709-12, headed to China, kept by Captain Francis Stane (IOR/L/MAR/B/137B).

I received a thank you from some library workers for this piece after a Chicago city budget was passed this week without the previously proposed library cuts I described here. Many thanks to everyone who made noise about this issue. There were wins and losses in this budget, but this win matters.

America had a choice between awkwardly avoiding eye contract with visibly trans people at the mall or bringing polio back and we’re still around anyway. Enjoy the iron lung, assholes.

The “free speech” and “cancel culture” panics have led to overt state censorship because that was always their purpose. (Gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

Here are a couple of the wonderful cats I photographed at the shelter yesterday - only two days left to donate to my fundraiser for them! Let's see if we can get it up to $8,000! givebutter.com/n5l31M

Thank you all for this wonderful Christmas gift. @poppybear75.bsky.social @heatherherbert.uk @sophiemolly.co.uk youtu.be/vHiDpixRMYI?...

This victim told a driver that she couldn't report Trump raping her because "They will kill me." In 2021, another victim said that Epstein told her girls who don't behave are fed to alligators and took her where they die. He threatened to kill her and her son.

YOU GUYS LOOKIT LOOKIT (look who ISN'T a fan of early 16thc dragons??)

do we think someone had to stop them polling ‘gay son or thot daughter’

One of the first white #iris with a tangerine beard. The incomparable 'Frost And Flame' from 1957. 🌱 From the same master hybridizer that brought us the Flamingo pinks, Dave Hall.

Great read. Spread it far and wide. 👇👇👇👇👇👇👇 Mitt Romney Is Right: Tax the Rich Before the Pitchforks Come Out open.substack.com/pub/adamkinz...

These actions are so deeply offensive and disturbing. Cutting funding at the brink of a breakthrough isn’t just bureaucracy, it’s a direct attack on progress, on lives, and on science itself. Breast cancer prevention shouldn’t be a political or financial gamble; it’s a moral imperative.👇

Blindingly obvious and exactly what I said to the New York Times at the time. So the question is, why did the useless British media carry, hysterically, coverage of a UK (Not Very Good) Lawyers for Israel press release? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Winter sowing day! Almost all #nativeplants seeds from my yard: white turtlehead, purple coneflower, scutellaria incana, little bluestem, mouse-eared coreopsis, scarlet sage, poke milkweed (from Prairie Moon), coneflower vars, columbine, cardinal flower, penstemon, butterfly weed, anise hyssop 🌱

This Day in Ancient History: ante diem x kalendas januarias – rogueclassicism rogueclassicism.com/2025/12/23/t...

Just got a warning for trying to share this on TikTok. Facebook also allowed the link but it’s a mess, not clear what it is. Makes you think doesn’t it? The Matrix 🙄 more like abusers protecting each other.

Trump, January 2024: "Also, I was never on Epstein's plane..."

The Seine at Port Villez, Snow Effect - 1885 https://botfrens.com/collections/41/contents/10102

🇺🇸 A newly released Epstein document includes a letter that Jeffrey wrote to fellow sex offender Larry Nassar, alleging that Donald Trump “shares their love of young nubile girls.”

“.. some engineers argued for mechanical handles,” but “Musk’s directive was clear: Virtually everything in the new vehicle — including the doors — should be controlled electrically .. “.. 15 people have died in crashes where Tesla doors wouldn’t open ..” www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Chest binder vendors respond to 'absurd' FDA warning letter: “Push-up bras, which can be a gender affirming garment & also temporarily shift breast tissue into one's desired shape, would never get called a medical device — maybe because the people in power want to see more minor's boobs, not less”

Yes that’s the fucking point

US media has decided to pretend that the Epstein-Nassar Letter Epstein sent just before he died merely had a "crude reference" to Trump. NO. It was a clear, unambiguous allegation by Epstein that Trump *regularly sexually assaulted* "young, nubile girls." Our media is BROKEN.

The point was never to save money. That was only ever a convenient justification for an effort to decimate the public sector and dismantle the US social safety net.

Our forebears were not so different from us. Medieval shoes but, of course, only one medieval sock.

I'd noticed that Brand was posting a lot of stuff about his new found faith and the importance of forgiveness and redemption.... and thus was expecting this www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This is the barn owl stained glass window in St Thomas’s Church at Harty on the Isle of Sheppey. Sure did hear those last night in the moments when I drifted in and out of sleep! #NightInAChurch #Sheppey #WinterSolstice

How on earth does the email "not indicate any wrongdoing"? Pathetically craven from the BBC.

The Murdoch empire is big on promoting Trump and MAGA/Heritage Foundation. The Times legal editor Jonathan Ames has a history of passing off dodgy material from extremist hate groups. Rewarming Sex Matters or Christian concern is hardly journalism. openjusticecourtofprotection.org/2024/03/09/o...

#GVerse Mark Hamill @markhamillofficial.bsky.social shouts at a guy in a Darth Vader costume in Hollywood “Dad I told you don’t follow me to work!”

Trump’s new foreign policy is an unprecedented and abysmal mess.

A very lovely boulder found on the beach yesterday - I have no idea of this one’s geology, maybe a lot of feldspar with quartz? #geology #rocks

Like a movie, Mari, the very first cat to hang around my house in Florida years ago, stopped by 🥹. I haven't seen her in a very long time ever since Ever (black cat) claimed my house as her territory. I thought I'd never see Mari again 🥹. Should..... Should I try to take her to 🇯🇵 too???? 🥹

We're keen to challenge the predicate to the case brought by the (revoltingly homophobic) Christian Institute: that upholding the rights of those protected by the Equality Act is a contestable and political stance. So, thanks, I guess to them.

Good ol' Blue Heron's just been hanging out on the log in the middle of the brook all morning digging the scene like a gangsta...

The lighthouse is always watching.

🌹 random rose 🌹 March 25th 2024

The funny part? More people will watch it now due to the controversy than would have watched it during a normal airing. 😂 Whoopsi, was it supposed to be secret? Oops, we didn't know that 😂

Be like the Victorians and read a biography or two during the holidays 📚🎄 cliosfootnotes.wordpress.com/2025/12/22/i...

Waxing crescent and sunset over New Haven Harbor.

“I wish to God you could pay more money.” I wrote about F Scott Fitzgerald’s Christmas wish, and how his difficult final year led him to produce some of his best work: the irresistible, cynical, revealing and very funny Pat Hobby stories.

God, if you are listening...

Definitive proof that in Sadiq Khan's London, Christmas has been cancelled altogether www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

It took a long while for Rudolph and the other reindeer to team up with Santa Claus. But once they did, there was no stopping them. 🔓 This archive article is free for #Christmas www.historytoday.com/archive/natu...

Soon after the golden hour…

Tory MP Matt Vickers' car crash encounter with @lewisgoodall.com on #Brexit. LG: Do you accept you damaged the economy? MV: No. LG: Are you saying Brexit has been good for business? MV: It's created opportunities. LG: What about all the evidence? MV: You need to come up north. Huh? 😵‍💫 ~AA

"Imam Fouad’s death is not an isolated tragedy, it is the predictable outcome of a violent detention system that continues to cage people for profit and punishment."

It’s very likely that a refusal to eat pork led to the massacre of the Jews of York in 1190. Let’s go back into the darkest part of our past, and huddle there.