If you think the range of choices available at whatever coffee shop is destroying country/culture/society then you should go touch grass on the way to never writing anything again.

OMG. Come ON!

Honestly, what that dude wrote is more ridiculous than any Andy Rooney rant about paperclips and only about 1/100th as principled.

Very spotty communication with some family in Iran. Heard from one person, no word from 7-8 others. One has told me that 2 of their friends have died. I don’t know what to say or what to do. Please pray for my family and for the people of Iran.

well this sounds promising

Yep he’s been quite good so far though the CoPilot thing was a bit of a mis step.

Healthcare which I received when I was 17 is now banned by Wes Streeting and the NHS. Denying trans youth the healthcare they need is barbaric.

Sooo…Israel’s regime ain’t the greatest, I trust we all can now finally agree?

If you’re reading this and you’re scared, that’s understandable. And I can’t tell you that you’ll be able to pass as cis. But just to give you a single data point, I didn’t come out at work until I was 34. You can be alright, and you do have a future. People know what trans people are. It’s fine.

It strikes me that what the Cass review has 'achieved' is a manufactured lack of evidence. It doesn't feel a million miles from what the tobacco companies used to do.

Medical transition for trans kids is now banned for new referrals on the NHS. Trans kids in the UK can still go private or DIY (for now). This means the new clinics that replaced GIDS are close to useless at best, conversion therapy at worst. 1/5

It's actually profoundly similar to the way that eugenicist anti vaccine organisations worked to disrupt messaging around COVID (and previously MMR)

I mean this isn’t untrue but like it’s also a kinda bad look in my eyes. (FWIW, my family is Zoroastrian so second class citizens even before the Islamic Republic.) I’m not saying that the Islamic Republic would have ever become some sort of liberal democracy but…

The NHS has now stopped all medication - puberty blockers and hormones - for trans minors. For most, unless they get drugs from other sources, this means a lifetime, in an increasingly violent and transphobic society, unable to pass. Under Wes Streeting NHS policy is harm and death for trans people.

The anti trans men who chased Hannah Spencer, this is exactly who these men are. Misogynists who just love an excuse to hound women for not doing what they tell us. All male terfs act like that. And the women are just as vicious www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater...

Massive humiliation for Farage, who tipped off the UK press that he was flying to Florida to have dinner with Trump... only for Trump to decide he had more interesting things to do when Nigel arrived.

Sad news for the voters of Clacton who were hoping Farage would be able to bend the POTUS’ ear about fortnightly bin collections.

Right, so. Re: "BlueSky will implode." There will never be a social media platform that enables you to have the degree of security, freedom, and privacy that many of you seem to desire because the problems with these platforms aren't technical, they're social. Further, they're uniquely social.

I actually think Herbert deserves plenty of the blame for people “misunderstanding” the Dune books. He SAYS they’re about the dangers of messianic leaders, but internal to the narrative the atrocities Paul & his descendants commit are painted as ultimately necessary to humanity’s survival.

I’ve rarely been as cold bloodily enraged by reading something than I did at what Pipes wrote.

Blair can fuck all the way off.

Various pro-war arguments of the form "Did you know the Iranian government is very bad actually!???" betray a Marvel film level understanding of international relation (tbh probably _less_ sophisticated than the better of them!) and are a painful reminder that journalists learned nothing from Iraq.

Nobody should take messaging advice from me, but democrats might make a lot of mileage just by repeating facts about Iran like “it’s incredibly mountainous” and “there are 90 million Iranians”

This is the discussion paper I presented at #UCU Higher Education Committee yesterday on teaching-only and teaching-focused T&Cs. Great feedback from HEC members, and the accompanying HESC motion passed unanimously! Pls use link below to share with anyone who may be interested.

Really useful, unifying paper and lovely to see the motion to HESC approved unanimously by our HEC. So much more of this, please! #UCU

The equation between protecting lives in ‘the East-European buffer zone’ and annihilating them in the Middle Eastern kill zone certainly makes some Western values explicit, including the context into which several of the ‘allies’ immediately offered to send their armies to ‘help.’ Message received.

We don’t talk enough about how morally depraved the tech industry turned out to be. Every single ounce of their self-regarding statements of values was an outright lie.

Iranian-American anthropologist Narges Bajoghli on why the West has been inundated with far-right voices within the Iranian diaspora: “There’s been eight years of constant funding for these voices.”

in this former mining town, they know two things: Brexit means Brexit, and the Pahlavi dynasty (1925-1979) are the rightful rulers of Persia.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's response to US troops dying

People who have never worked in a prison have no understanding of just how dangerous it is for staff and other prisoners when an inmate is murdered. So sod off with your celebratory tone-deaf takes.

Avril Coleridge-Taylor today!

Ok I sorta worked my way through all the Ferron albums post Phantom Center and they mostly Are Not For Me. I just can’t listen to them. Buuuut, Testimony is a perfect album. Shadows on a Dime is close. Phantom Center is solid but not in the same class.

It may seem pedantic, but there’s a big difference between “might makes right, and there are rules” and “might makes right, and there are no rules”

I’ve started sayin “He’s wearing a wire!” when I see these glasses. One man overheard and pulled them off. 😭😭😭

🧵Feels like shouting into the void, but it is essential to note that the Trump/Rubio gutting of the State Department and blowtorching of US diplomatic capacity and credibility is an accelerant to this spiraling war and will seriously undercut US/allied efforts to pick up the pieces after. 1/

He’s lost his way. The evidence is pretty overwhelming that obesity is a chronic condition.

Relying on drugs to stop obesity would be 'societal failure', says Chris Whitty www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

People are saying this about Darren Johnson, the guy that was kicked out of the Greens for being a bigot:

Okay, I’m getting conflicting reports. Someone else told me he didn’t just kill the hedgehog with a hammer after getting kicked out of the Greens for being a bigot. I’m told he did something unspeakable to the hedgehog’s corpse before he ate it

UCU election results are out - turnout dreadful. Some welcome new faces and VPs (congrats to @markpendleton.bsky.social and @suzitoole.bsky.social), and interesting absences, including absence of option to vote for Wales HE rep. The latter needs to be rectified asap. www.ucu.org.uk/article/1419...

Tomorrow marks the 61st anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama. It also marks the 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court first upholding the Voting Rights Act. We have gotten so, so far away from a Court that cares about democracy. New from me at @brennancenter.org:

I'm unsure how people really think people were downplaying a virus that can kill you, make you go blind, wipe out your immune system for years, and oh yeah come back and kill you a decade after you thought you'd shaken it.

If this is true, and it seems very likely that it is, the US knowingly sunk an unarmed vessel and then left sailors to drown so that Pete Hegseth could boast about how manly & powerful it is to murder people.

I'm really happy to have been re-elected to the #UCU NEC, although my cat has mixed feelings about my continuing to travel to London! I'm also really happy that @markpendleton.bsky.social and @suzitoole.bsky.social were elected as VPs, and @drgillhistory.bsky.social @profalexp.bsky.social to the NEC

I mean... everyone who works in a school or hospital has a lanyard. Even as someone whose job involves *visiting* schools I usually have to wear a lanyard. It's a safeguarding/security thing. I don't know why there's an obsession with this.

This is not only a response to circumstances but a major bid by Qatar to pressure the USA to end hostilities ( 🎁) giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... Qatar warns war will force Gulf to stop energy exports within weeks

Very chuffed about this. Been trying to get Gill to run for ages. She’s absolutely excellent and a total asset to our union.

I have known a number of really intelligent people who are about my age who have no GCSEs and it has basically always been because when they were 15/16 a lot of horribly difficult things were going on in their lives and not enough people were looking out for them. And it fucks things up later.

And this too. An absurd waste of potential.