Back on strike with @sheffielducu.bsky.social. Why? Management is pushing ahead with restructures despite sitting on £200m+ in reserves. Along with colleagues in East Asian Studies, I also find out in 12 days how many of us they want to fire. No justification is deemed necessary by management.

the more I think about it, the more I feel like “Odysseus is from Boston” is true in a sort of ecstatic truth way

twenty years ago people attacked universities by deriding “Mickey Mouse degrees” like media studies in favour of “proper” subjects like history, and now universities are skipping that step and simply abolishing everything that isn’t economics

Whoever you vote for today remember: Labour came to power in 2024 with an enormous majority promising change, then scraped and bowed to the worst people in the country, and pitch-rolled for Reform. They had a chance to change Britain for the better and flushed it down the toilet. So vote for hope.

Samsung family in South Korea pays off record $8bn inheritance tax bill. IHT rate is 50%. The family said that "paying taxes is a natural duty of citizens". It establishes a benchmark for others. Can you imagine the super-rich doing the same in the UK?

Ceasefire. Cease. Fire. Ceasefire. See?

Is Trump eligible to run for a third term? At some point, playing to an audience of one just makes you look stupid. This judge should hang his head in shame over this non-answer. Any middle school kid knows a United States president cannot serve three terms.

The FDA just approved colorful fruit-flavored vapes. Nothing says “Make America Healthy Again” like marketing cotton-candy flavored nicotine to middle schoolers. When he's not busy cutting off penises from dead animals, RFK Jr. is busy being a total MAHA fraud!

$1 billion in YOUR tax payer dollars to fund a “East Wing Modernization Project”… …slipped into a Trump reconciliation bill late Monday night that would give ICE a blank check til 2029. Hell No!

I'm reading a book and really enjoying it. I already knew almost all the words but they're arranged in an order I've never seen before.

That's when you've been *very* naughty www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLtn...

Five-byline alert: 🚨 “.. Trump’s abrupt reversal on his plan to help ships go through the Strait of Hormuz came after a key Gulf ally suspended the U.S. military’s ability to use its bases and airspace to carry out the operation ..” @nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com/politics/whi...

Rep. @rep.jesse.chism (D) : “Memphis is a predominantly African-American city, correct?” Rep. William Lamberth (R): “I’m not privy to those demographics. I don’t know.” 🤷🏼 *HUGE LAUGH FROM THE AUDIENCE* The Republican gaslighting as they carve up Memphis is so absurd you gotta laugh.

This is the 82-year-old state senator the FBI just raided because she successfully redistricted Virginia to match racist Republican redistricting efforts. They targeted her because she's ruthless and effective. They don't want anyone else to play within their new rules.

The Supreme Court must be reformed. They fear nothing because there's no accountability.

Like someone else we know…

"Trump’s abrupt reversal on his plan to help ships go through the Strait of Hormuz came after Saudi Arabia suspended the U.S. military’s ability to use its bases and airspace to carry out the operation, according to two U.S. officials."

I guess these weren’t ⭐️PRESIDENTS⭐️

So the FBI Director is handing out personalized bourbon bottles like he’s promoting a nightclub instead of running the nation’s top law enforcement agency. Ka$h Patel isn’t qualified for the job. Period.

"Reform has taken out a three-page ad in the Powys County Times... "In all 478 words, Farage mentions the words ‘London’ or ‘Londoners’ no less than seven times. The word ‘Wales’ is not mentioned once." open.substack.com/pub/willhayw...

Omg.

7 dollar gas. Well, I guess I'll buy an electric car. Oh those are 60 thousand dollars? Well at least electricity is cheap. Oh the government won't build solar panels because it's "Too transgender"? Well at least wages are going up. Oh the idea of jobs is fake now? Well at least everyone is happ

Ag secretary confirming 1 in 4 US farmers has no fertilizer secured, American Farm Bureau survey says up to 70% can’t afford enough fertilizer for the season under the spiked costs Honestly shocked this isn’t bigger news. 25% of farms are just not planting at all this season. Farm bankruptcy up 46%

This was a hard story to report. Newborns who don’t get a vitamin K shot are 81 times more likely to develop a condition where they bleed uncontrollably. But more and more families are declining the shot. And babies are dying. www.propublica.org/article/more...

British MAGA

I live in London and am not registered to vote in Wales but I am sooooo excited that Plaid Cymru could win control of the Senedd tomorrow. Annibyniaeth i Gymru! Also it would be a kick in the bollocks to Plaid Lloegr (aka Reform).

1/11 Project Freedom was launched to “reopen” Hormuz. 48 hours later it’s paused. That isn’t inconsistency. It tells us exactly what this operation was: a test, not a solution. Full analysis linked at the end. #Hormuz #MaritimeSecurity

Chrome is reaching into users' machines and writing a 4 GB on-device AI model file to disk without asking. It is the weights for Gemini Nano, Google's on-device LLM. Chrome did not ask. Chrome does not surface it. If the user deletes it, Chrome re-downloads it. www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/chrome-...

Someone has to tell the truth.

Languages, who needs them? Certainly not Large Language Models (aka LLMs).

Regardless of the madness coming from Washington, Minnesota will continue to be guided by science and medical expertise.

NEW from me: many of our universities are now in a dying fall. A new global-national-regional-local split is opening up, which could choke off progress on almost all the Government's plans. Do they have a plan? Nope, nothing, not a clue. 👇 isrf.org/blog/whats-t...

It’s amazing, but none of them understand the difference between tactics and strategy.

Another good post-92 deciding that its students don’t deserve humanities.

This is absolutely shocking. What’s happening to the UK’s arts and humanities sector is just criminal. Thinking of all our colleagues there. It feels unimaginable, but it really could be any of us.

This again is one of the problems of this whole thing. The Iranian leadership is not "insane." They're fairly rational actors that seem to behave in rational ways, but if you keep saying they're insane there's no way you can talk to them.

Friendly reminder that if you are a migrant with settled and pre settled status you CAN vote in your local elections and choose councillors in your area so DO IT 🗳️

I'm sure the 3 remaining Humanities departments in the UK will gladly take this up when the time comes. Honestly astonishing which battles this government decides are worth fighting when it comes to universities.

Ask anyone in NI "Do you want a United Ireland?" and you will get the decades old answer along green v orange lines. But ask "Do you support a United Ierland in the EU?" and you get a very different answer. Brexit changed the conversation and NI leaving brings an end to the UK Union. 8/8

The Sun "newspaper" has failed to report that Nigel Farage received a £5m donation from Christopher Harborne, a British cryptocurrency investor who lives in Thailand. Now, why wouldn't they want their readers to know about this? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Dissolve the UK, it doesn't work.

SilentMiddleChild @silentmiddlechild.com

'The window depicts “angeli ministrantes” and “angeli laudantes” – ministering and praising angels. Burne-Jones designed the angels, Morris the decorative leaf design.'

You’d have to be a real nasty crypto-fascist SOB to claim credit for the idea to hold refugees in concentration camps specifically in Green constituencies to punish voters that don’t want refugees to be held in concentration camps