"...a 10cm increase in bonnet height from 80cm to 90cm results in a 27% greater chance of death for pedestrians run over. For children, the risk of death is increased threefold if they are hit by an SUV rather than a conventional vehicle." Via @christianwolmar.bsky.social

Most governments find the loss of entire world regions to uninhabitable climate scenarios and the untold suffering of humans - and animals - easier to imagine, than the transition away from oil and gas. As Amitav Gosh said, the climate crisis is a crisis of our imagination.

Just that Ann Widdecombe is dead doesn't mean she was a remotely good person. Everything she stood for and did is as hateful now as it was this morning. My thoughts at this difficult time are on how to stop the vicious far right party that survives her from opportunistically exploiting her killing.

Well done to @zackpolanski.bsky.social for making it clear we should be tracking British citizens who have served in the IDF & engaged in genocide. He also rightly calls out the double standards when it comes to condemning Russian war crimes but not Israeli war crimes.

It's always interesting to read @philipcball.bsky.social

The lying liars who burn everything for cash are telling more lies about needing to burn everything.

I've heard the argument about "not giving legitimacy" to the Clacton by-election, really I have. But the election is happening. Isn't it dangerous and insulting to tell the people of Clacton that there's no alternative to Farage? "It's him or nowt" seems the opposite of what needs saying.

Been turning this essay by Susanna Clarke, responding to Woolf on illness and pain, over and over in my head. It helps that I read it during a flare up of the old Chronny P. What a paradox, pain as the dissolver of language, and narrative as a route out of pain. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

www.newscientist.com/article/2532... We need #systemchangenotclimatechange

"It is a waste of money and should be reduced so more could be spent on supporting employment, welfare and growth. Why should “defence” be awarded an almost religious invulnerability?" a rare voice of sanity on the military conspicuous consumption feeding frenzy www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Another reason why Starmer is so awful.

🚨 WARNING: As of Monday, wearing a mask at a protest is a criminal offence in England & Wales. This is now the law. 🧵 on what this means for Clinically Vulnerable people... 1/ #ProtectVulnerableProtesters

Finished watching Tip Toe on C4. Very powerful TV, some of RTD's best work. The present has a lot of Weimar Germany about it: freedoms previous generations could have only dreamt of, alongside the threat of violent reprisals to smash it all. It captures that tension, that dread, very effectively.

Melt down all the schools and hospitals to make bullets. Melt down the poor to make bombs. If you don't immediately agree, the Russians will be in your house doing atrocities by the time you get home from work. Getting pretty sick of all this "defence" bullshit.

Roads??? Where we’re going (war) we don’t need roads!!!!!

It was inevitable, wasn't it🙄 Of course the Telegraph would run with something like this👇 So let's remove some of the rose-tinted spectacles and also look at some of that data comparing 1976 with modern heat waves Because the 1976 nostalgia porn is wearing a bit thin at this stage 🧵1/23

FFS

It comes to something when Ed Miliband is by far the best of a bad bunch here www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Like, does anyone actually remember his leadership of the party? "These strikes are wrong", the "Controls on Immigration" mug. He's what Corbynism was a furious and justified reaction against.

Indeed, this seems to be the only policy that's in the mix for being ditched along with the apparently poor misunderstood and "fundamentally decent" Keir Starmer.

Hotter than hell today on the crowded station platform, and the bastards are lobbying harder than ever to scrap even the half-arsed fig leaf that is Net Zero and throw open the pumps on North Sea gas and oil greenhouse emissions.

Rare red warning. Risk to life. Stay out of the sun. Avoid unnecessary exposure. Picture editor: "Counterpoint: Run the fun-on-the-beach shots?" We won't improve heat coverage until we stop illustrating public health emergencies with beach photos. www.independent.co.uk/weather/heat...

Labour are *rubbish* at this whole transition/coup business. The Tories would be forming factions and tearing chunks out of each other by now.

"Just fact check and verify what the 'ai' puts out, you'll be fine." (libraries gone; textbooks gone; web search gone; personal libraries logistically impossible; no time in newly abbreviated deadlines for verification) "OK. How?"

This is really interesting (although ultimately less illuminating IMHO than Burnham's being on the record as planning to press on with virtually all the worst policies of the Starmer are government).

Cars are only second to firearms when it comes to child deaths in the United States. In Taiwan, where Huang was born, cars are number one. If cars are no longer portrayed as killing children, they should be.

I'd have gone for "when" not "if" myself, but this is about right from @owenjones.bsky.social: Burnham as the Boris Johnson of the Labour Party www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

'We are clamping down on the harm caused by social media. 'Read all about it on the Nazi pogrom deepfake abuse website'

A very interesting look at the geopolitical context of fossil fuel fascism. Despite the author's optimism tone, I'd suggest sitting a while with the penultimate sentence: "The movement could become more deranged and violent in its efforts to turn back the clock." www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

I did a version of this years ago based around the actual illustration from a real army recruitment ad

It has taken the Russians 5 years to advance 100km into Ukraine. At the present rate of advance, they'll get here in the year 2121

What is the point of Andy Burnham? He's after pushing ahead with the worst things to come out of the Starter government, starting with the poisonous immigration reforms.

This is how communities show up for each other. Do read this by Nicola Browne from Act Now👇

We’ve identified the culprits for the racist riots, folks. You won’t believe

I don't quite understand why such a large proportion of my BSky feed are in the 7%. Seems like divisive intergenerational scapegoating. You want to save "taxpayers' money", go for arms spending not my Mum's pension.

Ted Chiang taking Anthropic down a peg or ten makes a very satisfying read www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2...

Disturbing how easy it seems to be to just not talk about the apocalypse.

Red alert

Boycott X. It's run by Nazis, for Nazis. And for creeps and scammers too I guess. The end.

Media: Stop calling the people setting fire to the homes of people of colour in Belfast “protesters”. This is a pogrom.

"Breaking news: horrible racist pogrom." "Coming up next: Are the pogromists right about everything or only some things?" Every politician and journalist spouting this shit bears responsibility for those families firebombed out of their houses over the colour of their or their neighbours' skin.

With enough practice you too can hear "genocide" as "a minor policy quibble of interest only to weirdos". That's when you'll know you're ready for a career in British politics or journalism.

I think that if you understand what’s happening here as “none of us have a clue what we’re doing but we’ve bought these magic beans off a wizard and we’re quite optimistic” then that will cover you for most of the ensuing outcomes.

i'd really challenge the premise that starmer hasn't gotten stuff done we're making the most radical reforms to the refugee system in 70 years, we're now the most trans hostile developed democracy in the world

HOW ARE WE NOT PAST THIS BULLSHIT YET With *strenuous* effort one could just about posit the existence of a well-meaning and intelligent person who thought AI could be useful in these settings in 2024 It's 2026! Everyone knows it fucking sucks!

"Would you see a similar simpering surrender if the fascists really committed to an anti-Sikh campaign? Do you doubt it? Whether it’s Labour or the next government, how long until we are told to inform the serving staff when you see someone with a turban or ceremonial dagger?"

Incredible photographs! What an amazing thing for the photographer to witness... Thank you @henryrothwell.bsky.social for sharing these.

Know what I miss? Boolean search. Every single time I look for something online I miss that little NOT operator. Searches are so unbearably tedious without it.