will also add - yes, this is my personal crusade - that turning podcasts into videos implicitly asks women to once again make more effort than men, as the bar for "camera-ready" for one gender is obviously higher than for the other

This is perfect. The DOJ's embarrassing snafu with disappearing redactions was the fault of Elon Musk. Musk cancelled government subscriptions to Adobe programs that would have made the redactions permanent. What a pack of fools.

Ah, but they live in a post-logic world. And by using logic, we all amplify their ideas.

Good interview in the paper, this. I think Sadiq is right: London 'needs' to be less successful than it is for a bunch of political arguments here in the UK to work, hence the fictions being invented about it:

NEW Jane Austen as a writer about law Some notes on Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, by me (And also why there is only one good adaptation of her works.) emptycity.substack.com/p/jane-auste...

The last five or so years have involved a growing realisation that my kids inherited their autism from me, and I've been slowly ticking off lifelong (or childhood) 'odd' feelings/habits/predispositions. You can learn some remarkable things from your kids.

I've had a lifelong but very private discomfort at saying 'Merry Christmas' to others (and 'Good Morning' but more opportunities to get accustomed to that). I just quietly asked my most autistic daughter about this and it turns out (a) she has it too, (b) it is an autism thing. Merry Christmas.

Don’t. Print. Lies. In. The. Newspaper. 🧵

Long before Covid there was the annual flu surveillance. Still exists: www.gov.uk/government/s...

Turns out to be a pretty average flu year that started a bit earlier. NHS and Govt have a responsibility to communicate data responsibly and they failed this winter.

1/ Seasonal influenza summary from latest @ukhsa.bsky.social surveillance report. #IDSky #EpiSky 🧪 🗓️ Based on data up to week 51 2025 (15-21 Dec 2025) 📊 Influenza activity has decreased. Influenza circulating at medium levels in England. Report 🔗: www.gov.uk/government/s...

Forceful response to the absurd sanctions by the US on NGO leaders and former EU Comm. Breton. Actions must follow: The EU is an open, rules-based single market, with the sovereign right to regulate economic activity in line with our democratic values & int. commitments ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

Everyone is porcupining and bracing for war. Finland has raised the reservist age to 65, bringing its reserve force to nearly one million. The memory of the Winter War with the USSR continues to shape Finnish thinking. yle.fi/a/74-20201345

In 2023 I became obsessed with videos of dads in cargo shortswaiting in parking lots during Taylor Swift's Eras Tour. So when she came to town, I grabbed a camera and headed down to talk to them. I thought it'd be funny. It turned out to be something else entirely.

Nearly 30 U.S. ambassadors just got recalled within a week. Career diplomats. No explanation. The Foreign Service union says this has NEVER happened in U.S. history. Not during wars. Not during scandals. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/22/u... #BlueSky #NewsSky #PoliSky

This is so ridiculous, even for this absurd administration.

GREENLAND PRIME MINISTER­:­ I AM SAD THAT U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP ONCE AGAIN HAS EXPRESSED A DESIRE TO TAKE OVER GREENLAND

Circling back

Bill Clinton releasing a statement saying 'release the Epstein files, you cowards' was not on my bingo list.

Greta Thunberg arrested at a protest supporting Palestine Action hunger strikers

YouGov have Reform on 25% in both their first poll of 2025 and their final poll before Christmas. The only significan sustained gain across 2025 was Green Party +7, at expense of Labour Reform 25% tp 25% (-) Labour 26% to 20% (-6) Cons 22% to 19% (-3) LibDems 14% to 15% (+1) Greens 8% to 15% (+7)

How bad is it for Russia on the frontlines? They launched an attack on Dobropillia today, led by men on horseback, followed by motorbikes and quads. Ukraine’s 1st Azov Corps wiped them all out in 2 hours with artillery and drones, as well as a bunch of armoured vehicles. It’s the horses I feel for.

In a joint statement, the prime ministers of Greenland and Denmark urged the US to show respect, saying annexation is not an option. Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen and Greenland’s Jens Frederik Nielsen stressed that Greenland belongs to its people, not the United States.

Do both. And if solar parks are built near villages or towns, then offer the people who are potentially affected free electricity to offset their concerns. Solar panels are not nuclear power stations. They can be removed with little environmental impact and can actually benefit biodiversity.

Woohoo! Best Christmas present ever:

I like how he pauses and smiles here to be sure everyone caught what a racist piece of shit he is. “Tee hee, I’m such a little stinker, tee hee”

JD Vance: "In the United States of America you don't have to apologize for being white anymore"

Apparently engaging with the EU is all about economics, while also avoiding freedom of movement. Sigh. Anyone hoping to rejoin has a very very long wait. Frankly, if you're a rejoiner over 50, I'd suggest taking up stamp collecting or bird watching instead. It'll be more fulfilling.

It's not just that it is 'rules-based', it is that it is a single market, not just a trade area. It's this, I think, that isn't understood in the UK, even by some 'pro-Europeans', like Streeting.

Streeting seems to have ended up, 10+ years later, at exactly the same misunderstanding as Cameron's pre-referendum 'renegotiation'. Tedious and depressing. (Extract is from my Blogpost of February 2017: chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2017/02/even...)

Israel approves 19 new Jewish settlements in occupied West Bank www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

The source of the flu hype appears to be NHS and politicians, but journalists parroted without question. How do you write these two paragraphs and not think: “Hang on, flu beds hit 5,400 in 2022, and they had RSV and COVID peak at the same time”. That’s all you need to recognise this as bollocks.

Thank you @chrischirp.bsky.social for your expertise and insights. Scary but a must read article.

Great @yorkshirebylines.co.uk write up of my recent talk about Trump for grassroots Europe yorkshirebylines.co.uk/politics/tru... Thanks @colinngordon.bsky.social for inviting me back!

Looks like flu is wave is likely to be "normal bad" shifted earlier and not bigger this year after all. Latest hospital data came out this afternoon.

2 minutes on how Trump attacked his enemies last week youtube.com/shorts/4eFOL...

The CDC has endorsed ACIP’s decision of revoking universal access in USA to hepatitis B vaccines at birth. The policy had been in place for 34y and was changed despite no new evidence emerging of any risk of vaccination. #HealthPolicy 🧵

When I was a medical student 45 years ago, I clerked in a 13 year old girl with deep jaundice and an abdominal mass. She was Hepatitis B positive. That had led to a primary liver tumour. In a 13-year-old. She was dead within the month. Avoidable with vaccination.

NCAR is quite literally our global mothership. Everyone who works in climate and weather has passed through its doors and benefited from its incredible resources. Dismantling NCAR is like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet. Unbelievable.

As someone not with NCAR, I use NCAR-based software everyday to help identify and track regions of excessive precipitation to help NWS forecasters protect lives and property. NCAR is extremely valuable and we need them.

2 minutes on how Trump attacked his enemies last week youtube.com/shorts/4eFOL...

I don't miss Twitter but I do miss many of the people who are still on there. Sadly I think if they haven't come here yet, they won't

Some peace in your feed. Sunrise this morning in the Carolinas

I would like to let you know that I am reviewing Sarkozy's prison memoir for the Observer and reading it is making me lose my mind, he wrote a 213-page book about being in prison for twenty (20) days, the minutiae of it is exactly as agonising as you'd imagine, fucking *hell*

This post was motivation for a blog post this morning: euroblog.jonworth.eu/broken-chains/ For I have been cleaning up my blog, revealing quite how much we lost when you know who broke Twitter

I don't miss Twitter but I do miss many of the people who are still on there. Sadly I think if they haven't come here yet, they won't

A huge huge THANK YOU to the nearly 400 @quietriotpod.bsky.social listeners who helped buy gifts for children who will otherwise go without. You’re all gorgeous and amazing 🤩

Well, this is an utter disaster for science. This gutting of peer review is very likely driven by Project 2025/OMB/Vought, very likely is about funding junk science, and very likely is coming for #NIH and biomedical research next. 🧪

NEW: President Trump is expanding the previous 19-country travel ban to a whopping 39 countries (plus the Palestinian Authority), and appears to expand a block on legal immigration to now include spouses, children, and parents of U.S. citizens, who were previously exempted.