A New Year? In THIS economy?

And the reasons for that are not hard to find - Starmer’s unpopularity among left-liberals is the logical, arguably even intended consequence of 18 months of comms and policy which alienates and angers left-liberals while winning over no one on right. This is the cake his team have baked themselves.

Cc @humanists.uk it's a good point.

If we're not stripping those like Johnson of British Citizenship because of their outrageous actions (lies leading to Brexit, Levedev, covid incompetence, covid corruption, delegating to Cummings) then why should we do it for anyone else?

The thing to understand is no compromise would be enough for the GCs. It is not enough that they are allowed to exclude trans people from single-sex spaces. Everyone else must be forced to do so. It is not enough that they are allowed to speak their views. Everyone else must be forced to listen.

Man who bought up 33,000 acres of farmland to avoid tax and moved his business to Singapore after the Brexit he voted for wants your sympathy.

Reminder that you don’t need to do a detox in new year if you’ve got liver and kidney function, and anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you something

The only thing worse than a hereditary monarchy would be appointing a right wing grifter to the role. "Patriotism" appears to be very selectively applied by these idiots.

As a special festive treat our boiler has stopped working. Guess I know what our festive pennies will be spent on...

Extremely funny to call the pope “holier-than-thou”

Three grandparents with four hearing aids (only two functioning) between them, one replacement knee, one fibromyalgia... three grandchildren with various combinations of neurodivergence... and nowhere near enough coffee.

If you happen to be looking for bad redactions in a large set of data files today for some reason, there's an open source tool for that.

Got my first "boxing day sale" email.

Since yesterday, many people have DM’d to say that they were strongly affected by my essay & wished they could share it. So I've revised, expanded, & posted it for free on both Substack & Patreon. Please feel free to share. www.patreon.com/posts/this-i... catvalente.substack.com/p/this-is-wh...

This time of year is fucking hard. The holidays are a fertile ground for dark thoughts. Loneliness can drown you, even when you're surrounded by people. Take care of yourself. If you feel like you're drowning in darkness, please talk to someone. Friend, family, stranger. Anyone. You deserve love.

Fascinating example of data that we didn't know we had - organ tuning notes show climate changes www.theguardian.com/environment/... cc @rbrockphysics.bsky.social @drwilkinsonsci.bsky.social

I have my students write three-sentence summaries of articles and then read them aloud in class, to see how different summaries are depending on the things that most interest you. We map overlaps and differences to help them understand why trusting a supposed summary machine short-circuits thinking.

Eldest has been home from uni for three days. This afternoon's conversation started with "I've put it out, but..." which feels less than ideal.

Nothing quite like that feeling of putting on your out-of-office...

We are parents of a trans kid and our family takes this very, very personally. If you intentionally make life harder for our beloved daughter, it’s EXTREMELY hard to think of you as an ally, to say the least. @amyklobuchar.com - you still send us requests for money, while hurting our kid. Disgusted.

Assigned to a prison job paying $0.13 per hour, Abron Arrington refused to work, figuring his time could be better spent learning physics. The Colorado DOC punished him with bouts of solitary confinement.

Rob Reiner: “Silence in the face of authoritarianism is complicity. Speaking out is a patriotic act. Democracy doesn’t defend itself. It requires participation, vigilance, and courage from ordinary people."

There came a day where screen time died and all the old gods returned.

I regret to announce that I am out of #Whamageddon because of all places the *gym*. FFS.

ITE census data is fascinating; a third of Physics trainees at just 8 centres (3 SCITTs, 5 HEIs). As predicted, int'l students make up more than half of the cohort and I'm betting they're overrepresented in the largest HEIs.

There’s a lot of talk about the Hitler youth types who are turning in their professors and not enough discussion about the ones who are feeling intense despair because they're going to school with the Hitler youth types and immigrants are being kidnapped and trans people are facing genocide &etc

Ignore the pace, but getting out for my first run in exactly 12 weeks felt *so* good.

Most school science departments have suffered when the person who knows how to set up specific kit, or which supplier still stocks the compatible glassware, or why the waterbaths only work in a particular lab, retired.

I've reached that point in my life where being cleared by orthopedics to return to running means I can re-use my rehab plans from the *previous* injury...

I spoke in Parliament today to challenge the misinformation from those claiming this tribunal as a 'win' for the anti-trans agenda. In fact it found Ms Peggie harassed a colleague for being trans, and it dismissed almost all her claims. It also found that trans segregation is not supported in law.

New Home Office impact assessment finds that cutting skilled and social care visas will cost the UK up to £10 billion with a central estimate of -£5.4 billion. It would be good if this got even a fraction of the coverage devoted to the endless debate about boats, flags and Turkish barber shops

Fascinating to see all the artwork at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. But I've not seen one picture with a Tardis... #niche

So full-time teachers in England, according to the DfE's own figures, are working an average of 50 hours per week. Source: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6926d0...

I've reread the _Rising_ trilogy by @seananmcguire.bsky.social's twin sibling several times. I still recommend it, both for the narrative and the ethos: Rise up while you can.

Christmas music in the gym? That's got to be cause for complaint.

A thorough and interesting read, but I've no idea how @samfr.bsky.social resisted using the Sidney Harris cartoon. open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/s...

New blog entry: Things upcoming www.antipope.org/charlie/blog...

You know you're getting old when you put in a Garmin feature request for "physio" to be added to the activity options

Feels like an important point.

Of all the people you could defame, I wouldn’t pick a judge

I'm not able to run yet - the joy of rehab - but will wanted to share info about #LetsLiftTheCurfew to remind fellow runners about not being unintentionally scary. www.thisgirlcan.co.uk/our-partners...

Home from the hardest vet appointment any pet parent ever has. Sometimes the right and kind choice is also the hard one.

Can you see the problem 🤷🏻‍♂️ Wes Streeting can’t 🤦🏻‍♂️ 31million/month consult GP practices with similar number having haircuts 102,000 hairdressers in England with 40,000 salons 38,000 GPs with 6200 Surgeries On average people spend £400pa on hair GPs receive £169pa per patient

First bake from _Baking With Granny_ smells good! bakingwithgranny.co.uk/scottish-bak...

Data management can be time consuming and mind numbing. But I'm currently converting last year's student teacher records to teachers at their schools, which is actually really nice.

And there are so many of these small things that govt could have fixed *to show it knows about all the little broken pieces *to show that it cares *because it can fix and fix now *as proof of concept that they can and will fix things *because it's the efficient thing to do

I know it's not the fault of the individuals, but having my orthopedic appointment cancelled and then told it will be a month before they can see me - during which time I can't drive - is massively frustrating.

It feels like the objection was that Panorama provided a soundbite summarizing the intent of the speech - Trump & co assumed, probably rightly, that their fans wouldn't make the link when the statements were separated in the original speech.