The Flame is not the Fire - a poem: Today I see the god  In everything And everything to me  Proclaims and sings And dances Like the dragonflies In spring Gentle reminder  That the flame  Is not the fire Love every host And every ghost  That lives within #Poetry

I wish you a Happy Christmas and a coming year of solidarity and resistance. Love and courage to you all.

“We need to believe in decency, truth, and honesty so that they can prevail,” said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk [@donald-tusk.bsky.social] in his Christmas message.

10 AI predictions for 2026

Merry Christmas Europe - from your fascist erstwhile ally America

Greta Thunberg arrested for holding a sign opposing genocide. When peaceful protest is a crime, democracy is in deep trouble. Happening under a Labour Government.

“There is a song, bird song or wind song, or the song old rooms sing when no one is awake to hear.” Philip Levine.

He is covering up extrajudicial killings. He is covering up kidnapping, trafficking & horrific detention. He is covering up child rapes. He is covering up stealing classified documents & selling them. He is covering up details of his coup attempt. He is covering up who he’s really working for.

Guards began beating him. Beat him until he bled. Knocked his face into the wall, broke all his teeth. No access to outdoors, no contact with relatives. Now describing US knowledge of CECOT's torture practices, followed by footage of Trump praising those practices.

Netanyahu also wants the inquiry to find the Ark of the Covenant and Miriam's Well before they will be allowed to conclude on the failures around October 7th...

Europe gets serious about cutting digital umbilical cord with Uncle Sam's big tech - www.theregister.com/2025/12/22/e... "Public bodies migrate in the bloc as hyperscalers claim sovereignty" long overdue #sovereignty

"Bondi filled me with fear and darkness. I felt it as a Jew.. But Ahmed’s act illuminated something else. Resistance to hate isn’t always slogans..Sometimes it’s running forward when everything says run away..Hanukkah doesn’t promise darkness will vanish. It promises light can be carried."

Their demands are reasonable, their treatment is disgraceful. The government's intransigence is killing the #PalestineAction hunger strikers. Just as its complicity has assisted the genocide in Gaza. It needs to wake up right now to the moral consequences. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

“We have sacrificed our national success because of our fear of immigration. And now, if Farage has his way, we'll do it all over again” Superb, important analysis of the profound harm Farage does to our country in his rabidly racist and egotistical bid for power liveapp.inews.co.uk/category/407...

'Dolphin at Dawn' - woodcut AI generated

How the world woke up to Google's AI dominance

Love the graphic story approach - life in 2035

Israeli forces have massacred six Palestinians civilians, including a baby, taking shelter in a school. The genocide in Gaza continues.

they definitely have nothing to hide... www.normalisland.co.uk/p/doj-proves...

Six political prisoners awaiting trial in the U.K. for supporting the banned protest group Palestine Action have been hospitalized as their health declines while on prolonged hunger strike.

DOJ broke the law today by refusing to produce all the Epstein files. It also broke the law by redacting information other than to protect victims. Yet, the corporate media is acting that DOJ did us a huge favor. Now, more than ever, help build independent, pro-democracy media. hubs.ly/Q03CbHTt0

It's not that Europe doesn't want to defend Ukraine, it's that not ALL of Europe wants to fight Putin, because some Europeans think that their self-interest lies in supporting him.

The EU doesn't get it. Despite the best efforts of academics, advisors and other experts to inform them. Maintaining and increasing pressure = Russia has opportunity to adapt, sustaining its war effort. Apply a massive economic & financial shock = denies Russia opportunity to adapt = war ends.

"Twenty years after this story was printed, we are just starting to write the history of the strange death of neoliberal England. Yet Kingdom Come demonstrates that our current mess has a long, long history. The bleakness that surrounds today’s politics stretches back..."

"My daughter opposes genocide and also sexual abuse. Where did I go wrong?"

"If Israel is going to live peacefully alongside its Arab neighbors, and if it’s going to remain Jewish and democratic, there will have to be a Palestinian state."

"We have a simple choice: either money today, or blood tomorrow... I’m not talking about Ukraine only, I’m talking about Europe.” Donald Tusk gets it. Slava Europa!

The history of Marxist thought has been a struggle between those who want it to be a rich, expanding and empirically informed intellectual project and those who want it to be a comfort blanket of Truths that spare them the trouble of thinking. weaponizedinformation.wordpress.com/2025/12/15/c...

These speeches lately kinda have me missing the old days when they were about Al Capone, Hannibal Lecter, electric tanks, getting eaten by sharks, windmills causing cancer, and mentally ill whales.

Together for Palestine - ‘Lullaby’: "reimagining of a traditional Palestinian lullaby sees over 15 UK and Palestinian artists come together...additional lyrics by Mahmoud Darwish and English lyrics written by Peter Gabriel...The official single artwork was created by.. Gazan painter Malak Mattar"

Friends — Heather and I would love to answer your questions on an upcoming episode of our podcast "The Coffee Klatch." Do you have questions about politics? The state of the economy? What to expect in 2026? Ask them below!

Not everyone agrees with Josh. This from a Jewish Council of Australia today. #bondi

WP claims that Russia is telling the U.S. to take frozen Russian assets from the EU and hand them back to Moscow in exchange for a “share,” arguing the White House should help Russia reclaim the funds. They assert that if the EU doesn’t return the assets, the U.S. will do it instead.

From the new issue: Meet the scientists (and a very good dog named Eba) rushing to save southern resident killer whales off the coast of Washington State

Read what Starmer's biographer says here about no10's response to Trump's white supremacist National Security Strategy. I despair. We are being led through this unique moment of historical crisis by a bunch of witless dogmatists incapable of analytical thought. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

📢 WE'RE POSTING our 'Inequality Graph of the Week' series from 'The Spirit Level at 15 dataset', one graph a day (give or take...), up until Christmas. Please share widely and help us spread the word that more equal societies are fairer, greener, and healthier for everyone. No.25 🔽 Thank You! 👍♥️✊

"Light is the left hand of darkness and darkness the right hand of light. Two are one, life and death, lying together like lovers in kemmer, like hands joined together, like the end and the way." (Ursula Le Guin)

Why is the far right triumphing across the West? Because ordinary citizens are told they're trapped in a zero-sum game - competing with migrants for scarce resources. This is a lie. A failed economic order is to blame: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Again these people aren't patriots. They hate our country and are allied to others who hate it too. Nothing will ever be achieved by seeking to appease them

Bari Weiss has only failed upwards propped up by the oligarchs she sucks up to. The reality is that her politics are odious and people can't stand her. The political class giving her clout have their heads up their asses. No one likes this stuff. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

New from me @techpolicypress.bsky.social: How far did tech firms' 2025 realignment with the Republican party reach into their systemic risk reports to the European Commission (which hardly anyone even reads)? A fair bit, it turns out. www.techpolicy.press/platforms-re...

So much manipulation of facts and weird statements in this pontification it’s comical. x.com/DD_Geopoliti...

1/ We have now exceeded over 4 million reads of our Powerful Citizen journalism in 2025 and rising. Help us look forward to a brilliant 2026 by supporting citizen voices and becoming a friend of Bylines Network

There are many interpretations of Hanukkah, including resilience in the face of tyrannical empires attempting to destroy Jewish customs and community. Here's a tyrannical empire attempting to destroy Jewish customs and community:

The whole of the UK - not just its armed forces - needs to step up to deter the threat posed by Russia of a wider war in Europe, Britain's military chief will say news.sky.com/story/everyo...

The singer, who was also a commercial airline pilot and once considered for Britain's Olympic fencing team, said he loved Blake's work, calling it "non-conformist, visionary, mystical and beautiful"

Decisions take in the coming days and week may define Europe for a generation. My latest with thoughts on the looming Battle of Brussels, Starmer’s dangerous dithering, Ireland’s neutrality fetish, China’s industrial siege warfare, plus have we passed peak human?

As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis stated in 1933; “We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we cannot have both.” Today, at a time of unprecedented income & wealth inequality, his words ring truer than ever.

ICE pepper-sprayed this 1-year-old girl. Once at the hospital, the doctor had to call in a poison control specialist. They had never seen anyone that young pepper sprayed. Another horrific story. More details below.