The bitterly ironic transformation of the iconography of the poppy, from sombre reminder of the senseless futility of a war in which the British ruling class systematically ordered the wholesale slaughter of millions of working-class men, to 'War Christmas', says everything about the current crisis

The use of AI to marionette a woman whose tortured existence was spent trying to carve her own life and identity out of the space men forced her into is both damningly macabre and a surprisingly perfect encapsulation of the problems with this ghoulish use of technology.

whenever i encounter people who say they can't understand shakespeare verses I always send them this clip from the 2019 Shakespeare in the Park production of Much Ado About Nothing

Upload your scanned ID they said. It will be fine they said.

“I’m strong and I want to have like fifty kids and a farm” of course you do. You’re twelve. “I don’t want to eat vegetables I think steak and French fries is the only meal” hell yeah homie you’re twelve. “Maybe if there’s crime we should just send the army” bless your heart my twelve year old buddy

working on a new unified theory of american reality i'm calling "everyone is twelve now"

"but it's everywhere now so we just have to accept it's the new reality" motherfucker we can just stop putting it everywhere! we did it with asbestos and CFCs and lead-based paint or petrol and make-up with arsenic in it! if everyone is using something and it's bad, we can choose to stop!

Daughter of Robin Williams, Zelda Williams 💔

With so many loud unhelpful voices weighing in on the awful Manchester attacks this week, please read this piece by Zack Polanski. “We can and must hold both truths together: that Jewish people deserve absolute safety, and that Palestinians deserve justice and freedom.”

This whole section really.

Sound on for The Railway Children (1970). It looks like a folk horror film, so I added scary noises to the trailer. Listen to me and @eleanormorton.bsky.social for more: linktr.ee/readthat

this is actually extraordinary and a lot of it's been done just by asking people to drive basically any car produced since 2007. almost no cars later than that (and some earlier) comply with ULEZ - it's not forcing everyone into a Tesla, it's incredibly basic improvements

KOKO THE GORILLA: Koko birkin bag. Practical Koko possession bag RESEARCHER: No, Koko. You can’t have a Birkin bag. KOKO: Good Birkin good Koko give beautiful Koko deserve gorilla RESEARCHER: Koko, we simply can’t afford a Birkin bag. It is an unjustifiable expense. KOKO: jealousy professor

Doomscrolling break. Especially for everyone facing deadlines and challenges, I offer you this small, persevering hedgehog by way of encouragement and inspiration. #TinyJoys

mfw I realize the events of CHILDREN OF MEN canonically take place in 2027, which is now... about a year away

If I posted something so dumb that Dril himself showed up in my comments to dunk on me, I would simply walk directly into the sea

Charming little octopus from a Roman villa at Villaquejida, León, Spain. Limestone, 2nd-3rd century AD. Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid 📷 me #Archaeology

It boils my piss that there's people who've escaped horrors we can't imagine, who believe in this country enough to risk everything to get here, who want to work and be part of the community, and for some bloody reason we're not treating them like valued neighbours.

They're not allowed to work but they desperately want to. They want to volunteer and integrate but they're given so little that even taking a bus to somewhere to do so is outside of their budget.

The organisers at the community hub have tried to get the asylum seekers involved in things but there are just too many barriers. They have to be at the hotel at certain times to get fed, they're often moved across the country with no warning so they can't integrate into local communities

It's draining to realise xenophobic rhetoric has become so pervasive that a reasonable leftwing person may find themselves saying 'oi, don't go associating the 'good' immigrants with those 'bad' ones in boats'. If we respond to 'immigrants are evil' with 'not all immigrants' then we've already lost.

Absolute all-timer sentence in today's @nytimes.com

Facebook Memories has reminded me of that painting of a large Nicolas Cage trying to breastfeed a small Nicolas Cage. Morning all

"single-use plastic of the mind" had me GAGGED

i just need a minute to breathe ijustneedaminutetobreathe

“My wife went to Riyadh to see an edgy comedian” “Jimmy Carr?” “No, she went of her own accord”

Universal Credit for an unemployed person is £4,801.68 per YEAR. So lose your job and that's what you're expected to live on - and it can be desperate as I know to my cost! Or, if you're on minimum wage you'll earn £23,492.04 working 37 hours a week. Yet Keir mocks £20k as nothing. Wow.

This IS a great headline and also: Seattle! Get the word out! Someone was exposed to rabies and needs to seek medical care IMMEDIATELY!

The key part of volunteering is that it's... voluntary... Unpaid work that you're forced to do to retain your rights isn't volunteering, it's slavery.

They’re offering all of this freely in the hopes the far right will become partners in governance with them and absolve them from the rhetorical targeting aimed at marginalized communities.

They’ll build police training centers, pass the *toughest* border bills, implement the most efficient of papers please law, operate the most pervasive surveillance, build the most lethal military etc etc

What centrists are offering across the Western world is the opportunity for the right to consolidate their gains as hegemonic. They’re offering managerial competence in service to reactionary aims.

Nathan Gill is no fringe politician. He was the leader of the Reform Party and before that UKIP in Wales. A Brexit Party MEP. A friend and ally of Nigel Farage, who in 2016 called him: "terrific," and "as honest as the day is long." This is a MASSIVE story www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Nigel Farage & Alex Phillips have been awfully quiet about Nathan Gill pleading guilty to eight counts of bribery relating to pro-Russia statements made in European parliament and articles. Just wanted to refresh their memories about how they were all a team through that period.

In the early 1960s a senior Conservative minister, John Profumo, resigned and inflicted perhaps decisive damage to the electoral prospects of his party for a decade ….. for far less than this

Yesterday was the 30th Anniversary of this line read.

this is one of the most chilling scenes in jurassic park, wherein, rather than showing us the brutality on screen, the movie uses sound effects to imply the gruesome violence as the cow beats the shit out of a bunch of velociraptors

If I controlled an animation studio- any animation studio- I would jump both feet forth. Alas- for good or bd- I do not.

Well don't I feel stupid

ID shouldn't include any gender indicators and it's fucking batshit that it does

I do not want the state squatting in my phone, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that this will be used to monitor us as well as to facilitate ‘ID checks’.

There will, inevitably, be people who think that being strongly opposed to ID cards is a bit silly. But these things will be used to place even greater restrictions on the ease with which you access state services, and are very specifically being introduced now as a means to further punish migrants

The difference between an ID card and a passport/driving licence is that those things are not mandatory for everyone if they don’t want to learn to drive or travel overseas - they are physical documents, held by the owner, not digital state spyware devices squatting in our phones

When digital ID is required to access services (eg the NHS, or legal representation, or obtaining a bank account, or renting a flat), and yours has been set to "nope" because the government of the day decides it doesn't like people of Your Sort, what will you be able to do about it? Nothing.

Here's what the new co-owner of TikTok US and existing co-owner of the Tony Blair Institute (the 'let's do digital ID' guys) had to say this time last year. This is who's dictating and planning to profit from mandatory government digital ID, starting with immigrants and expanding to everyone else.

2. Countries that have ID cards - like the whole of Europe - still have the same irregular migration problem (you may have heard!!!) & in fact the UK has the lowest share of its economy estimated as irregular economy in Europe so if it fixes the issue WHY DIDNT IT FIX IT THERE?