A reminder that mathematical modellers and psychologists have conclusively demonstrated that "Blue Monday" is the most dispiriting day of the year to be a mathematical modeller or a psychologist. www.theguardian.com/science/blog...

Pathetic

I mean, look, it's actually very easy to care about both the Twin Cities being under seige by a state-funfed racist militia *and* Greenland being invaded for some incoherent reason because both problems have the same solution.

This is pretty much the only post anyone should need to understand that Farage is a traitor, a conman and a populist simpleton who must *never* be given power.

X still allowing users to post sexualised images generated by Grok AI tool www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

How did I forget this Year 7 Food Tech monstrosity?!

I don’t know who this Minnesota man is, but he absolutely speaks for me.

I was raised to be respectable, not make a fuss, not take on 'labels' that mark me out as different (queer, disabled, mad, whatever). I've never been very good at it but on the rare occasions that's protected me it's only been because I'm useful as a tool for the repression of my peers. I am done.

See also: Met police over Lawrence family.

The thing we need to remember is that it is not possible to oppose authoritarian regimes and be seen as human by their supporters. You can be white, Christian and a mother (everything they claim to care about) but your opposition to racism and violence means you can be killed and dehumanised.

I don’t think we need to detract from the specific terror that ICE inflicts on immigrants to acknowledge that a big part of their purpose is to enact violence on those American citizens perceived to be Democratic voters in retaliation for their failure to support Trump.

"I'm afraid there's many bad people around, but they have made scientific advances." - President of the Royal Society. The Royal Society continues to be happy to be associated with, indeed honour Elon Musk with fellowship, despite the Grok scandal. I will never understand this.

New post up, for all the self proclaimed poets & those who proclaim love and beauty - for Renee Good. “If someone smiles or cries, feels less alone or more enthused, when you read your work out aloud you have made something wonderful.” thecosmicshamblesnetwork.substack.com/p/the-world-...

I can’t get over that split second when those shots were fired , all that rage , all that hate , and then men like him go onto X to undress Renee Good - and a convicted sexual abuser in the White House and powerful men who raped children still secure behind their money

So disappointed to see the usual early exit of black and brown contestants in the latest series of The Traitors. It's so painfully obvious but no one seems to reflect on it. Glad at least one person is talking about it in the media. We need a bigger discussion. www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...

Cagney & Lacey Rosemary & Thyme Scott & Bailey They’ve got nothing on Stride & Tyce #TheTraitors

This is just lovely

Rachel taking Fiona on is like Gandalf raging at a hobbit. #theTraitors

I have to say, as a man with two mothers, I find the derisive deployment of language like "lesbian" and "lover" by those on the far right who are trying to justify Renee Good's death particularly disgusting and dehumanizing. These women. They are wives. They are a family. That's it.

I keep going back to this. This is a taunt. They're taunting us. There is no other possible interpretation of what they're doing. But media simply ignores this deranged behavior, because if they talk about it, one must conclude that DHS is a rogue agency, of villainous paramilitary thugs.

They never ask this of Farage, who would not have achieved Brexit, or be in Parliament without the misinformation he relies on social media to spread. Trump buttered up Musk so Twitter could be manipulated in his favour. Are they asking this question about him too? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

For their anti-immigrant, white nationalist post about 100 million deportations, DHS stole the artwork of a non-white foreigner: Japanese illustrator Hiroshi Nagai. Apparently no white Americans were available to design an image. View Nagai's work here: hiroshinagai.com/contents.html

N.B. this meme is referring to deporting all the non-white people in the country. That’s where they got their number from.

An official account of the United States government is dreamposting about deporting 80+ million citizens

Here's a really easy New Year's Resolution: If you're sick with something contagious, you will stay home if your circumstances allow. If you can't stay home, you will mask around others until there is no possibility you are contagious. By making these choices, you will literally save lives.

Happy new year! (Incidentally, does anyone else get a sudden interest in lobbying for a ban on the sale of fireworks for private use at this time of year?)

TIL: Before Hans Asperger or Leo Kanner, a Jewish-Ukrainian psychiatrist named Grunya Sukhareva defined autism in 1925. Both men did not cite her work. She also had documented how it affected women and girls, where the men did not. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunya_...

At the Wycombe Swan panto yesterday, La Voix described a woman's look as "Miss Chalfont St Peter, 1993" and it was exactly right for the audience. Local pantos in small theatres are gems, please support them. Being able to be weird and parochial can be fun.

Barbara G. Walker is no longer with us. A lifelong feminist, writer, folklorist, and knitting pioneer. A trailblazer, a guiding light, and a woman who always connected her making hands with her inquisitive brain. Vale, Barbara. Thank you for knocking down doors over & over.

She's brilliant and her legacy is a lot of warm people. Thanks, Barbara.

You can read the hypocrisy here right?

12YO girl signed up to do “stand up comedy” at the talent show. 13YO boy decided to heckle her. Teacher started to tell the boy to leave her alone, but the 12YO comedian said “no, no, let him go, this is the closest he’s ever going to get to having a conversation with a girl.”

The thing that bothers me about our post-pandemic COVID discourse is how much of it isn't about how to do things better next time, it's playing Monday morning quarterback. It's not about learning, it's about spending years trying to win arguments that people had online from March 2020.

If you’re wondering why your friends in academia are a little on edge right now, it’s because an eighteen-year-old who hasn’t done the reading, doesn’t look at the assignment, and has does no critical thinking skills more complex than “because I think it’s in the Bible” can literally end your career

It's Trump policy that U.S. tech must be globally dominant. It's also US policy that its tech corps must be free from: Regulation. Taxation. Fact checking and monitoring for hate lies, disinformation. All are now being treated as attacks on the U.S. itself. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

I like being an uncle for the holidays because: Mom and dad are responsible, and will discipline you. Grandpa and Grandma are indulgent, and will coddle you. But the uncle... the uncle is unpredictable. The niece and nephew cannot know what the uncle will do, because the soul of the uncle is CHAOS

So I am going to say something about romance as a genre. A lot of people think that romance is ignorable because <insert thing they think about romance> and romance authors don't count because <insert thing they think about romance>. This thread is not about whether you have to like romance.

This is the thing about the "shift" that led to the 2024 results. It was entirely fake. Our culture is determined by fake accounts operating within a blackbox algorithm. None of it is real, and I think we all feel that.

Ask any gay person what "theater kid," when used as an insult, means. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/u...

"Trump attorney Alan Garten told BuzzFeed News this week. “To discuss them is unfair. This happened a long time ago. " ...so this happened, is what you're saying.

Again, this is all right in front of your faces. You can read any survivor’s story to find out names. This testimony is horrifying and I read it almost a decade ago so the least you could all do is know this.

The forces of evil want you to feel alone and afraid. The ones who are cutting aid and deporting immigrants and making trans care illegal want you to feel powerless. But we are not alone, and we do not need to be afraid. We have each other, and a God whose name is With Us.

Congrats again to everyone for pretending the far right authoritarian party’s assault on higher education was really about fighting antisemitism

This is a man who called himself an atheist until he was apprised that that was a political liability in Ohio. Now he calls himself a Catholic, while flouting the church's theology and holding the church itself up to ridicule.

There’s a direct line from ‘just asking questions about women’s sports’ to criminalizing our health care, we warned you it was coming, you said it would be fine and you just had a few more questions.