Donald Farmer
@donaldtreehive.bsky.social
Scottish - American. Built a so-called career on data and analytics. Should have been a musician.
NEW EPISODE: MIcah Clarke (1889), Part 1. We begin our three-part discussion of Conan Doyle's breakthrough novel. Chat about: historical novels, the influence of Macaulay and Scott, the Monmouth Rebellion context, 17thC mercenaries and Obi-Wan Kenobi. bit.ly/DOD078sn
I appreciate that Dolly Parton refused to participate in "dress respectability" and, by her own account, modeled her aesthetic after a town "tramp," who she thought was beautiful. She separated aesthetics from character and understood "classiness" to be about how you treat people, not how you dress.
There now follows a party election broadcast by the Count Binface Party, And if I do say so myself, it's a banger. #VoteBinface #Clacton
I live in a small town in NE Scotland close to where chunks of the #Odyssey was filmed. Nolan’s cast and crew were all lovely and spent money like water in our hard-up area. He even made sure our tiny cinemas got on-time release of it when we normally have to wait for big movies. Thanks Chris.
It's a shame that "defend your culture" always means "hate strangers different from you" and never "enact anti-pollution laws so that you can go fishing with your grandkids the way your grandpa taught you."
If you were horrified watching elected leaders run & scramble because of gun violence, just imagine how my daughter Jaime felt in school running from an active shooter before she was killed. Now, become a part of the solution & only vote for people determined to address gun violence in America.
It’s a crowded category, but I thought what Trump said after the murder of Rob and Michele Reiner was even worse. There’s not a shred of empathy, humanity or basic decency in his body!
Edward Harrison@edwardnh.bsky.social · 7mo agoJames Fallows: “This is the most despicable public statement by an American public official in my lifetime. It needs to be recognized as such.”
It’s good news that award-winning Gaelic drama An t-Eilean (The Island) has been commissioned for a second series, with filming in the Western Isles starting in the spring. Here’s my interview with talented leading actor Sorcha Groundsell! www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/entertain...
Interview: Sorcha Groundsell, star of new BBC crime drama An t-Eilean set in Western Isles
The Western Isles actor is at the helm of "An T-Eilean", the first major crime drama to be filmed in Gaelic.
pressandjournal.co.uk
The cultural destruction of this US government is extraordinary. I get the sense that they destroy simply because they can, as if they reflexively hate everything not made by them or in their image.
Simon Willison@simonwillison.net · 8mo agoThe CIA just stopped publishing their World Factbook and took every page, including the archived copies of previous versions! This sucks. It was public domain, so I recovered the 2020 edition (the last one published as a zip file) and shared it to GitHub simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/5/t...
you don't say? at some point we're going to acknowledge what every study ever on this subject has said, right? right? www.independent.co.uk/news/science...
Trans athletes may not have fitness advantage in women’s sport, landmark study finds
Findings suggest physical performance in trans women converges toward that of cis women over time
independent.co.uk
My granddaughters’ rats enjoyed their Burns’ supper.
Someone who shares part of my name and (horrors!) some of my distant relatives can go f*** himself.
Thin Ink's 1st issue of 2026: I’m reclaiming the word foodie & rejecting purism while I’m at it. Loving food has brought me joy my whole life. But in recent years it’s also come with guilt: Not vegetarian enough. Not climate-perfect enough. Not “doing it right.” news.thin-ink.net/p/the-real-b...
The Real Big Tent
Food, climate, and why rejecting purism ≠ rejecting responsibility
news.thin-ink.net
look at how little effort it takes for someone on the conservative grievance circuit to destroy a life millions of college kids have half assed an assignment at the last minute, you eat the F and move on but the effort to push trans people out of public life will use whatever it can get
That this man was ever elected will be an eternal shame to our country. There appear to be no depths to which his ego cannot drag him down.
Sahil Kapur@sahilkapur.bsky.social · 10mo agoTrump just posted this on Rob Reiner
Does anyone know if there’s an English translation of “Oma. schreit der Frieder” published?
Wish I had my phone with me on my morning walk. Somebody had stuck a sticky note on a Cybertruck … “2025 Winner of the FiFA Design Award.”
I’m old enough to remember when a ‘remote conference’ just meant a conference where all the participants were aloof, mentally disengaged or emotionally repressed
Hey, if you’re a Seattle/WA author with a book coming out next year and you have a firm pub date, please let me know for potential inclusion in the Seattle Times’s 2026 book preview. (Space is limited but I’ll do my best.) Drop a link either in replies or at my email: thisispaulconstant@gmail.com.
We have a friend staying with us and I said, of course she can read & borrow any books she wants. “I like biographies." And I now realize I have thousands of books but maybe only 6-10 biographies. I just don’t read them much. Any suggestions?
I find it weird when US politicos criticize Europe for lack of “free speech.” Personally, after 25 years and as a US citizen, I see (and feel) more constraints on expression in the US than in Scotland. Perhaps I should say, different constraints. What is acceptable varies greatly across the water.
Noah Smith uses the collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to presage the current woes of Europe. www.noahpinion.blog/p/europe-is-... May be of passing interest @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social
Europe is under siege
Menaced by Russia and China, abandoned by America.
noahpinion.blog
The moral collapse of US governance is breathtaking. coppercourier.com/2025/12/05/c...
Three-year-old child forced to serve as her own attorney in Tucson immigration court
More than a dozen undocumented minors were forced to make their case in front of an immigration judge as the Trump administration ramps up removal proceedings.
coppercourier.com
