Mark Nixon
@fatbadger442.bsky.social
historian of Victorian culture & politics (esp w material culture); curator & public historian; education advocate. Obsessed with 1884. Otherwise, on a bicycle. he/him
It's almost time for Sequential Scotland, taking place this Saturday in Glasgow! Sequential Scotland is a celebration of independent and small press comics, with over 100 creators. Have you got your ticket yet? You can either buy online or buy at the door! 🎟️ www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sequential...
TomDispatch Exclusive: When a President Promises a Massacre Harkening back to colonial slaughters, Trump abandons the premise of proportionality for butchery in Iran and beyond. theintercept.com/2026/08/05/t...
When a President Promises a Massacre
Harkening back to colonial massacres, Trump abandons the premise of proportionality for butchery in Iran and beyond.
theintercept.com
This is the highest-resolution view of the surface of the Sun. Ever. Taken by the NSF's Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, features as small as 19 km across can be resolved. The wispy things are magnetic field boundaries formed by Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities. The island of Ireland for scale.
🚨 NEWS! We're digging our 1,500-year-old graveyard this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday! Come see the Govan Heritage Trust dig and survey of Govan Old's ancient kirkyard between 11am and 4pm on Friday 7th, Saturday 8th, and Sunday 9th of August, 2026.
Over the last nine months, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has run dozens of paid ads that include explicit AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and images of minors alongside sexually suggestive statements, according to details of the ads shared with WIRED.
Meta Ran Ads That Contained AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Imagery
More than 50 offending image and video ads were published across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, or Threads, according to Meta’s ad library data. Some ran as recently as this week.
wired.com
About as many refugees and migrants have drowned in the Atlantic and Mediterranean 'illegal' immigration boat routes to Europe since 2014 as Ukrainians have died in the conflict in Ukraine in the same period. Since 2015 European countries have deliberately allowed people to drown as a 'deterrent'.
Nice line from Jessicaoutofthecloset on instagram: “Moral panics end, queer community doesn’t.” Survive. Fight and survive.
Absolutely this! When doing my LGBT London history talk the moral panic from 1708 to 1726 resulted in so many arrests and too many deaths. But it passed and 10 years later a mollie was accepted by her community and took someone else to court. Not fearing for her life. Despite still being “illegal”
Patrick Ness@patricknessbooks.bsky.social · 22h agoNice line from Jessicaoutofthecloset on instagram: “Moral panics end, queer community doesn’t.” Survive. Fight and survive.
A 60 Minutes probe into Epstein's banking, with Wyden already interviewed, vanished right after Sharyn Alfonsi got pushed out under Bari Weiss. Same editor who stalled the CECOT migrant story until Stephen Miller got a say. CBS keeps calling it timing. Sure looks like a pattern.
60 Minutes Epstein Banking Story Vanished After CBS Ousted Sharyn Alfonsi, Dem Senator Reveals
Wyden revealed he was interviewed for the show in a Senate report alleging the country's largest banks turned “a blind eye” to Epstein's financial activity
mediaite.com
I can't be the only person to have seen this headline and suddenly launched into papa papa papa papa papapa, papa papa papa papaaaaa PA in their head, can I?
As a human, I oppose the Conservative Party. As a politicial historian, I recognise the seriousness and grandness of the historical Conservative Party. That they have become a laughing stock, led by a series of genuinely stupid and unserious people is perhaps *the* political story of our times.
Kevin Schofield@kevinschofied.bsky.social · 21h agoSerious mental gymnastics this morning from Kemi Badenoch of former neo-Nazi-turned-Tory-candidate Joshua Bonehill-Paine ... www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/kemi-b...
"I wish vegans / vegetarians would stop pushing theirlifestyle choices on us" Them:
Segregation is discrimination. I will not comply with my segregation. The new EHRC guidance might come into force today but I will not change how I interact with society. Solidarity with all my trans and non-binary siblings.
Do try to remember that the EHRC guidance only affects service providers and not employment, so if you work somewhere where there are toilets or changing rooms for employees that aren’t open to the public then your employers are wrong if they try to stop you from using facilities for your gender
"Badenoch must know that." LOL.
Ed Wilson@eddwilson.bsky.social · 22h agoDelaying the commencement order of the Sentencing Act pending a new bill/order would be in danger of pulling the whole thing apart. Badenoch must know that. Justin Webb obviously doesn't. But the feelings of #R4Today listeners will be disturbed. Media splurge. #R4Today
Here a compilation of stupid things library consultants have said to me in solidarity with library pals at Lambeth Libraries where genius consultants has decided that a qualified head of library service post isn't really essential.
EHRC Code of Practice comes into effect today so remember to be an absolute pain in the arse to any service provider who is trying to actively enforce it.
This is what the patriarchy dreams of: an army of women, browbeaten by fearmongering and lies into policing other women. #transphobia is #misogyny
Great discussion at the 'crisis in UK history' meeting hosted by @ihr.bsky.social, @royalhistsoc.org, @histassoc.bsky.social and History UK. Horror stories of closures and redundancies, balanced by new resources. Check out for ex. the new Independent Historians Network independenthistorians.org
Independent Historians Network
The place for independent and freelance historians to connect
independenthistorians.org
Leaders of flag-raising group Raise the Colours Oxfordshire placed trackers on highway workers’ cars to find out their home addresses, the High Court has heard. RTC then attempted to intimidate the highway staff into no longer removing flags by repeating their addresses to them.
The programme for Chartism Day 2026 is now live: sslh.org.uk/2026/08/04/c...
Chartism Day 2026 Programme
The programme for Chartism Day 2026 is now live. What is Chartism Day? The Chartism Day Conferences were launched at the University of Birmingham in September 1995 by the renowned Chartist historia…
sslh.org.uk
Now They've Defeated 'Biological Men In Women's Sports' They Can Move On To Defeating Women's Sports www.wonkette.com/p/now-theyve... by @dennycarter.bsky.social
Now They've Defeated 'Biological Men In Women's Sports' They Can Move On To Defeating Women's Sports
The bad faith it burns.
wonkette.com
French forces held a fierce defensive perimeter around Dunkirk and lost 18,000 souls. 40,000 became POWs. Without their resolve we wouldn’t have our nation’s story. It’s estimated 20-60k French resistance fighters died during the war. These fuckers really are vile bastards 😡😡
Booker: "Ghislaine Maxwell is sitting in the lowest possible confinement after giving no information that helped us get one more investigation started and has been silent, and the man responsible for that we're about to make the attorney general of the US ... this is farcical."
Reminder that the Tories believe any non-British person who commits more than a minor parking or traffic offence should be automatically deported. They “believe in second chances”, apparently, but only for literal Nazis.
Kemi Badenoch defends selection of man jailed for harassing Jewish MP in council election – as it happened
Conservative leader tells press she stands by decision to select Joshua Bonehill-Paine as a candidate for local election in Somerset
theguardian.com
#MorningReads from @ohprofessor.bsky.social !! Becoming a Submissive: BDSM, Articulate Intimacies, and the Erotics of Social Difference: www.theoryandsocialinquiry.org/.../44708/do... BDSM identities are cultivated through embodied experience.
Ex-PM Starmer said, in response to Raise the Colours terrorising people, ‘I am supporter of flags’, ‘I’m very encouraging of flags. I think they’re patriotic and I think they’re a great symbol of our nation’ and his family had ‘got St George’s flag in our flat’ www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...
Cllr Dr Alex Powell@apowelllaw.bsky.social · 2d agoThe campaign of harassment and intimidation Raise the Colours have undertaken against council staff, contractors, and members of the public as reported by the Clarion today is shocking if not surprising. Excellent reporting. oxfordclarion.uk/the-clarion-...
The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights has written an op-ed about growing hostility towards LGBTI+ people in countries including the UK, calling on governments to "double down on the simple promise that human rights belong to everyone". Read more: www.coe.int/en/web/commi...
Attacks on LGBTI people are the warning sign of a wider backlash against democracy - Commissioner for Human Rights - www.coe.int
Strasbourg 3 August 2026
coe.int