John Flanagan
@johnflanagan.bsky.social
Brit immigrant in Germany glad to have escaped the Other Place. Pro-EU; married to a wonderful man; BIR fanatic with ridiculously full spice cupboard. Proudly blocked by Ian Dunt. Sadly watching UK politics on its mission of self-harm. NO DMs 🇪🇺🏳️🌈🇺🇦
Muscovia delenda est.
Ulrike Franke@rikefranke.bsky.social · 11h agoUnusual drone sighting situation at Leipzig airport in Germany: a drone, possibly armed with some kind of explosive, has been found on the ground at Leipzig airport. Later, an aircraft reported a collision with an unknown object. More info certainly to follow. www.bild.de/regional/lei...
The Trump administration is drafting a new nukes strategy which emphasises the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons in a regional conflict with China or Russia.
Pentagon drafting a new U.S. nuclear strategy in case of regional war with China or Russia, sources say
The classified strategy informs nuclear options for the commander in chief during crises.
nbcnews.com
Philp is an amalgamation of every Chris Barrie character I’ve ever laughed at
Having gone through the German secondary system with its ruthless sorting in the 1990s, one thing I find a lot of Brits never got about it is the extent to which its sharper edges were sanded off outside school gates through more egalitarian forms of civil society associational life. Vereinsleben.
Sam Freedman@samfr.bsky.social · 2d agoTalked a bit about this in this post - you can't stop education systems sorting kids, as it's one of their implicit functions. But you can ameliorate the consequences of that sorting. samf.substack.com/p/the-gap-th...
"We appear to have questioned the existence of long covid by mistake"
This is Loki, our Maine Coon and the cat of our hearts, and he went missing today. We have no idea how he got out, but he’s an elder, indoor cat, the whole region’s in an intense heat wave, and we’re really scared. I doubt I have any followers here in Martinez, CA, but if so, help? It’s SO hot
Hey @lewisgoodall.com here is our Lancet article on Long COVID. Happy to chat. www.thelancet.com/action/showP...
thelancet.com
So it's farewell to the History subject area at the University of Hertfordshire, not the first nor the last to go. One of the best departments in the country, just extinguished like a snap of the fingers. Think of the waste. (1/2)
“The NATO campaign against Russia”… How the hell was Dianne Abbott allowed back into the Labour Party? www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMBj...
Diane Abbott MP
YouTube video by StoptheWarCoalition
youtube.com
Last month, Diane Abbott stood up at a conference in London and described Ukraine’s defence against Russian invasion as, and I quote, “the NATO campaign against Russia”. Labour are genuinely mad to let her back in.
FAO The Newsagents
Prof Christina Pagel@chrischirp.bsky.social · 5d ago🧵On @thenewsagents.co.uk yesterday, school closures and the lab leak theory were offered as two examples of legitimate questions that were hard to ask. Both have in fact been asked constantly since 2020. But here's a thread on why I think they were wrong and dangerous on school closures 1/12
Film criticism aside, Emily Wilson's review of the Odyssey concerned me because it misrepresents Late Bronze Age history and reinforces an old Eurocentric pattern of dismissing the experiences--and reality--of ancient peoples other than the Greeks.
Please make sure that you are never using, making or sharing any AI images, video, or audio. They use up the most energy. They are an utter waste of resources.
I’ve seen them in the US. Somewhat boggling to see footage of one in a British wood.
National Trust@nationaltrust.org.uk · 2w agoYou know those live wildlife cameras we've got? Well, they've captured footage of something we didn't expect to see... A rare black-crowned night heron – a scarce visitor to the UK – so rare in the UK its distribution can’t be mapped. And we spotted it on our beaver cam.
In a bid to keep the two sides of my work life separate I’ve set up @infinitemonkeyshq.bsky.social A place for writers of all kinds, readers and viewers too. Things I’ve learned on the road to getting published, my work made for TV, talk about the craft, tips, news and intel, reviews. 1/2
again, this is because the centre is not a moderate middle ground between extremes on an imaginary left/right axis which is just a *spatial metaphor*. it is the *centre of power & privilege* those motherfuckers are out to defend from a "left" which is actually the *left out* advocating for equality
G Elliott Morris@gelliottmorris.com · 2w agoWhat 'moderation' really means is adopting the views of a very small group of loud, centrist writers and their big business backers, and is increasingly out of step with (a) the big problems in the US and (b) the polling on what Americans say are the biggest problems they want government to fix.
I am serious in saying that if you work for this man at the Cabinet level and love your country and heard this speech tonight you should be making phone calls to try to get everyone together to 25th him before midnight I'm still shaken by how utterly crazed what I just heard was
Sam Neil and Jeff Goldblum September Song, composer Kurt Weill
Dolloping unwarranted post-mortem praise on those who squandered any rights to such acclaim whilst alive seems to be very much in this season.
Dr. Annie Andrews@drannieandrews.com · 3w agoI hope that South Carolinians will join me in setting partisanship aside and offering gratitude to Senator Lindsey Graham for his service to the great state of South Carolina.
If you’re an avid reader who has returned a library book late and attempted to negotiate a lower fine, you can forget about having an opinion on crypto fraud or the termination of USAid. You’re *literally* worse than those things. In this 94-post thread, I will…
Seth Abramson@sethabramson.bsky.social · 4w agoIf you're an England fan pretending that goal was legal because England is your team, never again ask an American how Donald Trump became president. He became president because humans lose their morals and perspective the *second* their emotions and biases get involved. Period.
Lindsey Graham was a simple, tragic man to understand. He lacked a moral core. The great empty spaces of his life were filled with an insatiable need for “relevance.” He found it as a cast member in the most malignant reality show ever made. steveschmidt.substack.com/p/lindsey-kn...
Lindsey knew better. He chose worse.
Lindsey Graham was a lonely and unprincipled man who betrayed his country for power and his decency for attention.
steveschmidt.substack.com
The Economist is clearly unwell. From a recent pipe dream that kleptocrats are the best solution for a gangster state losing a war, to this drivel which has to ignore May’s hate-filled racism in order to stand. A call for the beatification of Widdecombe must surely follow.
The Economist@economist.com · 4w agoIf the idea seems absurd, it is because Britain has drifted so far from the ideas and ideologies that dominated the country barely a decade ago
Rarely read anything as self-deluded as Melnichenko's piece, or as delusional as the Economist's assumption that an oligarch business class whose fate and fortunes are bound up with Putin's systems will be able to steer the social forces unleashed by that system's collapse
Hopefully we don’t have long to wait before the likes of Shrimsley, The Times et al dust off more“didn’t agree with everything he did but a man of strong convictions” obits about Putin and Trump. One does wonder which of Widdecombe’s ‘social views’ Shrimsley found agreeable.
Robert Shrimsley@robertshrimsley.bsky.social · 4w agoSad news about Ann Widdecombe. Very good and nuanced obit from the Times. Didn't share many of her social views but she was a woman of strong principles, far better and kinder than her caricature. This last par captures here well: www.thetimes.com/uk/obituarie...
We have to ask ourselves how we made British (and American!) politics the go-to career for spivs, chancers, hedge fund speculators, money launderers, crypto criminals, anti-vaxx scammers, Nazis, sex trafficking manosphere influencers and of course the whole Johnson coterie of gropers and stalkers
