On holiday last week, and my dog realised she could climb into my camping chair. Sorry, *her* camping chair.
Pete West-Oram
@peterwest-oram.bsky.social
Philosopher and bioethicist. Working mainly on questions of justice and ethical practice in health and health care. Opinions my own. He/him
Today is three months since we brought this wonderful dog home. She's the best.
I don’t know how to explain to my American family and friends that this is now the man entrusted with the UK’s political salvation from fascism. For clarity, I am referring to the man on the left with a bin for a face, not the incoming prime minister on the right.
Count Binface@countbinface.bsky.social · 2mo agoThis time last week.
The strength of this result will shape everything that happens next. Higher turnout = signals strength Strong mandate = leverage Don’t wait - vote as soon as your ballot arrives. #DefendSussex We've been sold the story across Britain that this is inevitable. It isn't. Stand-up. Vote.
I mean credit where credit is due: "If he wants to spend the summer arguing with a bin, I won't stop him" is top tier posting
I'm sure I know people who would be interested in this.... @lastpositivist.bsky.social #Binface4Clacton
Wyrd Science Magazine@wyrdscience.bsky.social · last mo.A good day to remind you all that you can spend £5.50 on a 28mm @countbinface.bsky.social model from Troublemaker Games, £3 of which goes to NHS supporting charities Now who is selling some frog faced fiends and a scale model pier for them to fight over? www.troublemakergames.co.uk/product-page...
I know everyone's having fun, but take it from someone who grew up in Hartlepool: there's just no way a novelty candidate in a silly costume running in a Brexity seaside town could capture the public mood and win a low turnout election.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be in the same room as former colleagues’ www.timeshighereducation.com/depth/i-dont...
‘I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be in the same room as former colleagues’
The results of Times Higher Education’s UK University Redundancy Survey vividly illustrate the deep human impact of the redundancy crisis on those who have lost their jobs. But respondents are torn ab...
timeshighereducation.com
Are you like Danny? Have you voted yet? Have your colleagues? Turnout is everything. ✅ Vote ✅ Remind colleagues ✅ Support your department reps This is collective - every vote counts - every job matters! #DefendSussex
Our ballot is now open. If you want to protect jobs at Sussex, the most important thing you can do right now is to vote! A strong turnout puts us in the strongest possible position. Check your post and vote today. Let’s meet the threshold strong and early. #EveryJobMatters #DefendSussex
I’m very pleased that the trade press is giving space to the Exeter horror. Next challenge is for them to look a little further down the league tables - Northumbria perhaps, or my own place. We have feelings too.
Andy Brockman@andybrockman.bsky.social · last mo."The idea that people will be able to hold it together and deliver a term of teaching before they vanish off into the horizon, is bizarre, spiteful and naive as well.” The Times HE's punchy account of Exeter University's #BonfireOfTheHumanities & what one academic describes as "existential terror".
Everyone shut up I finally got a video of Jyn doing her cartoon snoring thing
Every staff update in every university right now: 1. We are excited to announce a strategic investment of eleventeen squillion pounds in ACRONYM, a new AI-powered centre for the development of strategic acronyms. 2. Staff have until Friday to apply for enhanced Voluntary Death.
Relieved to see more coverage of the grip Nous is getting on #UKHE. Thanks @privateeyenews.bsky.social! A million pound @cardiffucu.bsky.social alone. That’s a lot of money for the very same PowerPoint…
Sometimes as an NYT books columnist you find yourself quoted in the Atlantic by Helen Lewis, who believes two odd things: 1. That nobody is reading Pratchett anymore (instead of all the time, as they should), and 2. That Pratchett’s politics are hard to pin down, and Reg Shoe is not a fucking hero.
Want to stop some vandals? Sign this petition. c.org/qpWLqNByRB
Sign the Petition
Save the Humanities at the University of Hertfordshire
c.org
“For too long, the university has ignored the wisdom of the donor class and hired based on academic excellence. Regrettably, this has led to the underrepresentation of discredited viewpoints in elite higher education.” www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/wer...
We’re Diversifying the University by Hiring More Crackpots
“For too long, the university has ignored the wisdom of the donor class and hired based on academic excellence. Regrettably, this has led to the underreprese...
mcsweeneys.net
Trans people have a right to the same healthcare we all need goodlawproject.org/s/ec0359
Trans people have a right to the same healthcare we all need | Good Law Project
Across the country, trans people are being denied vital healthcare that has nothing to do with their gender identity – simply because they are trans.
goodlawproject.org
When the worst person in the world puts the second worst person in the world in charge of budgets, cheered on by others of near equal worth.
Anjali Dayal@anjalikdayal.bsky.social · 3mo ago“The dismantling of USAID, according to models from Boston University epidemiologist Brooke Nichols, “has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children,” Gawande wrote.” hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-s...
The High Court has just confirmed what many of us knew. The Office for Students fine of the University of Sussex for supposed ‘free speech’ infringements was a biased piece of right wing culture war politics and had nothing whatsoever to do with free speech. Sussex vindicated and the OfS exposed.
It's great to know that the thing we all said at the time was the case (they were using this as a test case to bully universities into removing any stated internal policies defending trans students and faculty from bigoted comments by anti-trans academics in the classroom) was in fact the case
Judgment now available online. The OfS does not come out of it well at all. Final line: “The Final Decision was vitiated by bias because the OfS approached the decision with a closed mind and had therefore unlawfully predetermined the decision.” www.judiciary.uk/judgments/th...
The Guardian@theguardian.com · 3mo agoSussex University overturns £585,000 fine as high court rejects free speech breach claim
Discworld QOTD, from The Shepherd’s Crown
Micah@rincewind.run · 4mo agoDiscworld QOTD, from Maskerade