Bertha Mason
@thornfieldhall.bsky.social
Firestarter Maker of poor pottery Creator of disappointing dinners Hoarder of unfinished craft projects Lefty, wokey, inclusivey Sunny South East London
This is devastating, especially at a time when so much research is under threat of being defunded.
Jimbobbers ✌︎㋡@jimbobbers.bsky.social · 10h ago@chadbourn.bsky.social Hi Mark, might be one to watch here :- H5 Avian Flu now found in dolphins and seals in Australia. This is a nasty one that's jumped from birds to mammals and is spreading fast. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Britons taking “Plan 2” student loan need to earn £63,600 a year to reduce debt. Plan 2 graduates with an average loan of £52,100, and earning £39,039 would see loan balance actually increase by £1,692 a year. England student debt £294.6bn, UK £324bn Median UK employee wage is £31,500. Madness.
Release home - Student loan forecasts - earnings
Ad hoc experimental statistics publication presenting analysis of earnings and lifetime repayments forecasts for England
explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk
We suckers, who pay our water bills, but get leaks, sewage in our rivers and hosepipe bans in return,have spent the past 37 years making Thames Water shareholders richer. Absolute racket and Andy Burnham is a disgrace for not taking the opportunity to re-privatise.
Prem Sikka@premnsikka.bsky.social · 10h agoSince privatisation, England's water companies have borrowed £83bn, paid £88.4bn in dividends. 35% of customer bills cover financial costs. Under-investment is the norm At the current rate of investment it will take 700 years to replace the water network. Govts obsessed with privatisation.
From Eric Kaufmann, who published fraudulent and unethical "research" on free speech/academic freedom (for Policy Exchange) and then tried to cover it up by surreptitiously editing it *after publication*.
Surveilling children, taking away their access to community, information, third spaces, and suicide prevention resources is a *really* weird approach to child safety.
Right now the government is putting our communities, our water security and our climate ambitions second to the demands of tech giants. It's time to slam the brakes on water-guzzling, energy hungry datacentres.
I've been tasked to cover data center issues at work recently and I've learned some interesting things about data centers' environmental impacts that I thought I'd share Some really unexpected stuff beyond the energy/water stuff most people know about at this point
An easy mistake to make. Anybody could be a penguin. It brings to mind my favourite Wikipedia correction.
Professor Peter Matthews@urbaneprofessor.bsky.social · 12mo agoThis frontispiece in my book just made me laugh a lot. Is this Buddhist reincarnation, or some other form of afterlife?
Trump allies have backed a law that would block British regulators from enforcing online safety rules on websites based in the US. It would bar US courts from recognising foreign fines related to online speech. I guess a full ban is the only option then.
Trump ally issues bill to exempt US websites from British regulators
Michael Rulli, a Republican congressman, wants to stop American courts from enforcing fines from Ofcom relating to the Online Safety Act
thetimes.com
The mix of capital and lower case letters, as if it is written by a 6 year old, is an interesting touch. Anyhoo, it's still Lake Ontario.
𝕊𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕖 𝔾𝕦𝕣𝕝@sundaedivine.lol · yesterdayForeign policy brought to you by Sharpie™️
The BBC can feck off with it's vox pops of people whingeing about ULEZ. It affects a tiny amount of people with polluting cars, but the BBC coverage makes it sound as if most people object. ULEZ has had a significant positive effect on air quality.
In the light of falling immigrant figures, Reform has moved on to demonising the vulnerable by having the sick and disabled steal the jobs off our street cleaners, working for benefits below minimum wage. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...
Jenrick says Reform would make long-term benefits claimants clean up high streets – as it happened
Party’s ‘welfare to work’ policy would force long-term claimants to do community work or face losing benefits
theguardian.com
Alan Stedman@alanjstedman.bsky.social · yesterdayOh, Reform slowly but surely having the rug pulled from underneath them...so expect bigger lies and more and more bluster 😳
Ratko Mladic has died in jail. This should be the fate of all agents of genocide.
"for all the people “celebrating” this as a win “against” Meta, you’ve been fooled. Meta just cut a deal to put itself in charge of how social media works going forward. this is Meta taking a “please regulate me Daddy” approach to the government, & getting exactly what it really has been asking for"
Techdirt@techdirt.com · 2d agoMeta Just Paid Nearly $17 Billion To Make Sure It Gets To Write The Kid Safety Rules For Every Other Social Media Platform By now... https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/26/meta-just-paid-nearly-17-billion-to-make-sure-it-gets-to-write-the-kid-safety-rules-for-every-other-social-media-platform/
Asylum backlog halved to 40k. Peaked 150k in 2023 with processing suspended (on the fiction that 30-50k people could be removed to Rwanda, when the attempt to send 300 failed).
Gosh, I didn't realise Yayoi Kusama had died. Such a huge body of interesting work. Her mirror rooms at the Tate Modern a couple of years back were a magical experience.
The New York Times@nytimes.com · yesterdayIn her long life, artist Yayoi Kusama achieved something remarkable: two very different moments of stardom, almost as though she’d been two different artists.
The fallout from the collapse of this glacier - a torrent of mud surging down the valley - killed hundreds of people. Gone, in a flash. Those people were wiped out by anthropogenic climate change. Our governments are simply not responding quickly enough to this disaster which is already upon us.
Nahel Belgherze@wxnb.bsky.social · yesterdayAn incredibly well-timed Landsat 9 pass captured the effects of yesterday’s catastrophic glacier collapse near the Nepal–Tibet border. The event was so massive that it was detected by seismometers around the world.
Very clever polling on the consequences of believing - or repeatedly being told - that you are the silent majority
YouGov@yougov.co.uk · 2d agoReform voters, and to a lesser extent Tories, are much likelier to think they hold the most common public view across several topics that our survey suggests is not the case, most notably: -2024 rioters -Trans ID -Bregret -Business reg -Lockdowns -Israel-Palestine -Trump yougov.com/en-gb/articl...
It is definitely not helped by elite signalling that this group is the only voters that matter. Naturally makes you think there is more of them
Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · 2d agoOne key to British politics is that one quarter of the public are distinctly more likely than others to think most people agree with them (while often/mostly being a vocal minority)
Carbon emissions from just two planned datacentres in England will exceed all of ExxonMobil’s UK fossil fuel emissions. Bad for health, environment. Huge pressure on energy/water supplies Few long-term jobs generated Local people, not ministers, must decide if they want datacentres.
Two planned datacentres will have higher UK carbon emissions than ExxonMobil, analysis finds
Exclusive: Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire sites predicted to emit 4.5m tonnes a year when fully running
theguardian.com
Think about Miss Piggy. She lost a best friend and now an ex-lover in matter of 24 hours.
Both Tim & Dolly were wonderful Muppet chums. This is so sweet. 😢
Toss@stevenspoints.bsky.social · 2d agoI really cannot think of a greater honor than to have the Muppets say this about you upon your passing
Oh for heavens sake, not lovely Tim Curry as well. We are being robbed of the good ones. RIP Tim. Hope you are flying around in the ether having a wild time.
Tim Curry: Uncorrupted Space
ALT: Tim Curry: Uncorrupted Space
static.klipy.com
Timed beautifully to coincide with the RFK-inspired explosive diarrhoea epidemic. Well done, the writers room.
Jon Cooper@joncooper-us.bsky.social · 2d agoWiped out: US faces surging toilet paper prices amid trade war with Canada Paper products among hardest-hit sectors after trade negotiations broke down, with 25-50% tariffs estimated.
You don't pay up $18bn if you know you are innocent and would won your case. Basically, Meta products harm children. What are they going to do to change? www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cy...
Meta agrees to pay up to $18bn to settle claims its platforms harm children
The Facebook and Instagram owner, which denies wrongdoing, says the agreement builds on its "longstanding efforts to empower parents and support teens".
bbc.co.uk
