Oh, okay. I assumed you were thinking more of leadership and how it's lacking at Westminster.

I just finished the first chapter this morning, and I am struck by similarities between how the "head honchos" of the time stole all the common land, and how the current head honchos of the digital world are stealing all our online spaces.

Some of us are working very hard *outside the spotlight* to keep those patronage networks from gaining strength!
There are also folk in gov't who flirt with the lobbyists, get what they want, and then just not give anything back.
It is truly a joy to watch 😊

This is true; there is much fecal matter being thrown about by bored and incompetent people on the conservative end of the spectrum - but at least the majority of us have the good sense to vote for progressive parties and they run things pretty smoothly, in spite of a hostile unionist press.

Gee, I think we've done pretty well at choosing non-horrible, non-arseholes in Scotland, at least as long as I've been here.

@podmalm.bsky.social While I see you're on here - I watched a Swedish "krim" last night *free* on Prime, called "Fallen" in English.
It's relatively recent, and the way invandrare are portrayed might interest you, if you haven't seen it. It was quite nuanced in a strange way. Skåne and Stockholm.

The sad thing about postal voting is watching the election campaigns continue ostensibly for no purpose.
(I voted last week - we must've gotten the ballots early up here in the far north)

Minister misled parliament over arms exports to Israel Chris Bryant told a parliamentary committee that UK-made aircraft parts would not benefit Israeli fighter pilots. His briefing said otherwise.

Here's how trade minister Chris Bryant misled parliament about UK aircraft parts for Israel.

www.declassifieduk.org/minister-mis...

Right. I've often said that the solution is sewer socialism. We didn't stop cholera by shaming people who didn't purify their own water, we built infrastructure that eventually ensured clean water was the norm. We can do that with air quality.

South Riding is one of the best books ever.

I met my wife forty years ago this week. I know this, because it's the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. We were rehearsing in a theatre in Liverpool, while a cloud of nuclear fallout was drifting slowly over our heads from the stricken power station...

Maybe medieval animals actually looked like that

Well. Here's a sharp mind. One to watch!

Russia's 100.000.000.000 budget deficit. Let's see how long that keeps on going well.

I wonder what they'll do when the school smartphone ban doesn't solve all the issues they're ascribing to social media

A white painted cottage in twilight

The delightful C18th Grade II listed cottage on Skokholm at twilight last night.

This was where Ronald Lockley set up the first bird observatory in the 1920s. It has since been immaculately restored by volunteers 👌

Chris Mason cannot contain his excitement at unfolding political drama around Starmer/Robbins/Mandelson - viewing everything through the wrong end of a telescope. Politics as gameshow & SM-driven entertainment rather than job of serious analysis of implications for lives & future of British people

"I walked into a situation in which there was already a very, very strong expectation, coming from number 10, that [Mandelson] needed to be in post and in America as quickly as humanly possible," Olly Robbins tells MPs.

"There was a generally dismissive attitude to his vetting clearance"

😂 Brilliant!
(I've been calling the other one "LICE")

I keep seeing posts that are obvious replies to some particular person, but which are not linked to the original post.

Is that some weird bug with BlueSky?

Quote with a live album where you were there for the actual show.
(Plastic Ono Band - "Live Peace in Toronto, 1969 - featuring John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, Alan White and Yoko Ono)

Labour and Lib Dem MPs demand ‘shameful’ Palantir NHS contract be scrapped Spy-tech company and founder Peter Thiel should ‘have their hands ripped off our NHS’, say MPs

I wonder HOW MUCH it will cost for England and Wales to worm out of this contract? Perhaps that's what Thiel has wanted the whole time? They love trickstering and getting money for no work, right wing people.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

There is some good news out there in the world 😊

*I imagined that I would take up *reading.* "When I'm old, I'll sit and ponder those famous literary classics"

*Turns out they're mostly written by *kids.*. Thirty-somethings, forty-somethings. Mere children

Mine has arrived, and it is gorgeous!

Ola Hudson (mother of Slash from Guns ‘n Roses) and some random musician she was dating back in 1975.

70’s Cybill Shepherd

Keep this in mind next time Dreher opines on welfare, the state, and minorities.

The BBC is obviously compromised.