We had a fabulous taco and burrito place in my little town in Northern Ireland for a long time until the owner returned to Mexico. We also had an Italian pizzeria for a bit. No idea why both these people decided to expand our horizons and then abandon us...

A screenshot of a post on X by The Megyn Kelly Show. The text of the post reads: ".@megynkelly: 'Trump could drop a nuke and I'd still vote Republican over Democrat. What [Democrats] want to do is nuke our own country.'" Below the text is a paused video from the podcast. It shows Megyn Kelly on the right, wearing a black leather jacket, gesturing as she speaks to a woman on the left who is wearing a light blue blazer. They are seated across from each other at a desk with microphones in a studio. The SiriusXM logo is in the bottom right corner of the video frame.

This is the type of evil that enables all of this. There's an entire right wing media ecosystem that would rather watch the world burn than be a decent human being.

I have worked with people from a particular tradition who argue Cromwell's actions were standard military practice at the time, so we shouldn't be making a big fuss about him. Of course, historical contextualisation of other violences is revisionism and justification of inherent moral wrongs...

Two of my cat's enemies (other local cats) died yesterday in either mysterious or tragic ways. Neither could have been caused by Marmalade... at least not through natural means. So, I am a little freaked out and am stocking up on treats.

Did Covid-19 happen in the Resident Evil universe? And if so, were the conspiracy theorists claiming it was a naturally occuring virus (given that in RE, literally every viral outbreak from like 1998 onwards was either a lab leak or an evil corporate plot)?

Surprised he's not named a daughter Ari-Anne yet.

collective punishment is a war crime

An ex-PM intentionally traffics in rank antisemitism without public condemnation by the UK political establishment, while these politicians also brand pro-Palestinian comments as antisemitic and classified Palestine Action as a proscribed group, leading to the arrest of hundreds of people

Charlotte Gill has established a link between Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell.

Next week, she's going to wow the world by PROVING once, and for all that Stan Laurel worked with Mr Oliver Hardy.

The "journalist" who made a list of academic studies she didn't like, and didn't understand, to "expose" tax payer waste also believe Soros conspiracies... shocking.

Not that it is a product I care about, but I've never seen such a rapid decline in effort and quality before. I just can't see how such low effort slop is attracting customers.

Dr Squatch must be a failing company, how do you go from hiring Sydney Sweeney for high production value ads to computer generated voice over ads that look like they're made by the laziest influencer in a couple of years? Honestly, I'd be too embarrassed and just not advertise in that situation.

Is it interesting that in March 2001, they released a polit episode about a radio controlled plane hitting the World Trade Center? A bit, but like WTC had already been attacked before and was a dramatic landmark. Like in 2000, as a writer, you're either choosing WTC or the Empire State Building.

Reached X-Files Season 8 Episode 15, that means it is time to move over to The Lone Gunmen, a show about conspiracies which has become the centre of some conspiracy theories. Apparently, "cancelled for getting too close to the truth, just like Dark Angel" or so YouTube comments tell me.

I would be almost certain, as some raised Protestant in Northern Ireland's weird religious world, that the French Federation of Protestants also had absolutely no idea what Bush was going on about. I only know from reading the Americans, and my great grandmother was a Paisleyite.

A reminder that there is no such thing as a non-lethal weapon.

"There are no societies that do not view nuclear family relationships as centrally important" is a sentence that caused my eye to twitch so much. It is just empirically wrong. Though, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

I can't explain the movie Hundreds of Beavers, but I can highly recommend the movie Hundreds of Beavers. It is just a joy from start to finish.

Honestly, even though it was a purely research and experimental exercise using a source I was intimately familiar with to prove it was a pointless tool, I do feel that single use of AI is a deep dark black mark on my soul.

I don't think I'll ever be able to understand tech bro AI fetishist mind. Grappling with complex ideas in detail is one of the great joys of being human.

For what it's worth, I asked Adobe Reader's AI to summarise my PhD, and it just pulled out random quotes from my conclusion out of order.

Some of my favourite discovers, a man claiming to be kidnapped by Hare Krishnas (not believed by police or parents), brothers getting caught setting up an illegal checkpoint by the army who picked the same place for a checkpoint, and a priest under a psuedonym being very suspicious of the army.

Fermanagh is lucky to have two local papers currently, and a couple of more historically. During my PhD, they were invaluable as an historic record, perhaps not always of fact but certainly of local vibe and concern. If we were to rely on the Belfast papers or British/Irish press we'd know nothing.

the purpose of a system is what it does — Stafford Beer (2002)

Many people died to defend a "multicultural economic zone." And then Donald Trump had their deaths hidden because he's a racist. www.military.com/daily-news/i...

This is the first I’ve read of the Trump administration’s order to stop commemorating the Black American soldiers in a US military cemetery in the Netherlands. My God, how sick, petty & vindictive, how all-consumed with racist hatred do you have to be to order that?

This is now literally the lead story on BBC News Scotland. The employment situation of a private individual harassed via lawfare is deemed the main headline for national news. This is genuinely sickening. The media is a cancer upon this country.

I think one of the real challenges in discussing anything to do with trans people is that the media simply cannot accept that the anti-position is entirely eliminationist. There is no way to "exist in public whilst trans" that they will accept, right down to celebrating a doctor quitting.

The study does not remotely say that science “leans hard left.” Nor does the fact that academics left the Nazis-and-child-porn website for a different website mean they’re producing biased evidence.

All of the major threats to science in 2026 come from the right.

One of the purest examples of a moral panic in our time. A clinic that had years-long waitlists and required an average of 7 appointments before providing transition care smeared and shut down for being reckless.

The transphobic press have no incentive to give Labour credit for their transphobia and every incentive to push them to go further. Labour gain nothing by caving to them, and yet cave to them they will, out of a potent combination of hatred for trans people and political ineptitude.