Freya Sierhuis 🟥

News from the farm: Fuelling the fire – the biodiesel fantasy Are biofuels a viable alternative to fossil fuels, or is misinformation fuelling the argument, asks Guy Singh-Watson…

Really good to see Guy Watson call out the scam that is biodiesel. But let’s not forget Drax, the UK’s largest carbon emitter and destroyer of primal forests #AxeDrax

wickedleeks.riverford.co.uk/features/new...

United States of Palantir

We gaan nek-aan-nek, maar hebben de PVV bijna ingehaald. Het is mogelijk: voor het eerst in 25 jaar een linkse premier en een progressief kabinet. Maak GroenLinks-PvdA morgen de grootste!

De man die zijn partij met ijzeren hand regeert was hier niet van op de hoogte?

Kom op, als je voor de democratie staat, treed je op tegen deze twee Kamerleden en volgen er sancties.

Trek een grens.

Je ziet een wit vlak met zwarte letters erin. Er staat: PVV de grootste? Dat laten wij echt niet gebeuren! En daaronder staat in het groen GroenLinks en in het rood PvdA met naast de A een rode roos.

💚❤️ #verkiezingen

Het aantal vrouwen dat van plan is om naar de stembus te gaan, ligt 10 procentpunt onder dat aantal mannen. Bij de verkiezingen in 2023 was dat nog 5 procentpunt. Femicide, loonkloof, abortus, kom op vrouwen, laat jullie stem niet verloren gaan!

The Netherlands, Germany, the UK…are there any counter examples of succesful pushback?

c’mmon people, you can spare £6. Less than a pint!

I had a (delicious) coffe here the other day. What a great initiative! www.fairshot.co.uk

Image of the Chandos portrait of William Shakespeare, overlaid with translucent green text of computer code and strings of binary code. Along the right side of the image, dark text reads "Propose a Digital Exhibit". End ID.

Applications for #digital exhibits at #Shax2026 are now open! Showcase your work on early modern projects — find more information and apply at shakespeareassociation.org/annual-meeti...

House of Commons letterhead: Dear ClIr Duggins, Re: Coventry City Council's contract with Palantir Technologies I am writing to express my deep concerns regarding the recent contract awarded by Coventry City Council to the software company Palantir Technologies UK Ltd, the UK subsidiary of the US-headquartered Palantir Technologies Inc. Coventry City Council's decision to award a £500,000 service contract [procurement reference: COV - 21614] to Palantir for the development of a strategic Al platform for the Council, running from February 2025 to February 2030, raises serious questions given the company's troubling human rights record, including its complicity in Israel's war crimes and crimes against humanity. Palantir is one of the tech giants enabling Israel's advanced Al targeting and weapons system by equipping the Israeli military with computing systems as well as surveillance and communications technologies to accelerate the genocide in Gaza and automate apartheid in the West Bank.' I note that the Labour-led Council has passed two motions this year condemning any activity which has been deemed in breach of international law and calling for international laws to be upheld, as well as calling for an immediate, permanent ceasefire. The Council's decision to procure services from a company associated with and profiting from Israel's genocide on the Palestinian people seems to undermine those commitments. Beyond continuing to supply the Israeli military with data and Al services used in targeting systems linked to deaths in Gaza, Palantir has also been involved in developing surveillance platforms for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), used in deportations that have been widely condemned.

In the UK, Palantir's increasing presence in public institutions such as the NHS, police forces, the Ministry of Defence, and the Crown Commercial Service has been a matter of concern given the implications for transparency, privacy, and democratic accountability. The Council's decision to contract Palantir exacerbates these concerns at a local level. In addition, at a time of ongoing austerity, when the Council has overseen funding cuts to essential public services across Coventry such as libraries and swimming pools, it is concerning that resources of this scale are being directed towards this contract rather than being invested to support local services for residents. Therefore, I urge the Council to divest from companies doing business with Israel - a state being investigated by the ICJ for violating of the Genocide Convention with leaders that have active ICC arrest warrants - and end this contract with Palantir. Furthermore, I am seeking your urgent clarification on the below points : • Can you confirm how this contract was awarded, including what considerations and risk assessments were taken into account in selecting Palantir despite its concerning record? • Will you confirm, what safeguards - if any - are in place to ensure that the personal data of Coventry residents will not be misused or shared in ways that could cause harm? • What assurance can you give that the Al transformation to streamline service provision resulting from this contract will not lead to local job losses? I look forward to your response on this critical matter. It is essential that Coventry residents have full confidence that their Council is acting transparently and protecting them from risks associated with this kind of weaponised Al and its consequences. Yours sincerely, Zarah Sultana MP Member of Parliament for Coventry South

Last week I wrote to Coventry City Council about their £500,000 contract with Palantir.

Palantir is a partner in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, collaborates with ICE in the US & is embedded in our NHS.

Coventry (& the NHS) must divest from genocide & protect jobs, services & data.

US conducts ‘kinetic strike’ against drug boat from Venezuela, killing 11, Trump says Trump says ‘we took it out’ referring to the operation in international waters, amid US-Caracas tensions

It doesn’t even make it to the front page anymore in this new age of crazy. The US is now extralegally killing people in international waters www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

The making of critical data center studies - Dustin Edwards, Zane Griffin Talley Cooper, Mél Hogan, 2025 In this article, the authors demonstrate how the data center has become a key site, object, and metaphor for interdisciplinary scholarship of the internet. Whil...

So much think-piecing and op-ed'ing about data centers. I wish folks knew that some scholars have been studying these things — as real estate, as geopolitical battlegrounds, as ecological disasters — for a decade+. Mél Hogan, Alix Johnson, Ingrid Burrington, Jen Holt, Patrick Brodie, et al

Bellingcat An independent investigative collective of researchers, investigators and citizen journalists brought together by a passion for open source research. - Bellingcat

You can find the full list of Bellingcat-built tools on our GitHub: github.com/bellingcat
And video guides on how to use some of those tools within our YouTube Tech Series: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

YouTube video by Faculty of History | University of Oxford Regius Valedictory Lecture: Telling Stories: History, Narrative, and the German Peasants’ War, 1525

Couldn't make the lecture so really enjoyed this by Lyndal Roper: about the Peasants' War, but also about popular history writing and why it needs to be more creative and less constrained by chronological narrative

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWPM...

so true! Sometimes I stroke his belly and he is just roasting

How many places to loll about in the sun does a cat need….🙂?

The renewable energy revolution is a feat of technology | Rebecca Solnit An energy revolution is underway in this century, though most people have not noticed it

Belatedly getting round to reading this from @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social and it really is a brilliantly concise summary of quite how significant and exciting the clean tech transition is becoming. It remains beyond weird this stuff is not more widely understood. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

What the fresh hell is this?!

The Revolution Will Be Incremental with Rebecca Solnit Podcast Episode · How to Survive the End of the World · 08/01/2025 · 1h 7m

I had a wonderful conversation with two of my heroes, adrienne maree brown and Autumn Brown, on one of my favorite podcasts. About hope, change, climate, power, stories, survival, solidarity. Warning: laughter, singing.

Adrenaline Still Pigeon · Adrenaline · Song · 2023

Anthem for summer ‘25: Still Pigeon’s Adrenaline.

open.spotify.com/track/2sjGPy...

The image shows the 17th century painting “Landscape with Windmills near Haarlem” by the Dutch painter Jacob van Ruisdael.

Disgusted to see this beautiful landscape ruined by wind turbines.

School holidays should be a time to celebrate, not a time of risk.

I’m launching Holiday Hope, a new £6m programme providing young people with something to do, something to aspire to and something to eat.

We're giving young people the support they need to be safe and to thrive.

That describes today. And yesterday and the day before…

Kemi Badenoch says she wants to be Britain’s Javier Milei. What could possibly go wrong?

#r4today

We’re in a polycrisis—ecological breakdown, geopolitical conflict, inequality, democratic erosion. Yet 75% of UK unis still don’t teach ecological economics (@rethinkecon.bsky.social). Time for change. Explore our Ecological Economics programme @universityofleeds.bsky.social → tinyurl.com/4y6ru3ha

A New Era for WIRED—That Starts With You As of today, there are even more ways to enjoy WIRED’s journalism, including premium newsletters and livestream Q&As. Join us.

Wired rules. Just an incredible group of journalists who are completely meeting the moment. And you can subscribe for $2 a month, which is insane www.wired.com/story/a-new-...

How to Protect Yourself From Phone Searches at the US Border Customs and Border Protection has broad authority to search travelers’ devices when they cross into the United States. Here’s what you can do to protect your digital life while at the US border.

Travelling soon? Customs and Border Protection has broad authority to search travelers’ devices when they cross into the United States. Here’s what you can do to protect your digital life while at the US border.

www.wired.com/story/how-to...