Neil Mackenzie

Dense scaffolding completely obscures the facade of the Mackintosh Building.

Mackintosh Building
Glasgow School of Art
Scotland

Homeland Security is targeting Americans with this secretive legal weapon Under Trump, the Department of Homeland Security has weaponized administrative subpoenas to attack free speech, according to privacy and civil rights groups.

This is absolutely insane: DHS claims the right to subpoena your emails and to send investigators to your house. In this case, because a retiree sent the mildest possible criticism to a prosecutor. No judges involved.
www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...

View directly into an overhead gaslight. The light from the burning wick in the center is reflected as two circles on the light fitting.

Gaslight
Tenement Museum
Glasgow, Scotland

Looking upriver from the middle of a bridge in central Glasgow. City buildings are visible on both banks of the river. The bridge tailings are visible at the bottom of the photo. Above is a bright grey sky.

River Clyde
Glasgow, Scotland

DHS said that the woman CBP shot in the chest in Portland was “involved” in a gang shooting.

Her ~involvement~ was that suspected gang members sexually assaulted and robbed her.

Cover of the Scribner edition of The Paris Trilogy, written by Colombo Schneck and translated by Lauren Elon and Natasha Lehrer. The cover features an overhead photograph of four lanes of a swimming pool with a woman swimming in one lane.

She was hoping to find companionship in literature; she found nothing. In novels the heroine was pregnant and then she wasn’t anymore; the passage between these two states was an ellipsis.

- Colombo Schneck
Tr: Lauren Elkin and Natasha Lehrer

That is a bit of an occupational hazard for a leading politician or a European commissioner, as I was. I don’t think I am drawn towards rich people so much as rich people have big personalities, a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience to share. I hoover that up, but not because they’re wealthy. It’s because of what they do and what they’ve learnt and the responsibilities they’ve exercised, not the size of their bank accounts.

The Times interview with Peter Mandelson is a masterclass in lack of self-awareness, but this quote about what it is precisely that makes very rich people so appealing to him is especially revealing.

In the context of the original poster people in San Francisco jaywalk (legally) probably just as much as they do in Britain - even though there are multiple (large) fleets of autonomous vehicles driving around.

Safety Impact We're voluntarily sharing our safety data to demonstrate how the Waymo Driver is making roads safer in the places we currently operate. See the stats.

66 pedestrians were killed in London in 2024 so the current situation obviously needs improvement.

Waymos drive much more conservatively than regular drivers and are much less likely to be involved in injury accidents. I have zero qualms about crossing in front of a Waymo - I know it will stop.

The Real Reason ICE Agents Wear Masks Face-coverings may work less to protect federal agents from danger than to make it easier for them to do unconstitutional things.

No masks on cops. No masks on cops. No masks on cops. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Finally, the balance of equities and public interest favor a stay. The Government does not cite any reason termination must occur post haste. Secretary Noem complains of strains unlawful immigrants place on our immigration-enforcement system. Her answer? Turn 352,959 lawful immigrants into unlawful immigrants overnight. She complains of strains to our economy. Her answer? Turn employed lawful immigrants who contribute billions in taxes into the legally unemployable. She complains of strains to our healthcare system. Her answer? Turn the insured into the uninsured. This approach is many things—in the public interest is not one of them

this is a good one storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Last year, I was constantly worried about my TN work visa being revoked. I could also be rejected by a CBP officer any time I re-entered the US, so my immigration lawyer advised no travel. After I was laid off, I had only 60 days to find a new job or I had to physically leave the US by December 31.

YouTube video by lachambreverte Barbara Sukowa on Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)

Barbara Sukowa was great in Berlin Alexanderplatz.

Interior of a large hall with a distinctive hammerbeam (wood truss) roof. The walls are whitewashed with tall drapes covering the lower section. The hall was built in the early 1500s and then extensively restored to its original form in the 1990s.

Great Hall
Stirling Castle, Scotland

With Sylvia Beach at the door of Shakespeare and Company, Rue de l’Odéon, Paris (1920)

James Joyce, Writer, #BornOnThisDay in 1882, in Rathgar, Dublin

Two Terrible Children on a Windy Hill: A Rereading of Wuthering Heights In 2026, Wuthering Heights has become synonymous with Jacob Elordi’s finger appraising Margot Robbie’s gag reflex.

Emerald Fennell has said Wuthering Heights left its greatest impression on her at 14. Here’s my interpretation after reading at 41.

Turns out it isn’t really about love at all, but about inheritance, race & power.

kristiedegaris.substack.com/p/wuthering-...

#Books #Writing #Scotland #UK #Film

Cartoon by By RATT | cagle.com/ratt

Here’s the video:

The young Muslim woman detained in a locked Whipple bathroom with three men said she never thought this could happen to her. She saw America as a land of opportunity after a childhood in a refugee camp. She hopes to become a nurse or a flight attendant. Her criminal record, she said, consists of one speeding ticket. With Whipple's holding facilities filled, the woman said, agents eventually moved her to another locked bathroom by herself. There was an air vent at the door's bottom. When she saw federal agents' footsteps, she banged for help. On her third night of detention, agents took in two new detainees: an African immigrant and her 7-month-old baby girl. She said the immigrant told her they had been detained as the mother took her baby to a doctor to be treated for influenza.

"When the woman arrived, she was screaming and crying and yelling, 'My baby is already sick!' " she recalled. " 'I don't want my baby to die!' " The next morning, she said, the woman and baby were moved from the bathroom. It wasn't until her fourth day of detention when the young woman was allowed to use a phone at the facility. When she heard her mother's voice, she burst into tears. On the fifth day, agents drove her and two other recently released detainees to a light-rail station near Whipple. They took off her handcuffs and told her to call an Uber, even though she didn't have a phone. She borrowed one from another detainee. As they released her into the cold, she recalls their simple words: "You are good to go."

“You are good to go.” Good to go?!?!

This is what ICE tells a young woman they tossed out into dangerously freezing temperatures after four agonizing days in detention at Whipple.

Today’s front page Strib report: www.startribune.com/no-humanity-...

I don’t know if we can stop Trump raiding the treasury now. But I do know we can pursue every penny of Trump, his kids, his organizations, his friends, everyone who made a filthy penny off these guys … for as long as it takes.

"When in doubt, draw a distinction."

Not sure where he got it, but in grad school one of my teachers taught me that.

This (long) thread is about the key distinctions I rely on as a critic. There's a Twitter version from 2021. This one builds on that one.

I will post them one at a time. Ready?

The Crime of Witness | Fintan O’Toole Renée Good and Alex Pretti were murdered for daring to interfere with the Trump administration’s efforts to normalize abductions and state violence.

"If the murder of Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis cannot be called murder, an authoritarian regime has passed one of its crucial tests: it can reverse all meanings, turning the ultimate moral transgression upside down..." www.nybooks.com/online/2026/...

What a hero. A mom who lost her pension to do what’s right. 1 bajillion times more courageous and heroic than so many leaders in politics, law, universities, corporations, media, and journalism

rep omar, liam ramos and his dad, rep castro!

liam and his dad are home!

and someone please get rep. castro a coat!

It’s been 8 days and we still don’t know the names of the men who murdered Alex Pretti.

DHS must be abolished. No ICE. No palantir surveillance police state.

There’s no “fixing” a sociopathic agency designed to trample on our freedoms.

People on beach spelling out: We have eyes No More Lies Abolish ICE

San Francisco 1.31.26

Judge Biery signed the order with a photo of Liam and two bible verses: The first is "But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." The second is simply "Jesus wept."

Astonishing thing for a judge to do.

I thought "ceasefire" meant that fire ceased, so again I must ask, how many airstrikes killing how many people constitutes no ceasefire, rather than a "strained" or "tested" or "uneasy" ceasefire, or a ceasefire that is "inching forward" amidst ongoing fire?

THIS 👇 HERE......

They said "free speech" and "academic freedom" but never believed in either and now in texas you need a permission slip to mention race in class and they're fine with it. Might not have worked if people with large platforms weren't furious about marginal increases of black people in their offices