Zen Mouse

The main story on BBC 6 Music News this morning is that a ‘boat carrying migrants is on its way to France’

Delivered in the same upbeat tone as England winning the women’s Euros.

The migration ‘debate’ in this country is unmoored from reality, and the media-political complex is feeding it

Second migrant removed to France after court bid fails An Eritrean man has been flown out early on Friday under the government's "one in, one out" deal.

What a deranged country. Are we gonna have this as the number one headline for each *person* we remove? A cruelty spectacle.

The hysterical reporting of the deportation of two (TWO!!) undocumented migrants is just what we need. I feel the mood becoming more sensible already. Well done everyone.

The billionaire and the tax evading gift shops Asif Aziz's Criterion Capital manages a row of high-profile shops at Piccadilly Circus. So why does his team keeping renting them to students who vanish without paying millions of pounds in taxes?

He's one of Britain's richest men. So why does Asif Aziz's property company keep leasing London gift shops to overseas students based in abandoned offices or flytipped car parks — before vanishing without paying millions of pounds in taxes? www.londoncentric.media/p/asf-aziz-l...

Most of UK stranded in 'junk bond' territory as London dominates, research says Britain's regions outside the capital are languishing in "junk bond" territory in terms of their attractiveness for investment, largely because local financial systems have been hollowed out by London's dominance, according to new research.

Most of UK stranded in 'junk bond' territory as London dominates, research says www.reuters.com/world/uk/mos...

from apnews.com/article/cali...

Please don’t ignore this the next time you’re told “it’s either these guys or Reform” coz this is also what Reform would do and you should rail against it no matter what colour the tie is.

I really love gardening as ecosystem engineering

Yvette Cooper repeatedly refused to give a straight answer just now on Today to straight Q “Will councils get more money to pay care workers more?” She repeatedly committed to higher carer pay but wouldn’t commit to money so councils can fund it. Think that speaks volumes about the mess we are in.

Neighbourhoods as engines of change On the need for bridges from the edges to the centre

Some thoughts sparked by a great event in Leeds yesterday on neighbourhood health and the UK government's Test, Learn and Grow intiative. How do we make neighbourhoods engines of change?
medium.com/@jamestplunk...

I’m glad to see this article but it’s after 24 hours of unchallenged corporate guff dominating the news cycle. Tony Blair is a tech lobbyist who is literally writing naive, venal & dangerous policy for Starmer’s government. Call it out.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

The group chats that changed America A loose private network on Signal and WhatsApp helped usher in the new alliance between Silicon Valley and Donald Trump’s new right.

So basically there's a cabal of billionaire broligarchs, far right propagandists, and reactionary centrist journalists all on group chats radicalizing together and exerting coordinated narratives and influence on media and politics

www.semafor.com/article/04/2...

• Al Overview The idiom "you can't lick a badger twice" means you can't trick or deceive someone a second time after they've been tricked once. It's a warning that if someone has already been deceived, they are unlikely to fall for the same trick again. Here's a more detailed explanation: • Licking: "Licking" in this context means to trick or deceive someone. • Badger: The badger is a wild animal, and the phrase likely originates from the historical sport of badger baiting where dogs were used to harass

Someone on Threads noticed you can type any random sentence into Google, then add “meaning” afterwards, and you’ll get an AI explanation of a famous idiom or phrase you just made up. Here is mine

🧵NOT BY ME, this is a post from someone who wants to remain anonymous but works extensively with trans people pre-transition. They were asked by someone “why do you think that’s so much [coverage of trans people] in the news at the moment?”

This was their response:

YouTube video by Pavel Jirásek Hlavní nadraží Praha - znělka 02 (Dlouhá verze)

STOP what you are doing, find some headphones or a secluded location, and watch this. I am crying with laughter and admiration at an idea seen through to its (nearly) bitter end. www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD3Q... Sound--as they say--on.

Their strategy is “improve the NHS, don’t raise the headline rate of income tax or national insurance, get business to do social policy for us” and to sacrifice everything else on those altars.

There’s been a lot of debate over whether Trump means this as a threat or it’s a troll. But the actual answer is it’s both. He dropped it as a throwaway line but his clinical narcissism does not allow him to believe any idea of his is less than perfect and brilliant, so he’s become committed to it

Some thoughts on the European response to the chaos now emanating from the White House - on Ukraine and more broadly, based on chats with senior European policymakers directly or indirectly involved in formulating the bloc's response 1/

Huge win! Government announces plan to open up Land Registry This post is by Guy Shrubsole. Today the UK Government has announced plans to open up the Land Registry – which, if delivered, will finally reveal more about who owns land in England and Wale…

Huge win! Government announces plans to open up the Land Registry.

If delivered, will finally reveal more about who owns land in England and Wales.

Read my blog post for more details & how you can write to the Minister to make sure this now happens:

whoownsengland.org/2025/03/06/h...

🧵1/

A comic book panel by Jack Kirby in which an excited crowd declares that “little people can’t run a big world!” and that “The Elite can take care of us!”

Three panels from a Jack Kirby comic page. In the first panel, a computer generated face whips a mob into a frenzy, declaring “we must beware of the freedom freaks!” In the second panel it declares “Our love can destroy the freedom freaks.” In the third panel, “The Love Machine” is rolled out: a gallows from which a straw effigy hangs, a sign on its chest reads “Freedom Freak.”

A panel from a Havk Kirby comic, a close-up on the face of a determined Captain America. The caption above him reads in part: “Somehow the Nazi ghost never seems to die within man. It marches with insane pride…respecting nothing…taking everything and ignoring the pain of others”

Jack Kirby, forty-nine years ago:

Seconded - one of my favourite pieces of the year that was

A quote from the writer AR Moxon from 2017. He wrote: "Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed. That word is "Nazi." Nobody cares about their motives anymore. They joined what they joined. They lent their support and their moral approval. And, in so doing, they bound themselves to everything that came after. Who cares any more what particular knot they used in the binding?" A.R. Moxon

This.

Would be good, IMV, if instead of 'some MRPs that are, at this point, basically entrails', there was a lot more talk about their quite radical plans for schools, or whether their local government reorganisation is the right size, or etc. etc.

There’s an aspect to AI which I think is under considered:
It’s not the ethical issue.
It’s not the sustainability issue.

These are equally troubling - it’s the investor dollar issue.

Investors are pushing the market towards AI to inflate their investments in every aspect.

Rachel de Souza makes the key point here: in the current legislative regime, children have fewer rights than adults. Hitting another adult is assault. But in England, hitting your child is fine, as long as it comprises 'reasonable punishment': which can include hitting that leaves a mark or bruise.

Artwork of a Stegosaurus gleefully bounding after a monarch butterfly. The Stegosaurus has orange and black patterning that matches the butterfly and the plates on its back look like monarch wings.

"Butterfly Effect" is by far my favorite piece I've ever drawn. I know I keep sharing it, but I just hope it brings joy when people see it.

(Plus I don't have a whole lot of new art to share.)

#paleoart #sciart

Is this really as blatant as it looks?? Surely there can't be a justification for this kind of "creative accounting"

Major water company uses accounting trick to inflate balance sheet by £1.68bn A substantial Severn Trent Water investment is based on IOU notes - BBC Panorama finds.

Extraordinary story from BBC Panorama, which claims Severn Trent Water has invented a £1.68bn “asset”, and is paying out more in dividends than it’s making in profit…

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I passed my genetic engineering exam with flying koalas.