Ginger Ratbag

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was published OTD in 1962.

“[W]e have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.”

🌱🐋 # HistSTM 🧪🌎 #philsci #philsky #WomeninSTEM

Free half hour bystander training This free training empowers people to be active bystanders when they see harassment taking place, without putting their own personal safety at risk.

I've just done Stand Up Against Harassment training, designed to empower bystanders when they see harassment taking place.

These free 30-minute webinars are run by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust and are available to book throughout the year.

www.suzylamplugh.org/anti-harassm...

Whether it’s paracetamol or something else, Trump and co are perpetuating the idea autism is wrong and disability is an individual’s responsibility to avoid. It’s anti-science but it’s deeply ableist at its core. The goal is for non-disabled to be afraid and disabled people to be ashamed.

A Giant Redwood

A baby of a Giant Redwood at 165 years old, but already one of the tallest trees in Tonbridge, the Kingdom of Kent

Rising Christian nationalism: a threat to us all Scenes on Saturday of Christian preachers denouncing ‘Secular Humanism’ from the main stage of Tommy Robinson’s radical right Unite the Kingdom rally in London may have been surprising to see on the s...

We need to be very clear about this.

Rising Christian nationalism is a threat to us all.

humanists.uk/2025/09/17/r...

an emperor of china says: I'M GONNA CONSULT MY COUNCIL OF EUNUCHS ABOUT THIS he steps into a room of cats, one of which is licking its butthole he asks: WHICH ONE OF YOU KNOWS ABOUT CANAL INFRASTRUCTURE END

Clouds of insects danced and buzzed in the golden autumn light, and the air was full of the piping of the song-birds. Long, glinting dragonflies shot across the path, or hung tremulous with gauzy wings and gleaming bodies.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Happy Wednesday x

#watercolour #dragonfly #art #paint

beautiful!

Today the sea was all foam and glitter as a strong wind pushed an afternoon high tide high up Crosby beach. Racing clouds scattered distant showers across the Wirral Peninsula whilst the iron men on Crosby beach stood in bursts of sunlight. #IronMenCrosby #SeftonCoast

There were no small boat arrivals before 2017.

Farage's 2016 Brexit severed our EU cooperation agreement with France and created the small boat problem.

Farage is making capital out of promising to solve a problem HE CREATED.

The thing about human rights is it protects humans.

That means everybody who is a human.

Not merely the people Nigel Farage decides are human.

Swimming pool closures put children ‘at risk of drowning’, union warns

Young people are being left at risk of drowning as hundreds of swimming pools have closed over the past decade, a union has warned.

I'm a legal refugee in Britain. So why am I always being treated like a criminal? | Ayman Alhussein I’ve met wonderful people here who make me feel that I belong – but there are now many who see asylum seekers as an easy political target, says film-maker Ayman Alhussein

As this guy says, asylum-seekers are just the start and people with the wrong colour skin, the wrong religion, or the wrong sexual orientation are next. No doubt Labour MPs will detect "legitimate concerns" there too.

a turtle with elephants on its back and a flat earth on top ALT: a turtle with elephants on its back and a flat earth on top

going to do a reread of #discworld #witches books over the next couple of weeks. I feel a need to hear #grannyweatherwax 's wisdom (andwhy are there no granny weatherwx gifs?)

Because you all needed a
Turtles meeting... 🤣🤣

#bluesky

not true in all schools. My kids high school is anything black, white or grey, and no logos. There is a school tie but generally only worn at the end of year event.

Important

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/o...

Two-thirds of refugees who arrived in Germany a decade ago now have jobs. Read more on how the country achieved that: https://bloom.bg/4oBFLs1

📷: Maria Sturm for Bloomberg Businessweek

Front cover of National Plant Monitoring Scheme Annual Report 2024

Books and papers lying on daisy covered grass

Two people outside in a rural environment look at information on a clipboard

🌿 The National Plant Monitoring Scheme has turned 10!

More than 1,000 volunteers have gathered 250k+ botanical records that feed into the UK Biodiversity Indicators. Marking the milestone, the 2024 report shares surveyor stories & a timeline of NPMS highlights.

🔗 🧪 www.npms.org.uk/article/npms...

to mourn #TomLehrer I have been thinking about the different Periodic Table poems, songs and stories
My contribution is here, with the poems derived from the wikipedia entries:
www.amazon.co.uk/Atomy-Ginger...

We shouldn't need a Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, but here we are. Still underpaid. Still undervalued.

66 cents on the dollar means we lose thousands every year, for doing the same job.

Over a lifetime? That’s hundreds of thousands gone.

Pay Black women. Period.

hope UK MPs vote for assisted dying today.

absolutely matched today

baby bison zoomies make Friday better!

There are some days when the news can be overwhelming and leave you feeling sad and afraid. Today is one of them.
Try to remember that the good in the world has always outnumbered the bad, stroke a cat and enjoy the sunshine x
(Pic @imageplotter.bsky.social)

mornin' nice mug!

Care leavers were given free money, no strings attached. Here's what happened

A basic income pilot in Wales focused on care leavers and gave them the support to begin their adult lives that many take for granted.

By my reckoning, the first standalone women's match at The Oval took place 90 years ago...

This is an image of British Commandos on a approaching Sword Beach on D-Day, 6th June 1944.
War is a horrific thing; these men left their loved ones to enter its hellish cauldron. Some never returned. We remember their immense bravery and sacrifices so that they should never be necessary again.