Alex Mann

My son is on blockers legally from before the ban and we did everything they told us to do and now we are being threatened with social services if we don't allow them to "safely withdraw" medication. They admit that the impact will be "stark" for our kids but they are going to do it anyway.

Yeah, like literally if he had just done what everyone expected and was being a boring european technocrat, he'd probably be doing quite well with people just due to like inertia.

Feels like the continuing British reality is going to be banning things that the Authorities have little to no capacity or ability to do so, whilst everyone continues to consume said illegal things...

Worth noting that the “new massacre of civilians by jihadists” Drew is referring to here was committed by a guy called Anthony Williams, and a rail worker who is currently in hospital after protecting people during the attack is called Samir Zitouni

NHS threatens GP practice over trans care A GP practice in Brighton and Hove is currently under investigation for legally providing gender affirming care to trans teens

"Laura fears all will be lost if ICB Sussex forces her child off the medication.

If ICB Sussex get their own way in a matter of weeks and they force detransition, Olive may well take her life."

northwestbylines.co.uk/news/health/...

It’s a credit to GRRM that his language does often feel like it’s existed forever. It’s honestly one of the best parts of his world building.

I also think he’s probably responsible for more people using “gods” as an exclamation too.

People are just embarrassed that they used a phrase associated with a series without realising it and reacting.

There’s probably also some gender happening, people being uncomfortable with that origin because they view the show as problematic and masc looking for a feminine origin instea.

YouTube video by Dime Store Adventures Was "Sweet Summer Child" Invented By Game Of Thrones?

m.youtube.com/watch?v=dyD6...

I saw an excellent video on this a while back. Apparently it was occasionally used in literature, but did not mean naive, a summer child was a favoured child.

It literally only makes sense as calling someone naive in the context of asoiaf, you know, because our seasons don’t last years.

I think it says something at least about how American liberals feel about their founding myths. There is something interesting in the avatar of the less democratic side of the revolution becoming seen as a figure of modern progressivism. Not to mention the uncomfortable racial stuff.

We should rebrand as being "classically straight"

He quite explicitly wasn't hostile to it. Particularly in his later writings.

People forget what socialism or barbarism was initially intended as meaning... Not "socialism now or the world will end" but rather that either one transitions towards a socially oriented political economy, or consolidated interests will devolve things back to concentrated power.

And it's deathly hard to ever escape that because said cliques have now spawned a cottage industry of self justification and have a chokehold over a good chunk of left spaces.

The problem of Marxism is that Marx was one part of an emerging political tendency connected to a new working class, who attempted to systemise the thought of this, but did not ever claim to be some sort of prophet or whatever, and then this became the dogma of several authoritarian cliques.

I mean in a lot of ways they didn't even "reinterpret" his texts. They often just made shit up to justify whatever happened to be currently keeping them in power. Like Marx was explicitly against vanguardism, but there are basically no non-vanguardist Marxists left.

I mean that's just Kautskyism (and also a lot of the new left from the 60s onwards.)

I mean part of the problem is that he did not intend himself to be creating dogma. Even during his life he said "if (what some people practice as) Marxism is Marxism, then I am not a Marxist." He was far more intending to be part of a political tradition and field, not the new gospel truth.

Also, so they can try spin this as a silly little nothing because there's nothing the Labour Right think is more important than fighting off any party rival no matter what else is going on.

I would guess that probably around 60% turnout for members, rest being affiliate voters. Bundled together like this to disguise how low Labour's membership now is.

In Pokrovsk, russians are shooting civilians.

The first photo shows man carrying a wounded woman in his arms because her legs had been shot through. She had apparently crawled along the street before he found her.

At least 135 mutilated bodies of Palestinians had been held at notorious Israeli jail, say Gaza officials Documents indicate they came from Sde Teiman, which already faces allegations of torture and unlawful deaths

Systematic murder and torture as a matter of deliberate state policy.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

Probably has something to do with poptimism I guess…

Like it was mostly lame mechanically produced cash ins that major labels found extremely easy to churn out, but people imagine that it was all actually revolutionary queer grassroots music.

Discos (somewhat tangential) connections to marginalised American groups has completely obscured what that whole musical period was actually like. There are like 50 good disco songs, most of it was overproduced corporate slop pushed out by the boatload at high volume.

I've been seeing some graffiti in my city saying "Palestine will free us all" and I think that's a kinda indicator of the way these things are going. Like the only reason you say shit like that is because you think "the Zios" control the world and make it bad.

It is vital for the rotten civil society of this country that we ip ban ever person working in journalism from ever using Twitter. They cannot be trusted.

This is literally the first time I’ve heard the phrase yookay and it’s lead me down a rather ugly rabbit hole. I can’t even parse what their point is, its just esoteric racism.

A nightmarish hive city, the main industries of which are devoted to providing illumination: finest beeswax for space marines from mile long apiaries fed by immense indoor gardens of garish UV plants, corpse-tallow from the city masses for shrine worlds, petro-chemical for the guard... etc.

I would assume in the same way that there are administratum planets that are entirely records (and occasionally have civil wars over competition for filing space) that there are worlds that are devoted entirely to making candles. Maybe even of different sanctities and qualities for different uses.