Polly Mairead Davies

Irish Minister for Health calls the UK's descent into transphobia out for what it is.

Anger as Waterstones snaps up prime site on doorstep of independent bookshop UK's biggest bookselling chain under fire over plans for new store beside Edinburgh tram line.

We need your help.

@waterstones.bsky.social, without any direct communication with us, will be opening their 6th Edinburgh branch less than 100 metres from our front door at the Foot of the Walk in Leith.

Please read on for more information

www.heraldscotland.com/news/2562908...

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I'm pretty old (71), so I remember clearly the National Front in the 1970s. They were pariahs that the main political parties wouldn't touch with a 10ft pole. What is shocking is that the LABOUR party is now coming out with the same policies. What on earth would the likes of Benn, Foot etc. think?

Labour policy is being celebrated by Tommy Robinson.

That's it.

That's all you ever need to say to explain who Labour are.

Every time I hear a politician say that an issue is “dividing” this country they always then come down on the side of the right wing view of it. Just once I’d love to hear someone say “this issue is divisive, which is why I’m making the argument that kindness and compassion is important”

Mahmood furious over asylum seeker taxi bills.

Overton window has been obliterated

The Labour Government reeling off the same far-right talking points on immigration. And look who is celebrating. The far-right.

There is a political alternative that won’t ever scapegoat those fleeing war, persecution and torture

join.greenparty.org.uk

If you're in Central Scotland and fancy a day of scifi and fantasy chat, come and join us at Picton on Saturday!

Evening, Womble. I'm currently re-reading Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis. Brilliant and heart-wrenching.

Also reading Poyums Annaw, by @lenniesaurus.bsky.social. A superb second collection of poems.

A woman is killed by a man every 3 days in the UK...

78% are murdered by a partner/ex

Yet not once have I heard Reform talk about this

Not once have I heard them back measures to protect women’s safety

In fact, they voted against them...

Fight Like A Girl – Volume 2 ISBNs Paperback: 978-1-913892-84-5 EPUB: 978-1-913892-82-1 MOBI: 978-1-913892-83-8

Fingers crossed for @wtpress.bsky.social - Fight Like A Girl 2 is up for an award for Best Anthology at the @britfantasysoc.bsky.social Awards on Saturday! Wish us luck!

wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/anth...

A tweet from Robert Reich states: “The richest man on earth owns X. The second richest man on earth is about to acquire TikTok and his family could soon own both Paramount and Warner Bros. The third richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The fourth richest man owns The Washington Post. See the problem here?”

The oligarchy wants full control of what we watch and read.

There are lots of homes lying empty around the nation, both council and unused private houses, that could make a huge dent in homelessness as affordable housing.

Not all of them are in the right place, I grant that, but many of them are.

On a related point, if a private home is lying empty for more than 18 months, and it's not being renovated, or finishing up through probate, then there should be a consideration to compulsorily purchase, and get it back in available housing stock.

Calls for 1,816 empty Aberdeen council homes to be brought back into public use Living Rent Aberdeen delivered an open letter signed by local charities and community organisations calling for empty council homes to be brought back into use.

This. There's talk of the need to build more housing, although social housing is only ever a fraction compared to more expensive homes, which the big building firms can make more frofit form.

Meanwhile, council homes all over are not being kept up.

www.aberdeenlive.news/news/aberdee...

A macaroni pie, Scottish style. It's Scotch pie casing filled with glutinous (and gorgeous) macaroni cheese, then bakes. Picture not mine, but copyright of ohil and Sonja, on the Scottish Scran website.

In Scotland, we have our own form, a staple of every baker and pie shop. Macaroni cheese in an actual pie casing. It's beautiful.

And, I was taught, growing up, to always put macaroni cheese in the oven. Crispy edges and a firmer texture.

Somebody IRL said this to me once. I told them to go home and actually count, then get back to me.

They did not.

Elon Musk - $500B. Larry Ellison - $393B. Mark Zuckerbe -$270B. Jeff Bezos - $237B. Four men. Nearly $1.4 trillion stacked into private coffers and they own the platforms that shape what you see, hear, and believe. This isn't wealth; it's command-and-control: Musk runs the town square, Ellison is buying your entertainment, Zuckerberg owns your social life, Bezos holds the newsroom. Total war on public truth. If you think democracy survives when that much money controls the narrative, you're dreaming. Wake up: concentrated fortune = concentrated power = weaponized information.

He who controls the media, controls the message (and the masses).

This is Orwellian.

#Educate #Create #Communicate #Resist

This is Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron and considered to be the first person to write a computer programme which was for Babbage's Analytical Machine. She died in 1842
In her honour, today is Ada Lovelace Day and is all about encouraging women and girls in mathematics, science and engineering.

The study of literature which explains the human condition, and can bring us closer together, held in disdain by politicians who wish to create discord. Those same who also hold science in contempt. Might it be education itself which they despise?

The face!
"I'm going to be told to move again. I was just trying to help." *sigh*

The hilarious reality that immigrants to the UK already have "digital ID" that it's illegal for them to do anything without.

Labour want to impose this draconian surveillance on your granny.

Er, no!

"The home secretary has warned of a “recipe for chaos” in criminal cases involving Palestine Action if the High Court is allowed to hear an appeal against its designation as a proscribed terror group." [Times]

Not overturn the case - just 'hear' the case.

Yes! Apply for this. Have a great time and meet interesting people. The only 100% sure way of not getting it is by not applying.

In many ways, the west has a Media problem more than anything else. We have allowed ourselves to become addicted to sensationalism and outrage, so that's what the media serves us.

I have a print of Dawn, and one of The Veil of Night, by this artist, arranged so the first rays of sunlight hit the former, and the last settle on the latter. They always get notice from any guests. I may have to get more, but need wall space.

a painting of a giant blue ox carrying a city on its horns.

Steady - watercolour and acryla gouache on paper

💙One day left to get prints on saIe!💙

Well, as I am a dishwasher in my home, they may very well have had.

"We are Huginn and Muninn, in disguise. Our Lord Odin, and his son, are not happy. Goodbye."
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"Oh, and thanks for the grain. It was tasty."

GPEW seeing a big spike in membership this month should bury all the complaints that having a strong pro-trans rights line would hurt their breadth of appeal.

As if the continued successes of the SGP weren't evidence enough of that.

Transphobia isn't popular or compelling on the left.