John Bate

Put like that, it reminds me of the Xhosa cattle-killers

The first one, for anyone like me who’s going ‘Wasn’t that a quote?’

I don’t know, I think having enough shoulder to wedge yourself slightly might be enough of an advantage on the descent to make up for it being a PITA on the way up

‘The government cannot spend as effectively as a single person’ - the words of someone who has never heard of buying wholesale

J.K. Rowling uses 'Harry Potter' wealth to fund anti-transgender organization

J.K. Rowling is using her wealth attained from the "Harry Potter" series to create an organization dedicated to removing transgender people's rights "in the workplace, in public life, and in protected female spaces.”

🔗: bit.ly/3ZBRxYk

It doesn't get reiterated enough that "human on a bicycle" is not only the most efficient way that a person can move, it's the most efficient form of motion ***ever observed in land animals***.

A chart that explains what to do If You Find A Baby Songbird Out Of The Nest. Is it hurt or did a cat get it? (Cat bites & scratches cause deadly infections.) or, Has a person kept it for over a day, given it food or water, or gotten it wet? If yes, Contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitator or wildlife care center near you. An online search can help. If no, what does it look like? Eyes not yet open. You have a hatchling. It's very young. Eyes open; feathers few & may be in tube-like sheaths. You have a nestling. Feathered; awkwardly hops or flutters; tail & wings short. You have a fledgling. Many sharp teeth; large claw on second toe. You have a velociraptor. If a hatchling or nestling, can you see the nest? If yes, Return it to its nest. The parents won’t care if they can smell you. If no, Make a nest from a basket & dried grass. Wire it to a tree. (Note: A few species, like Juncos, need a nest on the ground.) If a fledgling, is it in immediate danger? If yes, carefully move it to a safer spot nearby. If no, DO NOT INTERVENE! Though the bird looks awkward, it’s in a natural stage & the parents are still feeding it. If a velociraptor, has it seen you? If yes, back away slowly. Do not show fear. If no, run. Watch for others that may attack from the sides. FYI: Some babies (eg. swifts, most woodpeckers) only sit on the ground if in trouble. When in doubt, keep watch & contact a wildlife rehabilitator if needed!

Found a baby songbird? Here's a newly updated chart!

I knew it was still said the same, so I guessed that it was the formerly-Spanish Dutch spelling, but, on looking it up, Wikipedia points the finger at the Spanish rewriting the Latin ‘maiorca’ to have the letters that they’d usually pronounce that way

It got the point across perfectly well, it just also derailed my train of thought to consider shepherd’s cottage pies of various mixtures and the possible culinary reasons for them not working. Might have to do some experiments.

Well, now I’m wondering what the ratio is where it stops being a lamb cottage pie and becomes a beef shepherd's pie

Possibly an argument that they’re less likely to be properly sharp, since the blade is often riveted in place and a pig to get at with a whetstone

In short, Starmer has taken a massive hit among Labour voters, for no gain elsewhere, while boosting Farage's popularity, including doubling his ceiling among Labour voters.

I.e., the political scientists were right, Morgan McSweeney was horrendously wrong.

So, they’re betting the farm on being von Papen rather than von Schleicher

starmer is probably going to go down in history as the PM who had a chance to reverse the drive towards the farage reich but stood by and did nothing. but i don't really think that's fair.
we need to remember how much he's been pushing for that reich

They withdrew the whip and kicked Corbyn out of the party so they could give you a cabinet that’s slashing welfare, prepping the NHS for privatisation and demonising immigrants, and a PM whose ultimate grand strategy is playing bigot chicken with Nigel Farage. This cannot be stressed enough.

If anything, that’s *too* metric

You accept the far right’s entirely false premise that immigrants increase crime, that the housing crisis is due to migrants rather than your own bad policies, or that foreigners are swamping the health service, rather than holding it up with their bare hands in the face of your own drastic underfunding of the system. And you become less popular. You, the sensible moderate, continue to slide in the polls against the very parties whose policies you were trying to steal. A sizeable number of your own base are appalled, and you have failed to impress a single racist. Because everywhere, from France to Germany to the Netherlands to the UK, as with Fanta and its supermarket imitators, it turns out people prefer the original to the copy.

3 months ago, I wrote this about centrist parties aping the far right, and how it's not just immoral, but suicidal. This is not secret knowledge. It's the most reliable effect in world politics. It's watching 40 guys getting killed by the same gorilla, one by one, and stepping up to take your turn.

just a really long sustained and, as it goes on, increasingly obviously sarcastic round of applause to every Democratic op who is still pushing the utterly failed "culture war stuff is just a distraction" narrative and using "woke" as a pejorative.

Republicans are gross weirdos just keep saying it.

🧵 The recent miscarriage of justice in the UK Supreme Court, where it created a class of people with fewer human rights than others, has led to two key developments. It has created an intersectional backlash against systemic transphobia in the political class, as well as embolden transphobes. [1]

Yeah, mostly just silly comments, and then you telling someone off for joining in on the anti-rabbit conversation with recipes. If I was ‘bossy’ and ‘mansplaining’, it was only to the same degree as your fine example.

90 is still bigger than 77, isn’t it?

Seems like someone doesn’t know what ‘most’ means.

Yeah, you did a bit.

What I was trying to say is that the party strategists who convinced her that the path to victory is to pal around with the Cheneys and promise nothing better than a continuation of the status quo clearly either don’t know how or don’t want to win.

How does not voting for something not correlate to not wanting it?

Also, how would you hold Harris’ feet to the fire when you’ve already given up your one lever for influencing her behaviour i.e. your vote?

The Democrats?

Maybe because the DNC and the USA are two different groups of people. A generally-popular candidate warping their election strategy to fit with an out-of-touch subset is exactly what went wrong for Harris, down to the specific subset.

No, because that’s leaving out the 36% of voters who voted for neither, which is what I said

The majority voter block voted against both Project 2025 and the lacklustre ‘Just Have Project 2029 Instead’ alternative offered by the Democrats

Very much not the result of my choice, thanks.

Can’t say that I appreciate the infantilisation of people that don’t fall in line whenever the ‘lesser evil’ puts out the call, either.

Yeah, you’re going to have to explain that one, because it looks like you’re just fully losing the plot. Shall I call you an Aliceulance?

No it isn’t.

What makes it ‘right’?