Nobody should take messaging advice from me, but democrats might make a lot of mileage just by repeating facts about Iran like “it’s incredibly mountainous” and “there are 90 million Iranians”
This is the discussion paper I presented at #UCU Higher Education Committee yesterday on teaching-only and teaching-focused T&Cs. Great feedback from HEC members, and the accompanying HESC motion passed unanimously! Pls use link below to share with anyone who may be interested.
Really useful, unifying paper and lovely to see the motion to HESC approved unanimously by our HEC. So much more of this, please! #UCU
The equation between protecting lives in ‘the East-European buffer zone’ and annihilating them in the Middle Eastern kill zone certainly makes some Western values explicit, including the context into which several of the ‘allies’ immediately offered to send their armies to ‘help.’ Message received.
Farage wanting to suck up to Trump and mire Starmer in a horror show seems pretty pretty normal reasoning for him.
We don’t talk enough about how morally depraved the tech industry turned out to be. Every single ounce of their self-regarding statements of values was an outright lie.
Iranian-American anthropologist Narges Bajoghli on why the West has been inundated with far-right voices within the Iranian diaspora: “There’s been eight years of constant funding for these voices.”
in this former mining town, they know two things: Brexit means Brexit, and the Pahlavi dynasty (1925-1979) are the rightful rulers of Persia.
graphic with the quote, "When a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it's front-page news. I get it, the press only wants to make the president look bad."
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's response to US troops dying
People who have never worked in a prison have no understanding of just how dangerous it is for staff and other prisoners when an inmate is murdered. So sod off with your celebratory tone-deaf takes.
Avril Coleridge-Taylor today!
Critics seem to really love Driver but I don’t get it. At all. But that’s ok! I’m more than happy with these three albums.
I may take another run at the later stuff but I don’t think I’ll come around.
Knot 53 is Ferron’s Autumn of the Patriarch and I can listen to it on a loop forever.
Ok I sorta worked my way through all the Ferron albums post Phantom Center and they mostly Are Not For Me. I just can’t listen to them.
Buuuut, Testimony is a perfect album. Shadows on a Dime is close. Phantom Center is solid but not in the same class.
It may seem pedantic, but there’s a big difference between “might makes right, and there are rules” and “might makes right, and there are no rules”
I’ve started sayin “He’s wearing a wire!” when I see these glasses.
One man overheard and pulled them off. 😭😭😭
🧵Feels like shouting into the void, but it is essential to note that the Trump/Rubio gutting of the State Department and blowtorching of US diplomatic capacity and credibility is an accelerant to this spiraling war and will seriously undercut US/allied efforts to pick up the pieces after. 1/
He’s lost his way.
The evidence is pretty overwhelming that obesity is a chronic condition.
Relying on drugs to stop obesity would be 'societal failure', says Chris Whitty www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
People are saying this about Darren Johnson, the guy that was kicked out of the Greens for being a bigot:
Okay, I’m getting conflicting reports. Someone else told me he didn’t just kill the hedgehog with a hammer after getting kicked out of the Greens for being a bigot. I’m told he did something unspeakable to the hedgehog’s corpse before he ate it
UCU election results are out - turnout dreadful. Some welcome new faces and VPs (congrats to @markpendleton.bsky.social and @suzitoole.bsky.social), and interesting absences, including absence of option to vote for Wales HE rep. The latter needs to be rectified asap.
www.ucu.org.uk/article/1419...
Lincoln had a choice between going to the theater or doing an interview with Chotiner. He chose wisely.
Tomorrow marks the 61st anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama. It also marks the 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court first upholding the Voting Rights Act.
We have gotten so, so far away from a Court that cares about democracy.
New from me at @brennancenter.org:
I'm unsure how people really think people were downplaying a virus that can kill you, make you go blind, wipe out your immune system for years, and oh yeah come back and kill you a decade after you thought you'd shaken it.
If this is true, and it seems very likely that it is, the US knowingly sunk an unarmed vessel and then left sailors to drown so that Pete Hegseth could boast about how manly & powerful it is to murder people.
Well there’s a reason I said “voters” and not members.
The politics of UCU are the politics of it's members filtered via various structures including branches.
The dispute between the maximalist wing and my wing (whether one is member of this or that faction or "independent") is one that's reflected in the voters. There's a genuine split in the union (esp in HE) without a broad consensus on a lot of the fundamentals of industrial action strategy.
I say this as someone who's faction routinely gets all sorts of obviously false things said about it :) Sure there's noise, but also we have a nice site where you can see stuff and I think that's helpful.
