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Owen Blacker @owenblacker.bsky.social · 21m

omg, please get me a couple of those :D

Reposted by Owen Blacker

Poltergeist Halloweezou 🎃 @polisloizou.bsky.social · 57m

Had the surreal experience yesterday of hearing that somebody I know IRL believed I was very successful in my creative career.

ONCE AGAIN: the amount of money I have made in ALL my creative endeavours for the past *17 years* wouldn't even amount to half a year's minimum-wage salary.

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Reposted by Owen Blacker

Indy @indy.bsky.social · 58m

Part of the problem is the cost/benefit calculations are done on quite a narrow basis (and the research into how Covid amplifies various circulatory system issues has not been given high priority.)

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Reposted by Owen Blacker

Charlie Stross @cstross.bsky.social · 1h

Worse: we're going backwards. No COVID19 boosters for under-75s (except for badly immunocompromised patients) is a disaster—many people last got a booster in 2021, and immunity wanes rapidly. Some estimates suggest economic costs of £7Bn due to non-vaccination which exceeds cost of vaxxing everyone.

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Reposted by Owen Blacker

Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1h

But if they saw all that, someone might say: so what if this is applicable to the climate crisis?

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Reposted by Owen Blacker

Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1h

The obvious was ignored, the cheap dismissed, and only the expensive and the expedient could be countenanced.

Oh, and our level of preparation now?

Pff.

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Reposted by Owen Blacker

Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1h

Political posturing and moral cowardice beat public health again and again, politicians freely spread harmful nonsense without consequences and the prime minister’s own coterie partied in defiance of good sense and the law while thousands choked and died alone.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1h

If they looked at it macro they’d have to acknowledge that we had deliberately diminished our ability to cope with a pandemic to cut costs, then denied the evidence around masking and air flow, and sequentially prioritised economic gains over life and so lost both.

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Reposted by Owen Blacker

Indy @indy.bsky.social · 1h

Beyond holding the individual leader to account, the fact that even now we're not really having a proper discussion about what happened (drip feed of individual moments, rather than an understanding of how they fed into each other) makes me think we're not learning so far.

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Reposted by Owen Blacker

Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1h

It was an entirely predictable stupidity, one of many which massively increased the number of our dead. Johnson will face no consequence, because the bad choices of leaders never do, but I will always believe he should.

Kit Yates @kityates.bsky.social · 15h

Gavin Williamson has described the decision to open, then close, primary schools on 4 January 2021 as “panicked”.

I would describe it as idiotic.

Boris Johnson gave parents 'false hope' over schools reopening, Gavin Williamson tells Covid inquiry

Watch as the former education secretary gives evidence at the inquiry, which is focusing on the impact of the pandemic on children and young people.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Reposted by Owen Blacker

Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1h

Tell me your heart doesn’t lift at the idea of a *thirty metre* mechanical centipede suit with an irritable blue whale piloting it marching along a major road to demand an end to sonar booms and ocean plastics *in person*.

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Reposted by Owen Blacker

Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1h

Mech suits for whales so they could come on land and fully express their feelings about humans. Especially orcas.

I guess that makes me the crazed villain?

doctober @docseuss.bsky.social · 1d

lets say a wizard has cursed you with a lot of money. you are going to become permanently brain damaged simply by being in possession of so much money. the only way out of it is to spend a lot of money on something ridiculous and not at all useful

what would you buy to break the curse?

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Owen Blacker @owenblacker.bsky.social · 24m

I'm not convinced Starmer's Labour had any desire for the SC to find against FWS…

Reposted by Owen Blacker

Jolyon Maugham KC @goodlawproject.org · 1h

Shabana Mahmood knows what life is like for Muslims, and especially women. So why is she so willing to throw others to the Far Right wolves? Does she not understand they will also come for her? Or is her bet they will wait until after her political career? www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

‘Explosion’ of Islamophobic attacks not being reported to police, politician warns

Exclusive: “There’s been an explosion of Islamophobia since October 7,” shadow secretary of state for justice Shabana Mahmood has said

www.independent.co.uk

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Reposted by Owen Blacker

Jolyon Maugham KC @goodlawproject.org · 14h

Woah! So Labour's position really is, 'telling us off for breaching human rights undermines the case for human rights'? Proper Trumpian stuff from Labour's answer to Suella Braverman.

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Reposted by Owen Blacker

Lee Hurley @hleehurley.com · 1h

Trans people have been warning about these people for *years*

Emma Haslett @emmahaslett.bsky.social · 20h

This is a huge story but massively under the radar in the UK.

A US Christian legal org called the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is working to roll back abortion rights here using the same playbook it used in the US: briefing politicians, watching, waiting.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/w...

They Helped Topple Roe v. Wade. Now Their Sights Are Set on Britain.

www.nytimes.com

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Quinn Norton @quinn.yoyodyne-it.eu · 1h

Just reposting my quick guide for protesting more safely. www.emptywheel.net/2025/04/10/w...

When We Take The Streets - emptywheel

Protesting Safer in America It’s not looking good out there, and a lot of people in the coming months (and maybe years) will be taking the streets to show the government their displeasure. Protesting ...

www.emptywheel.net

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Reposted by Owen Blacker

Adam Ramsay @adamramsay.bsky.social · 1h

Speaking to me,
@zackpolanski.bsky.social
accused both Labour and Tory governments of “a complete resentment, a disrespect, an almost dismissive and exclusionary attitude towards the Welsh people”: abolishwestminster.substack.com/p/exclusive-...

Exclusive: Zack Polanski backs Scottish and Welsh independence

The eco-populist Green leader has called for sweeping change to Britain's political system, and spoken about potentially leading an explicitly ‘English’ party for the first time.

abolishwestminster.substack.com

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Owen Blacker @owenblacker.bsky.social · 49m

Ah, fair enough.

If it's of interest, Duolongo is a good start and Dysgu Cymraeg does online courses (mine is Wednesday evenings)

Reposted by Owen Blacker

Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 7h

I feel like when they are both in the room they are thinking about murder 100% of the time

sometimes they fail the real test for discussing A Man (Sisko, Shakaar, etc) AND the Bajoran one, because Winn is thinking about murdering them while Kira’s thinking about murdering her if she tries

Karolyn (but spooky!) 👻 🎃 @etcandsoforth.bsky.social · 8h

Clarification: explicitly or as subtext? Cause I feel like murder is the just-barely-subtext (“I may end you”) in almost every convo between Kira and Kai Winn

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Reposted by Owen Blacker

Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 10h

the Bajoran version of the Bechdel test is “do two named women talk to each other about something other than murder” and I love “Deep Space Nine” because it fails almost every episode

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Reposted by Owen Blacker

karl rove knausgård @uhactually.bsky.social · 1d

Lmao WaPo has fewer than 100K circulation now. It turns out “alienate your liberal subscriber base” is not a good strategy when the Republicans also hate you. www.forbes.com/sites/andyme...

The Washington Post Is Running Out Of Readers Willing To Pay

Once a titan of American journalism, The Washington Post now struggles to reach even 100,000 print subscribers most days.

www.forbes.com

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Owen Blacker @owenblacker.bsky.social · 56m

Yeah, I don'think there are any monoglot Welsh speakers left in my extended family. I think they all had at least a little English, in any case.

Cest ti dy fagu yng Nghymru? Lle? Mae fy nheulu'n dod o Ddolgellau a Thywyn yn wreiddol, yn Sir Feirionydd. Dwi'n byw yng Nghanol Caerdydd rŵan.

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Owen Blacker @owenblacker.bsky.social · 1h

A trans postal worker has won a discrimination case against Royal Mail after suffering harassment from colleagues. The ruling is believed to be a legal first, confirming trans women can be recognised as female victims if perceived as women by harassers. uk.news.yahoo.com/trans-postie...

Trans postie sues Royal Mail for harassment and discrimination by colleagues

A trans postal worker has won a discrimination case against Royal Mail after suffering harassment from colleagues. Sophie Cole, 46, from Cambridge, was awarded £12,500 after an employment tribunal fou...

uk.news.yahoo.com

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Reposted by Owen Blacker

Aliette de Bodard @aliettedebodard.com · 2h

"Calling shame without shaming"

Kate Manne @katemanne.bsky.social · 15h

When progressive politicians like Mamdani lead--and call up, not out, appealing to voters' best selves--they win katemanne.substack.com/p/this-is-ho...

This is How We Win

The role of pride and calling up—not calling out—in bigotry abolitionism.

katemanne.substack.com

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