Notices by Simon Brooke (simon_brooke@mastodon.scot), page 4

@ShredderLivesOn Note that what she accuses Soros of is supporting the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood. Behind the whole anti-#Trans campaign is a determination to return all women to 'Kinder, Küche, Kirche'.

Trans rights are the current battle ground in the wider struggle for womens' reproductive rights, and rights to engage in civil society at all. We must defend our Trans comrades.

Destroying the planet we live on -- the only planet we can live on -- is of course totally legal and even supported and subsidised by governments around the world (including #Scotland's).

But PROTESTING against destroying the planet? That's illegal. That's very, very illegal. Don't even think about doing that.

#ClimateEmergency

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/23/alarm-as-german-climate-activists-charged-with-forming-a-criminal-organisation

@fedops @CloudyMrs Less hellish this morning, thank you. I think that I must take it *very* gently through today, but last night I was extremely rough and this morning not nearly so much.

@CloudyMrs Thanks. I'm drinking an ocean of tea.

@CloudyMrs Some sort of extra-vile respiratory virus. And no, there isn't anyone else this side of the hill, which means no-one is catching it off me.

It's my own fault for not downing tools and putting myself to bed on Tuesday, when I was first feeling rough, rather than soldiering on til Friday. I deserve no sympathy.

But holy crap, do I feel ill.

Ah, jings, I am feeling so ill I'd like to just fall through the space-time continuum.

@Tarbh @bobjmsn no, this isn't strictly true. Nuclear energy is far from carbon neutral. Nuclear power stations are built with large amounts of concrete, which is hugely carbon intensive; the mining of uranium is also hugely power intensive.

Two out of phase tidal arrays can produce the same amount of continuous, weather independent power as a nuclear plant, at vastly less cost. Of course, there are nations without two good tidal sites which are out of phase, but Scotland is not one of them.

Last night, I was thinking that Kuenssberg wasn't really a journalist, she was more a groupie; this morning, The Bunker is talking about politics as fandoms. I think this says a lot about modern political discourse in the UK.

There is little serious interest in, or analysis of, policy; the focus is on who is briefing against who, sleeping with who, plotting against who, winning arcane popularity contests.

This is essentially unserious.

#CampaignForSeriousPolitics

https://pod.link/1496246490/episode/1974664bc579725097d9cb038c45092d

No, Mr Musk. Terraforming Mars will not compensate humanity for veneroforming Terra.

https://earthsky.org/space/venus-was-once-earthlike-climate-change/

Penny's been with me since May 2006. She stayed with me when I was sleeping rough. She's been my most constant and most loyal companion for eighteen years. She's now unable to walk, unable to keep herself clean, in pain and incontinent. I am going to take her to the vets today to be put down. It's a hard decision.

@inthehands this isn't actually true. There was the dreadful Pertwee period where the Doctor was attached to some United Nations military unit, rattling round the place in an ancient car advising on how to annihilate aliens. However, I think everyone is agreed that this was the absolute nadir of the series, and it's fifty years ago.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Doctor

"We may be certain that if it was #Hamas being accused of torturing workers for international aid agencies in order to extract false confessions, we’d never hear the end of it"

#GazaGenocide
#Torture

#Israel Accused Of Torturing UN Workers To Obtain False Testimony About #UNRWA
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-accused-of-torturing-un-workers

Guess which politician's name the dear old #Grauniad finds it too difficult to spell?

Theresa May becomes latest Tory MP to step down before election, saying ‘it has been an honour to serve’ – UK politics live
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/mar/08/theresa-may-rishi-sunak-hunt-starmer-reeves-budget-uk-politics-live-latest-news-updates?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-65eacbd68f087d93d3c5fa3b#block-65eacbd68f087d93d3c5fa3b

"when... Channel 4 News finally got a copy of #Israel’s dossier, they found no evidence to back the state’s allegations. And today, a month on, UN investigators announced there has still been no evidence...

"This alone is a scandal of historic proportions. Without evidence... when the highest court on earth ordered access to humanitarian aid to prevent #genocide, the West went to war with #Gaza’s main humanitarian agency"

https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24157684.owen-jones-scotlands-stance-unrwa-vindicated/

@gfjacobs @selzero this is ridiculous. Palestinians are not just indigenous, they are in general genetically more closely related to DNA recovered from classical period Jewish burials than modern Israelis are.

"After the 7 October attack, 24,000 acres of olives were left unharvested in the West Bank after #Israel largely prevented farmers from accessing their orchards, resulting in the loss of 1,200 metric tons or $10m of olive oil – a key #Palestinian export and powerful symbol for Palestinian identity"

#GazaGenocide

Israel is deliberately starving Palestinians, UN rights expert says | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/27/un-israel-food-starvation-palestinians-war-crime-genocide

"You don’t have to be a member of the SNP – and I’m not – to see just how little the nationalist cohort matters to the rest of the House. Stephen Flynn said his troops had been treated with utter contempt. Was he surprised? Was anyone?" -- Ruth Wishart

https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24142206.snp-cant-participate-westminster-leave/?ref=eb&nid=1948&u=e671d70c95fe09d863fcda0ac0a196a5&date=240224

@HeavenlyPossum There are Evil Villain Schools and evil villains do intentionally learn from one another. These days the evil villain schools are mainly online and folk like Andrew Tate are their professors; but elite public schools, for example, have been in the Evil Villain Education business for literally centuries, and there are also real life clubs and bars where wannabe Evil Villains go to hang out with their heroes and mentors.

Much like other subcultures, really.

@CloudyMrs I imagine the narrative comes from the UK #Labour spin team, don't you? They see everything as being about them.

Listening to several political podcasts from assorted British commentators this week, there seems to be a consensus that the #SNP's #GazaCeasefire motion was primarily a cynical ploy to embarrass #Labour.

This seems to me to be

a. Lazy;
b. Cynical;
c. Woefully ill-informed about Scotland;
d. Wrong.

Even ignoring the fact that the leader of the SNP's wife is #Palestinian, sympathy for the Palestinian cause on the left in Scotland is very widespread.