Notices by Flick ?? (flick@spinster.xyz), page 4

@KeepTakingTheSoma @Dan_Ramos No, that one is real: I remember seeing the article.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/02/22/britains-new-blasphemy-laws-imperil-us-all/

The logic is perverse. Over recent years, we’ve seen religious hardliners menace those they accuse of blasphemy. The death threats clearly aren’t empty. Hatun Tash – an ex-Muslim and Christian preacher who could often be seen at Speakers’ Corner in her Charlie Hebdo t-shirt – has been stabbed and was the target of a foiled gun attack. The Batley teacher, whose name was posted online by Islamist activists and a local Muslim charity, remains in hiding almost four years on. And yet the state is effectively siding with his and Tash’s tormentors. Rather than go after those trying to terrorise and kill people for offending their religious sensibilities, police are now focussing their efforts on locking up the alleged blasphemers, in the hope this will calm the intolerant bigots down. It’s an exercise not just in censorship, but also victim-blaming.

Three kinds of mushrooms and mushroom pesto (which contains a further three kinds of mushroom). Very mushroom.

Ohhhhh: the sudden Welsh ban on greyhound racing now makes sense.

It turns out that the governing party needs one MS from another party to not vote against their budget in order for it to pass, and the sole LibDem has a bee in her bonnet about greyhound racing….

@polarisera Oh, I tend to be against it myself, but I had been intensely curious why Wales suddenly announced last week that they were banning it at top speed before the next election. Now I know.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz9nw4z5g9qo

A huge sinkhole in a street is Surrey is continuing to grow and swallow up more road, with the county council declaring a major incident.

The original hole first appeared in Godstone High Street late on Monday night, growing to at least 65ft (20m) long by Tuesday lunchtime.

A second opening has now appeared, with a car teetering on the brink and the owner unable to move it.

Families have been evacuated from their homes over fears of an explosion caused by exposed cables, with one resident saying the street now "sounded like a waterfall".

The evacuated properties were built about three years ago, on the site of a former sand quarry.

@AlphaKiloPapa Anorexic.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sandie-peggie-could-face-sack-over-misgendering/

Back to Scotland, where the Sandie Peggie v NHS Fife case has sparked outrage across the country. After nurse Peggie questioned a transgender doctor for using the female changing rooms, she was suspended by her health board. The move her to bring a landmark tribunal against NHS Fife and Dr Beth Upton for harassment and discrimination. While the tribunal case has been adjourned until July, it has now emerged that Peggie could herself face dismissal over the whole thing – after being accused of having ‘misgendered’ Dr Upton by using male pronouns when talking to and about the junior doctor. You couldn’t make it up…

https://archive.ph/HU7gj

Oh, I do like making stew! Another pie and four helpings of venison and mushroom stew in the freezer.

@sim @newt In a funny way, it makes sense that a lizard brain would fail to understand how mammary glands work.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/wales-new-2m-long-snake-30990823.amp

A breed of snakes has made itself at home in a coastal part of North Wales. Aesculapian snakes are traditionally found in warmer climates like continental Europe but around 240 have now been recorded living around Colwyn Bay in Conway, predominantly in peoples homes and attics.

@KeepTakingTheSoma I think that falls under blue.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/12/asylum-seeker-joined-terror-group-so-she-could-stay-in-uk/

The Nigerian woman, who was granted anonymity, submitted eight different appeals against a rejection of her right to remain in the UK. They ranged from claims under ECHR Article Eight, which guarantees a right to a family life, to assertions she was a victim of trafficking.

They were all rejected over a 10-year period.

In her ninth appeal, she claimed she faced persecution if she returned to Nigeria due to her membership of IPOB and her attendance at its protests, rallies and campaigns. She said protesters at the Nigerian high commission were photographed and potentially watched on CCTV. […]

Lower tribunal judge Iain Burnett initially rejected her claim largely because of a lack of evidence about her protest activities, which limited any risk of persecution on her return.

He found that she only became involved in IPOB “in order to create a claim for asylum”.

However, upper tribunal judge Ms Loughran overturned Mr Burnett’s decision, despite accepting that the woman’s IPOB involvement was “in order to create a claim for asylum and that it does not represent a true reflection of her genuinely held political views”.

https://archive.ph/iRVVZ

Germany really has to do something about these rogue self-driving cars.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14393051/Car-drives-group-people-leaving-injured-Munich.html

A car has driven into a group of people in Munich, with 15 people said to have been left injured as police launch their investigations into the incident.

@AlphaKiloPapa The BBC original has been moribund for at least a decade, I can’t imagine a US version being any better.

@KeepTakingTheSoma @HebrideanHecate Hobbies are great, but can buying stuffed toys really be described as a hobby?

As well as just selling the toys, Jellycats has started putting on pop-up "experiences". Currently at London's Selfridges you can buy exclusive fish and chips soft toys, sold to you by an assistant pretending to fry and put salt and vinegar on your selected teddies.

@kaia Have you learnt about soaking yet?

https://archive.ph/ONLIc

The tour, devised by a Gender and Sexuality Network at the museum, also claims in the “Seeing Things Queerly” guide that Lego adds credence to the view that there are only two genders.

This is because people supposedly describe Lego bricks as having male or female parts that are made to “mate” with each other.

This is “heteronormative”, the guide states, which is the idea that “heterosexuality and the male/female gender binary are the norm and everything that falls outside is unusual”.

The Science Museum guide claims that people think “the top of the brick with sticking out pins is male, the bottom of the brick with holes to receive the pins is female, and the process of the two sides being put together is called mating”.