P. Thomas Johnson 🇨🇦🇬🇧 🤝 🇺🇦

Rant 🧵 I've noticed that whenever I see a writer, musician, or a person from any artistic profession opine concerns about how dry the market is for them, there's always inevitably at least one person in the replies saying something to the effect of: "Looking for money or satisfaction?" Can we not?

No trans-led organisations, I see. The bigot advocacy groups will water this bill down until it means practically nothing, because there's no way they can meaningfully ban conversion therapy without also protecting trans people.

Of course Trump's happy. Suzerains are usually happy when their vassals do what they want.

Canada: “No to Trump” Hungary: “No to Trump” Albania: “No to Trump” Serbia: “No to Trump” Brazil: “No to Trump” Britain: “Yes to Trump.” “Drill for gas. Yessir! Drill for oil. Yessir! Bomb Iran. Yessir! Join the new Gulf war. Yessir! Weapons to Israel. Yessir! Copy MAGA transphobia. Yessir…!”

We'd all have been chilling at the Iceberg Lounge in the Martian Romaine-ian Empire.

My heart is heavy. Walter Koenig, our Ensign Pavel Chekov, passed away early today. Walter and I met on the bridge of the Enterprise in the 1960s, and we stayed friends for nearly six decades. When Brad and I married in 2008, Walter stood beside us as our best man.

Everyone remembers him as Chekov, but Koenig really showed his range as the delightfully wicked Alfred Bester on Babylon 5. By all accounts an incredibly gracious person to fans, with a razor-sharp wit and generous spirit. R.I.P. Walter Koenig.

Once the world became interconnected communicatively, economically, & especially environmentally, elections everywhere began to matter. Sooner or later we will realise that the current concept of the nation state won't be applicable to the modern world in the way that we're used to, if at all.

If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, then "performative pietism" is surely the panic room inside.

Congratulations to the people of Serbia!

Please support your small and local Pride celebrations. Because Britain still isn't a safe place to be LGBTQIA+ people often go to Pride in towns where they don't live, or go to the bigger Prides. But the little ones need the support or they'll be gone.

This just seems an incredibly snobbish, condescending, & classist thing to say. "The majority of Americans are so uncultured & such uncouth paupers, they would have their minds blown by a humble Cheesecake Factory thinking they'd just entered The French Laundry!"

imo Labour/Dems are the people who are too socially embarrassed to openly join the Tories/Republicans. Thatcher-Reagan began rot. Cemented by Blair-Clinton. Breaking consensus politics with neoliberalism, then triangulation, bought by big donors, morally gutted by political advisors and polls.

Philosophies like this underpin so much of British society it's hard to overestimate. It's also why we (at least in England) will never have anything like a land value tax, wealth tax, or UBI, until we do away with this kind of political vampirism.

Dr. Tyler Black highlights a truth proven by data: "Every experiment on basic income shows it saves, not costs, extra money."

Now that Israel is explicitly supporting the claims of a state that is diplomatically hostile to Britain through a nonsensical claim against a people who have determined not to be Argentinian, can the UK political class finally admit that Israel is not our ally?

This. I know the stereotype is that the French smoke a lot, but Christ the smoking culture in Britain was as obnoxious as its current drinking culture.

Next time they should go on dressed in rainbow outfits. See what ridiculous extremes they will be pushed to - are they going to censor people's entire outfits?

Two University of Leicester students speak out over ‘absurd’ and ‘Orwellian’ decision by the BBC and ITV Studios to edit out pride pins worn on University Challenge

A small banality of evil touch: strudel (as depicted here) wouldn't be kosher. It's served with cream & likely baked with lard. It's also heavily associated with Austria (Hitler's birth country). Landa knows who Shosanna is & that she's Jewish, & he's gleefully rubbing her face in it.

The mask is off. It has nothing to do with women's safety (never did). It's about pure vile hatred of trans + people. CW. Severe transphobic abuse.

Of course they are. After all, it is standard practice for a suzerain to closely monitor its subservient vassal, and ensure any dissent to the overlord's will & ambitions are ruthlessly crushed to keep them in line & ensure they know their place.

Enormous news. A melanoma vaccine, one of the most deadly cancers out there. Science is good and helpful and there should be more of it. www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/...

😺 All. The. Time

Incidentally this is how I've seen some teachers combat AI essays in schools, particularly as genAI gets more advanced & convincing - asking the students to explain thought processes & angles. If you've written it, you can explain those things.

Breaking News: Tom Skerritt, the Emmy Award-winning actor best-known for his roles in “M*A*S*H,” “Alien” and “Steel Magnolias,” has died. He was 93. nyti.ms/4stcT7B

Too grindy, or not grindy enough?

The Bird Reich

The first genuinely honest ad for generative AI I've ever seen, from Microsoft / CoPilot A mediocre white guy sees his non-white colleague getting praised for good work, he asks AI to *literally copy it*, and then he gets all the praise instead: www.ispot.tv/ad/SoDi/micr...