GeorgeWeeks2014

Looks a bit Matisse 🎨

Several tables are set with individuals behind them waiting to be served. The tables have signs — Education, Sciences, Arts, Healthcare… no one is serving them. All of the servers are delivering piles of money to the table where WAR is sitting. Political cartoon is from the 1950s Nothing has changed.

It has been this way since time immemorial.
Spending a billion a day on a ‘not’ war.
Meanwhile, all you suckers can starve, die because you can’t afford healthcare or find new treatments for disease. And who the fuck needs education and arts?

We aren’t mad enough!!

On March 10, 1913, abolitionist Harriet Tubman died at approximately 91 years old. Her birth year is believed to be around 1822, though the exact year is uncertain due to the lack of official records for enslaved people at the time.

Harriet Tubman carried a gun. Once someone had joined one of her Underground Railroad escape routes, there was no turning back.

"Dead men tell no tales", she would say. "Go on or die."

She never ran her train off the track, and never lost a passenger.

WIN: High Court throws out £8m lawsuit over tax avoidance investigation | Good Law Project We have successfully defended award-winning journalist Dan Neidle from an ‘oppressive’ claim which tried to silence him – but the law still needs reform

We've won the UK's first ever SLAPP suit - acting for @danneidle.bsky.social - and made some really important law protecting the right to call out barristers whose misconduct facilitates aggressive tax avoidance.

A $250m stalemate has stalled new wind farms – Transpower hopes to break it

A review of how new power lines and pylons are priced should help remove blockages to the construction of renewables, says the electricity network operator's chief executive James Kilty. He talks to Jonathan Milne.

A tax barrister sued me personally for £8m for libel after we linked him to a tax avoidance scheme.

Today the High Court struck out the claim, granted summary judgment, and ruled it was a SLAPP. The judgment is highly critical.

Yes. The world is multidisciplinary. It helps to see/study the same thing from many angles.

Oh absolutely. Pretty much everything contains a mix of transferable skills and unique content.

Collage of six spring flowers photographed in a garden. Pale pink cherry blossom with unopened buds on a branch; a single nodding blue scilla flower; a bright yellow daffodil in profile; pale yellow primroses growing in grass; a pink hyacinth spike in bloom; and a cluster of deep blue hyacinths with glossy green leaves. Soft green backgrounds.

“When the world wearies, and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden.”

— Minnie Aumônier (1865–1952)

Flowers now blooming in my garden to brighten your day. #SolaceInNature

"I don’t know the moment it happened; it must’ve been a slow realization. ‘My bike is my mobility aid’." Great article from @bikehfxlobby.bsky.social published In Active Travel Studies activetravelstudies.org/article/id/1...

Yes please!

Oho! That would be fun. I will send a DM.

It's International Women's Day today so here's an article by @nzdodo.bsky.social in praise of e-bikes.

womanmagazine.co.nz/a-love-lette...

"E-bikes don't just flatten hills, they level the playing field."

#transport #IWD #InternationalWomensDay

Krusty interviewing George Meanie on collection bargaining agreements (first broadcast 1961).

Krusty interviewing George Meanie on collection bargaining agreements (first broadcast 1961).

"Let me be blunt - is there is a crisis in the labour market?"

The Simpsons satirised pretty much all forms of television.

I would absolutely love to watch more 'Klassic Krusty' - reruns of Krusty's highbrow talkshow.

The Panton chairs, decor and ashtray stands are quintessentially 1960s.

youtu.be/Kdw3pFi1UrA?...

@dailysimpsons.bsky.social #Simpsons

Would you recommend long-distance motorbiking in South America? It looks spectacular...provided one can carry a sufficient range of gear for the ranges of climates.

I really am fed up with: "Do engineering. Do STEM. Nothing else matters..."

This is typically spouted by people who do not understand education.

My dad was a theater professor and his take was that you go college to learn how to learn. That’s what the Humanities do. I got a BA in Medieval Studies and an MA in English (Medieval and Renaissance). I’m a software engineer. (Latin isn’t that different from coding.)

I get yelled at for saying this but for many hundreds of years people went to university not to get diplomas or be employable but because immersion in the humanities was considered foundational to a good life, and school must return to its original purpose: the joy of learning.

Not on this occasion. But I *did* encounter the music of Gordon Downie, of the Tragically Hip (a band that is world-famous in Canada).

I worked in Canada during my gap year and during this time I discovered Neil Young 🎶 - this shouldn't be surprising; he is Canadian royalty.

Less expectedly, I also became much better acquainted with late-1960s Beatles; someone had a CD 💿 of Abbey Road and we used to listen to it endlessly :)

So much soft power lost...to save the Conservative Party from itself. And look how *that* worked out 🤦‍♂️

Yeah my wife hasn't been able to drive for 10 years because of vertigo but she can walk with a cane. Car free zones are awesome for her because traffic perpendicular to her view is hard to process. She can also bike so protected bike lanes to get to car free zones are a game changer for her.

Benches are great! People sit where there are spaces to sit. People go where there are other people. Want more people? Provide more benches. And walls, and steps, and planter boxes, and moveable chairs...and all the other things that invite people to sit down.

Do car-free zones hurt disabled people? We asked experts. City planners and advocates are seeing "accessibility used as a political football."

“…disabled people are actually less likely to drive than nondisabled people and more likely to get around by walking and rolling and taking transit. Car-heavy cities are also disproportionately dangerous for disabled folks…”— @nondriver.bsky.social

Don’t use accessibility “as a political football.”

I haven't seen many Candy films but he effectively plays the knight in shining armour in Home Alone; a hero who steps up because it's the right thing to do (especially on Christmas Eve).

And Cool Runnings is also a super film.

It's a wonderful channel! I am a big fan of Harry Dwyer's big trip in a little boat. Glad to see that he is popular in the Spanish-speaking world too :)

1700miles in a tiny speedboat - Part1 YouTube video by Harry Dwyer

No sé si conoces el canal de youtube de Harry Dwyer (un tipo muy simpático que lleva un par de años recorriendo a tramos toda la costa de Gran Bretaña en una lancha pequeñita).

Cuenta muchas cosas interesanes y los paisajes son espectaculares. Me da una envidia tremenda.

Do! Harry Dwyer's travel videos provide wonderful, long-form viewing, better than 99% of broadcast television.

This series provides a wonderful view of the UK, its landscape, history and the people that live there.

Enjoy with a glass of wine and no distractions 🍷

(bikes are a recent addition!)

Here is a drawing of my mental image of ghoulish fanatic whose answer to everything is: "GAME THEORY!!"

Game Theory was developed by a paranoid schizophrenic in the Cold War to determine when to launch nuclear missiles.

It is hardly the "universal public policy tool" that some people would claim.