Columbo

King of cats 👑 Blue Maine Coon. Look into my eyes and say I’m not beautiful, I dare you! Own multiple humans. One’s a KC but I tell him what to say in Court

[Columbo @AdvoCat_QC]

My cover as a mere cat was blown by @EmilyPennink & @BBCHelena The World now knows I’m the brains behind @NorthSilk I’m not mad, look at my photo, I’m happy! World domination next...after some catnip.

[Prof. Steve Keen @ProfSteveKeen]

This is a beautiful sendup of the US claim to be a democracy.

[Shaun King @shaunking]

Absolutely heartbreaking and infuriating.

[Zachary Foster @_ZachFoster]

Dear Melanie Phillips,

I am a historian of Palestine, specializing on the period of this tweet. Almost everything you wrote is fiction. Let's review.

Melanie:
“When organized Jewish colonization began in 1882, there were fewer than 150,000 Arabs in the land."

Reality:
There were 500,000. The authoritative source on population of late Ottoman Palestine is Justin McCarthy's The Population of Palestine: Population History and Statistics of the Late Ottoman Period and the Mandate (Columbia University Press, 1990). The population of Palestine in 1882 was at a minimum 468,089 people (ibid, p.10, see screenshot). This undercounted Bedouins and nomads. The actual figure is probably more like 500,000. https://t.co/b49x7c8cq8

Melanie:
"The Arab population was small and limited until Jewish resettlement restored the barren lands and drew Arabs to it from neighboring countries .... The great majority of the Arab population in recent decades were comparative newcomers—either late immigrants or descendants of persons who had immigrated into Palestine in the previous 70 years”:

Reality:
The book that makes a version of this argument is Joan Peter's From Time Immemorial. Turns out Peters invented data, fabricated statistics. The whole book is a fraud. Thoroughly debunked by Norman Finkelstein, Yehoshua Porath and others. Citing this book is the equivalent of citing a scientific paper arguing the world is flat. 0 historians believe that "a great majority of the Arab population... were... newcomers". You are just outing yourself as historically illiterate.

Melanie:
“The Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied …”Winston Churchill, 1939.

Reality: Alas, a quote from a British imperialist who visited Palestine once in 1921 and whose knowledge of migation patters in the Arab East in the 1920s and 1930s rounded down to 0.

Melanie:
"People used to come from all over the Middle East to work in Jaffa and the whole of Palestine. From Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen, Hijaj, Marrakesh, from everywhere. Tens of thousands of workers”:

Reality:
Regional migration was not uncommon, before, during and after Zionist immigration. Palestinians went to Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, Egyptians and Syrians came to Palestine. But, as the quote indicates, we are talking thousands, possibly tens of thousands. In the 1920s-1930s, the population of Palestine went from 750K-1.5M. Indeed, there were thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands of people, who migrated to and from Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt during this period. Perhaps a few percentage points of the population were migrants!?! Melanie, you have essentially undermined your entire argument by quoting "tens of thousands" out of a population of a million. You are saying the migrant population was somewhere between 1-10%. That's the point I'm making too!

Melanie:
Encyclopaedia Britannia 1911 listed more than fifty languages being spoken in Palestine including Czech, Finnish, Hindustani, Hebrew, Arabic, Dutch, Kurdish, Russian, Serbian, Syrian and Turkish.

Reality:
Indeed, 90% of Palestine spoke Arabic in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries. There were also many internationals based in Palestine for a wide range of reasons. We are talking about a few thousand people out of 600,000+ on the eve of WWI. Another stunning revelation by Melanie.

Melanie:
“‘In the Gaza district they are mostly of Egyptian origin; elsewhere they are of the most mixed race. UK government handbook 1920."

Reality:
A British colonial official went around Gaza and the rest of Palestine and surveyed the native population to understand their ancestral origins. I'm joking. They didn't do that. They just pulled this observation out of their ass and presented it as fact. Or maybe they read that in a book of another Orientalist, who himself made it up. Serious historians cite these anecdotes as reflections of how British imperialist imagined natives, rather than as accurate scientific facts about the racial composition of the natives. Melanie once against outs herself as historically illiterate.

Melanie:
"Between 1922 and 1946 the Arab population of Palestine increased by 118 per cent. Roosevelt concluded in 1939 that “Arab immigration into Palestine since 1921 has vastly exceeded the total Jewish immigration during the whole period”. Your ignorance is painful."

Reality:
Pure fiction. Between 1922-1938, about 300,000 Jews moved to Palestine. There is 0 evidence to believe "vastly more" than 300,000 Arabs migrated to Palestine during the Mandate period. As we already said, 0 historians believe that, because there is 0 evidence to believe. That's why you didn't cite any (not fraudulent) historians, because there aren't any. There simply was no mass migration of hundreds of thousands of Arabs into Palestine, that's just a Zionist fantasy to write into history a land that was empty.

All of this is further undermined by the fact that a breakthrough 2020 study found that Palestinians derive 81 to 87 per cent of their ancestry from Bronze Age Levantines. https://t.co/2XVy6lvBDP

In other words, the modern Palestinian people have been living in Palestine, by and large, for literally millenia.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

[Columbo @AdvoCat_QC]

@ArchRose90 It’s not speculation when you can hear the attackers own words as to his motive

Not to mention the actual victims.

Funny how you ignore facts for your narrative

[Ihtesham Ali @ihteshamali]

An Arab scholar in 1011 was placed under house arrest in Cairo for 10 years. He used the time to invent the scientific method, prove how vision actually works, and write a 7-volume book that Newton studied 600 years later.

I read about him last night and could not stop thinking about it.

His name was Ibn al-Haytham. The book is called the "Book of Optics."

The textbook story names Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes as the founders of modern science. All three of them came 600 years after Ibn al-Haytham. All three of them studied his work directly or through Latin translations. The man who actually invented the scientific method was working alone in a single room in Cairo while Europe was still in the Dark Ages.

Here is the story almost nobody tells you.

He was born in Basra around 965 CE. By his 40s he had a reputation across the Arab world as one of the most original minds alive. Then he made the mistake that almost killed him. He claimed publicly that he could regulate the flooding of the Nile. The mad caliph al-Hakim of Cairo summoned him to Egypt to do it.

Ibn al-Haytham took one look at the river and realized the project was impossible with the technology of his era. The caliph had executed dozens of scholars for less. So he faked madness. The caliph believed him and put him under house arrest in his own home in Cairo for the next 10 years.

Most people would have lost their actual mind. He used the time to invent science.

Before him, knowledge worked one way. You quoted authority. If Aristotle had said it, it was true. If Galen had written it, it was correct. The role of a scholar was to memorize and defend the ancient Greeks. I

Ibn al-Haytham broke this completely. He wrote a sentence in the Book of Optics that quietly destroyed 1,400 years of intellectual culture. "The seeker after truth," he said, "is not the one who follows his natural disposition to trust the writings of the ancients. The seeker after truth is the one who suspects them, questions them, and submits only to argument and experiment."

That single sentence is the foundation of modern science. He wrote it 600 years before the European Renaissance.

The second thing he did was build the actual machinery of experimentation.

He insisted that no claim about the physical world was acceptable until it had been verified by an experiment anyone could repeat. He gave detailed instructions for every experiment in his book. He told his readers, in writing, not to take his word for any of it. Build the equipment. Run the tests yourself. Verify or destroy my claims with your own eyes.

The third thing he did was use the method to overturn one of the most settled questions in physics.

The Greeks had taught for centuries that vision worked because the eye emitted invisible rays. Ibn al-Haytham proved them wrong with a darkened room, a small hole, and a wall. The first camera obscura. He showed that light from the outside world enters the eye, the exact opposite of what every Greek thinker had taught.

Two hundred years later his book was translated into Latin in Spain. Roger Bacon cited him. Kepler cited him. Galileo's work on the telescope was built on his optics. Newton's foundational work on light rested on his framework.

Walk into any physics department today. Ask who founded the scientific method. Almost nobody will say Ibn al-Haytham.

The man who invented the way humanity actually knows things did the work under house arrest, with no funding, no laboratory, and a paranoid caliph next door waiting for an excuse to kill him.

He did it anyway. Most of the world is still pretending it was someone else's idea.

[Columbo @AdvoCat_QC]

The world needs order….

[The New Statesman @NewStatesman]

The anti-Muslim sentiment sweeping across the UK and Europe is "basically racism" says Rory Stewart

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Sonny Green speaking at the Together Alliance march,

"I love you loads, love is always the answer"

"Here's what England means to me"

"When its sunny, its too hot"

"When it's cold, the weather's rubbish, nothing is quite good enough, and that's exactly how we like it"

"England to me is a cup of tea, being asked how many sugars and saying none, I'm sweet enough"

"It's sarcasm bent on bravado, the way we talk without saying much at all"

"It's not, where are you from"

"Its, who do you support"

"It's, how's your mum, is she alright?"

"England to me is a Tesco meal deal, don't forget your clubcard"

"It's two pints of lager and a packet of crisps"

"Yeah yeah you are really fit but my gosh, don't you just know it"

"It's Thursday, be a little Friday, a little Friday being half a day"

"It's going on a long journey and goiing, are we there yet"

"England to me is Turkish barbers with the sharpest trim"

"It's the shopkeeper letting you off 20p when you're skint"

"It's English neighbours saying, happy Eid mate"

"And Muslim mum's saying, merry Christmas love"

"It's the (something) down the high street and everyone around the same table sharing food"

"It's Scousers singing, Mo Salah Salah"

"And Nooners reminiscing about Ian Right Right Right"

"It's Bob Marley and Reggae"

"Oasis on the karaoke"

"It's Sweet Caroline on the terraces"

"Three lions every summer"

"And if you think you've seen flags now, wait until the world cup's on. Then you'll know about flags my son"

"Don't believe the news, don't believe some political parties"

"Here's what I believe"

"Let's have a proper party. All are welcome. Leave your politics at the door. Bring your best karaoke voice"

"We'll play Twister, and Monopoly, until it gets late"

"Cause here's what England means to me"

"It's about loving each other no matter what colour you are, where you come from, or who your God is"

"Because when I look in your eyes I see mine reflecting back"

"And I'll never forget that"

"And I'll never forget what my nan told me, that if you ain't got nothing nice to say, don't say nothing at all"

"Cause this is England"

"Whether your staple diet i mashed potato or rice"

"Yeah its nice to be important"

"But it's more important to be nice"

"I love you guys, keep fighting the good fight yeah"

"That's the real England, don't believe the fascists mate"

"They've got nothing on us"

"Let's go baby"

[Sky News @SkyNews]

21-month-old Jawad Abu Nassar was detained alongside his father by Israeli forces in central Gaza — and returned to his family ten hours later, alone.

Doctors found wounds on his legs consistent with cigarette burns and signs of torture.

The Israeli military denies abusing the child, and says his father — who remains missing — was a Hamas member who used him as a human shield. It has not publicly provided evidence to support that claim.

Watch the full report from @sparkomat ⬇️. Warning: contains some distressing images.

https://t.co/WUx4lzlEVw

[Sam Coates Sky @SamCoatesSky]

Greater Manchester Police say they have no evidence of family voting after an extensive investigation, including speaking to Democracy Volunteers and seizing CCTV:

We’ve concluded our investigation into alleged ‘family voting’ at last month’s Gorton and Denton by-election, finding no evidence of any intent to influence or refrain any person from voting.

Our investigation into alleged influencing of voters at a polling booth (under Section 62C Representation of the People Act 1983 (Ballot Secrecy Act 2023)) began after a criminal report from the Reform UK party following a public statement made by independent electoral observers at Democracy Volunteers.

We have spoken to the four Democracy Volunteers observers present at polling stations on the day of the by-election (26 February) who have shared with us their eyewitness account. This includes some instances of more than one voter going into a booth at the same time, and instances of people looking over the shoulder of voters.

The information they have provided to us estimates this may have happened on 32 occasions across 15 polling stations.

The observers do not allege any verbal instruction or physical conduct that indicated one person was directing or coercing another regarding how to vote. This is a crucial part of the legislation to prove such an offence was committed.

Our investigation team, led by an experienced senior investigating officer, spoke to all four volunteers from Democracy Volunteers as part of our enquiries – obtaining a copy of their observations.

We also spoke to the Presiding Officers at 15 stations as well as the Acting Returning Officer, none of whom received any reports other than from Democracy Volunteers.

We have received no further criminal reports.

For us to investigate allegations, we require an understanding of who the potential suspects may be, and evidence that may corroborate eyewitness accounts. For an investigation to meet the criminal threshold for prosecution, we require admissible evidence of intent or action aimed at influencing the vote.

We have asked Democracy Volunteers for descriptions of those alleged to be involved, and timings on when these are believed to have occurred. These details were not documented by observers or the complainant, and we have not been provided with any identities or descriptions to pursue.

The absence of this information means there is no remaining reasonable line of enquiry. This also includes limitations with CCTV as an absence of descriptions, and votes not being time-stamped, meaning we are not able to identify individuals from footage.

We have approached all 45 polling stations in the Gorton and Denton constituency to ask for CCTV from the day. Forty-one of those polling stations told us they did not have CCTV activated in the building as it would have compromised the secrecy of the vote during polling day, in line with advice given.

We have seized and viewed CCTV from three of the remaining four polling stations. These are three polling station that Democracy Volunteers visited. We have spoken to the Presiding Officer from each one.

However, these stations do not show any evidence of anyone directing or coercing another regarding how to vote – the crucial part of the legislation to prove such an offence was committed.

There is no evidence to suggest any intent to influence or refrain a person from voting as stated in the Ballot Secrecy Act 2023.

We have been liaising with the Electoral Commission, who we have shared our findings with. We have also shared our findings with the Returning Officer.

We have updated the complainant about the work of our investigation and the conclusion we have reached.

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

Superb political ad. One of the best you’ll see.

This is better, and resonates more, than anything coming from Labour or the Tories.

[Ragged Trousered Philanderer @RaggedTP]

Jewish-US orthopedic surgeon Mark Perlmutter, who worked in Gaza, recounted that Israeli soldiers took two Palestinian children, tied their hands behind their backs, & buried them alive at Nasir hospital... their cries muffled by the dirt poured over them.

[Sam @SamCKx]

I can no longer hold my tongue seeing the utter lies being spread about Britain, our history of migration, and how this country was built into what it is today. For those so deeply buried in fake news, manufactured outrage and billionaire‑funded propaganda, I’m going to lay out the truth – and exactly why you’re being fed all this poison.

Britain was never a sealed white island. From Roman times there were African soldiers stationed on Hadrian’s Wall and living in British towns, people from across the empire walking these roads nearly 2,000 years ago. Through the Middle Ages and Tudor England you still find Black people in the records – sailors, craftsmen, servants, musicians – even Black musicians at the royal court and Africans being baptised, marrying and being buried in English parishes like anyone else. This isn’t some modern experiment; it’s older than half the castles people visit on their bank‑holiday tours.

As Britain went out into the world, the world came here. Sailors and traders from India, Yemen and beyond were arriving in British ports from the 1600s. Some of those men were practising a new faith to most Britons at the time, praying quietly in boarding houses near the docks while they worked brutal shifts in the engine rooms of British ships. Over the centuries, more people from North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia passed through and settled, bringing their languages, foods and beliefs into port cities that were far more mixed than today’s nostalgia merchants like to admit.

After two world wars, the truth is simple: this country asked the Commonwealth to come and rebuild it. People from the Caribbean, Africa and South Asia didn’t sneak in; they were recruited. They came to drive buses and trains, staff the NHS, work in mills and foundries, clean offices, run corner shops, open takeaways and small businesses, and yes, build prayer spaces and community centres alongside churches and temples in the neighbourhoods everyone now pretends were always “traditional” and “unchanged”. They did the work that kept Britain going while being told to go home, refused housing, and treated as permanent outsiders.

And what have they been paid back with? Scandals where people who’ve lived, worked and paid taxes here for decades get told they don’t belong. Policies designed to make life so hostile that some give up and leave. A media that uses their names, accents, clothes or places of worship as props in endless scare stories. The message is always the same: you might toil for this country, but you will never fully be of it.

So when you hear that “Britain was white until recently” or that the country has been “overrun”, understand that you don’t arrive at that belief by accident. You get there because your history has been deliberately ripped out and replaced with a comforting myth: that “real” Britain is white, homogenous, and constantly under siege from people who look, speak or pray differently.

Now look at when this myth has been turned up to max volume. Wages frozen. Housing a sick joke. Energy and food prices out of control. Public services hacked to pieces. At the same time, the number of people hoarding unimaginable wealth at the top has exploded. Funny, isn’t it, how every front page is about boats and “swarms” and “our culture”, and almost never about the landlords, hedge funds, private equity and offshore trusts quietly buying up your city and your future.

That’s because this isn’t just prejudice; it’s a strategy. If you’re sitting on a mountain of wealth, the last thing you want is ordinary people – of every colour and background – realising they have the same problems and the same enemy. Much safer if the factory worker is furious at the new family down the road. Much safer if the person who can’t see a doctor blames the nurse with an accent instead of the minister who cut the funding. Much safer if a man who can’t afford his rent spends his rage on the woman in a headscarf at the bus stop instead of the billionaire who owns half his city.

Racist rhetoric, religious dog‑whistling, all of it, exists to break solidarity. It turns neighbours into enemies and stops people seeing that Black, brown and white working‑class communities have far more in common with each other than any of them will ever have with the people flying in on private jets. It keeps you so busy policing skin colour, passports and prayer mats that you never get round to asking why your kids can’t afford a home, why your parents can’t get a hospital bed, why you’re working harder and standing still.

The real story of Britain is this: a crossroads, not a fortress. Africans on Hadrian’s Wall. Black people in Tudor courts and city streets. Sailors, traders and workers from South Asia, the Middle East and beyond in the ports. Caribbean, African and Asian workers rebuilding the country after the war, staffing surgeries and hospitals, driving cabs, running shops, cooking food, teaching kids. Today’s multi‑ethnic, multi‑faith working class is not a glitch; it is Britain. It built this place and it keeps it running.

If you’re genuinely angry about what’s happening to this country, good. You should be. But aim it where it belongs. Britain was never pure, never untouched, never “theirs” to take back. The people ruining your standard of living are not the ones risking their lives to get here, or the ones whose names you struggle to pronounce. They’re the ones buying politicians, owning media outlets, writing the story of this country so you never learn your own – and never realise who is standing beside you.

[dan barker @danbarker]

If you want to know what Nelson thought of Muslims, you may want to factor in Nelson's column.

See that thing on his hat? It is a 'chelengk'. Nelson was the first non-Muslim to be awarded one - as thanks for his victory in the Battle of the Nile. It was gifted to him by Sultan Selim III, who was literally the Caliph at the time. Nelson was so proud of it, as well as wearing it on his hat, he added it to his coat of arms.

It is now the literal highest point of Nelson's column - a gift from the leader of the Muslim world to a devout Christian.

[Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) @adamscochran]

The fact that Oman, has spilled all the details of the negotiation is wild.

But what’s worse is it seems that Iran had basically agreed to every US ask.

And we bombed them anyway.

Teaching another generation of extremists in the Middle East to not trust the US.

A major political setback that will haunt us for decades!

[Richie Floyd @richiejfloyd]

I wish we lived in a world where I didn't feel constantly compelled to post this video, but until then here's Tony Benn speaking on war with clarity and moral conviction that you won't see from the evil people running the world today

[China pulse 🇨🇳 @Eng_china5]

Someone attached a camera to a mountain goat to document its daily life climbing rocks from a first-person perspective. 🐏

One user commented: This is like a "software glitch" in the animal kingdom!

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Zack Polanski expertly criticises Labour's proscription of Palestine Action for non violent protest citing Labour's rise in authoritarianism

Trevor Philips, "This is not a country where people get thrown in jail for the things that they say"

Zack Polanski, "We're spiralling down that road. 2,700 arrested for opposing a genocide"

TP, "That's not the sign they're being arrested for. It's signs like from the River to the Sea, which imply the elimination of the state of Israel which are antisemitic"

ZP, "As a Jewish person I don't find those signs antisemitic. In fact, Netanyahu has used that phrase"

"Antisemitism needs to be taken seriously in the same was as Islamaphobia or any form of hate crime"

"But criticism of the Israeli government is a moral responsibility when we see what they're doing to innocent people, day in day out"

"And our Labour government are not just complicit in that, they are actively enabling it"

"So for people who are protesting against a genocide, I would say they are patriots of this country, who are saying let's have a world where we say we're standing for human rights"

"It's not just Palestine Action by the way. We've seen authoritarianism over the Prime Minister wanting mandatory ID cards. Over scrapping jury trials"

"Pattern over pattern shows that Keir Starmer is a deeply desperate caretaker prime minister who is clinging on to power by trying to crush decent"

TP, "So all the 2,700 are innocent of any potential crime?

ZP, "That's not true. Some have committed criminal damage"

"But as you said earlier on in the show criminal damage is already illegal. That's very different with it being a terrorist attack"

"It's the conflation that is dangerous and the authoritarianism which was behind the question you asked me"

[Columbo @AdvoCat_QC]

@LeeHarris Who isn’t allowing you?
Where?
Why?
I’m calling “contents of my litter tray” on your little meltdown. 😹 💩