Legiron

Microbiologist, novelist (as H.K. Hillman @hkhillman), part-time janitor and smoky-drinker. Not necessarily in that order.

[Legiron @Underdogsbiteup]

A silent Halloween from Leg Iron Books -
https://t.co/tuZt4tOeP9

[Legiron @Underdogsbiteup]

Spattercat

[Aliza 🇬🇧 @iqrafatma1278]

I Can't Find a Suitable Name For Him..

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

Almost nobody knows the entire fear of cholesterol began with a rabbit.

>be a Russian pathologist, 1913
>wonder what furs up human arteries
>test it on rabbits, naturally
>feed them mountains of purified cholesterol dissolved in oil
>the rabbits, who have never met the stuff in their lives, fur up
>publish immediately
>announce to the world that dietary cholesterol causes heart disease
>decline to mention that a rabbit is a herbivore
>or that grass contains no cholesterol
>or that the animal has no machinery for handling it
>you have poisoned a vegetarian and billed it as a breakthrough

A herbivore, fed an animal product it was never built to eat, in doses nothing in nature could meet.

That is the foundation stone of the cholesterol scare.

Humans are not rabbits. We have eaten cholesterol since there were humans.

The whole edifice rests on one bewildered bunny.

[Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah]

I do get tired of people telling me you couldn’t get around by rail, before the car vandals wrecked our system .This is the railway map#of England in 1922

[Bee 🐝🌿 @BeeAwake1]

🤩 Children Are Just The Best❣️The Best Knock Knock Ever Told 😆😁

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

A Yorkshire pudding was originally called a dripping pudding because the batter was placed in a tin underneath the roast as it turned on the spit. Beef fat dripped down. The batter caught it. The result puffed enormous and crisp and was eaten first, with gravy, to take the edge off the appetite before the meat arrived.

That is no longer how anyone makes Yorkshire pudding.

Most modern recipes now reach for sunflower or rapeseed oil, because someone decided the fat that built the dish was dangerous. The pudding comes out flatter, paler, and sadder, and the physics tells you why: dripping smokes hot enough to shock the batter skyward, seed oil does not. We swapped the fat that works for the fat that was advertised at us, and the pudding has been collapsing ever since.

The recipe:

- Plain flour, 140g.
- Eggs, 4 large.
- Whole milk, 200ml.
- A pinch of salt.

Whisk smooth. Rest in the fridge overnight if you can be bothered.

Heat a muffin tin in the oven at 230C with a generous tablespoon of beef dripping in each well. Wait until the dripping is smoking.

Pour in the batter. Do not open the oven for 20 minutes.

They will rise like cathedrals.

Your grandmother knew this without a thermometer or a single word of food science. We have both and produce worse puddings. Use the dripping.

[Robin Monotti @robinmonotti]

THE LITTLE ICE AGE - The real reason why climate has been warming of recent is entirely natural: it is because we are still emerging from The Little Ice Age.
See painting of a frozen over Thames by Graham Turner. In the winter of 1683/84, the ice was almost a foot thick and the Thames remained frozen for weeks. Boats were fitted with skates and stalls set up with food, shops and games.
The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of significant regional cooling, particularly in Europe, characterized by harsh winters, and expanded glaciers.
Winter temperatures in Europe dropped as much as 2°C below modern averages.
The event lasted from roughly 1300 to 1850, spanning nearly 500 years. It is generally divided into phases: an initial cooling around 1300, a slightly warmer period in the 1500s, and the coldest interval between 1645 and 1715 (known as the Maunder Minimum).
The LIA was primarily triggered by the Grand Solar Minima, which caused reduced solar irradiance, and therefore cooling.
We are still emerging from the Little Ice Age, and that is the only reason some areas are warmer than centuries ago. This has very little to do with CO2 and everything to do with the Sun.
To put it simply, both the activity of the Sun and the Sun-Earth distance changes, and this modulates the amount of both solar irradiance and solar radiation, which affects clouds, and this combined change is what leads to long term changes in climatic temperatures.
It's definitely not CO2 causing any of this.

[Legiron @Underdogsbiteup]

@japanese_forms A pointed knife has kitchen applications.
I saw the idiot claiming that taking the points off would save lives and thought 'you can stab someone with a pencil'.
These people just hyperreact. They need therapy.

[Legiron @Underdogsbiteup]

Crossbow ban incoming...

[BBC Breaking News @BBCBreaking]

Man, 21, arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after man shot with crossbow at University of Surrey in UK https://t.co/6GaOs8akFu

[Legiron @Underdogsbiteup]

@NOtoCBDCuniID They don't know how many DIY bow and crossbow videos are on YouTube 😉

[Legiron @Underdogsbiteup]

@japanese_forms They'll still do some damage at crossbow power.

[Jason | 🇬🇧 🇿🇦 🇮🇱🇺🇲 @Ajaon_of_All]

Let me categorically Debunk this utter rot. @sainsburys.

I am a poultry Breeder. The hens that lay white eggs (Amberline/White Star) DO NOT have a lower carbon footprint.

Yes they eat a bit less and produce roughly the same amount of eggs as the Brown egg layers (Bovan/Lowman/ISA Brown) but they live shorter lives, are prone to dying suddenly when startled, a flighty and nervous and because they live shorter productive lives (12 -18mnths) vs brown 18/24mnths (both commercial farmed), you have to incubate more which is increased (Electricity/gas costs) and their eggs are not the same quality.

I breed and keep 20+ different breeds, including: ISA Brown hens and White Stars. All my hens are 100% free range, Not a single barn kept bird, I have ISA browns that are 5yrs old and still laying beautiful Brown eggs, I have not seen a White star live beyond 3yrs and certainly none have laid eggs past 18-24mnths.
White stars Lay themselves to death. They are slender birds and because they dont eat a lot, it drains their personal vitality to keep up laying the eggs you want to sell because of the nonsensical lie that they are "More Carbon Neutral"

You want to know about eggs, come talk to someone like me, Don't rely on some hairbrained imagination of a buyer who's trying to squeeze the profit margin for a few extra pennies at our expense and to the poor hens detriment.

[Peter Clack @PeterDClack]

The everyday view outside your kitchen window or the parks you drive past on your way to work can be misleading. We are living in an ice age.

The world has been in the Late Cenozoic Ice Age for 34 million years, ever since Antarctica became isolated from Australia and South America and was covered in miles-deep ice. The world became even colder 2.58 million years ago with the onset of the Quaternary glaciation.

In the big picture, the Quaternary alternates between severe glacial deep freeze phases lasting tens of thousands of years—where massive ice sheets advance to cover huge portions of the globe—and intervening warm interglacials. Science explains that these fluctuations are driven by Earth's orbital cycles (the Milankovitch cycles).

Human civilisation has risen entirely within the current warm interglacial, the Holocene, which began 11,700 years ago. Because Earth still retains massive polar ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, scientists still classify the Holocene as part of an ice age. By definition, an ice age simply requires permanent ice sheets to exist at the poles.

The previous warm interglacial was the Eemian (130,000 to 115,000 years ago). It was around 2 degrees warmer than today, a time when African megafauna roamed the Thames Valley. Yet, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were static at around 285 ppm. Today's CO2 levels are 427 ppm.

This raises profound questions about the true role of CO2 in driving temperature, and the narrative of impending global chaos.

The Eemian was followed by the Last Glacial Period (115,000 to 11,700 years ago), characterised by massive continental ice sheets, severe global cooling, and sea levels roughly 130 meters (425 feet) lower than today. So much water was locked up in ice that massive land bridges like Beringia were exposed, allowing the first human migrations between Asia and the Americas.

Climates were drier and dustier; tundra, steppes, and sparse woodlands dominated regions that are heavily forested today.

Earth has warmed over the Holocene and the ice sheets have receded, allowing us to build great cities in places once buried under miles of ice, like Quebec and Chicago. But if the planetary cycles continue as they always have, the Earth is ultimately destined to descend back into a new 100,000-year deep freeze.

How will that pan out for us?

[Legiron @Underdogsbiteup]

https://t.co/TnbAE7LZZ4

[Legiron @Underdogsbiteup]

This looks just like Marylin Manson's video of his song 'The Beautiful People'.

[Oli London @OliLondonTV]

This is a fashion show at London’s most ‘prestigious’ fashion college…

[Brivael Le Pogam @brivael]

Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze. Trois intellectuels qui, dans les années 60, pondent des livres illisibles au fond d'amphis parisiens. Aucun n'a jamais tenu une arme. Aucun n'a jamais entendu parler de Southampton.

Et pourtant, soixante ans plus tard, c'est leur idée qui tient la main qui menotte Henry Nowak, 18 ans, pendant qu'il se vide de son sang.

Comment passe-t-on de l'un à l'autre? Il n'y a pas de hasard. Il y a une ligne droite. Je vais vous la dérouler, maillon par maillon.

Premier maillon. Ces philosophes lâchent une idée d'apparence inoffensive: la vérité ne serait jamais neutre, ce serait toujours une construction du pouvoir. Donc on pourrait, et on devrait, se méfier des faits eux-mêmes. Ils n'ont pas voulu ce qui allait suivre. Mais ils ont armé un mécanisme: le soupçon généralisé envers le réel.

Deuxième maillon. Cette idée traverse l'Atlantique et mute dans les universités américaines. Elle rencontre une impulsion noble, la repentance, reconnaître des injustices historiques réelles. Et elle la transforme en tout autre chose: une hiérarchie morale permanente. Des groupes classés selon leur degré supposé de victimité. Oppresseurs d'un côté, opprimés de l'autre. Pour toujours.

Troisième maillon, et c'est là que tout bascule. Une fois qu'on classe les gens par groupe, on cesse de les juger par leurs actes. On les juge par leur catégorie. La crédibilité n'est plus méritée, elle est assignée d'avance.

Quatrième maillon. Black Lives Matter en fut l'apogée liturgique. « I can't breathe » devient une formule sacrée. La règle implicite: croire d'office la victime désignée, soupçonner d'office l'oppresseur désigné. Avant les faits. À la place des faits.

Comprenez bien ce qu'on installe là. Pas une opinion. Un réflexe. Un automatisme cognitif gravé dans des institutions entières: l'accusation venue de la « bonne » catégorie l'emporte sur ce que vous voyez de vos propres yeux.

Et un réflexe, on sait ce que ça fait à des hommes ordinaires.

Je me suis longtemps passionné pour la psychologie, et une période m'obsède: l'après-guerre. Le moment où des chercheurs se sont posé la question la plus dérangeante du siècle. Comment l'Allemagne nazie avait-elle transformé des pères de famille ordinaires en bourreaux de camp?

La réponse, ils ne l'ont pas trouvée chez des monstres. Ils l'ont trouvée chez des hommes parfaitement banals.

Hannah Arendt a appelé ça la banalité du mal. L'historien Christopher Browning, en étudiant le bataillon de réserve 101 (des policiers d'âge mûr, des pères, des commerçants), a montré que ce ne sont pas des fanatiques qui ont fusillé des civils, mais des hommes normaux incapables de désobéir au cadre dominant.

Puis vint Milgram. À Yale, environ deux tiers de gens ordinaires ont infligé ce qu'ils croyaient être des décharges mortelles, simplement parce qu'une autorité le leur ordonnait. L'expérience de la prison de Stanford a montré la même chose sous un autre angle: donnez à quelqu'un un rôle et un cadre, et il s'y conformera jusqu'à l'inhumain.

La leçon n'est pas allemande. Elle est humaine. Le mécanisme s'active dès qu'un cadre moral dominant fait craindre la sanction sociale plus que ne compte le témoignage de ses propres yeux. L'individu cesse de voir ce qu'il voit. Il voit ce que le cadre l'autorise à voir.

Maintenant, rejouez la scène de Southampton au ralenti.

Henry Nowak, 18 ans, poignardé, allongé au sol, répète aux policiers « j'ai été poignardé », « je ne peux plus respirer ».

Réponse de l'officier: « I don't think you have, mate. »

Pendant ce temps, son meurtrier retourne la situation d'une phrase: il aurait été victime d'une agression raciste, on lui aurait arraché son turban. L'officier n'a pas vu Henry. Il a vu deux catégories. D'un côté, un homme qui dégaine le script de l'agression raciste, crédible par défaut. De l'autre, un jeune homme blanc à terre, sans grief à brandir, sans formule sacrée à réciter, suspect par défaut.

Le cadre a choisi à sa place. Il n'a même pas eu à réfléchir. C'est ça, le conditionnement: la pensée a déjà eu lieu, avant lui. Exactement le mécanisme de Milgram, de Browning. Un homme normal qui cesse de croire ses propres yeux parce qu'un cadre moral lui a appris ce qu'il devait craindre.

René Girard avait tout décrit. Le coupable détourne sa faute en désignant un bouc émissaire, et le système l'accepte d'autant plus volontiers qu'il colle au rôle attendu. Henry n'a pas été cru parce qu'il ne pouvait pas jouer la victime. Sa catégorie le lui interdisait.

Souvenez-vous. Le monde entier s'est agenouillé pour quatre mots, « I can't breathe ». Des entreprises, des gouvernements, des stades entiers. Henry a prononcé exactement les mêmes mots, en train de mourir. Il n'y aura ni genou à terre, ni hashtag, ni minute de silence. Parce que sa mort ne sert pas le cadre. Elle le contredit.

Voilà l'inversion finale, et la plus monstrueuse. Une idéologie née en promettant de protéger les vulnérables a fini par apprendre à des hommes à ignorer la personne la plus vulnérable de la pièce, celle qui agonise, parce que sa catégorie n'était pas la bonne.

Et le vrai piège, c'est de croire que l'erreur aurait été de choisir le mauvais camp. Non. L'erreur, c'est de choisir des camps. De voir des catégories là où il y a un être humain qui saigne devant soi.

De Foucault à Southampton, voilà la ligne droite. Soixante ans pour qu'une idée abstraite apprenne à un homme à ne plus voir un enfant mourir sous ses yeux.

Henry Nowak n'avait rien demandé. Il demandait juste qu'on le voie.

Personne ne l'a vu.

[Cropsandall @Thornpip]

Sea Link - a monster of a green energy project that will add £300 to everyone's electricity bills per year for 45 years.

The costs are spiralling plus its going through a nature site with so many protections even people are not allowed on - all to save nature??

A farmer is being forced to hand over his productive arable land.

And analysts argue this v. expensive development is not needed with a few simple line upgrades at a fraction of the cost.

@KathrynPorter26

Calls for withdrawal of Kent-Suffolk Sea Link proposal - BBC News https://t.co/11wZtzOWeP

[Legiron @Underdogsbiteup]

https://t.co/JoZ9VfocF9

[Legiron @Underdogsbiteup]

@MrPitbull07 @aof_full This should spark discussion about the usefulness of the police.
In the current climate, that could be a very deep discussion indeed.

[The Vigilant Fox 🦊 @VigilantFox]

THEO VON: “Was there anybody who was immune to COVID-19?”

DR. MCCULLOUGH: “There’s one adult group. You’re going to laugh.”

[Theo Von listens closely for the reveal]

DR. MCCULLOUGH: “Smokers… They got very mild cases. And they don’t get long COVID.”

THEO VON: “Why?”

MCCULLOUGH: “Because smokers maintain a level of nicotine in the bloodstream… Smoking blocks the spike protein. It’s amazing. I thought smokers were going to go down.”

THEO VON: “Do you think that’s a good idea [to use nicotine patches] on a regular basis?”

DR. MCCULLOUGH: “I think [it’s a good idea] if they have long COVID... Nicotine, don’t forget, is a nootropic. A nootropic is a drug that makes the brain function more effectively... It’s addictive, but it’s not harmful to the human body... Nicotine patches are perfectly safe.”

[Legiron @Underdogsbiteup]

This cracks me up every time I see it.

[Jack @FFS_WhatNow]

As we enter the holy month of Tranadan, it's important to observe proper etiquette when crossing rainbow roads.

If you're unsure of your responsibilities, I've provided this handy video to guide you.