bookworm

Booklover by the coast. Born again cynic. Nice person really!

[Larry the Cat @Number10cat]

Fab five

[Chidanand Tripathi @thetripathi58]

A guy sat at his laptop ready to permanently delete his 15-year-old Gmail account.

He was getting 400 spam emails a day. Fake Best Buy receipts. Phishing links from "Netflix." Cryptic extortion threats.

He hovered his mouse over "Delete Account" and sighed: "I just want peace."

His coworker, a former email deliverability engineer, looked over his shoulder.

"Before you nuke 15 years of contacts and data, let me show you something. Your email isn't broken. It's weaponized. There are 22 ways you've been leaving the door wide open. Google won't tell you this because the data collection feeds their entire ad engine. Give me 14 minutes."

Here's what she showed him:

[bookworm @readerbythesea]

Even a broken clock can be right twice a day.

[Boris Johnson @BorisJohnson]

Putin's defeat will be a wonderful moment. We just need the guts to help Ukraine win faster.

https://t.co/a612L7fIkA

[Madelaine Hanson @MadelaineLucyH]

The problem gentlemen is you think "rapist" means scary man in a hoodie lurking in an alleyway at 3am. Of course you'd block that guy.

But it's the boyfriend you really loved who was angry that you hadn't wanted sex for two days and pinned you for the bed and then felt really bad about it.

It's the really sweet guy backstage who you loved working with for the whole production who knew you only wanted to be friends and then got you drunk at the after party and raped you in a dressing room.

It's the husband who whined and pleaded for sex long after you've said no for hours and refused to take no for an answer until you gave in every night for four years until you realised what it was.

It's the childhood friend who knows your parents and is your brother's best mate who suddenly attacked you when you were 17 and then told you he'd be thrown out of Oxford if you said anything.

It's the kind colleague who offered to drive you home from that conference when there was a train strike and then forced his hands into your pants in a lay-by and then threatened to leave you there at 3am if you didn't stop being a cockteasing bitch.

We're not dumb. We see the constant attempts to make anything short of stranger with a knife made up, regret, our fault really, a matter of the woman not being clear.

We know why you keep trying to make this 'not rape'. Because if coercion, marital rape, pressure, manipulation and exploitation count, then the comforting fantasy that rape is only ever a stranger with a knife falls apart.

[Olena Tregub @OTregub]

Apocalyptic bird nest.

A Russian glide bomb knocks down a tree in Donbas. From the shattered branches rolls out a tiny bird’s nest.

Made of drone fiber-optic cable.

Source: Oleg Malchenko

[bookworm @readerbythesea]

https://t.co/hdDeSrqgeC

[Rohoza (Дев'ятий) Mykhailo 🇺🇦🇱🇹🇨🇦 @Oct7NeverForget]

If Satan has a residence on Earth, it is in Russia: the story of former Kherson mayor Volodymyr Mykolayenko, who survived Russian captivity.

After seeing Russia from the inside, he described it as a moral void, completely incompatible with Ukraine.

In captivity, he survived purely through willpower—holding on by sheer determination. When he finally returned home on August 24, 2025, it felt as though he had grown wings.

What struck him most was the way Ukrainians welcomed the released prisoners. From the Belarusian border all the way to Chernihiv, crowds stood along the roads waving Ukrainian flags. For the first time in a long while, he felt genuine respect and love.

Mykolayenko neither hid nor fled, even though he had the opportunity. He joined the Territorial Defense Forces because he asked himself a simple question: who else would protect his family?

He was given an assault rifle, but quickly realized that rifles alone cannot stop tanks.

The Russians lured him to a meeting under false pretenses, threw him into a car trunk, and took him away.

In captivity, he was beaten almost daily and suffered a broken rib. The occupiers offered him the position of head of the occupation administration, but he refused.

They demanded that he publicly condemn Roman Shukhevych, yet Mykolayenko instead called him a Hero of Ukraine.

Later, he was transferred between detention facilities—first to occupied Crimea, then to Russia’s Voronezh region, where the beatings became even more severe.

He never received a single letter from his family. He even refused prisoner exchanges, insisting that wounded young soldiers should be released in his place.

In his view, this war did not happen because of abstract mistakes. It happened because of geography and irresponsibility.

Russians chose Putin twenty-five years ago, and many continue to support him today. At the same time, too many members of Ukraine’s elite behave as if they have a “backup country”—Paris, Prague, New York—places they can escape to while blaming the people who were left behind.

But most Ukrainians have no alternative. There is no second homeland. There is only Ukraine.

According to Mykolayenko, the true strength of the country lies in its people—those who have survived occupation, torture, and loss, yet continue to fight.

Victory rests on two pillars: the soldiers who destroy the occupiers every day, and the civilians who do everything they can each day to ensure that the army can keep fighting.

He himself endured for the sake of his family and his faith in victory. He is proud of his daughter, who has been fighting since the first day of the war, and hopes that his grandchildren will one day be proud of both him and their country.

[Caolan @CaolanReports]

Before I leave Ireland, I want to place on record that in the last 24 hours I have received constant stalking and death threats for my reporting. However I will not be intimidated.

What I have uncovered is deeply troubling, and the effort to silence it only makes that clearer.

[Caolan @CaolanReports]

Completely blown away by this.

Today I was recognised by President Zelenskyy with the Order of Merit. A profound honour.

Right now powerful people want the truth about Ukraine buried. It’s a privilege to be able to tell it. ❤️🇺🇦🔥

[Caolan @CaolanReports]

Irish politicians are avoiding questions about Aughinish. Patrick O’Donovan refuses to answer my calls. The refinery is in his constituency

He says the Russian owned plant is not connected to Russia’s war machine, without showing evidence. They want this to blow over. It won’t

[bookworm @readerbythesea]

@nodnodwinkwink @CaolanReports Amazing that both the Chinese and Russian embassies favour underground facilities. And why so big? And why are our governments allowing it?

[Maybe Later @nodnodwinkwink]

@CaolanReports Have you ever looked into the absolutely massive Russian embassy compound in Dublin?
13 buildings, 3 of which look like apartment buildings and what looks like construction/curiously deep excavation underway for a 14th.
https://t.co/hPlJTXvRiB

[Greta Berlin @Truegreta]

I stood at this pool, at both monuments and saw both reflections…
He’s a God damn idiot, as are the fools that support him. The “Reflection Pool” wasn’t designed by American architect Henry Bacon a hundred years ago to look like a swimming pool. It’s designed to have a darkened characteristics that has reflective qualities to reflect the monuments.
That way, the Washington Monument is reflective to you when at the Lincoln Memorial, and when at the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial is reflective to you.
It’s designed to enhance the grandeur of monuments, create an illusion of reflection, and inclusion of expansive space of unity.
He’s a tacky vulgar person that vulgarizes everything he touches. America isn’t becoming great, it’s becoming vulgar.

Credit - Mathew Reed

[Sweden in EU @SwedeninEU]

”Last year almost 500 000 Russian tourists were let into Europe, while Ukrainians were dying on the battlefield. This situation needs to be stopped.

That is why we, together with 10 other Member States, have put forward an initiative for new EU visa restrictions for Russian citizens.” @JohanForssell at JHA

[Alexander Browder @Alexbrowder_]

BREAKING. The Russian government has just announced that I have been added to their sanctions list for my work exposing their sanctions evading cryptocurrency A7A5. In doing so, I have exposed their Achilles’ heel. Without A7A5 they would not be able to fund their war of aggression. I have been sanctioned alongside Washington Post reporter @catherinebelton and 3 other UK nationals. It’s a badge of honour.

https://t.co/79b55DtSBK

[Mr PitBull Stories @MrPitbull07]

In 1995, doctors gave an 8-month-old baby a second heart.

For the next 10 years, two hearts beat inside her chest.

Then something happened that changed medical history.

Her original heart healed itself.

Her name was Hannah Clark.

As a baby, she developed a severe form of cardiomyopathy — a disease that left her heart dangerously enlarged and too weak to pump blood properly.

Without surgery, she was going to die.

But there was a problem:

Her lungs had also been damaged by the strain on her failing heart, making a standard heart transplant extremely risky.

So legendary heart surgeon Sir Magdi Yacoub proposed something radical.

Instead of removing Hannah’s failing heart, he would leave it inside her chest and add a second donor heart beside it.

The donor heart would do the heavy work.

Hannah’s own exhausted heart would finally get a chance to rest.

In 1995, surgeons performed the operation successfully.

Hannah woke up with two hearts beating inside her body.

And for the next decade, she lived that way.

She went to school.
Played with friends.
Grew up carrying two hearts inside her chest.

But survival came at a cost.

To prevent rejection of the donor heart, Hannah had to take powerful immunosuppressant drugs every day.

Those drugs weakened her immune system so severely that she later developed cancer.

She also battled pneumonia, kidney failure, and rounds of chemotherapy during her childhood.

Then, in 2005, doctors discovered another problem:

Her body had started rejecting the donor heart.

The situation looked impossible.

Increasing the drugs could worsen the cancer.

Reducing them could destroy the donor heart.

And then came the shock.

After ten years of rest, Hannah’s original heart had recovered enough to function on its own.

The heart doctors once believed would never sustain her life again had quietly healed itself.

In 2006, surgeons removed the donor heart completely.

For the first time in medical history, a child survived after having a transplanted “piggyback” heart removed because their original heart had recovered.

As the donor heart was disconnected, everyone waited.

Then Hannah’s own heart took over.

Steady.
Strong.
Working normally.

Without the donor heart, she no longer needed the immunosuppressant drugs.

Her immune system recovered.

And eventually, so did she.

Today, Hannah Clark lives with the same heart she was born with the heart that once seemed too damaged to save her.

Her story changed how doctors think about heart failure in children.

Because sometimes healing doesn’t come from replacing what’s broken.

Sometimes it comes from giving it enough time, support, and rest to recover on its own.

[Olena Tregub @OTregub]

Ireland defense for supplying roughly 90% of EU alumina exports to Russia is that the EU never sanctioned alumina.
But when it came to Israel, Ireland didn't wait for the EU.
Dublin pushed ahead with its own Occupied Territories legislation, openly challenging the EU's common trade policy and arguing that moral considerations required action.
Apparently, "we can't act without Brussels" applies to Russia, but not to Israel.
Interesting standard.

[bookworm @readerbythesea]

@CaolanReports Putin forgot to ask Trump to beg Ukraine not to disturb his forum this time 😂

[Alexander Browder @Alexbrowder_]

Proud to be the first high school student in the world to ever be sanctioned by an authoritarian regime for uncovering corruption. It just proves that the work I’ve done to expose Russias sanctions evasion stablecoin, A7A5, has touched a raw nerve.

https://t.co/b0voHBkqG7

[Spencer Joseph @SpencerJJoseph]

The Irish government’s agreement to supply Russia with vast quantities of alumina is even more concerning than it first appears :

Australia banned the export of alumina to Russia, citing its critical role in the Kremlin's war machine. Meanwhile, Ireland’s exports of alumina to Russia have skyrocketed since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, now providing 99% of all alumina from the EU.

Ireland also approves approx 95% of all Russian visa applications - an extremely high percentage.

Ireland's Russian embassy in Dublin is widely viewed by security sources as a hub for Russian intelligence (GRU/SVR) and influence operations in Western Europe. It has an unusually large staff relative to bilateral ties, and Ireland's neutrality, location (back door to the UK), and open society make it attractive for hybrid activities