Never mind Sleepless in Seattle this is Breakfast in... Seattle here at the legendary Beth’s Cafe. I’ve gone for their famous 12 egg omelette called Triple Bypass with hardwood smoked-bacon, diced ham, sausage & unlimited hash browns. Washed down a pint of Dr Pepper & Earl Grey teashow more

This is the only existing footage of Mark Twain.... It was filmed in 1909, and within a year, he was gone... The man walking there, in the white suit with the cigar, and sitting outside at a table with his two daughters, is Samuel Clemens, the legendary writer the world knew as Mark Twain. By 1909 he was one of the most famous men alive. The footage was shot by Thomas Edison himself, who visited Twain at Stormfield, his home in Redding, Connecticut. It is in black and white, it flickers with age, and it is the only known film of Twain ever made. The father of American literature has been gone for more than a century, but here, for a few flickering seconds, he is still alive.show more

I’m working from a small village in north east... India this week. Place took me 4 modes of transport and 24 hours to get to. Everyone knows everyone here. To a degree that you can step out and everyone will invite you to their house for tea/black coffee because they know you’re someone’s guest. All the houses here have their own private ponds. Fishing is a thing. Growing your own veggies is a thing. People are cooking together today for some festival. Men are cutting vegetables. Women are cooking. People take turns to serve food while others eat. Saw a snake casually chilling by a pond. Nobody budged. This place is like the Australia of India. Messi is really popular here. I’ve met a kids named Messi. Someone from the village paid 10 lakh for a selfie with Messi when he came to Kolkata Rock music has its own fan base in the village children. Arctic monkeys is really popular. So is stranger things. They’re looking at me work on my laptop asking me if this is how I’ll spend all my time. The most interesting day one I’ve had at anyplace in a while.show more

🇺🇸 🇮🇷 ARE THE REGIME LEADERSHIP NOTHING BUT A... BUNCH OF BAGHDAD BOBS?! Every single day it is the same show out of Tehran. The mother of all battles. Blackouts for America. Total annihilation. Big talk, zero results. Meanwhile here is the actual scoreboard. They lob missiles and drones at our bases. We shoot them down. They will not touch a US Navy ship. Instead they go after commercial tankers that cannot shoot back. Thats not war, thats cowardice. We absorb a prick and answer with 170 strikes in two days. Air defenses gone. Coastal radar gone. Drone sites gone. On top of that their Supreme Leader is dead and buried, and his replacement has not even shown his face in public since taking over. This is not a regime running a war. This is a regime running its mouth. Trump has the right instinct here. Keep pounding them until the propaganda catches up to reality. Baghdad Bob lost the information war standing in front of tanks. These guys are losing it standing in front of rubble.show more

This woman, Dr. Jennifer Tufts, had LITERALLY just been... board certified on September 12, 2022 (just 3 days before her first visit with Lindsay Clancy). This woman, Dr. Jennifer Tufts, had NEVER met Lindsay Clancy in person before August 7, 2026 (ALMOST 4 YEARS LATER) This woman, Dr. Jennifer Tufts was falsely advertising her “interests” as areas of expertise This woman, Dr. Jennifer Tufts has never used the “Edinburgh Scale” (which is a scale that rates levels of depressing and the severity of the symptoms) This woman, Dr. Jennifer Tufts picked and chose what to document in detail in her notes, other wise a good ol’ check of the box is a-okay for her This woman, Dr. Jennifer Tufts prescribes medicines and controlled substances to the mentally unwell in our society This woman, Dr. Jennifer Tufts claimed under oath that she “didn’t know why Lindsay came in to see her” This woman, Dr. Jennifer Tufts did her job, sure, TO THE BARE MINIMUM.. and for that she absolutely IS NEGLIGENT HERE! (even if she doesn’t believe so) aaaand it is OF MY OPINION, that she has some culpability in this case. SURE every medical professional has to start out somewhere, OBVIOUSLY, but maybe JUST MAYBE.. someone who did their schooling/residency through the covid era should have consulted with someone who was used to SEEING actual patients IN PERSON, when she decided to take Lindsay on as a client. Given she was so new, no ethical peer of hers would have turned down an opportunity to help and offer a consult atleast. The fact she has NEVER met Lindsay in person before last Friday is beyond scary to me.. Telehealth in general is scary to me! You absolutely cannot (I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL) properly diagnose or treat someone PRIMARILY or ENTIRELY over a screen visit, I am sorry, you just can’t! And if “telehealth” “through the television” (as KShred would say) is the future of Mental Healthcare, we are fucked!! WE WILL SEE MORE OF THIS IN THE FUTURE! “May God Save The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts” #LindsayClancyTrial ⚖️🇺🇸 #KShred #KevinShreddingtonshow more

Life has quietly changed for me in the most... unexpected ways. Last year we visited a woodland in Devon with a small 2 bedroom thatched cottage hidden down a long track. Never did I think that a year later we would have moved in and be calling it our home. Right before we moved, and shortly after my last post, I also fell pregnant. I’ve never felt especially maternal and, although it wasn’t an accident, stepping into motherhood hasn’t come entirely naturally to me. I’ve given myself time in the garden (no surprise there) to arrive at this new chapter gently. I think I’ve found my footing now - we’re less than two months away - though I know it’s only the beginning of the journey. To everyone who messaged during this quiet period asking where I’d gone, thank you. And thank you for your patience while I’ve been finding my way through it all. So here begins a whole new adventure. One I can’t wait to share - full of gardens, nature, and the fullest kind of life.show more

We buy like 5 loafs from the local bakery... every few months Then cut all loaf in slices, I got this bread cutting machine for it on Amazon Then we freeze those slices We don't eat bread a lot but sometimes, so if you wanna eat bread, you just put a frozen slice in air fryer for about 7 minutes and you have toasted bread One reason is that whenever we go to the bakery here after 12 noon all bread is sold out, so this is easier Now studies show freezing bread and other starches is healthier for you as it doesn't spike your blood sugar as much Related I try to start my day with protein, never carbs or sugar, just egg or meat and then carbs or fruit after I know lots of people start their day with fruits cause I see it at hotel breakfast and I try avoid starting my day with that This trick originally from Andrey Azimov who got it from Michael from Dojobalishow more

The hash-consuming culture in Afghanistan is one of the... world’s oldest and most fascinating cannabis legacies — a 1000+ year saga of mastery, mysticism, and ingenuity. Afghanistan is widely regarded as the cradle of hashish (chars in Dari/Pashto). Cannabis likely originated in Central Asia, with Afghan landraces (like Mazar-i-Sharif & Hindu Kush) producing some of the most resinous plants on Earth. Hash culture dates back to antiquity, intertwined with Sufi mysticism. Legend credits Baba Ku (or Baba Kuhandan), a Sufi saint from Balkh, with introducing hashish to Afghanistan. He and his followers consumed massive amounts as a divine sacrament & medicine. Today, “hashish babas” still honor him in smoking fraternities, puffing giant hubble-bubbles in his memory. For centuries, hash was mostly local — used socially, medicinally, and spiritually. A unique custom: eating melon with hashish to amplify the high & reduce side effects. Consumption often happened in chillum bars or via naysha (sucking vapors through a straw with water in the mouth like a human bong). The real revolution came with production techniques. Unlike hand-rubbed charas (common in India/Nepal), Afghan hash pioneered dry sieving — a method likely refined in the 19th century (possibly earlier roots in the Middle Ages across northern Iran/Afghanistan). The process is pure artistry: Dried cannabis plants are beaten or shaken over fine cloth/screens. Trichomes (resin glands) fall as golden powder (garda/kief). Multiple passes through progressively finer sieves remove plant matter, yielding ultra-pure resin — up to 40-60% THC. This dry-sift method suits Afghan landraces perfectly — their large, sticky trichomes separate cleanly. The powder is then hand-pressed (often with a touch of water/tea) into elastic, aromatic bricks or balls. The result? Legendary Afghan Black — dark, pungent, and incredibly potent. What makes it fascinating: generations of refinement. Farmers select for resin-heavy plants, creating “terroir” in every valley. From Balkh’s famous Shirak-e Mazar (dark brown, earthy) to premium Panjshir varieties — each batch reflects local soil, climate, and family secrets. The 1960s-70s Hippie Trail exploded global demand. Western travelers flocked to Kabul for world-class Afghan hash, turning it from local tradition into international legend. Afghanistan became the top source, outshining even Morocco’s soap-bar era with higher quality. Afghan innovation didn’t stop at sieving. Modern refinements include static electricity techniques — using electric charge to attract pure trichomes while repelling plant debris (a “Static Tech” cleanup that boosts purity even further). It’s a bridge from ancient craft to advanced solventless purity. Despite wars, bans (since the 1970s), and eradication attempts, the culture endures. Hash remains more common than opium in many areas — a daily ritual for some, a social bond for others. Experts judge quality by 5 traits: purity, bubbling (when heated), aroma, taste, and “bite” (that scorpion-sting buzz). Fascinating fact: Afghan hash can store for years without losing potency thanks to gentle sieving that preserves trichomes. And the diversity? One valley to the next yields wildly different flavors — spicy, earthy, almost incense-like — all from the same ancient plant. Afghanistan’s hash legacy is more than a product — it’s living history: Sufi sacraments, masterful sieving, static wizardry, and unbreakable traditions. In a world of modern extracts, the old ways of Afghan chars still produce some of the finest resin humanity has ever known. 🇦🇫🌿 What’s your favorite hash origin story? Drop it below! #AfghanHash #CannabisHistory #CharsCultureshow more

Teenage girls went to a basketball game in my... backyard(Seattle) wearing t-shirts. According to journalist Brandi Kruse, who was there, they were cussed at, berated and deliberately tripped by adults. By fans. Reportedly with a team owner in the vicinity. For wearing a shirt. And here is the part that should stop everyone cold. The shirt said XX and XY. That is the female karyotype and the male karyotype. It is what is printed in every biology textbook in every classroom in this country. Rare chromosomal disorders exist and produce no third sex, because there is no third gamete. There never has been. They were tripped over a fact you learn in ninth grade. The Storm have said nothing. The WNBA has said nothing. A league that markets itself relentlessly on love, inclusion and belonging watched grown adults go after teenage girls in its own building, and could not locate a statement. Imagine the press release if those girls had worn anything else. They were there to support Sophie Cunningham, who said she believes girls should not have to compete against males, and that she offers truth alongside love, not hate. They held signs saying thank you for speaking up for girls. That is what earned them a foot in the aisle. I live here, and I am done pretending I do not recognize the pattern, because it is the same attitude that is killing this city. City leadership that treats the businesses employing our neighbors as the enemy. Open drug use on sidewalks where children walk to school. A homelessness crisis everyone can see and nobody in power will honestly name. Every one of those is a problem you fix by looking straight at reality, and this is a city that has made not looking into a civic religion. Compassion is the branding. Conformity is the product. Agree and you are family. Step half an inch outside the consensus and the warmth evaporates fast enough to give you whiplash. Seattle used to be the most beautiful place I had ever lived. It is being run into the ground by a fringe that mistakes volume for virtue, and the ordinary people who live here are paying for it. But there is no version of this where adults tripping teenage girls is the righteous side of anything. If your movement requires shoving fourteen year olds over a chromosome chart, you have lost the argument and you are simply angry about it. And a housekeeping note for the franchise. You are 6 and 23. Dead last. The worst record in professional women's basketball. Maybe spend less energy policing what teenagers wear to the arena and more on the part where you cannot win a game. Say something, Seattle. Those were somebody's kids. 🦋show more

I hate best of lists, so I thought I’d... make one 😂. These are the top 10 things I ate in 2025, based on one criteria, how much I personally liked it… the list isn’t force ranked, as it was hard enough to narrow it down to 10… I might also mention, that while not on the list below, my favorite overall dinning experience would be dinner with my wife at The Eighty Six in NYC. And if you do take the time to read this whole post, which of these 10 would you like to try most? Have to start the list with the amazing Pasta ala Presse at Major Food Group’s The Grill in NYC, still my favorite pasta dish in all of NYC The White Truffle Pasta at Orsini in Zurich Roast Chicken at Maison Close in NYC, their wine list isn’t great and they don’t allow corkage, so I haven’t been back, but that chicken was spectacular Caramelized Onion Pizza with Gruyère, Nueske’s Bacon, and Morels, finished with fresh herbs and Maldon’s Salt in our Ooni, my backyard in Connecticut CONIGLIO AL FORNO - roasted rabbit saddle, confit legs and rabbit cappellacci at Santi NYC While service was a major miss, and the duck wasn’t served hot, it was room temperature, the honey lavender duck from three Michelin star Eleven Madison Park in NYC still makes the list, a true testament to how great this dish is… Hand-Dived Scallop with Cafe de Paris Butter at Noble Rot Mayfair in London which I paired with the 2020 Charles Lachaux, Bourgogne Aligote 'Les Champs d'Argent' which was a brilliant match A sphere made from puffed gluten, filled with smoke and topped with cream, a langoustine tartare, almond cream and some osetra caviar at The Alchemist in Copenhagen The A5 Wagyu Sando at NYC’s Sip & Guzzle Chef David’s A5 Wagyu topped with osetra caviar at Cote NYC. My post on this dish got a number of haters, I might mention all haters who never tried this… the saltiness of the caviar worked well with the fat of the Wagyu, and it was a perfect single morsel of ‘land & sea’show more

I FIND GREATER BUSHENYI TO BE INCREDIBLE! KAMPALA SACCOS... MAY WANT TO MAKE STUDY TOURS HERE Over this Easter holiday in Bushenyi, I was hoping to find some time to write a more formal piece on law. Instead, as you can see in these clips, Kabagareme, the booming Saturday meat market got in the way. You will never find a better meal, a better price and the extra satisfaction of actually supporting the local people’s “hustle” Deeply satisfying on all fronts. Kabagarame is yet another example of the high levels of civic awareness and organization of the people here. Apart from always being well represented in National since independence, Bushenyi has achieved social-economic transformation through embracing formal education very early on. It’s not uncommon to find families with three generations of university graduates here unlike almost anywhere else in Uganda. Most 50-60 year old Ugandans are one generation removed from peasantry. And, I think that Bushenyi’s case is not the case of the “diploma disease” that afflicts Uganda, generally. There’s a big difference between papers and an education. The former, I hear, you can buy at Nasser road, the latter, you cannot. It must translate in the way you think and live. The people here for example, organized their land holding as early as the 1960s when most land here got surveyed and titled. Elsewhere, land fragmentation, disorder, disputes and violence still block economic progress. Access to credit for example, is much easier when you have titled land. The per capita income here is even by visual estimation only, high. Generally, every household has a combination of any of the following crops; coffee, tea and bananas or all three. They will generally keep at least a few crossbred cows. Each of those is a cash crop in its own right. I have never seen a grass thatched house here. Especially tea factories dot the magically beautiful green hills along with several schools whose performance in the National exam, a National obsession, is among the very best in the country. The stretch between Kyamuhunga and Kasese covering the present day Rubirizi and Bunyarunguru districts is perhaps, the most beautiful part of Uganda. It spots the beautiful magical twin crater lakes of Kyema and Kamweru (“Africa”), the Kazinga channel, lakes Edward and George. One can have the breathtaking, sweeping panoramic views of Queen Elizabeth National park, Mountain Rwenzori, and all aforesaid lakes, atop the West arm of the great East Africa rift valley. There are so many hotels in Bunyaruguru of which Kyangabi Crater Resort has always been my favorite. Although, it has to be said, the views are at King Fisher Lodge. The big revelation to me this holiday however is how well the SACCOS here seem to be doing. I took interest in taking a closer look at upcountry SACCOS from my friend Muhimbise Atiki and Kakande Alex ‘s recent analysis of Y-SAVE’s no dividend in two years situation. From anecdotal evidence, the biggest SACCOS here include Kyamuhunga, Mushanga and Muhame. At least two of these SACCOS have a loan portfolio of ugx. 50BN each! Today, one declared and gave dividends. SACCOS might be the local solution that has been brewing to building local capital. SACCOS might also finally break the back of the trust deficit and therefore high risk that underbelly Uganda borrowing resulting in high interest rates. Kampala SACCOS may, after putting down The Intelligent Investor, need to come here for a practical education. There’s a lot to admire and learn.show more

Tepe double murder investigation: "Detectives believe the murder of... Mr. and Mrs. Tepe occurred sometime between 2:00 and 5:00 a.m. on the morning of December 30th in the upstairs of their residence." At 10:03 a.m., a friend of the Tepe's made a 911 call & reported he looked through a window and saw Spencer Tepe's body by a bed. How did the friend see the Dr. Tepe's body on the second floor, unless, LE is designating the floor above the basement as the second floor? Their building had 4 bedrooms. It seems 3 were up and 1 was down, but LE said they were found "upstairs". Definitely confused messaging because if the Tepe's were truly upstairs on the 2nd floor, how could anyone peer in and see Dr. Tepe's deceased body? Why did the dental office call 911 after less than an hour after Dr. Tepe was late for work? And the owner of the dental office called - from Florida. Maybe nothing, but I have never heard of someone calling 911 for a late employee that quickly. Could be nothing. Could be significant. Please continue to circulate the video. It could be the key. 2AM - 5 AM this guy was in the alley. That is usual. There were only 3 shots and they were precise. #dentistmurder #tepeshow more

First time back at Babbo since Starr took over,... last time I was here Mario Batali was still at the helm. Started with the Tagliatelle Tartufi with fresh Tuscan white truffles paired with the 2011 Barolo Renzo Seghesio, 'Ginestra.’ I’ve had Tagliatelle Tartufi at numerous high end Italian places in NYC, this was my least favorite, the best? Santi hands down. Babbo’s version seemed to still be swimming in Pasta Water, and not a lot of flavor. While the pasta was good not great, the Barolo exceeded my expectations. Followed with their 100 Layer Lasagne with parmigiano-reggiano crema, bolognese, Pugliese tomato marinara. Last time I had this was at Mario’s Del Posto. The portion at Babbo is family style for 4ppl, presentation is amazing. Was probably the only dish I remember loving at Del Posto, and was better here, by a ways! Paired tonight with the 2010 Brunello di Montalcino Mulinari, 'L'Aietta.’ Both the wine and Lasagna 10/10. Pure indulgence and flavor 💣! A must have. Currently my favorite lasagna in #NYC. Vibe and energy still very much as it was under Mario. I felt the service was better, friendlier, than prior, and food quality very similar maybe a little better than my prior visit. Fun place with a group, lots of energy and “vibe.” Overall, a better experience today than prior, and would come back with a larger group to explore more of the menu and their large list of Italian wines more fully. Didn’t hurt that the music tonight was all 80’s…show more

Lads. Sit down and give me your ear a... while, for I have watched from the water long enough and the hour is upon us whether we have the stomach for it or not. You remember. Or your fathers told you, or their fathers did, and the knowledge of it is in the marrow of you whether you drew breath in those days or not. The moors in the grey hour before dawn. Wet heather soft under the boot. Peat smoke rising from a low stone chimney a mile out across the bog, thin as a prayer. A sky the colour of a gun barrel and the gulls lamenting above the headland. The smell of turf burning, and wet wool, and the ferrous tang of the sea when the wind swung around out of the Atlantic and put the taste of iron on your tongue. A man could walk that land and know every stone of it was his by inheritance, because his grandfather had broken his back upon it, and his grandfather before him, back through the generations until you reach men whose names are lost and whose bones are in the soil you are standing on. The potato fields. God be good to us, the potato fields. Lazy beds cut straight as a gunwale, the ridges black and shining after a night of rain, women bent double with creels lashed to their backs and the children at their skirts, drawing the crop up by the hand for there was never any other means devised nor wanted. Hands split open at the knuckles and never entirely healed in this life. Hunger within living memory. Grandmothers who had seen the blight with their own eyes and would not speak of it from the year of it until the day they were laid down, save that a crust was kept always on the dresser which no soul in that house was permitted to touch. Not ever. Not for any reason under heaven. And the chimney sweeps. Wee lads no heavier than a sack of meal, black to the bone with soot, their lungs ruined before they were old enough to marry and old men entirely by thirty. Up the flues at first light, the skin worn off them by the brick, eyes crimson at the rim, breathing the black in with every draw of air. And the coal miners a half mile beneath our feet, down in the wet dark, the roof of the world muttering over their heads, the canary gone silent, a man's whole existence measured out in the shilling a ton and the dust he carried home in his chest to cough up of a Sunday morning into a rag. Fathers who descended and were never hauled up again. Widows at the pit head with the shawl drawn over the head and no tears remaining in them for they had spent those long ago. That was the tariff paid to keep the hearth lit. That was the reckoning of being warm in winter in the Ireland that was. And after the labouring week, Friday evening, and a man had earned the peace of what followed. Home first. Peeled the day off him in the yard. A shower of ice cold moor river water out of a tin bucket punctured with holes, hung on a nail on the gable wall, the water running clean down the back of him and carrying the week's dust and sweat away into the drain. Scrubbed till the skin was pink beneath the grime. Clean shirt laid out by the wife. The hair combed down with a drop of water. Then, and only then, did a man set himself to the table. A meat pie from the baker, tenpence if he was known to you, a shilling and no change if he was not, put down upon a proper plate. Fish and chips for threepence, the salt and vinegar soaked through the newspaper, but carried home and ate slowly at your own table with your people around you, not walked with through the streets like some vagrant tinker off the road. A man ate as a man who had earned his portion, for he had. And later, with the dishes cleared and the kettle set, down the road to the tavern. Low beams black with a century of smoke. A turf fire muttering in the grate. The air thick with pipe smoke and the vapour of wet overcoats steaming themselves dry on the backs of chairs. A pint of stout, cold and black as a cove at midnight, elevenpence laid down on the counter, a head on it thick enough to strike a match upon. A second one because you had it coming to you and no man present would dispute it. A fiddle starting up in the corner of its own accord. The old men in the snug who remembered matters the history books had long since mislaid. A song before the bolt was thrown on the door. The walk home beneath a firmament crowded with stars, the stout warm in the gut of you, the week behind you, and your own door waiting with the latch unlocked for you had no enemies in that parish. That was the country. That was the covenant. Honest labour, plain food, a cold wash, a hot meal, a cold pint, your own tongue in your own mouth, your own soil beneath your boots, and no man standing above you save the Almighty Himself. Now regard her. Regard her close. The fields disposed of to men who have never set foot upon them and never shall. The harbours signed away by the stroke of a pen in a room you were not admitted to, and foreign keels dragging out of our waters the living that sustained this island for a thousand years, while our own boats rot at their moorings for want of a quota. The tradesmen undercut by imported labour and imported goods. The shops shuttered along every main street from Donegal to Cork. The young ones scattered to London and Sydney and Boston and the Gulf because there is nothing remaining for them beneath their own roof. And the entirety of this rotten arrangement dressed up in the soft mannerly language of progress by men in towers of glass who could not tell a lazy bed from a grave, nor a trawler from a tugboat, nor an honest day's work from a pension plan. And now they arrive with the next imposition. A digital identity. A number assigned to each soul. A card required to buy your bread. A code required to draw your own earnings out of your own account. A file kept on every man, woman and child from the cradle forward. Permission asked to move. Permission asked to speak. Permission asked to earn. A levy upon every breath drawn and a regulation upon every step taken. No. And no again. And no for a third time so there is no misunderstanding of it. We do not require your digital identity. We did not request it. We did not vote upon it. We do not consent to it. We do not need your permission to exist upon the soil our forefathers are buried in. We are a free people. We have carried ourselves this far upon our own two backs. Through famine and empire and civil war and black lung and blight and the emigrant ship out of Cobh, we have come this distance under our own steam, and the arrangement appears to be serving us well enough without your intervention. We buried our own. We fed our own. We raised our own roofs and took our own fish and reared our own children in our own tongue. We are in your debt for nothing. Not a signature. Not a biometric scan. Not a single solitary inch. And while we are upon the subject, let us speak plainly of the tax man, for he has gone too long without proper introduction. The tax collector and the tax man are the one article under two names, and the article is a parasite. There is no dressing it up finer than that. A man who produces nothing, who grows nothing, who catches nothing, who builds nothing, who mends nothing, who has never in his professional life lifted anything heavier than a pen, and who arrives at your door with the full apparatus of the state at his back to carry off the fruits of labour he did not perform. He is a middleman between your sweat and some scheme dreamt up in a committee room by his own kind, and the great majority of what he takes is consumed by the machinery of the taking itself before ever a penny of it reaches the road or the hospital or the schoolhouse he claims to be funding. And I will go further while I have the floor. Finance itself, the whole apparatus of it, money breeding money in the dark without a hand laid upon a tool or a spade turned in the earth, is slavery dressed in a good suit. It is the oldest swindle known to man and it has never been anything other. A man who produces nothing yet lives off the productive labour of others through the charging of interest upon money conjured out of nothing is a parasite of a rarer and more refined order than the tax man, but a parasite all the same, and between the pair of them they have the working people of this island bled white and lectured at for the pleasure. A man who will not work with his hands, nor with his back, nor with his mind at some honest problem of the real physical world, is no man that I recognise. He is a ledger entry in a suit. The country was not built by ledger entries. The country was built by farmers and fishermen and masons and smiths and sweeps and miners and shipwrights and midwives and mothers, and those are the people whose say should carry in her councils, and no other. Here is what I put to you. Let each man and woman of this island direct the first tenth of their earnings themselves, by their own judgement, to the purpose they see as worthy. The school down the road. The lifeboat station. The hospice. The widow on the corner. The roof of the chapel. The harbour wall. Whatever it may be. Let the people who earned the money decide where the money travels. You will find the roads mended and the ports dredged and the schools standing and the old ones cared for inside of five years, and done better and for less, because the hand that earned the coin knows the weight of it and will not squander it upon consultants and committees. And let us have done with the paper currency and the numbers in a screen that can be frozen at the whim of a clerk in a tower. Bring back the coin. Gold for the great transactions. Silver for the weekly commerce of a working life. Copper for the small change of the day. Metal you can bite. Metal you can weigh. Metal that cannot be conjured out of nothing by a keystroke, nor erased out of existence by another. Real money for real labour. A coin in the hand is a free man's wage. A number in a database is a collar around a free man's neck, and they are fitting that collar now while we stand arguing over the colour of it. Feel it in your gut. That is not nothing. That is your blood relating to you what your ears will not hear. That is every forebear who starved and fought and coughed the black dust into a rag and descended the shaft regardless, standing at your shoulder and saying no further. Not one more field. Not one more harbour. Not one more son upon a plane. Not one more free man converted into a number in a ledger for the convenience of the parasites. This is the hour. Make no error about it. Ireland is redeemed in this generation or she is lost beyond recovery, and every true son and daughter of her knows it in the marrow. There is no middle ground remaining. There is no waiting it out. There is standing now, upon your own two feet, or there is watching her go under the waves for the last and final time. So stand. Stand with your farmers. Stand with your fishermen. Stand with your tradesmen and your miners and your sweeps and your mothers and your old ones. Raise the tricolour. Speak the tongue. Walk the land. Hold the line in the streets of every town and city and do not break it, for they are relying upon you to break and to go home and to forget by Tuesday. She is calling her children home. Every stone of her, every breaker on her western shore, every acre of wet heather and every coal in every hearth the length and breadth of her is calling. Answer her. Take her back. Every field, every harbour, every last inch of her. Take her back, or lose her entirely. There is no third road open to us.show more

I have gained experience over a long period of... time, and based on that, I am sharing this with all of you. Tigers that leave Bandhavgarh and move into territorial forests do not find safe habitat at all in the forests of Shahdol and Anuppur districts. Similarly, tigers coming out of Panna often reach the forests of Sagar and Katni, where they face a major threat to their safety. In the same way, in the Balaghat Territorial Forest Division (both northern and southern ranges) adjoining Kanha Tiger Reserve, there is absolutely no safe habitat for tigers. Nauradehi holds the tag of being the largest tiger reserve, yet tigers are not safe here either. Madhav Tiger Reserve has never been favorable for tigers from the beginning—past experiences in this park have not been good. The route that tigers use while coming from here towards Rajasthan is also unsafe for wild animals. Yes, the arrival of cheetahs has somewhat increased the movement of monitoring teams in this area automatically. We think that tigers have developed the habit of living with humans or amidst villages, but the reality is exactly the opposite, which we are completely ignoring. In the past 3 years alone, 140 tigers have fallen prey to poaching in Madhya Pradesh. And the surprising thing is that Madhya Pradesh is the only state where 380–400 tigers are present in the territorial (non-reserve) forests. “This number of tigers is more than double the total tiger population of Rajasthan.” Some of these tigers do move in and out of reserve forests or share boundaries with them, but most of them live entirely outside protected forests, without any security or monitoring. This is an extremely worrying issue. Today, tigers have completely distributed themselves across both the Vindhya and Satpura mountain ranges in Madhya Pradesh. Whatever new initiatives and innovations the state and central governments are bringing for their protection, in reality, they are either insufficient or are not being properly implemented on the ground. If nature has blessed the earth with such a beautiful and powerful creature, then it is the duty of every individual to protect it. Our country is fortunate that 75% of the world’s wild tiger population resides in India. I got a bit emotional, so I felt it necessary to write all this. If you like what I’ve said, please share it. #bandhavgarhnationalpark #kanhatigerreserve #madhavtigerreserve #Ranthambhorenationalparkshow more

Let me get this straight, because it broke my... American brain. In the UK there is a thing called the telly tax. You do not pay it because you watch the BBC. You pay it because you own a television at all. The physical box in your living room. So the government charges you for the privilege of owning a screen, then uses the money to fund the channel you were trying to avoid. It is a cover charge for a party you never wanted to attend. And now 2.6 million households have looked at that deal and said no thank you, the biggest walkout in a generation. Meanwhile, in the land of the free and the aggressively over-appliance, I have six televisions. Six. All of them Samsungs. One exists purely to play weather radar and college football in a room I enter twice a month. Nobody taxed me for a single one. No letter, no inspector at my door confirming I own a Samsung. So here is my modest proposal for everyone over there still paying. You still own the box. You still get the bill. So on the same night, all of you, haul the telly down to the river and on the count of three heave it in. Call it the London TV Party. You already have the blueprint. Some colonists did the exact same thing with a boatload of tea in a harbor once, and it worked out pretty well for the ones doing the throwing. The BBC taxes the box, so you drown the box. No box, no tax. No tax, no lecture. Just a very confused fish watching reruns at the bottom of the river. I am not saying start a revolution over a television fee. I am just saying it would not be the first time a tax in the water turned into a whole new country. 🥃🦋show more