Impressive, Mastodon.scot. 👏 👏 👏

via @magsamond

https://mastodon.ie/@magsamond/117123042735500844

How, sometimes with the best of intentions, we don't understand wild animals:

"Bears have a culture that they learn from their mother over a period of two to three years, says Chris Servheen, co-chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) North American bears expert team. “Their mother teaches them what to eat and where to go to look for foods at different times of the year, what to avoid, what to be afraid of,” he says."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/18/orphan-bears-die-in-the-wild-grizzlies

Bought and paid for. This is obscenely outrageous. nobody - NOBODY - in politics should be taking this sort of money in "donations". However you dress it up, it is corruption writ large and it means that those with money are buying influence. The wealthy are not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts - they are buying politicians and it has to stop.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/aug/18/burnham-declares-almost-350000-in-donations-in-months-before-becoming-pm

There are those who should hang their heads in shame. There are no words for the contempt in which I hold people such as these.

https://bylinetimes.com/2026/08/18/the-peter-thiel-linked-race-science-network-that-penetrated-cambridge-university-and-targeted-jason-arday/

Still proudly "Woke" here. I'll go to my grave with my beliefs intact.

"Never mind that this “left” is a grab bag of remote, suggestible corporate liberals and online folk. In this lies the biggest logical flaw of our time – the assumption of an equivalence between social behaviours and state power. The left may have toppled a few statues. That left has not waged executive war on universities, sued and removed funding, or imprisoned students for political expression." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/18/woke-progressives-rightwing-backlash-equality

Ambitious? Yes, but where would we be without ambition? Cities in general and Edinburgh with its unique challenges in particular, are not suited to cars. Anything that prioritises urban mass transit and that reduces urban congestion is to be welcomed. https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2026/08/18/building-sustainable-cities/

Wishful thinking:

An email I received today offered me "14 charts on planetary heating". For one brief but hopeful moment, I thought they referred to "Planetary healing". The disappointment I felt was palpable 😢

You didn't notice this on your travels, did you @JackTheCat ? I wish it well in its bid for freedom! https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/highland-wildlife-park-escaped-monkey-b3034341.html

RE: https://mastodonapp.uk/@kentishfran/117106485756151458

J H-B is seriously unwell if this and her appearances on Question Time are anything to go by.

That'll do me to send me to my bed with renewed optimism. Couldn't happen to a more deserving "politician" https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-poll-farage-clacton-burnham-b3033535.html

...and the rate of rise in CO2 in the PETM was nowhere near as rapid as it is in the anthropocene. We're in deep trouble:

"Around 56 million years ago, a sharp rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere led to severe global warming that transformed the planet’s surface. A detailed reconstruction of an ancient ecosystem suggests that this transformation included a widespread decline in forest cover."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02544-y?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=1c8e108e31-nature-briefing-daily-20260814&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-33f35e09ea-49717696

After a coffee and cheese scone, a walk (more of a scramble in places) upstream on the Findhorn river from the little church at Ardclach. Time to sit on a rock and watch the swirls and eddies of the peat-brown water as it flows around the rocks and submerged obstructions. On the path, sloes, rowan berries, and all manner of wild flowers. And not another soul to be seen (or heard).

Orcas are highly social animals and the matriarch has special significance to the remainder of the pod. These are one of the few animal species where females have a menopause and remain as a source of wisdom for younger Orcas. This makes me weep (and furious). How can people behave like this?

“Whatever someone’s opinion about those interactions may be, shooting at these animals can never be an acceptable response. These orcas need protection, not retaliation.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/14/iberian-orca-known-for-ramming-boats-seen-with-suspected-gunshot-wounds

"Rising temperatures driven by anthropogenic climate change are the main factor behind the increase in fire weather, says Cordero. “When you have a heatwave, you are also going to have extreme fire-weather conditions.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02361-3

I mentioned to my son when we met up for coffee today, the wonderful film "My Octopus Teacher". One of his twins, overhearing the conversation asked "What's an octopus T-shirt? I now want an octopus T-shirt (and she is sixteen-year-old embarrassed to have slipped up).

There was a time, and it feels as though it was a lifetime ago, when Kevin McKenna's columns seemed (even to leftie me) to contain some sense, some degree of analytical thought. Now? Well, I may have shifted (even further) left, but this seems simply unhinged. What is is about Nicola Sturgeon that causes people like McKenna, Rowling and Cherry to lose their minds? Blest if I know...

https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2026/08/13/from-the-platinum-lounge/

Not even a glimpse of the sun. Boo! About as grey as I'd expect on a heavily overcast day.

#Taliban

"...the trend is unmistakable: conditions for girls and women have worsened over the past five years. Moreover, as countries establish links with the Taliban, they are doing so without pushing for progress on human rights. It is shameful that half the country’s population — more than 20 million women and girls — has been ignored by the international community.

Since 2021, around 2.4 million girls have been excluded from secondary education..."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02454-z?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=857ea76744-nature-briefing-daily-20260812&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-33f35e09ea-49717696

"Death by Trebuchet" - and at Stirling Castle too. https://www.science.org/content/article/shattered-skeleton-scottish-castle-first-confirmed-death-trebuchet?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=857ea76744-nature-briefing-daily-20260812&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-33f35e09ea-49717696

RE: https://flipboard.social/@newsguyusa/117083136346647480

Really? It's not as though we all floated off into space the last time an eclipse happened - or in any of the previous thousands and thousands of eclipses in the history of this planet. Are some people REALLY that gullible?