Yoss
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yossa.bsky.social
Yoss
@yossa.bsky.social
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yossa.bsky.social
Momentarily lost track of whether I was reading about state-sanctioned murder in Northern Ireland or a twist in the latest series of Traitors.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Extract from BBC link: >>>> Scappaticci helped create a legal precedent on state secrecy that is routinely cited by the government to this day. In 2003, he sought a judicial review over the then government's refusal to publicly deny media reports that he was Stakeknife. But Scappaticci was bluffing and did not actually want to succeed, since if the government was ordered to tell the truth, he would have been confirmed as Stakeknife. Scappaticci was engaged in a pretence to help shore up his reputation: publicly fighting a legal case, while hoping – and expecting – he would lose. However, the government feared Scappaticci would win because a judge would assume he was not Stakeknife and force ministers to be honest. Jon Boutcher has now confirmed an extraordinary fact: the judge who heard the case did so after being secretly briefed on the real identity of Stakeknife. That judge, the then Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, Lord Carswell, ultimately allowed the government to maintain NCND, creating the legal precedent on the policy. "The full facts about this and the government's explanation will never be known while it is able to hide behind the shield of NCND," Boutcher has said. There is a second extraordinary fact: the government barrister who did the secret briefing was Philip Sales, who as Lord Sales was one of the Supreme Court justices in the Paul Thompson case. This fact was uncovered by the journalist John Ware.
January 26, 2026 at 7:31 AM
yossa.bsky.social
To protect identities, MI5 will never put a real person up before the public, and will instead type "show me a picture of the poshest looking twat imaginable" into chatgpt.
October 16, 2025 at 7:53 PM
yossa.bsky.social
Poster for the original 1978 Superman film.
September 29, 2025 at 11:00 AM
yossa.bsky.social
Do not adjust your head.
August 21, 2025 at 2:33 PM
yossa.bsky.social
My profile pic, with sunglasses and a silk scarf covering most of the rest of my face. (Taken during a dust storm in Mustang Valley, Nepal, in 2006.)
August 12, 2025 at 10:51 AM
yossa.bsky.social
One of my least favourite journalism things is when they use the word "admits" when the word they actually want is "claims".
August 11, 2025 at 5:49 PM
yossa.bsky.social
The face I'm submitting to bluesky for verification.
My profile pic, with sunglasses and a silk scarf covering most of the rest of my face. (Taken during a dust storm in Mustang Valley, Nepal, in 2006.)
July 11, 2025 at 6:36 AM
yossa.bsky.social
Well done Deerhoof.
Luckily I already moved my subscription from spotify to tidal a while back.
Also luckily, I already bought much of Deerhoof's stuff, including their superb new album, through their bandcamp page.

I urge you all to do both of those things. And to catch their upcoming UK tour.
June 30, 2025 at 2:07 PM
yossa.bsky.social
Blank face.
June 28, 2025 at 1:07 PM
yossa.bsky.social
@danneidle.bsky.social is excellent on this kind of stuff, but - if I understood him right - I've seen him suggest that such exactness from year to year is a red flag.
eg this excerpt from this piece: taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/01/25/t...
June 11, 2025 at 4:57 PM
yossa.bsky.social
I mean, this is the BBC in 2025.
BBC screencap with headline -"What happens if someone finds the Loch Ness Monster?"
June 5, 2025 at 9:42 AM
yossa.bsky.social
Love this, so I'm reposting the image with alt-text.
What after all does it matter? A single, seemingly ordinary, rather technical insurance case. One among the many hundreds of rulings judges make each year. What does it matter? A case but a speck in the recesses of interstellar space and in the four-plus billion years since our solar system's birth. What does it matter, this case deserted by both space and time? To be human is to live in the here and now. This small case extracts courageous meaning from the vast impersonality in which it resides. Its immediacy confounds infinity; its passions light the dark. We have given it our best; the litigants have given it their best. The trial court has done the same. We do not overlook for a moment the tragic passing of the insured but neither can we ignore the contract under South Carolina law that defines the insurer's obligation. The judgment of the district court is accordingly affirmed, and this single case in all its smallness now reigns important and supreme. What after all does it matter? A single, seemingly ordinary, rather technical insurance case. One among the many hundreds of rulings judges make each year. What does it matter? A case but a speck in the recesses of interstellar space and in the four-plus billion years since our solar system's birth. What does it matter, this case deserted by both space and time? To be human is to live in the here and now. This small case extracts courageous meaning from the vast impersonality in which it resides. Its immediacy confounds infinity; its passions light the dark. We have given it our best; the litigants have given it their best. The trial court has done the same. We do not overlook for a moment the tragic passing of the insured but neither can we ignore the contract under South Carolina law that defines the insurer's obligation. The judgment of the district court is accordingly affirmed, and this single case in all its smallness now reigns important and supreme.
April 24, 2025 at 6:26 PM
yossa.bsky.social
Where's the next generation, @robfreemanfluff.bsky.social?
April 17, 2025 at 5:06 PM
yossa.bsky.social
young, smiling Bob Dylan old grumpypants Bob Dylan
April 8, 2025 at 7:54 PM
yossa.bsky.social
early era Roy of the Rovers moody late era Roy of the Rovers
April 8, 2025 at 7:31 PM
yossa.bsky.social
An excerpt from (the very good) East West Street, by @philippesands.bsky.social.
"President Wilson proposed a special treaty to link Poland‘s membership in the league of Nations with a commitment to equal treatment for racial and national minorities. Wilson was supported by France, Britain objected, fearful that similar rights would then be according to other groups, including American Negroes, southern Irish, Flemings and Catalans. The new league of Nations must not protect minorities in all countries, a British official complained, or it would have the right to protect the Chinese in Liverpool, the Roman Catholics in France, the French in Canada, quite apart from more serious problems, such as the Irish. Britain objected to any depletion of sovereignty - the right to treat others as it wished - or international oversight. It took this position even if the price was more injustice and oppression."
March 3, 2025 at 10:26 AM
yossa.bsky.social
Football supporters, a father and two sons, dressed up with flags and scarves as if for a big occasion - but alone and looking lost in an apparently deserted and decrepit stadium.
November 25, 2024 at 7:01 PM
yossa.bsky.social
This Allison Pearson? Racist?
Screenshot of Telegraph twitter link to Allison Pearson article in 2019, with the line "Shamima Begum may have been born here, but she was never British."
November 18, 2024 at 7:38 AM