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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

The instruction manual of a 1980s Commodore 64 game had more sense than the current US president.

The Middle East is still the world's trouble spot Israel and Syria duel in desultory fashion over southern Lebanon and their common border, the Golan Heights. The Iran-Iraq war continues to hold the danger of a losing Iran seeking revenge by closing the Straits of Hormuz to oil traffic. Worse, Iranian-style religious radicalism might surface in any nearby Moslem state, triggering a civil war. If an American friend calls for aid, or international straits need to be cleared, in America's "Central Command" reaction force the key unit is the 101st Air Assault Division. Formerly a parachute division, it's now an experimental hybrid practicing the "Air-Land 2000" mobile warfare of the future. Naturally, the AH-64A Apache is a key player on this new team.

Reposted by A space helment for a cow

Past Present Future Podcast @ppfideas.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! In today’s episode David talks to forensic anthropologist Sue Black about what happens when forensic science and forensic expertise end up on trial in the courtroom. Can a jury distinguish between good science, bad science and junk science? Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

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Reposted by A space helment for a cow

Michael McDonald @electproject.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Hard to disagree

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Binface sounds annoyingly like Henning Wehn.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Something in that has to give before any reduction in claims can happen, otherwise it'll repeat the 2010 cycle of making it even worse.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Years of advice and tips on things that don't work to get a job have made it worse. Job seeking benefits are now unclaimable by design without severe worsening of any MH issue so out of work benefits are the only possible option for people.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

The big problem for any benefits reform is the two sets of books being kept on what working involves. You can't say 'everyone can do something ', while also being in favour of keeping away from work everyone who shows signs of mental illness or autism through the interview system

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Sensible discussion of what the problem with Palantir is.

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Reposted by A space helment for a cow

Jared Wade @jaredwade.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

England up 1 deciding to sit back and do nothing with 9 in the box for a half hour against Argentina in the World Cup

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

The exemption for optional charges is designed to be for opt-in extras: you can charge X for a meal and X+Y for a meal+drink. Serving the meal alone isn't banned. It's not intended for tacked on fees that get removed if you complain.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

I know Ramsay's restaurant claims the charge is voluntary, but I think it's dubious if it's opt out.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

It's an odd time to start, as drip pricing was banned in May 2025.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

John Simpson's story about Eng v Arg is a smaller scale example of how the media launders insane statements by Trump and other dictators. It's like the rumour doctrine in libel: by repeating it as 'calls are growing' etc, you lend it the credibility of your own voice.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

USA team are going to be awarded the World Cup by Mike Pence.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

No one framed the MP's expenses trials in that way. Only Trump does so. The only thing anyone needs to say is that if Farage goes there, he's trying to be a Trump and we don't work like that here.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

When Farage likely wins his by-election, the test for whether any piece of media is ever worth listening to again will be whether they fall for the predictable trap of debating whether he can still be investigated for crimes.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

It's hard to find direct quotes from that long ago but this Wikipedia entry summarizes the key thing Purnell was saying about the 2007 reform of incapacity benefit. It became a large scale human tragedy of falsely denying claims based on the fraudulent 'what you can do' phrase.

In its last term of office New Labour began to phase out Incapacity Benefit and replace it with a new benefit: Employment and Support Allowance. The policy objectives for the new test were: to accentuate the positive by "looking at what you can do, not what you can't do"; to take into account new disability legislation, changes in the workplace and developments in occupational health; to make the test more stringent; to assess most new claims in person rather than on paper; and, once the new test had bedded in, to use it to re-evaluate virtually every established sickness benefit recipient.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Part of the reason for my skepticism is not just the abandoned cuts from last year, but also the phrases coming out from the review so far are mostly the old clichés we tend to hear about making it fairer, before a big unfair cut.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

On PIP: I agree with your criticisms of it as it is now. It seems incredibly charitable to accept that the Timms review has any interest in improving those issues. Can I please ask that you properly go back and scrutinise whatever ends up being implemented?

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

I'm really glad this guy isn't in charge or anything.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

Great episode, although I do struggle with the apparent consensus everywhere that Farage comes across as authentic. To me he comes across as a cartoon stereotype of a con man. Possibly the phoneyist person I have ever heard speak

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

The whole 'people want to go to the pub with Farage' really makes me question my connection to humanity. Even without knowing his politics he's one of the last people on Earth I feel like that about. He's so phoney and insincere, and shouts in an affected Hitler mannerism. Visceral disgust in me

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Reposted by A space helment for a cow

Past Present Future Podcast @ppfideas.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! Today David tells the tale of the Dreyfus Affair that split France down the middle and revealed the grip of a whole host of conspiracy theories. The story of a letter found in a wastebin turned into a saga about who really controlled the country. Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

Even if (which I don't) think everything else about the conviction was ok, the new claims about breathing tubes contain a mathematical error even in their own terms. No one can say that's a crank or fringe view. Moritz compared rate per shift, to rate per baby per shift for the comparator.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

It's the direct sun as well, not just the temperature in the shade. Hard to find much respite from it when everything is designed for 'loads of natural light'.

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Reposted by A space helment for a cow

👻madeline bOoOoOoOodent👻 @oldenoughtosay.com · 20/06/2025

As somebody from Florida now living in Oxford, 32C *is* dangerously hot when virtually no houses and very few public buildings have aircon and almost all of them are masonry built and designed to retain heat, you cannot be comparing hot weather here to heat in a place EQUIPPED for it, come tf on

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

It's like when Chrome asks 'do you want to allow replacementbicyclespokes.com to send you notifications?' and I think not just 'obviously no', but 'why are you even passing on this request to me?'

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Fortunately the abolition of unfitness for work has not made it into the current proposal. A small relief. New claimants in the support group will 'merely' have a large cut to the money.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

All other benefits, except jobseeking UC, maternity, and pension, are already long abolished. How are you talking about anything else?

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

I really have to question if podcasters and bloggers (etc.) close to Labour understand what they're doing? Abolishing PIP for most claimants *and* abolishing unfitness to work for everybody? As virtually their first act? And using all the Duncan Smith language to launder it?

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

People close to Labour seem in absolute denial.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

I can't listen to any of this stuff about what Labour are doing without just thinking about how the first thing they are doing is decimating disabled people's incomes, in the same language as Duncan Smith from 2010. If it goes ahead I never want to hear about any of them again.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

If Labour think they can get away with the disability cuts and then just replace the people concerned, I've got news for them. If it goes ahead I will be done with the party for life, under anyone.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

A rough measurement suggests the space of the four boxes on the new form combined is about 1/4 the size of the free space on the original. (It's not obvious because of the pizza-area effect.) You can write in the margins or on another page, but it's a nudge

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Of course, an adviser knows to ignore this and write it anyway, here or on another sheet. But not everyone will know...

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

I might remark that the more specific questions encourage answers that will not be accepted without more. What aids or help you need, how often, will not be sufficient. You need to give the background and anecdotal evidence about daily life as well. The space to do so has gone.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

A critic, or cynic, might wonder if this has anything to do with the change now proposed to require 4 points in an activity? I.e. assistance or supervision and not merely aids or prompting.

Page from a new PIP form. The box for needs that can score above 2 points is tiny.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Reply space has shrunk. The free text box has been split into aids, prompting, and assistance. There is no box for supervision. The box for aids is far bigger than the one for assistance. On dressing, it is 17 lines compared to 5 for assistance.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Previously the form was more of a free text. In has now gone back to being close to its DLA roots, and asks a number of tedious, detailed questions on each page that are often irrelevant to the condition. But a more subtle change is maybe a more cynical one:

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Just before the Labour government announced its proposed changes to PIP, there was a major overhaul of the claim form which makes it more complicated to complete. (thread)/

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Reposted by A space helment for a cow

Past Present Future Podcast @ppfideas.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! Today another trial that forms the basis for great drama: the case of Thomas More, tried and executed in 1535, events dramatised by Robert Bolt in a Man for All Seasons and Hilary Mantel in Wolf Hall. Was More really ‘the Socrates of England’? Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Which means we can virtually guarantee it will be some variation of advice about interview performance. This makes things worse as it raises the bar to getting a job - people without the barriers are better at improving their interviews (whatever that means) and it pushes me further down the list.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Kendall is saying the old Grayling and Duncan Smith lines about support to get work. But what exactly is that support going to be? It's not exactly a new idea, but no one knows how to provide anything that would work.

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A space helment for a cow @tomevans80.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

"My name means 'to deceive' in French, what about yours?"

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