If you've ever needed blood, a stranger got out of bed for you. 🩸 Someone you'll never meet. Who got a cup of tea and a biscuit for it. ☕ Before 1921, if you needed blood, you needed luck. A relative in the building. A porter with the right type. Or nothing. 🏥 Then one night, King's College Hospital rang the Red Cross in Camberwell. A volunteer called Percy Oliver picked up. 📞 When he got home, he sat down with his wife Ethel and wrote a list. Names. Addresses. Blood types. People who'd come any hour, to any hospital, for nothing. 📒 The phone would ring in the night. Ethel would find the name. Somewhere in London, a stranger pulled a coat over their pyjamas and crossed the city in the dark. 🌙 It was the first list of its kind in the world. The idea spread across Britain. Then the world copied it. 🌍 Nobody has ever been paid for blood by the NHS. A cup of tea. A biscuit. That's the deal. 🇬🇧 That's the British spirit. Percy just wrote it down. ✍️ They teach you the NHS. Not that the blood in it started with a list two people wrote at their kitchen table. 📚 Today, a stranger will give blood so someone they'll never meet sees tomorrow. ❤️ Percy's list is still open. Put your name on ours. 🙏 proudofus.co.uk/support Be Part Of Us. ☝️🇬🇧 Be Proud Of Us. 🙏🇬🇧

American teens are becoming straight again, with - especially - female bisexuality in sharp retreat in the youngest cohorts. via @jean_twenge: generationtechblog.com

Hamas terrorist caught on video using a 5-year-old boy to transport weapons in Gaza. He uses the boy as a human shield to stop Israeli drones.

ראש השב"כ דוד זיני מעביר מסר לבכירי חמאס בעזה ובחו"ל: "למתכנני הטבח, למבצעיו, ולכל מי שנתן ידו לחילול כבודה ודמה של מדינת ישראל, ולכל מי שחפץ בהשמדתנו - יש לנו מסר אחד בלתי מתפשר: אין מקום בעולם שהוא רחוק מדי, אין מחילה, ואין תאריך תפוגה. רדפנו, אנחנו רודפים, ונמשיך לרדוף אתכם עד אחרון המשתתפים. ידה הארוכה והנחושה של מערכת הביטחון הישראלית תשיג את כל מי שפגע בנו - בעומק המנהרות, במפקדות המסתור, ובכל פינה על פני הגלובוס. זוהי חובתנו הקדושה לאומה ולאנושות". קרדיט צלם: דותן גוואטה, מקליט: גדעון ארנולד

A philosophy called effective altruism has shaped today’s AI safety movement. Its proponents claim to be protecting humanity’s future. Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar says think twice before believing them.

Islam IS a religion, no matter what defensive religionists claim. After particularly horrific jihadist attacks, as the victims are still dying, callous Muslims run to the rescue of Islam to pretend Islam has nothing to do with the attacks, and callous religionists run to the rescue of religion, pretending Islam is not a religion. Islam is religion, it is politics, it is ideology. Islam's religious nature is its sword and shield. Denying it's a religion may make religionists feel good about religion, particularly their own, but it denies the reality that Only religion can make people believe that flying planes into buildings will deliver them to paradise. Someone once argued with me that, “when we fight Islam as ideology, we have the chance to win; no one can win with "religion." We're going to have to win with "religion", especially this religion, because it's the worst and most dangerous of them all, and is motivating a global war against civilization. And the only way we're going to win, in the end, is by recognizing the truth, telling the truth and ultimately acting on the truth. The Whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Again, Islam is religion, it's politics, it’s a fusion of both, as there is No separation of mosque and state in Islam, in mainstream Islam. Islam’s religious nature gives it its power and ability to get away with more than any ideology ever could. And that brings to the forefront the problem with Western culture's attitude about religion. It's our unwillingness to criticize religion or condemn it (though there are those who condemn “all religions” outside of Islam) - or even acknowledge that religion can be evil- which has made us either praise Islam (solely *because* it's a religion) or condemn it, but *only* as a non-religion. It's not a matter of what Muslims believe, it's a matter of what IS. Islam is a religion. It has a prophet, a holy book, a God. It's accepted as a religion by all Muslims and the vast majority of non-Muslims. Pretending Islam is not a religion now- in the middle of its religious war against us- does nothing for our efforts against it moving forward. No one would fly planes into buildings if they didn't believe- religiously -that they would enter paradise. 9/11 was an act of war, but it was also an act of faith. Denying this fact does nothing for our fight against its true believers. And in the end, when we finally end the Islamic enemy, we can be more honest about what role religion played in Islam's ability to get away with what it has for over a thousand years. If it wasn't a religion, it would not have lasted as long as it has, and gotten away with as much as it has. And that's a fact that we need to observe and think about, very seriously, instead of dismissing it as somehow irrelevant.