AvPD (according to my therapist), Antifa, Lefty Anarchist, radically Green, and still somehow a believer in the essential goodness of mankind. Baritone and tenor sax, #music, #reading and occasional #blog writing. GM8YUG. A lover of high latitudes, ice and snow. Gardener, woodworker and owned by two affectionate cats. Still trying to make sense of an increasingly senseless world.
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2026-10-28T16:38:35Z Event JSON
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Last Notes npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 A quick coffee in the sun out today. It was a glorious autumn day. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 You'll get no argument from me: npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Jewel-like and a colour that will, in the depths of winter, be a reminder of summers of ripening and autumn's generosity. Apple jelly this morning! npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Today's encouraging news! npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Just a reminder that you can find most of the essentials for life at IKEA. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 This, and others like it across the world, are just insanity. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/oct/06/drax-datacentre-yearly-co2-emissions-gatwick-flights-analysis npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 "Chancellor John Healey’s own party conference speech, delivered the day before Burnham’s, gave little reason to think that the government would consider introducing wealth taxes at the Budget on 28 October. Yet without significant and far-reaching reforms centred on the fairer taxation of wealth, Burnham’s soaring rhetoric will soon be brought back to earth with a thump." npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 If ever a picture spoke a thousand words then this is that picture. Malevolence personified - but all three are interesting. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 “They should be prescribed a middle-class life,” says Klein, and they both laugh. “They can thank us later ... We’re not calling for the guillotine. All we want for these billionaires is to just have to live in the same world as us. It’s not so bad down here.” https://www.irishtimes.com/life-style/people/2026/09/26/naomi-klein-the-super-rich-need-to-be-abolished-and-prescribed-a-middle-class-life/ npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 This afternoon I went out for a coffee and some human contact. On the way home, the sun came out... npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 "About 3.3% of maternity bookings made within NHS trusts across England involved a disclosure of current or non-recent domestic abuse. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 The first duty of government is to protect the powerless from the powerful. — Hammurabi 1753 BCE npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Political timidity (or rather, cowardice). This scale of energy (and water) usage is just insane: npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 RE: https://mastodon.scot/@LordWoolamaloo/117218227480892503 npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 I think that the clue might lie in the words "Far right". Now if instead they had been grannies and vicars... npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 For those with a great deal more money than sense (1), and not from the man who took his jobs overseas for the cheap labour (2). Just ridiculous all round. I hope that it's just as successful as the ill-fated Cybertruck. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/sep/01/dyson-toothbrush-camera-films-live-footage-inside-mouth npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 "A succession of Ukanian Labour leaders such as Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Keir Starmer and now Andy Burnham has reduced Scotland politically, economically, socially and culturally to a shadow. [...] Everything that is possible in a country like Ireland or Norway is – mysteriously, magically – impossible in Scotland. Everything that should be going forwards is going backwards. We are no further on, to achieving independence, than we were in 2014, when we were close." https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2026/08/31/ireland-yes-scotland-no/ npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 I'm delighted to see beavers making themselves at home. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 That makes the case for public funding doesn't it? Surely politics should be free from the inevitable influence that private or corporate donations buy. It's well recognised elsewhere that the acceptance of "gifts" (other than the entirely trivial), however much the recipient claims that it doesn't, that they incorruptible, skews and distorts decision making. There's a reason why (e.g.) doctors and nurses are expressly forbidden from accepting gifts of any kind. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 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. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 "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.” npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Stop doing this to me "Nature" - I already have more than enough books to read... npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 - I like to keep the words of the American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead in my mind: npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 - I wish that I understood better how an anarchist society might deal with "bad actors". Not that my inability to understand takes anything away from my belief that anarchism is an ideal to be worked towards. Particularly, perhaps, because so often those same bad actors seem to manage to rise to the top in hierarchies. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 "Trump accuses Tehran of being ‘unbelievably duplicitous’ after they deny peace talks". Coming from the man who wouldn't recognise the truth if it bit him, I had to smile. Self-awareness is never the strong point of that malignant narcissist. (as an aside, it always annoys me when parts of the UK media refer to "Gas prices" when they mean petrol. Get your act together, Independent!) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-us-war-live-trump-hormuz-oil-peace-talks-b3026182.html npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 At my age I can afford to be mildly amused (or irritated depending on context) by age verification by a staff member at supermarket checkouts. At my age I'm furious that I might be required to have my age verified by a commercial organisation, my details held on a (quite likely insecure) database "to protect the children". The emphasis must be on forcing tech giants to clean up their act, not on compulsory age checks for everyone. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 For me, this (which I have pinned to the board where I can be reminded) epitomises Mastodon: npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 <Sigh> No more peerages! https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2026/07/21/arise-lord-sarwar/ npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 And then this pops up: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/20/doomsday-system-physicist-laura-grego-satellites-nuclear-weapons-battle-skies-space-elon-musk npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 "Astronomers are deeply worried" - the understatement of the year. This is a dreadful escalation of the pollution of low-earth orbit with satellites - this one worse by far. Environmentally damaging (animals and plants that need darkness), polluting the dark skies needed for astronomy and once again tech bros messing up the planet for their own selfish ends. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02218-9?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=7558629e58-nature-briefing-daily-20260720&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-33f35e09ea-49717696 npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 I am so often confounded by regional language differences. There was a discussion recently about the US response to UK slang for cigarettes. Raised eyebrows was perhaps the least of it! @npub1z6y…qah3 npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 "Lads"? Grown men who need to be brought to face the music. I hope that when they do (soon) they find themselves unable to roam anywhere except perhaps within the wing where they will spend a good many years of their lives. @npub1z6y…qah3 npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 At last. https://www.irishtimes.com/world/us/2026/07/14/writer-e-jean-carroll-receives-563-million-owed-by-trump-in-sex-abuse-case/ npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 - For me the turning point was the publication of Limits to Growth by Meadows et al., in (check notes) 1972. More than fifty years of talking and setting "ambitious targets" and energy use is still accelerating, CO2 and methane levels are still rising and still the politicians do less than F**k all. Am I furious - Yes I am! Excuse the intemperate language. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 I was looking for some good news to brighten up a grey and soggy morning and, hey presto - it arrived: npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 On a day like today it's worth remembering Dorothy Parker : npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 RE: https://mastodon.world/@ginaintheburg/116741258968073022 npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Always up for wielding a pitchfork or manning the tumbrils! npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Several threads this morning from @npub1703…2l86 about the already inevitable global heating and the fact that the rate of increase in CO2 levels has no parallel in the history of the planet. My only hope is that the wealth driving this suicidal "investment" evaporates, bringing the whole unstable edifice crashing down, destroying the bubble and ruining those who put personal profit before the health of the Earth. They are a homicidal cult with their hallucinating lying machines. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 FFS!!! npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 It really is no mystery at all, ("the North York Moors are at the centre of a mystery surrounding a missing bird of prey."). Certain estates are hotspots for the "disappearance" of raptors. and for the vanishing trackers that would, if the bird had met with an accident, have pinpointed where it could be found. It is a scandal that has to be stamped out. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Oh, that's interesting. Soils "respiring" in the absence of life. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 A (very) cautionary tale of the intersection between climate and administrative ineptitude (and malice). https://www.collapse2050.com/how-the-2027-super-el-nino-will-replicate-the-1877-global-famine/ npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Lovely animals and great to know more about them: npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 I hope that the transfer goes flawlessly and hope to see you soon "on the other side". npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 And so it begins - conflating Murrell's admission of guilt with the whole of the SNP - "You are all tarred with the same brush". There's not a shred of evidence that anyone but Murrell was involved and the investigations have been lengthy (an issue in itself) and thorough, exonerating Nicola Sturgeon who might have been, as Murrell's wife, better placed to know than anyone else. But let's use it to bring down the SNP and the independence cause as a whole. I see you! https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/26/snp-embezzling-voters-peter-murrell npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Indeed it is. I don't fully understand the shift to the right by the electorate. Some of it is plain disillusionment with the establishment parties (and who can blame them) and I think that some is down to a lack of critical thinking that means that the ridiculous claims of Reform and the far right are not critically evaluated by voters. Then there's the print media ownership and what I see as a bias in the BBC. It scares the living daylights out of me as an avowed lefties 😢 npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 With figures like that (in reality with ANY figures), any arguments in favour of FPTP are unsustainable. It really is time that this country grew up and took steps (I want them to be giant strides) towards being a proper representative democracy. A proper proportional voting system (and there are several to choose from) would be a good start. Oh yes - and abolition of the current HoL and replacement with (I believe) an elected upper house. Grim stuff about the figures for Reform though! npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 With the jockeying for supremacy by two Prime ministerial candidates - one more distasteful than the other, (I leave you to decide), I am reminded of what the late, great Douglas Adams said (of the presidency): "Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." To which I would add that a burning desire to be PM ought to be an immediate disqualifier. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Private medicine is a parasite when it comes to training as well - they (the organisations) pay nothing toward the training of the staff that they poach from the NHS. From the first day that I stepped on a ward I swore that I would have no part of it. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Like many supposed "Einstein quotes" this one gets recycled from time to time. It is probably not Einstein, but, applied to electorates it is often uncomfortably near to the truth: npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Why is a call for extra expenditure in the nation's budget always to be achieved by "cutting an unaffordable welfare bill"? There are many (and I include myself in this) who could afford tax rises to those nearer Scandinavian levels. We could then properly afford to give support to those who need it. And as a "by the way" - perhaps we could cut the budget for nuclear-equipped submarines. To zero. 2/2 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/apr/14/starmer-accused-of-corrosive-complacency-about-defence-by-ex-head-of-nato npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 I see George Robertson, former NATO Secretary General, calling for cuts in welfare to fund military expansion and describing Starmer's "Corrosive complacency". Whilst I see that as a call for yet another imposition of austerity on the British public, an increase in general taxation described elsewhere as "one Cappuccino a day", I do think that "Corrosive complacency" fits Starmer well. I know many for whom one cappuccino would be an extravagance they could ill afford, never mind one a day. 1/2 npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 So let me see if I have this right: npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Even more relevant today than when the words were written by Franklin D. Roosevelt for his second inaugural address. I can't imagine such sentiments from the mind of Donald Trump... npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Heinberg, and Meadows et al have been the mainstay of my life, together, perhaps with Joseph Tainter's "Collapse of Complex Societies where he develops the argument that diminishing returns with increased complexity eventually make the cost of maintaining that complexity too much and the society regresses to a simpler form. I believe we are approaching that point globally. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 I see Cameron lumping together Reform UK and the Greens as populist against whom the centre must marshal their forces. I, as a supporter of much needed radical Green politics, find that incredibly offensive, the more so because it comes from the unrepentant architect of Brexit. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 A few weeks ago Yuri, my little calico friend, developed a rapidly spreading black patch on her face, losing the hair in the process. The vet and I both thought it was an aggressive melanoma. Biopsy showed only a severe dermatitis and on steroids (fun and games, I keep finding the ones I thought she had swallowed spat out when I'm not looking) she looks much better. Tailing off the steroids now, so an end to the fights is in sight. Will her fur grow back? TBH I'm just glad it wasn't worse... npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Given Keir Starmer's record on U-turns, I suspect such a commitment would last only until the moment the polls close in May. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Whenever the topic of GDP comes up, I'm reminded of Robert F. Kennedy's dismantling of GDP as a metric in 1968 with the summation of his speech: "it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile." increasingly economic activity appears to have a somewhat tenuous relationship with the well-being of society as a whole,many of whose members have seen incomes stagnate while rent seeking entities take an ever larger portion of that already stretched income. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 For further reading, (if people have the stomach for it), Jess Hill's book "See what you made me do" is a very sobering and sometimes uncomfortably graphic analysis of the shocking rates of violence against women and girls worldwide and the causes. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Increasingly the man lives in a wee world of his own, completely out of touch with reality. The tragedy is that he still has the support of the Republican Party. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 I have long admired Michael Marmot and his work, together with that of Wilkinson and Pickett who all show starkly how much wealth inequality damages the health and wellbeing of a society. Yet government after government show that they, like Mandelson, are "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich" (even in the unlikely event that they pay their fair share of taxes). Huge wealth inequality is bad for everyone (even the wealthy). npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 From "Today's Edition Newsletter" by Robert B. Hubbell. Photographer unknown. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Can someone explain to me how an Iranian warship, in international waters off the coast of Sri Lanka constitutes a legitimate target in an undeclared and probably illegal "war"? I remember the outrage at the sinking of the General Belgrano... npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 I never ever imagined that a party, founded in the belief that it should support the most vulnerable in society, could be taken over by those so full of antipathy towards those vulnerable people. With every pronouncement Keir Starmer digs his party deeper into a hole. I always knew to expect this from right of politics, but Labour is aping their worst instincts. They deserve the fate that is coming in May and at the next General election. I hope the Greens succeed. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 A good read, and yes: npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Wonderful news. The Green Party of England and Wales has, at long last, become the parliamentary representation of left wing environmental politics that those of us who know them always knew they should be. "I don't vote for the Greens because under FPTP they have no chance" is history now. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 "The BBC and the wider Brit media seem to think they are talking down to the masses and people aren’t buying it. Expect the Royals to be heckled and harassed at every public event, and people to be arrested for not bowing down to this rotten, exposed feudal relic. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 It's not a "sad thing", it is another of the reprehensible people in Epstein's circle being investigated - and for something only perhaps tangentially related to his sexual proclivities. It's time the activities of the person who pronounced this to be a "sad thing" were put under the microscope. He, after all, was at the very heart of Epstein's cabal. https://www.independent.co.uk/bulletin/news/andrew-arrest-donald-trump-epstein-files-b2924010.html npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Borrowed from Robert B. Hubbell's "Today's Edition Newsletter" ICE are very definitely NOT the Borg! npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Kudos to all those who put their money where their mouth was and demonstrated peacefully against the proscription of Palestine Action, risking a criminal conviction in the process. The proscription was an outrageous assault on the right of free speech and this defeat for the government and the Home Secretary means that justice has prevailed. How dare Mahmood intimate that she intends to appeal the ruling! npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Watching the daily revelations about the very wealthy I'm frequently reminded of the adage: If you want to know what God thinks of money, you just have to look at who he gives it to... npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Is it wrong of me to wish for that? npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 When I wake up tomorrow who will be toast? npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 George Washington, first President - "I cannot tell a lie" npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 "... I keep hearing frantic commentary about what this means for Keir Starmer, for Fergie, for Mandelson’s peerage, whatever. How about the biggest and grimmest question of all: what it means for women and girls to be able to clearly see that we live in a world where so many of the richest and most powerful men alive are just not bothered enough by their exploitation. Or worse." npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Horrific story: npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 I had forgotten until a post reminded me this morning that it was Mandelson who said that "We are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich". The measure of the man, perhaps, a man who seemed to enjoy the company of those "filthy rich" a little too much for his own good. Out of the House of Lords, straight to jail, do not pass "go"... npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Hmmm... Despite the title "UK towns and cities..." a substantial part of the UK seems to be missing here! The Grauniad once again confusing England and Wales with the UK as a whole. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 RE: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115901022866433993 npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 RE: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115894410440299999 npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 In a very real sense, with "approximately 10-12,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in the UK, primarily at RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall, supporting air operations for Europe and serving as a crucial hub for the U.S. Air Force", Orwell's characterisation of the UK as "Airstrip One" seems to be about where we are, still a state tied firmly to a "Special Relationship" that is very clearly highly asymmetrical and which benefits the US and not Britain. https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2026/01/06/scotland-caracas-and-the-trump-corollary/ npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Blue "Labour". The Overton Window has been decisively shifted, hasn't it! What a sad end (and I suspect it will be an end) to a once proud party that represented those who really earned the wealth of the country. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-labour-wealth-tax-budget-b2893442.html npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 As someone who spent his working life in a profession where conflicts of interest were simply not permitted, I am profoundly mystified by the demonstrable ability that politicians have for convincing themselves that somehow the concept doesn't apply to them, that they, uniquely in this world, are somehow immune from the inevitable biases and self-serving that ensue. How easily they kid themselves. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Well that's the US off my list of countries I can visit, which will not be good news for my son in New Jersey... 😢 npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 - Next thing he will be wanting to use Comic Sans for all official documents...! npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Wow, that's BOUND to work. A stroke of "genius" from Reform UK Ltd. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/farage-reform-uk-scotland-tartan-falkirk-b2879329.html npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Once again, the leader of "Reform ltd" is out to cause disharmony and dissent in Scotland. As a junior doctor I recall a colleague being asked by the judge in court what the acronym in an A&E patient's notes "TBR" meant. "The bum's rush", he muttered beneath his breath. "Would you repeat that for the court" he was instructed. Where Farage is concerned it needs to be said loud and clear... https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2025/12/03/farages-glasgow-dog-whistle/ npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 I always refer to Zohran Mamdami, who made tackling the economic insecurity of so many New Yorkers the basis for his campaign. Labour, in trying to outdo Reform, have lost their way completely. Why vote for a "Reform - lite" that has been such a disappointment, when you can vote for the genuine (!) article. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 And pales into insignificance next to the money lost through tax avoidance and evasion. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 How utterly wasteful to have all those graduates and all of the vacancies in specialties and end up with expensively-trained medics unable to fill the posts. Some, no doubt, will go abroad, and others into graduate jobs of one sort or another; a great many will disappear into the general workforce with their ambitions unfulfilled through no fault of their own. What complete madness! npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 I hope that he enjoys his new accommodation when he takes up residence in HMP something-or-other. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/22/boris-johnson-took-four-days-off-as-nhs-warned-covid-could-overwhelm-system npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Sooner or later many of us will need care because we are no longer able to manage unsupported. It is past time for reform. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 I hate "AI" and will have nothing to do with it. Intelligent it is not. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Not exactly new news (it was known more than 12 years ago that there was a strong correlation), but another disease that can be laid at the door of EBV. That is one dangerous viral infection. MS and a number of autoimmune diseases?https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/nov/12/epstein-barr-virus-appears-to-be-trigger-of-lupus-disease-say-scientists npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 Meanwhile, in the Sainsbury's car park this morning, someone put their clocks back further than they intended last week... npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 😢 npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 ...and how are they going to keep it intact when assaulted or moved on by random people and the police? Or countries could follow the example of Finland and actually house the homeless. npub18atlvp9mfttz3vdlrva79lua3ackdf8hg3ckdv27rtg5twjyy44svesy47 Just Tom... 🐁 I have just finished "See What You Made Me Do" by Jess Hill - an often harrowing exposition of the facts behind Intimate Partner Violence and Coercive Control. She makes the case very strongly for a) believing children when they fight against being made to spend time with one (abusive) parent and b) a wholesale reform of the family courts and the training of those who provide advice (on things like "parental alienation") to those courts. It makes for difficult reading.
