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There's about 5 miles of the M4 around Reading where you get to see a medium sized wind turbine (still big) over the Green Park (home of Ecotricity) and then a fairly large solar farm on flat land. I suspect both of these are part of the Green Marketing Board's activities. In the same way that hovering kestrels by the side of the road are sponsored by the RSPB and Tourist Boards.

What I've yet to see is solar panels over a pig farm rather than sheep grazing. Pigs are prone to sunburn so need a certain amount of shade which would seem to make them a natural fit. But maybe they're too destructive. The solar panel supports and cable would have to be as pig proof as a Pig Ark. Which means there's an obvious dual use case here. Solar Pig Arks!

Which for some reason brought to mind those VIP coffin kennels that rich people hire at Glastonbury. Solar Pig Arks with built in USB chargers that can double as both upmarket festival shelters and refugee shelters for the coming crisis. There's money to be made here. Quick, check Alibaba!
[from: Google+ Posts]




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There's a story being distributed that I've seen several times in the last few days. The Labour surge among those under 45 is from people "who weren't alive during the 1970's to experience first hand the results of policies now espoused by JC". This got pushed during #GE2017 as "Corbyn will take the country back to the 70s.". The suggestion is that the current Labour Manifesto is a repeat of the disastrous policies of the Wilson/Callaghan government. Or that it's the same position as Michael Foot's opposition.

I think this is a right wing Tory lie being spread to limit the potential damage from a centrist social-democratic alternative. Corbyn's policies look extreme "Left Wing" only in relation to the extreme right wing that is now considered normal. The Overton window has been pulled so far to the right that a position like Heath's Tories or even John Major's is now portrayed as dangerously socialist. The policies of Thatcher, Blair/Brown, Cameron/Osbourne have been normalised.

What I don't have is the analysis and understanding of the 2017 manifesto compared with the positions of mid-70s and early 80s Labour. How similar are they, really?
[from: Google+ Posts]




http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-40240120

A time line.

#Brexit referendum
=> The people have spoken
=> Brexit Means Brexit
=> Hard Brexit
=> No Deal Better Than Bad Deal
=> Snap Election
=> Soft Brexit
=> Delayed Brexit
=> No Brexit

=> UK Joins Euro
Ooops sorry! Forget that last one.

#UK #Politics innit.
 Hard Brexit not backed by most MPs, remain campaigners say - BBC News »
Pro-EU campaigners say most MPs elected last week want to avoid a so-called "hard Brexit".

[from: Google+ Posts]

In case you haven't seen it. A breakdown of last Thursday's vote.
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2017/06/result-happen-post-vote-survey/#more-15330

Note especially the parts about Tory-Labour and Brexit Leave-Remain. There's a clear split 2/3 Tory voted Leave. 2/3 Labour voted Remain.

Also this, among others.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/election-2017-40229786/jeremy-corbyn-the-draw-for-young-voters

2 working days in and we're into the stats analysis blame game. Again.

It's young people wot did it. Or the Remainers. Or University Towns. Or London. Or Working class in failed industrial towns. Or Social Media.

-

Media Bias
The press were biased against Jeremy Corbyn's Labour in the election, study finds https://www.indy100.com/article/media-bias-jeremy-corbyn-theresa-may-express-sun-daily-mail-labour-conservative-7785776

And that's just the print media.

Let's not forget Kuenssberg's "Shoot to kill" out of context quote, BBC Trust reprimand and then viral promotion by the Tories.

TV were masters of the snide remark, knowing smirk, "of course we all know he's unelectable" sub-text without coming right out and saying it. Even Channel 4 did this at times.

Then there's Farage. Constant attention and coverage, despite it resulting in UKIP ZERO.

But you know this.

-

Anyway, the bullshit is coming so thick and fast that a week can go by and you've completely forgotten the previous omnishambles as if it never happened.

This Tory car crash has been going on for at least a year now.

Thanks Farage!

Anyway. Here's a quick summary of Mrs May's "New" Bigotory cabinet.
https://assets.mastodon.cloud/mastodoncloud/media_attachments/files/000/871/482/original/fe860294a5facc6c.jpg

-

It's #UK #politics #GE2017 , innit.
 How did this result happen? My post-vote survey - Lord Ashcroft Polls »
By Lord Ashcroft. I surveyed over 14000 people on election day who had already cast their vote to help understand how this unexpected result came about. My poll came very close to reflecting the outcome of the election, with 41% saying they had voted Conservative, 39% Labour, and 9% voted Liberal ...

[from: Google+ Posts]




Today's UK Politics.

10 reasons to vote against the Nasty Party
- Austerity
- Brexit No Deal
- NHS Funding
- Dementia Tax and social care U-Turn
- Education cuts
- Faith and Grammar Schools
- Benefit cuts
- Council funding cuts
- The Daily Mail / Express / Sun / Times
- Trump

And add these. How many more do you need?
- Police and security services cuts
- Support for foreign wars and arms sales
- Winter Fuel allowance
- Fracking, Climate, Energy

Judge them on their record. The LibDems are being punished for their part in the coalition. Now it's time to punish the Tories for their part in the last 7 years. But as always this election is about the future, not about the past. Do you really want the country to be governed by people who lie, and lie, and lie for their own personal gain and that of their friends?

https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2017/jun/05/theresa-may-election-campaign

---

Did Theresa May's script writers watch too much of The Wire? Brexit means Brexit. Enough is enough. Terrorism breeds terrorism. Breakfast means Breakfast. No deal is better than a bad deal. The Game is The Game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoyq88niVEU

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/london-bridge-terror-attack-theresa-may-terrorism-speech-downing-street-what-she-refused-to-tell-you-a7773011.html

It’s the same baby language as “Brexit means Brexit”, the double emphasis mere proof that May has lost the ability to convince us of anything she says.

---

Tactical Voting is not ideologically unsound.
https://www.tactical2017.com
https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/uk_vote_smart_loc_cp/

---

10,000 turn out in the rain to see Corbyn in Gateshead.

70 turn out for May in Leith and have to be told to clap.

Guess which event got covered by the BBC?

https://www.thecanary.co/2017/06/06/thousands-came-see-corbyn-yesterday-wouldnt-know-watching-bbc-video/

#GE2017 #UK #Politics

[from: Google+ Posts]






I found this on a friend's page earlier and i think it is profoundly descriptive of how misguided and misinformed our election has become.

---

"Woah....
'Here's what I'm really struggling to understand. All I've ever heard from people, for years, is
"bloody bankers and their bonuses"
"bloody rich and their offshore tax havens "
"bloody politicians with their lying and second homes"
“bloody corporations paying less tax than me”
"bloody Establishment, they're all in it together”
“it'll never change, there's no point in voting”
And quite rightly so, I said all the same things.

But then someone comes along that's different. He upsets the bankers and the rich. The Tory politicians hate him along with most of the labour politicians. The corporations throw more money at the politicians to keep him quiet. And the Establishment is visibly shaken. I've never seen the Establishment so genuinely scared of a single person.

So the media arm of the establishment gets involved. Theresa phones Rupert asking what he can do, and he tells her to keep her mouth shut, don't do the live debate, he'll sort this out. So the media goes into overdrive with…
“she's strong and stable”
“he's a clown”
“he's not a leader”
“look he can't even control his own party”
“he'll ruin the economy”
“how's he gonna pay for it all?!”
“AND he's a terrorist sympathiser, burn him, burn the terrorist sympathiser”

And what do we do? We've waited forever for an honest politician to come along but instead of getting behind him we bow to the establishment like good little workers. They whistle and we do a little dance for them. We run around like hypnotised robots repeating headlines we've read, all nodding and agreeing. Feeling really proud of ourselves because we think we've came up with our very own first political opinion. But we haven't, we haven't came up with anything. This is how you tell. No matter where someone lives in the country, they're repeating the same headlines, word for word. From Cornwall to Newcastle people are saying
“he's a clown”
“he’s a threat to the country”
“she's strong and stable”
“he'll take us back to the 70s”

And there's nothing else, there's no further opinion. There's no evidence apart from 1 radio 5 interview that isn't even concrete evidence, he actually condemns the violence of both sides in the interview. There's no data or studies or official reports to back anything up. Try and think really hard why you think he's a clown, other than the fact he looks like a geography teacher. (no offence geography teachers) because he hasn't done anything clownish from what I've seen.

And you're not on this planet if you think the establishment and the media aren't all in it together.
You think Richard Branson, who's quietly winning NHS contracts, wants Corbyn in?
You think Rupert Murdoch, who's currently trying to widen his media monopoly by buying sky outright, wants Jeremy in?
You think the Barclay brothers, with their offshore residencies, want him in?
You think Philip Green, who stole all the pensions from BHS workers and claims his wife owns Top Shop because she lives in Monaco, wants Corbyn in?
You think the politicians, both Labour and Tory, with their second homes and alcohol paid for by us, want him in?
You think Starbucks, paying near zero tax, wants him in?
You think bankers, with their multi million pound bonuses, want him in?
And do you think they don't have contact with May? Or with the media? You honestly think that these millionaires and billionaires are the sort of people that go “ah well, easy come easy go, it was nice while it lasted”?? I wouldn't be if my personal fortune was at risk, I'd be straight on the phone to Theresa May or Rupert Murdoch demanding this gets sorted immediately.

Because here's a man, a politician that doesn't lie, he can't lie, he could have said whatever would get him votes anytime he wanted but he hasn't. He lives in a normal house like us and uses the bus just like us. He's fought for justice and peace for nearly 40 years. He has no career ambitions. And his seat is untouchable. That's one of the greatest testimonies. No one comes close to removing him from his constituency, election after election.

His Manifesto is fully costed. It all adds up, yes there's some borrowing but that's just to renationalise the railway, you know we already subsidise them and they make profit yeah? One more time… WE subsidise the railway companies and they walk away with a profit, just try and grasp the level of piss taking going on there.

Unlike the Tory manifesto with a £9 billion hole, their figures don't even add up.

And it benefits all of us, young, old, working, disabled, everyone. The only people it hurts are the establishment, the rich, the bankers, the top 5% highest earners.

Good, fuck them, it's long overdue. VOTE LABOUR."

https://www.facebook.com/michael.butt.1447/posts/10154424071392274

[from: Google+ Posts]

I warned you.
Your pathetic attempt to was disgusting.Now you pay the price manager!

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https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/portal/Threat/Encyclopedia/Entry.aspx?Name=Trojan:Win32/Fuery.B!cl which is a very non-specific possible threat found by heuristic analysis. Except it was found in a 2006 Delphi project executable built when I was messing around with winamp API programming. It seems very unlikely that something I had done recently had infected a random .exe in a file written and built by me many years ago on a previous machine. I then ran a full scan and that's all it's found.

So I'm inclined to treat this as a false positive but have still wiped the directory.
[from: Google+ Posts]




http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/13/wannacrypt_ransomware_worm/

Contains this tidbit:-

We're told 16 NHS health trusts in the UK were taken out by the malware. Prime Minister Theresa May said the code "has crippled" Brit hospitals, and that Blighty's surveillance nerve center GCHQ is looking into the outbreak. The NHS is thought to have been particularly hard hit because of the antiquated nature of its IT infrastructure. A large part of the organization's systems are still using Windows XP, which is no longer supported by Microsoft, and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt cancelled a pricey support package in 2015 as a cost-saving measure.

Cancelled in May 2015. £5.5m
https://twitter.com/withorpe/status/863088159961210880

* facepalm *

Please make Jeremy Hunt[1] (and the Tories) pay for this particular piece of madness in the next election.
 will thorpe on Twitter »
“In May 2015 the tories failed to renew the NHS's contract for extra security for Windows with Microsoft #nhscyberattack”

[from: Google+ Posts]

[1]Or "Jemima Ladyparts" as I've taken to calling him.






Now which one did you see on the 7pm news? That's right, neither of them. Because Theresa May doesn't do rallies in public and the media don't report on Jeremy Corbyn.

BTW. That Labour Rally is Leamington Spa. A Tory marginal with only a 6000 majority.

https://www.thecanary.co/2017/05/08/not-adjust-internet-crowds-corbyn-tory-majority-town-video/

[from: Google+ Posts]






https://mastodon.cloud/@jbond




The world's global population hit 7.5b people today. Probably. According to the UN.
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

We reached 7b in 2011. Under 6 years ago.

When I was born it was 2.7b
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/interactive/2011/oct/24/how-big-worlds-population-born

We've had 5 decades or so of constant linear absolute growth. +80m/yr. 12-14 years per +1b.

If business as usual keeps going at this rate, we'll hit 10b round about 2050. In 2015 the UN predicted 2056, but with each 2 year report they revise it closer.
http://www.worldometers.info/news/

---
Welcome to the Earth all you lovely people! I hope you brought your tools. She's a fine ship but she needs a good cleaning and climate control is a bit touchy. Also we're a bit crowded so you may have to sleep two to a bunk for a while.
 World Population projections revised upwards by the United Nations - Worldometers »
On July 29, 2015, the United Nations Population Division released its World Population Prospects: 2015 Revision

[from: Google+ Posts]


The Invisible Hand of the Market.
More,
The Invisible Finger of Capitalism.
[from: Google+ Posts]




Well that's interesting.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/18/theresa-may-uk-general-election-8-june

The Tory Gov needs a 2/3 majority to swing this under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act.

My first reaction is that Labour should refuse this and hold the Tory feet to the fire for longer.

And the second reaction is that all the current opposition parties should unite on an Anti-Brexit platform. This election is about Brexit, so let's make it about Brexit.

[from: Google+ Posts]






The London march tomorrow is on despite what you might have heard.
Hyde Park Corner 11am.
Be there.

https://www.desmog.uk/2017/03/23/mps-complained-about-bbc-s-brexit-coverage-linked-network-hardline-euro-climate-sceptics
 MPs Who Complained About BBC's Brexit Coverage Linked to Network of Hardline Euro-Climate Sceptics »
Many of the MPs who signed the letter issued this week criticising the BBC’s Brexit coverage as biased to the Remain campaign are part of a small but influential network of hardline Euro-climate sceptics.

[from: Google+ Posts]




goods, services and capital can move freely and created the conditions for prosperity and stability for European citizens." The Treaty of Rome was signed on 25-March-1957

March for Europe, London, Saturday 25th March.
https://www.uniteforeurope.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/uniteforeurope/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Rome

https://europa.eu/european-union/eu60_en


[from: Google+ Posts]






I think it wouldn't be fair to the people of __ because they're being asked to make a crucial decision without all the necessary information - without knowing what the future partnership would be, or what the alternative of an independent __ would look like."

Can you fill in the blanks?

http://uk.businessinsider.com/may-to-block-second-scottish-independence-referendum-before-brexit-2017-3

Also
http://newsthump.com/2017/03/14/divisive-referendum-will-cause-huge-economic-uncertainty-says-woman-enacting-divisive-referendum-causing-huge-economic-uncertainty/
‘Divisive’ referendum ‘will cause huge economic uncertainty’ says woman enacting divisive referendum causing huge economic uncertainty


[from: Google+ Posts]

Politician's logic.
We must do something; This is something; Therefore, we must do this.

We now have a new version.
Someone is to blame; This is someone; Let's blame them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trw1PbQt_Yo


[from: Google+ Posts]


It looks like Art.50 is going to be invoked next Wed 29 Mar. At that point Brexit is probably inevitable and irrevocable as it all kicks off and the process runs for at least the next two years. All kinds of other unpleasantness are likely to happen as side effects. Particularly around the other nations in the Union.

So it's probably pointless, but I recommend getting involved in the London march on Sat 25 Mar.
https://www.uniteforeurope.co.uk/

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/20/theresa-may-to-trigger-article-50-on-29-march
http://hasarticle50beeninvoked.uk/

In the mean time here's a short history of the UK's involvement in the EU.

EU: We're joining together, we'd like you to be part of it (1950s)
UK: No thanks, we're fine on our own
EU: OK
UK: we'd like to join now (1960s)
EU: No
UK: Please
EU: No
UK: Please, we promise to be good members, we'll change our currency & start using the metric system.
EU: Oh, ok then
UK: Now we've joined we don't like some of the rules.......

And then ...





Ware

Ware SG12, UK
[from: Google+ Posts]

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