Paul Brownjohn @Paulos_the_fog@qoto.org
Retired software engineer & woodworker.
Anglo-francophone.
Detest tories. Subscribe to green, leftish radical politics but not to any particular political party!.
Love the EU and all it stands for, moreover, I spent the last 10 years of my career working at an EU agency.
Enthusiastic photographer, especially wildlife and most especially butterflies.
Slightly knowledgeable gardener.
Atheist; loathe almost all religions and pity the people deluded enough to follow them. I make exceptions for Buddhism as it isn't really a religion in the strictest sense of the word as it doesn't postulate the existence of any god, and Jainism which is the epitome of peace.
For anyone who is interested, my header photo is of the most stupendous sunset I have ever seen. On the right is the waterfront of Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on the left is Thailand and in the middle, acting as the border between the two countries is the mighty Mekong river.
Joined Nov 2022
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
This horrific ruling should make very clear to every woman in this country that when ANY Republican is elected to ANY office, NO WOMAN IS SAFE. Republicans are sadistic, twisted, hollowed-out, woman-hating freaks acting out their sickness on a national scale. https://wapo.st/4adJrce
By vaccinating it out of existence. There is/was a highly effective vaccine against smallpox whose effectiveness was not greatly impacted by the pathogen mutating.
Influenza, on the other hand is very adept at mutating and therefore a new vaccine is required every single year. Even then, the vaccines for influenza are of extremely variable efficacy.
It's hard to imagine that the survival of the species was uppermost in peoples minds when successive wave of the Plague hit Europe in medieval times and as recently as the 1600s. Likewise with the terrifying outbreak of deadly influenza that ravaged the world around 1918. Why haven't we evolved immunity to them - well viruses and bacteria have this inconvenient habit of mutating so as to avoid our body's carefully laid immune system traps!
Quite so - would it not be more economical and emissions friendly to send them to Rwanda in the holds of ships?
We should save the expensive charter flights for our esteemed politicians!
I think we must be talking at cross-purposes! I am not admin of a Mastodon instance, I'm just a wally user on qoto.org.
By the way you are talking, I assume you think I am some sort of admin or that I run an instance.
You might as well be talking in Egyptian Hieroglyphs for all what you are saying means to me!
The Samaritans in the UK were founded by a Church of England vicar (Chad Varah) but have always been resolutely atheist in the way they deal with people who use their services.
I take exactly the same view - if you don't like me blocking your tedious ads, you can F-off!
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
I love the fact that posts are only limited to 65535 chars in this instance instead of some arbitrary nonsense limit like many Mastodon instances and of course Twatter and Bluesky
My doctor said to me one day, some years back, that if I continued to smoke and do all the other unhealthy things I was doing, my chances of having a heart attack or stroke during the next 10 years was 1 in 5. I checked on the internet and she was absolutely right!
I decided straight away to try harder to give up smoking which was my biggest risk factor. I succeeded and haven't smoked for 14 or 15 years.
https://www.okdoomer.io/you-arent-the-one-panicking-they-are/
As the responsible minister resigns as he doesn't agree!
Most people in the US and UK think it's normal to speak only English, whereas where I live, in Luxembourg, most people speak at least three languages fluently (Luxembourgish, French and German) most also speak English pretty fluently and quite a number speak 6 or more languages!
What translation function - I didn't know Mastodon had such a thing!
To my eternal shame, I only speak one language (French), other than my mother tongue (English English), well enough to be able to understand posts in it.
@obeto@mas.to
Only in the USA; everyone else in the fuckin world uses a different way of writing dates - like 31/12/2023 in most of the rest of the world or 2023/12/31 in Japan and a few others
Of course they are - the Russians bought the GOP lock-stock and barrel back in the Trump days and now the Republicans are doing everything they can to help the Russians whilst tut-tutting loudly about how awful the Russians are!
https://www.euronews.com/2023/12/05/us-running-out-of-cash-to-help-ukraine?utm_source=vuukle&utm_medium=talk_of_town
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
So Michelle Donelan was in Brussels today to formally sign-up to the UK re-entering the EU's #Horizon research programme.
Now, the Govt. is going to spend up to £10k per organisation to help them (re)attract #scientists & prepare bids for the rest of the programme's duration.
So essentially, we've held out for a better deal (which we didn't get), but due to #RishiSunak's dithering, we now have to 'pump prime' appplicants who are out of the habit of applying and/or have lost key staff
idiocy!
Retired software engineer & woodworker.
Anglo-francophone.
Detest tories. Subscribe to green, leftish radical politics but not to any particular political party!.
Love the EU and all it stands for, moreover, I spent the last 10 years of my career working at an EU agency.
Enthusiastic photographer, especially wildlife and most especially butterflies.
Slightly knowledgeable gardener.
Atheist; loathe almost all religions and pity the people deluded enough to follow them. I make exceptions for Buddhism as it isn't really a religion in the strictest sense of the word as it doesn't postulate the existence of any god, and Jainism which is the epitome of peace.
For anyone who is interested, my header photo is of the most stupendous sunset I have ever seen. On the right is the waterfront of Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on the left is Thailand and in the middle, acting as the border between the two countries is the mighty Mekong river.
Joined Nov 2022
