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
A good many of us Britons have been issued with speeding fines. Perhaps a few have tried to get out of paying these fines, but none have invited a whole governmental ministerial dept to that end,
What did he say... "I shall bring about a government of honesty, integrity, and professionalism."
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
A truly amazing and exhaustively cited act of investigative journalism by the phenomenal @zinnia
It turns out that virtually ALL of the sham "science" behind the anti-trans movement can be traced directly back to a very small number of purely ideologically driven "doctors" citing one another over and over again to try to give the impression that standard evidence based trans healthcare is controversial.
It's basically the scientific equivalent of writing a blog with nothing more than your own opinions, your friend writes an article citing your blog, another friend writes an article citing both of you, and then showing up in front of public health boards saying "see, here's 3 articles showing how I'm right!"
In any normal and reasonable political environment, these quacks would be laughed out of the room with such flimsy "evidence". Yet because the far right has captured statehouses across the country, they're laundering this junk science into "real" science.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
The privatisation of #water firms has had a clear result:
1. to fund profits to #shareholders, investment was constrained;
2. low investment has led to the #watercrisis, #pollution & water losses through leaks;
3, (Finally) under-funding is to be rectified & funded via loans;
4. the ongoing costs of loans will be repaid by customers through higher bills.
The only thing the #investors have done is stolen our money, offering no actual benefits;
the #Tories' #kleptocapitalism in a nutshell!
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
@Radical_EgoCom There are endless examples of corporations knowingly harming or killing their employees. Radium girls is also a good example. Dying from jaw cancer is horrifying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
FOX made up a story of “Veterans kicked out of hotel to make room for migrants” while simultaneously supporting MAGA debt budget which cuts Veterans benefits by 22%.😳
They’re more outraged over a fake story about evil brown migrants than the real story of evil greedy billionaires.😑
Modern day white supremacy in all its ugliness.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
A water company is owned by a financial institution, and then to pay for upgraded sewage treatment it borrows from that same institution, and it then pays interest on the loan to that same institution, and this reduces the water company's pre-tax profit and so reduces its tax liability, but the water company then charges us for what it borrowed from itself, we end up with a transfer of wealth from the many to the few, and, perhaps, an improved sewerage system. But basically it's an enormous scam
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Climate strike week 248. #FridaysForFuture #ClimateStrike #TomorrowIsTooLate
Am I the only person who has little or no sympathy for these parents?
We are governed by utter incompetents who owe their unbreakable self confidence not to ability, that's obvious, but to a private education in which they were told in some subtle, and not so subtle, ways that they were the crème de la crème, born to rule; born to achieve!
If a false sense of entitlement is what you wish to buy your kids then a private education is the way to go.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
The UK's #tory engineered #healthcrisis in one simple statistic:
in 1960 the Uk ranked 7th for #lifeexpectancy among OECD nations.... 60 years later in 2020 it had dropped to 23rd!
And if you want to have a look at the OECD data, what you can see is that the relative decline has been largely since 2010.... I wonder why?
The NHS (and our #health) is not safe in #tory hands
link to OECD data (use age range function to get the picture)
https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.htm
Anyone who imperiously and arrogantly presumes to say to me "this conversation is at an end" gets immediately and irrevocably blocked - I don't care if they believe themselves to be god herself!
There are enough complete tossers in the other place, we don't need any of them here!
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
@w7voa
Just going to remind y'all that President Trump reposted a video of a supporter saying that the "only good Democrat is a dead Democrat. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-trump-shares-video-of-supporter-saying-the-only-good-democrat-is-a-dead-democrat/
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
When the penalties for abortion are more severe than for rape ...you know there's a war on women
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
UK benefits system, death
"The question was, what did government ministers know, and when?"
Good piece on UK deaths linked to disability benefit decisions, the investigative work of John Pring of Disability News Service, and the reluctance of mainstream media to pick up this kind of story.
(Content note: brief description of the death of Errol Graham a few years ago)
https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/deaths-british-press-reluctant-welfare.php
#UK #government #disability #benefits #media #DisabilityNewsService #JohnPring #ErrolGraham
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
