Ben Taylor @VoxDei@qoto.org

Jews, Christians and Satanists are taking legal action to protect reproductive freedom, claiming—rightly—that abortion bans are imposition of religious beliefs by the state.

@pluralistic: “Jewish religious texts clearly state that life begins at the first breath, and that the life of a pregnant person takes precedence over the life of the fetus in their uterus.”

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/11/wilhoitism/

Detail:

The European Union has approved a new data-transfer deal with the United States, ending three years of legal limbo and rebooting the transatlantic free flow of digital information, after the EU's top court struck down two previous agreements over fears of US intelligence agencies' snooping.

The European Commission adopted a so-called adequacy decision, recognising the US as a country with sufficient protection for Europeans’ personal data sent there.

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-signs-off-on-data-transfers-deal-with-us/

#EU #Data #Privacy

Tabloid that paid a 16-year-old girl to quit school and pose for topless photos remains straight-faced while trying to expose BBC presenter who paid a 17-year-old for photos https://newsthump.com/2023/07/10/tabloid-that-paid-a-16-year-old-girl-to-quit-school-and-pose-for-topless-photos-remains-straight-faced-while-trying-to-expose-bbc-presenter-who-paid-a-17-year-old-for-photos/

Q. is there evidence that changing the fundamental business model of the #NHS – e.g. introducing insurance-based funding or breaking the NHS up into smaller units which can be privatised – could be effective as ways of tackling the current issues?

The evidence, both domestic & international, is that the answer is a clear ‘no’: The rational strategy is to recommit to the fundamental model of the NHS, fund it properly & introduce operational improvements over time!

https://99-percent.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/NHS-report-for-print.pdf

Via @decolonialatlas "Each 8th of July, at 11:15 UTC, 99% of the world's population is experiencing daylight. This day should have a name, and it should be a holiday." Original source: https://www.timeanddate.com/news/astronomy/99-percent-sunlight

Favourite summary of the current situation, from the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/07/twitter-is-burning-bluesky-is-smug-where-is-the-best-place-to-do-your-pathetic-doomscrolling?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

For customers of #SouthWestWater, this will come as no surprise, but in the two years to March 2022, SWW spent more on interest payments & #dividends than it did on maintaining (improving) its infrastructure....

You can decide for yourself whether this in any way contributed to their catastrophic failure of #water supply early this year.

That this included a 'special dividend' approved by #OfWat merely confirms that the regulator(s) have been asleep at the wheel.

Perfectly Pringular Russian royal yacht Livadia, launched today in 1880 and laid up in 1881. Not a success then.

Apparently designed with a skirt to stop anyone getting overheated at the sight of its ankles, the overly oval vessel was reputedly very stable but the shallow draft caused terrible slamming in waves that opened up the seams. Dry docks as wide as they were long being in short supply, repair was difficult and the ship quickly retired.

#FailureFriday

A sign of our times.

Just in: July 3rd was the hottest day ever measured in human history.

We are in a climate emergency.

IPCC: We need "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society" — and you are part of the solution.

https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/

This pretty much describes the extreme left and right perfectly.