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
Ahhhhh - the satisfaction!
I have just un-bricked two laptops that had been turned into paperweights by Microsoft update!
One was a brand new Win 11 laptop and after a brief struggle that is now running again, the other is a 2014 vintage machine that will obviously not be fit for Win 11 and bricked after the last update. I'm done fighting MS for that one and after Microsoft repeatedly tried to obstruct me from installing another operating system I finally managed to overwhelm its defenses and install a copy of Mint Linux.
It feels good to be free of Microsoft on at least one of my laptops!
It is all so very simple; all that is required to turn a country from a shit-hole into something close to Utopia is to ensure that even the poorest, lowest paid workers have enough money to live decently and with dignity along with providing free or very low cost universal healthcare! Combine that with top quality, completely free, well funded education up to and including university level along with generous student grants for those in further education of all kinds so that those studying for a qualification don’t end up burdened with overwhelming student debt and can enjoy a decent lifestyle whilst they are studying and you have a formula for a happy peaceful and democratic society. The other thing to which governments need to apply their minds is ensuring that everyone has a decent and easily affordable place to live.
That is perfection UNLESS you have built a society that thrives on people enjoying seeing other people much worse off than themselves, that enjoys seeing the homeless and starving as it makes them feel smug that they are not ‘down there’, a society in which hearing of an insulin dependent diabetic dying because they couldn’t afford their indispensable medication prompts not shame that such a tragedy should happen in a rich society, but simply a completely heartless comment like ‘should have got a better paid job’
It is all so very simple; all that is required to turn a country from a shit-hole into something close to Utopia is to ensure that even the poorest, lowest paid workers have enough money to live decently and with dignity along with providing free or very low cost universal healthcare! Combine that with top quality, completely free, well funded education up to and including university level along with generous student grants for those in further education of all kinds so that those studying for a qualification don’t end up burdened with overwhelming student debt and can enjoy a decent lifestyle whilst they are studying and you have a formula for a happy peaceful and democratic society. The other thing to which governments need to apply their minds is ensuring that everyone has a decent and easily affordable place to live.
That is perfection UNLESS you have built a society that thrives on people enjoying seeing other people much worse off than themselves, that enjoys seeing the homeless and starving as it makes them feel smug that they are not ‘down there’, a society in which hearing of an insulin dependent diabetic dying because they couldn’t afford their indispensable medication prompts not shame that such a tragedy should happen in a rich society, but simply a completely heartless comment like ‘should have got a better paid job’
Paul Brownjohn
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Good question...
#Trump #Epstein #DOJ #FBI #EpsteinFiles #PamBondi #KashPatel #GOP #USPol
It is all so very simple; all that is required to turn a country from a shit-hole into something close to Utopia is to ensure that even the poorest, lowest paid workers have enough money to live decently and with dignity, along with providing free or very low cost universal healthcare! Combine that with top quality, completely free, well funded education up to and including university level along with generous student grants for those in further education of all kinds so that those studying for a qualification don’t end up burdened with overwhelming student debt and can enjoy a decent lifestyle whilst they are studying and you have a formula for a happy peaceful and democratic society. The other thing to which governments need to apply their minds is ensuring that everyone has a decent and easily affordable place to live.
That is perfection UNLESS you have built a society that thrives on people enjoying seeing other people much worse off than themselves, that enjoys seeing the homeless and starving as it makes them feel smug that they are not ‘down there’, a society in which hearing of an insulin dependent diabetic dying because they couldn’t afford their indispensable medication prompts not shame that such a tragedy should happen in a rich society, but simply a completely heartless comment like ‘should have got a better paid job’
To the latter class of people I would say you know who you are!
Paul Brownjohn
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#OtD 28 Dec 1907 10k households in New York City went on rent strike against price hikes. Sparked by 16-year-old textile worker, Pauline Newman, who enlisted other young working women and girls. By early January around 2000 households won reduced rents https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9988/lower-east-side-rent-strike
Paul Brownjohn
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If you are an adult, do you feel (in your heart of hearts) that you are a functional adult (whatever your own personal interpretation of that is)
Paul Brownjohn
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This is a far too common occurrence in the U.S. And it’s going to get much much worse in just a few days, when the subsidies for Obamacare end. This will cause premiums to spike for millions of Americans. Some people will see their rates triple.
And people wonder why Luigi is so popular?
For those who could be bothered to read my 'novella' on my trials and tribulations with Type 2 Diabetes, this is the guy who discovered the connection between T2 Diabetes and fat deposits in the pancreas and liver. His work is truly ground breaking and opens up a whole new avenue of treatment for this more and more frequently seen metabolic disorder.
https://from.ncl.ac.uk/discovering-cause-of-type-2-diabetes-roy-taylor#t2d-in-overweight-people
Paul Brownjohn
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Merry Christmas and friendly reminder that Jesus was a brown, woke, anti-capitalist refugee from the Middle East who had two dads, became a rabbi, wore flowing dresses, ran around with sex workers, preached radical inclusion, railed against income inequality, and was brutally killed by the police.
Most americans have no clue what it is like to live in a democratic socialist society. This sums it up better that I have seen it summed up before!
Paul Brownjohn
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Paul Brownjohn
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This incredible photograph from 1885 AD, of Anandibai Joshi of India, Keiko Okami of Japan, and Sabat Islambouli of Syria, who each became the first licensed female doctors in their respective countries. The three were students at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania; one of the only places in the world at the time where women could study medicine.
© Historical Photos
I’m type 2 diabetic and recently my blood sugar levels have gone completely dolally! I’ve been seeing levels up to and beyond 300 ( )
That being the case, I decided that I absolutely had to do something. I decided to try not eating or drinking anything other than unsweetened black coffee, green tea; no milk or sugar, until my blood sugars dropped to around 100. Initially, this took most of the day and I got into the habit of not eating anything until about four or five in the afternoon. After a few days of this I noticed that my blood sugars were very seldom climbing much over 100 and I decided therefore that it would be a sensable thing to keep trying this to see if I could improve my body’s sugar management in the long term. I have only been doing this for about a week and already, I have seen extraordinary improvements in my bodies ability to manage carbohydrate intake! What I really didn’t expect was that it would happen this fast. I wear constant blood glucose level monitoring devices so I know from minute to minute exactly what my blood sugars are doing. I have noticed that if I eat something a bit sugary now, my blood sugar starts to rise after a few minutes but then drops back again extremely rapidly so the daily graph of my blood sugar looks a bit like a saw blade up down up down, up down, up down, but only by the tiniest amount. This I suspect is what people’s bodies who don’t have diabetes blood sugar management looks like; a spike on sugar intake followed by a rapid damping down of the blood sugar level as the pancreas excretes insulin. I’m sure my endocrinologist would be horrified if I told her what I was doing however having said that, it does seem to be working and the very high blood sugar levels like I was experiencing a few days back are definitely dangerous for one’s general health but are a thing of the past since I adopted this diet.
Allegedly, the type of fat that is deposited in both the pancreas and liver is the absolute first to get burnt up if one reduces one’s calorie intake drastically. I am assuming therefore that that is precisely what’s happening when I do my daily fast until 1700 hours I guess the question is do I find it hard and the answer is: no, I don’t actually. I think the best way to put it would be it feels a little bit uncomfortable and that really surprises me because I would have thought not eating for the whole day until later afternoon would have caused the most appalling hunger pangs but that seems not to be the case. In fact what has happened is that my appetite seems to have almost disappeared when the time comes to eat I’m really not that hungry at all and I have no desire for a huge or for even a normal size meal I almost have to force myself to eat something.
By way of explanation for those unaware of his work, I would cite Prof. Roy Taylor who discovered that many, even most type 2 diabetics owe their illness to nodules of fat deposited both in the pancreas and the liver. These nodules of fat, he hypothesizes, are the primary cause of most type 2 diabetes and when they are reduced or eliminated the body’s mechanism for managing blood sugar levels is restored and effectively type 2 diabetes is cured or at least put into a remission. My guess would be that what I have achieved is a significant reduction in the amount of those fat nodules. What strikes me a truly astonishing is that I have seem the effects so fast!
Has anyone else had this from Facebook?
I'm locked out of my account there and when I try to log in I see this!
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
