Paul Brownjohn @Paulos_the_fog@social.cleverlibre.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
Sheep grazing quietly in sheltered corners of the fields, loose farmyard stuff tied down. Woodstove lit. Think we’re ready #StormAgnes #WestWales
@cloudguy@mastodon.terabyte-computing.com
If you want a structure in such an exposed position to survive, it is essential to use an appropriate timber
In terms un un-joined-up government, the British civil service has to be one of the worst in the entire civilized world. In my dealings with them, I have found them to be consistently fückin clueless and often staffed by vindictive arseholes and that applies across the full range of services offered by HMG from Pensions (they lost numerous years of my contributions then asked me if I had kept pay-slips from the 1960s and 1970s - wankers!). HMRC are likewise hopelessly incompetent and vindictive. I'm sure no one needs to hear about the appalling suffering inflicted by the benefits system and their contracted parner ATOS.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Please, remind your right-wing friends that they can kill the woke virus by microwaving their phones on high for seven minutes.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Christianity does not have the right to decide for everyone else what is acceptable clothing, social or sexual relationships, culture, beliefs, or lifestyle.
Christianity only has the right to tell their own cult members what to do or not do.
Legislating religious beliefs is unconstitutional, period.
Legislating christian religious beliefs about abortion, lgbtq, women's rights, or anything else is a violation of *my* 1st amendment right to freedom of religious practice.
It is also a violation of the UN Charter of Human Rights - especially prohibitions against forced pregnancy.
No theocracy in America.
#Abortion #FreedomOfReligion #WomensRights #NoTheocracy #TheNewInquisition
Do me a favour - someone explain to me how to change the font and font size on Mastodon's GUI
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Please someone tell me how to change the display font in Mastodon!
About a year back, I felt pretty rough - cough, flu-like symptoms - so I tested myself at home, yep, I was positive for Covid! Damn! So I went to the Covid website in the country where I live it told me to get an appointment for a 'proper' PCR test and to inform the healthcare system if it was positive. That would have involved me travelling on a bus (potentially full of people) to get to the nearest PCR test centre which I thought was a pretty dumb idea so I quarantined myself for 5 days and didn't bother with a PCR test!
Never in history anywhere in the world has the policy of slashing both taxes and benefits actually produced an improvement in general economic well being! The problem is that slashing benefits deprives people who are so poor that they have to spend all their income immediately (with no capacity for savings at all) of some of their already inadequate income. This has the benefit of cutting costs to the exchequer but unfortunately tends to reduce economic activity because money has in effect been sucked out of the economy.
On the other hand, giving tax cuts to the rich doesn't promote economic activity as the rich are well-heeled enough not to need to spend such windfall funds immediately.
The stupid bitch has obviously read Adam Smith but not John Maynard Keynes!
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
She was PM for #44days she wrecked the economy, made owning your own home very expensive and nearly destroyed the pension markets. Now she feels she can offer advice on now to run the country. She should be shunned, not have her words repeated on the national broadcaster.
She should be referred to as the incompetent and failure that she is. Not be given an opportunity to continue her nonsense.
BBC News - Liz Truss urges PM to cut taxes and benefit increases
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66836347
We have nightly visits from the local Pine Martens over here in Luxembourg. They raid the compost bin into which we discard garden waste along with some food waste. The other day I threw a container of rice and some dall left over from a take away curry onto the compost. Our nocturnal visitors ate most of the dall but left the rice untouched in fact they did more that that - to show their distain for white cooked rice, they had a shit right in the middle of the little pile of rice!
@BlippyTheWonderSlug @FiStitchWitch @MaJ1
Have you got a licence to ride that snail?
@RichardJMurphy
What I find hard to understand is that when I received my first salary advice in Luxembourg back in 2005, I checked to see how the deductions on it compared to what I would have been paying in tax and NI in the UK on the same salary. The answer was that give or take a few £s they were pretty much the same (fluctuations in exchange rate would have been enough to take care of the difference). What I don't understand is that the deductions I was paying in Luxembourg were contributing to one of the world's most generous state pension systems (the average state pension over here for a full 40 year career is about £800/week, pensions here are contributions dependent so vary with earnings over your career but the absolute minimum pension for a full 40 year career £441/week)
The healthcare over here is exemplary with no waiting lists worth talking about, no difficulty getting an appointment with a GP nor any difficulty getting dental treatment under the local healthcare system.
How can that be? Is the British government so extraordinarily profligate with taxpayers funds that they can't afford luxuries like decent pensions and healthcare. Has the British civil service ballooned so much that it's soaking up most of the government's revenues - what is that Luxembourg does right that Britain very clearly gets completely wrong?
@Neoresistant
On en a beaucoup chez nous!
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
