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
Braverman broke law by denying asylum seekers £3 a week, judge rules
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/24/suella-braverman-acted-unlawfully-over-asylum-seekers-judge-rules
Home secretary’s withholding of payments for healthy food for children and pregnant women found to be unlawful
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Nestle makes enormous profits each year and faces no legal accountability for stealing water. Now coffee empire Starbucks has struck a multibillion dollar deal with Nestle. We ask you to join the movement to #BoycottStarbucks, #BoycottNestle, and boycott all of their products. Nestle profits from water theft, habitat destruction, child slavery, & plastic pollution – don't support them!
Take and share the pledge.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
⬇️ This is a fact. ⬇️
It’s not a meme. It’s not an opinion. It’s a fact — a fact I wish everyone could accept, take to heart, and use to motivate action!!
#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateAction #ClimateJustice #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual
A swallowtail butterfly feeding on Verbena in my garden this morning!
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Do you ever feel that the PM and Government don't understand your pain and don't speak out for you?
Well, if your Coutts account is closed they will be there for you.
I hope that is some comfort.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
It's expensive to be poor. It's ironic but true. You get charges and fees for everything. Higher interest rates. Overdraft fees. Late fees. Having only enough to buy what you need right now instead of buying in bulk. Losing your job because you can't afford to get your car fixed. Losing your car because you don't have a job. Even your mental faculties are drained, as you are forced to continually eat low-nutrition foods, "sleep" in miserable conditions, and be exposed to toxins and lack of medical treatment. The lack of liquidity wipes you out. Life really does kick you while you're down.
You can't tell someone trapped in that vicious cycle to "just" get a job or "just" make responsible decisions. Sometimes, no amount of good decision-making can stop the vortex sucking them down. So the next time you are tempted to place moral judgment on someone who lives in poverty, think twice.
Signed, someone who has been both a Have and a Have-Not.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Meanwhile elite wage #inflation continues apace:
The CEO of Crown Estates has received a pay rise over the last three years that from his arrival in the role has seen his pay triple!!!
But, hey, nothing to see here.
Of course, there's lots of 'justification' trotted out to counter criticism, but it just suggests as so often (at the least) #KingCharles has a tin ear for #politics & more seriously, whatever the pious words the #monarchy is detached from our reality!
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/19/crown-estate-triples-pay-of-ceo-in-three-years-to-nearly-16m
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Lies, damned lies, and Rishi Sunak’s government | Ordinary people are seeing their living standards drop like a stone while a zombie government obfuscates and prevaricates | Andy Brown
#Byelections
https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/politics/lies-damned-lies-and-rishi-sunaks-government/
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
A Florida family that ran an online “church” that peddled a poisonous industrial bleaching agent as a miracle medical cure will go to trial on federal charges in Miami this week.
https://news.yahoo.com/florida-family-behind-church-sold-095000976.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw&tsrc=twtr&s=09
There sure are some REALLY smashing people out there, aren't there
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
The Prime Minister blaming Junior doctors for hospital waiting lists is one of the most despicable things he’s said
& for the record he’s offered them a crappy real terms pay cut
If like me you stand with the junior doctors who sacrificed so much to keep us safe RT this widely
https://twitter.com/PeterStefanovi2/status/1681653013545459712
I agree with Macron - we Europeans have no need at all of US "talent". Their loyalty to the EU is likely to be completely overwhelmed by their loyalty to the USA. It was an utterly stupid idea to consider appointing her! Sack the cretin who thought of it!
There was an effort several years back by the National Health Service in the UK, to create a computer system that would contain all the medical data for every patient the NHS treats, X-rays, CT Scans, MRI Scans, blood test results, GP notes, specialist's notes - everything! It was an unmitigated catastrophe no one wanted to use it as it was atrociously badly designed and eventually the whole project was abandoned after an eye-watering £10 billion had been spent.
Where I live in Luxembourg, the government have just tried to do the same with pretty much exactly the same result! Every doctor with whom I have spoken about it says it's unwieldy, appallingly un-user friendly, attaches WAY too much importance to patient confidentiality.
I see a common thread emerging here
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
The UK is not suffering wage-price spiral #inflation, it is experiencing the continued impoverishment of anyone outside the #financialservices sector;
the UK's rentier #capitalism continues to be a machine to enrich one (small) segment of society through #wagetheft on a societal scale.... this is the system the #Tories have engineered whatever their rhetoric.
In others words; this is what you get when #bankers run your economy in their own interests!
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
I think what annoys me most about the phrase "This is the New Normal" is that it sort implies that we just have to accept it and there's nothing we can do.
Being sick all the time is Not Normal.
The oceans boiling and the forests burning down while the cities either flood or wither in droughts is Not Normal either.
A few assholes holding the vast majority of the wealth while the rest of us struggle to get by is definitely Not Normal.
And we should not accept any of it as Normal.
It is not.
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
