Laughingjohn
@laughing-john.bsky.social
Programming, dotnet, C#, music, indie, history, archaeology, nature & animals esp dogs. F1 and WHU. Art, photography and books. Soft spot for Wales. 💙 💚 ⚒️
New petition: "Require green rooves and solar panel shelters in all car parks" Deadline 4 February 2027, created by Carol De Storm #NewPetition
New petition: Require green rooves and solar panel shelters in all car parks
Require all car park operators to build green roof and solar panel parking shelters which could reduce the need to use farmland for solar farms and support biodiversity.
petition.parliament.uk
Forget "Don't be evil"; Google's true motto is a form of vulgar spidermanism: "With great power comes no responsibility." The internet's *de facto* boss is an absentee landlord. 1/
Absolutely astonishing Samantha Jones is the top health official and she is DIRECTLY benefiting from NHS and local authority ££££ That is WRONG - she must resign, this is called corruption @chpithinktank.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/ea8c...
Companies linked to top health official and husband received £2bn in public contracts
Samantha Jones or spouse held financial interests in G Square Capital private-equity business
ft.com
The state of this. A lovely day out for Badenoch and Philp, playing dress up and making pronouncements about early release schemes - having left the country with one hundred available men's prison places, after fourteen years in charge. You read that right. One hundred places.
Must sound so cool if you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
Private equity firms made up 50% of the largest US corporate bankruptcies with $1bn+ in liabilities Jobs, communities destroyed for short term profit PE has devoured UK high street; controls vets, supermarkets, care homes, pubs, housing, restaurants. Shadow banking wreaks havoc, govts do nothing.
Private equity continues disproportionate role in 2026 bankruptcies
Since 2024, PESP has tracked and analyzed corporate bankruptcies, identifying the disproportionate role that private equity-owned firms have played in bankruptcy filings. This trend continued in the…
pestakeholder.org
Whatever you do, don't look up! "This El Nino, developing against the backdrop of unprecedented ocean heat and rising temperatures, provides governments and communities with a window of opportunity to anticipate risks and act before impacts unfold,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo."
UN, scientists warn that strong El Nino will add fuel to 'a planet already on fire'
The United Nations warns that a strengthening El Nino is intensifying global weather extremes and is adding fuel to a planet that it says is already on fire
independent.co.uk
Imagine UEFA's statement about FIFA's plans to sell off the World Cup, but replace all the references to FOOTBALL with WATER Can you now see the absurdity of water privatisation? Andy Burnham has called the FIFA president to go. But our water is still in private hands: vist.ly/5d5x8
Govt planning c. 100 new data centres by early 2030s, mostly in already water stressed areas. They have no legal obligation to disclose how much water they use. Meanwhile Govt launches £75m publicity campaign to urge us to reduce water use & privatised water companies waste 19% thro leaks. Madness
1/3 Strip away the theatre and Reform UK is a billionaire-backed project to dismantle the public realm, shred regulatory protections and hand what remains of state power to capital. It’s plain to see – just follow the money.
Neoclassical econ assumes rationality. The corollary of, "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" is "you're rich, so you must be very smart!" Thus, people assume that if powerful, well-compensated CEOs insist that "AI is changing everything," well then, *AI must be changing everything*. 1/
When did that shift happen from: employers recruiting (mostly) young people with baseline qualifications & / or enthusiasm and trained them up into work to: we only employ people who are already fully qualified, skilled and experienced? Bastards
"AI’s ‘cookie banner’ moment: EU labels come for the bots" "The rules require companies to tell customers when they are interacting with AI systems and to identify AI-generated images, audio and video." Applies from 2nd August.
AI’s ‘cookie banner’ moment: EU labels come for the bots
New regulations require companies to label chatbots, deepfakes and AI-generated marketing material
ft.com
500,000 UK households cancel their TV licence in a year. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home... Why?
500,000 UK households cancel their TV licence in a year
The BBC’s licence fee income has dropped by more than £1 million over the past decade
independent.co.uk
@gabrielpogrund.bsky.social: ‘EXCLUSIVE Nigel Farage struck secret deal for return as Reform leader months before election — challenging claim he wasn't involved in politics so didn't need to report gifts. In May 24 he showed deal to treasurer, who tonight acknowledged its existence’
Nigel Farage struck Reform comeback deal long before election
Supervised by the convicted fraudster George Cottrell, the agreement undermines Farage’s claim about when he decided to return to politics
thetimes.com
Neoliberalism in a nutshell. UEFA on FIFA's proposal: “The moment external investors acquire ownership interests ... football changes forever. Commercial return becomes a permanent obligation. ... Every decision is no longer driven by what best serves the game, but by what best serves shareholders.”
Rupert Lowe's Restore Britain took a chunk out of Reform UK's vote share in this week's Manchester mayoral by-election. At a recent Tommy Robinson rally, I was struck by how many people told me they want Lowe — not Farage — as prime minister. Watch the full documentary: youtu.be/ii7UIibLYW4?...
‘It’s too fast, too big’ Yup - the penny is dropping Across the entire geological record, our world has NEVER heated up as rapidly as it has in the last hundred years or so www.theguardian.com/environment/...
‘It’s too fast, too big’: speed of climate crisis is devastating crops, say farmers
Drought and extreme heat are killing plants, driving up prices while also making some farms economically unviable
theguardian.com
AI company Anthropic secretly bought millions of rare and out-of-print books to train its Claude AI model. They used a hydraulic-powered cutting machine to remove the pages for scanning before destruction.
Completely agree. This is beautifully written. It's worth pointing out that plenty of other columnists have tried to mimic the Chiles approach - especially the whimsy – and have almost all fallen flat. It's not easy.
Tim Bale@timbale.bsky.social · 7d agoI know people like to take the p*ss out of Adrian but this is a great piece of writing.
Petition: Ban foreign media ownership, enact a social media levy & new regulatory reform & fund independent, local & cooperative-owned media. We believe democracy is failing as the media & political power are owned by a tiny rich elite. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/76...
The series is finished. 12 images. 12 reasons. One argument. The economy isn't broken by accident. It's been structured, through decades of policy decisions, to reward the movement of money over the creation of wealth. That can be changed. Policy choices can be different choices.
Bonkers Economics | Home
Discover why the UK economy is failing. Explore powerful images and stories revealing how wealth accumulation at the top harms society.
bonkerseconomics.net
There's something in the CEO pay image that goes beyond the numbers. 40 years ago, there was a shared sense of purpose in a lot of economic activity. People in a car factory knew they were making cars. Everyone (management, workers, unions) was oriented toward the same thing.
When the story of why humanity didn't stop climate change is written, it will feature front pages like this. Even as the skies blacken with climate change-induced wildfires, right wing media continue their relentless crusade against measures to tackle it.
