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pnutbutter-n-j-elyy · 11 months ago

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Chan x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Mentions of Suicide, Death, Grief, Slight Age Gap, Life after loss, Cursing, Angst, Blood, Brother's Friend, Manic Behavior, Depression, Panic Attacks.

Word Count:

If you or someone you know is suffering from suicidal ideation or thoughts of harming themselves, please reach out for help. You never know when someone's last day will be; no one ever does. But if you can help - even just a tiny bit, sometimes a word, text, or even a call can be a catalyst for positive change.

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pt1 Part Two

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You sat alone in your dimly lit room, the silence almost palpable. Your parents were away for the night. As they had been the last few nights.

You didn't blame them at all. It was hard being in, let alone living in a house that carried so much weight now. It was only a matter of time before your parents would move away. Taking you along with them, as you were still young. Just barely 21 yourself.

The only light came from the desk lamp, casting a soft glow over the envelope in your hands. It was marked with the words "Read when you're lonely," and the familiarity of your brother's handwriting stirred up a mix of emotions. You carefully peeled open the envelope, feeling the weight of the moment.

This was the first letter you were opening. It only seemed right, since you were feeling lonely.

Extremely.

As you unfolded the letter, a rush of memories flooded your mind—the way Hajun used to write letters when he had first left home, the warmth you felt when opening them, and the excitement of the thought of another one coming soon. The endless support he gave you in those letters.

A testament to the strength your relationship. You took a deep breath, your eyes scanning the neatly written words on the page:

I'm sorry I’m no longer there to give you a hug when you need one or to share in the laughter and tears of everyday life. I wish more than anything to be there with you, to tell you that everything will be alright and to remind you that you’re never truly alone.

I know this time is incredibly hard, and I can only imagine the weight you’re carrying. It was selfish of me to inflict this on you, but I hope you understand. You've always been understanding. And I hope you can be understanding now.

But I need you to remember that even though I’m not physically with you, you still have remnants of me everywhere. Whenever you feel overwhelmed or lonely, reach out to those who care about you, even if it’s difficult. I hope they can help begin to fill that void.

There’s someone I want you to contact if you ever find yourself feeling lost or isolated. His name is Christopher. He’s one of my closest friends, and he knows what it means to be there for someone who’s hurting. It's been a while since I've talked to him, but I trust him completely, and I believe he’ll offer you the support you need.

If anything, he'll do it out of pity. But he'll be a person in times of loneliness that you can look too.

Sometimes, a change in environment can help bring a fresh perspective and new beginnings. Knowing you, you'll want a change of pace. Something to get away from me. Consider moving to Korea. It’s a big step, but it could be an opportunity for you to heal and find new joys. And there are people there that I believe can help you begin to heal. I know it’s not an easy decision, but I want you to be open to the possibility of finding happiness, even if it means making a major change.

I hope these words bring you some comfort and help you find the strength to face each day. Know that my love is always with you, even if I’m not, Gremlin.

Hajun

You sat there for a moment, letting your eyes burn slightly. You looked at you clock and saw the time.

3:07 a.m.

You wondered if Chris was busy at the moment. You found yourself opening up Instagram.

You hadn't opened it up since Hajun left.

Left. It was easier to think of it like that.

You didn't want to scroll through the countless amount of edits you knew had been made. Juju had always been the favorite of the group. Rightly so, because even though you were prejudiced it was easy to see just how amazing your brother was. And it made sense that others would see that as well.

You didn't watch through any of the edits fully. But it was the first thing that popped up on your screen. With some corny ass pop song playing in the background that made you grit your teeth.

They acted as if they knew him.

We'll miss our Junebug.

You swallowed the bike that had risen in your throat.

Our?

They didn't know him. They couldn't have been going through the pain you were going through.

The anger you felt made you want to become a key board warrior. To respond to every comment and call them out on the utter bullshit.

The comments saying that "no one understands how hurt I was when I found out" or "it hurts as his number one fan" or "no one knows pain like this".

The comments with immense parasocial vibes made you sick to your stomach, and you clutched your phone as you scrolled through countless girls and guys who commented on how heartbroken they were of their husband being gone.

You had gone through that phase, it was normal even, something common in the fandoms. But at times like this it left a sour taste in your mouth. And you couldn't sit one moment to and try to empathize with them; even if you knew that sometimes people you looked up to, admired even- felt closer than those you could reach out and touch; those whose embraces were tangible.

You felt like reporting each and everyone, screaming at them.

They never knew him.

At least not like you did, not like your mom did. Your dad. His friends.

And to those who had "stumbled" across your account after doing enough research on your brother it was nearly a full on doxxing; and then spread your information- had sent you a plethora of messages that you didn't open up. You'd let them sit in your requests until the day that you went to meet your brother once more.

You went to the search bar and typed in the reason you had come to the social site to begin with.

Christopher Bang

You clicked on a page that had the blue verification.

@gnabnahc.

You scrolled through a few of his posts, not realizing a smallest smile had molded to your face.

His way of posting was similar to your brother's. Very boyfriend coded. Something you had always teased him about in the comments of your "fan" account.

"Y/N you know you're atrocious for leaving that comment." "219k people liked so I think you're wrong." "Yeah, cause they thought it was funny that you tagged Mom and Dad." "What else was I supposed to do? Allow my brother to solicit such images? I'm tired of hearing people simp over you. You're not even that great-"

Except he really was.

Your thumb stilled over a clear image of him, his birthday post froma a few days before you first called him.

26.

Your breath caught slightly as you stared at the unfamiliar face on your screen. You had never met him - his name now only being mentioned in the wake of your brother’s death, a friend of Hajun’s you had never gotten around to knowing in his life. Yet here you were, unable to tear your eyes away from his smile.

It was strange, the way his smile seemed to reach out to you, even though he was a stranger. His lips were curved in a way that felt so effortless, as if joy came naturally to him, even in a world that had assumingly taken from him. As it tended to do for everyone.

The crinkles at the corners of his eyes hinted at a warmth that felt oddly familiar, and foreign simultaneously. You didn’t know him: you had no reason to feel anything for him- especially in the mental state you were currently residing in -but there was something about that smile that tugged at something deep inside you - a place you had been trying to keep sealed off since Hajun died.

You frowned, your thumb hovering once more as if you might scroll away, but you didn’t. Instead, you found yourself studying the details - the way his dimples deepened when he smiled, the slight tilt of his head as if he was caught in the middle of laughing at something. A laugh you could almost hear clearly. Light, and airy, carrying the essence of an eternal giggle rather than a deep bellowing guffaw.

His smile reminded you of the way Juju smiled.

Except the difference between Hajun's smile and Chris's was that the warmth in Chris's smile didn’t just comfort you, or make you feel as if you were seen- it sparked something restless and new, like the first hint of spring after a long winter, coaxing your frozen heart to thaw slightly, even when you were sure you weren't ready to feel the warmth of the sun again.

You didn’t want to feel this a draw to someone you’d never met personally, especially not now, when grief still clung to you like a second skin. But the longer you looked, the harder it was to deny the pull. It wasn’t attraction, not exactly - it was more like an inexplicable need to hold onto something, anything, that didn’t hurt.

And somehow, without knowing how or why, Chritopher's smile had become that something.

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"Hyung! Your phone is ringing!" Jeongin's voice rang across the home to the eldest member, as he stuffed chips into his mouth while lounging on his bed.

"Innie-ah, I thought I told you to stop eating on my bed. You always leave crumbs." As he walked over to his dresser where his phone laid, Jeongin made a theatrical crunch as if proving a point to his leader.

"Ah! You're calling me messy! Our dorm is the cleanest how could you say that?" He mumbled, rolling over and opening up his secret account to scroll through edits.

Chris sighed and grabbed his phone, the call missed. When he tapped the screen, your name had popped up and immediately his heart flew to his throat.

He called you back immediately, waiting impatiently for you to pick up.

"Hello? Sorry did I wake you?"

"Ah, ah, no I promise you didn't wake me. It's only early evening over here- but wouldn't that mean it is early morning for you?

"I couldn't sleep. I'm home alone and even though I want to be alone...together. I don't want to be alone...alone."

Chris nodded. "I'm sorry Y/N, I'm sure that's really hard." Jeongin's ears perked up, his body flying into a seated position as he crawled closer to his Hyung who was now seated on the edge of the mattress. "But I'm here for you, you know?"

Jeongin tried his best to listen in, even trying to disguise his nosiness as seeking for affection, but Chris shook his head and pushed him off lightly with a light noogie to his head. Jeongin pouted and opened up a pack of gummy worms, chewing slower and more deliberately to try and listen in.

"Korea?" Chan asked, his voice raising slightly in surprise. "I mean that's a huge step but..." He nodded and Jeongin sighed, throwing himself back on the bed.

"I'm sure it will be hard. But you'll have support here. But with all the visas and stuff you'll have to have a valid reason to move...yeah...hm...I mean it could take a little bit unless you found a job...yeah..." He absentmindedly drew little doodles on his knee.

Jeongin's eyebrows scrunched. Who was the girl his leader was speaking so softly to? He could hear the slightest sound of your voice and Jeongin hmphed as he moved around again. Was his hyung dating someone?

The conversation you had with Chris went on for a while, until you decided that maybe it was time you at least try to rest your eyes.

"Good. You need to get sleep. We can talk about this when you have a clearer mind. Sleep well, Y/N."

"Goodnight." You said, hanging up. You put your phone on your desk and trekked towards your bed but looked at the small notebook that laid on it. Just one of many notebooks left.

There were hundreds and hundreds of lyrics Hajun had scribbled onto the cream-colored paper. You were grateful your parents had taken the time to raise you as a polyglot rather than just Hajun.

You seamlessly switched from English to Korean to Japanese and the occasional surprise inducing Spanish lyrics Hajun had written.

Language had always been an interest to you.

The minute Hajun had shown interest in becoming an entertainer by the age of seven, your parents had enrolled him in all types of music and dance related extracurriculars, and made you tag along as well in hopes that maybe you too would want to become a part of the entertainment industry, but rather than that you had fallen in love with tagging along to Hajun's language classes.

You credited your parents to the Korean and English knowledge you had, your mom and dad speaking the two languages throughout your childhood after reading somewhere that it was easier for children to learn languages due to brain plasticity. And due to the glories of the education system, you had taken Spanish throughout your high school years and taken quite a liking to the widely spoken language, even if you only knew it intermediately.

Hajun had been the one to teach you Japanese alongside one of his band members who was a native speaker. It was an excuse for you to chat with him regularly, and you missed that excuse when you had become a better speaker than your brother himself.

You flipped through his lyrics and wished you could have heard his voice sing these words or rap them. Or have these words overlay on a soothing melody.

Your fingers glided over imaginary piano keys, and you hummed softly. Not that you knew how to play the piano; you just enjoyed clashing a few keys together in a discordant way ever so often. But you had always been a choir kid, thanks to your parents pressuring their expectations on you. Hoping that one day you might choose to be on the same path as Hajun.

How sick and twisted may irony be.

The pages in front of you felt heavy with the weight of his unspoken words, dreams that were cut short too soon. You could almost hear his voice in your mind, the cadence of his lyrics dancing between panning between your ears. But it was just that - almost. The more you read, the more you were consumed by the silence, a silence and emptiness that gnawed at you.

A sudden pang of grief shot through your chest, sharp and undeniable. How could this be all that was left of him? Words on a page, a life that had been poured into lyrics, melodies, and dreams that would never be fulfilled. As if everything he did was for nothing? The thought twisted inside you, tightening your throat, suffocating in its cruelty.

But then, something else began to simmer beneath the surface of your grief - something that made your breath catch, and not in a way you were prepared for. You shook your head, trying to dismiss it, to focus on the memories, on the reality that becoming an idol was what drove him to his demise. How could you even think -no, it was irrational, absurd even.

Yet the thought was persistent, sneaking into the corners of your mind when you least expected it. What if you…what if you became the voice that could bring his words to life? What if you took the path he couldn’t complete, not to replace him but to…honor him? Was that it? Or was it something more?

You remembered Chris’s words from before, the casual mention of visas and logistics if you ever moved to Korea. It was a passing comment, a practical consideration that seemed so far-fetched- and now...now it was like a splinter under your skin.

The idea lingered, manic and wild. It felt almost like a betrayal to consider it, as if you were trying to follow in the footsteps that had led him to the edge of a cliff. But at the same time, there was a strange, allure to the consideration; one that made you wonder if you could find him again, not in the grave where he rested, but in the songs that never got to be sung.

The conflict in your mind was almost unbearable, a cacophony of fear, grief, and a desperate yearning for something you couldn’t quite define.

Was it closure? Was it madness? Or was it simply a need to feel closer to him, to understand why the path he chose became too much to bear?

You wanted to dismiss it as a fleeting thought, a product of your grief-stricken mind, but the more you tried to push it away, the more it burrowed itself into your consciousness. Becoming an idol -how crazy was that? It was the very thing that had taken him from you. And yet, the more you thought about it, the more it made a twisted kind of sense.

You weren’t like him, and maybe that’s why you could do it. Maybe, where he fell, you could stand. Maybe you could be strong enough to carry his dreams forward, to finish the songs he started. Or maybe it was just the grief talking, leading you down a path that made no sense, but felt like the only way to hold onto him, to not let him disappear completely.

The snap, when it came, was not sudden but gradual, like a rope fraying one fiber at a time until it finally broke. It wasn’t rational, it wasn’t even something you could explain, but the thought was there now, alive and insistent. You couldn’t tell if it was the worst idea you’d ever had or the only one that made sense in the wake of his absence.

The idea of giving life to Hajun’s lyrics -of turning his words into a melody that could fill the silence he left behind- was the only thing that seemed to soothe the ache in your heart. Even just imagining his songs being sung was like a balm, easing the pain with every note that played in your mind.

Becoming an idol…The very notion was wild, crazy, even, but in the midst of your grief, it felt like the only way to hear his voice again. To be with him. To find a way back to him, to find a way forward that wasn’t just drowning in the hundred of emotions he left behind.

You could feel it building, an irrational yet unstoppable force, a need that defied logic. It wasn’t about fame, or fortune, or even following in his footsteps. It was about something deeper, something primal. It was about reclaiming a part of him, of yourself, that felt lost in the shadows of his death.

The idea grew roots, tangled and dark, winding through your thoughts until it was impossible to separate it from your grief. You imagined yourself on stage, under the harsh lights, the crowd’s roar in your ears- was it your voice they wanted to hear, or his? The lines blurred, your identity slipping between the cracks as the thought took hold.

You had the voice. You had the potential to learn to dance. Your image would almost be a given - the amount of attention a company would get for signing on the younger sister of an incredibly loved and deceased idol would have media swarming and an immense amount of free promotion. It would be a conglomerates dream. But could you do it?

Could you really step into that world, knowing what it did to him?

The grief whispered that maybe you had no choice. Maybe this was your path now, carved out by the loss that had ripped your life apart. Maybe by becoming an idol, you could bring him back in some way, keep his memory alive.

It was reckless, it was irrational, it was everything you had never been. And yet…it was the only thing that made sense.

You could almost hear him scoffing at you from above, calling you out for your foolishness, and that made you smile- just a little. If he were here, he’d tell you how ridiculous you were being, probably flick your forehead scolding you about how this was the last thing you should do. But he wasn’t here. And that was the point, wasn’t it? To be where he couldn’t be, to say what he couldn’t say, to live the life he never got to finish.

The snap was complete now, your mind fracturing into a thousand pieces, each one demanding something different. Rationality warred with logic with desperation, but in the end, only one voice remained. The one that told you to go, to become, to do the very thing that had destroyed him.

Because maybe, just maybe, in that destruction, you could find the pieces of him that were still left. Maybe those pieces could fill what he had carved out from you.

And maybe - just maybe - in the echoes of your own voice, you could finally find peace.

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988 - USA Suicide Prevention Hotline | 24 Hours 111 - Helpline UK | 24 hours 1393 - Suicide Hotline Korea | 24 hours

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@abovenyx @wolfs-archive @oddracha

@iyeeeverydee @parisanmorovati @seungmincenteric

@panbish-1209 @fxiry-vtt @sseawavee

@shuporanporang @amarecerasus @softkisshyunjin

@whoa-jo @meanergreener @rikibun

@ayyonoona @shinywombatcrusade @y4yayael

@skzstan12345 @mariteez @allys-reads

@jazziwritesthings @skzstannie @yongbokkiesworld

@kkkeopi @neverendingstay @moony-9

@minsungsthirdwheel @everlastingspring143 @joyofbebbanburg

@0325tiny @resi4skz @soaplickerrr

@leezanetheofficial @stressymessyana @istglevi-gotmesimping

@hannamoon143 @kayleefriedchicken

#skz imagines #skz x reader #skz x female reader #skz angst #christopher bang #bangchan angst #christopher bang x reader #bangchan x female reader #bangchan x reader #skz bangchan angst #stray kids

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mudwerks · 5 months ago

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(via 'Garbage' to blame Ukraine for massive Twitter outage, experts say)

However, Ciaran Martin, professor at Oxford University's Blavatnik School of Government told the BBC that explanation was "wholly unconvincing" and "pretty much garbage."

Prof Martin - former head of the UK's National Cyber Security Centre - says it looks as if Twitter was targeted by what's known as a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, where hackers flood a server with internet traffic to prevent users from connecting to a website.

"It's not that sophisticated - it's a very old technique," Mr Martin told Radio 4's Today programme.

"I can't think of a company of the size and standing internationally of Twitter that's fallen over to a DDoS attack for a very long time," he added.

He said the incident at Twitter "doesn't reflect well on their cyber security."

#try to blame ukraine #worthless leon #twitter outage

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drtanner · 2 years ago

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Genuinely wish I had the energy to talk more about UK politics here given that Tumblr is so US-centric and desperately needs the added perspective, but there's genuinely fuck all happening here that hasn't been par for the course for the last ~14 years. Tories gonna Tory.

A brief rundown for interested parties:

After a long and arduous battle to convince everyone that it should be legal to do so, our government has commenced with its plan to shove asylum seekers who attempt an extremely dangerous Channel crossing on small boats to find safety here onto planes and ship them off to Rwanda, a country with significant human rights issues. There does not seem to be any desire to do anything about the "criminal gangs" who are supposedly trafficking these asylum seekers and sending them here, or to ask any questions about what might make people so desperate that they'd risk crossing the Channel in a tiny boat in the first place.

Having sent everyone back to the office despite COVID still very much being a thing so that we can oil the wheels of the UK economy with our blood and to prevent their portfolios from losing value, the same ghouls are now proposing that disabled people "do their duty" by being forced to work from home, or else lose their benefits. They're also proposing mandatory work placements for people who fail to find work within 18 months.

Transphobia remains the culture war du jour, despite all evidence showing that it is a vote loser. Our government continues to be obsessed with policing the genitals of children and ensuring that trans people receive abuse from every possible direction, having recently released "guidance" for schools that essentially instructs them to deny trans kids any kind of shelter or agency whatsoever and to refuse their requests for basic dignity whenever the opportunity to do so arises, whilst simultaneously attempting to introduce the term "gender ideology" into mainstream parlance.

The Online Safety Bill, which proposes that social media sites should require ID in order to sign up, is also a porn ban.

We (and the US) are still bombing people in another country, without it having been approved by vote beforehand, in order to prevent Israel from suffering any economic hardship while it continues to commit a genocide using weapons that we (and the US) provide. Our government assures us that this will continue for as long as Israel wants it to, and is still talking about "humanitarian pauses" instead of any kind of actual, real ceasefire.

Labour (the supposed "opposition" party) has wholeheartedly supported every part of this and in some cases seems to think that the current government doesn't go far enough.

We're still in the middle of a cost of living crisis, by the way. Also the climate crisis, with more and more people losing their homes and livelihoods to flooding with every passing year. No one's talking about any of that, though. There might be a transgender child receiving lifesaving healthcare somewhere, or maybe an immigrant being treated with respect, which is obviously much worse.

So that's where we are right now. We've been promised an election this year but given that Labour haven't opposed any part of the cruelty this government has been visiting upon everyone but the white, cishet, ablebodied rich, it's unclear whether getting the Tories out will actually materially improve anything. If you've got the Greens or Lib Dems as candidates in your constituency, I guess it's time to make peace with voting for them instead of Labour, maybe.

So, yeah. v( ._.)v

#Tanner talks #UK politics

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eretzyisrael · 3 months ago

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by Dr. Dan Diker

George Orwell, one of Britain’s most illustrious writers and social and political observers, wrote, “Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable…” This prescient observation sums up the United Nations response to the October 7, 2023, Hamas atrocities against Israel.1 The UN, established in the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust to respond to and prevent crimes against humanity, has subverted its founding charter, rationalizing aggression by Iran-backed proxies like Hamas, while failing to uphold Israel’s right to self-defense as a UN member and even equating the Jewish and democratic state to the terror groups trying to destroy it.

The morally disfigured responses by UN bodies to October 7 reflect a decades-long trajectory of corruption in its demonization, delegitimization and double standards regarding Israel, as former Israel Deputy Prime Minister Natan Sharansky has posited.

Hamas’s October 7 “Al Aqsa Flood” marks a new front in political hybrid warfare, merging ideological jihad with Soviet disinformation.2 Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, trained in Moscow, and Iranian regime-trained Hamas leadership have mobilized dual messaging—peace to the West, war to the Arab and Muslim worlds—mirroring the Cold War era Soviet disinformation campaign against the United States.3 The UN has amplified the Palestinian “al-Aqsa Flood” campaign rendering it an eighth legal-political front in Israel’s multifront war against Iran’s proxies.

The current disinformation war against Israel is rooted in the 2001 UN-sanctioned Durban World Conference Against Racism, which has since fueled a political warfare crusade against Israel. Durban’s NGO Forum summary statement revived the UN General Assembly’s Resolution 3379 of 1975, “Zionism is racism.” With its Israel-South Africa-apartheid comparison, the Durban declaration charged Israel as a “genocidal war criminal,” which spawned the global BDS movement.4 Since 2015, the UNGA’s 140 resolutions against Israel dwarf those against all other nations combined, a stark double standard.5

UNSC’s Refusal to Condemn October 7 Unconditionally

The UN Security Council’s (UNSC) failure to unequivocally condemn Hamas’s October 7 attack epitomizes the UN’s hypocrisy.6 Resolution 2712, passed on November 15, 2023, called for humanitarian pauses but omitted mention of the attack, prompting U.S. and UK abstentions.7 This persisting paralysis underscores the UNSC’s refusal to support Israel’s right to defend itself, aligning with a historical pattern of shielding non-state actors like Hamas while targeting Israel.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres led the UN’s moral failures on October 7. He declared on October 24, 2023: “I have condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented 7 October acts of terror by Hamas in Israel,” but then equivocated, adding, “It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”8

#united nations #october 7 #israel

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mariacallous · 15 days ago

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LONDON — Artificial intelligence is a “coming wave” which will supercharge terrorist propaganda and aid their preparation for attacks, the British government’s terrorism advisor warned Tuesday.

In his latest annual report, Jonathan Hall, the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, warned of a “daunting” threat from “frontier technology” after a year spent looking the issue.

Hall warned that generative AI — which can create new content such as text, images, audio and video based on what it has learned from the data it has available to it — “will be exploited by terrorists,” and said Britain has historically been too slow to react to threats the internet has thrown up.

The report said most tech companies have “little reason to explain the inner workings of their models and effort they put into human welfare as they race for market share.” And it warned that there is already an industry for “jailbreaking” the ethical guardrails which tech companies have put in place to try and prevent chatbots from creating terrorist content.

Chatbots could, Hall warned, provide a “closed loop of terrorist radicalisation” for “lonely and unhappy individuals�� open to seduction into real-world terrorism, and could even be used to screen potential terrorist recruits before passing them “upstream for human-to- human radicalisation.”

Hall’s report points out that Britain has been involved in the only example he has seen of attack planning done by a chatbot after Jaswant Singh Chail planned an attempted assassination of the now-late Queen with a crossbow alongside his “AI girlfriend.”

Hall noted that though he is unaware of any current “terrorism chatbot” the internet has “exposed a shoal of susceptible loners, including children, who might just prove particularly vulnerable to one- to-one chatbot radicalisation.”

Gen AI is “in principle” able to suggest methods for circumventing security and providing “tradecraft on using or adapting weapons or terrorist cell-structure,” he said — a particular draw to “lone attackers.”

AI-generated propaganda could, Hall warned, be tailored to “chime with local narratives, such as Britain’s own battle with grooming gangs. The tools can allow “bot armies” to flood forums and social media to “make a topic appear dynamic and current.”

Future threats could also involve generative AI identifying and synthesizing biological or chemical weapons, as well as writing code for cyberattacks.

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justforbooks · 4 months ago

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Trump is pushing the world towards recession.

By learning the lessons of 2008, we can still prevent it. As I discovered then, global problems need international responses. By working together, we can protect jobs and living standards

No more than a narrow window of opportunity remains if we are to prevent an unnecessary global recession. As China and the US decouple, disruptive trade wars are intensifying and threaten to descend into currency wars; import, export, investment and technology bans; and financial fire sales that will destroy millions of jobs worldwide. It seems barely credible that the world is being brought to its knees by one economy, outside of which live 96% of the population, who produce 84% of the world’s manufactured goods. But even though US officials have previously talked of a tariff policy of “escalate to de-escalate”, Donald Trump’s aim is to force manufacturing back to the US, and his 90-day relaxation of some tariffs does not mean he intends to defuse the crisis.

Keir Starmer warned that the world will never be the same again, and reminded us that “attempting to manage crises without fundamental change just leads to managed decline”. He is right. As I learned in the financial crisis of 2008, global problems require globally coordinated solutions. We need a bold, international response that measures up to the scale of the emergency. In the same way that, to his great credit, the prime minister has been building a coalition in defence of Ukraine, we need an economic coalition of the willing: like-minded global leaders who believe that, in an interdependent world, we have to coordinate economic policies across continents if we are to safeguard jobs and living standards.

The immediate challenge is to mitigate the supply-side shocks caused by the Trump tariff wall. As Rachel Reeves is proposing, we need to keep world trade moving. No two crises are ever the same, but offering extended credit to exporting and importing firms was central to the global response as trade collapsed in 2009. We also have to remind China that if it is to present itself as a champion of free trade, it is in its interests to focus more on expanding domestic consumption than flooding the world’s markets with cut-price goods it cannot now sell in the US.

Yet the global challenges go well beyond managing the tariff shock. Resuscitating trade will not be easy without coordinating macroeconomic and financial policies across continents. Global inflation will rise, even after taking into account the deflationary impact of low-priced Asian exports. But this shock is outweighed by a bigger problem: collapsing consumer confidence and declining business investment. That means we may need a synchronised reduction in interest rates – an initiative the US might well join – backed by fiscal activism in the countries where there is space to expand.

Our international economic institutions were built on a belief that if prosperity is to be sustained it has to be shared, and that you cannot have economic success everywhere unless you are prepared to act anywhere where there is need. With or without the US’s help, we must immediately mobilise the $150bn grant and loan-making capacity of the World Bank and the $1tn financial power of the International Monetary Fund, not least to help the most vulnerable, tariff-hit developing economies. In 2009, it was the combination of trade credits and multilateral bank money that underpinned the world economy by $1.1tn and prevented recession descending into depression.

A coordinated approach offers us the chance not just to stabilise the world economy but – to use a phrase from 2020 – “build back better”. For the UK, that means working ever-more closely with the EU. Indeed, the changes under way in Europe make possible a collaboration that is even more extensive than removing post-Brexit trade barriers. There has always been a tension between Europe’s desire to lead, which makes it bold, and its desire to stay united, which makes it timid, but today Europe has lower inflation than the US, and it can reduce interest rates faster.

US deficit spending since 2010 has been many multiples of the euro area, leaving Germany in particular with proportionately far lower debt than the US. With the fiscal flexibility that the incoming German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the EU have created, new resources can be injected into the global economy. This can be done by implementing the Draghi report on European competitiveness and would complement China’s spending boost. At the same time, the UK-EU defence cooperation agreement should be extended to enable joint and more cost-effective weapons procurement. And, to release resources elsewhere, we should advance discussions on a Europe-wide, off-balance-sheet, special-purpose defence and security fund.

Europe may be required to lead in another respect if the US’s willingness to act as a lender of last resort to the world is ever in doubt. The global Financial Stability Board should be asked to report immediately on what risks to stability may need to be addressed within the bank and non-banking sectors. If it became necessary, the European Central Bank could also be asked to fill a gap left by the US (and which China has been trying to occupy) by extending currency swaps to a wider group of countries in need of liquidity support.

Coordinated multilateral action is essential if Britain is to secure the export-led growth we need. That growth will be turbocharged by refocusing industrial policy on boosting internationally competitive sectors – from life sciences and AI, to the energy transition and the creative industries. Promoting such world-beating clusters requires us, as the chancellor has said, to invest more heavily in research and development and high-level skills. But it also demands that we champion a pro-competition regime that does not favour the tech giants at the expense of their smaller UK competitors, or dilute copyright and intellectual property laws so vital to creative talent.

It is not only the multilateral economic system that is under assault, but every single pillar of the rules-based order, from respect for the law to the self-determination of nations and historic commitments to humanitarian aid. Indeed, we are seeing a simultaneous breakdown in economic and geopolitical orders. In a follow-up article, I will suggest how we might build a new order out of what are fast becoming the ruins of the old. But first, we need to show that the world can act together to support people’s living standards. Doing so will demonstrate the fundamental principles at stake: that international cooperation is in our collective interests, and that a zero-sum world of competing nationalisms leaves us all poorer and less secure.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

#just for books #message from the editor #Opinion #Trump administration #Tariffs #US politics #Donald Trump #US economy

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athena5898 · 11 months ago

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I have been collecting links and resources for and from Palestine as they have come in front of me over the past several months. Here is a full list of what I have so far. CW: Links talk about sexual assault, rape, violence, death, etc. You know genocide and colonization. edit: okay it won't post all of them so i'm going to reblog with the rest.

'Israel' releases detained al-Shifa Hospital chief, 49 others | Al Mayadeen English

"May Gaza burn": The flood of genocidal rhetoric from Israel's soldiers

About | Israelism

Germany: Parliament rejects proposal to stop arms exports to Israel – Middle East Monitor

The Failure to Protect Palestinian Cultural Heritage

Air Force Engineer Resigns as Dissent Against Gaza War Spreads in Military

Palestinian journalist describes torture, abuse at Israeli detention camp

Palestinians protest against Israel land theft in Kafr Qaddum

Fears rise for Gaza's starving children | The Electronic Intifada

British far-right and pro-Israel activists are fighting the Palestinian movement together | Middle East Eye

'Israel' commits horrendous massacre on refugee tent, over 20 killed | Al Mayadeen English

On October 7, Gaza broke out of prison | Gaza | Al Jazeera

The Night Won’t End: Biden’s War on Gaza | Fault Lines Documentary - YouTube

US To Remove Aid Pier From Gaza Coast - ac.news

Gloom about the ‘day after’ the Gaza war pervasive among Mideast scholars | Brookings

Israel's use of bombs in 6 'emblematic' attacks likely violated laws of war, UN says

Running Amok | Mary Turfah

The destruction of press infrastructure in Gaza: A strategy to blind the public - Forbidden Stories

‘The grey zone’: how IDF views some journalists in Gaza as legitimate targets | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian

Exclusive: Israeli documents show expansive government effort to shape US discourse around Gaza war | Israel | The Guardian

Doctor admits Israeli pathologists harvested organs without consent | Israel | The Guardian

Israelis are celebrating mass slaughter in Gaza

Israel's skin bank raises ethical concerns on organ consent...

“Genocide Denial”: House Votes to Bar State Dept. From Citing Gaza Death Toll | Truthout

Biden Has Not Seen Pictures Of Beheaded Israeli Children, White House Says | HuffPost

A compound crime: Israeli army hits Gaza family, uses them as human shields, and runs over their mother

UK election 2024: Labour's non-Zionist Jews complain of 'disdain' | Middle East Eye

Israel announces largest Palestinian land grab in over 30 years | Middle East Eye

Israel turbocharges West Bank settlement expansion with largest land grab in decades | AP News

How Israel destroyed Gaza’s ability to feed itself | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera

‘More horrific than Abu Ghraib’: Lawyer recounts visit to Israeli detention center

Inside Sde Teiman, the Base Where Israel Detains Gazans - The New York Times

Palestinian Released From Israeli Prison Describes Beatings, Sexual Abuse and Torture - Twilight Zone - Haaretz.com

PAST AND FUTURE PRESENT(S): No Palestinians Involved: An Open Letter to My Colleagues

Report: Israel demolished 318 facilities, uprooted 10,000 olive trees in West Bank this year – Middle East Monitor

The Luxury of Death | Institute for Palestine Studies

Pro-Israel tycoon gives Labour half a million pounds

We Spoke Up For Palestine and Got Kicked Out of the White House Pride Party | Autostraddle

The Rise of October 7th Tourism

IDF Ordered Hannibal Directive on October 7 to Prevent Hamas Taking Soldiers Captive - Israel News - Haaretz.com

‘I’m bored, so I shoot’: The Israeli army’s approval of free-for-all violence in Gaza

IDF Ordered Hannibal Directive on October 7 to Prevent Hamas Taking Soldiers Captive - Israel News - Haaretz.com

Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential - The Lancet

IDF Ordered Hannibal Directive on October 7 to Prevent Hamas Taking Soldiers Captive - Israel News - Haaretz.com

Israel turbocharges West Bank settlement expansion with largest land grab in decades | AP News

Palestinians recount abuse inside Israeli prisons

Silenced at School: NYC Public Schools Chancellor suppresses Palestinian voices – Mondoweiss

The Frankfurt Book Fair and multinational publishers are complicit in the Gaza genocide – Mondoweiss

On the Record with Hamas - by Jeremy Scahill

Sabra and Shatila massacre - Wikipedia

Sabra (character) - Wikipedia

‘Israel in collapse’: 46,000 businesses forced to close since 7 Oct

Israel war on Gaza updates: ICJ finds Israel in breach of international law | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera

ICJ says Israel’s presence in Palestinian territory is unlawful | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera

We Volunteered at a Gaza Hospital. What We Saw Was Unspeakable. - POLITICO

The end of Israel’s economy – Mondoweiss

Palestine and “Xinjiang” under Capitalist Rule: An Analysis from the Chinese Left | Chuang

One Name, Two Lists

Devil in the details: How HRW laundered Israel’s 7 October falsehoods

UK drops plans to challenge ICC arrest warrant request against Benjamin Netanyahu | AP News

Palestinian factions strike a reconciliation deal - will this time be any different? – Mondoweiss

Gaza live: UK won't challenge ICC on Netanyahu arrest warrant | Middle East Eye

Only a failing US empire would be so blind as to cheer Netanyahu and his genocide | Middle East Eye

“Oslo Is Over” - by Jeremy Scahill - Drop Site News

Kamala Harris responds to DC protests over Netanyahu visit

Pro-Palestinian protesters vow to push on at UBC, VIU encampments | CBC News

Israel’s Netanyahu dissolves war cabinet | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera

Travel to Israel declines from 533,200 in June 2023 to 97,700, June 2024 - The Jerusalem Post

'Horrifying' Israeli strike on girls' school in Gaza kills at least 30 | Middle East Eye

Remembering Eman Qamom – Mondoweiss

Canada set to revoke Jewish National Fund’s charitable status – Mondoweiss

Operation Olive Branch - Google Sheets

Israel privately pressures Biden admin to fast-track more weapons during Netanyahu visit - POLITICO

Living in a nightmare – Mondoweiss

As US Congress cheered for Netanyahu, protesters gathered to denounce him | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera

After polio detected in wastewater investigators search Gaza for active cases : Goats and Soda : NPR

Despite UN appeal, US and UK don’t fund ‘critical lifeline’ to Palestinians | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera

Christian Zionism and the Unseeing of the People of Palestine – Institute for Christian Socialism

As the Games open in Paris: “Israel” out of the Olympics — Boycott colonial athletics! | Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

Paris Olympics 2024: Key issues – Israel, Russia, Seine, hijab ban, workers | Paris Olympics 2024 News | Al Jazeera

All the Times Israel Has Rejected Peace With Palestinians

Violence of planting in Israel-Palestine - The Architectural Review

War on Gaza: How Israel is stripping Palestinian women of their dignity | Middle East Eye

#palestine #free palestine #gaza #free gaza #jerusalem #current events #yemen #tel aviv #palestine news #israel #cw blood #cw: gore #tw sa #cw sa mention #tw sex assault #tw assault

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tarandrus-art · 1 year ago

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Today’s anxiety-driven political post is about The Paris Agreement.

In 2015, 190+ individual parties (countries, and the EU) made a pledge to try and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent global temperatures from rising above 1.5°C, and try to prevent it from reaching a total increase of 2°C.

(For my fellow Imperial System users, a rise of 1.5°C = a rise of 2.7°F, and a rise of 2°C = a rise of 3.6°F)

It doesn’t seem like a lot and I think that’s part of why not a lot of people are taking it seriously. Thing is, it’s just going to keep getting worse, and scientists already believe that a mere global increase of 2°C / 3.6°F will cause a lot of problems. More frequent flooding, more wildfires, and the massive loss of delicately balanced ecosystems like the coral reefs are just a few of the nasty effects we’ll be seeing.

I mean, we’re already seeing some bad effects. Look at the UK, which is experiencing more heatwaves than they’re used to, and their current infrastructure isn’t developed for that kind of constant heat. Look at the United States, which is experiencing hotter summers and a decrease in snowfall. Look at Australia, and India, and China, and everywhere else.

And the current policies in play aren’t going to let us reach that goal by 2100, much less 2050. The pledges that have been made might get us closer, but aren’t quite enough either.

It’s only going to get worse from here. For the US, Trump’s already promised that he’ll withdraw from the Paris Agreement again upon his reelection.

I’d like to see this get reblogged and spread around more, maybe with people chiming in with resources and tips about what all of us can do to try and put more pressure on our governments to do better. I’m really not comfortable with the fact we’re globally staring down the barrel of a gun and there’s barely been any progress to try and resolve it.

(This post is meant to be a short read and doesn’t include all the information. I’m not intentionally withholding anything, just trying to keep it short and relatively simple. If you have any additions, I would love to see reblogs with them—I’m actually counting on the Internet’s love to correct and add on to things, so this can be spread further out.)

#global warming #tw politics #politics #us politics #global politics #carbon #carbon emissions #wildfires #flooding #reblog encouraged #please boost #signal boost #rubin rambles #rubin political

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 2 months ago

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Kevin Kal Kallaugher :: @kaltoons :: This cartoon from last November said it all.

* * * *

A wild week comes to a close.

June 7, 2025

Robert B. Hubbell

Jun 06, 2025

[Reminder: I will hold a Substack livestream on Saturday at 9:00 am PT / Noon ET. Open to everyone on the Substack App on your phone or tablet.]

It was a wild week, so I'll do my best to bring some perspective to the chaotic news cycle.

In a single sentence, here it is: Things are going horribly for Trump and the GOP, so Trump is attempting to divert attention from their inability to govern by staging made-for-TV melodramas.

The converse is also true: Democrats stayed the course, attacking the grotesque unfairness of the reconciliation bill and generally behaving like a pro-democracy party with a stake in America’s future.

Much of the Sturm und Drang that dominated the airwaves this week was smoke without fire, buck without bang, and noise without signal. In short, about 80% of the news cycle was “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

With due respect to The Bard, he could not have reasonably anticipated that there would be two idiots simultaneously “full of sound and fury,” so he gets a pass on the otherwise excellent line from Macbeth.

It is important to separate the telenovela aspects of the political news from those aspects that imperil the lives and safety of all Americans.

But let’s start by acknowledging that the US media, as usual, gave only passing coverage to D-Day protests by veterans across the nation. I am opening the Saturday Comment section so that readers who attended rallies and protests on June 6 can share their experiences with others. But the UK-based Guardian did include front page coverage: Veterans protest against Trump cuts at DC rally: ‘Promises made to us have come under attack’.

ICE continues militarized raids

ICE and Homeland Security continued to use military tactics in immigration raids. On Friday, the raids were concentrated in Los Angeles and San Diego. In Los Angeles, crowds surrounded military-style ICE and Homeland Security agents as they swept through a clothing manufacturing plant. Federal agents then used flash-bang grenades to push back the crowds. See KABC 7, Widespread ICE raids: Protesters clash with federal agents in Los Angeles after immigration ops.

If you can, watch the entire video linked above.

Trump is preparing to “defund” California.

News reports suggest that Trump is preparing to “cancel” billions of federal funds to California. See CNN, Trump preparing large-scale cancellation of federal funding for California, sources say.

As reported by CNN, the “cuts” to be announced by Trump relate to 2024 appropriated funds. Trump has no power to “cancel” or “cut” funds appropriated by Congress. As with other attempts to “cancel” funds appropriated by Congress, the courts will issue injunctions preventing Trump from making the cuts. To that extent, Trump's announcement is performative politics with no actual impact.

However, as reported by Lucian Truscott in his Substack newsletter, Trump is turning the U.S. into a private club, and we are not members, the reconciliation bill for the 2025 budget seeks to “zero out” federal funds historically appropriated to California for items like flood control.

To clarify, the reconciliation bill is a proposal that has not yet been passed. If Trump convinces Congress to cut billions in aid from California, we should assume that GOP losses in California alone will be sufficient to give Democrats control of the House. Said differently, one should expect GOP members of California’s congressional delegation to threaten to withhold support for the reconciliation bill.

It is, of course, possible that Trump will steamroll Republican representatives and force them to support the reconciliation bill. At that point, Californians should consider whether it is fair that they provide a net flow of funds to the federal government, which are then used to fund red states that draw funds from the federal government.

Imbalances in payments and receipts from the federal government are unavoidable. What is avoidable is the punitive withholding of funds from California for political reasons. That is a dangerous political path for Trump to follow, but common sense is lost on Trump.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has already suggested that California will begin withholding funds from the federal government if Trump engages in retaliatory cuts against California. See Newsom floats withholding federal taxes as Trump threatens California.

Newsom’s threat is an empty one. “California” does not pay federal taxes to the federal government. Individual taxpayers who live in California do. Newsom’s comments should be interpreted as calling for a federal tax strike. That is a no-win situation for everyone, and we should presume that cooler heads will prevail. California is the world’s fourth-largest economy and 15% of the US economy. Punishing one of the nation’s economic engines is a stupid idea.

The Supreme Court rules that DOGE can have access to Social Security data.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court’s reactionary majority ruled that DOGE could have access to Social Security data on hundreds of millions of Americans. See NYTimes, Justices Grant DOGE Access to Social Security Data and Let the Team Shield Records. (Accessible to all.)

The Supreme Court’s action, effectively granting access to DOGE to search for “fraud, abuse, and waste,” is a betrayal of hundreds of millions of Americans who trusted the Social Security Administration to protect the privacy of their earnings history and medical records.

Unlike other DOGE lawsuits, this challenge did not raise constitutional issues about the ability of Trump and DOGE to withhold funds appropriated by Congress. At root, the issue is one of policy—balancing the privacy rights of Americans who paid into Social Security against the transparently false justification of the administration to find fraud, waste, and abuse.

While the effort to root out fraud and waste is a legitimate goal that the president should be able to pursue, existing laws provide the president with the necessary tools to do so. Instead of using those tools, the administration asked the Supreme Court to allow a group of unsupervised hackers to circumvent IT security protocols to download, copy, and transmit sensitive data to destinations unknown.

Worse, the Supreme Court allowed the administration to do so by granting relief on its so-called “shadow docket,” where the Court grants relief without benefit of a full hearing on the merits in the district court, court of appeals, and Supreme Court.

This decision by the Court and the actions of Trump and DOGE should anger every American who trusted that their information would be private. Even the most extreme MAGA followers should worry about who has access to their private earnings and medical data on Friday evening.

Concluding Thoughts.

Join me on Saturday morning for my livestream at 9 am PT / Noon ET. I will discuss these topics in more detail.

The return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the US in response to an arrest warrant issued after indictment has all the hallmarks of bad-faith prosecutorial misconduct. When Judge Xinis asked the DOJ to provide her with evidence of criminal activity by Abrego Garcia, the DOJ gave her nothing. At the very moment the DOJ was denying Judge Xinis evidence of Abrego Garcia’s alleged criminal activity, the DOJ was presenting evidence to a grand jury of alleged criminal activity by Abrego Garcia. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

If there is any good news here, it is that Abrego Garcia will be tried before a jury of his peers, who will be able to judge the evidence presented to them under the same standard that applies to every other criminal defendant in the US justice system: Proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

There does not appear to be a détente between Trump and Musk. As I noted yesterday, that fact makes it more difficult for congressional Republicans to pass the reconciliation bill and will slow the work of DOGE.

Indeed, one wonders whether the DOGE staffers on loan to the federal government from Tesla and SpaceX remain in their federal posts on Friday, or if they have been recalled to Musk’s companies. My guess is that the main drivers of DOGE’s illegal sweep through the federal government have turned in their federal badges and are on their way back to Tesla and SpaceX. Good riddance!

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

#musk #elonmusk #trump #cartoons #satire #political cartoons #Robert B. Hubbell #Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter #DOGE #corrupt SCOTUS #Social Security #Abrego Garcia #Kevin Kal Kallaugher #Defunding California #ICE raids #illegal #immoral

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pumpingstationsuk · 25 days ago

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190 Litre Twin Storm Water Pumping Station for Basements and Cellars – Easy Installation

Efficiently manage excess storm and grey water with this 190 litre twin pumping station, ideal for cellars and basements where gravity drainage isn't possible. Built to UK standards and easy to install with dual Ebara drainer pumps. Order today for reliable water control and peace of mind.

#storm water pumping station UK #twin pump station for basements #190 litre grey water pump #cellar water drainage solution #Ebara drainer pumps UK #gravity drainage alternative #basement flood prevention system #grey water management UK #submersible pump for stormwater #stormwater pump kit UK #Packaged Pumping Stations

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eaglesnick · 4 days ago

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So when the wolf pounces on your lamb, just ignore the pitiful bleating and remind yourself that this is a democracy, where every sheep can freely express its preference for which kind of wolf it wants to be eaten by. – Joseph Sobran

I have been highlighting the fact that Reform UK is steadily becoming the Conservative Party by another name. More and more of its top personnel are either ex-Tory MP’s and party members or previous rich Conservative Party donors.

The latest Tory to join Reform UK is Adam Holloway. In an attempt to save his political career – he lost his seat in the last election – he, like so many defeated Tories, has defected to Reform UK.

The problem for Nigel Farage and Reform UK is that once the number of defecting Tories reaches a critical mass, Reform UK will simply become the Conservative Party Mark 2.

Lets look at the calibre of Reform’s latest recruit.

Holloway’s voting record in Parliament is very revealing. He has generally voted against measures to prevent climate change, against greater regulation for fracking, against preservation of environmental protection, against measures to improve biodiversity, and generally against improving environmental water quality.

Clearly, the environment is not safe with this man, who appears, by his voting record, to be unconcerned about alleviating flooding in the UK, improving water quality or in protecting the environment.

On education, he has voted for higher tuition fees and raising student fees to £9000 per year. He voted for Brexit , against more EU integration and for use of UK military forces in combat operations overseas. He almost always voted against the right to remain for EU nationals already living in the UK.

Not only has he little regard for students and non-UK citizens, he doesn’t seem to care much for ordinary UK citizens either. Not only does his environmental voting record show a disregard for others, so does his voting record on health and social issues. He has generally voted against smoking banns, has voted against assisted dying for the terminally ill, and against fewer obstacles for access to abortion.

He has consistently voted against equal gay rights and voted against same sex marriage. He has voted against secure tenancies for life, against stronger fire safety measures and against landlords paying for the costs of building safety works.

He has voted against a wholly elected House of Lords, against a lower voter age, against removing hereditary peers form the House of Lords, against proportional representation and for reducing central funding of local government. He has generally voted against more powers for local councils.

He has almost always voted for reducing the rate of corporation tax and generally voted for stronger tax incentives for company investment. He is generally against greater regulation of gambling, voted for the privatisation of Royal Mail, voted for the capping of civil service redundancy payments, almost always voted for restricting the scope of legal aid and for courts to be held in secret in matters of national security.

He is against ID cards, wants a stricter asylum system and voted for mass surveillance of the population’s communications and activities. He always voted for a reduction in welfare benefits, reducing housing benefits, and against raising welfare payments inline with inflation. He has consistently voted for increasing the pension age.

Needless to say, he has voted consistently against raising the tax paid on incomes above £150,00 per annum and against an annual tax on more expensive homes. He has consistently voted for more restrictions on trade union activity and against higher taxes on banks. He is against increasing capital gains tax.

All of the above information can be found at:

Ex-conservatives like Holloway are gradually packing Reform UK. The same anti-environment, pro-rich, pro-big corporation individuals, who are against the welfare state, the sick and the poor, are increasingly making up the influential core of Reform UK.

These are the very same individuals who systematically dismantled our public services, handed vital national infrastructure to private shareholders, and ushered in the era of Austerity. They’ve devastated the lives of millions—yet with astonishing brass neck and shameless effrontery, they now proclaim themselves Britain’s only hope. All this while the roots of our national decline can be traced directly to their own actions.

If you want more of the same vote Reform UK at the next election.

#uk politics #lies #brexit #democracy #poverty #tory #greed #reform uk #holloway #comservative

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notwiselybuttoowell · 13 days ago

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I haven’t found an hour when I don’t love a bog. Recently, after a night of counting rare caterpillars in Borth in Mid Wales (they come out only after dark), walking back to the car under the glow of a flower moon, I wondered if 2am was my new favourite. I felt very safe, held by the bog’s softness, and everyone that was out at that hour seemed to have a sense of humour. I met a nightjar hopping around on the ground, pretending, I think, to be a frog.

But there is also something about the humidity of a languid afternoon on a bog, when everything slows and fat bumbles hum, that is surprisingly good. I have done freezing horizontal rain and thick, cold-to-your-bones fog and wind so howling that I couldn’t think. All of those were hard, but I did come away feeling truly alive.

I have travelled to the tip of Scotland and far beyond to visit bogs. In all the hours, days and weeks I have spent on them, I have learned that time behaves differently. It stretches out like the bog landscape, seeming to still the world beyond. There is something very special about that.

Like many of us, I came to know bogs not by visiting one, but by ripping open a bag of compost and plunging my hands into the soft, dark peat. Then I learned that there was more to peat than an amiable bed in which to coax a plant to grow. It is ripped from a living, breathing entity with complex ways and wants. We sneer at bogs, we tease them and drain them, scrape at them and pillage them, but give them back their waters and they care not just for the creatures that live on them, but those much further afield.

There is more carbon stored in peatlands than in all the above-ground vegetation in the world. They account for 3% of landmass, but hold at least 30% of soil carbon. Seventy per cent of the UK’s drinking water starts its journey on peatlands, where the bogs not only filter but also slow water, helping to mitigate flooding. This is why draining, extracting and turning peat into agricultural land has consequences. Roughly 80% of the UK’s peatlands are damaged, polluting our water, exacerbating flooding and increasing the risk of fires.

But this knowledge doesn’t stop us using extracted peat. Sure, I don’t buy peat compost, but I have eaten fresh cultivated mushrooms (most large-scale growing is done in peat), bought supermarket basil (usually peat-grown), “saved” numerous discounted houseplants (only about 11% of houseplants are truly grown peat-free) and eaten lettuce, celery, potatoes, carrots, peas, beans and tomatoes, some of which are grown in the UK on drained peat, as well as crisps, biscuits, cakes and chips made with palm oil grown on drained peatlands in south-east Asia. Most of us are complicit in damaging, extracting and wasting peat, despite years of writing, campaigning, shouting and imploring.

I decided I would get to know the bogs, to learn their ways and stories and see if a different song might stir the soul. Bogs are magical in many ways. These ancient beings are much more than their brown flatness suggests from a distance. Below the surface, they seduce water with their engineering. Under every bog is a sea held in suspension, so when you walk over a bog you are truly walking on water. It is why they wobble when you jump up and down on them. They are nature’s answer to a water bed. Don’t jump, though – they are fragile places. It takes an average of 25 years for a footprint to disappear.

What is a bog? Well, there are many types of peatlands, but broadly speaking peat is either fen or – more frequently – bog. A fen is alkali: it gets its water from a ground or surface source and is flushed with minerals because of it. A bog is acid: it is fed entirely by the sky, which means it is very poor in nutrients. Bogs form in wet places, where the humidity and rainfall are high and evapotranspiration (the combined process where water moves from land to air) is low.

Many of them start life as a depression, a hollow or a dip in the land that starts to fill with water. The rock below is hard, often impervious, such as granite, and the water pools. As the climate and world around it change, things begin to grow around the bog: plants spring up, die, fall in the water. The dip starts to fill with rotting organic matter, creating oxygen-poor, acidic conditions. Most things don’t want to grow in waters that are turning acidic, but mosses don’t mind; in fact, they thrive. This is particularly true of bog mosses, which are from the genus Sphagnum. The mosses creep in, the rain continues to fall and the bog is born, made up of plants, mostly mosses, some rushes and a few shrubs, living and dying, but not completely rotting. This is what peat is: partially decomposed organic matter. When it is wet, it is happy; when it is drained of water, it starts rotting again.

Peat in the northern hemisphere is mostly made up of mosses. They call the shots; they are the ecosystem engineers. These tiny, centimetre-high plants are alchemists, taking only what falls from the sky and creating a kind of immortality for themselves as they strive to be dead and alive at the same time. They do this by pickling themselves and everything that falls into the bog in acid, which means nothing entirely rots away. The bog mosses’ pickle juice also prevents bigger plants from doing too well and shading out the moss.

Bogs ... are not hugely interested in wowing you. The mountains have good views and the forest has majesty; the sand dunes sculpture and the wildflower meadow an easy romance. But the bog is quite happy to be passed over – it will share its best secrets only with those who carefully tiptoe in and are patient enough to wait a while to see what comes out once they have settled down.The bog has other secrets, too: underneath this living layer, preserved in all that peat, is an archive of our past doings. A healthy bog grows just a millimetre a year, which puts in context anyone who tries to argue that cutting peat is sustainable. It is important to remember that less than 13% of our bogs are considered healthy, or in a near-natural state. But each millimetre is a record of everything that happened that year: it holds big data, such as fragments of moth wings or pollen and seeds, and tiny microbe data, such as all the amoeba that dined on the semi-rotting plant material before it got weighed down by water. This allows scientists to take a core sample and tell you what the climate was like 6,000 years ago, which plants grew there, which moths fluttered and which bees buzzed, who crawled over and passed by.

The reverence our ancestors felt for bogs is a lesson we need to remember. They aren’t barren or desolate, although many are certainly remote. They shouldn’t be drained or burned to make them productive, nor should they be extracted from. What they need is our respect, because peatlands are the air-conditioning units of the world. Their long-term storage of carbon and filtering of water is helping to keep our climate cool. And no one needs the air-con turned off now.

#excerpts #bogs #peatlands #wetlands #ecosystems

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