Britain already has the most miserable, most miserly pension in the entire civilized world so any idea of curtailing it is an absolute disgrace!
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Paul Brownjohn
@Paulos_the_fog@qoto.org
Retired software engineer & woodworker.
Anglo-francophone.
Detest tories. Subscribe to green, leftish radical politics but not to any particular political party!.
Love the EU and all it stands for, moreover, I spent the last 10 years of my career working at an EU agency.
Enthusiastic photographer, especially wildlife and most especially butterflies.
Slightly knowledgeable gardener.
Atheist; loathe almost all religions and pity the people deluded enough to follow them. I make exceptions for Buddhism as it isn't really a religion in the strictest sense of the word as it doesn't postulate the existence of any god, and Jainism which is the epitome of peace.
For anyone who is interested, my header photo is of the most stupendous sunset I have ever seen. On the right is the waterfront of Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on the left is Thailand and in the middle, acting as the border between the two countries is the mighty Mekong river.
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Joined November 07, 2022
Replying to
@AccordionBruce @jik @taylors
The "system" under which ICE agents operate was brilliantly devised; a system that Goebbels would be proud of!
If I understand the system correctly, an agent is paid a signing up bonus of $50,000 however that bonus is repayable if they resign or are fired before they have served in their role for 5 years. This being the USA; a country totally bereft of any meaningful employment protection laws, presumably they can be fired at any moment on the whim of their supervisor and thus be liable to repay the $50,000 or be bankrupted. Life being what it is, I imagine that the $50,000 bonuses have long since been spent. So there we have it - a system that constrains agents to kidnap random people off the street or miss their quota, be fired and then be bankrupted!
Replying to
@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us
As a career contractor/consultant, yes, all my interactions without exception with HR departments have been utterly dismal to say the least.
After having worked for the EU for 12 months as a senior Oracle consultant, my boss asked me if I would consider going permanent. I said yes, I would and he said he would send my CV down to HR to see what they could put together as an offer.
When their offer came back, HR made it clear that I was absolutely expected to accept their overwhelmingly generous proposal as they had taken the trouble to send it to me. I responded by asking them why they were quoting a weekly wage when monthly is the usual format in that country. Needless to say I did NOT accept!
The offer was at the level of the statutory minimum salary for the country I was working in and not even a living wage in that country. It was substantially less than half what I was already earning and didn't include a company car which the company I was working for, did!
Another amusing happening was when I was offered a contract by a US bank with branches in Europe. They insisted on the most MASSIVE vetting even of contract employees. I received a panicky phone call from my brother whose wife was the personal assistant to the officer responsible for security in the British military, so the moment some US detective agency started making enquiries into my family, alarm bells started going off all over Whitehall. It reached the stage that Whitehall officials were talking to the FBI and CIA about it!
Calopteryx virgo
The Beautiful Demoiselle
Lives only where there are biologically clean "chalk" streams.
WOWSER!!!
I just received this message in Facebook Messenger
"Congratulations!
This is ELON MUSK and I'm excited to inform you that your name was randomly selected based on your recent activity on Facebook!
As part of our 2026 Humanitarian Giveaway, you’ve been chosen to receive:
• $50,000 in cash
• A brand-new Tesla car
To claim your reward, simply type "ACCEPT" below, and I’ll personally guide you through the next steps."
My car is on its last legs so...
I swore I would NEVER drive a car made by that künt Musk - damn!
A quote from the internet today
"Trump one of that rarest of breeds who claim to have written more books than they've read"
A quote from the internet today
"Trump one of that rarest of breeds who claim to have written more books than they've read"
Against the advice of anyone with a single functioning brain cell, it looks like that complete künt trump intends to put boots on the ground in Iran. 5000 US marines have been put on imminent hostilities alert!
3000 body bags will not be a good look nor will 2000 US Marines taken prisoner! Someone tell the papaya paedophile moron that the Iranians have been preparing for this for decades - every possible objective will be booby trapped to death. There will be beautifully inviting, organized kill zones around every objective. There won't be much air support as the Iranians have destroyed all their refueling tankers and if the US brings in more they too will be obliterated! Modern attack aircraft have a very small fuel capacity and rely on refueling tankers to get them to and from the battlefield. Without refueling, the USAF will be like a gang of one-legged men at an ass kicking party!
I would wager that there will be a number of senior military commanders planning a little side-show. The assassination of trump, vance and of his cabinet by "the Iranians". It has to look good so it'll take some planning. But given their almost unlimited resources, it should be possible!
The whole world will cheer - there will be spontaneous street parties - shares in Champagne growers will double overnight and the world can try to regain some sort of sanity!
The USA has lost almost all its credibility as a military power and all of its friends, but something good might be squeezed out this debacle.
The really ironical thing is that trump's idiocy has benefited Russia, China and most of all North Korea who may very well have supplied Iran with one or more nuclear warheads! Think about that! As israel is a rather small country, 2 or 3 nukes would probably do for most of it.
Seeing everything that is supposed to have gone on in the Epstein files, the other day I was asking myself the question “So why do the rich and powerful like to behave in ways that horrify most normal people?”
Having thought about it for a day or two, I concluded that one reason could easily be boredom. No, I know that sounds odd, but think about it, if you are a multi-billionaire and you can have anything you want any car, any apartment, any house, any estate, any anything; your own aircraft your own whatever-turns-you-on. After a bit you just get bored with it because you can have anything and the moment you have it, the thrill is gone
People who are highly successful motivated and driven seem to need constant stimulation – each stimulus more powerful than the last, but what if when you get that sort of rich and powerful, there isn’t anything left that’s legal that you can get off on. So, what do you do, you start doing things that are really edgy, sex with underage kids, making snuff movies, making torture movies and finally I suppose killing and eating kids – the ultimate taboo!
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m neither excusing nor approving of this sort of behaviour, I’m just wondering how people go from being normal people, to being the kind of monsters who rape children or kill them and eat them or whatever other horror you can think of.
This makes me wonder if we wouldn’t be doing billionaires as a favour by preventing them from accumulating those vast sums of money which must I suspect, act as a disproportionate temptation to indulge in illegal and unspeakable activity.
Britain already has the most miserable, most miserly pension in the entire civilized world so any idea of curtailing it is an absolute disgrace!
WOWSER!!!
I just received this message in Facebook Messenger
"Congratulations!
This is ELON MUSK and I'm excited to inform you that your name was randomly selected based on your recent activity on Facebook!
As part of our 2026 Humanitarian Giveaway, you’ve been chosen to receive:
• $50,000 in cash
• A brand-new Tesla car
To claim your reward, simply type "ACCEPT" below, and I’ll personally guide you through the next steps."
My car is on its last legs so...
I swore I would NEVER drive a car made by that künt Musk - damn!
I have a feeling that if a student was part of such a group in a British university and it was discovered that the they had been making posts about how to kill black people or even approved of such posts, they would immediately be sent down (expelled) - at least I sincerely hope they would!
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article314928484.html
Replying to
@TimWardCam@c.im @eunews@mastodon.social
Sue for what - fair competition?
Americans make me laugh!
When they are shamelessly exploiting a monopoly or oligopoly they scream from the rooftops how they love the market and free enterprise, but the moment anyone actually comes into the market to end their crass exploitation, they start screaming blue murder about unfair competition.
Replying to
@gretathunberg@mastodon.nu
I find it hard to believe that (wo)mankind will be able to avoid the catastrophic consequences of climate change unless there is a worldwide revolution!
I suspect the abolition of many of the things we take for granted might be necessary to change the world enough to save (wo)mankind before it's too late.
Limited liability companies must be made 100% (criminally) liable for the global warming they engender. With lengthy prison sentences for the management of companies responsible for substantial pollution (of the atmosphere or indeed of rivers, land or sea by any agent).
My generation tried and failed to create a better world - your generation must succeed or we all die!
My personal view is that Limited liability companies should be abolished along with - wait for it - MONEY! However, I don't have a working model of what should replace these two stalwarts with! Suggestions would therefore be very welcome.
Replying to
@bouletcorp2@mastodon.social
"Merde à la puissance treize" used to be an expression when I first lived in France in the 1970s, mainly used by students, but is apparently not used these days.
One of my former girlfriends a native English speaker, spoke pretty fluent Parisian slang which she had learned whilst living there in the early 1970s. She was surprised to find that very few people had the first idea what she was talking about when we visited the Nord - Pas de Calais 15 years later!
Replying to
@trinsec@trinsec.org UPS just did exactly that to me. They sent me a text saying that my package would be delivered before 9pm today. In fact it arrived at 09h00 but the guy dumped on the front doorstep and was gone before I could open the door! Bastards!