Westministenders: Before the Fire Alarm of Rome goes off

[RedToothBrush]

I’m going to keep this one very simple.

THE DEADLINE TO REGISTER TO VOTE IS 22ND MAY.
www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

Postal votes start to go out on 23rd May.

Your challenge is to persuade someone to register to vote or to get someone who is considering not to, to get their arse to the polling station.

Go forth and harass. Especially women and the young.

That’s it. No frills OP.

Oh - and thank you BigChoc got expressing much more articulately than me why what France chooses to spend on nuclear weapons is not relevant to this discussion (Speaking as someone who lives in the city within Faslane's blast radius with prevailing winds )

The UN may condemn the UK again over the political asassination of an Opposition MP - as they did over the murders of Catholic human rights lawyers in NI, Pat Finucane and Pat Finucane.

They may consider a govt to be indifferent to violence against its opponents and intimidation of the judicial system, when that govt continually implies that opposition is unpatriotic and fails to comment over rightwing media demonization of opposition and of judges

The UN may condemn the UK again over the political asassination of an Opposition MP Hope so, BigChoc
Faslane is so beautiful too, PrettyBird seems such a waste, in every way. Greenham Common has been returned to nature.
Seemed impossible 30 years ago.

Simon Hix‏*@simonjhix*
First #GE2017 combined forecast by @ElectionsEtc electionsetc.com/2017/05/12/first-combined-forecast-for-the-2017-general-election/
Con 391
Lab 170
LD 13
UKIP 0
Green 1
SNP 49
PC 3
= Con majority 132

Looking through Lord Ashcroft's predictions. There are some interesting one on there, though I also take it with a blue coloured pinch of salt. He is more optimistic with the Conservative and predicts slightly less for the LDs and Labour. As perhaps you might expect as he wants to try and get more.

His prediction has Stoke-on-Trent Central (With newly elected Gareth Snell), South and North and Newcastle under Lyme all as 'likely Conservative'. Walsall North and South both go blue. Which is a picture for lots of surrounding seats. Lots of Derbyshire going blue. Lots of the North Greater Manchester Seats going blue.

Other interesting ones according to Lord Ashcroft: Jess Phillips seat in Birmingham Yardley is too close to call. Kate Hoey's Vauxhall is predicted staying Labour. Ed Miliband Doncaster North is too close to call. Gisela Stuart's former seat Birmingham Edgbaston is too close to call. Yvette Cooper seems safe in Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford. Owen Smith (remember him?) is too close to call in Pontypridd. Unapologetic remainer Chris Bryant stays in Rhondda but 'The Beast of Bolsover' Labour Leaver Dennis Skinner loses his seat.

The Other Labour Leavers: Ronnie Campbell - Blyth Valley (Too Close to Call), John Cryer - Leyton and Wanstead (Hold), Frank Field - Birkenhead (Hold), Roger Godsiff - Birmingham Hall Green (Hold),
Kelvin Hopkins - Luton North (Too Close to Call), John Mann - Bassetlaw (Loses seat) and Graham Stringer - Blackley and Broughton (Hold).

Looks like things are working out well for Labour Leavers who want those workers rights post Brexit. I guess we'll see who manage to carry their seats from their personality.

A couple of years ago a friend and I watched a strangely moving & thought provoking film at the Edinburgh Festival in an empty church (we were the only ones there). It was essentially and simply a camera panning along forest roads and paths to music before eventually panning out and you realised it was of Coulport as you saw the big floating dry dock. It was the juxtaposition of green nature with the symbol of nuclear destruction which kept us talking about it afterwards.

...said friend was a No voter who believed/believes fundamentally in the EU (which is why she voted No) but is standing by the promise she made back then and now actively campaigning for independence (or should that be separatism ?)

www.techworld.com/careers/foreign-tech-talent-pool-has-already-shrunk-by-50-percent-post-brexit-3658873/
Foreign Tech Talent Pool has already shrunk by 50 percent post Brexit according to Hired Report.
A report by tech recruitment specialist Hired shows that the UK is already struggling to find and retain top foreign talent following the decision to leave the EU.

With salaries already lower in the UK than other major tech cities across the USA and Australia, according to Hired, Patel sees Brexit as the potential tipping point when it comes to a highly-skilled worker deciding where they want to start a career

And

The report showed that a startling 70 percent of UK tech workers have already considered leaving the UK, but Hired was unable to break that number out according to their nationality

In other words, there goes the UK being the leader in high skilled tech down the Brexit toilet.

That's tech and cars and banks.

Thank god we still have Jam.

I would like to give you all a little true story to explain how easy it is to spread fake news on social media.

I play a game on facebook that has a social element. I was going to try to mask with hobby to be proper MN but CBA! Like everything with a social element there are factions. I joined a group that was for, in political terms, elitists because, again in political terms, I was nouveau riche clearly I aint in real life as I had to look up that spelling in game terms. But, like many a political party, a dominant force took over and the group became something I didn't believe in.

I decided to distance myself from that group and posted on my facebook yes I know audienced to my gamer friends, that I didn't agree with that philosophy. My word has that caused a shit storm. And my word has that morphed.

We've totally gone from a someone having a different opinion to claims I've been saying things I haven't. People who've defended me have been slagged off.

Its seriously reached a point where there are people simultaneously backing me up and having a go at me without realising.

Its completely crazy. And this is just a game and one person's comments.

Imagine how bad this gets on a national political scale. Imagine you agreed with me, your candidate, personally. Then imagine someone decided to amend what you'd said, post it as fact, then say this was down to party x who I stand for. Would you listen to me, the person who can prove they've said the thing or would you listen to people with another agenda who say 'someone from party x have said this bastardised comment'?

There's a whole TEN months between May and Hammond.

Klaxon ! Grade One Sphincter Alert

The UK Vanguard fleet - the Trident subs - run Windows XP

Yes, the obsolete Windows XP (currently hacked in the NHS and other cash-strapped orgs around the world) is running our nuclear deterrent

This prescient warning from a tech mag was in January:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a19061/britains-doomsday-subs-run-windows-xp/

"According to The Guardian, Windows XP was installed because it was "cheaper than alternatives."

Microsoft ended security updates for Windows XP in 2014, meaning that the Vanguard submarines could be vulnerable to viruses, malware, and cyberattacks....

warning: "Any PC running Windows XP after April 8, 2014 should not be considered protected as there will be no security updates for the Windows XP operating system."

< remind me again why the nuclear deterrent makes the UK safer ... >

remind me again why the nuclear deterrent makes the UK safe
Well it might do if we weren't busy running everything to the ground. We apparently want a nuclear deterrent, but we don't want to pay for it

On the major hack that was reported today:

www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/world/europe/uk-national-health-service-cyberattack.html?ribbon-ad-idx=3&rref=world/europe&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Europe&pgtype=article
What is the National Security Administration doing with malware?

Hackers exploiting malicious software stolen from the National Security Agency executed damaging cyberattacks on Friday that hit dozens of countries worldwide, forcing Britain’s public health system to send patients away, freezing computers at Russia’s Interior Ministry and wreaking havoc on tens of thousands of computers elsewhere....

...Security experts described the attacks as the digital equivalent of a perfect storm. They began with a simple phishing email, similar to the one Russian hackers used in the attacks on the Democratic National Committee and other targets last year. They then quickly spread through victims’ systems using a hacking method that the N.S.A. is believed to have developed as part of its arsenal of cyberweapons. And finally they encrypted the computer systems of the victims, locking them out of critical data, including patient records in Britain.

The connection to the N.S.A. was particularly chilling. Starting last summer, a group calling itself the “Shadow Brokers” began to post software tools that came from the United States government’s stockpile of hacking weapons.

The attacks on Friday appeared to be the first time a cyberweapon developed by the N.S.A., funded by American taxpayers and stolen by an adversary had been unleashed by cybercriminals against patients, hospitals, businesses, governments and ordinary citizens.

Something similar occurred with remnants of the “Stuxnet” worm that the United States and Israel used against Iran’s nuclear program nearly seven years ago. Elements of those tools frequently appear in other, less ambitious attacks.

The United States has never confirmed that the tools posted by the Shadow Brokers belonged to the N.S.A. or other intelligence agencies, but former intelligence officials have said that the tools appeared to come from the N.S.A.’s “Tailored Access Operations” unit, which infiltrates foreign computer networks. (The unit has since been renamed.)...

...“It would be deeply troubling if the N.S.A. knew about this vulnerability but failed to disclose it to Microsoft until after it was stolen,” Patrick Toomey, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, said on Friday. “These attacks underscore the fact that vulnerabilities will be exploited not just by our security agencies, but by hackers and criminals around the world.”

During the Obama administration, the White House created a process to review software vulnerabilities discovered by intelligence agencies, and to determine which should be “stockpiled” for future offensive or defensive cyberoperations and which should be reported to the companies so that they could be fixed.

Corbyn & his fan club seem intent on declaring war on the very people that pay most of the tax take and making Britain as unattractive for business as possible and that's an appealing thought to the masses who have had enough.

Charmageddon, do you not understand how Brexit has been an own goal in terms of "making Britain as unattractive for business as possible"?

Do you know how much of the tax take will be taken elsewhere when London loses passporting?

Do you understand how comprehensively the poor will be screwed when Britain becomes a low tax haven post Brexit as promised by Theresa May?

I am amazed that so many Brexiteers seem to assume that 99% of how things are right now will remain completely unchanged after Brexit, that Brexit is just a little momentary blip that will soon disappear in the rear window.

I hope we don't lose Jess Phillips or Ed Miliband. My in laws who have recently been a good bell weather of public opinion are voting Conservative having previously been UKIP supporters because of Brexit and thinking Corbyn supports the IRA.

www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/trumps-coming-war-with-the-fbi
INSIDE TRUMP’S COMING WAR WITH THE F.B.I.

Another F.B.I. insider points out that while the media has focused on the investigation of possible collusion between Russia and Trump’s campaign, there are actually multiple inquiries in progress. “There’s also a cyber investigation, about the hacking and whether crimes were committed,” he says. “And then there’s the business side: Was there money laundering going on? Money from these Russian plutocrats that’s been washed through Trump’s real estate and businesses? That’s gotten overlooked, but Preet Bharara and the Southern District were supposedly looking into that.” They were until April anyway, when Trump and Sessions canned Bharara along with 45 other U.S. attorneys.

Money laundering you say...

thenorwichradical.com/2017/05/12/racism-from-the-top-down-boycott-the-school-census/
‘RACISM FROM THE TOP DOWN’ – BOYCOTT THE SCHOOL CENSUS

Our campaign has identified four main areas of concern:

1) Racism from the top down. In 2015, Theresa May wanted to ‘deprioritise’ the kids of irregular migrants for school places. Now she’s Prime Minister of Brexit Britain.
2) Communities under threat. Up to 1500 families a month are being targeted for deportation using children’s school records. There’s nothing to stop nationality data being used for this purpose in the future.
3) Children’s safety first. Using school census data for immigration purposes doesn’t just hurt migrant children, or even just any child schools think might be a migrant – it hurts all children. Every child has the right to go to school and feel safe.
4) Privacy for all. Data from the school census is provided to third parties, including the media and private companies. And government data is always at risk of leaking.

Providing this data is optional and does not affect school funding. This means parents and schools can legally work together to withhold this information from DfE. The May 18th census is the last opportunity this school year that parents have to answer ‘refused’. This will overwrite any nationality and Country of Birth data they previously gave. On June 30 2017 the DfE will publish a statistical report setting out the responses to the new nationality/COB questions. The data may be used to justify future policies that restrict migrant children’s access to education. As such, we are organising a national boycott until the Department of Education reverses this policy and commits to safeguarding children from the stigma of anti-immigrant rhetoric and the violence that accompanies it.

Looked up Tablet and found it is my mum's recipe for what we always called 'fudge' at home, so guess what I'm going to be spending part of my weekend doing...
Thank you Prettybird.

www.rawstory.com/2017/05/watch-explosive-dutch-documentary-says-trump-has-deep-ties-to-russias-mafia-underworld/
WATCH: Explosive Dutch documentary says Trump has deep ties to Russia’s mafia underworld

“Donald Trump’s business partners have included Russian oligarchs and convicted mobsters, which could make the president guilty of criminal racketeering charges,” wrote Steven Rosenfeld at AlterNet on Friday.

He continued, “That’s only one of the eyebrow-raising takeaways from a 45-minute Dutch documentary that first aired last week, ‘The Dubious Friends of Donald Trump, Part 1: The Russians.'”

Part 1....

It also looks at Trump’s arrangements with wealthy Russians that apparently allow them to move their money outside Russia and details the elaborate financial networks these families use as a “pyramid scheme for money laundering,”

Ooh look. Money laundering...

Zembla has also released Part Two of the series, “The King of Diamonds,” which explores Trump’s relationship with Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, who is suspected of trading in blood diamonds.

Oh look part 2 looks interesting and features diamonds. Diamonds?! Are your eyebrows feeling twitchy? Mine suddenly got very restless.

Anyone reading Frankopan's 'The Silk Roads' may have been struck, as I was, how often societies were taken by surprise when a threat came from a different direction to the one they were expecting.

This is why speculation about North Korea or Iran or Russia or any of the Usual Suspects is misguided.

It may also point to the reason behind the demonisation of certain states and their leaders in wider culture, in journalism, in think tanks, and in political statements.

The biggest threat always comes from within and nobody sees it until it is right among us.

math tablet is not fudge. Tablet is hard but melty in the mouth, fudge is soft. This could escalate, a la Hashi's computer game, so I'll leave it at that. Brilliant story, btw, on how easy schisms are to create.

Trying to prepare myself for this nearly 200 seat tory majority. Thanks red

On schools, as in actual human teachers being coerced to racially profile children, again, look at 1932 Weimar. Schools and universities were the main public institutions to first ban Jews. From cruel grammar tests for KS1 children, 'no hand up' rules in academy chains, to GCSE exams with no mark schemes for 16 year olds next week (!), English schools are carrying out the most egregious policies. Never mind the alleged financial conflict of interest of an ex education minister.

And meanwhile Britain First...................

That film sounds lovely PrettyBird . These are the wild bird now nesting at Greenham.
greenham-birding.blogspot.co.uk/p/greenham-common-birds.html

The biggest threat always comes from within and nobody sees it until it is right among us
That's the truth, Ruth, math.

"Oh look part 2 looks interesting and features diamonds. Diamonds?! Are your eyebrows feeling twitchy? Mine suddenly got very restless."

Yes. Need to read that complicated article about Arron Banks and Russian ties in Lesotho again.

BTW If you know students who may need info on registering themselves (or helping other people to register) for the GE there is an NUS registration resource here: www.nusconnect.org.uk/resources/generation-vote-guide-general-election-2017

The UK Vanguard fleet - the Trident subs - run Windows XP

Oh my... Windows XP!!?? I think I feel faint

Math my recipe is Helensburgh Toffee (even though it is tablet, not fudge or toffee) from the Glasgow cookery book if you want a comparison. I usually boil it slightly longer than pretty looks to have so it is marginally darker and crisper. It is then less crumbly and drier and dissolves rather than melts.

Sorry politics is all very well but tablet making is serious stuff.

FuckYeah thanks, reposted.