Notices by Just Tom... 🐁 (tompearce49@mastodon.scot)

I'm altogether too grumpy to be allowed on Mastodon tonight. As the nations of the world are staring the prospect of environmental collapse in the face, this political party is just unbelievable. I'm off to bury my head in my pillow and hope that the world is a brighter-looking place when I wake in the morning. Sadly, I know the answer to that one. Sleep well, all of you! https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2026/02/17/the-war-against-the-future/

Oh dear!

“A party that gave assurances to voters that “change” was coming but failed to tell them that the “change” they meant was to impoverish pensioners through cuts to their winter fuel allowance, betray WASPI women by refusing to compensate them for the states’ failure, punish defenceless children by maintaining the horrific two-child cap, abandon the Grangemouth workers and now attack the long term sick and disabled by slashing social security payments". https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2026/02/09/mandelson-mcsweeney-and-the-labour-civil-war/

It was not too long ago that the "Panama Papers" were leaked, showing the shady financial dealings of what we misname the "elite". Somehow, despite all the fine words at the time, the revelations rapidly disappeared without trace. Now we have the same with the "Epstein Files", and I suspect that in a year or two they too will have been swept beneath the carpet and the names of the paedophile perpetrators expunged from the public record. Or is there enough dirt to make it different this time?

As I watch and listen to the tepid and parsimonious words of the spineless Prime Minister of the UK I am ashamed of his inability, as a former human rights lawyer, to be forthright in his condemnation of the US illegal actions in Venezuela. Is he afraid to speak out for fear of upsetting the bully who is squatting in what is left of the White House, scared that retribution would be swift? That he too might be kidnapped? Give in to a bully, and they'll be back for more.

@TheNovemberMan @bmacDonald94 @msbellows Buddhism, at least the non-theistic roots of the 'religion', has always seemed closer to, and to have more in common with, philosophy and psychology than it has with any religion. Modern iterations - less so - see Myanmar for example.

@StillIRise1963 - Next thing he will be wanting to use Comic Sans for all official documents...!

"Taxing airline fuel is not the only answer to encouraging more people to choose low-carbon travel, but it’s a start. It’s ludicrous that the most environmentally damaging form of transport doesn’t pay fuel tax, especially now that Rachel Reeves is making noises about a tax on electric vehicles. If we’re looking for easy wins for revenue, just look to the skies." https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/24/end-the-tax-break-that-makes-flying-cheaper-than-trains

...and this too. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tax-loophole-private-jets-treasury-possible-b2871528.html

I hope that he enjoys his new accommodation when he takes up residence in HMP something-or-other. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/22/boris-johnson-took-four-days-off-as-nhs-warned-covid-could-overwhelm-system

"...as he would if he were a Russian asset"? What is the hold that the Russians have over him? Financial dealings? Honey trap and sexual impropriety? There has to be (one would imagine) some leverage that they are employing.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/4a54a0233ca03bfe

Sooner or later many of us will need care because we are no longer able to manage unsupported. It is past time for reform.

"Instead of facilitating the care of children, older people, disabled and learning disabled people, our care system facilitates the extraction of value and wealth from places and local public service budgets. While executive pay booms, frontline workers receive little more than the minimum wage."

https://neweconomics.org/2025/11/ending-extraction-in-the-uk-care-system

Meanwhile, in the Sainsbury's car park this morning, someone put their clocks back further than they intended last week...

Proud to belong to this group of young (at heart) radicals.

I'm (almost) always saddened to read obituaries, and this one especially so. There are some individuals who epitomise Margaret Mead's observation “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Jane Goodall gathered and leaves behind such groups. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03227-w

It is long past time that we recognise that privatisation has failed. It is a mechanism for enriching a few wealthy people, impoverishing the rest of us, whilst enshittifying the services that the privatised industries are supposed to deliver and underinvesting in the future.

@bmacDonald94 And, having seen Nazism and totalitatianism at close quarters, and being a highly intelligent woman, she knew whereof she spoke.

In a sane world, RFK Jnr would be nowhere near the seat of power. Sadly this is nothing like a sane world: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02636-1?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=01bdf7753f-nature-briefing-daily-20250827

As the global climate deteriorates ever faster, those in the global north (in particular) seem to have no idea how great the flow of climate migrants (at present in reality a mere trickle) is going to get. That trickle will become a flood of starving desperate people fleeing ever more conflict. We have no idea what to do beyond trying to "pull up the drawbridge" and we haven't begun to address the ethical implications. We need moral and ethical solutions. "Stop the boats" doesn't cut it at all.

On my phone, FB has little AI prompts beneath posts. I read one today telling me that the line from Inverness to the Kyle of Lochalsh closed in the mid 1930s. Now that's strange since before we moved here 16 years ago we lived in a house that was less than ten yards from that line and I could almost touch passing trains from the balcony. Reading something that flatly and confidently contradicted my lived experience has reinforced my determination to have nothing to do with it.

This strikes home. I struggle with the callous inaction of governments every day, (and still more so with the actions of governments that supply the arms that prolong the suffering of the Palestinian people). https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025/08/05/gaza-is-also-a-war-on-the-human-instinct-for-compassion/