Very disappointing.
Virgin Trains had said the decision came after "feedback from our people". But Sir Richard said he was unaware of the move and the operator must never be seen to be "censoring" customers.
It's not censorship ! Retailers aren't compelled to sell every newspaper, and they shouldn't be compelled to sell specific newspapers by the media.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42687568
Monday, 15 January 2018
I almost met a president of the Czech Republic
A good old-fashioned case of good versus evil ? Or at least a pro-Russian, anti-Muslim former Communist against a scientist...
Milos Zeman
I've actually met Drahos when he was President of the Academy of Sciences. Can't say I remember him very well though.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42674309
Milos Zeman
- Joined the Communist Party in 1968 during the "Prague Spring" but was expelled in 1970 for opposing Soviet intervention that crushed moves towards liberal reforms
- After communism fell he joined the left-leaning Social Democratic party and became leader in 1993
- In 2013 he became the third president of the Czech Republic since it split from Slovakia in 1993
- In his outspoken remarks on immigration he once said that Muslims were "impossible to integrate" into Europe
Jiri Drahos
- Studied chemistry and technology and was president of the Czech Academy of Sciences from 2009 to 2017
- He is a supporter of EU and Nato membership buts opposes the EU's quota system for distributing migrants, as do all other presidential contenders
- He considers himself a centrist politician who can unite the country
- His main support comes from pro-European voters and people living in cities
I've actually met Drahos when he was President of the Academy of Sciences. Can't say I remember him very well though.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42674309
Flatworms can regrow their heads and keep their memories
Michael Levin and Tal Shomrat, biologists at Tufts University, have been studying how animals store and process information, whether it’s memories in the brain or the blueprint for developing organs in the body. The team turned to flatworms because, despite their relative simplicity, they have many of the same organs and body organisation as people: a brain and nervous system, bilateral symmetry, and even some of the same behaviours.
Flatworms “also have many of the same neurotransmitters as we do, and have been shown in older studies to remember complex tasks,” Levin said. (Read more about memory in National Geographic magazine.) Yet unlike people, these worms have a remarkable ability to regenerate organs and body parts, including their brains—making them perfect research subjects."
After the team verified that the worms had memorized where to find food, they chopped off the worms’ heads and let them regrow, which took two weeks. Then the team showed the worms with the regrown heads where to find food, essentially a refresher course of their light training before decapitation.
Subsequent experiments showed that the worms remembered where the light spot was, that it was safe, and that food could be found there. The worms’ memories were just as accurate as those worms who had never lost their heads.
https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2013/07/16/decapitated-worms-regrow-heads-keep-old-memories/
Flatworms “also have many of the same neurotransmitters as we do, and have been shown in older studies to remember complex tasks,” Levin said. (Read more about memory in National Geographic magazine.) Yet unlike people, these worms have a remarkable ability to regenerate organs and body parts, including their brains—making them perfect research subjects."
After the team verified that the worms had memorized where to find food, they chopped off the worms’ heads and let them regrow, which took two weeks. Then the team showed the worms with the regrown heads where to find food, essentially a refresher course of their light training before decapitation.
Subsequent experiments showed that the worms remembered where the light spot was, that it was safe, and that food could be found there. The worms’ memories were just as accurate as those worms who had never lost their heads.
https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2013/07/16/decapitated-worms-regrow-heads-keep-old-memories/
Liberalism and conservatism according to Gladstone
[Properly dissecting this one would take some time, so I'll just leave it here.]
The hypocritical, self-contradictory victimhood of Brexiteers
And then the final absurdity, Nigel Farage’s suggestion that he was warming to the idea of a second referendum... As many commentators have pointed out, this is most obviously understood in terms of Farage’s desire to be back in the limelight and to reprise what no doubt he considers his finest hour.
But I think there is something deeper here than Farage’s ego. There is a significant strand of Brexiter thinking, exemplified by Farage, which is besotted with a self-pitying sense of victimhood. For these people, winning the Referendum was actually a catastrophe, taking away their victim status and requiring them to do something quite hateful to them: to take responsibility for delivering what they said they wanted and which they claimed would be easy. It is that which accounts for the way that since the Referendum they have continually acted as if they were still fighting it. And, more profoundly, it directly feeds into talking about Brexit as if Britain were being forced out of the EU on ‘punitive’ terms, thus perpetuating a sense of victimhood.
The problem is they believe simultaneously that Britain is greater and more powerful than the EU and that the EU is more evil and more powerful than Britain. They think it should be easy for Britain, the great and plucky underdog, to escape the clutches of the great and ineffectual tyranny of the EU that's both more and less powerful than they are and also hates them but loves them at the same time. It's a nonsensical paradox because human brains don't always follow the rules of logic.
http://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-week-that-brexit-plumbed-new-depths.html
But I think there is something deeper here than Farage’s ego. There is a significant strand of Brexiter thinking, exemplified by Farage, which is besotted with a self-pitying sense of victimhood. For these people, winning the Referendum was actually a catastrophe, taking away their victim status and requiring them to do something quite hateful to them: to take responsibility for delivering what they said they wanted and which they claimed would be easy. It is that which accounts for the way that since the Referendum they have continually acted as if they were still fighting it. And, more profoundly, it directly feeds into talking about Brexit as if Britain were being forced out of the EU on ‘punitive’ terms, thus perpetuating a sense of victimhood.
The problem is they believe simultaneously that Britain is greater and more powerful than the EU and that the EU is more evil and more powerful than Britain. They think it should be easy for Britain, the great and plucky underdog, to escape the clutches of the great and ineffectual tyranny of the EU that's both more and less powerful than they are and also hates them but loves them at the same time. It's a nonsensical paradox because human brains don't always follow the rules of logic.
http://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-week-that-brexit-plumbed-new-depths.html
Sunday, 14 January 2018
Being evacuated from a volcano with a silly name must be terribly embarrasing
About 1,500 people are being evacuated from islands off Papua New Guinea, where a long-dormant volcano has started erupting, the Red Cross says. The volcano on Kadovar island began emitting smoke and ash last week, prompting the evacuation of more than 500 people to nearby Blup Blup island.
Oh, to hear the news reader try and say that with a straight face.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42680235
Oh, to hear the news reader try and say that with a straight face.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42680235
She flies ! Super cool. Check out the full video in the link.
She flies ! Super cool. Check out the full video in the link.
Via Ciro Villa.
Originally shared by Takayuki Yamazaki
EHANG 184 Flight Test Livestream
video-connect EHANG 184 in China from UK
Video: https://youtu.be/yL5hA8DnE9k
#EHANG #Autonomous #AerialVehicle #UAV
Friday, 12 January 2018
Trump continues to be an arsehole, quelle surprise
Are we still crying wolf ?
US President Donald Drumpf has reportedly lashed out at immigrants in a foul-mouthed Oval Office outburst. "Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?" Mr Drumpf asked lawmakers on Thursday, in remarks widely reported by US media. The remark, made during talks on an immigration deal, was apparently in reference to people from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries. The White House made no attempt to deny the comment.
According to the Post, Mr Drumpf told lawmakers the US should instead be taking in migrants from countries like Norway, whose prime minister visited him a day earlier. The paper quoted him as saying: "Why do we need more Haitians? Take them out."
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42656433
US President Donald Drumpf has reportedly lashed out at immigrants in a foul-mouthed Oval Office outburst. "Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?" Mr Drumpf asked lawmakers on Thursday, in remarks widely reported by US media. The remark, made during talks on an immigration deal, was apparently in reference to people from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries. The White House made no attempt to deny the comment.
According to the Post, Mr Drumpf told lawmakers the US should instead be taking in migrants from countries like Norway, whose prime minister visited him a day earlier. The paper quoted him as saying: "Why do we need more Haitians? Take them out."
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42656433
Thursday, 11 January 2018
EU tells Romania to deal with it
A senior adviser to the European Union's top court has backed a Romanian gay man's right to have his US husband live with him in Romania. EU countries should recognise the right of all spouses to residency even if they do not allow gay marriage, according to the advocate general for the European Court of Justice. Same-sex marriage is not legal in Romania.
ECJ Advocate General Melchior Wathelet said the term "spouse" included, under the freedom of residence of EU citizens and their family members, spouses of the same sex. "Although member states are free to authorise marriage between persons of the same sex or not, they may not impede the freedom of residence of an EU citizen by refusing to grant his or her spouse of the same sex, a national of a non-EU country, a right of permanent residence in their territory," he said.
The advice is not binding, but judges ruling on cases before the court have generally followed the advocate's lead. ECJ judges will now deliberate in the case. The ECJ does not decide the dispute itself: the national court or tribunal will make its ruling following the court's decision.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42641110
ECJ Advocate General Melchior Wathelet said the term "spouse" included, under the freedom of residence of EU citizens and their family members, spouses of the same sex. "Although member states are free to authorise marriage between persons of the same sex or not, they may not impede the freedom of residence of an EU citizen by refusing to grant his or her spouse of the same sex, a national of a non-EU country, a right of permanent residence in their territory," he said.
The advice is not binding, but judges ruling on cases before the court have generally followed the advocate's lead. ECJ judges will now deliberate in the case. The ECJ does not decide the dispute itself: the national court or tribunal will make its ruling following the court's decision.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42641110
If at first you do succeed
Yeah, umm, err.... wow ?
Nigel Farage’s surprise call for Britain to prepare for a second EU referendum has ignited hopes among anti-Brexit campaigners that both sides of the debate will back a poll on Theresa May’s final deal. The former Ukip leader shocked his colleagues on Thursday by suggesting another Brexit vote should be held, arguing it would lead to a more decisive victory for the leave campaign and silence remain supporters for a generation.
“Of course I don’t want one, we won a referendum and that should have been that. But I do not trust the sheer dishonesty of our political class,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Farage said his recent meeting with the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, had convinced him a “decent deal” would not be offered and parliament would reject it. “The idea that, in that circumstance, we’ll just crash out on WTO [World Trade Organisation] rules, I don’t believe our political class will accept. So, I’m out of denial. I was in denial. I was saying: ‘We’ve won, it’s all over.’ I have now got myself mentally ready for the possibility – as happened in Denmark and Ireland and other countries - that they’ll make us vote again and we must be prepared.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jan/11/nigel-farage-backs-fresh-brexit-referendum-to-kill-off-issue
Nigel Farage’s surprise call for Britain to prepare for a second EU referendum has ignited hopes among anti-Brexit campaigners that both sides of the debate will back a poll on Theresa May’s final deal. The former Ukip leader shocked his colleagues on Thursday by suggesting another Brexit vote should be held, arguing it would lead to a more decisive victory for the leave campaign and silence remain supporters for a generation.
“Of course I don’t want one, we won a referendum and that should have been that. But I do not trust the sheer dishonesty of our political class,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Farage said his recent meeting with the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, had convinced him a “decent deal” would not be offered and parliament would reject it. “The idea that, in that circumstance, we’ll just crash out on WTO [World Trade Organisation] rules, I don’t believe our political class will accept. So, I’m out of denial. I was in denial. I was saying: ‘We’ve won, it’s all over.’ I have now got myself mentally ready for the possibility – as happened in Denmark and Ireland and other countries - that they’ll make us vote again and we must be prepared.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jan/11/nigel-farage-backs-fresh-brexit-referendum-to-kill-off-issue
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