Seen in the News

[Tripps]

We've just donated the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius. The Yanks have taken a 99 year lease on Diego Garcia. Looks like proof to me that no one involved believes in the climate change / rising sea levels nonsense either.

"The average elevation of Diego Garcia is four feet above sea level, with a maximum elevation of 22 feet".

Shrewd move if it's all true though. As Abie said to Hymie "here's that fifty pounds I owe you". © B. Manning.

[Stanley]

And when I heard the news of the hand-over I heard the US base on Diego Garcia described as 'secretive' which is the first time I have heard the media come close to admitting that the base was one of the most important US data gathering sites. It is that that has been blocking to hand over for all these years.....
I'm glad it has at last happened....... The Foreign Office said the interests of the Chagossian community had been "an important part of the negotiations". But I doubt if they would agree with that.

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC article on the US base on Diego Garcia. This is the most detailed report I have ever seen about the base but even this doesn't lay out its importance as a data gathering base similar to Menwith Hill near Harrogate.....
Well worth a read though......

[Stanley]

See THIS for a disturbing report about a dog attack.
Two children have been taken to hospital after being injured by four dogs in south-east London, the Metropolitan Police has said. The victims, aged four and six, were found injured on Mickleham Road in St Paul's Cray, Orpington, just before 09:00 BST. A 30-year-old woman was also injured and all three were taken to hospital for treatment. Their injuries are not thought to be life-threatening. The Met said a woman has been arrested on suspicion of having dogs dangerously out of control and has been taken into custody. Police said all four dogs were of a Mastiff-type breed.
It looks as though someone was allowed to own four mastiffs and not be capable of keeping them under control. Why should anyone want four such dogs and why do we allow it?

[Tizer]

It's our version of the US problem with guns. Libertarian attitudes, `I can do what I want, the government can't tell me what to do or not do'.

[Stanley]

You're probably right Peter. There used to be a Dog Licence and you had to pay for the privilege of keeping a dog. Perhaps we need to bring it back in and have an ownership test to go with it.
On another matter, I have just noticed that I misread the clock and have got up four hours early!! A combination of bad eyesight and being half asleep. I have decided to go on as usual, ditch the shed, have an early return to bed for second sleep and then play it by ear from then on.

[Tizer]

`‘Perfect storm’ blocking thousands of desperately needed social homes' LINK
England has a housing crisis - more than one million families and individuals are on the waiting list for a social home. Experts think 90,000 of these homes need to be built every year for a decade to house everyone - but less than 5,000 were completed in the past year. And there are fears the problem will become even worse. We spoke to organisations working in the planning, building and management of social homes who tell us they are in a "perfect storm" of financial uncertainty, unsuitable construction and huge bills for repairs. The result, they say, is that thousands of sites earmarked for affordable and social housing are not being built despite the enormous need....

[Stanley]

Another example of bad management Peter. The main reason is governments of all political persuasions retreating from responsibilities across the board so that they can concentrate on pet projects. The two examples I look to are the outsourcing of key responsibilities in the NHS like cleaning and maintenance. In housing, the introduction of right to buy and the concept that large estates of council houses were perfect places to dump 'problem families'. 50 years ago it was possible for my mother and father to get a council house with relatively little trouble at short notice when the need arose. That is no longer possible.
Some things cannot be outsourced or left to the market. Housing is one of them. The situation has been made worse by successive financial shocks that have sucked capital out of the lower end of the economy and relocated it at the top.

[Big Kev]

A Dutch museum had to retrieve two beer cans from the bin, they were actually an exhibit but a cleaner mistook them as rubbish left by lazy visitors

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8705j33jyzo

[Tizer]

`Russia on mission to cause mayhem on UK streets, warns MI5' LINK
Russia's intelligence agency has been on a mission to generate "sustained mayhem on British and European streets", the head of MI5 has said. In a rare public speech, Ken McCallum warned that the UK was facing the most "complex and interconnected" threat it has ever seen. MI5 has also responded to 20 Iran-backed plots since 2022, the director general said. He said the complex mix of terror-related threats and threats from nation states meant that MI5 had "one hell of a job on its hands"....

[Stanley]

What a good job we don't know about these things day to day. If we did we'd be in a permanent state of panic.

See THIS for more tragic news but on a personal scale.
A former nursery worker accused of murdering her two-year-daughter wept in court as she went on trial. Chelsea Gleason-Mitchell and Scott Jeff, both 24 and of no fixed address, have denied murdering Isabella Wheildon during a trial at Ipswich Crown Court. Sally Howes KC said emergency services found the child dead at a temporary housing unit run by Ipswich Borough Council in Sidegate Lane, Ipswich, on 30 June 2023. A prosecuting barrister told jurors that Isabella was living with Ms Gleason-Mitchell and Mr Jeff, who were a couple at the time, and the child was the daughter of Thomas Wheildon.
What a good job half the world doesn't know how the other half lives..... We'd never sleep at night!

[Tizer]

About time too! Coincidentally the latest Word of Mouth episode was on the language used on social media and besides all the other nasty stuff that gets `pushed' on there we're now finding that kids using it don't learn how to understand long sentences, can't read even short books and are ate a big disadvantage in school.
`TikTok sued for 'wreaking havoc' on teen mental health' LINK

[Stanley]

And we never knew how lucky we were....

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC live report for the ongoing story of hurricane Milton and Florida.
"Extremely dangerous" and "life-threatening" Hurricane Milton has made landfall in Siesta Key, Florida, the US National Hurricane Center says. It arrived as a category three storm, with warnings of extreme winds and flash flooding, soon after Governor Ron DeSantis warned that the time for safe evacuation had passed. Millions fled the state throughout Wednesday as dozens of tornado and storm surge warnings were put in place. Earlier, President Joe Biden said it would be "one of the most destructive hurricanes in a century" and criticised a "reckless" promotion of "outright lies" by Donald Trump about the government's response. Milton's arrival comes two weeks after Hurricane Helene hit the Gulf Coast as a category four storm, killing at least 225 people across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina
We complain about our weather at times but don't know we are born!

[Stanley]

THIS caught my eye....
Twelve tourists who were trapped in a disused Colorado gold mine for hours have been rescued, officials say. The group were touring Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine in Cripple Creek, a privately owned tourist attraction, when a lift malfunctioned. One person died and 11 people, including two children, were rescued earlier. Four had minor injuries. The hour-long tour takes visitors 1,000ft (305m) down the shaft into the south-west side of Pikes Peak, according to the tour company’s website. Officials say the lift descending into the gold mine had a mechanical issue around 500ft beneath the surface, creating a “severe danger for the participants”.
Would you have gone down?

[Cathy]

No I wouldn’t have gone down.
Sovereign Hill in Victoria is a living museum presenting the story of Ballarat as a Gold Rush Boomtown. They have an underground mine set up for tourists to go down, but there was no way that I was going down there.
I’ve been in a large underground Cave, it was beautiful, but I wasn’t really happy being down there.

[Stanley]

I agree Cathy.
I could walk into a cave but relying on an elevator to get in and out of a mine that deep is not for me!

[Tizer]

I'm glad to hear this is happening...
`Meet the team paid to break into top-secret bases' LINK

And this is a pleasing bit of news!...
`'Brilliant posties' deliver letter with no address' LINK

[Stanley]

I'm not surprised by the Teaming story Peter. I didn't know they existed but would have been surprised if they didn't, it seems so obvious to test security in that way.
The postie story also doesn't really surprise. Local knowledge is a wonderful thing. I once got a letter addressed to 'Stanley Graham, Barnoldswick' and it didn't really surprise me.....

THIS bizarre report caught my eye this morning......
It was the call the family of a young British climber who went missing on Everest 100 years ago had given up hope of ever getting. Last month, a team of climbers filming a National Geographic documentary stumbled on a preserved boot, revealed by melting ice on a glacier. This boot was believed to belong to Andrew Comyn "Sandy" Irvine, who disappeared while attempting to climb Everest in June 1924 with his partner George Mallory. What's more, it could potentially help solve one of mountaineering's biggest mysteries: whether or not the pair succeeded in becoming the first people to summit Everest, 29 years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the top. Well-known adventurer Jimmy Chin, who led the team for National Geographic, hailed the discovery of the boot - with a foot inside it - as a "monumental and emotional moment".
There is more, well worth a read!

[Cathy]

Tize… I loved the Postie Story

[Stanley]

THIS caught my attention this morning. Very rarely reported on....
A man who was kicked and punched, made to sleep on the floor and refused access to a toilet by his abusive ex-girlfriend says he wants to tell his story to help other victims. Gareth Jones, 41, said it took more than a year of therapy to begin to recover from months of emotional and physical abuse from a woman he met online in July 2021. A charity whose helpline he turned to said male domestic abuse was not as rare as some people may think - and one in six or seven men will be a victim in their lifetime. The Mankind Initiative, external also found one in 25 men would suffer at the hands of a partner in Wales every year. Earlier this year, 41-year-old Sarah Rigby, from Winsford in Cheshire, was given a 20-month prison sentence, external suspended for two years, at Chester Crown Court, after pleading guilty to coercive and controlling behaviour. Det Con Sophie Ward of Cheshire Police described Rigby having a "stranglehold" over her victim, adding: "Many people think that only women can be victims of controlling and coercive behaviour, but as this case demonstrates, that is not always the case." Mr Jones, an NHS manager originally from Pontypridd, Rhondda Cynon Taf, described being isolated from friends and family during their nine-month relationship, losing control of his finances and about £40,000. He was subjected to daily verbal abuse and humiliation - not allowed to use the toilet in the house or shower without Rigby's permission. Strict controls on his diet meant he lost 4.5 stone (28kg) in two months, while Rigby repeatedly told him she would tell the police he had assaulted her if he spoke to anyone about the abuse.
Very difficult to understand how this could happen but it obviously does and we should be aware that it's possible. I was particularly struck by the statement that one in six or seven would encounter this.

[Whyperion]

I'm glad to hear this is happening...
`Meet the team paid to break into top-secret bases' LINK

Looks like many places need better locks, at least to slow the less experienced down. Again we build to a budge and not a quality.
As to Computer Systems, we have become lazy on how they fit together (basically no users or managers really know)

Meanwhile older note
A Better Read for longer books

[Stanley]

I saw THIS BBC report and recommend that you read it. We think we have problems.....
By Rachel Price BC video journalist.
“I want to contribute to society. I dream of living with friends in supported living, not far from St James' Park, and getting a job.” That was the message from Elliot Caswell, a 19-year-old die-hard Newcastle United fan with quadriplegic cerebral palsy, when I first met him on a flight in 2019. I could see his determination as he was assisted by staff along the aisle - flying independently for the first time, so he could go skiing. It was clear he had cerebral palsy, something that was important to me as my younger sister, who also had cerebral palsy, had only passed away a couple of months before, aged 23. Elliot and I struck up a conversation, and it turned out he and my sister had played together as kids. Being a camerawoman and journalist, I asked if I could follow him as he made the transition into adulthood. Navigating the system as he did so turned out to be far more challenging than Elliot had hoped.
There follows an in depth article which is well worth reading. We pay lip service to helping the disabled but the reality can be very different.

[Tizer]

Meet the Witches of Bucha!...
`'It's scary - but so's giving birth': The female unit gunning down Russian drones' LINK

[Stanley]

As I said somewhere else, we don't know we are born! It reminds me of WW2.

See THIS and then ask yourself, "Are they serious?"
Job coaches will visit seriously ill patients on mental health wards to try to get them back to work, the government has said. Trials of employment advisers giving CV and interview advice in hospitals produced "dramatic results", Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall told the BBC. She said a wider roll out would form part of her drive to shrink the UK's annual disability and incapacity benefits bill. But disability rights campaigners have expressed concerns about the proposals. The cost of these benefits is projected to surge almost a third in the next four to five years, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. It predicted the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) would spend £63bn by 2028-29, a jump from £48bn for 2023-24. “I want to see those costs coming down, because I want to have people able to work, to get on in their work, which is good for them," Kendall told BBC News in an exclusive interview. She indicated some people will lose their benefits, saying the “benefit system can have a real impact on whether you incentivise or disincentivise work”.