'That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of. The only home we've ever known.' Carl Sagan
Ireland, Scotland
Joined July 2011
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Dr Paul Monaghan retweeted
This is what Ancient Greece really looked like.
This is a reconstruction of Curetes Street in Ancient Ephesus. It shows how colorful Ancient Greece was.
Ephesus, was built in the 10th century BCE on the coast of Ionia. This is one of the greatest archaeological treasures on earth, with the entire city listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The magnificent ancient ruins are now found in modern day Turkey.
[reconstruction by Ádám Németh]
Presumably, George is lecturing us deliberately.
An unelected Lord lectures democratically elected governments in 🏴 and 🏴 about behaving “properly”, with the thinly veiled threat of abolishing devolution.
And they dare call this a “Union of Equals”!
Independence means our nation’s voice and democracy can never be silenced at Westminster’s whim!
Europe is warned.
Any contribution to striking the people of Iran now very clearly risks a defensive retaliation.
UKGov has no mandate for any war.
This is big!
Iran has named up to 15 Western bases across nine countries, Ramstein in Germany, RAF Fairford in Britain, sites in Italy and Greece, as targets IF Trump uses them to strike Iran.
The order from the Supreme Leader is from Iran updating its previosuly declared 10 military doctrines, now making it 11 military doctrines for a response with "No Geographic limit"... See my latest YouTube Episode #3 where I deep dive into all 11 doctrines.
This is a "conditional" threat.
Iran strikes those bases ONLY if Trump and USA hits it from these bases first, which makes it a deterrent rather than a war plan.
Iran cannot trade blows with the United States directly, so it moves the risk onto the coalition's hosts instead.
It puts a quiet question to Germany, Britain, Italy and Greece. Is lending your soil to an American strike worth becoming a target yourself?
That is "deterrence by punishment" aimed at the weakest links in the chain. Iran gains more from Germany picturing a strike on Ramstein than from carrying one out.
The goal is hesitation, a government and a public that think twice before the base is used. Peel one host away and the strike architecture gets harder to run.
European officials say there is "no imminent" threat. Based on Iran's demonstrated and declared missile capabilities, Iran can reach the European continent.
None of this is improvised. It follows Iran's OWN military doctrine step by step.
I break down why Iran escalates to exactly this, through the 11 military doctrines of Iran and a game theory lens, in my latest video.
See full video YouTube video in comments below.
Signal, not noise!
Dr Paul Monaghan retweeted
2011 yılında Peugeot, İran’da 458 bin otomobil satıyor. Ülkede satılan yaklaşık her üç yeni araçtan biri Peugeot. İran, Fransa’dan sonra şirketin en büyük ikinci pazarı haline geliyor.
Fabrikalar İranlılara araç yetiştiremiyor. Her şey yolunda görünüyor.
Ama 2012’de bir anda işler tersine dönüyor.
Bankalar para transferlerini kısıtlamaya başlıyor. Peugeot’nun karşısına korkunç bir sorun çıkıyor. Otomobiller satılıyor ama parayı tahsil edip ülkeden çıkarmak zorlaşıyor.
Şubat 2012’de Peugeot parça sevkiyatını durduruyor. İran’daki fabrikalar Fransa’dan parça gelmeyince üretimde zorlanmaya başlıyor. Şirket her ay yaklaşık 10 milyon euroluk kazançtan oluyor.
Bir yıl önce 458 bin otomobil sattığı ülkede artık iş yapamaz hâle geliyor.
Aynı ülkede satış yapan Renault da var.
Renault da Tondar 90 ve Sandero gibi modellerle İran’da büyük bir pazar oluşturuyor. Ama onun da başına benzer bir sorun geliyor. 2013 yılında şirket, İran’daki yatırımları ve tahsilat riski taşıyan alacakları için tam 512 milyon euroluk karşılık ayırıyor.
Yani yüz milyonlarca euroyu geri alamama ihtimalini bilançosuna yazıyor.
Aradan birkaç yıl geçiyor. 2015’te nükleer anlaşma imzalanıyor, 2016’da yaptırımların bir bölümü kalkıyor. Fransızlar yeniden İran’a dönüyor.
Peugeot, Iran Khodro ile 400 milyon euroya kadar yatırım yapmayı planlıyor. Renault ise 2017’de yaklaşık 160 bin otomobil satıyor. Yeni fabrikalar, yeni modeller, büyük yatırımlar konuşuluyor.
Tam her şey yeniden yoluna giriyor derken 2018 yılında ABD Başkanı Donald Trump, İran’la yapılan nükleer anlaşmadan çekildiğini açıklıyor. Yaptırımlar geri geliyor.
Bankalar yeniden İran’dan uzaklaşmaya başlıyor. İran’dan dışarıya para çıkarmak zorlaşıyor. Yıllardır kurulan ticaret düzeni bir anda tepetaklak oluyor.
Peugeot daha fazla risk almıyor. Haziran 2018’de İran’daki faaliyetlerini askıya almaya başlıyor.
Renault ise direniyor. İran’ı tamamen terk etmek istemediklerini, gerekirse küçülerek devam edeceklerini söylüyorlar.
Ama bu plan da tutmuyor.
Birkaç ay sonra Renault da faaliyetlerini durdurmak zorunda kalıyor. Fabrika projeleri askıya alınıyor, satışlar çöküyor.
Renault, 2018’de İran’a gönderdiği montaja hazır parçalardan 319 milyon euro gelir elde ederken 2019’da bu rakam sıfıra düşüyor.
Yani bir yıl önce yüz milyonlarca euroluk iş yaptığınız ülkede ertesi yıl aynı satış kaleminden tek bir euro bile kazanamıyorsunuz.
Sonuçta Peugeot da Renault da İran’dan çekilmek zorunda kalıyor. Yıllarca kurdukları düzen dağılıyor. Fabrika yatırımları yarım kalıyor, satışlar duruyor ve geride yüz milyonlarca euroluk tahsilat riski kalıyor.
Bir zamanlar yüz binlerce otomobil sattıkları pazarda artık iş yapamıyorlar. Bütün bunlar, İran’da otomobil almak isteyen müşteri kalmadığı için değil, yaptırımlar yüzünden yaşanıyor.
Yoksa İran’da hâlâ otomobil almak isteyen çok insan var. Fakat otomobili sattıktan sonra parayı ülkeden çıkarma kısmı zor.
Dr Paul Monaghan retweeted
More than 100 data centres are currently being planned or built across the UK. Imagine living next to one of these monstrosities. Just listen to it.
Dr Paul Monaghan retweeted
BREAKING: Democrats are preparing a sweeping congressional investigation blitz targeting major corporations aligned with Donald Trump, with the first wave focusing on his use of Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot in the military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, alongside Apple and Meta, per The Washington Post.
The investigations will examine how the Pentagon used Grok in planning the Venezuela operation, Apple’s role in hosting and distributing apps used by ICE to track individuals, and Meta’s efforts to make local governments sign nondisclosure agreements over data center projects—potentially shielding negotiations from public scrutiny.
Dr Paul Monaghan retweeted
Meet Madam Jeanne Louise Calment, who had the longest confirmed human lifespan: 122 years, 164 days. Apparently, fate strongly approved of the way she lived her life. She was born in Arles, France, on February 21, 1875. The Eiffel Tower was built when she was 14 years old.
When she was 85, she took up fencing, and still rode her bike when she reached 100. At the age of 114, she starred in a film about her life, at age 115 she had an operation on her hip, and at age 117 she gave up smoking, having started at the age of 21 in 1896. She didn't give it up for health reasons; her reason was that she didn't like having to ask someone to help her light a cigarette once she was nearly blind.
Jeanne retained sharp mental faculties. When she was asked on her 120th birthday what kind of future she expected to have. Her reply, "A very short one."
Here are the Rules of Life from Jeanne Louise Calment:
"I'm in love with wine."
"All babies are beautiful."
"I think I will die of laughter."
"I've been forgotten by our Good Lord."
"I've got only one wrinkle, and I'm sitting on it."
"I never wear mascara; I laugh until I cry often."
"If you can't change something, don't worry about it."
"Always keep your smile. That's how I explain my long life."
"I see badly, I hear badly, and I feel bad, but everything's fine."
"I have a huge desire to live and a big appetite, especially for sweets."
"I have legs of iron, but to tell you the truth, they're starting to rust and buckle a bit."
"I took pleasure when I could. I acted clearly and morally and without regret. I'm very lucky."
“Being young is a state of mind, it doesn’t depend on one’s body. I’m actually still a young girl, it's just that I haven't looked so good for the past 70 years."
At the end of one interview, the journalist said, "Madame, I hope we will meet again sometime next year." To which Jeanne replied, "Why not? You're not that old; you'll still be here!”
I hope you enjoyed this little story and it inspires you to not take life too seriously, and live a little like Jeanne. And please remember growing old is mandatory but growing up is optional.
Dr Paul Monaghan retweeted
Gent in purple, "State pensioners who have contributed their whole lives are on a lot less than minimum wage"
"I'm very lucky to have a small German pension, and believe me, it's a lot more than what we pay in this country"
"Most of western Europe their pensions are much higher than the state pension in this country"
"I'm lucky I get a pension from the military"
"But people on the basic state pension, I reall feel sorry for them"
My view:
The full new State Pension is roughly £12,548 a year.
Someone working 37.5 hours a week on the £12.71 minimum wage earns about £24,785 before tax.
That puts the full new State Pension at barely half a full-time minimum-wage salary.
Government figures show that 12% of pensioner families received their income entirely from the State Pension and other state benefits in 2024/25.
That same year, around 1.7 million pensioners — one in seven — were living in relative poverty after housing costs.
A better pension means being able to heat your home, eat properly and see friends without calculating what you’ll have to go without afterwards.
It also means money spent in the communities where pensioners live.
After a lifetime of working, caring and contributing, financial security should be something people can expect.
Dr Paul Monaghan retweeted
Activists from the environmental organization Greenpeace, operating from the vessel Arctic Sunrise, have deployed nine massive, two-ton boulders onto the seabed approximately 30 miles off the Norfolk coast. This strategically placed underwater barrier is designed to physically obstruct bottom trawling, a destructive commercial fishing method where heavy, weighted nets drag across the ocean floor, tearing up marine habitats and disrupting marine life.
The high-profile intervention successfully closes off 116 square kilometers of protected waters to bottom trawlers within the Southern North Sea Marine Protected Area, a sanctuary originally established to safeguard vulnerable harbour porpoises.
This direct action stems from mounting public frustration over government inaction regarding industrial fishing inside official conservation zones. The campaign received high-profile backing from prominent figures, including actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Simon Pegg, whose signatures were inscribed directly onto the boulders before deployment.
The initiative highlights a stark regulatory contradiction: the continued operation of heavy industrial fishing gear inside supposedly protected sanctuaries. While environmental authorities maintain that maritime activities must strictly comply with official licensing procedures, ocean conservationists argue that physical barriers remain a vital last resort to prevent irreparable seabed degradation and give marine ecosystems a genuine opportunity to recover.
Dr Paul Monaghan retweeted
Júlia al claustre del Monestir de Sant Benet de Bages (1925). Júlia in the Cloister of the Monastery of Sant Benet
Dr Paul Monaghan retweeted
The ruminant family, and the one job each of them does that nothing else on earth can.
The cow turns a wet hillside into beef and milk, and leaves the soil better than she found it.
The sheep grows a fireproof, waterproof, compostable coat every year, out of grass and rain, and then gives it away for the price of a haircut.
The goat eats the bramble, the scrub and the invasive weed that strangles everything else, and asks only for a weak point in the fence.
The water buffalo makes the milk that becomes real mozzarella, standing in marsh a cow would sink in.
The yak gives milk at an altitude that would kill a lowland animal in a week, and carries your bags up there as well.
The reindeer feeds and clothes entire peoples above the Arctic Circle, on lichen and moss, in the dark, for months.
The bison built the deepest soil on the planet by walking across it and eating.
Seven animals, one gift each, and not one of them can be replaced by a crop, a machine or a sachet.
Every one of them is classed, this decade, as a liability on a spreadsheet by somebody who has never been cold.
🤔
نتائج الانتخابات في الولايات المتحدة والتوقعات المستقبلية:
1. من غير المرجح أن يبقى ترامب في منصبه كرئيس حتى نهاية ولايته.
2. ستتخلى الحزب الجمهوري عن "المجنون" أو ستذهب هي نفسها إلى "سلة المهملات" السياسية.
3. أول من سيتحول ضد ترامب هو ماسك، ثم جزء من أعضاء الكونغرس الجمهوريين، ثم روبيو وفانس. إذا استمرت أغلبية الجمهوريين في التمسك بهذا "الخطأ" الأحمر، فقد ينفذ ماسك تهديده بإنشاء حزب جديد. ومع ذلك، فإن المسيرة السياسية لجميع من تلطخت سمعتهم بسبب ترامب والإدارة الحالية محكوم عليها بالفشل.
تنتظرنا تحقيقات وفضح قضايا فساد وعدم كفاءة من قبل الكونغرس الجديد، على نطاق هائل، بحيث سيندثر تحت هذا "الزلزال" السياسي كل من كان قريبًا، بمن فيهم فانس وروبيو.
4. يهتم الديمقراطيون بالحفاظ على "قبر" الحزب الجمهوري في المنصب الرئاسي حتى نهاية ولايته، مع تجريده من السلطة الحقيقية وفضح فساد الإدارة. عندها، سيكون الهزيمة المتكررة للجمهوريين بعد عامين أمرًا لا مفر منه. ومع ذلك، سيكون هذا صعبًا: جنون ترامب سيصبح أكثر وضوحًا
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5. بالنسبة لأوكرانيا، فإن فشل ترامب سيؤدي إلى استئناف المساعدات الأمريكية التي كانت موجودة في عهد بايدن (على الأقل) في بداية العام القادم. سيفعل ذلك الكونغرس الجديد، ولن يجرؤ ترامب على الاعتراض، بل ولن يتمكن من ذلك.
6. يعتمد قادة روسيا على اتفاق مع ترامب. كانت هذه هي آخر أملهم في إجبار أوكرانيا على الاستسلام و/أو الحصول على إلغاء العقوبات. لقد تحطمت أحلامهم تمامًا في العودة إلى الحياة الهادئة المعتادة:
السرقة في روسيا، والإنفاق في الغرب. الآن، سيكونون مقتنعين تمامًا بأنه يمكن إنهاء الحرب فقط عن طريق إزالة بوتين جسديًا. في الولايات المتحدة، هناك آلية ديمقراطية لإبعاد "المجانين" عن السلطة. لقد بدأ هذا الآلية في العمل. في روسيا، يمكن إبعاد "المجنون" عن السلطة فقط عن طريق تدميره جسديًا. لقد حدث هذا من قبل في التاريخ. قد يتكرر.
7. يمكن أن يكون انهيار الجمهوريين بداية نهاية الموجة الشعبوية اليمينية في الغرب، والتي كانت السلطات الروسية تعتمد عليها أيضًا. فشل أوربان، ثم فوتشيتش، والآن الأهم هو الهزيمة الملحمية لترامب والجمهوريين.
8. على الأرجح، سيتم إرسال نتنياهو أيضًا إلى "سلة المهملات" السياسية، خاصة بعد إعلانه عن إنهاء المساعدات العسكرية الأمريكية.
9. الأهم من ذلك. يمكن أن يكون انهيار "أنصار ترامب" بداية عودة عالمنا "المجنون" إلى نوع من "الوضع الطبيعي". إن "مهرجان" المتخلف في البيت الأبيض المحمر من الخجل سينتهي قريبًا. يجب أن يأتي الدور على "المختل" الروسي بعد ذلك.
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