alanjjohnstone
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Sometimes you cannot believe how unreal the press can be. The Independent ( re-hashing a Daily Mirror story that places the Corbyn on Trident statement right beneath the article) publishes a story from 1954, 62 years ago , that some sort of atomic war expert speculated that instead of dozens of atomic bombs, Russia would only use a few big ones, to effectively destroy London. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/russia-planned-to-drop-nuclear-bombs-on-london-in-the-cold-war-letter-says-a6707306.htmlBut need the story have required this sentence
Quote:Current Russian president Vladimir Putin has begun bombing Syrian opponents to President Bashar al-Assad, who is believed by the US to have used chemical weapons on his own citizens.Just what relevance is there except to instil and implant an irrational fear into the minds of people today about the Russian threat.
Unauthorised documentary film about Brand has been releasedhttp://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/oct/24/maker-of-russell-brand-film-he-wants-what-we-all-want-for-our-lives-to-matter
Maybe this thread should be renamed just roboticsI found this articlehttp://netdugout.com/2015/10/global-agricultural-robot-market-size-exceed-to-reach-16-3-billion-by-2020/The application of robots in farming and the potential they offer and the anti-pollution possibilities in pesticide and fertilising.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/23/unite-challenges-expulsion-of-alleged-trotskyists-from-labour-partyWho controls the Labour Party – seems as if it isn't the leader but the party apparatchiks – who decide who to expel…in this case 4 AWL members But i find it interest the AWL is no longer a politial party having deregistered while LU who inist they still are a political prty urges its members to enter Momentum – a Labour Party lobby group – joining with SWP and SPEW. I forget the name now and too lazy to check but one Labour Party mandarin said Momentum is spelled M-I-L-I-T-A-N-T.
Portugal's election has taken an unexpected turn.The President choosing not to recognise a coalition government because of its anti-EU and anti-NATO positions but the telling quote from him is –
Quote:it is my duty, within my constitutional powers, to do everything possible to prevent false signals being sent to financial institutions, investors and markets,” he said.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11949701/AEP-Eurozone-crosses-Rubicon-as-Portugals-anti-euro-Left-banned-from-power.htmlBut as the Telegraph points out he is as President happy enough to ignore the fact that half the voters chose anti-austerity anti-cuts parties – he isn't upholding their rights. I note at this time, only the Telegraph deems it of importance – no doubt because of its Euro-scepticism – to report on the Portuguese constitutional dilemma.
We, of course, argue that it is in the self-interests of those better-off workers to join us in abolishing wage-labour. You indicated a few reasons…mounting insecurity…stagnating salaries…increased working hours … intensifying working conditions. In the US university lecturers protest lack of tenure. Doctors in the UK are out in the streets protesting wage-cuts. In Iceland the police are striking by taking sickies in mass. More and more of the "old professions" no longer consider industrial action as something only blue-collar manual workers do. They leave university in debt and remain in debt for much of their working lives. But there are more than just the share of the surplus value that convinces people of the need for radical change. We have the environment where it is very clear that it is the economic system which drives global warming. Climate change will very likely impact on your accountant and most definitely upon his offspring. Many will be joining the ranks of the refugees seeking to re-establish a life elsewhere and thus endure all the bitter competition that will entail… I think we can question the happiness and contentment of your accountant, locking himself in his gated housing development, mortgaged to the hilt, investing in house security, fearing all those phantom terrors the media gleefully announce in regard to every dark shadow.They risk bankrupting themselves with private education and private health-care costs because of social spending cuts. Each day he exposes himself to the threat of pollution or food adulteration that no amount of personal "healthy" lifestyle can mitigate. You may argue that he would take a drop in living standards in socialism, something that can actually be contested but we argue he will have a far higher quality of life for himself and his family. TWC discussed the social irrelevance of all his training and studying to become an accountant, we suggest that there will be much more job-satisfaction in the constructive contribution towards the community he could be making in some other job rather taking kudos from making a living from helping people and businesses to avoid paying taxes which indirectly causes much of his stress and worries. I'm not sure, you can correct me if i am wrong but i think accountancy training may help with cost benefit analysis, one of the tasks planning in socialism will still need even if it is not in dollars and cents but instead hours of labour and amounts of material. But you are right that we do have our work cut out to try and convince those who consider themselves fortunate that capitalism "rewards" them with larger scraps from the table and award them with a little bit more status, the occasional slap on the back. We could use your help as someone who is part of the "middle class" myth in exposing it as the sham that it is.
Even an informed Tory (Julian Lewis is chairman of the defence committee) calls the prospect of UK airstrikes as a "pointless endeavour” and "extremely dangerous"
Quote:In Syria, apart from Kurds in limited areas, there are no credible, non-Islamist ground forces other than President Assad’s. The government does not accept that its preferred “moderate” forces are a fantasy and that a jihadi victory would be the only outcome if Assad were overthrown – with all the biblical-scale horrors which would flow from that for the Christians, Alawites, Shia and other minorities, as well as secular Sunnis…With the removal of Assad, groups like this would be like vultures at a feast. No serious analyst argues that the handful of “moderates” would be a match for the jihadis.So Justin Trudeau of the Liberal Party have won.His early act of withdrawing Canadian aircraft from bombing Syria and Iraq can only be applaudedhttp://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34589250
Have strayed from the original theme but i read
Quote:“You’re going to see them being used in domestic policing, border patrol, riot control, not just armed conflict,” Steve Goose, director of Human Rights Watch’s arms division, told the Guardian. “The physical platforms already exist. It’s not science fiction, it’s a completely new way of fighting that revolutionizes all of this.”We often assume that there are much older civilisations out there in in other galaxies but apparently we are the older…or younger…depending on perspective.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/earth-was-one-of-the-universe-s-first-habitable-planets-and-we-re-likely-to-miss-chance-to-meet-a6701311.html
Quote:Earth was one of the first habitable planets in the universe, according to a new study.We were among the first 8 per cent of worlds that could potentially support life when we came into being 4.6 billion years ago, according the astronomers behind the study. Many of the other Earth-supporting planets won’t turn be around for some time — and are likely to come about after our own sun burns out in six billion years.Bread and Circusesclipshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBwJ9MyxxsQwelfare state slaveryhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTvwK319mlo
Tsk Tsk Tsk, ALB…you simply aren't following your standard Trotskyist uneven development properly…not all planetary systems have reached post-scarcityPeople only use money in Quark's bar on DS9 because DS9 is a Bajoran space station, subject to Bajoran laws. The main currency unit on Bajor was the lita. In fact, Quark's bar's customs would be very illegal in the Federation. Quark is a Ferengi, and as such he uses latinum as currency. The Federation Credithttp://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Federation_creditLatinum was a rare silver-colored liquid that was used as currency by the Ferengi Alliance and many other worlds. It could not be replicated. For ease of transaction, latinum was usually suspended within "useless" gold as a binding medium to produce gold-pressed latinum. Denominations of gold-pressed latinum, in order of increasing value, included the slip, the strip, the bar, and the brick. One bar of gold-pressed latinum was equal to twenty strips or two thousand slips of latinum.The lek is a Cardassian unit of currency (perhaps equating Cardassia with Albania)The darsek was the main unit of currency used in the Klingon Empire.Aboard the Voyager, each crew member recieved energy credits that could be exchanged for replicated goods; a similar system was employed on DS9, but it would seem that in that system one could buy credits with latinum. Latinum isn't just used as a currency by the Ferengi, as much as some Star Fleet people might like to pretend. It's basically used as a universal currency.The United Federation of Planets is probably a technocracy with an elected government. Everyone has access to basic necessities but you get a little more if you have a job and even more when you have an important job. The captain's quarters on a starship are bigger than all the other ones and ensign's (and below) quarters have to be shared so in many ways Star Fleet isn't much different than today’s military.All info found athttp://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Portal:MainI'm sure in socialism, our sci-fi fiction will be nothing like we imagine.
DS-9 – Workers of the World Unite https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qag2bOBUVfQForm a unionhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx-pEArlNDUbtw, Armin Shimerman (who plays Quark) at the time of filming was a leading member of the Screen Actors Guild being on its national executiveWhile another Fernengi – Wallace Shawn (Grand Negus Zek) in real life calls himself a socialist http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wallace-shawn/why-i-call-myself-a-socia_b_818061.html
