Husband, parent, rower, cyclist, lapsed #Quaker #Bach #LibDems #Sustainability mandolins naval history #FBPA

#Headingley
Joined November 2013
And where is sovereign UK in all of this ?
Mii de mulțumiri, cum se spune, lui Elon Musk pentru sateliții noștri europeni! Fără glumă, dacă el și Donald Trump nu ar fi niște idioți, jumătate din lume ar fi încă blocată pe Starlink (și o altă parte pe Guowang-ul chinezesc). Dar nu, Elon și Donnie au vrut să ne arate cine deține butonul roșu pentru internetul prin satelit. Ei bine, au reușit. Acum toată lumea l-a văzut. Un scurt rezumat a ceea ce a urmat după. Canada: Guvernul a semnat un contract de 2,3 miliarde de dolari canadieni cu operatorul național de sateliți Telesat pentru a extinde constelația de sateliți Lightspeed pe orbită terestră joasă. Lightspeed a fost dezvoltat inițial ca un concurent comercial pentru Starlink și OneWeb. Cu toate acestea, guvernul finanțează acum integrarea unui sistem special de comunicații militare în bandă Ka, securizat, și a plasat deja o comandă de sateliți suplimentari de la compania aerospațială canadiană MDA Space. Finlanda: Compania finlandeză ICEYE, dezvoltator de sateliți radar SAR, și Nokia au anunțat un parteneriat strategic pentru dezvoltarea unor sisteme de comunicații LEO în bandă largă suverane pentru guvernele interesate ale Europei. Proiectul își propune să ofere statelor europene o platformă la cheie care permite fiecărui guvern să dețină și să controleze pe deplin propriul segment de comunicații prin satelit, inclusiv criptarea, fără a se baza pe furnizori străini. Acest concept este cunoscut sub numele de „Sovereign SatCom”. Uniunea Europeană: Comisia Europeană a trecut la acordarea de contracte de producție și la extinderea finanțării pentru rețeaua sa suverană de comunicații prin satelit, IRIS². Airbus Defence and Space a semnat deja contracte la Toulouse pentru producția primilor 66 de sateliți LEO. Thales Alenia Space a fost însărcinată să dezvolte echipamente utile speciale și sigure pentru aplicații guvernamentale. Programul a fost extins la 348 de sateliți și finanțat cu încă patru miliarde de euro. Țări asiatice. Coreea de Sud: Coreea de Sud a efectuat prima sa lansare orbitală de succes a anului cu propriul vehicul de lansare Nuri (KSLV-II) de la portul spațial Naro. Racheta a lansat simultan pe orbită 14 sarcini utile, inclusiv sateliți suplimentari pentru constelația națională NEONSAT și mai mulți CubeSats militari. Japonia: Japonia a alocat aproximativ un miliard de dolari americani în subvenții pentru dezvoltarea unei rețele de sateliți direct-to-device, complet controlată la nivel național. Acest sistem este destinat să permită smartphone-urilor obișnuite să comunice direct cu sateliții în timpul cutremurelor severe sau al conflictelor militare. Proiectul este o colaborare între Rakuten și AST SpaceMobile. Înapoi în Europa. Ucraina: Proiectul UASAT, o inițiativă a STETMAN și a unui consorțiu de parteneri, a finalizat cu succes înregistrarea la Uniunea Internațională a Telecomunicațiilor (UIT). În prezent, se pregătește satelitul de testare UASAT-NANO, care va reprezenta primul pas către stabilirea unei constelații de sateliți suverani ucraineni. În același timp, se finalizează acorduri cu Republica Cehă pentru dezvoltarea în comun a constelației de sateliți de recunoaștere optică Suziria („Constelația”). Mai mult, se așteaptă ca Ucraina să obțină acces la capacitatea de rezervă a sistemului european GOVSATCOM. Germania: Am lăsat la urmă compania germană Isar Aerospace, care a lansat pe orbită racheta sa Spectrum cu sateliți pe 5 septembrie. Deci, cum spuneam, ce s-ar face explorarea spațială europeană (și nu doar explorarea spațială europeană) fără mintea strălucită a lui Elon Musk? Probabil nimic. Și, dintr-o dată, ea a decolat cu adevărat. Prin urmare, să-i mulțumim cum se cuvine lui Elon pentru sateliții noștri europeni. Fără contribuția sa decisivă, s-ar fi putut să nu-i avem niciodată. (Sebastian Duma / FB)
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Chris Webb 🔸🇺🇦🇪🇪 #FBPPR retweeted
I live in a small MAGA town. I know MAGA people. I drink with them. I talk to them. I study them. They’re not the loud Twitter yappers, at least most of them. They’re quieter. Slower. But the delusion runs deep, just bottled up in passive smiles and soft voices. A few weeks ago, one of them tried to convert me at a bar. He knew I wasn’t into the Trump cult, but he started soft. Calm voice. Friendly tone. “Mario, you’re white. You can drink a lot, you eat meat, “he was just surprised that I was eating rare burger” and drinking vodka chasing it with Guinness. He also said, “You’re one of us. You should feel proud.” That’s their seduction tactic. Not facts. Not logic. Just subtle tribal grooming. “You’re white. You drink. You belong.” It was almost sweet, in a sad, culty way. Like a Jehovah’s Witness trying to sell you eternal life with a shaky brochure and cheap suit. But let’s talk about the whole ecosystem. The truth. MAGA men? Most are not warriors. They’re out-of-shape, insecure, jealous small-town boys who peaked in high school, still clinging to stories from when they “almost went pro” or “should’ve been in the military.” They’re proud of being able to drink a case of light beer, drive a truck, and scream about freedom while their knees buckle from sugar and rage. They’re easy to manipulate because they don’t ask questions. They don’t read. They react. They memorize memes like scripture and repeat them like gospel. They think being loud equals being right. They think the world is laughing with them. It’s not. The world’s laughing at them, when it’s not just ignoring them entirely. MAGA women? They’re caught in a brutal paradox, constantly screaming about how proud and strong they are, while reshaping every inch of their body to meet a fake beauty standard pushed by the very system they claim to hate. Plastic lips. Inflated cheeks. Eyelashes thick as windshield wipers. Trying to look rich while shopping clearance at Walmart. They scream about “natural family values” while injecting Botox and collapsing into MLM scams that promise empowerment through overpriced lipstick. They mock liberals for being “gender confused” while wearing more synthetic parts than a Barbie made in a Russian factory. Here’s the thing: MAGA America isn’t just backward. It’s boring. MAGA folks are simply subsimple. There’s nothing imaginative about it. No new culture. No innovation. No ideas. They don’t invent, they imitate. They don’t challenge, they chant. It’s the same five phrases over and over. The same flag. The same truck. The same outfit. Patriot cosplay. And that’s why the world doesn’t just hate MAGA. It forgets it. Because once the shouting stops, there’s nothing under the hood. Just cheap beer breath, fake smiles, and a belief that whiteness and loudness are still enough to matter. You want the brutal truth? Even without Trump, even without the cult, most of them would still be irrelevant. Not because they’re evil. But because they chose comfort over growth. Tribalism over truth. Imitation over imagination. They don’t want to understand the world. They want the world to stay small enough to understand them. And that’s the saddest, most humiliating part.
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The world has truly turned upside down; here I am retweeting @DanielJHannan
This quoted post is unavailable.
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Chris Webb 🔸🇺🇦🇪🇪 #FBPPR retweeted
Let us be one again. 🇬🇧🇪🇺 A warm welcome to every UK citizen. No matter how you voted on Brexit, our door is always open. It's time to heal the rift, look forward, and face tomorrow’s challenges together ❤️ Let us be one again 🇪🇺🇬🇧
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Chris Webb 🔸🇺🇦🇪🇪 #FBPPR retweeted
Steve Witkoff to Putin: “You talk so much about President Trump being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that. I commend you, and I thank you.” Sickening!
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Chris Webb 🔸🇺🇦🇪🇪 #FBPPR retweeted
As Brexit returns to the spotlight, I wanted to share my thoughts on the UK's future relationship with Europe. Brexit has been a disaster for businesses of all sizes, including for many in Wimbledon. We must begin the difficult work of rebuilding with our nearest trading partner. Read more here: politics.co.uk/2026/10/brexi…
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Chris Webb 🔸🇺🇦🇪🇪 #FBPPR retweeted
Look at the post below. Yesterday, we reported that Europe’s four biggest mobile operators 🇩🇪🇫🇷🇪🇸🇬🇧are exploring a joint bid to take on Starlink: phones connected straight to satellites, no tower needed. The replies came on cue: “Europe can’t launch. Europe has no satellites. Europe has no money. SpaceX has no competition. Period.” We hear this every time Europe talks about tech independence. But are they right? 👇 ❌ “Europe can’t launch.” ✅ True, SpaceX launches far more: 165 Falcon 9 flights in 2025. That gap is real. But even Amazon booked 24 launches on Europe’s Ariane 6 for its own Starlink rival. Ariane 6 has already put 100 of its satellites in orbit. In September, @isaraerospace, a German 🇩🇪 startup, reached orbit. At the same time, Europe’s first reusable rocket prototype is on its pad in Sweden 🇸🇪. And the @esa has put €900M+ behind a new generation of rockets. That’s more than twice the ~$400M NASA gave SpaceX to develop Falcon 9 and its Dragon capsule. What will happen to American launchers once these are operational? ❌ “Europe doesn’t build satellites.” ✅ Galileo, Europe’s GPS, is the most precise satellite navigation system in the world. Over 4.5 billion devices use it. Probably yours too. Finland’s 🇫🇮 @iceye_global runs the world’s largest fleet of radar satellites, which see through clouds and at night. @Thales_Alenia_S, in Turin, Italy 🇮🇹, built over half of the International Space Station’s living space. It also built the current satellites of Iridium, the American satellite-phone network. @AirbusSpace, @ThalesAerospace and @LDO_Space are merging their space businesses into one 25,000-strong champion. And IRIS², the EU’s own 348-satellite network, is moving to full deployment of its governments and defence infrastructure. If Europe has “nothing”, why are NASA’s astronauts living in it and your phone navigating with it? ❌ “Europe doesn’t have the money.” ✅ EU households keep €12 trillion in cash and bank deposits. That’s more than Nvidia and Apple, the world’s two most valuable companies, combined. Enough to buy SpaceX five times over. On top of that, Europeans hold $8 trillion in US stocks and bonds. For now. Because something has changed. Every year, €300bn of European savings leaves the EU. Europe is done watching it go: it has started building a single market for savings and investment, so that European money grows European companies. Some, like Danish 🇩🇰 pension funds, have already started dumping US government bonds. What will happen the day Europe offers a real alternative to American financial markets? ❌ “Europe is years behind on innovation.” ✅ 3 of the last 4 Nobel laureates in physics were born in Europe 🇬🇧🇫🇷🇧🇪. All three did their prize-winning work at American universities. The world’s first microprocessor, the chip that became the brain of every computer, was designed at Intel by an Italian 🇮🇹: Federico Faggin. Google’s AI lab, DeepMind, was born in London 🇬🇧. OpenAI was co-founded by scientists born in Poland 🇵🇱 and Slovakia 🇸🇰. Now Washington is cutting research funding, and applications from US-based scientists to the European Research Council have more than doubled. The EU has proposed doubling its budget too. Europe’s red tape can be cut with a vote. Can America win back the trust it has destroyed by threatening, humiliating and insulting its allies? ❌ “Europe needs America more than America needs Europe.” ✅ Look closer. In April, NASA flew astronauts around the Moon for the first time in over 50 years. The module that powered their spacecraft, pushed it to the Moon and kept them alive was European, assembled in Bremen, Germany 🇩🇪. NASA’s Webb telescope launched on a European Ariane 5, so precisely that its fuel should last about 20 years instead of 10. And the world’s most advanced AI chips can only be made with machines from one company: ASML, in the Netherlands 🇳🇱. We’ve seen this film before. In 1970, American planemakers ruled the skies. Europeans pooled their strengths and built Airbus. Airbus has out-delivered Boeing every year since 2019. The US just turned 250. The University of Bologna, in Italy, was founded in 1088, 938 years ago. Europe has been written off many times. Those trying to convince Europeans we can’t stand on our own forget who gave the world the Renaissance, the scientific revolution, the welfare state and the World Wide Web, born at CERN in Geneva 🇨🇭. Betting against Europe isn’t analysis - it’s hubris. And that arrogance is pushing European public opinion towards one conclusion: we’re done with America. One day, those repeating “weak, dependent Europe” will wake up to a Europe running on its own rockets, satellites, capital and talent. That day is closer than they think. 🇪🇺
After Trump and Musk restricted Starlink in Ukraine, four of Europe's biggest phone companies are joining forces to bring satellite coverage straight to your phone. European industry is answering what people want: a satellite service that isn't controlled from Washington.
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Chris Webb 🔸🇺🇦🇪🇪 #FBPPR retweeted
Every murder by Putin in Ukraine is now sponsored by Donald Trump.
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Chris Webb 🔸🇺🇦🇪🇪 #FBPPR retweeted
🇺🇦 Zelenskyy delivers a blunt message to the United States: “Just give us Starlink back. If you refuse, Ukraine will survive. We will continue defending ourselves with or without it. But why would you restrict a country fighting for its survival? Why make it harder for us to defend our people? I simply cannot understand the reasoning behind this decision. It is a mistake.” Ukraine isn’t asking America to fight its war. It’s asking America not to stand in the way of its defense.
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Chris Webb 🔸🇺🇦🇪🇪 #FBPPR retweeted
Much punchier accusations from Sir Malcolm Rifkind - a former defence and foreign secretary: "I choose my words very carefully. I think this week Donald Trump has shown himself as a person to be repulsive; as a President of the United States to be a disgrace to his own people as well as to his international responsibilities. "We all know his actual reasons for this are a grubby attempt to win a few more votes in the midterms by trying to get oil prices down. "In order to achieve that, he has not only betrayed Ukraine in the middle of a war, fighting for its very existence, but he is also directly - not indirectly - directly responsible for the deaths of many Ukrainians who will not now be protected by the attempts that have been successfully made using intelligence provided indirectly by the United States." xitter.cf/breeallegretti/status/…
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Chris Webb 🔸🇺🇦🇪🇪 #FBPPR retweeted
Seems @Alexarmstrong posted this at 1am to avoid anyone seeing it. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen. Hold @GBNEWS to account.
On 19 July 2024, I published two posts on my X account in which I made allegations about Mr Mothin Ali being involved in the Harehills riots. I have accepted these were incorrect and I have jointly made a statement in open Court in order to apologise to Mr Ali and correct the record which is below. archive.org/details/JSIOC-MA…
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Chris Webb 🔸🇺🇦🇪🇪 #FBPPR retweeted
Governor Trump of West Russia.
Replying to @JohnCornyn
Congress will do nothing, as always. Shame on you USA, shame on you.
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I might disagree with Sir Max Hastings on politics but he is remains a fearless reporter of the truth and is absolutely right on the collapse of morality and truth in the US.
🔥 Max Hastings gives Trump both barrels and not before time. Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims during his first term. Now the lying, bullying and grotesque inversion of truth have become instruments of government, while billionaires and political courtiers compete for seats at his table. The victims are the Ukrainian people being bombed, betrayed and blamed while Trump appeases Putin. Hastings is right: democracies must stop treating industrial-scale dishonesty as background noise. “This is a lie” must become our collective reply.
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Chris Webb 🔸🇺🇦🇪🇪 #FBPPR retweeted
examinerlive.co.uk/news/loca… Cyclist killed in crash with Volvo travelling in same direction. The cyclist, a 60-year-old man, sadly died at the scene as a result of the collision. His family have been informed and are receiving support,
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Chris Webb 🔸🇺🇦🇪🇪 #FBPPR retweeted
Wow. Donald Trump is giving money to Putin’s war machine so he can keep killing innocent Ukrainians and attacking democracies across Europe. The UK must lead a coalition of the willing that stands up and says no.
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Chris Webb 🔸🇺🇦🇪🇪 #FBPPR retweeted
Is this the understatement of the year from Nigel Farage?
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Chris Webb 🔸🇺🇦🇪🇪 #FBPPR retweeted
.@EdwardJDavey & I have written today to the Prime Minister. We're deeply concerned at the postponement of Palestinian elections. Britain needs to work with both Palestinian & Israeli authorities to ensure these elections take place on 28 November 2026, as originally planned.
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Chris Webb 🔸🇺🇦🇪🇪 #FBPPR retweeted
October 15, 1066. The day after Hastings, England chose a new king. He was about fourteen years old and he was never crowned. Harold Godwinson was dead on the field at Senlac on 14 October. His brothers Gyrth and Leofwine were dead with him. The English nobility had been shredded twice in three weeks, at Fulford and Stamford Bridge in the north and now at Hastings in the south. And there was still a claimant alive with a better bloodline than anybody else. Edgar Ætheling was the grandson of Edmund Ironside and the last male of the line of Cerdic, the royal house of Wessex. He had been born in Hungary, where his family had fled after Cnut's conquest in 1016, and brought back to England in 1057 as a small boy. In October 1066 he was about fourteen. That is exactly why he had been passed over in January. When Edward the Confessor died, England needed a man capable of fighting Norway and Normandy in the same year, and a boy with no powerful adult relatives was not that man. Harold was. Now Harold was dead, and the choice was a child or a Norman. According to the Worcester chronicle, the Archbishop of York and the leading citizens of London declared for Edgar, with the backing of the earls Edwin and Morcar. He was never anointed and never crowned, and the sources do not say plainly why. The likeliest explanation is also the simplest. Nobody had the time, the army, or the nerve. Because Edwin and Morcar did not deliver the troops they had promised. They had lost their own army at Fulford a month earlier, their power base was the north, and England south of the Thames was not theirs. They went home. In December, Edgar and what was left of the English leadership rode out to Berkhamsted and submitted to William in person. So England's last Anglo-Saxon king reigned for about two months, held no coronation, fought no battle, and surrendered himself. And then he had one of the strangest lives in English history. William took him to Normandy in 1067. He got away to Scotland in 1068. His sister Margaret married Malcolm III, which made the King of Scots his brother in law and gave him a base. He joined the Northumbrian revolt in 1069 and the Danish backed rising that followed it. Both failed. He went back to Scotland. William forced Malcolm to submit in 1072 and Edgar was expelled. He went to Flanders. He returned to Scotland in 1074. He accepted a French offer of lands near Normandy and was shipwrecked on the way there. Malcolm eventually talked him into making peace with William. In 1086 he renounced his allegiance again and went to Norman Apulia in southern Italy, which also did not work, and came home. After the Conqueror died he backed Robert Curthose against William Rufus and lost his lands when that was settled. In 1097 he led an army into Scotland and put his own nephew on the Scottish throne, which is the one unambiguous success of his career. In 1098 he commanded a fleet carrying siege materials from the Byzantine emperor to the Crusaders in Syria. William of Malmesbury says he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem around 1102, and that both the Byzantine and German emperors offered him honours and he declined them. And in 1106 he appears on a battlefield in Normandy again, fighting for Robert Curthose against Henry I at Tinchebray, which I posted a couple of weeks ago. He was taken there at about 54, and Henry pardoned him and let him go. He lived long enough to watch the White Ship go down in 1120 and the English succession fall apart all over again. In 1125 William of Malmesbury wrote that Edgar was by then growing old in the country, in privacy and quiet. Nobody wrote down when he died or where he was buried. The last male heir of the House of Wessex was proclaimed king of England the day after Hastings, outlived the Conqueror, two of the Conqueror's sons, the First Crusade and the whole Norman settlement, and died in a house in the English countryside with no monument and no recorded date. He is the only man who was in the room for the beginning and the end of all of it.
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Chris Webb 🔸🇺🇦🇪🇪 #FBPPR retweeted
‼️ Boston voted more than 75% Leave 🔥 the highest Leave vote in Britain. Ten years later, residents tell the i that jobs are still scarce, public services still struggle, immigration has not disappeared and life has not noticeably improved. One Leave voter says: “It’s made no difference, has it?” Another admits: “We’re a poorer country than we would have been if we’d stayed in.” That tells us something important. People in places like Boston weren’t wrong to be angry. They had been living with decades of economic decline, low wages and disappearing industry. But the EU wasn’t the cause of those failures and Brexit didn’t cure them. The real task now is bigger than simply rejoining Europe. We need to rebuild Britain at home while rebuilding our relationship with Europe abroad. That is how you finally address the grievances that produced Brexit in the first place.
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Chris Webb 🔸🇺🇦🇪🇪 #FBPPR retweeted
The Tories propose to abolish Natural England and the Environment Agency. About as stupid as was the Tory government’s abolition of Public Health England in the middle of the pandemic. Just don’t vote for them. unchecked.uk/public_body_vul…
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