Wales was pro-brexit (52.5% Brexit) like England (53.4% Brexit). Scotland was pro EU (62% remain) and Northern Ireland too (55% remain).
Also Plaid are the largest party but don’t have a majority; they got 35.4% of the vote - way off getting a mandate for an independence referendum. Second with 29.3% of the vote was Reform, which is rabidly anti EU and a unionist party.
No, it has better frameworks to regulate local companies but seems to give a free pass to international conglomerates that come in and avoid tax by off shoring it in other EU states. The EU has allowed the US tech companies in on an uneven playing field and they have obliterated EU tech companies, with Ireland in particular taking the proverbial by enticing them with low taxes to benefit it’s own economy.
This was also perhaps tolerated as it was believed the US and EU were close and Europe benefited in other ways from the open trade with the US. Now it looks very short sighted and foolish. When Europe does try to regulate the big US tech companies, the US - not just Trump - objects and undermines it.
Which “British research firm” labels them a loophole?
The paper is from the European Parliament Research Service, which is an in-house EU Parliament service. And the “briefing” they published has a section titled “A loop hole that needs closing” that starts “Some argue that this is a loophole in the legislation that needs closing and call for age verification to be required for VPNs as well”. The words “Some argue” are a hyperlink to a South African news article / opinion piece by some random journalist who writes in a slightly snarky way about VPNs allowing people to bypass the Online Safety Act.
So the TomsHardware article is nonsense - it’s an EU briefing paper which seems to think a random south african opinion piece counts as “research”. No British research firm, and in fact no real research at all - just crap layerd on crap and making it’s way into a crap briefing paper. If this is the quality of the information been given to MEPs, EU citizens should be worried.
Links:
Do you have basic security like 1 email is a unique account, and the email needs verification before an order can be placed? Because that simple step will be rate limiting for the attackers but normal and expected for real users.
Also could be worth considering using a dedicated payment processor to handle things. It adds overhead, but so does fraud.
The BBC has had below inflation (or no) uplifts in the license fee for years which means it’s been effectively cut.
If you look at wikipedia there is a nice graph of the license fee corrected for inflation, based around 2015 prices. The recent license fee in 2019 was equivalent to about £154, but it used to be worth £192. That’s a 20% cut, and on top of that we’ve had 6 more years of below inflation rises, and of course some big spikes in inflation.
Using the Bank of England inflation calculator ; the license fee should be worth £201 now in 2026 if it’d just stayed equivalent to £154 in 2019, but the actual license fee is £180 so another 10% cut on top of the existing 20% cut from it’s peak. If the license fee was still at it’s peak value of equivalent to £192 in 2009 (in 2019 money), then it should be £250 now.
So long story short, the current license fee of £180 is a 28% cut in value in 17 years. No wonder the BBC is in trouble, is constantly cutting costs and shrinking. It’s a managed decline by successive UK governments who won’t deal with funding the BBC properly.
Personally, I’d abolish the license fee and pay for the BBC out of general taxation. I personally favour a household free-media precept, a bit like the Fire precept we get in council tax; but I get that council tax is also a mess. Regardless, every household should be paying in some way even if they “don’t use the BBC”, because it’s about so much more than about whether someone owns and watches live TV. The BBC is one of the ways we preserve our culture and identity in the face of the massive global media and tech conglomerates like Netflix, Amazon etc. And the license fee is used to fund more than just TV (Radio, Online, local and national news services).
There are few big differences that account for the difference in effect and response so far.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, the tail end of winter, and had an immediate impact on gas supplies due to sanctions. Europe, particularly Eastern Europe and Germany, was particularly dependent on Russian gas for heating. There was an immediate potential issue if we’d had a cold snap as well as an inevitability of limited gas supplies to rebuild the reserves over the summer into the next winter.
The Iran conflict started at the end of March 2026, the beginning of spring, and has impacted on oil supplies. But Europe does not get oil from the middle east via the Strait of Hormuz; instead those supplies go east to India, China and Japan for example.
At present there is not a physical shortage in Europe; supplies have already been secured and paid for before the conflict. That will change as the crisis goes on. Oil prices are at persistent high, and also there is going to be increased competition for the 80% of energy supplies not blockaded. That will impact Europe as much as the rest of the world. It is unlikely oil will run out completely, but certain users will be priced out of the market as oil contracts are renewed and prices feed through to end users. It’s likely some businesses across many countries that are not economical when oil is above $100 a barrel will suffer or even close, and fuel prices will dissuade people form using their cars and flying. So there will be shortages more in the sense of affordability which will cause inflation and probably a recession.
There isn’t much point in Europe doing much to try to intervene right now. The shortages are currently focused in countries with current contracts for oil that should have come via the strait. That will change, but until it does it is unpredictable exactly how it will impact Europe. Add to that the perhaps foolish hope (and gamble by markets) that this will be temporary and that explains why there is a reluctance to act.
I’m amazed that anyone believes a word Trump says on this. We have a stalemate in the middle east at present, and its unlikely either side will back down in the next few weeks. The general feeling seems to be that the US has lost this war, and is more likely to back down first as it cannot reopen the strait be force. Iran is certainly suffering economically from the US blockade, but no where near as badly as the US and global economy will suffer if this continues.
Sort of. You do get an increase in death rates decades later as people from a baby boom eventually die. However births tend to be in relative sync (closer together anyway) during a baby boom say over a period of a few years, while deaths are much more spread out maybe over a decade or more. That’s because other factors come into play such as individual health, and the differences in people of the same age’s health depending on economic state and lifestyle etc. In otherwords, lots of people may have been born in say 1945 but their deaths will be spread out over years because not everyone dies at the same age.
Many western countries are going through a period of natural population decline due to low birth rates and increasing death rates as baby boomers from 1945 onwards start dying. But those deaths are spread out, and somewhat offset by immigration. So yes more people are dying but populations are overall stable or even growing as immigrants flow in.
The EU should give the UK good terms: the same terms everyone else is on. Nothing more, nothing less.
The opt outs were bad for the UK and the EU and good riddance. If we rejoin we will actually have to commit fully instead of the default position being opting out of things because the right wing don’t like them.
Sadly I think it’s still 10 years away from even being a realistic possibility. Although Trumps behaviour is doing a good job of accelerating changes in attitude so maybe it will be sooner.
Windows is in no way free. Every new Windows Laptop and PC comes with a license; when you pay for the PC part of that money goes directly to Microsoft.
Microsoft made upgrading to Windows 10 and 11 “free” for those on older hardware who already had paid for a license because they wanted to move people onto the latest versions and stop supporting the old versions. At the same time they’ve been harvesting and selling users data to make even more money.
They are not trying to “kill” Windows, they are trying to change it into a cloud based system too so that you do have to pay a subscription to use it. They want new PCs and Laptops to be essentially nothing more than thin terminals, using your hardware to support their cloud based system but not actually owning any of the software at all.
But they are less bothered about the absolute revenue Windows makes now, and more bothered about making it a walled garden they control and which up-sells you to all their other subscription services under Office, and Xbox.
Leads in the polls at 35%, so he is far off a majority. People like simple narratives about someone “winning” an election as it’s easier to follow, but realistically even if he “wins” with 35% he will also struggle to form a stable government or exercise power.
We’re seeing this pattern across Europe at the moment - electorates are fragmented and split, as politicians seem incapable of offering what people actually want. In the UK for example, current opinion polls have us on a 5-way split between Labour, Conservatives, Reform, Green and Lib Dems. This is despite Labour winning a big majority in the election only 2 years ago.
“I can’t open the strait of hormuz, so I’ll pretend I’m the one who wanted it closed”. Moron.
He’s so incredibly stupid; honestly the biggest moron I’ve ever seen in any government.
He started this war, he didn’t think it through - it was well known attacking Iran would lead to them closing the strait of hormuz, and it would be extremely difficult to open it without a ground invasion. Israel has wanted to go after Iran for decades but every US president had common sense and said no. Trump has done what no President has ever done. The US allies are not stupid enough to be drawn into the this pointless war as it’s unwinnable.
Now this so-called “business man” doesn’t even know how global markets work. You remove 20% of the oil supply, then prices go up because demand goes up - you still have 100% of demand. The US isn’t protected from that as a net shale oil/gas exporter.
First: everyone in the world is bidding for oil and gas supplies so it goes to the highest bidder; thats how a market works - everyone ends up paying more including americans. Second: the US is a net exporter but it also imports a lot of gas and oil. It’s exports are driven by Liquid Natural Gas. But it imports Crude Oil, because it can’t produce enough of that for domestic demand. Third: As energy prices go up, you get “demand destruction”. In other words, some activities are no longer economical as the price of oil and gas is too high and obliterates profits. That means the global economy goes into decline - a recession. And the US is in no way insulated from that - it is totally integrated into the global economy.
Trump has fucked over the US, allies like the UK, Canada and EU and the rest of the world. This isn’t his allies’ war, and they’re not getting involved - it’s politically toxic and it’d just escalate this mess. Trump can get frustrated at the mess he’s made and lash out as much as he wants, but he can’t get away from this mess. He has two choices and both are shit: Invade Iran with troops or admit defeat and cave into the Iran’s demands. I suspect he will cave in and try and spin this as a “victory”.
Libre Office is maintained by The Document Foundation which is based in Germany. So from a governance point of view it’s already a European hosted open source project.
Also for online collaboration platforms, Libre Office isn’t really a good option. It is an old, sprawling codebase which doesn’t lend itself to being ported to being a server based collaborative platform. It has actually been done but hasn’t flourished, hence alternatives like OnlyOffice.
Also this is more about OnlyOffice’s issues - the lack of transparancy and true collaboration with contributors, the proprietary code used for mobile apps, and it being based in Russia which is geopolitically problematic especially if part of the idea is “Euro sovereignty”
It’d be time consuming and expensive to turn this round with regular animation. Ironic that AI is being used by the Iran’s supporters in this way.
True but at the same time bees help spread pollinating plants - it’s a two way relationship. They may be commercialised for crops, but they will go to any plants in range and contribute to their spread.
So a method of increasing bee populations may also be helpful in spreading wildflowers and speeding up rewilding efforts.
In addition dramatically increasing bee populations may help resolve issues with pollination such as in some regions of China where damage is so bad that hand pollination is needed for crops. Restoring bee pollinators in those areas may increase crop yields, which in turn reduces the general pressure globally on expanding the use of fertile land for farming.
So while crop/pollen diversity is certainly very important, this kind of research still has potentially big benefits for the environment both in the fight to rewild and slow the spread of land use being moved to farming.
Its an interesting build and cool, but this seems overpowered and overspecced to me?
From his reddit post he’s hosting: Immich, Nextcloud (file sync across all devices), Frigate NVR (Coral AI detection + Home Assistant integration), Plex (with full *arr stack), pfSense (firewall, DNS, DHCP, WireGuard VPN, ntopng monitoring), Vaultwarden and Pfblocker. He says on the Youtube video: Plex, Home Assistant, Pi-hole, Immich, Nextcloud, Frigate, and more.
Does this really needs 4 Lenovo PCs (1 used as the router) to run all this? Maybe he has multiple users and is going hard on the Immich and the security camera set up (including video processing?). Even then I just can’t see how this would make full use of all this hardware?
This is a potentially interesting study but there is a key gap which is around the actual health risk.
The figures around safety mg/kg are to do with the rate the toxic materials leach out of an item, not the absolute concentration within the materials or artificial lab based maximum leach rates. The quoted 10 mg/kg is also not an actual limit:
10 mg/kg limit originally proposed by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA).
The limit orignally proposed is not the same as the actual limit. As far as I can see it is 0.05mg/kg leach into food, 0.04mg/l for toys, and as far as I can see there are no other limits in place. They are essentially being restricted in food contacting materials and toys, and requiring clear labelleling in other uses: https://www.echa.europa.eu/hot-topics/bisphenols
What really matters is under what circumstances the “maximum concentrations of 351 mg/kg” were reached. If that is an artificial lab test with no relatability to real world situations then it’s meaningless. If that rate of leach occurs at body temperature with a bit of moisture then it’s very worrying. But even then the absolute amount of the bisphenols in the products also matters - for example it might be there amount mixed into the plastics in a ear bud is too small to actually be toxic to a human.
Without that information this feels like sensationalist reporting of the findings - the article is implying there is a health risk when there may be none, and they are also implying there is wrong doing or failure of the EU enforcement of its regulations when there may be none.
It is worth reading the disclaimer at the end; while their aims may be laudable they are not conducting independent research and it’s not clear their work is even peer reviewed. Instead this is a single issue lobbying group, part funded by EU funds, producing research with a political aim.
About ToxFree LIFE for All: The ToxFree LIFE for All project (LIFE22-GIE-HU-101114078) is an EU-funded initiative aimed at protecting citizens from hazardous chemical exposure through awareness, testing, and policy advocacy. Partners include VKI (Austria), Arnika (Czechia), dTest (Czechia), TVE (Hungary), and ZPS (Slovenia).
Funded by the EU Life Programme (LIFE22-GIE-HU-ToxFree LIFE for All, 101114078) and the Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic. Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or other donors. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
The President has always been a limited role in Iran, playing second fiddle to the Supreme Leader, i.e. the Ayatollah. While he can say he wants peace and to not attack their gulf neighbours, it is doubtful the actual leadership and the revolutionary guard share his views nor will they listen to him.
It seems Irans best best of “winning” this war is to drag it out as long as possible, and cause as much regional damage as possible to undermine the Oil trade and damage the US and global economy.
At this rate we’ll need a Wine/Proton that runs on Windows to allow you to run Windows software.
News coverage of elections is so poor.
Plaid “won” the election with 35.4% of the vote. UK journalists are so used to the “winner takes all” First past the post system, they report proportional representation elections like this as if they’re the same. Plaid is going to be a minority government, and the reality is even if the Greens and Lib Dems went into coalition with them they would be short of a majority. Reform, Labour and Conservatives (and probably Greens and Lib Dems regardless) would not be motivated to support Plaid so it’ll be a slow process of negotiating every piece of legislation.
Wales is well used to minority governments but the stakes are higher this time for all the opposition parties, as all of them are going to be vying for Wales’ Parliamentary seats in the next general election. Plaid will too of course, but unlike the other parties Plaid is not part of the 5 way split in national politics that will dominate the next few years. So Plaid will be dealing with opposition parties that may not be that co-operative in Wales, as they care much more about how things look going into a General election.