#Britain gp 2019

[umlewis]

🐐👑 📷 steve etherington / emily davenport / alastair staley / jerry andre / mirko stange / mark sutton / steve etherington / fia pool / steven tee

[lewishamiltonstuff]

He was so hot for this 🥵🥵🥵

2019 British GP, Sir Lewis Hamilton setting the fastest lap on the last lap with 32 lap old hard compound tyres

[mysteriouslyjovialcolor]

Britain 2019

-Why was there a whole movie trailer played before this race??

-Charles and Max second row>>

-Red Bull working overtime to fix the car end plates a minute before the formation lap??

-“Somehow they all have managed to be pointing in the right direction. Side by side as they were through the first few corners”

-Those first few corners were actually so speedy. Especially the first one

-Daniel and Lando wheel to wheel!!

-Not the Haas falling all the way to the bottom

-“Already they’re coming round to lap Kevin Magnussen” it’s lap 3 😭

-Woah!! Lewis and Valterri!! Ohmygodd they’re just exchanging the lead one turn after the other

-“As we say goodbye to Kevin Magnussen” Nooo

-“Verstappen trying to overtake Leclerc? What could possibly go wrong?” Haha

-Poor Max stuck in a Ferrari sandwich

-No fr, those Ferrari’s are really playing with him. Charles pushing him back, Sebastian forcing him ahead

-Oh Pierre! Let’s go!!

-Now both Red Bulls are stuck in a Ferrari sandwich

-Oh come on why’d Pierre pit?? That undercut better work

-“Ricciardo has pulled the trigger on his fight with Lando Norris” Daniel also trying the undercut

-Oh both Max and Charles pitting at the same time??

-Aaaah the pit crew celebrating!!

-Ohmygod they’re wheel to wheel!!

-Charlesss

-Ooh Daniel’s undercut worked

-Charles and Max really do make racing look like a choreographed dance

-Love how them squabbling opened up a gap for Valterri to pit

-Ah they’re both going for it so hard. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen

-Oh no, safety car!

-Lewis in the lead!

-How is Sebastian suddenly p3?!

-Daniel came into change his tires again and dropped down places and theoretically this is better in the long run, but I don’t trust Renault

-“How the hell did we lost the position?” Well Charles, Ferrari may have made a questionable call

-Still not the worst place to be for him though, he could easily make up places

-“Be careful with any overtakes on Gasly” “And other way around” Haha

-“Not shy these new kids in Formula 1” Let’s go 2019 rookies!

-Charles pulling Max’s Austria move here. I love it

-Can’t believe Nico and Checo made contact and dropped down

-Yellow flags again?

-After watching Charles defend from Max like crazy it feels very weird seeing him try and fail to pass someone else

-Finally Charles!

-Sebastian’s race came around huh (I mean unless Max gets past him)

-Let’s go Max!! Oh shitttt oh shit oh shit

-“The man who won 4 world championships for Red Bull has run into a Red Bull”

-I can’t believe this, he had p3!

-That Red Bull mechanic in the pit lane cheering and then instantly holding his head in shock is me rn

-Sebastian might get a penalty but he doesn’t really need one, he’s p17 (last)

-I’m still in shock and a little annoyed, but oh well

-“Hulkenburg’s got a problem. Hulkenburg has got an issue” And this all just got worse

-Lewis pitting? Not pitting?

-What is Mercedes doing? Why are they so confused about whether Lewis needs to pit or not?

-“Where’s Lewis? How much in front and what’s his lap time?” Charles? He’s like 26s ahead?

-Oh yay! Nico’s back in points!

-Winning your home race 6 times (and more now) is insane behavior

-“Get in there Lewis! That’s a home win mate!”

-That scene of him flying his flag after the win>>>

[lewishamiltonarchives]

Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes and Great Britain with Charles Leclerc of Ferrari and Monaco at the Bahrain GP 2019

[mariacallous]

Britain was hit far harder by the Covid-19 pandemic than other developed countries because the NHS had been “seriously weakened” by disastrous government policies over the preceding decade, a wide-ranging report will conclude this week.

An assessment of the NHS by the world-renowned surgeon Prof Ara Darzi, commissioned in July by the health secretary, Wes Streeting, will find that the health service reduced its “routine healthcare activity by a far greater percentage than other health systems” in many key areas during the Covid crisis.

Hip and knee replacements, for instance, fell by 46% and 68% respectively. Hospital discharges as a whole dropped by 18% between 2019 and 2020 in the UK compared with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average of 10%, Lord Darzi will say.

In a key section of his report, the crossbench peer will also conclude that the NHS is still suffering the aftereffects of its inability to respond adequately to the Covid shock at the time.

“The state of the NHS today cannot be understood without recognising quite how much care was cancelled, discontinued, or postponed during the pandemic … The pandemic’s impact was magnified because the NHS had been seriously weakened in the decade preceding its onset.”

Darzi will be particularly critical of former Tory health secretary Andrew Lansley’s top-down reorganisation of the NHS under David Cameron’s prime ministership, which he will say “scorched the earth for health reform”.

“The Health and Social Care Act of 2012 was a calamity without international precedent – it proved disastrous,” Darzi will say, adding: “The result of the disruption was a permanent loss of capability from the NHS … This is an important part of the explanation for the deterioration in performance of the NHS as a whole.

“Rather than liberating the NHS, as it had promised, the Health and Social Care Act 2012 imprisoned more than a million NHS staff in a broken system for the best part of a decade.”

Lord Lansley defended his reforms, saying Darzi should be focusing on the “here and now” rather than reaching back over a decade for a “blame the Tories” narrative.

“The 2012 act created NHS England. It empowered the NHS. It reduced administration costs by £1.5bn. Waiting times fell to their lowest level. The longest waits were virtually eliminated,” said Lansley. He added that if his plans had been fully implemented, they would have made the NHS more internationally competitive.

The Tories are preparing to criticise the Darzi report as politically driven because its author was a minister under the previous Labour government and was a member of the Labour party until he resigned in 2019.

Labour will, however, point to his impressive CV and the fact that he held prominent positions while the Tories were in power, including sitting as the UK global ambassador for health and life sciences from 2009 until March 2013. Also, in 2015, Darzi was appointed as nonexecutive director of the NHS regulatory body Monitor, which oversaw the quality and performance management of healthcare in England.

The Darzi report – which will also find that more than 100,000 infants (0 to two-year-olds) were left waiting for more than six hours in A&E departments in England last year – is being seen as a watershed moment by senior NHS figures.

Streeting is expected to use the report as the foundation for his own blue-sky thinking on reform. The current NHS England long-term plan introduced in 2019 was drawn up before the pandemic, which has caused waiting lists to lengthen to a point where 6.39 million people are waiting for 7.62m treatments.

Streeting said last year that he believed the NHS required three big shifts, from sickness to prevention, from hospitals to GPs and community services, and from an “analogue service to one that embraces the technological revolution”.

Two other key reports to be published this week also paint a bleak picture of the health service’s prospects under current spending constraints.

A survey of trust chief executives and finance directors by NHS Providers, the membership organisation for hospital, mental health, community and ambulance service users, has found more than half (51%) to be “extremely concerned” about their ability to deliver on their priorities within the tight financial limits for 2024-5.

Nine out of 10 thought the financial situation more challenging than last year. Among the measures they were having to consider were “extending vacancy freezes”, “reducing substantive staffing numbers” and “scaling back services”.

Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers, said that with funding so tight the message was that ways had to be found to secure multi-year investment in reforms that would increase productivity “instead of this stop-start approach to NHS funding which leaves them constantly worrying about budget cuts followed by quick fix, short- term funding announcements”.

In addition, a report from the NHS Confederation and healthcare consultancy CF (Carnall Farrar) has found that Labour’s pledge to create an extra 40,000 appointments a week in England would not stop waiting lists from rising.

It would only deliver 15% of what was needed to ensure 92% of patients start routine hospital treatment within 18 weeks – a key target that has not been hit for nearly a decade.

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said it was unlikely that there would be any significant reduction in waiting lists until spring or summer next year.

He added: “We need to be realistic about the fact that unless we do some pretty transformative stuff, demand is going to grow substantially. Almost everyone agrees we need to transform the NHS by investing in prevention. To do that, you have to double run [opening new services before old ones close].

“None of those things can be achieved for free. What we need from Rachel Reeves is a recognition that the long-term sustainability of the health service, the public sector and the economy as a whole, rests on shifting the health demand curve.”

Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday morning, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, will echo Darzi’s assessment, saying the Tories “broke” the NHS in ways that were “unforgivable”.

He will add: “Our job now, through Lord Darzi, is properly to understand how that came about and bring about the reforms, starting with the first steps, the 40,000 extra appointments.”

[devilsupdates]

Some world info on the devils that is playing in the world this won’t go in order of events.

Nico Hischier just set a new personal best in points at Worlds! 🫡 His primary assist on Kevin Fiala's PPG was his 10th point of the tournament (6GP), passing his 9 from 2019.

What an outlet pass out of the zone for Luke, he springs his teammates right out of there! From the far blueline sends the pass on the diagonal

USA takes a 1-0 lead on Kahzakstan.

Simon Nemec leads all Slovak defensemen through their five games with six points (1g-5a). His six points also tie a career-high at the tournament he set in 2022 (1g-5a, 8 GP).

Nico Hischier is currently the leading scorer among all forwards at this year's World Championship with nine points in five games (5g-4a). And he's second overall in the tournament scoring behind only his teammate Roman Josi’s 10 points. Just Nico being Nico. 🫡

Our Dawson seals the victory for Canada! Mercer once again on the ice for Canada defending a one-goal lead in the final moments the game. His second empty-netter of the tournament. Are we up?! Nico Hischier has a three-point game (1g-2A) going for Switzerland… all before the 4-minute mark of the second period. He’s factored in on 3 of the 4 Swiss goals against Denmark.

“My brother Jack was really disappointed he couldn’t come. It’s something he really wanted to do.” - Luke Hughes at Worlds Jack, of course, is recovering from surgery.

Ondrej Palat sets up Tomasek for Czechia’s fourth goal of the game against Austria.

Czechia getting a big boost on their Worlds roster as Martin Necas is on his way, less than 24 hours after the Hurricanes were eliminated from the playoffs. Czechia is hosting this year’s tournament.

The big man is back! Kurtis MacDermid re-ups with #NJDevils  on a three year deal!

Yesterday was a big day for our Simon Nemec. He etched his name in the IIHF history books. And all as a U20 player.

Big day for Nico Daws! Played his first game of Worlds, backstopping Canada to a 4-1 win over Norway *and* earning an assist on Canada’s 4th goal *and* gets a little kiss on the forehead! 😅 Way to go, Dawsy!

Your friend and mine, Luke Hughes with another point at the World Championship today. Secondary assist on Matt Boldy's first goal of the game.

We have re-signed forward Samuel Laberge to a one-year, two-way contract.

#NEWS: We have re-signed forward Brian Halonen to a two-year, two-way contract.

Akira Schmid posts a shutout for @SwissIceHockey against Great Britain. His first Worlds start. 15 saves. Nico Hischier with a goal and Jonas Siegenthaler with an assist. #NJDevils  reported for duty!

#MensWorlds goal-scoring leaders:

1. Oliver Kapanen, FIN - 5

2. Connor Bedard, CAN - 4

3. Nico Hischier, SUI - 3

Nemo! 🎯

Simon Nemec unleashes a bomb on the Slovak power play and puts Slovakia up 3-1 on the USA.

What a shot!

Hattrick for Nico Hischier against Austria - well done!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

#20yrsago WIPO notes from day three: democracy == ignoring dissent https://web.archive.org/web/20041124024604/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/002130.php#002130

#15yrsago Britain’s new Internet law — as bad as everyone’s been saying, and worse. Much, much worse. https://memex.craphound.com/2009/11/19/britains-new-internet-law-as-bad-as-everyones-been-saying-and-worse-much-much-worse/

#5yrsago DJ Earworm: 100 songs from the past decade in one mashup https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=UhIte8t6BEg

#5yrsago Leaks reveal how the “Pitbull of PR” helped Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers ignite the opioid crisis https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-purdue-pharma-media-playbook-how-it-planted-the-opioid-anti-story#171238

#5yrsago Beyond the gig economy: “platform co-ops” that run their own apps https://www.vice.com/en/article/worker-owned-apps-are-trying-to-fix-the-gig-economys-exploitation/

#5yrsago Elizabeth Warren’s plan to denazify America https://medium.com/@teamwarren/fighting-back-against-white-nationalist-violence-87b0c550f51f

#5yrsago Youtube told them to use this “royalty-free” music; now rightsholders are forcing ads on their videos and claiming most of the revenue https://torrentfreak.com/royalty-free-music-supplied-by-youtube-results-in-mass-video-demonetization-191118/

#5yrsago The State of South Dakota wants you to know that it’s on meth https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/11/18/meth-were-it-says-south-dakota-new-ad-campaign/

#5yrsago Sand thieves believed to be behind epidemic of Chinese GPS jamming https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/11/15/131940/ghost-ships-crop-circles-and-soft-gold-a-gps-mystery-in-shanghai/

#5yrsago Quiet Rooms: Illinois schools lead the nation in imprisoning very young, disabled children in isolation chambers https://features.propublica.org/illinois-seclusion-rooms/school-students-put-in-isolated-timeouts/#170648

#5yrsago Terabytes of data leaked from an oligarch-friendly offshore bank https://web.archive.org/web/20191117042726/https://data.ddosecrets.com/file/Sherwood/

#5yrsago Naomi Kritzer’s “Catfishing on the CatNet”: an AI caper about the true nature of online friendship https://memex.craphound.com/2019/11/19/naomi-kritzers-catfishing-on-the-catnet-an-ai-caper-about-the-true-nature-of-online-friendship/

#5yrsago Girl on Film: a graphic novel memoir of a life in the arts and the biological basis for memory-formation https://memex.craphound.com/2019/11/19/girl-on-film-a-graphic-novel-memoir-of-a-life-in-the-arts-and-the-biological-basis-for-memory-formation/

[eaglesnick]

Private Sector Good, Public Sector Bad? (3)

This is the third part of a look at former public services and utilities in Britain that have been privatised or part-privatised in the name of neoliberal economics and the mistaken belief that private enterprise is ALWAYS more efficient than publicly run bodies.

The National Health Service

The Tory Party and successive Tory governments, including the Sunak administration, vehemently deny they are slowly privatising the NHS.

“Sunak pledges to cut waits with greater healthcare choice but denies NHS privatisation plan."  (Health and Protection: 04/01/23)

Such denials are deliberately misleading. According to the World Health Organisation:

“Privatisation is where non-government bodies become increasingly involved in the financing or provision of health care services”.

The Tory Health Care Act of 2012 removed the "duty of government” to provide NHS services directly, opening up NHS care provision to the private sector. This trend has been further accelerated by the 2022 Heath and Care Act. The Guardian had this to say about the change in the law:

“The new bill will continue the dismantling of the NHS, this time by adopting more features from the US health system. For anyone who cares about the NHS, this should set off alarm bells.” (Guardian: 07/12/21)

What we need to remember when reviewing the provision of public services by private companies is that the first duty of a private company is to make profits for it’s shareholders. The profit driven motive of private enterprise may lead to more cost savings but often at the expense of quality of service

“There is only a small number of studies addressing the effect of privatisation on the quality of care offered by health-care providers, and yet within this small group of longitudinal studies, we find a fairly consistent picture. At the very least, health-care privatisation has almost never had a positive effect on the quality of care." (Lancet: "The effect of health-care privatisation on the quality of care”, March 2024

In 2019, (November 29th) the Guardian reported that private firms had received £15bn over a five-year period for NHS provision. By  2019/20 Health Care Commissioners were spending £10bn a year on services delivered by the private sector. (The Kings Fund: Is the NHS being privatised, 01/03/21)

Despite this massive increase in NHS private provision, we all know the health service is on its knees. Before 2010 multi-year funding of the largely publicly run NHS saw the NHS improve its service provision. 14 years of Tory government, two health care acts later, and we see a total reversal in those trends. By 2014 signs of stress were becoming apparent. David Cameron and George Osborne deliberately starved the NHS of money, NHS budgets rising on average only 1.4% between 2009-19 compared to the 3.7% yearly rises since the NHS was first established.

The NHS is slowly bleeding to death: emergency departments are overcrowded, extended waiting times in A&E are leading to over 200 unnecessary deaths per week, there are not enough hospital beds, staff are demoralised, and doctors strikes continue because the government refuses to pay public sector workers a fair wage. Waiting lists continue to grow, it is impossible to find a NHS dentist and sick people have to wait weeks for a simple GP appointment.

This systematic rundown of the NHS by successive Tory governments is not all bad news as privatisation has benefited the lucky few.

Staff agencies are doing very nicely thank you, the BBC reporting that:

“Companies providing freelance staff to the NHS to cover for big shortages of doctors and nurses have seen their income rise by tens of millions of pounds since 2019.” (24/03/23)

Total spending on agency staff in England was £3bn in 2021, one hospital reportedly paying £5200 to a free-lance doctor for a single shift. It would be nice to say that doctors are not complicit in the gradual privatisation of the NHS but that would be untrue.

“Hundred’s of England's NHS consultants have shares in private clinics.”  (Guardian: 21/01/22)

Over a billion pounds has been generated by these set ups since 2015

But it is not only doctors who profit personally from privatisation. During the pandemic, top Tories were very quick to pass on lucrative contracts to their friends in business. These largely unscrutinised public contracts have drawn accusations of “cronyism” and "chumocracy". Others have been more blunt, the Financial Times  (06/08/21) asking the question: “When does cronyism become corruption?"

The shortage of PPE during the pandemic led to contracts being awarded to companies without competition. Literally billions of pounds were given to private companies to supply gowns, gloves, and face masks.

“But the way these deals have been given to firms has led to concerns over a lack of detail about why particular suppliers were chosen. The government has also been accused of favouring firms with political connections to the Conservative Party with a "high-priority lane".  (BBC News: 20/04/21)

This accusation turned out to be true.

"UK government’s ‘VIP lane' for PPE suppliers was unlawful. High Court rules.”  (Financial Times 12/01/22)

Although Michael Gove claimed that “every single procurement decision" went through an eight-stage-process” the courts found that nearly fifty PPE deals were fast tracked by Conservative ministers, who awarded contracts worth £5bn to companies with political or Whitehall connections.  Four Tory MP’s and three Tory peers were named as “referrers” Michael Gove, Penny Mordant and Esther McVey are said to have personally recommended firms.

Some MP’s have done a lot more than fast-tracking private health care provision. Many of them have actually invested in private health care companies while others are happy to accept financial donations from them.

Wes Streeting, Shadow Health Secretary and the poster boy for Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, is said to have accepted “£22,5000 in private donations from private health firms last year.” (VOX Political: 30/04/23) Other Labour notaries are also said to have financial connections to private health care companies. Keir Starmer has received £157,500, Yvette Cooper has received £295,205, and Dan Jarvis has received £137,500. (Labour Heartlands: Selling Out the NHS: The Shocking Links Between Labour MP’s and Private Healthcare Donations: 17/06/23)

On the Conservative side, The Mirror (21/01/23) reports that Penny Mordant accepted £10,000 from care home firm Renaissance Care, while ex-health minister Steve Brine made £200 an hour giving “strategic advice” to drug firm Signa, before resigning in 2021. Publicly available information tells that that at least 28 Tory MP’s and Peers have had ties to private health and medical groups. Even the former Health Secretary Sajid Javid had share options in a Californian tech company dealing in health sector software.

So, while the NHS slowly disintegrates for want of proper investment and strategic planning, individual MP's and private health care providers reap the rewards of privatisation. Should this in any way be doubt then listen to what  former Conservative Prime Minister John Major had to say as long ago as June 2016:

“The NHS is about as safe from them (Tory Brexiteers) as a pet hamster would be with a hungry python.”

Unfortunately, and to its eternal shame, the same can now be said of Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.

[f1]

W Series: All-female championship enters administration after failing to secure funding

After announcing the W Series would end early in 2022, organisers said they remained positive that funding could be found to secure the championship's future The all-female W Series has entered administration after the single-seater championship failed to secure funding. Alice Powell, who raced in the series from its start in 2019, said it had "inspired" many young female fans and "created" opportunities for drivers. "W Series DID NOT fail," said the 30-year-old Briton.external-link "At the end of the day, W Series got me out racing again, whether you agreed with the championship or not. "I have many great memories from racing in the championship, including my win at the British GP in 2021, which will stay with me forever." Britain's Jamie Chadwick dominated W Series and was crowned champion three times. The 25-year-old is now racing in the United States-based Indy NXT and is also part of Williams' academy. Administrators Evelyn Partners LLP said that most staff had already left the business or been made redundant. Kevin Ley, one of the joint administrators, said: "The news will be upsetting for the company's employees and drivers together with the worldwide supporters of the championship. "The company had been unable to commit to the 2023 race season due to its liquidity position. "The directors had been in discussions with various parties to provide additional funding together with a potential sale of the business. Unfortunately, these discussions did not progress." Ley's joint administrator, Harry Shinners, added: "The joint administrators will explore all available options to allow the W Series to restart in the future. We are seeking expressions of interest in the business and assets of the company." In November, Formula 1 - which has not had a female driver compete in a race since 1976 - launched the F1 Academy, an all-female series aimed at helping women drivers progress through motorsport. The inaugural season features seven rounds with the final race supporting the United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, in October. via BBC Sport - Formula 1 http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/

[mediamonarchy]

https://mediamonarchy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/20240410_MorningMonarchy.mp3 Download MP3 Purported revelations, tracking meats and Middle East unhappy meal deals + this day in history w/mandatory measles shots in Manhattan and our song of the day by Oliver Anthony on your #MorningMonarchy for April 10, 2024. Notes/Links: US Scientists Are Preparing to Launch a Gas Station Into Space to Provide Refueling https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/us-scientists-are-preparing-to-launch-a-gas-station-into-space-to-provide-refueling-to-extend-missions/ Image: the very first goddamn email: daszak says baric is working on nanoparticles, and baric is asked about sars glycoproteins he’s making for a DARPA grant and they’re trying to get them into bats; from march 2018 https://vxtwitter.com/a_nineties/status/1775289076431704419 Vaping linked to 19% higher risk of heart failure, study finds; The study notes that vaping specifically increases the risk of a form of heat failure know as heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. https://scrippsnews.com/stories/vaping-linked-to-19-higher-risk-of-heart-failure-study-finds/ // https://archive.is/8kkHt Flashback: 23 Vaping-Related Lung Illnesses Reported In Maryland (Oct. 3, 2019) https://patch.com/maryland/baltimore/23-vaping-related-lung-illnesses-reported-maryland Pfizer accused of ‘bringing discredit’ on pharmaceutical industry after Covid social media posts; Watchdog rules company breached regulatory code five times including promoting unlicensed medicines https://archive.ph/xWYjf Senator Rand Paul Book Expose: Sen Rand Paul Alleges Fauci, 15 Agencies Involved In ‘The Great Covid Cover-Up’ https://www.timesnownews.com/world/us/us-news/senator-rand-paul-alleges-anthony-fauci-15-agencies-involved-in-the-great-covidcover-up-article-109173712 Video: 🔥 Sen. Rand Paul Says Fauci Should Be in Jail for Lying to Congress and the American People (Audio) https://vxtwitter.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1777733323416068512 Walmart Shoppers Could Get $500 Cash Payments as Part of $45 Million Lawsuit Settlement; Walmart shoppers who bought sold-by-weight goods such as meat or bagged citrus fruit between 2018 and 2024 may be eligible for a cash settlement of up to $500. https://www.theepochtimes.com/business/walmart-shoppers-could-get-500-cash-payments-as-part-of-45-million-lawsuit-settlement-5623241 Supermarket takes radical step to fight shoplifting by adding GPS tracking to meat products https://nypost.com/2024/04/03/world-news/supermarket-takes-radical-step-to-fight-shoplifting-by-adding-gps-tracking-to-meat-products/ Video: GPS Tracking on Meat Products to Tackle Shoplifting Surge (Video) https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kVEyAyKi4xU Italian longevity expert: How to eat for a long, healthy life https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/04/italian-longevity-expert-how-to-eat-for-a-long-healthy-life.html Video: Corbett says, “Bitch, I ain’t gonna eat the bugs…” (Audio) https://mediamonarchy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/bitch_I_aint_gonna_eat_the_bugs.mp4 Image: Very well-played Britain – ULEZ protesters covering cameras with bat boxes. Authorities not allowed to remove under their own law. https://mediamonarchy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ulez_bat_box.png Bats and the law https://www.bats.org.uk/advice/bats-and-the-law Walking in Nature Improves Executive Function and Attention https://www.naturalmedicinejournal.com/journal/walking-in-nature-improves-executive-function-and-attention Bill Gates, GMO Potatoes and McDonald’s French Fries — What’s the Story? https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/bill-gates-acquiring-farmland-gmo-potatoes-mcdonalds-french-fries/ McDonald’s Has a New Adult Happy Meal, and It Comes With a Classic Toy (Dec. 4, 2023) https://www.foodandwine.com/mcdonalds-adult-happy-heals-8409644 McDonald’s buys all of its Israeli franchise restaurants amid damage from Middle East turmoil https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/04/business/mcdonalds-buys-israeli-franchise/index.html How Coca-Cola invented Fanta during World War II (Mar. 15, 2021) https...

[schumini]

crofty refering valtteri bottas as emilia bottas’s man has the same energy as formula e refering toto wolff as susie wolff’s husband

[umlewis]

"Lewis. 🤝 Silverstone. A whole lot of memories. Let’s get it. 🔥" - july 9, 2023 📷 @.mercedesamgf1 / instagram

[formula-what]

Lando won the cricket

Thank you very much. It was a draw between Lando, Seb, and Albon. Don’t steal his win away from him like this

[jean-loo]

Find someone who looks at you the way Lando Norris looks at Carlos Sainz Jr.

Lando Norris & Carlos Sainz Jr. | Great Britain GP 2019 - ©Chales Coates

[lewishamiltonarchives]

Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes and Great Britain with Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari and Germany at the Australian Gp 2019

[mariacallous]

Mark Nelson took the call in an immigration detention center—a place that, to him, felt just like prison. It had the same prison windows, the same tiny box rooms. By the time the phone rang, he’d already spent 10 days detained there, and he was wracked with worry that he would be forced onto a plane without the chance to say goodbye to his kids. So when his lawyers relayed the two options available under UK law—either stay in detention indefinitely or go home wearing a tracking device—it didn’t exactly feel like a choice. “That’s being coerced,” says Nelson, who moved from Jamaica to the UK more than 20 years ago. He felt desperate to get out of there and go home to his family—even if a GPS tag had to come too.

It was May 2022 when the contractors arrived at Colnbrook Detention Center, on the edge of London’s Heathrow Airport, to fit the device. Nelson knew the men were with the government’s Electronic Monitoring Service, but he didn’t know their names or the company they worked for. Still, he followed them to a small room, where they measured his leg and locked the device around his ankle. Since then, for almost two years, Nelson has been accompanied by the tag wherever he goes. Whether he is watching TV, taking his kids to school, or in the shower, his tag is continuously logging his coordinates and sending them back to the company that operates the tag on behalf of the British government.

Nelson lifts up his trousers to reveal the tag, wrapped around his leg, like a giant gray leech. He chokes down tears as he describes the impact the device has had on his life. “It’s depressing,” he says, being under constant surveillance. “Right through this process, it’s like I’m not a human anymore.”

In England and Wales, since 2019, people convicted of knife crime or other violent offenses have been ordered to wear GPS ankle tags upon their release from prison. But requiring anyone facing a deportation order to wear a GPS tag is a more recent and more controversial policy, introduced in 2021. Nelson wears a tag because his right to remain in the UK was revoked following his conviction for growing cannabis in 2017—a crime for which he served two years of a four-year sentence. But migrants arriving in small boats on the coast of southern England, with no previous convictions, were also tagged during an 18-month pilot program that ended in December 2023. Between 2022 and 2023, the number of people ordered to wear GPS trackers jumped by 56 percent to more than 4,000 people, according to research by the Public Law Project, a legal nonprofit.

“Foreign nationals who abuse our hospitality by committing crimes in the UK should be in no doubt of our determination to deport them,” a Home Office spokesperson tells WIRED. “Where removal isn’t immediately possible, electronic monitoring can be used to manage foreign national offenders and selected others released on immigration bail.” The Home Office, the UK’s interior ministry, declined to answer questions on “operational details,” such as whether GPS coordinates are being tracked in real time and for how long the Home Office stores individuals’ location data. “This highly intrusive form of surveillance is being used to solve a problem that does not exist,” says Jo Hynes, a senior researcher at the Public Law Project. GPS tags are designed to prevent people facing deportation orders from going on the run. But according to Hynes, only 1.3 percent of people on immigration bail absconded in the first six months of 2022.

Now, Nelson is the first person to challenge Britain’s GPS tagging regime in a high court, arguing that the tags are a disproportionate breach of privacy. A judgment on the case is expected any day now, and critics of GPS tagging hope the decision will have ripple effects throughout the British immigration system. “A judgment in Mark’s favor could take quite a lot of different forms,” says Jonah Mendelsohn, a legal officer at data rights group Privacy International. He adds that the court could force the Home Office to stop tagging migrants altogether, or it could limit the amount of data the tags collect. “It could set a precedent.”

The GPS tags are part of an intensifying surveillance regime that migrants and refugees are now subject to in the UK, the US, and Australia, says Mendelsohn. “There is so much tech that’s being rolled out and used almost in an experimental lab-esque way,” he says, pointing to how migrants arriving in Britain on small boats have been told to hand over their phones and pin codes or fitted with bar-coded wristbands. “GPS tracking is just one aspect of that.”

Allegations that the tags are prone to malfunction also aggravate the stress people feel while wearing them, Mendelsohn says. By law, the tags can’t be removed. But they still need charging, either by being plugged into a socket or a portable battery pack. Nelson’s first tag would run out of battery every two hours, he claims, meaning he could never travel far from a plug socket—failure to charge a tag can count as a breach of immigration bail conditions, risking return to a detention center.

The battery was just one in a series of problems, Nelson claims. Between November 2022 and May 2023, he believes his tag was no longer logging his GPS coordinates, with his legal team at Wilsons Solicitors arguing this proved the tag was redundant and should be removed. But until now, the Home Office has refused to take off the tag. “[They said] the law is the law and I’m subject to the law,” says Nelson. “So I’ve got to wear this broken tag whether it works or not.” The company that monitors and maintains the tags on behalf of the government since 2014, Capita Business Services, did not reply to WIRED’s request to comment.

Nelson might have been the first person to challenge the GPS tagging regime in court. But others were close behind. British law firm Duncan Lewis Solicitors is representing another four people forced to wear GPS tags, ranging from EU citizens to people who arrived in the UK on small boats. “Such surveillance of vulnerable individuals is not necessary in any democratic society, and we are proud to represent these claimants in their fight against this poorly run and dystopian regime,” says Conor Lamb, who works in the public law department at Duncan Lewis.

One of the people whom Duncan Lewis is representing is a 25-year-old former asylum seeker from Sudan who arrived in the UK via a small boat and has no criminal history, according to his lawyers. The tag brought up painful memories of being bound and tortured during his journey to the UK, they argued in court. After two psychiatric reports were submitted to the government, the tag was taken off and his data deleted. Despite that, the man, who uses the pseudonym ADL, remains part of the court case in order to challenge the practice of tagging new arrivals.

Meanwhile, Nelson is still waiting for his tag to be taken off. He’s frustrated that he has to wear the tag despite already having served his time in prison. “Before all of this, I was social,” he says. Now, he says, he’s too self-conscious to go out much, in case others see the tag and mistake him for the perpetrator of a violent crime. He describes how the tag has left him feeling “up and down,” as if he has no good choices left. “In order for me to see my family and to be part of my family, I’m still being forced into 24/7 monitoring, someone watching me and watching what I do, every day.”