Child Labour Iphone

The Chinese mining company Huayou has been reprimanded by The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) after it has discovered children as young as four mining for cobalt.
Cobalt is a vital component in the batteries for mobile phones and the main recipient is Apple who have now  told Huayou to suspend all mining until they can be checked to be free of child labour.
Apple said some of Huayou's cobalt had entered its supply chain, but that it had now suspended the operation.
An Apple spokesperson added: "Apple is deeply committed to the responsible sourcing of materials for our products'.
Last summer Apple celebrated selling their 1 billionth iphone so there is a very good chance that as they have only just stopped using this supplier, the iphone currently sat on your table was a product of a small child being paid pennies to toil in a cobalt mine.
Worth thinking about next time you moan about your phones short battery life.

The Problems With Manned Mars Missions

Gravity is great, you drop something and it will gather at your feet ready to be picked up again and doesn't float away above the trees never to be seen again.
Of course it isn't so good if the thing you drop is a hammer or a priceless vase but you get the idea and over the past 2 million years (or 6000 years if you are a Bible reader) human life has been evolving on Earth and gravity has defined our size and shape as well as keeping us rooted to the ground.
As we are a product of gravity, problems occur when you take it away as our astronauts find out when they leave the safe embrace of the Earths gravitational field and venture out into Space.
Once gravity is removed the human body goes to seed, our bones and muscles waste, the heart shrinks and changes shape while hand eye coordination is shot to bits and the bodily fluids float around inside the body bringing dizziness and an almost constant feeling of nausea.
A short trip to the moon and back would take four days out, a day or so bumbling around planting flags and hitting golf balls and a four day trip back, you could be out and back within 10 days and the effects would be minimal.  
Those returning from longer stays on the International Space Station are greeted by Gravity and a hospital worth of medical services and that's where the manned missions to Mars hit a stumbling block. 
A trip to Mars would be a minimum of six months to get there, and the same to get back again. Due to the orbit of Mars around the Sun an astronaut would get either a 30 day window to return or wait until the next time it comes close to Earth which is 18 months later so even the shortest trip would mean 13 months in less gravitationally favourable circumstances or 30 months for a longer trek.
As it would be impossible for an astronaut to collapse into a hospital trolley on arrival to the red planet, they would be 240 million miles away with just a first aid kit and muscles like jelly which isn't ideal.  
All which makes the talk about Mars Missions far fetched until science develops some form of artificial gravity aboard the rockets or we get a fully equipped hospital built up there first.

Science Replacing Philosophy

Before Science there was religion but over time, as Darwin sailed around the Galapagos Islands, Copernicus gazed up at the sun and Galileo set up his telescope, religion fell over time and time again and science replaced it as the thing to turn to for the answers.
Philosophy is somewhere between the two, questioning matters concerning our lives but as science by its very nature is all about continuing to find the answers to questions, philosophy also has largely gone the same way as religion and become irrelevant.
While philosophical musings were common in more unenlightened times when mans knowledge was more restricted, it is hard to think of any philosophical question that Science today couldn't answer or wouldn't be able to answer in the near future.
The questions religion and philosophy attempt to answer all began with the word 'Why' but the questions science attempt to answer begin with 'How' and base their answers on proof and evidence as they currently understand them.  
That is why philosophy has gone the same way as religion, replaced by Science answering the How questions which in turn makes the Why questions redundant and for a time when we were not advanced or knowledgeable enough to answer them based on the evidence.

Something Stinks So American Media Must Keep Digging

David Cameron wasn't the only politician who was fond of the dead cat tactic when things were turning against him, it is a well worn ploy by all politicians and Donald Trump has been following the Cameron play book by lining up the dead moggies on the kitchen table ever since he got the keys to the White House.
The idea is that just as a storm is brewing, the instigator does something radical to change the narrative so that becomes 'the thing' rather than 'the other thing' and that is exactly what the Trump administration is desperately trying to do around Russia right now.
The cat in this scenario is the press ban and the Mexican wall tendering process so eyes shift away from the Trump's interference with the FBI in the middle of an active investigation involving his direct and continuous contact with officers of the Russian intelligence agency, the FSB, and the unprecedented cyber attack on Hillary Clinton.
Despite protestations that it was all fake news, we learned this week that Trump chief of staff Reince Priebus had contacted the the FBI to request that they publicly label the story as 'total BS'.
When this was rebuffed, Priebus went to the top guy in the FBI to demanded the same but was again rebuffed and refused permission to quote them anonymously as saying the story was totally wrong.
The removal of Michael Flynn from Donald Trump administration over secret links with Russia are the smoke but the fire is surely not to far away and must be warming Donald Trumps toes as it creeps closer to him with every revelation. 
The key questions seem to be what did Trump and his staff know about the hacks, when did they know it and were they complicit in any way and that is what the media must hammer and why Trump is so keen to bang the 'fake news' drum so loudly.
He must hope that when the inevitable allegations come his way, that he has turned enough 'useful idiots' to his side and the revelations that he worked alongside a foreign power to interfere in an American election doesn't bring the walls crashing down on him.  
Moving all those dead cats aside, the fact that him and his team are working so hard to cover up, deny, lie and influence the investigation looks very much like they have something that they very much want to stay hidden and if the American media are doing their job, continued digging will bring it out into the open.

USA Returning To British Bosom?

Because the name 'Countries that we forcibly took over and then raped, murdered and pillaged' is a tad too controversial, the British instead refer to them as the Commonwealth of Nations and at the moment number 52 but we could well be adding another to the list as the former colony called the United States of America mull over coming under our blood stained banner.  
It certainly fits into the criteria of a previous part of the British Empire now independent like so many in Africa, Asia and Australasia so it would only be a matter of blowing the dust off the book which has been unopened since 1776 and saying 'Howdy and Yee Haw'.
The current American President, Donald Trump, is said to be enthusiastic about a return to the bosom of the Old Country and as we are on our uppers, the Government think it would be an excellant move to drive up trade links so everyone's a winner although it may not go down so well with the gun clinging Good Ole Boys drinking Whiskey and Rye at the levee's who may not be quite so keen
to bring the monarchy back into their Republic.
The criteria is that they recognise the Queen as the head of the Commonwealth and accept and comply with racial equality, World Peace, liberty, human rights and free trade and conduct all Commonwealth communications in English while the British are the sole decision makers on whether these conditions are being met and can boot out anyone who they consider in breech.
Looking at the conditions, America may want to wait until the Trump has left office because racial equality and World Peace could be a sticking point and then it's welcome back America, help us move her majesty's Throne into the Oval Office, rip up that Independence thingy and let's discuss what the hell you have been doing for the past 241 years and those mind-numbing, bat crazy gun laws you have.

Thanks And Goodbye Jeremy

The worst thing about the Labour Parties Jeremy Corbyn is that i like him and i like his views and agree with almost all of them but the facts are that i am obviously in the minority as Labour slip even further away from gaining power. 
Despite everything he says about turning corners and getting his message out there, the Labour Party face falling even further behind the Conservatives and need to act.
Unfortunately, the only thing they can do is thank Jeremy for his efforts and elect someone who has more appeal to voters otherwise come 2020, the Conservatives will regain power and it's another five years of ideologically run disasters as the previous five.
The loss staunch Labour seat of Copeland to the Conservatives should be the wake-up call that Labour need to find someone in their membership who connects with the electorate and who can stop the Conservatives in their tracks from the cliff edge that they are speeding us towards.

Heavens Immigrant Stopping Wall

According to all the paintings i have seen, Heaven is a lovely place but if you have ever wondered just what makes it so nice then you can stop because it is down to a strict immigration and a wall to keep the bad types out so says the people at the Conservative Political Action Conference
(CPAC) conference, America's version of the Monster Raving Loony Party.
The Conference's name is: 'If Heaven Has a Gate, A Wall, and Extreme Vetting, Why Can’t America? which fails the catchy title test but ticks all the boxes for 'large amount of mind altering drugs consumed beforehand'.
Of course we could just answer their question and move on by answering 'because heaven is a fairy story you god bothering nutters' but some people have come a long way to listen to days of right wing madness and the caterers have already made three days worth of sandwiches so let's keep that gem to the end as a nice surprise for them, just after the speech on 'If God hates Gays, why shouldn't we'
and just before 'How to make your own Adam and Eve from the mud in your garden'.

Muslims And Jewish Unite

While not all right wingers are racists, most of the racists are on the right wing and the right wing has been empowered by the Brexit vote in the UK and Donald Trump's election victory in America so they have been feeling braver to spit forth their bile and it is Muslim's once again who are taking the brunt of the vitriol.
It has been a tough time being a Muslim over the last decade or so, the small minded and even smaller brained looking to blame the whole religion for almost all of the world's ills so it is great to see a news story being aired that actually shows Muslims in a good light.
After over 150 tombstones in a Jewish cemetery were vandalised this weekend in Missouri, two Muslim's started a campaign amongst their community to raise $20,000 to repair the damage but actually raised a total of $57,000.
The organisers said that there aim was to show: 'solidarity with the Jewish-American community to condemn this horrific act of desecration. Through this campaign, we hope to send a united message from the Jewish and Muslim communities that there is no place for this type of hate, desecration, and violence'.
With all the anti-Muslim shamefully being pumped out by the White House and the racist rhetoric coming from those who feel they are now free to shout their ignorance, we need more stories like this to show that Muslims are not the enemy, ignorance and intolerance very much are.

Government To Blame For NHS Crisis

Much hand-wringing from the Government over the NHS crisis and waiting times as the finger is pointed at Doctors not working long enough hours, the public turning up at Accident and Emergency rather than go see their doctor and that old favourite of the Brexit crowd, Johnny Foreigner coming over here to use our free service and a broad array of other reasons.
With the fingers being pointed elsewhere, nobody seems to be pointing at the proper cause, a right wing Government hell bent on running down the NHS to such a state that we cry out for it to be privatised so we can get a hospital bed. 
While the Government can say that they give more money to the NHS then ever, that is factually true but the NHS budget has historically been raised by 4% each year, since 2010 and the Conservatives picked up the treasuries keys they have given 1% so yes they have given more each year than ever before but then whoever is in Government has done that but while over the last 7 years their budget 
has gone up by 7%, historically it should have gone up by 36% which means they are actually 29% down on the deal.
The Government are also keeping quiet about the 44 hospitals and treatment centres that are being closed with a loss of 15,000 beds so if you think getting an appointment or a bed was hard enough now, wait until these cuts come in this year and there are 15,000 less beds and 44 less hospitals to be treated at.
It is also undeniably true that other factors include the UK population is ageing and older people, on average, have greater healthcare demands than younger generations but the Government have deliberately let things slip and as the Health Minister, Jeremy Hunt, who controls all aspects of the NHS co-authored a book by a group of Conservative politicians that called for the NHS to be privatised, it isn't hard to do the sums and arrive at a deliberate ploy to underfund and run the NHS down to such a point that  Private hospitals and medical insurance becomes the only game in town.
A glance at the American system where healthcare comes with the ability to pay should scare us into this doing what we can to prevent this right wing, capitalist vision from ever seeing the light of day and pointing the finger of blame where it should be pointed, at the Government.

Make The Moon A Planet

Once there were nine planets in our solar system and then there were eight and now a group of NASA scientists think there should be at least 110 planets moving around the sun.
The New Horizons project which visited and beamed back amazing photographs of the Planet formerly known as Pluto have been peeved that the last stop before the Kuiper Belt now downgraded to a minor planet in 2006 and are trying to get the definition of how we define a planet changed but in order to do that it would also mean bringing over 100 large rocky bodies into the Planet Club including our own Moon.
As it stands a planet is a body that orbits the Sun, is massive enough for its own gravity to make it round, and has cleared its neighbourhood of smaller objects around its orbit but the NASA team think that it should be upgraded to include anything that has 'sufficient self-gravitation to assume a spheroidal shape' so basically anything that's big and round and isn't a star.
The proposal isn't getting much approval with the rest of NASA who are happy with their eight planets so it is doubtful it will happen which will come as great relief for schoolchildren everywhere who seem to have enough problem remembering the order of the eight we have so would have no chance with 110 of them.