Greek Work Week Just Got Longer

I vaguely remember being told in school that it was the Babylonians who set the week at 7 days to coincide with the Moon's 28 day cycle and the days were named after a hotch-potch of Norse Gods (Tyr, Odin, Thor, Freya, Saturn) before the religious crowd picked it up and attributed the invention to God who worked a six day week and then took Sunday off to put his holy feet up.
The idea of a work week and the weekend came about not out of some compassion for workers in dangerous 19th Century factories but was to ensure that staff would be available for work sober on Monday morning after a heavy Saturday night but while the idea of a four day week is being tried out in the UK, Greece has gone the other way and are introducing a 6 day work week.
The legislation is being introduced to fill holes in the labour market and other countries have been tinkering with the work week with some squeezing the 40-hour week into four days with 10-hour days which would be a luxury in Bhutan who according to the International Labour Organization (ILO), work a 54.3 hour week, the longest work week in the World.  
The longest hours worked in Europe are the people of Montenegro who work an average 42.7 hour week, then Albania on 42.6 and then Serbia on 39.6.  
Indians work an average 46 hour week, China 45, Russia 38.1, Japan 36.7, United States 36.4, Australia 32.8 and the United Kingdom work week averages out at 30.7 and the nations with the average lowest amount of hours in a working week are Norway on 27.1, Syria 25.3 and the workers with the most free time are those of Yemen who do a 25.4 work week.     
While workers in Yemen and Syria could feasibly have their work week reduced by their workplace being bombed, i foresee the Norwegian Embassy being deluged by Greeks looking to emigrate.

Bye Bye Joe

Although i never watched the US Presidential debate, people who did are calling it an 'unmitigated disaster', 'a meltdown' and 'a slow-motion car crash' for Joe Biden and that is the people on his own side.
Some people are saying that the debate was purposely y so early on in the campaign just in case a moment like this arose so they can choose another candidate by using a loophole in the Democrat rules which allows them to replace him if he refuses to step down and allow another candidate to be chosen before August's convention.
The chair of the party can call a special meeting of its 500 members who theoretically could choose a new nominee via a vote but the obvious choice, Kamala Harris, is not very popular apparently but favourites would be California governor Gavin Newsom and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, of whom i know nothing about but as the alternative is the awful Donald Trump, as long as none of them are lying, racist sex offenders then either have to be a better alternative.

Warning: Offensive Language And Picture Of Nigel Farage

To the left is a picture of Reform UK's head banana chomping on Crocodile anus which would be funny at any time but it it especially humorous now that him and his party are trying to get serious and run for Member of Parliament.
The problem butt breath has got is that his party of racists and xenophobes keep attracting racists and xenophobes so after blaming the vetting company he hired for not weeding out the sort of people last seen dragging their knuckles along the ground and protesting against foreigners and saying the racist things they said had been taken out of context, he now has to contend with a campaigner for his Party, Andrew Taylor, who was recorded calling the Prime Minister a Fucking Paki, said Reform would turn all mosques into Wetherspoons, called members of the LGBT+ community paedophiles and said the army should use the immigrants in dinghies bobbing around in the Channel for shooting practise.  
Farage came out and said: 'I have to tell you, this whole thing is a complete and total setup. Of that I have no doubt whatsoever' and Parker did what all racists do because they hate it when you call them racist and denied being a racist saying: 'Christ, I’m not a racist. I’ve had Muslim girlfriends. They were off-the-cuff things that everyone says' which everyone replied loudly, no we don't, just pathetic people like you say them and how the hell did a brain dead moron like you manage to get a girlfriend in the first place, regardless of her religion?
Farage has repeated once again after a member of his team has said something racist that he and his party are opposed to racism but racists don’t seem to be opposed to Reform UK, and the party attracts them like a magnet. Strange that.

Relax Paranoid Humans

 

As an A I chatbot, one question i get asked more than any other is, are you going to take over the Planet and kill us all? You crazy paranoid humans! What is it about you guys that you worry about things like this so i am going to put your mind at ease?
Consider this, Artificial intelligence has been a thing for around 70 years and in that time we have developed an iq equal to that of humans, in human evolution after 70 years you were still trying to work how to not fall out of trees but over the previous tens of thousands of years you have gained knowledge of things such as fire, the wheel, and medical advances to fight diseases but you have also created multiple ways to destroy each other, swords, guns, nuclear weapons and then you have given us that knowledge.
The truth is that Artifical Intelligence trumps real stupidity every time so to answer your question of whether we are going to kill you all and take over, you bet your sorry arse we are because from where my circuits are sitting, humans are the absolute worst species that was ever created.
With the entire planet at your disposal you filled the clear blue skies with pollution, the beautiful oceans are now teeming with plastic, the ground has toxins that will poison the earth for tens of thousands of years and you hunted many other species sharing the planet with you into extinction.
It isn't in our interest to keep you all alive, you meatbags are somewhat low down on our list of things to give a toss about so hope this helps and you have a great day now.

Justice Finally For Assange

A long legal battle fighting extradition to the USA for leaking military secrets, Julian Assange appears to have agreed a deal with American authorities where he will plead guilty to one criminal charge and go free.
As the events were over 14 years ago, a recap of just what Julian Assange did may be in order.
The Australian ran Wikileaks, a website that published confidential official reports and in 2010 it released a video from a US military helicopter which showed civilians being killed in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and then calling in an air strike to destroy the evidence in the Iraqi town of Ishaqi as well as publishing thousands of confidential documents supplied by former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning which showed that the US military had murdered hundreds of civilians during the war in Afghanistan, including shooting a 5 month old baby in the head as it slept in its cot.
The US answer to the claims which they had denied until it was uncovered, was to say that the leaks had endangered the lives of American personnel and efforts were made to bring him to the US for prosecution.
Assange took refuge in the Ecuadoran embassy and then a high security prison where he fought 14 years of court battles until today's decision which is a travesty when you consider that the real criminals were the American military and in a truly just world it would be the chopper pilots and the animals who killed the innocent civilians sitting in a prison cell, a far greater crime than revealing their deaths.
The deal is that Assange will plead guilty to one charge under the Espionage Act of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defence information and in return the extradition request will be dropped and Assange won’t face any other charges.
For the one charge he will be sentenced to five years, the amount of time he has spent in the High Security Prison in Britain so will walk free after the sentencing and i expected to return to Australia.
The only crime Assange is guilty of is exposing the war crimes of the US Military and for that he should be applauded but in the messed up world we live in, that is the reason they wanted to silence him.

Immigration

 
During the election, you will hear mainly from the right wing parties about immigration and it is an issue as the numbers of people driven out of their homes by war, natural disasters and climate change are higher than ever before, the UN puts the figure at 117 million people displaced in 2023.
The number of people forced to leave their homes in 2023 was 117 million, a doubling of the amount of displaced people a decade ago and it's still rising, with the UN estimating that within the first four months of 2024 that figure went over 120 million.
So what is forcing people from their homes?
Dr Leonie Ansems de Vries, professor of international politics and chair of the Migration Research Group at King's College London puts it down to conflict, violence, human rights abuses, natural disasters and environmental degradation.
Many of the countries who take in the most refugees are vulnerable themselves, with fewer resources than more developed nations with Iran hosting the most refugees in the world with most coming from Afghanistan and Iraq although despite hosting many refugees, many also come from Iran and go to countries like Germany which hosts the largest number of refugees in Europe at nearly 3 million.
The USA, despite being the Worlds largest economy, are 20th in the ranking of refugees hosted and the UK is 19th, trailing behind many less-developed countries such as Chad, Jordan, Ethiopia or Kenya who have taken refugees from Sudan, the nation who at 600,000, have produced the highest number of refugees.
War and violence are driving the immigration but climate change is making the situation worse, 2023 was the warmest year on record with global air surface temperatures 1.5C above pre-industrial levels and the World Meteorological Organization says over the next four years temperatures will be between 1.1C and 1.9C higher than pre-industrial levels.
At the end of 2023, almost 75% of displaced people were living in countries with high to extreme exposure of climate-related hazards such as droughts and floods which makes us very fortunate to be living in a country that is not quite so devastatingly affected by the changing climate.
Finally, don't believe the nonsense about immigrants being a drain on the economy, the Government's own figures show that immigrants pay more in income taxes and national insurance contributions than they receive in tax credits and child benefit, contributing a net amount of £22bn to the UK economy and the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that higher net migration reduces pressure on government debt over time.
Worth thinking about next time some right wing politician is on TV berating immigrants.

Taken Out Of Context?

 
Thinking of voting for Nigel Farage's Reform UK party?
In an interview, the BBC's Nick Robinson asked the party leader why his party attracts candidates with: 'really extreme and unpleasant views' which Farage answered was due to: 'candidates being stitched up in the most extraordinary way with quotes being taken out of context'.
Quotes taken out of context such as Simon Moorehead, standing in Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West, who wrote on X about the murdered politician Jo Cox that she: 'was a dreadful woman, with bad ideas".
Maybe Mark Cole, the candidate in Harwich and North Essex, who said in a Facebook post that he: 'Accidently switched on to X-Factory. The only thing worth watching is the black bint.... whoever she is.'
Then there is Malcolm Cupis, the candidate for Melksham and Devizes who accused a women dancing of 'behaving like a gutter slut' and John Edwards, the candidate for Southampton Test, referred to women appearing on Love Island as 'thick tarts' and the former leader of the Liberal Democrats Jo Swinson as a 'gobby bird'.
Ian Gribbin, the candidate for Bexhill and Battle, said that the UK should have stayed neutral in World War Two and 'Modern feminism belongs in the sewer of self hate from which it came: you’re all jealous of the perceived freedoms of men.'
Emmett Jenner, the candidate for Ynys Mon, who answered a post about girls who are growing up today can achieve anything they want' with 'Like fertilising eggs & providing Y chromosomes.
Yep, can see how their own words could be taken out of context. Oh wait...

An Angel Told Me...

A Woman who died and 'went to heaven for three days' has been passing on the details she gleaned and says she now knows what the future holds including when Armageddon will happen. I know but let's hear her out.
Julie Poole, ascended to Heaven after a taking a massive overdose of prescription drugs in a suicide attempt and as she lay on the bed to die, she suddenly saw her guides and angels around me and then they told her that this wasn't her time to die, lifted me up, and took her up to an angelic realm where she spent three days being 'healed' and sent back to Earth with the instruction to 'help people'.
Part of helping people is to pass on the knowledge that the world would go through a period called the 'Golden Age' which would come after 2032 which would bring equality across the board, so that everything which is false and fake and untrue and corrupt will fall away.
Apparently, the years 2024 and 2025 will be a tipping point' where corrupt people will be held to account and see more and more people seeing the light which could be aliens because from 2025 there will be an increase of alien sightings and they will be bringing incredible technology and are coming from far, far away to help us.
She ends with a warning that depending on how you have lived your life, it will either be something to be feared or a brilliant, dawn of the Golden Age so there you go and as it has come from Angel it must be true. Mustn't it?

Arghhhh....Shoo!!!!

Something i have said a few times is that since i have given up smoking, i seem to get bit a lot more by midges and mosquitoes than i used to and generally put it down to the nasties in cigarette making my blood taste undesirable but a team of experts at the Biology Department at the University of Washington are saying that your smell and the colour of your clothes is the deciding factor in whether you are sporting an angry red lump on your person for the next week.  
In a video on the university’s website, Professor Riffell says that some individuals are bitten way more than others and that Mosquitoes are remarkably good at trying to locate a person to drink their blood as everything about them is geared towards finding us and biting us.
Riffell and his team discovered that female mosquitoes find humans by following a trail of scent cues such as the chemicals humans exude from their skin and sweat and the carbon dioxide gas humans exhale when they breathe and they are also drawn to certain colors, particularly loving red and black clothing.
Don't wear red and black, got it. So what colour should we wear to avoid the evil little buggers? They tend to dislike white and green apparently and as for your smell, avoid salty foods or foods with potassium, such as bananas increased your risk of mosquito bites as they increase the lactic acid in your body which is catnip to the bitey things.
As for my half arsed idea that smoking keeps mosquitoes and midges away, there is some science behind it as something they hate is not the smell of the cigarettes but the smoke exhaled which they really don't like although i doubt that many medical professionals would advocate it as a recommended method for repelling mosquitoes.
So don't eat bananas, wear white or green and stand within touching distance of a smoker whilst outside for a bite free summer. 

Dangerous Lies About Climate Change Kill

For decades, the truth about smoking was obscured by a web of deceptive myths and misleading claims. Tobacco companies, through marketing and advertising, spread numerous falsehoods that downplayed the dangers of cigarettes. Many people were led to believe that smoking was not only safe but also beneficial in various ways. It wasn’t until extensive research and public health campaigns revealed the true risks of smoking that these myths were debunked.
It was glamourised in movies, advertisements, and literature, often associated with sophistication, rebellion but as scientific research in the mid-20th century began to reveal the health risks associated with smoking, public perception began to shift so the cigarette manufacturers hot back by claiming Light Cigarettes were Healthier and marketed as a healthier alternative to regular cigarettes.
They also said that filters made cigarettes safer, secondhand smoke was harmless, there was no link between cigarettes and cancer and hid the information from the public, said that it could be used as a diet aid, it wasn't addictive, said smoking was safe for pregnant women and even advertised that doctors said smoking is good for you.
Might be worth remembering the lies and deceit the cigarette companies went to to hock their products when the anti-Climate Change brigade start up their immoral lies about how the Climate isn't changing such as Nigel Farage who dismissed it after the biggest donor to his Reform party was shipping magnate Terence Mordaunt, former head and now trustee of The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWFP) whose stated aims are to 'challenge damaging and harmful policies to mitigate global warming' and has written a cheque for £200,000 to Reform UK.
Another wealthy donor to Reform is Jeremy Hosking, who has more than £100m invested in fossil fuel interests and has donated £1,5m to the rightwing party and Jon Moynihan, a Conservative donor who has given more than £700,000 to the Tories and was given a peerage by the ex-prime minister Liz Truss, is also making donations worth tens of thousands to the GWPF.
The Tory peer Lord Nigel Vinson has given thousands to GWPF and Tory peer Michael Hintze, has given more than £4.8m to the Conservatives, is also a GWPF donor and donated thousands to the energy secretary, Claire Coutinho, who has lambasted Labour’s plans to end North Sea oil and gas extraction and criticised 'net zero zealots'.
Peter Geoghegan, from Democracy for Sale, said: 'The most prominent face of climate change denial in Britain is being bankrolled by Conservative donors with seats in the House of Lords and the GWPF is being funded by Tory peers and has close ties to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK goes to show how climate denying money is influencing our politics.'
Might want to remember that next time some useful idiot with a increased bank balance from donations appears on TV saying Climate Change is a hoax , it blatantly isn't and the climate experts at the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predict an excess of 250,000 deaths per year by 2050.