Mark Pearson @wizardofosmium@mastodon.social

The petition to revoke article 50 and remain in the EU is still gathering steam (currently ~2.75M).

If you are a UK citizen or resident, don’t wish to leave the EU and haven’t yet signed, please consider doing so.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584

If you have signed and wish to monitor the results, please help server stability to enable more signatories by viewing via an indirect method such as

https://odileeds.org/projects/petitions/241584

or

https://petitions.acadweb.co.uk/overview/241584

The odileeds site theoretically polls for data every 5 minutes and the acadweb site every 10 but they are also subject to the outages and server downtime at the parliament website.

It seems that MP Andrea Leadsom has said that she’ll pay attention once the petition hits 17 million signatures.. which would be an uphill challenge under normal circumstances but with the petitions website being flaky it’s nigh on impossible.

Under normal circumstances I too have doubts over the efficacy of petitions to make any real change but well.. we’re not in Kansas any more..

#brexit #petition

LEAKED!

Second EU referendum voting slips.

#politics #Brexit

"Tove MacDonald is an 87-year-old Danish grandmother living in Glasgow. She moved to Scotland almost 60 years ago after meeting a policeman from Lewis in Copenhagen."

"I've got nowhere to go. This is my home."

Tove will have to apply (not register as reported) to stay in Scotland.

Approx 220,000 other EU citizens will have to do the same.

https://stv.tv/news/politics/1436008-eu-citizens-brand-registration-insulting-ahead-of-brexit/

#politics #Brexit #SettledStatus

Read Trish & Frans story to find out why Brexit is making Scots' families into exiles.

"So there we are. In three weeks, Frans and I must leave our home in Scotland to keep our sole income."

https://scottishexile.home.blog/2019/02/17/we-are-exiles/

#Brexit #politics #Sutherland #Highlands #Scotland

Talking of blue (as I was on another thread) I watched the final part of Blue Planet II last night.

I felt totally depressed after the programme finished. David Attenborough mentioned a study that found every 1 square mile of ocean contains 1 million pieces of plastic.

We are ruining our planet.

#nature #environment #BluePlanet

a friend of mine who spends a LOT of his time picking up plastic waste from parks, rivers, streets, etc. had a good idea. He decided to photograph the non biodegradable waste and tag companies on social media with it. So if he finds a plastic Subway cup, he tells Subway about it with the message "is this yours?" I dig this because it's not something that blames the consumer. It puts the blame where it belongs: on the producer.

<<<
This is the procedure in the British parliamentary system (Westminster), but it works in a similar way in many other places.

It was exactly this trap that Ian Blackford found himself in. He couldn't let Theresa May get away with her "political lies", but the moment he called her a "liar" he was the one that got into trouble.

Fair?

As you might have guessed by now I consider "political lies" to be an important topic. Here's why...

It is permissible to tell political lies both within and outwith parliament and *even* if you get caught there are no sanctions.

However, the moment you call out someone for telling "political lies", by calling them a "liar" all hell breaks loose. If you don't immediately retract the statement you can be removed from parliament. You will also likely be excoriated by the media.
>>>

The trial has begun. The attached photo shows the 12 Catalan political leaders (foreground) in court.

Democracy is on trial.

Today the Spanish Supreme court trials begin against 12 Catalan political leaders for:

* allowing a debate in parliament
* defending a vote on independence
* organising peaceful demonstrations

They each face potentially 25 years in prison. These *innocent* people have already been held in prison for up to 14 months.

In Europe. In 2019.

#Catalonia #Catalunya #politics #democracy