My main professional background is in the earth & life sciences, but I now also explore topics in the broad area of bioethics. That's about equality, fairness, justice, diversity and inclusivity. It's also about people's biases, the associated otherization and everything that this can result in. That includes poverty, homelessness and poor health, shabby looks and shrinking personal bubbles, exposure to chemical and noise pollution and lots more. It's also about law, philosophy, neuroscience, technology, forensic psychology, politics and public policy (governance). Diversity and inclusivity are much bigger challenges than I used to believe. I for example now think that society's lack of genuine acceptance and support for people whose brains work very differently can among other things result in destructive behaviours for which the forensic psychology terminology is sadistic stalking or resentful stalking. My own experiences on the receiving end of something like this caused me to start looking into personality disorders and neurodiversity. That is how I stumbled upon bioethics. Seeing the massive inequality in England had something to do with it too. No, I don't have all the answers. Do you?
No stupid (hacking etc) crap today, please. I’m EXTREMELY exhausted at the moment and I need all my focus and energy on keeping myself from not falling over. No stupid crap today.
Arabica, 10 April until todayArabica, 1 January 1990 until today (Do you see the effect of the pandemic, when global shipping ground to a halt and prices went up, then came down again? At the time, people were constantly looking which ports had containers stuck in them and which countries that grow coffee had ports from which shipping was still happening.)
Efforts are on the way to create lab-grown coffee. I’ll see if I can find the news about that; I was into coffee futures for a while, but have lost track as my current circumstances are too limiting. The same goes for pharmaceutical developments etc. I can’t do my due diligence, so to speak. My research. Keep up with developments. Keep notes. Be on top of things. (I have to be free from stupid-people crap, too. It’s why they have special tracks for F1 races and don’t hold them or kart races or horse races in the middle of Paris or London. No interference from other people’s cars and bicycles.)
Coffee prices can go down, then, for other parts of the world. So Luckin may get lucky (but I assume that Starbucks in China is not going to be hit by Trump’s tariffs).
Luckin was the very first stock CFD that I traded. I had no idea what I was doing, what was happening The bookkeeping scandal had just hit and the price was all over the place for a while. I kinda liked Luckin but then it went OTC (delisted in the US, at NASDAQ). Some companies have it, some don’t.
What can I say? I’m a coffee junkie… I like dealing with things that I have some affinity with (and preferrably also sufficient knowledge about). I like checking the international news first thing in the morning, too, so that is no added burden either.
I just got a stupid spam message about Kennith Hardin, about my Kennith Hardin order having been accepted or whatever. Something made me google it. It’s a man who murdered his wife. Not funny.
One striking detail among those detained is their age. Half of those arrested at the largest protest yet, in Parliament Square in London on Saturday, were 60 or older. Some said they had taken part to give a voice to younger people who have more to lose by breaking the law, some simply felt they must challenge the government’s stance.
The Guardian has spoken to some of these protesters.
‘This is not a terrorist organisation, it’s a direct action organisation’ Deborah Hinton, 81
There also was a “Free Palestine” event where I am right now. No more than 20 demonstrators but possibly up to 50 police were present. The police took part with several vans, of different types and sizes, and at least 6 horses, plus officers on foot.
532 arrested at this demonstration in London. Quite a contrast.
Sorry, England. I was (often) so wrong about you, in the past. And I think that I’m a lot more English now than I’ve ever been Dutch. I’m sorry. Also about what Labour is doing, being more conservative than the Conservatives in many respects.
I’m currently in a neighbourhood where the residents are all home owners and where lots of people drive a Tesla.
I think that this is fairly representative of the current state of the Netherlands, where people like Rutger Bregman are frowned upon and where looking away from injustice is becoming a favourite pastime.
That a “Free Palestine” protest in Amsterdam draws no more than 20 activists and many more police officers makes this quite clear, too.
I do not have a cognitive impairment, but don’t know what “Ben je bekend met psychische problemen?” is supposed to mean either! It’s like “Have you ever heard of the full moon?” or “Do you have a weird nose?”
Yes, this is a messy post on a messy website. Please bear with me. Perhaps you can picture me as a refugee on the run if you want a framework for the messiness if that makes it easier to digest the content.
In June 2023, I made what may have been the biggest mistake of my life. I moved into an apartment in Purmerend (an isolated small town surrounded by polders, north of Amsterdam). I certainly made a decision that had severe consequences for me. Keep reading and you’ll see.
For starters, I sacrificed 17 years of housing waiting list credits for this. I should have waited one more month and have moved into a nice little place in Amsterdam. Instead I moved into what I later started calling a penal colony for the over-55s.
Lithium, cobalt, niobium, graphite etc are not “rare earth metals”, however, and this is why the China angle remains so important. China has the monopoly on extracting rare earth elements (processing the ore and separating the elements) which is hard.
“In 2022, the Russian-language service of UN News reported that Ukraine’s deposits of rare earths accounted for approximately 5% of the world’s reserves. These materials are key in the production of devices for the development of “green” energy. These include lithium, cobalt, scandium, graphite, tantalum, and niobium.”
What the author may have meant was that lithium etc are also of strategic importance. That is correct.
The UN report also called nickel and graphite a rare earth element.
Nickel is a base metal.
Graphite is the stuff in your regular pencils or the stuff that some people use to grease locks and what not. It’s carbon. Specifically, graphite is carbon in a layered crystal structure with electrons hovering between and able to move within a layer – and layers able to slip past each other – but not across it. I’m saying this off the top of my head. (A different crystal structure for carbon but that only develops under great pressure? Diamonds.)
A little bit later in the same CNBC article, CNBC’s Holly Ellyatt correctly writes:
“There’s been a lot of buzz about Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, but the country does not in fact have large quantities of rare earth elements, according to experts at the Atlantic Council.”
“What it has instead is significant reserves of titanium, graphite, and lithium, which are foundational resources for the U.S. defense industry and wider high-tech economy,” Reed Blakemore, director of research and programs at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center, commented online Wednesday.”
For those who don’t know that: I’ve done quite a bit of rare earth element (REE) research, within a scientific context. I’ve also extracted and separated REEs in a clean lab, over two sets of ion chromatography columns (Chelex 100 column and AG50W-X8- cation exchange column).
I’m not a specialist in these matters, by no means, but I am used to processing and analysing data (numbers) and there was a recent discrepancy between ADP and NFP that I could not make add up. When I looked at those data in a bit more detail, I remained puzzled. It all struck me as odd.
Something was off.
(It’s possible that the NFP lags the ADP, so that the ADP predicts the future month’s NFP data rather than the same month.)
If I put myself in the shoes of business owners, then with the tariff uncertainties, I would hold off on hiring and replacing staff.
(I might for example have to make the decision to start marketing to a different market segment, and sell less, but at higher prices and with fewer employees.)
12 August, FD: Dabbedoelik
(With regard to USD/JPY, it had already been suggested that the recent blip up could be just a corrective move related to the overcrowding in dollar shorts. Never follow one person’s opinion. Keep everyone’s in mind and observe what happens.)
This woman, legally in the US, but not a US citizen yet was detained after her honeymoon for… how long?
He’s a real estate attorney and a US citizen for over a decade and – by the sounds of it – a now former Trump supporter. His sister is an immigration attorney, also in the US.
This US citizen who also is an immigration attorney was told to leave the US.
Every once in a while, I also get bombarded by… watches (as well as people asking me for the time, but that was in Portsmouth). I’ve never been able to figure out what it stood for, but I just found an explanation that may fit.
It’s just stupid 4chan-etc-type crap. Usually, the BS had sexual connotations. This one appears to be just about these kids/folks being the annoying abusive prats that they always are so it means nothing, really.
This morning, Change.org sent me a petition that sounded as no more than an attack on the Portsmouth Lib Dems, but I’ve been in Portsmouth for enough years and in enough contexts to have learned to never take anything at face value there.
The petition was anonymous and contained no links.
As I am currently abroad, I can’t access the planning documents and the report received by Portsmouth City Council (PCC), but at first glance, from what I read on the web here and there, it sounds to me as if PCC made the right decision. If that is the case, however, then they are also being very sloppy in their communications, apparently. It’s ticking people off because they feel that they are being lied to.
Ah, so GVJ is chair of the planning committee these days. (Doesn’t that clash with his friendship with one of Portsmouth’s property owners/developers? I assume he doesn’t have the last word, though.)
I continue to have the impression that this is similar to non-issues that a lot of noise was made about while I was a member of the Portsmouth Environmental Forum (briefly, until it folded), but that PCC is being clumsy in its communications approach. I still can’t tell what exactly is going on.
Pool in Eastney will be demolished.
New facilities will be created at Bransbury Park.
End of discussion?
Did this pool have such a strong community role in Eastney? Is that what the noise is about? It’s been closed for 4 years. There occasionally is an overly strong emphasis on dust-covered history in Portsmouth and that is holding Portsmouth back but PCC is anything but innovative and tends to go for “more development” and for “bland and characterless”. Still, it does a lot better than Southampton.
I haven’t signed the petition yet. It sounds too much like sheer pettiness.
I’ve asked the protesters/petitioners to send me the planning documents and the report(s).
Did I already mention that he keeps deleting this photo from my laptop? And that he also sometimes seems to stop me from finding it on this website, from where I download it each time he’s deleted it again? It’s an old family photo.
The guy has some kind of issue with photos.
Something else has occurred to me that I had forgotten… he has some kind of thing with black guys. One of the first interactions concerned some white woman who had married a Masai man and written a book about it. I think she was English. On Facebook, he presented himself as a black man – several different ones, but the main character was a Charles (Moabene or Boahene or something like that; he made clear that it was him by telling me that he might see me then after I told him I was going to the supermarket, one day, and found “Lee” waiting on the other side of Kingston Road) – and he also sent a black man after me to pester me in Portsmouth, via Freecycle, and then took over the email communications.
Has he picked up that old theme again, by any chance? I wish I could see both these guys’ travel records.
Might the hacker brother be the one with dissociative identity disorder, then? (Have I considered that before? I don’t remember. Probably.)
Whoever it is, he is extremely controlling – often without intending to but also often on purpose – and I think that this gels more with autism than with NPD. The extremely confusing quality of it all also points toward autism rather than NPD. I have no idea whether or how DID might combine with this.
NOTE: He seems to be trying to make clear that it’s not 4chan and it’s not his musician brother who is so obsessed with me. Hard to tell, really.
My dad died of lung cancer in 2016, within a month of being diagnosed, I was told at the time.
There were photos – if memory serves me right – of people using a circular saw to cut up the sheets of Eternit cladding for my dad’s cooling facility. The year was 1970 or thereabouts. I was still in primary school, I think. I certainly remember the construction.
My dad was a milkman and grocer. We also had a facility for cleaning and rinsing glass bottles but that was being phased out and was later turned into my bedroom so that my sister’s could each have their own bedroom on the same floor.
I’m sure that my uncle Harrie assisted with this project. He too died of lung cancer.
In my case, an angle grinder was used to accomplish this. I noticed a pattern on the feathers of two affected birds that I handled and asked myself what might accomplish that. Some kind of rotating knife. (I wrote about this in my book “Is cruelty cool?)
Shortly after, someone was holding one up and letting it spin near my home. Bingo.
I just sent this message. Maybe it will help.
Dag,
FWIW
Ik heb dit niet aan de politie doorgegeven, mogen jullie doen als jullie denken dat het zin heeft.
Dit gebeurde onlangs ook in Amsterdam Oost, maar niet met Psittacula krameri maar Columba livia. Anderen hier viel ook op dat er opeens veel dode duiven lagen. Ik heb er toen een video over gemaakt en geüpload en daarna is het hier gestopt. Toeval?
Een zogenaamde angle grinder lijkt te worden gebruikt; ik zag [in Portsmouth] een patroon op de veren [bij de twee betrokken vogels die ik in handen heb gehad] en vroeg me af waar het door kwam. Ben daar dus over na gaan denken en kwam tot conclusie “roterend mes”. (Ben wetenschapper.)
Haakse slijper.
Kijk eventueel ook naar betrokkenheid van 4chan.
Dit thema achtervolgt mij al jaren, is voor mij begonnen in Engeland. (Ook in mijn eigen woning, na slotenpikken, wat zeker ruim 13 jaar gebeurde.) Ik heb sinds mijn tijd in Florida door vrijwilligerswerk daar vogels en werd in Engeland doelwit van iets vreemds waar vaak sadisme aan te pas kwam. Eerste aangifte gedaan in oktober 2008.
Eerste hoofd van vogel voor mijn deur in 2010. Betrof dode vogel. Die lag namelijk eerder nog heel in de straat. Was afstraffing voor het niet houden van mijn mond. Was in Southsea.
Eerste onthoofde duif, was “bevriend” met me, begin 2016, in een andere wijk in Portsmouth. Was afstraffing voor weer eens naar de politie stappen. Het maatje daarvan is in April 2019 ook aangevallen maar overleefde; die kwam naar mij toe met nieuwe maatje. Had enorm veel pijn, heb ik een week of zo in huis gehad en weten op te lappen.
(Politie en gemeenteleiding in Portsmouth weten hiervan, maar dachten dat ik getikt was. (Kost ook heel veel geld om zoiets te onderzoeken.)
Zelfde persoon? Geen idee.
Met vriendelijke groet,
drs Angelina Souren
PS (Ben momenteel ja ja, heus, niet schrikken, dakloos deels doordat ik dus jaren last van terreur heb gehad waaronder niet alleen slotenpikken maar ook eindeloos hacken, was self-employed, werkte onder meer voor Nederlandse universiteiten, kon het door het hacken compleet schudden. Ik kreeg later overigens onder meer reacties als “we stalken jou met velen dus is het niet strafbaar”. Geen idee wat ik ervan moest denken, maar ik weet wel precies wanneer en met welke persoon dit is begonnen, betekent niet 100% zeker dat het ook die persoon is die dit doet.)
PS Toen de eerste vogel werd gedood, in 2016, nadat ik weer naar de polities was geweest, kreeg ik trouwens (via hacking) het commentaar dat dit is wat mannetjes doen met vrouwtjes (oid). Ook dat doet aan 4chan denken.
Op 30 mei maakte ik een video die ik via bluetooth op een andere mobiel had gezet en niet goed leek te zijn overgekomen. Zojuist heb ik het origineel geüpload. Deze vogel lag op een plek waar ik ‘s avonds vaak zat. Toeval? Opzettelijk juist daar neergelegd? Geen idee. Ook dit: bird = woman.
10 June 2025: Yes, this abusive nonsense is still continuing. Unbelievable.
UPDATE NEXT DAY (6 June 2025): Today, everything to do with charging and internet connection is working normally again, so yes, I threw out a perfectly fine USB cable and bought a new one because that cable wasn’t broken but I was getting interfered with again. I constantly lost my internet connection and couldn’t charge.
However, today, I noticed the audio cable playing the same game as my USB cables had been doing for about 10 days now – and which he used to do with my CD/DVD drive too – and last night, my big phone lost its charge much too rapidly and was warm.
If you dress up in any way that makes it look like you are doing something that you should be doing, you can walk into places and walk out with a lot of stuff – such as huge TVs – without anyone stopping you.
I’m at a public library and heard a droning monotone voice that you sometimes also hear from what looks like guys from Africa in a trance or high on something.
This was a white guy in a blue shirt with a logo.
There was a second one.
When I heard some clanging, I wondered if they were taking off with some of the chairs. (Crazier things have happened.)
No, they were actually returning to its regular position. Patrons sometimes move chairs around.
I almost get no emails these days because… Never mind. So I missed the Sertre Fertré case. Except, i just received a mail about the related crowdfunding. Ms Sertre Fertré is a French citizen with pre-settled status, which means that she has been in the UK for less than five years.
I have not read the recent judgement yet, but below is my instant response.
This is interesting, as Ms Fertré may not be eligible for support in her native country either as she is in the UK, after all!
In my native country the Netherlands, this type of support is tied to and determined by the municipality.
Amsterdam, for example, doesn’t consider you as part of its citizens if you haven’t been living there for the 6 to 8 preceding years (depending on what regulations apply). Civil servants are instructed to do what they can to discourage people from asking for support and stop them from succeeding in getting that help. “Otherwise everyone will flock to Amsterdam”.
My town in the Netherlands was Amsterdam, but Amsterdam doesn’t see me as having any ties to it. I worked at its tourist office among others, went to university there, graduated there, started my first business there but Amsterdam considers me a complete stranger.
You cannot even work at Schiphol airport if you have been away and haven’t been living here in the preceding 6 years. You’re seen as a security risk. So you’re seen as someone who’s loyalty lies elsewhere.
I’d say that all of this goes a long way towards arguing that the host country owes a duty of care.
Otherwise these citizens are effectively stateless.
I don’t know for sure how France supports its citizens, though. Whether this would be similar.
It’s not osly a matter of countries trying to unburden themselves of their duty of care, within the Netherlands and not just within the Netherlands, municipalities try to shift their duty of care toward other municipalities too. There was a case of a woman who fled from domestic violence. You can only ask for help in your own municipality but of course, her ex found her and she was relocated to Amsterdam for her own safety.
When it was time for her to start rebuilding her life again, Amsterdam refused to support her as she had been living in a different municipality when she fled. Someone (some organization) took the case to court on her behalf and won.
https://the3million.org.uk/publication/2024031101: Note on the Withdrawal Agreement: Personal Scope (Art.10) and Equal Treatment (Art.23). as relied upon in C v Oldham (S 204 Housing Act 1996 appeal). Thanks go to Garden Court North, Landmark Chambers, Public Law Project and EU Rights and Brexit Hub. March 11th, 2024.
Can Doctors Test Embryos for Autism? Should They? Listen to what Vardit Ravitsky has to say on NPR
A newly available kind of genetic testing, called polygenic embryo screening, promises to screen for conditions that can include cancer, obesity, autism, and bipolar disorder. What would it mean culturally if more people tried to screen out some of these conditions? And how does this connect to societal ideas about whose lives are meaningful? Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky explores these questions on NPR’s “It’s Been a Minute.” She expresses concern that prospective parents may reason that “if we have a new tool to select the best embryo, I’m ethically obligated to do that.“ Listen to the NPR interview.
In England, he used to get annoyed when I visited the websites of CNN and NOS. That was years ago. He felt that I should only visit those of the BBC and the Guardian and perhaps also The Independent.
Now he is secretly switching my stuff to Dutch, not realizing that a) about at least 50% of the people around me do not speak Dutch, b) I’ve been using English on my computers for decades and c) I’ve been using English for decades and d) the Dutch translations of English (particularly computer) terms can be baffling.
