21st Century schizoid
Joined October 2020
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Mitchell Gumbley retweeted
In 1952, an English teacher named Cecil Dormand secretly paid for a dirt-poor 11-year-old to take a drama course.
He never told him and the boy didn’t find out until decades later.
By then, he was a knight, that little boy’s name was Patrick Stewart.
He was born into a poor family in Mirfield, a small mill town in Yorkshire and his father came home from World War II a violent man, and he was violent toward Patrick’s mother.
Young Patrick learned exactly when to step between his father’s fist and his mother.
An English teacher put a copy of Shakespeare in his hand and told him to get up and perform.
He never stopped and left school at 15.
By 19 he was completely bald... most agencies told him he'd never make it because of that.
In 1987, the LA Times called him an “unknown British Shakespearean actor” when he was cast as Captain Picard.
Then he became one of the most famous faces on Earth.
You’ve probably heard that part.
Here’s the part you haven’t:
He spent decades as a patron of Refuge, sheltering women and children from domestic violence.
But he never stopped trying to understand his father.
He dug up a 1940 newspaper clipping that said his dad had come home with severe shell shock.
He went to France and walked the ground where his father’s unit was pinned down under bombing for hours.
He learned his father had PTSD, and nobody ever helped him.
So Patrick became an ambassador for Combat Stress, a charity that helps veterans.
In 2013, a young woman at a Texas convention told him she was a survivor of domestic violence.
He asked, “My dear, are you okay?”
Then he hopped off the stage, held her, and told her: “You never have to go through that again, you’re safe now.”
At Dragon Con, a Make-A-Wish girl dressed as Spock came to meet him.
2,000 people were waiting for him to speak... he sat down and talked with her for 15 minutes, making all of them wait.
He told her that since they were friends now, whenever she saw him on screen she could wave and say, “Hello Patrick.”
After 9/11, he felt helpless, so he brought his one-man A Christmas Carol back to Broadway for a full week of charity shows.
He played every character himself and donated every cent.
In 2019 he did it again, and every dollar went to feeding hungry New Yorkers.
In 2017, he fostered a pit bull named Ginger, who had been rescued from a dogfighting ring.
She was his first dog in more than 50 years.
He couldn’t bring her home to England, so he found her a family.
Then he kept fostering more.
When he said he was done with Star Trek so many people told him the show had gotten them through the hardest times of their lives.
So he wanted to see if Picard could do it one more time.
Rest in Peace, Sir Patrick 🖖
Rename wastewater treatment facilities after Donald J. Trump - Sign the Petition! c.org/4JhFKGqtK9 via @UKChange
A reminder…
Now would be a good time to remind everyone of these Trump facts, because apparently some people still need the refresher.
Please meet the President of the United States:
Flew on Epstein’s plane at least seven times. Just friends, I guess.
Pleaded the Fifth more than 400 times in a single deposition. Nothing says “innocent” like refusing to answer a single question about your own business.
34 felony convictions. A record most people would call disqualifying. And 91 criminal charges.
Accused of sexual misconduct or assault by at least 26 women. But sure, tell me again how he’s a great guy.
6 corporate bankruptcies. The self proclaimed greatest businessman alive somehow keeps running out of money.
5 draft deferments. Funny how the toughest guy in the room never actually showed up for duty. He said, "no thanks", when asked to serve his country. Speaking about McCain, Trump stated: "He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured."
4 criminal indictments. Not two. Not three. Four.
2 impeachments. A club of exactly one president.
2 of his own companies convicted of criminal tax fraud. Convicted. Not accused. Convicted.
During the 2016 presidential election, Trump’s campaign orchestrated a televised Iowa fundraiser meant for veterans but directed the foundation’s money to boost his political campaign. The charity was used to buy personal items, including a $10,000 portrait of Trump. The New York State Attorney General filed a lawsuit in 2018, regarding Donald J. Trump Foundation, alleging a "pattern of persistent illegality" and self-dealing. The investigation found that Trump used the charity as a personal "piggy bank."
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The Eric Trump Foundation Controversy: This investigation revealed that the charity raised money under the guise of FUNDING THE ST. JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL, but was allegedly charged over $1.2 million by the Trump Organization for using Trump-owned golf courses, shifting donor money meant for sick children back into Trump businesses.
1 fake university shut down. Trump's charities always involved cheating and grifting. HE AND HIS FAMILY ARE NO LONGER ALLOWED TO RUN A CHARITY IN NEW YORK He and his family are no longer allowed to run a charity in New York because the Trump Organization used the funds for Trump-owned golf courses, SHIFTING DONOR MONEY MEANT FOR SICK CHILDREN INTO TRUMP BUSINESSES. He was ordered to pay 2 million dollars for looting his own so called charity.
Paid 25 million dollars to settle the Trump University fraud lawsuit because scamming people who believed in you costs money eventually.
Ordered to pay 5 million dollars in the first E Jean Carroll sexual abuse verdict, then hit with 83.3 million more in the second. A jury said it twice so nobody could pretend it was a fluke.
First president in modern history to increase the deficit every single year of a full term. Fiscal responsibility, apparently, was always just a talking point.
Kept the debt to GDP ratio above 100 percent for his entire first term.
Presided over the largest single day point drop in Dow Jones history at the time. So much for the guy who claimed to be a genius with money.
Set the record for the longest government shutdown in US history in his first term at 35 days, then couldn’t resist beating his own miserable record in his second term with a 43 day shutdown, followed by yet another shutdown just months later. THE ONLY POTUS TO HAVE 3 GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWNS IN HIS TERMS.
Added roughly 2.25 trillion dollars to the national debt in his first year back in office alone, pushing the debt past 39 trillion dollars.
Somebody remind me who the party of fiscal discipline is again.
Pushed through the largest defense budget increase since World War Two while the debt kept climbing anyway.
Purged more than 300,000 federal employees in his first year back.
Pardoned nearly 1,600 January 6 Capitol rioters on his very first day back in office, including Oath Keepers and Proud Boys leaders convicted of seditious conspiracy.
Law and order, except when it’s inconvenient. At least 40 of those pardoned rioters have already been rearrested, charged, or sentenced for new crimes since walking free. Shocking absolutely nobody.
His family’s crypto ventures, including a meme coin and World Liberty Financial, pulled in more than 1.4 billion dollars in disclosed earnings while he sat in the Oval Office.
Draining the swamp was apparently code for filling his own pockets.
Sent the National Guard into American cities at a cost of nearly 500 million taxpayer dollars in 2025 alone, then BRAGS about lower crime. He has no long term solution - ever. He just sends in the military. The military seems to be his answer to everything.
His own tariffs are projected to cost the average American household more than 2,500 dollars this year.
YOU'RE PAYING FOR THIS. NOT CHINA. YOU!
Got America involved in a forever war with Iran, though promised the exact opposite.
Peace deal with Russia and Ukraine on Day One. He has continued to side with Putin and has never admitted that Russia invaded Ukraine - UNPROVOKED.
Now sitting at one of the lowest approval ratings of his second term, stuck in the mid 30s while inflation and gas prices make everyday life harder.
None of this is a conspiracy theory, a rumor, or something you saw in a group chat.
It is the actual, documented record, sitting in plain sight for anyone willing to look.
So the next time someone tells you to relax and give him a chance, ask them how many more indictments, judgments, and shutdown records he needs to rack up before that chance runs out.
Charles Curtis Rone
Mitchell Gumbley retweeted
BREAKING: MAD KING! Trump humiliates his own supporters by boasting that they wouldn't be able to afford the menu at Mar-a-Lago as the affordability crisis worsens!
He really does not give a damn about anyone...
"But the only caveat is that the Trump Dividend it has— You have to spend the money in the United States. Go to Florida. Go to any one of our great places," Trump said at a Texas rally, referring to the $5,000 bribe that he's promised to every American if Republicans maintain control of Congress after the midterm elections.
To point out the incredibly obvious, if Republicans do carry these elections (which they won't) those "Trump Dividends" will never materialize, just like every other monetary promise he's made in the past. The only people who make money under this President are him, his family, and his cronies. Working class Americans get shafted at every turn.
"You could even come to Mar-a-Lago. I said it the other night. You'll be my guest at Mar-a-Lago. The problem is that for $5,000 the most you'll be able to buy is a hamburger and maybe a small dessert," he added, chuckling. I'm not even sure you could buy that. No, don't go there. That's not a good place If you're price conscious."
Obviously, a hamburger and small dessert don't cost $5,000 at Mar-a-Lago but Trump's point was clear. The braying, mindless MAGA idiots who file into arenas to hear him speak are of a lower class and can't afford to dine with him. This disdain for his supporters is a recurring theme in Trump's rhetoric. He hates these people because they're crude, stupid, and easily manipulated, which is ironically the exact reason that they support him.
At this point, Trump could not possibly make it any clearer that he doesn't care about our collective financial suffering. He created this crisis with his disastrous Iran War, and now he's up on stage rubbing it in our faces and admitting that he doesn't mind high gas prices. He hates average Americans and it's time we paid him back.
Please ❤️ and share if you're voting blue!
Mitchell Gumbley retweeted
A high school girl in Mexico just won a gold medal for putting out fires with a speaker. It plays one deep, low hum and the flames die in about 5 seconds.
DARPA tried the same idea back in 2012 with a rig so big and clunky they never took it any further, and hers runs on a 12-volt battery and a speaker she can carry around.
Sound is just air being pushed back and forth. A low note at 30 hertz means the air around the flame is flipping direction 30 times every second.
Flames only exist in a thin layer where fuel vapor mixes with oxygen. Shake that layer hard enough and it keeps getting stretched thinner, the heat gets pulled away faster than the flame can make more, and eventually the flame rips right off the fuel. Whatever tears off is too cool to keep burning, so it just goes out.
DARPA's report put a number on how little it takes. Once the air at the flame is moving about half a meter per second, which is barely a breeze, the flame goes out, and pretty much any pitch can get there if you crank the power high enough.
Low notes just get you there way cheaper, because a speaker moves a lot more air on each push when the pitch is low. Two engineering students at George Mason figured this out by trial and error in 2015. They started with super high pitches, 20,000 to 30,000 hertz, and all the flames did was shiver. It only worked once they dropped down to 30 to 60 hertz, which is basically the bass on a hip-hop track.
Ángela Karime's build is a 12-volt battery, a frequency generator, an amplifier and a speaker, tuned to 30 hertz. She named it Vortex Tech and talks about it shooting out little rings of air, and that's real physics. When loud, low sound gets pushed through a narrow opening, the air curls up into rings like a smoke ring, and those rings carry a puff of air way farther than the sound would get on its own. In her tests it put out small flames from about 2 meters away.
She went through five prototypes and over 100 tests in about a year, and she says it's put out burning wood, flammable liquids, electronics and cooking oil.
The cooking oil one is a big deal. Throw water on a grease fire and it flashes into steam and flings burning oil all over your kitchen, which is exactly the kind of fire where you'd want something that doesn't put anything into the pan.
Now, sound can't cool anything down, so a big fire sitting on red-hot fuel can come right back the second the speaker shuts off. The George Mason guys worried about the same thing in 2015, and it's why this is still a prototype for small flames and the red extinguisher under your sink isn't going anywhere yet.
Space might end up being where this matters first. Up there water floats off in blobs, while sound works the same with or without gravity, and acoustics researchers have already published experiments on fighting fires with sound on spacecraft.
She's still in high school, and she's already working on a version that spots a fire and puts it out by itself. The gold in Indonesia also came with a special award that gets her into another international competition.
Mitchell Gumbley retweeted
Simon Heffer, not exactly a pinko liberal leftie, reviews the new Liz Truss book, and it should be framed in every loo in the land.
Mitchell Gumbley retweeted
83 years ago today, German soldiers landed in North America. Almost nobody found out for nearly 40 years.
On October 22, 1943, the U-boat U-537 slipped into a remote bay near the northern tip of Labrador.
Its mission wasn't to fight. It was to steal the weather.
Weather in the North Atlantic moves west to east. Whoever knew what was forming over Canada and Greenland could predict conditions over Europe and the convoy routes days in advance. The Allies had stations all over that region. Germany had almost nothing.
So Siemens built Germany a robot. An automatic weather station that could measure temperature, pressure, wind, and humidity, then radio coded reports back on its own every few hours.
U-537 carried one across the Atlantic, along with a meteorologist named Dr. Kurt Sommermeyer. The crossing was brutal. A storm battered the boat and tore away part of its anti-aircraft armament. But they made it.
A landing party rowed ashore with about ten canisters, each weighing over 200 pounds, and hauled them up the rocky ground while armed lookouts watched the horizon. In about a day, they had the station assembled. A tall antenna mast. Battery canisters. Instruments. They named it "Kurt," after the meteorologist.
Then they disguised it.
They painted the canisters with the words "Canadian Meteor Service." There was no such agency. They were betting that anyone who stumbled across it in that wilderness would assume it belonged to the Canadian government and walk away. They even left empty American cigarette packs lying around.
Then U-537 disappeared back into the Atlantic.
The station only worked for a short time, likely just a couple of weeks, before its transmissions stopped.
U-537 never made it home. A year later, it was sunk with all hands by the American submarine USS Flounder in the Java Sea.
And here's the wild part. Labrador wasn't even part of Canada in 1943. It belonged to Newfoundland, a separate British dominion that didn't join Canada until 1949.
For decades, no one knew Kurt existed.
Then in the late 1970s, a retired Siemens engineer researching Germany's wartime weather stations found records of the mission. He contacted a Canadian military historian. In 1981, they reached the site.
Kurt was still there. Canisters scattered across the rocks. The fake "Canadian Meteor Service" markings still on them.
The only armed German landing in North America during WW2, hidden in plain sight for almost 40 years.
Today you can see it at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.
Mitchell Gumbley retweeted
The Government has until the end of the year to scrap the NHS-Palantir deal.
Do you want Palantir out of the NHS?
RT if you do.
Lets get them out.
Mitchell Gumbley retweeted
Today’s @guardian article about the go ahead for Jackdaw is packed with angry reactions from environment campaigners of one flavour or another. On the whole I find them illogical.
@tessakhan of Uplift says Jackdaw won’t stop the overall decline in North Sea jobs - obvious.
Ellie Mae O’Hagan of E3G says the government should invest in heat pumps instead - madness.
@ZackPolanski says it’s climate vandalism and a betrayal of all our futures - counterfactual hyperbole.
Ami McCarthy @Ami_McC of Greenpeace says this project won’t boost energy security - but the gas will be used here…..
The arguments against Jackdaw are mainly arguments against something the government hasn't claimed today….but there’s also the 'Shrodingers Jackdaw’ - it’s described as both too small to make any difference yet so big Shell will “generate record profits” - can it be both things? Nah. It’s actually too small to make much of a difference to anything, good or bad.....
Jackdaw is tiny, it holds six months or less of total UK annual consumption - that’s it. The gas will be used here, I don't think that boosts energy security by any measurable amount, but it will be made and used here - unlike the oil from Rosebank - important distinction..
But here’s the big thing that's missing - the gas from Jackdaw will have a much lower carbon footprint than the LNG we use now. Up to 75% less. Overall our carbon emissions will surely go down not up. Not by much - this is a tiny project.
Climate activists (some of them) need to be real - tiny gas field, already licensed, producing lower carbon gas than we already use, therefore lowering our emissions as a country (but not by much) - doesn’t move the dial much on anything actually.
Calm down and carry on I say…:).
The North Sea is in terminal decline, our need for fossil fuels is going down with it - this graph in the G illustrates.
Jackdaw makes no difference.
#JACKDAW
#northsea
Mitchell Gumbley retweeted
📊 The 2016 Brexit electorate no longer exists.
Peter Kellner has updated the sums using YouGov and ONS data.
Since 2016:
🔹 Around 3.8m Leave voters have died, against 2.1m Remain voters.
🔹 Around 7m new voters have reached voting age, overwhelmingly pro-European.
🔹 Around 5m voters have changed their minds 👉roughly three-quarters of them moving from Leave to Rejoin.
His estimate of how Britain would vote now:
🇪🇺 REJOIN: 20.0m 👉 63%
🇬🇧 STAY OUT: 11.8m 👉 37%
A majority of almost 9 million.
Brexit happened. Britain has lived with it for a decade.
But democracy does not freeze the electorate in 2016 forever.
The question is what Britain wants now not what it indicated in 2016.
📊 The Brexit majority hasn’t just slipped 👉it’s vanished. Completely.
This chart from Peter Kellner/YouGov shows:
• 5 million 2016 voters have died
• New young voters back Rejoin by 5:1
• 29% of Leave voters now want to rejoin
• Net result: Rejoin 19.8m vs Stay Out 11.7m
➡️ An 8 MILLION majority for Rejoin.
Britain is now a pro-EU country.
The only people keeping Brexit alive are politicians who benefit from the damage.
Mitchell Gumbley retweeted
We don’t need to raise taxes on the Banks.
We can stop paying them interest on their deposits - this £30 Billion a year drives their outrageous profit levels. The EU and Switzerland already stopped doing this - it makes no sense to continue and even less sense to continue and then moan they make too much money and then tax them more - which they moan about.
Our Banks are on massive Benefits - let’s cut them and get our banks back to work. If they can get 4% for doing nothing, they need to be paid more when lending to us - we make a burden for ourselves with these payments for nothing.
buff.ly/pi1ohJ7
👏👏👏
BREAKING NEWS: Billionaire Sir Richard Branson launches a SCATHING attack on Trump and his disgusting coziness with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
This is EXACTLY the kind of thing that gets under Trump’s skin...
"I never thought I’d have to say this in my lifetime, but it’s 2026, and unfortunately, nothing is the way it used to be," wrote Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, on LinkedIn. "The Trump administration has become an enabler of autocrats and dictators, placing their personal whims ahead of the interests of the American people and the free world. What is it about Putin that makes President Trump fawn over him?"
"How can America’s allies ever trust this administration again, when it is now turning against them in a time of war and suffering?" he asked.
Trump has repeatedly betrayed our Ukrainian allies in recent days. First, he announced a shocking deal with Putin to allow millions of barrels of diesel onto global markets—a move that will inject cash directly into the Russian war machine. Then, he launched a concerted smear campaign against President Zelenskyy, claiming that Putin is "easier to deal with."
The betrayals escalated when Washington failed to provide its customary early warning to Kyiv regarding an imminent Russian ballistic missile attack. Now, it appears the White House has ordered a temporary suspension of Starshield—a military version of Elon Musk’s Starlink, upon which the Ukrainian armed forces rely.
"The throttling of Starlink/Starshield and the inexplicable failure to provide advance warning of Russian missile launches have already led to the needless deaths of Ukrainian civilians," Branson wrote. "How much worse can it get?" "If one thing is clear, it’s that European leaders must move past the initial shock of Trump’s recent actions and step up. This is as much about European freedom as it is about Ukraine’s sovereignty. Both are worth fighting for," he continued. "Every option should now be on the table—from transferring frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, to delivering advanced weapons systems like the German Taurus."
"Why, oh why, is this happening? We cannot allow the free world to be dismantled before our very eyes," Branson concluded.
We couldn’t agree more. Trump is an enemy of Ukraine, an enemy of democracy, and an enemy of the American people. When the Democrats regain power, we will have a major task ahead of us. Every trace of this monstrous man’s legacy must be erased.
Please ❤️ and share if you think Trump is Putin’s puppet!
Mitchell Gumbley retweeted
Neither Cartier-Bresson, Banksy nor Cold War Steve could have come up with such an image. Absolutely perfect composition and lighting (even the road signs are perfect)! 😍
Mitchell Gumbley retweeted
Ministers are refusing to publish vital briefings which contain significant material related to Palantir’s NHS software.
As the deadline looms to renew the spy-tech firm’s £330m contract, they’re keeping us in the dark. We can't let them 👇
goodlaw.social/4pgx
Mitchell Gumbley retweeted
The Tories have called for a 5 year freeze on the Minimum Wage to 'fix unemployment'.
Corporate profits in the UK are £680bn a year, enough to employ 25.1m people on the Minimum Wage full time, including NI payments.
There are only 1.8m unemployed people.
