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Undercover at Reform UK’s biggest ever rally, I saw white men bond over fury at migrants, trans people and politicians

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Here's a summary of the video:

• The speaker advocates for a shift in the tax system, highlighting the disparity between the high taxes paid by ordinary working people and the lack of taxation on inherited wealth [00:00].
• He suggests taxing wealth rather than work to give working people and their children a better chance [00:25].
• The speaker points out that during the lockdown, luxury spending decreased, and government-printed money ended up benefiting the wealthy who own corporations and houses [00:54].
• He emphasizes that increasing inequality leads to decreased living standards for working people [01:31].
• He acknowledges the difficulty in taxing the rich but insists on its necessity to prevent children from living in poverty [01:53].
• The speaker references the success of wealth taxes in the UK in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, which enabled working-class people to achieve financial security [03:28].
• He shares his personal experience of working hard and paying high taxes while others inherit vast sums without taxation [03:46].
• The speaker expresses concern about the country's future and the potential for working-class individuals to face poverty [04:35].
• He criticizes the fact that some individuals live in Dubai to avoid taxes on their global incomes, while ordinary people struggle financially [05:27].
• The speaker advocates for taxing profits, not consumption, to address this issue [05:50].
• He reflects on the financial industry's inability to accurately predict interest rates, highlighting a broader issue of incompetence [06:10].
• The speaker reiterates his stance on taxing billionaires more and working people less to create a fairer system [07:31].

The number of young people not in education, employment or training has risen to unacceptable levels because Whitehall is failing to listen and respond to their needs, Andy Burnham will say this week.

The mayor of Greater Manchester will warn in a key speech that the number of “neets”, which now stands at almost 1 million - the highest figure in 11 years – will continue to rise unless the Department for Education (DfE) adopts a new schools policy more geared to their requirements.

Over recent weeks, government ministers have attempted to make a “moral” case for welfare cuts and changes to the benefit system, partly by highlighting the number of young people who are not in employment or trying to get work, and instead are living on benefits.

Based on experience from Manchester, Burnham will say that one of the main causes of this is a school system that fails them and is overly focused on the traditional university route, rather than catering for the requirements of those who want to pursue technical paths.

He will say that schools in England are judged by Ofsted on their performance against the English baccalaureate (EBacc), described on the DfE’s website as a collection of GCSEs “considered essential to many degrees”.

He will argue that this has left England with an education system designed for some but not all young people. In Greater Manchester, about two-thirds do not pursue the traditional university route.

...

The neets rate has remained at 12% or higher for several decades. According to labour market statistics published by the Office for National Statistics in February, the UK unemployment rate for young people aged 16 to 24 was 14.8%, up from 11.9% the year before.The problems is bound up with ethnic inequalities, with young people from Black Caribbean backgrounds having a neet rate more than double that of young people with white British backgrounds. Regional inequalities are also substantial, with neet rates of 15% in the north-east of England, compared with 9.4% in the south-west.

Results from a recent survey of schools in the Greater Manchester region based on 100,000 students reveal that many young people are losing their sense of connection with school as they progress. While 67% of pupils told the #BeeWell survey that they felt a sense of belonging in year 7, this dropped to 51% by year 10. About 64% of pupils reported “good” wellbeing in year 7, compared with 55% in year 10.

...

To balance the EBacc, Burnham and his team have developed a Greater Manchester baccalaureate, or MBacc – a selection of subjects linked to seven sectoral gateways to the Greater Manchester economy. The ambition, by 2030, is to provide a high-quality 45-day work placement for every young person who wants one, linked to T-levels and BTecs.

He will call on the DfE to change schools policy and bring in a principle of parity between academic and technical education and the devolution of responsibility for the post-16 technical system. He will say: “Different regions of England have different economies and therefore it stands to reason that post-16 technical education is a prime candidate for devolution. The Department for Education’s long-running resistance to this is a significant barrier to growth.”

The mayor will say that the country’s failure to tackle longstanding problems such as the rise in neets is a reflection of the top-down way in which it has been run. Burnham will call for radical change in the architecture and culture of the British state, with the new devolved bodies across England being given a much greater role in setting direction.

“Israel built an ‘AI factory’ for war. It unleashed it in Gaza,” laments the Washington Post. “Hospitals Are Reporting More Insurance Denials. Is AI Driving Them?,” reports Newsweek. “AI Raising the Rent? San Francisco Could Be the First City to Ban the Practice,” announces San Francisco’s KQED.

Within the last few years, and particularly the last few months, we’ve heard this refrain: AI is the reason for an abuse committed by a corporation, military, or other powerful entity. All of a sudden, the argument goes, the adoption of “faulty” or “overly simplified” AI caused a breakdown of normal operations: spikes in health insurance claims denials, the skyrocketing of consumer prices, the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. If not for AI, it follows, these industries and militaries, in all likelihood, would implement fairer policies and better killing protocols.

We’ll admit: the narrative seems compelling at first glance. There are major dangers in incorporating AI into corporate and military procedures. But in these cases, the AI isn’t the culprit; the people making the decisions are. UnitedHealthcare would deny claims regardless of the tools at its disposal. Landlords would raise rents with or without automated software. The IDF would kill civilians no matter what technology was, or wasn’t, available to do so. So why do we keep hearing that AI is the problem? What’s the point of this frame and why is it becoming so common as a responsibility-avoidance framing?

On today’s episode, we’ll dissect the genre of “investigative” reporting on the dangers of AI, examining how it serves as a limited hangout, offering controlled criticism while ultimately shifting responsibility toward faceless technologies and away from powerful people.

Later on the show, we’ll be speaking with Steven Renderos, Executive Director of MediaJustice, a national racial justice organization that advances the media and technology rights of people of color. He is the creator and co-host, with the great Brandi Collins-Dexter, Bring Receipts, a politics and pop culture podcast and is executive producer of Revolutionary Spirits, a 4-part audio series on the life and martyrdom of Mexican revolutionary leader Francisco Madero.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20187958

A prominent computer scientist who has spent 20 years publishing academic papers on cryptography, privacy, and cybersecurity has gone incommunicado, had his professor profile, email account, and phone number removed by his employer Indiana University, and had his homes raided by the FBI. No one knows why.

Xiaofeng Wang has a long list of prestigious titles. He was the associate dean for research at Indiana University's Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, a fellow at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a tenured professor at Indiana University at Bloomington. According to his employer, he has served as principal investigator on research projects totaling nearly $23 million over his 21 years there.

He has also co-authored scores of academic papers on a diverse range of research fields, including cryptography, systems security, and data privacy, including the protection of human genomic data. I have personally spoken to him on three occasions for articles here, here, and here.

"None of this is in any way normal"

In recent weeks, Wang's email account, phone number, and profile page at the Luddy School were quietly erased by his employer. Over the same time, Indiana University also removed a profile for his wife, Nianli Ma, who was listed as a Lead Systems Analyst and Programmer at the university's Library Technologies division.

According to the Herald-Times in Bloomington, a small fleet of unmarked cars driven by government agents descended on the Bloomington home of Wang and Ma on Friday. They spent most of the day going in and out of the house and occasionally transferred boxes from their vehicles. TV station WTHR, meanwhile, reported that a second home owned by Wang and Ma and located in Carmel, Indiana, was also searched. The station said that both a resident and an attorney for the resident were on scene during at least part of the search.

Attempts to locate Wang and Ma have so far been unsuccessful. An Indiana University spokesman didn't answer emailed questions asking if the couple was still employed by the university and why their profile pages, email addresses and phone numbers had been removed. The spokesman provided the contact information for a spokeswoman at the FBI's field office in Indianapolis. In an email, the spokeswoman wrote: "The FBI conducted court authorized law enforcement activity at homes in Bloomington and Carmel Friday. We have no further comment at this time."

Searches of federal court dockets turned up no documents related to Wang, Ma, or any searches of their residences. The FBI spokeswoman didn't answer questions seeking which US district court issued the warrant and when, and whether either Wang or Ma is being detained by authorities. Justice Department representatives didn't return an email seeking the same information. An email sent to a personal email address belonging to Wang went unanswered at the time this post went live. Their resident status (e.g. US citizens or green card holders) is currently unknown.

Fellow researchers took to social media over the weekend to register their concern over the series of events.

"None of this is in any way normal," Matthew Green, a professor specializing in cryptography at Johns Hopkins University, wrote on Mastodon. He continued: "Has anyone been in contact? I hear he’s been missing for two weeks and his students can’t reach him. How does this not get noticed for two weeks???"

In the same thread, Matt Blaze, a McDevitt Professor of Computer Science and Law at Georgetown University said: "It's hard to imagine what reason there could be for the university to scrub its website as if he never worked there. And while there's a process for removing tenured faculty, it takes more than an afternoon to do it."

Local news outlets reported the agents spent several hours moving boxes in an out of the residences. WTHR provided the following details about the raid on the Carmel home:

Neighbors say the agents announced "FBI, come out!" over a megaphone.

A woman came out of the house holding a phone. A video from a neighbor shows an agent taking that phone from her. She was then questioned in the driveway before agents began searching the home, collecting evidence and taking photos.

A car was pulled out of the garage slightly to allow investigators to access the attic.

The woman left the house before 13News arrived. She returned just after noon accompanied by a lawyer. The group of ten or so investigators left a few minutes later.

The FBI would not say what they were looking for or who is under investigation. A bureau spokesperson issued a statement: “I can confirm we conducted court-authorized activity at the address in Carmel today. We have no further comment at this time.”

Investigators were at the house for about four hours before leaving with several boxes of evidence. 13News rang the doorbell when the agents were gone. A lawyer representing the family who answered the door told us they're not sure yet what the investigation is about.

This post will be updated if new details become available. Anyone with first-hand knowledge of events involving Wang, Ma, or the investigation into either is encouraged to contact me, preferably over Signal at DanArs.82. The email address is: [email protected].

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/59956144

• MediaTek Filogic 880 processor
• 1 x 10 Gigabit SFP port
• 1 x 5 Gigabit Ethernet port
• 4 x 2.5 GbE Ethernet port
• 1 or 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports
• WiFi 7 (tri-band)

OpenWrt Two is expected to sell for around $250 when it hits the streets in late 2025

Archive

One of the biggest corporate donors to the populist Reform U.K. party has sold almost $2 million worth of transmitters, cockpit equipment, antennas and other sensitive technology to a major supplier of Moscow’s blacklisted state weapons agency, documents show.

From 2023 to 2024, the company, part of the British aerospace manufacturer H.R. Smith Group, shipped the equipment to an Indian firm that is the biggest trading partner of the Russian arms agency, Rosoboronexport.

H.R. Smith Group donated 100,000 pounds (just under $130,000) to Reform U.K. last year, two days after Nigel Farage was announced as the party’s leader. The company is run by Richard Smith, a businessman who owns 55 Tufton Street, a Westminster townhouse that is home to some of Britain’s most influential right-wing lobbying and research groups.

H.R. Smith Group said that its sales were lawful and that the equipment was destined for an Indian search-and-rescue network. The parts “support lifesaving operations” and are “not designed for military use,” said Nick Watson, a lawyer for the company.

The records do not prove that H.R. Smith’s products ended up in Russia. But they show that, in some instances, the Indian company received equipment from H.R. Smith and, within days, sent parts to Russia with the same identifying product codes.

IRC chat.farted.net/6667 LOL - it works!

This website has piracy sites that works in almost any tv web browser: https://www.bestfreestreaming.org/ These work in web browser included into tvs like samsung. For android tv browsers i have found that https://heartive.pages.dev/ works the best. Internet archive also works in android tv browsers. I have not tried it in the browsers thats included into tvs tho

It's World Backup Day again. Good opportunity to check if your backup mechanisms work as intended.

I'm sure everyone is aware of the 'Awesome' lists on Github. There are loads of them, which makes keeping up with new apps a chore.

I came across this site that does that very thing:

https://www.trackawesomelist.com/

I didn't know if anybody would find it as useful as I do. I have it in my FreshRSS reader.

From April 1st, water bills are rising … and so are we

Starmer and Reeves are siding with the private equity firms and hedge funds who own our water.

Together we’ll make the threat of mass, coordinated non-payment credible — and put this failed industry and government out of business.

31% price hike?

We pay ever-higher bills while water firms dump billions of litres of sewage in our rivers and seas – and hand billions of pounds to their shareholders.

But they are reliant on our compliance…

So what if we refuse to pay?

From the Poll Tax to Don’t Pay, refusing to pay en masse is a powerful act.

Right now, private water is vulnerable as the industry strains under a mountain of debt – if we act now, we can force the private profiteers out and take back our water.

Thousands have already joined

Starmer and Reeves are siding with the private equity firms and hedge funds who own our water, so we need many thousands more people to join us.

Through mass non-payment, we can protect each other from bill hikes, push back against greed of water bosses and put an end to this failing industry.