I don't think that they will reject Zionism, I do think that many will deny subscribing to it/believing in it though.
A few had already started jumping ship a couple of months or so ago. But not because they want to tell the world that they're sorry, but because they had already thought they saw the writing on the wall, and figured getting out early might help them in the future. Many will deny ever supporting Netanhayu or Zionism.
Saying that, it still feels a little like counting chickens before they're hatched.
This:
Vice President JD Vance, assessing why his Republicans fared poorly, listed four ways to bring voters back, including ending the Iran war and changing "our relationship with Israel".
If that was to work on any level, then there is no hope for the U.S. at all.
Thanks. I have topped it up yet, but will look for those when I do. 👍👍
I don't know Finnish politicians, but I'm pretty sure MOST politicians around the world will bend a little, then a lot, when that sort of money comes knocking.
It's what Google are counting on. I hope they get hit with a lot. Not just fines, but told to replant the whole 330 hectares.
Then officials can come to their decision. If the officials then decide that they could clear 250,000 trees, then so be it, and that will have pissed off Google, and imo would be the best way to let them know that they can't do what they did.
I admit I'm biased against politicians and companies like Google, so I don't have much faith in everything going swimmingly.
Glad to hear it. Might be harder for Google to pay off the relevant people so. 145 data centres is a lot of pull for the politicians to suggest they are needed.
Thanks. Saw your comment..I got a Giffgaff, not having luck getting any of the others yet.
Thanks, I'm gonna see if I can get an RWG SIM and a Giffgaff SIM.
Thanks, going to grab a Giffgaff SIM from Sainsbury's (if I can) and an RWG SIM too.
Whatever the outcome of this, it'll make no difference to Google.
They speeded up the process by ignoring any Laws that they otherwise would have had to wait for to permit the land clearance, and probably pay off the correct people to justify why it was a necessary decision. This way, they pay whatever fine Finland gives them, and they still build their massive data centre which will generate trillions for them harvesting.
Finnish authorities are considering applications for a total of 145 new datacentres at various stages of planning, including a €13bn (£11bn) artificial intelligence infrastructure project by Google that the US company has called its largest investment in Europe.
Finland fucked.
Communism is a political and economic system that seeks to create a classless society in which the major means of production, such as mines and factories, are owned and controlled by the public. There is no government or private property or currency, and the wealth is divided among citizens equally or according to individual need. Many of communism’s tenets derive from the works of German revolutionary Karl Marx, who (with Friedrich Engels) wrote The Communist Manifesto (1848). However, over the years others have made contributions—or corruptions, depending on one’s perspective—to Marxist thought. Perhaps the most influential changes were proposed by Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, who notably supported authoritarianism.
People do already realise that we don't need Microsoft products.
The attempt was however half assed, and Microsoft never really needed to worry.
That's my point.
"Attempting" to ditch Microsoft by relying on 38 people to decide they should use any other product is nonsense. Even if we knew more about the 38 people. How long they tried it for, what other software did they try etc..
It would be very easy for Microsoft to have just paid a fair few of them pennies, for them to say "let's give up".
Back in 2025, the government of Denmark announced that it is ditching Windows and Microsoft Office in favor of open-source alternatives like Linux.
Denmark's reasoning was that it wants to reduce reliance on a U.S. vendor like Microsoft and also not be at the mercy of a volatile Trump administration. Now, it appears that the country has failed in its ambitious endeavor.
Adoption of this European software would have been an important step in Denmark's bid for technological independence from software made by a U.S. firm.
A pilot phase with 38 ministry employees kicked off last year to trial Collabora's suite with Office documents. However, this trial was terminated when elections took place earlier this year. A spokesperson confirmed that the experiment had concluded, and would not resume again. They also confirmed that no evaluation benchmarking Collabora's performance against Microsoft Office had taken place either.
Microsoft must have truly been shitting it. 38 whole people trying out other software.
I mean how hard would it have been for Microsoft to just pay a few of those 38 if any of them had been taking it seriously to begin with.
No benchmarking, and the attempt at switching ended with the elections.
Could it even have been called an attempt?
‘Exceptionally intelligent, kind and compassionate’ – family pay tribute to Fontaines DC manager Trevor Dietz at inquest
(www.independent.ie)
Trevor Dietz died on June 7 in England © Rip.ie
The “intelligent, kind and compassionate” manager of Fontaines DC took his own life in June this year, an inquest has found.
Trevor Dietz (47) died in East Sussex, south-east England, on June 7 after a long battle with mental health issues.
Fontaines DC called Mr Dietz “the sixth member of the band”, while hip-hop group Kneecap paid tribute to him during their headline set at Crystal Palace Park later in June.
On Monday, East Sussex Coroner’s Court heard that Mr Dietz felt “overwhelmed” by his mental health problems and had become “increasingly distressed” by global events, particularly in Gaza.
Fontaines DC © PA
Beyond his impact on the music industry, Mr Dietz was widely known as a campaigner for Palestinian human rights and against genocide.
His sister and partner both attended court, while his brother watched proceedings by video link.
In a statement read out by the coroner, Mr Dietz’s sister Helena Prentice wrote: “Throughout his life he was passionate about humanitarian issues, particularly Palestine, and found it very difficult to accept the suffering of innocent people.”
She added that he was an “exceptionally intelligent, kind and compassionate man” who had experienced “recurrent anxiety” for many years.
Mr Dietz had been engaging with his GP and other mental health professionals about an ongoing anxiety disorder and suicidal ideation, the court heard.
Trevor Dietz managed the band Fontaines DC
Assistant coroner Rachel Redman found that Mr Dietz had died by suicide.
“He clearly was really, really dedicated and devoted to his band and it seemed to be a mutual feeling,” she said.
“I’m sure that they, and all of the musicians he worked with, will be lost without him.”
Rock band Fontaines DC shared the news of Mr Dietz’s death on June 9 with a heartfelt tribute.
They wrote: “We are utterly heartbroken to let you know that on Sunday, June 7th we lost our dear friend and manager Trevor.
“Trevor was beside us from the beginning of our journey as a band, we have never known Fontaines DC without him, the sixth member of the band.
“He cared passionately for us and for what was fair and right in the wider world. He was fearless in his beliefs. We will miss him always.
“We ask that you kindly respect our privacy and that of his family at this terribly difficult time. RIP Trev.”
Mr Dietz signed Dublin band Fontaines DC in 2016 ahead of their breakthrough debut album Dogrel.
The first photo in the online tribute showed Mr Dietz wearing a Kneecap T-shirt, with the fellow musicians’ official page commenting: “Suaimhneas síoraí dá anam, a chara”, which translates to “Rest in peace, my friend”.
Kneecap rapper Móglaí Bap also wrote: “Suaimhneas síoraí Trev.” ["Eternal rest Trev."]
‘Exceptionally intelligent, kind and compassionate’ – family pay tribute to Fontaines DC manager Trevor Dietz at inquest
(www.independent.ie)
Trevor Dietz died on June 7 in England © Rip.ie
The “intelligent, kind and compassionate” manager of Fontaines DC took his own life in June this year, an inquest has found.
Trevor Dietz (47) died in East Sussex, south-east England, on June 7 after a long battle with mental health issues.
Fontaines DC called Mr Dietz “the sixth member of the band”, while hip-hop group Kneecap paid tribute to him during their headline set at Crystal Palace Park later in June.
On Monday, East Sussex Coroner’s Court heard that Mr Dietz felt “overwhelmed” by his mental health problems and had become “increasingly distressed” by global events, particularly in Gaza.
Fontaines DC © PA
Beyond his impact on the music industry, Mr Dietz was widely known as a campaigner for Palestinian human rights and against genocide.
His sister and partner both attended court, while his brother watched proceedings by video link.
In a statement read out by the coroner, Mr Dietz’s sister Helena Prentice wrote: “Throughout his life he was passionate about humanitarian issues, particularly Palestine, and found it very difficult to accept the suffering of innocent people.”
She added that he was an “exceptionally intelligent, kind and compassionate man” who had experienced “recurrent anxiety” for many years.
Mr Dietz had been engaging with his GP and other mental health professionals about an ongoing anxiety disorder and suicidal ideation, the court heard.
Trevor Dietz managed the band Fontaines DC
Assistant coroner Rachel Redman found that Mr Dietz had died by suicide.
“He clearly was really, really dedicated and devoted to his band and it seemed to be a mutual feeling,” she said.
“I’m sure that they, and all of the musicians he worked with, will be lost without him.”
Rock band Fontaines DC shared the news of Mr Dietz’s death on June 9 with a heartfelt tribute.
They wrote: “We are utterly heartbroken to let you know that on Sunday, June 7th we lost our dear friend and manager Trevor.
“Trevor was beside us from the beginning of our journey as a band, we have never known Fontaines DC without him, the sixth member of the band.
“He cared passionately for us and for what was fair and right in the wider world. He was fearless in his beliefs. We will miss him always.
“We ask that you kindly respect our privacy and that of his family at this terribly difficult time. RIP Trev.”
Mr Dietz signed Dublin band Fontaines DC in 2016 ahead of their breakthrough debut album Dogrel.
The first photo in the online tribute showed Mr Dietz wearing a Kneecap T-shirt, with the fellow musicians’ official page commenting: “Suaimhneas síoraí dá anam, a chara”, which translates to “Rest in peace, my friend”.
Kneecap rapper Móglaí Bap also wrote: “Suaimhneas síoraí Trev.” ["Eternal rest Trev."]
Amelia Earhart's Missing Plane: The Search Happening Now, the Evidence and the Disputes
A 17-person expedition is working on a remote Pacific atoll to find out whether a shape in a lagoon is the Lockheed Electra that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan flew into history. Its underwater survey began on October 14, 2026, and the team says it expects an answer on the object within days.
Searchers have thought they had her plane before. The best-known sonar image, in 2024, was withdrawn when a second survey showed a natural rock formation. So this page does two jobs: it reports on the search as it stands, and it sorts the established facts about the flight from the claims that remain disputed.
It covers the search now underway, the last hours of the flight on July 2, 1937, the navigator who flew with her, the evidence for and against each major theory, and what would count as proof.
Amelia Earhart under the nose of her Lockheed Model 10-E Electra, probably before the 1937 world flight attempt. Photo: Underwood & Underwood, National Air and Space Museum collection, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
Key Insights
- An expedition from the Archaeological Legacy Institute and Purdue University began an underwater survey of a lagoon object at Nikumaroro on October 14, 2026. As of October 15 nothing has been confirmed.
- The official conclusion since 1937 is that the Electra ran out of fuel and crashed in the ocean near Howland Island. No wreckage has ever been confirmed.
- The leading alternative is that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, landed on Nikumaroro and died as castaways. The evidence is circumstantial, and the best physical clue, a set of bones, has been lost since the 1940s.
- The Japanese capture theory has no physical evidence behind it. A 2017 photo said to prove it turned out to come from a 1935 book.
- Noonan was one of the best-regarded long-range navigators of his day. Any explanation of the flight has to account for his navigation as well as her flying.
The search happening right now
Updated October 15, 2026. This section reflects reporting up to that date.
The expedition is led by the Archaeological Legacy Institute (ALI), working with Purdue University and the Purdue Research Foundation. ALI's executive director, Richard Pettigrew, is the project director. The team has 17 people, including three representatives from Kiribati, Purdue's Steve Schultz, two maritime archaeologists from RECON Offshore, a medic and safety officer, and a film crew.
They met in Tarawa, Kiribati, and sailed about five days to Nikumaroro in the Phoenix Islands. The crew sleeps aboard the vessel Marin Mainiku, because the island's very large crabs make camping on land impractical, according to NBC News. They reached the atoll on Tuesday, October 13, cut a trail and set up staging areas. The underwater survey started the next day, and stormy weather slowed the first day's work.
Day one used a magnetometer, which detects ferrous metal. The Electra was mostly aluminum, so steel parts such as cabling are what the team hopes to find. It also used side-scan sonar to look for objects under the lagoon sediment, and a drone to look at the target from above. The next stages are a hydroprobe and a water induction dredge, which would clear sediment off anything the survey flags. A solar-powered station on shore carries a camera and a water level sensor to record weather and tidal flow.
What is the Taraia Object?
It is an anomaly in the lagoon beside the Taraia Peninsula. The expedition says it was first noticed in satellite imagery in 2020 and can also be seen in aerial photographs of the lagoon going back to 1938. Reports differ on the satellite history: one outlet says the shape appeared in satellite images from 2015, after a major storm uncovered it. Nobody has yet inspected it on site and said what it is.
Pettigrew says the idea that it is the Electra rests on several kinds of evidence together: documents, photographs, satellite images, physical finds and eyewitness accounts. He has called confirmation of the plane there "smoking-gun proof," while saying it's too early for conclusions. Steve Schultz described the work as still in the data-gathering phase.
The case against it
Ric Gillespie, whose group TIGHAR has run a dozen trips to Nikumaroro since 1989, still thinks the island is where Earhart most likely ended up. He doesn't think this object is her plane. To reporters he has described the shape as a fallen tree, probably a coconut palm or a pandanus washed in by a storm, and argues that a wrecked aircraft would be buried under coral, not sand. Searchers have also looked at that spot before and found nothing, he says.
Dorothy Cochrane of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum has said the object needs more imaging before stronger claims are made.
Pettigrew's reply is that objects in the lagoon move in and out of sand cover over time. That is a testable claim, which is the point of sending a dredge. If the survey data show metal, the dredge exposes it, and the structure matches an Electra, the argument is over. If it is wood, the argument ends the other way.
What happens next
The team is scheduled to return to Tarawa around October 22. If the object is identified as the Electra, organizers have said a further field season would follow, and any recovery would need permission from the Kiribati government. Purdue's research foundation, which paid for the original aircraft, has said it would like to bring the plane home. The expedition's own updates are on the Purdue newsroom, and this page will be updated when results are reported.
Chart by PilotPassion. Dates come from the sources listed at the end of the article.
The flight: Lae to Howland, July 2, 1937
Earhart was 39, a record-setting pilot who had worked at Purdue as a women's career counselor and aeronautics adviser from 1935. Her second attempt at a round-the-world flight began in California in May 1937 and ran eastward, with the Electra reaching Lae, New Guinea, on June 29. About 22,000 miles were behind them. Roughly 7,000 miles of Pacific remained, and the next leg was the hardest.
Howland Island is a speck: about 6,500 feet long, 1,600 feet wide and 10 feet high. The Electra left Lae at 10:00 am local time on July 2, heavily loaded with about 1,100 US gallons of fuel, for a leg of roughly 2,556 miles (2,200 nautical miles). The planned flight time was about 20 hours. We measured the same leg ourselves at 2,226 nautical miles, which agrees with the published figures.
Chart by PilotPassion. Great-circle distances are calculated for this page from approximate island positions. Coastlines are left off.
The US Coast Guard cutter Itasca was at Howland to help. It was meant to provide radio contact, a homing signal, a direction-finding service and a column of smoke. None of them brought the aircraft in.
The last hours, from the ship's log
The Itasca radio log is held at the National Archives. It records Earhart's voice coming in strongly at times, but with a one-sided problem: she couldn't hear the ship's voice transmissions. Earlier in the flight she had reported 10,000 feet and thick cloud, then 7,000 feet at 150 knots.
At 6:14 am by the cutter's clock she reported she was within about 200 miles and asked for a bearing, whistling into the microphone to give the ship a continuous signal. The Itasca's direction finder couldn't be tuned to her 3105 kHz frequency, and the radioman on watch later said he sat there "sweating blood" because he couldn't help.
At 6:45 she estimated 100 miles to go. At 7:42 she said, "We must be on you, but we cannot see you," added that fuel was low, and said she was flying at 1,000 feet. Around 7:58 she asked the ship to send voice signals; the Itasca logged her signal as the loudest possible, which suggests she was close, but the crew couldn't get a bearing.
The last message the cutter logged came at 8:43 am: she was on a line she gave as 157/337, running north and south, and would repeat the message on another frequency. It named no landmark. The wording of the second half is recorded as questionable in the log, and transcriptions differ.
CONTINUE READING HERE - https://pilotpassion.com/amelia-earharts-missing-plane/
Amelia Earhart's Missing Plane: The Search Happening Now, the Evidence and the Disputes
A 17-person expedition is working on a remote Pacific atoll to find out whether a shape in a lagoon is the Lockheed Electra that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan flew into history. Its underwater survey began on October 14, 2026, and the team says it expects an answer on the object within days.
Searchers have thought they had her plane before. The best-known sonar image, in 2024, was withdrawn when a second survey showed a natural rock formation. So this page does two jobs: it reports on the search as it stands, and it sorts the established facts about the flight from the claims that remain disputed.
It covers the search now underway, the last hours of the flight on July 2, 1937, the navigator who flew with her, the evidence for and against each major theory, and what would count as proof.
Amelia Earhart under the nose of her Lockheed Model 10-E Electra, probably before the 1937 world flight attempt. Photo: Underwood & Underwood, National Air and Space Museum collection, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
Key Insights
- An expedition from the Archaeological Legacy Institute and Purdue University began an underwater survey of a lagoon object at Nikumaroro on October 14, 2026. As of October 15 nothing has been confirmed.
- The official conclusion since 1937 is that the Electra ran out of fuel and crashed in the ocean near Howland Island. No wreckage has ever been confirmed.
- The leading alternative is that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, landed on Nikumaroro and died as castaways. The evidence is circumstantial, and the best physical clue, a set of bones, has been lost since the 1940s.
- The Japanese capture theory has no physical evidence behind it. A 2017 photo said to prove it turned out to come from a 1935 book.
- Noonan was one of the best-regarded long-range navigators of his day. Any explanation of the flight has to account for his navigation as well as her flying.
The search happening right now
Updated October 15, 2026. This section reflects reporting up to that date.
The expedition is led by the Archaeological Legacy Institute (ALI), working with Purdue University and the Purdue Research Foundation. ALI's executive director, Richard Pettigrew, is the project director. The team has 17 people, including three representatives from Kiribati, Purdue's Steve Schultz, two maritime archaeologists from RECON Offshore, a medic and safety officer, and a film crew.
They met in Tarawa, Kiribati, and sailed about five days to Nikumaroro in the Phoenix Islands. The crew sleeps aboard the vessel Marin Mainiku, because the island's very large crabs make camping on land impractical, according to NBC News. They reached the atoll on Tuesday, October 13, cut a trail and set up staging areas. The underwater survey started the next day, and stormy weather slowed the first day's work.
Day one used a magnetometer, which detects ferrous metal. The Electra was mostly aluminum, so steel parts such as cabling are what the team hopes to find. It also used side-scan sonar to look for objects under the lagoon sediment, and a drone to look at the target from above. The next stages are a hydroprobe and a water induction dredge, which would clear sediment off anything the survey flags. A solar-powered station on shore carries a camera and a water level sensor to record weather and tidal flow.
What is the Taraia Object?
It is an anomaly in the lagoon beside the Taraia Peninsula. The expedition says it was first noticed in satellite imagery in 2020 and can also be seen in aerial photographs of the lagoon going back to 1938. Reports differ on the satellite history: one outlet says the shape appeared in satellite images from 2015, after a major storm uncovered it. Nobody has yet inspected it on site and said what it is.
Pettigrew says the idea that it is the Electra rests on several kinds of evidence together: documents, photographs, satellite images, physical finds and eyewitness accounts. He has called confirmation of the plane there "smoking-gun proof," while saying it's too early for conclusions. Steve Schultz described the work as still in the data-gathering phase.
The case against it
Ric Gillespie, whose group TIGHAR has run a dozen trips to Nikumaroro since 1989, still thinks the island is where Earhart most likely ended up. He doesn't think this object is her plane. To reporters he has described the shape as a fallen tree, probably a coconut palm or a pandanus washed in by a storm, and argues that a wrecked aircraft would be buried under coral, not sand. Searchers have also looked at that spot before and found nothing, he says.
Dorothy Cochrane of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum has said the object needs more imaging before stronger claims are made.
Pettigrew's reply is that objects in the lagoon move in and out of sand cover over time. That is a testable claim, which is the point of sending a dredge. If the survey data show metal, the dredge exposes it, and the structure matches an Electra, the argument is over. If it is wood, the argument ends the other way.
What happens next
The team is scheduled to return to Tarawa around October 22. If the object is identified as the Electra, organizers have said a further field season would follow, and any recovery would need permission from the Kiribati government. Purdue's research foundation, which paid for the original aircraft, has said it would like to bring the plane home. The expedition's own updates are on the Purdue newsroom, and this page will be updated when results are reported.
Chart by PilotPassion. Dates come from the sources listed at the end of the article.
The flight: Lae to Howland, July 2, 1937
Earhart was 39, a record-setting pilot who had worked at Purdue as a women's career counselor and aeronautics adviser from 1935. Her second attempt at a round-the-world flight began in California in May 1937 and ran eastward, with the Electra reaching Lae, New Guinea, on June 29. About 22,000 miles were behind them. Roughly 7,000 miles of Pacific remained, and the next leg was the hardest.
Howland Island is a speck: about 6,500 feet long, 1,600 feet wide and 10 feet high. The Electra left Lae at 10:00 am local time on July 2, heavily loaded with about 1,100 US gallons of fuel, for a leg of roughly 2,556 miles (2,200 nautical miles). The planned flight time was about 20 hours. We measured the same leg ourselves at 2,226 nautical miles, which agrees with the published figures.
Chart by PilotPassion. Great-circle distances are calculated for this page from approximate island positions. Coastlines are left off.
The US Coast Guard cutter Itasca was at Howland to help. It was meant to provide radio contact, a homing signal, a direction-finding service and a column of smoke. None of them brought the aircraft in.
The last hours, from the ship's log
The Itasca radio log is held at the National Archives. It records Earhart's voice coming in strongly at times, but with a one-sided problem: she couldn't hear the ship's voice transmissions. Earlier in the flight she had reported 10,000 feet and thick cloud, then 7,000 feet at 150 knots.
At 6:14 am by the cutter's clock she reported she was within about 200 miles and asked for a bearing, whistling into the microphone to give the ship a continuous signal. The Itasca's direction finder couldn't be tuned to her 3105 kHz frequency, and the radioman on watch later said he sat there "sweating blood" because he couldn't help.
At 6:45 she estimated 100 miles to go. At 7:42 she said, "We must be on you, but we cannot see you," added that fuel was low, and said she was flying at 1,000 feet. Around 7:58 she asked the ship to send voice signals; the Itasca logged her signal as the loudest possible, which suggests she was close, but the crew couldn't get a bearing.
The last message the cutter logged came at 8:43 am: she was on a line she gave as 157/337, running north and south, and would repeat the message on another frequency. It named no landmark. The wording of the second half is recorded as questionable in the log, and transcriptions differ.
CONTINUE READING HERE - https://pilotpassion.com/amelia-earharts-missing-plane/
Chaotic scenes at Ireland's pre-match press conference after Israeli accusations
(www.thejournal.ie)
Chaotic scenes at Ireland's pre-match press conference after Israeli accusations
(www.thejournal.ie)
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