Francis 🇾🇪 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ @francis@greenplenty.social

A while ago I posted about the legendary #Duralex glasses from France, and how the workers, facing possible bankruptcy, decided to turn it into a cooperative rather than accept being sold to investors that wanted to fire a third of the people. Well. They grew their revenue by 22% and plan to break even in 2027. They crowdfunded emergency funding, planned to be €5M which they had to stop when €20M was pledged within 48 hours. YES!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/22/french-people-want-to-save-us-help-pours-glassmaker-duralex

1/3

What happened at Bondi, is a tragedy and is horrific, we should all spare a minute to reflect and offer condolences to those poor people and their families. As usual this butcher is trying to take advantage of a tragedy and make it everyone else’s fault. If you don’t support us, no matter what we do, this is what happens, it’s rhetoric we have heard from Israeli governments before. Ignore my genocide, my forced starvation of people, the state sponsored rapes, the murders and cover up’s of doctors, journalists etc. if there is a wider picture here and there shouldn’t be for now, let people mourn. If Netanyahu is looking to blame someone other than two scumbags with guns and heads full of shit, he should be looking in a mirror ……

#bondibeach #bondi #netanyahu #netanyahuwarcriminal #israel #gaza #gazagenocide

As Roy Lilley (NHSManagers.net) points out:

'The UK has around 2.5 hospital beds per 1,000 population. Across much of Western Europe & the OECD, the figure is typically between four & eight. Germany; eight beds per 1,000, France around six, Italy three & a half'.

Driven by ideas from Just-in-Time manufacturing the NHS has little spare capacity even before any surges. The winter crisis is not seasonal its a symptom of a service with too little slack being run on mistaken grounds!

#NHS #health

@ChrisMayLA6 The most comprehensive dataset for Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) crime we have for England and Wales is the Complex and Organised Child Abuse Dataset (COCAD), and what we see is that the only ethnic group somewhat over-represented in the data is white British men.

This will be due to being the most privileged group, and having more opportunities for abuse (leveraging positions of power, etc.). The Quillium Foundation and Centre for Migration Control reports have been discredited.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/dec/14/city-guilds-uk-workforce-peoplecert-cost-cutting-drive by

At a time when the U.K. needs to address youth unemployment and increase productivity, we see City & Guilds, one of its proudest, primary educational and certification institutions, sold to an overseas Private Equity company to be sweated and stripped. Seems completely counterproductive. The UK desperately needs such organisations. As a teenager, I topped up my education by working through levels 1-3 of the C programming language C&G. It's transformed my career. The UK industrial strategy appears to be a joke. What is it, and how do we help young people learn the right things and get into the workplace? Maddening to watch us dismantle ourselves like this.

We know your brother's dying - please direct your enquiries to our lawyers.

Our government are fucking monsters.

"The prison, she said, has blocked the hospital from directly providing medical updates to her brother's family and solicitor, instructing them to go through the hospital’s legal team instead."

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/families-say-they-are-being-blocked-contacting-palestine-action-hunger-strikers-hospital

#UKPolitics #SupportTheHungerStrike #FreePalestine #GlobaliseTheIntifada

Online age verification isn't the same as a quick ID flash: it's surveillance. These systems collect your data and undermine your ability to anonymously access and discuss sensitive topics online. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/why-isnt-online-age-verification-just-showing-your-id-person

From the estimable Stephen Collins

Because age verification is really just there to:

- suppress queer information
- restrict abortion access
- gatekeep sexual education
- slurp up more personal data for marketing

"But think of the children!"

Maybe we should think about the corporations that prey on their attention-spans and self-esteem instead.

Sign stuff here:
https://www.stoponlineidchecks.org

Info on how to help here:
https://docs.fightforthefuture.org/s/637497e2-8a61-42aa-82fe-1b847e113ebb#h-what-are-online-id-checks-and-why-are-they-a-threat

#CallToAction #Activism #InternetSafety

I agree with Kevin Gopal; the real test of the focus & seriousness of the Govt.'s Child Poverty Strategy will be how it impacts the North of England, andWales where child poverty is notable more widespread than in the SE.

While there are pockets of good news (see the Gopal's short account of Preston Council's local strategy's impact), this strategy can only be said to be a success if the regionally skewed experience of poverty is reduced.

#ChildPoverty #politics

https://national.thelead.uk/p/the-north-of-england-is-watching-child-poverty-strategy-rachel-reeves

still baffled at people who have pin sharp and detailed cynicism about cryptocurrency but have fallen hard for chatbot AI

IT'S THE SAME FUCKING PERPETRATORS

In a world full of people who no longer trust each other, sometimes a small thing happens that just makes everything better.

A week or so ago I asked for German sci-fi books for my middle kid, who is struggling with his German grammar.

He's dyslexic and loves reading *my scifi books* in English, to the detriment of his German.

I asked on the internet, and I got a lot of fantastic advice, including from @lk108 who replied and said he had a whole series, and offered to send them.

So he did, and I happily paid for the postage as soon as he said he'd sent them.

The box arrived today! I had no doubt that they would, a random person who I did not know at all, said they would do something really nice, and I was sure it would be so.

Anyway thanks @lk108 for the lovely offer, and I'm sure Theo will be delighted.

Please give this post a round of boosts because a nice thing happened and we don't hear enough about that.

#GoodThings #SmallPackages

Britain’s biggest hunger strike in decades – and the media won’t touch it https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/britains-biggest-hunger-strike-decades-and-media-wont-touch-it #1u #Israel #Palestine #Gaza

with #santaclaus coming up soon just wanted to clear this up #hohoho #yo #arrr #nikolaus