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Calling All Cat Lovers!🐈🐈‍⬛

No apologies for this long post.  If you are not interested in cats' welfare don't bother to read it or post negative comments; jog on.  The video is eye opening and explains the desperate plight of rescues that are trying but sadly failing to rehabilitate 1000's of abandoned and feral  cats.  They are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and unable to cope and the situation is now reached crisis point.  Nobody is asking for donations, just a few minutes of your time to sign the petition. Thankyou.** PLEASE SIGN AND SHARE **There has never been a more important petition regarding cats. Owners are not educating themselves before getting cats or simply just don't neuter them. Under age kittens are given to children to play with like toys. At 4 mths when no longer small & cute they are abandoned & start breeding by 5 mths.  Kittens are dumped in dustbins, cats thrown out of cars. This has to stop! Every minute rescues all over the UK get a call about strays, no one can help anymore, not even mums and kittens can be saved. Please share this with EVERY single person you know. 10,000 signatures we get a response,  100,000 it's debated at Parliament.  This winter millions of strays will freeze to death, how as a nation of supposed animal lovers do we let this happen.In answer to the concern we will run out of kittens these are the facts.We have no choice but to do this due to the out of control cat population and no one neutering. There are large colonies all over the UK females have litter after litter.Owners call rescues daily demanding rescues take their cats or kittens and threatening to dump them. Rescues cannot help as no space.I strongly suggest if opposed to this petition you try taking phone calls for your local rescue. Hundreds of cats on a waiting list more and more phoned in all day every day.  Breeding must be regulated going forward it is totally unacceptable to allow so many cats to keep suffering.  **************Calling all animal lovers please sign and share to stop cats and kittens suffering https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0Wgi3vYUgJpWn5VVF3urPk3LB61MCYAsZ9oZgwv1uodFJufZwyjfXn4zDjkmr8z9Tl&id=100000343393592https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/643251

Sue Hammond ● 1d8 Comments ● 10h

PM speech on Net Zero: 20 September 2023

There’s been surprisingly little comment here on last night’s speech by Sunak, and what there is, is buried in other threads. Whatever you think of it, it was significant and it deserves to be discussed properly (the text can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-on-net-zero-20-september-2023)So, to initiate this, my view is that it was one of the most disgraceful, dishonest exercises in political rhetoric that I can remember. Sunak starts off by claiming that he has spent his first year as Prime Minister “bringing back stability to our economy, your government, and our country,” a dubious enough claim already, given the chaos of the school RAAC fiasco, to give only one example. But he goes on to say he wants to change the way our politics works: “Can we be brave in the decisions we make, even if there is a political cost? Can we be honest when the facts change, even if it’s awkward? And can we put the long-term interests of our country before the short-term political needs of the moment, even if it means being controversial?” He then said that “I have made my decision: we are going to change. And over the coming months, I will set out a series of long-term decisions to deliver that change.”I’ve no idea what these decisions might involve, but his announcement last night of the U-turn on reaching net zero is not a promising beginning. He claims to accept that the climate emergency is serious, yet he puts off (to the dismay and fury of manufacturers) the changes to vehicle engines and home heating under a confected concern for the cost to families; it’s an absolutely blatant, cynical move to scrabble for some votes for his failing party. In other words, he has put his and the Conservative party’s interests above the country’s, the very short-term approach that he claims to be against. If his concern were genuine, why would he be scrapping the requirement for homeowners and landlords to meet energy efficiency targets? Why will he not take forward policies to encourage more sustainable behaviour, such as taxing airlines properly and informing the public of the carbon footprint of meat? Why does he boast about scrapping the proposal for government to interfere in how many passengers you can have in your car – when there was no such proposal in the first place? The speech was riddled with such inconsistencies, all with the aim of propagating the straight lie that he was thinking of the country in the long term instead of dishonestly trying to rescue his miserable government from the fate it so clearly deserves.Anyway, this post has gone on long enough: it’s your turn.

Richard Carter ● 11d35 Comments ● 2d

Random pic 30 September 2023

French art at the Courtauld: Édouard Manet (1832-1883), A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1882                   https://flic.kr/p/2oZS33p I hadn't registered the bottle of British Bass beer in the bar at the Folies-Bergère. Bottled Bass seems to get everywhere, some UK friends and I had to explain to a barman in San Francisco that it wasn't pronounced by spelling it's letters as "B-A-S-S" but as one word "Bass" to rhyme with "ass". Édouard Manet (1832-1883)
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1882
Oil paint on canvas This celebrated work is Édouard Manet's last major painting, completed a year before he died. At one of the bars in the Folies-Bergère- a popular Parisian music hall - wine, champagne and British Bass beer with its red triangle logo await customers. A fashionable crowd mingles on the balcony. The legs and green boots of a trapeze artist in the upper left hint at the exciting musical and circus acts entertaining the audience. This animated background is in fact a reflection in the large gold-framed mirror, which projects it into the viewer's own space.
Manet made sketches on-site but painted this work entirely in his studio, where a barmaid named Suzon came to pose. She is the painting's still centre. Her enigmatic expression is unsettling, especially as she appears to be interacting with a male customer. lgnoring normal perspective, Manet shifted their reflection to the right. The bottles on the left are similarly misaligned in the mirror. This play of reflections emphasises the disorientating atmosphere of the Folies-Bergère. In this work,
Manet created a complex and absorbing
composition that is considered one of the
iconic paintings of modern life. Samuel Courtauld gift, 1934
E 47

Michael Ixer ● 3d0 Comments ● 3d