Before I get to my own stuff I have a plethora of wonderful links to share with you.
LINKS
https://mnosal49.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/autism-awareness-should-be-about-action-not-reaction/
https://saritsa.wordpress.com/ A very interesting Indian site.
http://www.vox.com/2015/3/31/8322545/visit-indy-lgbt-rfra
http://paper.li/AspieTravel/1307413001?edition_id=bdf2dfd0-d858-11e4-ae26-0cc47a0d1605
http://www.brockpress.com/2015/03/undermining-and-over-mining-the-antarctic-food-pyramid-333/
http://act.nhscampaign.org/lobby/6
http://www.londonlive.co.uk/news/2015-04-01/last-ditch-effort-to-save-waltham-forest-disability-centre Two of the people who run this centre talk about it in a must-watch clip.
http://scvincent.com/2015/03/31/more-than-best-friends/
https://sdbast.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/the-tories-are-the-party-of-benefit-scroungers/
http://politicalscrapbook.net/2015/04/telegraph-business-leaders-letter-samantha-cameron-friends/ A minor contribution to the discussion of that letter.
http://faradayscandle.com/2015/03/31/thriving-in-extremes/ A very interesting piece about micro-organisms that flourish in sometimes very extreme conditions. A shining example of the gems that can be discovered via twitter
THE LETTER
This morning a letter was printed on the front of the Daily Telegraph. Appended to a few lines of body text about why they would be voting conservative were the names of 100 business leaders. Even if this had been entirely genuine, it would have been no more convincing than a letter to the Daily Mirror signed by 100 prominent trade unionists explaining why they were voting labour. However, it was not very long before it was discovered that the letter had been drafted in Tory HQ, and that a sizeable portion of the signatories were already known Tories, in some cases even Tory peers. As the day progressed, this was compounded by somebody noting the presence in that list of a 100 of a number of Mrs Cameron’s cronies (yes, they really are that stupid/ arrogant).
Various people made suggestions through the day about other selections of 100 people with a linked trait who could sign a letter about why they were voting labour (disabled people, and food bank users were two suggestions).
This letter was intended to boost the Tories and harm Labour, but I suspect that like the now legendary “Road to Recovery” poster that started the year its effect will be the reverse. The letter (unsurprisingly since it came from Tory HQ) was riddled with factual inaccuracies, as well as the problems already documented with the so-called signatories. It started out as a non-story given ridiculous air-time (“100 rich b**t**ds are going to vote Tory”) and un-ravelled from there.
Frankly, the use of this kind of tactic suggests desperation. To end this little section I have a couple more links to analyses of this story…
http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/04/01/why-we-should-all-ignore-that-letter-in-the-telegraph/
Now for some pictures…
I hope that you have enjoyed this and I encourage you to share it widely.