Mermaid's purses and Thoughtcrimes

Beach at Frinton

Mermaid's purses

A beach walk in Frinton with Mermaid's purses and Orwellian like issues with telling or revealing truths on both sides of The Pond.

It was off to Walton on the Naze for a lunch with W and family, followed by a walk along the beach at Frinton. The shoreline was littered with numerous whelk shells, glowing gently in the hazy sunset. Scattered amongst them were the occasional clumps of whelk egg-cases, which looked like a loose form of bobbly stryrofoam - in fact, I had to find out what they were upon our return. I also found several mermaid's purses! These are probably the empty egg-cases from hatched young skate.

Whelks have been in decline and apparently the seabed is littered with collections of the shells of dead whelks. The large common skate is now thought to be two critically endangered subspecies. Their egg-cases are nearly a foot long. The ones I found were much smaller, about half that size, so not sure of the species that had laid them.

Two worrying developments today. First, despite clear evidence from multiple sources, the new presidential team is continuing to actively counter press reports of the inaugural crowd size. Whilst portrayed as a battle against the anti-trump media, it conjures a different image. If the first press conference stating the party line and then not accepting questions by the press caused unease, then two separate presidential sources still trying to promote their 'alternative facts', with ludicrous numbers today could only increase this. Are these the signs of a presidency where propaganda is more important than reality, where inconvenient facts and questioning are Orwellian Thoughtcrimes?

Anticipating the worst, academics, computing experts and even hackers have been archiving US government sites and, more importantly, climate change and Environmental Protection Agency data, in safe sites outside the control of the new administration. This is covered by various media sources but the Deutsche Welle article also includes links to the key locations; the Internet Archive, the Data Refuge, the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative and the Climate Mirror.
(http://www.dw.com/en/ahead-of-trump-final-sprint-to-save-climate-data/a-37163568.)

The second worrying item was the revelation that the UK had tested a Trident Missile launch in June 2015. The missile went off course and had to be prematurely aborted. This was weeks before the debate on the renewal of Trident. Parliament was not made aware of the incident.