threegee

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7383857.stm Bet that one took days to think up. More imagination than unelected PM Gordon "Prudence" Brown seems able to muster though. He's been told by his spin-doctors to smile more(?), but this is not a pretty sight. A blond wig maybe? Hmm.. probably now being considered by Ken Livingstone too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/7378695.stm Just the sort of thing we need to hit the National News for. Really enhances our reputation as somewhere nice to live - and bring jobs to!

Polices - what polices? There's not one (of any party) that has the guts to engage properly with their electorate. Oh for an honest politician! Come on local politicians and prove me wrong! This (TOTT) is a closed forum only readable by people in the Town or who have a personal interest in our Town. Let's debate the art of the possible when we have such an all-controlling central government. We are not idiots, we know the severe limits of a local councillors power, but let's have some honesty and some engagement with the electorate without spin-doctors and other party minders. In the old days our politicians stood on a soap-box and did this without turning a hair - some actually enjoyed the cut and thrust. Who are you representing - the People of Bedlington or your own career interests?

The UK's biggest banks have lost a test case about overdraft charges. A judge has decided that the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) can rule on the fairness of the charges, which many customers have been trying to reclaim. BBC Article

They forgot Heather Mills!

Anti-terroist legislation being used to spy on dog walkers and small children going to school! Why is it that those of us with a few decades experience of our system aren't at all surprised. I wonder if the person posting here a while back that they welcomed biometric ID cards is still of the same opinion? Add to this the current low copy number DNA farce and the apocryphal tale of the person ending up on death row because someone of the similar name failed to pay a library fine, could become reality. And we are already well on the way there by the looks of it: http://gazettextra.com/weblogs/latest-news...ring-jail-time/ Or on a more serious note how about this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7326736.stm Ridiculous when you have to get information under another country's laws in order to prove your own innocence! Where would he be now if he only had recourse to his rights under UK law?

...and in which Indian will the contest be? My money's on Head-ripper Campbell. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...30/ncurry30.xml Entertaining as this would be isn't this confusing parliamentary wards with local government thingamys? All part of the grand illusion that is British Democracy!

Just about sums it up Malc. Milburn is just too slick by half for me, but that's the sort of people who get on in politics these days. At least when dowdy old Michael Foot spouted some crap you could be sure that at least he believed it himself, and it wasn't simply a result of what this week's research had indicated a vote-winner! Baby-face Cameron lost me when he apologised for riding his bike up a one-way and through a red-light. Bet Boris Johnston would have had something more interesting to say on the matter!

Yup, they got me on that one too! Looks pretty convincing these shots of melting glaciers, and solitary penguins or polar bears floating away on a large chunk of ice. The camera never lies etc... That was until I took a detailed look at the map. In fact over on the other side of the ice shelf there are areas where it's thickening, and in the middle too. How do they get their polar ice core samples of past climatic conditions? Ice doesn't continually build up for ever, it has to go somewhere. Sure there are glaciers melting, but there are also ones thickening. All too easy to take a camera (or mug reporters) to show what you want to show, and no more. On a re-read I see you mentioned religion well before Nigel Lawson. You should ask him for a credit in his new book! Anyway, this is what the so-called scientists are now reduced to: We concede that recent figures don't show any change, but it's just a statistical blip. It's going to start up again in 2009 or... (insert today's year of convenience), just you wait and see! In fact it's they who are looking at a statistical blip - they've based this lunacy on only a couple of decades. Their computer models were badly wrong at the instant the predictions were coming off their printers, yet we are supposed to believe that they can even get into the ball park fifty and one hundred years hence. But even the wildest scenario they can produce from simplistic computer models isn't good enough; there has to be a hidden run-away effect - that no one can actually model - resulting in doom & disaster. Then, when it is shown that a highly improbable +3c to +4c "disastrous rise" could be easily coped with and would throw up more benefits than problems, the goal posts are moved to the third world and there's an appeal to our morals; as if the third world could make no progress in 50 or 100 years! In just a few decades it looks likely the third world will enjoy living standards better than we have now. That's unless the green loonies have their way, and put us all back into the middle ages! None of this has anything to do with science, it's just scare politics of the worst kind. There are plenty of genuine problems in this world without setting out to invent them. But real problems need real solutions; you can't go flying off to an international conference on the other side of the world, and throw out sound bites for the international media, If you're an aspiring big-league politician that's the inconvenient truth!

The REAL inconvenient truth: Zealotry over global warming could damage our Earth far more than climate change - Nigel Lawson http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1770 I think he's bang-on right about this being a replacement for religion - especially in Europe. The reaction of some so-called scientists to the recently published figures showing that there has been no measurable increase in overall temperatures this century so far is about the same as you'd expect from an archbishop if you questioned the second coming!

It has become apparent that a number of local people haven't been able to register over several months. The one common factor is that they are all using BT provided e-mail. I won't expand on my own problems with BT Internet and how they barefacedly thieved over £100 out of my bank account a few years back. But it does seem that the people who use BT don't seem to know about the other free e-mail services open to them once they have an actual internet connection. We are bringing this problem to BT's attention, but don't expect a sensible answer or a fix on their part any time soon (and my Indian language skills aren't too good). So... if you are unluckly enough to have signed up with a BT Internet account that you can't ditch, then use a third party mail service to ensure the email gets through. Anything at all but BT! http://www.google.com/search?q=bt+sucks

Yes, there's another point here that I missed. When TB stood for election he did so promising to "serve a full term". What circumstances conspired to stop him keeping this promise? Did he become ill? Or did he simply choose to dishonour this promise at the first instant it became inconvenient? At the time of the election we were left in no doubt that it was him, and him alone we were electing. Brown has absolutely no mandate, and his refusal to call an election illustrates that he has no honour either!

But this isn't what be are led to believe when he goes flying around the country canvassing at election time, or spouts away on the party political broadcasts! People are left in no doubt precisely who they are voting for to run the ship. And, this is what the parties themselves discuss these days, far more than political direction or finer policy matters. It's the person they can put to the public that will get them elected. It's totally dishonest to pretend the situation is otherwise! And these day's it's particularly damming as folks no longer know who stands for what, even assuming the parties know themselves! It's all the electors have left to tell one mob from the other. This would be OK if we had an elected president to oversee what he's up to. But what we have is a load of dozy old of time-serving hacks that he himself (not his party) has placed. The few hereditary ones who haven't been got rid of and aren't completely subservient, are under constant threat of being abolished. Now, of course, we have The Parliament Act which was sneaked under our noses to ensure that even if the PM gets rebels in his own lot he can still have his way - not the way of his party or his cabinet. A few years back if I had said this is the guy who has the power to drag us into a war on any old pretext, you'd have agreed, but added that it was a purely hypothetical argument. Now everyone knows differently! The next stage in the slippery slide that's the (make it up as we go along) British Constitution, is that a PM gets to anoint his successor. A few decades back we had some sort of standards. People resigned even when they weren't directly to blame as a matter of principal. Often on "major" issues like who had slept with who! Now, taking one, or even a hundred thousand innocent lives as a result of your organisation's total incompetence doesn't seem to matter anymore. Then, if the PM resigned or was taken ill, we had a "caretaker" PM who was under a moral obligation to go to the country for a new mandate. No more! Once again the constitution has been bent for the sole purpose of grabbing at power, and the average voter doesn't even realise that they've been further disenfranchised! Getting back to the subject of this thread: it's this that makes such damn silly statements possible from our MP's, of whatever party. They've lost all grip on what really matters!

This, of course, would be in comparison with the fully democratic UK which: has political prisoners, no free elections for its leader (hello there Gordon!), and absolutely lousy dentistry!

I remember a Mrs Bottoms back in the 1970's - 1980's. But, just at this moment, I've no further information. Will keep a look out for some.

Good question monsta. What have you advertised? Answer: Several things. And.. I almost got my scooter, but it drove away! Everything has to start somewhere, and unless you try it you will never know. There's no risk, and some work underway to syndicate the content so there will be a bigger audience. The site does get alot of hits and they are still growing monthly. But, there are a lot of idiot people in the Town who do use the Internet but don't give the community site the support it deserves. They do visit occasionally, but are otherwise quite apathetic to any initiative going on around them. That I can partly understand; but more importantly for the community there are a lot of dumb business folk who don't know an effective marketing medium from their elbow (there I almost said it Malcolm! ). Quite happy to pay for ineffective press advertising, but haven't got the wit to exploit what other people are providing to them for free. Do these business' deserve to be part of our community? Maybe it's a self-leveling playing field? In business you reap what you sow! But - and here's the really sad fact - many of the prime movers here have already left the Town, and I suspect more are to follow! Can your generation rise to the challenge or will they give up on the place and move on to greener pastures like many before? That's the real question!

And it's now moving North!

..and GB doesn't want to risk looking like (the other) GB. Flood alert amid storm warnings

It has been scientifically proven that you can list for sale items 17.29 times more quickly on BedBay For Sale than you can on a well known auction site! That's a huge saving in your time, and a considerable reduction in your blood pressure. Why not list something you no longer need right now, and see for yourself.

Ching!! --- SOLD --- to a good home in Bedlington!

So.. you want to support a website that doesn't even acknowledge the existence of your own Town?!!

Is this going to be the very first item in the BedBay-Take-It-Away forum then?

Just to remind everyone that this project is still live. Only one site has so far been secured, so we are still looking for at least three (if not four) others. If you have a site available it won't cost you a penny, and a web pro will set up the gear for you.

I wouldn't go to "a den of sonic inequity", but I could be persuaded to go to a den of iniquity - even if the organisers didn't know the difference! The Beats Per Minute thing is a simple inverse function of mean climatic temperature. Doesn't take a PhD to work that one out BBC News 24.