threegee

http://www.bbc.co.uk...canada-13516796 This is good; when the big one comes there'll not be time to need to suffer any I-told-you-so from preachers.

Agree with the first part. The private sector is remarkably resilient if government gets off its back. Unfortunately they haven't done anything like enough in that direction. Sorry, you're not going to catch Italia in the debt trap! http://uk.reuters.co...E74M2HM20110523 And that's the on-the-books half of the economy! It's not really one country anyway; just a 150 year-old prototype of the EU. Unfortunately no one learned any economic lessons from the political stitch-up. Doubtless though we'll now be hearing troppo veloce, troppo presto from the left.

If there was an American on that list I might start to believe the rumours that the whole affair was a CIA set-up. But it's the pretty French lady for me! Can't comment on the Italy thing as I'd have to declare an interest, and it likely wouldn't be what you'd anticipate it to be.

A: Not as much as it did last week! What a total plonker; he's now let the fat-cat lawyers convince him he needs another injunction to stop the press contacting him! A monastery in Tibet would be far cheaper!

What a farce! Their Lordships refuse to retract the injunction, and the Beeb (on legal advice) opens the five-o'clock news with Ryan Giggs - Ryan Giggs - Ryan Giggs! Seems their Lordships haven't heard of the The Streisand Effect. AKA how to get maximum publicity for something which would pass fairly quietly otherwise.

Read more: http://www.itproport.../#ixzz1NBUZ9iC4 ..and when you send your iPhone 4 for repair or a replacement guess what you are likely to find when you get it back?

Well I can personally tell you it is not GGG - that's for sure! Lawyers from The Sun at the High Court at the moment to get the injunction revoked. Then we'll find out who it is! Isn't this exciting?!

Don't laugh, there's bound to be a get-out clause somewhere in the prediction. And.. falling for your own propaganda is something politicians do all the time. Elastic economic cycles and "tests" that only you can interpret are just parts of this delusion. When blaming someone else for your own stupidity starts to wear thin ("It's a global problem") you "get a bloody nose and learn from it". Then you selectively and quietly "admit past mistakes", and pretend you've reinvented yourselves, whilst appealing to the same bunch of irrelevant yet time-tested prejudices to start the cycle all over again. Preacher or politico, the public has a very short collective memory. And - to balance out those who did learn something - there's always a large bunch of wet-behind-the-ears suckers coming along.

Let no one mention who the footballer who doesn't want his name all over the papers and internet is! You know it's illegal, and wrong, and you simply mustn't do it! It's OK to mention Imogen Thomas though, because she doesn't have anything like as much cash. But I'd just like to say that I'm so disgusted by this behaviour that I'm never going to fly with his low-cost airline ever again! And, that's regardless of the number of 1p flights they offer me!

So... that settles the debate on whether it's genuine!

16.7% borrowing cost now, and it's well past the point of no return. http://www.bbc.co.uk...siness-13476796 A lesson for the "too fast, too soon" millimob. The only thing putting off debt repayments ever gains you is more debt!

Possibly because it's the 2012 Olympics and not the 2011 ones? Five whole days to trek it around a tiny bit of Central London, and we'll be lucky to get a few seconds glimpse. But, of course, these games are not London centric, and our hard-earned tax money is being well spent! Remember this well next time you pass one of our public facilities that's been permanently trashed to save a few tens of thousands a year.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13391986 Day 27 would put it on Friday 15th June 2012, later in the day. Still time to put your camera batteries on charge!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-KfxrI1NXg Monday quite possibly. Next week likely. In the next few weeks certainly! It's not Apple; it's not Microsoft; it's not Android; and it's certainly not Symbian! But in a few years even Appleheeds will be using the operating system - even though they probably won't know they are! And... I don't think this device will be called an N9 either!

On the contrary, I think the coalition was well received by most as an end to squabbling and a focus on doing the right thing. However the LDs raised unrealistic expectations amongst the politically unsavvy - mainly the young - and it's those that have been dashed. It was all about the Clegg factor, and the impressionable weren't listening to what Vince Cable was actually saying about the depth of the problems. This though suited the LDs at that particular moment. Scotland, quite naturally, wants it both ways. They want the best of any deals, but will baulk at the independence that will stop the gravy train. The whole devolution thing was another ill-conceived bit of Labour's social engineering. Now Salmond has put himself in a corner on independence he's going to put off a referendum as long as he possibly can. And both the Tories and the LDs are letting Red Ed get away with the "too fast too deep" crap! They need to present a united front in telling the electorate the truth, and point out that if Labour were in power they would be forced into doing exactly the same. In fact with Labour's intrinsic mismanagement the cuts would ultimately have to go deeper, and we'd be in the sh** for far longer! I don't think that the Yes was ever in the lead; it was just that the people who voted No took the trouble to weigh the arguments. The fundamental failing of the Yes campaign was that that they didn't actually state what the problem they were attempting to fix was! They threw lots of things into the hat, but in the end the bulk of the electorate saw that none of them was convincing, and that the true reason they wanted AV was the simple advantage that it offered them. Yes, Cameron knew what the outcome was going to be when he agreed to the referendum, but Vince Cable's invective about Tory deviousness is just plain silly. Sour grapes at getting it wrong in believing the electorate could be sold on something that didn't offer them anything! ...and it's put back the issue of real political reform maybe 20 years! Now that would be interesting! I'd go further and say that it's irrelevant to the Commons too. We have this problem that our MPs pretend to be representing their constituents, but are "whipped" into taking the party line. There was a time when a speech in the Commons could change policy. These days any honest MP will tell you that they are for the most part wasting their breath. Policy is decided elsewhere, long before any Commons debate. The squabbles in the Commons are a meaningless distraction for real government, and a huge put-off for the electorate. The sensible reform is to have the public elect a Cabinet and a government on party lines, and elect their MPs on non-party lines. The MPs could state their beliefs and that they broadly supported the ideas of this party or that, but there would be no "whipping". Electors would vote for both a Party Government, and a locally-representing MP, but they wouldn't necessarily be of the same party allegiance. The Lords could be cut to about a tenth it's present size as a revising chamber, and there would be no right of the PM to appoint them, or be abolished completely. Political patronage would end, and we'd have a much healthier democracy as a result This would have the further advantage of removing the "no overall majority" problem, and would paradoxically probably advantage the LDs by a huge margin in the Commons - people would fell free to vote for a government of their persuasion, but a person they knew well (and with teeth!) to represent them at a national level. Many MPs would undoubtedly adopt a "mix and match" selection from different party manifestos. This would also give single-issue parties true representation too.

Rumours running wild that Greece is about to drop out of the Euro. Official line: "This information is totally false". But didn't we hear the same line right here from Northern Crock? If you are going to default big time the only way to go is to deny it until there is no point denying it any more - the old "there will be no devaluation" ruse. Thus catching as many suckers as possible in the move. Updated music-hall joke: Q: I say, I say, I say, what's a Greek (bond) Urn? A: Something over 15%. Q: How can they pay that much interest? A: No, that's the percentage that will sell in the nick of time!

Once again illustrate: That Tory voters understand basic economics, and that it is often necessary to take a present hits for the sake of a better future. Though they baulk at the really big issues that would change society for the better. LD voters are a flighty lot that can (and do) change their minds on a sixpence. They fall for abstract nonsense like claims to "fairness for all". The curios thing is that at the local level the LDs are often really quite good at management of available resources, and are being punished by their fickle electors for no good reason. ..and Labour voters don't make any attempt to understand economics, and have very selective oh so short memories. A fact which keeps Labour in business and impoverishes their electors! On the referendum: Likely to show that the great majority of the electorate (regardless of party affiliation) have a deep and healthy suspicion of political engineering and jiggery-pokery by politicians. They understand that any change politicians make to the system won't benefit them in the slightest. The older ones remember the lies told by Ted Heath (which he admitted to in 1998) to get us into the EU at any cost. The wiser ones resent the fact that the government of the day sets the question, the timing, and the fact that there's to be one at all. Also that referendums are a one-way trapdoor that there's never any going back from, even when it becomes very clear to the majority that it was a wrong decision and they've been duped!

Rocket propulsion, surely? Think you'll find that it was us that invented the jet engine, and GAVE it away to our transatlantic friends. The Russians had it far harder; we made them use tiny spy cameras, and sticky soles on their shoes (to pick up the metal samples) when we invited them in to Rolls Royce to show them how to make a jet engine that didn't blow-up! Like penicillin I don't suppose we were so cadish as to patent anything either. That wouldn't have been cricket!

So silly! If only the CIA had had the common to look him up on Google, they'd have got him years ago! http://www.google.co...source=maps-top

Isn't teaching what you do when you can't do anything else? Anyway, they've had it too easy for far too long! Market forces apply to them like everyone else. When the economy needs seriously rebalancing between the wealth producers and the wealth absorbers it's inevitable that some will have to go and some will have to put in more effort and/or take cuts. Strike on, it's totally futile; sooner or later you'll have to re-enter the real world. The sooner you learn this teachers, the better off you will be. BTW you're doing a grand job!

I can see the headline now: Alcoholic Given Job as Distillery Chief! ..then it really would be "a global problem"!

When LDs talk about "wasted votes" they mean that if all their votes were spread across the whole electorate, and were used to select winners, then they'd gain a lot more seats. If you want a system where the parties get seats in direct proportion to the number of votes, then why beat around the bush and introduce a system that is going to discredit itself in no time at all (as it has elsewhere)? And - because it has been approved at a referendum - will be regarded as the will of the electorate, and so will be very difficult to change again. What you are about is to trash the constituency system for party advantage, just as has been done in the Euro Elections. Surely more honest to come right out and say that? It might even be the right thing to do - if only the electorate were given the choice! Ironic that the shabby deal which brings us this referendum, is exactly the sort of shabby deal a YES vote to AV is going to bring on in buckets! AV is a license for wholesale tactical voting rather than votes on principal! Any party which hasn't got the clarity of purpose and policies to need to depend on tactical voting to get elected doesn't deserve office! This incidentally is where I part company with the UKIP; just like the LDs they are in favour of it just as long and so far as it's useful to them! It's not rocket science to have a multiple choice referendum. But once again we get the lot in power dictating what the question(s) should be, and so imposing their will on what could very easily be a full and fair test of public opinion. As the party which is constantly advocating fairness (and also who brought on this referendum) you don't come very well out of this!

The "ratings" were introduced to aid the public understanding of such things. In fact they've done exactly the reverse and confused a very serious incident that resulted in about fifty direct and indirect deaths, and something between 4000 and 9000 who have/will ultimately suffer serious health damage, with one where those figures are near zero. That's why they are pure b*******, or to put it more mildly "unfit for purpose". Part of the explanation for this was that Chernobyl was as seriously mismanaged after the incident as it was before; that I will grant you. But the main reason is that - as experts have been saying for decades - the unprotected soviet-era reactors were a disaster waiting to happen. A Chernobyl type plant didn't need a once-in-a-thousand-year natural disaster, and also to be built in a dumb place; all it needed was a dopey shift worker! Let's ignore the 50 almost certain deaths resulting from Chernobyl and concentrate on the risk of cancer. All we can say at this stage is that about 50 volunteer workers might have suffered long-term health damage. Rate that against say 5000 in the Chernobyl incident and there is, at a very minimum, a two orders of magnitude difference! I predict that the international ratings system is going to suffer serious revision. It has just lost all credibility!

'Fraid that's pure b******! The get out word there is "problem". It's not remotely in the same league as Chernobyl. That was a fire in an unprotected graphite core that caused a simply huge atmospheric radiation release. There has been no major release into the atmosphere here. No one but the volunteers have sustained any significant exposure, and even there it is going to be arguable that if any of them ever get cancer it wouldn't have happened anyway. The radiation has mostly gone into the sea and, with a half-life of eight days, will be diluted and unmeasurable within a few months if not in weeks. The sea already contains vast amounts of natural Uranium (U3O8); so much that it's almost economic to extract it from sea water. Completely illogical that rather than the twenty thousand plus people that have died in the earthquake and tsunami the only major concern should be about a forty year old nuclear (pre-Chernobyl) plant of obsolete design that we simply wouldn't use these days. No consideration that all the other old plants survived the earthquake exactly as they were designed to - so confounding the alarmists. And indeed so did this one! It wasn't until it was then hit by a tsunami more than twice the height it was designed to be protected from that problems occurred. Those problems weren't structural or indeed nuclear, they were simply the knocking out of the diesel generators. Lots of lessons to learn from this, but they aren't the lessons we are hearing from the no nuclear at any price mob. A simple observation is that it wasn't sensible to not have any roof ventilation in the reactor sheds. If they'd vented the hydrogen off there wouldn't have been the bangs. But the hysteria about tiny levels of leaks almost certainly militated against this. Probably daft to store the spent fuel rods so darn close to the cores, and have the reactors so close to each other. If you look at modern German plants it's plain to see how much more generous the spacing is. But space in Japan is tight, so that probably entered into this decision.

What it boils down to is the LEAST disliked candidate gets elected. That's a sad comment on modern politics. It also the same warped logic that the Tory Party used to select the biggest wash-out elected Prime Minister of all time - Ted Heath. The man that did what Adolph Hitler failed to do: brought the UK to a total halt! Notice my use of the word elected in there. Any sort of election is preferable to absolutely none at all, Mr Brown!