h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The actual proposals are here
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vocational-qualification-reform-plan

I haven't had time to read the documents yet.

Your porn is not Canadian enough

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/03/05/your-porn-is-not-canadian-enough-crtc-warns-erotica-channels/

This is priceless.

A Philadelphia university professor says that to stop tornadoes, the US should build three great walls, 1000 feet high and 100 miles long.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26492720

The best bit is: "As evidence, he points to China - where only three tornadoes were recorded last year, compared to 803 in the US."



Paris doesn't get many tornadoes, does it, Maybe we should build Eiffel towers across the Midwest...

But he's got a degree so he's clever.

Gentlemen, is your penis covered?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/12/penis-insurance-undz_n_4951235.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news

“A man can get insurance for his car, dog, house, land and life but not for his penis? Well, I thought that was absurd,”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2580115/Police-shut-dual-carriageway-hunt-mans-PENIS-22-year-old-man-arrested-suspicion-assault.html

eh... unfortunately its in the mail so 99% of it is probably wrong
but this man apparently needed that insurance

On the centenary of the birth of author and artist Tove Jansson, BBC News Magazine has this great article about her:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26529309

Anyone who read the Moomin books as a child or, like me, read them to their children will find this quite eye-opening.

Usually politicians steal from the public purse to screw the taxpayer. This one (allegedly) stole to screw herself

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10692781/Female-Italian-MP-bought-sex-toys-on-expenses.html

A new garden city to be created near Ebbsfleet: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26600689

Now, if this is the Ebbsfleet I know, it's between Dartford and Gravesend. Which means that it's not creating a new city, it's expanding London, and adding to the problem of overcrowding.

The need is to get people away from the single conurbation and into separate cities where land and life is cheaper to live. All this is going to do is add more to the problem. And sorry, but an eventual planned 35,000 homes isn't a city.

The term 'Garden City' is nicked from the Garden City movement of the early 19th century (?). Ebbsfleet won't be a Garden City in this sense so far as I can see.

(And the football ground is poor and needs improvement and the club has had financial problems in recent times. This leaves a bit of a gap in what will be an expanding urban area. In the event of there being a wealthy business man in the area it wouldn't be unknown for a financially struggling team with a higher league position to be taken over and moved there. Watch out Coventry City. They are coming for YOU!)

PP.

I don't know where they are going to put these extra houses.

Ebbsfleet is part of the Thames flood plain!!

and there has already been a lot of new development since the opening of HS1.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/mar/15/10-of-the-best-tony-benn-quotes-as-picked-by-our-readers

I liked all of them, specially this one:

In the course of my life I have developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person--Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates--ask them five questions: “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?” If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.

hey Maria, they were good quotes weren't they

I have also enjoyed looking at pictures and the life long look backs,
I keep smiling at some especially the ones with his pipe, Spiller keeps saying I wish I could rock a pipe like that.

Hmmm this isn't the place for a little weep and a wake, I wish it could have been,

don't know what to say, how to start, let alone any trinkets,

except to say I feel a little old, haha, Bruce Kent and Tony Benn on soapboxes , it dates me, which has no context, sorry

I will remember him well

Tony Benn is a great figure not just for the UK politics, but for Politics in general and in particular, he is a reference for any one who have a humanist sensitivity.

I think that if the left parties have still left a bit of dignity and want the respect of their voters, they should soak deep in the ideas of such a man and similar ones. Left is in a bottomless pit because of its turn to neoliberal policies. As Tony Benn says, we are not here to manage capitalism but to change society. Current official left is pretty lost everywhere.

The only real left now is in the streets, in small citizen groups who are fighting hard. There´s a strong social left, but the official one is asleep in the arms of neoliberalism.

The closest thing to a true left party now are the Pirate Party.

They're just not around enough yet to make a significant difference other than by holding the other parties to account.

Tony Benn was a large part of why the Labour Party were unelectable for almost two decades.

Indeed,

still, without that sort of touchstone we are lost

There were many changes made to be electable and I will stand by how that worked, still there is whole load of difference of making things happen, than chucking out *all* of your values out of the pram and what your baselines are

I have a whole load of qualifiers to do with Iraq, war on terror, all the consequences of which was and is all kinds of wrong

There was a whole shift in domestic policies, politics, social policy which made those changes worthwhile to a good degree

easily undone, has been, not because of the global crisis and the mess that was left, in honesty it did good for labour party to not to win at the last election,

but there has been a whole load of political discourse that simply has not been had about in our voting patterns and systems, in living rooms and on doorsteps

damnit, writing, why do I like a writing ite

re- arrange


in honesty it did good for labour party to not to win at the last election

those gains on the domestic front, easily undone, has been,

not because of the global crisis and the mess that was left, which is what we are constantly told by the coalition but because of attitude, values that underlay those policies

oh god site, also something seem to be under my shift key, you are lucky all this has spaces