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

if and when you decide to move, wherever it may be, you will probably end up near a hootoorite, so you wont be lost for a friend!!!!!

you might end up near 2legs

Scary kind of hysteria that leads a whole group of people do this

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20101023/tod-11-hurt-in-plunge-fleeing-from-devil-870a197.html

This is obscene and incomprehensible to me:

'Violent clashes persisted Saturday night into Sunday between police and people living on the outskirts of Naples, where the dump near the small town of Terzigno opened last year as a stop-gap solution for rubbish from Italy's third largest city.

For more than a week, protesters in Terzigno have torched vehicles, burned Italian flags and hurled stones at police, all to protest against the stench and filth at a local dump and plans to open a new one in the Mount Vesuvius national park.

Protesters from Terzigno and the nearby town of Boscotrecase have been blocking trucks from reaching the dump. As a result, about 2,400 tonnes of trash have been left in the streets of Naples.'

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/10/24/italy-naples-dump.html#ixzz13IlwN976

Naples really isn't that big a city, less than a million people, according to wikithingy, comparable to where I live. Why are they even considering a new dump, in a National Park, yet? They should have instituted a recycling and reuse programme years ago when it was obvious that current landfills were reaching the end of their lives and when it became clear that recycle and reuse programmes are an eminently workable solution. It strikes me as nothing other than monumental government incompetence. The Italian stereotype continues.


In case the municipal government of Naples happens to see this post:

'Since starting a curbside recycling program in 1988, the City of Edmonton has grown to become a national leader in sustainable waste management. . . .

Edmonton currently diverts close to 60 per cent of residential waste from landfill. The new Integrated Processing and Transfer Facility (IPTF) and other planned facilities will enable us to reach 90 per cent diversion by 2013.'

http://www.edmonton.ca/for_residents/garbage-recycling.aspx

That's right, over twenty years ago we realized the landfill was near its end and something had to be done. We never did bother with a new dump.

Get with the programme, Naples.

Garbage in Italy is a mob operation.
The government can't get involved.
if the mafia says, we need that park for our old crap,
the government shrugs, leaving it up to the very brave
Neapolitans to man the barriers.

Rome wasn't built in a day, but it was built on garbage.


~jwf~

Welfare cuts 'will not be approved', warns Hughes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11616741

I imagine if the Spending review fails to pass parliament the government would be forced to call an election.

Not that I think it will fail as if the Lib Dem MPs with ministerial positions vote for something there is a practical majority.

Hughes is a dinosaur and it hasn't sunk in with him yet that he's irrelevant.


News - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11614399

A jobless security worker has won a competition billed as Spain's inaugural siesta championship, napping for 17 minutes in a busy shopping centre.

At least 23 people have been killed and 167 are missing in Indonesia after a localised tsunami triggered by Monday's earthquake off the coast of Sumatra.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11626242

BEtween the earthquake and the volcano, surely the Indonesia region is due for a very major blow out any time now.

@swl

>Hughes is a dinosaur and it hasn't sunk in with him yet that he's irrelevant.<

Really?

His constituency is adjacent to mine in south Bermondsey..a hugely deprived area where in the past the BNP figured largely; often having marches through the area. He has made himself hugely popular personally in the area, frequently attending community events, and working hard as a constituency MP, just the sort of thing you'd approve of I'd have thought, given your endless whining about the behaviour of politicians.

Of course it's all been quite easy for him, always having been in 'opposition' in the past, but now its a whole different kettle of fish. I presume he's concerned to actually be re-elected next time. I'm a bit ambivalent about him, but there's no doubt he's done a lot of good in the area, and the BNP are now pretty much out of the picture.

Also I don't remember seeing him on telly, as one of those coalition members, whooping, cheering, back slapping and waving order papers, when George Osbourne sat down, after announcing all kinds of measures that will hurt many people drastically in the years to come.

The psychic octopus has died.
I bet he didn't see it coming.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/101026/oddities/germany_animal_offbeat_fbl_wc2010


~jwf~

Waste Management & Dance BSc

University of Northampton

http://www.whatuni.com/degrees/courses/Degree-details/Wastes-Management-and-Dance-BSc-Hons-course-details/52439116/5239/cdetail.html

Wastes management and dance?

Please tell me that is a send up. If it isn't someone is taking the widdle.

PP

It's not that unusual, is it, for universities to offer bachelor's degrees with a major and a minor? I know when I got my bachelor's degree (in 1902) that was certainly the case. But in those days it was up to the student to choose the major and minor. . . .




Here in Canada, the cable television people force subscribers to buy 'bundles': if you want to spend your time watching 'The Food Network' you have to also subscribe to 'The Frustrated Batchelors' Network' and the 'Cape Breton Island Fiddlers' Network' (okay, the last two I made up). This is as a result of a rule made by the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission) which rule is designed to ensure that less widely popular networks get subscribers and, therefore, revenue.




Perhaps this 'bundling' of Waste Management and Dance is simply a creative new version of the 'Major' and 'Minor', but now the University is deciding what the combination will be, bundling popular with less popular subjects to insure that less popular departments survive.

>>...to insure that less popular departments survive. <<

Surely the ethics of scholarship would inhibit such low handed
financial jiggery-pokery. I also fail to imagine which of the two
disciplines would be the struggler.

So it's maybe easier to believe something more basic,
more humane.

All politics is local and universities are the inventors and maintenance
of politics. The seemingly unlikely combo of garbology with frenzied
public displays of physical gyration (presumably set to appropriate music)
is no doubt designed to accommodate some specific local need. Getting
the break dancers off the streets for instance.


~jwf~

'Surely the ethics of scholarship would inhibit such low handed
financial jiggery-pokery.'




you slay me, ~jwf~!

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69P3CC20101026?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FoddlyEnoughNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Oddly+Enough%29&utm_content=Google+UK

Michael Jackson top-earning dead celebrity

http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=155100652

What a fantastic idea!! At last reaching for the stars

Looming economic disaster for Lotus Land North...

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/10/27/bc-california-proposition-marijuana.html

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1027/bedbug.html

New York's bed bug epidemic has struck the UN headquarters which confirmed today that the dreaded insect has been detected.

The blood-sucking bugs have been found at landmarks such as the Empire State building, department stores such as Bloomingdales, big name hotels and the Carnegie Hall in recent months and authorities have warned the problem is worsening.

Nothing to do with the financial institutions then.