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

One Olympic Legacy round here.

Kids living on a fair few estates in Southwark, where they have to take the high jump or vault over the gangs and drug barons, that will inevitably come a knocking, are getting right into the BMX groove. The brilliant copies of the Olympic track but smaller is giving a sense of confidence and meaning. It's a way sport can make a difference. It will carry on...the kids know that they are mostly a bit young for London 2012...but at least it gets them looking to the future...and gives them a bit of power to resist the drug gangs.

Super-rich shift the worlds cash to tax havens.

A global super-rich elite had at least $21 trillion (£13tn) hidden in secret tax havens by the end of 2010, according to a major study.

The figure is equivalent to the size of the US and Japanese economies combined.

Mr Henry said his $21tn is actually a conservative figure and the true scale could be $32tn. A trillion is 1,000 billion.

His study deals only with financial wealth deposited in bank and investment accounts, and not other assets such as property and yachts.

Less than 100,000 people worldwide own about $9.8tn of the wealth held offshore.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18944097

Yes well; follow Osbourne and you find the money. Or that weird bloke Hunt who hides behind trees and likes Rupert.

Bet you can find them on yachts.

A man known for his enormous penis was stopped by security at San Francisco International airport and questioned about the bulge in his pants, he was reported as saying Thursday.

He told them it was his penis, and they checked around his crotch, although not too closely. He was delayed for five minutes. The incident was not his first. "I've gone through the (scanner) before, and I wasn't worried.

http://tinyurl.com/cxxkrmg

More on those Scanners and AirPort Security from Wiki
Airport employees in Lagos have been caught using full body scanner images as a type of porn. At the Dallas Ft. Worth International Airport, TSA complaints have been reported to disproportionally stem from women who felt that they were singled out for repeated screening for the entertainment of male security officers.

Travelers at U.S. airports have complained that when they opted not to be scanned, they were subjected to a new type of invasive pat-down that one traveler described as "probing and pushing ... in my genital area." Another traveler in the United States complained that the TSA employee "inserted four fingers of both hands inside my trousers and ran his fingers all the way around my waist, his fingers extending at least 2–3 inches below my waistline."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_body_scanner#Privacy


There is controversy over full-body scanners in some countries because the machines create images of virtual strip searches on persons under the age of 18 which may violate child pornography laws. In the UK, the scanners may be breaking the Protection of Children Act of 1978 by creating images or pseudo-images of nude children.

Parents have complained that their young children are being virtually strip searched, sometimes without their parents present.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_body_scanner#Child_scanning

Sally Ride has died, of pancreatic cancer, at age 61. I never realized I was the same age she was.

http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2012/07/sally-ride-dies-way-too-young/

What caught my attention was that in the USA an orange haired loony calling himself the joker can buy an assault rifle and 6000 rounds of ammo; and he may face the death penalty.

What a deterrent! I heard on the BBC that there are 8000 gun related homocides in the USA annually, 400 here. Then an American replied that if a movie goer had a gun he would have stopped the joker

If a lot of movie goers had guns we could have witnessed a remake of the 'ok' coral, but that is only my opinion. Not even Russia has the death penalty and it would be impossible for an orange haired loony to get an assault rifle in the uk.

I heard Moat mentioned but; if he had an assault rifle there wouldn't be any cops left.

Echoes and ripples...

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57478545/4-arrests-in-separate-dark-knight-incidents/?tag=re1.channel

"...in Maine one man was arrested when he told authorities that he was on his way to shoot a former employer a day after watching "The Dark Knight Rises"... stopped for speeding, and a police search of his car found an AK-47 assault weapon, four handguns, ammunition and news clippings about the mass shooting that left 12 people dead early Friday, authorities said."

Begging the question, which is more reprehensible, being capable of
shooting guns at a load of strangers or not having the imagination
to be anything but a copycat.

Personally, I find the old monkey-see, monkey-do motivation
somehow more contemptible.

~jwf~

London Oy Limpics gibberish:

A London shopping centre has created Arabic signs that are "completely incoherent" to speakers of the language, a cultural organisation said. The Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu) said the words were back to front and not joined up as they must be in Arabic. Westfield Stratford's error appeared on welcome banners and on staff T-shirts. Caabu said what was written would be the equivalent of an English language sign intending to say "welcome to London", instead saying "N O D N O L O T E M O C L E W". http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18971686

A train company has been criticised for producing an Olympics security poster which reads as "gibberish" in Arabic.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18911599

"What caught my attention was that in the USA an orange haired loony calling himself the joker can buy an assault rifle and 6000 rounds of ammo; and he may face the death penalty."

Yep the police comfirmed that all the weapons were bought locally and legally. The guy was a 24 year old all american. Now if this had been a terrorist incident, the US would be out bombing yet another Middle-Eastern or Iraqistani Village into the dust. But because this is an all-american who bought the semi-automatic, bullets, rifles, pistols, stun grenades, gas mask and body armour at his local WalMart, then it is just one of the prices one has to pay for living in Gods very own land of the "free".

"The United States is the world's leader in incarceration with 2.2 million people currently in the nation's prisons or jails -- a 500% increase over the past thirty years." http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/page.cfm?id=107

More than 60% of the people in prison are now racial and ethnic minorities. For Black males in their thirties, 1 in every 10 is in prison or jail on any given day. These trends have been intensified by the disproportionate impact of the "war on drugs," in which two-thirds of all persons in prison for drug offenses are people of color.
http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/page.cfm?id=122

Oh look - another example of religious wuckfittery - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9425331/Archbishop-links-MPs-death-to-being-gay.html

An 11-year-old boy boarded a plane from Manchester to Rome on his own without a passport, tickets or boarding pass.

He was discovered while the Jet2 plane was in mid-air after passengers became suspicious.

A Manchester Airport spokesman said a number of airline staff had been suspended. The transport secretary said it was "incredibly concerning". Some reports suggest the boy has been sent to Abu Ghraib for questioning:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-18979032

Colorado shooting good for business - sort of making a killing out of the killings:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18980974

Stores in Pennsylvania evacuated as bear goes shopping

"Panicked shoppers fled a US retail park when a disorientated bear wandered into a department store and ran up and down the aisles, it has emerged.

The female black bear had apparently made its way into the Pittsburgh Mills centre through automatic doors."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18949490

Public Fury Over Treasury's Tax Morality Lecture

This story caught my eye because it purports to be about the morality of paying workmen cash in hand, but it is essentially a concocted story put together from different tweets.

Twitter it seems is creating and shaping the news.

http://www.channel4.com/news/public-fury-over-treasurys-tax-morality-lecture

(Also, adding a link to a C4 news story breaks the BBC's near monopoly of links here )

Olympic legacy for London motorists and cyclists: £130 fines for using London roads:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18977640

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-18991619

North Korea, South Korea? It's pretty much the same place isn't it?

North Korean women's football team walk off pitch after the wrong flag is displayed at the beginning of their match at Hampden Park.

Doh!

PP.

Government fumbling "more than a whiff of 'The Thick Of It'": http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-minister-in-the-thick-of-it-over-new-jobs/

Thanks KB: this government seem to be winging it. Incompetence and corruption.