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

What story are you referring to ... the link is to the front page of the Express containing many stories (which takes an age to load because of the adverts)? I read the Abbot article and it just looks like a distorted / made up story.

Swan 'killed, barbecued, eaten and dumped on riverbank', near Windsor Castle
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/queens-swan-killed-barbecued-eaten-and-dumped-on-riverbank-8778451.html

Treason!


Geggs

Yes Stone Aart it was the Dianne Abott article more the photograph than the article.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/423863/Outcry-as-Labour-s-Diane-Abbott-demands-MORE-migrants-should-come-to-UK
It scares the hell out of me.

Tsk someone should talk to the queen and tell her to dispose of her swans responsibly

Bradley Manning, the US soldier who leaked secret US government documents to the Wikileaks website ... the saviour of the universe and hero to some ... an evil-doer and traitor to others ... has apparently announced he wants to live as a woman.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23798253

well, I wouldn't go as far as saviour of the world, heroine, yes

The "mystery" of the tune inside a toy pig from the Titanic.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2399843/Hear-song-played-Titanic-sunk-Music-toy-pig-recorded-repair.html

I have identified it, and posted to the DM and emailed the Museum. The tune is called La Mattchiche by Charles Borel Clerc, there's a dance called the Maxixie which could be done to this - and other - tunes, which is why the tune has been mis named.

Here's an old 78 of the tune http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqoN-Jyw_r0 but for a better idea of what the pig might have sounded like, there are some music boxes on youtube, eg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWzQ00AMM-g (clown alert!)

But what films has this tune been in? I want to say a Monsieur Hulot, but I'm not sure.

This is a coverage of what has happened in Balcombe.
http://www.nodashforgas.org.uk/uncategorized/what-really-happened-in-balcombe-last-week/

I think that British people should be proud of those folks who have been there fighting against the energy mafia.
And not only that, they have been reminding people that it depends of us to have better living conditions.

Howard Zinn´s words are pretty relevant nowadays:

from his essay, "The Bill of Rights," in his book Failure to Quit: Reflections of an Optimistic Historian recently republished by Haymarket Books (http://bit.ly/15rAfaW).

"If it were left to the institutions of government, the Bill of Rights would be left for dead. But someone breathed life into the Bill of Rights. Ordinary people did it, by doing extraordinary things. The editors and speakers who, in spite of the Sedition Act of 1798, continued to criticize the government. The black and white abolitionists who defied the Fugitive Slave Law, defied the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, who insisted that black people were human beings, not property...

Women, who were arrested again and again as they spoke out for their right to control their own bodies, or the right to vote. Members of the Industrial Workers of the World, anarchists, radicals, who filled the jails...until they were finally allowed to speak to working people. Socialists and pacifists and anarchists...who defied the government and denounced war in 1917 and 1918. The artists and writers and labor organizers and Communists...who challenged the congressional committees of the 1950s, challenged the FBI, at the risk of their freedom and their careers.

In the 1960s,the students of Kent State and Jackson State and hundreds of other campuses, the draft resisters and deserters, the priests and nuns and lay people, all the marchers and demonstrators and trespassers who demanded that the killing in Vietnam stop...

And after the war, in the 70s and 80s, those courageous few who carried on....

These are the people, men, women, children, of all colors and national origins, who gave life to the Bill of Rights."

............................

That kind of people is the same that has been at Balcombe camp.

Saw this headline on the BBC news page -

Jamie Oliver: Migrants are tougher


Is it wrong that my first thought was "Well cook them longer on a low heat"?

Brilliant -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23869462

A man targeted by marketing companies is making money from cold calls with his own premium-rate phone number.

In November 2011 Lee Beaumont paid £10 plus VAT to set up his personal 0871 line - so to call him now costs 10p, from which he receives 7p.

The Leeds businessman told BBC Radio 4's You and Yours programme that the premium line had so far made £300.

Phone Pay Plus, which regulates premium numbers, said it strongly discouraged people from adopting the idea.

Mr Beaumont came up with the plan when he grew sick of calls offering to help him reclaim payment protection insurance (PPI), or install solar panels.

Once he had set up the 0871 line, every time a bank, gas or electricity supplier asked him for his details online, he submitted it as his contact number."



What a good idea

He's not going to grow rich on that return, now, is he?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23872765

Bloomin' Martians, coming over here and stealing all our eco-systems

Well that was bound to happen because
we did not have
any good migrant laws in place at the time. .. ...

New London building melts car reflecting and focusing sunlight. Three people still missing (maybe):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23930675

Since that initial report the BBC camera crews have been to the site
and discovered all sorts of heat related damage to shops in the area.
Blistered paint, cracked tiles...

In one shop there is a scorch mark where a small fire broke out just
inside their glass door. The shop keepers were amazed but relieved
to finally understand how that mysterious fire started.

You'd think architects would have some idea of what happens when a
concave glass surface reflects sunlight - it's the principle behind
solar ovens.


~jwf~

A man who has been jailed for raping a woman is waiting to find out whether he has contracted HIV from her.

His barrister, Virginia Hayton, said: "It is his own fault, if he had not committed this offence he would not have placed himself in this position."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-23935768


Geggs

My one (gitish) thought on that was: Karma.

Karma for him, maybe, but not so much for anyone else he might have raped.

"Pensioner Fined For Shampooing Genitals On Bus"

This person seems to have got the wrong idea about what is meant by 'wash and go'

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/09/05/philip-milne-pensioner-shampooing-genitals-on-bus_n_3873880.html?utm_hp_ref=uk&ir=UK