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

50% of our energy needs could be obtained by harnessing the indignance of Daily Mail readers.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/24/kurds-fear-isis-chemical-weapon-kobani

Probabably mustard.

Special health issue, whenever mustard if deployed in a battlr or carelesslessly disposed of, there's a global flu epidemic.

Time be sure you're up to date on your immunizations.

"Something that can't last, and will only get more and more expensive. With so much reliance still on fuel that's running out, it's no wonder the government's fast tracking through fracking."

On contrary, it IS a wonder to spend lots of money on such a failure. Not only it won´t last and will be quite expensive in short and long term, it´s also the track of heavy pollution that fracking leaves during and after the process. It´s just the same: let´s make money now at the expenses of anything.

The logical thing to do is to promote renewable energies, but this time not as a fantastic excuse to feed fat cats with subsides, but as the only way we have to obtain energy , clean and cheap.

Renewables energies were about to start giving results , but this fascist govt. has choosen to cut all helps and favour the putos of the fracking industry.

Forgot to add Spain, but it´s just the same here and there.

Another evidence that we all are sharing the same worries, suffering the same problems and fortunately taking the squares to show it and hopefully to create an alternative to the bipartidism that only favour the interests of the big mafia:

http://occupydemocracy.org.uk/712-2/

All those british people remind me the Indignados movement. I hope the best outcome for you all.

Felix Baumgartner's free-fall altitude record broken by Google Vice President:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/25/science/alan-eustace-jumps-from-stratosphere-breaking-felix-baumgartners-world-record.html?_r=0

Wow. Did he also break the record Baumgartner failed to break, longest free-fall time before opening the parachute? Baumgartner seemed to somersault repeatedly before levelling out; did he get disoriented?

Not sure about the duration, but on somersaulting the article says:
'He performed two slow backflips before a small parachute righted him'.

Interesting fact of the day:

Felix Baumgartner's name translates into English as 'Happy Tree Surgeon"

Well, if you've ever seen an episode of the web cartoon series, Happy Tree Friends, a Happy Tree Surgeon is probably desperately needed.

Conservative MP says Labour Council doing it wrong: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-29810766

Okay, a little more on this one...

Bury Council have recently moved bin collection to once every three weeks, instead of every two. Although it's not quite as simple as that.
The bin men come every week, but each week they collect different bins, according to a rota. The grey general waste bin, the blue plastic/glass/metal bin and the green cardboard bin are collected every three weeks, but the brown garden and food waste bin is collected every two weeks.

Now, in theory this should be fine. Because anything that will cause a stink (rotten food etc) should be in the brown bin, and that's still collected fortnightly.

When they moved from weekly to fortnightly the same hoo hah was also put out. That it would lead to piles of rubbish in the streets with rats over-running everything.

This didn't happen.

I know this, because I live in this district. And while the council are certainly not great, and I disagree with a lot of their works, there's nothing wrong with the rubbish collection service. The bin men are quick, and clean. The lorries don't stink and the workers pick up any litter they accidentally spill. They almost always put the bins back exactly where they find them, not leaving them in the road or in groups halfway down the road. They even smile.

So is this, like the article says, punishing residents who don't recycle? No. I'd say it's merely saving money by not giving them the opportunity to not recycle. I know of several families on my road alone that would over-fill their general waste bins in two weeks (there are some large families around here) so the council has made sure that they've got extra, large bins.

This whole article is one MP trying to get some political point scoring, and I'm fed up with this lack of politics.

So basically, the guy's talking a load of rubbish?

There's no reason for trash talking here.

Politician shows a lack of understanding of how business works along with a blinkered view of history:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29839181

This proposal (well, the election promise so who knows whether it'll happen or not) is that under Labour, more local government (councils) will be able to regulate their public transport services, just like in London. Because everywhere needs to be like London. Apparently.

So why is this potentially stupid? Well, currently in London everything is run by the one organisation, Transport for London. Elsewhere however, they're all run by different companies. In Manchester alone there's First, Stagecoach and at least two other bus companies, plus another company running the tram service. If the council stepped in and told them what fares and routes they had to run, if they didn't like it (ie not make enough money) they'd pull out. Leaving the city with less of a service. So you can guarantee that they'd make sure they negotiated well for a profitable contract.
Which is where the blinkered view of history comes in. Anyone remember how the rail franchises were set up? The bus companies will likely try and negotiate for a similar deal to the rail companies (they are the same companies after all) and we'll likely end up with (above) inflation linked fare hikes.

One final point on this in this post... does any public transport service outside of London go on strike? At all? Because we're forever hearing of Tube strikes. And I'd rather elsewhere wasn't like London in that respect.

Not saying Dundonians are tight but, http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/local/dundee/supermarket-shoppers-response-to-carrier-bag-charge-asda-be-seen-to-be-believed-1.656607

A similar law has recently been enacted in California, is not in full force yet.

I expect it will be unpopular enough to evoke a repeal campaign.

It does put a great deal of hardship especially on people who have to shop for large families.

Its impractical, an over-reaction and a better answer would be improved incentives to recycle.

More pre-election rubbish from a politician:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29857849

If Labour get in, they're promising to scrap the House of Lords and replace it with an elected Senate because it "fails to represent large parts of the UK."

Fails to represent large parts of the UK? I'm guessing then that the elected House of Commons *does* represent large parts of the UK? Oh, no wait, it doesn't. But is it worse with the House of Lords? Labour should know because the last time they were in government they got rid of a lot of hereditary peers and replaced them with Labour cronies.

More utter rubbish from political parties to try and appeal to the "common man"

I don't agree this is utter rubbish. Anything thats not elected by definition can't claim to be representative.

I do agree however that the House of Commons, even though its members are elected do not represent large parts of the UK.

Significant parts of the population have become disenfranchised because any party that strays too far from the centre right are lampooned in the media and by other parties.

What is in the best interests of the 'common man' is socialism but sadly that is far too distasteful to contemplate these days.

The House of Lords is currently far better at representative politics than the House of Commons.

A lot of the House of Lords are semi-retired politicians, so they know how it works. But most importantly they're not just looking at stuff for the sound bite value. They don't care how they press represent them, because it makes no difference to them. They don't have to get elected every few years, so they take a longer approach to politics.

What this gives us is a buffer against the knee-jerk rubbish that too many MPs try and do because they think it'll make them look good in the papers, and therefore get re-elected. This knee-jerk politics isn't representative of the people, it's representative of what's currently selling newspapers.

I have always been represented in the House of Commons.

However, never by anyone that I've voted for and not by anyone who shares my views.

Sadly, that is how democracy works for many of us.

PP.

As I see it, although the parties have been desperately trying to stuff the Lords with retired and disgraced politicians, almost a third of the seats in the Lords are independents.

In the Commons, Parties whip the MPs into doing what they want, therefore guaranteeing the majority party can attempt to pass any amount of bad laws, so Party Leaders just have to win the numbers game.
In the Lords, it is necessary to win the support of the independents who cannot be whipped so the government has to make a compelling argument to carry the day - as it should be.

The party system in the Commons has corrupted democracy, we shouldn't allow them to corrupt it further in the Lords