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How should Gordon Brown get the jobless back to work? - Telegraph

I love these comments - here you can see how the mind (I use the term loosely) of your typical Daily Telegraph reader works. I'm sorry to report that many of these thoughts don't stray too so far off from ideas first propagated by those oh - so enlightened souls (cough) in the German Nazi party...

How should Gordon Brown get the jobless back to work? - Telegraph coments

Just a couple of things I'd like to draw attention to - like how many MPs and county councilors claim quite unjustifiably high expenses*, and how many very wealthy landowners get EU subsides and UK taxpayers money for their farm land... and well, that's the just tip of the iceberg as far as tax-payers money is routinely wasted and/or mis-directed into the pockets of the already very wealthy. Yet who gets demonised the most? Oh yeah ... the poor get *all* the blame. [sarcasm] Of course it's so absolutely *their* fault by going around being poor the whole time - the bastards. They should stop being poor right this very second and then they'd be no problem - how dare they - The selfish bastards.

Aside from the warped and weird fantasy worlds the typical MP and the Daily Telegraph readers live in - when are we ever going to wake up to the plain stark fact that there are far more people in this country than there are actual jobs? And that it would help enormously if the working hours people do work were strictly curtailed, and a proper minimum wage put in place. Surely any business that can't afford to pay it's workers a decent living wage has no (cough) business being in business. Having the Government subsidize them in the form of tax credits etc. Only makes things worse.

and far more importantly - above all this - that it's actually NONE of the Governments business interfering in these matters. Especially since ALL Governments Tory or Labour - or whatever, only ever manage to mess everything up whenever they try. And why should that be? - it's because they always try to apply absurdly simplistic formulas to what are very complicated social trends. [this should come as no surprise given how breathtakingly stupid and totally clueless most MPs are - considering that they live from poll to poll, sound bite to sound bite, pandering to whatever they assume the likes of Daily Telegraph/Sun/Times reader are thinking - all for the sake of garnering a few more votes for themselves come the next election).

Links
Families due tax credit refund, say Tories.

Does an extra 17p an hour offer anything except more hardship?



* MP rents second home in London due to flashers on train.

BBC NEWS | UK | Golden Compass author hits back

The author of the book on which the new film The Golden Compass is based has hit back at critics who accuse him of peddling "candy-coated atheism".


Well - I guess if you're the sort of person who goes around believing a particular set of ancient fantasy stories are true - then it stands to reason you're going to be upset about other fantasy stories -whether new or ancient - because you might get them all confused. So of course it's a good idea as far as you're concerned to campaign against all other fantasy stories just in case you or anyone else gets them all mixed up. Certainly the very idea that anyone be allowed to think for themselves and be left to make their own minds up - is never a option.

Massively excellent opening titles - 1

1. Dexter.

The blood drop leitmotif. The wonderful, exquisite music - especially that final 'ting' that synchronizes perfectly with Dexter's wink. And Michael (breathtakingly - mouth-wateringly attractive) Hall in slo-mo -particularly when he pulls on his white t-shirt.

Comic Book Resources - CBR News: Alan Moore: Inside "The Black Dossier"

Comic Book Resources - CBR News: Alan Moore: Inside "The Black Dossier"

Focus: Is it time to panic about the money crisis?

Rough times ahead huh? None of this comes as any surprise to me.

Stupid things humans have been doing wrong for the past 50 years or so...

1. Grew an over-reliance on oil. It's led to much of the on-going craziness going on in the middle East. If they hadn't the oil money to buy weapons with - what a nice quiet peaceful place it would be.

Ever since the first big oil crisis scare of the 1970s - you would have thought the Western world would have been putting massive investment into researching into other ways of obtaining clean, non-polluting renewal power - there's enough choices: wind, solar, wave, geo-thermal, fuel-cells - but oooooh no. Instead we'll just wait until we've extracted every last drop of oil out of the ground first... Might as well -since it's too late to do anything about global warning now.

2. Allowing the growth and growth and growth of the personal motor car. With all it's attendant pollution. The need for parking space, roads, the congestion, the insane rush hour traffic. And all of it's impact on the environment and on people's health. The stupidity of vast out-of-town shopping retail mega markets... the growth of hideous soulless suburbs - I could go on.

3. Globalisation. Getting way too much our food supplies grown over in other countries. Getting India and China to make/produce most of our material goods. Now it's only starting to prove to be not such a great idea when fuel prices are steadily getting higher and higher. Which is now neatly canceling out the advantages of cheaper raw materials and those lower labour costs... D'oh.

4. Buying houses as financial investments rather than as homes to live in.

5. Property developers insistently building poorly insulated, energy inefficient houses. Well, you've got to keep the electricity and gas companies profits coming in haven't you? Can't have their share-owners going hungry.

6. Junk jobs. Things like advertising, telemarketing, you know the sort of thing. It's as if there's a whole sub-section of the population being hired to expressly annoy everybody else.

There's so much more ...but I need a rest now.

Focus: Is it time to panic about the money crisis?

Air passengers will be forced to give 53 pieces of personal information in new terror crackdown

Air passengers will be forced to give 53 pieces of personal information in new terror crackdown | the Daily Mail

Add this to the new biometric passports - with their linkage to the proposed ID cards and the National Identity database - and we're looking at a whole world of hurt. We will be chipped before long.

the things you see on flickr

Flickr: Photos from Janice Plastic Sissy

Baffling.

Here comes the start of the police state

Say Bye bye to being able to traveling about freely. Bye bye to being able to go about your business without some official busybody wanting to stop and search you on a whim. Say hello to the beginnings of the Police state.

Brown announces new security measures | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics

Just to put things in perspective - I wonder how many people died in car accidents over the past few years - compared to how many people died in terrorist attacks?

And secondly - I'm wondering how much all of this is going to cost - and thirdly if we'll end up seeing a few more innocent people being shot by over-anxious police?

The Dollhouse

Joss Whedon taps Eliza Dushku for new Fox series

Groc


Groc
Originally uploaded by Roc 78
hey - this isn't me!

(I wish I was that good lookin')