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As you all know, yesterday Britain enjoyed Royal Wedding fever...the Sun (photo credit) shone and a great day was had by all! Wow! Couldn't they wait?

Owing, overspending, optimism...

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And other tales...apologies in advance for link fest. Catching up on all the news!  "Repayments are made over a long time scale, usually between 25 and 30 years but occasionally as long as 60 years, but at a high rate of interest... That meant that large debts were stored up for future taxpayers – which now have to be repaid... Under a Treasury slight of hand, PFI debts do not form part of the deficit balance sheet." [DT]

Carrier costs up nearly two billion...that's a 30% increase! [Guardian]

Costs of 'benefit cheats' becoming clear: "Sickies: Three-quarters fit to work": figures covering a period from October 2008 to August 31 2010 for the ESA (employment and support allowance) - the successor to to the old incapacity benefit - showed what most of us suspected [Yahoo News - PA]

"How Council Tax payers have funded £35 million of Trade Union salaries over the past three years": The total salary bill over the three year period for full-time union reps was £35 million. This does not include the cost of employing someone else to do the job vacated by the union reps. [Conservative Home]. As THIS image shows, most of the worst are Labour or are Labour led.

The UK economy grew...barely, but George Osborne is right to say it "is particularly good news that manufacturing is growing so strongly" and that "Jobs have been created since the New Year and government borrowing is down". Of course Balls spat his dummy. [BBC]

Deargate: a further sign that Labour are acting desperate...Dear dear. Oh, and the snubbed couple: poor dears!

If you're in England I hope you enjoy your second long 4-day weekend in the last fortnight!

Obvious obelus?...

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EU to be terminated? Literally or figuratively. IMHO neither sounds like a bad outcome. "I feel terrific about where I am in my life, when I look back at what I’ve accomplished...But I feel shitty when I look at myself in the mirror... ...The great thing about my life is that whenever I was getting bored, something new always came up".

No, he couldn't, could he?

Hat-tip: Cranmer Via: Business Insider Source: Newsweek.

Obvious oblectation...

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Email doing the rounds; most of it is stuff rehashed from similar messages of different countries and governments over the years but ALL of it is true enough and funny...and would probably work! Addressed to David Cameron:"Please find below our suggestion for fixing England's economy.

Instead of giving billions of pounds to banks that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan, you can call it the 'Patriotic Retirement Plan': there are about 10 million people over 50 in the work force: pay them £1 million each severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire: ten million job openings - unemployment fixed
2) They MUST buy a new British car: ten million cars ordered - car industry fixed
3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage: housing Crisis fixed
4) They MUST send their kids to school/college/university: crime rate fixed [ahem...]
5) They MUST buy £100 WORTH of alcohol/tobacco a week - and there's your money back in tax etc
6) [edited out by Ows...clearly not in the same vein and added on by some Green activist]

P.S. If more money is needed, have all members of parliament pay back their falsely claimed expenses and second home allowances"
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Also: Grumpies of the World Unite: let's put the pensioners in jail and the criminals in a nursing home; this way the pensioners would have access to showers, hobbies and walks. They'd receive unlimited free prescriptions, dental and medical treatment, wheel chairs etc and they'd receive money instead of paying it out. They would have constant video monitoring, so they could be helped instantly, if they fell, or needed assistance. Bedding would be washed twice a week, and all clothing would be ironed and returned to them. A guard would check on them every 20 minutes and bring their meals and snacks to their cell and they would have family visits in a suite built for that purpose. They would have access to a library, weight room, spiritual counselling, pool and education. Simple clothing such as shoes, slippers and pajamas would be free, on request; so would legal aid! Private, secure rooms for all with an exercise outdoor yard and probably with gardens. Each senior could have a PC a TV radio and daily phone calls. There would be a board of directors to hear complaints and the guards would have a code of conduct that would be strictly adhered to.

Conversely, the criminals would get cold food and be left all alone and unsupervised. Lights off woudl be at 8pm with showers once a week. They'd live in a tiny room and pay hundreds of pounds each week for the privilege...and have no hope of ever getting out.

Think about this (more points of contention):
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COWS: is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Appleby almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the county of Cumbria? And, they even tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 125,000 illegal immigrants wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow.
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THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION: they keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq; why don't we just give them ours? It was drawn up by a lot of really smart guys, it has worked for centuries and we're not using it anymore.
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THE 10 COMMANDMENTS: the real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments posted in a courthouse or Parliament, is this: you cannot post 'Thou Shalt Not Steal', 'Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery' and 'Thou Shall Not Lie' in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians because it creates a hostile work environment!
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[And finally the 'please send on' bit of this type of message]
"Think about this: if you don't want to forward this for fear of offending someone YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM! It is time for us grumpy old folk of Britain to speak up!"

Overriding obsecrations...

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A great postscript to my previous post on how to check up on the poor quality of the media in general and guess what, it involves media control in Venezuela too: today they celebrate the 201st anniversary of the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence (1810, during the First Republic); during the ceremonies the Venezuelan Comptroller has said that "the private media are a danger to society" and "people should make great efforts not to be misled by the media...because they are permanently distorting reality to bewilder people.". His name? General Clodosbaldo Russián. No, I didn't just make that up.

Update: Poor old Clodosbaldo, he died a few days later...

Outing obvious online "over-reporting"...

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One for "My Favourites": Churnalism.com (an independent, non-profit website built by the Media Standards Trust) to help distinguish between original journalism and "churnalism" - "a news article that is published as journalism, but is essentially a press release without much added." The site allows you to explore the copy and pasting of today's media "masters".

Hat-tip: Katabasis

Obtenebrating officials...

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When the Labour Party, as HMG, brought in rules to allow public sector employees to work for their Unions (in this case UNISON) - full time - but be funded by the taxpayer, this sort of hoo-hah was just waiting to happen; the only surprise is that there haven't been more - and blatant - examples up to now.

"The TPA have found 2,493 Pilgrims across the public sector. Full time union officials, paid not to provide the service they represent, but instead do political activities that should be funded by the unions. Without having to pay their staff, the unions can spend the money raised through their subs on other things, like keeping the Labour Party solvent. Other lobbying groups don’t get taxpayer subsidies. They are costing us millions and, as last week’s investigation showed, they are completely unaccountable..."

Source: Guido. TPA pdf: "Taxpayer funding of trade unions"

P.S. I'm not really a fan of this New Labour-perfected "attack the messenger" spin-thing but they should have seen this one coming.

On octane...

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Just added the image I promised; if you enlarge it you can see the 'ghost' of Ows. For some reason I couldn't upload it in the land of militias ** but now in Bogota my Blackberry works (odd really considering there are probably more Blackberrys in Venezuela than in the rest of the continent!).

** This is serious: "nobody ... can topple the revolution". Owsblog has rattled on about it for years: these militias are really in parallel and contra to the armed forces; mark my words, even if Chavez loses fair and square next year there will be blood.

Opportunity offers options...

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Not that many options weren't available before, they just weren't taken**. Up to now Silent Stan has lived up to that name leaving everything to the manager and chief executive to get on with running the club in the way they saw fit. Now U.S. billionaire Stan Kroenke has increased substancially his share of Arsenal Football Club triggering a bid for the club (The takeover laws state that a shareholder must launch a formal bid once his share is more than 29.99%) "...will Kroenke's deeper pockets now lead to a rethink, especially if Arsenal end the season potless again?"

A few important points: 1. Arsenal Supporters' Trust have said that Stan Kroenke has a good relationship with them and recently supported the fanshare scheme: "it is really important that supporters remain involved in Arsenal's ownership structure." 2. The offer will not be funded by way of any debt finance and 3. Arsene says that SK "understands the club's heritage and traditions and our ambition to run the club in a way which protects our long-term future". [Int. Business Times]

What about short term trophy cabinet filling?...we shall see. A couple of old hands wouldn't go amiss to steer the young guns. Is Tony Adams fit?

**"The fact is that Wenger chooses not to spend the money he has at his disposal, preferring to develop young talent than to follow the spend or bust approach of Chelsea and Manchester City."

Otiose obganiation...

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It may serve no useful purpose to constantly repeat the same thing but I hope he keeps it up! Dan asks, in reference to the probable total of 4.2 billion quid (enough to cover the basic salary of 180,575 police constables - there are 170,000 police officers in the UK - for example) that will be the UK's share of the Portugal bail-out,

"So where is the 'March for the Alternative'? Where are all the students, Socialist Workers and trade union activists who thronged through London just a couple of weeks ago?... ...So where is the TUC? Where is UK Uncut? Where are all those who asserted last month that a much smaller sum meant the end of social security in Britain? Are they missing something? Or am I?"

Update: Just a reminder too that MEPs have just voted to keep all their perks and reject cost-cutting measures.

Octane offer...

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Well not an offer; the normal price. A friend topped up the petrol tank of his Toyota Samurai: 43 litres of "high octane" fuel (i.e. the most expensive) was BF4.2 or about 1 (one) dollar US. Because of the black market for Dollars/Euros etc you can get a up to BF9 for a dollar...let's call it BF8.4: that makes it 50 dollar cents for those 43 litres; remember, this is the normal price. Picture to follow if I can upload it! Two weeks ago I paid just under sixty euros for more or less the same volume, about 170 times more!

Outdating obscure original...

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The Google doodle today is about the origin of the ice-cream sundae; to be clear they refer to just the term "Sundae" because flavoured ice (literally) and snow have been around for millennia and iced cream (literally) with fruit has been around for centuries; also, ice-cream has been in the USA since before the USA existed as the USA and flavoured ice-cream existed at least seven decades before the 'controversy' and ice-cream sodas outdate it about a decade; so what we have here is the claims of who called it a "Sunday" first, and why! Ithaca, New York certainly have the most/best documented claim with several letters and ads from the period and even the probable reason for the spelling: a failed attempt to trademark the term "Sunday" but Evanston's claim with Richard Lloyd Jones' "Sunday soda" tale AND the history from Two Rivers Wisconsin (1881, so a decade earlier) have merit!

Yeah, yeah, I know it's obvious I don't want to take sides!