For anyone with $6,000 to spare: a state-of-the-art computerised toilet. The good news: there's a jack into which you can plug your iPod. The bad news: like any computer-controlled device, it can crash. You may have to reboot your toilet.
By Christopher Sams Ba (hons) PGCThere are many arguments and discussions about where Nazism sat on the political spectrum and the age old belief that Fascism and Nazism were the final expression of the Right is being challenged by historians who point to the Socialist policies and the deep involvement in the state as an expression of the left akin to Stalin's regime in Russia. Indeed the article by Dr John Ray (here) that I was sent tries to link the two in quite a general way but his arguments can be quite flawed. Nazism was reactionary rather than a ...
I've not been well today, so here is an easy choice. "Every Mother's Son" is taken from Traffic's 1970 album John Barleycorn Must Die.
Good news from the Party today that the investigation will NOW be "independently chaired". Why such an obvious decision was not easily made at the outset is concerning. From what I can gather, they seem to have taken this decision without any conversation with the women concerned [but will happily be stand corrected]. But it is good to hear that our concerns (and others) were listened to. Special mention here goes to Stephen Tall , who piled in behind us on Friday. No news yet on who the "independent Chair" is to be or how they will be appointed. Questions: ...
[View the story "Eastleigh by-election: 24 February, featuring biscuits, balloons and cake" on Storify] Eastleigh by-election: 24 February, featuring biscuits, balloons and cake Storified by Mark Pack· Sun, Feb 24 2013 12:54:24 The day started with a new poll: ++ Another new Eastleigh poll – and this time it shows the Tories in front by 4% | Stephen TallLast night brought news of a Populus poll for The Times showing the Lib Dems ahead of the Tories by 33%-28%, a Lib Dem lead of 5%. But to... However that poll really is almost as tight as they can come: Raw ...
It's just over an hour since we published Nick Clegg's statement concerning the allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour levelled against Lord (Chris) Rennard. Here are some quick, initial thoughts: 1) Nick Clegg has stuck by his position, repeated earlier today by Vince Cable and Danny Alexander, that he "did not know about these allegations until Channel 4 informed the party of them shortly before they were broadcast." However, he was aware of "indirect and non-specific concerns about Chris Rennard's conduct" in 2008, his first year as party leader. He asked Danny Alexander to put these allegations to Chris Rennard, who ...
"The allegations made on Channel 4 concerning Lord Rennard last Thursday were extremely serious and distressing to the women involved. It is critical they are investigated thoroughly and dealt with properly and they will be. But I would like to make one thing crystal clear. I did not know about these allegations until Channel 4 informed the party of them shortly before they were broadcast. I have today spoken to one of the women in the broadcast who I respect and admire and who confirmed that she had never raised the issue with me. I am angry and outraged at ...
The following statement by Nick Clegg has just been issued: The allegations made on Channel 4 concerning Lord Rennard last Thursday were extremely serious and distressing to the women involved. It is critical they are investigated thoroughly and dealt with properly and they will be. But I would like to make one thing crystal clear. I did not know about these allegations until Channel 4 informed the party of them shortly before they were broadcast. I have today spoken to one of the women in the broadcast who I respect and admire and who confirmed that she had never raised ...
I have run this blog for just over a year and it has had nearly 10,000 views and I have written over 100 posts – a reasonable effort for a clearly subjective and politically biased local blog. I have given my personal view of the various issues that affect our area as well as comment on ...
On Thursday Glasgow University held a mock-referendum on whether Scotland should, or should not, be an independent nation. This allowed Yes Scotland, Better Together and large sections of the media opportunities to make much of the campaigning and the result itself, most of which is plainly overplaying the significance of a rather trivial event. There was nothing particularly surprising or newsworthy about the mock-referendum or the outcome, in which 967 students (37.3%) voted "Yes" to independence, with 1614 (62.7%) voting "No". The first - and most obvious - lesson to be learned from this is the obsession the media has ...
Having spent most of the last week in Eastleigh I only caught snippets of the Rennard story, but it appears to be another case of what is a universal human failing, the belief that anything brushed under the carpet will not eventually come back and bite you in the bottom. And having witnessed the hundreds of volunteers who have, at their own expense, piled into Eastleigh - and the hundreds more working tirelessly on the phone banks - what really angers me is the thought that those in positions of power in the party appear to care little for the ...
[IMG: image] All, The next meeting of Shipston Town Council's Planning Group is tomorrow (Monday) at 7pm in New Clark House. As always, members of the public are welcome, particularly those who have an interest in any of the applications. The agenda is: 13/00294/REM Land At Stratford Road Shipston-on-Stour – Submission of reserved matters (appearance, layout, landscaping and scale) pursuant to planning permission ref: 11/00728/OUT in respect of the erection of 15 no. dwellings and associated vehicular garages; provision of public open space; provision of Local Area of Play (LAP); provision of car parking. 13/00352/TEL56 – STREET RECORD Market Place ...
In today's Observer, Nick Clegg makes the case once again for a mansion tax to be introduced as the most effective way of spreading the pain of austerity. In fact, he goes a bit further saying it is inevitable: Victor Hugo observed that it is near impossible to resist an idea once its time has come. Last week, he was again proved right as calls for a mansion tax, first proposed by the Liberal Democrats in 2009, gathered new momentum. ... I offer certainty: the mansion tax, or a version of it, will happen. My party has often led the ...
With B and F at the Three Tumuli of Grimde earlier. The Tumuli are three first- or second-century graves on the outskirts of the town of Tienen; one is known to have been the tomb of a Marcus Probius Burrus. Excavations in 1892 produced among other things a cameo of a young man, assumed to be the Emperor Augustus, which was sold to the Rothschilds, stolen by Göring, and eventually tracked down in Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, in 2007. B and F did not care about that, and B was in an exceptionally good mood and seemed unusually lucid, though it ...
The worlds gone crazy, surely, BBC once respected for a perceived honesty, is in my view, no more honest or objective than the Murdoch press, in fact probably less so, populated and run by smug airhead institutionalised types that frequent our tax funded state and public sector. Having watched news over the last few days, you cannot help notice, how trivial news coverage has become, hours have been spent covering Oscar Pistorius, (of course the allegation of murder is serious as it is tragic), however this morning at just after 9 once the big story of the day some catholic ...
"No I won't vote for you," the man growled as he began to shut the door in my face. "Why..." I began to say. "In a word," he snarled, "Jewellery Tax." And the door was slammed shut. I was rather glad. It was the last doorstep of the day and overall it had been a good afternoon. I'd met a lot of retired people, mothers at home for half-term and home workers. And a good number had pledged their votes. The evening was spent with Melissa putting my Focus newsletter together. It was rather fun. I'd gathered a fair few ...
This is a post I've been trying to write for a little while now, but I'm still finding it really difficult to put my thoughts into words. I hope that my post title sums it all up – there should be absolutely no place for bigotry and hate speech, regardless of the faith, gender, sexual orientation, politics or any other social construction a person uses to define their identity. Well, so much so obvious I suppose, but I've seen a couple of examples of bigotry and hate speech in the last few weeks that have really surprised me – because ...
Sexual harassment allegations around former Chief Executive Lord Chris Rennard has made this another miserable week for the Liberal Democrats. It's fair to say that few in the Westminster bubble were hugely surprised when the allegations against Chris Rennard were made public on Channel 4 this week. That's not to say I know whether or not ...
The City Council's fortnightly green waste collection service restarts tomorrow, Monday 25th February. Labour plan to charge you £35 a year for the service when wheelie bins are introduced next year, but for the time being the collections remain free.
January's figures show seasonally adjusted unemployment continuing its fall nationally, regionally and in Birmingham. Nationally the seasonally adjusted Unemployment Benefit Count fell by 12,500 to 1,540,900, it fell by 1,500 in the West Midlands to 158,900 and by 321 to 48,213 in Birmingham. The unadjusted figures rose as they usually do in January. Birmingham's unadjusted figure was up 676, with Acocks Green's unadjusted figure up 31 to 1,204. This is, however, down 63 on the same month a year ago. The Acocks Green figure includes 376 who have been unemployed for over a year and 316 18-24 year olds. Both ...
Found on Twitter via @OllyGrender and @BelindaBG.
The Luton Dunstable busway has a £5.2 million funding gap. Councillors will discuss figures on Tuesday this week. Luton and Central Bedfordshire Councils are supposed to be paying £9.83m towards the overall cost of the project which is predominantly being paid for by Central Government. But they still have to find more than £5m. Liberal Democrat Leader at Luton Borough Council, David Franks, is quoted in today's Luton on Sunday, as saying "It is no surprise to me that the busway looks like leaving a £9.3m headache. The scandal is that none of the senior Labour councillors seems to have ...
Really productive chat with @raffi - think we came up with a solution to the hashtag problem #WarbleCamp 08/05/2010 15:40 via dabrReplyRetweetFavorite @edent Terence Eden One of the things which never happened was "backporting" entities. Tweets which were made before entities were switched on are stuck with no metadata. So if you're trying to examine your archive for hashtags, links, etc - you'll have a hard time. A perfect example is this early tweet about Twitter annotations. Even on the Twitter website, the URL isn't automatically linked. Comparisons to Other Services Facebook, for all its failings are pretty good at ...
Just one issue dominates Nick's weekly letter: the Eastleigh by-election and the close contest between the Lib Dems and Tories. Here's his letter in full... [IMG: libdem letter from nick clegg] Five days. That is all we have got left to make sure the people of Eastleigh send Mike Thornton to Westminster as their new MP. Five days to make a difference. I went back to Eastleigh this week. And each time I visit, I am overwhelmed by the number of volunteers, from all over the country, who are giving up their spare time to come and support our excellent ...
Dear Chris, [IMG: nick_light.png] Nick Clegg Leader of the Liberal Democrats
Today's Observer reports that Nick Clegg has accused David Cameron of being "stuck in the past" for opposing a mansion tax. They say that this signals that the Liberal Democrats are ready to challenge the Tories more vigorously over key aspects of economic policy: The Lib Dem leader says plans for a mansion tax on properties worth more than £2m, recently backed by Labour, is an idea "whose time has come" and says it is a "certainty" that some levy on high-value properties will be introduced soon. "The Conservatives and opponents of fairer taxes have a choice," Clegg writes. "They ...
For years and years when Chancellor, Gordon Brown used the mantra of "no more boom and bust" often with a "Tory" thrown into the middle of that sentence for good measure but the message was clear. He thought he had abolished the natural economic cycle. This utter hubris came back to bite him hard in the posterior when in 2008 we saw the start of what has become the worst economic crisis in several generations. Brown had hitched himself to a huge hostage to fortune and had lost the bet. He didn't need to do it and in hindsight it ...
This week's letter to members from Nick Clegg features the Eastleigh by-election: Five days. That is all we have got left to make sure the people of Eastleigh send Mike Thornton to Westminster as their new MP. Five days to make a difference. I went back to Eastleigh this week. And each time I visit, I am overwhelmed by the number of volunteers, from all over the country, who are giving up their spare time to come and support our excellent candidate Mike. Our HQ is buzzing with people and among the army of activists you can spot Vince, Shirley, ...
Today's press makes grim reading for the Lib Dems. Three of the Sunday papers lead on the allegations that Lord (Chris) Rennard behaved sexually inappropriately during his time as chief executive, and — more worrying still — that the party covered it up. Nick Clegg faces claims of cover-up over party 'sex pest' (Independent) Liberal Democrats hit by new raft of sex pest claims (Telegraph) Lib Dems deny Nick Clegg knew of Lord Rennard claims (BBC News) On Friday I published an opinion piece Chris Rennard allegations – the party needs to do better than this, arguing the party needed ...
A coachload of London Liberal Democrats went down to Eastleigh yesterday, where we found the by-election headquarters a hive of activity; apparently nearly 500 volunteers from all over the country went through the doors during the day. I don't remember such a positive buzz about a by-election since the early days of the Liberal-SDP Alliance, ...
The Sunday morning papers make grim reading for the Lib Dems...and George Osborne.
I used Google Glass: the future, with monthly updates | The Verge Want... (tags: ) Train like an Olympian: Ellen White's circuit training Really useful and interesting (tags: ) Wave the jazz hands and hope for the best Tim Harford on how politicians hope the electorate approach tax (tags: ) Gove's proposed history curriculum forgets that we live in 2013, not the 1950s | Anna's Words and Worlds (tags: ) Run For Your Wife review A fabulous review of Danny Dyer's less-than-impressively profitable new film. (tags: ) Revealed: the Lib Dem Whistleblower Procedure Useful information for anyone who wants to ...
From today's Sunday Times via @suttonnick: [IMG: Ashcroft will not fund Tories - Sunday Times]
Following Alicia Keys appearance in this slot last week, I came across this video whilst preparing a future entry in my NOW! That's What I Call A Tune! series. I've previously lamented being unable to find this version online, so was delighted to find it. Enjoy: Andrew
Residents in Shaftesbury Place have contacted me about the lack of a lantern on a street lighting column at the east end of the street - see right. I contacted the City Council's Street Lighting Partnership about this and have been advised as follows: "I have looked into this ... and the column was installed but the lantern was left off because of construction works in the area. "Now the construction works are complete I will add this to the programme and have the lantern fitted and the supply connected."
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