'The 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids have been hit by a series of corruption allegations resulting in the suspension of Nigerian Fifa executive Amos Adamu who allegedly guaranteed his vote for £500,000.'A Nigerian involved in allegations of corruption; whatever next!
'If a Rightie doesn't like guns, he doesn’t buy one.
If a Leftie doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.
.
If a Rightie is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat.
If a Leftie is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.
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If a Rightie is gay, he quietly leads his life.
If a Leftie is gay, he demands legislated respect.
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If a Rightie is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
A Leftie wonders who is going to take care of him.
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If a Rightie doesn't like what a media bod says, he changes channels.
Lefties demand that those they don't like be shut down.
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If a Rightie is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church.
A Leftie non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced.
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If a Rightie decides he needs sickness care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.
A Leftie demands that the rest of us pay for his.
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If a Rightie reads this, he will pass it on so his friends can have a good laugh.
A Leftie will delete it because he's "offended".'
'I am now getting slightly weary about the debate about whether the changes (which let’s not forget need to be made) or fair or not.Indeed?
Is it fair that next door there is the exact same house as what I reside in yet because they have 3 kids they get much more bang for their council tax buck? Is it fair that they have had child benefit for years when we have currently chosen not to have kids even though they clearly don’t need the money?
Is it fair that my wife and I both chose to get off our back sides and in an effort to get good jobs decide to commute around 250 miles a day? Is it fair that by doing this the £8,000 cost each will rise 3% plus RPI?'
'Approximately 490,000 jobs are estimated to be lost due to the effects of the Coalition Government’s spending review. About seven thousand of these are likely to come from the army. Whatever you think about these proposals for reductions in public spending (I’m broadly in favour), it is a fact that we have been told that these cuts are occurring because there is no other option. There’s no-where else to find them. They’re not ideological (I wish they were); they’re unavoidable.
…So why is the budget for international aid going up by 37%? To clarify, this means that next year the Department for International Development will spend eight billion pounds. Yes, eight billion. In 2012, this will be twelve billion. This is partly due to Cameron’s pre-election promises not to reduce international aid, and partly due to the government thinking such measures would be unacceptable to the compassionate, broadly liberal public. Where, then, does the money go? Well, department running costs will be slashed by a third and aid to Russia and China will be reduced to zero. European_flag_outside_the_Commission However, last year, around £94m went to the ‘Democratic’ Republic of the Congo. £297m went to India, a country with citizens in appalling poverty, the fourth-largest economy in the world, and a space programme. £56m went to Zimbabwe. We gave Russia about £200k (which is being cut). £1.2 billion went to the European Commission. We have been giving millions of pounds to countries that have the most deplorable human rights records in the world, countries where it is doubtful that the citizens will ever see it.'
'On Tower Hamlets council, we’re told, the IFE calls on allies who support its aims. It’s also accused of using its influence to help its friends rise to power. These friends include the Labour leader of the council – Lutfur Rahman.Hmmm...
Dispatches has been told that the IFE helped him win the support of Labour councillors.
...
Life at the Town Hall started to reflect religious practices and demands.
TED JEORY: Proceedings changed, they were adjourning more for prayer breaks, occasionally meetings cancelled during prayers, even during Ramadan as well.
And two years ago, councillors attending meetings which did go ahead during Ramadan were met with a new request, in an email from a council officer.
CLLR PETER GOLDS (Conservative), Tower Hamlets council: It suggested that all councillors should refrain from eating.
ANDREW GILLIGAN: So councillors felt they were being ordered not to eat during Ramadan.
CLLR PETER GOLDS: Yeah, and there was certainly an implication of that.
ANDREW GILLIGAN: What was your reaction to that?
CLLR PETER GOLDS: I wasn’t the councillor that raised it, but I was concerned because I do think we are, this is a multicultural borough and certainly the Muslim population is large and important but it is not the dominant culture in the borough.'
'the Union Modernisation Fund, which lives on despite its growing notoriety... uncovered 2,493 full time Union employees who are paid for by public sector bodies at a cost of £67.5 million a year.'So I was interested to read today in The Telegraph that:
'Some unions have been caught out telling their members to lie to their employers so they can attend anti-cuts demonstrations during office hours'Apparently:
'An undercover investigation by Priti Patel, Conservative MP for Witham, found that officials at unions were telling members how to campaign against the Government's cuts programme on the taxpayers’ time.Why do we allow the Trade Unions to get away with such practices? Why do we let the 'left' walk over us? And of course why are the BBC so singularly uninterested in reporting this story?
...
Ms Patel set up a bogus email account and contacted the officials, asking whether it was possible to attend demonstrations on “facility time" to carry out their union duties during office hours.
One official said she could be “economical with the truth about your use of the time you may be able to claim facilities time” while another suggested she could “pop it down as a union meeting and be creative about how you spend your union time”. '
'The BBC has again been accused of political bias by ensuring Question Time has audiences ‘hostile’ to government cuts.I recall reading on Biased-BBC a list of where Question Time had been broadcast from recently and there did seem to be a preponderance of Labour constituencies.
This week’s show was broadcast from the Labour stronghold of Middlesbrough, where 43 per cent of the workforce is employed in the public sector.
Many viewers were shocked at how much hostility was heaped on Philip Hammond, the Transport Secretary, during the show.
Next week the debate will be held in the Tory-free zone of Glasgow, while the following week it is due in Sheffield, where fury has raged since the election that an £80million government loan for a local steel plant, Sheffield Forgemasters, was cancelled by the Coalition.'
'After the audience grilling, a BBC producer was overheard telling Sir Richard Dannatt, a panellist and the former head of the Army, that the show was held in Middlesbrough because the audience would be the most hostile to the cuts.'If true this is a) unsurprising to those such as me but b) surely ground for the government imposing sanctions on the BBC. I note also that the Green's first MP has been a guest yet again, why so often?
'The UK was locked in to the £5.2bn aircraft carrier contract by an agreement signed by Gordon Brown in the final months of the Labour government, The Times has reported.Now why would the BBC not want to report this story?
...
According to The Times, Brown entered a 15-year terms-of-business agreement with BAE Systems in 2007 which guaranteed work for the shipyards on the Clyde and in Portsmouth. The deal was said to have been officially signed in 2009.
Coalition cabinet members have been publicly complaining about the terms of the agreement for several weeks.
The agreement was designed to maintain UK shipbuilding skills by preserving jobs.
...
A 'senior industry figure' quoted in the newspaper said: "Politics was central to this agreement, because if the carriers ever got cancelled it would have led to the closure of either the Clyde yards or Portsmouth.
"If Gordon Brown had not been Prime Minister or Chancellor the carriers would have been cancelled a long time ago."
Ian Davidson, Labour MP for Glasgow South West, said: "The unions at the Govan yard were relaxed about the carriers because they knew the company had the government over a barrel and the cancellation costs would have been so enormous. If the agreement had been broken, BAE could have sued the government."'
'The Fourth, Seventh and Ninth Doctor's perform on Britain's Got Talent (or more like Gallifrey's Got Talent). What will the judges think of their acts?
Another comedy crossover, with clips from Fourth Doctor debut story "Robot", Seventh Doctor in "Greatest show in the Galaxy" and Ninth Doctor from "The Empty Child". Also Tenth Doctor cameo (sorry I couldn't find a more substantial role for him, though I thought of "The Shakespeare Code" and the Globe Theatre part).'
'The German law professor heading the U.N. committee to enforce the Goldstone Report has a history of comparing Israeli actions with the “barbarism” and “inferno” of World War II, and should be removed for lack of impartiality by the U.N. Secretary-General and the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said a report submitted by UN Watch today to the world body’s Geneva office.
...
However, according to “Goldstone II,” the 29-page report by UN Watch, a Geneva-based monitor of the world body, Tomuschat’s credibility is severely impaired by his prior legal work for PLO leader Yasser Arafat, which Tomuschat said he “could not recall,” and by a series of public statements and writings that show his lack of impartiality on the Arab-Israel conflict.'
'For several months during Bill Clinton's administration, a former top military officer says the White House lost the card with a set of numbers for opening the briefcase containing the codes for a nuclear attack.
Gen Hugh Shelton, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, said in his new memoir, "Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior" that "the codes were actually missing for months. That's a big deal -- a gargantuan deal."'
'Former president Jimmy Carter was rumoured to have once left the '"biscuit" in a suit that was sent to the dry cleaners.'
'The next generation of Afghans is being radicalised by the Taliban - with children being ruthlessly exploited by the insurgents.'Islamist terrorists ruthlessly brainwashing children? "No shit, Sherlock".
"Endure, Master Wayne. Take it. They'll hate you for it, but that's the point of Batman, he can be the outcast. He can make the choice that no one else can make, the right choice. "Maybe that is the point of the Conservatives to do the right thing and so be hated.
