“Mounting anger has greeted food price inflation
of 21% in Egypt in the last year, along with 17%
rises in India and similar amounts in many other
countries. Prices in the UK have risen 22% in three
years.
“The governments of Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria,
Indonesia, Brazil and the Philippines have all warned
of possible food shortages next year, citing floods
and droughts in 2010, expected extreme weather next
year, and speculation by traders who are buying
up food stocks for release when prices rise.
“Food prices worldwide are not yet at the
same level as 2008, but the UN's food price index
rose 5% last month and now stands at its highest
level in two years.
“World wheat and maize prices have risen
57%, rice 45% and sugar 55% over the last six months
and soybeans are at their highest price for 16 months.”
“Thirdly, the IFS bar charts appear to take
no account of dynamic effects.”
—
“ The Institute has walked straight into a
trap – partly, though not wholly of its own
making – of equating a progressive change
to tax and benefits with “fairness”.
The rationale appears to be that if any particular
policy makes, say, the rich 5% worse off and the
poor just 4% worse off, this is “fair”.
Whereas a policy which makes the poor 5% worse off
but the rich merely 4% worse off is “unfair”.
”
“We have had some occasions recently of BBC
News staff using social networking sites to share with
the world their somewhat controversial opinions on matters
of public policy and the future of the BBC. Unsurprisingly,
these have been picked up by the wider web and used
to discredit the BBC and its impartiality. We have Editorial
Guidelines which cover the personal use of the internet
…which everyone should observe. We also have brains
and judgement which I suggest people fully engage before
rushing to communicate. Hx” [Director of BBC News!]
—
“What she appears to be saying to Beeboids is
“keep your opinions to yourself” lest the
truth gets out.” [Guido]
Juan Williams has now been given
a $2 million contract by Fox News.
Even those lefties that are not too insane
to make sentences are backing him.
“What was Mr. Williams's sin? He admitted, with
apparent chagrin, that he has engaged in a kind of racial
profiling in the years since the Sept. 11 attacks: "When
I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people
who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are
identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims,
I get worried. I get nervous.”
“When, at the age of 14, he was selected as
the youngest member of Team GB at the Beijing Olympics,
Tom was subjected to a campaign of constant bullying.
Far from celebrating his achievements, his classmates
dubbed him "Speedo boy" and taunted him endlessly.
One of his fellow pupils even promised to break his
legs in the hope of cutting short his athletic career.
“Tom spoke with surprising maturity about it
last year, just before his 15th birthday. "Since
I got back from the Olympics, people have been taking
the mickey," he said, "and it has escalated
to levels I just can't stand any more. Fair enough,
I expect mickey-taking and I'm not precious about what
I do. But it has got worse and worse: people chucking
stuff at me on a daily basis, emptying my pencil case
on the floor for the hell of it.
“ "If I have to stand up in class for any
reason, I get called names and made to look stupid.
It has got to the stage where I can't go to school and
be normal. I don't think my diving has been affected
but then again if I go to training in a bad mood, perhaps
it has."
“In the end, the harassment and intimidation
became so relentless that Tom's parents were forced
to take him out of Eggbuckland and send him to a fee-paying
school instead. I'm happy to say that Tom has now settled
at Plymouth College, a centre of sporting excellence
with a number of national athletes among its ranks.”
The longest tunnel (57 km) on the planet breaks
through after 14 years of toil.
This tunnel displaces the current world record holder, the 58-km Seikan Tunnel in Japan.
Price: 7 billion euro.
The Channel Tunnel is 50.45 km long, 38 km being under the sea.
Cost: £9 to 10 billion, but it is difficult to be precise with all the finagling, re-financing
and inflation since that time.
Cost of the London Olympics: £12
billion and counting.
A glorified tent - the Millenium Dome/O2 Arena: £1½
billion.
Some day, someone will investigate
where the money really goes!
[1 euro is .88 of £1 this day
(£1 is 1.137 euro).]
“The 9.8 billion Swiss franc (7.0 billion euro)
tunnel is part of a larger project to shift the haulage
of goods from roads to rails, spurred mainly by a concern
that heavy trucks were destroying Switzerland's pristine
Alpine landscape.
“ "The heat and exhaust fumes from the trucks
traveling over the Gotthard pass each year damage plants,
which are more sensitive at higher altitudes,"
Thomas Bolli from Swiss the environmental group Alpen
Initiative told Deutsche Welle.
“Another problem is the noise pollution. Sound
waves can travel much further in an upward direction.
“ "On the top of a mountain, you can hear
the motorway 3000 meters below you, which obviously
has a negative impact on people living in the mountains,"
Bolli added.
“1.2 million trucks cross the Swiss Alps each
year and about a million of them pass through the Gotthard
tunnel. It's hoped that the number of freight vehicles
will be halved once the Gotthard rail tunnel opens in
2017.
“Around 300 trains should be able to speed through
the Gotthard's twin tubes every day, at up to 250 kilometers
per hour for passenger trains, according to planners.”
[Quoted from dw-world.de]
“Making a speech at a Tory gathering would have
seemed utterly unthinkable only a few years ago. When
I began my teaching training in London, having graduated
from Oxford, I was firmly on the political Left. Indeed
I even flirted with the ultra-radical Socialist Workers
Party.
“ Moreover, as someone of Caribbean heritage,
I swallowed the fashionable Left-wing view that low
levels of achievement by too many black pupils were
entirely the result of racism and deprivation.
“ But working in south London schools over the
past ten years has opened my eyes to reality. It hasn't
diminished my passion for teaching but I now see that
my past ideology was hopelessly wrong-headed and naive.”
[Quoted from dailymail.co.uk]
Also, PC is under attack.
“A sea change is sweeping British politics.
After years of political correctness, in which the truth
about so many areas of our life was censored, it is
at last becoming permissible to speak with candour about
some of our most deep-seated problems.
“Consider. Six months ago, not one front-bencher
of any party would have dared raise the question of
parents’ responsibility to stop having children
they have no intention of supporting.” [Quoted
from dailymail.co.uk]
The head that tried to suspend Birbalsingh is a Bliar
supporter. The head had described Bliar as ‘the
most wonderful Prime Minister in the world, after joining
him on stage as he announced his bid for re-election.
Later she denied having said that and admitted she feared
the school had been ‘used by Labour’. [Paraphrased
from dailymail.co.uk]
Note: Katherine Birbalsingh has now been re-instated.
Video of what the suspended teacher actually said at
the Conservative conference.
