"For several months from the end of June most banks, building societies and Post Offices should accept Elgar £20 notes for deposit to customer accounts and for other customer transactions, although the choice to exchange the notes rests with each institution."(My emphasis)
"Only in the public sector is an increase a cut. The current debate over public spending is bogged down in the parade of the bleeding stumps..."Orde, he of the secretive, controversial and unaccountable super-quango, is claiming that it was "misleading in the extreme" to claim that current police numbers are "sustainable" in the face of proposed cuts but with no detail of those cuts he is clearly just staking a claim, getting his defence in early etc. A bleeding stump. The Home Secretary Theresa May told the same conference she would be "ruthless in cutting out waste, streamlining structures and improving efficiency" but that the 'cuts' amounted to a spending freeze or a reduction of only 1% or 2% (link through image to BBC).
Up to 2003, Venezuela was self-sufficient in meat, importing about 1% of its needs, but then the Chavez administration began regulating prices and local producers could not compete with the cheap Government imports.Venezuela now imports 50% of it's meat and this is related in a way to the local butcher's woes reported in the 'economic wars' link above. Anyway, as someone who worked for several years in that industry I find this fact astounding, and sad.
"It is no exaggeration, but rather an imaginative simile, to compare this game to World War II – World War II, that is, minus the participation of Churchill, Field Marshall Montgomery, Adolf Hitler, Herman Goering, and Douglas Bader, who like our own Frank Lampard, suffered from the handicap of not being able to use his legs in any effective way."Hat-tip: Scott Murray at the Guardian's World Cup coverage.
"Early Opus Dei flourished in the atmosphere of religious fervor within the winning side of the Spanish Civil War. Its founder, Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, was a strong supporter of the "Crusade" as the Spanish bishops labeled the war."The reason that this year may be different is that hopefully we will finally see the release of There Be Dragons, starring amongst others the lovely Olga, which of course means that even if the film is crap (though I doubt it), I won't care; hey, with that attitude I could be in OD!
"The match was locked at 59-59 in the final set after 10 hours of play when it was suspended because of bad light."
"It was not quite orange, but he stood out from those around him with a complexion that was certainly healthy but somehow didn’t quite match the life of long hours and office meetings that must be his lot these days. Has he been sailing on the quiet? Gardening?".Well I hope it isn't from a tanning salon (can you imagine the comments?). Talking of brownstuff, elsewhere, Brown (STILL missing!) buddy and bean-counter ex-chancellor Alistair Darling seems in two minds about Osborne's generally well-received budget (hat-tip Conservative Home); I suspect he he grudgingly approves of most of it but can't bring himself to say it; and what he does say reveals a lot: he says, on the BBC's Today this morning, that the budget was "not pain free" (weakly confirming what Osborne and others have been saying for ages!) and he says that if the government "gets it wrong" then the "consequences could be dire for many people and businesses." note the "IF"...also "I just wonder whether they'll be able to deliver some of this stuff"...again, he is not directly decrying the "stuff". Interesting.
"No prizes for guessing the only country at the World Cup without its own government, national public holiday and national anthem..."Table posted at from Campaign for an English Parliament HERE.
"...the only rational answer is the one famously given by Mao Zedong's foreign minister, Zhou Enlai, when asked about the significance of the French Revolution: "It's too early to say."
"America right now appears to be unreliable to traditional friends, compliant to rivals, and weak to enemies. One renowned Asian leader stated recently at a private dinner in the United States, 'We in Asia are convinced that Obama is not strong enough to confront his opponents, but we fear that he is not strong enough to support his friends.'"Steyn's own piece is just as interesting although far funnier! About 'The Medicority of Hope': "Only the mediocre are always at their best." (Jean Giraudoux), "Can Obama plug leak in his support?" [OCRegister] Very amusing and basically summing up just how disappointing - and parataxic - Obama is being (funnily enough that's something I always thought about Blair). More interesting however, is the 'call to arms' Steyn gives in his final paragraph:
"Memo to Secretary Rodham Clinton: Do you find yourself of a quiet evening with a strange craving for chicken dinners and county fairs in Iowa and New Hampshire, maybe next summer?...
..."It Takes A Spillage."
Quite so but the problem remains: most people are now talking about Bavaria Beer and linking to their website...no mention at all of the official beer sponsor Budweiser! See here, a perfect case in point from the BBC: discussion and various mentions for Bavaria and a link in the righthand sidebar to 'Related Internet Links'....and the very nice image (right).."Edit: June 16, 2010 I have noted the oranged dresses incident and although FIFA might claim ambush marketing by Bavaria Beer, what these enforces fail to understand is that now they have generated more publicity for the offending brand. Secondly these enforcers have diluted their own brand by coming down so strong on offenders. In this Bavaria Beer incident, what damage is done to Budweiser and its brand. Do people say: Those Budweiser people are enforcing their rights? Or do people realise that it is FIFA? I would seriously question the sponsorship investment value of such an event considering the damage that might be sustained by my brand as FIFA 'protects' its event.
However, what other solutions are there for FIFA?.
'What are you looking at me like that for?' said the only survivor...OK, I just made that up.."In 1901, eight orchid hunters went to look for rare orchids in the Philippines. One of the hunters was eaten by a tiger, another had oil spilled on him and was burned alive, and five others vanished completely. The man who survived the ordeal collected 7,000 orchid specimens" [Wiki, click on image].
So the idea of moving the window is usually from 'the sides': ideas that maybe fringe or extreme will not usually be in the window because "[Politicians] will do what they feel they can do without risking electoral defeat, given the current political environment shaped by ideas, social movements and societal sensibilities." Knowing Glenn Beck there is no doubt what the book will really be about (not a well kept secret!): conspiracy theories galore involving a drastic shift to the left; Obama (thinly disguised) will be helping the spread of Socialism - and worse - in the U.S.A. I could be wrong.
"...politicians typically don't determine what is politically acceptable; more often they react to it and validate it. Generally speaking, policy change follows political change, which itself follows social change"
Hat-tip: Guido
"This was pure Gordon," harrumphs my man in Whitehall. "Quite prepared to make the big sacrifices – so long as it wasn't him who actually had to make them."
"These boys hot footed it straight to Fife to the offices of the 'Front Page Campaign' where they reported that the shop keeper was currently failing to keep these titles on the top shelf contrary to the Indecent Displays (Control) Act 1981. They knew their rights."
