Overspending, overcrowding, overcompensating...

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Bad things come in three's, so the saying goes: 3 billion, 3 million, 3 hundred thousand...

The first is the increasing size of the 'black hole' in MoD procurement which "increased by £3.3billion in Labour's final year in office alone to reach around £36billion". [Link]

The second is no real secret and I've certainly banged on about it for years: 'Immigration Under Labour – Chaos or Conspiracy?' from Sir Andrew Green's Migration Watch press release: "It is no exaggeration to say that immigration under New Labour has changed the face of the country.":

"Every country must have firm control over immigration and Britain is no exception." Labour election manifesto 1997

From the Migration Watch briefing paper (PDF). Net immigration to the UK quadrupled under Labour, bringing more than 3 million immigrants to Britain (more than this arrived but of course some others left and also a million British citizens emigrated)...almost literally 'changing the face of the country'. Pressure on housing, pressure on schools, pressure on services. Pressure on spending.

The third, for those of you concerned about my lack of slagging for the Coalition, you know who you are: when David Cameron stripped Vince Cable of certain responsibilities re the BSkyB takeover - handing responsibility for the decision to media secretary and Conservative Jeremy Hunt - it cost the government (the taxpayer) £300,000. Not a lot in the great scheme of things BUT to quote one ex Chancellor when concerning the taxpayer's money (and the economy):

The Chancellor of the Exchequer should boldly uphold economy in detail; and it is the mark of a chicken-hearted Chancellor when he shrinks from upholding economy in detail, when because it is a question of only two or three thousand pounds, he says it is no matter. He is ridiculed, no doubt, for what is called candle-ends and cheese-parings, but he is not worth his salt if he is not ready to save what are meant by candle-ends and cheese-parings in the cause of the country. No Chancellor of the Exchequer is worth his salt who makes his own popularity either his consideration, or any consideration at all, in administering the public purse. In my opinion, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the trusted and confidential steward of the public. He is under a sacred obligation with regard to all that he consents to spend.

With thanks to Voyager, in the comments over at Cranmer's, oh, and to Gladstone...

"But let the working man be on his guard against another danger. We live at a time when there is a disposition to think that the Government ought to do this and that and that the Government ought to do everything..."

Orange oil original...

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The original recipe/formula for Coca-Cola is - apparently - "one of the most jealously guarded trade secrets in the world. Locked in a vault in Atlanta. Supposedly unreplicable". US Public Radio program This American Life has revealed what it believes is the original recipe for Coca-Cola. I was at the CC museum in downtown Atlanta at the end of January...just missed this news! Anyway, the press release last week describes how the show "found what appeared to be a copy of the famously guarded trade secret in a newspaper column published in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution on February 18, 1979." The TAL link above reveals part of the story and more more photos; click on image for PDF of the two part recipe - the syrup and the 'secret' 7X flavouring formula - and how to mix it. Apart from the syrup, the 7X flavour itself contains 7 ingredients: alcohol and six essential oils, of the total EO 60% is lemon and orange oils; 100% concentration food grade essential oils are needed; I have dozens of EO at work although not the fluid extract of coca - decocainized or not.

Unlike Paul (link to hat-tip), I love Coke (my fridge, today)...and as well as coin cleaning etc I remember well enough a primary school experiment forty years past seeing Coke dissolve teeth to nothing in a week. Hmmmm...

Hat-tip: One Page In A Library of Millions .

Photo: Detail of February 18, 1979 edition of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution

Obliged opt-out offer or obscene overpayment...

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South Somerset district Council: 162,000 residents...including my family. The ex Chief Exec, Phil Dolan was offered "voluntary redundancy" and paid £569,000 ; he had worked for the council for just 6 (six) years. The sum is made up of his normal salary of £157,000, a redundancy payment of £167,000 (not bad for 6 years) and an extra £239,000** into gold-plated pension scheme and - last and least - £6,000 for lost benefits (** to cover payments that would have been made had he continued working until...eh?). Worse than this princely sum, two others, both corporate directors, received 688 thousand between them: Mark Pollock got £380,000 (£52,000 in salary in 7 months, £112,000 for compensation for loss of office and £164,000 for his pension fund) and David Stapleton 308,000 (£56,000 in salary in 8 months, £121,000 for loss of office and £131,000 in pension contributions). Ignoring the salary that's more than a quarter of a million quid each for just over half a year's work. Anyway, that's the bad bit.

I suspect today's publishing was intentional after yesterday's report of SSDC agreeing 3 million in budget cuts for the coming year; more good news is that they will save £96,000 a year through a decision to share a chief executive with East Devon District Council and the local pool and gym complex - Goldenstones Leisure Centre - will run by a charitable organisation saving £210,000 a year. However, simple maths tells us that 4 years of these trumpeted savings have recently been paid out to these three ex-employees. Would that be "staggering" enough Ruth?

Update Sunday morning: "Can Eric Pickles force councils to do better?" [Link]

OFFO out of Outlaws?...

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Sky News tell us that Conservative Councillor Jim Mason (member on Tewkesbury Council and a former mayor) was/is a member of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club (Biking and Brotherhood since 1935, ). He apparently denied it but then said he had left a while ago although photos would suggest otherwise; so would the motto "Outlaws Forever Forever Outlaws"; the news people missed this which is odd since they wrote the other half: "God forgives, Outlaws don't". Had to laugh at the unintentional funny headline of one online news linker: "Outlaw biker accused of being a Tory Councillor", LOL! Club meets will never be the same again.

One orifice...

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Two cheeks (follow the AM link below and you'll see what I mean). A little less than month ago The Daily Mail, the only major UK daily newspaper with a growing - albiet small increase - circulation, published Peter Sissons' BBC bias bombshell onto a largely shocked and unsuspecting au fait public who in greater and greater numbers are realising that 'Auntie' isn't really all it should be. His comment "Left-wing bias? It's written through the BBC's very DNA" was IMHO a clear riposte to director of BBC News Helen Boaden's not quite accurate 'Impartiality is in our genes' comment. Peter Sissons was quite clear:

"I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told 'it's all in there'".

Considering that quote, and considering also that in some years the money spent on recruitment advertising for new staff in daily newspapers by the BBC has been over 80% spent in the Guardian** we should take note, especially given other known factors like that which Autonomous Mind reminds us of today (image credit also, click to enlarge):

"The disproportionate influence of the Guardian at the BBC"... ... "When given a choice of a national newspaper we can see that out of an average 10,197,331 copies sold each day during January 2011 (including bulk buys) less than 280,000 copies in the UK were the Guardian. That represents just under 2.74% of national circulation."... 

"That puts the Guardian's popularity, or lack thereof, in its proper context...

...What this also puts into context is the BBC's indefensible bias in only trawling a very narrow and self professed left wing pool when only using the Guardian to advertise vacancies."

** Scroll down DT Letters for an account of amounts, info obtained under FOI HERE.

Overflowing or overstating Orinoco Oil?...

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Venezuela's oil and gas bonanza is no secret but according to new figures updated and officially announced by the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum the proven oil reserves in traditional and offshore areas and crude oil from the Orinoco oil belt now total 296.5 billion barrels. Already the country with the largest reserves outside of the Middle East these new figures push it to the Number One spot in the world, over and above Saudi Arabia. (click on image to enlarge)

Of course it could all be hot air...speaking of which, in other Crusty news, Hugo has promised this weekend that [another] new social program called Mission Housing will build two million new dwellings in the next seven years; under at least two previous housing-related programs 284 thousand homes were built in 12 years; who's to say they won't succeed this time although [edit 7pm] the coincidence of the numbers doesn't bode well: they've built 284,000 in 12 years and now he's saying effectively that they're going to build that many every year for 7 years: maybe he meant 'housing' like THESE.

Odd oratio obliqua...

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Tough nut A.C. Milan bruiser and captain Gennaro Gattuso is more than a pretty face: he is a man of tongues: during an interview he talked about his violent outburst last night but also revealed that he can do what no Englishman - nor most Scots - can do:

"I lost control. There is no excuse for what I did... ...I was nervous. We were both speaking Scottish, something that I learned when I played in his home city of Glasgow..." [Link]

Obganiating obstriction...

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From Autonomous Mind with the hat-tip to Terry Smith re World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Competitiveness Report. After 13 years of Gordon's and New Labour's general and legislative shite-fest the WEF ranks [PDF 6MB] the UK 72nd out of 139 ("worse than Ethiopia and Tajikistan") on 'Wastefulness of government spending', 89th ("behind those paragons of good governance, Nigeria and Zimbabwe!") on the 'Burden of government regulation', 'National savings rate' the UK is 107th, 108th for 'Government debt',  117th for 'Government budget balance' and finally - out of 139 remember - 133rd in Soundness of banks! FFS! Heads on spikes please.

obganiate, v. - to irritate with reiteration
obstriction, n. - obligation

Yes, I find myself obliged to stubbornly repeat myself about how bad, mad and treacherous Brown was.

Outstanding objurgation of Obama's overseas obstipation...

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From Cranmer: Niall Ferguson tells it like it is on Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood. Outstanding..."And it is exceedingly unlikely that he will ever be asked back by MSNBC". I'll say; I wonder if they even regret their embarrassingly OTT bias and boot-licking - nay, ARSE-licking - sycophancy in the elections for POTUS.

Our opinions...oops...

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St. Valentine's Day but it is not love: info from the European Commission 2010 'Eurobarometer' poll (would Ireland have such high "good perception" if they took the same poll today?). Image link to Fraser Nelson's Spectator article.

Oz orange openers...

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"Environment Minister Lord Henley has been crowned this year's best marmalade maker at The World's Original Marmalade Awards and Festival" this weekend in Cumbria. His was chosen from the 1100 marmalades sent in - record number of entries that belied the 'glut' of recent headlines suggesting UK marmalade sales are falling...headlines I read about originally at Gildy's place and then (and about the contest) on a Spanish blog: Oppenblog (although the author does live in london). The Oz openers mentioned in the blog title was for a special award given to a team of 11 marmalade makers from Australia - winning the first ever 'MarmalAshes'! I always try to have some in stock - not always possible - usually homemade by a family friend; the picture illustrates how I like it best: crusty bread, plenty of butter - preferably melted in - and generous spread; hot tea as optional extra, hmmmmm...

Oncoming oligophagy II...

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Bit of a follow-up really to my post earlier this month on the FAO World Food Price Index. I mentioned in my comment the Mexican riots a few years ago due to the lack of corn for tortillas (sounds like a joke!) but this week a 'spell of unusually cold weather' in northern Mexico has severely damaged the maize crop' loses estimated to be over 10 percent of the country's annual harvest (maybe as high 16 percent) [BBC]. This, added to the drought disaster that could see 30% of Argentina's crop lost and the US Corn Reserves now lower than at any point in the last 15 years (despite last year's corn production being the third largest crop in U.S. history) and added to China's wheat woes (scroll down this article) after severe droughts in key wheat growing areas is all increasing the worries: prices going higher still and global reserves and supplies dwindling. Interesting times?

Update Monday 14th: talk of the Devil: Food 'panic' tests world [Link]

Overweight orphaned opossum on Oscars...

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"A cross-eyed, overweight opossum has won an unlikely starring role in coverage of this year's Oscars." Click on image to go to the BBC news article. Clearly following on from the great success of Paul - the late Oberhausen oracle octopus - another German Zoo, Leipzig, has twigged on a route to fame. The opossum, named Heidi - a German media sensation - has 300,000 Facebook fans and a global following; she will be on the US network ABC on Oscars night although she won't appear live...(no, no NOT dead, just not in the studio!). Originally from North Carolina anyway, where Heidi was found as an orphan, she should/could be a star.

Only options?...

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As was to be expected Councils are screeching about cuts and how the nasty, evil Tories are making them do this. It is - of course - bullshit. Prime example Dick Leese announced that "rubbish will only be collected once a fortnight, five libraries will be axed and the city will close all its public lavatories bar one. There was no other option"...We know this is not true, there are plenty of options rather than cutting frontline services; what is happeneing, blatantly so, is "that councillors are seeking to score ideological points by blaming the Tory-led government for the cuts, while ensuring their own lavish perks are protected." Read more here and here. Click on image to enlarge. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it's the DM.

Oakeshott's off over Osborne's offer...

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Lord Oakeshott is on his way...he and the party leadership agreed [Link]. Apparently he isn't happy about the the bank deal announced earlier by George Osborne. However, the fact that the "major banks will pay less in bonuses than last year, make the names of top earners public and will lend an additional £11bn to businesses" and have also agreed to increase lending to small and medium-sized businesses IMHO seems a good start! This is Money...Business Secretary Vince Cable added:

'Today's agreement is a good step forward for British business... ...will give the UK the most transparent financial regime in the world, while linking executive pay to lending gives businesses a crucial assurance that bank executives have a stake in the real economy.

'This is part of an ongoing process of reform of the banking sector. We are in no way pre-judging the big structural questions being addressed by the Independent Commission on Banking, including competition and the structure of banks."

Update Thursday 10th: Allister Heath agrees with the Lord methinks! City A.M. looks at "The top ten real causes of the crisis" and ends with this: "None of these points are addressed by Merlin. It deserves to fail." Oh well. I still think it's a good start!

Opting out of one's own 'origins'...

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Good blog post by David Skelton over at Platform 10. And interesting compared to what I posted this morning re Polly polemic and the concerted effort from the Left in it's attempted trashing of the "Big Society". "The response of the left towards the Big Society remains incoherent, disjointed and uncoordinated.".

"By failing to engage seriously in the Big Society agenda, the left is effectively disowning its own heritage. It is trying to suggest that the only relationship that matters is between the individual and the state."...By saying that the 'man in Whitehall knows best', the Labour Party continues to belittle the communities that gave birth to it."

Hat-tip: "Must be Read" Twitter feed!

Official onomatomania and onomatophobia

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Fear and/or preoccupation with certain words and names? It wouldn't be the first time. Liberal Vision asks "why has the BBC banned the term 'electoral reform'?". They link back to THIS article in the Independent and wonder at the lack of follow up. LV asks why or what is it about the term 'electoral reform' that would cause such a fuss when any other 'reform' is OK and reported freely..."the term that has been around longer than the BBC. It is part of the language of politics. Of democracy indeed. We all know what it means."?

"...why has the BBC decided in its infinite wisdom to ban the term now? On whose say so?...

The BBC should not be allowed to rewrite history, or skew the debate."

Obverting organisations...

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Polemic Polly provides proof positive of what we really already knew: that the UK's voluntary and charitable sectors is ridden with lobbying parasites living off the taxpayer. "The only proper role for the tax-funded voluntary sector is to do stuff." writes Raedwald; and relates how not only is the taxpayer paying for the elected councillors to take service decisions but also for "the lobbyists that seek to distort their decision making process. Insanity." Polly has proved - unintentionally - that many aren't 'doing stuff' - or at least not the right stuff - and that many are fake charities and pseudo quangos, 'complex and diverse organisations' with most of their funding coming from public funding and stuffed with new Labour's cronies: only this week had ample evidence of 'Labour supporters presented as independent witnesses' [Ben Brogan, DT] along with others claiming the Big Society was a failure (has it even started yet?)...and there is a lot more out there ready to wriggle out of the woodwork in the whole sleaze-ridden edifice; last word to Raedwald:

"And if this government's measures are stripping this useless, obstructive, partisan, distorting and corrupt parasitical growth from our democracy, then they're working."

Obumbrate organisation...

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Creators of a Hitler Top Trumps-style game may face legal action because of German law about using symbols of unconstitutional organisations. The game was invented by Jörg Wagner and Jürgen Kittel and manufactured by Weltquartett, they could have acted illegally by showing not only Hitler's face but also the swastika:

"Showing his face can be problematic"... ..."though we are primarily concerned with the swastika in this instance"

FFS! Surely this is an amazing step forward in German humour: welcome to the real world! Click on image to enlarge...and we can presume James Bond is represented too. The blog post title refers to the intentional "Blitztrompf" part-covering of the 'offensive organisation'. Hat-tip to CC!

obumbrate: adj. - obsolete darkened; hidden under a projection.

Opposing organ outrage...

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NO to FGM!

Today is the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation (a UN-sponsored awareness day). More than 3 million girls are at risk of FGM each year on the African continent alone and whatever the result of the turmoil in Egypt at present I hope they can sort out what in 2009 affected about 96% of some female age groups there (scroll down to see graph) or - figures from December 2010 - about 75% overall. I cannot think of a single good reason for FGM. (I am not making a purely 'religious' point either: it is clear that there are varying positions: some society/religious leaders promote it but others consider it irrelevant and many contribute to its elimination (image link to WHO factsheet).

Overscoring!...

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Edited 2023 hrs: Even if Wolves vs. Man United is 0-0 it's still a record! 38 goals in 7 games. Jeez. And HTF does THIS happen: 4 goals in the first 25 minutes and 4 goals in the final 25 minutes: a game of two halves? Final game finished (2 - 1 to Wolves, yippee!) and a total of 41 goals in only 8 games.

Update Monday: Interpol? I bet it's not but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it were true.

Outrageous: openly offensive odious oafs...

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A disheartening story...indeed. Conservative MP Paul Maynard has cerebral palsy, he has described his shattering and emotionally exhausting experience trying to address the House of Commons during a debate on the abolition of the Child Trust Fund. He says MPs opposite were pulling faces and making 'really exaggerated gesticulations - really exaggerated faces.'

Paul himself is being rather decent about this saying that 'He cannot say with certainty that they were making fun of the cerebral palsy. "But it felt like it"'. However, other opposition MPs confirmed that the abuse had taken place and 'dismissed the idea that this was just the usual Commons rough and tumble'. This is outrageous abuse and bullying, nothing less.

More disheartening is the BBC not bothering with it, quite the opposite in fact: in the online version of the paper review they have written: "The Times has Tory MP Paul Maynard, who has cerebral palsy, saying he was mocked by MPs during a Commons debate.", clearly making it appear that he was mocked by members of all parties. Worse, in the broadcast version of the paper review Evan Davis said,

"The Times says the Conservative MP Paul Maynard has been mocked by colleagues in the House of Commons because he's disabled. Mr Maynard has cerebral palsy and he tells the paper MPs appeared to pull faces to mimic him as he spoke in the debate...The Times says politicians of all parties have condemned the general behaviour in the Commons as cruel and despicable, adding that young people MPs are also patronised with constant sneers."

FFS! That actually seems to try to make it appear that it was Conservatibve MPs: who would think "colleagues" was referring to opposition members? Imagine had the roles been reversed?

Hat-tip: Craig at Biased BBC.

Opposition obdormition...

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You may have expected that I would have posted on Crusty's dozen years in power but I really can't put into words what Owsblog's small contribution of a post/month on the situation in Venezuela has had on me, creating sadness and resignation about mi segunda Patria's decent into the brown stuff. Others say it far better: the following link is to an excellent post, well worth reading, by Daniel who concludes with:

"We are in a much worse shape today than 12 years ago. The opposition needs to really study the situation before it can dare make proposals. And it needs to criticize the regime consequently, consistently, continuously to gain credibility, to make the population understand the situation if we are to have a chance to rebuild the country."

That final paragraph alliteration is more urgent than it may at first appear: elections are in 2012 and as yet there is, once again - as incredible as it may seem - no clear opposition candidate.

Obscurantism over Osborne's orthopraxy...

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Under-reporting the good bits! Last week Angel Gurria, secretary general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said the "UK must stay the course" [listen]. He states that the UK is being courageous putting everything that was needed on the table; he reiterated where we are now is a result of what happened before and that underlying inflation is under control. This was in response to massive media coverage of the unexpected drop in growth; since then there have been a series of good figures: "This week the economic news has been so much better." writes Tim Montgomerie. UK manufacturing growth at fastest since records began [BBC] and the Construction industry returning to growth [ Markit/CIPS PDF], despite being reported, don't seem to get the same "gory" headline coverage as the GDP drop. One response now will surely be those joining the 'Andrew Sentance camp' in calling for an interest rate rise, that will get the Press attention.

Oncoming oligophagy...

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Soon we may find ourselves eating fewer types of food. Maybe only those we can produce locally. Back to the future. As world food and commodity prices surge can we expect food riots? The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) is up again, as foreseen, and is now at historic highs (some commodities have been this high for months already). It is the highest (in both real and nominal terms) since the index has been backtracked in 1990. Increased volatility, specualtion and price distortion (nothing new really), government interventions, unpredicatable events...well, enough doom and gloom: today the Rabbit Year begins; it is said to be fortunate and things will come more easily; the Metal Rabbit promises to bring peace, joy, calmness and many happy moments...can't see it myself! Maybe it's the Rabbit of Caerbannog!

Oliver option on Oimelc...

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"BBC's Craig Oliver replacing Andy Coulson at No 10". [Link] You may think this throws some doubt on any bias of the BBC but in fact it isn't so: Oliver was less than 10 months in his BBC post, 4 years with ITN before a couple of years at Channel 5 then returning to ITV News as senior programme editor. Then Channel 4 and back again to ITV News in 2003 as head of output. He only took on his latest BBC role in April last year; clearly with a sympathetic view of Cameron and the Conservative Party there was no way he could have lasted much longer!

It's also Oimelc today. Contemplate the sun...

Obama's 'oasis' option...

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I don't want to be nearby when these chickens come home to roost. "U.S. 'held secret meeting with Muslim Brotherhood'...Discussed fall of Egypt with group dedicated to Islam's global spread". Read more on World Net Daily: WND