M F

"Conservative MP Kwasi Kwarteng, the co-author of Britannia Unchained, argues that Britons must work harder if the country is to compete with China and India. He says purpose of the welfare system has been distorted since its incarnation in postwar Britain and that people should no longer shy away from manual labour" - M F

Yes, the "work hard" of very successful people has nothing in common with the work hard of people one supports via Kiva. I remember one lady listed on there, she was nearling 70 and doing 3 different jobs to keep things afloat. Crazy to imagine, and not all that awesome, but I certainly admire her! Never give up... but not everyone can not give up when life beats you over and over - Iphigenie

"Experiments on the division of labour in honeybee hives have revealed why some bees do the waggle dance while others nurse their queens. The roles require drastically different behaviours, with nurses feeding the larvae and performing royal grooming duties, and foragers navigating great distances and performing complex dance routines to point others in the direction of rich sources of nectar." - M F

"Professor John Ashton, a doctor of public health who was in the upper stand of the Leppings Lane end with his sons and nephew, treated the survivors and issued six or seven of the dead with "death certificates", noting the time of death in an exercise book with his signature. When he tried to criticise the emergency operation during evidence to the initial Taylor inquiry, he found his professional integrity under attack. Professor Ashton said yesterday that the panel report has exposed a "corruption of public life". He added: "The Thatcher government hated Liverpool. Her ministers talked about 'managed decline'. South Yorkshire Police were her favourite police force – they had fought the miners five years earlier. All these factors exacerbated the tragedy. The corruption set in."" - M F

gosh - Aldo Oldo

"It is not surprising that for centuries Richard III has been synonymous with evil tyranny and physical deformity. To argue otherwise has been to take on three of history’s greats – Sir Thomas More, William Shakespeare and Winston Churchill, all of whom argued that Richard had been a man with a crooked back and a crooked life." - M F

Not the most exciting news ever but I think the seated cat is brilliant. - M F

"The Government has spent more than half a billion pounds sending the children of diplomats and military personnel to Britain's most prestigious private schools over the last three years, new figures have revealed. Ministers last year backed down on plans to scrap the allowance, which costs the taxpayer more than £21,000 per child, as part of public sector spending cuts. Instead they promised to cut the bill through "efficiencies". But research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has revealed that the cost of the perk has increased by nearly ten per cent since 2009 and last year stood at £203m across three departments." - M F

I'm not sure all diplomatic and military personnel really earn enough to pay for board and tuition either in local private English schools, or back in the UK. This is a common demand for people in the private sector too, when relocated for a few years, that their children get access to schooling that will be valid when they go back to the UK. and the price seems high but I suspect that is what these schools cost. - Iphigenie

"French tourist Nathalie Rollandin came across a camera-happy seagull recently. She was visiting the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, when she set her GoPro camera down while its was recording. Before she knew it, the camera was being carried away in the mouth of an artsy gull. Once the bird was a safe distance away, it set the camera down and recorded some beautiful footage of itself flying away into the sunset." - M F

There is a good chance that the video is a hoax: http://www.livescience.com/23150-s... - John (bird whisperer)

I chose not to think how the seagull took the camera, flew with it and then gently dropped it on the ground, as unlikely as it might be. With all the bad news I read please don't spoil my anthropomorphic seagull with camera, I have to believe in something :D - M F

"Currently on display at the British Museum is a round silver case, less than 5cm in diameter, with an eye-shaped glass aperture allowing the viewer to see an object inside it. The museum's director, Neil MacGregor, describes the case as similar to a "small circular box of mints" and the object as a "brownish lump, a bit like a shrivelled prune". In fact, the prune is the right eye – the "oculus dexter" as the Latin inscription on the back of the reliquary explains – of the Catholic martyr Edward Oldcorne, who was publicly hanged, drawn and quartered in Worcester in 1606." - M F

"Rob Wilson, the Conservative MP for Reading East, says the reshuffle is "part of the process of the divorce with the Liberal Democrats"." - M F

I dunno, sounds like they knew they were getting in bed with the devil and did it anyways, so fuck 'em. - Andrew C (see frenf.it)

"Grant Shapps, the Conservative housing minister tipped for promotion to the cabinet this week, founded a family business selling software that increases a website's advertising revenue by breaching Google's code of practice. The $497 (£313) software package, TrafficPaymaster, creates web pages by "spinning and scraping" content from other sites to attract advertising from Google. Millions of people who have blogs or websites are paid for hosting ads on Google's behalf using the AdSense service, which scans a web page and posts adverts related to the content. TrafficPaymaster creates an instant cashflow by appearing to plagiarise information." - M F

Ah one of those SEO gurus that I dislike so much - M F

And he followed me on Twitter some months ago, obviously all part of his strategy. - M F

"Since 1948, the NHS has been the model for universal heathcare on the basis of need and free at the point of use. In 2012, parliament in England passed a law effectively ending the NHS by abolishing the 60-year duty on the government to secure and provide healthcare for all. From 2013, there will be no National Health Service in England, and tax funding will increasingly flow to global healthcare corporations. In contrast, Scotland and Wales will continue to have a publicly accountable national health service. NHS hospitals and services are being sold off or incorporated; land and buildings are being turned over to bankers and equity investors. RBS, Assura, Serco and Carillion, to name but a few, are raking in billions in taxpayer funds for leasing out and part-operating PFI hospitals, community clinics and GP surgeries that we once owned." - M F

"Ministers have outsourced more than £3bn of public services to Atos, the multinational IT firm whose sponsorship of the Paralympics has prompted a nationwide campaign by disability activists. A series of parliamentary questions from Labour MP Tom Greatrex reveals the value of contracts with Atos is now more than a third higher than the amount outsourced by the last government. The replies expose how far the reach of the company extends in Whitehall." - M F

not a bad business. and the benefits go to shareholders. - Winckel

"It may come as a surprise to those who already consider the coalition a tough government, with its hairshirt rhetoric and seemingly endless spending cuts, but a growing number of Tory backbenchers, business figures, commentators and thinkers feel that the coalition – and by implication, other austerity governments across the west – is not nearly tough enough. Since 2011, as the British economy has slumped, this energetic but largely unnoticed political alliance, somewhere between a lobby group and a proper movement, has begun to show its strength." - M F

Exactly, businesses can already hire and fire when they need to, removing the existing employment laws would just remove any protection employees have. At least now, especially after probation, employers have to prove they have a legitimate reason for firing and not just "I don't like you, get out". - M F

"London's housing crisis is the result of a generation or more of failed policies that need urgent redress. That redress requires multiple policy changes: building new council housing on a mass scale is long overdue – or else the 'Kosovo-style cleansing' of the poor that Boris Johnson foresaw is unavoidable. In the short term there are only two solutions – wages and benefits must rise and rents must be capped. Instead though, the government is going in the opposite direction: cutting and capping benefits, while holding back minimum wage increases (just 1.8% in October and a freeze for workers aged under 21). Housing has become an investment opportunity for a few, while for many more it is a constant source of anxiety, insecurity and debt. What we have mapped is London at its most divided: we should not be at home to it." - M F

Did you read about the proposal to sell of expensive social housing once vacant to provide funds for new social housing? I'm guessing this will be as fantastically successful as the RTB policy, which provided loads of money that was readily pumped back into social housing repairs/new builds etc! In case you can't hear me, I'm being VERY sarcastic! - Halil

I read it yes and I know you are sarcastic - M F

"A Bahrain court's decision to sentence a prominent human rights activist to three years in prison for taking part in an anti-government protest is a "dark day for justice" in the country Amnesty International said today. Nabeel Rajab, the President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, was found guilty of taking part in an “illegal gathering” among other charges in relation to a protest in the capital Manama on 6 February 2012." - M F

"Surely, as the most intelligent species, humans could learn to understand dolphin-speak better than dolphins learn sign language. Instead of trying to teach human communication systems to animals, why don't people decode theirs?" - M F

"Alan! Alan! Alan!....oh, wait. Isn't that Steve? Steve! Steve! Steve!" - CAJ was here

"The carp or Japanaese Koi fish. swimming upstream valiantly against the current, symbolizes perseverance. During the last quarter of the 19th century, it swam around the world, trailed by schools of artists at every turn. At the same time that Louis Comfort Tiffany was designing a green bell lamp in the style of ancient Egypt, he conceived this swirling stained glass window in the shape of a carp." - M F

"Ed Sheeran fans mistook the Pink Floyd song he performed alongside Nick Mason from the band at last night's Olympic Games closing ceremony for a new song." - M F

Sometimes I am glad I am no longer that young. - M F

"We were delighted to see Stephen Ebert’s tweet making the rounds last night, and judging by the thousands of retweets it got, we weren’t alone. So on that note, here are some of our other favourite animal-on-transport moments" - M F

"Under David Cameron’s proposed new constituency boundaries, Up North – which includes traditional Labour strongholds Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle – will elect a single MP. Meanwhile David Cameron’s home town of Chipping Norton would be split into 27 constituencies, three of them representing areas of Cameron’s house." - M F

"The company, which recently announced global revenue of more than £4bn, has joined four charities in a controversial bid to run what has been described by the government as a key part of David Cameron's big society vision. Serco and its partners hope to win eight of the 19 contracts currently up for tender, with an estimated value of nearly £100m over two years. The development has raised concerns that the National Citizen Service (NCS) will become another way for private firms to make money from the public sector as charities and voluntary organisations find themselves without the resources to bid for large contracts amid the economic squeeze." - M F

greed breeds poverty, so how can a private company hope to create a big society, what is their ethos? - Halil

"However, for a longer time there have been a large number of very different stories about people who receive disability and sickness benefits in the press. In the government’s attempt to show it is getting tough on benefit fraudsters and the work shy the print media have been very willing to run stories on every release of statistics which they say show that most people who claim sickness benefits are perfectly capable of work, statistics which in reality show no such thing. A study “Bad News for Disabled People: How the newspapers are reporting disability” by Strathclyde Centre for Disability Research and Glasgow Media Unit found that there had been an increase in the number of disability related stories in the press with a decrease in those presenting a more sympathetic view. There had also been an increase in the use of words such as “scrounger”, “cheat” and “skiver” all adding to an impression that disabled people were “underserving”." - M F

"More worrying is the impact on political discourse. Apparently any gesture of national prestige, glory and self-congratulation, once declared by government to be "worth every penny", is beyond rational debate. To quarrel with any feature of the games is to be a whingeing, unpatriotic naysayer. Normally hard-headed politicians (and journalists) have gone soft in the head – flat-earthers, creationists, climate-change deniers." - M F

I must say, I don't accept that's the inevitable legacy of a great Olympics. Issues we have, yes, the richest councils provide the best playgrounds and sports facilities to kids who need them least. But inspiring kids to embrace sport, to win, to the the best in the world? That's a great thing and we should be proud of it. - Winckel

"Using a snapshot of disabled people as a tool to convey a message to, primarily, non-disabled people, involves playing on stereotypes and assumptions. It removes a person’s humanity and individuality in order to present them in a way that will goad a non-disabled person to buck up their ideas. It does not matter who the people in these photographs are, as long as their representation is enough to guilt non-disabled people into action. Their use of prosthetics is the only thing about them that is of interest in these images, and it automatically turns them into some kind of superhero. Along with the captions, the implication is supposed to be, “Wow, they have a great attitude!”." - M F

Royal Mail defends decision to deny Paralympic gold medallists own stamps Failure to honour winners at Paralympics in same way as Olympians prompts outcry online http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport... I guess it's because they had a bad attitude, if they all had a good attitude they would of received individual stamps like the other Olympians? - Halil

"The sanctity of the Olympics has provided the police with powers that are likely to remain long after the corporate bunting has been taken down. I choose not to see Danny Boyle’s ceremony as bread and circuses; I choose to see it as a call to arms. We must defend our freedom of expression, as those who came before us did. We must defend it because it is the only weapon we have to ensure that we, the people, can write our own history." - M F

"India's Olympic contingent is trying to identify a mystery woman who joined team members as they marched in the opening ceremony on Friday. The woman, wearing blue trousers and a red top, walked next to India's flag-bearer, wrestler Sushil Kumar. She stood out in contrast to athletes in yellow saris or blue blazers." - M F

"NBC co-host Meredith Vieira failed to do her homework and thus did not recognise the importance of the inventor of the world wide web. "If you haven't heard of him, we haven't either," she said. "Google him," joked co-host Matt Lauer." - M F

The world already has a pretty low opinion of Americans. Thanks for having just as low a one, NBC. :( - Spidra Webster

I like this a lot. It feeds many of my - occasionally wide of the mark - views of these people. I read too that the ceremony wasn't shown live in the US, I wondered what that said about the country; perhaps nothing good. - Winckel

"Boyle, the Oscar-winning director of Slumdog Millionaire, spent almost four times less money and deployed roughly one-tenth as many people. But he outstripped the previous Olympic host city by flaunting what the Chinese actively suppressed. This was pageantry as jiu-jitsu. While Britain's coalition government weighs further cuts to its government-run health-care system, Boyle went out of his way to honor the National Health Service, with real NHS employees as nurses capering on hospital beds. The show also included a nod to the early-20th-century suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst and the Jarrow Marchers, who in 1936 walked more than 300 miles from County Durham to London to protest hunger and joblessness. When Boyle made a point of inviting their descendants to the proceedings, he also made a point to us." - M F

"Billions of pounds are being invested in regeneration, including new housing, however many older properties are in an appalling state and Newham Council is blaming bad landlords. There are 35,000 private rental properties in Newham and half do not meet acceptable standards, says Mr Moffatt. Of those around 5,000 are in a "diabolical" condition, he adds." - M F

I agree that bad landlords are bad but they have been allowed to get away with it. - M F

Private landlords are usually property developers with a large portfolios these days, out bidding 1st time buyers on homes, chopping them up into multiple occupancy tiny flats, then charging ridiculous rents, because they can. Also, interesting how the East End is being revamped, which is good, but Haringey is poor due to major cut backs from the government and has no money for repairs, let alone new homes :'( - Halil