Earlier in the day I was reading something that suggested that the different vendors of the various medical records systems all use incompatible file formats.
Whoever let them do this needs to be shot, of course. But does anyone know this field in any detail? Sounds like the sort of thing where there would be an army of people writing conversion software. Is this so? If not, why not?
As to the fourth? Munchau mentions helicopter money. I am not sure why he just doesn’t call it tax cuts. But neither mention People’s Quantitative Easing. And what that shows is that there is still a reluctance to think that the state really does have a role in the real economy by having an industrial and economic policy that engages with the physical reality of tangible wealth creation. That reluctance is the problem we really face and in this sense Larry Elliott and Wolfgang Munchau really are as much a part of the problem as they are of being any part of the solution. Calling for Plan B and not having a clue what it might be is not helpful.
Helicopter money isn’t a tax cut. It’s printing new money and giving it to people to go spend. This increases inflation/reduces deflation and it does so quickly.
As opposed to PQE which depends upon everyone waiting half a decade to get planning permission for their shovel ready projects.
You see, we’ve already played this game. Bush and Obama did seeral different attempts at stimulus. Giving people large chunks of cash runs into Ricaridan equivalence, they save them, pay own debt. Giving people small sums of money means they go out and spend. And 7 years later I don’t think any of that $800 billion in stimulus has actually been spent on building anything.
Helicopter drops are preferable to PQE because they work.
Children in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire have been banned from marching in a town’s Remembrance Day parade next month for “safety reasons”.
Instead brownies, scouts, girl guides, and cubs will only be allowed to meet in the town’s market square to lay a wreath on the town’s war memorial.
We’re gathering to commemorate those who fought bloody battles, gave their lives for this country and our people.
And now we’ve got cunts saying that children can’t walk down the street to do so?
Where is the hell is that multi-person gallows we were promised?
The BBC is paying one of its senior executives an astonishing £235,000 a year to work from home on ‘special projects’.
Janice Hadlow, the Corporation’s ‘Controller of Seasons and Special Projects’, receives the huge salary despite being based largely at her home in Bath rather than her office in London.
Ms Hadlow, 57, was previously the Controller of BBC2 but stepped down at the beginning of last year.
So far, so annoying. However:
One Corporation source said: ‘At the BBC, you are allowed to remain on the same salary if you move jobs. This is why Janice Hadlow is still paid nearly £20,000 a month. She’s been allowed to hang on to the salary she had as BBC2 Controller.
This is actually from the Peter Principle, one of the only three management books you should pay attention to. Everyone does have their own level of incompetence. And you’ll never find out what it is until you promote someone and find out whether they can do that job. This means that you have a problem. You promote someone, they’re incompetent, then what do you do?
The answer given in the PP book is that if someone’s no good at the job you’ve promoted them into then sideline them. But crucially, allow them to stay on the package that you promoted them to. It’s only in this manner that you can gleefully go around giving people the chance of promotion, the chance of finding out whether that next level up is still below the level of their incompetence.
It’s a complicated argument but one I find reasonably convincing.
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say “These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.”
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
And Yah! Boo! Sucks! too.
François Hollande can breathe a sigh of relief. Plans for a film based on Valérie Trierweiler’s kiss-and-tell bestseller about her relationship with the president have been dropped, reportedly because no serious actress wanted the role of the jilted ex-first lady.
Because France’s 50 ish actresses all want to bed the President for real I assume.
Muslim men in some communities are having up to 20 children each because of polygomy and the rise of “religiously sanctioned gender discrimination” under Sharia Law, peers have warned.
The restriction on the number of children is the womb slots available. So, if some men are claiming 20 such then some other men are claiming none. Women, of course, are still having the same number of children in aggregate.
Polygamy is a problem for beta males more than it is for anyone else.
Hundreds of migrants are using children’s bicycles to cross a border – after officials banned people making the journey on foot.
Men are seen struggling to balance as they wobble on the tiny bikes at the checkpoint between Russia and Norway.
After making an epic journey from as far as Syria and Afghanistan, they make the final metres to Western Europe on two wheels at the Storskog border post.They have been forced to use the loophole after Russian authorities outlawed crossings on foot, while under Norwegian law it is illegal to drive people into the country if they do not have the proper papers.
Locals near the Arctic Circle checkpoint are now doing a roaring trade selling a border crossing package for £130 – which includes a taxi ride from a nearby town to the border and bicycle hire.
Migrants buy children’s fold-up bicycles because they are cheaper than adult versions. They are then able to make the 130-yard journey across no-man’s land without breaking any laws.
Once across, piles of discarded bicycles build up outside the office of the Norwegian customs police and are cleared away every two or three days.
It’s that “cleared away” bit. Come on, this is sodding Russia we’re talking about. The second hand bike shop on the Russian side is owned by some group of the border guards. Who are the people who collect them from the Norwegians for a split of the take.
And if this isn’t the case already it bloody will be soon enough.
A quite extraordinary piece. About the usual contraception, remarriage of divorcees and so on:
Sooner or later, the Catholic church must recognise the reality of remarriage. But it must do so in a way that weakens patriarchy
Absolutely no conception even (sorry) of the idea that what the Church says is what God wants it to say.
No, agreed, I don’t believe that, many here won’t believe that, the Guardian doesn’t believe that.
It has been difficult for such a profoundly patriarchal organisation as the Catholic church – whose boss is known as the Holy Father – to come to terms with feminism. Just as the 19th and much of the 20th centuries were marked by the church’s struggles with (and against) democracy, it is plausible that much of the coming century will be marked by its struggles with feminism.
But if you are going to discuss a religion you’ve got to get to grips with the central point of it all. Which is that the people who make it up really do believe that they’re doing what Go tells them to do. And maybe, you know, God doesn’t like feminism?
‘Coz of that junk stuff hanging around. And there’s no systematic oppression of women in the tech industry, homophobia is an ancient relic, not a feature of Britain today in any meaningful manner, dcompared to any other society at virtually any other time there’s no racism here, the poor are as rich as Croesus compared to any historical or even current global standard and neoliberal globalisation has just led to the largest reduction of absolute poverty in the entire history of our species.
You on the barricades with me then Owen? Defending my rights, those rights my and your ancestors fought for? The right to say anything I damn well want to, along with the necessity of taking the consequences of having done so?
Well?
The treatment of Lisa McKenzie is so absurd it is tempting to turn it into one big joke. It isn’t. It’s about the basic democratic freedoms that our ancestors were compelled to fight for being fatally undermined. It is sinister, and to fail to speak out about it – whatever your personal beliefs – is a betrayal.
How in buggery has anyone worked this out?
How ironic to learn this week that the British government is resisting pressure to tax sugary foods just as Oprah Winfrey has announced she has purchased a 10% share in Weight Watchers. Oprah’s decision had immediate consequences: $700m in revenue for the weight-loss company over the course of the two days following the announcement;
Are they reporting sales in real time or something?
Oh.
Winfrey announced on Monday morning that she had agreed to purchase a 10% stake in Weight Watchers International and had signed a collaboration deal to promote the diet company and its services. The announcement has caused shares of Weight Watchers to soar. With the stock changing hands for around $18, Winfrey has single-handedly generated $700 million in stock market value in two days, given that the company has 63.6 million shares outstanding following the Winfrey deal.
We have absolutely no idea what the revenue rise was. The value of the equity rose $700 million though.
And equity valuations and revenues are not actually the same thing. However, Liz Moore is ignorant of this fact, the Guardian’s editorial team, all of them, is ignorant of this fact, their subeditors are ignorant of this important distinction. And, presumably, most of their readership are.
Difficult to have reasonable discussions and conversations about the modern economy when half the people are just plain damn dumb on the subject, isn’t it?
But a new book by journalist Facundo Pastor – entitled: Nisman – Crime or Suicide? Hero or Spy? – says that Nisman was reporting directly to the US.
“When I ask if he is a hero or a spy, it is because with my investigation I backed up the fact that Nisman had turned into a top contact for the FBI in the entire region,” Mr Pastor told The Independent.
Given that the FBI works domestically, the CIA externally…..
He’s an upper middle class Englishman playing the Stalinist:
If his new ultra left-wing spin doctor had a similar row with his own wife, it appears he must have backed down, as The Telegraph can disclose that Seumas Milne sent his children to two of the best grammar schools in the country.
Mr Milne, the Marxist-sympathising Guardian columnist who starts a new job next week as the Labour Party’s executive director of strategy and communications, shunned the numerous comprehensive schools within walking distance of his home in Richmond, west London, and instead sent his son Patrick to the Tiffin School in Kingston upon Thames and his daughter Anna to the nearby Tiffin Girls’ School. Tiffin Girls was ranked the second best school in England for GCSE results this year, while Tiffin Boys was 18th.
….
The two Tiffin Schools select children on the basis of ability, not wealth, but whereas 48 per cent of children at Richmond Park Academy were eligible for free school meals in the past six years, the figure for Tiffin School was just six per cent.
Mr Milne’s choice of schools for his children, one of whom went on to Cambridge University, the other Oxford, could prove a distraction whenever he is tasked with promoting the Labour leader’s immovable policy of equal schooling for all children regardless of ability.
I will shed a tear if I finish the book as I did when I heard the news but I’m mulling over the idea of buying it and keeping it, unread, on a shelf, so there’s always one more book
I’ve spent the last decade (I was late to the party) waiting for the next book. I’ve now read the last and there will be no more.
Sigh. An embuggerance, eh?
It’s not exactly a large problem, is it?
There are over 100 employers on the latest list, Nick Boles the Business Minister has announced, owing over £389,000 to staff who have been underpaid.
£400k in respect of the what, £1.2 trillion or so of household income is, to all intents and purposes, zero, isn’t it?
Monsoon Accessorize Ltd, London W11, neglected to pay £104,507.83 to 1438 workers
That’s £72 per worker. If they were all full time for a year (obviously not) it’s 4 pence an hour.
What in buggery were they doing? Just miscalculated? Not paying for a 10 minute tea break or summat?
British trainee analysts at a leading investment bank’s New York office have been sacked after they were caught cheating in a “basic” maths test, the Telegraph understands.
The disgraced junior bankers are said to have been told to pay for their own flights home after instructors discovered the foul play.
It is understood that nearly a dozen of the trainee analysts at JP Morgan, some of whom are British graduates, were caught sneaking notes into the exam room or copying fellow trainees’ answers.
It’s not that you have to know the answers in banking. Only that you know where to find them.
But you have to be able to do this without the client realising that you are clueless. That is, you must be a successful cheat.
There are things in life we shouldn’t have to be taught, things that are just common sense: fire is hot, water is wet, hurting people is bad.
These are all things which have to be learnt of course. Learnt anew by each and every human being as they grow.
Khloe Kardashian and her basketball player husband, Lamar Odom, called off their divorce on Wednesday a week after the athlete collapsed and fell into a coma in Las Vegas, celebrity media reported.
Hubby is found coked up and blissed out in a whorehouse so you decide not to divorce him.
Of course.
Presumably it was really a casting call for a job on the show.
The Soil Association analysed menus and service at 21 of Britain’s most popular restaurants using a number of parents who collected information in secret.
…
One chicken product included 19 additional ingredients produced variously in Kazakhstan, Russia, Vietnam, Argentina, Malaysia, India, Singapore, Indonesia, China, Ukraine and Slovakia.
These people are actually claiming that trade is a bad idea now.
Turnips for all all winter is it to be?