SCOTTISH men buy larger condoms than their counterparts south of the border.
Supermarket giant Tesco today reported that more of its extra-large condoms had been bought in Glasgow than anywhere else in the UK.
The new condoms 10mm longer and 1mm wider than the standard version went on sale at Tesco earlier this month. And the retailer's sales map of its new condom the first to be sold in the UK showed most were sold in Glasgow.
Which suggest Scots are bigger pr*cks - but the Lockerbie story proves they have no b*lls, so why do they need the c*ndoms at all? (And before you Scots get p*ssed at me, note my nick - which is that for a reason.)
Germans, who sometimes see themselves as guardians of the environment, are hoarding energy-guzzling incandescent light bulbs ahead of a looming European Union-wide ban, the GfK market research agency said.
The Nuremberg-based GfK reported sales of incandescent bulbs had soared about 35 percent in the first half of the year ahead of a ban that starts Tuesday -- even though it was proposed by German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel in 2007.
Some German retailers said they have seen sales of 100-watt incandescent bulbs soar 600 percent since the end of July.
It will cost between $500 billion and $600 billion every year for the next 10 years to allow developing nations to grow using renewable energy resources, instead of relying on dirty fuels that worsen global warming, or nuclear energy, which is just nasty according to a United Nations report released Tuesday. Karl Rove Strikes again!
That astronomical estimate, far higher than any previously suggested by the United Nations, comes at a time when developed and developing nations are still deeply divided over who bears the responsibility for shouldering the expense of deploying cleaner energy resources, much less what the actual amount might be. Maybe The One will step up to the plate.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/02/2009 14:46 ||
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Sorry, the US already gives $700 billion/year for developing nations to grow. Try the Euros. They love everything renewable, except their population.
Posted by: ed ||
09/02/2009 15:03 Comments ||
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1. that includes India and China. Who can both afford to do plenty, China especially. and since climate change is likely to particularly effect their coastlands and agriculture, they have particular incentive to do something about it.
2. 100% replacement of all new fossil fuels with renewables is a strawman. It ignores all the other arrows in the quiver, including energy efficiency, clean coal, and even the gains from switching from coal and oil to nat gas. Also I suspect they are leaving out nuclear.
3. The question of the cost of renewables is debatable, and its not clear to me what the basis of their numbers is, what assumptions they make about technology and cost change for renewables is, etc.
4. The other big variable is the cost of fossil fuels. Are they assuming current prices for fossil fuels? Is that realistic? At 120 bucks a barrel for crude, going to renewables doesnt look as expensive as it does at $70 bucks a barrel
Posted by: liberal hawk ||
09/02/2009 15:22 Comments ||
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LH- Don't forget that at $120bbl oil can be mined from oil shale at a much greater profit. This was the big hold-up in previous generations. One of my professors was involved in the exploration in E. KY of oil shale processing at the end of the 1970's. His project was killed when the price of oil dropped.
Don't forget, every single proposal put forward give the Third World a pass and lumps all of responsibility for change over to the Western World. As you said, this does not include China or India, but does include Japan.
Posted by: Jame Retief ||
09/02/2009 15:49 Comments ||
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#4
And that assumes that the human caused global warming is a valid theory. And we all know what ASSUME stands for.
The best estimate is that the surface center has passed near or over only lightly populated
Cabo San Lazaro during the past few hours. The satellite presentation continues to slowly deteriorate...and based on this the initial intensity is reduced to 85 kt.
The initial motion is now 345/11. All guidance agrees on a continued north-northwestward motion with deceleration during the next 24-36 hr. After that time...most of the guidance shows Jimena turning westward. Looks like minimal damage to Baja; some moisture will be injected into the SW by the wind field but other than that, little direct impact on US
Posted by: lord garth ||
09/02/2009 11:30 ||
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There are many things public officials probably shouldn't do during a severe recession, but no one seems to have told the leaders in Florida about them. One thing, for instance, would be giving a dozen top aides hefty raises while urging a rise in property taxes, as the mayor of Miami-Dade County recently did. Or jacking up already exorbitant hurricane-insurance premiums, as Florida's government-run property insurer just did.
Had we not run into an unexpected cessation of sunspots, we were supposed to be heading into 20-30 years of wild hurricane seasons. Given that, jacking up hurricane insurance premiums sounds like the prudent thing to do.
Or sending an army of highly paid lobbyists to push for a steep hike in electricity rates, as South Florida's public utility is doing.
And you wonder why the Sunshine State is experiencing its first net emigration of people since World War II.
A few years ago, journalists -- citing the chasm between Miami's high cost of living and its low level of income -- began predicting that South Florida and its perpetual population-growth machine would soon face the unthinkable: a falling head count. Now it's official. The region -- Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties -- lost 27,400 residents between 2008 and 2009, while Florida as a whole lost 58,000. That's not exactly a mass exodus for a state of 18 million; but it's the first net outflow in 63 years for a state that considers itself the new California. "It's difficult for the working middle class to justify living here," Mike Jones, president of the Palm Beach County Economic Council, conceded to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "As much as they may love the sunshine, as you squeeze them out, they may find it in their best interests to move."
Jones gets it, but residents are starting to question whether the rest of their leaders do. Homeowners, especially in Broward and Miami-Dade, have been falling out of their flip-flops in recent days as they open their preliminary property-tax notices to find increases of 15% or more. That's sizable in a low-income region where the median property-tax bill is already some $3,000, and it's doubly frustrating given that property values have slid by some 25% during Florida's housing bust. Residents have barely digested the recent news that their hurricane-insurance premiums, which can top $5,000 a year for most South Florida homes, will rise 10% a year for the next three years (vital, officials claim, for handling claims from the next big storm). And their public utility, Florida Power & Light (FPL), is lobbying the state for a 30% rate hike (vital, FPL execs insist, for upgrading infrastructure). "It all seems out of control to people here at the time when they can least absorb it," says Dr. Jose Valladares, president of the conservative Fair Property Tax for All in Miami-Dade. (Read about Florida's property-tax revolt.)
Granted, most local governments often have to raise taxes when they're staring at fiscal craters like the $427 million shortfall in Miami-Dade's proposed $7.83 billion budget. But the less than sunny mood in Miami-Dade is made darker by the feeling among most residents that their fiscal jam is not just a result of falling revenue, but also years of profligate mismanagement. The final determination on their property taxes will be made soon by the Miami-Dade County Commission -- a feckless, corruption-tainted body, many of whose members ran up hundreds of thousands of dollars in police overtime costs recently by using cops as their personal chauffeurs. (None of the commissioners face any sanctions for it.)
Residents were further outraged last week when the Miami Herald reported that Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez, one of the few Miami politicians with a reputation for probity, had raised the salaries of his chief of staff and other top lieutenants this year as high as 15% while calling for a 5% pay cut for county workers. Alvarez spokesperson Victoria Mallette says the raises resulted from a 2007 referendum that gave Miami-Dade's mayor, until then a relatively weak post, broad new powers that in turn thrust heavier duties on his staff. She also notes that Alvarez actually cut his office's budget last year by almost 15% and that he helped build an $80 million reserve fund. Still, a Herald editorial called Alvarez's raises "irresponsible." Watchdogs like Valladares complain that Miami-Dade's bureaucracy, like so many local governments in this decade, got too bloated during the economic boom. The County Commission, for example, has a staff of more than 200 serving only 13 commissioners -- and yet it still managed to screw up tasks like its oversight of Miami-Dade's scandal-plagued housing agency.
Many Americans find it hard to feel sorry for Valladares and all the other Floridians who pay no state income tax. Floridians are indeed guilty of an arrogant belief that living in "paradise" should be a birthright as cheap as gassing up an SUV. It was, until Florida's relentless and miserably planned growth spawned problems that the peninsula is struggling to handle, including skyrocketing property taxes and hurricane-insurance premiums. Governor Charlie Crist has tried in recent years to rein in those twin vampires, but together they can still exceed what folks in many other states pay for state income tax, local property tax and homeowner's insurance combined. And whereas high-cost states like New York, California and Illinois also have some of the country's highest median incomes, Florida's is in the bottom half.
In a state that worshipped condo-flippers as great entrepreneurs, it was all a house of cards waiting to be blown down when the housing bubble burst. Now that it has happened, those Floridians who haven't left the state had hoped their officials might change the way they do things -- or at least not attend a Kentucky Derby party hosted by the same FPL honchos lobbying them for a rate hike, as a Florida Public Service Commission director has admitted to doing a few months ago. But if Miami and Florida officials can't get their acts together, they can probably expect even lower head counts in the years to come.
#1
Granted, most local governments often have to raise taxes when they're staring at fiscal craters like the $427 million shortfall in Miami-Dade's proposed $7.83 billion budget.
#2
I have an old friend who owns a condo on Perdido Key south of NAS Pensalcola. His property taxes went from roughly $5k per year to over $10k in less than 3 years. He appealed and lost. Like many others in that area, the property is no longer marketable. He's stuck with it.
#5
Groucho Marx on Florida real estate pre 1929, from his movie "The Cocoanuts" You can have any kind of a home you want. You can even get stucco. Oh, how you can get stucco.
#7
Folks forget that if the budget is "X" the public has to pay for it. The appraisals are just a way to delegate the percentage amongst individual taxpayers. The fewer the taxpayers the more tax to those remaining. The only way to cut taxes is to cut budget "X".
Oh, I wonder how they like that "cheap" government hurricane insurance now that they chased out the "excessively expensive" private insurance. Reality hurts I guess.
#8
BP, I first saw that idea in Heinlein's "The Number of the Beast". I do not consider that a recommendation; I really do want to steam-clean that book out of my brain.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
09/02/2009 21:36 Comments ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi threw a massive party to celebrate his 40 years in power on Tuesday as the British and Scottish governments sought to defuse an increasingly damaging row over the release of the Lockerbie bomber by publishing their files.
Tripoli's streets were decked with thousands of multicolored lights, and hundreds of Gaddafi portraits and placards paying tribute to the leader, including one saying: "May Glory Be Yours, Oh Maker of Glories."
The leader marked his 40th anniversary of the bloodless coup that brought him to power with celebrations attended by African, Arab and Latin American leaders but largely ignored by the West.
Gaddafi's party includes a military parade, air show, fireworks and a son-et-lumiere performance with dancers depicting Libya's past and modern history.
Among those attending the celebrations for Gaddafi, who once described himself as "leader of the Arab leaders, the king of kings of Africa and the imam of the Muslims," are Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and a number of African leaders who stayed on after an African Union summit in Tripoli Monday.
A string of European leaders who were invited, however, are staying away. Gaddafi himself is now being welcomed in European capitals after many years of his regime being was viewed as a pariah and supporter of terrorism.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2009 00:00 ||
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yesterday I commented that Gadaffy had a medal that looked to me like an iron cross
Today's photo shows a blank spot where the medal was?(On the green sash high on the right )
Curiouser and curiouser?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/02/2009 0:21 Comments ||
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I've commented several times that Kadaffy seems to "borrow" medals and ribbons. At least three or four of the ones in this photo seem to be US ribbons - the Purple Heart, the Army Commendation Ribbon, the Air Force Antarctic service medal, and and the Air Force Commendation Medal. There's also one that looks like the Berlin Service Medal. I can't see enough to make out any others. The other medals and sprockets look to be self-issued.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/02/2009 23:01 Comments ||
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The missing sprocket was his 39 year pin, we didn't get to hear about the ceremony for his 40'th
Brandon Huntley, 31, a white South African, had told officials in Canada he could not return to South Africa after seven different attacks on his person. Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board ruled last week that Mr Huntley could stay in Canada. "We find the claim by Huntley to have been attacked seven times [in South Africa] by [black South] Africans due to his skin colour - without any police intervention - sensational and alarming." an ANC spokesman said.
#1
A rare example of commonsense and humanity from Canadian officialdom.
We find the claim by Huntley to have been attacked seven times [in South Africa] by [black South] Africans due to his skin colour - without any police intervention - sensational and alarming
I'm sure there's plenty of Caucasian South Africans who wish ANC wasn't the only one who found such news alarming.
#4
Climate and the previous job market, construction, conservative beliefs, etc. Houston and Dallas also have large communities, some in California also. The Expat magazine "Juluka" (sweat in Zulu) has some pretty good articles, immigration info, and updates.
CARACAS, Venezuela -- The oil giant Chevron said Monday that it had obtained video recordings of meetings in Ecuador this year that appear to reveal a bribery scheme connected to a $27 billion lawsuit the company faces over environmental damage at oil fields it operated in remote areas of the Amazon forest in Ecuador.
The videos, together with audio recordings obtained by businessmen using watches and pens implanted with bugging devices, appear to implicate Ecuadoran officials and political operatives, including possibly Juan Núñez, the judge overseeing the lawsuit, and Pierina Correa, the sister of Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa.
The recordings indicate that an Ecuadoran political operative was working to obtain $3 million in bribes related to environmental cleanup contracts to be awarded in the event of a ruling against Chevron. It was not clear from the recordings and transcripts provided by Chevron, however, whether any bribes discussed in the recordings were actually paid or whether Judge Núñez was even aware of plans to try to bribe him. The tapes also did not demonstrate whether the president's sister was aware of the scheme or had participated in it.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/02/2009 00:00 ||
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A Chinese dissident who tried to organize a national meeting of the banned China Democracy Party has been sentenced to 13 years in jail for subverting state power, his lawyer said Wednesday.
Posted by: ed ||
09/02/2009 14:41 ||
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Two American television reporters imprisoned in North Korea for months say communist soldiers "violently dragged" them back when they returned to Chinese soil after briefly crossing into the reclusive country.
In an article posted Tuesday on Current TV's Web site, Laura Ling and Euna Lee said they hesitantly followed their guide when he beckoned them across a frozen river into the North and were "firmly back" on the Chinese side when North Korean border guards grabbed them on March 17.
Posted by: ed ||
09/02/2009 14:18 ||
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Not like such a thing has happened before. It appears that Nork hospitality has changed since.
After a three-year legal battle, an Islamist under surveillance by Germanys domestic intelligence agency has been allowed to name his young son Jihad, daily Bild reported on Wednesday. Berlins upper regional court recently ruled in favour of Reda Seyam's petition to name his son the Arabic word for holy war. The boy is now four years old after protracted legal wrangling that will be covered by taxpayer money, the paper reported.
Germany has strict naming laws, making it illegal for parents to name their children whatever they like. But according to the court, Jihad is a common Arabic name, making its association with radical Islamist terrorism irrelevant. But according to the paper, this was exactly the sense in which the 49-year-old Egyptian-German father intended for the name to be interpreted.
The German intelligence agency believes that Seyam was a mastermind in the 2002 Bali bombing that killed 200. Meanwhile Munich public prosecutors recently accused him and seven of his followers of inciting young German converts to Islam to wage holy war. After 15 years of marriage, his first wife sought refuge under Germanys witness protection programme. He has six children with his second wife for whom he earns some 2,300 in state welfare each month, the paper reported.
Unemployment levels across the 16 countries that use the euro hit a 10-year high in July, as the impact of the recession continued to be felt.
The number of people unemployed across the eurozone region totalled 15.1 million people in July, a seasonally-adjusted rate of 9.5%. This was the worst monthly percentage figure recorded since May 1999.
The rate across all 27 members of the European Union was 9% - a total of 21.8 million people out of work. This was the highest level of unemployment across the EU as a whole since 2005.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2009 00:00 ||
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Amateurs
Posted by: The One ||
09/02/2009 4:47 Comments ||
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The rate across all 27 members of the European Union was 9%
#4
When we lived in Germany, back in the first half of the '90s, I heard that something like 70% of high school graduates went on to university... and stayed 10-15 years, because 1) it was practically free, and 2) the unemployment situation was fairly dismal then. Also, most German women never hold a paying job, so half of the population never gets into the statistics.
U.S. Senate Democrats announced Monday a new delay on climate change legislation, which could make it more difficult for President Barack Obama to win progress on that front before a global environmental summit in December. Already facing a tough fight in the Senate and dwindling time before the summit to pass a bill, Democrats said they would not be able to unveil their legislation until "later in September."
Initially, the plan was to introduce a Senate bill to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases blamed for global warming by around late July - a timetable that had already slipped to early September before the latest delay. Passitpassitpassitpassitnownownownow!!!!
Even so, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid "fully expects the Senate to have ample time to consider this comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation before the end of the year," spokesman Jim Manley said.
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry said in a statement they were making progress toward crafting a bill that Democrats will introduce. More time was needed because of the struggle in Congress over healthcare legislation - another of Obama's top priorities, which has been running into turbulence. Boxer and Kerry also noted the death last week of Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy and hip surgery Kerry had this month, further complicating efforts. Boxer had to re-arrange her sock drawer.
With some moderate Democrats joining many Republicans in opposition to a climate change bill, Boxer and Kerry also could need more time to work out suitable language. The House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill in June that would reduce U.S. carbon emissions by 17 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels. Boxer has said she would work off that bill, making "tweaks" to it.
Democrats are racing against a December deadline, when the United Nations is scheduled to hold a global summit in Copenhagen to discuss the next steps on controlling greenhouse gas emissions. Gotta look good in front of the UN!
Obama badly wanted Congress to approve legislation by then as a way of demonstrating to the world the President's U.S. commitment to cutting production pollution from coal-fired utilities and other industrial smokestacks.
Other large polluters, such as China and India, are closely watching Washington's response to the global environmental problem following years of little action. Why don't we just bail out their environmental agencies?
The latest Senate delay also could take some of the steam out of a late September meeting of G20 countries - large economies with a similarly large stake in world climate talks. Some U.S. backers of climate change legislation were hoping that Boxer's Environment and Public Works Committee would have been able to approve a bill around the time of the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh.
"It would've helped out a lot" if the G20 could have convened as the Senate advanced a U.S. bill, said one international climate change expert. Well, I think our Senate has advanced the bill, so to speak.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/02/2009 07:09 ||
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid "fully expects the Senate to have ample time to consider this comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation before the end of the year,"
Question #1: Will they have time to read it? Will anyone else?
#2
More time was needed because of the struggle in Congress over healthcare legislation
Crappolla! They need time to come up with a plan to bribe reluctant Democrat Senators. Currently theyre looking into ways of altering existing trade and tariff policies to offset the bills obvious economic damage. Naturally, folks are squeamish to even consider such moves - especially in a recession.
#3
Priority number one for senators is keeping their rear end in their seat until they have to be scraped out of it into a bag.
Because of this nationalized medicine bulldada, so many of them are facing tough elections that their first response will be to slam on the brakes for everything, no matter what Dingy Harry wants.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
It will cost between $500 billion and $600 billion every year for the next 10 years to allow developing nations to grow using renewable energy resources, instead of relying on dirty fuels that worsen global warming, 
There are many things public officials probably shouldn't do during a severe recession, but no one seems to have told the leaders in Florida about them. One thing, for instance, would be giving a dozen top aides hefty raises while urging a rise in property taxes, as the mayor of Miami-Dade County recently did. Or jacking up already exorbitant hurricane-insurance premiums, as Florida's government-run property insurer just did. 
[Al Arabiya Latest] Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi threw a massive party to celebrate his 40 years in power on Tuesday as the British and Scottish governments sought to defuse an increasingly damaging row over the release of the Lockerbie bomber by publishing their files. 
U.S. Senate Democrats announced Monday a new delay on climate change legislation, which could make it more difficult for President Barack Obama to win progress on that front before a global environmental summit in December. Already facing a tough fight in the Senate and dwindling time before the summit to pass a bill, Democrats said they would not be able to unveil their legislation until "later in September."
