It’s worth looking at this chart.

By their method of measurement Cuba is a better place to live than Luxembourg. Or Singapore, Hong Kong, the UK, Barbados and so on. Armenia is better than all of those, Albania.

It’s the sort of result that would have sensible people seriously considering their ranking methodology. Not the TJN though, they actually go to print with it.

After Mandrake disclosed that a female star of Game of Thrones had refused to disrobe again for the series, Equity, the actors? union, has raised concerns about how many of its members are expected to bare all at casting sessions.

?We have a duty to promote a safe and healthy working environment,? says Eleanor Dearle, a member of the union?s women?s committee. ?We don?t want a workplace that opens doors to sexual abuse.?

Given that historically, the casting couch was actual sexual abuse only having an environment that opens doors to it is indeed an improvement.

The event started in the early 1800s and sees competitors chasing the massive 1ft diameter cheese down the 200-yard Cooper’s Hill near Brockworth, Gloucestershire, as they race to reach the bottom first.

Farmer Diana Smart, 86, has been making her handmade cheese for the downhill run for a quarter of a century and it is something, she said, that brought her ‘such joy’.

This year, however, Mrs Smart, who has provided the large piece of cheese since 1988, has now been warned off doing so after a visit by police.

Three officers visited her farm and told her not to donate five 8lb wheels of her cheese in a bid to prevent the “dangerous” event.

Mrs Smart said the “heavy handed” police visited her home last week and told in a “threatening” manner she would be responsible for any injuries caused ? and so has pulled out.

Death is the only solution here. Up against the wall, a final cigarette and bang.

Baroness Warsi condemned the amount of coverage given to Choudary and other militant Islamists on the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 News.

The BBC was criticised for offering the radical preacher a slot on last night?s Newsnight programme on BBC2, in a decision branded ?idiotic?, ?irresponsible? and ?insensitive?.

The corporation has earlier released footage of Michael Adebolajo standing behind Choudary at a 2007 demonstration.

Baroness Warsi said: “We all have a responsibility, including the media, not to give airtime to extremist voices ? idiots and nutters who speak for no one but themselves.

Nutters beheading people in the streets is obviously bad. Those who spout the rhetoric that leads to such is similarly bad.

But neither hold a candle to politicians telling people who may or may not be featured in the media. We have this idea of a free press for a reason, see. Politicians were responsible, are responsible, for far more deaths than the occasional drummer boy vilely executed in public.

I’ve said this before and no doubt I’ll have to keep on saying it. Islamic militants are a danger to us each individually. But the danger to us as a whole, as a society, is in what the reaction to such nutters might be from the powers that be.

Even more on this capitalism thang.

And Jack, one of the dogs (who we have had ever since he was a tiny puppy….as we have all of them in fact) was this morning lying on the floor and refusing to get up. Indeed, would try to bite anyone (the only any there being the other half), behaviour most unusual for Jack, who tried to move him.

Eeeek!

Vet comes out, two muzzles on him (no, really, two) and a doggie stretcher to take him down to the vet’s office. Slipped disk? Broken hip? Is this the end for our dear Jack?

No, he’s got a clicky hip as a result of age and it had clicked. Painkillers for a bit and Ca tablets. Feed him a bit of chalk essentially.

But these things always happen when I’m not at home. Sigh.

More on that capitalism thing.

Here’s one little example of said lunacy:

Early power sector decarbonisation is at the heart of economy-wide decarbonisation
because: the power sector is a major source of emissions, accounting for around 27% of
total UK greenhouse gas emissions; there are relatively low-cost technologies available for
power sector decarbonisation (i.e. nuclear, renewables, carbon capture and storage ? CCS);

What? Renewables are not low cost. Not yet, at least. And CCS doesn’t work. It might never work but it certainly doesn’t work yet. So that’s two out of three of their assertions that are simply wrong. And it’s upon evidence, assumptions, like this that they build their castle in hte air.

Loons.

Low-carbon power offers the opportunity for greater energy
independence, which could reduce exposure to fossil fuel price volatility.

You probably son’t want to be exposed to volatility if prices are going to go up. But you probably do if prices are going to go down. Ermm, shale anyone? Quite, we’re at the dawn of a technological revolution that’s likely to push fossil fuel prices well down: this is not the time to be shielding ourselves from price volatility, is it?

As to their basic case, investing now is cheaper than investing later, they are of course away with the fairies. Non fossil fuel generation systems (most especially solar) are becoming cheaper every day. Thus building later saves a great deal of money over building now.

What’s interesting though is the numbers they use to reach their conclusion:

The Government?s carbon values rise to around £215/tCO2e in 2050 in a central case.

What? They’re modelling a carbon tax at four times what even the Stern Review suggested it should be?

This is simply nonsense. Shoot the lot of them.

He rebuffed Miliband’s suggestion there was a distinction between the letter and the spirit of the law. “You’ll have to define the difference,” he said to a barrister who challenged him to say whether Google would comply with the “spirit” of the tax laws, which might then lead to it being taxed more. “We’re governed by US securities laws ? in that scenario it might be seen as incompetence,” added Schmidt.

The squalid saga of secret arrests says much about how we are governed today ? little of it good. To recap, Lord Justice Leveson suggested that the names of those arrested or suspected of crimes should not be released to the public or media ?save in exceptional and clearly identified circumstances?. This was an offhand remark, at the tail-end of a section of his report dealing with the ethics of reporters accompanying police on raids. He provided no extended argument, or even justification, for reversing this long-established legal tradition.

Next, as part of a consultation on the new contempt of court rules, the Law Commission suggested that the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) should come up with clearer guidance on the issue. The commission made it clear that in the vast majority of cases, the names of those arrested should still be published. This is entirely right. For one thing, it lets the public know who the police have in custody, reassuring them that people are not being arbitrarily deprived of their liberty. For another, it helps ensure the conviction of the guilty: when the BBC presenter Stuart Hall was charged with sexual assault, it prompted many more victims to come forward.

Acpo, however, ignored such arguments, declaring that suspects should instead retain their anonymity to preserve them from damaged reputations. Police officers, its spokesmen suggested, should neither confirm nor deny the names of arrested suspects, leaving it to the press and public to hazard a guess at their identities. That guidance has now been rubber-stamped by the new College of Policing, and will be sent out to forces across the land (the guidance also requires officers to declare friendships with journalists, just as they already do with criminals).

How fucking stupid is this?

“Excuse me Mr. Plod. Do you have Tim Worstall banged up in custody?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny this”.

Where other than a police state can the rozzers keep someone inside without letting people know? Lawyers, family, these sort of people?

Of course the names of those arrested, held, charged, should be public, just like the damn trials themselves should be. This isn’t some marginal maybe, maybe not issue. It’s at the heart of basic liberty. Secret arrests simply should not be allowed to happen.

Miscalculations at the engineering stage have been blamed for a two-year delay in delivery of the first of four submarines commissioned from Spain’s state-owned shipbuilder Navantia.

Last month it emerged that the Isaac Peral sub ? part of the new S-80 series and named in honour of the Spanish man credited by some as the inventor of the underwater vessel ? was at least 75 tons overweight, an excess that could compromise its ability to surface after submerging.

Iraq is suffering from depleted uranium (DU) pollution in many regions and the effects of this may harm public health through poisoning and increased incidence of various cancers and birth defects. DU is a known carcinogenic agent. About 1200 tonnes of ammunition were dropped on Iraq during the Gulf Wars of 1991 and 2003. As a result, contamination occurred in more than 350 sites in Iraq. Currently, Iraqis are facing about 140,000 cases of cancer, with 7000 to 8000 new ones registered each year. In Baghdad cancer incidences per 100,000 population have increased, just as they have also increased in Basra. The overall incidence of breast and lung cancer, Leukaemia and Lymphoma, has doubled, even tripled. The situation in Mosul city is similar to other regions. Before the Gulf Wars Mosul had a higher rate of cancer, but the rate of cancer has further increased since the Gulf Wars.

OK, fair enough. Worth researching certainly.

Soil samples were collected from three sites around Mosul (Adayah, Damerchy and Rehanyah), Soil samples were selected from some of the most extensively contaminated areas throughout the province of Nineveh around Mosul city. Mosul is the provincial capital of Nineveh, northern Iraq. Its geographical coordinates are: 36° 20? 6? North, 43° 7? 8? East, in the Nineveh Governorate with latitude of 36.37 (36° 22? 0?N) and a longitude of 43.15 (43° 8? 60 E). The sites selected were at Adayah, a landfill site for radioactive waste; Rehanyah, a former centre of research of nuclear military products; and Damerchy, a site used for military activities in 2003 and in subsequent years.

What?

We’re going to research the effects of DU by not looking at DU but at a radioactive disposal site and a nuclear research lab?

Step on the love train: Prague Metro bosses plan to set aside carriages for singles looking for a soulmate

Plans to designate carriages on trains for single people looking for love

Although given the way things generally happen in that city the carriages will be flooded with professionals.

The word “liberal” has rather changed its meaning in recent years but UKIP’s attitude to all of this stuff is the properly liberal one. One of toleration.

Consenting adults want to shag each other? Carry on but try not to frighten the horses. Coonsenting adults wish to be carnivores/vegetarians/gay/hetero/polyamorous/shag gingers/eat locusts/run a model train set?

Carry on and try not to frighten the horses.

You have every right to run your life as you wish, up until that point that your lifestyle impinges upon the freedoms of others to do the same. And we all have to tolerate your choices as well. It’s called being liberal, see?

But this toleration, this liberality, does not mean that we must approve of any of your choices, celebrate them, applaud them. Nor does it mean that we cannot describe any or all of them as disgusting.

Indeed, the more that we think whatever it is that you like to do is disgusting and the less we interfere in your ability to do it the more liberal we are being.

After all, it’s pretty easy to be tolerant of the things that you already approve of, isn’t it?

Exploring the costs of adaptation to climate change instead of its prevention.

You may or may not want to send them some cash.

The total amount of lost tax revenue is far higher than £100 billion, as the figure only includes tax dodged by individuals, and not companies.

And a high proportion of tax evasion takes place on British offshore tax havens, with more than a third of the £12 trillion held in tax havens around the globe believed to be held in British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, according to Oxfam estimates.

Emma Seery, Oxfam’s head of development finance and public services, said: “These figures put the UK at the centre of a global tax system that is a colossal betrayal of people here and in the poorest countries who are struggling to get by, and put the Government on the side of the privileged few. If they want to get on the right side of this debate, now is the time to take action.

“Britain’s credibility is on the line; talking tough on tax, whilst continuing to usher a third of the world’s wealth into UK tax havens, risks making a mockery of David Cameron’s leadership at the G8 Summit in June.”

Did you see that switch there?

We start with Ritchie’s absurd estimate of the amount of cash tax dodged into tax havens. This is only some fraction of the world’s wealth. One third of this goes into British ish tax havens. So it’s one third of tax dodging goes into British ish places.

But by the fourth paragraph that’s one third of all the world’s wealth. Which is simply entire and gross nonsense of course.

I don’t actuall know what the world’s wealth is: but US GDP is some $15 tillion, US wealth is some $60, $70 trillion or so. Let’s just say that wealth is 4 x GDP. Global GDP is what, $70 trillion at present? Ish, ish? Global wealth is thus $280 trillion. Of which apparently $4 trillion is in British ish tax havens dodging taxes. 1.5%…..I’d say that was a pretty effective tax system myself. No system will ever be entirely leak free after all……

The banks have vast amounts of information about their customers. Who they pay, how much they pay them etc. So, use that information to run comparison engines. Split the savings between he bank and the customer.

I would assume that the problem is somewhere in the Data Protection Act.

As to whether it would work: well, imagine that you were in fact running a comparison engine. Say, Go Compare. Then someone said you can mine the retail customer information at Lloyds to t3ell people how and where they could save. You’d do it like a shot, wouldn’t you? Zero customer acquisition cost and millions upon million of new customers.

There is therefore a business in there.

So, what is it I’ve missed?

Maybe the banks simply aren’t competent to do this?

Gay marriage and the EU pile on the agony for the Tories, but Labour is leaching support

Leaching? Losing it slowly? Almost impercetably?

(One the front page it was even better: they had it as leeching. Galloway rejoined the party has he?)

A study of more than 1,000 pregnant women found those who consumed lower amounts of iodine, which is absorbed from food and found in milk, dairy products and fish, were more likely to have children with lower IQs and reading abilities.

Iodine is essential for producing hormones made by the thyroid gland, which has a direct effect on the development of the foetal brain.

The study by researchers at Bristol and Surrey universities found two thirds of the 1,040 pregnant women they tested were iodine deficient. These women were more likely to have children with lower IQs, and it was found the lower the iodine the lower the IQ and reading ability.

Professor Margaret Rayman of the University of Surrey, who led the study, said: “Our results clearly show the importance of adequate iodine status during early pregnancy, and emphasise the risk that iodine deficiency can pose to the developing infant, even in a country classified as only mildly iodine deficient.”

Researchers have said pregnant women should ensure they get enough iodine by eating dairy products and fish, as well as drinking milk. But they warned against kelp supplements, as they can have ?excessive levels? of iodine.

Yes, this is well known.

Iodine deficieny in the mother leads to goitre, in the child to cretinism. Been known for a long time this. The solution is to stick iodine into hte salt that the population eats (sea salt has it already, mined salt may not).

And what have the doctors been terlling everyone? Eat less salt, where the iodine the pregnant women need is.

Tossers.

A very bizarre claim by Chang.