Random Thoughts (Political Edition)

I know what is up with Politics!

The politicians are victims of the same Management Consultants and Lobbyists around the world so we get the same old shit everywhere. Here the Tories and Labour are virtually interchangeable really as to approach.

Bastards why do they not have their own sodding ideas? NB Leave the NHS sodding well alone.
 
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^

Iceland

.. and talking of politicians, why did they ask the people whether to pay back a big bank bailout to the Netherlands and UK?

I would have probably voted no as well. :p

BBC News - UK and Netherlands to sue Iceland over lost deposits

However, voting "No" in the referendum will have consequences.

BBC Joe Lynam said:
..

Moody's and other ratings agencies look set to downgrade the country even further, making it prohibitively more expensive to borrow on the open markets.
..

I think bailing out private banks with government money stinks, but it had to be done. :rolleyes:
 
Haven#t you learned by now, that it's bye-bye for taxpayer money? :p
 
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I think bailing out private banks with government money stinks, but it had to be done. :rolleyes:

We did it cleverly in the early 90s. The banks were failing, so they bought them at bargain basement prices. As they're the government, and can tap into large reserves of ready money, and don't need to show a short term profit on every venture they do. That's why they're so into building roads, and roads aren't profitable before years have gone by.

Anyhow, I digress. In the end, the government sold the banks back to private individuals, and made money on the deal.

Got that? We bailed out the banks. And made money from it. That's sweet.
 
We did it cleverly in the early 90s. The banks were failing, so they bought them at bargain basement prices. As they're the government, and can tap into large reserves of ready money, and don't need to show a short term profit on every venture they do. That's why they're so into building roads, and roads aren't profitable before years have gone by.

Anyhow, I digress. In the end, the government sold the banks back to private individuals, and made money on the deal.

Got that? We bailed out the banks. And made money from it. That's sweet.

Indeed, that it what the UK govt. is hoping to do as well, in the long term.

The annoyance tax payers have is that the bankers earnt big bonuses taking bad risks and they haven't had to pay them back. Also, even though some of the banks are state owned or partly, the bankers are getting bonuses again now.

Back to Iceland, what did the government there expect the people to vote? Ordinary people probably have no idea what Moody's or other ratings agents are nor much of an understanding of government finance. (Not sure I do either. :lol:)
 
AH! Banks! Lets explain how they work.

[video=youtube;M_3T-Af57Pg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_3T-Af57Pg&feature=related[/video]

However, voting "No" in the referendum will have consequences.
Yes hopefully it will keep them out of the EU, which will otherwise steal their fish.
 
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No mate Sweden, UKania and Germany all pay for this crap. Everyone else takes out! Some people, in some countries now realise that they have been had.

Iceland you guys really do not want to give us or the Spanish even all your fish now do you? Makes a mockery of the Cod War. Oh and taking out - you do not qualify, you'd have to pay in.

Still you'd be part of the European Project (aka f**k up the US).
 
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I was never a fan of the EU. Fuck that shit!
 
Still you'd be part of the European Project (aka f**k up the US).
I think it's time for some..

Sir Humphrey: Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last five hundred years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now, when it's worked so well?
Hacker: That's all ancient history, surely?
Sir Humphrey: Yes, and current policy. We had to break the whole thing [the EEC] up, so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside, but that wouldn't work. Now that we're inside we can make a complete pig's breakfast of the whole thing: set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch. The Foreign Office is terribly pleased; it's just like old times.
Hacker: But surely we're all committed to the European ideal?
Sir Humphrey: [chuckles] Really, Minister.
Hacker: If not, why are we pushing for an increase in the membership?
Sir Humphrey: Well, for the same reason. It's just like the United Nations, in fact; the more members it has, the more arguments it can stir up, the more futile and impotent it becomes.
Hacker: What appalling cynicism.
Sir Humphrey: Yes... We call it diplomacy, Minister.


:)
 
we should just annex iceland again and turn it into a massive geothermal powerstation for the rest of europe

empire mk 2.0
 
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Things in Wisconsin are getting weirder by the day. They just had an election and it seems everybody is wondering why the vote totals are so,.... um, strange.

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/lo...cle_7e777016-62b2-11e0-9b74-001cc4c002e0.html

Waukesha County clerk has drawn criticisms in the past

Kathy Nickolaus, the Waukesha County clerk at the center of the disputed state Supreme Court election, is no stranger to controversy. Nor is her former boss, Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, whose candidacy got a boost Thursday when Nickolaus revealed the results she gave to The Associated Press on election night failed to include more than 14,000 votes from the city of Brookfield.

The new total puts Prosser ? who appeared to be losing by a minuscule 204-vote margin ? ahead in the election by about 7,500 votes.

Nickolaus did not return email and phone messages for comment Friday. Prosser campaign manager Brian Nemoir said he learned of the discrepancy around 5 p.m. Thursday, just before Nickolaus' press conference.

In 2006, Nickolaus, who was elected Waukesha County clerk in 2002, was criticized for posting election returns that temporarily skewed results of a Republican primary for the 97th Assembly District. At the time, Nickolaus told reporters some returns from the city of Waukesha were entered in the wrong column.

And last summer, the Waukesha County Board ordered an internal audit of her office, citing concerns Nickolaus was secretive and refusing to cooperate with the county's technical staff in a security review of the computerized election system.

Some officials also were critical of Nickolaus' decision to stop posting municipal results to save time. Auditors who looked at the Waukesha County system found 26 of 62 counties surveyed also did not post local results ? a step that might have revealed the missing Brookfield numbers.

Brookfield City Clerk Kris Schmidt said she learned her community's votes weren't reported by Nickolaus two days after the election, when Nickolaus called a press conference to explain the discrepancy.

"I should've had the courtesy of a call that they knew on Wednesday that there was a problem," Schmidt said. "If people would've known on Wednesday that there were an additional 7,000 votes for Prosser, all this talk about recount and everything would've calmed down."

Testified in secret hearing

Years ago, Nickolaus worked for Prosser at the Assembly Republican Caucus, one of the four legislative agencies that conducted secret, illegal campaign work for legislative leaders. The four offices were closed at the end of 2001 after the Wisconsin State Journal exposed the widespread covert campaigning carried out by the ARC and the other three partisan caucuses.

The stories prompted criminal charges against top Republican Assembly and Senate Democratic leaders, including then-Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, R-Brookfield. Prosser was Jensen's predecessor, serving as the Assembly's top Republican leader in 1996 and 1997.

A few high-level staffers were charged or fined in the scandal. Nickolaus, a computer expert who handled lists of registered voters and other tasks, was among at least 18 Republican and Democratic staffers who avoided prosecution in exchange for testifying before a secret John Doe hearing in Dane County Circuit Court.

When Jensen went to trial in 2006, Prosser ? by then a Supreme Court justice ? served as a character witness for Jensen, who paid a $5,000 fine in December in exchange for dismissal of the charges.

Prosser was never questioned under oath about illegal campaign work, but in a statement prepared by Jensen's lawyers, Prosser said he also used state staff and resources to run Republican campaigns during his seven years in leadership.

"The legislative branch is the political branch of government, and a legislative office is a thoroughly political office," Prosser said in the court brief. "For the most part, every activity that could be characterized as a campaign activity can be conceivably construed to be an act that furthers the legislative process."
 
Does anyone have an update on this matter of nashnul securrytah?

Village Customs border on the ridiculous
By David Rennie 12:01AM GMT 15 Feb 2003

Michel Jalbert was not planning a diplomatic incident when he drove 20 yards into the United States last October to fill his car with cheap petrol.

Like almost everyone in Pohenegamook, a Quebec village facing the forests of northern Maine, he took a relaxed view of the border. It is hard not to when the frontier - fixed by Anglo-American treaty in 1842, then seemingly ignored until the 20th century - runs right through several villagers' houses.

But with security sharply tightened since September 11, 2001, there is now a serious border running an inch behind one man's fridge, and dividing an elderly couple's kitchen table in two.

Technically, Mr Jalbert should have registered his trip at a United States Customs post three-quarters of a mile away. But the post, which closes at 2pm, was already shut and, like dozens of others that afternoon, Mr Jalbert could not be bothered to wait until the next day.

The petrol station, Ouellet's Gaz Bar, lies at the end of a short loop of road, which can be reached only from Canada. With a bit of luck, and a quick tap on the accelerator, Mr Jalbert could be back in Quebec and no one the wiser.

Mr Jalbert's luck was out. He was being watched by a United States border agent whom locals accuse of bringing a "reign of terror" to their quiet village since security was stepped up.
(click the title for the rest of the article)
 
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Are you Cobol74's Swedish cousin? :lol:

Fish accounts for nearly half of Icelands exports and should they join the EU that industry will be destroyed.

The mayor's own father-in-law, Edmond Levesque, lives right on top of the border, with one wall of his house and his garden in the United States. Several locals recounted, with outrage, that Agent Cantrell had decreed Mr Levesque could not enter his garden after his post closed at 2pm.

The garden ban offered an unexpected legal test, as a large snow drift blocked Mr Levesque's Canadian front door. A path led, temptingly, to his back door, four feet inside the United States.
Insaaaaane.
 
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