Gogwit's Blog

Leeds council tackles bedroom tax with semantic solution | UK news | guardian.co.uk.

Clever use of language.  Full marks to Leeds, but I wonder how long the Coalition will allow them to get away with it.  It’s too a dangerous precedent to set for any government to ignore.

More than 25,000 people applied for the ‘discretionary housing payment’ to help pay their rent this month, as the Bedroom Tax kicked in.  This compares to just 5,700 applications in the same month last year. Notices of eviction are being issued up and down the country.  Caught up in these figures were a blind widow, a disabled dad and a rape victim. It is time to put a human face on the statistical failure of the Bedroom Tax.

The Blind Widow

 

Helen Sockell, 56, (pictured above) has lived in her Kilmarnock home for 25 years.  Her husband John died in 2005 and their son Andrew died, aged just 24 in the same year.  She is blind and now lives alone, supported by a full time carer.

She has no way to find the additional £33 a fortnight that the Bedroom Tax has added to her costs and so…

Motherland,
I have been meaning to write you,
For some time now,
But my words simply cannot cascade,
Across my page like the rivers,
Falling across your mountains,
My words cannot descend from this pen,
Like the tears your women still cry,
How do I embody their strength  – in this?
How do I paint the remnants of children,
Across maps of our valleys,
In search of a heart that might just be beating,
Somewhere.  

I have been meaning to tell you,
I have fallen so in love since I left you,
I dream of your valleys,
I cradle them within me, unwilling to let go.
But the memories of my love,
Are encrypted in the painful remembrance,
Of rape and massacres,
Of mass graves and torture,
Of the tears cried by Parveena Ahangar,
As she searches for the strength to continue,
Now how do I write this to…

(satire?)

Downing Street has announced it is to launch an investigation into the latest edition of Britain’s Got Talent after numerous complaints by viewers that it quite clearly hasn’t.

The government clampdown on dishonest TV shows emerged as the Prime Minister David Cameron confirmed senior ministers were planning to get tough on anything annoying which might make people less likely to vote for them at the next election.

A spokesperson for Number 10 confirmed negotiations were already under way at cabinet level to introduce legislation aimed at curbing rainy weekends, banning rolls of sticky tape with ends that are impossible to find and laws which will to put an end to public displays of Michael Gove.

In a related development, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has said in its interim report this week that formal investigations have also been launched into the scandal of the proliferation of offensive…

I am nearly speechless with this video. I’ve laughed so hard I spit beer in my keyboard. I actually LOL’d

Please enjoy this too…. Dusty pulls off another good one

“Where did YOU study science?”  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

I need new expletives… there is another video. It’s like a two ring circus… enjoy

 

 

These are god’s warriors folks… aren’t you glad?

Walmart Workers Launch First-Ever ‘Prolonged Strikes’ Today | The Nation.

Here’s the world turned upside down…and not before time.  Let’s all show some solidarity.

Walmart employees are on strike in Miami, Massachusetts and the California Bay Area this morning, kicking off what organizers promise will be the first “prolonged strikes” in the retail giant’s history. The union-backed labor group OUR Walmart says that at least a hundred workers have pledged to join the strikes, and that some workers walking off the job today will stay out at least through June 7, when Walmart holds its annual shareholder meeting near Bentonville, Arkansas.

Organizers expect retail employees in more cities to join the work stoppage, which follows the country’s first-ever coordinated Walmart store strikes last October, and a high-profile Black Friday walkout November 23. Like Black Friday’s, today’s strike is being framed by the union-backed labor…

A discussion paper has been released this week through the Conservative Policy Forum seeking the views of Tory activists on major changes to health policy.  There is only one reason for these questions to be asked – the Conservative party are seeking to deliver them and want to ensure the support exists among their core. This includes asking activists whether they believe there should be a limit on the number of times a person can visit their GP each year.  These questions threaten the basic principles of the NHS.

The Principles of the NHS

 

The National Health Service was launched by Labour Health Minister Aneurin Bevan, on July 5^th 1948, with three founding principles:

• that it meet the needs of everyone
• that it be free at the point of delivery

• that it be based on clinical need, not ability to pay

The questions addressed to Tory activists…

(not satire – it’s the UKIP!)

In an extraordinary interview with the business publication London Loves Business, the man in charge of UKIP’s economic policy – their shadow chancellor Godfrey Bloom – has admitted that if the party were to win the next election most people in the UK will pay more tax.

Official UKIP policy is to introduce a flat rate of income tax at 31% – although in the interview Bloom says he would prefer a flat rate of 25%.

However, most people in the UK pay the basic income tax rate of 20% – which would mean a massive tax increase of 5%-11% for the people on the lowest incomes under the UKIP proposals.

And obviously a flat rate of tax without the highest brackets would also mean a massive cut in tax for the richest people in the country.

In the interview, Bloom also rather…

 

 

Hubble Image (above) supplemented by some infrared data from earth-bound telescopes. Image below is what we generally get here on earth: