Category Archives: Uncategorized

Government To Sell Off Royal Males ‘Within 6 Weeks’ – Females To Follow

Grin – 2 pence?

Pride's Purge


(satire?)

The government has confirmed it will very soon sell off most of the Royal Males – including Prince Philip, Prince Charles and Prince Harry – in the most contentious privatisation since the sale of British Rail two decades ago.

Vince Cable, the business secretary, on Thursday formally fired the starting gun on the £3bn sale of the princes by filing a formal “intention to float” the male successors to the throne on the stock exchange within six weeks.

At least half of the Royal Family is expected to be floated with the rest of the female members to be sold off at a later date if there is sufficient demand from investors.

Even Margaret Thatcher, who privatised British Gas, British Airways, British Telecom and dozens of other state-owned institutions in the 1980s, famously refused to countenance a sale of the Royal Family, saying she was “not prepared to have the Queen’s head…

View original post 190 more words

An Immigrant’s Dream #flashfiction #history #statueofliberty

penned in moon dust

the-boat-and-miss-liberty

“I see her far away in the distance.” a youngun called.

The tall looming lady was a welcome sight after long weeks at sea.

“Hot meals will be a welcome relief after weeks of soapy soup,” the weary matron thought.

The pretty girl, in the gown, that was beginning to show its wear, wore a tight smile. ” I hope he likes me; there is nothing to go back to if I’m sent back.”

“Will there really be work for the likes of a scrawny boy with naught but two pence to rub together?”

The Lady distanced herself from the expectations.

Today at Friday Fictioneers Rochelle has up whipping up stories on the sea entering New York harbor.

View original post

Why TQM Fails and What to Do About It

AXIS Performance Advisors

Why TQM Fails and What to Do About It

Why tqmThe “quality revolution” has prompted companies to invest heavily in quality improvement: hiring consultants, retraining workforces and overhauling systems. Many managers, however, have not seen the expected results. This book reveals root causes for the collapse and failures of total quality and offers practical advice to correct and prevent them.

For more info…

View original post

Jobseeker’s benefits stopped as punishment for looking for too many jobs!

Pride's Purge

(not satire – it’s the UK today!)

A jobseeker has had his benefits stopped for 13 weeks as punishment for applying for too many jobs.

No – it’s not satire.

Castleford Jobcentre Plus sanctioned a jobseeker for applying for six jobs in one week and none the second, instead of three in each week.

Here’s the full story from local newspaper the Pontefract and Castleford Express:

Benefit cut in job hunt row

In the article, the DWP actually openly admit it’s more important to them that jobseekers “play” by their rules rather than look for work:

We make it clear to people at the start of their claim what the rules are and that they risk losing their benefits if they don’t play by them.

The way the DWP talk about ‘playing’ by the rules – it’s clear being unemployed is just a game to them.

That would be…

View original post 52 more words

Chipotle + Willy Wonka + Fiona Apple: Whimsy and a Better Food World – Wired Science

For the second time, the marketing crews at Chipotle have produced an ad that combines off-beat animation, an alternative-ish singer, and aspirations for a better food system into an educational, emotional message piece (which, to be fair, also sells burritos).

via Chipotle + Willy Wonka + Fiona Apple: Whimsy and a Better Food World – Wired Science.

Cilantro Hailed for its Water Purification Properties | Green Prophet

cilantro grows wild in vast amounts in countries that have problems with heavy-metal water pollution. It is readily available, inexpensive and shows promise in removing certain metals, such as lead, copper and mercury, that can be harmful to human health.”

The structure of the other walls of Cilantro’s microscopic cells have the ideal architecture to absorb heavy metals, Physorg reports. Parsley and culantro have similar properties.

Schauer proposes to pack the cilantro into packets that are similar to tea-bags, or the herb can be packed into water filter cartridges.

With so many people without clean drinking water throughout the Middle East, a dedicated awareness campaign could go a long way to informing them of natural methods of purifying one of our planet’s most necessary and increasingly precious resources.

via Cilantro Hailed for its Water Purification Properties | Green Prophet.

Netherlands apologizes formally to Indonesia for colonial killings | News | DW.DE | 12.09.2013

The Dutch ambassador to Indonesia, Tjeerd de Zwaan, made the apology for the massacres during a ceremony at the Dutch Embassy in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

“On behalf of the Dutch government, I apologize for these excesses,” he said, adding: “The Dutch government hopes that this apology will help close a difficult chapter for those whose lives were impacted so directly by the violent excesses that took place between 1945 and 1949.”

The Dutch government had previously apologized and paid some compensation to relatives of those killed in particular cases, but it has never before offered a general apology for all summary executions.

via Netherlands apologizes formally to Indonesia for colonial killings | News | DW.DE | 12.09.2013.

GOP’s unhealthy obsession with Obamacare – latimes.com

Try as they might, House Republican leaders are having trouble stopping their colleagues from shooting themselves in the foot — again.

Having failed to approve any of the 12 annual appropriations bills that fund federal agencies, Congress has to pass a stopgap spending bill by Sept. 30 to keep much of the federal government from shutting down. But rank-and-file Republicans in the House are resisting their leadership’s proposed stopgap because it wouldn’t necessarily block funding for the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare.

Opponents of the Affordable Care Act don’t have the votes to repeal it in the Senate, and even if they did, they couldn’t override a certain veto by President Obama. Nevertheless, a large faction in the House wants to hold funding for the rest of the government hostage until Democrats agree to stop implementing Obamacare.

via GOP’s unhealthy obsession with Obamacare – latimes.com.

Could rain gardens be one solution to the floods in Singapore?

It is not unusual for large cities to flood as a result of severe weather, we have seen this in New York, Melbourne, Tokyo, Bangkok, and Mumbai. With climate change, it seems like unpredictable weather is here to stay and mitigation of storm water and floods is what we need to focus on.

According to the City of Desmoines’ park and recreation department,  an executive summary of the 2003 Iowa Water Summit prepared by Nonpoint Source Work Group documented that, “As a result of our landscape changes over time, storm water does not infiltrate into the soil as it once did. Storm water runs-off the landscape at an increased rate and volume, carrying with it the sediment, nutrients, and other compounds that constitute NPS (nonpoint source) pollution. More attention must be given to identifying technologies that reduce the amount of water and pollutants leaving the landscape.”

Some countries are…

View original post 401 more words

SPaRK

AXIS Performance Advisors

SPaRK logo square

Confused about how to create a sustainability plan?

Daunted by how to identify and track meaningful sustainability metrics?

Wondering how you’ll find time to create a sustainability report?

SPaRK™—the Sustainability Planning and Reporting Kit—is a tool for helping organizations quickly develop a sustainability plan, metrics and management system. It helps you gather data on sustainability metrics and create charts that can be used in a sustainability report. The product is an Excel file with worksheets for many of the common analyses and metrics an organization would use. It is designed to be used as a facilitation/decision tool as well as a way to store your performance data. We use SPaRK with clients and train others how to use it. Now you can have it too!

See also the companion guide, The Step by Step Guide to Sustainability Planning, under Books.

Watch a podcast explaining SPaRK 4.0.

SPaRK Process

View original post 309 more words