You're beautiful. You're goregeous.

Hi Turi,

How are you? It's always nice to see you around



TIS

Has anyone from the UK seen impact from this?

Britain Reels as Austerity Cuts Begin
By SARAH LYALL
LONDON — Last month, the British government abolished the U.K. Film Council, the Health Protection Agency and dozens of other groups that regulate, advise and distribute money in the arts, health care, industry and other areas.

It seemed shockingly abrupt, a mass execution without appeal. But it was just a tiny taste of what was to come.

Like a shipwrecked sailor on a starvation diet, the new British coalition government is preparing to shrink down to its bare bones as it cuts expenditures by $130 billion over the next five years and drastically scales back its responsibilities. The result, said the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a research group, will be “the longest, deepest sustained period of cuts to public services spending” since World War II.

Until recently, the cuts were just election talking points, early warnings of a new age of austerity. But now the pain has begun. And as the government begins its abrupt retrenchment, the implications, complications and confusions in the process are beginning to emerge.

“It feels like they’re just sticking a finger in the air and guessing,” John Mutton, leader of the City Council in Coventry, said of the government’s methods for deciding which programs to cancel and which to cut.

In June, the government announced its first round of cuts, removing about $10 billion from the current year’s budget.

While that is a drop in the bucket compared to the final goal, the reduction measures have already had severe consequences. Public sector workers across the country, except for the lowest paid, will have their salaries frozen for the next two years. Oxfordshire, facing a nearly $1 million trim in its road safety budget, has been forced to shut down all of its 161 traffic speed cameras.

Nottinghamshire plans to close three recycling facilities and some of its day care centers. The city of Coventry, which already cut spending in January, is trying to find $5.6 million more to cut from its current child services budget.

But far worse cuts await in October, when the government issues its long-term budget plans. Mr. Mutton, the Coventry official, predicted that the next round of cuts would cost the city at least 10,000 jobs. Analysts have estimated that about 600,000 public-sector jobs could be lost nationwide.

Mr. Mutton said that the most recent news — which included the cancellation of a multimillion-pound program to build new schools and refurbish crumbling old ones in Coventry — had come so abruptly that carefully wrought plans and partnerships had to be torn up overnight.

“It’s impossible to plan,” he said. “We believe in trying to plan our budget for three years, particularly in order to give our voluntary and private-sector partners some stability. But we can’t do that at the moment. We haven’t a clue.”

They are not the only ones. The urgency of the task has sent cabinet ministers scrambling to find cuts so quickly that speed may be overtaking sober reflection, critics say.

For instance, the U.K. Film Council is not, in fact, sure whether it is meant to exist or not. Two weeks ago, a Culture Department official told its chief executive, Tim Bevan, that it was being abolished. The next week, the department said in a news release — and the culture secretary said in Parliament — that the abolition was one of a number of “proposed” changes.

A spokesman for the council said that no one from the Culture Department had explained what was going on. But a spokeswoman for the department declared that it was a done deal: the group would cease to exist....
UK Austerity Complete Article

Not yet but we are waiting for cuts to be made to our public services and at work we have been told the over time has to be drastically cut so that will be affecting me in my pocket

MY 1,000th POST!

Dude, someone else is supposed to point out your milestone posts .

Whatsa matter, got no friends?

Oh yeah, congrats on your 1000th post. Now go home and get your fuckin shine box.

msnbc.com staff and news service reports updated 2 hours 27 minutes ago

A Southwest Airlines flight attendant reportedly removed a baby from her parents' care mid-flight after witnessing the mother slap her crying child. Flight 879 was enroute to Albuquerque from Dallas on Monday when the incident occurred. The flight attendant did return the 1-year-old girl to her parents just before the plane landed.

"Our flight attendants do great customer service," said Southwest Airlines spokesman Brad Hawkins. "In this case, it was a baby that was upset, and the flight attendant asked the mother if she wanted help with the baby." He declined to release the name of the flight attendant. Hawkins did not have further details about the onboard incident, but said the airline asked police to meet the plane when it arrived around 4:30 p.m. at the Albuquerque International Sunport.

“I think it was a solid move [on] the part of the flight attendant to take custody of the child,” Albuquerque International Sunport police chief Marshall Katz told KRQE News. “It neutralized the situation. It calmed everybody down.” Airport spokesman Daniel Jiron said paramedics checked the baby when the flight landed.

Police returned the child to her parents after speaking to the couple, the flight attendant and other witnesses. The parents were not cited. “We felt it was an isolated incident,” Katz told KRQE.

Flight attendants seem to be all the rage lately.

What PB said...
But congrats Mark...

so...i have what 2,126 posts

Thanks - I needed that!

how long have you been on here anyways?

Conservative website WND has dropped Ann Coulter as the keynote speaker at its upcoming conference over her plan to speak to a group in favor of gay rights.

WND says that Coulter's decision to speak at Homocon, an event sponsored by a gay Republican organization called GOProud, disqualifies her from speaking at their "Taking America Back National Conference."

"Ultimately, as a matter of principle, it would not make sense for us to have Ann speak to a conference about 'taking America back' when she clearly does not recognize that the ideals to be espoused there simply do not include the radical and very 'unconservative' agenda represented by GOProud," WND editor and CEO Joseph Farah said. "The drift of the conservative movement to a brand of materialistic libertarianism is one of the main reasons we planned this conference from the beginning."

Coulter, who is and will remain a WND columnist, said she was hired to deliver a speech at Homocon but that does not mean she endorses GOProud's views.

"They hired me to give a speech, so I'm giving a speech. I do it all the time," she said. "I speak to a lot of groups and do not endorse them. I speak at Harvard and I certainly don't endorse their views. I've spoken to Democratic groups and liberal Republican groups that loooove abortion. The main thing I do is speak on college campuses, which is about the equivalent of speaking at an al-Qaida conference. I'm sure I agree with GOProud more than I do with at least half of my college audiences. But in any event, giving a speech is not an endorsement of every position held by the people I'm speaking to."

Coulter added that she was set to speak for WND, but she thinks the organization is "nuts on the birther thing."

Coulter's history on gay issues is checkered: she notoriously called John Edwards a "f*****" in 2007, and earlier this year she railed against "irritating lesbian" Constance McMillen for challenging the sanctimony of heterosexual-only proms.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/18/wnd-drops-ann-coulter-as-_n_686103.html

She really is NUTS.

Speaking of rejections:

msnbc.com staff and news service reports updated 8/18/2010 1:06:55 AM ET

Dr. Laura Schlessinger says she's shutting down her 30-year-old syndicated radio program at the end of the year so she can get her "First Amendment rights" back.

Her announcement on "Larry King Live" comes just a week after she repeatedly used the N-word while taking a call on the air from a black woman who wanted to discuss her interracial marriage.

She told King, "My contract is up for my radio show at the end of the year and I've made the decision not to do radio anymore."

"The reason is I want to regain my First Amendment rights," she told King, according to E! Online. "I want to be able to say what's on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is the time to silence a voice of dissent and attack affiliates, attack sponsors. I'm sort of done with that."

A little bit of self pity on Dr. Laura's part, eh?

Today is the 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment.

Over the last decade, the percentage of women voting in presidential elections has exceeded that of males by about 5 percentage points. This was true in every age cohort except the elderly where it was either even or males exceeded females.

Found this cool link. It speaks for itself.

www.allmyfaves.com

Cool site, Mark.

Yes, I'm sure it was voluntary.

Wow, everything but the kitchen sink. Or did I miss it? Everything on one page. Cool!


TIS

At the end of the movie "Fast Times at Ridgmont High" Judge Reinhold is told that ".. the party is over". He responds by saying "I'm still waiting for the party to start!" I sort of feel like that after reading this article. I want my big house too!!!

They've been called McMansions, Starter Castles, Garage Mahals and Faux Chateaus but here's the latest thing you can call them - History.

In the past few years, there have been an increasing number of references made to the "McMansion glut" and the "McMansion backlash," as more towns pass ordinances against garishly large homes, which are generally over 3,000 square feet and built very close together.

What sets a McMansion apart from a regular mansion, according to Wikipedia, are a few characteristics: They're tacky, they lack a definitive style and they have a "displeasingly jumbled appearance."

Well, count 2010 as the year the last nail was hammered into the McCoffin: In its latest report on home-buying trends, real-estate site Trulia declares: "The McMansion Era Is Over."

Just 9 percent of the people surveyed by Trulia said their ideal home size was over 3,200 square feet. Meanwhile, more than one-third said their ideal size was under 2,000 feet.

"That's something that would've been unbelievable just a few years back," said Pete Flint, CEO and co-founder of Trulia. "Americans are moving away from McMansions."

The comments echoed those made in June by Kermit Baker, the chief economist at the American Institute of Architects.

"We continue to move away from the McMansion chapter of residential design, with more demand for practicality throughout the home," Baker said. "There has been a drop off in the popularity of upscale property enhancements such as formal landscaping, decorative water features, tennis courts, and gazebos."
....

Full Yahoo Article

Perhaps it's because the baby boomers bought all the McMansions to begin with. Now, 15 or so years later, they're semi- or fully-retired empty nesters who are looking to downsize the amount of space they occupy as well as eliminate the headache of property maintenance.

So what you're saying is that once again the baby boomers get a hold of a good thing and run it into the ground before us younger folk get a piece of the action. Rock music, free love, Wall Street, McMansions...

The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!
Is Staten Island considered a nicer borough than the others? Is it less built up?


Staten Island Journal

Mother Russia has long been ensconced in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach, feasting on pirogi, borscht and the tang of salty air reminiscent of Odessa. But her assimilated children have been planting colonies across the New York area, and one of the largest is flourishing on Staten Island.

Staten Island’s Russians — even if many are really from Ukraine or other lands of the former Soviet Union — number 22,288 by the most recent census estimates, or more than 50,000 by their own estimates, which would make Russians one-tenth of the island’s population. As immigrant strivers, they moved to Staten Island for the affordable houses, good schools, suburban feel and pace, even a boardwalk in South Beach that can match Brighton Beach’s in length, if not in ambience.

But they have not escaped the ethnic encounters often associated with urban migrations, including grumbling by natives that the newcomers are taking over. This has surfaced most vividly as a result of a Russian-run community and day care center’s plan for a new 10,000-square-foot building that it promises would be for all Staten Islanders.

It will become another “Russian thing,” one skeptic, Joanne Bennetti, a 60-ish retired beautician, said at a meeting of the South Beach Civic Association. “You don’t know what it’s like to feel like a foreigner in your own neighborhood.”

Janele Hyer-Spencer, a local assemblywoman, who arranged for $4 million in state funding for a new Staten Island Community Center, said the tensions reflected the discomfort of some old-timers with the rapid influx of immigrants — Liberians, Albanians and Mexicans as well as Russians — into a once-sleepy, relatively homogeneous island.

According to Ms. Hyer-Spencer and the police, there has been a spate of hate crimes in recent months, including one in April in which a Mexican bakery worker’s skull was bashed. In June, large numbers of islanders turned out to oppose plans to build a mosque in a former convent, a plan that was eventually withdrawn.

“We are experiencing, across the island, a demographic shift of monumental proportions and the cultural conflict that is an outgrowth of that shift,” Ms. Hyer-Spencer said.

Meanwhile, the plan for the community center, to replace a derelict amusement arcade, has turned into a muddle. Though funds became available two years ago, the State Dormitory Authority has yet to approve the building. Ms. Hyer-Spencer suggested that she had exhausted her efforts to convince local civic associations that the center would be multicultural, not just for Russians.

“Because of so much cultural conflict, it’s impossible to move forward,” she said.

Joseph McAllister, the president of the South Beach Civic Association, said that based on what he had learned so far, he was opposed to the center because cars picking up and dropping off children would clog traffic. Moreover, he said, no details have emerged about parking on the site or about the building’s size.

Mr. McAllister says he does not, however, side with those who express antagonism toward newcomers, pointing out that most residents have ancestors who came through Ellis Island.

“We’re very diversified in South Beach,” he said.

In the meantime, Arkadiy Fridman, 53, and his wife, Ella, who run the center’s day care and after-school programs and art and music classes out of a cramped house on Jefferson Avenue, fear they have lost a $65,000 deposit for the arcade site.

That has disheartened Mr. Fridman, who started the center to see if he “could combine Russian culture with American culture and create something better.” Half the center’s 100 students, he said, are not Russian.

“They can’t understand how people who came from a foreign country 10 or 15 years ago can build successful businesses,” he said of the critics. “But most of us are educated, and we’re hungry to work.”

Some Russians, like Rabbi Shlomo Uzhanksy, detect a chord of jealousy by longer-rooted blue-collar or middle-class families. That strain seemed to emerge in some interviews. Betty Mateo, 58, an East Shore resident who wanted only her maiden name used, said she was angry that the state had given money to a Russian-founded center when “you see them coming out of the center with their expensive cars and their mink coats.” ....

It's probably the most residential of the 5 boroughs, although there are a few sections, like Stapleton, with lower income apartment buildings. Most people consider Staten Island to be more an extension of North Jersey than part of NYC, given its proximity to Jersey (through the Goethals and Outer Bridges). It's also the only borough to consistently vote Republican.

Is it nicer? Well, I have to admit, some of the mansions are absolutely gorgeous, and it is the wiseguy capital of NYC , so they're probably not going to welcome change or any of the "new" immigrants. But in all fairness, I live in a similar section up in the Bronx (Country Club/Throggs Neck).

It's the natural "next step" for the upwardly mobile Russians of Brighton Beach, given that the Verrazano Narrows Bridge is just a stone's throw away.

That'll be 50 cents for the geography and background lessons, Lilo.

It was nicer when it was completely controlled by Barzini.

Nah.

Barzini died in '55. The Verrazano Narrows didn't open till the mid '60s. And gangsters don't like ferries .

Thx, try not to spend it all in one spot...