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This Saturday evening, about 8pm, I drove 1.8 miles from North Cheam to Motspur Park. Via Worcester Park's Central Road, which has more restaurants and take-aways than you can shake a stick at! Counted 20 scooter riders with food deliveries in 5 minutes. A lot of of them were showing L-plates, and definitely unworried about the 20mph limit. Wonder if these drivers should at least have passed the test before being eligible for this work? -
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FYI. "Recorded executions soared to their highest number in almost a decade in 2023 with a sharp rise across the Middle East and in Somalia, where executions increased by more than six times, Amnesty International said today as it released its annual report on the global use of the death penalty Globally, a total of 1,153 known executions took place in 2023, which does not include the thousands believed to have been carried out in China, marking an increase of more than 30% from 2022. It was the highest figure recorded by Amnesty International since 2015, when 1,634 people were known to have been executed. Despite this increase, the number of countries that carried out executions reached the lowest figure on record with Amnesty International. The five countries with the highest number of executions in 2023 were China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and the USA. Excluding China, Iran alone accounted for 74% of all recorded executions while Saudi Arabia accounted for 15%. The USA also carried out an increased number of executions in 2023. Due to state secrecy, Amnesty’s numbers do not include the thousands of people believed to have been executed in China, which remains the world’s lead executioner. Similarly, the organization was unable to put forward figures for North Korea and Viet Nam, countries believed to resort to executions extensively. Despite the actions of a few, progress continued. As of today, 112 countries are fully abolitionist and 144 in total have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Executions were recorded in 16 countries, the lowest number recorded by Amnesty International. No executions were recorded in Belarus, Japan, Myanmar and South Sudan, all of which carried out executions in 2022." Progess... -
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“If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem,” Biden said, according to a brief excerpt released by the network. The comment is the latest in a series of shifting explanations by the president about what might cause him to reconsider. In an interview with ABC News this month, Biden said he would drop out only if the “Lord almighty” told him to. At a news conference in Washington several days later, he said he would stay in the race unless aides came to him with proof that he could never win. In the BET [ Black Entertainment Television ] interview, he conceded that he “made a serious mistake in the whole debate” and would reevaluate his decision if one of his doctors changed their assessment of him. Biden also said for the first time that he had expected to “move on” from the presidency and “pass it on to somebody else” but decided to run again because he believed his “wisdom” and experience would help heal the country’s worsening divisions. “You may remember, Ed, I said I was going to be a transitional candidate, and I thought I would be able to move on from this and pass it on to somebody else,” the president said. “But I didn’t anticipate things getting so, so, so divided. And quite frankly, I think the only thing age brings is a little bit of wisdom.” It is the most explicit that Biden has been in suggesting that he considered serving only one term in office when he ran in 2020. At the time, he said he would be a transitional candidate who could serve as a bridge to a new generation of political leaders in the party. That was widely seen at the time by many Democrats as Biden — the oldest person elected to the White House — hinting that he would pass the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris to run in the 2024 election." This is a critical decision. Your thoughts? -
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https://www.reuters.com/world/us/jd-vance-once-compared-trump-hitler-now-they-are-running-mates-2024-07-15/ Reuters is a trusted news source. Eight years ago, in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, J.D. Vance was a bitter critic of Donald Trump. Publicly, he called the Republican presidential candidate an "idiot" and said he was "reprehensible." Privately, he compared him to Adolf Hitler. What has changed in the past 8 years? -
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Statiticians devise training regimes. Analysis reveals that if you reduce the length of long passes by 10 feet your per centage of completed passes increase by 75%. [ logically if 10 outfield players form a closed circle they'd have a 100% passing success rate.] Watch as substitutes are sent on with coaches holding a laptop showing how and where they must perform. Spain took chances, passed with one touch, and best of all played exciting football and won... -
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Source: New York Post "Trump wore a “loose, large white bandage that covered his right ear” during the interview that was conducted on Trump’s private plane as he flew to Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention, according to the report. No pictures were allowed to be taken of the former president wearing the bandage, per Goodwin. Elsewhere in the interview, Trump said he’s “supposed to be dead.” “A lot of people say it’s the most iconic photo they’ve ever seen,” he added of an image of him pumping his fist before being escorted away by agents. “They’re right and I didn’t die. Usually you have to die to have an iconic picture,” he added." Your thoughts? -
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"Newsweek" report:- Next week the Republican Party meets to confrm Trump's nomination as Presidential Candidate. “‘We are prohibiting citizens from possessing tennis balls and water bottles while allowing them to carry fully loaded AR-15 assault rifles into the security perimeter of a major political event,’ Milwaukee Alderman Robert Bauman told Newsweek. ‘I find this utterly ridiculous.’ “‘Fake guns are prohibited, but real guns are allowed,’ he said. ‘Think about that.’” Fake news indeed!! -
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Water bills in England and Wales are set to rise by an average £94 over the next five years, the water regulator Ofwat has said. The figure varies by region with Thames customers seeing an increase of £99 or 23%, Anglian £66 or 13% and Southern Water £183, an increase of 44%. The typical £19 a year increase is intended to fund investment for improvements such as replacing leaking pipes and reducing sewage discharges into rivers and seas. It comes as suppliers have come under increasing scrutiny over their environmental and financial performance over a number of years. On Thursday, Labour will outline a crackdown on the industry, promising consumers higher compensation for sewage failures and the power to hold water executives to account. Your thoughts... -
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c1661e64556o I've heard of Taylor Swift often, probably heard some of her music, but I could not name a single song she has written and performed. I like classic music, the 60's were/are the good times, and I'm enjoying watching "The Proclaimers" on iPlayer this week. Is this normal? -
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"The Pope faces UN investigation over his personal authorisation of allegedly unlawful wiretaps during a Vatican investigation into the “corrupt” sale of a £300 million central London property. Lawyers for Raffaele Mincione, a British financier accused of defrauding the Vatican, have filed a complaint to the UN about alleged abuses committed during the trial by Pope Francis, the spiritual leader of 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide. Rodney Dixon KC, a leading human rights barrister, has accused the Pope of personally authorising unlawful wiretaps of Mr Mincione’s phone during the investigation into alleged wrongdoing at the Vatican. During the trial, it emerged that Pope Francis himself handed powers to investigators allowing them to tap phones, intercept emails and arrest anyone they wanted to without approval from a judge. The powers were based on “rescritti” – ancient laws that the Pope could use as divine monarch of the Vatican. In the complaint to Prof Margaret Satterthwaite, the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Mr Dixon listed the Pope as a “perpetrator” of human rights abuses." Source - Report In Daily Telegraph. -
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More people are turning away from news, describing it as depressing, relentless and boring, a global study suggests. Almost four in 10 (39%) people worldwide said they sometimes or often actively avoid the news, compared with 29% in 2017, according to the report by Oxford University's Reuters Institute. -
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Oxford University research reveals Viagra can help prevent dementia. https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2024-06-07-sildenafil-viagra-improves-brain-blood-flow-and-could-help-prevent-dementia. In 2021 over 4.1 million prescriptions for viagra or similar erectile dysfunction medications were given out in the UK. {Pharmacy Direct} https://pharmacydirectgb.co.uk/erectile-dysfunction-statistics-facts-figures-in-the-uk-in-2021/ This is interesting reading. e.g. younger men have a bigger [ smaller?] problem than you'd expect... -
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May 2024's average mean UK temperature of 13.1C (55.5F) beat 2008's previous record figure of 12.1C in a series which dates back to 1884, making the month the warmest on record. This was because it was cloudy most nights and the temperature didn't drop much. "Lies, damn lies, and statistics." [Mark Twain] -
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Tories promise no stamp duty for first time buyers, under £425,000. Why not for a purchase at any price? Wretched Treasury small-minded accountants, that's why. Why not cancel stamp duty for vendors over 70? Lots of baby boomers want to downsize, and that would be an excellent way of encouraging the sale of larger homes with only one or two occupants. Why not just do away with stamp duty completely? It's one of the worst taxes stiflng individual aspiration. Moving to a new home generates many complementary businesses, and produces a feel good factor missing since the 2008 debacle. Too radical for any party? -
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“It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.” Joseph Heller, Catch-22 -
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The ANC is about to be deposed after 25 years - main problems very high unemployment and awful electricity supply. Opportunity knocks. Is this country able to offer expertise and committment to build the power infrastructure required and thus go some way to solve the unemployment problems? Any bets the Chinese and Russians are there already staking their claims? -
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Proposals. 1. Remove all inheritance taxation. 2. Remove Stamp Duty. 3. Increase shared ownership housing construction. 4. Susidise the quality renovation of existing empty properties.* This country values home ownership above most things. Families work all their lives to "own their own home". Too many people realise they will be renting for their entire lives. Owning your own home promotes sales of so mamy products, from carpets to white goods to mowers and on... A firm base allows for family planning. VAT is taken on all the goods that are bought so the revenue from that will compensate for closing down two taxes that inhibit and depress people. Even when this country had much higher inflation, there was a "feel-good factor" because people could aspire to home ownership and achieve it. *The most recent government statistics, released in November 2023, showed there were 261,189 long-term empty properties in England. That figure represents a rise of 12,556 homes compared to 2022, up 5% annually and 16% since before the pandemic in 2019. The biggest was recorded in the South West – where there has been widespread concern about second homes – with the number of long-term empty homes rising 9% in just a year. Long-term empty properties are a huge missed opportunity to invest in re-fitting and create new jobs. -
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Over half of US adults have a literacy rate below the sixth-grade level, according to the National Literacy Institute. If you think education is expensive, the cost of not educating kids is higher. Three-quarters of people on welfare can’t read, while kids who drop out of school end up costing society over $40 billion a year in social services and lost tax dollars. Numeracy rates are even lower. One reason no one talks about things like literacy is that it’s just too embarrassing to admit that, in the richest countries in the world, literary rates are so low. Talking about a president's sex life is now normal, but when it comes to reading and writing … it seems that’s better left unsaid. Source GZero Your thoughts? -
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"My philosophy is: What people say about me is none of my business. I am who I am and do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. And that makes life easier.-- We live in a world where funerals are more important than the deceased, marriage is more important than love, looks are more important than the soul. We live in a packaging culture that despises content." Sir Anthony Hopkins -
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