Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Meanwhile....


Tony Blair named 'philanthropist of year' at GQ awards

The former Prime Minister is recognised for his 'tireless charitable work'



Tony Blair with the philanthropist award at the GQ Men of the Year Awards Photo: Richard Young /REX



By Hannah Furness, Arts Correspondent

10:30PM BST 02 Sep 2014


Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister and UN Middle East envoy, has been named as GQ magazine’s “philanthropist of the year”, in recognition of his “tireless charitable work”.


Mr Blair, who has launched three foundations, was awarded the prize at the magazine’s Man of the Year Awards last night, as he attended a glamorous ceremony surrounded by the world’s celebrities.


The peace envoy, who was last week revealed to have advised Kazakhstan’s president on how to manage his image after the slaughter of unarmed civilians, accepted the prize from an employee of his Tony Blair Faith Foundation, on stage at a lavish dinner at the Royal Opera House.




More sickness here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/11071113/Tony-Blair-named-philanthropist-of-year-at-GQ-awards.html

To think people actually subscribe to this magazine.

"Laniakea" from the Hawaiian: 'lani' - sky, heaven' and 'akea' - broad, wide, spacious, immeasurable.

Many thanks to: R Brent Tully, Helene Courtois, Yehuda Hoffman and Daniel Pomarede who wrote the paper "The Laniakea supercluster of galaxies".
See: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v513/n7516/full/nature13674.html

I'm sure most people know our planet revolves around the Sun and the Sun sits in the The Milky Way, which is a is a member of the Local Group of galaxies.

Now have sufficient data on the distances and motions of galaxies to be able to describe a much larger level of organization in our corner of the Universe — a supercluster 160 megaparsecs across and containing 1017 solar masses.

Brent Tully et al. use a new catalogue of 'peculiar velocities', line-of-sight departures from cosmic expansion caused by gravitational perturbation, to develop a map representing the distribution of matter. They identify a 'home' supercluster that they name Laniakea — from the Hawaiian lani and akea ('heaven' and 'spacious'). It includes the Virgo cluster, the Norma, Hydra and Centaurus clusters (also known as the Great Attractor), the Pavo-Indus filament and a number of voids.

This is the related video to that paper. Apparently, we appear to be 'somewhere in the suburbs'......

Israel to supply natural gas to Jordan
Deal will ease an energy crunch in the kingdom and marks the biggest such bilateral agreement that Israel’s nascent offshore industry has yet seen


very interesting and good to see collaboration between israel and one of its more dovish neighbours

Yoooooooo Excelent.

Cameron's contribution to the Scotch problem.

Victims told to solve crimes themselves . Is this a good idea. I can see those Lawyers licking their lips .

I can see criminals licking their lips.

Well I hope your taking photo's as it's happening, that's the best evidence.Now get filling that form out .

I still have a baseball bat, so I am alright.

Couldn't we save some money in this period of austerity by cutting back on the police and security protection of Cameron and his cohorts.

It is good to Wavy Dave is personally taking charge of the "hostage problem" and supervising its resolution.

I bet the family now feels safer.

why would you care?
after all you refuse to vote
though this is your democratic right as you never cease to tell us, you also have a democratic obligation to vote if you do not wish to abdicate all rights to influence or similar - i.e. no vote = put up with whatever gov't and policies you get

Israel's gas reserves are largely offshore from Gaza. There has been an ongoing battle for some years for control of Gaza's resources.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/jul/09/israel-war-gaza-palestine-natural-gas-energy-crisis

and your point is, as i'm sure you have one?

Manuel,

I see you have dragged your battered old soap box out again.

I do not have any obligation to vote and am happy to continue exercising that right, especially as it seems to irritate you so much.

You may prefer to dictate to me what my actions should be, but thankfully at the moment the UK is not a dictatorship ruled by an elitist self righteous cabal, who govern under a veneer of democracy.

Maybe the point is that Israel is flogging Gaza's own oil to Gaza.

Villainous!

The point is that Israel is doing deals to supply gas that doesn't belong to them. It is the same as stealing the land. They have just found new ways of stealing.

fred - you can indeed choose not to vote, but unquestionably you thereby forego your rights to influence


gaza's oil and gas?
who says?

Scotland says. So it must be right.

This is from 2010 by Noam Chomsky

These Israeli naval attacks began shortly after the discovery by the BG (British Gas) Group of what appear to be quite sizeable natural gas fields in Gaza’s territorial waters. Industry journals report that Israel is already appropriating these Gazan resources for its own use, part of its commitment to shift its economy to natural gas. The standard industry source reports:

“Israel’s finance ministry has given the Israel Electric Corp. (IEC) approval to purchase larger quantities of natural gas from BG than originally agreed upon, according to Israeli government sources [which] said the state-owned utility would be able to negotiate for as much as 1.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas from the Marine field located off the Mediterranean coast of the Palestinian controlled Gaza Strip.

“Last year the Israeli government approved the purchase of 800 million cubic meters of gas from the field by the IEC…. Recently the Israeli government changed its policy and decided the state-owned utility could buy the entire quantity of gas from the Gaza Marine field. Previously the government had said the IEC could buy half the total amount and the remainder would be bought by private power producers.”

The pillage of what could become a major source of income for Gaza is surely known to U.S. authorities. It is only reasonable to suppose that the intention to appropriate these limited resources, either by Israel alone or together with the collaborationist Palestinian Authority, is the motive for preventing Gazan fishing boats from entering Gaza’s territorial waters…

is gaza an internationally recognised independent state?
i think not