"So, let me get this straight.

A couple of DJs in Australia phones up a hospital and a nurse who is working the switchboard puts them through to get some sensitive information. The hospital does NOT blame the nurse.

The newspapers in the UK then spend 2 days talking about how dumb the nurse must have been etc etc, burying the poor woman in very public humiliation for the entertainment of the public.

Nurse commits suicide.

The newspapers in the UK will now spend days telling everyone how terrible it was that the DJs in Australia drove the woman to suicide.

Did I miss something ?"

keep to the Fen Causeway

Over at our Daily Comment blog, I've put up a longer post on the latest failure of austerity economics: the admission by George Osborne, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, that, after two and half years of furious budget-cutting, he's still failing to meet his own fiscal targets.

One thing I didn't mention in that piece is that Osborne isn't merely reaffirming his commitment to the deflationary economics of the early nineteen-thirties. He's coupling it with an embrace of Reaganite trickle-down economics of the nineteen-eighties and the even harsher Benthamite economics of the eighteen-thirties. Earlier this year, he cut the top tax rate from fifty per cent to forty-five per cent, claiming that Britain's highest earners needed incentivizing. Now, with roughly one in twelve working-age Britons out of a job, he's cutting the value of unemployment benefits--a move that harkens back to the infamous Poor Law of 1834, which was designed to stigmatize paupers and vagrants.

Cutting the value of unemployment benefits won't make much of an impact on the deficit. The savings will amount to about four billion pounds in a total budget of about seven hundred billion pounds. But the cut will be felt by the jobless and their families, many of whom already live in poverty or near poverty. In the United Kingdom, unlike in the United States, the level of unemployment benefits isn't linked to the recipient's wages in his or her last job. Single people get a maximum of seventy-one pounds (about $115) a week, and couples get up to a hundred and twelve pounds (about $180). For decades, governments of both parties have raised the payments in line with inflation, so that their purchasing power remains steady. But with inflation currently running at more than 2.5 per cent, Osborne has ruled that over the next three years increases in benefits will be limited to one per cent. That might not sound like a big difference, but over three years it could well add up to a five per cent drop in purchasing power.

A Scottish Catholic bishop has condemned David Cameron for being "devoid of moral competence" after the PM stated that churches should be allowed to provide same-sex marriages.

The Rt Rev Joseph Devine, Bishop of Motherwell, believes the prime minister is now "out of his depth" and can no longer be trusted by Christians.

The minister for women and equalities has assured MPs that the government's plans for same-sex marriages will ensure that faith organisations do not have to conduct gay ceremonies amid fierce criticism from Conservative MPs over the idea.

I'm confused. Currently, if a (het) couple shows up in some random church, is that church obliged to marry them? Legally speaking?

I would have thought that there would be at least some simulacrum of a perfunctory eligibility check (Have you been confirmed? No? Baptised? No? Oh never mind).

Sure, I'm guessing that, in general, churches are eager to perform marriages. But obliged?

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

Q3 Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Stephen Colbert?

Favorable........................................................ 30%
Unfavorable .................................................... 32%
Not sure .......................................................... 38%

[...]

Q13 Given the choices of Stephen Colbert, Jeff Duncan, Trey Gowdy, Henry McMaster, Mick Mulvaney, Jenny Sanford, Mark Sanford, Tim Scott, and Joe Wilson, who would you most like to see Nikki Haley appoint to replace Jim DeMint?

Stephen Colbert.............................................. 20%
Jeff Duncan..................................................... 5%
Trey Gowdy..................................................... 14%
Henry McMaster ............................................. 8%
Mick Mulvaney ................................................ 4%
Jenny Sanford................................................. 11%
Mark Sanford .................................................. 8%
Tim Scott......................................................... 15%
Joe Wilson ...................................................... 5%
Someone else/Not sure .................................. 11%

Marijuana for recreational use became legal in Colorado Monday, when the governor took the procedural step of declaring the voter-approved change part of the state constitution.

Colorado became the second state after Washington to allow pot use without a doctor's recommendation. Both states prohibit public use of the drug, and commercial sales in Colorado and Washington won't be permitted until after regulations are written next year.

Migeru Shimbun is out! http://paper.li/MigeruBlogger/1351816577 ... ▸ Top stories today via @faisalislam