"US royal visit raises $4.4m for charity" Associated Press / June 30, 2011
LONDON — It sounds like a bit of a racket: $4,000 for a three-course meal and a chance to see a polo match up close.
It gets better when you throw in the chance to rub shoulders with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in Southern California, where bragging about having a glass of wine with the new royal couple may be the ultimate Hollywood glamour trip.
The charity event at the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club will be one of the highlights of the first official overseas trip by Prince William and the former Kate Middleton, which kicks off today in Canada.
There is no doubt the prince and his bride have star power to burn....
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"A ROYAL TOUCH -- The Duchess of Cambridge greeted a crowd at the National War Memorial in Ottawa yesterday, where she and her husband, Britain's Prince William, were met by Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper. Each laid a wreath before speaking with veterans in the crowd. The trip marks the newlyweds' first official overseas journey (Boston Globe July 1 2011)."
Also see: I'm Getting Married in the Morning
Globe's Good Morning Kiss
More hot stuff:
"Both reactors at a nuclear power plant in Scotland have been shut down after large numbers of jellyfish clogged its seawater filters....
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The kind of heat that makes me warm:
"750,000 to go on strike in UK" by Associated Press / June 30, 2011
LONDON — Thousands of British schools will close and travelers will face long lines at airport immigration today when three quarters of a million workers go on strike — the first blast in what unions hope will be a summer of discontent against the cost-cutting government’s austerity plans.
Related: New Government Turns Britain Over to Bank
Yeah, I think the British are seeing that.
The first test comes when 750,000 public-sector workers — including teachers, driving examiners, and customs officials — walk out for the day, part of a growing wave of opposition to the Conservative-led government’s deficit-cutting regime of tax hikes, benefit curbs, and spending cuts.
The unions say that the strike is just the start of a campaign of labor action on a scale unseen in Britain for three decades.
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"Public workers in Britain strike over pensions" July 01, 2011|By Karla Adam, Washington Post
LONDON - Airports, courts, and more than 10,000 schools were among the services hit by a massive public-sector strike across Britain yesterday as thousands of workers staged what they said was the biggest walkout in a generation.
Union organizers said that more than 750,000 public employees - including teachers, court staff, passport officers, and other civil servants - walked out during the one-day strike over proposed changes to their pension system.
I hate to say it, but it has to be more than that. It has to be open-ended (like Greece and the Arab countries), otherwise the government just ignores it and waits for you to go home.
The strikes are the first major uprising over the Conservative-led government's plans to slash $128 billion in spending over the next four years.
The rationale behind pension changes, the government says, is the same for Britain's austerity program as a whole: Current levels of spending are unsustainable.
Of course, FIGHTING WARS in LIBYA and AFGHANISTAN is okay!
But like public-sector employees across Europe, those striking in Britain argue it is unfair that millions of workers are being forced to carry the burden of reducing a deficit that ballooned after the financial crisis.
It is more than just public-sector unions, but why break consistency with the truth rather than continued distortion?
Under the proposed changes, public-sector workers will have to work longer and contribute more, and generally for smaller pensions.
So BANKERS can HAVE MORE, MORE, MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!
"We don't get many rewards," said Sarah Newman, 29, a teacher who was on the subway traveling to a rally in central London. She said she simply wanted the pension plan that was promised when she first became a teacher, but now "they are trying to make us work longer and pay more and get less."
That's GOVERNMENT for you!
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Three teachers unions and Britain's largest civil service union, Public and Commercial Services, took part in the strike, but many more have warned that this is the start of a larger wave of industrial action if the pension dispute is not resolved....
Members of the British public, who also are feeling the pinch of austerity measures, are not effusive in their support of the strikers. According to a recent ComRes/ITV News poll, 63 percent said that the public-sector strikers will not elicit much sympathy "because everyone has to shoulder the burden of cuts."
That flushing sound you heard was me depositing that s*** poll where it belongs. I'm so sick of agenda-pushing garbage passing as news.
Prime Minister David Cameron has called the pension changes necessary and fair, adding that the unions are wrong to strike while negotiations are continuing....
Worried that the threats of industrial unrest might escalate, some Conservatives, including the mayor of London, have called for new legislation to make it harder for unions to go on strike.
Which will just make them even angrier and generate more unrest.
You governments never f***ing learn, do you?
Or do the bankers just have you by the balls?
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Brits must have gone back to work because that was the last I've seen of them in my Glob.
