Horner's Corner

THE GANG OF FOUR

A favourite band of the late 70s/80s!

Marxist Post-Punk !

I still love ‘em..

Fast Tube by Casper">Natural\’s not In It (The Gang of Four)

And now :

Fast Tube by Casper">Made me laugh, anyway

It’s on a great album: Entertainment! (The Go4 version I mean..)

A pick of the most audacious, the most brazen, the most absurd expenses claims unearthed in the recent scandal..

When assessing these expense claims, always bear in mind the Green Book – the rules to which so many MPs have insisted they stuck rigidly.

“Members should avoid purchases which could be seen as extravagant or luxurious,” it says, adding that “claims must only be made for expenditure that it was necessary for a member to incur to ensure that he or she could properly perform his or her parliamentary duties”.

Dawn Butler
The Labour government whip, who goes head to head against Sarah Teather in Brent at the next general election, claimed for a jacuzzi-style bath to be fitted in her second home in north London.

Jacqui Smith

The former home secretary claimed for a bath plug costing 88p. It was one of the more innocuous of the claims that got her into trouble: pornographic films sat uneasily alongside a kitchen sink purchase, which cost £550.

Shaun Woodward
The wealthiest MP in the Commons nevertheless thought it was appropriate to claim for a Crunch Corner yoghurt costing 38p.

Fabian Hamilton
Among the Leeds North East MP’s £171,824 total expenses claim was a claim for an iPod Nano in his communications allowance.

David Cameron
David who? His leadership of the Conservative party hit a low ebb before the 2007 party conference, but he reasserted his authority with an impressive off-the-cuff leader’s speech. He certainly prioritises working hard on the art of oratory: £10.99 was charged on expenses for the purchase of a Penguin book on historic speeches.

Jeremy Hunt
Shadow media secretary Jeremy Hunt was responding to the Digital Britain report on Tuesday, in which he reacted angrily to the government’s determination to impose a levy on telecoms charges. Mr Hunt knows a thing or two about the cost of using mobile phones: he claimed for a 12-second phone call costing just 1p.

Julia Goldsworthy
Over to the Liberal Democrats, and Julia Goldsworthy – one of the Commons’ youngest members. Her claims included a designer pink rocking chair costing £912, which was later repaid, £291 for a matching pink footstool and £89 – for a dustbin.

Lembit Opik
Sometimes you just have to purchase hil-a-rious wigs as the best way of using taxpayers’ money. Opik purchased two pieces of headwear – The Mother of All Wigs, costing £19.99, and a Filmstar wig costing £9.99 – to wear at a charitable event.

Alex Salmond
The Scottish first minister was an MP when he and others racked up £14,100 in legal costs in an attempt to impeach Tony Blair. Astonishingly, the funds were charged to the law firm in which Mr Blair’s wife Cherie is a partner. Mr Salmond has defended the claim.

George Osborne
The shadow chancellor, we hope, is good with money, and made sure this was the case by taking advice from himself. The purchase of two DVDs of his comments to the Commons on getting value for taxpayers’ money was, in its own way, perhaps the most absurd claim of all

From

Talking Politics – Yahoo! News UK.

 

 

Reblogged: Via:

chaospet » Archive » #62 Dialetheism.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of Palladio’s most celebrated creations.

Photo: C. Horner

A taste for Tiepolo is perhaps an aquired one. So why do I like him? He brings a baroque sweep and magnificence to the roccoco, with his airborne saints and allegorical figures. As a colourist he has few equals (his blue in particular is amazing). I love the way his skybound figures often look like ladies and gents of the 18th century, togged up like goddesses and angels – like scenes in the theatre. He can seem grand, but then the magnificance is undermined, or at least modified, by the sense that here is a beautiful dream of the 18th century that knows itself to be a dream – and, swept up in the fantasy of love and beauty, chooses to dream on.

Three Painings: top The Immaculate Conception; middle Allegory of Time; bottom: The Triumph of Virtue and Nobility over Ignorance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fast Tube by Casper">Noam Chomsky on why sport is such a big feature in our society

Every day, on the hour, on the half hour, come war, hurricane, earthquake and plague, sport, more sport, endless sport. The sport will never end. But why?

 
Fast Tube by Casper">The football will never end!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

America’s Unserious Right

“Republican leadership calls for Obama to condemn Iran’s election results and speak out for the demonstrators shows no knowledge of Iran whatsoever. If he did so, America would become the issue in Iran, not Ahmadinejad, and we would become the excuse and justification for spilling Iranian blood. These sniping remarks by Republican leaders also shows they put pandering to their right wing above American national security. Why can’t they listen to their own real foreign policy expert — Senator Richard Lugar — and see and say that the U.S. must exercise restraint in our public statements for Iran’s sake and our own,” – Les Gelb.

We’ve known for some time that the United States cannot afford the current Republican leadership to be in charge of foreign policy. They have neither the understanding, judgement or temperament to do so. They veer from hoping Ahmadinejad to win all the way to wanting to stand up and get the president cheering for one faction in an extremely tense and difficult situation. Just thank your stars we do not have McCain or Palin grandstanding this in the White House right now. Or Cantor’s AIPAC-dictated cant in the House.

via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.