Tapping at 82
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Some BBQ
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The entire governing body of a poorly performing school that blew £6,000 of its budget on a headteacher's leaving party has resigned over 'financial irregularity'.
Parents and politicians condemned the decision to use money from the ailing budget at Sherwood Park Community Primary School in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, on the summer send-off for Keith Marden.
The school had been given a highly critical Ofsted report and placed in special measures just a month before Mr Marden retired in July.
The surprise celebration, held to mark the end of Mr Marden's 25-year tenure as head, took place at the school and is thought to have included a barbecue and a band, as well as, according to one senior councillor, 'quite a lot of drink'.
What's "I need a wee" in Welsh?
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Children in reception classes are being told they can’t go to the toilet unless they ask in Welsh, claim angry parents.Families across Ceredigion - a Welsh-speaking stronghold on the west coast - say children are 'being punished' for using English, even in the playground.
They look like old photos, but...
/My drawings are not always solely produced using graphite; quite a few are produced using airbrushed paint as well. I am constantly experimenting with other mediums and surfaces. I have drawn with pencil since primary school. I feel comfortable using this medium and enjoy the control pencil affords me. I also like the fact that complex images can be produced using such a rudimentary medium.
Hyper-realistic artwork by Scottish artist Paul Chiappe
Just make it up...
/Planned Parenthood Claim: It ‘Was Not Intended To Be A Factual Statement’
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) defended Republicans’ willingness to shut down the government over funding for Planned Parenthood by falsely claiming that abortion is “well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.” In reality, just three percent of its work is related to abortion.
The response from Kyl's office?
His remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, a organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortions
So there.
Nice!
/The security guy at Bratislava airport looked at my passport. "New". he said to his colleague. Then spent five minutes examining it in minute detail with two magnifying devices before handing it back. "Is there a problem?', I said. "No, no" he said. "Very nice passsport". What the fuck? Perhaps he hadn't seen one of the fairly new microchipped passports or maybe he was just taking the piss?
Shhh, loose lips....
/Maybe Britain needs a First Amendment, too
What is going on? How did we arrive at a situation where giving offence is automatically sackable or worse? Surely the freedom to disagree with a comment or to ignore it is enough. When it is suggested that certain points of view or ways of expressing them might be or should be illegal – or that intolerance should not be tolerated, to purloin the common malapropism – a notion that should chill anyone who holds the principles of liberal democracy dear is given life: the notion of thought crime. Freedom of speech was hard-won in the West; the freedom only to speak inoffensively is no freedom at all...
Furthermore, the giving of offence need not be intentional, nor the words (or cartoons) themselves possessed of the propensity to give it in order for it to be taken. Never mind the freedom to speak offensively: people have been invited to believe there is such a thing as the right not to be offended. Never mind that ‘incitement to hatred’ is a grey, disputable thing, and a different thing to incitement to violence, which was already a criminal offence. Never mind that most ideas are capable of giving offence, and that Socrates, Galileo and Darwin were all considered beyond the pale in their time. And never mind that in the marketplace of ideas, ‘hate speech’ can be challenged, debated or ignored. What we now have is moderated free speech at best.
Democracy or Mobocracy?
/Bad news for UKuncut and the marchers: the majority support the cuts.
