Sex and Power

That's the name of the new report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission. I have to say that they seem to have a very odd idea about the way we do things in this country.
A snail could crawl the entire length of the Great Wall of China in 212 years, just slightly longer than the 200 years it will take for women to be equally represented in Parliament.

Erm, women are equally represented in Parliament. Just as those of all races, genders, sexual preferences, height, weight and eye colour are equally represented in Parliament.

For we...

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Christopher Foster

Christopher Foster certainly wanted to make sure that the house really did burn down:

Foster, 50, whose company made a fortune selling pipe insulation technology to the oil and gas industries, laid pipes from a huge tank supplying his oil-run central heating system and ran them to the stables, garage and main house.

He then ran the oil off and used it as an accelerant to ensure the £1.2 million property was razed to the ground.

Here's the bit I don't get though. He's constantly referred to as "the arson millionaire, Christopher Foster".

But, umm, isn't the actual point that he wasn't a millionaire? That he had in fact less than no money at all? And thus the arson?

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Hedge Funds Suffer

So we are told in the Telegraph.

The $2,000bn (£1,122bn) global hedge fund industry is experiencing its worst performance in 18 years as a result of the continued credit crisis and wider economic malaise.

The industry, which has until now prided itself on out-performing other money managers, has become one of the many victims of the general downturn affecting financial markets.

However, there's a couple of things here. Yes, I'm sure that there are hedge funds suffering. I'm sure that some have indeed become croppers as a result of the volatility of the markets.

We're not...

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More oddity

I'm not sure that I've quite read George Monbiot properly here.

Or you could become a guerrilla planter or guerrilla grafter, growing fruit on roadsides, on commons and in parks and wasteland. Apple twigs of any kind can be grafted on to crab trees. Medlars and one breed of pear (a delicious variety called Joséphine des Malines) can be grafted on to hawthorn.

Grafting...isn't that the mixing of two species? That thing that we're supposed not to do when we call it GM?

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How odd

Polly Toynbee today says that:

This matters because the OECD finds the countries with schools that segregate least according to class and ability do best overall: Britain lags behind partly because of its many forms of segregation.

This is part of an argument against faith schools and academies. It's also a slightly odd statement. Finland, for example, the top country by the OECD's measurements, is very interested indeed in segregation: they do not have a comprehensive schools system, for example, they run two entirely different systems, one academic and one vocational (in the higher years they do, at least).

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