Tim Worstall

In a major report to be released next week a new agency will be set up to look at how the issue of online "piracy" should be tackled. One proposal being studied is imposing a universal levy on broadband bills to compensate film and music companies for their losses from illegal downloads. Most broadband packages [...]

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Have a look at what Europe, the European Union and the European Parliament are really like. If we don’t like your views we won’t let you say them.

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Sales of British-produced goods are soaring despite the recession, a department store said today. * Fine, fine, fall in the pound etc. Twinings English Breakfast tea is now 50% more popular than it was last January. Eh? We grow tea here now? * From PA thus no link.

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Figures published on Friday are likely to provide official confirmation that Britain is in recession for the first time since the early 1990s. Ya think? Analysts expect the economy to have shrunk a dramatic 1.2pc in the final three months of the year after contracting 0.6pc in the third quarter of 2008. 1.8% (ignoring compounding). [...]

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Oooh, goodie, something else to worry about. A swelling global population, changing diets and mankind’s expanding “water footprint” could be bringing an end to the era of cheap water. The warnings, in an annual report by the Pacific Institute in California, come as ecologists have begun adopting the term “peak ecological water” — the point [...]

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Strangely, we don’t quite get told what the secret is. Which was in fact "get pregnant".

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So, the House of Lords has decided that you can’t be blacklistde from your job, suspended without pay, on the basis of unsupported allegations. Natural justice (and human rights law) means that you are entitled to a hearing first. Hmm. That’s interesting. Dr Carter said the judgment meant the Government could have to pay millions [...]

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Scientists studying climate change have long believed that while most of the rest of the globe has been getting steadily warmer, a large part of Antarctica – the east Antarctic ice sheet – has actually been getting colder. But new research from the University of Washington (UW) shows that for the last 50 years, much [...]

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Iain Dale worries that State employment is now higher than employment in the manufacturing sector. In both the US and the UK. Well, yes, but there’s two entirely different stories here. Divide the economy into three sectors (hell, why not?). Agriculture, manufacturing and services. Three-ish centuries ago just about everything was agriculture. Certainly just about [...]

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The Baby Boomers have had their moment in power. The most spoilt generation in history has handled affairs with its characteristic hedonism. The results are coming in. The blithering idiots.

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From PA: The head of a child sex abuse police unit hit out today at having to spend thousands of pounds on buying valuable information from internet firms. According to the BBC, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) has spent more than £170,000 on gathering internet data since it was founded in 2006. [...]

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OK, so the share price is hammered yet again this morning. 58 p it says on Yahoo. It also says that the last dividend was 34p and the yield 46% (err, those two numbers don’t add up but….they do at last night’s closing). So, I’m guessing here, but the market is pretty much assuming that [...]

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Their recklessness has bordered on the criminal. One figure from the Bank of England’s financial stability report last October exemplifies the enormity of their folly. In 2000, the amount of money held on deposit in British banks and the amount they were lending was roughly comparable. Last year, they were lending £700 billion more than [...]

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…a day of tears and joy as Barack Obama told America "we are ready to lead the world again". Isn’t that  what  always pisses off the lefties? The idea, the very thought, that America "leads" by imposing its desires and values upon the rest of the world?

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So, err, who else isn’t watching it all either then?

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(OK, another one of the many things I don’t understand). RBS shares fell yesterday, or Friday, or something. But why does this mean the bank is closer to bankruptcy/nationalisation? I can understand that the shares will fall if people think that is is indeed closer to either: but why does the fall itself make the [...]

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Thousands of children supposedly educated at home by their parents are at risk of abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude, the Government said yesterday. Tsk, tsk. Don’t be so mealy mouthed. That these children are not given up to hte tender mercies of the State is itself child abuse. Of course it [...]

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The government is planning a radio station exclusively for the entertainment of Britain’s prisoners, which will cost taxpayers £2million, according to reports. We’ve already relieved them of their liberty for their crimes. Now we’re going to pump Nicey and Smashey at them 12 hours a day? Surely that breaches something or other…the Hague Conventions? Geneva?

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Yes, OK, we’re in the knowledge economy, investing in the education of our young people is essential (add any other currently fashionable buzz words to taste) but might this now be going a little far? The news comes as MPs debate plans for a new mandatory code of practice (…)and new compulsory qualifications for bar [...]

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Pea souper fogs, those veils of ground level cloud that gave atmosphere to Sherlock Holmes movies, have halved in thirty years – triggering up to a fifth of global warming across Europe, new research shows. It’s not a surprise, but the implications might at least annoy some. It’s a pretty standard assumption in the models [...]

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