Tim Worstall

So, winning £1.5 million on a £2 bet, eh? Mr Whiteley, a heating engineer who only goes to the races twice a year, put his money on the Tote Jackpot, which requires punters to pick every winning horse in six races. Yesterday, 363,000 tickets picked the winner in the first leg, but just 9,076 tickets [...]

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The WaPo reports: But preliminary conclusions indicate that he allegedly used 80 grams of PETN — almost twice as much of the highly explosive material as used by convicted shoe bomber Richard C. Reid. I’ve no idea….is that an amount large enough to do serious damage or not?

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This week figures showed that banks tripled the profit they made on mortgages in the last year: time to siphon some of that off. That just doesn’t sound all that sensible. We’re all running around saying that the banks must have more capital to underwrite the risks of their businesses. So we actually want them [...]

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The number of pensioners living in poverty in Britain is among the highest in Europe with the over-65s in poorer countries, including Romania and Poland faring better, official figures have shown. Oh aye? That is, of course, measured by relative poverty within the country. No account is taken of the difference in living standards between [...]

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see more crazy cat pics

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Comment is free is based at: Guardian Unlimited 119 Farringdon Road London EC1R 3ER United Kingdom Please contact us whenever possible by email: comment.is.free@guardian.co.uk Well, yes, I mean it’s possible for me to contact you right now. My computer is on, the email program is running. It’s just that I’m not sure I’ve got anything [...]

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So we’re all revved up to worry about gambling addictions again then. The money lost by British gamblers will exceed £10bn annually next year – a rise of 50% in nine years, and the biggest jump since the 1960s. Looks terrible, doesn’t it? Hmmm. Inflation (RPI) was 25% or so over that period. So that’s [...]

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