Hilary Clinton says she will seize oil company profist

Seriously.. she said she wants to "take" the profit from privately owned oil companies.

Blogging will be light today. Hangover from Hell.

What's wrong with san-serif et al?

Yesterday, when asked how much the Treasury had spent on licensing fonts since 1997, John Healey simply repsonded with, "this information is not available." Now I don't know what it costs to license a font, and in fact there is quite a debate going on across the Internet about the valdiity of copyrighting fonts in general.

However, whilst the Treasury says it doesn't have the information available to answer the question, it doesn't deny it's licensed fonts. Does anyone know what fonts it has licensed, and in particular why? After all, what's wrong with sans-serif or some other freebie font* ? It's not like the Treasury is an international brand.
* this excludes the use of comic sans which is evil.

DWP spends £30K a day on hotel rooms

Over the past three years the Department of Work and Pensions has spent, on average, £11.6 million per year on hotel accommodation (this figure does not include foreign hotel accommodation which is apparently recorded separately).

Just to put that into a little perspective, that's just over £30,000 a day, or alternatively, buying a BMW X3 every day for three years.

How much fat does learning about obesity burn off?

Apparently the Government is proposing to change PE lessons in order to tackle obesity. Yes, I know that sounds weird given PE is, by definition, about being active and thus tackled obesity, but honestly, they really are planning this. The press release says,

"The Government is planning changes to PE lessons to help children avoid the problems of obesity, Education Secretary Alan Johnson announced today.

Lessons will combine physical activity with learning how exercise affects fitness and health, and give schools even more flexibility to run the physical activities that best meet their pupils' needs."

Slight problem here, (1) there are no proposals for extra hours in the school day, thus (2) the "lessons" will have to be carried out in the current PE timetable slots meaning kids sitting on their backsides not engaging in physical activity as they normally would.

It's not so arse about face, rather arse about chair.

Online Tax Credit Service remains offline... sort of

Back in December 2005 people may remember that it was necessary for the Government to shut down the online tax credit service due to massive organised fraud which targeted the inherent weaknesses of the system. That system, as Dawn Primarolo confirmed yesterday, remains down 13 months on. It is not even clear if it will ever re-open as a service either. According to Primarolo,

"HMRC are developing a series of strengthening measures for the service and will consider whether to re-open it when this work provides the necessary assurance."

Reading between the lines, if they've not even considered re-opening it then what they've been "developing" can't be particularly good - even in their own opinion, let alone independent white hats who I presume they would use for penetration and security testing.

However, whilst it remains down and pages inform users that registration is suspended "whilst work continues on the enhancements to ensure that these services remain secure", you can still actually register for the service here. Very odd.

Environment Agency does its bit for the environment

Interesting figures. Over the last five years the Environment Agency spent £531 million on consutants. The Environment Agency also spent £55.7 million on leased cars for its staff. Wonder if they carbon off set?

Blair questioned by Police again

According to reports on Sky and BBC, Blair was questioned by Police for a second time last Friday. What does this mean for the people who put money on it happening after the odds were slashed to 7/1 yesterday?

Flame War Competition site launches

A new site launched yesterday called ConvinceMe. It's basically a flame war forum with a difference. You are actually formally competing in three disciplnes, Open Debate, Head to Head and King of the Hill: Battle Royale.

Personally, it has to be Fast Zombies for me.

What's the point of a diary if you can't read it?

Can't they look in the diary and go "that's in South London, that's in South London, that's in South London" and then just add them up?

Simon Hughes: To ask the Prime Minister what visits he has made to hospitals in South London since the last general election.

The Prime Minister: Records of official visits are not held in the format requested. My visits cover a range of matters including health, education, criminal justice and the economy and I have visited a number of hospitals since 1997.

Surely can't take that long to look in a diary and count can it? I mean, they haven't said it will cost too much to get the answer in the "format requested" have they? Unless of course there is an internal document destruction policy at the moment?

Another reason to cull cows

Along with the evil that cows put us through by farting methane into the atmosphere - thus bringing the impending doom of climate change that little closer - it seems they are also turning against their human masters.

ALLIANCE, Ohio — A northeast Ohio farmer was attacked by a cow and died a day later of a fractured skull suffered when his head hit the ground, authorities said.

Evil cows! Run away! Run away!