R.I.P. Cleggie: Robot cars: Another Piss Poor Policy: Worn out already: Dead end Bank: Poster penalty: Ghost owl: and The Trillionaire Dutch drivers.

Not sure about the meteorology at the Castle this morn, dull, damp, windy and a tad less than clement.

The study if half full of defunct adding machines, and “they” have finally replaced the bollards-until the next Numpty knocks them over.

 According to Mrs Clegg

Her what’s his name hubby is “killing himself” trying to balance his work and home life, The Deputy Prime Minister’s wife, Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, has painted a chaotic picture of life at home.

She said her husband typically attends a number of early-morning meetings in central London before returning to the family home in south-west London for the school run.

Oh dear what a shame-two points-he put himself up for election and he is being paid.

Over in Nevada

The governor has approved a bill that requires the state’s department of transport to enact regulations that would allow autonomous vehicles to operate on public roads.

The Bill eliminates the requirement in the state for a qualified driver, which first became mandatory in the US when New Jersey introduced practical and written exams in 1913, in just three clauses:

1. The Department shall adopt regulations authorizing the operation of autonomous vehicles on highways within the State of Nevada.

2. The regulations required to be adopted by subsection 1 must:

(a) Set forth requirements that an autonomous vehicle must meet before it may be operated on a highway within this State;
(b) Set forth requirements for the insurance that is required to test or operate an autonomous vehicle on a highway within this State;
(c) Establish minimum safety standards for autonomous vehicles and their operation;
(d) Provide for the testing of autonomous vehicles;
(e) Restrict the testing of autonomous vehicles to specified geographic areas; and
(f) Set forth such other requirements as the Department determines to be necessary.

Shan’t be going there then......

 Back in Blighty

U-Turn Cam was accused yesterday of "smuggling out" plans to break apart public services as he pressed ahead with moves to open them up to private competitors.

However, the Open Public Services White Paper has been watered down from Mr Cameron's original vision, stopping short of specific legislation to enforce competition.

Instead it floats proposals to enshrine in law a "general right to choose" in such areas as education, health, housing and services provided by local authorities.

Mr Cameron said: "It's about ending the old big government, top-down way of running public services and bringing in a Big Society approach... putting power in people's hands."

Oh no it isn’t: It’s about saving money...

And Wills and Kate are worn out

They are to cut down on their royal duties, the Duck and Duckess will make an appearance at the wedding of Zara Phillips and Mike Tindall in Edinburgh on 30 July.

There will be one or two routine public engagements a month through to the end of the year, with the most high-profile of these expected to be the royal gathering at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday in November.

But the couple are said to want to spend time together as husband and wife in the run-up to Christmas and settle down in their north Wales home, near to where William is based at RAF Valley on Anglesey.

At some stage during 2012, William is due to be posted to the Falklands with the RAF Search and Rescue force for two months while Kate remains at home.

It’s a tough life-for some.

 Back over to the warm bit of the very ex colonies

A Florida woman is suing her bank for ruining her credit rating after it became convinced she was dead, the Orlando Sentinel reported yesterday.

Wrenella Pierre, from Oviedo, about 27km northeast of Orlando, insists she is not dead - despite Chase Bank USA sending her family a letter of condolence in November.

She has launched court action in Sanford claiming the bank has stymied her attempts to refinance her mortgage and ruined her credit rating.

"I don't know why the bank made this type of disastrous mistake," said her attorney William Peerce Howard. "There is no possible way to have credit extended when you're deceased."

A spokeswoman for JPMorgan Chase Bank, Nancy Norris, would not discuss details of the case, citing the suit. 

Ah, the old dead account holder ploy...

 Back in the land of the Unemployed and the home of Numpty Coalitions

A desperate jobseeker has been fined £75 – for using his initiative to find work.

Fed up after being rejected for 300 jobs in a year, Daniel Bird, 20, put up 200 posters around his home town asking employers to give him a chance.

Within a week, his luck changed and he was offered a job at Mecca Bingo – with his new employer praising his innovative attitude.

Sadly Hull City Council bosses were less impressed with Daniel’s job seeking efforts, hitting him with a £75 fine under the Antisocial Behaviour Act, the Criminal Damage Act and the Highways Act.

And he’s got only two weeks to pay or face possible legal action.

Good thing he has a job then...

The Owl in pane

Sally Arnold was shocked to return to her property in Kendall, Cumbria, to find the ghostly imprint of an owl on her bedroom window.

The silhouette, left by the powder down that protects growing feathers, shows the bird of prey's feathers and facial features clearly, leading Ms Arnold to think that it had been a heavy impact.

Experts from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) suggested that the imprint was that of a tawny owl, based on its size and the fact that they are the kind most commonly found in gardens.

The RSPB recommends homeowners fix items to the outside of windows, such as a sun catcher, in order to help birds notice the presence of a glass pane.

Bet that hurt.....

 And finally: 

According to “experts”

Almost two trillion insects are killed by being splattered on Dutch cars every year, new research has found.

Arnold van Vliet, a Dutch biologist at the University of Wageningen, last month enlisted the help of motorists in helping him track the numbers and behaviour insects.

"There is great concern that the number of insects is decreasing," he said. "The collisions between cars and insects may be unexpectedly interesting for biologists."

The researchers asked Dutch drivers to clean their front number plate, to go for a drive and then to count the number of squashed insects for recording on a website, named Splashteller.

Over the last six weeks, an analysis of information from 250 drivers was used to plot the total number of bugs killed by over seven million Dutch cars driving an estimated distance of 124.5 billion miles every year.

"On just the plates 3.3 billion bugs are killed. The front of the car is at least forty times as large as the surface of the plate. So over a month the cars hit 133 billion insects. In a half year that is 800 billion insects," said the Dutch biologist.

Using the same statistics, British drivers, with 31 million cars, inadvertently kill up to seven trillion insects while travelling every year.

Not any more, the price of go juice has seen to that.



That’s it: I’m orf to fill up the Honda with some Roman algae


And today’s thought: Stupidity got us into this mess. Why can't it get us out?

 Angus