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[personal profile] andrewducker

Date: 2012-03-19 11:05 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] willplant.livejournal.com
The privatisation of roads thing is a PR smoke screen to take the Lords NHS vote off the media's agenda

Date: 2012-03-19 11:33 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] willplant.livejournal.com
Nope just cynicism.

Date: 2012-03-19 12:13 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lil-shepherd.livejournal.com
Thomas the Tank engine? Well, rule 34 applies. As a on-off fan fiction reader/writer who hangs around AO3, what I want to know is why are there so much porn featuring My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic. I still haven't investigated what is meant by MS Paint Adventures in the fandom tags...

Date: 2012-03-19 12:25 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] a-pawson.livejournal.com
Private companies building new roads and charging tolls for people to drive on them is not a new idea, it was originally proposed by the last Labour government. The existing M6 toll admittedly stemmed from a Tory proposal from 1980, (although it didn't open until 2002).

However, in 2004 Alistair Darling announced plans to the Commons to build more toll roads, including another new road to bypass approximately 50 miles of the M6 from north of Birmingham to somewhere north of Manchester. They were never built, but the idea of building them is not a new one.

Date: 2012-03-19 12:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bart-calendar.livejournal.com
The thing is that Rosie The Tank Engine does sort of look like a Fleshlight.

Date: 2012-03-19 12:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] davesangel.livejournal.com
The article about the 12-year-old is pretty heartbreaking. But there's now a chance, because he hasn't officially 'come out' to anyone so far, that the bullying he has got so far will be amplified because someone who knows him/his family will probably read that and know he's gay so will pick on him even more :(

Date: 2012-03-19 01:00 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cairmen.livejournal.com
Not often the Onion manages to nearly make me cry...

Date: 2012-03-19 01:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] steer.livejournal.com
I think there's some reference I'm missing from the Game of Thrones joke?

Date: 2012-03-19 01:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] steer.livejournal.com
I don't know -- the conservatives were making lots of rumblings in that direction in the mid 90s. It's something they want... lots of think tank reports on the wonders of privatised infrastructure.

I believe it's probably a long term strategic goal.

Date: 2012-03-19 01:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] steer.livejournal.com
Aha... thanks. I guessed it would be something I'd not seen.

Shocked

Date: 2012-03-19 01:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com
Wait, they made a television series out of Thomas the Tank engine?? :)

Date: 2012-03-19 02:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lpetrazickis.livejournal.com
Privatizing something is basically a way to do something unpopular (e.g. introduce tolls) while evading the political responsibility for it (e.g. that mean private company is making you pay for the roads you use, not me).

Date: 2012-03-19 04:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] davesangel.livejournal.com
Argh, it shows how 'with it' I was when reading the article that I didn't even spot that it was from 'The Onion'

Date: 2012-03-19 05:38 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] del-c.livejournal.com
How privatization of large public assets is better:

a) taxes are replaced by fees as a means of funding operations and investment
b) taxes are progressive w.r.t. wealth and income, fees are not
c) fees not invested in the asset after operational costs to go to dividends (i.e. out of the pockets of fee payers, into the pockets of asset owners)

If the complication of turning a free-at-the-point-of-delivery system into one for which a fee must be colloected results in inefficiency, that inefficiency is just an opportunity to engage in more economic activity, transferring yet more money from the asset's users to the asset's owners.

When I say "better", this is not better from the position of ninety nine percent of people: even if you're upper middle class, it's a net loss, not a net win. But for a very small number of people, it's clearly better.

Re: Shocked

Date: 2012-03-19 06:00 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pigwotflies.livejournal.com
You didn't know that? It was on ITV (I think) in my childhood. Famously voiced by Ringo Starr.
And then remade few years ago, no longer with Ringo Starr and no longer any good.

Date: 2012-03-19 06:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] del-c.livejournal.com
Clarifying: "fees...to go to dividends" would be better written as "fees...go to dividends".

Re: Shocked

Date: 2012-03-19 07:22 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com
Sorry, I was joking a bit :) I knew in theory it existed, but I'd never seen any of it, or even heard anything about it, but I always have a moment of surprise when I realise that in popular culture outside my head "the" default version of a franchise is the TV series, not the books I'm familiar with :)

At some point, someone filled me in that the original was fairly good, and the more recent ones were less so :)

Re: Shocked

Date: 2012-03-19 07:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pigwotflies.livejournal.com
:) Ah, sorry, tone-parsing fail.

I don't really think of the Rev. W. Audry books as Thomas the Tan Engine books. I was always more fond of Donald and Douglas. I'm not sure why. Something about their Scottishness was exotic to me as a kid, I think.

Date: 2012-03-20 02:34 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] octopoid-horror.livejournal.com
Doesn't moving away from cash create possible problems for tourists? I've certainly had problems in other countries with card types that weren't accepted in that country (although this was in a country that used cash more than cards, I believe)

Date: 2012-03-20 11:30 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] skington.livejournal.com
I believe it's a webcomic.

Date: 2012-03-20 12:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lil-shepherd.livejournal.com
Aw, you took all the mystery out of it...

Date: 2012-03-20 01:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] naath.livejournal.com
Dawww, that's a cute picture of Daenerys and Toothless.

Date: 2012-04-10 04:47 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] skreidle.livejournal.com
Highly recommend. :)

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