Wow, they sure know how to make an election fun! Watch Campbell used this Sky journalist like a wind-up doll.

It's actually dead boring and annoying, Carl. I wish they decided already. And the Lib Dems have, obviously, been two-timing everybody...

Edited May 11, 201015 yr by Sylph

David Cameron is en route to Buckingham Palace.

It'll be interesting to see how David Cameron and the Lib Dems do in a coalition government. I am rooting for the Conservatives to do well, reign in spending, slash and burn the benefits system and get people working and educated and healthy.

I just wonder how soon before Cameron will be out of office?

His PM-ship is far from set in stone for any extended period of time.

Edited May 12, 201015 yr by Y&RWorldTurner

Why is the Arizona gov't so racist? First they have that new immigration law and now they're going after after ethnic studies? This Jan Brewer is one piece of trash. I don't even need to guess what party she is in. I wish people like her were out of office. How can people elect a person like this? Really, Arizona?

I just wonder how soon before Cameron will be out of office?

His PM-ship is far from set in stone for any extended period of time.

It all depends on how the Conservatives work with the Lib Dems. If they manage to work well together, he'll have a 5 year max term before he has to request her Majesty to call an election.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7124307.ece

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7127819.ece

The “black holes” that ministers have already unearthed include:


• A series of defence contracts signed shortly before the election, including a £13 billion tanker aircraft programme whose cost has “astonished and baffled” ministers.
  
  
• £420m of school building contracts, many targeting Labour marginals, signed off by Ed Balls, the former schools secretary, weeks before the general election was called.
  
  
• The troubled £1.2 billion “e-borders” IT project for the immigration service, which, sources say, is running even later and more over-budget than Labour ministers had admitted.
  
  
• A crisis in the student loans company where extra cash may be needed to prevent a repeat of last year’s failure to process tens of thousands of claims on time.
  
  
• The multi-billion-pound cost of decommissioning old nuclear power plants, which ministers claim has not been properly accounted for in Whitehall budgets.
  
  
• A £600m computer contract for the new personal pensions account scheme rushed through by Labour this year, which will still cost at least £25m even if it is cancelled.

That's fascinating stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if in the long run, the new coalition gets the blame for these projects, since Labour will be out of power. Labour is apparently getting thousands of new supporters, many from Lib Dem. In some ways they may be relieved to be out of power, although I guess the main leaders of the party probably aren't.

Since Brown was supposed to be a good managerial person, just not a good public face, I'm surprised at all the mess being left behind.

There's going to be lots of problems ahead. The 55% rule, a possible VAT increase, Olympics cuts... It all really is fascinating. Gordon Brown was actually never a good manager, I wrote that in the post that got wiped out after the last blackout, he built the economic growth on credit expansion. How he managed to stay for as long as he did is a big mystery. Completely incompetent.

Where did you read about Labour getting new people from the Lib Dems?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/13/labour-party-record-surge-membership

Unbelievable!

Should the whole Supreme Court come from two schools?

By Finlo Rohrer

BBC News, Washington DC

<span style="font-size:10.5pt;">The nomination of Elena Kagan to replace the retiring John Paul Stevens on the US Supreme Court means, if she is confirmed, all of the justices will have been at either Harvard or Yale law schools. But why should two educational bodies provide all of the US's most senior judges?

It is really only a score of five-and-a-half for Harvard, some pundits would suggest.

If Ms Kagan is confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, there will be five from Harvard law school, three from Yale law school and one from Columbia law school.

The court has become a bastion of the elite - it's sophisticated, north-eastern, highly cultured

But Ruth Bader Ginsburg started out at Harvard law school before transferring to Columbia.

The inference could easily be drawn that the finest legal minds all come from just two of the US's law schools.

It has also been pointed out that four of the court will be New Yorkers and that the court will consist of six Catholics and three Jews - no protestants.

But should it aim to be representative on educational background, or anything else?

For much of its history, a geographical spread of justices was the top priority, notes Peter Hoffer, distinguished research professor at the University of Georgia, and co-author of The Supreme Court: An Essential History.

"Theoretically, the court is supposed to be divided among different parts of the country. Now we have gone past that - we are one nation, connected by the web and the media - that kind of geographical distinction is not so important any more."

After the need for geographical diversity of the court ebbed, other priorities emerged.

"As late as the 1960s you had a Catholic seat and a Jewish seat to ensure some kind of representation. It's rather ironic that now you have six Catholics and three Jews," says Prof Joel B Grossman, co-editor of The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States.

With white, black, and Hispanic justices on the court and both men and women represented, the court might seem heterogeneous but in terms of educational background it's become extremely homogeneous.

Read the rest on BBC's website.</span>

Edited May 20, 201015 yr by Sylph