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Katie

Close your eyes Gordon

Close your eyes Gordon

British prime minister Gordon Brown made an eco-promise when he first got the job – he would create 5 eco-towns.  Then it was ten eco-towns. Now it looks like we will be lucky to get two eco-towns – whatever they are.

So his claim in today’s speech to Labour Party conference that he would create a quarter million green jobs is likely to be just as much of a pathetic fallacy.

»Keep reading 'Green nonsense from pooped-out Brown'

SS numbers are easy to fake

July 8, 2009
SS numbers are easy to fake

Social Slave # It is possible to use publicly available data on state and date of birth to predict someone's Social Security number, particularly if they were born after 1988 and in smaller states, according to an article published Monday in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The ability to use statistic inference to predict the sensitive data exposes the Social Security numbers to identity fraud risks on "mass scales," the article said.

»Keep reading 'SS numbers are easy to fake'

British energy rip-off

January 10, 2009
British energy rip-off

Megaprofits for energy corps UK energy suppliers are ripping their customers off via the grid says the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

UK utility bills rose 16.7 per cent in the year ended November, compared with an average of just 3.8 per cent in the EU. In the euro currency area, the figure was 0.7 per cent.

German consumers saw a rises of just 1.5 per cent, while prices in France actually went down by 0.6 per cent in the period ended November. And in the U.S., energy prices tumbled 13.3 per cent.

»Keep reading 'British energy rip-off'

British people power

October 31, 2008
British people power

Ed Miliband, climate change ministerThe UK government has backed down in the face of utility company opposition and introduced an Energy Bill which stops short of guaranteeing householders can sell their renewable energy back to the Grid.

Although the British administration tabled an amendment to its own bill that would allow people to generate enough power to serve a community of more than 1,000 people, it does not yet require the energy companies to take a feed from their customers.

»Keep reading 'British people power'

Solar carports

September 16, 2008
Solar carports

Nice enough to live in Scores of small companies from chimney sweeps to solar panel installers are seeing a boom in business as people faced with soaring fuel bills look for cheaper energy deals. Solar panels, typically lining the roofs of buildings, can now be found across America in more eccentric forms -- shingles, windows, awnings and free-standing carports.

With the average household's annual energy bill now more than $2,000 (£1,300), comparatively cheaper sources of household energy such as solar power and solid fuel are tempting,

»Keep reading 'Solar carports'

How to live cheap

September 1, 2008
How to live cheap

Cash-strapped teacher Kath Kelly claims she has been living on just £1 ($1.70) a day for the past year. And she has written a book about it.

Miss Kelly, 47, ate at free buffets, shopped at jumble sales and scavenged food discarded by grocery stores and restaurants.

»Keep reading 'How to live cheap'

Down to Earth

May 11, 2008
Down to EarthEcomagination for all Evelien Matthijssen went on a skill-sharing weekend for system shifters who want to experience the future (and help bring it about). Ardennes Belgium, 25-27 April 2008

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Take a swim on the wild side

May 7, 2008
Take a swim on the wild sideDaniel Start goes wild Britains freshwater rivers, lakes and waterfalls are cleaner, safer and more accessible than at any time in living memory. To celebrate, photographer and travel writer Daniel Start has set out to find Britains 150 favourite swimming holes in a new photo-guide book Wild Swimming: 150 Hidden Dips in the Rivers, Lakes and Waterfalls of Britain. There are sections on skinny dipping, waterfalls, wild swimming with children, canoe camping,raft making and riverside wildlife too You can find an interactive map, plus guidance and articles,

»Keep reading 'Take a swim on the wild side'

Rip-off Britain

January 13, 2008
Rip-off Britain They're all at it Surprise, surprise. The media has finally woken up to the fact that the major energy companies are engaged in a major conspiracy to rip off the consumer. The six biggest energy companies meet regularly to fix prices, according to the London Sunday Times. The Observer newspaper also carries a similar report this morning: "the government can't � or won't � do a thing about it," the left-wing paper says. But it has always been thus, ever since the earliest days of gas and electricity in the UK and the US, the utilities have attempted to defraud the ordinary consumer.

»Keep reading 'Rip-off Britain'