http://www.telegraph.co.uk/…

Envirowise is calling on businesses to appoint tea monitors to make sure people do not waste water.

It is advising companies to use teapots instead of making individual cups of tea, and hopes to re-introduce tea urns to the workplace.

They say that the moves will cut greenhouse gas emissions and, in turn, help businesses to save money.

Envirowise, which is funded by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, estimates that more than 30 billion cups of water are unnecessarily boiled each year.

In a statement it tells businesses: “Appoint a tea task force or tea monitor to make sure all your office hot drink-making facilities are as efficient as they could be. Only boil the water you use - this will avoid water and energy being wasted.”

They go on to say that employees should use a teapot when making a round of hot drinks as this “allows you to measure the correct amount of water you will need, and often tastes nicer than making tea in the cup.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…

Coastguards have been banned from using flares in rescue missions after they were ruled to be a risk to health and safety.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency says the devices, which are used to illuminate large areas of land and sea during night-time searches, could cause ‘considerable injury’.

Rescue teams have been told to use ’safer’ alternatives such as torches and night-vision goggles during land-based cliff and beach rescues.

All 400 Coastguard rescue teams now have until the end of the year to use up their cache of flares or hand them over to the Ministry of Defence for disposal.

Yesterday volunteers claimed the decision will put lives at risk because flares are essential for locating lost people and vessels in the dark.

One crewman said: ‘This is the most stupid, ignorant thing I’ve heard of. Flares light up the entire sky and aid rescue missions - something that obviously can’t be done with a hand-held torch.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/…

Restaurants could be made to reveal on menus how much, if any, of their service charge is paid to waiting staff. The measure will be among proposals announced next week to ensure that diners know what happens to their tips, The Times has learnt.

Some establishments keep all gratuities, while others – particularly restaurant chains – funnel tips into waiters’ basic wages. Ministers have already pledged to close a loophole that allows restaurants and hotels to use service charges to top up pay rates beneath the minimum wage, currently £5.73 an hour.

Next week they will publish proposals for greater information on what happens to discretionary charges, typically 10 per cent or 12.5 per cent.

The consultation comes after negotiations between the industry and the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform.

A senior figure involved in the talks said: “People leaving a gratuity assume that it’s going to the person that served them – they have a right to know whether that’s the case.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/…

Ministers are to consider plans for a database of electronic information holding details of every phone call and e-mail sent in the UK, it has emerged.The plans, reported in the Times, are at an early stage and may be included in the draft Communications Bill later this year, the Home Office confirmed.

A Home Office spokesman said the data was a “crucial tool” for protecting national security and preventing crime.

Ministers have not seen the plans which were drawn up by Home Office officials.

A Home Office spokesman said: “The Communications Data Bill will help ensure that crucial capabilities in the use of communications data for counter-terrorism and investigation of crime continue to be available.

“These powers will continue to be subject to strict safeguards to ensure the right balance between privacy and protecting the public.”

The spokesman said changes need to be made to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 “to ensure that public authorities can continue to obtain and have access to communications data essential for counter-terrorism and investigation of crime purposes”.

But the Information Commission, an independent authority set up to protect personal information, said the database “may well be a step too far” and highlighted the risk of data being lost, traded or stolen.

Assistant information commissioner Jonathan Bamford said: “We are not aware of any justification for the state to hold every UK citizen’s phone and internet records. We have real doubts that such a measure can be justified, or is proportionate or desirable.

“Defeating crime and terrorism is of the utmost importance, but we are not aware of any pressing need to justify the government itself holding this sort of data.”

A number of data protection failures in recent months, including the loss of a CD carrying the personal details of every child benefit claimant, have embarrassed the government.

The plans also prompted concern from political groups.

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said: “Given [ministers'] appalling record at maintaining the integrity of databases holding people’s sensitive data, this could well be more of a threat to our security than a support.”

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne called the proposals “an Orwellian step too far”.

He said ministers had “taken leave of their senses if they think that this proposal is compatible with a free country and a free people”.

And having millions of CCTV cameras are? Tracking people as they walk and drive around? Forcibly extracting DNA samples from people and keeping it on file even after they are found innocent? This guy acts as if this is anymore than a matter of degrees.

“Given the appalling track record of data loss, this state is simply not to be trusted with such private information,” said Mr Huhne.

Yes because that alone is the reason we shouldn’t be handing over all our communications to the monopoly on violence? How about the whole innocent before proven guilty idea we once had?

What scares me is the lack of outrage and the ease at which their version of Homeland Security advocates spying on their entire population. People in those positions of power should not be using 1984 as a roadmap. I think as the government grows in this way one of the responses is going to have to be infiltration of those who develop these systems and sabotaging them. A WMRN database would be far more palatable.

http://www.upi.com/…

Montana officials said its statehood contract will be breached if the U.S. Supreme Court rules only state-run militias can keep and bear arms.

While there’s no secession talk in Montana, 39 elected state officials signed a resolution declaring that if the court rules the Second Amendment to the Constitution is a right of states, not individuals, Montana’s compact would be violated, The Washington Times reported Monday.

“The U.S. would do well to keep its contractual promise to the states that the Second Amendment secures an individual right now as it did upon execution of the statehood contract,” Montana Secretary of State Brad Johnson said in a Feb. 15 letter to the Times.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments on a federal court decision striking down the District of Columbia’s gun-ownership ban. The high court hasn’t issued a broad Second Amendment ruling in nearly seven decades, including whether it provides an individual right or a state government-held collective right, the Times said.

The Montana statehood contract, preserved as Article I of the state’s constitution, specifies gun ownership as an individual right, reading in part, “The right of any person to keep or bear arms … shall not be called into question.”

I thought the REAL ID would put the states and federal government at major odds first. Seems I may be wrong. This is pretty interesting. You rarely have people in these positions talking in this manner. I doubt very much anything will come of this but it’s fun nonetheless.

There is an issue I have with the Bill of Rights and its application. Through incorporation the federal government says that particular amendments apply to state governments. I have major issues with the fact that these cases where incorporation was cited are effectively random. They seem to create the need for incorporation on the spot instead of there being a blanket statement that in fact full incorporation has occurred. This has allowed for the federal government to cherry pick which it wants to enforce. A notable amendment not incorporated is the 2nd. If incorporation is legit it should be codified clearly by passing a new amendment which states without a doubt that all protected enumerated rights found in the federal constitution also apply to the states and the federal government has the power to pass and enforce laws to do so.

http://www.reason.com/…

Lately, Barack Obama has been quoting John F. Kennedy: “The world is changing. The old ways will not do.” For a few hours the other day, I was starting to think he really meant it.

On Thursday, The Washington Times reported that in 2004, as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, Obama came out for decriminalizing marijuana use. That usually means eliminating jail sentences and arrest records for anyone caught with a small amount for personal use, treating it more like a traffic offense than a violent crime. But in a show of hands at a debate last fall, he indicated that he opposed the idea.

When confronted on the issue by the Times, however, the senator defended his original ground. His campaign said he has “always” supported decriminalization.

It’s a brave position, and therefore exceedingly rare among practicing politicians. Which may be why it didn’t last. Before the day was over, the Obama campaign issued a statement saying he thinks “we are sending far too many first-time non-violent drug users to prison for very long periods of time” but “does not believe that we should treat offenses involving marijuana with a simple fine or just by confiscating the drug.” Recently, he had told a New Hampshire newspaper, “I’m not in favor of decriminalization.”

This episode reveals that as a candidate, Obama is more fond of bold rhetoric than bold policies. But it also proves the impossibility of talking sense on the subject of illicit drugs during a political campaign. That course of action would mean admitting the inadmissible: that the prohibition of cannabis has been cruel, wasteful and fraudulent.

It would also mean he has a backbone and is for real change and not tinkering with the status quo. A friend tried to get me to support Obama. Said he had a real chance of getting elected and was second best to Ron Paul. I very sternly let him down by telling him not a chance in hell. Obama’s looking to in the least continue the same old Washington bullshit while giving lip service to “change” at at worst will grow our federal government to even more. I don’t care about youth, speaking ability or race. I surely don’t care about a new Camelot or a weak policy on the drug war.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/…

The United Kingdom has an “Incapacity” program for people allegedly unable to work. And like the “Disability” portion of America’s Social Security program, the British system is a magnet for fraud. The Times reports that more than $8 million was paid to people who are “too fat” to work. But this is a drop in the bucket compared to the people receiving handouts for mental health reasons. In an obvious sign that people are scamming the system (unless the UK’s government-run health care system is even more dangerous than current stories suggest), the number of people who are ostensibly incapacitated has tripled in less than 30 years:

Almost two thousand people who are too fat to work have been paid a total of £4.4 million in benefit, it emerged last night. Other payments went to fifty sufferers of acne… Billions of pounds is being paid in benefits to people claiming to be unable to work because they suffer from depression, stress, fatigue and unknown or unspecified diseases. …Frank Field, a former Social Security Minister, said last night that too many people were working the incapacity benefit system to avoid work. “It is a racket, which governments have allowed to exist for far too long. I do not blame people for working the system, it is the job of politicians to stop them doing it.” …The number on incapacity benefit has more than trebled since 1979… More than £2 billion was paid in 2006-07 for mental health complaints, including £518 million to those with what are described as “unknown and unspecified” diseases.

The US welfare system may be worse than this in terms of waste but I think this is more ridiculous. £518 million given to those with what are described as “unknown and unspecified” diseases? That’s nuts. How do you pay out that much on something unknown?