BBC iplayer

[DanaC]

Yup.

[TheMercenary]

You guys have lots of minders to keep your population in line. You know like the video. I wish we had some of that. We are getting extremely limited video cameras in some areas. I imagine the thugs will just shoot them out.

[DanaC]

there are some areas here where the cameras have a woefully short lifespan :P


[eta] in some ways we are very nannied. In other respects we are very free. Sometimes we get the balance right, other times we very much don't. On the licence fee, I agree with it in principle. It allows us to have TV programmes that aren't purely tied to the market. A lot of very worthy stuff gets made that I am glad to have but which would never get made if it had to survive in the market at large. But...there aren't enough concessions. The age at which you get it exempted is far too high (should be 65 same age as retirment imo) and there are no concessions for low income families which I believe there should be. There's also a tendency to hike the licence fee up without, in my opinion, offering enough good reason for doing so. There's been a lot of money wasted on failed projects but that's the price of freedom to experiment I guess. More annoying is the amount of money wasted on poor quality television and radio output. The whole point of paying the licence fee is to gurantee quality output free from commercial concerns, so it's a bit of a kick in the teeth when they make a bunch of crap to try and pull in the 'younger viewers' especially when they get it so badly wrong :P

[TheMercenary]

You even mind the Newts. About 10 of them.



UH-OH ... CAN'T DISTRURB THE COLONY OF NEWTS



In England, they were trying to build a road to bypass a town. That was until they discovered a colony of protected newts. The great crested newts were found near the Earl Shilton bypass. Guess how many they found? Between one and ten newts were found in three ponds around the area.



So what's the solution? They're going to spend over $3 million to delay the project and try to stop the news from returning to the area. That's right. The project was supposed to be finished this year, but now it has been delayed until February 2009. On top of that, over a million dollars will be spent on steps to stop the newts from returning and trapping the newts when hibernation ends in the spring.



The Leicestershire County Council has a legal obligation to make sure that these newts and their habitat are protected ... all at the taxpayers' expense.



Someday, my friends, you're going to understand just how hideous the Endangered Species Act is. It is quite possibly one of the worst pieces of legislation passed in the last 50 or so years.

[DanaC]

Guess how many they found? Between one and ten newts were found in three ponds around the area.

Well duh....if there'd been thousands of 'em they wouldn't have needed protecting :P

The endangered species legislation has its place.....however, it is also used rather a lot by people who are protesting various developments. It can be a convenient legal block for people who just don't want a development to happen.