British businesses are being warned that they could lose their internet connections during the Olympics due to a surge in the number of people going online at key times. The demand could be such that internet companies might be forced to ration access, according to official advice.

The warning, in the Cabinet Office’s official advice, Preparing your Business for the Games, says that the country’s telecoms system may be unable to cope with demand to access the internet in certain areas. Businesses are being encouraged to offer staff flexible working arrangements to try to ease the pressure.
[snip]
The Department for Transport (DfT)will launch Operation StepChange, a week-long pilot across Whitehall departments, in which many staff will work from home. Ministers believe the project could result in a “permanent revolution” in which home-working becomes common practice for civil servants, who are expected to use technology such as video conferencing to communicate with colleagues.

However, the initiative is not without its setbacks. The DfT conducted Operation Footfall, a pilot, last August, that resulted in participating staff experiencing internet connection problems, according to those familiar with the project.

Millions of teenagers will suffer from social media withdrawal. Oh the humanity!

Hey, if Newt “The Whiner” Gingrich can be considered a serious candidate given his dubious accomplishments and dalliances, then why not anyone? After all, she apparently has the bong hit vote. Not that stoners are likely to get off the couch to vote unless there are free bowls of Cheetos at the polls.

Roseanne Barr is serious about her bid for the presidency in 2012. Seriously. No, really. She means it. She’s filled out the paperwork for the Green Party and everything.

Trouble is, third-party candidates usually rely on young voters, as the Christian Science Monitor points out, yet young voters aren’t likely to know who Roseanne Barr is. Or was, as they say in Hollywood. The sitcom that made Roseanne Barr famous ran way back in the 1980s, when young voters hadn’t been born yet.

“If this were someone like Chelsea Handler or even Tina Fey who is very visible right now, then it might be clearer who will pay attention to her bid,” Lara Brown, political science professor at Villanova University, told the Monitor.

I wonder how many of those in favor of doing so realize what would happen if we/Israel did? Here is an interesting rumination (from two years ago!) about the implications.

Nearly half of likely voters think the United States should be willing to use military force to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, according to this week’s The Hill Poll. Forty-nine percent said military force should be used, while 31 percent said it should not and 20 percent were not sure.

Sixty-two percent of likely voters said they were somewhat or very concerned about Iran making a terrorist strike on the United States, while 37 percent said they were not very concerned or not at all concerned about it.

Nearly half — 49 percent — of likely voters also said they opposed cutting military spending to balance the federal budget, while 40 percent said it should be reduced.
[...]
The findings were based on a nationwide survey of 1,000 likely voters conducted Feb. 2 by Pulse Opinion Research, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

As for not cutting military spending, apparently those against it are expecting another WWII-type war to break out. Or don’t want to lose their military contract money.

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Click pic for a lot more flyers for assorted businesses

I feel so much safer.

Found by Brother Uncle Don

Click pic for more

Has everything worthwhile artistically been done and we’ve reached the point where if you make it and you call yourself an artist that makes it art? Especially if an ‘art critic’ says it is and someone with money is willing to buy it?

People differentiate between artist and non-artist based on degree of mastery in imitating nature, and further differentiate Realism from Hyperrealism based on skill in rendering details. Different motivations on the part of the artist can also be used to make distinctions such as Realism, Symbolism or perhaps other “isms.”
[...]
I think artists really want to play god more than anything else, and will stop at nothing to construct a truth that validates the self. They first delude themselves, then maybe move on to people around them. I really wonder to what extent these self deceptions and constructed truths can strike a nerve in the knowing onlooker.