Sweeping U.S. government spending cuts totalling $85 billion begin taking effect Friday, slicing deeply into military and other programs in an unwanted move toward austerity that displays Washington's paralyzing partisan divisions.

The cuts are kicking in after the White House and congressional Republicans could not overcome bitter disagreements and come up with a better plan to tackle the country's $11.7 trillion debt. The warring sides have spent this week assigning blame rather than seeking a way out, and rival Democratic and Republican measures to modify the cuts failed in the Senate on Thursday.

As Lab rats are being fed water via the internet and, as these ratty communications are hailed as breakthrough in mind development technologies, one also hear some alarm bells on the food front... Gus' apologies to the creators of "Sniffy and Brains"... all we need is a better mouse-trap.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/feb/28/brains-rats-connected-share-information

Unions, hopefully, are there to protect workers in case of danger — financially as well as safety at the working place. Picture by Gus.

Tony Abbott reminds me of Rimmer in the TV comedy Red Dwarf...

Rimmer is full of self-promoting hubris and as such Rimmer, the Hologram, is the self-appointed captain of a garbage disposal ship lost in space for about 3 million years... The only difference is that Rimmer from time to time realises he's a waste of space, but Abbott never does, though he is the Hollowman... See Tony's latest grand scheme of fiddling with the northern rivers... It's a bit like going from BLUE ALERT to RED ALERT, as the tin-can robot, Kryten, masterly ask Rimmer if that really was what he wanted as all he had to do was change the coloured light bulb in the flashing sign...

Mischief by Gus...

Findus UK said Saturday it was taking legal advice after early results from its internal investigation "strongly suggest" that the presence of horsemeat in its frozen beef lasagne meals was "not accidental".

As a major winter storm made its way up the Atlantic Coast on Thursday, local authorities from New York City to Maine began to make preparations for what forecasters said could be the heaviest snowfall for some cities in the Northeast in a century.

Coalition frontbencher Christopher Pyne :