Monday, October 30, 2006

Green on Green Issues again

A while ago I posted a topic on how I thought people should give ol' Dicky Branson a break as he at least is doing something about climate change. It was said that his donation of millions of pounds of profit to green issues was a bit suspect as the destination of those funds was another part of his own company that researches greener fuels etc. I still say, at least the money is being used for something that hopefully will have a positive effect.
Now compare that to the government's attempt to show a green face. For instance add about 17% on to airfares as a green tax. The story is that this will "tax" people out of the habit, but I think in the main people like their holidays too much, so the net result is that people are poorer, the government is richer and just as much airline fuel is used with the same carbon footprint. Meanwhile the government is patting itself on the back for promoting a green policy, when in fact they've just found a seemingly PC way to tax us some more.
What needs to happen is that all these taxes being proposed for airline fuel, 4x4 cars etc needs to be funnelled into projects that will actually fight climate change. How about it goes to fund further grants for people to install solar panels or wind power? Or how about give it all to Virgin Fuels so that they can find a low carbon alternative to airline fuel a bit quicker...

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Rediscovering Music


A few weeks back Shelley and I went for a walk around Guisborough forest and Shelley took a freebie personal FM radio that she got with a magazine so she could lsten to the radio rather than talk to me while we were walking. How anti-social you may think, but practically, we're both so unfit that most of the time we gasping for breath so much that there's not a great deal of conversation that can be had. Anyway, the radio was a bit crap and kept stopping so I thought I'd get a couple of little pen drive style MP3 players (£15 for a 512kb version). Now, not only have we been learning greek as we walk with a listen'n'learn based tutorial, but I have also found that going for a walk gives me the opportunity to listen to music again - which these days just never seems to happen at home. Yesterday we went up by the Wainstones and listening to the good ol' Oxygene by Jean Michel Jarre seemed to go so well with the wind swept surroundings it's like having a soundtrack to the landscape.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Who makes these laws?

While we're on the subject of making things legal or illegal, a friend just sent me an email which list the statistics behind those 635 MP's that we err...trust?...to legislate:

  • 29 have been accused of spouse abuse
  • 7 have been arrested for fraud
  • 19 have been accused of writing bad cheques
  • 117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
  • 3 have done time for assault
  • 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
  • 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
  • 8 have been arrested for shoplifting
  • 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
  • 84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year

Should this lot really have anything to do with making laws?

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

The same old joke

Is anyone else getting bored with the "when is Tony Blair going to leave" news item? It's been running for so long now that I'm sure half the population, rather than worrying about when he'll go and who'll replace him etc, actually just couldn't give a toss anymore. Certainly Rory Bremner (who I always used to find quite funny) seems to not only fill an hour long prime time show trying to extract laughs from "tony not leaving" gags, but seems to be doing it for an entire series. For gods sake man - get some new material, some new characters - we know you can "do" Tony...do you have any other voice?

On another aside, does any one else think the labour party have actually done Cameron a favour comparing him to a chameleon? Not because he's using it to say "yes, the tory's are about change for the better" or any of that crap, but more just because the chameleon looks ...well.. cute really! Something that could never be said about anything that's compared to Gordon Brown, I'll wager.