emchi.co.uk

I’ve reduced my posting about politics, becuase, it gets me rather annoyed these days.  Still, I can’t but help post something about how utterly useless this government is. 

All they’ve ever done is take away tax rebates and tax everyone more.  I thought that was supposed to be what the *bad* Torries were supposed to do all the time?  Now they strip the 10p tax rate, say they won’t back down and now they announce that they’re going to give it back to those worse off by it? 

Then there’s inflation, which is rigged because they don’t include petrol.  If they did then we’d be looking at inflation rising alarmingly.  Basic food items are costing more, fuel is costing more, housing costs more… all the government are doing is taking money off of us to line, their own personal pockets.  Shame on them!

This government has to go, the fat moron in charge has no concept of what he’s doing, didn’t get there by being voted into power and should not be running this country.  I say it’s time for an election.  Get these stealing, incompetent swines out of power.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m very anti global warming and carbon footprint.  Why?  Well it’s the latest thing for the government to get taxes out of us and force us to do things for the wrong reasons.   If you’re going to use less energy, it should be because it saves you money and most things are a finite resource.  If you’re going to recycle, it’s because we produce too much waste and we’ll run out of natural resources.  How do they know that the planet’s heating up is anything to do with us?  Hell cows produce more carbon monoxide than we do, so lets kill all the cows eh?

There was a news item on The Register that talked about a blogger bullying the BBC into changing a news report because it was a little unfavourable towards Global Warming.  I don’t know where this person’s blog is so I’m unable to link to it, but I would if I could, mainly because I’m sure she wouldn’t take a comment I’d have to make about using your own blog to bully people into changing what they’re reporting too kindly.

So what also amuses me is this article http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=332289 on how there are no reported sun spots at the moment.  The last reported time like this resulted in a mini-ice age.  They’re not saying this is going to happen but it’s worth considering that Global Warming is yet another tax on everyone.

Something else worth considering is that whilst a large chunk of ice fell off in one part of the world, another part is reporting 400km2 of extra ice this year.  So then, where exactly is this global warming they speak about?  I think the earth is just going through one of it’s many cycles, of which the last one we didn’t have government policy makers shaking their fingers at the population saying we should be ensuring our flock of cows doesn’t poo too much.

I’m keeping an open mind, I’m doing what I need to do because it saves me money and recycling is the right thing to do to ensure there are future supplies of finite resources.  Oh and I’m not going to change my car any time soon, it has a catalytic converter, it produces less Co2 Emissions than a car made ten years before.  Sod the government and the cow they rode in on.  

Press Release

Mr & Mrs Smith by Royal Appointment:
Buckingham Palace set to become the ultimate British B&B

In a move that will shock traditionalists, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II today announced that Buckingham Palace, the official residence of the British monarchy since 1837, will open its doors in October this year to paying hotel guests. Mr & Mrs Smith, the London-based boutique-hotel specialists, will handle all bookings.

An entire wing of the iconic 18th-century building, designed by architect John Nash, will be given over to what will, from this summer, be known as The Royal Windsor Palace Suites. A consortium behind this radical new concept is currently talking to renowned hotel designers – including, it is rumoured, Philippe Starck, Tom Bartlett and Terence Conran – about providing the decor for this enviable project.

‘We’re aware that many will be surprised by Her Majesty’s decision to open up a wing of her London residence,’ says Royal Press Secretary Oona Abrillo. ‘But, in the light of recent events, she feels that the time is right to do so.’

‘Princes William and Harry are particularly concerned about the role of royalty in the 21st-century,’ says one source close to St James’ Palace. ‘And, what with Al Fayed’s conspiracy theories, the Labour government using the issue of royal taxation to drum up votes and Prince Harry’s forced withdrawal from Iraq being seen as a PR stunt by a cynical public, they are determined that the Windsors should not be seen as remote and untouchable.’

James Lohan, managing director of Mr & Mrs Smith – which has proudly added the ‘By Royal Appointment’ shield to its logo – is delighted to have won the contract to deal with the bookings for what will be the most upmarket B&B of them all. ‘We’re overjoyed to be working with Her Majesty on this project,’ he says. ‘Our American clients, in particular, are very excited about the prospect of a weekend in the Palace.’

Both Mr & Mrs Smith and Buckingham Palace are keeping exact details of the project under wraps for the moment, but it is believed that activities available will include corgi-walking in the Palace gardens, a day with the horse guard and cosy tea-and-Q&A sessions with the likes of Princess Anne, Freddie Windsor and Camilla Parker Bowles.

For more information, or to make an advance booking at The Royal Windsor Palace Suites, please view here.

>>> This is reproduced from an email I recieved this morning,  I’ll probably end up getting asked to take this down but in the mean time… enjoy. :o)

So I live in a village, we’ve established that, there’s no M&S at the bottom of the road, there’s no 10 minute drives to Starbucks, the post never arrives and the rubbish / recycling situation is a little bit, shall we say, stupid.  There was a report in the news at the end of last year that the dustbin men wouldn’t collect a recycling bin because one tin hadn’t been washed out properly… These councils want you to recycle but they don’t do a thing to help you.

Anyway, we’ve gone from two bins in the flat and a “just chuck any of the above in one bin and we’ll sort it out” to having to sort out glass, tin and paper for a fortnightly collect, plastic and cardboard you have to take to a skip in the village once a month and everything else goes in the wheelie bin, but if you don’t close the lid they won’t collect it.  Whilst I was shoulder deep in the recycling bin pulling out cardboard and plastic at the weekend, I pondered, is it really worth it? Probably, I feel bad throwing out stuff I know can be recycled, because most items are a finite resource so I should do my bit.

Just so you all know… I am not carbon neutral, I couldn’t give two hoots, it’s all propaganda.  Cows produce more Co2 than the rest of us, what are we going to do, kill all the cows to get our carbon footprint down?  My car is of a higher Co2 class, but hey it’s about 10 times less than cars made two years before mine.  It’s all another way for the governments to indoctrinate us and get us to spend more money, which hey, if you hadn’t noticed, people are running out of.

On other subjects, given the current credit crisis, can I say, we had a lucky escape, and I’m so pleased (or should I say smug and self riteous) that we didn’t end up buying the flat in London.  Best thing that ever happened to us, even if at the time it didn’t seem like it.

I’m sure it’ll never happen as some white flag waving idiot will say it deprives the little thugs of their human rights, however I think this is a damn good idea. Not only does it provide former troops with alternative training oportunities, it provides a level of discipline in schools that obviously seem to be missing since the threat of a damn good caining went away.  The only caining these little swines seem to do is of the pot variety.

The thought of being shouted at, at our school was normally enough to shut most of the potential trouble makers up.  I could count on one hand the amount of trouble makers there were in our year.  Everyone else was too frightened of our teachers to step a foot out of line.  Teachers don’t intimidate their pupils, they want to be their friends.  They’ve probably forgotten about the teacher at school who scared them all to death that they would toe the proverbial line. 

I don’t agree with the various wars our naieve government has decided to wage, but the people who fight in these wars seem to come back with little or no support.  The front line troops seem to pick a career in the forces rather than university, so to offer them something else to go out to is probably a good thing.  I don’t have problems with taxes paying for that, if the amount of little sods on the street goes down because of the discipline in schools gets better then it’s probably well spent money.

Well that’s my two cents for the day.

As someone who has suffered as a direct result of the US Sub-Prime Mortgage issues (we lost our mortgage as a result of the problems in the US), I feel it leads me to believe that I have a valid opinion on the state of the US economy.  This is especially so, given the news that a fall in retail sales in the US will hurt the UK as well.

So what irks me? Well that the George Bush has spent his entire presidential career sticking his nose into other people’s business.  Has he once stopped and looked at what is going on with his own country? Now his country is in trouble, and the walls are about to start coming down around his ears.

Add to that our own woes, since Brown has taken over as dictator prime minister, there’s been one disaster after another.  Northern Rock now have £1200 from every single person in this country and we have nothing to show for it, the government has breached the computer misuse and data protection act by loosing those disks and now they’re getting dodgy contributions from donors.  We, the voting public, don’t even get the right to say whether we actually want to put up with this for another three years.

I think both the UK and the US need leaders who will focus on protecting the people who live there, who have a legal right to be there and who don’t agree with interfering in other people’s business, unless it’s warranted.  I guess it’s frustration at the prospect of the country going to the dogs, or the US going to the dogs and dragging us down with it.    

Still at home.  My hand is loosing more feeling by the day and I was all but thrown out of the doctor’s this morning by some idiot who gave me the impression he got his medical degree on-line.  He managed to diagnose me with no examination to speak of, his idea of examining me was pulling, pushing and prodding me, even thought I told him it hurt when he did so.  Now what’s he done? sent me for blood tests with no reason, I know what they are, but I don’t know why I’m supposed to have them.

My osteopath says one thing, after a thorough examination, this doctor, or should I say “quack” who I saw this morning said my symptoms were not following a normal pattern and implied that I was lying about them.  Yeah, right, I keep loosing feeling in my thumb and two fingers, now spreading to three, it doesn’t fall into his text book definition of what’s right or wrong therefore I must be lying.  I’m furious.  Not to mention starting to get worried because I have no idea what the hell is wrong with me and it’s getting worse.

I would gladly pay for medical treatment by the way of private medical insurance, but the government feels it’s ok to take the money from my pay check to pay for the treatment.  Take that away, and I’ll front up for medical, pension and unemployment.  They won’t do that though will they?  Means test people, if they have the money to pay for medical insurance let them do it.  Give them a tax break for doing it. 

Of course we cannot rely on this government to make any decisions, one minute they say some-thing’s going to happen, the next they change their minds.  Do they honestly feel that by making changes to policy, so it’s more in line with the opposition, that are leading in the polls, will curry favour with people? No it just shows you as weak, spineless, unable to come up with an original idea and utterly incapable of running the country.

There are two petitions that you absolutely must sign…

The first is to stop the Government’s new attempts at Orwellian surveillance by forcing us to pay yet another tax and monitor our driving by having a “black box” fitted to our cars that will charge us for the pleasure of using the roads.

Travel Tax

The second is to save the Red Arrows…

Whilst I don’t condone the behavior of the dim witted bimbo’s on that god awful programme on Channel 4 I have to ask if the media’s behavior towards it is symptomatic of the way this country is becoming. On Channel 4 you’ve got Big Brother and Castaway (or wahtever it’s called) and on the news you’ve got the PC who won’t shake her boss’ hand because it’s “against her religion”.

With all of this happening you have to ask whether our “tollerant PC culture” has itself to blame for the mess this has caused? When you bend over backwards to protect people from other cultures at the expense of the people of it’s own culture you have to start expecting things like this to happen. You start getting to a point where people will start speaking their minds because they’re so fed up of keeping their mouths shut. It doesn’t help when a police officer is allowed to refuse to shake the hand of her boss because it’s against the rules of her religion. Well in the UK it’s considered rude not to shake the hand of your supierior if it is required that you do so.

If people of this country are so surprised that there is a racisim problem in Big Brother, then they should perhaps take a look at the furore that the media kicks up by reporting every instance where being “PC” goes over the top. I’d rather not know about these things, because knowing about them seems to make me a bit “BNP” which is not a good thing. The press is making bigoted racists out of people in this country. When the press starts reporting that these things are being said on Big Brother, they should perhaps look to themselves for creating the situation. Big Brother may well be showing what I’m sure a lot of people across the country think on a daily basis.

The government preaches tollerance. However it would appear that it’s conditional tollerance. This is straying away from the point however. Should a TV show illustrate racism to the masses? or in doing so does it highlight an under lying problem with society? Has it caused a can of worms to exploded and in doing so it will be impossible to put them all back again?

Question time: Is lack of education the cause for intollerance and racism? or Is it the press and establishment’s over dosing of Political Correctness breeding a culture of hatred?

So in summary, should Big Brother and other trashy reality TV shows be binned so this kind of behavior doesn’t come to the surface? or should the PC culture go and everyone should develop a tougher skin?

I read this in Metro the other day (so it must be true… because newspapers aren’t biased in the slightest). The NHS is introducing an diet pill for the treatment of obesity. That wasn’t what concerned me, the headline was something like “diet pill could cost the NHS billions”. I read on a bit further and I notice that it’s likely to cost the NHS £55 per person, per month.

The drug targets the body’s desire for food reducing the need to over eat. Other “side effects” include, help with diabetes and cholesterol. Can anyone tell me how much the cost of obesity is costing the NHS per person, per month at the moment? I’m sure it’s more than £55 a month. So why are they up in arms at the cost? The BBC say, “the cost effectiveness of the pill needs to be assessed”. Surely obesity creates more problems than it solves? Breating conditions, bone disorders, skin disorders, major organ disorders.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say that this should be a super model, I’ve got a pound too much fat on me, give me a diet pill solution. For seriously over weight people, this could be a lifeline. Yet again the government is taxing people’s health, saying how much someone’s life is worth. We had it with Herceptin, oooh it’s too expensive. Just exactly how much is someone’s life worth?

If the NHS is in trouble financially, rather than cutting back on treatment, perhaps the government should overhall the way treatment is paid for. I would personally rather pay into a private health plan, and private pension than the state one. However, in order to do that, they should give people the option of paying for private health care out of their pay, BEFORE they get taxed, just like they do with the current national insurance. If you’re paying for private health care, why should you pay for it out of money that has already been taxed.

I am sure there are plenty of people out there that would be happy to pay privately for pensions and medical insurance, and leave the free stuff to the people who can’t afford it. While we’re at it, do they have any idea what they are doing by banning smoking every where and almost forcing people to give up? They’re taking money out of their fat pockets. Perhaps if they spent a little less on things like, war, which a large proportion of the population didn’t want in the first place, we wouldn’t be running out of money to pay for the health care of the citizens.