games children [aka politicians] play

news today in the local rags says employers are up in arms about the minimum wage level rising yet again.
UK citizens should know that a labour government is in power and with enough nous to lie + lie well enough to fool the media [its still questioning whether 'New' Labour is working when 'New' Labour died at the last election and Old labour [tax and spend] rose out of the ashes ] .

When it brought in the minimum wage in 1999 at a level that people thought was fair - we all breathed a sigh of relief . [ was roughly the US minimum wage rate]

Then president Blair, started his wage inflation and that rate has risen by 8 % a year since then.
Thus the minimum wage has risen by 40% in 5 years. Unfortunately people do like to have a wage heirarchy so this was always going to increase wage inflation for the country as a whole or to do other macroeconomic stuff.

The other macro stuff is largely complete [ staff buying own uniforms,unpaid breaks, redundancy, shorter hours etc] and so look out for inflation starting to rise again - thanks to our glorious leader- its allready about 40% above the warning point [ although HM govt changed the goalposts by changing the way inflation is worked out which miraculously hides it ].

If you are wondering how many employees I have - its now just me , [ seemed the easiest way to get around the regulations]
Sorry folks , but you cannot hide something this large indefinitely. Employees are ong to be asking for 8 % increases shortly - cos they have to , not cos they need to ...... whence Tony is going to say 'this is the fault of the last Tory government' or ' its Gordon Brown's fault'

Next year should be interesting as this unravels

20 Sec world viewpoint of a goldfish - well...

This is a personal observation....
I have tropical fish and they're smaller than a goldfish, so presumably commensurately smaller brains. When I open the lid of my 5ft tank, most know exactly where the food is going to hit the water first and swarm [school?] round there.
On the other hand , people wax lyrical about how intelligent birds are? We have a fatball feeder in the back garden ,just bits of plastic coated steel wire as a holder for the feed. Our tits dont know when theres food or not and constantly fly/perch to it- whether food is there or not.
On the other,other hand , we have a very young 2yo ? vine which has loads of small grapes at present. One [or more] blackbirds has found that these are rather tasty , but the vines wont hold the weight of such a lummox. So this bird has developed a rather funny humming bird hovering system whilst it grabs a grape.
Unfortunately , blackbirds cant hover, but can move back? and forward ? for about 1-2 secs before cartwheeling and crashing , so maybe all birds aint built like goldfish ?

active passive smoking

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040909/325/f28my.html
Looks like the smoking ban in public places in the UK is happening voluntarily slowly.
In terms of protecting employees, it's sensible I reckon, but in pubs etc, you should be allowed to smoke outdoors [ hopefully the beer garden is gonna get resurrected big time ]
Let's hope HM Govt doesnt get involved or it'll get gold plated as usual....... Lets see, smoke travels, so we must ban it for half a mile from any business premises ...... would be the sort of thing ?????

speed trap stealth tax !

The news today is that there will be a grading of speeding offences caught via speed traps.
At least that's what the newspapers trumpet.
In reality , there will be a £20 fine for people who travel at up to 39mph in a 30mph zone with ONLY 2 points on your licence [you need 12 to lose your driving licence]. Sounds great uh ?
As I understand, the speed trap system is set up as follows :
30 mph - fine. Then there is a 10% allowance for the speedometer being faulty/tyres not inflated properly, then there is a further 10% allowance for the camera [not the doppler] and its associated white lines for the photographic evidence, then finally there is a nominal x for 'luck'.
Thus cameras in a 30mph zone are set to click at about 37-39mph.
Hence we have another stealth tax coming in , but portrayed as a 'present' to the victims.
I find it very hard to keep under 30mph except in built up areas, so its gonna clobber me quite badly, and I suspect lots of others.
Last year apparently those metal monsters caught 3 million vehicles and I reckon this new measure will double it to 6 million. That would make 10% of the population of the UK being fined each year, and assuming there is 1 car/2 people in the UK, thats a fifth !

Something is seriously wrong with this system

Violence in Iraq

Well US/UK got into a right mess, and got out of it , sort of...
Unfortunately the violence doesnt seem to be dying down.
You have to ask yourself why are the people of Iraq messing with their own country ?
I don't believe its because US guys over there are seriously sodding it up- although that jail takes some beating [bit like the inmates]-else only US companies would be getting into trouble.
So what's left?
1. The new provisional government is too US oriented ? Very likely as it was put together by the US. As there is gonna be an election though, they could get booted then- so possibly but unlikely
2. Another country is happy for Iraq to be in chaos? Well, yes....... Israel would love a disfunctional Middle East and has been engineering it since 1967. Iran would love a neighbouring country that recently tried to take it over [albeit under old management] to be at civil war. Saudi Arabia would love a tentative muslim representational democracy to fail [sort of stops it's own population wanting to play].
Wonder if Saudi and Israel are co-operating on this one ?