It looks like its coming, as its in the news again today.
I smoke/am stopping smoking so consider me to be totally neutral on this one .
The arguments for the ban are health and safety ones. basically employees are breathing smoke and being affected by that , so should be protected.
Arguments for are based on people wanting to smoke whilst having a drink.
I have to trust the govt statisticians on the former, so let's say they say correct and it does harm employees.
Health and safety laws tend to go over the top, so maybe they should be slightly toned down in their authority.
Why not allow smoking if the bar staff are also smokers ? Thus they will have no/slightly more adverse affects at work than normal. That would leave everyone happy.
I specified that they had to be smokers , as some guys might allow the health to be affected just for the money [or social life] they would get from that employment
The economic arguments.... Irish bars apparently suffered 7% drop in sales after the ban. Most people assume that means 7% of profits. Wrong
There is no rule about the linkage between the two definitions, but simplifying a bar profits [ and applies to every ? business venture].
A bar has overheads, ie fixed costs. These are rates,franchise or whatever cost is involved from being there, rent of the property/lease costs, water rates,electric standing charges, etc- the list is long, with some costs large and others small, but adding up to a large number.
The business has to earn that number £ before it can make a profit. After that.....
A quick example. A business has a turnover of £1,000,000 and a profit of £100,000 with an overhead of £300,000. It loses 10% of its sales .
Turnover is now £900,000. Overhead is £300,000. Stock costs are thus down by 10% ,ie 60,000 at £540,000. Profit is now £60,000 [subtracting those numbers from £900,000]
Thus we have a profit drop of 40%, based on a 10% decrease in turnover.
i picked those numbers for ease of analysis, but they could easily apply .
If employees are nanny state protected, then some will lose their jobs as some employers either downsize staff numbers or go bust.
I suggest the following. Some people object to the smell of smoke. These would avoid pubs which smoke. Thus there's a huge market out there for smoke free bars.
Lets have a system [if we haven't got it already , but I bet we have somewhere in some law -Tubes ?] where pubs can bar smoking if they wish to, then let the people decide.
As fewer people smoke, more will become smoke free, and everyone is happy !
Blair let the PEOPLE decide about smoking. Your job as a government is to inform not to legislate , certainly on this one.
I think the above is simple and elegant and would work in practise.
So I commend it to the House.
In my opinion , therefore, smoking should be allowed , but any employee , should be vetted so they were not affected by smoke.
If anyone is wondering about my smoking habits, as it sounds a bit wierd above: I am stopping smoking by cutting down gradually and starting later each day. As of today I cannot have tobacco until 21.15 after which I can. Tomorrow the start time becomes 21.45. Friends and doctors have all told me I'm mad, but it does work , basically I think, because my body doesnt need smoke during sleep, so it is fairly quiescent till about an hour before I allow myself to light up [I've compressed the argument, but think about it]. Anyway I should have stopped smoking by Saturday.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Monday, May 30, 2005
The French say Non - whoopee
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050530/325/fk2ni.html
So the French people defied their government and rejected the constitutional draft.
Its not too great a surprise.
It's just that there are serious differences between the major countries, and so a hotch potch of compromises was bound to piss off virtually every country , as every country has something to lose by it ! The populace will never vote for a losing something unless there is a seriously gainful side that would entail eventually [ and then probably not - I heard they were thinking of asking turkeys to vote about abolishing Christmas].
So what happens now?
Firstly with France saying 'sod the government' all arguments by other parliaments pro the constitution are now without power.
Secondly, if a major power says non, smaller powers cannot now be coerced. Newcomers will want to say to their governments ' cool it- let's slow this boat down a bit'.
i suspect that most countries will now do a Frenchie and say no.
I suspect most countries that were going to have a referendum will now not bother.
Short term , say till this Tuesday night, France can say ' we'll have another vote till that lot get it right ' and try to barnstorm the Dutch to say yes. if that happens all other referenda can be postponed.
Longer term - say end of the week, they can renegotiate the small point of contention in the document and say they'll have another go. This wouldnt stop the Dutch vote, and so could easily produce a Nein there, which scuppers the others-see short term.
The small point is primarily [I believe] the UK bits we stuck in. This then places Pres Tony as leader to argue against himself ......... He'll reword those items slightly and the funfair can restart. I pesonally dont believe that can happen and so.....
Ditch the whole thing, which is what economists have been saying since it was first published.
Hoorah for the people, who aint policians and can thus see the whole thing in their own selfish way !
So the French people defied their government and rejected the constitutional draft.
Its not too great a surprise.
It's just that there are serious differences between the major countries, and so a hotch potch of compromises was bound to piss off virtually every country , as every country has something to lose by it ! The populace will never vote for a losing something unless there is a seriously gainful side that would entail eventually [ and then probably not - I heard they were thinking of asking turkeys to vote about abolishing Christmas].
So what happens now?
Firstly with France saying 'sod the government' all arguments by other parliaments pro the constitution are now without power.
Secondly, if a major power says non, smaller powers cannot now be coerced. Newcomers will want to say to their governments ' cool it- let's slow this boat down a bit'.
i suspect that most countries will now do a Frenchie and say no.
I suspect most countries that were going to have a referendum will now not bother.
Short term , say till this Tuesday night, France can say ' we'll have another vote till that lot get it right ' and try to barnstorm the Dutch to say yes. if that happens all other referenda can be postponed.
Longer term - say end of the week, they can renegotiate the small point of contention in the document and say they'll have another go. This wouldnt stop the Dutch vote, and so could easily produce a Nein there, which scuppers the others-see short term.
The small point is primarily [I believe] the UK bits we stuck in. This then places Pres Tony as leader to argue against himself ......... He'll reword those items slightly and the funfair can restart. I pesonally dont believe that can happen and so.....
Ditch the whole thing, which is what economists have been saying since it was first published.
Hoorah for the people, who aint policians and can thus see the whole thing in their own selfish way !
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Wow banks gonna give us our money now !
Headline today in the UK-- "banks are to credit accounts on the same day as a cheque is presented"
This is different as to what happens at present whereby banks take the money from the cheque account immediately and then credit the other account with it from 5-7 days later , thus getting LOADS of free dosh.
A major breakthrough.... Unfortunately it isnt going to happen till 2007 - implicitly stating that it will take that long to improve the system.
As an ex programmer I can state that a computer programme [tends- because you can tell it differently] to execute the commands one after the other if the programme would be something like
xaccount:= xaccount- chequeno
yaccount:= yaccount+chequeno
where this would take about 1 billionth of a second and would debit/credit almost immediately.
However the banks built in a delay .
There are 2 levels of difficulty in resolving this.
The first would be to go to a [high level] screen where it would say something like
'what delay for cheques would you like ?' [days]
and typing in zero would do the job
The second and much more difficult would be for a programmer to look for the section of programme which dealt with cheques clearing and hunt for a variable saying something like chequedelay() to find that variable and then search for chequedelay():= 5 and change that to zero.
I personally cannot believe it would be the second variety which could take an hour to do and firmly believe it would be the first [ bearing in mind some banks had already done it some years before].
Thus this delay of 2 years to change a parameter which would take around 2 minutes to do [ being VERY generous] is designed to hoodwink the government.
This change was insisted on by the government [ I seem to remember a few years ago] and so is not *quite* as generous as it first seems.
Whoever in govt is responsible for insisting on this should not be taken in .
*falling on deaf ears* as usual........
I remember a few years ago, the music indusrty being taken to task about the cost of cds. Their breakdown of the costs of a cd was royalty £x, production £4 ? or some such - now you can get free cd in every PC mag and a some newspapers [Sunday Times et al]. If you ask an industry one thing they will reply ,sort of honestly, in their own terms.
Remember the report about supermarkets overcharging ? Lidl has a margin of 2% and Tesco/Sainsbury [at the time] was 4% - and Blair was incensed . It depends on your defintion of margin. there are 2 basic ones: markup ie they bought it for 20p and sold it for 40p, a markup of 100% and : margin [ the ones always quoted by industry] they bought it for 20p sold it for 40p the margin is 20p/40p ie 50%- an instant 50% headline number. If you then add in the cost of selling - warehousing admin, wages etc then for something bought for 20p and sold for 60p [yes why not ? ] the margin could well come down to 4%. Just an example of stats manipulation. In a true market, it dont matter much - but if there is a cartel or complex monopoly then that would be overcharging . I haven't the figures to say one way or t'other but I feel that Tesco et al are ok in that a monopoly is not in force, but it is worrying when you read about them screwing down the prices on suppliers....
Slightly disjointed argument maybe .... but a big subject
This is different as to what happens at present whereby banks take the money from the cheque account immediately and then credit the other account with it from 5-7 days later , thus getting LOADS of free dosh.
A major breakthrough.... Unfortunately it isnt going to happen till 2007 - implicitly stating that it will take that long to improve the system.
As an ex programmer I can state that a computer programme [tends- because you can tell it differently] to execute the commands one after the other if the programme would be something like
xaccount:= xaccount- chequeno
yaccount:= yaccount+chequeno
where this would take about 1 billionth of a second and would debit/credit almost immediately.
However the banks built in a delay .
There are 2 levels of difficulty in resolving this.
The first would be to go to a [high level] screen where it would say something like
'what delay for cheques would you like ?' [days]
and typing in zero would do the job
The second and much more difficult would be for a programmer to look for the section of programme which dealt with cheques clearing and hunt for a variable saying something like chequedelay() to find that variable and then search for chequedelay():= 5 and change that to zero.
I personally cannot believe it would be the second variety which could take an hour to do and firmly believe it would be the first [ bearing in mind some banks had already done it some years before].
Thus this delay of 2 years to change a parameter which would take around 2 minutes to do [ being VERY generous] is designed to hoodwink the government.
This change was insisted on by the government [ I seem to remember a few years ago] and so is not *quite* as generous as it first seems.
Whoever in govt is responsible for insisting on this should not be taken in .
*falling on deaf ears* as usual........
I remember a few years ago, the music indusrty being taken to task about the cost of cds. Their breakdown of the costs of a cd was royalty £x, production £4 ? or some such - now you can get free cd in every PC mag and a some newspapers [Sunday Times et al]. If you ask an industry one thing they will reply ,sort of honestly, in their own terms.
Remember the report about supermarkets overcharging ? Lidl has a margin of 2% and Tesco/Sainsbury [at the time] was 4% - and Blair was incensed . It depends on your defintion of margin. there are 2 basic ones: markup ie they bought it for 20p and sold it for 40p, a markup of 100% and : margin [ the ones always quoted by industry] they bought it for 20p sold it for 40p the margin is 20p/40p ie 50%- an instant 50% headline number. If you then add in the cost of selling - warehousing admin, wages etc then for something bought for 20p and sold for 60p [yes why not ? ] the margin could well come down to 4%. Just an example of stats manipulation. In a true market, it dont matter much - but if there is a cartel or complex monopoly then that would be overcharging . I haven't the figures to say one way or t'other but I feel that Tesco et al are ok in that a monopoly is not in force, but it is worrying when you read about them screwing down the prices on suppliers....
Slightly disjointed argument maybe .... but a big subject
Friday, May 20, 2005
Corruption in China - wow
click on title for news piece
Well after the hoo- hah of Blunkett buying his mistress a train ticket via the Govt purse comes this little snippet - from China though.
All Govt officials must inform the authority if they have a bit on the side [as it were] . How the heck do you police that ?
It's part of drive to cut down on corruption. Apparently a mistress is quite a costly accessory , so if you tell your boss youre having extras they can keep a beady eye on you. Obviously they'll be queuing up to reveal what they're up to won't they ?
The interesting bit of the article is that getting on for a million ! officials were indicted for corruption last year !!!!!
Makes you wonder how many government officials there are in China doesn't it ? Scaling down pro rata that would mean if done in the UK 40,000 govt officials getting prosecuted. Presumably this is not just civil servants but govt employees, but even so , its a HUGE number .......
Makes you realise how corrupt China is !
I believe the death penalty can apply for corruption also .....
Well after the hoo- hah of Blunkett buying his mistress a train ticket via the Govt purse comes this little snippet - from China though.
All Govt officials must inform the authority if they have a bit on the side [as it were] . How the heck do you police that ?
It's part of drive to cut down on corruption. Apparently a mistress is quite a costly accessory , so if you tell your boss youre having extras they can keep a beady eye on you. Obviously they'll be queuing up to reveal what they're up to won't they ?
The interesting bit of the article is that getting on for a million ! officials were indicted for corruption last year !!!!!
Makes you wonder how many government officials there are in China doesn't it ? Scaling down pro rata that would mean if done in the UK 40,000 govt officials getting prosecuted. Presumably this is not just civil servants but govt employees, but even so , its a HUGE number .......
Makes you realise how corrupt China is !
I believe the death penalty can apply for corruption also .....
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
affordable housing in the uk
This is forever in the news, about so many people can't afford their starter homes etc, and there is a law stating that developments over 13 units have to have 25% of 'affordable' homes.
It's a little crass, IMO. developers are there to make money, and will try to make a certain amount per hectare/acre/whatever. The consequence of the law is that developers will try to make more out of the other 75% or bribe the councils [ sorry , but building a school or whatever the council decides is a good compromise actually does] .
It doesn't work- and should be left to the market. if people cant afford to buy/let then the prices will drop until they are able to- it's what a market does after all- and as Maggie Thatcher once said ' you can't buck the market' . So why try , it just distorts the housing scene and because new houses are tending to be upmarket [ how else can builders get that extra profit ? ] it tends to increase house price inflation as well.
It's a little crass, IMO. developers are there to make money, and will try to make a certain amount per hectare/acre/whatever. The consequence of the law is that developers will try to make more out of the other 75% or bribe the councils [ sorry , but building a school or whatever the council decides is a good compromise actually does] .
It doesn't work- and should be left to the market. if people cant afford to buy/let then the prices will drop until they are able to- it's what a market does after all- and as Maggie Thatcher once said ' you can't buck the market' . So why try , it just distorts the housing scene and because new houses are tending to be upmarket [ how else can builders get that extra profit ? ] it tends to increase house price inflation as well.
Saturday, May 14, 2005
iran again
isnt politics wonderful?
The whole world knows that Iran is sitting on OOODDles of oil with a significant % of the world's total.
The whole world knows that a country with effectively free fuel would be insane to use nuclear/coal or other non renewable resource.
The whole world knows Iran is after a nuke
The whole world pretends otherwise for political reasons.
Maybe it's time to sit back and re-appraise the issues at hand here.
On one hand, with current policy Iran should have its facilities zapped with probable loss of civilian life and roughshod violence which would stir up more anti West feelings. What to do with countries that defied the non proliferation treaty has to be the next question of course after that.... if we do nothing then countries know that if they can get to a bomb they are safe---- it then becomes a target for safety from America- so everyone should try for it in which case.
On the other hand let's look at states WITH nukes.
NATO/USSR kept at peace for years
India/Pakistan almost came to blows, now just after testing nukes they are friendly again.
S.Africa is peaceful
Israel for all its belligerence hasn't actually admitted having them and certainly couldnt use them for offence
France treats the US with disdain [ it probably was the first country to realise the above hypothesis when it first developed them]. It's peaceful
S.Korea is a trouble spot- but has it tried to be offensive assuming it has them? - nope - it seems to be arguing that the US should leave it alone.
It sounds frightening, but maybe we should get peaceful and allow states to have nukes if they want them,but subject to safeguards about storage and quantities - maybe with limits - say 5 each would deter any potentially aggressive country.
It sounds even more frightening after saying that, but the other option is given above.
States would thus be about as happy as they could be .... sort of
The only problem is that of its' citizens. If they could get hold of some , they could manufacture a dirty bomb for instance . Don't forget they could do it now anyway, but with nuclear glasnost the following could apply.
All nuclear states could have to put in trace elements to make their materiel accountable. Thus if they had some nicked [ or gave some away god forbid], then it would be traceable if they hadnt declared it stolen in the first instance. Obviously if it was used as a true A bomb then this might not help.
If it was used to make a dirty bomb, then it would.
Thus the originator would be identified and could be dealt with by the UN Security council - which country would veto/vote against such an atrocity ? Not even the USA I would suggest.
It's a mind blowing option, but it should work IMO
The whole world knows that Iran is sitting on OOODDles of oil with a significant % of the world's total.
The whole world knows that a country with effectively free fuel would be insane to use nuclear/coal or other non renewable resource.
The whole world knows Iran is after a nuke
The whole world pretends otherwise for political reasons.
Maybe it's time to sit back and re-appraise the issues at hand here.
On one hand, with current policy Iran should have its facilities zapped with probable loss of civilian life and roughshod violence which would stir up more anti West feelings. What to do with countries that defied the non proliferation treaty has to be the next question of course after that.... if we do nothing then countries know that if they can get to a bomb they are safe---- it then becomes a target for safety from America- so everyone should try for it in which case.
On the other hand let's look at states WITH nukes.
NATO/USSR kept at peace for years
India/Pakistan almost came to blows, now just after testing nukes they are friendly again.
S.Africa is peaceful
Israel for all its belligerence hasn't actually admitted having them and certainly couldnt use them for offence
France treats the US with disdain [ it probably was the first country to realise the above hypothesis when it first developed them]. It's peaceful
S.Korea is a trouble spot- but has it tried to be offensive assuming it has them? - nope - it seems to be arguing that the US should leave it alone.
It sounds frightening, but maybe we should get peaceful and allow states to have nukes if they want them,but subject to safeguards about storage and quantities - maybe with limits - say 5 each would deter any potentially aggressive country.
It sounds even more frightening after saying that, but the other option is given above.
States would thus be about as happy as they could be .... sort of
The only problem is that of its' citizens. If they could get hold of some , they could manufacture a dirty bomb for instance . Don't forget they could do it now anyway, but with nuclear glasnost the following could apply.
All nuclear states could have to put in trace elements to make their materiel accountable. Thus if they had some nicked [ or gave some away god forbid], then it would be traceable if they hadnt declared it stolen in the first instance. Obviously if it was used as a true A bomb then this might not help.
If it was used to make a dirty bomb, then it would.
Thus the originator would be identified and could be dealt with by the UN Security council - which country would veto/vote against such an atrocity ? Not even the USA I would suggest.
It's a mind blowing option, but it should work IMO
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Healing and me
This is a story about me - strange but true-
About last Nov 2004 , My wrist started to hurt when I flexed it. Fair dos - a muscle strain , I hoped.
This got progressively worse until about 4 weeks ago , I was trying to get the car into reverse gear [ it's the type where you have to lift the knob up to allow it to engage ] . The pain was such that I couldnt do it.
I'm the sort of guy who only visits the docs when I've got a reasonable shopping list of ailments to recant, so I hadnt been about this [its just one wrist/hand] and thought it was just arthritis rearing its ugly head again. ( there was a swelling on a bit of the wrist as well)
Years ago , I overheard a conversation between some healers who were talking about how they brought down (insert what you like here) to do healing with, so in desperation I tried it on myself. I've been around healers for years off and on working in the same sort of environment.
Result -Nothing.
The next day my hand felt weird. The pain was a lot less , the swelling was there , but it felt like it was still a serious problem - its hard to describe , but my hand knew there was a load of pain , its just most of it couldnt be felt. Anyway I could drive again.
Over the next couple of weeks, this weirdness feeling and the pain gradually diminished and the swelling went down a bit.
About 2 weeks ago ,it seemed to stabilise and have had no improvement since. I now have 100% of the use of my hand with the odd twinge if I do something a bit suddenly with it [ but its only a slight twinge]. There is still some swelling but its down by about 75% .
That's about it folks. I've not tried this on anyone else- but am thankful it worked but it's strange it wasnt 100 % nor 0% [ i expected zero and a disabled type vehicle ]
About last Nov 2004 , My wrist started to hurt when I flexed it. Fair dos - a muscle strain , I hoped.
This got progressively worse until about 4 weeks ago , I was trying to get the car into reverse gear [ it's the type where you have to lift the knob up to allow it to engage ] . The pain was such that I couldnt do it.
I'm the sort of guy who only visits the docs when I've got a reasonable shopping list of ailments to recant, so I hadnt been about this [its just one wrist/hand] and thought it was just arthritis rearing its ugly head again. ( there was a swelling on a bit of the wrist as well)
Years ago , I overheard a conversation between some healers who were talking about how they brought down (insert what you like here) to do healing with, so in desperation I tried it on myself. I've been around healers for years off and on working in the same sort of environment.
Result -Nothing.
The next day my hand felt weird. The pain was a lot less , the swelling was there , but it felt like it was still a serious problem - its hard to describe , but my hand knew there was a load of pain , its just most of it couldnt be felt. Anyway I could drive again.
Over the next couple of weeks, this weirdness feeling and the pain gradually diminished and the swelling went down a bit.
About 2 weeks ago ,it seemed to stabilise and have had no improvement since. I now have 100% of the use of my hand with the odd twinge if I do something a bit suddenly with it [ but its only a slight twinge]. There is still some swelling but its down by about 75% .
That's about it folks. I've not tried this on anyone else- but am thankful it worked but it's strange it wasnt 100 % nor 0% [ i expected zero and a disabled type vehicle ]
Monday, May 09, 2005
Sellafield glows in the dark again
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1035400.ece
20 Tonnes of uranium solution has leaked in Sellafield apparently enough to make 40 bombs ! With no way of cleaning up , it could be a problem .
Years ago I went to a meeting about nuclear power station building proposal. One of the objections , not denied, was that there had been and was an ongoing leak on one of the storage tanks at Sellafield which they couldnt stop, but as they said, it couldnt get into the water table and was contained within Sellafield, it was ok ...
20 Tonnes is neither a lot nor a little when it comes to storage tanks its only a petrol tanker full, so it is unlikely that an entire tank drained. Yet it would take a small leak a long time to do 20,000 litres [ish]. I think the geiger counters in Sellafield would have noticed it rather quickly .
I wonder if its the same leak - and they have just decided to publicize it ? and possibly downplayed the quantity maybe ? Its a long time ago , but i seem to recall the quantity as 1000 gallons [ 4,500 litres].
20 Tonnes of uranium solution has leaked in Sellafield apparently enough to make 40 bombs ! With no way of cleaning up , it could be a problem .
Years ago I went to a meeting about nuclear power station building proposal. One of the objections , not denied, was that there had been and was an ongoing leak on one of the storage tanks at Sellafield which they couldnt stop, but as they said, it couldnt get into the water table and was contained within Sellafield, it was ok ...
20 Tonnes is neither a lot nor a little when it comes to storage tanks its only a petrol tanker full, so it is unlikely that an entire tank drained. Yet it would take a small leak a long time to do 20,000 litres [ish]. I think the geiger counters in Sellafield would have noticed it rather quickly .
I wonder if its the same leak - and they have just decided to publicize it ? and possibly downplayed the quantity maybe ? Its a long time ago , but i seem to recall the quantity as 1000 gallons [ 4,500 litres].
Saturday, May 07, 2005
blair gets elected
Oh well , not too much of a surprise- it was a one hose race really, so we elected a liar !
Lets hope he's chastened enough not to do it again .
Or is he going to have to turn it over to Brown?
That'd be some prime minister- he doesn't spin - he just covers things up totally - and the media just bleat about it for 1 paragraph now and again ......
He's also pretty left wing . I cant help feeling worried about the future
Lets hope he's chastened enough not to do it again .
Or is he going to have to turn it over to Brown?
That'd be some prime minister- he doesn't spin - he just covers things up totally - and the media just bleat about it for 1 paragraph now and again ......
He's also pretty left wing . I cant help feeling worried about the future
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
UK Elections -did Blair lie to go to war ?
In my mind this one is simple- but has not been addressed.
The public were told that Iraq had WMD and that was threatening UK citizens.
They weren't but were only threatening UK tourists in Malta and a couple of soldiers there.
QED
Sorry about spouting this for the second time, but it does seem a tad obvious.
Being blunt Blair is guilty of murder.
Arguments about it was good to get rid of Saddam are irrelevant, which Blair is spouting . As we have seen from this adventure, it is possible to get the populace of a country accepting [ well only just in this instance- most of the country knew it was wrong ] by using propaganda techniques.
It isn't a huge step for a country that might go to war for huge humanitarian reasons - say another country it didn't like - that had abortion on demand -- wow a country that kills its own infants - gotta be right to stop that...
or allowing gay marriages- going against god's will - another must do..
The above 'might' sound utter tripe, but who knows what moralisings might spring up in the future- invading a sovereign state for whatever reason[ ie Bush wanted to finish what his dad started ] can have horrible future repercussions- and I worry about it.
A final note - those inspectors who weren't allowed to veiw areas that probably had WMD, notably the presidential palaces - Would a dictator or anyone else in power for that reason have bugs/nukes/chemicals (other than Domestos) inside/under/near their house ? I think not . Yet this was part of the pre-pretext for invasion
The public were told that Iraq had WMD and that was threatening UK citizens.
They weren't but were only threatening UK tourists in Malta and a couple of soldiers there.
QED
Sorry about spouting this for the second time, but it does seem a tad obvious.
Being blunt Blair is guilty of murder.
Arguments about it was good to get rid of Saddam are irrelevant, which Blair is spouting . As we have seen from this adventure, it is possible to get the populace of a country accepting [ well only just in this instance- most of the country knew it was wrong ] by using propaganda techniques.
It isn't a huge step for a country that might go to war for huge humanitarian reasons - say another country it didn't like - that had abortion on demand -- wow a country that kills its own infants - gotta be right to stop that...
or allowing gay marriages- going against god's will - another must do..
The above 'might' sound utter tripe, but who knows what moralisings might spring up in the future- invading a sovereign state for whatever reason[ ie Bush wanted to finish what his dad started ] can have horrible future repercussions- and I worry about it.
A final note - those inspectors who weren't allowed to veiw areas that probably had WMD, notably the presidential palaces - Would a dictator or anyone else in power for that reason have bugs/nukes/chemicals (other than Domestos) inside/under/near their house ? I think not . Yet this was part of the pre-pretext for invasion
Sunday, May 01, 2005
blair sorts of admits lying to the nation
Blair is forced into almost admitting that he took us in the UK to war unlawfully by the report showing that he was going to help invade Iraq from the start. His only defence is that he says that we tried repeatedly to get a UN resolution even after that - which doesn't wash at all- as the report effectively says they were gonna try that and if it didn't work then....
Hmm, poor Blair, if it goes badly in the polls over this week , is he gonna start about the Midle East peace map and his part in it, or is he going to be too scared to show the world that he's been twiddling with Bush's politics ?
I can understand his motives - The US was going to blast Iraq, so why not use it to stop most of international terrorism at he same time ? , ie by getting solemn promises from the US as to the price of the UK helping out......
Unfortunately unless the media help him out, this hole is way too deep imo to lie his way out of .
I look forward to the next few days- it does look like Blair is going to have to stand down , although this might not save his party.
If it was the Conservative party that leaked the document, then the timings spot on , by Wednesday the media frenzy should be flaring at its zenith.
~isnt dirty politcs fun :)
Hmm, poor Blair, if it goes badly in the polls over this week , is he gonna start about the Midle East peace map and his part in it, or is he going to be too scared to show the world that he's been twiddling with Bush's politics ?
I can understand his motives - The US was going to blast Iraq, so why not use it to stop most of international terrorism at he same time ? , ie by getting solemn promises from the US as to the price of the UK helping out......
Unfortunately unless the media help him out, this hole is way too deep imo to lie his way out of .
I look forward to the next few days- it does look like Blair is going to have to stand down , although this might not save his party.
If it was the Conservative party that leaked the document, then the timings spot on , by Wednesday the media frenzy should be flaring at its zenith.
~isnt dirty politcs fun :)
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