I’m a Pundit

As an ongoing penchant of the EU to run with the Global Warming Debacle they have once more made another uninformed and politically ridden piece of legistlation to try and increase costs to car users who drive cars with poor fuel emission ratings.

This is a move which has severly handicapped disabled and older people, as well as the agriculture industry and people who live in rural areas.

Many older or people with slight physical difficulties require larger cars, and the agriculture industry is on the verge of being reduced back to the ‘horse and cart, ox and plough’ era as tractors are announced to be non environmentally friendly.

But its nice to know that a European Conference of some of the worlds greatest minds spent hundreds of thousands of pounds of EU taxpayers money to decide that since requiring fuel efficiency to be included in advertising was not having the desired effect it should infact take up a minimum of 20% of the advertising.

Now did it ever occur to these people that many people need larger cars, whether its because tey have a family to move about, friends to give lifts to, goods to transport, people need big cars and no matter how large your advertising is it will not change the fact that a person looking for a people carrier will still buy a people carrier and a single person living in the city will probably buy a smaller car.

Don’t get me wrong, fuel efficiency is important and useful information when buying a car, but automobile advertising accounts for a massive percentage of western advertising, outflanked only by credit cards and followed closely by mobile phones.

Now imagine if these car companies are suddenly forced to  increase their advertising space by 20%, thats 20% more paper used, 20% more trees cut down.

This is scarily close to another recent move on Ethanol, a fuel only transportable by vehicles, where it was decreed by those up on high that gasoline/petrol created for road use must contain at least 5% ethanol, the governmetns even subsidised ethanolproduction world wide.

The result?  The speed the rainforest is being cut down has increased dramatically, with rainforest being burned down (Not logged) at an alarming rate for Palm Oil crops. Transportation of this fuel has greatly increased pollution in these areas and since 20% of worldwide farms are now given to Ethanol production third world countries have seen food prices rocket.

My position in this fiasco is clear, global warming has been proven to be part of a natural cycle caused by the Earths relation to the Sun.  It’s a simple fact that the Earth is in fact leaving an ice age, so bound to be warming up, its also a simple fact that carbon released by the sea increases as it warms up (Creating a nice relational graph, you can do an experiment in a lab to prove this)  and its also true that the graphs and data used to support global warming were debunked well over 25 years ago.

The money spent so far on ‘reducing carbon footprints’ numbrs in the hundreds of millions, and the new EU fund proposed on tackling this looks set to massively increase that.  This is money that could be used to help Britian pull itself out of recession and bankruptcy, it could be used to build new recycling plants, finally researching ways to make them more effective.

It could even be used to feed all those starving families in thirld world countries who have been condemmed to death by western incompetancy.

It seems however that we will just see more insane laws and advertising teling us to be ‘green’ while more and more of us fail to pay mortgages and thirld world countries slide into oblivion as they cannot even afford to eat.

written by Oli \\ tags: Carbon Footprint, Debacle, Environment, Global Warming, Government, Politics, Recycling

Today all the papers were in uproar about the 2p increase in fuel taxes in England (Which several months ago they were thanking gordon brown for postponing till later in the year).  Gordon brown proceeded to say that taxes were not the problem but that the cost of Fuel Globally must be tackled.

Now, hang on a second Gordon. The average price of fuel in 2007 was 95.1p per litre, thats high yes, but not as high as the 63.7p Duty which is included in that cost.

Without Gordons tax, which at one point drove Fuel Duty to 81.5% of fuel cost, we would be paying a measly 31.4 pence per litre in fuel.

Now What Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling do not seem to want to take into account is that the myriad of taxes in this country has stifled our economy.  Fuel Costs especially have destroyed many businesses as their costs have rose above customer income.  Taxis, once a fairly good way of getting around have seen prices sky rocket, and transportation companies are failing nationwide.

But yet despite the current take government is getting from Fuel, well over two thirds of what you pay at the pump, high fuel prices are apparently not Gordons Fault.

Think of it like this,  if everything you took to the till tripled in cost when you paid for it would you be happy?

Hell No!

When you looked at the price on your goods and then asked the cashier why the cost was 3 times that of the actualy price what wouldyou think if she said it was the basic cost rising, even though she was the one who put the cost up by so much?

While I am not a vindictive person it is fairly obvious even to me that the people running the UK need to take a good long hard look at themselves and then jump off the nearest cliff.

written by Oli \\ tags: Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown, Politics, Tax

Senator Barack Obama has come under fire again for the views of his former pastor and mentor Rev. Jeremiah Wright.  Now a quick way of summing up the controversy surrounding Wrights views is quite simply that he is against the wars recently.  Where the controversy starts is how he compares the USA to the Al’Qaeda.  Both parties he states have gone to war under the banner of a God.

Personally I think he makes a valid point, but I also think its disgraceful that these views are being so teniuosly linked to Obama, who was merely under his tutorage some time ago.

I would like to hear an Americans point of view on this though, do you think the comments made by Wright should impact on Obama’s campaign?  More importantly do you believe the the USA and Al’Qaeda can be compared so easily?

From a European stand point it is very easy to see the similarities that are pointed out in Wrights speech, though it is also easy to see that he oversimplifies  many things, the goals for instance are important.  Both have gone into war quoting God as supporting them.  Despite the fact that Both religions do in-fact have the same God the main difference does seem to focus on the fact that one group wishes to destroy the American presence in its country while the other wants an American presence in the country.

After all it is down to westernised insensitivity to religion that we put Christian military units on their land, something which they have been told to defend against.

My personal belief is that the current wars have been to prevent countries from selling Oil in Euros, Oil being the only current thing holding the Dollar up, this worked up until Iran, who successfully resisted.

I also believe  Wright should not be demonised for his position on the American War, while they are ‘Anti-American’ I do think they hint of a little common sense and grounding that is required to run a successful country.

written by Oli \\ tags: Obama, Politics, Wright

It seems as if the new English Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is currently looking to be incredibly short lived in his post.  Today he revealed he was going to disregard the advise of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, set up specifically for the role of classifying drugs and their risks on society.

So if Gordon Brown is going to disregard the advice of those who actually know about the subject (Rather like Tony Blair in the recent wars we have entered) Why are we paying hundreds of thousands to keep these bodies in existence?

Now don’t get me wrong, I like the people in charge to have strog opinions and convictions. I think its a good thing that we have people with a strong sense that tehy are doing the right thing in charge.  However I do think these people should look at information presented to tehm and base their stance according to that.

This year I will be voting conservative.

I quite liked Scott Adams take on the current presidential candidates in the US.  In it he reports how every presidential candidate is backing Ethanol in fuel.  However every major scientific group is pointing out that Ethanol, which cannot be piped, so needs to be flown or driven to destination, is responsible for massive rainforest destruction (Since 20% of american farms now use their farms for feul production more rainforest is being cut down to accomodate), and gives out as much pollution as normal gasoline per distance travelled is actually not such a good idea.

If you are voting in people who are that ignorant how in gods name do you expect them to make informed decisions on important issues?

written by Oli \\ tags: Conservative, England, Environment, Gordon Brown, Labour, Maerica, Politics, Voting

The Government released a report this week that stated

“Teenagers are drinking 44 bottles of wine or 177 pints of beer a year each, a new study into under-age alcohol intake and violence shows.

The figures relate to 15- to 16-year-olds in the North West of England and stem from a study of 9,833 such youngsters.”

It’s nice to know that the government was shocked by the results, even nicer to know is that the idiots who have been looking into this failed to realise that your average 15 to 16 year old is going to massively overstate his achievements.

However binge drinking in the UK is apparent in many situations, whether it is actually a problem is debatable.  The level of drinking in the UK has remained steady for a hell of a long time.  We drink pints, we drink tehm fast and we have a great time.  And yet according the our newspapers it causes violence and antisocial behavior.

While I would agree that people lose their inhabitions after several pints  I dont think taxing alcohol is going to reduce the problem, since  lets face it, most of the nob ends who start fights in town tend to have something wrong in the head, they don’t need alcohol to start trouble.

The government has responded to this threat by raising the tax on beer by 4p, and it is going to reduce this duty by 6% above the rate of inflation every year for 4 years.

Jesus christ I hate our government.  Not only are they heavily taxing one of the few luxuries we enjoy in our repressed and recessive nanny state, they fail to realise that the trouble is more likely to come from the cider drinkers, especially with the young binge drinkers.

Beer - £2 - £2.50 a pint ($4-$5 )

Cider - £1 ($2) for two litres (Around three to four pints)

The ones who tend to cause trouble on a night are from low income families, they drink the cheaper drinks.  the governments new tax on beer willbring in over half a billion pounds ($1,000,000,000) per year from this yeas tax increase alone.

Go figure why the government decided to tax beer drinkers over the cider drinkers.

written by Oli \\ tags: , Beer, England, Politics, Tax

The UK government has decided to change the way games are classified in the UK, htey give many reasons for this, the main one being that parents are confused by the current ratings system.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7314751.stm 

The current video games rating system in the UK is based on an age, with a plus sign beside it, meaning it is recommended for that age and above.  Sureley anyone who doesn’t understand that is on a par with the American trailer trash or the UK Jade Goody (You Yanks Don’t know how lucky you were to avoid her).  However due to parental ineptitude by a minority the decision on suitability has been taken from the hands of the obviously irresponsible parents and will now be controlled by the government.

Fairly soon it will be illegal to sell or supply games to underage children,m the government have confirmed.  Britain truely is becoming a nanny state when basic entertainment is restricted by law.

written by Oli \\ tags: England, Law, Nanny State, Politics, Video Games

So today the English Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy got together to discuss a great relationship between the two countries. This may have been sparked by our sudden wish to buy nuclear power stations from them, or maybe the fact that we are heavily subsidising French farmers.

But whatever the reason for this olive branch of frendship the two glorious leaders of the once conflicted nations have brought in some fantastic new ideas to bring the two countries across the channel closer together.

First off, they are going to put some serious money in scanning for nuclear material being transported across the French and English Border crossings. This is great news for the Dutch who will now enjoy a boom as all the nuclear bombers that flock to England every year will have to find another route.

Tightening the immigration controls of Calais was also on the menu. Nicholas Sarkozy even went as far to say they may build a fence around the port.

A greater pooling of military resources was being discussed, this will greatly increase Britains ability to retreat under fire, or more likely giving more cover for the French to retreat under.

All in all this meeting seemed to promise a great deal of fuck all, the French will however be helping us Brits out by showing us how to deal with nuclear technology. Therefore expect unannouced missile tests to happen off our coasts in the near future.

written by Oli \\ tags: England, France, French, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, Politics, Prime Minister