Making anything that is popular, illegal, is a sure fire recipe for making it the target for criminals to see a way to make a lot of money. It happened in the USA in the times of prohibition when alcohol was banned and it has been happening around the world since drugs were made illegal.

I know how devestating drugs can be to peoples lives, and I include alcohol in that. Addiction to anything leads people to do things they would otherwise never consider. Otherwise upstanding citizens would never have anything to do with criminals if the didn’t want the things they cannot get legally.

If we made cheese illegal tomorrow I have no doubt I would be out on the street trying to buy the stuf next week and I am sure there would be plenty of criminals producing cheese to supply the demand. We can also be pretty certain that cheese would become more expensive and the criminals would make a lot of money.

It stands to reason that if there is demand for something and there are no legal channels to get it through, the criminal element will provide it and make pots of money from doing so. It is capitalism at work.

So, I was to say the least disappointed to hear that there is talk of removing addicts benefits if they refuse treatment for their addiction. What makes this even more ridiculous is the shortage of places and facilities for people who do genuinely want help to deal with their addictions.

The idea that by removing the only income an addict has will somehow convert them seems to me to miss the point. They are addicts because they are addicts. Yes, you need to break that cycle but that will come better through additional support and not from less.

You only have to think about this for a tenth of a second to see that if you or I were an addict and we had no benefit money to buy drugs we would turn to crime or prostitution to raise the money. It is not a question of rational or logical thinking. Just ask a drunk if he thinks he would be safe to drive. Common sense doesn’t come in to it at all, it is the drug talking.

Even the Social Security Advisory Committee – an independent statutory body – said withdrawing benefits from drug users would lead them into crime and prostitution but I don’t think you need to be qualiified in anything other than common sense to see this is true.

For years now governments of every country and every political leaning have tried to go against the onbious facts on drugs and drug use. Making drugs illegal encourages crime. Telling lies and saying all drugs are bad as they enjoy drinking alcohol is obvious nonsense to any young person watching. The war on drugs does not work and never has.

It is time some common sense was applied to this issue and the resources put it place to educate and help anyone who is tempted by or has a problem with drugs and that should most definitely include alcohol since that is one of the most destructive drugs we have in modern society.

Education, genuine honest advice and support and assistance is the answer. Not some silly idea to get the Daily Mail on the governments side. The newspapers have a responsibility here too. They know they spout nonsense all the time. They should be more honest so the public is better informed.

Related posts:

1. Government Covers Up The Facts And Trys To Ban Honesty On Cannabis
2. Politics And Prostitution

Didn’t we just have an iPhone released that was supposed to be the best phone on the planet? Oh, maybe that was a year ago. A whole year, wow. So what has changed since?

Sure, the iPhone looks cute and it is a beautifully designed little thing but does the world really need another 110 million mobile phones thrown in the rubbish bin because a thinner, faster, improved screen version has been released? Hopefully, the old models will be recycled but is the the great achievement of the human civilization, to be able to come up with another wasteful technology product that everyone feels they must have and then replace, every six or twelve months?

The success of the human race may prove to be its downfall. Like a virus that grows and grows until it eventually kills its host we have come to dominate our home planet. We have bred and increased the population to the point where the resources of the planet are being stretched to supply our needs and our needs have grown along with the population.

Once we would have been happy to have enough food to eat and enough wood to build a shelter and keep warm. Now, it seems, we have to have homes and lives full of technology that is draining not just our capacity to provide the energy to power all these gadgets but it is also draining us of the limited time we have every day.

Thre was once a time when a product had a limited lifetime. That time was usually limited by how long it would last before finally breaking down. With todays efficient design and manufacturing that is far less of a problem and manufacturers have had to find another way of convincing us it is time to replace a product.

The result is a constant stream of new releases. Just like with the washing powder adverts of years ago, each new version of our phones, computers, TVs and cars is New And Improved but can life be sustained at this pace?

Humans have been successful because we have been able to think ahead and learn from our mistakes and we are naturally lazy and always look for a better and easier way of doing things. We have developed technology that has enabled us to improve our health, our comfort and our lives to a degree unimaginable to people of a few generations ago but how much longer can this go on at the incredible rate of change we are experiencing these days.

A thousand years ago at a time when the Romans were conquering Europe people no doubt thought of it as the end of the world and for many of them, it probably was, but in those times change took decades or even centuries. Looking forward it is impossible to imagine what changes there might be in the next thousand years but one thing is very clear. We cannot go on as we are doing right now.

The popluation is growing enormously and there are few undiscovered places left to be exploited to supply our growing needs. Our demand for resources grows exponentially though the supply of those resources is finite and reducing as we use them. In the past plague, pestilance and wars kept the population in check while local supply of food and resources limited the possibilities of the local population. Now the worlds resources are available to all, at a price, but the cost is more than just money.

We have been on a consumption binge that has lasted twenty or thirty years but the financial impact of this became clear when the world financial system came close to collapse. Hopefully, we are working our way out of the problems that caused but it is easier to print money to sort out a fnancial crisis than it is to find the minerals and food to sort out a world short of both.

The simple fact is that we cannot continue as we are now. The new iPhone may be a magnificent example of man’s ingenuity, design skills and technological achievements but we need to face up to the fact that we need to reduce our consumption of the resources available to a far more manageable level if we want future generations of humans to have any chance of having a happy and healthy life.

The resources we are throwing away will not be replaced. When they are gone nothing will be left for the future. It may not happen within our lifetime but if we have any concerns for future generations then we should be thinking about the long term consequences of our actions now.

Related posts:

1. Plastic Bags – The Scapegoats Of Our Throwaway Society
2. Can The Government Save Us All From Apple Cores?

I don’t pretend that sorting out the boundaries to create evenly matched constituances is an easy task but I feel almost disenfranchised. I have never heard of the people I will now be asked to choose between. I have absolutely no connection with the area where the MP is based and it comes as no surprise that I haven’t even received an election leaflet through the door let alone met my prospective MP.

Big government has been making people feel less and less connected with the people who decide our fate in London and the expenses scandal people emphasised how far removed from ordinary people our supposed representatives in Parliament really are. Now, in my case, I have been even further removed from any connection whatsoever with the person who is supposed to represent me.

Related posts:

1. We Want Change And It Is Time For Change To The Electoral System
2. Defending The Indefensible – The UK’s Unfair And Discredited Voting System
3. Time For A Change On The TV Licence Fee?

For years now we have been hearing how everything should be super efficient, how we should cut waste and surplus capacity and run services in the most efficient way. Obviously, it makes sense to avoid any unnecessary waste of time, money and effort but I have always questioned whether it is true that a 100 efficient system has no spare capacity.

A perfect system is one that always works and copes with any problems that occur. Running a perfect system means that whatever happens the system always achieves its aims and purpose.

It is unlikely that even if the competition had not reduced capacity on ferries that there would have been sufficient to easily deal with the problems of bringing so many stranded travelers home to the UK but there would have been more capacity and more bookings available.

Obviously you cannot run empty ships just in case an unprecedented situation such as the complete closure of UK airspace were to take place but it seems reasonable to think that whichever government is in power would be ensuring that there were plans in place to cope with natural disasters and unprecedented events.

We have relied on ‘the market’ to decide what travel facilities are available and as we know from the financial crisis, the market, on it’s own, does not work to the benefit of the population at large it works to benefit those who work within it.

Efficiency reduces flexibility. A 100% efficient ferry service would not have any spare capacity at all and nobody would be getting home right now. We have previously seen the channel tunnel capacity reduced through weather problems last winter and a fire a year or two ago. We need to have some flexibility in travel options. We may not all use ferries often but we do need some way to allow them to successfully operate so the option exists when we need it.

The government have been keen to promote air travel and additional runways are still on the cards for both Heathrow and Stansted but I cannot recall anything at all being said about ports and ferries. Maybe I missed it but I suspect not.

The arguments about efficiency also apply to government, particularly at this time with an election soon and the various parties talking about significant cuts to publics services and the civil service.

Yes we need to save a lot of money but exactly what will be the cost in terms of peoples lives severely damaged through the loss of jobs and income. How well will the country be able to cope in the next natural disaster that brings chaos to the country when we have decimated the various services that we might require.

It’s all very well saying that frontline services will be preserved and it will be cuts in support services and backroom staff but how do you keep fire engines on the road if you reduce the vehicle maintenance support staff. How do schools manage to run well if their support staff is reduced and teachers have to do more of the support staff jobs.

There are no simple answers and there is no doubt there are lots of ways savings can be made which will have less impact on the front line services politicians are so quick to claim they support but make no mistake, these coming cuts will reduce flexibility and make us as a country even less able to cope with unexpected problems than we can now.

In recent years we have had several significant natural disaster scenarios occur. The events may not be comparable to the earthquakes and Tsunamis other countries have to cope with but floods and severe winter weather we have experienced have stretched local and national services to their limits. It might appear to make financial sense not to have any reserve capacity for anything at all and hope for the best but it is sensible, and surely the duty of government, to ensure we have the flexibility to cope with unexpected events when they do occur.

Related posts:

1. The Cost Of Efficiency May Be Too High For Passengers At Stansted Airport
2. Would You Pay More To Cope When Snow Arrives?
3. Travel Insurance Policies An Important Part Of Your Travel Arrangements

All the news has been about the disruption and if I were traveling I would be upset too but the air in the area around our airports is probably at it’s best quality today for many years and the peace and tranquility experienced by some who live under flight paths must be a very special treat for them.

We hear a lot of talk about quality of life but it is mostly just talk and not much is actually done about improving the things that really matter to us as humans. It more usually refers to how big a car you have and how many foreign holidays you have had this year but the reality is that being able to breathe clean air and to hear yourself speak is something that we should consider right up there with the most important human rights.

I spent many hours very close to Stansted Airport a couple of years ago over a period of months and there were times when the smell of aircraft fuel hung over the whole area and I was pleased to get away from it. Many of the fumes of aircraft are less noticeable but they are still harmful and we should not forget the significant carbon emissions these huge aircraft engines pump out.

We have become so dependent on air travel and in doing so we have been prepared, as a nation, to blight so many peoples lives. It is not right and it is not fair. Perhaps the very least we should do is to have one whole 24 hour period each week when there are no flights at all.

You may want to enjoy your foreign holiday, as I do, but we should show more respect and consideration for those who have to suffer to enable us to have our 14 days of relaxation on a beach bathed in sunshine.

Related posts:

1. The Ash Cloud Should Be A Wakeup Call For Technology We Depend On
2. We Have No Ships – Efficiency Gone Mad
3. Volcano Ash Cloud Is Having Quite An Impact On Europe And The World

I have seen plenty of comedians on TV talking about blowing up the Houses Of Parliament, suggesting that maybe Guy Fawkes wasn’t so bad and I am sure, unless my memory fails me, that I have seen news programmes with members of the public when invited to give their views on MP’s expenses saying that MP’s should be hung from the lamposts. I have certainly said that myself about some of the banks management.

So the point is we all say things we don’t mean either in jest or to make a point but it doesn’t mean we will carry out the threat. I’ll bet that in any social gathering someone, at some point will say something along the lines of we should shoot the lot of them, they all need hanging or we should blow the lot of them up.

So, when a 26 year old, on finding out that Robin Hood airport was closed due to snow he posted on Twitter that, “Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week… otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!” it was pretty obvious to anyone but an imbecile that it was said in jest. The week referred to the fact that he was due to fly from that airport a week later.

Yes we live in times of uncertainty and there is an ever present threat, as there always has been right back to Guy Fawkes and before, though the availability of explosives does seem to be commonplace these days.

Anyway, apparently the MI5, MI6, all the government terrorist threat experts and the bomb squad use twitter to find out where all the threats are coming from. So, it comes as no surprise that as soon as they saw a joke posted they leapt into action. The result of which was that this man appeared in court last week charged with menacing or something similarly serious sounding.

Why didn’t they just charge him with speaking in a public forum? That seems to be the real crime he committed and in this day and age it seems we are not allowed to say anything we might think, or maybe we are not allowed to think. The thought police are very active and apparently spend their time on Twitter.

He was found guilty and released on bail awaiting sentencing which, it was pointed out, might well include a custodial sentence. Maybe all the prisons are empty and they are looking for ways to fill them up again but that wasn’t the situation last time I heard any figures. Rumor has it that our jails are filled to bursting.

You would think that when there are real crimes being committed every day and people live in fear of attack, hiding inside their homes every day, that the police really do have better things to do.

It’s yet another sad tale of society, or rather governance and regulation, gone mad and a sad day for justice and democracy.

It seems very odd that when everything appeared to be going pear-shaped in Iran after their election politicians here were applauding the freedom Twitter gave people to voice their opinions yet as soon as a British citizen says something the British authorities don’t like they come down on him like a ton of bricks.

Hypocrisy is best served by British politicians because they truly are the experts.

Related posts:

1. Police Paperwork Is Like The Best Invention Of Mankind
2. A Ban On Lighters But Naked Flames Are Ok

It isn’t true, of course, and we have all been hurt by words of derision, spite, jealousy and even the truth when we have seen how we may have been wrong to say or do certain things ourselves and been proved to have been naive, stupid or jut plain ignorant of the facts. We all make mistakes and we must expect to get some critisism when we do.

We try to laugh off those comments that hurt us but they do have an impact. Sometimes things are said in childhood that affect us subconciously for many years into adulthood and perhaps for all our lives. Words do have an impact.

So what if someone tells me I am a banana or a sozy twat? Should I be offended? Frankly I would find it rather amusing. What if they call me an Aussie, apart from being wrong, I would not feel it was derogatory or offensive, other than being wrongly attributed.

I remember the Falklands war and the Argentinians were referred to as Argies. It was, at that time, probably partly being used in a derogatory way but it was after all an abreviation of the word Argentinian. We talk about the French as being Frogs, the Germans as being Krauts, Americans Are Yanks and the Polish are Poles, so what is the problem with Pakistanis being called Pakis?

I understand that this is a term that was used mainly, for a time, with the intention that it would be considered derisory. It was, at that time, being used by people of limited brainpower to try to help them think they were better in some way.

Racial slurs have always been used that way and in any war or dispute there will always be a derogatory term used about the enemy when referring to them and such terms are probably used to try to convince ourselves we are better than them but that does not make the word unusable after the disagreement. Over time these terms can become friendly terms and perhaps even affectionate.  We Brits, (or should I say English?) have fought the French many times over the centuries, even though we were conquered by a Frenchman in 1066 but these days they are probably one of our greatest allies even though we continue to have disagreements and refer to them as frogs. I’m not sure what they refer to us as but I am sure they have their own pet name for us which may or may not be freindly. We did, after all, slaughter large numbers of them over the years and I’ll bet there are more than a few who still recall Agincourt and get upset about it. To be honest I feel bad about it too but times were very dfferent back then.

Couples give each other pet names, soldiers give themselves names for their regiments and others give them more derogatory names. Kids in school have names for other schools nearby and football teams even choose to have a name they are known by.

So given that it is human nature to call any other group by some sort of group name why would anyone object to being called a Paki? It is only that this was used by idiots in a way that they felt was derogatory yet it was, when used to refer to Pakistanis an accurate short form of the word Pakistani. If we are expected to assume that it is a derogatory term then the white, racist thugs have won and that would be a bad thing.

Any Pakistani should be proud of their heritage and they should be happy to be referred to as a Paki. We have so much Political Correctness around these days that it is destroying the most natural human behaviour like grouping people together and referring to them by a name.

We had several incidents reported in the media last year where someone had referred to someone else as a Paki and there was a huge fuss about it. It even included one of the royal princes. I’m not sure which one as they all look the same to me. He was referring to one of his comrades in the army and it was said in a friendly and warm way the way we might refer to a friend as a Brummie or a Southerner. It was not nasty, cruel or unkind and I would imagine the person it was aimed at considered it a warm and friendly way to be referred to. I know that I would not be offended in any way if a prince or anyone else,  spoke to me in such a way.

I am concerned that political correctness proves that the racial thugs won and that they succeeded in making something racially offensive that never was before they used it and should not be thought to be now. To the Pakistanis in England, Britain, The United Kingdom or anywhere else in the world I would say be proud of who you are and please let us forget that this term was once used by idiots in a derogatory way and let’s get on being humans again, using human traits such as referring to any groups as some phrase or another, as we always have done and always will.

There is no reason to be offended and considering such a term offensive is the only thing that makes it so. I sincerely hope nobody has been offended by anything I have said here. I would not want that to happen. My whole point is that none of these terms is offensive in it’s nature and by considering such terms offensive we reinforce the racial slurs the braindead racial thugs so desperately wanted everyone else to believe were significant.

No related posts.

Are we as a country well prepared for snow and wintery weather? Yes and no. We can cope with frosty nights pretty well but when the weather gets a bit more serious the transport system does struggle to cope. Could the problem of snow causing chaos be fixed? Probably. With enough money and resources provided I have no doubt our local councils. railway services and airports would cope fine.

The real question is are you prepared to pay for it? If you want the ultimate service we would have to pay for a snow patrol(!) on every street corner to sit ready and available 24 hours a day throughout the winter. We could perhaps have a part time army of snow clearers paid a retainer to be on call at any time and that would be a cheaper option but we would still need to pay for the training and the equipment required to cope with bad weather.

How much extra would you be prepared to pay in taxes to have such a service? Most people would not want to pay anything at all and even the loudest critics of the council gritting services would not be eager to pay more council tax to make getting to work easier on a few days each year.

Ultimately, it all comes down to cost and if we want a better service we will have to pay for it one way or another. I think our gritter lorry crews deserve a bit of appreciation for what they are able to do. They work the most unsociable hours, working all through the night and all they get is criticism. There are 246,988 miles of paved roads in the UK according to Ordnance Survey.

We would need a huge fleet of gritters to get round every road just once in one night and they often have to grit the same roads repeatedly when severe weather occurs. If we assume a gritter lorry can travel at 30mph continuously that equates to 8,233 man hours to travel every road just once. I think it very unlikely they could average anything like that speed, especially when they are driving in very bad weather. To achieve that many miles and man hours in a night, assuming each driver does an eight hour shift, means we need around 1029 gritter lorries spread around the country and in reality we would probably need double that number since they have to go back to refill quite frequently.

I am sure they do the best they can and they put up with a lot of complaints that are unfairly targeted at them So, hats off to gritter lorry drivers everywhere for doing everything you can on limited resources and I wish a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year to them and everyone else who visits this blog.

Related posts:

1. We Have No Ships – Efficiency Gone Mad
2. Ash Cloud Brings Relief To Some And Chaos To Others
3. Travel Insurance Policies An Important Part Of Your Travel Arrangements

Some people go to extremes and a woman in Washington on Wearside got an ASBO earlier this year because she made so much noise during lovemaking. She has just lost an appeal that claimed it was a breach of her human rights to deny her the opportunity to express her personality whilst making love.

She now faces a trial for breaching the ASBO and making a breach of the peace for her noisy behavior since the order was put in place.

I have every sympathy for the neighbors but this does seem ridiculous. I would have thought that advice about making the bedroom more soundproof might have been a better use of the authorities time than to spend it putting this lady through the embarrassment of an ASBO and now court cases.

Presumably there is the possibility of a custodial sentence if you breach an asbo and the idea of sending someone to jail for being noisy when they make love is too ludicrous for words. I hope they find a solution that allows her to enjoy her fun and her neighbors to sleep peacefully.

Related posts:

1. Do We Really Need Helicopter TV Shots?

When Gordon Brown came to power as Prime Minister he ordered a rethink and re-examination of the facts regarding the classification of Cannabis as class c from the previous level of class b in 2004. When the scientists reported the facts and gave their advice the government chose to totally ignore the advice because they felt they knew better.

The scientists had no axe to grind and after a lot of work, which is apparently unpaid, they produced a report that rated drugs according to their serious effects and they considered cannabis was correctly classified as class c.

The government, having asked for advice, chose to totally ignore it and proceed on their mission regardless. In a way this was not too dissimilar to the Iraq war where the government asked for the evidence for justifying the war and when they couldn’t find any they went ahead anyway. They clearly didn’t learn any lessons from that.

History tells us that when a government bans something the people want it breeds further problems for the future. Prohibition in America is widely considered to have been the catalyst to widespread crime in the US. Giving criminals a huge market for illegal products is a sure way to make crime a very successful business and that is what happened in the US.

Here in the UK we have draconian drug laws at the same time as we have an enormous demand from the public for leisure drugs. The laws make the drugs more expensive and provide a huge profit opportunity to the criminals and drug users are often willing to commit crime to pay for their drugs.

It all leads to a huge mess where people do not believe what the government says about anything because we know they can’t be trusted to be honest when it comes to the effects of drugs use, as the case of Professor Nutt being dismissed proves. The government doesn’t want to hear the truth and they don’t want us to know the truth either.

We have far higher crime than we need to have because of people stealing to fund their habit and we have the police tied up chasing small users of cannabis when they should be targeting serious criminals and harder and more dangerous drug dealing.

More honesty from this government seems unlikely to appear any day soon but sadly the Tories are just as bad and David Cameron took the view that government should tighten up the drug laws when the review was being considered.

We hear a lot from politicians saying they need to reconnect with the electorate, especially after the disaster of the MP expenses row. They could try being honest for a change and that would have a huge effect on the public moral and view of MP’s and goverment.

They should not be surprised by the rise in popularity of the BNP when they constantly demonstrate that governemt and parliament cannot be trusted. I want, and I believe most decent people want, government and political parties that can be trusted. We want honesty and while that may be a hard concept for politicians to understand or accept, until we begin to see signs of greater honesty and integrity we are likely to see growth in fringe parties that many people consider totally unacceptable.

If the major parties cannot be trusted to be honest with us what are we to do? How can we be expected to vote for them. The ball is in their court and it is up to them to demonstrate they can be trusted.

Sadly it seems likely they will continue to ignore facts and continue to be less than honest about them. Instead of educating the public with statements of the facts and warnings about the true effects of drug use they make things up. We have seen with the European constitutional changes, when they promise something in their manifesto at election time they are likely to ignore that commitment when it suits their purposes. Nobody should be surpised that politicians are not trusted. It is because we know they can’t be.

Related posts:

1. The Best Way To Increase The Crime Rate
2. Morally Weak Government
3. Peter Hain Made An Honest Mistake – So What?