Sim-O

Once again, heard this on Radio 4 in the car:

David Cameron has annouced the Conservatives first election promise, to lower the headline rate of corporate tax.

Thanx then Dave, the corporate tax burden too big is it?

Labels: Politix

Thinking about everything and nothing today, and my train of thought came to the middle east, to oil and then to this.

Viva La Revolution!!

Labels: Odds and Sods, Oil

An extra 1,000 train carriages are expected to be provided for Britain’s railways in a bid to tackle overcrowding, the BBC has learnt.
Ministers will announce that carriages will be used to lengthen trains on the most congested parts of the network.

Much of the extra rolling stock is likely to be used on the jammed network serving London and south-east England, where passenger increases are highest.

We have to pay for the equipment private companies need to provide the service they promised they would as part of the licence conditions.

The government will pay for them, to be leased to the train companies at a cost of about £130 million a year, he says.

I was listening to Radio 4 in the car on the way to work and I’m para phrasing here, ‘cos I was driving at the time:

Interviewer: So the government is paying for the new carriages?

Guest: Yes, because to lay on new carraiges for peak time is not profitable. The carriages will pay for themselves in 5 years or so/long term (remember I’m paraphrasing), but not in the first couple of years.

I: so this is a government subsidy?

G: Yes, repeat answer above.

Soooo, why aren’t the train companies paying for the carriages as a long term investment? Are they going to pay back the ‘subsidy’ once the carriages become profitable? If the train companies can’t turn a profit (which they can) or do not want to invest in essential equipment, tools of their trade, why are they running their franchise?

Why do stuff like this where there is no natural market have to be privatised? The only people that benefit are the directors of the companies?

What I do hate is half arsed privatisation, private companies running stuff, taking a profit and the government still ploughing money into them. If a companiy can’t support itself, then down it goes. If the government is paying for it, profits come back to the government. Simple.

Labels: Capitalism

Need convincing that there is a god?

Try this guys explanation using a banana!!!

From a Youtube copy called Godtube. Why aren’t these people socially excluded?? Don’t they know how ridiculos they sound?!

Via Bloggerheads

Update: The player above doesn’t seem to be working for some reason, so here is the link on Youtube: GodTube/Bananas

Labels: Odds and Sods, Religion

Nice one Pres Musharraf.

KARACHI – The Pakistani establishment has made a deal with the Taliban through a leading Taliban commander that will extend Islamabad’s influence into southwestern Afghanistan and significantly strengthen the resistance in its push to capture Kabul.

One-legged Mullah Dadullah will be Pakistan’s strongman in a corridor running from the Afghan provinces of Zabul, Urzgan, Kandahar and Helmand across the border into Pakistan’s Balochistan province, according to both Taliban and al-Qaeda contacts Asia Times Online spoke to. Using Pakistani territory and with Islamabad’s support, the Taliban will be able safely to move men, weapons and supplies into southwestern Afghanistan.

The deal with Mullah Dadullah will serve Pakistan’s interests in re-establishing a strong foothold in Afghanistan (the government in Kabul leans much more toward India), and it has resulted in a cooling of the Taliban’s relations with al-Qaeda.

…

Taliban commanders planning this year’s spring uprising acknowledged that as an independent organization or militia, they could not fight a sustained battle against state resources. They believed they could mobilize the masses, but this would likely bring a rain of death from the skies and the massacre of Taliban sympathizers. Their answer was to find their own state resources, and inevitably they looked toward their former patron, Pakistan.

So Pres. Musharraf, what’s in it for you?

Ever since signing on for the US-led “war on terror” after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, Pakistan has been coerced by Washington to distance itself from the Taliban. The Taliban were, after all, enemy No 1 for harboring Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda’s training camps.

So when the opportunity arose, Islamabad was quick to tap up Mullah Dadullah. This was the perfect way in which Pakistan could revive its contacts in the Taliban and give the spring uprising some real muscle, so the argument went among the strategic planners in Rawalpindi – in fact, so much muscle that forces led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would be forced into a position to talk peace – and who better than Pakistan to step in as peacemaker and bail out its Western allies?

The next logical step would be the establishment of a pro-Islamabad government in Kabul – delivering a kick in the strategic teeth of India at the same time. After all, Pakistan invested a lot in Afghanistan after the Soviet occupation in the 1980s yet it received little in return. Whether it was former Afghan premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar or Taliban leader Mullah Omar, they refused to be totally Pakistan’s men.

And Pakistan has been helping the Taliban with their new toys:

A notable addition to what can only be described as a limited Taliban arsenal this year is surface-to-air missiles, notably the SAM-7, which was the first generation of Soviet man-portable SAMs.

The Taliban acquired these missiles in 2005, but they had little idea about how to use them effectively. Arab al-Qaeda members conducted extensive training programs and brought the Taliban up to speed. Nevertheless, the SAM-7s, while useful against helicopters, were no use against the fighter and bomber aircraft that were doing so much damage.

What the Taliban desperately needed were sensors for their missiles. These detect aircraft emissions designed to misdirect the missiles.

And it so happened that Pakistan had such devices, having acquired them from the Americans, though indirectly. The Pakistanis retrieved them from unexploded cruise missiles fired into Afghanistan in 1998, targeting bin Laden. They copied and adapted them to fit other missiles, including the SAMs.

Now that the Taliban and Pakistan have a deal, these missiles will be made available to the Taliban. Much like the Stingers that changed the dynamics of the Afghan resistance against the Soviets, the SAMs could help turn things Mullah Dadullah’s, the Taliban’s and Pakistan’s way.
Complete article

Labels: War On Terror

Manchester. 8th February 2007

Part One
Part Two

Part Three

Labels: Israel, Palestine

The Boycott Israeli Goods campaign is planning a mass picket of the depot on Saturday February 10th at 1pm in opposition to the sale of Israeli goods and in support of Palestinian farmers who are not able to market their goods internationally The aim is to draw attention to this company’s sale of flowers from occupied Palestinian land on Valentine’s day.

We are asking the British public not to buy blood stained flowers for their loved ones this year. Carmel Agrexco is the largest importer of illegal settlement goods into the UK. The Valentine’s day period is one of their busiest as the company deals with large amounts of fresh flowers from Israel and the settlements. In the UK Agrexco is known under the Carmel, Coral and Jaffa brands.

…The UK is the most important foreign market for Israeli fresh produce. Agrexco exports a wide range of produce to the UK including peppers, tomatoes, strawberries, herbs, spices, flowers and avocadoes. Agrexco is the largest exporter of settlement produce for sale overseas. Much of this produce comes from colonies in the Jordan Valley.

…The company persistently refuses to press charges against the activists because they are scared of having to prove the legality of their business in open court. This follows from actions of 11th November 2004, when Palestine-Solidarity protesters from London and Brighton were arrested after taking part in non-violent blockades outside the same company and 30 August 2006, when demonstrators blockaded the company for 11 hours and no arrests were made.

In September 2005, a Judge ruled that Agrexco (UK) must prove that their business is lawful. The acquittal of the seven activists before they were able to present their defence meant that the court did not have to rule on the legality of Agrexco-Carmel’s involvement in the supply of produce from illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In September 2006 protesters blockaded the company again, Carmel refused to have demonstrators arrested because this would have lead to another embarrassing court appearance where their business methods would have been investigated by a British court of law.

The Valentine’s day picket aims to expose this company’s complicity in murder, theft and damage of occupied land, collective punishment, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and other breaches of International Law to public scrutiny.
Link

Also, don’t conform to this day that the capitalists have invented to empty your pockets. Do you need to be told when to tell your loved one how you feel? Does buying a naff teddy bear or some flowers express what makes that person special to you?
Make it from the heart and not the wallet, then they really will know you love them.

Labels: Capitalism, Israel

Labels: Israel, Palestine

President Jacques Chirac has been forced into an embarrassing retreat after appearing to single-handedly change French policy by saying Iran’s possession of a nuclear bomb would not be “very dangerous”.

In remarks to journalists on Monday, M. Chirac added that if Iran launched a nuclear attack on Israel “it would not have gone off 200 metres into the atmosphere, before Tehran would be razed to the ground”.

After realising the impact of his remarks, which he believed to be “off the record”, the official transcript of the interview removed the comments and the journalists were summoned back to the Elysée the next day.
Link

A nuke, not dangerous? oh kaay.

Labels: Foot In Mouth, Weapons

Just reading Tim Irelands blog, Bloggerheads, and followed a link to here, Running From Camera:

The rules are simple: I put the self-timer on 2 seconds, push the button and try to get as far from the camera as I can.

It’s worth a look, both of them, especially as Tim currently has a bee in his bonnet about political blogging that, being of a simple mind (me, not him), I am following but would have trouble explaining, so to see what the fuss is about start here…

Labels: Odds and Sods