Iran’s Incompetent Bombers
I found the story in The Times today under the headline, Failed Bombers had beer-and-prostitute holiday in Thailand. The full story is here on a website called scoop.co.nz.
It’s a pity that the man on the Tehran omnibus probably won’t read the story. But then his .0000001 or much less of a vote, wouldn’t get rid of the country’s ridiculous government.
Still incompetent bombers have always been good for a laugh in both fact and fiction.
Un-American Activities
The Times devotes its second leading article to their process of shipping people halfway across the world to stand trial without the evidence being tested in a court of law, where the accused has had the opportunity of testing the evidence.
The article finishes with this paragraph.
The national interest of the US lies in living up to its own rhetoric, and demonstrating that, wherever someone lives, the American promise of freedom under the law extends to them. Arresting people and shipping them half way across the world without a fair trial is the sort of thing that the founding fathers made it their life’s work to prevent.
The sooner we call time on this law the better.
What worries me is that I have a common name, which is probably one of the most common in the English-speaking world. Suppose the United States said say, that I was behind some notorious Internet hack, would I get the justice of having the evidence tested in a British Court. Possibly not, because Tony Blair signed my rights away, just as he did to everybody other British citizen, who lives peaceably within the law in the UK.
How I Met Lady Lucan
Now this is not the wife of the infamous 7th Earl who disappeared, but the wife of the 6th Earl.
At the time we were living in a flat in St. John’s Wood and she was canvassing for the Labour Party.
Nuclear Dilemmas
The Times today reports that an independent Scotland under the SNP would want no part of the Trident nuclear missiles based at Faslane. So this would mean we’d need to build new facilities in England. The extra cost would mean that those arguing against Trident replacement be helped greatly.
I actually think that we should scrap Trident and if we needed to keep a nuclear deterrent, we should use cruise missiles fired from a vessel like an Astute class submarine.
But the bigger nuclear diemma is over nuclear power. It is being reported that today, David Cameron and Nicholas Sarkozy will sign a wide ranging treaty which among other things enables new nuclear power stations in the UK.
But Francois Hollande has said, that if he wins the French Presidency, he’ll scrap nuclear power in France. Remember that Scotland will need nuclear power, when the wind doesn’t blow.
Let’s have some engineers in politics.
Blackpool is the Smoking and Pregnancy Capital of England
Apparently according to this report from GPs, 30.3 % of pregnant women in the NHS Blackpool area continue to smoke, as against 20% for the north as a whole. By contrast in NHS Brent in London, the figure is just 2.8 %.
I would suspect that Blackpool doesn’t need a mayor, but a real Norland Nanny, to sort them all out. Preferably with an AK-47!
A Swiss Proposal To Clean Up Space
The Swiss has put forward a proposal for a satellite to clean up space junk. Read about it here.
I can remember reading a similar proposal in the Meccano Magazine over fifty years ago.
A lot of ideas are not new, but just recycled using better technology. Perhaps the designer was clearing out his loft or wherever the Swiss put their junk and found the magazine.
Early Repayment Rules for Student Loans
Traditionally, there has generally been a penalty for early repayment of loans, but some of the new ethical online loan companies, like Zopa use no penalty as a selling point. So do Wonka, who I wouldn’t normally describe as ethical. Even Nationwide charges an extra 30 days interest if you settle your loan early.
So for the student loan companies to charge would be going against what is now accepted as normal and back to the bad old past, where early repayment was a major part of a loan company’s profits.
As this seems to have been a Liberal Democrat idea, who are supposed to be forward thinking or at least not backward, you can read what you like into the proposal.
I don’t need to borrow money, but if I did, I would always do it from a reputable company, that had no penalty for early repayment.
Richard Pitman’s Good Deed
Richard Pitman was a good jump jockey, but more famous for losing the Grand National on Crisp in the last few strides to Red Rum. He was also a reliable BBC commentator and presenter.
He was reported yesterday as having donated a kidney to a complete stranger, after seeing his friend deteriorate whilst waiting for a transplant. He was on BBC Breakfast and the story is also related here.
On a day when Baroness Warsi was complaining that we are turning from religion, isn’t what Pitman did a much more altruistic act, than most of the worthless words we get from those with so-called religion. Name a religious leader, who did what Pitman did for a start!
Incidentally, a kidney transplant expert, told me that one in a hundred of us only have one kidney.
I do think that Pitman upset a few people in what he did, as it wasn’t covered very deeply in the media.
Our Crazy Extradition Laws
I actually think that to extradite Abu Qatada to Jordan to stand trial might be the wrong thing to do. Although many in this country from Lord Carlile and the Prime Minister downwards think he should go.
But then I also think to leave him here might be the wrong thing to do as well. If you read about him on the Internet he has annoyed a lot of powerful and/or nasty people, who have a record of making sure people they don’t like, can’t hurt them.
But then we are quite happy to send people to the United States, as we did with the NatWest Three and are soon to do with Christopher Tappin and a few others, due to Tony Blair’s one-sided extradition treaty, that he signed to curry favour with the United States.
It all doesn’t seem fair, that we have no control over our extradition process. Either the European Court stops us or we just say yes to the United States.
A Large Valentine’s Day Present
This story surprised me. The original data from the Co-Operative Bank, shows that this Valentine’s Day £41 million will be spent on presents for pets.
The Anonymous Widower 