Danny Baker Is Coming Back
Christian O”Connell said on his radio show this morning, that Danny Baker will be returning next week for his Radio 5 show. He has done one show on radio since he started his battle against cancer and there is a report here.
I shall be listening.
Yesterday’s Person of the Day was a Woman
With all the elections and the referendum going on in the UK and Obama’s trimphalist vengeance in the United States it fell to a woman to add some sanity to the world.
Lady Justice Hallett’s handling of the inquests into the London bombings of the 7th July 2005 has been exemplary and shows how justice can be seen to be done and closure can be brought to a tragic part of British history.
There will always be some who call for more enquiries to apportion blame, but in my view it is time for everybody to move on. I have lost two members of my close family to vicious cancers and can sympathise with those who have lost someone dear to them. Who do I have to blame?
Life is a perilous and risky business and it is only by means of luck that we live as long as we do!
The AV Referendum was Good for the Tory Vote
A political commentator has just said on Radio 5, that the referendum on AV was good for the Tories as it got their supporters out to vote in the council elections. They did win more seats and councils despite cutting spending, which was not to be expected. Ross Hawkins also said the following on his blog.
The prime minister and Conservative leader has managed to win seats while cutting public spending, something few pundits expected.
David Cameron said the coalition was “as good today as it was a year ago”
The Conservatives emerged from these elections with more English councillors and councils, and two extra Welsh Assembly members.
There were downsides – losing the party leader in Wales, and a relatively poor performance in Scotland.
But these elections was a resounding success for the Conservatives, especially in England.
If the Conservatives can do this well in the face of the biggest spending cuts it either shows that people will vote Tory whatever, or voters understand the mess the country is in better than most politicians think. In my view, judging by the way AV literature was being read on the Dalston Omnibus and the positive vote for AV in this area of London, I would not discount the latter.
America Doesn’t Learn
America’s fight against crime and terrorism inside the country never seems to learn from its mistakes or build on things that have been proven in countries like the UK, Israel, Sweden, Germany and many others.
The worst home-grown example of terrorism in the United States was the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma. It could be argued that if proper security precautions had been taken at the building, that things might have been different. In its piece on the bombing, Wikipedia contains this.
As a result of the bombing, the U.S. government passed legislation designed to increase the protection around federal buildings to deter future terrorist attacks. From 1995 to 2005, over 60 domestic terrorism plots were foiled due to preventive measures taken in response to the bombing.
So after various incidents in the years preceding the bombing, won’t these precautions taken.
Simple precautions, such as we’ve had on UK flights for years might have prevented some if not all of the perpetrators of the September 11th, 2001 attacks of even getting on the planes.
In the late twentieth century, I was always amazed at the lack of airline security in the United States. In the end the good people of New York and Washington paid the awful price.
And then there are guns! The United States has the highest rate of gun crime and murder of any f the so-called civilised countries. There are now reports that those with guns are so irresponsible that many of America’s mammals are disappearing.
So what does the United States do?
It discloses that Osama bin Laden was planning an attack on a train to mark the 10th anniversary of september 11th, 2001.
Surely this small fact is a challenge to all of those idiots out there, looking for their five minutes of fame.
Be vigilant of course, but don’t give them ideas!
Royal Bank of UK Taxpayers Is Still a Money Pit
Reports this morning show that we are still propping up this memorial to the stupidity of the so-called banker, Fred Goodwin.
There will come a time, when we sell or even give it to the highest bidder, as that will be the best financial course for the country as a whole.
Do We Have Too Many Heart Transplant Centres?
Doctors at Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital have questioned whether we have too many heart tranplant centres in the UK.
Apparently, the number of transplants is down, but the number of potential donors is up.
My cardiologist performs transplants and other radical heart surgery. We have chatted about technology in appointments, so could it be that the reason the number of transplants is down, is bcause surgeons are learning more tricks to keep us alive and in many cases we are doing our bit with less smoking and drinking and taking the right exercise and eating better.
Closing a heart transplant centre will be a difficult political decision, but as in many things these days, technology may be a better alternative, that takes good care nearer to the many.
I suffer from atrial fbrulation, caused in part by a dodgy heart valve. My mother-in-law had the same problem and had a valve replacement, which wasn’t a trivial operation in the 1970s.
My cardiologist’s prognosis to me was that if I keep getting the Warfarin right, I won’t have another stroke and pehaps in te years he might do something to fix the valve.
The way things are going with technology, I might suspect that when that valve is fixed, it might well be a trivial procedure.
So perhaps there’s a bit more life in this London mongrel yet? Here’s hoping!
Scot Nats Sink Prudence’s Aircraft Carriers
It looks like Prudence’s jobs bribe to Scotland of the manufacture of two unnecessary aircraft carriers has been sunk by the performance of the SNP in the elections yesterday. Labour voters have deserted the party in droves.
I watched the most unusual double act this morning on the television when Alex Salmond of the SNP and Annabel Goldie of the Scottish Conservatives had a forthright discussion on their cooperation in the future.
Scotland has a lot of problems, like funding the NHS and universities, poor health, too much drinking and creating worthwhile jobs that will last.
I wish the new government of Scotland a lot of luck. They’ll need it.
I have said many times, that Gordon Brown will rank alongside Lord North as one of our worst Prime Ministers. It would seem now that his country and his supposedly loyal supporters there have deserted his policies.
The Anonymous Widower 