waffle of the day (28th Aug 07)

"To be honest...." - David Milliband, UK Defence Secretary (BBC Radio 4)
(before talking a load of rubbish to avoid answering the question)

the USA has 16 intelligence agencies
hard to believe

UK road works to cost a thousand pounds an inch

the 51 mile M6 road widening scheme is estimated to cost twice the UK's total yearly aid budget to Africa

more roads - more cars - more pollution
good to see we've got our priorities right

"They will welcome us as liberators" - Dick Cheney

there are more English speakers in China than there are in England

"Our position is that there are two kinds of people in Iraq: not Sunni and Shia, Kurdish and Arab, Muslim and Christian, but those who are with the occupation and those who are against it."

- Abdallah Suleiman Omary (an Iraqi resistance leader)

the UK has 4.2 million CCTV cameras
this is more than the rest of Europe put together

why does the UK have the highest crime rate in Europe?

the first European country in modern times to ban smoking at work was Nazi Germany, as part of Hitler's campaign to eliminate smoking

now that the UK Government has got an opt out from the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, it can proceed with plans to bring in detention without charge and trial without jury

the really dangerous people, the ones who do the greatest harm, are often the ones who are convinced they are doing the greatest good

some say we are overdue for a major plague, but even if it killed 99.999% of us we'd still outnumber gorillas -- more positively, there'd be a sigh of relief from most of the other animals (except cats and dogs), and it really would help with global warming

how about a leaving present for soon to be ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair?
such as a one-way ticket to Iraq

the young dream of what they will do when they are older
the old dream of what they did when they were younger

JS Bach's Brandenburg Concertos were sold in 1734 for €1
they were not published until 1850 (100 years after Bach's death)
they did not achieve their current popularity until the 1930's

New Labour has created 3,000 new criminal offences since 1997

no wonder UK jails are overflowing

it's 18 years since the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil disaster and the company still hasn't paid the damages it owes

see http://www.exposeexxon.com

carbon trading? ha!

what is needed is not less people flying, but less planes flying

so why is New Labour planning to expand all the major UK airports?

Government climate control measures? ha!

just more spin from Blair

roll on Scottish independence - if the English are stupid enough to vote Blair back into office, they deserve all they get - but it's not really fair on Scotland and Wales

a UN study finds that the production of one complete computer and monitor takes 240kg of fossil fuels, 22kg of chemicals and 1,500 litres of water

(and that's before packaging and long distance distribution)

which is why each new operating system from Microsoft needs a higher spec computer

it's called planned obsolescence

a society motivated by profit is a society motivated by greed

liars, damn liars & politicians - example 37,752 - Tal Afar

March 2006 - President Bush: "a concrete example of progress in Iraq"

March 2007 - off-duty Shiite police slaughter up to 70 Sunnis in retaliatory killing spree

underlining the UK's committment to get rid of its nuclear weapons (as legally required under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), £70,000,000,000 is being spent on replacing and maintaining the next generation of Trident nuclear submarines