The Health & Safety geniuses in Britain have decided that bins must be checked for sleeping, vagrant, drunk, drugged up individuals prior to their emptying. According to the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) website, there have been 3 such deaths in the last year. The HSE is taking the piss though, if I were a bin operative (can’t say “bin men”, it’s un-PC) I’d be insulted that H&S think that I’m incapable of smacking the side of a bin and looking inside it.

Their solution? Well, it comes in the form of a 7 page document offering “guidelines” on how to deal with “people occupying a waste container or receptacle, (commonly called a bin), usually for the purpose of sleep or shelter – but not necessarily restricted to such purpose”. The commonly called a bin part is golden – you can’t make this up! This is followed by 3 pages on how to “assess the situation”, and finally, a 3 point bin-checking check list:

1. Banging on the sides of the bin with or without a suitable tool for such a purpose. (May I ask what constitutes a suitable tool for banging on the side of a bin?!)
2. Lifting of the lid of the bin, taking care to ensure that the person undertaking the check does not put themselves at risk by doing so by, for example, climbing up, or dislodging waste which might fall upon the checker.
3. Carrying out a visual examination of the surface of the contents. NB: Physically disturbing and rummaging around in the contents is not recommended or required, although a suitable tool such as a reach pole or robust stick could be used to prod the contents if desired.

A stick?! We can’t have this, banging on the sides of the bin with a STICK. England isn’t a Third World Country (not just yet, anyway). These men need portable MRI machines. A stick. Really! The rest of the world will laugh at us! And, what if some poor innocent bin dweller’s eye gets poked out?! Sorry HSE – I think it’s back to the drawing board with this one..

AND, what if a psychopath is hiding in a waste container with a knife, or a terrorist with an AK-47, or a tiger?! No, no, it’s far too dangerous!!

Instead, every bin should be laid horizontally by means of a crane, then carefully opened by a police officer (or a PCSO having received appropriate training) in riot gear, then slowly tilted upward by said crane so the contents can come out and injury to any dweller of the container can be minimized. Nonetheless, paramedics should be on standby. The whole process to be supervised by at least two municipal officials in hi-vis jackets and hard hats with clipboards and clicky pens. A full risk-assessment must be conducted beforehand by middle-ranking H&S executives… – wearing hi-vis jackets, not to forget. The entire street, and, depending on the circumstances, neighborhood, should be blocked off to all traffic for the duration of the process.

Maybe we just ought to put warning stickers on the bins:

BEWARE! USING THIS CONTAINER AS A BED RUNS THE RISK OF DEATH BY MECHANICAL CRUSHING!!!
*** COUNCIL ACCEPT NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DEATHS THAT OCCUR DUE TO BREACH OF THOSE GUIDELINES.

I’m not making light of death by trash compactor, in fact, bins should be checked. Especially since horrible people throw puppies and babies in them. But this HSE BS is really taking the piss.

Oh, and if someone is found sleeping in one of your bins, do you get a fine for incorrect waste sorting..? So beware people of Britain, not only will you be woken up at 6 am by glass clanking and cans rattling, you will hear the sound of a bin operative banging on the side of your bins. Maybe the cast of Stomp could give them a hand between touring..?

This is going to be the BEST thing you heard all day. A job centre in England refused to display an advertisement asking for a “reliable worker” because they risk being sued by unreliable workers for being discriminatory. Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous?!

The ad said the following:

Domestic cleaner required immediately for local hospital. A variety of different shifts available. Must be fluent in written and spoken English for Health & Safety reasons. Previous experience preferred. If you have a current CRB, it would be an advantage but not necessary. Training will be provided. Must be reliable and hard working

I wonder why they didn’t go after the part where they wanted fluent written and spoken English.. Isn’t that discriminating against 75% of the British population?! And I presume “Health & Safety” has now magically become a proper noun – because of the capital letters?

So the job centre refused to display the ad because they didn’t want to be discriminatory. Does this mean that soon I sue a law firm or hospital for discrimination because I don’t hold a law degree or any medical qualifications? Of course not! What a giant load of rubbish.

The person who banned this job should be in line waiting to find a new one because it seems that they are too incompetent to do their present one.

But it doesn’t really surprise me. I mean, this is coming from a country with a government that is allowing hoards of foreign people to come and be workers when a huge percentage of the population is just sitting on it’s bum, in a council house, drinking lager on a sofa watching daytime TV with a pack of cigarettes surrounded by a whole bunch of babies and collecting welfare cheques. There’s just no incentive for anyone to do anything..

But if you think about it, what percentage of the “unreliable” people would actually have the energy to go out and find a lawyer to fight a case for them because of the wording in this ad being discriminatory? Probably not very many, since they’re unreliable and lazy!

Bah.

So I’m sure you’ve all seen the reports about the crazy winter storms that are hitting parts of the world that normally only receive a meagre dusting of snow each year. From China to the UK to Florida, countries are being brought to a standstill because of the terrible weather conditions.

Having lived in a cold country, I know that it’s possible for councils and governments to get their acts together – especially in countries like the UK. A lot of people are arguing that since this kind of weather is uncommon in England, that it should not be seen as irresponsible for governments to not be prepared for winter weather – it should just be sort of a lesson so that they know to prepare better next time. I just hope that when all of the snow thaws, that the councils have begun to prepare for the flooding that is no doubt likely to occur…

So, what happened to Global Warming? According to some scientists, the entire northern hemisphere has entered into a “mini ice age”. Weather isn’t something that can be predicted, it has always fluctuated – heating up and cooling down.

And according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, since 2007, the Arctic summer sea ice has increased around 26%. Global warming?! I don’t think so.. It’s just the Earth going through it’s natural *random* cycle of warming and cooling. What caused the medieval warming period? Were the medieval pilgrims burning too much wood? Were their carts not carbon friendly? Were the cows too gassy?

And these weather scientists.. They can’t even get next week’s weather right, but they expect to be able to predict the weather for the next 100 years?! I don’t think so..

For those of you in England who still have their rubbish from Christmas sitting outside their houses, I hope your local council get it in gear and picks up your rubbish before Easter!

In the meantime, why not sit back and enjoy a nice winter warmer with a kick! Or for the warm wintery taste but without the alcohol why not try a virgin winter warmer!

Enjoy!

So there is a lot of big news on the internet today – and this has nothing to do with Twilight… There is a huge conspiracy theory brewing regarding the subject of climate change… The top institute for climate change at a East Anglia University in England had a whole climate-friendly boat load of it’s emails and sensitive documents posted on the web. The news broke last night and apparently the scientists at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) were aware of the security issue 3-4 days ago. Last night the data that was stolen was posted on the internet because apparently “the science is too important to be kept a secret”. A 61MB ZIP file containing the data was uploaded last night onto a Russian server – which is said to contain 1079 emails and 72 documents – quite a lot of stuff! The contents are allegedly supposed to show that climate change is nothing but a bunch of fiddled numbers by world class scientists. I have not attempted to download it.. What if it’s a virus? I don’t need my computer being fried thanks!

However, there are a few ways to look at this situation. Either it’s completely real, completely fake, or a bit of both. I’m going to copy a few bits of the emails that can be found all over the internet, and you can decide for yourself what you think about the situation.

From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@XXXX, mhughes@XXXX
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@XXX.osborn@XXXX

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,

Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow.

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.

Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers

Phil

Prof. Phil Jones

Climatic Research Unit Telephone XXXX
School of Environmental Sciences Fax XXXX
University of East Anglia
Norwich

“Mike’s Nature trick”??… Do you mean lying about results and spinning the numbers to promote your giant lie about climate change?! Also “hide the decline”. WOW!!! This is some pretty heavy stuff, and super incriminating!!!

And the next email.. If it actually is real, then it just goes to show that these people don’t have much common sense – who leaves such sensitive emails lying around. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

From: Phil Jones
To: “Michael E. Mann”
Subject: IPCC & FOI
Date: Thu May 29 11:04:11 2008

Mike,

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?

Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!

Cheers

Phil

Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit

More examples of this are ALL over the web. I’ll list a few sites at the bottom if you’re interested in doing some further reading – on a Friday night(!!!) What also is very interesting is the fact that realclimate.org has posted on it’s website that having their emails posted all over the internet is a great way for people to see how “scientists actually interact”… Yeah OK! Telling them to delete their emails is normal? Isn’t that illegal??? And they also went on to mention that this big fuss wouldn’t be made if the documents were about the mating habits of butterflies. Perhaps not, but that’s not the situation right now is it…!!!! If butterfly sex had something to do with climate change then, yes, I think that it would still be a big deal.

It’s being reported on the BBC, but not in great detail, which is a little surprising given the repercussions of this scenario. Also, no one from the CRU is currently confirming the documents’ authenticity, although some individuals have said that they appear to be genuine.

On a side note, I noticed that in the date/time stamp in the second email, the date year and time have been inverted.On all of the copies of this specific email I could find online, the dates are all backwards… Maybe this is evidence that they have been altered or manipulated in some way? Or maybe its just a glitch somewhere… I don’t know.. What do you think?

Scientists, lying, falsified results… It makes me think of Dan Brown’s novel Deception Point! Read it if you haven’t already – it’s a fantastic novel! I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens with this though. There’s nothing saying anywhere that the documents are definitely real or falsified. So it’s a bit premature to actually start properly commenting on it.. But I think it just seems a bit too elaborate to be a hoax… If the CRU was hacked 3-4 days ago, could whoever was behind it have done all this work or was the hack just a smokescreen to get false information all over the web?

The scientist who wrote some of these emails (Prof. Phil Jones) has told the invistigative magazine TGIF that he does not know what he was referring to in the email that says “hide the decline” claiming that it was ten years ago and arguing that people don’t remember the context of what they wrote 10 years ago. Um.. if it was about something as HUGE as faslifying test results to build an argument about climate change then I’m inclined to thik that he would remember that…. But hey, that’s just me.

Check out the links below and let me know what you think!!

nytimes.com – Hacked E-Mails Fuel Climate Change Skeptics

wattsupwiththat.com – Breaking News Story: Hadley CRU has Apparently Been Hacked

newsbusters.org – Possible Conspiracy Misreport Temperatures Found

examiner.com – ClimateGate: Climate Center Server Hacked

The UK government is threatening to give all new immigrants, who are applying for visas, language tests to prove their proficiency in the language. This has bad news written all over it. I’m in no way trying to slate any immigrants.. My mother is an immigrant. I’m just slating this new idea.

With that being said, the government is trying to get a handle on it’s immigration problem, which is rapidly spiralling out of control. The government ministers responsible for this claim that immigrants must have a satisfactory command of the English language in order to prove that they will be able to successfully participate in society. Ok, fair enough. If Britain’s immigrants are coming to better the economy then, yes, they will need to speak the language in order to get jobs, communicate with their new fellow countrymen. But because of the welfare policy, there are too many bogus asylum seekers that are taking the states money. The country is already broke.

Also, I’m sure there are many immigrants that come to the UK and take English classes and do indeed succeed in integrating into society. And that’s great! As a functional member of society, you’re expected to do things like pay your taxes, pay your bills etc. Not sit in your council house collecting benefit cheques.

But imagine that you’re from an extremely poor and/or war torn country. All your friends are like “I’m going to the UK.. As an asylum seeker, you get a house, they pay your taxes, you get benefits, free health care, your kid can go to school”. You can’t blame these people for wanting to go to the UK – it’s not really a tough decision. Either they risk getting killed or they get a nice house and full benefits. It’s not their fault, it’s the government’s fault for making the whole thing way too easy.

But back to these tests.. Really, it’s too little too late. If the government was serious about this plan, then for the time being they should completely stop immigration – no more new applicants or people at boarders. They  should bring the troops back from Afghanistan and post them at the boarders if it will help. Then they should perform a full census, ask people where they are from, do they speak English, maybe that will mean printing forms in different languages, if so, so be it. The government needs to know who is where and doing what. Kick out the people who are illegals or bogus asylum seekers. Then start repairing the country – the now broke, ruined dump that used to be a Great country.

Also, sub-standard command of the English language by a pretty big portion of the indigenous population needs to be addressed. The current government has decimated the education system. Children are struggling with large class sizes, inferior teaching and being brainwashed by multiculturalism and labelled racists over playground spats. University students are burdened with extraordinary amounts of debt and their chances of finding employment are constantly diminishing. All the while, hoards of foreigners are being let in and the government is forking out huge amounts of money to educate them and translate for them. I don’t even want to talk about pensioners and the pittance that they are receiving…

And then there was the story today where an unregistered childminder from Malaysia who was found guilty of manslaughter for killing the baby who was in her care. After being sentenced in May 2008, she served the minimum term of her 5 year sentence and was put on a plane back to Malaysia 2 weeks ago with a voucher worth £4,500 for her to spend on her return home. Essentially, the money is a bribe for the individual to get out of the country – or a “voluntary scheme offering illegal immigrants incentives to return”. The money is given as “financial assistance” so that they can get health care, education, start a business, etc. when they return home. For a country like Malaysia, this is a HUGE sum of money. The poor parents of this baby must be furious!

What is wrong with this government, paying people to come in, paying them to get out. It’s Madness!  It’s like the Boxing Day Sales when people are lining up at 4 am waiting for the shops to open. Imagine if a  shop were to sell everything for 1 penny, how many people will be lining up outside. There are always those sneaky people who try to push to the front of the line… Now imagine the shop workers will give people who are pushing to the front of the queues £50 to leave – more and more people come and more and more will push to the front and total chaos will ensue. Sound familiar???

A mother in England, who had taken her toddler to the park to feed the ducks was left angered after being fined by a local council warden. The warden had approached Ms. Kelly, 26, and told her that  feeding the ducks was banned in the park. Upon hearing this, Ms. Kelly immediately put the bread away. But to her complete surprise the warden took out a hand held computer and issued her a ticket on the spot for £75.

According to the accused, there were no signs in the park saying anything to this effect, except a warning against “overfeeding”. However, the Warden claimed that the bread attracted vermin. The only vermin it attracted was the one that issued the £75 fine. I mean, were the ducks complaining? Was the bread not to their liking?! And how do you know when a duck is overfed?! Does it sigh deeply and loosen it’s belt before settling down to have a nice afternoon nap?! I know some animals just don’t have the common sense to stop eating, but generally, I’m sure the ducks know what they’re doing when they start ingesting bread! And overfeeding the ducks doesn’t in any way imply that feeding them in the first place is against the law..

To think that taking your child to the park to feed the ducks is worthy of a fine is ridiculous! Her 17 month old son, according to the warden, was “too young to be prosecuted”.  This begs the question that if her child were to be older, would they have received two tickets? Maybe an ASBO as well? Put onto some kind of “deviant person” register? Ms. Kelly has made an official complaint and I wish her the best of luck with fighting this lunacy.

If the council were to be as vigilant on actual litter bugs and and people engaging in deviant behaviour, the parks and towns would be so much nicer than they are now! It’s not like she was throwing garbage on the ground. How many of you remember going to feed the ducks as a child? I know I did, and I used to love it! It’s free, and a lot of fun for the whole family.

But let’s not forget that in modern Britain, easy targets are fair game. Besides, the warden was probably too afraid to go after the hoodlums who deface public property with graffiti or running around wielding knives. How on earth does the council go about employing people to do these jobs?! Fining someone for going to the park with their child to feed the ducks. At least she wasn’t taking him down to the pub with her!

Maybe we could save the warden the hassle of physically having to walk up to us by being made to wear “registration numbers” on ourselves. That way, when we do something petty like this, the first we’ll hear of it will be the fine that we receive in the mail. Maybe some kind of mass registration/identification scheme is what all this money is being collected for…???

Too far fetched? Perhaps, but not that long ago, stories like this would have seemed far fetched too…

In the UK alone, during the last six years, over 15,000 people have filed complaints with the Criminal Records Bureau to refute the information that is being released to potential employers. Last year the equivalent of seven people challenged the CRB – twice the figure from 2002-2003.

The reasons given for the errors range from the individuals having similar personal details to an offender, to mistakes made on court and police records. Also, the increase in identity theft has greatly elevated the problem.

In the last few weeks, it has emerged that over 11 million adults will need to be checked on a database operated by the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA). These background checks will be required for people who intend to work with children or vulnerable adults – this goes so far as to include parents who volunteer to take young students to school related events.

Although so far the number of disputed cases has remained quite small, the long term implications of these false records will cost people their jobs and ruin peoples lives. It is the responsibility of these record keeping organizations to ensure that the sensitive information they are keeping is 100% accurate. It is ludicrous to think that people could be branded as criminals simply because they share the same name as a criminal or that they have been the victim of identity fraud. It’s like labelling someone as a criminal and letting the real offender slip through the net. It’s just not right!

In response, a spokesperson from the CRB said that their checks have prevented nearly 100,000 unsuitable people from working with vulnerable groups, but they fail to acknowledge the implications that these mistakes have had on people: “This is not about the CRB making mistakes – information released on a CRB check can be disputed for a number of reasons”. Of course it can be disputed, but it probably takes YEARS for them to go back into their files and look for their mistakes, during which time, the poor person who’s information is wrong cannot find a job, go to the park with their child.. They would probably be better off changing their name than trying to convince these box-ticking bureaucrats of their mistakes!

On that note, I wonder how many “Gordon Brown’s” have a criminal past!! And why all the lists and checks and databases? It’s supposed to be for our benefit and to protect children, but in all honesty, the current government with their stupid legislations couldn’t organize a piss up in a brewery! And they want to trace everything down to text messages and phone calls, but can’t get simple details right?! I mean, I’m all for the government ensuring the safety and security of the population, but the fact that they are keeping ALL records indefinitely is not acceptable. Records for minor infringements should be cleared – especially when they are irrelevant to the type of job that is being applied for. Otherwise, eventually no one will stand a chance of doing anything! If a person was accused of being a criminal when they weren’t, they would be fully within their rights to sue for slander and defamation of character. The fact that taking so long to correct the mistakes is going to lead to so many problems in the future.

I don’t know – it’s all just getting a bit too ridiculous!

This news story, from the UK, describes the struggle of a headmaster, Kevin Harrison, who is determined to improve the manners of his students. One of the rules he reinstated is that pupils must stand when he enters the classroom. One defiant boy, Daniel Walton, refused to stand and was subsequently sent to an “isolation room”, and instead of staying in the isolation room, pushed past a teacher and found himself with a four-and-a-half day suspension.

A bit of a harsh punishment? I personally don’t think so. Mr. Harrison is new, so has to stick to his guns. If that means a four day suspension, then so be it.

The boy’s father, instead of reprimanding his son for breaking school rules, sided with him and said that the boy was completely justified in not standing because the new headmaster ”hasn’t been there long enough to earn my son’s respect so why should he stand up for him”. I’m sorry, Excuse Me Sir?! Headteachers and teachers should automatically have the students’ respect – especially when it comes to something like standing up when they enter the room.

The boy’s father went on to say that the new rules “have nothing to do with their education”. This is where I think he is completely wrong. It has EVERYTHING to do with their education. Even if you hate the head teacher because they are on a power-trip or they pick on you, you still have to stand when they enter the room – it’s just manners, they are your superior and as such, respect is automatic by virtue of their position and this head teacher has 24 years of experience behind him. It’s like being in the real world having a boss who makes your life miserable, you can tell them to **** off and quit, or you can deal with it – I mean, don’t stay there your whole life, working a job that makes you miserable is unhealthy. But in both cases, you are respecting the title of the person. And I admit, some people are extremely difficult to deal with, but as a child in school, you have to respect your teachers, and in later life you have to respect your boss. Or you will end up jobless, like this boy’s father. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing in today’s Not So Great Britain… But that’s a whole new article!

The boy’s father said that he teaches his children that respect has to be earned. OK, fine.. So the headteacher has not earned the boy’s respect, but in turn, by acting like a delinquent is the boy earning the headteacher’s respect? I think not. He’s doing the complete opposite. This is exactly the kind of behaviour that leads to kids having no respect for themselves and showing no respect to others.

After reading this article, it really doesn’t come as a surprise that there are so many “problem” teenagers today. Education is not just about Shakespeare and science, it’s about learning social principles and how to be a successful and functional member of society.

When I was in high school I wanted to be a teacher, but after moving to a rougher part of England when I was 15 (leaving the good high school and Headmistress Robinson behind), I saw how my classmates were acting and how they had no respect for the person standing at the front of the room, and decided that it wasn’t for me. I read stories of teachers being afraid of their students, and not correcting them when they’ve done something wrong – be it a spelling mistake or getting into a fight. This is how this generation of young people is being taught - that they can get away with anything.

I sincerely hope that the school and school board side with the Mr. Harrison on this issue. The word “respect” has now become what gangs are fighting over and has lost all of it’s meaning. Respect is not what you get for being on the handle end of a knife, or being behind the trigger of a gun; nor does it come from being a yobbo or a hoodlum. Respect has to be learnt and earned or life will prove to be extremely difficult.

This story is developing, as the boy’s four-and-a-half day suspension ends tomorrow……