Citizenship and the EU

You know, I often find myself wondering about this. I've said before that as soon as I'm eligible I will apply for Canadian Citizenship, and this remains my intent. The question being; do I wish to remain a citizen of the UK, and thus a citizen of Europe? Will I want to maintain dual citizenship status? While I don't, and have never really minded the notion of being a citizen of Europe, I don't like the way a closed circle of unaccountable politicians and bureaucrats are taking it.

When a torrent of micro managing regulation goes onto the statute books without so much as a bye, leave, or thank you. Then I don't want to be a citizen of the EU. If legislation can be cut and pasted from directives originating from within the undemocratic cancer that is the EU Commission without so much as a sneeze from the elected body. Then I don't want to be a part of the European Union. When I watch the insane debt bubble looming over the countries that are part of the Euro, then I think I'd be better off not being a citizen of the EU.

Don't get me wrong, I love Europe. All of it. I love most of the places, and most of the people I've met on my travels. Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Netherlands, Luxemburg, and yes, even Belgium. I'm sure a lot of Germans, Italians, French, Spanish, Dutch, Luxemburgers and Belgians feel exactly the same way.

There are things that are done far better in Europe than the English do. The TGV's (Ironically, many engine and coach units built by British Manufacturers) that zip across France and Spain. Much more comfortable than flying. European Motorways, and I have many fond memories of French N and D routes. Airports.

My head is crammed with delightful European memories like the almost overpowering liquorice tinged smell of Basil on the road from Florence to Genoa. The dusty glory of a Tuscan summer. Champagne cellar tours in Rheims, the dazzling brilliance of the Mont Blanc glacier on a sunny day. The dusty expanse of the Saarland and Rhine Valley in midsummer. Little family roadside restaurants off the beaten track. People who readily forgave my poor language skills, but didn't mind so long as I made some effort (However awkward) to speak their language.

The sheer weight of european history and culture is tremendous and never less than impressive. Yet all that is good in Europe is slowly dying of bureaucratic poisoning. A stolid, boneheaded, ignorant top down political delusion that assumes one code of law will do for all. If it were general law, like don't steal or don't cheat, I'd be all for it, but what bugs me is the increasing micro management foisted upon the majority by vocal lobby groups. Chair polishing time wasters passing law after law without any real thought for the consequences. A system of governance that reduces the rights of the individual to whatever largesse an overweening state can be bothered to hand out. With every new piece of legislation the system becomes ever more inflexible.

To compare; in general terms of materials science, the stiffer a substance becomes, which mostly mean becoming more tightly grained, the more fragile and prone to shattering it becomes. So it is with law. The more constricting and inflexible law becomes, an increasing number of people keep will slamming into it until a social critical mass is reached, and something has to give. At that point either the edifice collapses under it's own internal pressure, or enough people get together to form a hammer. As is happening right now throughout the Middle East at present where tired, inflexible regimes are cracking under the strain. The EU are interfering because that's where most of their oil comes from. Yet their interference is actually making things worse.

For example; outside intervention is giving Gaddaffi's main power base, his alliance of tribes something to rally against. Where he might have slunk off to Venezuela with a couple of billion in unmarked bills in times past, that door has been shut to him. With no exit strategy he has to fight. More Libyans will die because of it. All because of short sighted, posturing EU intervention. I do not support this, nor do I agree with what is happening within the EU. Not too chuffed about Canada being dragged in, but that's NATO for you.

There is no course of remedial democratic action open to me. My UK MP is a buffoonish rubber stamp who does not care about his constituents views. My UK MEP is so remote and unaccountable that they might as well be located out in Lunar Orbit. Therefore I do not want to be a citizen of an enlarged EU.

At some time in the next three years I'm going to have to make a decision about citizenship. If, once a full citizen of Canada I renounce my citizenship of the UK, and thus Europe, if I get stuck in Europe for any legal reason I will always have the option of deportation back to my new home. Yet if I have dual citizenship, that choice might not be so readily open to me, and any protections I might have as a Canadian citizen might be somewhat diluted.

The Canadians look after their citizens, you see. The tacit constitutional contract between state and individual is largely intact over here. You have to really want citizenship, and therefore it's not an easy road to travel. That is where its value lies.

Upon sober reflection I think I'll have to plot this one through carefully. It has been said that those who wish to give up citizenship of the UK should undergo a psychiatric evaluation. But what is insane about wanting to renounce a country that has changed the terms and conditions of citizenship without consultation, leaves sizeable tranches of its populace effectively disenfranchised, where people can be imprisoned without trial, their families dismantled, yet has the effrontery to describe itself as 'democratic?'

From where I stand at present, with no other door open to me, the renunciation of everything I was brought up to believe in may be the most potent protest I can lodge.

The Carbon Cycle

Shamelessly nicked from the Australian 'No Carbon tax' campaign site. Comes under the category of 'many a true word spoken in jest'.

You know it's weird. Despite multiple failures of prophecy, there's a strata of society who have got degrees and suchlike coming out of their ears who still support the premise. One is tempted to ask why. Do they know better than the rest of us? Observation would suggest not. Seems to me that the modern education process is missing something, like critical path thinking. Or perhaps more accurately that elements which should be considered are dismissed for purely idealogical reasons.

The weather consistently fails to do what us poor peasants are told it's going to do by the ever-fearful advocates. Those with a sceptical eye are told we're in the pay of some eeeevil secret clique of industrialists. Okay, where's my cheque then? Yet when you examine the millions being thrown at doctrinaire pro disaster activist groups by both governments and private trusts, you can't help but think 'what's in it for them'? The whole 'trace gas runs the climate' is such an arrant piece of tinfoil hattery that it's hardly worth pointing and laughing at. Yet policy makers the world over appear to be right behind it.

In short, as the diagram comically indicates, there's money to be made. The only problem is that in reality 'Carbon taxes' are a classic economic implosion in the making. To be succinct; reduction in productive activity (Industry) to prevent (unproven and unproveable predictions of) changes in climate will be followed by a shrinking resource base (Taxpayers) as industry shrinks and the 'green' economy fails to deliver. This will be paralleled by a massive redistribution of everyone else's wealth to god alone knows where, possibly via the Cayman Islands to the proverbial Swiss Bank Account. Thence into vaults for gloating over, big yachts, private jets, exclusive holiday homes that rarely see visitors (Including the owners), and other such essentials to the human condition.

It's not that I mind other people getting wealthy. It's just that I'd rather they worked for it, rather than having my tax dollars automatically siphoned into their pockets.

Blogging excuse

Currently in the middle of plotting and planning a trip to the UK for an important family event this Summer. Not that I really want to go, but Mrs S is driving me crazy with her never ceasing picking over fine details. My own inclination is to take a look at the available options and make a decision within two minutes. She spends hours agonising over each small facet, insisting that I am at her side to advise every two minutes and thirty seconds. Regardless of what I am doing.

This has led to an almost complete halt in writing activity, as what my Landlord laughingly calls the "Honey-do" list grows by the day. In addition having my wife click on a 'Scareware' link that took me (Why me? I didn't screw it up.) the best part of a day and a half to fix and recover all her documents and re-secure her laptop. My life has not been my own.

There is a risk that frustration levels may reaching meltdown status, and there has already been one minor explosion. Core chilling is required.

At this rate I'll need a damn holiday to get over planning a bloody holiday. Grr!

Do you believe....?

Seen over at Jo Nova's blog. From her speech to the 'No CO2 tax' protest in Australia.

• CO2 feeds plants. It’s the only” pollution” pumped onto farms to grow food. Did you know plant life goes dormant if CO2 falls too low? Farmers don’t just pump in an extra 5 or 10% either, they ramp up the concentration 4 or 5 fold in greenhouses. Did the government scientists forget to mention that?
• Australia is the largest exporter of coal in the world. But did they say that China digs up nearly 10 times more coal than we do?
• The famous ice core graphs of Al Gore — expanded to 20 meters square — turned out to show the opposite of what he claimed. Temperatures drive carbon and lead it by 800 years. Worse,iIt was well known, and not contested two years before he made his movie.
• 'Global warming' stopped, and none of the models predicted that.
• The endless droughts — ended.
• All that CO2 and Global storms hit their lowest level for 30 years.
• And you have to wonder: nearly 90% of the thermometers in the US are too close to artificial heat sources. 90%. How much do the climate science team care about the science?
• 75% of thermometers used in the 1980’s have dropped off the official record. All that money, and less instruments to measure with…
• They adjust the data — sometimes 50 years after it was recorded. Think about that. The 1970’s kept warming for the next 30 years.
• 3000 ocean buoys looked and couldn’t find most of the missing heat that our planet is supposed to be storing.
• 6000 boreholes tell us the world was warmer 1000 years ago, and even warmer again 5000 years ago. None of the models can explain that.
• all the models predict a hot spot, and 28 million weather balloons can’t find it;
• 31,500 scientists don’t think we need a carbon tax. That includes 9000 phd’s. There’s a grassroots revolt going on out there. This was done by volunteers, and done twice. There’s never been another petition like it in science, ever. Did the media forget to tell you that too?
• For every dollar paid to a skeptic, big government paid 3500 to global warmers.

With citations and links to empirical observations. This is not tinfoil hat territory, this is 'Stop taking the piss you bastards' territory.

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, 'Western' nations are still pursuing the weird idée fixe that a reduction in atmospheric Carbon Dioxide will somehow 'save the world'.

This begs the question; is a warmer world better or worse? I think that colder is worse, and in spite of all the predictions, the 'warming' isn't happening as predicted. At this juncture one is tempted to ask; "What do they know that we don't?" or more likely; "What the fuck are they on?"

It's quite plain to see that the models upon which Green policies are based don't mesh with reality. Every time one of these half-assed postulations bites the dust it's because 'It's getting warmer'. Well it isn't. The Winters aren't warmer. Neither are the Summers, despite the hogwash pumped out by much of the lamestream and various pressure groups. It still snows - despite assurances to the contrary there is snow in places it doesn't normally snow. There are no more Hurricanes or typhoons. Fewer than 'normal' in fact. Everything points to a cooling planet. Atmospheric ice crystal phenomena like Sundogs are growing more common in lower latitudes than we're used to. Certainly more often observed. Heavy and prolonged frosts in subtropical growing areas like Florida.

People are beginning to notice, and it's only a matter of time before the money hurled over the beached dead whale of 'Green' policies forever condemns the Western Nations to a historical footnote. Mind you, I think we're due for a major economic upset anyway. Money is being spent on Green policies that the West hasn't a hope in hell of repaying, and the only door at the end of that particular path is bankruptcy. This means no more money for new infrastructure, which means a decaying return on basics like water, sewage and power. Real poverty. Real people starving. Real population dieback. But that won't matter, as it will only be the 'little people' who will suffer because their 'leaders' got it completely, magnificently and utterly wrong.

Writing as one of the 'little people', I'm not impressed.

Ditching Firefox

Well that's it; Firefox is no longer my browser of choice. For the past couple of months the only way to close the bloody thing was via task manager, where it often showed up as using over 90% of processor time and over half my system memory. Searches of various tech forums only gave me the option of rolling back to an earlier version. I've already tried this, and it only provides me with limited browser function. Not acceptable.

I really liked the 'Noscript' utility which blocked annoying pop-ups and interminable advertisements, I liked the layout, functionality and ease of use. Regrettably Firefox has been getting slower and slower despite regular cache clearances and even in desperation, one complete re-install. So it had to go. Now, like Internet Explorer, it resides unloved and unused, gently drifting down the list of favourite programmes like a leaky old wooden dinghy until it is forever lost from sight.

Shutting up

Over the past week or so I've found myself deleting post after unpublished post. It's not that they were that bad, it's just that by the time I've got round to putting my own spin on a subject, someone else has done it better. Like the boy in class whose hand is just one nanosecond too slow, I find myself mute. Nothing new to say, and no reasonably apposite way to say it.

A couple of domestic problems are proving distracting and they must claim my close attention before all else.

Also Blog editorial policy is under review.



In a while.

Busy

A busier than normal week looms ahead.

Item 1: Settlers effects. Apparently these are in Vancouver (But we've only the shippers word for that). We were informed that they had arrived January 2nd and that we would be told where to turn up for the customs check. Last Friday I had a conversation with an ever so slightly nervous and evasive sounding manager who assured me that they were having trouble scheduling drivers. Don't know what it was, but something in her her tone made my bullshit detector array twitch like a caffeine freak on amphetamines. We are told clearing customs may necessitate a trip to Victoria, which I really don't have time for. Then there is being at home for the delivery at 24 hours notice, which might royally screw up our schedule.

Item 2: My, ahem 'Crash course' in the ICBC motor vehicle damage claims system continues when the parts arrive for my poor wounded (And brand bloody new!) SUV rear ended last Tuesday. From my perspective it's all pretty painless, but time consuming.

Item 3: Change of employment. Now I am a permanent resident of Canada I can legally take any job that I can get hired for. An interview for a very nice job indeed is in the offing, which has to fit in with all my other work / voluntary work, chasing after Customs Officials / Shippers, getting cars fixed etcetera that this week has to throw at us.

Everything could all go pear shaped quite easily, and very probably will, knowing my luck. Damn, there's my cynicism again, knew I'd left it somewhere.

What an interesting day it's been

A number of relatively shallow tremors have occurred under Torfajokull, which last erupted in 1477. There is some ongoing shallow activity under Katla, but nothing apparently significant at this time. Unless there's some news about ground movement or other volcanic indicators, you can't make any guesses one way or another. Apparently it differs from others because it undergoes Silicic eruptions, which I'm told creates 'stickier' magma.

Other things today; oh yes Mummylonglegs has pulled her blog "And there was me thinking". Maybe she'll resurface under a wordpress or other ID. Her voice will be missed.

On a personal note MML, drop me a line if you start blogging again. You and your Squids were always part of my mornings entertainment.

What else? Oh yes, a dozy item in a Ford F150 rear ended my car, my brand new bloody car! My stationary brand new bloody car. Grrr, snarl, growl.. However, the collision seemed to do more damage to his pickup, and only superficial damage to our small SUV. Said gentleman claimed he couldn't stop in time, although I hadn't felt any ice as we crossed the self same stretch of road less than half a minute earlier. He was all apologies, and said his brakes hadn't worked. I saw no point at getting mad at him. Okay, fine, maybe, but to teach him to stay a little more alert at the wheel in future, there's a bill for a couple of thousand dollars winging it's way via ICBC. I am rather upset by the whole business, but Mrs S and I have already sorted the estimate and the claim through the very efficient claims system here (Even if there are tales of people having their hand in the ICBC's cookie jar). We took it to a recommended body shop and the parts have been ordered. We've no excess to pay, and by late next week Thumper should be good as new.

The snow promised began falling just before dusk, and we're waiting to see what kind of coverage results. The city is already making provision for a heavy fall, road sanders have been out, and free parking provision has been made in case some places are made inaccessible. What a refreshing change from the mindset of UK local authorities.

Oh what an interesting day it's been. I'll be glad when it's all over.

Not dead enough

A while ago, I asked for my Facebook page to be deleted. Followed the instructions and everything went quiet. All well and good you might think. Until I started getting 'friend' requests last week. I responded to Facebook e-mails to 'Go view your account' with a polite "I thought I told you to shut this down and delete" email. It seems this was not enough. Some people just can't take no for an answer. Although who would want to be 'friends' with me beggars belief. I'm not a nice person.

Unfortunately, what this means is that all facebook related requests are going to be marked as spam from now on, and I will keep logging their emails as spam until they get the message that I no longer wish to participate.

I thought my Facebook account was dead. Yet now it seems that it is not dead enough.

Merry Christmas from BAA (Not)

Thanks to British Airways and BAA, the Sticker household will have a much diminished Christmas.

The reason for this is simple; presents were being transported to Vancouver by our girls. Then the snow (Although not a great deal by all accounts) hit Heathrow. Luggage had already been checked in, containing presents for friends and relatives over here. Luggage was supposed to follow a day after our girls arrived. Enquiries at Vancouver Airport found no cases. The following two days brought the news that the cases in question were, apparently, due to stay in Heathrow. Then the cases were supposed to be in Vancouver, where they had not, according to staff, arrived. Repeated visits to Vancouver Airport seeking said have proved fruitless. Considerable expenses (Extra travel, Ferry journeys, working time lost) have been incurred. Lawyers are to be consulted.

To date (late Christmas Eve) there has been a complete lack of presence of any presents. With BA's record of luggage tracking we have no expectation of ever seeing them again. We had hoped for better, thinking that the bad old days of 'Thiefrow' were long past. This appears not to be so. The luggage tracking system for checked baggage appears to be just as inefficient as it ever was, despite bar coded luggage tags and sufficient computing power to control a multitude of space flights. Under the circumstances, it would seem that to expect efficiency from Heathrow, BAA and British Airways would seem to be the triumph of hope over experience.

Mrs S is bitterly disappointed, as is Sister in law, our girls, and the rest of our disparate little clan.

Un mauvais quart d'heure

This has not been a fun week.

It seems I have spent six whole days chasing other people's tails and being treated like an unpaid flunky. I am not a happy man. I am unhappy with BA for losing my kids luggage. I am unhappy with BAA for not being able to operate an airport effectively in conditions most other countries don't even blink at. I am unhappy at being on the receiving end of an overload of emotional backlash simply because others can't bloody cope without lashing out.

There is nothing I can physically do, yet I'm expected to. Then be at everyone else's back and call.

On top of that, I have people telling me what I should and should not want. Well I bloody well don't! I need salt to balance my electrolytes, sugar for energy, exercise in the open air and proper rest to enable my body to wind down.

Now I want to say this; I am not yours to command. You have no right. Your problems are not my problems. Fix them yourselves. Grow a pair and grow up!

Now sod off and let me curl into a ball in some dark and neglected corner. Alone. I want the rest of the festering season off. The TV is going off and earplugs are going in.

Christmas postponed

Certain of our relatives were at Heathrow on Friday, due to fly out to us for Christmas. Mrs S and I spent the day in Vancouver, where we were supposed to pick them up and take them to our home to celebrate the good old festering season. Their flight was cancelled.

It was scheduled flight BA0035 to Vancouver, yet we were told at one stage that there were 'no cancellations'. Bull-shit.

We were told that the runways were clear.

Then we found out that because of the lack of planning, Heathrow has only enough gear to run one de-icing crew. Why the hell said crews weren't used more effectively I don't know. Now if anyone had asked me, which is unlikely as I'm only a single voice in the blogging wilderness, instead of having the de-icing crew move round all the terminal, wouldn't it have been better to set up a single de-icing station on the taxiway, and route all outgoing aircraft through it? Ten minutes a plane and 130 litres of de-icer. Or did someone forget to order sufficient de-icing fluid to 'keep costs down'? Surely there was sufficient warning? Oh gosh! Silly me! It's supposed to be the 'hottest year ever'! Yeah, right.

Here's how they do it in Minnesota.

Also, I was under the impression that all modern aircraft had on-board de-icing capability because it gets pretty parky at thirty plus thousand feet. Although when flying into the UK in October on a 767, I noticed patches of thin ice on the outer wings as we began our descent.

Fortunately, my family members have secured a booking for later in the week, providing you lot in the UK don't suffer from the 'wrong kind of snow'. God alone knows where their luggage has gone to. Or maybe we'll be confronted with that 1970's joke spoofing one of BA's advertising slogans; 'Breakfast in London, Dinner in New York - Luggage in Barbados'.

We had hoped to kick off the holidays this weekend, regrettably we will have to keep the champers on ice for another few days. What I don't want to hear is more excuses about failing to prepare for a known cold weather event. Ahrrggh! I need a drink.

Update: Have spoken to temporarily marooned relatives, and according to them, the desk staff were not very happy with the situation and made some rather disparaging remarks about the short sightedness of their management. No names, no pack drill.

In Blog Memorium

Through many countries and over many seas
I have come, Sister, to these melancholy rites,
to show this final honour to the dead,
and speak (to what purpose?) to your silent blog,
since now fate takes you, even you, from us.
Oh, Sister, ripped away from us so cruelly,
now at least take these last offerings, blessed
by the tradition of our parents, gifts to the dead.
Accept, by custom, what a brother’s tears drown,
and, for eternity, Sister, ‘Hail and Farewell’.

With many apologies to the shade of Gaius Valerius Catallus

To her assassins;

Evil to you, evil Shades
of Orcus, destroyers of beauty.

In Blog Memorium Anna Racoon. A victim of lesser minds.

On burning books

Stopped by at Longrider's blog to see his comments on the proposed burning of copies of the Qu'ran by a bunch of Florida Evangelicals. Found myself moved to leave the following message in the comments;

Book burning is a crime, regardless of how good or bad you think the book is. On these grounds I find myself as opposed to burning copies of Islamic texts as Christian or any other. Why? Because the written word provides the knowledge and continuity which underpins any civilisation. Therefore destruction of same is a high crime against humanity, even if it is a Jeffrey Archer. Without language and the means to pass it on we are little more than screaming apes.

I say no book should burn because all should available for reading and critique for good or bad. No cow should be too sacred to take to the intellectual slaughterhouse. If books and the knowledge they contain are destroyed, then upon which giants shoulders should the next generation stand?

BTW: As an illustration of my last point, there are stories of early Christians burning Roman libraries during the 5th and 6th centuries, and it took humanity over a thousand years to rediscover what was lost.

(Sees soapbox under feet, steps down)

Despite the 'soapbox' meme, I'm deadly serious. Burning a book is murdering an idea. Ideas are what raise us above apes. Even truly dumb ideas like religion. Without examining dumb ideas or half assed backward cultural shibboleths and recognising them for the impostors they are, how the hell can humanity move forward?

It is therefore the contention of this blog that all Book burners, whatever their denomination, are ignorant scum, below pondlife.

I know September 11th was a crime too, but you don't punish one criminal by burning down his entire home town.

Okay, where's the warming?

It's the 31st of August, mid Vancouver Island in British Columbia and it's got so chilly this afternoon that I've just lit a log fire.

Bugger my 'carbon footprint'.

Have I been banned?

Tried to register to comment on Richard North's blog 'EU Referendum' today, only to receive the message that the email address I use, and which is a valid point of contact for this blog, is "Not allowed to be used". Now I delved through my email archives to see if I'd forgotten my login details; but no, I couldn't find any confirmation email. As I can't recall having commented there, at least within the last 12 months, this putative ban bothers me.

This begs the question; Dr North, have I been banned from commenting on your blog, and if so, would you be so kind (or bothered) as to tell me why? You don't have to, as I'm only a minor blogger and as such, quite used to being ignored.

I did try contacting a 'Board Administrator', but ironically there's no link to do that until you register, and since the 'Umbrella blog' board won't accept my gmail address, I can't tell anyone. Moderating to get rid of troll and spamvertiser infestations is a necessary evil, but being lumped in with such low common denominators somehow feels quite offensive.

One thing that isn't better in Canada is........

Cell phones. Mobile communications. Coverage, contracts and pricing. Today I am going to free myself of a three year contract I couldn't cancel three days after signing up. If possible I am going to resurrect one of my old GSM tri-band pay as you go Nokia and if I can get a SIM card for it, and woe betide any bumptious sales person who tries to sell me what I don't want. I'd rather not have a cell phone at all than another bloody 'contract'.

Current contract is with Bell.
Coverage; Can't get a signal in my own home. Phone isn't even good as a paperweight.
Pricing; Very poor bang for buck.
Contract; onerous and expensive for what it is.
Customer Service; Poor, verging on dire. Chocolate teapot territory.

My verdict; About as impressed with their service as with a discarded rotting cabbage leaf for breakfast. Mrs S is under strict instructions to shoot me down like a dog if I go anywhere near one of Bell's sales outlets.

I think if Orange were to venture over this side of the Atlantic with their level of customer appreciation and 'Top up' pay as you go service they would wipe the floor with all the other service providers. Back in the UK I had a total of nine mobile phones, eight with Orange, one with 02 (BT Cellnet, as it was then), and the only one I ever had real problems with was with O2. They were rubbish too.

It's not their money

Jonah Brown was going to do it, now Cameroid and Cleggsky want to do it; use money from 'dormant' bank accounts to give to their favourite causes. Not yours, not mine, but theirs.

I object most strongly to this because;
a) I have a couple of UK Bank accounts in 'dormant' mode in case I visit the UK and need the odd hundred for emergency petty cash.
b) Taking money that does not belong to you is, and call me an old silly for thinking this; to put it bluntly, theft. Stealing. Unlawfully purloining the chattels of others. Taking without permission; call it what you will.

For Cameron to even suggest such a move is profoundly illiberal and against the concept of private property. That's like seeing someone else's car parked in their garage and selling it to line your own pockets. Taking what belongs to others is theft and there are laws against it. Or at least I thought there were, who knows nowadays? The last lot passed so many it's hard to be sure any more.

I do think that you poor buggers back in the UK have gotten rid of one bunch of elitist, illiberal, thieving tosspots and simply substituted another. If the money in 'dormant' accounts belongs to anyone, it belongs either to the person whose account it is, or their heirs and successors. Heirs and successors as a group emphatically does not include smooth talking slapheads who think they can do as they like because they were their political parties rubber stamp.

Maybe I should close everything down next time I'm in the UK and leave my financial bridges in flames, or just blow what remains on the Stepkids birthday bash in October. Cameron and Clegg can stick their 'big society' where the sun shineth not.

Bloody box tickers

Three years since I left the UK, and haven't set foot on British soil since. Shortly after leaving I filled in the correct forms, countersigned by accountants as required, to say I was no longer domiciled in the UK. Yet still I keep getting demands saying 'send us your P60 for 2008/9'; What can I say apart from;

Look, you bone headed box ticking brain dead zombie alternatives to humanity, what do I have to do? I only have a Canadian tax return for that year which you won't accept as 'evidence' of tax paid, and as I completed a 'Non-domiciled' form back in late 2007 I don't have to (and haven't) filled out a UK tax return; which means no flaming P60 for the year in question! You never issued me with one.

/HeadDesk.

Massive UK Civil service cuts; they can't come fast enough.

You what!?

Apparently our colonial cousins to the South (at least their Administration) seem to be having a major attack of the stupids. They are awarding one of the greatest enemies of British personal liberty ever the 'Liberty Medal'. This award is allegedly given to those whose actions represent the founding principles of the United States.

In the words of ex-Tennis Champion John McInroe; "You cannot be serious!"

The Yanks are awarding a medal celebrating 'freedom' to a person whose government created over a thousand new criminal offences? Someone, somewhere has lost it big time. Said award, like the Nobel 'Peace Prize', is now devalued to a worthless political backhander. A backslap between professional politicians. Nothing more. Then again, maybe that's all these political awards ever are. I hope it's not taxpayer dollar they're giving him.

You know, there have been times I've fervently wished Blairs (and Browns) lungs would spontaneously combust so I could pointedly refuse to piss down his throat to put out the conflagration. Clucking bell.

Mind you, the medal is being awarded by Bill Clinton, so perhaps the Americans have discovered the true art of irony after all. I need a drink.

H/T Angry Exile