A Chance for Ukrainian Democracy

Hi,
My carer felt strongly enough to explain to me that Putin’s KGB regime would love to see the Party of Regions(Russians) subvert today’s elections, as happened in Belarus, but thanks to President Viktor Yushchenko this looks unlikely. Putin’s puddle, PM Viktor Yanukovich, has packed the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) with his supporters but too many eyes are watching for them to repeat blatantly their shenanigans of yesteryear.


Ukrainian Democracy versus Party of Russians

Only a Yushchenko—Tymoshenko government, over the long term by joining the EU, will put a stop to Putin’s ambitions to intimidate the EU. The sham Russian “peacekeepers” in Abkhazia, Gerogia; the Russian Army in Dniester, Moldova, the recent KGB cyber attack on Estonia, are a sample of how Russia intends to behave. Support for Iran’s Ahemdinnerjacket, Chavez and any other loony dictator that applies, is only natural coming from a government that has its roots in the Lyubyanka. Russia simply cannot understand Democracy—or that people should be able to decide who governs them. Long Live the Orange Revolution!

Don’t Ahoy Me Matey!

Hi,
Well it’s the end of another boating season for a year—thank goodness. My carer tried to get me to come with him, but me and water don’t mix. You can just see me cringing at the bottom right of the picture.

Its bad enough when it falls on on my nice coat from somewhere above, without warning, but to ask me to jump on a flimsy noisy motor boat is just out of the question. I told him, no amount of coaxing is going to get me aboard your boat. He sighed—and put it down to my femenine stuborness.


Not on that mate!

Who stole my NHS Dentist?

Hi,

My carer claims that the NHS Dental service was destroyed by Brown to save NHS money and force people to buy private dental treatment.

How did he do that?

By asking the dentists to sign up to an NHS Dental Contract, which he knew, they would refuse to sign. That supposedly puts the onus on the bad old Dentist—well NO!

Dentists earn around £100,000 per year—and the more you earn the more you want. Ask the dentist to sign up to a drop in income, and would YOU do it? I don’t think so. The Contract is the culprit—and so are those who devised it. Now—no one can find an NHS Dentist for love or money. We seem to be going backwards under this government, but I would venture to suggest the Tories would keep this one going if they got in. If I want dental treatment, I now have to pay privately for it or go without. Do I get a reduction in NI Contributions--certaily not!
May your teeth rot Mr Brown!

Brown; “Heir to Thatcher”

Hi,
My carer was flabbergasted by Lord Tebbit’s carefully leaked outburst to The Times.
The former Tory Chairman Lord Tebbit, in an interview with The Times to be published this weekend, praises Gordon Brown for his "principled conduct," and suggests he was the real “heir” to Margaret Thatcher.

It more or less vindicates my yesterday’s posting (see New Government—New Slogans—Old Policies).

The media are full of Lord Tebbit putting in the boot to David Cameron for rejecting Thatcher’s failed legacy. One of Tebbit’s gripes is that Cameron and his clique are too intellectual—since when was that a bad thing? Tells us where Tebbit’s coming from, doesn’t it? Thatcher was certainly NO intellectual—harping on about "Victorian Values," and such nonsense, as a way forward for our society.

The cynicism of politicians has sunk to a new low when we have Gordon Brown being hailed as the natural heir to Margaret Thatcher by Tebbit, of all people, and Tebbit went on to praise Mr Brown, saying, "I think he is a clever man and I have very considerable regard for him." One autocratic lowbrow pouring praise on another autocrat who fancies himself as “Thatcher’s heir,” having invited her in for “tea” and a consultation to 10 Downing Street. It looks to me like the parties ought to swap names and stop playing insulting games with the electorate.

New Government—New Slogans—Old Policies

Hi,
My carer hates dogma, whether leftwing, rightwing, liberal, or religious, so I got a little worried as I watched him frown at the conference news coming from Bournemouth, until he finally couldn’t contain himself and burst out:
New promises on Law and Order, on Education, Housing, the Environment, NHS, and Europe—as if this was a NEW government, rather than one that’s been in power for over TEN years. Brown has been at the heart of that government for over ten years—yet now he pretends he’s only just come to power. We, the electorate, are complete idiots—at least Brown hopes we are.

“I will stand up for British values” as Brown interprets them (reminiscences of Thatcher):— of multiculturalism, lax immigration, and stolen conservative policies—an idea plucked straight from the Clinton years.

Brown promises a crackdown on crime (having promoted an over-bureaucratized police), drugs (now more easily available than at any other time), and binge drinking (encouraged by Chancellor Brown with lax licensing laws), and a return to Brown’s version of British values. "I will stand up for British values. I will stand up for a strong Britain. And I will always stand up for you." Mr Brown also wrapped himself in the flag, referring to “Britain” or “Britishness” 80 times in his speech, as if saying “Britain” would appeal to the right. Maybe a slogan too far?

Brown is a secretive, autocratic, and full of hot-air promises politician, packaging cheap phrases into easy sound-bites. Slogan after slogan trips easily from Brown’s tongue since he relies on people having a short attention span.

Where is my NHS Dentist Mr Brown? What happened to my Pension? Why can’t ‘A’ Level students spell, and are poor at maths? Why are we short of housing, Mr Brown? Why are criminals laughing at Law and Order? Why is Britain supporting an Asian Muslim country for EU membership? As for the Environment, when is your Government, Mr Brown, going to tell the Automobile Industry where to get off?

Spin-man Gordon Brown

Hi again,
I sat and listened to my carer as he carefully explained this story to me: see what you think—although what a humble but pretty cat like me can do about this I’m sure I don’t know.
The Blair/Brown spin-doctors may have felt in 2005 that it was a brilliant sound bite for their G8 and EU Presidency, “Make Poverty History,” but when applied to Africa the corrupt African leaders simply saw it as another opportunity to filch more handouts, being thrown at them by a bunch of cynical British politicians, looking to grab attention for themselves in headlines.

However the reality is somewhat different; one quarter of the GDP of African States – or $148 billion—is lost to corruption each year. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said recently (see link) at the inauguration of the Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative, “Corruption undermines democracy and the rule of law. It leads to violations of human rights. It erodes public trust in government. It can even kill – for example, when corrupt officials allow medicines to be tampered with, or when they accept bribes that enable terrorist acts to take place.”

When the campaign to forgive African debt, promoted by NGO’s with their own agendas and well meaning but naive leftwing pressure groups, is put forward, maybe they should factor in the tragic example of former Nigerian President Sani Abacha, members of his family and accomplices who collectively stole between $3 billion and $5 billion of the country’s public assets in five years. Or the recent case of the Kenyan Parliament which voted to quash all corruption enquiries.

Cynical donors, such as Brown and Blair, have poured more than $300 billion into African coffers since 1980—and watched most of it vanish into the pockets of leaders bent on fraud, malfeasance and waste. Nevertheless, Prime Minister Gordon Brown wants to double global aid to Africa to $50 billion a year by 2010. Clearly someone more at home with spin, than with the reality of the situation. The slogan, “No MORE Handouts to Africa,” might be more appropriate.

DAB Ripoff

Hi Again,
My carer keeps on about the DAB ripoff going on out there by the electronic retailers—and I wouldn’t care, but it makes him so angry that the vibes rub off on me. He claims that any receiver is simply a matter of tuning in to the right frequency with a cheap tuner, so there should be little or NO difference in price between an analogue radio or a digital radio. So why, he rants, is there such a price disparity?

The DAB ripoff by Britain’s retailers is caused by greed and customer ignorance, since there is no difference between analogue and digital apart from the tuner being tuned from

FM = 88-108 MHz or 3.4m-2.8m to
DAB = 175-230 MHz or 1.7m-1.3m

so why does a cheap and nasty plastic Chinese DAB personal radio worth no more than £2 or £3 cost £80 in the shops instead of a max of £20—which still allows the retailers to make a very healthy profit? Is it simply because retailers think customers are suckers. Everybody is very quiet about this and I’m trying to talk him out of starting an online protest petition.

Carbon Footprint

Hi,

My friend next door suggested I start a blog, so here goes.

I want to start by talking about the perfidity of politicians. We tend to get a lot of rubbish about “carbon footprint” and “climate change” and both the government and media have targeted the individual householders, including my carer. When we had an Ozone hole problem the governments didn’t target the householders, the governments got together in Canada and told the CFC industry to stop producing Fridges by 5 years and aerosols by two years. In the same analogy the governments should now get together and tell the Automobile Industry to switch to hybrids within the next ten years and hydrogen thereafter. That will cure the pollution problem completely. Problem solved—well NO! As we saw with Kyoto, the governments refuse to get tough with the Power generators, the Automobile industry, and the Oil companies. Being soft on the Automobile Industry as a direct result of their heavy-handed lobbying. So instead they pick on the poor householder and my carer, who really has no influence—but if the government, egging on the media, shout at the householder about “carbon footprint” it SEEMS as if they’re doing something. I say, pick on someone your own size, like the Automobile Industry.