Food and the Health Police

So the government and it's advisors are telling us we're fat bastards and need to eat the products they suggest to survive.

Always took the view that if you worry about something it will probably kill you (An early idea formed after my nan who constantly talked and worried about cancer, became the only person in my very large family to ever have it and die from it?).
Virtually everyone I know who follow a "healthy" diet seem miserable and more prone to illness than those who just eat what they like.
My sister watches everything she eats and is a cleanliness fanatic, but is constantly sick with colds, flu, coughs etc and is currently suffering from depression.

I'm overweight due to a love of toast, pizzas and potatoes and a lack of excercise.
I rarely eat meat (because I'm not keen on it) not sure if kebab meat counts, I hate fruit and haven't eaten any in years (except tomato soup) and the only veg I eat is potatoes (apart from the salad that comes with kebabs), I don't like sugar and I rarely drink alcohol.
I smoke because I like smoking (but that's another argument).
These are all personal choices so it doesn't worry me that I'm missing them.

Stressing about how many calories you can eat surely reduces your life expectancy more than if you just ate the food you are told to avoid?
I might drop dead tomorrow but it's not something I'll lose sleep over, but the lack of worrying about it in my opinion is why I almost never seem to be ill (once a year usually around Christmas I get the flu).

Wind Turbines

A modern misconception doing the rounds is that wind power is the answer to all our future needs, and that it will save the environment.
While it is a possibility that in the future fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil) will eventually run out and we'll have to look elsewhere for our energy, the current "build a wind farm in the country" policy that is being touted is flawed in so many ways.
Basic facts are that a large wind turbine can generate between 1 and 3 mw/h (megawatts per hour = 1,000,000 watts per hour) at full capacity, that is providing the wind is blowing at 28mph or above (current limit is usually 28mph, if it blows stronger you don't get more electricity generated, the turbines are limited as if the blades turned faster than this it could shake the whole structure to destruction).
If the wind is light (as it is in most inland areas) they would only generate a fraction of that amount.
Electricity prices work on supply and demand process, in Summer less electricity is used and prices can fall to around £20 per mw/h, it can rise to around a £1000 per mw/h in strong demand winter period where everyone is using heating and lights etc usually on cold winter mornings.
So assuming a strong wind is blowing the wind turbine could make between £20 and £3,000 per hour, not bad until you realise that the 80 tonne turbine on top of that huge column probably costs well in excess of two million pounds to install, and it's life expectancy without a major refit is around 20 years.
Also you must remember that a very large proportion of Britain will only see those wind speeds for a couple of days every year, the offshore farms might have a break even chance.
I used to work at a gas fired power station producing in excess of 1,000mw/h (or 333 to 1,000 wind turbines depending on size), a commonly touted reason for wind power is the amount of pollutants released by these fossil fueled stations, when in reality the "greenhouse gases" produced in a day by these modern stations are less than one airliner crossing the Atlantic.
So cut down on air travel (but that's a different argument, and not very popular with the globetrotting politicians).
Back to the wind turbines, how much environmental damage is done in producing them? only a fraction are made in the UK and most are imported from Scandinavia and the far east.
As I said the ones I know about weigh in excess of 80 tonnes, that's a lot of steel
production and global transportation contributing to world pollution.
I was told when 2 were put up near the place I worked, the only reason they were there was because of huge incentives offered to local companies and councils to take them, basically government grants paid a high proportion of the cost and installation, and preferential tax rates were available to companies and authorities who were seen to be "going green".
I imagine farmers and landowners will be offered similar deals in the future if the
government goes ahead with it's proposed plans, as I'm sure anyone that's looked into the financial side of building a wind farm would see it's a non starter without outside help.

In case anyone thinks I'm one of these nimby's (not in my back yard) I should say I'd have nothing against it (as long as it blocked the view of my nosey neighbour, and kept some of the police helicopters away :).
Having worked in close proximity to one for years, the argument about noise is false and I quite like the look of them, but as pointed out earlier it really is pointless putting them up in the majority of Britain.

I can't help thinking there is a wind turbine shareholder or two in the government?

Country Life

So I grew up in a little country village with nice genuine people (and a few nutty farmers), then one by one we all moved away after Thatcher's right to buy on council houses saw nearly everyone sell up and make a quick profit after getting a 50% discount.

Snobby townies saw the opportunity and moved in, soon the bus services were removed and the village shops closed down as the newbies all had poncy Range Rovers and wouldn't be seen dead mixing with the local scum, our village pub suddenly didn't have a dart board, and instead of a pie and a pint all you could get was a cordon bleu meal and wine if you could afford it.

The elderly were left stranded needing to travel miles to get basic supplies, so eventually they all went as well, leaving the village as an upmarket desirable location for anyone willing to spend upwards of a quarter of a million quid buying an ex-council house worth ten grand twenty years ago.

Sit in a field watching the world go by and I guarantee some busy body or the police will come and ask you what you're up to.

Freedom of Speech

A few random quotes explaining "Freedom of Speech", something that the facists running the tory rags and those people you find on any virtually any internet forum you visit, like to forget when accusing anyone with a view alternative to their's and not conforming to their hidden agenda of not being PC.

1) "If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech for views you don't like. Goebbels was in favour of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're in favour of freedom of speech, that means you're in favour of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise."

2) "If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."

3) "Freedom of speech is being able to speak freely without censorship. The right to freedom of speech is guaranteed under international law through numerous human-rights instruments, notably under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, although implementation remains lacking in many countries. The synonymous term freedom of expression is sometimes preferred, since the right is not confined to verbal speech but is understood to protect any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used."

4) Some commentators have argued that the term "political correctness" is a straw man (A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position) invented by conservatives in the 1990s in order to challenge progressive social change.
The term was later adopted by the radical left in the 1960s, initially seriously and later ironically, as a self-criticism of dogmatic (the term dogmatic, used to describe a person of rigid beliefs who is not open to rational argument) attitudes.

Political Correctness

I can't help feeling everytime someone shouts "political correctness" it's usually a cover for their own inbred racism, much as the people who come across as Homophobes usually turn out to be gay.
My father-in-law although on the outside a pleasant guy, is a racist - when I first met my wife she told him she was going out with a guy called Lee, his reply to her was "he's not black is he" assuming it was short for Leroy?
Luckily he lives in the tory heartland down south and I don't have to meet him often.
He is someone who brings up political correctness a lot.

Collected Rants

Sad to say I rarely have time to sit down and compose well thought out posts to publish here, so I thought I'd just post a few collected rants I post on forums and blogs (so apologies for stuff that doesn't make any sense) :)