Monday, March 19, 2007

Another Idea Gets Approved

Just got this:

Congratulations: the idea 'Carbon Legacy: inheritance tax substitute' has been approved and added to the ideas bank.

You can view (and vote on) this idea below:

Why not promote this idea by by sending it to your friends? You can do this by following this link

Well, somebody liked it!

There, but for the grace of God...

Poor man's floating home turns Rio recycling model

I have the trash.

And the River Wye looks set to oblige.

DO what?!!!!!

Council tax valuers recruit a spy in sky 'snooping on households'

If it's true, of course.

Yummy... mummy!

Re-cycle of Life

Sorry. Don't feel sorry for Dave the Wave.. er.. Save at all. So as ye preach, so shall ye have your nethers rummaged, n' all. Comes with the territory.

I have to say I was more surprised the Turquoise (that's blue/green right?) hype & spinmeisters had missed this one as a possibility, being that it has been done before, to great effect, to such as Mr. Bradshaw, etc. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Regrading you experiment, if your council does not collect then anything is better than nothing, and shame on them for not helping your area's residents to do so.

I have to wonder how good it is as an enviROI to not have a council truck collect and crush tonnages of material from each person in the street, and instead deliver it by Personal Fedex to a high volume, low weight skip.

Me, I keep a lot of it and make stuff (have done for years) . That doesn't cost money. It saves it. And can even make it.

At least we still have the vote. For now.

Council salaries revealed under the FoI act

One presumes this information freel... er... grudgingly shared also extends to the numbers of officers there are in total, their functions, salaries and pension consequences.

Where it might fall down is actually finding out what gets done for the money, to assess the ROI per person for this investment by the local taxpayers. But it's better than nothing (the information, I mean).

But such data is only worth having if it can be used.

And with luck the local taxpayers of Hackney will make very good use of it.

It must be true. I read it in the paper.

High hopes

'...the agreement's dirty little secret: it will do next to no good, and again at very high cost'

Oo-er. Careful with that. I rather suspect this will be the next flames begin!

I recently decided to have no more to do with the arguments over climate change, and concentrate instead on doing what I can personally and to encourage others - via objective information, entertainment and reward - to simply cut back on unnecessary waste and reduce consumption wherever reasonably possible.

Addendum to a reply:

'With
so little making sense in this arena, at least even I could grasp your explanation.

It may even help assess what's being said by the various merry crews a tad better for validity.

As a mere graduate in Civil Engineering (BSc, but only on the strict promise I would not try and build anything, so I went into advertising. At least I can still figure out dodgy numbers), but with a Brigadier Generality in BS, hype & spin (field commissions), I know what I know, and I know what I don't know.

And I also know when others are in the same boat. It's a shame they can't admit it.

We'd get more DONE that way:)





Guardian - The water of discontent




Nice vest. Is it Semtex?

Recycling taxes - what a load of rubbish

When you fail to tackle advancing issues in good time and good order, the number of 'targets' can end up on your doorstep very quickly.

At this point the solution seems to be to move from rifle to shotgun to dropping a hand grenade at your feet, and hoping that it doesn't wipe out more who are 'innocent' in the hope of being seen to deal with the 'guilty'.

Nice vest. Is it Semtex?

Pathetic.

Suffer little children. It's good business.

I just saw an ad man and a charity lady discuss a kid's ad that has been pulled for 'being distressing'. And justified as necessary to secure money, most of which goes on the next campaign.

I was sickened. But not by the ad.

Here's what I wrote.

These 'tactics' can lead in only one direction. Loads of awards for the ad agencies. Bubbly corks popping in the media agencies. Nice salaries for the expanding charity marketing departments. And how much going to what that tangibly helps kids... exactly?

I would wish this question had been answered, despite being posed more than once.

The rich are different to you and I. They can better afford to cope with (knee) jerks.

I suspect that I will be adding links from elsewhere to these, not to mention a whole raft of emotive comment, Just what the media loves.

Pressure group urges higher air taxes to penalise 'rich' flyers

Brown tackles 'Chelsea tractors' in final Budget

As with road pricing I simply fear potentially necessary measures to manage personal travel emissions will get snarled up by woeful knee jerk legalisation that has little to do with the environment and more to do with hype. Not all who fly or use 4x4s are rich or doing so simply for fun.

Let's see how the BBC mangle that one.

ps: The banner ads at time of writing were... ironic. One for short haul flights. And the other for a dirty great Beemer.

BBC - Budget 'to hit gas guzzlers hard'
Guardian - Budget to give tax breaks for green homes

Sir,

As a strong advocate of incentive based measures, this is, on the surface, hard to fault. I just worry about the practice. And how fair it can be made without more legions of civil servants draining the public purse simply to assess measure, approve and/or fine.

Not all are in a position to whack up a wind turbine to order. At least the payback is being claimed as on energy created and sent back tot he grid.

What I am not keen on is greenwashing measures, that may be acceptable if it leaves the financial ROI to the wallet and conscience of the consumer, but not if the ultimate enviROI is actually worse for not being done at all. That would not be helping my kids' futures.

The question then arises whose shorter term interests are being served.