Friday 24 February 2012

Poor Mr Tappin

Yes this is him Mr Christopher Tappin (65) a retired businessman who has been accused of selling batteries to the Iranians for their Hawk missile system....

He faces the possibility of 35 years in a US jail for this offence...

Now correct me if I'm wrong but surely if somebody is extradited for an offence doesn't the country wanting the extradition have to provide proof that a crime has been committed ? Apparently not ... not since Tony Blair and his American bum lickers at the time decided to  ride roughshod over fundamental British legal principles and create the UK extradition treaty with America.... So now if Homeland security thinks a British national has misbehaved and they want him or her extradited they just have to ask and the UK will hand them over without requiring any proof whatsoever that they have done something wrong....

Americans however cannot be extradited to the UK we have to give proof to the Americans that we have a valid reason to extradite an American national.... does that seem just a little bit one sided ? or is it just me who thinks that ?

What makes this whole matter worse is that Mr Tappin was entrapped by a customs sting operation which had it not been setup in the first place then no crime (in their eyes) would have been committed..... it's almost like sitting at the traffic lights and some spotty kid in a Renault Clio starts revving his engine next to your nice big BMW, do you bite or just let the idiot thrash his engine ? some people bite like Mr Tappin, probably on the promise of  lots of money/profit. He claims he thought they were being shipped for car production in the Netherlands ..... I tend to believe him.... 

However the McCarthy-like paranoia of the USA seems to have at the moment when either you're a Muslim/Arab or might having sported a beard at some time or flown over Muslim countries maybe once.... therefore a bona fide threat to national security and you need to be locked up or executed..... In fact I have no doubt that this blog entry will be filed away in some vast data repository because it rips the piss out of the Americans and my name will be added to the long list of potential Energizer bunny buyers/sellers.

How utterly ridiculous, if Terrorists wanted one thing they wanted to disrupt normal life and they have succeeded because they have got what used to be the biggest superpower walking on a tightrope grasping at straws and entrapping a 65 year old Golf Club President for a deal that never existed and was never going to be honoured by the fronted company setup by the FBI in Texas.... the whole thing stinks to hell and back....

Of course the US government has a pristine record for not selling arms to undesirables (NOT)..... just look back in history..... an old proverb springs to mind 


"Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." 


Much as I hate to use scripture in my blog posts being a fully paid up member of the rabid atheist club..... However this one in particular hits the nail on the head......

I hope Mr Tappin runs rings around the US legal system and here's to wishing him back in the UK as soon as possible so that he can enjoy his family and retirement.....

Bloody idiotic yanks 

(granted some are ok.... probably the ones who actually read this......) 


Anyway that's me barred from entering the USA ever ....


Thursday 9 February 2012

The corporate bonus culture

It's quite sickening isn't it how in 1978 the chief executive of British Aerospace was paid £29,000 a year. Yet In 2010, the chief executive of BAE Systems, Ian King, was paid over £2.3m, a rise of 8,000%...... in real terms his salary should be £120,000 to be in line with 1978's reckoning on what he was/is worth.....

The problem is that the remuneration committees made up of some non executive directors etc decide their Chief Executive Officers pay..... and he in turn sits on a committee to decide their pay...In effect they decide on each others' pay. and they probably all go around to the golf club afterwards and have a damn good laugh about it.... meanwhile the axe falls on 3000 jobs at BAE Systems at the tax payers cost. While Mr King watches his interest mount up...... Greed is never an attractive thing to witness, and no amount of "but he's/she has done this or that or whatever" quite makes it right to be paid in most cases 400 times more than a normal employee.....

Look at Thomas Cook their share price tumbled to just 50p over a 4 year period and had to borrow £200 million to keep trading.... did their outgoing CEO get a boot up the arse and did he bang his head on the way out of the door ?  NO !!! he got £1 million ....

It's utterly disgusting that idiots are being rewarded for doing a job that another person could do equally well for less pay AND still be comfortably off.... CEO's aren't "special" people, they aren't any different to any other person on the planet....They aren't uber intelligent, or gifted (although some like to think they are..... and I've met a few)  they were just connected at the right time to the right people, or were in a particular school or club.... It's all about back scratching and it reminds me of pigs in a pen rubbing up against a post and each other..... except our pigs are running our economy and corporate businesses and they are getting fatter and more gluttonous as the months roll by whilst everybody else sees their hard earned cash evaporating......it's reminiscent of a feeding frenzy..... filling up their pot bellies with more and more cash....

Some CEO's are worth every penny and deserve to earn what they earn, but I personally would be uncomfortable taking that kind of salary no matter how good I was at my job...... The whole system stinks and I've got to be honest I hope it all collapses around their ears and with that I'll throw in the bankers and financiers..... The Hesters and Goodwins of this world who are deeply and unattractively  greedy.... and that goes for anyone who takes a massive bung for just doing their job.......

Wednesday 1 February 2012

MOT time is upon us again

For those of you who don't know what an MOT is here in the UK it's basically a mechanical/electrical/emissions test which happens once a year for your car/van/lorry/tank if it's three years old or more.... the idea behind it is simple .... to keep death traps off the road....unfortunately it doesn't keep idiots off the road .... but that's another matter.....

Well after last year's MOT failure on emissions I finally got around to replacing our catalytic converter ... we are no long melting ice cubes in the Arctic regions and polar bears and penguins can breathe a sigh of relief .....

The beamer only failed on one headlight bulb which was replaced in situ and a new type MOT certificate was freshly printed..... another sigh of relief.

We are currently going through a rather cold snap in the weather here in the UK, for those of you who are in the UK BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR 

for those of you who are elsewhere (such as the Cayman Islands ....... you lucky cow) you miss this weather ..... go on admit it.....

On the family front Freya has a rather nasty ear infection for which she is taking antibiotics .... apparently her eardrum is perforated but she seems cheerful enough (when not tired).... the Sullen one (Lauren) is still at college and seems to be enjoying life (mostly), Xbox Boy is currently counting the days until he joins the Army on the 11th March... And FOMO boy (Andrew) is missing out on broadband today because his step dad can't be arsed to turn it back on for him (short story involving coal and the lack of getting and announcing he can't be arsed) ...... normal service will be resumed tomorrow once lesson has been learned :) 

I'm seriously considering stopping updating this blog mainly because I'm getting rather jaded with soap-boxing because nothing ever changes in the world.... the jury is out on that decision at the moment ..........I will return at some point in the future and update you on this subject.....

I'm getting between 5 or 6 thousand hits a month so somebody is reading my blatherings ..... but I'm simply losing interest in it.... I initially started it so that my two daughters could find out what was going on in my life...... but a one way street wasn't my intention ............

There you go.....


(I can't even be bothered to put a picture with this post)