Duty my arse

January 25th, 2012

What kind of fucking eejit wants to give away money needlessly?

Apparently the Irish do.

Today our gubmint is parting with €1.25bn to gamblers without any compulsion to do so.  Yup – €1,250,000,000 that might as well be going up in smoke.

But it’s not just the gubmint.

The fucking people of Ireland are at it too.

I have lost count of the number of times I have heard people being interviewed and saying that they know the property tax is “necessary” or “fair” or even “right”.  They say they “accept that Ireland is in a mess” and then go on to say they are keen to “do their bit”.  Un-fucking-believable.

I have been paying taxes all my life.  Every time I enter a shop, I pay VAT.  Every cent I earned was taxed.  They are even taxing my pension.  I have moved house a couple of times and paid massive Stamp Duty each time.  I inherited a few bob and was taxed heavily on that.  Every time I fill the car with petrol I pay Excise Duty and VAT.  Every pint I drink is a huge donation to the Excise Man.  Every ounce of baccy I buy is mostly tax.  Every fucking move I make is taxed.

Only yesterday I filled the oil tank [the neighbours found my syphon again].  It cost me over €700, and a hundred of that went straight into the gubmint’s coffers.  €100 for what?  What did they do to deserve that much?  It was a private transaction between myself and the oil company but they still have to sneak in and grab a large chunk of it.

it is NOT my “duty” to pay extra taxes.  It is NOT my “duty” to bail Ireland out of a mess I didn’t create.

It IS the gubmint’s duty to stop throwing my fucking cash away like fucking confetti.  They needn’t throw away that €1.25 billion for a start.  There is no reason to pay it.  Someone gambled and lost.  Tough fucking shit.  But why do we still have to pay?  Because the fucking EU says we must.  And why do they say that?  Because it’s their fucking banks who are the gamblers.

Apart from that, they still throw money around like there is no tomorrow.

I really am pissed of with this country.

And I am also getting pissed off with the people in it.

Sheer spite

January 24th, 2012

It’s an interesting concept.

An organisation whose primary aim is supposed to be the health and welfare of the nation is forcing smokers not just to leave hospital buildings but is now forcing them out onto the road.

There is no logic behind this move, as even those who believe in the myth of Environmental Tobacco Smoke will have to admit that smoke outdoors poses no health risk whatsoever?  Those same people will have to admit that standing by the side of a road in one’s pyjamas on a cold winter’s day is not exactly the healthiest of actions?  Even some of the more enlightened members of the medical profession can see that.

I am no expert on the individual hospitals around the country, but amongst the hospitals I am familiar with, leaving the hospital grounds will bring you out to a very busy main road, or else there is one hell of a long walk to get to the perimeter of the grounds.  Forcing either option is nothing short of dangerous and spiteful.

Of course, reading the first article above we find some telling pointers.

“The HSE’s director of public health policy, Dr Fenton Howell, who is a former chairman of Ash, the anti-smoking lobby group, …….”

So here we have The Righteous in plain view again.  This is not about health – it is about a single minded obsession with beating down and humiliating smokers at every opportunity.

“He added: ‘We need to recognise that there is almost a sense that cigarettes are not as dangerous as they are. Five and a half thousand people die from tobacco every year, and there are thousands admitted to hospital beds because of their addiction.’”

At least he is beginning to get the message.  Cigarettes are not the equivalent of a loaded gun.  What he is really saying here is that people are starting to think that cigarettes are not as dangerous as ASH claim they are.  And then he plays ASH’s favourite game of plucking figures out of the air. There is nothing like a spot of emotive figure-juggling!

“We can’t manage patients by letting them continue the thing that brought them into hospital in the first place.”

OK.  Apply that to the few cases where you genuinely think that smoking may have contributed to the problem, but then you also have to force all victims of sports injuries to renounce sport for life.  All road accident injuries must have their driving licence immediately revoked, or they must be banned from the pavements.  Patent rubbish.

Probably the most telling statement in the article is near the top -

“The introduction of the smoking ban is being staggered so professionals within the hospital can get sufficient training in smoking cessation therapies such as nicotine patches and gum.”

There couldn’t possibly be a connection between between the fact that the anti-smoking lobby are so heavily funded by Pharma, and the promotion of Pharma products that have been proven to be useless?

Could there?

Finding Cavan

January 23rd, 2012

People do use the strangest queries to arrive on this site.

I had one a few minutes ago – “where is Cavan”.

There are two things that are strange about this query.  The first is why they ended up here.  Presumably in a moment of pure insanity I must have written about the place but I can’t think why.

The other strange thing is that anyone would want to know where Cavan is in the first place.

One of the few lessons I remember from my schooldays is that Cavan in on the Drumlin Belt.  For those of you who don’t know what the Drumlin Belt is, it’s a glacial thing where the landscape is covered in little hills.  Because there are so many of these hills, water can’t flow out of the place to you end up with hundreds of little lakes.  As a result, Cavan is somewhat waterlogged and bumpy.

Finding Cavan is a reasonably simple exercise.  All you have to do is to start in Dublin and drive North.  Don’t drive too far because you’ll end up on the Giant’s Causeway.  Though on second thoughts, the Giants Causeway is an interesting spot so you are probably better off forgetting Cavan and heading there instead.

If you are so determined to find Cavan though, you stop driving north when you reach the border with Norn Iron.  Now it can be tricky finding the actual border, but a fairly simple rule is that the speed signs suddenly change from metric into real money.  Leastwise, at that point change direction and head due west.

You’ll know when you reach Cavan.  It’s all hills and lakes and very few people live there.

And it wouldn’t surprise me if the few locals that do exist have webbed feet.

Get them while they are young

January 22nd, 2012

Someone pointed me in the direction of a video during the week.

It’s interesting because it gives us a glimpse at how that shower in Brussels see themselves.

In their heart of hearts, they know they are widely despised.  They know that there are millions out there who would be only too happy to see them swinging from lampposts.  In fact they know the only way they can get the respect that they think they deserve is by brainwashing the children before those children are corrupted by the real world.

Shades of North Korea?

My password isn’t password

January 21st, 2012

Dear Hackers,

A lot of you seem to be very keen to log into this site so you can write your own stuff.

Some of you try several times until you get locked out.  You wait until the lockout expires and then you try several more times.  Some of you have tried so many times that I think you may have an obsessional complex.  Yes.  I keep track of these things.

I could make life a little easier for you by telling you that I don’t log into this site using “admin” or “Grandad”, as I have deleted those accounts but why should I make life easier for you?

I could tell you that my password isn’t “password”, “Gandalf”, “Sandy” or “admin” but again, you’re on your own.

What I can tell you is that my password is a bitch to remember.  In fact I keep forgetting it, and if it wasn’t written on a certain part of my anatomy, nothing would ever get done here.

So if you are really that desperate to write stuff on the Interweb, I would suggest that you start your own site and fuck off out of mine.

Yours etc,

Grandad

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