Longrider

26
Jan
2009

Oh, Please…

Filed under: General News,General Rants,misanthropy,Science and Technology — Longrider @ 12:39

Doncha just lurve a misleading headline? How about this, then:

Hospitals will take meat off menus in bid to cut carbon

It was almost enough to induce an apoplectic rage. Ah, but, read on…

The plan to offer patients menus that would have no meat option is part of a strategy to be published tomorrow that will cover proposals ranging from more phone-in GP surgeries to closing outpatient departments and instead asking surgeons to visit people at their local doctor’s surgery.

* my emphasis

So, they are not – as the headline would have us believe – taking meat off the menus at all. While I would not choose many of the vegetarian options (being firmly omnivorous) what is being proposed is an option – even if the reasoning (carbon bloody footprints again) is specious.

Still, undeterred, Graham Harvey in CiF indulges in some goes into battle based on the headline:

The proposal of National Health Service chiefs to take meat off hospital menus in a bid to cut carbon emissions shows an alarming ignorance of both nutrition and the causes of climate change.

What really pisses me off, is that if his original statement was accurate, I’d be agreeing wholeheartedly with him. There is plenty here to rail against; the spurious “global warming” justification and the attempt to indulge in a bit of social engineering with a captive audience, for example. As it is, he’s made himself look a right tit and holed his argument below the plimsoll line.

 

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Copyright©2009 Longrider

26
Jan
2009

Oh, Dear, That Was Me, That Was…

Filed under: Civil Liberties,General News,Political — Longrider @ 12:38

Ross Clark in Today’s Times:

I was one of those who cheered on Tony Blair when he embarked on his mission to rid the House of Lords of hereditary peers. I began to feel mutinous when, in a fit of pique, the peers threatened to block all legislation then passing through the Upper House. How dare these old buffoons, who are only in Parliament because some distant ancestor slept with Edward II, try to throw their weight around in a democracy, I thought. I felt like raising a mob to pull them from their country piles and toss them into their lakes.

Yup. Me too, me too.

I now realise, though, that they were staunch upholders of civility and decency compared with the mercenary toadies that have replaced them. Somehow I can’t imagine the late Duke of Devonshire trying to squeeze £120,000 out of a lobbyist to help to gain an exception on business rates – not even if the roof at Chatsworth had fallen in and he had worn through the leather patches on his elbows.

I’d come to this conclusion somewhat earlier. As more and more illiberal legislation is pushed through the commons on little more than a nod, it is the peers who stand up for our liberties, who stand as a frail line between us and the beast. This latest fiasco is merely another confirmation that I was wrong.

The Englishman sums it up nicely:

The advantage of hereditary peers was that they didn’t have to seek short term approval or reward. They could afford to take a long term view informed by a sense of history, and by their position of influence being inheritable they were incented to ensure stability continued so they could pass it on to their heirs. No other system is as good, though the old Greek habit of choosing some legislators by lot comes close. What we don’t want is a House of Commons 2.0

Indeed – on all counts. I was wrong. I realise this now. I will have to live with the fact that I once supported the beast as it devoured everything that I hold dear.

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