Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Inorganic rubbish & Arthur Daly

There is much global warming this morning and most of it has already been done to death - no real news here until the great con is finally exposed. But there are a few interesting riders. The UK's C4 documentary 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' has disappointingly been caught telling porkies. They don't need to do this as their arguments are strong enough without gilding the lily. The adverse publicity this highly meritorious film is now getting we could have done without. However those who bark at the moon are I suspect clutching at straws. To prove they (the barkers) are totally nuts there are two other little climate change insanities in the Herald today. In Sideswipe (which may give some idea as to the level of seriousness this intelligence merits) some bloke suggest that having more than two children is environmentally untenable as the third child will produce more CO2 than all the aeroplane trips you could squeeze into a lifetime or some such crap. And speaking of airlines there is a complete wally who founded a backpackers travel guide (and has thus made his pile out of travel) saying that he has now seen the light and there is no such thing as an 'ethical holiday'. This is because flying to Benidorm (this pratt is a Brit) or even worse flying to go for a trek in Nepal (using one of his guides so you don't get lost) is such a threat to life as we know it that all holidays should cease forthwith. Why do we waste food on people like this?
Inorganic rubbish seems to be having its moment in the sun (pun intended). I can think of many things local councils should be spending their time on but this quaint Kiwi tradition is not one of them. Totally harmless. Makes the suburbs look a bit scruff for a week or so but who cares? If the council takes away last season's Bar B Q or it is removed by a rag and bone man from out of suburb is of no importance to me as long it is gone. The R & B merchants are, in my experience, a class act. Last year I wanted to be rid of aforementioned ten year old Bar B Q and a couple of rusting speaker stands. I took the speaker stands out, went round the back of the house for the Bar B Q so I could add it to my neatly arranged kerbside offering to find that the speaker stands had already gone. They were presumably in the back of the bongo van which was disappearing up the road in a cloud of dust. If the North Shore Council can approach that sort of efficiency in anything they do with my rates money I might look a little less malveolently on my next rates rise.
The Herald quite correctly points out that Mark Burton is Parliament's champion of bureaucrat-speak. His performances in both the house and on the Larry WIlliams radio show yesterday over the Government's pussy footing around over the Gangs were a wonder to behold. He makes Sir Humphrey Appleby look positively lucid when talking about anything. Everything is being given 'careful consideration', all problems are 'thoroughly discussed with all stakeholders' and so it goes on. The best yesterday was when asked what the government was doing about shutting down the gangs (real answer - nothing) Burton tells us that this administration has strengthened (whatever that means) the Second Hand Goods and Pawnbrokers Act. Give me a break. That's like trying to shut down the Kray Twins by keeping an eye on Arthur Daly.

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