Here is the latest CNC tender which is now online.
Paper Targets for the Civil Nuclear Constabulary.
‘ Paper targets which comply with either the ACPO recommended type for re-qualification shooting or which comply with the CNC requirement for tactical shooting practices.’
This contract is worth £10000 – £ 15000.
I wonder which companies will be interested in supplying all this paper?
The Civil Nuclear Police Authority Annual Report & Accounts 2011-12 is now online.
Of particular interest are the following: –
– Page 14 – Firearms training.
– Page 18 – Which refers to its relationship with the Special Branch.
– Page 19 – Which shows the CNC exposure to radiation .
– Page 23 – Which refers to Hinkley.
and
– Pages 25 – 26 on climate change & greenhouse gases.
What is very noticeable throughout the report are lots of photographs of the CNC carrying some very heavy-duty weapons.
Very Scary !
So here we go: –
Cuts in education.
Cuts in the number of hospital staff.
Cuts in library expenditure and opening hours.
Cuts in spending upon Museam and art galleries.
Cuts in social spending.
Cuts in the support for public transport.
Cuts in the support for energy conservation.
Cuts in help for the elderly.
Yet millions & millions are being spent on the 2012 olymics.
My prediction for next year
2013 : –
More cuts in education.
More Cuts in the number of hospital staff.
More Cuts in library expenditure and opening hours.
More Cuts in spending upon Museam and art galleries.
More Cuts in social spending.
More Cuts in the support for public transport.
More Cuts in the support for energy conservation.
More Cuts in help for the elderly.
While we will still be paying for the 2012 olymics.
While tax payers money is still being spent on Nukiller weapons.
A couple of years ago I put together a few notes for an article
about people who have to go and live underground,
or just go missing.
The idea of this article was to examine just how people might live
this way within an increasingly networked society.
In my notes I referred to Bob Robinson as B,
although I now know that his real name is Bob Lambert.
I never got much further than penning these few notes.
It is highly unlikely that I will ever complete this piece,
but you might find these notes of some interest.
– – – – – – – – – – – – — — – — – — – — —
The Networked Society.
What ever happened to B?
We can all tell stories about people we spent some time with in ones younger years, but with whom we have lost contact.
B was someone that I knew as a political activist over a
quarter of a century ago. Over time I moved on and lost
contact with him.
There are a lot of people who do not like wind turbines to be
placed in the countryside.
The real problem is not where they are constructed,
but how to generate electrical power just where it is needed the
most: –
i.e. In our cities or urban centres.
I was in centre of Bristol last week, and came upon the site of a
vertical wind turbine which is installed on top of a roof.
It looked very elegant indeed.
There are a lot of very good technical reasons why this type of
vertical turbine in ideal for use within urban areas.
The are many different models to choice from.
Some of them are also being used in offshore wind farms.
There are also a lot of very imaginative designs for windturbines
which have been and are being developed right now.
I look forward to the day in which they become just as common a
sight as the urban fox.
There are some things which just annoy me,
those which worry me,
and others which really alarm me.
Fire extinguishers being used to prop doors open,
a failure to appreciate the importance of regular fire equipment
tests,
missed fire drills,
&
the failure to hold regular health and safety surveys combine all
of the above for me.
It is not because I’m worried about all the fire or Health and
Safety regulations as such.
It is not because I’m worried about complying with the legal
requirements to do so.
My concerns are far more fundemental than that.
It is because failing to deal with these things can result in either
someone being either killed or seriously injured.
Failures in the past.
It was a failure to deal with the dangers of fire in the past which
resulted in the kind of fire regulations which we now have in place.
For example: –
The Triange fire.
The Kings Cross fire.
The Tooley Street fire.
&
That at the Alhambra Theatre which resulted in the creation of theatre fire curtains.
It was also as a result of trade union action to save peoples lives
that these health and safety regulations came in to place in the first place.
This is an ongoing campaign.
Setting the standards.
We should not be forever going on about it’s a nuisance,
or costs too much money and time to do.
We should not just be complying with the various fire,
or Health & Safety standards.
We should setting our own much higher standards.
This goes hand in hand with campaigning to improve what are in
the building regulions.
As radicals we should be working to create living spaces which
go way beyond the regulations,
and show just how this can be done.
Meanwhile in Cumbria.
Which brings me on to the very latest job vacancy for the
Civil Nuclear Constabulary.
It’s for a Health and Safety Officer based at Windscale/
Sellafield.
The best line in this ad being:
‘ We help keep the nation safe. You keep our people safe.’
Now how’s that for an interesting way of thinking?
Yesterday I took part in a protest outside of the Samsung shop on Tottenham Court Road.
Here is why.
The Korean Government are destroying Kangjung Kurumbi in order to construct a new naval base.
It is on the Jeju Island.
Samsung are the main construction company which is building the new Jeju navel base.
Samsung are a major arms company.
There is an International Campaign for the Health and Labour Rights of Samsung Electronics Workers
Join the Global Campaign to Save Jeju Island.
And More ….
Samsung are also one of this years Olympic sponsors,
which is another reason why we should all boycott the event.
One of the most telling aspects about the British Monarchy is just
which companies have made Royal Warrant Holders.
Many of these companies are boycotted as a result of their activities.
Here is a list of just a few of them: –
–Boots.
– Coca Cola.
– Samsung
– Shell.
&
They also purchase ‘sporting firearms’ from Holland & Holland,
which is another company that should be closed down.
It’s time for the royals to rethink their shopping list!
Energy Issues.
I keep reading about the high prices which the energy companies
charge to their customers within Britain.
This is related to the problem of Fuel Poverty.
At the same time there is a major debate about energy subsidies.
This goes hand in glove with the idea of giving tax breaks to
‘green energy’ and carbon capture projects.
The problem about this is that the nukiller industry getting in to
the act, and erroneously claiming that these power plants help to
halt climate change.
This is the kind of argument which George Monbiot has fallen for:
– despite the fact that the mining and transport of uranium contributes to climate change.
Yet take away all of these subsidies,
and what do you get?
The use of solar and windpower as the cheapest form of energy production.
Some Real Alternative To Energy Production.
Of course the real challenge is to cut down upon the use or
energy,
or better use just what energy we do produce.
This should be done in conjunction with a major push to introduce
better energy conservation measures throughout the UK and the world.
Rather than give tax breaks to the energy companies,
it would be much better to put the money in to energy saving
measures.
Just cutting VAT ( Value Added Tax ) on double glazing,
or sales tax as it known in the rest of the world,
might be a good starting point.
At present the Energy-saving materials in the UK are VAT rated as 5%.
All energy conservation products should become zero VAT rated !
At the same time a lot of the present problem of fuel poverty,
and pensioners being killed as a result of hypothermia,
could be alleviated by increasing the Winter Fuel Payment from
the present derisory level of just £200 a year.
Such measures would be cheaper for us all in both the long and
short term too.
In the long term all these measures might help to cut down our
taxes and other expenditures,
and increases the amount which is paid out in pensions.
Thus in turn it would alleviate the whole set of problems which come with fuel poverty.
When I was a child in the 1950s and 1960s people would talk about purchasing items on the ‘ Never Never’.
i.e. By hire purchase.
This expression goes with the
‘Use Now and Pay Later’
way of thinking.
It also goes hand in hand with a way of thinking which includes
that of paying by credit card,
‘pay day loans’,
increasing personal loans
building up national debts,
and in turn the kind of global financial mess we are all so familiar
with right now.
The same principle also seems to apply when it comes to just how
we all will have to continue to pay to look after nukiller waste for
many centuries after these plants have been closed.
The Daily Mail has just published the following news story which
illustrates this point:-
The most toxic pond in Europe: Sellafield will cost £10bn to make safe.
In the same news story they point out that once the nuclear fuel is
removed from the newly decommissioned nukiller power plant at
Oldbury, that these used fuel rods will be stored untouched upon site until at least 2096.
That is some 84 years in to the future.
If nukiller power is the ultimate example of ‘built in obsolescence’,
then we really are going to take a long time to pay for it on the
Never Never.