Snails pace delivery of broadband planned by Tories

Shadow chancellor George Osborne said a [technically ignorant] Tory government would deliver speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps) to the "majority" of homes by 2017. For mathematically challenged Tories that is SEVEN Years from now, and not all homes would be included.

South Korea already has the most successful broadband rollout in the world. Something our own politicians could learn from. The Korean government provided $1.5bn to create a backbone network and another $1bn in loans to ensure companies took broadband to rural areas.

Our Knuckle head Tory shadowy chancellor said cabling in rural areas could be paid for by private investors or part of the licence fee.

Both Tories and Labour really are clueless when it comes to moving this country forward, as for the Lib-Dems they are still working on what “clueless” means.

The plan is not “should be” but MUST be (at the very minimum) 100MBs download and 10Mbs upload for every home by the end of 2012. The South Koreans are already planning 2GB/s broadband for everyone in the 2012 timescale. Who says our politicians are clueless and lack vision and ambition for our country?

Homes are looking for HD TV; television on demand; immediate download of movies and music; and support for a whole range of new internet enabled devices.

Remember, Gordon Brown in his first attempt at bankrupting big business with the £20Billion auction of 3G licences, failed to see that in only a few years we would be running out of mobile bandwidth.

The plan would be to create an integrated structure for super-fast broadband that would cover every home and business in the UK by 2012. There are a number of ways to do this:

1. Tell BT that they either create the infrastructure of they lose it.
2. If BT are unwilling or unable to make the investment themselves then other companies would be invited to make bids.
3. The Government could fund the whole project AND take All the profits.
4. A group of companies with or without government support could fund it together. Companies and government would takes profits according to their original investment.

Unfortunately, Tory ideas of the BBC funding broadband or Labour’s idea of a 50p tax are the sort of ideas one would expect from the calibre of politicians the country is electing these days.

Everyday, it appears that we are getting closer and closer to becoming an Idiocracy. You definitely have to watch this movie and make judgements as to whether you think we are moving closer to this political utopia or back to a more sensible way of getting things done.

Online Shopping made easy

The RatingsWorld website gives you the ability to search approximately 300 stores and 1.5 million products from a single site. You have the best choice on product, price, availability and service.

Find exactly what you want, whether it is clothing, dvd's, video games, or anything else you can think of.

Items I found:

Ipod Touch

Wii Fit

Sony HD TV

London Theatre Tickets - This is the best layout of London shows I have seen.

The search function is really easy to use and the filters help you remove all the items which are only loosely associated with what you are looking for. It is then easy to do price comparisons from the results returned.

Road Tax Fiasco – Is it Government Fraud, Financial Conspiracy or Simple Incompetence?

The current debate on road tax, the environment, pollution is a massive government deception born out of the need to raise cash to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Let everyone be quite clear that the road fund licence, or road tax, is meant to fund the building of roads in the UK.

Let us also be quite clear that the Government collects far more in road tax than it spends on roads, and that toll roads simply add insult to injury.

Raising road tax and raising fuel duty is all about raising taxes in general to fund the government’s excessive expenditure on unnecessary wars, second homes for MP’s, and millions on pounds in bonuses paid to incompetent government departments, which by the government’s own admission are not fit for purpose.

Let us also be quite clear that these extra taxes have absolutely nothing to do with reducing environmental pollution.

The Government needs money, so they mug the helpless motorist. It is Highway Robbery.
What the government don’t want is for the motorist to fight back and vote for representatives who would safeguard both their civil rights and their finances, but you do have that right and now is the time to use that right.

Write to your MP and tell him that unless fuel duty is reduced and road taxes kept in line with expenditure on roads that your vote will be going to someone else.

When is Microsoft going to stop ripping off the British People?

Back in September 2007 , we wrote about How the British Consumer is being Screwed. Then we showed examples how we were being overcharged by up to 37%.

Today, I was researching prices for Microsoft Expression Studio Version 2 and found that the overcharging by Microsoft had now reached over 58%!

On the 14-Jun-2008 the US Price was $699, the UK Price was £669.27.

The UK£ / US$ exchange rate closed on 13-Jun-2008 at £1 = $1.945.

Therefore our Price comparison is as follows USPrice = £359.38, the UK Price = £669.27.

Now the UK Price of £669.27 includes VAT at 17.5% and the US price does not include any tax.

Removing the VAT from the UK price £669.27 – (17.5% VAT) = £569.36.

US Price = £359.38 excluding tax.
UK Price = £569.36 excluding tax.
UK more expensive by £209.98 (58.43%)

Now the British Government do not give a toss about the British People and will NOT do anything to change the current price gouging , but the EU has been going after Microsoft with a vengeance and one would hope that this information would be of significant interest to them.

Are British Publishers just Greedy Money Grabbing Parasites?

Some of you may have heard about Amazon’s Kindle ebook reader. After months of being sold out the device is now back in stock (22-Apr-2008).

Authors in the USA receive a 25% royalty for each digital book sale.

According to the Teleread web site:

“The gauntlet was thrown down in February by Random House c.e.o. Gail Rebuck, who in a meeting with agents proposed a royalty of 15% of net receipts on digital sales. That’s higher than the standard 10% royalty rate on hardbacks, but significantly lower than the 25% currently received by authors in the US for e-book sales.

“Little, Brown c.e.o. Ursula Mackenzie followed suit, writing to agents to say that the Hachette publisher would also be seeking to pay 15% royalties on digital editions. Both publishers emphasised that the rates would be short-term and subject to break clauses.”

Many readers here in the UK would love the chance to own a Kindle and would definitely not be amused if the UK launch was delayed by greedy publishers not rewarding the authors properly for their hard work.

Peter Hain Resigns Pending Police Enquiry

The UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said it was the right and proper thing to do.

Who do these people think they are and just how many times do they think they should get away with their rule breaking.

The right time to go was when he found out about the lapses. If he went at that time, then we could be satisfied that the man had integrity. However when he hangs on as long as possible to see if he is going to get away with these breaches, then it begins to appear sleazy.

The British public deserves better and should demand better. It is right that the Electoral Commission have passed the matter to the police for a criminal investigation. It is an extremely serious offence as it directly affects the governing and democracy of our country.

If a burglar gets caught breaking and entering does he get let off simply because he was incompetent? “I am sorry your honour, but my friend who was in charge of disabling the burglar alarm did not notice that extra circuit”. Should you reasonably expect such an excuse to stand up in court? If you think not then you will probably agree that our politicians should not get away with similar excuses.

Labour MP Ronnie Campbell in a bind over National Fetish day

Honestly, some of our MPs need to get out more. The former miner and Labour MP for Blyth Valley, was approached and asked to wear something purple to support national fetish day. He said he would wear a purple shirt.

Unfortunately for Ronnie, he did not really know what a fetish was.

Now I am sure that there must be a few honourable members who could enlighten him, maybe someone from the Tory benches could come to his aid.

MoD latest Government Department to commit “an incompetence”

The department charged with providing the security for our country is the latest to commit (what the government euphemistically calls) an incompetence.

Des Brown’s wooden tops in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) have lost a laptop containing the personal details of over 600,000 people. The data included National Insurance Numbers, Passport Details and banking information.

The information commissioner, Richard Thomas said “We will require satisfactory answers from the Mod about their data protection practices and a firm assurance that steps will be taken to improve these practices before deciding on the appropriate action to take.”

Good luck to you Richard. This is the same department who send our soldiers into battle without ammunition and without the necessary protection to save their lives. The same department who think our shores can be guarded by ancient flying death traps (Nimrods), and the same department who have never given a satisfactory answer to anyone in their entire history.

Gordon Brown says Peter Hain guilty of “an incompetence”

The Prime Minister said that Mr Hain had made a mistake which he had readily admitted to.

There are several issues here which give rise to more than a little concern:

1. Mr. Hain, if admittedly incompetent, how can we trust him to competently run a Government department?

2. Why do we bother having these rules and these expensive enquiries when there appears to be no consequences when the rules are broken?

3. Spending over £100,000 on the deputy leadership campaign and coming in fifth does appear to be more than just a little incompetent.

The Prime Minister has said that he has full confidence in this “incompetent minister”, after all his department, the department of work and pension has not lost any data. Indeed their data records have been found …twice…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/7197048.stm

Documents from the department of Work and Pensions (Yes, Peter Hain’s Department) containing sensitive personal data, including details of benefit claims, passport photocopies, and mortgage payments were found dumped on a roundabout in Devon. This is the second time in the last three months that this has occurred.

No one at Downing Street has admitted, what everyone is thinking. As well as having no more money to spend on new jails, the government has also run out of financing for storage space. Therefore a new policy of dumping unwanted data and storage materials has been initiated by the former chancellor.

NHS Patient Medical records lost in Stockport, England UK

Again we are told of the events that happened in the past rather than immediate notification of more civil and public servant incompetence.

The Stockport Primary Care Trust (PCT) lost a memory stick containing patient medical details, which includes patient names, dates of birth, NHS Numbers, and GP details.

The data has been missing since December.

According to those responsible for the loss, the information cannot be used by identity fraudsters. Yea Right! We trust these morons to be the experts on what is possible and what is not. And you will like this, also according to those responsible for losing the data in question, “The loss was an accident rather than any systemic failing in management”. Yea Right Again!

Oh! And just in case you may be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe just a one off incident. No, sorry. The Stockport PCT also had to admit that they lost diaries containing patient’s names and addresses, apparently stolen from staff cars, in two separate incidents last June.

Government Incompetence, public servant incompetence, should we trust these people with anything? There is a danger that this site is becoming a Public Data Lost and Found blog. Unfortunately, we do not find too many stories about data being found. Gordon Brown, who is also head of the British Civil Service, must love this.

W.H. Smith Generous to a fault - Offer Sucks!

Whilst shopping for christmas presents this year, I received a £5 voucher to spend at their sale between 26-Dec-2007 and 6-jan-2008.



I thought, that will be nice, I maybe use it to get a discount on some computer games or DVDs.

That is, until I read the small print on the back of the voucher.

"Offer excludes all CDs DVDs and Games, ie. XBOX 360, PSP, PS2, PS3, NDS, PC, GameCube, Xbox, GBA and Wii, and stamps , tobacco, gift vouchers, phone cards, e-gift cards, book tokens, Day Out Vouchers, Carity Products, iTunes, eTop-UP & National Lottery products. Cannot be used with any other promotional voucher or with customer orders. Only one voucher per transaction."

For those of you who live in the UK and know W.H. Smith, you will also know that after you exclude the above named products that there is not much left.

I think I will just use the voucher to wipe my @rse, and return it to the person who thought up the idea in the first place.