Making Money Online

I have always wanted to find a nice easy way to make money.

Now, even if I put $10,000 in the bank or even a pretty good mutual fund, I would not really have too much to show after 10 or 15 years. At least that is what I thought until I discovered the investment system being used by stocksmonthly.com

Their investment method is fairly simple and obvious, and they do all the work for you.

If they can perform as well over the next 15 years as they did over the last 15 years then I am not going to worry too much about my blog traffic.

Anger as NHS patient records lost

It has only been a few days since our last post about how incompetent our civil service really is.

However, the recent revelations regarding the loss of NHS data in England and Wales shows systemic failure is rife.

Senior civil servants and senior government ministers really do need to lose their jobs when the level of incompetence reaches such levels.

Remember the Prime Minister is in charge of the Civil Service. Either he needs to act, or he needs to go.

The depatment of administrative affairs, Jim Hacker, and Sir Humphrey whoever these real life mandarins are have truly lost the confidence of the public and Yes Prime Minister's Jim Hacker would appear to be more up for the job than the current incumbent.

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.

How the British Consumer is being Screwed

(If you are unable to see full image then click on the image.)


Today with the advent of the world wide enconomy and the internet, global companies manufacture and sell their wares all over the world. This christmas I had to shop for friends and relatives in both the United States and the UK. It is frighteneing how much more the British consumer has to pay in comparison to their American Cousins.

I have been careful to compare like for like. Normally UK prices include VAT but US prices exclude sales tax. For the sake of comparison I have deducted the horrendously high 17.5% VAT from the UK prices and compared them with the US (Excl Sales tax) Prices.

The worst offenders are large companies. Microsoft are charging, in some cases, 36% more for their software here in the UK than in the US. Of course, our governement cares nothing about the British comsumer, nor inflation apparently.

The UK £ / US $ exchange rate on 20-Dec-2007 was £1 = $2.032.

If you think that the current situation is fair then do nothing. Remember that we are paid on average aboput 10% less than our American cousins.

However, if you think this is unfair and unacceptable then write, call or email, television channels, newspapers, MP's and local councillors. Let's fight for fairness and let us stop subsidising the rest of the world.

Sources:

Amazon USA
Amazon UK
Cheap iPods
Microsoft
Jaguar

Is the British Civil Service Totally Incompetent?

John Reid, the former home secretary, has already told us that the Home Office is not fit for purpose.

Well the recent fiasco with HM Customs and Revenue losing vital data on nearly half the population of the country started us thinking.

Then we are told just a couple of weeks later that some moron in the Driver and Vehicle Driving Agency in Northern Ireland has lost data on 7,685 vehicles and 6,000 vehicle keepers.

Oh No! It’s not finished yet. Just as we are thinking that it cannot get any worse, we are told another disc containing details of 3 million learner drivers has gone missing. Even worse the data was stored in a foreign country. And to show what complete incompetents this government, their ministers and the civil service really are the latest episode we are told happened six months ago.

Now for sheer cheek and hypocrisy, the Government has fined Norwich Union £1.6M for losing the data of 74 people.

That works out at approximately £21,621 per person.So using the Government figures of 25Million from HM Revenue, and 3,013,685 from the DVLA, then the Data Protection registrar should be fining this Government £605,683,883,385.

No minister has lost his or her job, and apart from the HM Revenue guy who resigned, no civil servant has been fired. Everyone we speak to is running for cover, no one is taking responsibility, and it is fair to say that competence is not something we can have much expectation of from our public servants.

We, the public, pay the wages of these people. We pay good money and should reasonably expect workers who are honest and competent. Should we find that these two attributes are missing, then I’m afraid that there really is no place in public service for those lacking these attributes.

Does any member of the public really believe that no one has received a peerage or a Knighthood for donations to any of the major political parties?

No authority without responsibility should be the rule.

Every project, every policy would have a responsible person and if there is a screw-up then we will immediately know who to look to for the answers.

Lunatics running the asylum are bad enough but we really can’t have them running the country as well.

Free Online Wish List

Christmas gift shopping has been so much easier this year. I got the kids, my nephews and nieces all to create a christmas wish list at http://www.youcouldgetme.com/. When it came time to do my christmas shopping I visited each gift list and bought something that they really wanted this time.

I even tested it out for myself. My birthday is only two weeks before christmas, and I am at that sort of age when nobody knows what to buy me. So this year, about three weeks before my birthday I went on a virtual shopping spree.

I added gifts that I really wanted. Some expensive. Some very modestly priced - makes it easier for my kids to buy me something too :)

Give it a try...

Big Brother is listening!

Imagine if you are a political candidate (republican or democrat) and you are discussing your policies with a potential voter. In “managing their network” Comcast finds that it can cut its traffic in half if it only allows one party’s political traffic through.

Or, what if you are doing business on the web selling Coca Cola, but Comcast has done a deal with Pepsi and disrupts all internet traffic affecting Coca Cola Sales. Far Fetched yes, but what’s to stop this now that they have made a start.

Maybe a rival hosting company does a deal with Comcast. Suddenly CrystalTech Users find that their customers’ transactions are being disrupted.

Where does it stop?

You sign up with Comcast, but Comcast has the right to say who you can talk to and what you can talk about, is that what we really want?

Mobile Phone Fraud in the UK

Mobile phone companies allow fraudsters direct access to your cash?

Do you own a mobile phone?

If yes, did you know that mobile phone companies allow fraudsters direct access to your cash?

How do they do this? Anyone with a premium rate ‘texting’ service can send you a text message. Even if you did not ask for the message to be sent, your account will be charged for the text messages you receive, or if you use ‘pay-as-you-go’ your balance will still be debited for each message received.

You could be charged around £1.50 for each message received. This is nothing more than straight theft.

This happened to me. I was receiving text messages, but when I went to read the message it said “message unable to be displayed”. At first I thought that they were just wrong numbers. However, I began to notice that after each message was received the balance on my ‘pay-as-you-go’ was being reduced.

I called O2, my mobile service provider; they told me that there was nothing that they could do. Neither did they have a system that would allow me to STOP all premium text messages to my mobile number. They told me to call ICSTIS, who are they regulator for mobile premium services.

I called ICSTIS, who gave me the name of the company who had been calling me and their phone number. Now remember, this is the company who had been stealing my money. ICSTIS want me to tell these (to my mind) criminals to stop stealing my money and to give me back what they have stolen. In order to do this I have to give these criminals more of my personal details. What lunatic thought up such a system?

This is the same as going to the police and telling them that you have been burgled and the police giving you the name and address of the burglar and telling you to go and talk to the burglar and ask him to give you your property back.

The system which allows mobile phone companies to charge you for receiving calls or text messages is fundamentally flawed and open to serious abuse.

The situation described above is one circumstance where you can be charged for receiving unwanted or fraudulent messages. It is like being told to open your wallet and let anyone who cares to text you to help themselves.

I have always thought that the system where the receiver of a call pays was unsatisfactory and open to abuse. I experienced a similar situation when I worked abroad as an IT consultant. Agents would call from the UK to determine my availability for new contracts or to find out if I knew someone who could do the contract. Well, because I was receiving this call whilst in another country, the phone company also charge me for receiving the call. Many times these calls were no more than nuisance calls or ‘spam’ to use a term that email users are all too familiar with.

The trouble with unwanted texts or mobile calls is that they cost you real money.

The only way to stop this absurd situation is to prevent mobile phone companies making any charges to the receivers account. In all situations the caller should pay for the call.

The people who have been ‘texting’ me without my permission should be charged with fraud or theft.

I have called both ICSTIS and OFCOM and neither organisation appears willing to do very much about the current situation.

Two things need to happen very quickly.

Mobile phone companies should be required to block all premium message text services upon a user’s request.
The charging system used by mobile phone companies MUST be changed so it is the caller that bears the full cost of the call. Callers must be made aware, in advance, of the call rate being charged.

Please write or email your member of parliament in the UK and contact the news media to ensure that this fraud (permitted by our government and watchdog bodies) can be stopped.

Who is running the asylum(EU)?

Citizens of the European Union (EU) have been considering this very question, and it appears that they are not very happy.

The populations of both France and the Netherlands had their say, and gave a strong thumbs-down to the proposals being made by the Brussels bureaucracy. There are many who feel the European Commission and the European Parliament is just an exclusive club whose members are not up to the task of National Politics and are put out to graze on greener pastures. There they can push their less than brilliant ideas, collect an undeservedly large salary, and not have to account for themselves.

After the resounding NO votes, the Eurocrats are still saying that Europe should push ahead with their plans. But now, the citizens of Europe have gotten smart, and said NO. Let us hope that NO means NO. Let us hope that those formulating their ill conceived plans are forced to cease and desist. Let us hope that the way forward is a more democratic and accountable Europe.

It was disturbing for those in the UK to hear that if France votes ‘NO’ then that is a problem for Europe, but if Britain votes ‘NO’ then that is only a problem for Britain. This is the type of arrogance and ignorance displayed by those in Brussels that will prevent their ever being unanimous approval of the current constitution.

There are some politicians who have derided the policy of referendums and have said that Governments should make the decisions without consulting the people and without the backing of the people. One has to remain suspicious of such people, who may be willing to ride the gravy train until they die.

The policy of referendums is fair, sensible and democratic. However, the execution of these European referendums was incompetent and nonsensical. It did not make sense to have a number of referendums spread out over several years thus creating the possibility that the first 24 countries could have voted ‘yes’ only for the last country to vote ‘no’ and have to start the whole process again. Fortunately, we did not have to wait for that final country. Nor did we have to wait for the people of Britain to vote ‘NO’. Both France and the Netherlands brought the fresh air of reality to Brussels.

During this ratification process we have had politicians tell us that we did not understand the constitution and for that reason we should not be allowed to vote. Maybe the bureaucrats should devise a constitution that we all understand; otherwise it would be entirely ill advised to vote for it.

Once there are some sensible, fair minded, democratically competent representatives in Brussels, we may get a constitution that we can all understand, can fully support, and all have our say in a European wide referendum, in which all countries vote on the same day. Until then, in order to safeguard our rights and our freedoms, we must continue to say ‘NO’.

Jeremy Paxman interview with George Galloway

The question repeatedly asked by Mr Paxman of Mr Galloway crossed the line in terms of professionalism, relevance, common courtesy and racism.

This sort of journalism has no place at the BBC.

I fully expect the producer and the interviewer to be called before a disciplinary board and a full review to be carried out.

Please do not misunderstand this complaint; the BBC has every right, and indeed a duty, to question Mr. Galloway about his actions. However, the actual question posed by Mr Paxman could not possibly yield any useful information.

Mr. Paxman may argue that he was only trying to provoke a reaction; however it is the BBC’s job to report the news, not to make the news.

If Mr. Paxman was interviewing a murderer, then he would have every right to ask a question such as ‘why did you murder John Doe?’

The question asked by Mr. Paxman was "Are you proud of having driven out of Parliament one f the very few black people there?"