Justice for all – Food for thought

Let’s put the pensioners in jail and the criminals in a nursing home.

This way the pensioners would have access to showers, hobbies, and walks.

They would receive unlimited free prescriptions, dental and medical treatment, wheel chairs etc. and they’d receive money instead of paying it out.

They would have constant video monitoring so they could be helped instantly if they fell or needed assistance.

Bedding would be washed twice a week and all clothing would be ironed and returned to them.

A guard would check on them every 20 minutes and bring their meals and snacks to their cell.

They would have family visits in a suite especially built for that purpose.

They would have access to a library, weight room, spiritual counselling, pool, and education.

Simple clothing, shoes, slippers, P.J.’s and legal aid would be free on request.

Private, secure rooms for all with an outdoor exercise yard and gardens.

Each pensioner could have a P.C., a T.V., a radio and daily phone calls.

There would be a board of directors to hear complaints and the guards would have a code of conduct that would be strictly adhered to.

Criminals in Nursing Homes

The “criminals” would get cold food and be left all alone and unsupervised.

“Lights out” would be at 8pm, and showers would only be available once a week.

They would live in a tiny room for which they would have to pay £3,000.00 a month, and they would have no hope of ever getting out.

Justice for all !

Bicycles in China are not environmentally friendly (5) – Conclusion

Yes, we’ve reached the end at last !

While picking up from where I left off yesterday, am I going to paint a picture of doom and gloom or do I see hope on the horizon for China and the environment ? Well….

Bicycles in China are not environmentally friendly (4) – Globalisation

In this fourth post of the series I am returning to the original subject matter; the pollution being generated by Chinese industry, why it is being allowed to occur and, just as importantly, what the future will hold and why nobody really cares.

What ? Nobody really cares? Well, yes.

Let me explain a little about myself. This is me on that day trip, just having had lunch at a waterfront restaurant within the area. What do you see ?

Relaxing after lunch - near Qinzhou - Dec 2009

You see a tourist; a western tourist. Ok, so effectively China is my second home now because it is Amanda’s home country and the rest of her family is there, but outside of the family unit I am still a “tourist” when I visit.

Despite the destruction and devastation that is being meted out to the local environment, do you see somebody who is up in arms protesting about it ? Of course not. Why not ? Because there is not a single thing that I can do about it.

Bicycles in China are not environmentally friendly (3) – An educational diversion

So far in episodes (1) and (2) I have shown you what is happening in the vicinity of Guangxi Qinzhou Free Trade Port Area from a purely factual aspect.

Today I want to step aside from all this though, because on a personal level I found our day trip to the region quite educational.

My experience of China is somewhat limited and I have been intrigued at the way the different styles of buildings (and the different “classes” of the occupants) intertwine and I had often wondered how it all came about, especially given the fact that a lot of the smaller, more incongruous buildings didn’t seem to be that much older than the larger properties surrounding them. By seeing this new development in its early stages the whole process becomes a lot clearer.

New building 1	New building 2
New building 3	New building 4

Bicycles in China are not environmentally friendly (2) – Destruction and pollution

In the last post I discussed the way in which the Chinese love of the bicycle, both pedalled and powered, influences the Chinese authorities when it comes to town planning. They design everything with flat roads.

In this post I will show you what that means to the natural landscape of southern Guangxi.

Bicycles in China are not environmentally friendly (1) – Flat roads

I didn’t know where to start with the reports on my latest trip to China until I saw Kelly’s excellent post the other week on Post-Avatar Depression Support. In that post she links to a Seeking Alpha post entitled Are We Exacerbating China’s Pollution?, which then points the reader at these pictures of industrial pollution in China.

To be fair, the Seeking Alpha post does start with the words “America used to mistreat her land and water like this.”, and one could easily substitute almost any European nation for America in that statement.

This series of posts isn’t aimed at knocking China, (the wife wouldn’t let me). I love China. The intention is simply to relay what I have seen with my own eyes and have learned by my own recent experience, to try to put it into context from the perspective of the world in which we live, and to look to how things might develop and/or improve in the future, if they can.

So where do the bicycles fit into this ?

Bank wants to charge £20 and admits it will do nothing for it

I have been waiting for some money to arrive for some weeks now, fully expecting it to be paid directly into my account.  But no.  Yesterday it arrived as a cheque in the post.

Dammit!… I need that money, like “last week”.

So off I toddle to my local branch of Lloyds TSB, cheque in hand, and I ask the woman at the desk how much they charge these days for “special clearance” on a cheque. 

“£20”, she says, “but it won’t make any difference, the money won’t be available to you any sooner.”

What !!??

Barclays profits down 1% to £7.1bn – Oh my bleeding heart!

Oh dear… here we go.  Brace yourself for a string of terrible announcements from the Big Five banks bemoaning the fact that their profits are down this year.

What do we think… will one of them have profits which have gone down by 2% …. or (heaven forbid) even more ?!… Panic now !

But there may be a solution….

Why do we manufacture “Trash” ?

The world seems to be inundated with manufactured trash.

By that I mean things which are made but, due to poor specification and/or manufacture, will never serve the purpose for which they were intended thereby rendering them totally useless.

This is a total waste of resources, both natural and economic, and the unnecessary transportation of this garbage to its ultimate destination is an environmental disaster.

This story shows how much time, money and effort can be expended in trying to cope with this problem, along with identifying totally useless items which are being manufactured.