It’s sprung a leak.

This time it is a leaked letter from the Director general of finance at the Ministry of Justice.

About 15,000 jobs are at risk as the Ministry of Justice slashes £2 billion from its £9 billion budget, a union has warned.

About time to.Do they really need 80,000 staff to fulfill their duties? We managed with far less in the past.

Of course the unions have seized on this and are predicting an army of criminals will be let loose and the courts will be closed.

In fact they may well be getting off lightly, as the figure is at the low end of the cuts needed in the governments attempt to slash spending.

Read the rest HERE.

Expect more leaks as the bloated Civil Service, finally realise that they are going to have to emerge into the real world.

I shouldn’t. But what the heck

Maybe I shouldn’t take the piss out of global warming alarmists. But….

My Wanker of the week.

Andy Giannasi, the member of ACPO who has been designated the 'lead' in road's policing has decried the wind down of 'Safety' Cameras.

However.

Figures made available by SafeSpeed show an impressive 35% decrease in deaths from 1978 to 1988. The spiraling number of deaths continued to decrease during the pre speed camera years until cameras were introduced in the early to mid 1990's. In fact, since the mid 1990's the number of deaths has stayed about the same which is proof, over a 10 year period, that speed cameras do not save lives. If planting 5000 cameras on the streets and issuing over 7 million fines since 1992 really worked then we would have seen the number of road deaths continue to fall, but they've just stayed the same. The question is, why haven't fatalities continued to decrease since cameras were introduced?

Comment: The finger of blame is clearly pointing at the cameras and those who support them. If it weren't for advances in vehicle safety design and medical treatment then casualties would have increased considerably since cameras were introduced.

Less than 4% of accidents are caused by exceeding the speed limit according to new data (page 41) published by the Department of Transport. This destroys the government's claim that 1/3 of accidents are speed related. The facts publicised by Safespeed shows the breakdown of the causes of accidents from 13 police forces from 2001:

Cause of Accident
% of Accidents

Inattention:
25.8%

Failure to judge other person's path or speed:
22.6%

Looked but did not see:
19.7%

Behaviour: careless/thoughtless/reckless:
18.4%

Failed to look:
16.3%

Lack of judgment of own path:
13.7%

Excessive speed:
12.5%

Utter Tosh from this ACPO indoctrinated Tosser. It would be a lot safer to have more traffic police on our roads to catch those who are under the influence of drink/drugs, driving badly, no licence, no insurance, driving badly maintained cars, etc.

Note: Then again it would be even better if we had any type of Policeman on our streets.

Offshore wind farms. It’s worst than we thought.

 

If you’ve read my previous posts,( HERE and HERE), you’ll be aware I’m not to keen on these machines due to their high operation and maintenance costs. I was made aware that the life of a wind turbine was only 6 to 8 years rather than the frequently quoted 20 year lifespan.

However I came on these little gems which I link to at the bottom of this post if you really would like to read it all.

This is underlined by an analysis of maintenance records, which shows that while service teams for offshore wind farms are supposed to make two scheduled maintenance visits every year, unscheduled visits to many installations are made 20 times a year.

And,

The heart of the problem is that the technology being used offshore is generally onshore technology that has not been modified sufficiently to meet the different demands of an offshore environment.

The classic example of this is the disaster at the Horns Rev wind farm in 2005, following which Vestas is reported to have removed and repaired 80 of its V90 models, designed for offshore use, owing to the effect of salty water and air on the generators and gearboxes, which became corrupt after only two (My emphasis)  years. A similar procedure has been reported this year, with Vestas' 30 turbines requiring a change of rotor bearings, at an estimated cost of €30m.

Have they produced any meaningful power in this time?

And don’t get me started on gearbox failure.

As an ex marine engineer I could have told them the previous. (Providing they’d paid me a large six figure salary of course).

The rest is HERE. have a read.

Offshore wind turbines. The true costs of O & M

Now as you know I’ve been trying to find facts and figures about the true costs of operation and maintenance of these modern follies.

Nowhere can I find any hard and fast figures from any site. Although I have gleaned a few worrying statistics.

I can’t give you where I’ve got these facts from as they are covered by copyright. Why, I’m not sure,as these considerations should be in the public domain.

The O & M costs are double or triple original projected figures.

Also there is a –21% change in wind farm return on investment. Notice the minus.

$0.027/kWh is the latest projected O & M cost. Early estimates were $0.005/kWh. A vastly increased cost.

Again I find that the shelf life of these turbines is down from 20 years to 6 to 8 years.

And that twat Huhne still wants to build hundreds of these bird mincing, inefficient, monstrosities.

That’s all the info I can give you. If anyone would like the full report it costs a staggering $1495.

Usury

From Wikipedia:

“In common usage today, the word means the charging of unreasonable or relatively high rates of interest.”

How can a company like WONGA.com be allowed to charge such rates.

Our flexible, short term service comes with a Typical 2689% APR.

FFS. I think 17.5% on my credit card is bad enough

I pity the poor buggers, that have recourse to resort to this type of borrowing.

£400 for 20 days will set you back £85.49 in interest and fees.

I used to participate on a forum claiming back exorbitant credit card penalties. It really hurt to see how some people were almost driven to suicide by the fact that their debt spiralled out of control.

But Wonga takes the biscuit in exploitation.

Smokefree Twattery

What a heap of shite the council produce. Here from the council’s web site. So I’ve duly filled it in and sent it off to them.

Smokefree Homes Award Promise

“Congratulations”

To make our home a healthier place to live we are making ours a smokefree home

 
1. How many children live at this address?
Aged 0 to 5  10Aged 6 to 16 20 Aged 16+ 20

2. Number of smokers in the house? ___50_____________

3. Would you like a ‘stop smoking advisor’ to contact you?
Yes No YES. But He/She may not return

4. Would you like the Kent Fire & Rescue Service to carry out a FREE Home Fire Safety Visit?
Yes No Yes. But see above. I suggest he brings a few mates with him.

5. Before making your promise, where was smoking allowed in your house?

Nowhere Only in one room
In most rooms Everywhere

6. Where did you hear about the ‘Smoke Free Homes Award’?

Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council Local school
Stop Smoking Service Kent Fire and Rescue
Other. Ouija board

_______________________________________________
Mr Mrs Ms Miss Initials___T.H.E______

Surname ___FilthyEngineer___________________________________________
Address ___No.1 Blogsville Terrace

TN991TWAT____________________________________________
Postcode

Telephone number (essential)

__01732 844522*__________________________
Email address___Filthy@engineer.co.uk_______________________________________
Important

Your information may be shared with our partners (e.g. West Kent Primary CareTrust) for monitoring purposes only.

No mailshots will be sent.
If you agree to this please tick the box. x

I hope they just try. *Oh and that’s their switchboard number.

Another Quango for the chop please.

 

The Kent Alliance on Smoking and Health (KASH).

A group funded by the NHS and they want to do this:

SMOKING could be banned in every public park and sports ground in the Tonbridge area.

The Kent Alliance on Smoking and Health wants councils across Kent to stop people from lighting up at venues which are aimed at children and families.

It means people found smoking at Tonbridge Farm, Tonbridge Racecourse and the neighbouring Haysden Country Park could face on-the-spot fines, and court, for flouting the rules.

The document was backed by Kent County Council this week and Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council said it was "carefully considering" the Kent Tobacco Control Strategy – which aims to have a smoke-free county by 2014.

Bastards.

And at the bottom of the article I read this:

The borough council's stance is in line with its pioneering of the Smokefree Homes Award system, introduced in January 2009, in which holders pledge to keep homes and cars free of smoke at all times.

I pledge to smoke in my own property incessantly from now on.

And of course there is the usual “Think of the Cheeeeldren.

Read the whole article in Thisiskent. They have a vote, which so far is 100% against this twattery

*Notice to self. Remember to take blood pressure pill*

Quiz complete

Bucko wins again.

“Did she take her helmet off and get pulled for that?
I zoomed in on the first piccy and she doesn't seem to be wearing it.”

Yep. No helmet.

FE’s observation quiz round. Supplementary question.

What law had she broken?