The election is over and, the government is knuckling down to solving the serious
problems facing the country. The farmers union asked for a meeting with Margaret
Beckett, the new countryside supremo, regarding the foot-and-mouth crisis, but
was told she would be too busy to see them, as she was in an important Cabinet
meeting. This morning we found out what the meeting was about; ministerial salaries.
It has been decided to keep the rise to just 41%, which means that our Dear
Leader, Tony Blair, now manages to get by on just over £160;000, up more
than £50,000 since yesterday. The pensioners got 70 pence a couple of
years ago.
Southerner: How many Yorkshiremen does it take to change a lampbulb?
Yorkshireman: Change? Oh, we don't like change up here.
Ministers are urgently drawing up plans to prevent opposition through public
inquiries to the building of nuclear dumps, power stations, motorways, airports
and other controversial developments on the ground that "they (the public
inquieries) are slow, costly and damage the economy." It is becoming more
and more clear that any questioning of the government in the Blairite New Britain
is singularly unwelcome. There was once another Blair writing under the pen-name
Orwell who in his book "Animal Farm" seems to have got his namesake
down to a T.
Pitbull savaged by 73 year-old pensioner in Tallahassee, Florida. Will we
now be looking at a Dangerous Pensioner Act?
If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
A lot of farmers believe that the Government is involved in ethnic cleansing
of the Countryside. So far we have been spared by foot-and-mouth in East Yorkshire,
but the authorities are coming down heavy on the local council to get the footpaths
opened as there is no outbreak. Excactly. Where-ever the footpaths are opened
you have foot-and-mouth flaring up in short time. The other day I dropped in
to have a look at a planning application and noticed that the government was
asking for planning permission for burial of diseased animals in the East Yorkshire
region. The mind boggles.
I'm awaiting the Queen's speach later this week. Rumour has it that the Hunting
with Dogs Act will be given Parliamentary time, but no time will be found for
banning tobacco advertising. Four years ago the government got a million pounds
for holding up the advertising bill; how much this time?
Barbara and Neil Lewis dropped in at Heimbu on their tour of the UK, before
returning to Australia. We had a pleasant day talking and training, and I got
the latest information regarding progress of Stav in the States and in Australia.
Neil is planning to attend next year's Summer Course.
The recent General Election was run by and for the benefit of the Media.
Tony Benn
What is going on here. Healthy animals are being culled at a 3-mile radius
of any suspected or confirmed foot-and-moth case. The government has always
insisted that they are acting on the best scientific advise, but it now emerges
that the strain of the virus causing all the trouble does not travel more than
200 yards on the wind, and what more, the government knew this in the beginning
of March.
The farmers seems to have a case in their belief of ulterior motives.
Foster the vulture has just been recaptured 3 days after escaping. He spent
the time sitting on the roof of a vicarage in Suffolk upsetting quite a few
people during burials in the nearby cemetary.
Celebrity Poet's Corner.
George W. Bush quotes, assembled into a poem by R. Thomson of The Washington Post.
I think we all agree, the past is over,
This is still a dangerous world,
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential
mental losses.
Rarely is the question asked: is our children learning?
Will the highways of the internet become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being and fish can co-excist.
Families is where our nation finds hope, where our wings
take dream.
Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize socity!
Make the pie higher! Make the pie higher!
"Those who turn their swords into plowshares plow for those who keep
their's".
Benjamin Franklin
HEATWAVE. The temprature has soared, the sun is shining, the humidity makes
breathing difficult. But as Wimbledon is now underway one will presume that
rain and cool weather will soon prevail.
Margaret Becket visited Yorkshire yesterday to get a feel for the foot-and-moth
crisis. Farmers were told that they could not expect to go back to farming when
this is all over; the government want them to diversify into tourism and high-tec.
industry. Oh, well, I will kind of miss farms.
The newspaper are making a lot out of the fact that the new Minister for Transport
doesn't know how to drive a car. This is the same Stephen Byers who a couple
of years ago was asked on radio to multiply 8 by 7. "Er...54?" was
his answer. His job at the time? School Standards Minister.
I really have to stop reading the news; it's not doing my blood pressure any
good. The latest bit of insanity is the fact that the government is seriosly
worried about the rights of crimenals. Some of them have evidently had their
cases thrown out of court when they sue their victims for damage if the intended
victim actually fought back. This of course won't do. According to a government
spokesman no-one should be punished twice for the same crime; so if you go to
jail for burglary you have the right to sue the householder for damages if you
cut your hand smashing a window getting into the house. He did admit that some
people might find this view somewhat controversial, but being a career crimenal
does not mean that you don't have the same rights as other people.
For the first time since we moved in there will be no horse sticking his head
out of the stable door here at Heimbu this summer; no sheep in the sheep-pen.
Daughter Aki is stuck up in Scotland with the livestock because of foot-and-mouth
and can't come home for her summer holidays. I'll miss them all.