Showing posts with label fat tax. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fat tax. Show all posts

Sunday 19 February 2012

More bonus bollocks: Tesco wants you (for nothing): Anti-terror emails: Balloon blackout: Iron Egg Skill: Iowan bacon festival: and Flying fat tax.


Cold and clear with a thick layer of white crusty stuff at the Castle this morn, fat teenagers are sliding into the furnace faster than the “new” thingy at CERN and his Maj has discovered the joy of ambush from under the four poster.


Allegedly Ministry of Defence civil servants have been awarded £40 million in bonuses despite fierce criticism of the department.
One senior civil servant was awarded an £85,831 bonus on top of their six-figure salary - at the same time as members of the armed forces have been subject to a two-year pay freeze and 20,000 are to be made redundant.
The bonuses have been paid since April last year and have seen more than 55,000 officials awarded extra payments for their performance - out of a payroll of 83,000.

In other departments-

Department of Work and Pensions employees scooped £51 million. The Department of Transport paid out £9.2million, the Foreign Office £6.4 million and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs £2.3 million. The Department for Education spent £1.9 million on bonuses, the Department for Health £1.7 million, the Cabinet Office £1.3million and the Department for Innovation and Skills £1.1million.


Whatever happened to just working for a salary?




My favourite retailer is looking for a permanent night shift worker in exchange for no wages, the job was offered under the Government's "workfare scheme", which is linked to payment of benefits. The advert said the wages would simply be "jobseeker's allowance and expenses".
A statement from the supermarket chain said: "The advert is a mistake caused by an IT error by Jobcentre Plus and is being rectified.
"It is an advert for work experience with a guaranteed job interview at the end of it as part of a Government-led work experience scheme. We take our responsibility as Britain's biggest private sector employer seriously."
Employment Minister Chris Grayling told the Commons last month that the scheme was working well and was much better value for money for the taxpayer than the last Labour government's Future Jobs Fund.
Jobseekers' allowance is currently paid at £53.45 per week for under-25s, or £67.50 for older staff.


If that is the way Tesco are going it’s about time they reduced their prices...




Has come up with yet another gem, Details of every phone call and text message, email traffic and websites visited online are to be stored in a series of vast databases under new Government anti-terror plans.
Landline and mobile phone companies and broadband providers will be ordered to store the data for a year and make it available to the security services under the scheme.
The databases would not record the contents of calls, texts or emails but the numbers or email addresses of who they are sent and received by.
For the first time, the security services will have widespread access to information about who has been communicating with each other on social networking sites such as Facebook.
Direct messages between subscribers to websites such as Twitter would also be stored, as well as communications between players in online video games.
A Home Office spokesman said: “It is vital that police and security services are able to obtain communications data in certain circumstances to investigate serious crime and terrorism and to protect the public.


No warrant no crime....





A Valentine's Day gift is being blamed for a power outage in Southern California.
Southern California Edison spokesman David Song says a helium-filled balloon scored a direct hit on the company's Fontana substation Tuesday night, knocking out power to 15,099 customers.
Song says a utility crew rushed to the station and had the power restored by 9:51 p.m.
The substation was the second to encounter problems in Southern California on Tuesday night. A Huntington Beach substation went out at 7:42 p.m., affecting 21,285 customers. Song says power was restored there at 10:38 p.m.


There must be a moral in there somewhere.


Shoalin monks “practise” the Iron Egg Skill 

Warning-if you are of a sensitive nature DO NOT watch this video.

  



Bet that stings....




Comes the simple pleasure of gripping a fistful of bacon strips in one hand, and an ice cold beer in the other.
The joy of biting into a giant bacon-infused doughnut ball topped with chocolate and even more bacon.
“Everything about bacon is like Hometown Iowa,” said Becca Swalla, 24, of Urbandale, who attended Saturday’s Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival. “I mean, really, you wouldn’t see this baconfest happening in California. Only in Iowa will people come together to eat a bunch of bacon-covered bacon.”
But even some of the 4,000 attendees acknowledged protesters outside the 165,000-square-foot bacon pleasure palace on the Iowa State Fairgrounds had valid concerns. Too many bacon tacos and cupcakes can’t be good for your health.


Num, num, num I’m orf to the kitchen....


And finally:



Key elements of Britain’s disability and discrimination laws do not apply, a court ruling could pave the way for the introduction of a “fat tax” for obese fliers, a leading barrister has claimed.
And it could also prevent passengers with a disability from seeking compensation from their airline if they receive unsatisfactory or inconsistent treatment during a flight.
“Judges” decided after considering two cases involving wheelchair users who sued their airlines after they were unable to sit next to their carers on board a flight. Both subsequently suffered “embarrassing” incidents.
But both cases were dismissed after the court ruled that the Montreal Convention, a framework of international rules and regulations on air travel, should take precedence over British law.
The introduction of a “fat tax” has been mooted by Ryanair in the past, following a survey conducted by the airline which suggested around a third of passengers supported it. A number of carriers already insist that obese customers buy an extra seat if they are unable to comfortably fit into one.


Nice to see that even Canada’s law supersedes Blighty’s....




And today’s thought:

The new RAF.



Angus