Extradition Treaties

I read an article on the BBC website talking about the extradition of criminals to the US for terrorism related offences. Now, I agree that terrorism is serious, and those responsible for it should come to court and if found guilty be imprisoned; however, I do not agree with extradition to the US for any crime that may carry the death penalty.

You may well ask why should they not be extradited, especially for a serious crime. Quite simply, this is giving the UK courts a death penalty through the back door. I do not feel, that as imperfect sinful humans, we have the right to make that final decision to kill a killer. Only one without sin can do that.

Certainly if these men did commit their terrible acts, and remain unrepentant, they will bring judgement on themselves. However, if they over their time in prison they are repentant, then grace is on offer, just as Jesus (the only man truly without sin) offered it to a sinner in return for her repentance when he said:

If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her... Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?... Then neither do I condemn you,... Go now and leave your life of sin.

The promise of grace, with the request for repentance. If only we could go some way in this also. Yes, we need to be safe, but can we stay the executions please.

quote taken from John 8:7-11 (New International Version), omitting narrative.

Republic

I just wanted to put my voice out at this time, while a lot of people are celebrating the Queen's 80th birthday, and say that I am a republican (not in the US political sense, but in the sense of thinking there should not be a monarchy of the UK). I also think that hereditory peers are not a great idea. Why can we not put these past traditions behind us, and re-create our political system in a democratic way that best serves the people.

Also, I am now starting to lean in the direction of disestablishmentariamism. I don't think that giving the prime minister final say in which of two recomended bishops becomes arch-bishop is a good thing. Also, I see that the links of church and state could well harm unity of the anglican church and others, and I think church unity is important.

Okay, those are my thoughts at this time, but please comment, I'd love to hear your opinions on this. Let the discussion begin...

Apparentley We're Civilised...

...and yet we still do this. I am glad that those doctors felt that it was unethical (although maybe only in part?), but am still disturbed that the USA constitution, laws and courts still think this is okay. May the person without sin perform the injection.

I'm Rather Shocked...

to discover that serveral people I know agree with the death penalty. This world is scarier than I thought. It is not just America that has this blot on the landscape - there is potential for it, even in the country, given the right circumstances.

This all adds to the situation already developing in this land, where the government is clamping down, and making morality part of its bussiness. I think that protection and creation of oportunity, and providing services are the job of the government - not moralising, and not monitoring our every action. Of course, they take the stand that it is necessary to protect us - but I wonder how much it kills us in the process.

This is not to say I don't believe in morality - quite the opposite. In fact I think that the government must try to maintain its own morallity in the laws it creates (ie. by not doing things which are wrong, such as killing people). All I am saying is that it is not a job for the government (who, being human, like the rest of us, are not really the ideal people to decide on this) to impose morallity on us. No, I think that this is much better in the hands of a perfect judge, which we find in god, and, a merciful forgiving judge, which we find in this same place.

right, I think that is the end of my rant. - Of course no-one will read this anyway, but hey, never mind, my thoughts are here if anyone wants them.

Here we go again...

What is it with all this panick buying, even before protests start, we have fuel shortages. Perhaps then this will be the new tactic to make life dificult. Fuel protestor will start repeatedly threatening to protest, wait for fuel pumps to run dry, and then say they were only kidding. When this stops working, they'll actually make a blockade, and then they'll start with the scaremongering cycle again. Well, maybe not, but you never know.

Of course, the real question is, will this change anything? And if so, is this really a good change? Let's have a thing about a few options here...

Fuel tax down, bigger defecit

The government could cave in, but not do anything else - this is a gamble, and would be based on some theory that it will kick start the economy into growth. This could be lucky, but if unlucky, then it would have a long term impact, and the conservatives would have a field day.

Fuel tax down, other taxes up

This is more likely. It will make people think they are richer, and some people might be. However, some people might not be, it would all be swings and roundabouts. Ultimately, it would be got away with, and the tax system would once again get more complex. I find this terribly in-elagent, but that is the way taxes will inevitibly go under any of the popular governments. This is of course due to the fact that everyone wants public services, but no-one is prepared to pay for them

Fuel tax down, services down

Or as the conservatives might tell you, "a more efficient public sector". This is the conservative way, a way for the eighties, or something like that. I don't think Labour are meant to be into this kind of thing, but you never know. I don't like this option, but you never know, I could be wrong. Dunno, suppose that's what comments are for.

Fuel tax Stays Up

To be honest I don't see anyone caving. I think that tax will stay as is, and prices will go up till we're not prepared to pay anymore. This is how a market economy works. People want something - it gets more expensive. No-one wants it - it gets cheaper.

So more expensive oil, petrol etc. What is the solution, what will happen. Well things might get cheaper in a few years if more refineries are built - but this is bad for the environment. If you have a diesel car, you could convert to vegetable oil. This is better for the environment, and cheaper too. In fact, I'd like to see the government encourage this, by dropping the duty on vegetable oil used in cars. Alternatively, but this will take a long time, we could switch to other renewable (yes, vegetable oil is renewable!) sources of energy, like wind, wave and solar power. Still waiting for those off-shore hydrogen (wind/wave -> spliting water into hydrogen and oxygen) factories...

The Environment

Ok, I'm breaking my rules, and putting more stuff in my blog.

This time, I'm looking at the environment, as I feel I stuff to say about it - and I want to clarify some things that people may have found slightly conflicting - they weren't, but it wasn't clear.

Carbon Neutrality

I think the way we should deal with the environment issue is through carbon neutrality. That is, we should not put any more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than we take out. As I think we have gone too far, I think that it would probably also be of benefit to take a bit of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. So, to explain how this all works, I have a little table. Note that, unless otherwise stated, I assume that all wood comes from managed forests, where enough trees are planted to counteract those cut down.

Increases Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide	Carbon Neutral	Decreases Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
Deforestation / Unmanaged Forests (trees not re-planted) Burning Fossil Fuels Cement and Concrete	Burning Wood, Charcoal or Oils from farmed plants Solar, Wind and Tidal Energy Nuclear Fusion Nuclear Fission (This is however environmentally a very bad idea. It takes far to long for the nuclear waste to decay into safe products, and I do not think we are good enough at keeping it safe in the meantime.) Steel Pile Foundations Recyling Paper	Wooden Houses Putting paper in a big airtight room, and leaving it there

Cars

Note that I have not condemned cars. I think cars are wonderful devices, which allow us to where we want, when we want, with as much stuff as we need. The only problems they have are due to us running them on the wrong fuel, which can be changed.

solutions to this include bio-diesel (eg. vegetable oil powered cars), electric cars (where the electricity was generated from renewable energy) and hydrogen powered cars (where the hydrogen was extracted using renewable energy).

Therefore, I differ significantly on government policies on road taxation. I think that congestion charging, toll road charging and road tax should be abandoned, in favour of a carbon tax applied to fossil fuels. This alone is not sufficient, as the new technology needs a big push to replace the fossil fuels. Therefore we need a huge investment in, and subsidies for this technology, so that people can all afford to make the switch.

Conclusion

So there we have it. Let's all put solar and wind generator on our nice wooden houses built on top of steel pile foundations. And let's put 100,000 wind generators and hydrogen plants around the coast to generate hydrogen for our cars.