Rigpig wrote:
Banning fox hunting - an ideological blunder that has proved almost impossible to enforce.
Oh yes..
Now not a hunt person. But it is a real nightmare to enforce. You would not think so.. after all horses, hounds, men in bright red coats and so on. But the meets take place all over the place and we only have so many officers...
But the argument is what constitutes "humane" as well. The anti hunt obby say we place human emotion on the hunted prey.. granting the fox the same fears we would have if - well -
hunted down like that.
The pro-hunt argue economics and the fact that the animal being hunted might have an adrenalin rush from the chase and that the end....real animal brutality l as it is - is at least "quick" and the way of nature.
They also argue that to shoot the fox requires a top marksman to make the kill clean and painless. As the fox is naturally cunning .. a graze would cause even this animal great pain. They argue that the fox is not the cute Walt Disney type character.. but a creature which kills for fun and not survival.
Maybe they are right .. the tired animal would not feel the death by the hounds whereas a trap or a gun would cause unnecessary pain. I do know the Mad Cats lost pet rabbits and guinea pigs to a fox once and have no qualms about killing foxes based on the suffering they heard from this attack on family pets and my own dog who was staying with them whilst I was on hols required expensive treatment at the vet's as a result.
But you asked about "it seemed a good idea at time"
1. Merging police forces. All of us spent a fortune on planning for this .. and none of us really wanted it.. so lot of cash got wasted...
2. PCSOs. (depends how each force deploys them. Personally I think we use ours very well and cost effectively - but some mis-manage this resource and the public and press leap on that) I thus have no serious issues over our PCSOs as we are careful to employ them to best effect. However, I cannot be all rosy coloured glasses and pretend that Joe Public is so satisfied in some parts of the UK. To them .. "pretend plod and no real powers unless specifically granted by CC" They want the real thing and I do not at all blame them. They have a use - but we should not be in a situation whereby we freeze recuitment of properly trained officers whilst we have ringmarked cash for PCSOs and the public told that £xm has been spent on providing police officers.
3. Wind turbines. Um.. they need wind. We cannot always guarantee this. Have a look at the wind farms. How many are a-blowing in the wind? They also cost the planet much in precious resources to produce as well. Check out a David Bellamy rant on this very topic. He puts it very eloquently in the Waily and other tabloids
No porblem if they deliver.. but I see them.. sitting
still and not doing anything
4. Recycling. This seems to have more with generating cash for those employed in this industry than saving the planet. I would love to know how my industrious separating of all my brown green, clear glass .. separating my cardboard from my polystyrene "savves" the planet when I open out.. the StUN.. Times, Graundiad, Mirror, Waily, Sexpress, Indy, Torygraph, local rags... and find that all this stuff has been mixed up on a tip in China where it gets "recycled at a high pollution cost to the planet"
Yet .. I still recycle. Where I can.. like rest of the family I am associated with.. I make do and mend and use up until I've had my value - and discard and sensibly and sensitively as I can. I walk, cycle.. and my car is mostly for work and the odd pleasure of a track day in absolute reality. I do not do the long haul hols .. and when I drive off on hols.. I have my little family nucleus with me. Thus -it's cost effective and we get the full pleasure of mobility, cycling, walking and browsing and the freedom of not being tied to timetables which is how my own little family really unwinds.
But I fear a bandwagon of "money to be made out of recycling" and none of this actually ploughed back into enviro-friendly projects .. but lining the pockets of the "entrepreneurs" behind it all.
You asked? I speak perhaps hot-headedly and as gut reaction. I am supposed to be a-political in public..
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