tonyh29

i'm sure that was more than 30 sec :-)

^^ call me stupid but without my morning coffee kicking in other than Antartica I can't see whee the 3 maps above look different from any other map of the world I've seen

(or each other for that matter )

PS

the license to call me stupid expires in 30 secs ....

They also have my Iris details - no queues at passport control for little old me

you say that but i had 5 people in front of me for the iris on Monday at T4 ..of course one of them was a numpty who couldn't work the machine so it would have been quicker to go through the usual queue ... always the way once the masses get hold of technology

Found these world maps on the old interweb , the oil consumption map is interesting , see the way Japan suddenly bloats almost the size of Russia

anyway ..take a look if you're interested ...

Interesting ?

thing is i'm sure Drat posted (was it on this topic or another one ?) that he was finger printed the other week when he came into the UK and did a domestic transfer

so if it wasn't going live until Thursday ..was Drat duped by a fingerprint scam artist who is now committing untold crime and leaving Drats finger prints at every crime scene :-)

and it seems they may have to do a U-turn ...

Domestic passengers and international passengers transferring onto domestic flights at Heathrow were to be fingerprinted from the start of business on Thursday.

But the plan has been temporarily suspended amid doubts over the legality of such a move.

The Information Commissioner's Office was concerned the fingerprinting could breach the Data Protection Act.

BAA said it would instead used a "photographic identification process...which is already in place."

In a statement, the firm said the decision came after a meeting "with all relevant parties, including the Information Commissioner and the Border and Immigration Agency."

So, how is Poll Tax fair

Imagine a place with no tax accountants, where the annual return takes a businessman an hour to complete. Think how you could lead a country and design an economy just as you liked. Consider the joy of creating a tax system with no loopholes and exemptions, where everyone is treated the same.

When he became the prime minister of Estonia at the tender age of 32, Mart Laar saw this opportunity as a beautiful thing. The Soviet regime that once ruled his country had been overthrown, and he was starting with a clean slate - and the confidence that came from reading only one book on economics.

url=] mayeb it works ?

As a former history teacher with a fondness for Guns N' Roses, he had given little thought to what kind of tax system he should introduce when he won office. Within a year, however, Estonia had become the first European country to introduce a single rate of income tax.

Now, 14 years later, Mr Laar is hailed as the prophet of a revolution - the flat tax insurrection enveloping much of Europe. As the "father of the flat tax" he is sought out by economists and politicians from across the globe, anxious for his counsel.

Dressed in a grey T-shirt and black chinos, Mr Laar - chubby, bespectacled and with a scrubby blond beard - sat on a park bench outside the Estonian parliament in Toompea Castle in Tallinn, the capital. It was the arrogance of youth in the post-Soviet dawn, he said, that had turned him into an unlikely poster boy for free-market economists everywhere.

"Most experts advised against it and said it was a very stupid idea," he said. "My finance minister said don't do it, the IMF said don't do it. But it's not very easy to convince a young person that he is wrong and I was that type of young person. So I did it."

The economic results of the flat tax in Estonia were stunning as the tiny Baltic state emerged from 50 years of Soviet oppression and a Bolshevik-style planned economy to become a modern, prosperous country.

Inflation dropped from more than 1,000 per cent to just 2.5 per cent, in line with western Europe. Unemployment fell from 30 per cent to six per cent and growth has soared to six per cent, a rate that Gordon Brown would envy. Investment poured in and the initial 26 per cent tax rate has been cut to 23 per cent. Next year, it will be cut again to 20 per cent.

He said the tax was fair, "because rich people are paying significantly more tax even with the same percentage. It is very easy to collect and control."

Also, he said: "In a highly progressive tax system there is no incentive to work: the harder you work, the sooner you get to the next, higher, tax level. A flat tax generates more growth and therefore more revenue for the government."

From your figures, why is it fair that the tax burden on the richer person should be around 30% and on the poorer person just under 50%?

Picky :-) .... it was just approx I didn't sit there and work it out exactly ...

I think if we asked everyone in the UK if she should be on the list the majority would say yes

do you really think that ? disliked , by some I could understand , but evil I can't see it ...

My Dad went from spending £400 Rates, in a typical suburban 3 bedroomed house, to receiving a bill for in excess of £1200

What is he paying now i wonder ? add that to his higher cost of beer ,petrol and cigs and I'll bet any money he's far worse off .... wonder why nobody is protesting on the streets of London ?

I know some don't like it but the size of your house to my mind shouldn't reflect how much tax you have to pay .. the millionaire has already paid tax on his million so he's already contributed around £300,000 in tax (or more) ..where as say a man on £30 k has contributed £ 14k in tax ... tax needs to be fair for sure but how many times should the rich have to pay it ?

that couldn't give a shit about the Working Class.

Which government allowed the working class to buy their council houses on the cheap ..and then make a killing on them a few years later ?

so no Hitler ,Pol Pot and the other mass murderers

but you include Thatcher

think your poll is somewhat lacking in perspective ......

I have to assume Tony would hit Josie as she is the most obscure nomination and would only be included by someone who had the hots for her

Nah I went for Lois as she seems to be a right dirty cow .. My wife did Kiss ..yeah

I tried to cover a broad spectrum for all ..... apart the rabbit fetish brigade :-)

thought Smurfette would have got more votes though

seems to be a heck of a rabbit fetish going on here at Villatalk

lot of nervous bunnies in the Birmingham area tonight me thinks

No Jessica Rabbit or Princess from Battle of the Planets

I thought Princess was about 13 ..it may be cartoon land but there are still laws against some things .....

Jessica Rabbit ...never seen the film so didn't really know who she was

Due to an experiment going wrong you've somehow been sucked into Cartoonland

So , which of the following cartoon characters would you be trying to shack up with

PS

Sorry If I missed off anyone that you have particular strong feelings for :-) but the list was getting quite long

Can't imagine it with a beach boys sound .. does it sound good or a bit weird ?

something about the tune \ melody of this song that just sort of gives it a sort of Wow factor

by terry Jacks

Just heard it on the radio after not hearing it for years ... kinda hate it but also think it's kind of a classic , great melody and kind of sad lyrics , i seem to recall it was originally in some film where a boy was dying of cancer

so what do people think

A classic or utter trash

Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas used to voice for Lucy and Sally in Peanuts cartoons.

Guess I would go for De Niro ...Pacino doesn't quite have as much range as De Niro for my money

but if I had more options I would probably not vote either of them as my top choices ...guess I perfer a more subtle actor

James Stewart would be my number 1 and probably Christian Bale at 2 with Ed Norton at 3

the title of this thread is good idea ? Again you want to bring in anti-Labour bias into the debate.

not at all ..when 60 % drops to 20% in a few short years you have to ask why

What happened in that timescale to make 40% of the people change their mind ..

hence the ? at the end of my post

so go on take a stab at why 40% have changed their mind .................

or should I word it differntly for you ......what would colour tie was Cameron wearing on the day of the poll and what would the tories have done differently on a policy that isn't of their making to make 40% of people change their mind

The reason is ID and proof

this week it may be , but what was it they said originally ....

Interestingly I looked back through some old surveys we carried out back in 2004 and it turns out support for ID cards was at 60% ..... now it's around 20 %

so is it the ID cards people are opposed to ..or is it the governments lack of ability and a lack of faith from the general public that has caused the about turn ?

I will try and keep it simple - then you would have to provide UK based info which can then be cross checked against you

sadly it's yourself who you are confusing so maybe your not keeping it simple enough ?

If Jo Blogski as you call him comes to the UK on a fake passport the UK will have no record of him as he is not from the UK ..therefore when he goes along to get his UK biometric ID he is in effect Jo Blogski ... he has the ID that says he is ..and unless there is worldwide and inter agency cooperation then he will walk out with a nice shiney ID card proving he is Joe Blogski ....

It wouldn't matter who put ID cards in place , they are a bad idea ..and it would seem 60% of people on here agree

only got to look a t the original governemnt excuse for them and see how it's changed and chaged to see that even they don't know what they are for ...remember those far ago days when an ID card was going to stop terrorism , only of course now they are not for that they are for something else ..and you accuse Cameron of changing his mind :-)

your so sunk that you better do a decompression stop on your way up or you'll get the bends ............

^^^ whose the blue one and whose the red one :-)

Not sinking my reason at all mate. OK so Joe Blogski arrives on the back of a lorry. Goes through Dover. Starts up a business in London using a false passport. Old Bill think something aint right here he doesn't look like a regular Joe Smith, how do they prove he aint? The passport he has says he is.

your sinking fast ... but glad to see that you believe our police force will only pick up on anyone who looks like a foreigneer for no other reason than he doesn't look "right "...

If you don't think that in getting his fake passport he can't get the other fake docs required to get his bio ID card at a later date I fear you are being a bit naive ... or are you saying that the bio stuff will be crossed referenced to a worldwide database ..and what if he comes from a country that don't keep up to Biometric information ... not to mention I thought this data was only going to be a accessable by a select few and yet now you are talking about a world wide database that the whole world will have access to .. how secure a database can it be ??

face it , it's not workable and no valid benefit or reason for these cards has been put forward ...

Ps , I thought The Govt. have already said it isn't compulsary to carry the card with you ..so old bill can ask him to produce an ID card and he can tell them to go poke it .... he's not breaking any law by doing so ....

on the whole positive

Positive I support Labour and Villa, a great family, a wedding next week, a few good holidays planned -

4 out of 5 ain't bad i guess :-)

Of course this could never happen to a Nationwide scheme ..could it

The Ministry of Defence is at the centre of a new security row after it emerged an "extraordinary" 11,000 military ID cards were lost or stolen in the past two years.

The MoD takes the loss 'seriously'Opposition parties said the scale of the losses cast fresh doubt on the Government's plans for a national ID card scheme.

The MoD said it took the issue "very seriously" and steps were being taken to improve general security awareness.

According to figures released in a Commons written answer, some 4,433 ID cards disappeared in 2006 and a further 6,812 went missing last year.