Monday 30 June 2008

Call for Community Justice Panels

The Institute for Public Policy Research says that the rising number of teenage criminals is the result of the target culture in police forces. It wants more 'community justice panels' and restorative justice.
Teenagers found guilty of crime has soared by over 25%, reveals a Labour think tank. The number of teenagers found guilty or cautioned for crime has shot up by more than a quarter in the last six years.
The fast-rising numbers of young people hauled before the courts or dealt with by police - revealed by a Labour think tank - suggest that billions spent on trying to cut youth crime have had no effect.
Figures gathered by the IIPR under the Freedom of Information Act show that the number of under-18s convicted of a crime or cautioned rose by 27 per cent over the past six years. For those aged between 10 and 15, the number went up by a third.Among adults, the increase in numbers of convicted or cautioned offenders went up by 11 per cent.
The Institute for Public Policy Research says that the rising number of teenage criminals is the result of the target culture in police forces and says that many young people are being made criminals for minor offences. In future young offenders should be dealth with by 'community justice panels' made up of victims and 'community representatives'.

Saturday 28 June 2008

Click to help fight breast cancer


The Breast Cancer site is having trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman. It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on 'donating a mammogram' for free (pink window in the middle). This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammogram in exchange for advertising.

Here's the web site! Pass it along to people you know. http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/
For further information go to:

Friday 27 June 2008

Looked out my window and what did I see ....


.... PC Woodhead, Jeffers and our PCSO teaching local school kids cycling proficiency!

Tuesday 24 June 2008

My mate the Mayor opens Road in the ward today

Hawthorn Road opened - Left to right: Cllr Gareth Lyon (new Empress Cllr), Jo Gosney (Local Historian), pretty lady from Pavillion Housing, His worship the Mayor, Cllr Alan Ferrier, Mike Auger (St Modwin's, the developer, Mayoress, and local village idiot with no comb to balance the picture


Hey presto - an opened road

The blackmail picture worth so much more: Mayor and Mayoress are forced to witness daylight vandalism of Highway signs by official photographer Les Millar (see http://www.lesmillar.com/ ) and Pavillion Housing representative egged on by the local developer. Picture was taken as I fainted in horror at what was being done!

Monday 16 June 2008

Fighting Crime some ideas


On Wednesday I attended a "Youth Matters" event organised by some local beat officers at Oak Farm School. This was excellent, and demonstrated two things. First local policing is working. Second, crime and other issues are best dealt with working in partnership with others. The idea of the event was to show young people all the things that are available to do in the Borough. There is lots to do if you just take the time to look.



I think all youth activities should be listed on our web site, so young people can go on and check and find links with contact details etc.



I have come across some other innovative ideas recently - what do you think?



1. Make people apologise for their crime on YouTube, especially if they have bragged about their crime, as a compulsory part of their punishment.



2. Use Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinators and other trained volunteers to help police with some house to house investigations, to allow police to tackle higher priority issues - depending of course on the seriousness of the investigation - ie not a murder case, but theft etc!!



3. Police should all have PDA's (mini computers) to slash the paperwork they have to go back to the station to do.


Tuesday 10 June 2008

Rushmoor's Waste Management Panel's recommendations


On 3rd June I was very much a lone voice in wanting to amend some recommendations that a small working group of Councillors wanted the Environment Panel to endorse before it went to the Cabinet for a decision on implementation.


Every councillor, Labour, Lib-Dem and Conservative supported this except me. Please tell me if you think my amendments (shown in red) were unreasonable or out of touch with residents.


RECOMMENDATIONS

I. Replace (where appropriate) existing 240L residual wheeled bins with 140L bins, collected at the existing weekly collection frequency by 2010. Subject to funding and affordability

II. Continue the current chargeable garden waste collection service, but pursue the option to improve the choice of container

III. Introduce targeted enforcement (I wanted to delete the word enforcement and replace it with education) for recycling, within the current limited resources. A full time post should be introduced if funding becomes available

IV. Continue to participate in the education and information campaign – Recycle for Hampshire - funded through Project Integra

Panel is also recommended to welcome the Cabinet decision to introduce a fortnightly borough wide kerbside glass collection service as part of the contract extension.

My Reasons:


1. On the first recommendation I wanted these words inserted to make clear that where it is not appropriate we will not replace the bins with a smaller one. ie large families or large households.


2. On the third recommendation I felt we were beginning to criminalise people that do not recycle as efficiently as they could. This in my mind is wrong. We are obsessed with recycling sometimes at the expense of other more important habits like reducing and re-using what we consume. Rather than enforcement, I think these life style habits should be encouraged through education and positive incentives, not by fines and criminalisation of our citizens.


The second and fourth recommendation I supported fully.


If you think I have it completely wrong - leave a message for all to see here - and please state your reasons.


If you think the panel got it wrong - tell them - their emails are below:


WASTE MANAGEMENT TASK AND FINISH GROUP
Councillor Sue Dibble (Labour)
sue.dibble@rushmoor.gov.uk
Councillor Roland Dibbs (Conservative)
rlgdibbs@aol.com
Councillor Charlie Fraser-Fleming (Liberal Democrat)
charlie.fraser-fleming@rushmoor.gov.uk
Councillor John Marsh (Conservative) johnhmarsh@ntlworld.com

Monday 9 June 2008

Prospect Road - Burglary

PLEASE INFORM YOUR NEIGHBOURS TO BE WARE

Police were called to an address in Prospect Road on 5 June 2008, a report of a burglary dwelling.
Entry was gained by forcing the bottom panel of a UPVC door which opens into the kitchen . Extensive damage to the lower panel of the UPVC door and glass smashed on the top panel.
This door is located along the side of the house and in order to gain access to it the offender/s had to have jumped over a wooden fence into the back garden.


They stole a black DEWALT box containing 1 x Demolition Hammer .

Get out of Debt

This link is a must if you need to reduce your debt.

http://www.fool.co.uk/news/get-out-of-debt/2008/06/05/7-tips-to-seriously-reduce-your-debts.aspx?source=ioowfeml0040008

Barack Hussain Obama

America is getting tense about the Obama candidacy already ...


http://www.eyeblast.tv/Public/Video.aspx?rsrcID=2036


Thursday 5 June 2008

24 weeks? An uncomfortable truth.


The picture is that of a 21-week-old unborn baby named Samuel Alexander Armas, who is being operated on by surgeon named Joseph Bruner. The baby was diagnosed with spina bifida and would not survive if removed from his mother's womb.


Little Samuel's mother, Julie Armas, is an obstetrics nurse in Atlanta . She knew of Dr. Bruner's remarkable surgical procedure. Practicing at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville , he performs these special operations while the baby is still in the womb.During the procedure, the doctor removes the uterus via C-section and makes a small incision to operate on the baby.


As Dr.Bruner completed the surgery on Samuel, the little guy reached his tiny, but fully developed hand through the incision and firmly grasped the surgeon's finger. DrBruner was reported as saying that when his finger was grasped, it was the most emotional moment of his life, and that for an instant during the procedure he was just frozen, totally immobile.The photograph captures this amazing event with perfect clarity.


The editors titled the picture, 'Hand of Hope.' The text explaining the picture begins, 'The tiny hand of 21-week- old fetus Samuel Alexander Armas emerges from the mother's uterus to grasp the finger of Dr. Joseph Bruner as if thanking the doctor for the gift of life.' Little Samuel's mother said they 'wept for days' when they saw the picture. She said, 'The photo reminds us pregnancy isn't about disability or an illness, it's about a little person. 'Samuel was born in perfect health, the operation 100 percent successful.

Pictures in the City

Need to let my untalented creative side out for a mo - do excuse me!! Had a nice wonder round the City this weekend.



Save the Church


Save the Car



Save the Tree



Save yourself!

Tuesday 3 June 2008

Fight Cancer

Cancer Update from John Hopkins
1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multipli ed to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just mea ns the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.
2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person's lifetime
3. When the person's immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors.
4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.
5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.
6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastro-intestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidne ys, heart, lungs etc.
7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.
8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will ! often re duce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.
9 When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.
10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.
11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.
CANCER CELLS FEED ON:
A. Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in color. Better alternative is Bragg's aminos or sea salt.
B. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soya milk cancer cells are being starved.
C. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.
D. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline envi ronment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provi! de live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).
E. Avoid coffee, tea , and chocolate , which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer-fighting properties. Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.
12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become purified and leads to more toxic buildup.
13. Cance r cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body's killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.
14. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-ssence, Essiac, anti-oxid ants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body's own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body's normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.
15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger, un forgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.
16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.
1. No plastic containers in micro.
2. No water bottles in freezer.
3. No plastic wrap in microwave. Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in its newsletters. This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as well. Dioxin chemicals causes cancer, especially breast cancer. Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies. Don't freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic. Recently, Dr. Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at Castle Hospital , was on a TV program to explain this health hazard. He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us.. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers. This especially applies to foods that contain fat. He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body. Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating food. You get the same results, only without the dioxin. So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else. Paper isn't bad! but you don't know what is in the paper. It's just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons. Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead.

Monday 2 June 2008

Well done Surrey Police - Hampshire should follow


The country’s most successful police force is leading a revolt against Home Office targets that it says stifle officers with form-filling bureaucracy. Surrey Police will be joined this weekend by the Staffordshire, Leicestershire and West Midlands forces in returning to what they call “commonsense policing”.


The forces will abandon government performance measurements that require them to record playground fights as criminal offences. Instead, they will give the bobby on the beat the discretion to treat minor offences as minor offences. A child who accidentally damages a neighbour’s greenhouse with his football is now more likely to be given a telling-off than a conviction for criminal damage.


The red-tape rebellion reflects a growing frustration across police ranks with Whitehall demands that they count every incident that occurs, every action they take and the details of every person spoken to. Senior officers fear that the fixation on “sanction detection” and “crime recording standards” is driving talented officers out of the service.


A right-wing think-tank, Civitas, says police often choose to tackle trivial offences instead of serious crimes to help them meet government targets. The Civitas pamphlet said the trend meant many 'law-abiding middle-class' people no longer trusted the service.


The Police Federation agreed that officers were "struggling to bring some common sense to a... target-driven culture". But the Home Office said it did not expect officers to hit targets at the expense of tackling serious offenders. A spokesman said the government's crime strategy was designed to "free up the police so that they are able to focus on serious crimes and local priorities". There were now fewer central targets, he said, adding that those announced last October gave more prominence to tackling serious crime.


Civitas said police forces, and the government, risked alienating the public by concentrating on "easy-to-deal-with offending" like speeding. The pamphlet, written by journalist Harriet Sergeant, said many officers were expected to complete a certain number of "sanction detections" a month, either by charging, cautioning or fining an offender. Arresting or fining a normally law-abiding person for a minor offence was a good way of achieving this target and pleasing the Home Office, the booklet said.


The author said performance-related pay bonuses of between £10,000 and £15,000 a year for commanders who managed frontline officers partly depended on reaching targets for sanction detections. "In order to meet targets, police are now classifying incidents as crimes that would previously have been dealt with informally, classified differently or ignored," said the pamphlet


Cllr Clifford say: I am 100% in agreement with Surrey Police - for two reasons.


1. The Police are fighting with one hand behind their back thanks to some irrelevant targets. (Some targets are good let us not forget - ie burglary etc)


2. This will give more power and discretion to neighbourhood policing. In effect bringing power to make policing decisions at a local level, by local people. Power to the people!






Well done Surrey - I call on Hampshire to do the same.






In Empress we have a model of how Neighbourhood partnership Policing should work. Our two local beat officers working with the local councillors have achieved a great deal in the last 12 months.

1. Doubled Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinators in the ward.

2. Tackled anti-social behaviour in Cove Green

3. Built a cyclepath route to address a problem near a bridge.

4. Identified an area to provide additional free youth facilities for young people in the town centre.

5. Improved parking in Empress Estate and made it safer.

6. Stopped parking meters going into Salisbury Road car park.

7. Established regular 3 month meetings with local residents, businesses, school and church representatives.

8. Set 3 local priorities that local people wanted tackled - and more importantly getting them done.

9. Police and Councillors meeting once a month to discuss new issues and progress current work.

10. Increased confidence in Police and Councillors as residents see we do not just talk about issues - we work together and take action.

Sunday 1 June 2008

Local Health Care

I have been made aware of threats to local surgeries today. Not via local Government, where I expected to find this out. But by a member of the local Farnborough Society - a non political local civic society that works to improve and protect Farnborough.
For more information on the threat to local surgeries go to:
To join the local Farnborough Society and keep informed go to: