England plans to sell all its public forests

by Sean McLachlan on

English environmentalists, hikers, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and pretty much everybody else is up in arms about a UK government plan to sell off all the woodlands managed by the Forestry Commission in England, the BBC reports.

The Forestry Commission manages 18 percent of all England’s forests, some 2,500 sq km (965 sq miles). A portion of the forests are already being sold to raise £100m million ($159 million).

A public poll this week found 75 percent of the public against the move.

The plan will not affect forests in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

This is the dumbest idea the UK government has come up with since selling the Royal Mail. Forests are a national heritage, not something to be sold off by privileged members of government to their old classmates from Eton. The government says that environmental and public use rights will be protected but, to use an English phrase, that’s a load of bollocks. Once the forests are in private hands, it will be much easier for private interests to undermine the laws governing them, or simply ignore the laws if the fines come out to less than they’d make turning the forests into shopping malls and housing developments. This is already standard practice in Spain, and it has ruined some of the best stretches of the Mediterranean coastline.

As a hiker who loves England’s woodland, I have grave concerns over what this will mean for people from England and around the world who go to the woods to see some of England’s most beautiful spots. A few hundred million pounds in the government’s pocket will not solve the economic crisis, or save national health care, or pay off the national debt, but it will mean that the heritage of the English people may disappear forever.

[Image courtesy user ntollervey via Wikimedia Commons]

Handling your cruise luggage, there are options

by Chris Owen on

For many cruise passengers, carrying around luggage can be a real drag, especially if they are flying in to the port of embarkation. Claiming, transporting and getting it on the ship can be a big job with multiple checked bags. After sailing, passengers with late outbound flights often rent a day room at a hotel, mainly for some place to put their luggage while they kill time. Now, several different options are available to make all of that much easier.

A new service, Bags To Go, offers a solution for a reasonable fee when sailing from Port Everglades in Florida. Arriving at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport (FLL) Bags To Go offers a Claim and Delivery service that picks up passenger luggage and delivers it to the ship for, get this: $6 per bag. Pretty reasonable.

Passengers driving to the port using Park ‘N Fly can drop off bags at the parking center and have them delivered directly to the ship too, also for $6 per bag.

Got some time before your flight departs? You can also store bags securely at the airport before check-in. Again, just $6 per bag does it. The service is offered in Fort Lauderdale now but will be rolling out to Miami soon.

That seems like a great price, especially considering what you might tip a porter at the pier, usually a dollar or two a bag. But you have to get there with your luggage first and odds are you may have paid an excess baggage fee to an airline.Another service, LuggageForward.com, offers door-to-door service, picking up luggage at your home, delivering it to the cruise line, then bringing it back home to you after the cruise. It’s more expensive with an average size bag pricing out at about $99, so do the math. But if convenience is a top priority, this is a good, reliable way to go. One more company that does this, luggageahead.com, also a great way to avoid airline fees, works in a similar way.

Interestingly, these services often use FedEx, UPS or some other carrier to handle it all for them. Check with carriers directly too for another option to explore.

Crystal, Princess, Cunard, and Regent Seven Seas, among others, also sponsor similar programs called “Luggage Valet” with domestic rates starting about $90 per bag and $250 for international handling.

Luggage freaks: If you are into luggage in a big way and worry about it being mishandled, there is another service available too. SecureWrap.com can help ease your mind. Their “Baggage Protection Service” wraps your luggage in plastic after you certify there is nothing restricted inside and sends you and it on your way through normal check-in procedures. If all goes well, your luggage arrives in pristine condition on the ship.

This would pretty much be the ultimate way to fool friends into believing your knock-off designer luggage is the real thing. Who would shrink wrap anything but the best?

Flickr photo by sun dazed

Alleged U.S. gun smuggler schmoozes his way past TSA – guns exported to the UK

by Scott Carmichael on

Well, isn’t this good to know – all it takes to become an international gun smuggler is a charming smile and a good excuse.

At least, that is the feeling you get when you read about alleged arms dealer Mr. Steven Greenoe. Mr. Greenoe regularly visited gun shows in North Carolina, loaded disassembled semiautomatic weapons in his luggage and flew them to the United Kingdom, where they sold with a handsome profit.

According to U.K. police, the guns were sold to criminal gangs, and one was reportedly used in a recent drive-by shooting. His 9mm Glocks were purchased at gun shows, and sold for as much as $8000, and as many as 60 guns may have been smuggled on commercial flights, with the help of the TSA.

The whole thing is pretty scary – but it gets worse – When Mr. Greenoe was stopped by TSA agents at Raleigh-Durham airport, he simply told them that he was a legitimate arms dealer, and that the guns were “engineering samples”. That is all it takes to get past the people put in charge of our airport security, because he was allowed to board an Atlanta bound plane, and then on to the U.K.

The only upside is that the arms were never carried in his carry-on luggage, but it still makes a mockery of the U.S. security, as U.K. officials now need to ask their U.S. counterparts just how stupid they actually are.

CBS News located his LinkedIn profile – which lists Mr. Greenoe as the CEO of the Jolie Rouge Group, a private security provider.

[Photo: AP]

Craigslist user scams New York Times writer in London

by Elizabeth Seward on

Being victimized by internet scam artists isn’t hearsay–it’s happening all over, to all kinds of people, and all of the time. New York Times writer, Seth Kugel, published his personal testimony yesterday–a testimony of innocent trip-planning gone wrong.

While organizing his pending trip to London, Kugel found himself on Craigslist looking for attractive sublets in good neighborhoods. When he came across a Notting Hill studio available for a seemingly fair price (around $73 a night), he emailed the address in the ad and was responded to right away.

When the respondent requested that Kugel wire the money directly to his bank account, red flags should have been waving wildly in his face. But in Kugel’s defense, he’d recently lived in Brazil for two years; a country he claims utilizes wire transfers for even everyday expenses, like medical bills.

But he was duped. And that’s really all there is to it. Myriad are the ways in which internet scammers trick users out of their money, but it sure seems like accommodations, be them temporary or ostensibly permanent, are among scam artists’ favorite lures.

The good news? Kugel pieced together an insightful and resourceful list of ways in which we all can better avoid being scammed. You should read it here.

[photo by Elizabeth Seward]

Scotland asks U.S. to lift haggis ban

by Sean McLachlan on

The Scottish government has invited a delegation from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to Scotland in a bid to lift the ban on haggis imports.

In an interview with the BBC, Scotland’s Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead said he wants to show the officials that haggis is made in a safe and sanitary manner.

Earlier this year we reported that the ban on haggis was being lifted. This ban was put in place on UK meat products in 1989 thanks to the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, a.k.a. mad cow disease. The ban on UK meat was indeed lifted, but our report on haggis turned out to be premature, because in ensuing years the U.S. government had added a ban on imports of food containing sheep lungs, a key ingredient in traditional haggis.

Now the Scots are trying to get that last hurdle out of the way. Mr. Lochhead says the U.S. market for haggis could be huge. Think how many expat Scots, Scottish-Americans, and wannabe Scots there are in the good old U S of A. Just the number of people trying it once out of curiosity could add up to millions of dollars in sales.

He believes that if U.S. agriculture officials saw the high standards of food processing in Scotland, they’d give sheep lungs a break and allow them for human consumption.

Personally, I don’t like haggis, but that’s just me. I think that the more ethnic foods are available to the consumer, the better.

[Photo courtesy user Kaishu via Wikimedia Commons]