Sorry Steven, you've got this one wrong mate.

To start with we all ready have a damn sight too much government in our lives.

Secondly we need yet another huge bureaucracy, to administer this like we need a hole in the head.

Thirdly, why should people have to go walking just to please you, & some of your mates.

But mostly, even apart from the cost of the huge bureaucracy, it would be far too costly, if it worked.

Unless we were lucky, Cols wife's uncle probably cost us a few bucks in medical bills as he was dying by choice. Good luck to him. My father, a smoker & drinker, who died not much after 70, would have cost us all a bit too. However combined they would have cost us a pittance compared to my clean living mother, [who rarely walked] who died after her 99Th birthday.

All the operations, the hospital & rehabilitation time, & the in home medical assistance must have cost the tax payer a fortune.

A better idea would be to make it mandatory to smoke 50 a day & drink half a liter of spirits daily from age 40. It would even be cost effective to supply this free. That way, if the medicos are right, a somewhat doubtful proposition anyway, most would die just after retirement, saving the public purse a fortune.

Eureka! Yes I've found it.

Putting Stevens & OUG's posts together, with just a little brilliance of my own, the answer to all the earths problems.

Human power generation.

Yes every town or suburb will have it's own huge treadmill, hooked to a generator. Instead of wastefully wandering around, all that walking can be made to generate all our power, almost carbon free.

I can see it now, almost as clearly as those 20,000 public servants on that wall.

Those Greeks, [before their financial crisis], & Romans knew how to do things, when they powered their galleys.

We could have a big fat brown sweaty man beating out time on a drum, & an even bigger brown sweaty man, with a big whip, to make sure everyone walked fast enough.

Everyone has to put in 2 hours a day, to make sure they stay healthy of course.

So there you are Bob Brown, I've found your low carbon utopia on earth for you, just send the cheques to all 3 of us, I needed help to be so brilliant.

Oh, & I will have to be made head whip hand. Gees, this saving the earth might just become fun after all.

Hasbeen,

I think you've got it!

Wowee!, thats a brilliant idea [ why didn't I think of that ] reminds me of the beer ad where the guys are watching TV powered by his mate on a treadmill. What about all those stationary bikes in health spa's; hook up the back rollers to generators and they can pay YOU to join and generate power. As for taxes, Ive been spruking my method since 1968 and have refined it's working to a fine art. Tax everyone on not how MUCH they make, but how FAST they make it.

sorry hassa..no checks
[as the bankers shut down my account as i didnt use it enough]

im not into the money thing
just knowing were forcing people into healthy living
and eternal labours is enough for me..

i like the so called time gain tax as well
[where we tax how fast the income came in
rather than how much trickles in]

it will need to be capped of course
and if the trick-les run into a flood
well let them pay with the stockmarket income
capital gains levie..[or in blood]

were all sick of watching the in crowd
walkaway with bonus...when its payment is our onus

the system needs a good boot up the anus
but by forcing them to walk..means they cant run too far from us

we could also revenue raise with speed camera's
for those tempted to jog or sprint out of the rain

oh what good we can make others do
when we force our will upon others
and shut down their brain

anyhow the evidence is overwelming
[we got a science con-census]

we found the real problem
and have the means to install our
work-able solution...the walk-able solution

think of all the carbon pulution
extra taxes for heavey breathing

and jobs for the new task masters
public servants of course..beating the drum
[cause beating with a whip takes too much energy for the poor sods]

cant beat the ffflexie time
or the pen-sion

The problem is simple.....Tax all things that are bad for you. UOG knows smoking is bad for him, so if he continues with the warnings, TAXING the likes of, can only be a governments incentive to help others that cant help themselves.

LEAP