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Postmodernism is fundamentally frivolous. Postmodernists routinely condemn racism and intolerance as wrong but then say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. They are clearly not being serious. Either they do not really believe in moral nihilism or they believe that racism cannot be condemned!

Postmodernism is in fact just a tantrum. Post-Soviet reality in particular suits Leftists so badly that their response is to deny that reality exists. That they can be so dishonest, however, simply shows how psychopathic they are.

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31 May, 2012

Difficulties of partnering in the later years

Given the large number of older widowed and divorced single people in society, the topic below is an important one to broach so I am reproducing the article.  I do think the author has a point.  It is the lack of passion that is the central difficulty.  Women respond very strongly to emotion and a lack of it is deadly. 


So how come that at the time of my 60th birthday I had THREE girlfriends?  Real ones.  I am no oil painting, I have been  old-fashioned since I was ten and am no stud.  It is because I do have passion:  Not physical passion but a passion for ideas.  I believe strongly in things and articulate that.  And it's a magnet to brainy women  -- who are all pretty conservative (as I am) by the time they get to that age anyway.  Caring deeply about things is what matters.  It gives purpose and meaning to life at any age


I have some confidence that I could fascinate the woman writing below in 5 minutes  -- but I have no need to.  I already have a good  partner on my journey now that I am on the brink of my 70th year  -- JR

Ever since my partner died eight years ago, I have been looking for another life companion, someone exciting with whom to walk into the sunset for our remaining years.

So far, this special man has eluded me. And I am far from alone in this. So many of my female friends of a certain age are searching for love, on the internet or elsewhere, and coming up with precisely zero.

It’s not that we don’t meet available men — we do. But somehow they are not what we are looking for. They all end up disappointing us, and we have had endless chats, lunches and drinks bemoaning that fact.

Time and time again, we ask ourselves and each other: what’s the matter with them? Why do older men make such dreadful partners?

It has led me to conclude that though ever more of us are looking for true love in our later years — in fact, dating sites aimed at the over-50s are the fastest growing among all age groups — the fact is very few of us will ever find it.

I wrote an article to this effect for this paper a year ago, but it turns out it wasn’t just me being cynical — psychiatrist Dennis Friedman backs me up and has some answers to boot.  He is the author of a new book, The Lonely Hearts Club (his first work of fiction at the age of 88), which is closely based on his decades of clinical experience and research into what really goes on inside relationships.

Dr Friedman tells the stories of about a dozen men between 50 and 80 — all but one divorced, widowed or never married — who are composites of his former patients, and investigates why there’s such a cavernous gulf between them and their female peers. He wants to explore why, despite the fact that more of us than ever before are finding ourselves single later in life, we are incapable of pairing up with each other.

Friedman’s male characters are discontented and disorientated, wondering where they have gone wrong, and whether they can put things right. Above all, they agonise over whether they will ever again be able to find happiness in an intimate relationship.

They may be partly fictional, but they certainly ring bells with me; they are all examples of the kind of standard issue, unattractive older men I come across all the time.

Perhaps one of the most incisive points Dr Friedman makes is the fact that older men are often totally incapable of opening up to new women. Over time, they have forgotten — or maybe they never knew — how to fall in love properly or even begin to inch closer to someone.

Dr Friedman says older men suffer these problems because they were brought up differently from younger chaps. They may have been able to form relationships in their youth, but the world was less touchy-feely then — men were left to be men and weren’t required to talk of emotions.

‘Nowadays, there is a lot of emphasis on bonding, hugging and kissing babies, but in the past, boy babies especially were left to tough it out, far more than girls,’ he says.
one of the most incisive points Dr Friedman makes is the fact that older men are often totally incapable of opening up to new women.

One of the most incisive points Dr Friedman makes is the fact that older men are often totally incapable of opening up to new women

‘So, if they have never experienced affection, how will they be able to give it? These men simply don’t know what a close relationship feels like and, of course, it’s very late to learn.’

He adds: ‘I’m not saying every single man is like this, but because of their upbringing, older men are likely to have learned how to button up their feelings.

‘Of course, men can fall passionately in love when they’re older, but it is less likely because there is less spontaneity and less emotion at this age. There is also less of a reason, less need to form a relationship, especially after their children have grown up. So even if older men are looking, it’s not with the same urgency.’

Dr Friedman also highlights the fact that many older men harbour outdated, chauvinistic views — an attitude unlikely to find favour with modern women, even older ones.

One of his characters says, without any irony, that a woman’s place is looking after her children and not having them brought up by a nanny. And Dr Friedman is sympathetic.

He knows such views might sound rather old-fashioned, but is unrepentant. ‘All children secretly have a wish for their mother to be in the home, to have the sort of security an old-fashioned housewife used to provide,’ he says.

‘Men tend to hark back to when they were children. So though women now have more freedom, men will always prefer the traditional set-up.’

It’s certainly true that there were more incentives for women of my generation to move with the times — after all, the changes that came with women’s liberation benefited us so much. Meanwhile, many of our male peers stuck their heads in the sand and remained culturally fixed in the Fifties — only to find that when they wanted to re-engage with women later in life, there was a huge gulf between them.

Dr Friedman explains that underneath this apparent inflexibility lies fear. It is fear more than anything else that prevents men relating to women properly in later life.

Older men are afraid of new, unknown women, afraid of trying to access their feelings, which have become buried over the years, and afraid of branching out into the ups and downs of a new relationship — and this attitude only increases the chances of it all ending in tears.

Personally, I think it’s their inability to talk about their feelings that makes them so unsatisfactory.

Recently, I was having a candid chat with a successful property developer in his 70s. We were talking about his lonely childhood, and just as I thought we were touching on something real and interesting, the shutters came down.  ‘Well, I suppose I’d better get back to earning money,’ he said. That was a matter he did understand; feelings, on the other hand, were too complex.

A friend has had similar problems. She started a relationship with an older man, but grew frustrated by his constant avoidance of anything vaguely personal.  Whenever she tried to pierce the surface of why he is as he is, he would reply: ‘That’s a conversation for another time.’  They just don’t get it, do they?

At the moment, I have three rather persistent admirers — one is a friend of my late partner and I met the other two through mutual friends — but there is no rapport or chemistry between us.

When I asked one of them what he had to offer me, he replied: ‘Well, nothing really.’ On another occasion, he asked me whether I loved him. We have known each other for seven years, but feelings haven’t deepened in that time — so I told him so. He replied plaintively: ‘Can’t you lie?’

Is it any wonder I would rather be on my own than with old-timers such as these?

Dennis Friedman has been married for more than 60 years to novelist and playwright Rosemary, and they have four daughters. The secret of their long marriage is that they are both hard-working professionals who continue to have a sense of purpose.

In their home, they each have a study (and his and hers stairlifts!) and keep set hours of work. Dr Friedman also still sees patients.

So many older people looking for partners have absolutely nothing to do, and that is another problem. They are advertising for a woman to accompany them on cruises and holidays because they have nothing constructive to fill their days.

The danger with meeting a retired person is that they may want to spend every minute with you, which is something that does not happen when you are young and working or bringing up families.

All THE men Dr Friedman writes about are retired or semi-retired, with loads of time on their hands.  Though this means they can sit and chat endlessly to each other in cafes, they remain lost souls outside the group.

The end of the book is pretty bleak. All of the characters are just as alone as they were before, in that none has found a new partner.

The final message is that, deep down, older men feel far more comfortable with other men than with trying to embark on a relationship with a new woman, especially when there is no real need and when their overwhelming sexual urges have died down.

Many men have told me that they are basically very shy, but that when they are overcome with sexual desire, this makes them bolder. Then, when that fades away, they become shy again.

The majority of mature men, it seems, are just not comfortable with women as equal companions. When a couple of women infiltrate Dennis Friedman’s Lonely Hearts Club, the dynamics start to change, and not for the better.

As older people, we will chatter more readily and naturally with members of our own sex than with the opposite sex, and this goes for women as well.

So perhaps the final truth is that we think we want a new partner of the opposite sex, but actually we have outgrown this need.

We are entering the realms of fantasy when we imagine we might find someone wonderful, harking back to our lost youth.

Even so, I don’t think I will give up quite yet.... you never know.

SOURCE





Marriage is still the 'gold standard’ in relationships

A new survey shows – contrary, perhaps, to expectation – that young people regard marriage and the raising of a family to be more worthwhile than a high-flying career or the acquisition of material wealth. Indeed, the research, carried out by care home charity Friends of the Elderly, revealed that a lasting marriage was the leading aspiration among every age group, including 18-24 year-olds.

Earlier this month, when Coleridge established the Marriage Foundation, an independent charity dedicated to championing marriage as the “gold standard for relationships”, Left-wing commentators were highly critical. In return for raising his head above the politically correct parapet to reject the canard that when it comes to bringing up children, cohabitation is the equal of a legal union, bar the paperwork, he was branded reactionary.

But now it would appear that he was reflecting the mood of the nation. While no one disputes that cohabiting parents can be as loving and supportive as married couples, the incontrovertible fact is that their relationships are less stable – they are almost three times more likely to break up by the time their children are seven. And the long-term consequences of divorce and relationship breakdown on children are clear: they are more likely to play truant, take drugs, abuse alcohol, commit crime or self-harm.

Coleridge, who presided over the bitterly fought divorce of Sir Paul and Heather McCartney, blames 50 years of “relationship free-for-all” for the spread of “divorce on demand”. The resulting fallout – or “broken home”, to use the now unfashionable phrase – damages not just the children, but wider society. “The Marriage Foundation is not going to be a cosy club for the smug and self-satisfied of Middle England,” Sir Paul told an audience at London’s Middle Temple Hall, “but, we hope, the start of a national movement with the aim of changing attitudes from the very top to the bottom of society.”

Cohabitation rates reached 2.9 million in 2010; the same year there were 241,000 marriages (very nearly a hundred-year low) and a total of 119,589 divorces in England and Wales. One in three marriages now ends in divorce, and of those divorces, 20 per cent of men and 19 per cent of women will be divorcing for at least the second time.

As PR campaigns go, flying the flag for marriage is a challenge; at a time when we’re in thrall to celebrities, they haven’t provided the best role models. The absurd Disneyfication of the wedding day à la Katie Price, about to marry for the third time, creates the notion that marriage ought to be an extravagant, frothy fairy tale – no wonder couples struggle to adjust when real life kicks in.

“There is a creeping, insidious erosion of marriage taking place which is damaging our society,” says Richard Todd, a leading divorce barrister. “On the one front there are social changes which mean that marriage isn’t supported; and on the other, government policies have worked against marriage, such as the loss of a married person’s tax allowance and the removal of child benefit for the wealthy.

“When someone’s unhappy in their marriage they go for a drink with their best mate, who immediately says: 'You don’t have to put up with that, you should leave.’ That’s usually bad advice. In previous generations, the couple would have received support to work on their relationship and the marriage would have survived the rocky patch.”

Divorce lawyers claim that no one walks out on a marriage lightly. But the modern world is an individualistic one, focused on self-fulfilment. Following their lavish nuptials in India, Russell Brand and Katie Perry have gone their separate ways after just 14 months. The model Heidi Klum and singer Seal, parents to three children and her daughter from a previous marriage, announced in January that they had “grown apart” and were separating.

“As a society we have grown to feel entitled to have our needs met, and to be happy,” says Charlotte Friedman, a psychotherapist and founder of the Divorce Support Group. “Thirty years ago, people stayed in unhappy, lonely marriages and repressed their emotions because they felt there was no other option. Would it really be better to return to those days?

“Of course, it’s better for children to be brought up in a loving home with two parents. But if they have to separate, and they can do so amicably and resist the temptation to recruit the children to one side or another, it isn’t a bad thing.”

According to the Office of National Statistics, the average length of a marriage in Britain is now 11.3 years. A cohabitation is likely to break up in three years if the partners don’t marry.

The number of couples getting divorced grew by 5 per cent last year to 119,589. This was an increase of almost 6,000 on 2009, and the first time the divorce rate had risen since 2003. Divorce charities say that the combination of rising unemployment and the increased cost of living have created a “pressure cooker” for many relationships. “It’s no surprise that the divorce rate is rising given the pressures that couples and families are under,” says John Loughton, of Relate. “In fact we are seeing more people than ever coming to us because of money worries.”

Money worries are a major deterrent to marriage in the first place, says Anastasia de Waal, of the think tank Civitas. She believes that the success of Sir Paul Coleridge’s crusade for marriage rests not on gradual social change, but government policies.

“The best way to encourage marriage is employment. We know there’s a clear correlation between low employment and low marriage rates,” she says. “If your partner doesn’t have a job or a house you are less likely to want to make them your lifetime partner.”

Whether it be through government policy or a social shift, we all have a vested interest in creating and sustaining happy families; not least because family breakdown costs us £42 billion a year in monetary terms, while taking an incalculable toll on the children involved.

If, as Sir Paul suggests, society is being unravelled, its warp and weft disintegrating with the ever looser bonds between couples, parents and children, can anyone really argue against the championing of loving, secure, stable marriage as the best environment in which to raise the next generation?

SOURCE





Conservative Minister  urges Leveson Inquiry not to meddle with media laws as he makes passionate defence of Britain's free press

Michael Gove yesterday warned Lord Justice Leveson that he risks creating a ‘cure’ for newspaper wrongdoing that is ‘worse than the disease’ of phone hacking.  The Education Secretary repeatedly clashed over freedom of speech with the judge running the media standards inquiry.

He challenged the entire basis of the inquiry and insisted that existing law is sufficient to police the media and prevent wrongdoing.

Mr Gove argued passionately that anything else risks undermining free speech and warned that previous public inquiries that have imposed regulations on other industries have made things worse not better.

His outspoken defence of a free Press seemed to rile Lord Justice Leveson, who insisted new rules were needed to curb excesses even as he claimed he would uphold freedom of the press.

Mr Gove, a former leader writer for The Times which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, also refused to copy other senior politicians by distancing himself from the media tycoon.  Instead he described the media mogul as ‘one of the most impressive and significant figures of the past 50 years’.

It emerged yesterday that he met Mr Murdoch and his senior aides on 11 occasions between the general election in May 2010 and July last year. But he denied that they discussed the News Corporation boss’s business interests.

Mr Gove said journalists were ‘exercising a precious liberty’ when they wrote articles. He said: ‘I am concerned about any prior restraint and on their exercising of freedom of speech.’  He said it was impossible to prevent newspapers causing offence to some portions of the population and that attempts to protect one group would ultimately undermine the ability of the media to hold the powerful to account.

But a clearly irritated Lord Justice Leveson said: ‘Mr Gove, I do not need to be told about the importance of freedom of speech, I really don’t.’  He said he was ‘concerned’ by Mr Gove’s view that behaviour which is ‘unacceptable’ has ‘to be accepted because of the right of freedom of speech’.

But Mr Gove was unbowed and said that attempts to stamp out wrongdoing could make things worse.  He said previous inquiries had led to regulations that were ‘applied in a way to be a cure worse than the disease’.

SOURCE





CAIR Official Elected Delegate to Democrat Convention

The Executive-Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Greater Area of Los Angeles Area chapter, Hussam Ayloush, has been elected as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. CAIR was labeled as an "unindicted co-conspirator" by the federal government in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, a charity shut down for financing Hamas. On July 1, 2009, District Judge Jorge Solis upheld the label, ruling that the government provided "ample" evidence tying CAIR to Hamas.

On April 29, Ayloush announced on his Twitter page that he was elected as a DNC delegate for California's Congressional District 42. The California Democratic Party's website has the results of the delegate caucuses, confirming Ayloush's victory.

CAIR's roots are in the Muslim Brotherhood, specifically its Palestine Committee that was secretly set up in the U.S. to support Hamas. In 1993, the FBI wiretapped a Palestine Committee meeting in Philadelphia that included two future founders of CAIR, Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmad. Also present was Shukri Abu Baker, the leader of the aforementioned Hamas front called the Holy Land Foundation. At that time, Awad and Ahmed led the Islamic Association for Palestine, another Muslim Brotherhood front (according to the Brotherhood's own documents) with extensive ties to Hamas.

The participants in the 1993 meeting discussed how to "support jihad in Palestine" when "this will be classified as terrorism according to America." They discussed the use of deception and word games and the need to create a new organization with less baggage. Ahmed and Awad founded CAIR the next year. That same year, Awad stated that he supports Hamas. In 2004, he refused to condemn Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups in an interview with an Arab publication. The Justice Department reportedly blocked a planned prosecution of Ahmad in recent years.

It shouldn't be surprising then that one of the Brotherhood's documents from 2004 lists CAIR and the Islamic Association for Palestine, from which CAIR's leadership came, among its "working organizations." A 2007 court filing is even clearer: "From its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists.the conspirators agreed to use deception to conceal from the American public their connections to terrorists."

Ayloush has been the Executive Director of CAIR's Greater Area of Los Angeles chapter since 1997. In December 2001, CAIR-CA's website published a photo of him with Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, a senior Muslim Brotherhood cleric that styles himself as the "Mufti of martyrdom operations" and preaches in favor of Hamas, suicide bombings and the destruction of Israel. Ayloush views him as an authoritative source. During a discussion about zakat in October 2002, he referenced the view of "many scholars," but only mentioned one: Qaradawi. To date, there is no repudiation of Qaradawi on the CAIR-CA website or on Ayloush's personal blog.

In 2010, Ayloush said, "I cannot think of one Muslim scholar that I know of, that I have ever heard of, who has actually condoned terrorism." Qaradawi's consistent support for violent jihad is well-known to even his most passive observers. Ayloush either is stunningly ignorant of the "scholar" he references or agrees with Qaradawi's opinion of what qualifies as terrorism.

In January 2004, he spoke of the "legitimate right of the Palestinians to defend themselves against the Israeli occupation" and in 2006, he described the kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers by Hamas and Hzbollah as a "military operation." The Israeli response, on the other hand, he said was "very reminiscent to the Nazi style of collective punishment.in response to a resistance."

Ayloush consistently depicts the actions taken by the U.S. government against Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood entities as acts of oppression. He ridiculed the government for freezing the assets of the Holy Land Foundation in 2001, saying, "As we see one charitable organization after the other having its assets frozen and its offices closed, you know, the shift from fighting terrorism is slowly happening towards a fight against symbols of Islam or Islamic activism in the U.S."

He even said the closing of these so-called "charities" is an act of genocide. On June 21, 2006, he spoke at a conference sponsored by various Brotherhood-tied groups like CAIR, the Muslim American Society, the Muslim Students Association and the Muslim Public Affairs Council. He said, "And any attempt to close down a legitimate relief organization is an attempt to starve the Palestinian people.Any attempt to close down relief for the Palestinians is an attempt at genocide."

Ayloush also defends some known extremists. He stands by the innocence of Sami al-Arian, a Brotherhood member convicted for being a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group. He has spoken at events to raise money for his legal fees. In 2006, he spoke at a banquet for Sami al-Arian, a convicted terrorist found to be a Brotherhood member and leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the U.S. He also stood up for Sheikh Wagdy Ghoneim, an Egyptian Brotherhood cleric and vocal extremist, who was deported.

In a September 23, 2011, sermon titled, "The Best Jihad: Challenging Injustice," he said that the "Irvine 11," a group of students who so disrupted a speech by the Israeli ambassador that it could barely progress, were only charged because of three reasons: They are Muslim, Israel is a "sacred cow' and because they defended Palestinians in Gaza. The goal is to "intimidate" and "silence" criticism of Israel, Ayloush told the mosque attendees.

This is a sharp sharp contrast to how CAIR treats anti-Islamist Muslims like Dr. Zuhdi Jasser that dare to criticize them and other Brotherhood derivatives. Ayloush has "re-tweeted" several condemnations of Jasser and his appointment to a government post.

He is a leading critic of the government's counter-terrorism efforts and tells Muslims that they are part of a systematic persecution. In April 2009, he spoke at a mosque and said that the FBI mustn't be allowed to have informants in mosques. "Our youth, who they [the FBI] try to radicalize are off limits." He claims that the FBI hires informants to "instigate acts of violence to ruin the reputation of the Muslim community."

In May 2004, he said that the U.S. had become the "new Saddam" and implored the country to "end this hypocrisy, this hypocrisy that we are better than the other dictator." In March 2008, he said that in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Lebanon, Somalia and other Muslim countries, the U.S. is "supporting occupation, instability, the interests of defense and war companies and the corrupt allies and puppet regimes." He envisioned "an America that can defeat terrorists without having to act like one."

To be fair, in 2006, he told a columnist that he and CAIR rejected comments made by Imam Abdel Malik-Ali in support of terrorism in Israel, saying "The targeting of civilians is a crime that can never be justified, no matter what just cause it claims to serve." And in a recent sermon, he warned Muslims against embracing false conspiracy theories.

His personal blog (which links to Nihad Awad's blog) has some concerning features.

On November 28, he reposted an article entitled, "Those Who Support Democracy Must Welcome the Rise of Political Islam." Political Islam is another term for the Islamist ideology of the Brotherhood

On June 23, 2007, he republished an article arguing that Hamas is better than Fatah. Titled "West Chooses Fatah but Palestinians Don't," it says, "Here in the U.S., Hamas is routinely demonized, known primary for its attacks on civilians." It concedes that both Hamas and Fatah have done "unspeakable" things but that the U.S. should embrace Hamas. "Hamas did not run into Western opposition because of its Islamic ideology but because of its opposition to (and resistance to) the Israeli occupation. Ironically, it is Hamas that is taking the stands that would be prerequisites for a true two-state peace plan," the author writes.

Ayloush gave a speech on May 11, posted on his blog, titled "Don't Forget Palestine." He tells the audience that Arab dictators like Bashar Assad and Israel are "two sides of the same coin" and need each other. Assad justifies his oppression in the name of fighting Israel and Israel justifies its "oppression" in the name of defense against enemies like Assad.

Ayloush accuses Israel of indiscriminately detaining innocent Palestinians for months at a time, including children. Israel confiscates Palestinian homes in order to build settlements and maintains the only Apartheid state in the world, he says. He preaches that there is an "Islamophobia" network in the U.S. that spreads "anti-Muslim" sentiment and promotes conflict with the Muslim world and "nine out of ten" are right-wing supporters of Israel. The goal, Ayloush assets, is to "demonize the Palestinians" and "anyone who dares to speak up for the rights of the Palestinians in order to cover up the crimes committed by Israel."

In another blog post, he links to a statement by has-been Hollywood star Roseanne Barr denouncing Israel as a "Nazi state." In the comments underneath the post, he said his purpose was to highlight Jews "willing to take a principled stand in criticizing Israel's racism and savagery." An e-mail from Ayloush in 2002 shows why he favors her comments. He wrote, "Indeed, the zionazis are a bunch of nice people; just like their nazi brethren! It is just that the world keeps making up lies about them! It is so unfair."

According to Americans Against Hate, he also posted a picture of an Israeli fighter jet with the words, "guilty Israeli terrorists" and has put up photos of a dead Palestinian baby wrapped in the flag of Hamas. Despite all of this, Ayloush is able to style himself as an interfaith leader. On March 20, he tweeted that he's going to speak about Islam during a Sunday morning church service.

If the Democratic Party wants to rebut allegations that the administration is a poor friend of Israel, having a delegate that complains about "ZioNazis" and is a CAIR official, a group tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, is going to be a tad bit of a problem.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

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30 May, 2012

Is Britain a racist nation? One in three Brits 'admits to being racist', according to poll

Human beings have constructed caregories of people from time immemorial.  The only wonder is that so many have now been browbeaten  into denying it

A third of Brits admit they are racist, a shock report has revealed.  The worrying figure emerged in a poll of 2,000 adults who were asked to honestly express their feelings about foreign nationals living and working in this country.

One in three admitted regularly making comments or being involved in discussions which could be considered racist.

Additionally, more than one in ten admitted they had been accused of being a racist by someone close to them.  And almost 40 per cent confessed to using the phrase ‘I’m not a racist, but ...’ when discussing race issues facing Britain today.

Alarmingly, many felt their animosity towards foreigners was passed down by previous generations.

But the country’s immigration policy also emerged as a trigger for emotions which could be considered racist.

The true extent of the racist undercurrent within the country was revealed in a nationally representative study carried out by OnePoll in which 88 per cent of the respondents classed themselves as ‘White British’.

Anti-racism campaign group Hope Not Hate, said they were not 'surprised' by the poll results.  'These are very disappointing findings. The positive way to look at it the majority of Britain's shun this behaviour.  'It equally shows there is a long to way to go to tackle prejudice in sections of society.  It's disappointing - we know there is a long way to go and this poll merely underlines the fact.'

Yesterday a OnePoll spokesman said: 'What constitutes being racist will always be a contentious issue.  'What one person deems inappropriate the next person may not.  'The opinions and beliefs of our parents and grandparents are bound to be a factor in the way we address other people regardless of their nationality or skin colour.  'Likewise life experience and cultures we have grown-up in are inevitably going to influence our beliefs and the language we use.

Other factors which many feel stir up anti-foreign emotions was the environment or neighbourhood people currently live in.  Life experience was also hailed as a reason.

The study also found one in five accept the fact people around them make disparaging remarks about different ethnic groups - and are not bothered by it.

Age-wise, the over 55s were found to have the biggest chips on their shoulders, with the 18-24 age range close behind.

The younger of these two brackets were also more likely to admit making racist comments or partaking in behaviour which could be deemed racist.

The Government’s immigration policy was slammed by many of those who took part in the study.  Seventy one per cent said they felt the ‘open doors’ approach to foreign nationals was leading to an increase in racist feelings. 

As many as one in six demanded Britain close its doors to anyone who is not a UK national.  Just over four out of ten said they felt a strict number of immigrants should be allowed in at any one time.

A OnePoll spokesman added: 'It’s alarming that so many people are just accepting the racist behaviour around them.  'Nobody should feel an outsider in their own community.

'The findings did show that immigration policy was fuelling the fire for racist behaviour amongst some adults.  'But immigration and race are two separate issues although these findings show that many believe one is a consequence of another.'

SOURCE




Climbdown on secret justice in Britain

    Justice Secretary to allow judges, not politicians, to decide whether a civil case should be kept out of the public eye

Plans for a vast extension of the ‘secret justice’ system will be scrapped today.  Ministers have been forced to back down following a massive outcry from civil rights groups, MPs and lawyers.

Moves to hold ‘sensitive’ inquests behind closed doors are being dropped altogether. And in civil cases judges, not politicians, will now have the power to approve or refuse a request for a secret hearing.

Writing in the Mail today, Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke admits the original plans were too broad.  ‘No evidence that can currently be heard in open court will be put into closed proceedings,’ he adds.

His retreat on inquests was welcomed by the Royal British Legion and campaigners for the rights of families in coroners’ courts.

But civil liberties groups said the concessions did not go far enough and the ‘odious’ Justice and Security Bill should be scrapped completely. They warned the legislation, to be published today, would still put ministers above the law, stopping the public learning about allegations of British complicity in rendition and torture.

Closed hearings are used in tiny numbers of immigration and deportation cases, but the Government had initially proposed employing them wherever ministers felt the public interest was threatened.

Defendants or claimants are not allowed to attend, know or challenge the case against them and must be represented by a security-cleared special advocate, rather than their lawyer. Critics said the proposals were a fundamental breach of the traditional principles of open justice, with MI5 and MI6 dictating the agenda.

Spy chiefs have been embarrassed by terror suspects making civil claims, which were settled out of court to stop sensitive intelligence material being discussed in public.

But even the elite group of lawyers involved in ‘secret justice’ hearings attacked the plans, casting doubt on whether the shakeup was needed to protect Britain’s intelligence relationship with the US.

The majority of security-cleared special advocates – 57 out of 69 – insisted proposals to allow secret hearings across any civil court case or inquest hearing were ‘a departure from the foundational principle of natural justice’.

Critics also feared the new rules could be used to cover up potentially embarrassing incidents, such as police shootings.

In an extraordinary letter to fellow members of the National Security Council last month, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg insisted the security services ‘cannot be allowed to ride roughshod over the principle of open justice’.

Since then, the coalition parties have been embroiled in bitter negotiations over the legislation.

The unveiling of the bill had to be shelved last week thanks to a row over whether to exclude inquests, which the Home Office and security services wanted retained. The final version will introduce closed material procedures in ‘very limited’ circumstances in civil cases.

A judge, not a minister, will have the final decision on whether proceedings should go into closed session and only in exceptional cases involving spies and national security. Only evidence that would otherwise not have seen the light of day, Mr Clarke argues, will be heard by a judge in private. He said vast sums of taxpayers’ cash have been used to settle claims where sensitive material was central to the Government’s case but could not be used in court.

Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty, a rights group that has played a key role in the campaign against the bill, said the concessions should not obscure the ‘odious’ nature of a policy that was ‘such a sweeping affront to centuries of justice’.

But Chris Simpkins of the Royal British Legion said: ‘We have always said secret inquests would compound the grief of bereaved Armed Forces families. They deserve a process that fully includes them.’

Mr Clegg played a pivotal role in watering down the legislation and a senior Lib Dem source said last night: ‘As a result of the Deputy Prime Minister’s intervention, these proceedings are restricted to exceptional cases of national security; a judge not ministers decide; and, crucially, these measures will never apply to inquests.’

The draft proposals had called for closed material proceedings to supplant the system of public interest immunity certificates. But now judges will consider whether a case could be heard using such a certificate – which allows evidence to be kept back – before allowing a secret hearing.

SOURCE






Macho man? Women actually  want a provider says study into what created the modern families

Confident and cocky, alpha males might have you believe that they could win the heart of any woman they want.  But when it comes to finding a mate, women are actually hardwired to go for a meeker, less macho chap who is a good provider, a study suggests.

American researchers have looked into the reasons why humans developed the two-parent nuclear family.

Our primitive ancestors would have inherited the social structure of the apes – a sexual free-for-all with males fighting each other for mating rights.  But scientists at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, say a ‘sexual revolution’ occurred when lower-ranking males who had no chance of winning a fight cottoned on to providing food and care instead.

Their effort paid off, as they got the immediate benefit of mating. And in the long run, females decided they preferred being looked after and started forming long-term relationships, the study found.

Sergey Gavrilets, an evolutionary biologist, said this was ‘a foundation for the later emergence of the institution of modern family’.

It made males more productive, as they wasted less time fighting, and having two parents around meant offspring were more likely to survive, the study suggests.

Professor Gavrilets said experts have struggled to explain how the modern family arose, because they thought if low-ranking males started providing food, the bigger ones would just fight them off.

He said they did not realise until now that female choice was the critical factor. ‘Once females began to show preference for being provisioned, the low-ranked males’ investment in female provisioning over male-to-male competition pays off,’ he added.

The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study on early human evolution demonstrates mathematically that the most commonly proposed theories for the transition to human pair-bonding are not biologically feasible.

However, the authors advance a new model showing that the transition to pair-bonding can occur when female choice and faithfulness, among other factors, are included.

The result is an increased emphasis on provisioning females over male competition for mating.

The effect is most pronounced in low-ranked males who have a low chance of winning a mate in competition with a high-ranked male, the study claims.

Thus, the low-ranked male attempts to buy mating by providing for the female, which in turn is then reinforced by females who show preference for the low-ranked, ‘provisioning’ male, according to author.

The study reveals that female choice played a crucial role in human evolution and that future studies should include between-individual variation to help explain social dilemmas and behaviours, Mr Gavrilets said.

SOURCE





Is There a Legal Problem with “Hate Crimes?”

The definition of "hate crime" is one of those overkill legislative initiatives with unforeseen consequences.  It is noble to recognize that some people commit crimes out of hate, but a murder is a murder, and this should be enough.

How can we possibly know a criminal's inner thoughts (his hatred for his victim); furthermore, even if we can know this for certain, what difference does it make to the victim? The hatred of the murderer should only reflect upon the ultimate sentencing:  premeditated and aggravated murder.

I recall a case last November in El Cajon, California, in which an Iraqi woman immigrant was found in her home, beaten to death, with a note beside her that warned all "terrorist Arabs" to go back to their countries. This crime was immediately snatched up by the legal arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR, as an illustration of "Islamophobia." Their outrage at how badly Muslims are treated in the United States accompanies their ongoing campaign against national security officials spying on Mosques and Muslim student clubs in universities. Surveillance should be conducted where there is likelihood of criminal activity and where one follows the numbers.

Now, it seems that the El Cajon Iraqi woman was not killed by an Islamophobe at all.  She was killed, as are so many Muslim women, by her near and dear. This was an "honor killing" against a woman who was seeking a divorce (dishonoring her abusive husband, no doubt). One other member of that benighted family also needs protection:  the murdered woman's daughter, who refuses to marry a cousin selected for her. She has the temerity to want to have her own choice of spouse, and I hope she has police protection and a women's shelter in which to hide.

Honor killings are indeed hate crimes (the obvious underlying disdain leveled at women in pious families, not just Muslim families).  However, it is mostly in traditional Muslim families that the hatred is acted upon and wives and daughters murdered. Perpetrators of such crimes must be convicted as murderers, and their honor-killing motives indicate premeditation.

In the past and in certain places (France, for one), a man who found his wife in bed with a lover could kill her in an "act of passion," in which premeditation was not a condition and his legal punishment mild. Honor killings are not in this category.

Gathering statistics on this horror is difficult because officials tip-toe around something that might be considered Islamophobic. However, there are significant differences between husbands murdering wives, still too frequent in America, and honor killings, which is a premeditated family collaboration. Murder by the family of origin is estimated at 72 percent in the Muslim world's honor killings and at 49 percent among North America honor killers. European families, immigrants from the Muslim World, have numbers similar to their countries of origin. The victims of honor killings were by far younger than western victims of wife abuse and fathers were involved more than 1/3 of the murders in North America. Worldwide, 42 percent of these murders were carried out by multiple perpetrators. (See Worldwide Trends in Honor Killings: Middle East Quarterly.)

Worldwide, more than half the victims were tortured before dying. In North America, over 1/3 were tortured; in Europe, 2/3 were tortured; in the Muslim world, half were tortured.

Motives for these murders include: the victims were "too western" and/or they resisted or disobeyed cultural and religious expectations. "Too western" means independent, not subservient enough, refusing to wear veils, wanting to advance education and a career, or having friends or dating young people of another religion.

Violence against women and children in our own country often escalates to murder, but they are not called "hate crimes," and certainly not "honor crimes." These are murders---some premeditated, some not, and are not excused because of drugs or alcohol. Murder is murder. Domestic violence is violence. Incest is rape. We need to get back to recognizing crime as crime without looking for excuses for these offenses. And for those states with death penalties, honor killers should qualify.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

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29 May, 2012

Plans for same sex marriage doomed in Britain

Ditch plans for same-sex marriage, voters tell MPs.  Plans to legalise same-sex marriage are the number one issue in MPs’ postbags - with an overwhelming majority of voters opposed to the move - according to a new poll.

The survey of MPs from across the political spectrum by ComRes also shows that only one in 25 parliamentarians believes that allowing gay unions is a main priority for voters.

The poll comes in the wake of a growing number of Conservative heavyweights declaring that they do not support moves to allow same-sex marriage by law by the time of the next election, May 2015.

Last week Downing Street backed down by signalling that there would a “free vote” on the issue in parliament - as is traditional with matters of conscience - in what has become a divisive issue for the coalition.

Earlier senior sources had indicated that the measure would be “whipped” - meaning that ministers would have to support government plans.

Campaigners believe up to five cabinet ministers would vote against same-sex marriage in the Commons, three of whom are claimed to be Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, Owen Patterson, the Northern Ireland Secretary and Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary.

By contrast, Theresa May, the Home Secretary, last week recorded a video in support of the proposals, saying “marriage should be for everyone.” Her intervention was seen as highly significant since she is the minister leading the public consultation on the plans.

David Cameron is said to remain firmly committed to allowing same-sex marriage - despite his stance being held at least partly to blame by some Tory MPs for his party’s poor showing in this month’s local elections. Liberal Democrat ministers are strong supporters of the move.

Ministers are expected to press ahead with plans, permitting same-sex unions in non-religious venues, within the next year. With Labour supporting the move it would be assured of a majority in the Commons - but would run into significant opposition in the Lords.

The survey, commissioned by the Coalition for Marriage (C4M), which is leading the campaign against the government’s proposals, shows that same-sex marriage is the issue which most stands out in MPs correspondence from voters.

According to the polls, findings, seen by The Sunday Telegraph, around one in three MPs (34 per cent) cited it as one of the main concerns raised with them by voters, putting ahead of welfare reform (23 per cent), NHS reform (19 per cent), pensions (13 per cent), fuel prices (13 per cent), fuel taxes (13 per cent), unemployment and jobs (8 per cent) and the Budget (8 per cent).

Asked how voters divide on the issue, MPs say their constituents are overwhelmingly against - with, on average, three in four voters either opposed to the measure (19 per cent) or strongly opposed (55 per cent), according to the MPs’ assessments. Just 16 per cent of those who are in touch with their MPs support the plans.

Strong opposition to the move is reported by MPs of all three main parties, with Conservatives getting the heaviest flak from voters. Among Tories, 45 per cent say that letters and emails opposing same-sex marriage are the number one item in their postbag and email accounts - with the figure falling to 30 per cent of Lib Dems and 23 per cent of Labour MPs.

Asked what issues matter most to their constituents, MPs cite fuel tax (79 per cent), cutting the deficit (74 per cent) and ensuring the tax burden is “spread fairly” overall (69 per cent).

Gay marriage is cited by just four per cent of MPs as a key priority for their constituents, just one per cent ahead of House of Lords reform.

Colin Hart, Campaign Director of C4M, said: “This poll shows that, right across the Commons, MPs do not regard gay marriage as an important priority.

“It also demonstrates that public opposition to the measure is vociferous and widespread.

“If Ministers decide to press ahead regardless of popular opinion, they will further undermine public confidence in Parliament and reinforce the growing impression that the ruling elite is out of touch with the strongly-held concerns and opinions of the British people.

“David Cameron should drop this idea before it causes yet more social divisions and ill-feeling.”

Andrew Hawkins, Chief Executive of ComRes said: “Clearly this issue has touched a raw nerve with the public, and not in a positive way.

“It is however entirely in line with public polling which shows that Mr Cameron’s stance on same-sex marriage has already cost the Conservatives some support and could well be responsible for a number of the party’s MPs losing their seats at the next election.”

SOURCE




THOUSANDS of jobless layabouts risk having benefits stopped in British government crackdown on the workshy

Ministers now want to make ALL able-bodied claimants do unpaid community tasks in return for their dole.

The move follows the success of a tough new regime aimed at pushing the long-term unemployed into work.

Job centre staff have power to send suspected shirkers to join supervised gangs painting schools or trimming hedgerows.

Those who refuse to put in 30 hours a week have their £67.50-a-week unemployment benefit stopped. Next month the government will DOUBLE the number on the programme.

Employment Minister Chris Grayling, who set up the scheme last year, wants to extend it to capture thousands more he believes play the system.

And he has launched a secret trial in one area to see if tough sanctions can be imposed on EVERY claimant. An insider said: “He wants this scheme to be the norm, rather than an optional extra.

“They are planning to extend it rapidly from next month and have already found funding for thousands more places.

More than 18,000 jobless have already joined community projects or had their handouts docked.

But a study shows half of claimants would rather lose their cash than do unpaid work. (Because they are in fact working)

SOURCE





The Media Is Guilty Of Racial Profiling

The media reporting on the Trayvon Martin killing is guilty of felony racial profiling.

It thought it had all the juicy ingredients for a long term titillating story about an angry, white, gun toting, wannabe cop who profiled and stalked an innocent black teenager before killing him simply because of his race.

Due to Zimmerman having a European surname, living in the South, carrying a handgun, speaking without any dialect, and appearing Caucasian, the New York Times naturally profiled George Zimmerman as a bigoted right wing Conservative-Republican NRA life member nut job.

 After learning that his mother was from South America, the newspaper of record, the New York Times, identified him as a "White-Hispanic." I never heard that term applied to former Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, whose mother was Hispanic. Richardson was always regarded as the Hispanic member of Bill Clinton's diversified cabinet.

It turns out that Zimmerman is a registered Democrat.

George Zimmerman's genes are an eclectic blend of at least three different races. The shameless mainstream media purposely downplayed the fact that Zimmerman's grandfather was black. But because he has a German family name and has Caucasian facial features, he was immediately profiled and portrayed as a stalking racist killer who preys on poor defenseless black children.

ABC News was the first to obtain a police station videotape of Zimmerman being led from a police car to an interview room. The media went out of its way to find so-called experts, attorneys, and other pundits to view the tape and conclude that there were no signs of injuries to Zimmerman's face and head, as his father had claimed. Therefore, he's obviously guilty! Even enhanced versions of the tape rendered the same conclusion. So-called audio analysis experts concluded that the voice heard screaming voice on the 9-11 tape during the struggle between Zimmerman and Martin was more than likely Martin's. It turns out that when Martin's father heard the tape, he told the detectives that it was not his son's voice; and then later recanted, probably after his attorney contacted him.

In an unethical effort to reinforce that Zimmerman was a Conservative, racist bastard, NBC news edited the 9-11 tapes to give the indelible impression that he volunteered to the 9-11 operator that Martin looked like a black guy who might be on drugs. In reality, Zimmerman never mentioned race until asked specifically by the 9-11 operator what Martin's physical description and race were.  That portion of the tape was surgically removed before being played on the Today Show. When a hail storm of criticism hit NBC, it reluctantly fired three employees, but refused to identify them. I wonder if any of them were "White-Hispanics."

Following nationwide protests orchestrated and led by the usual suspects, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, Florida appointed a special prosecutor whose job it was to make sure Zimmerman was charged for a crime, any crime, just to get the heat off.

After the New Black Panthers and the media began looking for Zimmerman, he eventually self-surrendered and was arrested for second degree murder. He was later released on bail.

This week, photographs suddenly emerged of Zimmerman that clearly show he suffered severe cuts and abrasions on the left rear side of his head indicative of his being slammed into a sidewalk by Martin, as Zimmerman always maintained. Other corroborating photos showed Zimmerman's crooked nose that was broken by punches thrown by Martin, something else Zimmerman had always claimed.

Martin's autopsy report was also released, and to the shock and amazement of the media, the only other injury to his body, besides the single bullet wound, was to his scraped knuckles! And, if that wasn't enough, the sweet kid, who according to his mother would never do anything wrong, had Tetrahydrocannabinol (the active ingredient of marijuana), in his blood and urine. So it seems that Zimmerman's description to the 9-11 operator that the person he was following was acting strange and might be under the influence of drugs was also accurate.

Zimmerman didn't racially profile anyone; the media did. It profiled Zimmerman as someone who could further its agenda of portraying all whites as racists, and all blacks as victims. They shamelessly ignored the facts and manufactured evidence to cleanly fit into Martin's family's version of what happened.

The media hasn't had a feeding frenzy like this since the Duke Lacrosse case, which turned out to be a complete fabrication by the alleged victim. It will be interesting to see if the main stream media will ask the Florida prosecutor if she purposely concealed exculpatory evidence from the judge at the time she filed the complaint and sought an arrest warrant for Zimmerman.

In light of the corroborating photographs and autopsy, will the media demand that the charges against Zimmerman be dropped in the interest of justice? Will the media learn from this and admit that it rushed to judgment because of its own prejudices?

There's about as much chance of that happening as Trayvon Martin rising from the dead and taking responsibility for his actions. 

SOURCE




Australia: Former Qld. Labor party government  commissioned, covered up report into excessive red and green tape

A SECRET report has emerged, exposing the reams of red tape and irrational regulation strangling Queensland business across an array of industries.

Obtained by The Courier-Mail, the two-volume report compiled from interviews with 80 business leaders was commissioned and then kept secret by the former Bligh government.

The highly embarrassing report, conducted in partnership with the Australian Industry Group, contains detailed case studies of businesses forced to shed staff, cancel contracts and incur huge costs because of bureaucratic bungling and random government rules.

It is understood the only action taken on the May 2010 report was to establish a new business commissioner at a cost of $1 million a year, condemned by some sectors as more bureaucracy.

The Newman Government has inherited the responsibility of untangling a series of red-tape disasters as it seeks to meet an election commitment to reduce regulation by 20 per cent.

Premier Campbell Newman described the decision to commission and bury the report as "extraordinary", saying it exposed how business was drowning in red tape.  "This report provides some stark examples of how ridiculous rules and regulations waste the time and money of businesses," he told The Courier-Mail.  "Unlike Labor, which put this report on the shelf to gather dust and did nothing to ease the burden on business, the LNP is determined to change the culture of government from one that promotes red tape to one that actively reduces red tape."

The report breaks down the issues that business faces in interacting with state and local authorities across nine key areas, including case studies and recommendations.

One prime area of complaint involved environmental regulations - so-called "green tape".  In one case study, a major fertiliser company spent millions of dollars improving its water efficiency, but then complained that government-enforced reporting requirements focused on how much water it had used flushing toilets.

In another, a waste recycling company operating in the Torres Strait had to report to 42 state and local authorities.

Fire safety requirements were also a bugbear, with two firms revealing they were forced to post "exit" signs along open-sided 80m-wide workshops.

Workers' compensation requirements were also of concern, the report highlighting the case of an equipment manufacturing firm that paid an employee through WorkCover for a shoulder injury that was sustained at work.  "It was later found that WorkCover had paid the employee for the same injury to the same shoulder when with a prior employer," the report said.

Other problems were reported across areas including planning, procurement and government grants, along with everyday issues such as regulations and other rules being out of date or unavailable on department websites.

It is unclear whether Business Commissioner Blair Davies was ever made aware of the report.  His office did not return calls to The Courier-Mail.

AiG Queensland director Matt Martyn-Jones said while the report was two years old, the issues were still relevant and red tape remained a "dead weight" on the shoulders of business.  "We are very encouraged that the Newman Government has committed itself to reducing red tape by 20 per cent," he said.  "Close consideration needs to be given to how this target is measured and how it's achieved."

Mr Martyn-Jones said the best way to help business was with practical steps resolving issues highlighted in the report.

Consideration should also be given to setting up a task force of industry leaders.

The Courier-Mail has highlighted many examples of red tape, including a requirement for piggery operators to install illuminated exit signs inside pigpens.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

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28 May, 2012

Marylou's Coffee being investigated for discrimination

Feminists don't like it when their own rules are applied to them

There's a brouhaha on the South Shore. A popular coffee chain known for its bubbly, attractive teenagers is facing a federal discrimination investigation.

In a letter FOX 25 has obtained from a source, the president of Marylou's Coffee –   Marylou herself – has fired off a scathing response to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's investigation, and asks Sen. John Keenan for help.  

Marylou Sandry started the coffee chain in Hanover. It's now spread to many locations in Massachusetts and more in Rhode Island.
  
It's known for its pink branding and attractive staff. That is the problem.
  
The EEOC wants to know if only young, attractive women are employable at Marylou's. Now they're looking into the company's job applications, talking to employees about their co-workers age, race and body type, as well as questioning company managers.
  
But Marylou's says it is simply hiring out of the pool of applicants who come to them and looking for quality dedicated people.
  
In her letter, Sandry appeals for help from the senator, saying her company is being harassed by the EEOC and "we have never had a complaint against us for age discrimination or any kind of discrimination.  We feel the EEOC is on a witch hunt."

Sandry also says the entire company is a nervous wreck over the investigation.

SOURCE




  
Coexisting with Sharia

You have probably seen the "coexist" bumper sticker. It implies that we should all just try harder to get along. Wherever we turn, it seems, we are assured that efforts to embrace differences will result only in harmony, although the bargain often entails that we abandon our core cultural principles and our Western soul. For too long we have failed to comprehend that the cost of coexistence can be high.

Finally, though, the pursuit of tolerance at any price is being assessed realistically. The British have now been forced to confront - and finally judge - the actions of some minority Muslims who have embedded themselves in a counterculture hostile to British society. Forty-nine men, predominantly from Pakistan, were convicted (or are still wanted) for luring 47 underage British girls to lairs for serial rape. At least one victim was forced to have sex with 20 men in one night, according to the police. Two girls became pregnant and a 13-year-old reported aborting a baby conceived by rape. Nine of the Muslim men were found guilty last week. Authorities expect to charge four more, and up to 40 additional suspects remain at large.

Judge Gerald Clinton accused the predators of targeting white girls because they were not part of the Islamist "community or religion." The ringleader was removed from the courtroom for being disrespectful of the judge and the legal process.

 It is even more shocking to consider that this is just the most recent case. For years British police failed to make arrests for fear of being called racist, even though girls were reporting the rape rings. Both MP Simon Danczuk and former MP Ann Cryer have charged the police with dereliction due to political correctness.

While some will wonder what it was about coexistence that these Muslim men did not understand, others will realize a hard truth. These girls were the prey of men whose very definition of womanhood is distorted. For these Muslims, women are defined according to a man's needs and his status in the clerical community.

What Westerners have understood as an Islamist honor code is really better described as a culture based on shame. Muslim men are rated according to how their women conform - to how observantly they dress and and how obsequiously they obey clerical dictates. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim and now an activist in the cause of abused women, has tried to explain for uncomprehending Westerners this endemic mindset: "In most of the shame cultures, people in the system don't necessarily know that this abuse is wrong."

The question that Europeans and Americans now must answer is why such a culture has been accommodated to the point that the rule of law is breaking down. The noble goal of tolerating cultural difference has long covered neglect of the need to define legal and constitutional standards. The principles of individual liberty, self-determination, and equal rights undergird our social compact and must not be compromised for the purpose of negotiating coexistence with a subversive and implacable counterculture.

SOURCE





Sticks and Stones

EDWARD  CLINE

Sticks and stones may break my bones, goes the adage, but names will never hurt me.

The new adage, tailored for our age, goes:

Sticks and stones may break my bones, and names, insults, derogatory remarks, denigrations, defamations, "hate" crimes, "bias intimidations," rude or indecent gestures, mockery, satire in textual print or imagery, disrespect, lifestyle harassment, bullying, and other verbal, visual, and non-violent actions, attempts at passive victimization and gross insensitivities that tend or are calculated to hurt, depress, humiliate, or shame me, and otherwise offend my self-esteem and rightful dignity, compromise my privacy, and diminish my standing in the eyes of my fellow creatures -  may be grounds for civil and/or criminal suits.

Sticks and stones may be used in the commission of an actual felony, as well as guns, knives, one's fists, or any other physical object. But an evolving complement of new chargeable felonies, often appended to legitimate ones, is growing, and if not challenged, will reach a "critical mass" in law that will stifle all realms of speech. These new "felonies" are "hate crimes." A new subset of them is "bias intimidation."

In "The Peril of 'Hate Crimes'" I noted:

.[T]he why of a crime is increasingly treated as though it were a weapon, such as a gun, a knife, or a club. In standard criminal cases, however, it has never been the instrument of crime that was on trial, but the defendant and his actions.

Proponents of hate crime have attempted to find a compromise between objectivity in criminal law and the notion that a felon should also be punished for what caused him to commit the crime. But no such compromise is feasible if objective law is to be preserved and justice served. The irrational element - that is, making thought, however irrational or ugly it may be, a crime - has suborned the rational. No compromise between good and evil is lasting or practical. Evil will always come out the victor.

It did not take long for the corrupting notion of hate crimes to degenerate into thought crime. This is what happens when reason is declared irrelevant or is abandoned or diluted by the irrational.

It used to be that a criminal was sentenced for his crime, and if the crime was committed from some form of prejudice, the court's and jury's afterthought was usually: And, by the way, your motives are contemptible and despicable.

Appended now to a guilty verdict for the murder of an individual because of his race, gender "orientation," religion, or political affiliation, is another verdict: You had no right to think that way, so we are adding five years to your sentence and adding X amount to your monetary penalty.

"Bias intimidation" played a role in the conviction and sentencing of Dharun Ravi, the Rutgers freshman whose webcam spying allegedly drove roommate Tyler Clementi to commit suicide. The New York Times reported in March;

The jury in the trial of a former Rutgers  University student accused of invading his roommate's privacy by using a webcam to watch him in an intimate encounter began deliberations on Wednesday and asked the judge to define two crucial terms.

Jurors asked Judge Glenn Berman of Superior Court in Middlesex  County to restate the definition of "intimidate," as well as of the word "purpose," as it related to the bias intimidation count.

The judge ruled that the defendant, Dharun Ravi, could be found guilty of bias intimidation only if he was also found guilty of the first charge, invasion of privacy. And he told the jury that the roommate, Tyler Clementi, would have been the victim of bias intimidation if he had been made to feel fear. [Italics mine.]

"A person is guilty of the crime of bias intimidation," Judge Berman said, "if he commits an offense with the purpose to intimidate an individual because of sexual orientation."

Mr. Ravi is charged with 15 counts, including bias intimidation, invasion of privacy and tampering with evidence. Prosecutors say he encouraged friends to view a feed from his webcam that showed Mr. Clementi with another man. Mr. Clementi committed suicide shortly afterward, in September 2010.

And the denouement of this drama on May 21st, as reported by the Times:
The jury found that he did not intend to intimidate Mr. Clementi the first night he turned on the webcam to watch. But the jury concluded that Mr. Clementi had reason to believe he had been targeted because he was gay, and in one charge, the jury found that Mr. Ravi had known Mr. Clementi would feel intimidated by his actions.

On May 21, Mr. Ravi was sentenced to a 30-day jail term. He had faced up to 10 years in prison. He was also was sentenced to three years' probation, 300 hours of community service, counseling about cyberbullying and alternate lifestyles and a $10,000 probation fee.

USA Today provided a few more details of the sentencing by Superior Court Judge Glenn Berman:

While Ravi wasn't charged in connection with his death, he was convicted of 15 counts, including two second-degree bias intimidation charges that carry a presumption of jail time. Ravi also was convicted of a second-degree hindering charge.

Judge Glenn Berman ordered Ravi, 20, to report to the Middlesex County  Adult Correction  Center on May 31.

Ravi must pay a fine and costs of more than $11,000 -- $10,000 of which will go to an agency that assists victims of bias crimes. Berman also ordered three years probation and 300 hours of community service.[Italics mine.]

USA Today included an important update, a point of Ravi's defense which the jury apparently ignored:

Ravi's defense team is making the case for an acquittal of the charges, saying Ravi did not know the effect his behavior would have on Clementi.

The unstated premise behind the whole trial was that Ravi had driven Clementi to commit suicide. And it is doubtful, highly doubtful, that Ravi's intentions were more than just exposing Clementi to adolescent ridicule. As a new college roommate, he barely knew Clementi. He could not know how "sensitive" he might have been to exposure, mockery, or to an invasion of his privacy. Ravi, then 18 years old, could not have known, even had he been 50 years old with a lifetime of experience behind him, what Clementi might have done as a result of his webcam spying which he shared with others.

Notice that the term bias intimidation is synonymous with bias crime. Whatever it is called, in New Jersey, the "crime" garners a presumption of jail time.

The larger picture is the introduction of the notion, not only of "hate crime," but of an appended but invalid felony charge that may accompany the charge of a validly defined felony. The question is - and it may be a moot question by this time - is how soon mere bias intimidation will be treated as synonymous with hate crime? How soon will individuals be taken to court and charged with it alone, without the excuse of having committed an actual felony?

Salman Rushdie, who surely knows something about the consequences of "defaming" a religion and its central icon, as well as having "insulted" or "offended" the feelings of Muslims, wrote in The New Yorker:

The creative act requires not only freedom but also this assumption of freedom. If the creative artist worries if he will still be free tomorrow, then he will not be free today. If he is afraid of the consequences of his choice of subject or of his manner of treatment of it, then his choices will not be determined by his talent, but by fear. If we are not confident of our freedom, then we are not free.

Dharun Ravi is not a writer, or an artist. But if a writer or artist experiences the fear of what might happen if he allowed his creativity full rein, then he will not create anything but what has been approved by the million censors of protected classes, who could just as easily file suit against him and see him sentenced to a new Gulag, or just financially ruined. Fear of censorship shuts down the mind and sends it on the main traveled roads of the average, the unexceptional, the bland, the expected. Fear of censorship smothers thought, and makes freedom of expression of all but the mediocre impossible and a cruel taunt.

Let's examine the court's, the jury's, and the law's a priori assumptions, assumptions on which they acted. An a priori assumption is one that is knowable without further need to prove or experience. It just "is." . Clementi was gay. Ergo, Ravi's actions were anti-gay, or biased against gays, or in this instance, against Tyler Clementi because he was gay.

First, note that gays are now becoming a new "protected class," as surely as the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the ICNA, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and other Hamas-linked "civil rights" groups are working to make Muslims and Islam a protected class, and with some success, especially in our judiciary, and most importantly in regards to what one may say about Muslims and Islam. .

As there is a legitimate distinction between premeditated and aggravated assault - premeditated meaning that a defendant meant to assault the victim, and his motive not being on trial, and aggravated meaning that the victim expected or apprehended physical assault or battery - will our courts now accept as a legitimate charge premeditated bias intimidation? Will a defendant be arraigned and indicted for aggravated bias intimidation?

If a legitimately defined felony can be deemed an action taken with malice aforethought, will writing satirically (or even seriously) about Islam, or gays, or badly dressed people, or obese people, or even about the disabled, be some day treated as malicious and biased intimidation, because the feelings of the subjects were hurt, or because the words instilled unprovable but asserted fear in them?

The emotional states of a felon and his victim are essentially immaterial when judging a crime. The contents of their thoughts are likewise not proper subjects for criminal justice. I could sit here and plot how to rob my bank, especially because I didn't like the way a teller treated me the other day, but I could not be charged with any crime unless I acted on my thoughts (or my piqued sense of hurt and mistreatment). It is the action that would count, not my motive. Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman, in her article "Is There a Legal Problem with "Hate Crimes?" emphasizes this point:

The definition of "hate crime" is one of those overkill legislative initiatives with unforeseen consequences. It is noble to recognize that some people commit crimes out of hate, but a murder is a murder, and this should be enough.

How can we possibly know a criminal's inner thoughts (his hatred for his victim); furthermore, even if we can know this for certain, what difference does it make to the victim? The hatred of the murderer should only reflect upon the ultimate sentencing: premeditated and aggravated murder.

While a defendant's emotional or even considered "bias" or "hate" may be demonstrated and proven, it should have nothing to do with the criminal charge at hand. It is the criminal action that should be the subject, and the defendant punished for having taken the action. Murder is murder. Assault is assault. Robbery is robbery. The reason why a person commits a crime, or rather his motive, should not be "punishable" and within the aegis of criminal law. The law can decree that men stop thinking, or emoting, or forming opinions, but cannot enforce the decree. It is only fear of government and/or mob reprisals that may cause their minds to sputter to a halt, and die.

Little horrors, such as Judge Glenn Berman putting Dharun Ravi on probation for his "bias crime," have a way of trickling up to greater realms of human action because they remain unchallenged. There are many forces at work in this country to obviate the substance and meaning of the First Amendment. These range from the outright thuggery of an OWS-linked assault on restaurant patrons, to the concerted campaign by Islamic supremacists to outlaw criticism of Islam, to a confused judiciary that is losing sight of individual rights and replacing them with collective rights.

Salman Rushdie has to date escaped the sticks and stones of the Iranian fatwa on his life, but is certainly right about the miasma of fear and political correctness that stifles and smothers freedom of expression.

Little horrors like "bias intimidation" can and will contribute to a greater, incremental, and totalitarian horror.

SOURCE





Australia: Children to be given a taste of danger at new childcare centre

CHILDREN would be given trees to climb in, a creek to explore and material to build cubby houses under proposals for a new childcare centre and kindergarten which aims to buck the trend of wrapping them in cotton wool.

The proposal by C&K, which runs a string of childcare centres, comes as the organisation dedicates an entire weekend conference to the topic of "children's right to childhood" and the consequences of risk aversion.

International speakers, including New York's Lenore Skenazy who was dubbed America's worst mum after she let her nine-year-old travel by himself on the subway, will address the C&K early childhood annual conference at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.

C&K chief executive Barrie Elvish said that over the past decade there appeared to be an increasing emphasis "on creating what the regulators and the governments like to say is safe environments for children to play in".

"By making it too safe we are actually not giving children the opportunity to build resilience," he said.

"What C&K is doing about it, apart from this conference . . . we have just purchased part of the old Ithaca TAFE at Ashgrove and we intend creating an outdoor environment which challenges not just the existing regulations and future regulations, but also the perceptions of what might be safe and unsafe environments for children.

"We are not talking about blindfold bungy jumps.

"We are talking about the ability for a child to learn through mistakes and a child to learn through failure - a child to learn if you do jump off something too high it might hurt you when you land."

Mr Elvish said it was part of a risk-benefit, rather than just risk, approach championed by conference keynote speaker Tim Gill, who helped change the way the United Kingdom Government viewed playground risk.

Yesterday Mr Gill said the journey to being a capable adult involved "a few bumps and scrapes and knocks".

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

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27 May, 2012

Profiles in Racial Privilege: Cordell Lamar Jude

Since it was almost completely ignored by the media, few will remember the recent reverse Trayvon case here in Phoenix, in which the mentally handicapped Hispanic Daniel Adkins was ruthlessly gunned down by a lucky guy of privileged pigmentation named Cordell Lamar Jude.

Jude was in a car when he had some trivial confrontation with Adkins in a Taco Bell parking lot. Instead of driving away or just rolling up his window, he shot Adkins, then absurdly claimed self-defense.

This is the opposite from the Passion of Saint Skittles not only because the ethnicities are reversed, but because Adkins was hardly bashing Jude’s head against the sidewalk, as the sociopathic thug Trayvon Martin was doing to the much smaller George Zimmerman. It is also the opposite in that the innocent Zimmerman was arrested; the guilty Jude walked free.

One of Obama’s racist Harvard professor pals, Charles Ogletree, has proclaimed,    “I want to see the first white victim of the stand your ground by a black defendant and see if it works.”

Ogletree’s wait is over, because if Zimmerman counts as white, so does Adkins:

It’s a relief to learn that Jude is evidently not from Phoenix, but the liberal “model city” of Detroit:

Obama is unlikely to make any “If I had a son” speeches this time around — not that Jude is any more of a sociopath than Trayvon Martin. The difference is that this time the bad guy had the gun.

SOURCE




British Labour party leader calls for laws to stop discrimination against troops

Ed Miliband yesterday called for new laws to protect members of the Armed Forces from discrimination as he visited British troops in Afghanistan.

The Labour leader also called for the international community to ‘up its game’ on political progress in Afghanistan – or risk wasting a decade of sacrifice by British soldiers.

He said that reports last week that soldiers had been turned away from a pub in Blackpool by bouncers saying ‘no Army here’ highlighted the barriers they faced.

More than a quarter of personnel  are refused a mortgage, loan, credit  card or mobile phone despite having  a full-time job with a reliable income.

Mr Miliband said: ‘I think it is wrong that any of our troops face discrimination, disadvantage or unfair treatment because they have served in the military or because they are serving. ‘I want cross-party talks, I want to work with the military charities, to say, “How can we really resolve this issue?” ’

After flying into Camp Bastion, the Armed Forces’ main base in southern Helmand, Mr Miliband and Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy visited  a memorial to fallen British troops at a patrol base in the Nahr-e Saraj district.

Mr Miliband denied his trip was a PR stunt. ‘My purpose for being here is to express the deep sense of gratitude I have for our troops,’ he said.

He expressed fears that the country would slip back into being a failed state when combat troops are withdrawn in 2014, during a visit to the capital Kabul for talks with president Hamid Karzai.

He flew in after visiting troops serving in southern Helmand, where he expressed surprise at the level of progress being made in training the Afghan security forces ahead of the international pullout.

Despite giving his backing to the planned withdrawal date - reaffirmed at last weekend's Nato summit in Chicago - and to Prime Minister David Cameron's approach, he said there was 'a long way to go'.

In an address to troops at the end of a tour of British bases yesterday, Mr Miliband told a gathering of troops that political failure must not be allowed to undermine their 'extraordinary' efforts.

A total of 414 members of UK forces have died since operations in Afghanistan began in October 2001.

Speaking at the British Embassy ahead of talks with Mr Karzai - as well as senior ministers and opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah - he said: 'It is incredibly eye-opening coming out and actually seeing what they are doing, throwing themselves in harm's way, every day going out on patrol.

'Seeing it up close, with people who are young enough to be my son or daughter doing that, is incredibly humbling.  'I think the best way we can honour the sacrifices our troops have been making is to make sure that they have the best support when they come back home.

'But also, the international community needs to up its game in getting a lasting political settlement here in Afghanistan because I think that is necessary in order to prevent Afghanistan slipping back into being a failed state and there is a lot more work to do to make that happen.'

He continued: 'In this final phase it is very important that we don't take our eye off the ball. I do not think the Government is, I am not criticising the Government.  'The Prime Minister is right to set a timetable. I think we should stick to the timetable.

'We have invested a lot. Many of our troops have made huge sacrifices, including the ultimate sacrifice. The best way we can honour that is to ensure the political settlement we need.'

All three of the districts where the UK is involved have now been transferred to Afghan control - with some troops telling Mr Miliband their local counterparts have become 10 times more efficient within just a couple of years.

The transition process is due to be complete across Afghanistan by the middle of next year ahead of the 2014 Nato pullout deadline. Talking with an Afghan colonel, Mr Miliband praised the 'tremendous strides forward'.

SOURCE





The Spirit of Geert Wilders

A foreword to Wilders’ book "Marked for Death"

By Mark Steyn

When I was asked to write a foreword to Geert Wilders’ new book, my first reaction, to be honest, was to pass. Mr. Wilders lives under 24/7 armed guard because significant numbers of motivated people wish to kill him, and it seemed to me, as someone who’s attracted more than enough homicidal attention over the years, that sharing space in these pages was likely to lead to an uptick in my own death threats. Who needs it? Why not just plead too crowded a schedule and suggest the author try elsewhere? I would imagine Geert Wilders gets quite a lot of this.

And then I took a stroll in the woods, and felt vaguely ashamed at the ease with which I was willing to hand a small victory to his enemies. After I saw off the Islamic enforcers in my own country, their frontman crowed to The Canadian Arab News that, even though the Canadian Islamic Congress had struck out in three different jurisdictions in their attempt to criminalize my writing about Islam, the lawsuits had cost my magazine (he boasted) two million bucks, and thereby “attained our strategic objective — to increase the cost of publishing anti-Islamic material.” In the Netherlands, Mr. Wilders’ foes, whether murderous jihadists or the multicultural establishment, share the same “strategic objective” — to increase the cost of associating with him beyond that which most people are willing to bear. It is not easy to be Geert Wilders. He has spent almost a decade in a strange, claustrophobic, transient, and tenuous existence little different from kidnap victims or, in his words, a political prisoner. He is under round-the-clock guard because of explicit threats to murder him by Muslim extremists.  Yet he’s the one who gets put on trial for incitement.

In 21st-century Amsterdam, you’re free to smoke marijuana and pick out a half-naked sex partner from the front window of her shop. But you can be put on trial for holding the wrong opinion about a bloke who died in the seventh century. 

And, although Mr. Wilders was eventually acquitted by his kangaroo court, the determination to place him beyond the pale is unceasing: “The far-right anti-immigration party of Geert Wilders” (The Financial Times) . . . “Far-right leader Geert Wilders” (The Guardian) . . . “Extreme right anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders” (Agence France-Presse) is “at the fringes of mainstream politics” (Time) . . . Mr. Wilders is so far out on the far-right extreme fringe that his party is the third biggest in parliament. Indeed, the present Dutch government governs only through the support of Wilders’ Party for Freedom. So he’s “extreme” and “far-right” and out on the “fringe,” but the seven parties that got far fewer votes than him are “mainstream”? That right there is a lot of what’s wrong with European political discourse and its media coverage: Maybe he only seems so “extreme” and “far-right” because they’re the ones out on the fringe.

And so a Dutch parliamentarian lands at Heathrow to fulfill a public appearance and is immediately deported by the government of a nation that was once the crucible of liberty. The British Home Office banned Mr. Wilders as a threat to “public security” — not because he was threatening any member of the public, but because prominent Muslims were threatening him: The Labour-party peer Lord Ahmed pledged to bring a 10,000-strong mob to lay siege to the House of Lords if Wilders went ahead with his speaking engagement there.

Yet it’s not enough to denormalize the man himself, you also have to make an example of those who decide to find out what he’s like for themselves. The South Australian senator Cory Bernardi met Mr. Wilders on a trip to the Netherlands and came home to headlines like “Senator Under Fire For Ties To Wilders” (The Sydney Morning Herald) and “Calls For Cory Bernardi’s Scalp Over Geert Wilders” (The Australian). Members not only of the opposing party but even of his own called for Senator Bernardi to be fired from his post as parliamentary secretary to the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. And why stop there? A government spokesman “declined to say if he believed Mr Abbott should have Senator Bernardi expelled from the Liberal Party.” If only Bernardi had shot the breeze with more respectable figures — Hugo Chávez, say, or a spokesperson for Hamas. I’m pleased to report that, while sharing a platform with me in Adelaide some months later, Bernardi declared that, as a freeborn citizen, he wasn’t going to be told who he’s allowed to meet with.

For every independent-minded soul like Senator Bernardi, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, or Baroness Cox (who arranged a screening of Wilders’ film Fitna at the House of Lords), there are a thousand other public figures who get the message: Steer clear of Islam unless you want your life consumed — and steer clear of Wilders if you want to be left in peace.

But in the end the quiet life isn’t an option. It’s not necessary to agree with everything Mr. Wilders says in this book — or, in fact, anything he says — to recognize that, when the leader of the third-biggest party in one of the oldest democratic legislatures on earth has to live under constant threat of murder and be forced to live in “safe houses” for almost a decade, something is badly wrong in “the most tolerant country in Europe” — and that we have a responsibility to address it honestly, before it gets worse.

A decade ago, in the run-up to the toppling of Saddam, many media pundits had a standard line on Iraq: It’s an artificial entity cobbled together from parties who don’t belong in the same state. And I used to joke that anyone who thinks Iraq’s various components are incompatible ought to take a look at the Netherlands. If Sunni and Shia, Kurds and Arabs can’t be expected to have enough in common to make a functioning state, what do you call a jurisdiction split between post-Christian bi-swinging stoners and anti-whoring anti-sodomite anti-everything-you-dig Muslims? If Kurdistan’s an awkward fit in Iraq, how well does Pornostan fit in the Islamic Republic of the Netherlands?

The years roll on, and the gag gets a little sadder. “The most tolerant country in Europe” is an increasingly incoherent polity where gays are bashed, uncovered women get jeered in the street, and you can’t do The Diary of Anne Frank as your school play lest the Gestapo walk-ons are greeted by audience cries of “She’s in the attic!”

According to one survey, 20 percent of history teachers have abandoned certain, ah, problematic aspects of the Second World War because, in classes of a particular, ahem, demographic disposition, pupils don’t believe the Holocaust happened, and, if it did, the Germans should have finished the job and we wouldn’t have all these problems today. More inventive instructors artfully woo their Jew-despising students by comparing the Holocaust to “Islamophobia” — we all remember those Jewish terrorists hijacking Fokkers and flying them into the Reichstag, right? What about gangs of young Jews preying on the elderly, as Muslim youth do in Wilders’ old neighborhood of Kanaleneiland?

As for “Islamophobia,” it’s so bad that it’s, er, the Jews who are leaving. “Sixty per cent of Amsterdam’s orthodox community intends to emigrate from Holland,” says Benzion Evers, the son of the city’s chief rabbi, five of whose children had already left by 2010. Frommer’s bestselling travel guide to “Europe’s most tolerant city” acknowledges that “Jewish visitors who dress in a way that clearly identifies them as Jewish” are at risk of attack, but discreetly attributes it to “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” “Jews with a conscience should leave Holland, where they and their children have no future,” advised Frits Bolkestein, former Dutch Liberal leader. “Anti-Semitism will continue to exist, because the Moroccan and Turkish youngsters don’t care about efforts for reconciliation.”

If you’re wondering what else those “youngsters” don’t care for, ask Chris Crain, editor of The Washington Blade, the gay newspaper of America’s capital. Seeking a break from the Christian fundamentalist redneck theocrats of the Republican party, he and his boyfriend decided to treat themselves to a vacation in Amsterdam, “arguably the ‘gay-friendliest’ place on the planet.” Strolling through the streets of the city center, they were set upon by a gang of seven “youngsters,” punched, beaten, and kicked to the ground. Perplexed by the increasing violence, Amsterdam officials commissioned a study to determine, as Der Spiegel put it, “why Moroccan men are targeting the city’s gays.”

Gee, that’s a toughie. Beats me. The geniuses at the University of Amsterdam concluded that the attackers felt “stigmatized by society” and “may be struggling with their own sexual identity.”

Bingo! Telling Moroccan youths they’re closeted gays seems just the ticket to reduce tensions in the city! While you’re at it, a lot of those Turks seem a bit light on their loafers, don’t you think?

But not to worry. In the “most tolerant nation in Europe,” there’s still plenty of tolerance. What won’t the Dutch tolerate? In 2006, the justice minister, Piet Hein Donner, suggested there would be nothing wrong with sharia if a majority of Dutch people voted in favor of it — as, indeed, they’re doing very enthusiastically in Egypt and other polities blessed by the Arab Spring. Mr. Donner’s previous response to “Islamic radicalism” was (as the author recalls in the pages ahead) to propose a new blasphemy law for the Netherlands.

In this back-to-front world, Piet Hein Donner and the University of Amsterdam researchers and the prosecutors of the Openbaar Ministrie who staged his show trial are “mainstream” — and Geert Wilders is the “far” “extreme” “fringe.” How wide is that fringe? Mr. Wilders cites a poll in which 57 percent of people say that mass immigration was the biggest single mistake in Dutch history. If the importation of large Muslim populations into the West was indeed a mistake, it was also an entirely unnecessary one. Some nations (the Dutch, French, and British) might be considered to owe a certain post-colonial debt to their former subject peoples, but Sweden? Germany? From Malmö to Mannheim, Islam transformed societies that had hitherto had virtually no connection with the Muslim world. Even if you disagree with that 57 percent of Dutch poll respondents, the experience of Amsterdam’s chief rabbi and the gay-bashed editor and the elderly residents of Kanaleneiland suggests at the very minimum that the Islamization of Continental cities poses something of a challenge to Eutopia’s famous “tolerance.” Yet the same political class responsible for this unprecedented “demographic substitution” (in the words of French demographer Michèle Tribalat) insists the subject remain beyond discussion. The British novelist Martin Amis asked Tony Blair if, at meetings with his fellow prime ministers, the Continental demographic picture was part of the “European conversation.” Mr. Blair replied, with disarming honesty, “It’s a subterranean conversation” — i.e., the fellows who got us into this mess can’t figure out a way to talk about it in public, other than in the smiley-face banalities of an ever more shopworn cultural relativism.

That’s not enough for Geert Wilders. Unlike most of his critics, he has traveled widely in the Muslim world. Unlike them, he has read the Koran — and re-read it, on all those interminable nights holed up in some dreary safe house denied the consolations of family and friends. One way to think about what is happening is to imagine it the other way round. Rotterdam has a Muslim mayor, a Moroccan passport holder born the son of a Berber imam. How would the Saudis feel about an Italian Catholic mayor in Riyadh? The Jordanians about an American Jewish mayor in Zarqa? Would the citizens of Cairo and Kabul agree to become minorities in their own hometowns simply because broaching the subject would be too impolite?

To pose the question is to expose its absurdity. From Nigeria to Pakistan, the Muslim world is intolerant even of ancient established minorities. In Iraq half the Christian population has fled, in 2010 the last church in Afghanistan was razed to the ground, and in both cases this confessional version of ethnic cleansing occurred on America’s watch. Multiculturalism is a unicultural phenomenon.

More HERE




Should Black People Tolerate This?

Each year, roughly 7,000 blacks are murdered. Ninety-four percent of the time, the murderer is another black person. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1976 and 2011, there were 279,384 black murder victims. Using the 94 percent figure means that 262,621 were murdered by other blacks. Though blacks are 13 percent of the nation's population, they account for more than 50 percent of homicide victims. Nationally, black homicide victimization rate is six times that of whites, and in some cities, it's 22 times that of whites. Coupled with being most of the nation's homicide victims, blacks are most of the victims of violent personal crimes, such as assault and robbery.
The magnitude of this tragic mayhem can be viewed in another light. According to a Tuskegee Institute study, between the years 1882 and 1968, 3,446 blacks were lynched at the hands of whites. Black fatalities during the Korean War (3,075), Vietnam War (7,243) and all wars since 1980 (8,197) come to 18,515, a number that pales in comparison with black loss of life at home. It's a tragic commentary to be able to say that young black males have a greater chance of reaching maturity on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan than on the streets of Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, Newark and other cities.

A much larger issue is how might we interpret the deafening silence about the day-to-day murder in black communities compared with the national uproar over the killing of Trayvon Martin. Such a response by politicians, civil rights organizations and the mainstream news media could easily be interpreted as "blacks killing other blacks is of little concern, but it's unacceptable for a white to kill a black person."

There are a few civil rights leaders with a different vision. When President Barack Obama commented about the Trayvon Martin case, T. Willard Fair, president of the Urban League of Greater Miami, told The Daily Caller that "the outrage should be about us killing each other, about black-on-black crime." He asked rhetorically, "Wouldn't you think to have 41 people shot (in Chicago) between Friday morning and Monday morning would be much more newsworthy and deserve much more outrage?" Former NAACP leader Pastor C.L. Bryant said the rallies organized by Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson suggest there is an epidemic of "white men killing black young men," adding: "The epidemic is truly black-on-black crime. The greatest danger to the lives of young black men are young black men."

Not only is there silence about black-on-black crime; there's silence and concealment about black racist attacks on whites -- for example, the recent attacks on two Virginian-Pilot newspaper reporters set upon and beaten by a mob of young blacks. The story wasn't even covered by their own newspaper. In March, a black mob assaulted, knocked unconscious, disrobed and robbed a white tourist in downtown Baltimore. Black mobs have roamed the streets of Denver, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Cleveland, Washington, Los Angeles and other cities, making unprovoked attacks on whites and running off with their belongings.

Racist attacks have been against not only whites but also Asians. Such attacks include the San Francisco beating death of an 83-year-old Chinese man, the pushing of a 57-year-old woman off a train platform and the knocking of a 59-year-old Chinese man to the ground, which killed him. For years, Asian school students in New York and Philadelphia have been beaten up by their black classmates and called racist epithets -- for example, "Hey, Chinese!" and "Yo, dragon ball!" But that kind of bullying, unlike the bullying of homosexuals, goes unreported and unpunished.

Racial demagoguery from the president on down is not in our nation's best interests, plus it's dangerous. As my colleague Thomas Sowell recently put it, "if there is anything worse than a one-sided race war, it is a two-sided race war, especially when one of the races outnumbers the other several times over."

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

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24 May, 2012

TIME Magazine VS Bibi Netanyahu: 3 Big Lies in 3 Lines

    Michael Prell

I worked as a writer for Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu on his victorious 2009 election, and I have a deep connection to the land, to the people, and to the politics of Israel.

But none of my qualifications are required to recognize the three big lies on this week’s TIME cover: “King Bibi. He’s conquered Israel. But will Netanyahu now make peace—or war?” Three big lies in three lines – on the cover alone.

First; why judge TIME Magazine by its cover? Because it’s the only part of TIME Magazine that most people ever see. Each week 99% of all Americans make the wise decision to not buy, not open, and not read TIME. And only a tiny fraction of Americans have even a passing exposure to the magazine – a quick glance at its cover – usually while buying something they do value, like chewing gum, bottled water, or magazines that don’t consistently get things wrong.

But the TIME cover does have an impact. If you don’t believe that, then why did America just spend a week talking about breast feeding children, instead of talking about the mountains of government debt those children – and their children – will never be able to pay back in their lifetimes. Like it or not, the TIME cover matters.

So, when TIME Magazine tells three big lies about Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu on its cover, those three big lies have an impact.

So I’m calling TIME out on TIME’s cover.

LIE #1: the headline, “King Bibi.” No. Bibi Netanyahu is the democratically-elected Prime Minister of a Parliamentary democracy. Contrary to the distorted view of Netanyahu put forth by Western liberal media, Mr. Netanyahu is almost too democratic. In Israel, Netanyahu is often criticized for behaving too democratically, for trying too hard to reach a middle ground – often with those who oppose his policies, or who oppose the existence of the Jewish State and want to wipe Israel from the map.

Contrast that to the “kingly” behavior of Barack Obama, who rules by fiat with Czars, often in extra-Constitutional ways. When King Barack’s fiats are challenged by the Supreme Court, by American citizens, or even by a Governor of a State like Arizona, he berates them in public, demonizes them, or sues them. “King Bibi?” Hardly.

LIE #2: “He conquered Israel.” No. Prime Minister Netanyahu was democratically elected by the people of Israel. He then reached across the aisle to the politicians and parties he defeated, and formed what could be the longest-lasting coalition government in Israel’s history. This is not the behavior of a conquerer. It is exactly the kind of “reach-across-the-aisle” bipartisanship that the American leftist media always claims it wants.

Here’s an analogy to bring it home to America. Imagine that Barack Obama won the 2008 election, but failed to get enough “seats” in the “legislature” to form government (if America had a Parliamentary democracy). If he behaved like Prime Minister Netanyahu, he would have reached across the aisle to make John McCain his Vice President, Sarah Palin his Secretary of State, and Mitt Romney his “Jobs Czar,” in order to form a working coalition government. Then, for the last three years while almost everyone in his Cabinet was angling to run against him and defeat him in the 2012 election, Obama would have to run all of his major policies by the people he defeated – and who want to defeat him in 2012 – and find some way to make a coalition like that work in order to keep the country safe and prosperous. And, just to bump up the level of difficulty, let’s say Canada wants to wipe America off the map, and is building a bomb to do so.

Bibi Netanyahu did not conquer Israel, as TIME contends on its cover. He reached across the aisle to form a stable coalition with his sometimes hostile political opponents, in the most hostile part of the world, and he found a way to make it work. For example, Prime Minister Netanyahu manages to pass his budgets. King Barack couldn’t even get his own party to vote for his budget – not one Democratic member of the Senate, not one vote, and no budget for America for more than three years.

LIE #3: “will Netanyahu now make peace - or war?” Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to make peace with those who only want to make war. He has been trying, for years, to make peace with those who openly state that they want to wipe Israel from the map, to kill Jews, and to end the Jewish State forever.

How do you make peace with those who want war? The answer is: you can’t. But still, Prime Minister Netanyahu has tried, and tried, and tried again – to make peace with those who only want war.

So, when TIME Magazine writes “will Netanyahu now make peace – or war?” they are offering a false choice. If Mr. Netanyahu fails to “make peace,” according to the TIME paradigm, it will be Bibi’s fault because he made war.

The truth is: the choice to make war always lies in the hands of the aggressor. If those who want to make war with Israel simply accept Mr. Netanyahu’s repeated offers of peace, there will be peace. Tomorrow. But if they keep pushing for war, there will be war.

Here is a personal analogy. Imagine that someone with murderous intentions is advancing on you and your family. You have the capabilities to stop the murderer, by force if necessary, but you try to make peace as long as you can. But, if all your attempts to make peace with the murderer fail, and if your assailant is now within striking distance of you and your family, you have two choices: sit there and wait to die, or stop the murderer who wants to kill you and your family. If you stop the murderer who wants to kill you and your family, does that mean that you made war? According to TIME Magazine, and many others on the left, the answer is: yes.

Three big lies in three lines, on this week’s Time cover. Don’t buy the lies. Don’t buy TIME.

SOURCE




Transgender Five-Year-Old?

What decisions should small children be permitted to make?

A five-year-old child with large dark eyes, full lips, and a button nose stares out from the front page of the Washington Post Sunday edition. “Transgender at Five” declares the provocative headline. The child’s hair is being cut in a close, boy’s cut by her father.

We learn from the article that “Tyler,” who was born “Kathryn,” began insisting that she was a boy at the age of two. “‘I am a boy’ became a constant theme in struggles over clothing, bathing, swimming, eating, playing, breathing.” The child’s parents, at first uneasy and later accepting their girl’s desire to be a boy, agreed to raise her as a boy. Starting at age four, she began to wear boys’ clothes, was permitted to choose a boy’s name for herself, and has been introduced to family, friends, teachers, and fellow congregants at church as a boy.

Oh boy.

Let’s stipulate, for the sake of argument, that something called “gender dysphoria” — with which Tyler was diagnosed at age four — does exist. Let’s further agree, again for the sake of argument, that the proper treatment of this condition is choosing to live as the other sex, with all that such a radical decision implies. Is there any reasonable way to conclude that something as drastic as attempting to change one’s sexual identity can be undertaken by a four-year-old?

“Parents who ignore or deny these problems,” warns the Post, “can make life miserable for their kids, who can become depressed or suicidal, psychiatrists say.” How many psychiatrists? The very most that can be said is that the practice of treating children for what is sometimes called “gender identity disorder” is highly controversial in the psychiatric world. Some psychiatrists want to change the name to “gender incongruence” to remove the word “disorder.” Others, like Dr. Paul McHugh, professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, think the whole idea of treating children for this condition is unwise. “We shouldn’t be mucking around with nature,” he told Fox News. “We can’t assume what the outcome will be.”

Apparently, hormone blockers are being prescribed more and more for children with “GID.” The hormone blockers postpone puberty indefinitely and thus, the Post explains, “give the kids more time to decide who they are and whether switching genders is the answer to their problems.” Dr. McHugh calls giving hormone blockers to children “child abuse.” Some young people are having “gender reassignment” surgery as early as age 16.

Perhaps some tiny percentage of children truly are born to feel trapped in the body of a person of the wrong sex. But it is undeniable that the vast majority of children go through stages. I recall wishing to be a boy myself when I was about five or six. I didn’t like frilly dresses and asked my playmates to call me “Timmy.” Perhaps mine was a normal tomboy phase and maybe that’s distinguishable from what Tyler is experiencing. But how can we be sure? The Post quotes Dr. Edgardo Menvielle, of the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., who has been treating “transgender kids” for a decade. About 80 percent, he says, switch back to the gender they were born into by the time they reach adulthood.

The problem with the Post’s recommended approach — which amounts to “let’s accept a child’s version of reality to avoid causing depression or worse” — is that the decision of parents to indulge a child’s whim on gender identity is itself irreversible. The effects of hormone blockers, the Post reassures readers, are fully reversible. Maybe. How much research can there have been on such a new practice? Would parents who hesitate to let their kids eat preservatives or non-organic eggs consent to block the complex hormones that begin to flood kids’ bodies at puberty? In any case, the decision to dress a girl in boys’ clothing, cut her hair, and call her a boy — even if reversed later — must, absolutely must, scramble a child’s psyche. Imagine the confrontation between a teenaged girl who has changed her mind and the parents who raised her as a boy. “Did you not think I was pretty enough to be a girl? Wasn’t I feminine enough?” Or, perhaps even more damaging, a teenaged boy demanding to know whether his father thought him lacking in masculinity as a child. It’s a psychological minefield.

We have the technology to make — or at least appear to make — women into men and vice versa. If adults choose to do this to themselves (and can afford it), that’s their business. But a child? One wonders: What other major life decisions should four-year-olds be judged competent to make?

SOURCE





Liberal love of regulation holding British business back

Adrian Beecroft, who reviewed employment law for No.10, says that Liberal Democrat objections to plans for removing red tape are harming the economy and preventing companies from creating jobs.

In his first newspaper interview, the venture capitalist tells The Daily Telegraph that entrepreneurs are going abroad and that unemployment is rising because of the Coalition’s failure to help business. The impact on the public sector of outdated employment regulations is even more damaging, he says, with taxpayer-funded services “hugely less efficient than they could be” because of the legal difficulties associated with dismissing under-performing workers.

He concludes that the economy will grow by five per cent less than expected – the equivalent of more than £50 billion – because of the Government’s failure to push through radical reform of employment laws.

The Beecroft report was finally published earlier this week, following the leak of the recommendations to this newspaper. The central recommendations, which would make it easier for firms to sack poor performers, were dismissed as “bonkers” by the Liberal Democrats.

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, said he had seen no evidence that the measures would help the economy.

Today, Mr Beecroft says ministers are not focused enough on growth and urges the Prime Minister and the Conservatives to stand up to the Liberal Democrats.

“I do think they are hugely held back by the Lib Dems. I think you could put together a bunch of suggestions out of the report, as a coherent programme, that would say, you know, we are tackling the issues that business has with employment law but the Lib Dems will have none of it,” he says.

“Nick Clegg is always threatening to go nuclear and dissolve the whole thing if he doesn’t get his way with this, that and the other. Which you’d think actually must be a hollow threat. Therefore, why can’t the Government be more robust? I don’t know what the answer is. But it is disappointing.”

Mr Beecroft, who has sat on the boards of more than 20 companies, says of Mr Cable: “People find it very odd that he’s in charge of business and yet appears to do very little to support business.”

Recommendations from the Beecroft report to delay or halt family-friendly policies, such as flexible parental leave, were removed from the report by Downing Street without Mr Beecroft’s knowledge.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for No 10 declined five times to say that Mr Beecroft had approved the alterations to his report.

Mr Beecroft, a major Tory donor, says in today’s interview that he backs the delay of new family-friendly rules and questions why ministers want to “use businesses as a sort of agent of government”. Asked what the impact would be by 2020 if his recommendations were not introduced, Mr Beecroft said: “Some points of lost GDP. If all my recommendations were done in the private sector [there would be] up to five per cent [increase] of GDP.

“I’m convinced that the result [of not implementing the proposals] is less employment than there would be and that businesses are less efficient than they could be and that the public services are hugely less efficient than they could be.”

He adds: “There’d be more jobs and we’re in a sort of phase in this country and probably most of the western world where we’re so frightened of injuring people’s feelings, we ignore all the people, [because of] the unwillingness to injure some people’s feelings.”

He claims the Business Secretary’s objections to the proposals are “ideological not economic”. “I think he is a socialist who found a home in the Lib Dems, so he’s one of the Left,” Mr Beecroft says. “I think people find it very odd that he’s in charge of business and yet appears to do very little to support business.”

The venture capitalist also discloses that the Conservatives were very supportive of his proposals in private meetings, despite Mr Cameron now publicly distancing himself from the report.

He says: “I’m talking about Steve Hilton, that group and they assured me that David Cameron wanted to do the whole thing. Whether that’s right or not I’m not sure but that was the strong impression I got. I’ve been in meetings with Oliver Letwin and Ed Davey, where Oliver Letwin was all for and Ed Davey was totally against.”

He added: “And then there was a large argument which I’m told ended up in the 'quad’ [the core Coalition leaders of Mr Cameron, George Osborne, Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander] when they’re sort of trading off one policy against the other.”

SOURCE






Vindicated: British mother, 24, who fled to Spain when social services ruled she was 'unfit' to bring up child is allowed to keep her daughter

The family of a young mother who fled to Spain to stop social services taking her baby demanded an apology yesterday after health workers confirmed the girl was thriving under her care.

Megan Coote, who has mild learning difficulties, was told she would have to hand over her child because of concerns over its emotional development.  Instead, she moved to Alicante where she gave birth to her daughter, Olivia.

She returned only after her parents were granted a court order allowing them to share her parental responsibilities – meaning she was certain she could keep  her baby.

Now Miss Coote, 24, wants to highlight what she says are the dangers posed by social workers who wield the power to tear families apart.  ‘I have proven the social workers wrong,’ she said. ‘They made the wrong decision.’

Her father Dale, a 47-year-old businessman, said: ‘We have just had Olivia’s two-year check and a health worker said she was well advanced and interacting with everyone perfectly. They were absolutely over the moon with her.   ‘That made me think that social services had made a mistake and hadn’t apologised.  ‘They haven’t apologised to my wife, who lost three stone when she went to Spain with Megan, or to my daughter for what they put her through.

‘They made her feel like dirt and she was talking about taking her own life if they took her daughter away.’

Miss Coote, who was diagnosed with learning difficulties as a child, became pregnant in 2009. Suffolk social services carried out an assessment which flagged up concerns about her low IQ and inability to show emotion, which it said meant she could not look after  a baby.

Child protection officers also claimed Olivia’s father – from whom Miss Coote had separated – had a bad record with social services, but refused to give further details. Miss Coote’s father and mother Lorraine, 45, offered themselves as potential foster parents but realised staff did not favour their application after a report criticised the fact Mr Coote had smacked his three children to discipline them.

In February 2010, Miss Coote and her mother drove to Spain, where she gave birth a week later. The family spent £12,000 on accommodation and other costs until they were assured mother and child would not be separated.

A five-minute court hearing in January last year confirmed a ‘residence order’, meaning Miss Coote would live with her parents in Kesgrave, near Ipswich, and Olivia could be taken off the at-risk register.

Mr Coote, who owns three companies involved with the construction, container and motor industries, said: ‘When Megan came back from Spain an independent team of social workers were assigned to her.  ‘They eventually apologised for interfering in our lives and said there was never any need for them to be involved.  ‘I have phoned the council nine times to discuss the case and get an apology but they will not have a meeting with me.’

His daughter added: ‘I would tell other mothers in the same situation to keep fighting. You have to believe in yourself and know that you are a good mother.’

Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming, the chairman of campaign group Justice for Families, accused social workers of removing children from families for ‘spurious reasons’ and said experts used in family courts were ‘unreliable’.

He added: ‘They remove babies from people who are never given the chance to prove they are good parents – and even when there are good grandparents around. The Government should stop being complacent and take action.’

Suffolk county council said it  was ‘delighted that everything  has continued to go well’ for  the family. A spokesman said: ‘When concerns about the wellbeing of a child are brought to the attention of children’s services, we have a duty to investigate.

‘Over the past two years, childcare professionals have had a very positive working relationship with the family.’  Asked about apologising for the Cootes’ treatment, they added: ‘We are more than happy to speak with the family when they feel the need to contact us.’

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

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23 May, 2012

Lazy British Police given 24 hour deadline to investigate complaints of anti-social behaviour

Police will be forced to investigate complaints of anti-social behaviour under new criminal justice reforms to be announced by the Home Secretary today.

Residents will be able to report anti-social behaviour online, over the telephone or in writing and the police will have to respond to their concerns within 24 hours.

One of the six new simplified powers will be Community Protection Notices, which can be issued for anti-social behaviour. The notices could be used to fine householders who are found to be leaving rubbish in their gardens. They would be given a £100 on-the-spot fine or be taken to court where the maximum fine would be £2,500.

The so-called “community trigger” is to be introduced by Theresa May amid concerns that many incidences of anti-social behaviour are repeatedly reported before police take action.

Local communities not receiving an adequate police response will be able to take their complaints to new police commissioners who will be able to force a more adequate investigation.

A new anti-social behaviour white paper is to be published today which will set out plans for six new sanctions to allow police and local authorities to deal with low-level criminality or nuisance behaviour. The new “streamlined” powers replace 19 previous sanctions covering everything from dropping litter to controlling dogs and dispersing yobs.

A Home Office source said: “Some people don’t bother to report anti-social behaviour as they have little faith in anything being done to deal with the problem.

“These new plans will directly address this continuing problem. Those involved in making life a misery for others will not get away with it. Police and local agencies will be given a set of six new fast and flexible powers to make the message clear: anti-social behaviour will not be tolerated.”

The new community trigger plans will initially be piloted in three areas – Manchester, Brighton and West Lindsey.

Ministers insist that the scheme will help crackdown on anti-social behaviour but Labour have accused the Government of watering down the criminal sanctions against prolific offenders.

They claim that those breaching anti-social behaviour orders will no longer face prison.

Gloria del Piero, a shadow Home Office minister, said: “The Government are weakening the powers police have to tackle antisocial behaviour. These measures are a weak rebrand, with a breach of the order not even resulting in a criminal record.“

"People will be bemused that it will take three separate complaints, or five different households, before getting a response. All complaints should be dealt with, and quickly. People suffering from antisocial behaviour don't want to wait until the Government's slow trigger is released.”

The new anti-social behaviour sanctions are part of a wider Government initiative to tackle low-level crime.

Ministers across Government are also focussing on new initiatives to target 120,000 problem families who are blamed for causing the majority of trouble.

Louise Casey, Tony Blair’s former respect csar, is co-ordinating the scheme which will see experts intervene by developing a detailed plan for each of the families to help them overcome their problems.

The 29 areas most affected by gang and youth crime are also being targeted with intensive help in the wake of last summer's riots.

SOURCE





“Antifascist” Fascist Havoc in Suburban Chicago Restaurant

If moonbats didn’t know their agenda is wrong, they wouldn’t follow the Orwellian protocol of calling things by the opposite of what they really are. For example, the refusal to evaluate everyone and everything through the prism of race is called “racism.” Another example is that classical fascist techniques of political terror are referred to as “antifascist” — as we were reminded in suburban Chicago over the weekend.

It was the middle of the lunch rush Saturday, and Mike Winston was working in the kitchen of his Tinley Park restaurant, the Ashford House, when a waitress screamed a fight had broken out in the dining room.

Police call the melee at the restaurant a targeted assault by a mob that Winston said wielded metal batons and hammers. Ten diners were hurt in the attack, and three of those were hospitalized.

Tinley Park police had five suspected assailants in custody, and Winston said 18 young men, all wearing hooded jackets and obscuring their faces with scarves and other coverings, stormed into the restaurant.

Who were these fascistic goons? “Antifascist” moonbats:

A group of ‘anti-facists’ are being credited with Saturday’s mob-style attack inside a Tinley Park restaurant.

An anti-racist website posted a response to the Patch story “Police: Mob Attacked Specific Group of People Inside Tinley Park Restaurant.” The post states that “a group of 30 anti-fascists descended” on the restaurant “where the 5th annual White Nationalist Economic Summit and Illinois White Nationalist Meet-and-Greet” was reportedly taking place.

“These anti-fascists are committed to shutting down and attacking any racist, nationalist or fascist organizers or individuals that they encounter,” the post states.

The “antifascist” brownshirts responsible call themselves Anti-Racist Action. Predictably, they refer to victims of their political terror as “terrorists.”

Do we want to live in a country where you can’t sit down and eat a meal with your family without running the risk of the restaurant being overrun by club-wielding animals? If not, it’s time to roll back the moonbattery.

SOURCE






Ten Liberal Myths People Believe

When a big lie is repeated often enough and becomes “truth,” there can be serious consequences. For reality is like a jigsaw puzzle: If too many pieces (little pictures) are wrong, you’ll never be able to assemble them and see the big picture. The result is dislocation from reality. What follows are 10 big lies that have gained currency — and the actual truth behind them.

1. Pope Pius XII was a Nazi Collaborator

According to Rabbi David Dalin in his book The Myth of Hitler’s Pope, Pius saved at least 800,000 Jews from extermination at the hands of the Nazis. This is why, during and especially just after WWII, Pius was roundly praised by Jewish figures such as Golda Meir, Albert Einstein, and Moshe Sharett, just to name a few.

So what happened? Well, five years after Pius’ death, a play called The Deputy was made by leftist Rolf Hochhuth. It portrayed Pius as a self-serving man who was indifferent if not hostile to the Nazis’ Jewish victims, and the increasingly secular world ran with it. The Big Lie was repeated until it was “truth.”

But the back story here is even more interesting: The highest-ranking communist intelligence officer to ever defect to the West, Ion Mihai Pacepa, divulged that the attack on Pius — including The Deputy — was no accident. It was Soviet agitprop.

2. There are more whites than blacks on welfare

When responding to this, educated people often mention that only percentages matter, not raw numbers. But here’s the real surprise: The basic assertion itself is incorrect and has been since the 1990s welfare reform. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Family Assistance, in 2002 (the last year I found statistics for), 659,296 white families were on welfare versus 782,914 black families. This phenomenon held true even when norming for income: Poor whites were less likely to receive welfare than poor blacks.

3. Men are more likely to get involved in car accidents than women

Fellows do get into more accidents, but only because they drive considerably more — 60 to 65 percent more, actually. Per million miles driven, however, men are involved in markedly fewer accidents. This is true beginning at the age of 25; among those younger, the sexes’ accident rates are now similar.

To break it down further, the safest drivers are men between the ages of 40 and 60.

4. Pedophilia is an unusually big problem in the Catholic Church

Not according to an official U.S. government-sponsored study. Reported LifeSiteNews.com last year:

According to Charol Shakeshaft, the researcher of a little-remembered 2004 study prepared for the U.S. Department of Education, “the physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests.”

[In fact] … “nearly 9.6 percent of students are targets of educator sexual misconduct sometime during their school career.”

So why does everyone focus on the church? Hillary Profita of CBS News provides some insight:

During the first half of 2002, the 61 largest newspapers in California ran nearly 2,000 stories about sexual abuse in Catholic institutions, mostly concerning past allegations. During the same period, those newspapers ran four stories about the federal government's discovery of the much larger — and ongoing — abuse scandal in public schools.

People focus on where media place the spotlight — whether it belongs there or not.

5. The Crusades were an expansionist West’s attempt to convert the Muslim world to Christianity

Medieval historian Dr. Thomas Madden debunks this myth in his essay “The Real History of the Crusades,” writing:

Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them.... The Seljuk Turks [had] conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western [sic] Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.

[The Crusades] were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.

Read more about the Crusades here.

6. Women earn less than men because of discrimination

Simple sound bites such as “a woman only makes 77 cents to man’s dollar" may be rhetorically effective, but the truth lies in the statistics behind that statistic. For example, “full-time” women work fewer hours than “full-time” men do. Women enter less lucrative fields, such as the soft instead of the hard sciences. Relative to men, they’re more likely to decline promotions, place emphasis on flexibility and personal fulfillment, and take time off; and they’re less likely to be willing to travel, relocate, or take on dangerous jobs. Simply put, they’re more willing to sacrifice money for lifestyle. Journalist Carrie Lukas explains this all beautifully in her piece, “A Bargain At 77 Cents to a Dollar.”

By the way, in some cities, in many fields and very often when qualifications are equal, women earn more than men — largely because of affirmative action and quotas.

7. Thirteen children a day are killed with guns

Sometimes the number cited is 14, but neither figure is accurate. More significantly, most of those killed are actually teenage gang members, as this statistic includes individuals up to the age of 19.

So don’t offer your nanny skills for any of these “children” — you may end up remaking “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead.”

8. Most wars are caused by religion

One minute of critical thought reveals this one as a falsehood. Pick most any conqueror imaginable — Adolf Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, etc. — and it becomes plain that, with few exceptions, wars were motivated by a desire for power, glory, and riches, not religion.

9. Liberals are more charitable than conservatives

In reality, “liberal” today isn’t synonymous with “liberality.” For example, Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks conducted research showing that conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than liberals — despite earning 6 percent less. And thus do red-state residents donate more than wealthier blue-state ones.

But it goes beyond money. Studies also show that conservatives donate considerably more blood, are more likely to care for sick relatives and place others’ happiness ahead of their own, are less envious and less likely to place emphasis on money. Conservatives even hug their children more.   

10. The world faces dangerous over-population.

In truth, fertility rates are below replacement levels (2.1 children per woman) in more than 100 countries worldwide; this includes nations you wouldn’t expect, such as Muslim lands Algeria, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tunisia.

The problem is so severe in many places — in parts of Spain and Italy the fertility rate is less than one — that some nations are taking note and action. Russia, for example, pays women to have children. It isn’t working, though. The result? Man faces a graying world and the staggering consequences that can entail.

So there’s the list. Remember, imbibing misinformation makes choosing the right politicians and policies unlikely. A lie can’t become truth, but can become popular — and then popular will. And if formed on enough lies, popular will can kill.

SOURCE





Australia:  New conservative Qld. Govt. to review same-sex civil union laws

The LNP Government looks set to overturn controversial civil unions laws.  Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie is expected to recommend the legislation passed this year by the ousted Bligh government be scrapped.

The move comes as an exclusive Galaxy/Sunday Mail poll reveals that 50 per cent of people are in favour of same-sex couples getting married, with 33 per cent opposed.

Almost one in three people polled nationwide last week believed Prime Minister Julia Gillard opposed changing the law because she was "out of touch with the community".

Premier Campbell Newman hinted during the election campaign that the LNP would act if it won power.  "We would be looking at that (repealing civil union legislation) if we become the government but there are other very important things," Mr Newman said in March.

Former deputy premier Andrew Fraser introduced the legislation in what many saw as a blatant attempt to retain his marginal Mt Coot-tha seat.

When Parliament resumed last week the LNP didn't waste time in putting the civil union debate back on the floor.  A spokeswoman for the Attorney-General said: "He will be bringing proposals to Cabinet within a few weeks."  She declined to elaborate, but party sources said there was widespread support among the 78 MPs to change the legislation quickly.

However, in response to the Sunday Mail's story, on Sunday morning a spokesperson for the Premier's Office contacted couriermail.com.au to indicate the matter was not a priority.  "No submission on this issue has been put to Cabinet," the spokesman said.

Mr Newman was attacked during the campaign for personally supporting gay marriage but outlining the LNP stance on civil unions.

Federally, Tony Abbott is defying sections of his own frontbench and the majority of voters in refusing a conscience vote on gay marriage.

Former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull has previously admitted to pushing for a free vote on the issue.  The push was slapped down by Mr Abbott but that does not guarantee some Liberal MPs won't yet cross the floor to vote for change.

Calls for a free vote sparked debate within Coalition ranks last year, with senior frontbenchers such as Joe Hockey, who opposes gay marriage, Christopher Pyne, George Brandis and Mr Turnbull debating the merits of a free vote behind closed doors.

A Galaxy survey commissioned for The Sunday Mail, shows Mr Turnbull's position is backed by 77 per cent of Coalition voters.   According to the survey, three in four voters back a conscience vote regardless of which party they support.

While calling for a free vote, Mr Turnbull has reserved his position on how he would vote on the gay marriage legislation until it was presented to Parliament. "My view is there should be a conscience vote," Mr Turnbull said last year. "I raised the matter privately with Tony some time ago."

The issue of gay marriage flared last week on ABC television when Mr Hockey told the openly gay Finance Minister Penny Wong, who recently had a child with her partner Sophie Allouache, that children should have a mother and a father.

WA Liberal MP Mal Washer said he personally backed gay marriage - but wouldn't vote for it.  "I think it's inevitable," he said. "But if it came to a vote, the consensus in my electorate is pretty conservative so I wouldn't vote for it."

SOURCE


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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

**************************



22 May, 2012

Workfare  in Britain:  Jobseekers to care for patients in hospitals as part of unpaid work experience

Dozens of unpaid jobseekers are to deliver patient care at three hospitals in the Midlands, an NHS Trust has revealed.  It follows a successful pilot at Sandwell Hospital, West Bromwich, where six unemployed people worked for eight weeks to help care for patients on wards.

A spokesman for Sandwell and West Birmingham hospitals trust, which runs the scheme, said the placements gave jobseekers a real taste of healthcare.

'The pilot is now complete and, after further consultation with trade unions and managers, we are aiming to run similar programmes across out three hospitals,' they said in a statement.

However, union representatives for medical staff said they were concerned that the move showed a 'worrying glimpse of the future.'

Ravi Subramanian, head of Unison in the West Midlands told The Guardian that the Birmingham and Sandwell hospital trust was being forced to find £125m worth of savings over the next five years.

He added: 'Now the hospital is making moves to deliver healthcare on the cheap, by using people on work experience to help with patient care. Patients and staff will rightly be very worried about the standard of patient care as this scheme is rolled out.'

The NHS Trust defended the 'ward service assistants' scheme, saying the participants were all CRB checked and underwent two weeks of training at Sandwell College before carrying out basic tasks.

These included making hot and cold drinks for patients and helping to feed them if necessary, as well as collecting medication from the hospital pharmacy to give nurses more time on the wards.

Assistant Director of Nursing Linda Pascall added: 'We have really appreciated the support the ward service assistants have given to the wards.  'Their positive attitude has made this venture a success and we hope to be able to continue to work with our Jobcentre Plus partners to offer this scheme which has proven to have genuine benefits for our local community.'

Pauline Jones, Account Manager at Jobcentre Plus, said two of the six people had already gained employment thanks to their work experience.

Sue Horsburgh was one of the six participants and said she found it very rewarding.  'When I started on my first day, there was a lady who was quite poorly. She couldn’t talk and all she could really do was put her thumb up but I went to see her in my last week and I had a conversation with her,' she said.  'I went home each day and felt I had done something worthwhile.'

Fellow ward service assistant, Jennifer Howell, said the role had given her the confidence to start a new job working with people with learning difficulties.

And Sarah Jones, another of the six to undertake the placement, said she now wants a career as a healthcare assistant.  'I love it,' she said.  'There was nothing negative. I know that after doing this I never want to do anything else ever.'

Until Feburary this year, people on Government work experience schemes faced having their benefits cut if they left unpaid schemes.

However, ministers changed the rules following a meeting with scores of employers after protests by activists who complained that the unemployed were being forced to work for nothing.

SOURCE





Three Views on Same Sex Marriage

    Mike Adams

A lot of cultural commentators are confused these days. They believe that people’s views on same sex marriage are solely a reflection of their religious beliefs. Nothing could be further from the truth. Actually, some things could be further from the truth – like saying that Al Sharpton has integrity or that Dan Savage has class. But you get the point. The same sex marriage debate is about politics. To call it a religious debate is to miss the point entirely. Your stance on same sex marriage should vary depending on whether you consider yourself to be a conservative, a liberal, or a libertarian.

For conservatives, the issue is pretty simple. The institution of marriage predates any existing government or nation. So no government has a right to redefine marriage. But it is okay for the government to become entangled with marriage towards the end of promoting marriage. The institution is good. It tames men. It protects women. It is good for children. Therefore, it is worth promoting.

Conservatives view efforts to redefine marriage as philosophically unacceptable. That government should recognize an institution in one move and then redefine it in another is an unacceptable encroachment on a religious institution. Recognize yes, redefine no. It is not their religion that leads them to this conclusion. It is their politics. It is also common sense. Conservatives rightly scoff at the notion of calling same sex unions “marriage” just as they scoff at the idea of calling three-sided objects rectangular.

Conservatives are unimpressed with overly simplistic appeals to freedom. When evaluating the “freedom to marry” they refuse to stop at the question “Is it free?” They also ask the question “Is it good?” Same sex marriage does not tame men, it does not protect women, and it is not good for or even conducive to raising children. Hence, there is no need for government recognition of same-sex unions.

Nor are conservatives impressed with overly simplistic appeals to equality. One cannot even say that male-male unions are equal to female-female unions. The former are much less stable than the latter. How could one possibly assert sameness between same-sexed and opposite-sexed unions?

Put simply, conservatives defend the status quo on marriage because they can see no compelling reason for the government to promote same sex unions. And they reject the authority of the government to equate unequal things.

For liberals, the issue is also very simple. In the liberal mind, government has unlimited authority to fundamentally transform institutions as long as it is adhering to a vision of equality. It does not matter that marriage predated government. Government can seize and redefine institutions as long as it is acting on behalf of a group that claims to have suffered from negative stigma. It is true that, on average, homosexuals are more educated and wealthier than heterosexuals. But they have been subjected to ridicule and ostracism. In the liberal mind, that alone justifies government intervention.

Liberals handle claims of inequality on an incremental basis. It is true that redefining marriage to include same-sex unions will open the door to efforts to legalize polygamy. But liberals do not think of all possible ramifications when they seek to advance a “solution” to a “problem.” Nor is it in their interests to do so. The process of reducing stigma must be done incrementally or it will backfire.

When arguments for polygamy do arise, liberals will weigh them in conjunction with their effects on other groups. The argument that Mormons have been historically oppressed will have to be weighed against claims that polygamy advances the oppression of women. Regardless, the issue will be decided based on its presumed effects upon groups, rather than individuals. According to liberals, rights are not given to individuals by God. They are given to groups by government.

Put simply, liberals reject the status quo on marriage because they see equality as a compelling reason for the government to promote same sex unions. And they accept the authority of the government to equate unequal things – even at the expense of redefining institutions that predate the existence of the government.

For libertarians, recognizing marriage in any form is problematic. The true libertarian considers both the conservative and the liberal to be misguided on the issue. Libertarians believe the conservative is wrong to think that government should be in the business of promoting a religious institution. Libertarians believe the liberal is even more misguided to believe that government should recognize and regulate an even broader range of relationships than it already does.

Many self-proclaimed libertarians such as Neal Boortz were outraged at North Carolina voters’ recent affirmation (61% to 39%) of traditional marriage. These confused libertarians are really social liberals with fiscally conservative leanings. They have failed to grasp the merit in preventing a judicial fiat that would have produced greater entanglement between the government and private relationships.

Many liberal Christians were also disappointed by the passage of Amendment One in North Carolina. But it wasn’t their religion that compelled them to oppose it. Liberal Christians are simply more committed to their politics than they are to God. And they value His approval less than that of their fellow man.

SOURCE






Blacks and Same Sex Marriage

 Star Parker

Perhaps history will show that the first black president’s biggest contribution to black America was forcing this community to come to terms with its own identity and priorities.

By formalizing his support of same sex marriage, President Obama has pushed blacks to decide what is most important to them. The Biblical message they hear in church every Sunday, or the big government liberalism that they regularly vote for on Tuesday of Election Day.

I’ve often talked about what I call the “Sunday-Tuesday Gap’ in black America.

The black church has always played a central role in black American life. Blacks attend church with greater frequency than any ethnic group in the nation. In church, they hear from pastors who preach the Bible in a most literal fashion.

According to a 2010 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey, 34 percent of the general public sees the Bible as the literal word of God. However, 57 percent of blacks and 61 percent of black Protestants say the Bible should be read as God’s literal word.

This helps explain why in responding to surveys on so-called “social issues,” – abortion, marriage, family, infidelity, homosexuality – blacks poll like white conservatives.

However, when blacks go to vote on Tuesday, they certainly don’t vote like white conservatives. They vote like white liberals.

On Sunday, blacks hear preachers talk about traditional values, about family, about personal responsibility, about the sanctity of life. On Tuesday they go to the polls and vote for candidates that support abortion, moral relativism, and government dependence.

According to a 2010 Gallup survey, 55 percent of blacks said they attend church frequently (“at least once a week” or “almost every week”). However among Democrats, the party blacks overwhelmingly support, 39 percent say they attend church frequently. And among liberals, who are overwhelmingly Democrats, 27 percent attend church frequently.

The black vote wasn’t always so predictable. Eisenhower got 39 percent of the black vote in 1956 and Nixon received 32 percent in 1960.

Now, ninety percent of blacks can be depended on to pull the lever for Democrats.

These are the blacks of Tuesday. But now that President Obama has made his support for same sex marriage clear, what impact will this have on the blacks of Sunday?

In 2008 in California, the blacks of Tuesday voted for Barack Obama. But in the same election, the blacks of Sunday switched over and voted for Proposition 8 which directed that marriage be formally defined in the California state constitution as traditional marriage of man and woman.

After President Obama spoke out for same sex marriage, those commonly identified as black America’s political leadership – Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond, Joseph Lowery – immediately took public positions supporting the President’s stand.

But these leaders, who represent the political behavior of Tuesday blacks, are out of sync with grass roots sentiment, which reflects the sentiments of Sunday blacks. According to Pew, 47 percent of Americans support legalization of same sex marriage, but only 39 percent of blacks and 33 percent of black Protestants do.

If there is a consensus on anything today, it’s that most Americans feel the country is on the wrong track. Where we part company is on the diagnosis of what is wrong.

There are big questions we must decide that will determine the kind of country our kids and grandkids will be living in.

There is no place where the dilemma is clearer than among black Americans.

Will America move more in the direction of the values of the blacks of Sunday or those of the blacks of Tuesday?

It’s time for black Americans to set and clarify their priorities and act in concert with them. The choices made today will impact not just their own future, but the future of our whole nation.

SOURCE






Violation of Religious Freedom: Catholics File Lawsuit Against Obama Administration

It's on. Catholics have officially filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration over the contraception mandate in ObamaCare. The lawsuit names Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and their departments as defendants.

    Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), in a May 21 statement applauded 43 dioceses, hospitals, schools and church agencies for filing 12 lawsuits around the nation saying the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mandate violates religious freedom.

    His statement follows.

    “We have tried negotiation with the Administration and legislation with the Congress – and we’ll keep at it – but there's still no fix. Time is running out, and our valuable ministries and fundamental rights hang in the balance, so we have to resort to the courts now. Though the Conference is not a party to the lawsuits, we applaud this courageous action by so many individual dioceses, charities, hospitals and schools across the nation, in coordination with the law firm of Jones Day. It is also a compelling display of the unity of the Church in defense of religious liberty. It's also a great show of the diversity of the Church's ministries that serve the common good and that are jeopardized by the mandate – ministries to the poor, the sick, and the uneducated, to people of any faith or no faith at all.”

Ironically, the lawsuit comes just a week after "Catholic" pro-abortion, pro-contraception mandate Kathleen Sebelius spoke at a Georgetown University commencement ceremony. Georgetown is a Catholic institution and was at the center of the contraception mandate controversy.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

**************************



21 May, 2012

Why defeat an evil empire – and then embrace a stupid one?

By Peter Hitchens

The European Union is like a hospital where all the doctors are mad. It doesn’t matter what is wrong, the treatment is always the same – more integration – and it is always wrong. The best thing to do is never to enter it.  Once you are in, the best thing to do is to leave. If you can’t get out, you will probably die.

Those of us who pay attention to history, politics and truth have known this for many years.   But as the EU’s ‘experts’ and ‘technocrats’ insanely destroy the economies of Greece, Spain and Italy, it must now surely be obvious to everyone.  The EU, far from being a bright future, offers nothing but bankruptcy and decline.

If the old USSR was an Evil Empire – and it was – the EU is the Stupid Empire. Obsessed with the idea that the nation state is obsolete, the EU has sought to bind its colonies tightly, while pretending they are still independent.

This is why what is essentially a modern German empire is not held together by armies, but by a sticky web of regulations and a currency that destroys prosperity wherever it is introduced (with one important exception, Germany itself, for whom the euro means cheap exports to Asia).

It is also why it has been built backwards, starting with the roof and ending with the foundations. Old-fashioned empires were at least honest.

They marched in, plundered everything they could cart away, killed or imprisoned resisters, suborned collaborators, and imposed their language on the conquered.

Other humiliating measures followed – forcing the newly-subject people to live according to the invader’s time, to pay special taxes to their new masters, to surrender control of their borders, to use the invader’s weights and measures, salute the invader’s flag and obey the invader’s laws.

Eventually, after a few years of imposed occupation money, set at a viciously rigged exchange rate, the subjugated nation’s economy would have been reduced to such a devastated and dependent state that it could be forced to accept the imperial currency.

The EU, which cannot admit to being what it really is, has to achieve the same means sideways or backwards. The colonial laws are disguised as local Acts of Parliament. The flag is slowly introduced, the borders stealthily erased, the weights and measures and the clocks gradually brought into conformity.

Resources (such as Britain’s fisheries) are bureaucratically plundered, giant taxes are  quietly levied, but collected by our own Revenue & Customs as our ‘contribution’, our banking industry is menaced.

Opponents are politically marginalised, collaborators discreetly rewarded, armed forces quietly dismantled or placed under supranational command. It is happening before our eyes and yet, while the exit is still just open, we make no move to depart.

Our grandchildren will wonder, bitterly, why we were so feeble.

SOURCE




EU's utopian dream slides into tyranny

As I write, Greece is experiencing what is now called a “bank jog” – a fairly slow “run”. By the time you read this, it may have become a sprint. How long before the (unelected) Greek government imposes a freeze on all bank accounts? Or exchange controls to prevent anyone taking or sending more than very small amounts of money out of the country? When will we start to see prosecutions for “economic crimes” in which the survival of the political project takes precedence over the right to access and make free use of your own funds? Not to mention tanks in the streets to control social unrest.

The West may have won the Cold War but its own brand of utopian solution – the great economic and political union that would put an end to war and social instability – is toying dangerously with mechanisms that are certainly anti-democratic and come close to being totalitarian.

This is not just a story of bureaucratic grandiosity, or of German insistence on domination. Certainly it is true that there is an irreconcilable cultural clash between the more puritanical North and the, shall we say, more indulgent South. It turns out that Marx was wrong about economic conditions determining political behaviour: a nation’s religion and geography are much more likely to affect its economic attitudes than the other way round.

But it is not the dream of European co-operation that was doomed from the start: given the ancient hatreds and unforgivable sins of the past, that was difficult, but it was not impossible. What has made the project unworkable is the insistence that the EU be a vehicle for democratic socialism: the impossible dream was not European unity but universal “social solidarity” stretching across a continent, for which the single market was simply a milch cow to produce the funds.

Unfeasibly enormous social security and entitlement promises were made on the basis that the free market would always provide.

Nobody bothered to ask what would happen when the market faltered or fluctuated (as genuinely free markets do) or when the sense of entitlement outgrew the wealth that could be created. The problem is not unique to Europe. They are facing the same question in the US, where benefits programmes – particularly social security (the US federal pensions system) and Medicare – have become as untouchable, and as financially unsustainable, as they are here.

How long will freedom survive in the face of mass rage at the loss of the economic security that has come to be seen as a basic human right? People were told that they could have lifelong protection from want without any restrictions on their liberty or their economic self-determination. So now the cake has been well and truly eaten and had. The EU is going to have to admit sooner or later that this fantasy has run its course.

SOURCE





No Rights of Conscience for Military Chaplains?

When President Obama prepared to repeal the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy in July 2011, defenders of marriage and religious freedom warned that the repeal would open Pandora’s Box. Military chaplains even sought congressional action to protect their rights of conscience.

The predominant concern was that the President’s actions would usher in attempts to redefine marriage on military installations, which would, in turn, force chaplains to perform the ceremonies for same-sex couples in uniform.

As one might expect, the people who voiced these concerns were mocked the way Orville and Wilbur Wright were mocked for believing men could fly. Yet in the months since the repeal, it turns out the concerns were well-founded.

This recently came to light when members of the U.S. House of Representatives added protections for chaplains to the National Defense Authorization Bill (H.R. 4310), and President Obama balked. According to reports, his administration “strongly objects” to aspects of the legislation that “prohibit the use of military property for same-sex ‘marriage or marriage-like’ ceremonies” and which also protects “military chaplains from negative repercussions for refusing to perform ceremonies that conflict with their belief.”

Perhaps no one wants to think this way about their president, but a refusal to protect chaplains from facing repercussions for following the dictates of their consciences is just a simple way to strong-arm them into performing the ceremonies in the first place.

It’s a simple case of “do this or else.”

So far, the administration is defending its opposition to the language in H.R. 4310 by saying the legislation contains “unnecessary and ill-advised policies that would inhibit the ability of same-sex couples to marry or enter a recognized relationship under State law.”

And this brings us back to the start, where defenders of marriage warned that marriage and religious freedom would pay a heavy price if acceptance of homosexual behavior was imposed upon the military. Now, before our very eyes, members of President Obama’s administration are saying we cannot protect the consciences’ of chaplains because that “would inhibit the ability of some same-sex couples to marry or enter into a recognized relationship under State law.”

Yet it’s clear the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” has everything to do with same-sex “marriage” and trampling the consciences of anyone who stands in the way: chaplains included.

The Wright Brothers were proven correct, and were happy for it. Defenders of marriage and religious freedom have been proven correct as well, but it’s nothing to be happy about.

SOURCE




Samantha Brick is stirring the pot again

She says she's proud of being a 'trophy wife'



My husband sets me a £250 allowance each month for my wardrobe, I ask his permission before booking a hair appointment and discuss with him what I will have done.

He even has an opinion — which I adhere to — on how I dress and what I weigh. He prefers I wear classic ladylike attire and, at 5ft 11in, he insists I tip the scale at no more than 10½ stone. In fact, he’s there when I weigh myself.

At this point, many of you will be thinking I’m little more than a trophy wife for my husband, Pascal, and you’re right. I am a trophy wife — and what’s more, I’m proud of it.

Pascal has built up a very successful business, he earns more than I do and I’m lucky enough not to need to bring a salary into the home, though I still work part-time to keep my wits about me.

Pascal is a Frenchman with particularly traditional views. He is a decade older than me and unashamedly tells people he chose me for my looks. But that doesn’t make me a designer-clad airhead who’s only interested in getting my hands on his cash.

People disapprove of relationships like ours because they assume love doesn’t enter the equation — that our marriage is merely an exchange of commodities: my youth and good looks for his wealth. They couldn’t be more wrong.

Whatever else the naysayers may throw at us, I’m comfortable with my trophy-wife status for two reasons: Pascal and I are deeply in love and I adore being treated like a princess.

And even in these egalitarian times, many people enjoy this kind of marriage — even if most are shy of the ‘trophy wife’ tag.

Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein and Rod Stewart are known for their clout in their fields and for their choice of younger, attractive wives: Melania Trump, Georgina Chapman and Penny Lancaster respectively.

These are smart women, just like me, who are more than a decade younger than their other half. They staunchly support their husbands and, in return, receive a wonderful lifestyle.

Reading all this, it might surprise you to learn I started out as a strident career woman. My formative years were during Thatcher’s Eighties. Being a kept housewife was out; becoming a financially independent career girl was in.

I even found myself a younger, prettier husband — one who earned less than I did. At the time of my first marriage, in my early 30s, I was working as a successful TV boss on a six-figure salary and turning over millions of pounds each year. I wore the trousers in the office and at home, and enjoyed it — for a while.

Inevitably, when you earn more than your husband, the financial responsibilities fall on your shoulders. I asked him to pay the mortgage one month and he agreed only after I assured him I would pay him back within the week. I paid for the running of our home, forked out for our holidays and it was even left to me to fund our wedding and honeymoon.

But I knew I had to get out of the relationship when I found myself writing cheque after cheque for all of our outgoings. It wasn’t the money that upset me, I just found it deeply unattractive to have a man so dependent on me. Having our roles reversed in that way — me as the breadwinner, he the part-time worker — meant my respect for him evaporated and so, eventually, did my love.

I was in my mid-30s when I met my second husband, Pascal. From our first date I knew he was a man who cherished physical looks. He complimented me on my legs, my eyes, my figure. He would endlessly tell me how beautiful I was. He wasn’t attracted by my career or my bank account. Instead he viewed me as a prize to be won and, to my surprise, I found his approach seductive.

Pascal likes being a proper gentleman — the idea of going Dutch in a restaurant is abhorrent to him. On our first date it was the first time anyone, other than a chauffeur, had opened a car door for me. I loved it — it made me feel special.

Throughout our courtship I received flowers, and was taken to boutiques, where he would hand over his credit card. He’d have a bottle of my favourite champagne on ice when I arrived at his home. When a man goes to that much effort, why wouldn’t I want to go the extra mile for him?

Before our dates I would ensure I looked my best, spending hours on my grooming routine. I’d style my hair the way he liked it, down and slightly tousled, ensure I’d painted and filed my nails and applied a light layer of sun-kissed fake tan. I even ditched my wardrobe of designer trouser suits and rediscovered a love of floral dresses.

Since the time of our blossoming romance, a day has not gone by where I haven’t made an effort with my appearance. It pains me to read that women such as Hillary Clinton feel they’ve reached an age where they no longer need make-up.

If a woman doesn’t make an effort, it’s perfectly logical that her husband will assume it’s because she feels he’s not worth making an effort for. Can you then blame a man for looking elsewhere? A trophy wife, however, would never make such a mistake. It’s part of our job description to look good and support our husbands at all times. Pascal and I understand what the other wants. It’s not something we’ve ever discussed, but we both know my role in our relationship is integral to its success.

My husband  runs a thriving building company where we live. When we met I was shown off to everyone as yet another perk of his success. We regularly socialise with other suppliers, clients  and colleagues. They’re all his age — in their 50s — and love seeing a ‘blonde poppet’ (as I’ve been described) on his arm.

At first, I found such a label ghastly and patronising, but I defy any woman not to be secretly flattered by such accolades when they’re genuinely given as an appreciation of your femininity.
I know my place in the home – in the bedroom and kitchen I’m a consummate professional

I’m friendly and charming to those he works with and it’s fair to say they soon realise I might be an attractive blonde, but I’ve got a brain, too.

Pascal’s business has expanded because of me. It helps that I turn the heads of his friends in a male-dominated industry.

Most of the other wives are older and are focused on their families first, their husbands a poor second. My day is organised around my husband: isn’t that what all wives should do? I know my place in the home — in the bedroom or the kitchen, I’m a consummate professional.

I don’t make the mistake of suffering from headaches when I’m between the sheets or feign sleepiness when my husband makes amorous advances. In the kitchen, I put on my apron and prepare Pascal a home-cooked meal twice a day, every day. I wouldn’t dream of serving him up something out of a packet.

Each afternoon, before his siesta, I massage his head and shoulders with lavender oil. When he arrives home in the evening, I greet him with an aperitif. Having been married before, we both know about modern relationships — shouty, stressed wives trying (and failing) to do it all, husbands who stay out all hours to avoid the messy domestic scene at home, only convenience food on the table and growing resentment destroying the relationship.

We knew we didn’t want that again — that’s why this works for us.  A man who covets a trophy wife has nothing in common with those in-touch-with-their feelings metrosexual men. Accordingly, I don’t witter on about PMT or yell at him when I’m stressed. That’s what my friends and mum are for. If I’m poorly I keep out of his way. I knew from the start he was ill-equipped to deal with me when I’m not bright and cheery. 

I’d be lying if I said there weren’t downsides to being a trophy wife. I know I’ll have to maintain my figure and looks. Pascal is adamant that even as I get older, it’s no excuse to let myself go. As a younger wife, you battle against the assumption you’re a gold-digger crossing off the years until your beloved is six feet under. But I have my career and own income, so my lifestyle wouldn’t suffer if I wasn’t with Pascal.

In France, there’s a flippant word used to dismiss trophy wives: potiche. It translates as an ornamental vase — something that exists purely because it looks good. Yet I don’t find it at all dismissive. We trophy wives are decorative, treasured and highly valued. And to me, that can never be a bad thing.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

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20 May, 2012

Dangerous loss of realism in politics

The people who pioneered democracy in Europe and the United States had a low but pretty accurate view of human nature. They knew that if we get the chance, most of us will try to get something for nothing. They knew that people generally prize short-term goodies over long-term prosperity. So, in centuries past, the democratic pioneers built a series of checks to make sure their nations wouldn’t be ruined by their own frailties.

The American founders did this by decentralizing power. They built checks and balances to frustrate and detain the popular will. They also dispersed power to encourage active citizenship, hoping that as people became more involved in local government, they would develop a sense of restraint and responsibility.

In Europe, by contrast, authority was centralized. Power was held by small coteries of administrators and statesmen, many of whom had attended the same elite academies where they were supposed to learn the art and responsibilities of stewardship. Under the parliamentary system, voters didn’t even get to elect their leaders directly. They voted for parties, and party elders selected the ones who would actually form the government, often through secret means.

Though the forms were different, the democracies in Europe and the United States were based on a similar carefully balanced view of human nature: People are naturally selfish and need watching. But democratic self-government is possible because we’re smart enough to design structures to police that selfishness.

James Madison put it well: “As there is a degree of depravity in mankind, which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust: So there are other qualities in human nature, which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence.”

But, over the years, this balanced wisdom was lost. Leaders today do not believe their job is to restrain popular will. Their job is to flatter and satisfy it. A gigantic polling apparatus has developed to help leaders anticipate and respond to popular whims. Democratic politicians adopt the mind-set of marketing executives. Give the customer what he wants. The customer is always right.

Having lost a sense of their own frailty, many voters have come to regard their desires as entitlements. They become incensed when their leaders are not responsive to their needs. Like any normal set of human beings, they command their politicians to give them benefits without asking them to pay.

The consequences of this shift are now obvious. In Europe and America, governments have made promises they can’t afford to fulfill. At the same time, the decision-making machinery is breaking down. American and European capitals still have the structures inherited from the past, but without the self-restraining ethos that made them function.

The American decentralized system of checks and balances has transmogrified into a fragmented system that scatters responsibility. Congress is capable of passing laws that give people benefits with borrowed money, but it gridlocks when it tries to impose self-restraint.

The Obama campaign issues its famous “Julia” ad, which perfectly embodies the vision of government as a national Sugar Daddy, delivering free money and goodies up and down the life cycle. The Citizens United case gives well-financed interests tremendous power to preserve or acquire tax breaks and regulatory deals. American senior citizens receive health benefits that cost many times more than the contributions they put into the system.

In Europe, workers across the Continent want great lifestyles without long work hours. They want dynamic capitalism but also personal security. European welfare states go broke trying to deliver these impossibilities.

The European ruling classes once had their power checked through daily contact with the tumble of national politics. But now those ruling classes have built a technocratic apparatus, the European Union, operating far above popular scrutiny. Decisions that reshape the destinies of families and nations are being made at some mysterious, transnational level. Few Europeans can tell who is making decisions or who is to blame if they go wrong, so, of course, they feel powerless and distrustful.

Western democratic systems were based on a balance between self-doubt and self-confidence. They worked because there were structures that protected the voters from themselves and the rulers from themselves. Once people lost a sense of their own weakness, the self-doubt went away and the chastening structures were overwhelmed. It became madness to restrain your own desires because surely your rivals over yonder would not be restraining theirs.

This is one of the reasons why Europe and the United States are facing debt crises and political dysfunction at the same time. People used to believe that human depravity was self-evident and democratic self-government was fragile. Now they think depravity is nonexistent and they take self-government for granted.

Neither the United States nor the European model will work again until we rediscover and acknowledge our own natural weaknesses and learn to police rather than lionize our impulses.

SOURCE





Baltimore County Delegate Acknowledges Epidemic of Black Mob Violence

Sooner or later even the authorities will have to acknowledge the epidemic of black on white mob violence that has made it unsafe to venture out of doors from one end of the country to the other. In Baltimore, it’s already beginning:

    A Baltimore County delegate said Wednesday that the governor should send in the Maryland State Police to control “roving mobs of black youths” at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, prompting a colleague to label the message “race-baiting.”

    Del. Patrick L. McDonough, a Republican whose district includes part of Harford County, distributed a news release with the headline: “Black Youth Mobs Terrorize Baltimore on Holidays.” In it, McDonough said he had sent a letter to Gov. Martin O’Malley urging him to use the state police to help prevent attacks and to declare the Inner Harbor area a “no-travel zone” until safety can be guaranteed.

Unsurprisingly, many of McDonough’s colleagues were aggressively “offended.” Nothing could be more predictable than that he will be denounced as a racist for pointing out that the house is on fire. However,

    McDonough refused to back down, saying he had heard from police that the crowds involved in several recent incidents were all black. Failing to mention the race of the participants, he said, would be “political correctness on steroids.”

    McDonough said his statement was prompted by several recent problems, including a St. Patrick’s Day disturbance and a recent incident in which he and his wife witnessed a fight involving about 100 youths at Pratt and Calvert streets.

The St. Patrick’s Day incident involved a tourist being beaten, robbed, and stripped in front of a courthouse by one of the black mobs that roam cities looking for lone whites to assault. Refusing to address them while not only justifying but inciting their behavior with liberal propaganda will only cause the mobs to grow larger and more vicious.

SOURCE





British PM's radical plan to reform jobs red tape

David Cameron is to back a radical plan to rip up employment red tape to help deliver growth.   He will throw his weight behind a far-reaching report which calls for a bonfire of regulations that employers say are stifling job creation.

The report by Adrian Beecroft, a venture capitalist, will be published in full this week after months of delay.

The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that it will call for firms to be given much greater flexibility to make redundancies; for the lifting of restrictions on the equality laws that industry says are stifling job creation, and for a cap on employment tribunal payouts.

Mr Cameron will risk severe tensions with the Liberal Democrats by backing such far-reaching proposals but will use his support to attempt to reassure business that the Government is “pro-growth”, after a bruising reaction to the Queen’s Speech.

The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that the 15-page document, drawn up by Mr Beecroft after he was given access to Government lawyers, has 20 proposals including:

* An end to a mandatory 90-day consultation period when a company is considering redundancy programmes. Mr Beecroft recommends a 30-day period and an emergency five-day period if a company is in severe economic distress.

* A cap on loss of earnings compensation for employees who make successful unfair dismissal claims. Payments can often total hundreds of thousands of pounds.

* Major reform of the rights that workers are allowed to “carry” to new employers when they are the subject of a takeover. Currently, the rights, called transfer of undertakings (TUPE), can leave people in the same company working in the same job with different levels of rights for many years.

* An end to provisions in the Equality Act which make employers liable for claims from employees for “third party harassment” — for example, customers making “sexist” comments to staff in a restaurant. The Government has already begun a consultation on the issue.

* Moving the responsibility to check on foreign workers’ eligibility to work in Britain from employers to the Border Agency or the Home Office.

Whitehall sources said the Prime Minister and the Chancellor believe the publication of the report will show that the Government is serious about kick-starting the economy, which has seen two quarters of negative growth, officially putting the UK in recession. A Whitehall source who has seen the report said: “It is aimed at getting rid of blocks to hiring people and the sense of entitlement for those who are already in employment.

“What about those who want to get into employment? They need the chance. It is about reform to drive growth, it is much too hard for companies to restructure and get the right people that they see as fit to do the job.”

Yesterday Mr Cameron spoke of the urgent need for growth as he met the leaders of the world’s most powerful economies at the G8 summit in the United States. He delivered a blunt warning directly to other European leaders about the need to resolve the mounting eurozone crisis.

At the summit in Camp David, the US presidential retreat, he said Europe’s leaders should act “very fast” to resolve the crisis. The Prime Minister urged eurozone leaders to put in place “strong contingency plans” for a possible break-up of the single currency.

The fate of Greece, which is widely expected to crash out of the euro in the near future, was high on the G8 agenda.

Last night, in their post-summit communiqué, the G8 leaders said they wanted Greece to remain within the single currency but acknowledged that “the right measures are not the same for each of us”.

Mr Beecroft, a Conservative Party donor, caused controversy when parts of his report for the Prime Minister on making it easier for employers to sack underperforming staff were leaked last autumn.

Many Liberal Democrats made clear their opposition, with Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, particularly concerned by the recommendations, which is why the report has languished unpublished since then.

Although the first Bill outlined in the Queen’s Speech was legislation to overhaul employment regulation, it stopped far short of promising moves to implement Beecroft.

The only concrete detail disclosed of the report was that it would encourage employers and employees to go through conciliation rather than legal tribunals.

Critics pointed out that the legislative programme would lead to the creation of several new quangos, undermining previous efforts to cut the number of such bodies.

In a major speech last week, the Prime Minister said that although he would not deviate from plans to bring Britain’s deficit under control, he recognised the need for growth policies.

Some business leaders, such as Justin King, the CEO of Sainsbury’s, have criticised the lack of pro-growth measures in the Queen’s Speech earlier this month. Last week, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, issued a stinging riposte in a Sunday Telegraph interview, telling business critics to stop “complaining” and saying: “There’s only one growth strategy: work hard.”

This week, a group of backbench Conservative MPs will keep up the pressure on the Government with their report “The Growth Factory”.

Edited by Damian Collins, with contributions from fellow MPs Kwasi Kwarteng, Sam Gyimah and Jo Johnson, it will call for new policies to support growth, such as an extra runway in the south-east of England; a push for more engineering graduates and the promotion of start-up loans for businesses.

“With high levels of unemployment in Europe in particular, people require more of their leaders and to see evidence that they are straining every sinew to help create competitive advantage in their economies,” Mr Collins says in the report which will be published by TLGLab, a new business think tank.

At the G8 summit, President Barack Obama said all the G8 countries were “absolutely committed” to growth, stability and fiscal consolidation.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is coming under pressure from the United States and François Hollande, the new president of France, to soften her commitment to austerity in favour of growth.

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph this weekend, Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, urges Europe’s leaders to develop a continent wide growth strategy rather than each pursuing austerity within their own country.

SOURCE






Separation of Church and State: Misinformation and Hypocrisy

No sooner had I expressed my differences with the president’s announcement supporting same-sex “marriage” than a young man named Collin posted on my Facebook page, “You have to leave your stupid religious dogma behind when talking about state and national issues. You are basing your objection to homosexual marriage on the Bible which would be violating the American principle of separation of church and state.”

Not only is this the opposite of what our Founding Fathers intended, but it is also completely hypocritical, since Collin voiced no objection to the president pointing to his religious beliefs in support of same-sex “marriage.”

And so, President Obama can invoke “Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf,” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi can invoke her Catholic faith, Episcopal bishops in North Carolina can invoke the Bible and their religious traditions, even to the point of actively campaigning for gay “marriage,” and virtually no one (perhaps with the exception of Barry Lynn) is crying out, “Separation of church and state!”

But let conservative Christians invoke the Bible or quote the words of Jesus or point to their religious traditions in opposition to redefining marriage, and comments like this one come pouring in faster than you can count them: “I live in North Carolina where the separation of Church and State doesn’t exist.” (This was from “Eric R.” after the marriage amendment passed on May 8th.)

I have even been told that I have no right to cast a vote for a candidate or a bill if my viewpoint is based on the Bible. What? This notion is as idiotic as it is outrageous.

Let’s set the record straight for those who might be misinformed. First, “the separation of church and state” is not mentioned or alluded to in the Constitution. Second, the concept of “the separation of church and state” is found in the First Amendment, the relevant part of which simply reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” In other words, the state needs to stay out of the church’s business. It was not until 1947 that the Supreme Court invoked the principle of “separation of church and state” in a legal ruling.

Third, the wording for “separation of church and state” is based on Thomas Jefferson’s reply to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut in 1802, but as Yale law professor Stephen Carter pointed out, “The separation of church and state, properly understood, comes from the work not of Thomas Jefferson, as is widely perceived, but from the insights of Roger Williams.”

It was Williams who “developed the metaphor of the garden and the wilderness. The garden was the place where the people of faith would gather to struggle to understand God’s Word. The wilderness was the rest of the world; the world where the light had not yet been received. Between the garden and the wilderness stood a wall. The wall existed for one purpose only. It was not there to protect the wilderness from the garden; it was there to protect the garden from the wilderness.”

What does this mean to us today? Listen again to Prof. Carter: “The wall of separation between church and state is not there to protect the state from the church; rather, it is there to protect the church from the state. It stands as a divide to preserve religious freedom. And one needs to protect the church from the state because the latter will utilize its enormous powers to do what the state has always done – either subvert the religion or destroy it. If we continue our slide toward a state that breaches the wall of separation whenever it is convenient, then I worry about the great risk to religious freedom. In the end, such a breach could destroy our ability to form the communities of resistance that are crucial if we are going to have a chance to transform the nation.” (This quote is worth reading again and posting as widely as possible.)

Based, however, on modern misconceptions of the separation of church and state, there could have been no abolition movement to eradicate slavery, since it was led by Christians with the Bible as their principle ideological text, nor could there have been a Civil Rights movement (other than, say, the Malcolm X version), since it too was a church-based movement led by ministers quoting the Bible.

Dr. Martin Luther King, who was one of those ministers, expressed things succinctly when he said, “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool.” But King also gave a sober warning: “If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”

What America really needs, and what many of our country’s founders envisioned, is a vibrant, healthy, non-hypocritical church functioning as “the conscience of the state.” As John Adams famously wrote in 1798, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

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19 May, 2012

Strong families make successful children, not the nanny state, says study as British government launches baby guide

The welfare state has little or no bearing on how children turn out, an international research project has found.  Strong families are the key to producing well adjusted and successful youngsters, it adds.

In fact, say the researchers, the children of married parents are likely to do better than those from broken or single-parent families – no matter how much state support the family is given.

The study singled out the British welfare state as an example of the failure of state support to make a difference to the lives and success of children.

The findings, published in the US in the Journal of Health and Social Behaviour, come in the wake of David Cameron’s announcement of free parenting classes and relationship support  sessions, and a £3.4million website which will give tips on every aspect of child rearing.

Critics have called the spending a waste, saying that parents have always understood naturally how to bring up children and that a stable family is far more important to a child.

The study carried out by researchers at two American universities examined evidence from both Britain and the US – one with a large welfare state, one without – on how the lives of children progress between the ages of five and 13.

It said there were a number of risk factors common to both countries that increased the likelihood that a child would have behavioural problems.

Boys were more likely to have difficulties than girls, health problems led to other difficulties for children, and children of divorced parents faced a greater likelihood of trouble.

In Britain, the study said, the influence of ‘family structure’ – whether a child has its two birth parents, or just one parent, or lives with a step-parent – was more important than in America.

Professor Toby Parcel of North Carolina State University said: ‘We found that stronger home environments – those that are intellectually stimulating, nurturing, and physically safe – decrease the likelihood of behaviour problems in both the US and Great Britain.’

‘We wanted to see whether the role of parents was equally important in both societies because the argument has been made that more developed welfare states, such as Great Britain, can make the role of parents less important, by providing additional supports that can help compensate for situations where households have more limited resources.

‘This study tells us that parents are important in households, regardless of the strength of the welfare state.’

The effect of having two married parents was more important in Britain, the study said. It also found that children from big families were more likely to have problems here.

The study found that family structure effects were more pronounced in Britain, where a child from a family with a single mother or multiple children was at a higher risk of having behavioural problems.

‘Additionally, the more children in a British family, the greater the likelihood a child from that family had behavioural problems. These effects were absent in  the US.’

The report, Children’s Behaviour Problems in the United States and Great Britain, adds to a large body of evidence which points to the importance of married parents and a stable family background in the upbringing of a child.

Mr Cameron’s own research into the happiness of individuals and families in Britain – being carried out by the Office for National Statistics at a cost to taxpayers of £2million a year – has found that marriage makes a difference to levels of life satisfaction.

A report on the happiness research last month said: ‘People who are married or in civil partnerships reported the highest average levels of life satisfaction, significantly higher than cohabiting couples.

‘The lowest average rating was reported by people who are divorced or separated, including those who have dissolved civil partnerships.’

The American study was led by Professor Parcel together with Dr Lori Ann Campbell, of Cal State-Northridge college, and Dr Wenxuan Zhong, of University of Illinois.

SOURCE





It’s not the British government job to lecture us on child care

Vicki Woods

I hated the Blair years for their utterly useless do-goodery; I loathed all those bossy baronesses who were forever interposing their daft initiatives about anorexic models between me and my own trouser waistband (a place no government has any right even to visit, let alone control). I dislike things being banned for people over 18 and I won’t have anybody telling me that they know better than I do about what’s best for my own child. Or grandchild. (Should I get one.)

Blair was forever ago, though, thank heaven, and my guilt at having voted the old rogue in (just the once, mind) finally faded. My blood pressure having been tranquil for some years now, it was miserable to find The Daily Telegraph shaking in my hand as of old yesterday. When I exited Wyn the Shop, I sat stunned in the car reading: “No 10 guide to changing nappies and baby talk” (oh no, please, no) and “This is not the nanny state; it’s the sensible state” (no it isn’t, it’s the state of dribbling bonkers) and “the digital Information Service for Parents has been nicknamed Digital Baby in Whitehall” (oh, make this stop! Nobody with a vote ever wants to know how much fun civil servants have nicknaming stuff).

Being a woman, I looked for the bit of the report that would explain that Mr Cameron was launching this eye-catching initiative especially “for women”, and sure enough, near the top, there it was about him being stung by criticism that his policies have alienated women voters. Well, they have! But offering them a Digital Baby app for their iPhones is not going to help a lot, is it? Making a better fist of the child benefit cut would have been more helpful. Option 1 (best) would have made it a tax-free benefit set against a parent-earner’s income and option 2 (scariest) would have scrapped it completely (by which I mean that there was no option 2).

What no one expected from a Conservative prime minister was any more of that NewLab-style chitchat. You never knew where you were as a parent in Blair’s Britain, did you? You weren’t allowed to come to private arrangements about childmindering with another parent, which killed the trade stone dead, and they fiddled around with all kinds of unhelpfulness in regard to nursery schooling.

In truth, there’s nothing actually wrong with helpful guidance on bringing a baby home from hospital and changing its nappy for the first time. I just don’t want my government to take this task on. There’s a brilliant book called Commando Dad by Neil Somebody (was a commando, apparently) who gives blokey instruction on how to hold your BT (Baby Trooper) at head end as well as bottom, lay it flat and wipe its bits. His language is breezy and upbeat. The pictures are clear and comic-book-like. He is as trustworthy and reliable a source of advice (one feels, on reading him) as the BBC midwives on their pre-war bicycles. Oops, that’s enough endorsement for Commando Dad, I think. Last thing you’d want is that somebody in Whitehall decides to make him the babycare tsar.

SOURCE





British novelists  have made Britain nation of 'passive racists', says black footballer

As a former England footballer, he might not be the first person you would expect to deliver  an impassioned critique of the literary canon.  But John Barnes has blamed authors such as Agatha Christie, Rudyard Kipling and Edgar Rice Burroughs for making Britain a country of ‘passive racists’.

The ex-Liverpool winger insisted classic tales such as Ten Little Indians, Tarzan of the Apes and The Jungle Book have instilled bigotry in the minds of generations of British children.

Barnes launched his fierce attack on literature in a lecture to students at Liverpool University about the causes of racism in football.

The father of seven told the audience that ‘passive racism is inherent in all of us’ because of ‘preconceived ideas’ planted through books and films. He said: ‘Over the last 200 years we have had negative images of black people ... in literature by Rudyard Kipling to Agatha Christie. Tarzan showed that.

‘Racism came from the idea of race, which is a man-made construct. Race is not scientific or genetic. It does not actually exist. Race came about to validate and justify colonialism and slavery.’

He added: ‘There are examples everywhere. Rudyard Kipling, one of our greatest heroes, wrote The White Man’s Burden, in which he wrote it was incumbent on the Americans to go and civilise the savages in the Philippines.

‘Colonialism in Africa – Agatha Christie wrote a book called Ten Little N*****s. Would we accuse Agatha Christie of being racist? No, but that is passive racism.’

Barnes moved to England aged 13 in the late 1970s when his father was Jamaica’s military attaché to London. He is among England’s most-capped black players, but at Liverpool FC he was regularly subjected to racist abuse from spectators and infamously had a banana hurled at him during a Merseyside derby with Everton at Goodison Park.

Twice married, Barnes has called for the National Curriculum to be revised so all children are taught that race is only a concept. He said: ‘If we get rid of passive racism then overcoming overt racism will take care of itself.’

Ross Dawson, a senior lecture in English at Liverpool John Moores University, denied Barnes had branded the authors as racists.  He said: ‘He identified the contemporary idea of race and racism as originating in the history of transatlantic slavery and colonialism. These were three writers which he used as examples of popular national literature which reproduced these racial assumptions.

‘His reference to passive racism was an attempt to show how we all have assumptions about race... without really understanding where those assumptions come from.’

Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: ‘The curriculum could do with being more explicit on this issue. A key role of education is to foster respect and understanding.’

Last year, one of Tintin’s classic adventures was banished to the adult shelves of bookshops because it was deemed overtly racist. Tintin In The Congo was given warning labels by many retailers over fears it could negatively affect children.

SOURCE






British safety obsession and blame game puts off volunteers for Scout movement

The compensation culture is deterring adults from volunteering as Scout leaders, meaning there are 35,000 children who want to join up, but must wait.

Julian Brazier, a member of the all-party parliamentary Scout group, said the main reason for the shortage of volunteers is the fear of being sued if someone has an accident on their watch.

Tory MP Mr Brazier said society needs to accept that accidents happen without it always being someone’s fault.

If young people are prevented from joining groups like the Scouts and other adventure organisations, they will be more likely to turn to crime or become obese, he added.

‘The Scouts do a terrific job in terms of taking youngsters from a very wide range of backgrounds, and giving them opportunities for risk taking, teamwork, leadership, and all the things that are increasingly disappearing from our schools,’ he said.

‘But both the Scouts and the Guides have a waiting list of tens of thousands of children each – as a result of the shortage of volunteers.

‘There have been two surveys in recent years which both showed that the number one reason for people not becoming volunteers was the blame culture and the risk of getting sued.

‘We need to change the law; raising the bar for bringing cases for sports and adventure training like several states have done in the US.’

Mr Brazier cited a survey of 1,000 Scout leaders carried out by the Scout Association in 2006, which found that 50 per cent believed retention of volunteers was made more difficult because of fears of being sued.

When asked about how concerned they were about being sued for compensation while leading an adventure activity, just 5 per cent said they were unconcerned.

Some 92 per cent thought that risk-aversion was affecting the range and nature of activities being offered to young people.

Mr Brazier has published a report on the effect of the compensation culture on the Scouts.  It reveals that the organisation receives between 50 and 60 negligence claims a year, of which around six go to court. On average, they lose a quarter of the court cases.

In one example, quoted in the report, a group in the North-West lost £15,000 because a Brownie had been injured on a piece of metal sticking out of a chair in the village hall when she went to watch a Scout panto.

The Scout’s legal advisor told Mr Brazier: ‘Apart from individually inspecting every chair with considerable resource implications endangering the running of such an event, it is hard to see what more the group could have done.

'To add insult to injury the judge awarded the claimant twice our counsel’s valuation of the claim and 20 per cent more than the claimant asked for.’

Mr Brazier’s report concludes: ‘The threat of being sued is now the greatest barrier to volunteering in the sport and adventure training world. Society must establish the principle that accidents can happen without it being someone’s fault, and re-establish the principle of personal responsibility.’

Adventurer, TV presenter and former SAS soldier Bear Grylls was appointed Britain’s youngest Chief Scout in 2009 at the age of 35.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

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17 May, 2012

Born to win! The drive to success is in our genes, say scientists - and DNA dictates if we triumph or fail

Yet more evidence that genes are the main factor in what we are.  Behaviour geneticists have known all this for years.  The only problem is that nobody wants to believe it  -- Leftists particularly

Some people are born a success, scientists believe.  Research shows that much of our predisposition towards determination, sociability and self-control and sense of purpose is in our genes.  In fact, our DNA plays a bigger role in influencing these traits than our upbringing and the company we keep.

Taken together, these facets of personality can make the difference between success and failure, say the Edinburgh University researchers.

They questioned more than 800 pairs of twins about their attitudes to life to tease apart the influences of nature and nurture.  Comparing identical twins, who share all their DNA and their upbringing, with non-identical twins, who have a shared background but are no more genetically alike than other siblings, is a technique often used by researchers to quantify the influence of genetics.

The results, published in the Journal of Personality , revealed genes to play a much bigger role than lifestyle, with self-control particularly etched into our DNA.

Our genes also largely determine how determined and persistent we are.  This is important in terms of success, as someone who refuses to give up is more likely to achieve their dreams than someone who throws in the towel at the first hiccough.

Researcher Professor Timothy Bates said: ‘Ever since the ancient Greeks, people have debated the nature of a good life and the nature of a virtuous life.  ‘Why do some people seem to manage their lives, have good relationships and cooperate to achieve their goals while others do not?

‘Previously, the role of family and the environment around the home often dominated people's ideas about what affected psychological well-being.  However, this work highlights a much more powerful influence from genetics.’

However, those who haven’t been dealt a helpful hand of genes shouldn’t be too despondent.  The professor says a sense of purpose is key and advises those vying for success to focus their thoughts on making a difference.

SOURCE





Free speech row after British watchdog asks Christian blogger to justify 'offensive and homophobic' anti-gay marriage advert

Advertising watchdogs have demanded an explanation after a Christian blogger posted an allegedly 'offensive' advert on behalf of a petition against plans to legalise gay marriage.

The writer, known by the pen name Archbishop Cranmer, said the Advertising Standards Authority received 24 complaints and is asking that he respond to claims that the message - which asks viewers to 'Help us keep the true meaning of marriage' - is homophobic.

The Coalition for Marriage advert flickers between pictures of heterosexual couples on their wedding day, the phrase 'I do' and a message citing a market research poll that showed '70% of people say keep marriage as it is'.

The campaigners behind the petition describe themselves as 'an umbrella group of individuals and organisations in the UK that support traditional marriage and oppose any plans to redefine it'.

The ASA has stressed that the adverts, rather than the blogger, are the subject of their probe - and insist he is not compelled to justify the campaign message.

However, Archbishop Cranmer - who takes his pseudonym from a sixteenth-century reformer - remained adamant that the ASA is trying to restrict his and the Coalition for Marriage's right to free speech.

In a post attacking the anonymous complainants he wrote: 'They called in the Gestapo to censor the assertion that marriage is a life-long union between one man and one woman, in accordance with the teaching of the Established Church, the beliefs of its Supreme Governor, and the law of the land.'

Fellow ecclesiastical bloggers leapt to his defence and even the National Secular Society, which is in favour of legalising same-sex marriage, has stood by him.  A statement from the society read: 'The NSS wants to announce its support for the Archbishop Cranmer blog. Although it disagrees with this blogger profoundly on so many issues, it agrees with him entirely that the Advertising Standards Authority is overstepping the mark and posing a rather sinister threat to freedom of expression.'

Though the NSS went on to distance itself from Archbishop Cranmer and the Coalition for Marriage campaign, it argued the complaints made to the ASA were 'not reason enough to silence them'.

The ASA today stressed it would not necessarily uphold the complaints, which would lead to the ad being banned.  It said in a statement: 'The right of advertisers responsibly to express their views will undoubtedly be an important factor in our assessment of whether the ads are likely to cause serious or widespread offence.  We are also looking at whether the ads are misleading.'

The authority also responded to Archbishop Cranmer's outrage over the 'threatening' way in which it approached him, explaining that: 'We have long found it useful to ask, in confidence, publishers of ads subject to ‘offence’ complaints for their views, because they can give us a valuable insight into whether or not their readers are likely to be offended'.

Of the 24 complaints said to have been lodged, ten took issue with the advert's allegedly offensive content.

The rest demanded evidence to back up the claim that seven in ten people do not want any change to marriage laws - but as this figure came from major polling agency ComRes, the ASA did not expect those who posted the advert to provide this.

SOURCE






Free speech 'strangled by law that bans insults' and is abused by over-zealous British police and prosecutors

Theresa May is being urged to reform a controversial law which bans ‘insulting words or behaviour’ amid mounting evidence that it is strangling free speech.

Campaigners say the Public Order Act is being abused by over-zealous police and prosecutors to arrest Christian street preachers, critics of Scientology, gay rights campaigners and even students making jokes.

Currently, Section 5 of the 1986 Act outlaws ‘insulting words or behaviour’, but what constitutes ‘insulting’ is unclear and has resulted in a string of controversial arrests.

Human rights campaigners, MPs, faith groups and secular organisations have joined forces to have the ‘insulting words or behaviour’ phrase removed from the legislation, arguing that it restricts freedom of speech and penalises campaigners, protesters and even preachers.

Former shadow home secretary David Davis, a leading campaigner for civil liberties, said reform was ‘vital to protecting freedom of expression in Britain today’.

‘There is a growing list of examples where the law against using “insulting” language has led to heavy-handed action by police and prosecutors. It is not only distressing for the individuals concerned, it constitutes a threat to Britain’s tradition of free speech,’ he said.

‘Of course nobody likes to be insulted, particularly in public, but nor does anyone have a right not to be insulted. Freedom of speech includes the right to criticise, to ridicule and to offend. It is not the job of the police and the courts to prevent us from having our feelings hurt.

‘The solution is simple: The law needs to change. The word “insulting” should be removed from section 5 of the Public Order Act. This would provide proportionate protection to individuals’ right to free speech, while continuing to protect people from threatening or abusive speech.’

A poll by ComRes, commissioned by campaigners, found 62 per cent of MPs believe it should not be the business of Government to outlaw ‘insults’. Only 17 per cent of MPs believe removing the ‘insult’ clause would undermine the ability of the police to protect the public.

In an unlikely alliance, the Christian Institute is joining forces with the National Secular Society to back the campaign, because both organisations are committed to free speech and open debate.

Simon Calvert of the Christian Institute said: ‘Britain’s historic civil liberties were often hammered out amid controversy over freedom to preach without state interference. Christians know first hand why free speech is precious and this is why the Christian Institute is pleased to join people across the political and philosophical spectrum to help bring about this simple but important change.’

Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society said: ‘Secularists, in defending free expression, must ensure that the law is fair to everybody and argue equally for the right of religious and non-religious people to freely criticise and exchange opinions without fear of the law, unless they are inciting violence. Free speech is not free if it is available only to some and not others.’

Others backing the campaign include Big Brother Watch, the Freedom Association and the Peter Tatchell Foundation. Mr Tatchell, a prominent gay rights advocate, said Section 5 was a ‘menace to free speech and the right to protest’. He added: ‘The open exchange of ideas – including unpalatable, even offensive, ideas – is a hallmark of a free and democratic society.’

In October, Home Secretary Mrs May launched a consultation on the Public Order Act, including whether the word ‘insulting’ in Section 5 strikes the right balance between freedom of expression and the right not to be harassed, alarmed or distressed. The consultation closed four months ago, but the Government has yet to set out its views.

SOURCE




Banning Crosses, Erasing History

A simmering controversy surrounding the "Ground Zero Cross" exposes the intolerance and absolutism behind ongoing battles over religious symbols on public property. Contrary to popular belief, it's not Christian conservatives who normally start these bitter disputes. It's more often atheist activists who seek to alter the long-standing status quo by scrubbing the landscape of the most visible signs of the nation's religious heritage.

American Atheists, an organization representing the civil liberties of agnostics, filed suit in 2011 to block display of the Ground Zero Cross anywhere on the grounds of the new memorial museum planned for the World Trade Center site. The artifact in question became the best known piece of debris recovered from the terrorist attacks, when workmen spotted it on Sept. 13, 2001. The huge cross beam, presumably detached from the collapse of the North Tower and hurled down with many tons of rubble onto the stricken eight-story structure to its northeast, somehow survived intact and almost immediately became an informal shrine for the tireless crews who labored to clear Ground Zero.

A Franciscan friar blessed the welded girders as a sign that "God had not abandoned Ground Zero." Later, with the cross installed on a city-approved pedestal, millions of tourists came to pray or leave flowers, but as construction proceeded at the World Trade Center, a crane helped to move the giant welded girders to nearby St. Peter's Church in 2006.

The lawsuit insists the relic must remain where it is, but planners for the new museum, supported by many 9/11 families, want the cross returned to Ground Zero as part of the permanent memorial. The lawsuit cites "mental pain and anguish" suffered by the plaintiffs due to "the knowledge that they are made to feel officially excluded from the ranks of citizens who were directly injured by the 9/11 attack."

Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League, which often takes a dim view of religious symbols in government-owned locations, declared that it "fully supports" the inclusion of the cross in the museum.

On my radio show, Edwin Kagin, national legal director for American Atheists, denounced the potential placement of the cross as unfair because there would be no comparable display of atheist or Muslim symbols. But no one happened to recover atheist symbols (whatever they might be) from the rubble. The cross deserves its unique place of honor because of its powerful historic connection to the first dark days after the terrorist attack.

Moreover, America's leading government-funded art museums all boast collections of sacred objects, including icons, crucifixes and altar pieces exhibited for their historical and artistic significance.

Had fate shaped the steel beams into any form other than a Christian cross, American Atheists would never think to object to its museum display. The group's visceral hostility to the cross plays a role in a number of continuing controversies:

* In Woonsocket, R.I., the Freedom From Religion Foundation seeks to remove a World War I memorial topped by a cross that has stood without controversy on city property since 1921.

* In the Mojave National Preserve in California, officials are hoping to settle an 11-year dispute over a "desert cross" first erected on Sunrise Rock in 1934, also to commemorate the sacrifices of those who served in the Great War. In a complicated agreement, private parties have pledged to donate 5 new acres to the 1.6 million-acre federal reserve in return for title to the single acre on which the cross formerly stood before vandals destroyed it. Veterans groups hope to restore the monument, but they must first enclose the area in a chain-link fence with signs explaining that the cross stands on now private property.

In each of these fights, it's the opponents of long-standing religious displays who seek to impose their narrow views on the rest of us. It hardly amounts to an effort to impose theocracy when people of faith defend monuments that have inspired passersby for generations. In the case of the Ground Zero Cross, for religious believers, the artifact they honor played a prominent role in the haunting imagery after the terror attacks.

Meanwhile, secular extremists seek to erase such imagery from the collective consciousness and to purge public places of religious reminders. For skeptics, prominently displayed crosses convey the uncomfortable message that the great majority of Americans still honor a faith that self-proclaimed free-thinkers hold in undisguised contempt.

Beneath all the hypocrisy over constitutional restraints and traditional walls of separation, secular activists and self-styled defenders of "civil liberties" seek to transform American society in a way that our Founders and most subsequent generations would never recognize. They seem eager to defend flag-burning, obscenity and every other form of radical expression, while seeking to suppress emblems of the Christian faith that helped shape the nation since the arrival of earliest colonists.

An experiment in enforced secularism might count as a bold departure from the nation's God-haunted past, but it's hard to believe it would produce a better country than the beloved, multifarious and clashing religious symbols that have always characterized our faith-based pluralism.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

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16 May, 2012

A Censored Race War?

 Thomas Sowell

When two white newspaper reporters for the Virginian-Pilot were driving through Norfolk, and were set upon and beaten by a mob of young blacks -- beaten so badly that they had to take a week off from work -- that might seem to have been news that should have been reported, at least by their own newspaper. But it wasn't.

"The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News Channel was the first major television program to report this incident. Yet this story is not just a Norfolk story, either in what happened or in how the media and the authorities have tried to sweep it under the rug.

Similar episodes of unprovoked violence by young black gangs against white people chosen at random on beaches, in shopping malls or in other public places have occurred in Philadelphia, New York, Denver, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington, Los Angeles and other places across the country. Both the authorities and the media tend to try to sweep these episodes under the rug as well.

In Milwaukee, for example, an attack on whites at a public park a few years ago left many of the victims battered to the ground and bloody. But, when the police arrived on the scene, it became clear that the authorities wanted to keep this quiet.

One 22-year-old woman, who had been robbed of her cell phone and debit card, and had blood streaming down her face said: "About 20 of us stayed to give statements and make sure everyone was accounted for. The police wouldn't listen to us, they wouldn't take our names or statements. They told us to leave. It was completely infuriating."

The police chief seemed determined to head off any suggestion that this was a racially motivated attack by saying that crime is colorblind. Other officials elsewhere have said similar things.

A wave of such attacks in Chicago were reported, but not the race of the attackers or victims. Media outlets that do not report the race of people committing crimes nevertheless report racial disparities in imprisonment and write heated editorials blaming the criminal justice system.

What the authorities and the media seem determined to suppress is that the hoodlum elements in many ghettoes launch coordinated attacks on whites in public places. If there is anything worse than a one-sided race war, it is a two-sided race war, especially when one of the races outnumbers the other several times over.

It may be understandable that some people want to head off such a catastrophe, either by not reporting the attacks in this race war, or not identifying the race of those attacking, or by insisting that the attacks were not racially motivated -- even when the attackers themselves voice anti-white invective as they laugh at their bleeding victims.

Trying to keep the lid on is understandable. But a lot of pressure can build up under that lid. If and when that pressure leads to an explosion of white backlash, things could be a lot worse than if the truth had come out earlier, and steps taken by both black and white leaders to deal with the hoodlums and with those who inflame the hoodlums.

These latter would include not only race hustlers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson but also lesser known people in the media, in educational institutions and elsewhere who hype grievances and make all the problems of blacks the fault of whites. Some of these people may think that they are doing a favor to blacks. But it is no favor to anyone who lags behind to turn their energies from the task of improving and advancing themselves to the task of lashing out at others.

These others extend beyond whites. Asian American school children in New York and Philadelphia have for years been beaten up by their black classmates. But people in the mainstream media who go ballistic if some kid says something unkind on the Internet about a homosexual classmate nevertheless hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil when Asian American youngsters are beaten up by their black classmates.

Those who automatically say that the social pathology of the ghetto is due to poverty, discrimination and the like cannot explain why such pathology was far less prevalent in the 1950s, when poverty and discrimination were worse. But there were not nearly as many grievance mongers and race hustlers then.

SOURCE





Judge Takes a Chisel to the Ten Commandments

God Almighty needs an editor, according to a federal judge in Virginia. At least, He does when the Ten Commandments are on government property.

The ACLU had sued the Giles County district for posting the Ten Commandments in its public schools, and U.S. District Judge Michael Urbanski sent the case on Monday to mediation, suggesting a compromise: deleting the first four commandments. Here’s the short version of those:

1. I am the LORD your God. You shall have no other gods before me.

2. You shall not worship idols, for I am the LORD your God.

3. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

An Obama appointee, Judge Urbanski also issued a preliminary injunction on behalf of the ACLU in February prohibiting the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors from “invoking the name of a specific deity associated with any one specific faith or belief in prayers given at Board meetings.” No word yet on how much this ticked off the local Hittites and voodoo priests.

It’s all part of the campaign for “religious equality,” in which atheism and tree worship are considered equal (or superior) to the nation’s founding faith. The only surprise Monday was that the ACLU didn’t immediately object to leaving intact the commandment against adultery.

Among the items displayed alongside the Ten Commandments at Narrows High School are the Declaration of Independence, the Mayflower Compact, the Magna Carta, the words to the Star-Spangled Banner, and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.

Since none of the other 10 documents is being challenged, it’s obvious that the Ten Commandments are offensive solely because they are religious in origination, and remind people of America’s dominant faiths, Christianity and Judaism. In a brief filed on behalf of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, the ACLU says the presence of the Decalogue violates the Establishment clause of the First Amendment.

For 10 years, the Ten Commandments had been posted in a frame in each of the public schools of Giles County. They were gifts to the schools from a local pastor, who thought they would be a good addition in the wake of the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado in 1999.

The displays were not a problem until December 8, 2010, when the Freedom from Religion Foundation sent a letter to the superintendent demanding that the displays be removed after a single complaint by a student and the student’s parent.

The schools tried a variety of solutions, including replacing the Ten Commandments with a copy of the Declaration of Independence. This didn’t sit well with many in the community. On Jan. 11, 2011, a meeting was held with about 200 people, including pastors, and a short time later, the school board voted to reinstall the displays.

The Commandments were re-posted, and then taken down again upon the advice of counsel. A local attorney proposed a display that would include the Decalogue in a historic exhibit about Western foundational law and government.

It’s unclear whether the ACLU will accept the judge’s offered compromise, since the six remaining commandments came from the God Who is not supposed to be mentioned on government property, even though it’s part of the universe that He created.

“We intend to show that the School Board cannot simply shroud its religious purpose for posting the Ten Commandments by surrounding it with historical documents,” said ACLU of Virginia Legal Director Rebecca Glenberg.

The ACLU’s press release notes that “The Ten Commandments are posted on a main hallway at the high school, near the trophy case and on the way to the cafeteria, where it is seen by students every day.”

If that’s not enough for a sensitive, easily offended student to lose his or her lunch, what is?

According to Liberty Counsel, which is representing the school district, “The Virginia Standards of Learning requires students to know about the foundational principles of civilizations, including the Hebrews, and the foundations of law and government. Secular textbooks published by Prentice Hall and McGraw-Hill trace the roots of democracy and law and specifically refer to the Ten Commandments and many of the documents posted as part of the Foundations Display.”

To the ACLU, the other documents are fig leaves:

“Given the history of the School Board’s Ten Commandments displays, any alleged secular purpose for the current displays are [sic], and will be perceived as, a sham. The displays were erected with the primary aim of advancing religion.”
It’s a warped reversal of the ACLU’s logic back when they argued that fig leaves like Hugh Hefner’s hedonistic “Playboy Philosophy” essays turned his skin magazines into constitutionally protected works of literary merit. Hefner’s primary aim, of course, was to advance pornography (and his wallet), but in the ACLU’s world, that’s more than okay. So what if it was a sham?

C.S. Lewis observed that the agenda of the Left is to make religion private and pornography public. In Virginia, the ACLU, otherwise known as the devil’s law firm, is still doing its best to live down to that demonic goal.

SOURCE





Constitutional  limits on media censorship in Australia

Bloggers seem safe from regulation

Scouring the internet for opinions on the constitutional powers of the Commonwealth to regulate the media in the manner proposed in the Finkelstein report, I came across a submission to Finkelstein's own inquiry from the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, part of the University of New South Wales

The submission is dated 14 November 2011, and does not appear in the official list of submissions (as far as I can see, let me know if it is there) and deals precisely with the issue in question: namely, to what extent the Commonwealth has the power to regulate traditional and new media.

One question that must be asked immediately is why the submission is omitted from the list on the Inquiry web site. It was sourced via the Gilbert + Tobin Centre's own index of submissions. There may be a reasonable explanation for this, but in the interests of transparency it should be stated.

UPDATE: The Inquiry responded to my email about this, stating:

"It is an oversight that the submission has not been published. The submission will be published shortly."

The submission now appears on the consultation page.  Here are a few relevant extracts:

The Australian Constitution does not confer upon the Commonwealth any general power to regulate the all types of news media. Instead, the degree to which the Commonwealth can regulate in this area varies across mediums....

PRINT MEDIA

The Commonwealth has no direct head of legislative power with respect to the print media. However, the Commonwealth may nonetheless regulate the print media by virtue of indirect heads of power such as those relating to trade and commerce, taxation, corporations, external affairs and the Territories. The most significant of these is the corporations power – its potential application to news media regulation is expanded on below. In addition, the Commonwealth may regulate print media where doing so is incidental to the exercise of a direct head of power – for example, it can limit ownership and control of print media as a condition of radio and television broadcasting licenses issued by virtue of section 51(v).

THE INTERNET AND ONLINE JOURNALISM

The extent of Commonwealth power over matters concerning the internet, including journalism that is published online, is yet to be considered by the High Court. However, it is likely that the internet falls within the scope of section 51(v) either as a ‘telephonic’ or ‘other like service’, and that federal regulation could validly extend to the means of online communication, such as infrastructure (eg, the installation of fibre optic cables) and the conduct of internet service providers (ISPs). Other heads of power, such as those mentioned above, may also support Commonwealth regulation of online content. The potential for this is explored further below.

So far, then, the Commonwealth has the power to regular print media indirectly, through the corporations power, or incidentally to the postal and telegraphic power. It also appears the Commonwealth may regulate internet and online media through the means of communication. However, the following paragraph reveals that Finkelstein's desire to regulate every blogger in Australia with more than 15,000 hits is beyond the powers of the Commonwealth:

To the extent that online journalism is carried out by constitutional corporations, it will be open to federal regulation via the corporations power in the same way the print journalism is. However, the extent of federal power is less certain where the online content is published by an entity that is not a constitutional corporation. A large number of individuals and bodies fall into this category, including any news outlets that operate as sole traders or partnerships, individual bloggers, and individuals posting on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

So where an organisation is a corporation, it can be regulated under the corporations power, but apart from that, there is no power to regulate their activities.

The extent of Commonwealth power to regulate online journalism of this nature is unclear. As noted above, it seems likely that section 51(v) authorises regulation of ISPs as bodies responsible for the transmission of online content. However, on current authority, it is doubtful that it extends to the regulation of the creators of content such as individual bloggers. Where news or other content appears online through a service such as Facebook which is controlled by a foreign or for-profit corporation, this could be regulated under the corporations power.

"Doubtful that it extends to the regulation of the creators of content such as individual bloggers" - this means that if Finkelstein's regime were to be enacted, it would have to place the burden on ISPs to censor content from blogs which fell foul of the regulatory framework, since there would be no power to act against the blogs themselves (unless they were corporations, and let's face it, few are).

Furthermore, the submission concludes:

The Commonwealth has extensive, unrealised potential to further regulate the Australian media, including the print media. The corporations power in particular provides a basis upon which to establish new regulation in this field. However, such regulation is subject to the limits of existing powers. In particular, the corporations power only extends to entities that are incorporated and operate as a financial, trading or foreign corporation. In the circumstances, it must be recognised that, although it has extensive power, the Commonwealth does not possess the legislative power to comprehensively regulate the media in Australia. The only means of achieving this would be via cooperation with the States.

And with New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland  controlled by conservative state governments, they can kiss that idea goodbye.

More HERE




Australia: Criticism of homosexual marriage renders you judicially incompetent?

Diversity of views not allowed, apparently. The "personal reasons" mentioned below would be to reduce the flak he was getting

A member of Victoria's Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission board has resigned after stirring controversy by signing a petition opposing gay marriage.

Professor Kuruvilla George is also the state's deputy chief psychiatrist and one of a group of 150 doctors who wrote to a Senate inquiry on marriage equality.  The doctors' submission argued children with a mother and father were healthier than children with same-sex parents.

The petition has drawn criticism from other doctors and families of same-sex couples and yesterday prompted Victoria's chief psychiatrist to issue a statement defending Professor George.

Dr Ruth Vine said Professor George signed the petition "in his capacity as a private citizen", therefore he had not breached the code of conduct for public sector employees.

The Victorian Government also stepped into the debate, with Deputy Premier Peter Ryan saying the professor was not at fault.  "He's made his statements on a private basis, he's made them in that capacity," Mr Ryan said.  "He was not speaking on behalf of the Commission. "It's a point of view that he has expressed privately."

Equal Opportunity Commission (EOC) chairman John Seale says Professor George made the decision to resign from the EOC board because of time constraints and for personal reasons.  He thanked Professor George for his service.

The petition to the Senate inquiry, submitted by the group Doctors For The Family, says children raised in heterosexual relationships "do better in all parameters".

Its convener Lachlan Dunjey, a right-to-life campaigner who has run as a Senate candidate for the Christian Democratic Party, told ABC News Radio the group was concerned about the health consequences for children of gay marriages.

"It's well proven that children who grow up with a mother and a father in a biological mother-and-father family do better than children who don't have the opportunity to grow up in that kind of family," he said.

AMA president Steve Hambleton has rejected the claims, saying there is no evidence that children with same-sex parents are any different to those with heterosexual parents.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

***************************



15 May, 2012

Parents who lit birthday candles on three-year-old's cake at play centre party reported to police by British health and safety fanatic

No three-year-old’s birthday would be complete without a brightly-coloured cake with candles on top.

But Oscar Barlow was left in tears when police swooped on his party at a play centre – after staff said his cake was a health and safety risk.

Bosses at Rumble Tumble play centre said the candles constituted a safety risk and if the family wanted to light them they would have to move to a specific area and be monitored by staff.

After a disagreement, Oscar’s mother Natasha Bent and her family trooped out into the car park to light the candles outside instead.  But they were stunned when two police officers arrived at the children’s play centre in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent.

The children burst into tears as officers spoke to the family over claims they had acted in an intimidating manner.

Last night Miss Bent, 27, insisted she had not been threatening and claimed they were frustrated by the health and safety red tape.  Miss Bent said the family decided to visit the play centre after returning from a theme park on Oscar’s birthday last Thursday.

‘When we were there we brought in Oscar’s birthday cake from the car, but just as we were going to light the candles they told us we couldn’t.  ‘All we wanted to do was sing Happy Birthday and have Oscar blow out the candles,’ she added.

‘We tried to reason with a staff member but she said we were bullying her and told us to leave, saying she was going to call the police. In the end we went outside and lit the candles in the car park. Oscar and the other children started crying when the police turned up.  ‘How on earth would a child get injured by singing Happy Birthday?

‘It was a bad way for a three-year-old to experience a birthday. It’s a special occasion and his first one understanding what a birthday is.  ‘I love my son with all my heart and didn’t want other children to have their birthday ruined.’

Her partner David Meir, 32, said: ‘When the police officer told us the staff member had accused us of intimidating her, I just laughed. I had my two sons with me so there’s no way I’d do that in front of them.’

Rumble Tumble declined to comment on the matter. A Staffordshire Police spokesman said: ‘Officers established the dispute was over the level of service received and advice was given to all involved.’

SOURCE







British government cracking down on   "special needs" racket

Hundreds of thousands of children face being taken off the special needs register because they have been wrongly labelled as requiring extra help, the Government will announce today.

Under the biggest shake-up of the system for 30 years, ministers will toughen up rules on the diagnosis of behavioural and learning problems.  It follows concerns that schools are abusing the system to disguise poor teaching and climb league tables.

For the first time, rigorous screening measures will be introduced to prevent pupils from being classed as having special needs when they have merely fallen behind or caused disruption in class.

The bureaucratic process used to identify children with the most severe special needs will also be scrapped and replaced with a single assessment covering education, health and care.

Ministers believe that the current system is “outdated and not fit for purpose”. They claim that those most deserving of help often find it difficult to get adequate support while too many are wrongly placed on the register.

Almost 1.7 million schoolchildren in England - more than one in five - have some form of special needs requiring particular attention from teachers.

In some schools, more than half of pupils are registered as suffering from problems that affect their ability to play a full part in lessons or activities.

It has been claimed that many difficulties are exaggerated to explain poor exam results or bad behaviour.

Ofsted has claimed that as many as 450,000 “special needs” children are actually no different from other pupils. Many are simply underachieving because of a culture of low expectations, a report found.

Figures show that pupils from poor homes are far more likely to be diagnosed with special needs than those from middle-class backgrounds. Inspectors suggested that state schools were being encouraged to over-identify pupils to attract more funding from local councils and to boost their position in league tables that give weighting to schools with high numbers of special needs children.

Parents of children with severe special needs can also qualify for extra tax benefits.

Today, the Government will announce a major shake-up of the system to “tackle the practice of over-identifying”. Ministers will legislate for the proposals in the Children and Families Bill announced in last week’s Queen’s Speech.

The two most common categories of special needs - “school action” and “school action plus”, which are usually diagnosed in-house by teachers - will be scrapped and replaced with a single grouping.

There will also be “tighter guidance on which children should be identified as having special educational needs alongside better training”. The new guidelines will be published following a fresh consultation exercise.

Ministers will also announce plans to form an expert panel to look at which children should be classed as having behavioural, emotional and social development difficulties to stop these problems being “overused” by schools.

At present, just one in seven pupils with special needs has a “statement” - a legal document setting out their entitlement to certain teaching and support.

The Department for Education says this system is “complex and adversarial”, with children facing “multiple assessments over months and years to get the basic support they need”.

Under the reforms, parents will be given legal powers to control budgets for sons and daughters who do require support, enabling them to buy specialist help instead of relying on services provided by local authorities. Young people with the most serious problems will get help up to the age of 25 instead of the current “cliff edge” cut-off point at 16.

Children with special needs will be able to gain a priority place at one of the Government’s academies.

Better teaching training will also be introduced to give new and existing staff help to “manage challenging behaviour” and bullying.

A Coalition source said there was “broad agreement” that the current categories used to diagnose some special needs problems were “far too broad”, with children classed as requiring extra help when their needs “could be met with strong teaching and pastoral care”.

“We are going to tighten up the definition of special educational needs in the statutory guidance so children who have genuine special educational needs get the support they need,” the source said.

Sarah Teather, the children’s minister, is expected to say: “The current system is outdated and not fit for purpose.

“Thousands of families have had to battle for months, even years, with different agencies to get the specialist care their children need. It is unacceptable they are forced to go from pillar to post, facing agonising delays and bureaucracy to get support, therapy and equipment.”

The current system of identifying special needs has been blamed for delays that have led to disabled children waiting months for a new wheelchair.

The Council for Disabled Children suggested that some youngsters were left in pain and required operations to correct growth problems because their wheelchairs were too small for them.

SOURCE





Why should an insult be against the law?

What matters most: free speech or public order? And how much of the former must we sacrifice to ensure the latter? This question has vexed our legislators for many years. In 1936, with Mosley’s Blackshirts on the march in London’s East End, a new Public Order Act criminalised behaviour that was not of itself violent but was “threatening, abusive, insulting or disorderly” and that was intended or likely to cause a breach of the peace.

The aim was to stop fascists screaming abuse at Jews in the streets; and while most civilised people wanted to shut the thugs up, there was a good deal of agonising over whether the wording was an unwarranted restriction of free speech, the beacon of liberty that marked us out from what was happening in Continental Europe at the time. On the other hand, the fear perpetrated by the Blackshirts was itself a threat to essential British liberties. A balance had to be struck and Parliament endeavoured to do so.

This debate was revisited 50 years later, when the Thatcher government updated public order laws in 1986 to take account of the disturbances in Brixton and Toxteth and at a succession of industrial disputes, such as the miners’ strike and Wapping. Ministers also wanted to get a grip once and for all on the mayhem that had taken hold of our national sport. Every Saturday, the football terraces were a seething mass of contorted faces and vile chanting (so little change there, then). Crucially, section five of the Public Order Act 1986 removed the requirement for an intention to cause a breach of the peace. Instead, abusive or insulting behaviour was to be penalised if it was within the hearing or sight of a person “likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress”. This marked a further retreat from free speech. As one legal textbook put it, the criminal law had been “extended into areas of annoyance, disturbance and inconvenience”.

Here we are, 25 years on, and once again this provision is proving controversial, not least because it is being used to criminalise what many people might consider simply to be a point of view that others do not like. Tomorrow, a parliamentary campaign is being launched in an effort to persuade the Government to remove the word “insulting” from the Act after a series of arrests and prosecutions of Christians for expressing their opinions.

They include a preacher who was convicted under section five for walking the streets of Bournemouth carrying a placard with the words “Stop Immorality, Stop Homosexuality, Stop Lesbianism”. Another case involved Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang, Christian hoteliers in Liverpool charged with insulting a Muslim guest because they engaged in a conversation about religion. Mr Vogelenzang was alleged to have said that Mohammed was a warlord, while his wife stated that Muslim dress is a form of bondage for women. They were acquitted, but campaigners argue that they should never have been arrested in the first place and that people like them would be spared months of worry if the law was amended. Other notorious arrests under this measure include that of a teenager who described the Church of Scientology as a “cult” and the Oxford undergraduate who was arrested for asking a police officer if he realised his horse was gay.

Clearly, none of these “crimes” were envisaged as such in 1936, when a real menace stalked the land, or even in 1986, when the law was changed largely to stop abuse by football fans. The obvious problem is the subjective nature of an insult. While most of us can recognise abusive language when we hear it, in what way is it a crime to take issue with someone else’s opinion, or even their religion? This is likely to become more problematic as the gay marriage debate heats up. This measure was not in the Queen’s Speech, principally so that Her Majesty would not have to announce something opposed by the Church of which she is head. But when the consultation ends next month, the Government intends to legislate. As Lynne Featherstone, the Lib Dem equalities minister, said at the weekend, the consultation is not about whether to proceed, but how.

Christian groups are worried that antipathy to gay marriage will fall foul of the law. In this they are supported by Peter Tatchell, the human rights campaigner, who sees how such a law can easily be abused on grounds of political correctness. It is not so long ago that it would have been used to stop gay pride marches. Nor are these isolated matters. Figures unearthed by the Conservative MP Dominic Raab show that in 2009, section five of the Public Order Act was used more than 18,000 times, mainly for the non-specified crime of insult.

The Home Office has been consulting on this matter, but shows little inclination to do anything about it. If the debate around gay marriage is not to get ugly, the Government would be advised to change the law before people are hauled before the courts for defending their traditional understanding that matrimony, as the root of the word suggests, is the union of a man and a woman.

In a free and civilised country, people should not be abusive or gratuitously offensive to each other; but they should be entitled to voice an opinion that someone else might find insulting. It is a hallmark of liberty that it allows a person to say something that is provocative, otherwise it is no freedom at all. John Milton put it best: “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”

SOURCE




British cellphone networks already practicing censorship

Non-sexual websites such as one created by the residents of St Margarets, Middlesex, to act as an online hub for local news and events, and a blog that challenges the impartiality of the BBC, have been blacklisted by mobile networks, a report by the London School of Economics found.

Currently, the major mobile networks impose restrictions to block access to content unsuitable for under-18s by default, on the grounds that young people may access the internet from their smartphone unsupervised. Adult customers who want to access such material must ask for the restrictions to be lifted and provide credit card details to prove their age.

The blacklists sometimes go too far, the report says. They have also been imposed on eHow.com, one of the biggest general 'how to' websites, on a church in Sheffield, on a London bar, and on the business website of a graphic designer, the researchers said.

“It can mean a business is cut off from a slice of its market,” said the report, which was produced by the LSE’s Media Policy Project in collaboration with the Open Rights Group, a campaign group which opposes online censorship.

“It can simply see people unable to get directions to a bar. It may stop a prominent political organisation from reaching concerned citizens.”

This “over-blocking” is likely to become a bigger problem if compulsory pornography filters are imposed on home broadband networks, the Open Rights Group said.

“This report shows how child protection filters can actually affect many more users than intended and block many more sites than they should,” said campaigner Peter Bradwell.

“The lessons for 'porn filter' proposals are clear. Default-on blocks can have significant harmful and unintended consequences for everybody’s access to information.”

The report also identifies a lack of transparency from the mobile networks over the rules they use to decide what to restrict, and highlights difficulties in getting wrongly-imposed blockades lifted.

David Cameron said this month that he would consult on introducing a similar system for home broadband, meaning custopmers would have to tell their provider if they want access to adult material. Supporters of the idea, promoted by the Conservative backbencher Claire Perry, argue children are being damaged by easy access to explicit content online and that the internet industry does not offer parents enough control.

Opponents such as the Open Rights Group argue that tools are available for parents to take responsibility for what their children see online. Professor Tanya Byron, who conducted a review of child safety online for the Government, also criticised filtering systems, suggesting they could result in “lulling parents into a false sense of security”.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

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13 May, 2012

Bad Mommy

by JOAN SWIRSKY

In 1960, as a young wife living with my husband on his Ivy League campus, I had a front-row seat when the Feminist Movement made its debut. I was doing nothing, according to Obama mouthpiece Hilary Rosen, because, after all, caring for our infant son, taking care of our home, and supporting the efforts of my equally hard-working husband Steve, was - ala Rosen's characterization of worthy activity - the very definition of sloth.

After all, if Ann Romney, raising five sons, "never worked a day in her life," as Ms. Rosen recently told a panel of slavering Obama acolytes on CNN, then my friends and I were certainly sleep-walking through our days.

Rosen's remark was as repulsive to me as it was to most people. But it wasn't surprising, any more than, say, watching a rhinoceros at the Bronx Zoo roll around in the mud, or a predatory scorpion spew lethal toxins into its prey. That is simply what those species do, just as the leftist species to which Rosen clearly belongs routinely engage in mean-spirited insults - particularly toward attractive, accomplished, and happily married Republican women. They truly can't help themselves. Like Pavlov's dogs, the Rosen species has a visceral, Tourette's-like response that is usually delivered with a patronizing smirk, the better to conceal the near-hysteria they feel at the threat the Ann Romneys of the world represent to their very being.

But where did this species come from? Rosen is only the latest in a long line of angry lefties who, for the most part, have contaminated the public discourse. You have to go back 50 years to fully grasp the genesis of Rosen's fuming, intolerant, envious brand of leftism.

1960, significantly, was the year that the Food and Drug Administration approved the birth-control pill developed by Harvard's Dr. John Rock. For the first time in human history, women had just about foolproof control over reproduction. In America, this was celebrated by the women who would come to be known as feminists as the opportunity to be as promiscuous as the men they resented but secretly envied.

In 1963, Betty Friedan, a leftist intellectual expecting her second child, published "The Feminist Mystique." She had previously surveyed women about the degree of satisfaction they were experiencing in their lives and written articles about "the problem that had no name." In her best-selling book, she defined "the problem" this way:

    "The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning [that is, a longing] that women suffered in the middle of the 20th century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries . she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question - 'Is this all?"

Friedan's book struck a nerve in women who were raised by the Greatest Generation of self-sacrificing men and women, those who had suffered through the Great Depression of 1929 and lived through or served in World War II, and so wanted more than anything to spare their children the hardships they had experienced. Her book gave rise to "consciousness-raising" groups throughout the country, and mobilized lobbying efforts to reform the laws and change the opinions that women felt were hostile to their independence and growth.

I joined a CR group and found it fascinating, but I was too naïve at the time to know that the theme of victimization I was hearing was just boilerplate leftism, a theme that turned my stomach enough to convert me from a conservative Democrat to a conservative Republican and subsequently to a rock-ribbed conservative.

The concept of equal pay for equal work was appealing to me, although I wasn't on anyone's payroll at the time because, again, according to Hilary Rosen, I was doing nothing, which by that time meant raising two children (a third would follow), maintaining a home, and supporting the efforts of my equally hard-working husband as he strove to pay for our mortgage, utilities, healthcare, food, the list goes on. Both Steve and I took great pride in our work and thought that our efforts to make a good life together were complementary and of equal value. If only we had had Hilary Rosen to set us straight!

1963 was also the year President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, but the mourning for his Camelot presidency - which his hagiographers continue to this day - did nothing to dampen the juggernaut that Friedan had spearheaded. While women were tireless in forming political alliances - as well as burning bras and snapping at men who opened car doors for them - the tumultuous and tragic ‘60s hurtled on.

It was also in the sixties that the Black Power movement surged, and when the Jews who helped found the NAACP and who in large numbers were on the front lines of fighting for equality for blacks - some even sacrificing their lives - learned that they themselves were the direct targets of black anti-Semitism. In fact, the same race-baiters who are fanning the flames of anti-Semitism today - the likes of "Reverend" Al Sharpton and "Reverend" Jesse Jackson and "Reverend" Louis Farrakhan and "Reverend" Jeremiah Wright, to name but a few of this devil-quoting-scripture ilk - were hawking the same divisive racist rants a half century ago.

Then there was the Vietnam War - a noble war fought with the righteous intention of ridding the world of the deadly evil of Communism. But the war went horribly wrong, thanks to the incompetent leadership of Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson the treacherous actions of leftist Democrats like Jane Fonda and other American traitors, and of course the burgeoning anti-war movement of pot-smoking, love-is-all-you-need draft-dodgers and malcontents who were - and remain to this day - the very antithesis of the Greatest Generation.

Joining them as ideological soul mates were leftists like Bill and Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta, Dick Durbin, Christopher Dodd, Barney Frank, Henry Waxman, Nancy Pelosi, and countless others who supported far-left presidential candidates like the defeated George McGovern and the elected Jimmy Carter. Carter, of course, is to this day the embodiment of anti-Americanism, only to be outdone by the America-loathing Barack Obama. But I digress.

Today, a good number of the above-mentioned radicals make up the 70-or-more members of the Socialist Party of America, many of whom now "occupy" Congress, along with the current Secretary of State, Clinton, who wrote her thesis at Wellesley on her favorite Marxist radical Saul Alinsky, and Secretary of Defense Panetta, who has not only gutted our military but recently told Congress that any future military actions would depend on the "permission" he would seek from the corrupt cesspool on 1st Avenue in New York City known as the United Nations.

According to writer Mychal S. Massie, National Chairman of the conservative Black think tank Project 21, "The majority of Americans never understood that the antiwar demonstrators of the late 60s were not just college students.they were hardcore Marxists whose goals were.to take over colleges and universities by becoming administrators and tenured professors."

"Ask yourself," Massie adds, "how terrorists and avowed Marxists like Angela Davis, Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Ward Churchill, and other members of the most violent domestic terrorist groups end up as tenured professors and chairmen of their departments."

The result of the 1960's tsunami-like social upheaval - especially in the leftist bastions on the East and West coasts where European nanny-state socialism was as irresistible then as it is to leftists today - were children raised on the permissive childrearing philosophy of pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock, "educated" by teachers who strangely thought that feelings trumped academic discipline, and indulged by parents who were never indulged themselves. These ingredients - and the relentless drive of Communists and Socialists to topple America's dazzlingly successful experiment in republican democracy - created the fertile environment for the decadent and violent decade of the sixties to flourish.

Numbers helped. Between 1960 and 1969, 70 million "baby boom" children became teenagers and young adults. When the females of this group learned about "The Pill" and read Friedan's book, many were eager to abandon what they considered the staid and boringly traditional 1950s and embrace "change." Sound familiar?

In 1971, writers Gloria Steinem and Letty Cottin Pogrebin co-founded Ms. Magazine, naming the publication after the neutral way in which they wanted women to be identified so they wouldn't be subjected to the biases then extant in the workplace, when it was perfectly legal to ask a prospective female employee if and when she planned to have children, among other questions designed to limit a women's opportunity to crash the "glass ceiling" of male workplace dominance.

I "got" that concept, but other feminist ideas eluded me completely. Whenever a man would flirt with me, or send me a wolf whistle from a high scaffold, or even proposition me, I knew it was a compliment. He was simply saying that he thought I was attractive. I always responded by saying: "I'm not in the market, but thank you!" The result was that I never had an unpleasant encounter with a man, even when I worked nights as an R.N. in a high-tension hospital environment or dealt with tough editors at The New York Times.

Ultimately, women won the men-being-men battle, to the degree that today men are afraid to smile at a woman for fear of being sued! They also won the workplace-dominance battle - today more than 50 percent of women are now doctors and lawyers and even in the military.

But they didn't win the pay-disparity battle. According to a Time magazine article by Laura Fitzpatrick, "U.S. women still earned only 77 cents on the male dollar in 2008," a number that dropped to 68 percent for African-American women and 58 percent for Latinas. And according to Commentary magazine, "female employees in the Obama White House make considerably less than their male colleagues. about 18 percent less than the median salary for male employees."

And they also lost the marriage battle, since more than 50 percent of marriages now end in divorce, and most of those who stay married are not what anyone would describe as happy. This is partly explained by the degree to which The Pill allowed women to defer marriage and motherhood in favor of a career and how difficult it is to live three or more decades thinking solely about oneself and one's needs and desires, only to marry to beat the ticking time clock of fertility and to shift one's heretofore single-minded self-absorption to a husband and baby.

In 1973, the Holy Grail that continued to elude American feminists arrived when the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v Wade that abortion would be legal throughout the country. For feminists, it was not enough that The Pill practically insured protection against pregnancy. Many women were afraid of this form of birth control because it contained hormones, others cited instances of it failing, yet others couldn't be bothered, not only with The Pill but with any form of birth control. The "me" mentality of the sixties had taught them that instant gratification was "where it was at" and that the little "blob of tissue" in their wombs was not a baby at all.

In those years, sonograms had just entered the high-tech scene and this method of visualizing in utero life was not routine, as it is today. So when "experts" said that the result of conception was simply "an undifferentiated mass of tissue," women believed it and proceeded to have abortions in huge numbers, some as a form of birth control - not once but in some cases six and seven and eight times! It is supremely ironic that the very woman who aborted so many babies found herself in her thirties or forties yearning for a baby and then holding up the sonogram pictures of her in-utero "blob of tissue" only this time bragging, "Look at my baby!"

In 1976, to its credit, Ms Magazine was the first publication to feature, as a cover story, the issue of battered women and domestic violence. But abortion remained the most impassioned issue of their writers, as it is to this day - abortion and the utter folly of the nuclear family, meaning Mom and Dad and their children.

And this is why the left became so apoplectic over Sarah Palin. Yes, they hated her conservatism and her knowledge about and support of domestic energy independence.  They loathed her longtime happy marriage to - pardon the expression - a man! They were clearly envious of her physical beauty, her athleticism, her articulateness (without a teleprompter!), on and on, and even her military son and three gorgeous daughters. But to leftists everywhere, Palin's truly deeply unforgiveable mortal sin was her failure to abort a child she knew in advance would be born with Down syndrome, her baby Trig. In a nutshell, abortion is what feminism is all about. Sarah Palin repudiated this abomination and in so doing went a long way in sending feminism to its graveyard.

You see, leftists revile traditional families, preferring instead all manner of non-traditional "unions" and, of course, having the State and the U.N. control everyone's life from cradle to grave. This is why they so resent and revile religion, because the State is their god.

SOURCE




Storm as Britain's Law Society bans conference debating gay marriage

A diversity of views disallowed in the name of diversity

The Law Society has banned a conference on family issues to be addressed by a senior High Court judge because debating gay marriage breached its “diversity policy”.

Sir Paul Coleridge, the Family Division judge who recently launched a new charity to combat marital break-up, had been lined up as the main speaker at the annual event at the Law Society’s London headquarters later this month.

But organisers were forced to cancel it at short notice after the Law Society ruled that the programme reflected “an ethos which is opposed to same sex marriage”.

They accused the Society, which represents solicitors in England and Wales, of an “extraordinary” attempt to stifle debate on current affairs and warned that the cancellation itself could be against equality laws.

Lawyers, journalists and think tank chiefs were due to speak alongside Sir Paul at the annual conference organised by the World Congress of Families, a US-based non-religious group which promotes traditional family values.

Around 120 people were expected to attend event which this year took as its theme: “One Man. One Woman. Making the case for marriage, for the good of society.”

Sir Paul, who made headlines last week as he launched a new charity, the Marriage Foundation, was due to speak on the effects of divorce on society.

A follow-up event for MPs was being planned take place in Parliament after the conference.

Organisers said the conference had been booked for up to six months and a deposit of around £4,700 has already been paid.

But in an email on Thursday, Adam Tallis, general manager of Amper&and, the company which organises hospitality at The Law Society, informed them that the booking was being cancelled and the deposit refunded.

“We regret the need to take this step,” he wrote.  “I can assure you that it is not something we do lightly.  “However, where an event does not fit within this company’s diversity policy, it is a step we must take.

“The nature of your event has recently been drawn to our attention, and it is contrary to our diversity policy, espousing as it does an ethos which is opposed to same sex marriage.”

Same-sex marriage is not currently legal in Britain, although a consultation is under way on a possible change in the law.

Andrea Williams, director of Christian Concern, which is a member of the World Congress of Families said: “It is just extraordinary that the professional body that regulates solicitors in this country is censoring debate on a major change in the law that will inevitably have massive consequences for society.

“It does seem to be a fundamental misreading of the Equality Act.

“This was supposed to be a genuine open debate on the issues, constructing a case for marriage in the public sphere, and they seem to be closing it down.

“Of all the places in society where you might expect freedom of debate to be protected, the regulatory body of the legal profession would surely be at the top of the list.

“This statement is highly political, highly charged and wholly inappropriate.

“A lot of lawyers will be very alarmed by this and ashamed of their regulatory body.”

But Desmond Hudson, chief executive of the Law Society, said: “We are proud of our role in promoting diversity in the solicitors’ profession and felt that the content of this conference sat uncomfortably with our stance.

“Through our events and venues supplier, we have assisted the organisers in identifying an alternative, non Law Society venue.”

SOURCE



12 May, 2012

Naughty:  U.S. military officers told the truth about Islam

A COURSE for US military officers has been teaching that America's enemy is Islam in general, not just terrorists, and suggested that the country might ultimately have to obliterate the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina without regard for civilian deaths, following World War II precedents of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima or the allied firebombing of Dresden.

The Pentagon suspended the course in late April when a student objected to the material. The FBI also changed some agent training last year after discovering that it, too, was critical of Islam.

The teaching in the military course was counter to repeated assertions by US officials over the last decade that the US is at war against Islamic extremists - not the religion.

"They hate everything you stand for and will never coexist with you, unless you submit," the instructor, Army Lt Col Matthew Dooley, said in a presentation last July for the course at Joint Forces Staff College.

The college, for professional military members, teaches mid-level officers and government civilians on subjects related to planning and executing war.

Lt Col Dooley also presumed, for the purposes of his theoretical war plan, that the Geneva Conventions that set standards of armed conflict, are "no longer relevant."

He adds: "This would leave open the option once again of taking war to a civilian population wherever necessary (the historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki being applicable)."

His war plan suggests possible outcomes such as "Saudi Arabia threatened with starvation ... Islam reduced to cult status," and the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia "destroyed."

A copy of the presentation was obtained and posted online by Wired.com's Danger Room blog. The college did not respond to The Associated Press' requests for copies of the documents, but a Pentagon spokesman authenticated the documents.

Lt  Col Dooley still works for the college, but is no longer teaching, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said.

Lt Col Dooley refused to comment to the AP, saying: "Can't talk to you, sir," and hanging up when reached by telephone at his office Thursday.

In what he called a model for a campaign to force a transformation of Islam, Lt Col Dooley called for "a direct ideological and philosophical confrontation with Islam," with the presumption that Islam is an ideology rather than just a religion. He further asserted that Islam has already declared war on the West, and the US specifically.

"It is therefore illogical" to continue with the current US strategy - which Lt Col Dooley said presumes there is a way of finding common ground with Islamic religious leaders - without "waging near 'total war,"' he wrote.

The course on Islam was an elective taught since 2004 and not part of the required core curriculum. It was offered five times a year, with about 20 students each time, meaning roughly 800 students have taken the course over the years.

SOURCE




MI: Police Shut-down Event Promoting U.S. Constitution  -- get sued

In the middle of an event to extol the virtues of the U.S. Constitution and “American Laws For American Courts,” the audience learned first-hand how easy it is to lose their freedom of Speech and Assembly.

Amid shouts of “What about free speech?” from the audience, the Allegan Police Department ordered the event shut-down.   School officials notified police that they had received a letter complaining about the event from Dawud Walid, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI).   The letter asked the school to disallow the event despite an existing contract.  CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism funding trial in U. S. history, U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation.

As a result, the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, announced yesterday that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR- MI), its Executive Director, the City of Allegan, the Allegan Police Department and the School District were named as defendants in a thirty-four page civil rights lawsuit filed in the Federal District Court for the Western District of Michigan, this morning. The claims included constitutional and contract violations.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center commented, “It’s amazing how much clout CAIR has with the political establishment of both parties in Lansing and throughout Michigan and the nation.  This, despite the fact that CAIR has its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial, and the FBI’s  former chief of counterterrorism, noted that CAIR, its leaders, and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups."

Continued Thompson, “Press accounts make it clear that an indictment naming CAIR as a defendant in the Holy Land Foundation trial was squelched by Attorney General Holder’s office despite vehement objections by FBI agents and the federal prosecutors in Dallas.”

TMLC’s federal lawsuit was brought on behalf of State Representative David Agema; a chapter leader of ACT! for America, Elizabeth Griffin; Allegan County Commissioner, Willis Sage; and Mark Gurley, one of the event sponsors.

The event in question, entitled, “Constituting Michigan – Founding Principles Act” took place on January 26, 2012 at an Allegan High School auditorium which had been rented by Willis Sage.

The purpose of the event was to inform the public about the importance of honoring the United States Constitution, to recognize the internal threat to America posed by radical Muslims and the dangers to our free society caused by the imposition of Sharia law.

At first the Allegan police chief police indicated he shut down the event because of threats to one of the speakers, Kamal Saleem; however, shortly thereafter, the chief admitted to a reporter that there was no specific threat to the event and no real danger at all.  In fact, no specific threats of violence relating to the event were received by the City of Allegan, its police department, the Allegan Public School District or Allegan Public High School.

Police gave as their reason, the appearance of one of the featured speakers, Kamal Saleem, a former Muslim terrorist who converted to Christianity.  Saleem has spoken at numerous high schools and universities, Christian churches and Jewish temples across the nation.  He has also spoken at the U. S. Air Force Academy, Michigan’s State Capital, and Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan.  At no time before the Allegan event or afterwards has an event where he has spoken been shut down by law enforcement.

Sage notified the Allegan police chief ten days before the event and invited him to check out the background of Saleem, which he never did.

SOURCE




Australia's MUSLIM heritage???

There were a few Afghan cameleers in the early days but just about all other Muslim influences in Australia are very recent

Arts Minister Simon Crean and Multicultural Affairs Minister Senator Kate Lundy today announced $1.5 million in Australian Government funding to support capital works for the creation of the Islamic Museum of Australia in Melbourne.

Speaking at the launch of a new documentary Boundless Plains – the Australian Muslim Connection, Senator Lundy said the Australian Government was proud to support such a significant project that recognised the invaluable contribution of Islamic culture and heritage.

'The Islamic Museum of Australia will help to foster understanding and promote community harmony and social inclusion,' Senator Lundy said.

'It will serve to educate the wider Australian community of the rich and longstanding history that Islam has had in our nation.

'Here in Melbourne, the Museum will join a rich tapestry of cultural institutions celebrating the contribution of Greek, Italian, Jewish and Chinese communities.'

Mr Crean said the Islamic Museum of Australia would make a significant contribution to the cultural life of our nation.  'Culture is incredibly important to understanding ourselves better, not just as individuals, but as a nation,' Mr Crean said.

'Australia is uniquely placed. We have one of the oldest living cultures on earth and we continue to attract the greatest diversity of cultures on earth.  'That is why we are proud to be involved in this partnership for community cultural development.'

SOURCE




Australia:  Why Did a Judge Waive a Jury Trial for an Islamist Who Allegedly Tried to Throw His Sister-in-Law Off a Parking Garage?‏

In 2009, Ismail Belghar reportedly attacked his sister-in-law, Canan Kokden, after she “dared” take his wife to the beach without his permission.  Given away by his wife’s “slightly sunburned shoulders,” Belghar reportedly called Kokden in a rage and said: “You slut, how dare you take my wife to the beach?”

But when he next saw her, things escalated to a frightening degree.  Kokden was shopping with her brother shortly before Christmas 2009 when she encountered Belghar. He allegedly came up to her, slapped her across the face, and then dragged her to the railing of a high-rise parking garage and dangled her over it.  Kokden was saved only when her brother tackled Belghar, and forced him to let her go.

But this is not why Belghar’s story has made international news. Rather, it is because the man was due to have what is believed to be the first jury-less trial in Australia, because of his religious beliefs.

“The attitude of (Belghar) … is based on a religious or cultural basis. In light of the fact there has been adverse publicity regarding people who hold extreme Muslim faith beliefs in the community, I am of the view that the apprehension by (Belghar) that he may not receive a fair trial is a reasonable apprehension,” Judge Solomon said.

“Are Aussies too biased to try this Muslim man?” the Australian Telegraph asked today.

Still others wonder: Are this man’s religious beliefs somehow granting him special considerations? Would an ordinary accused woman-beater be excused from a jury of his peers?

Australians have been so outraged by the matter that the Crown intervened in the case, saying that every Muslim would have to be granted a judge-only trial if it prevailed.

Belghar’s trial was due to start yesterday, but because he denied the charge of attempted murder and apologized to his sister-in-law, the charge has been dropped. Rather, he is pleading guilty to detaining and assaulting Kokden, and will be sentenced at a later date.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

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11 May, 2012

Muslim sex gang were following their 'cultural norms'

Maverick British historian speaks the unspeakable truth

David Starkey risks fresh controversy by claiming that Asian men jailed over a major child sexual exploitation ring were “acting within their own cultural norms”.

The historian said “nobody ever explained” to the men – eight of Pakistani origin and one from Afghanistan – that women could not be treated in this way.

Dr Starkey called for better teaching of English history to create a “common identity” and overcome the challenges of multiculturalism.

But the comments are likely to prompt condemnation just a day after the men were handed sentences of between four and 19 years for the offences.

Liverpool Crown Court heard the group plied five victims with drink and drugs and "passed them around" for sex.

The girls were abused at two takeaway restaurants in the Heywood area of Rochdale by the men aged between 24 and 59. The takeaways are now under new management.Speaking at a conference staged by Brighton College, the private school in East Sussex, Dr Starkey said that the “only way we are going to get to be able to survive as a multi-cultural society is if we re-address the story – the real story – of English history”.

The historian, author of books including Elizabeth and The Private Life of Henry VIII, said: “If you want to look at what happens when you have no sense of common identity, look at Rochdale and events in Rochdale, where you have groups that are absolutely and mutually uncomprehending.

“Those men were acting within their own cultural norms. Nobody ever explained to them that the history of women in Britain was once rather similar to that in Pakistan and it had changed.”

He said a “genuine approach to the teaching of English history” should look at the origins of modern feminism.

“It is a fundamental story,” he said. “And it seems to me that if we are to make this highly diverse society work, and I desperately hope that we do, what we should be focusing on is the astonishing record of change without revolution in English history in which the political system of king, lords and commoners, has proved flexible enough to spread from a tiny deeply selective electorate to a wider and wider group who have been incorporated, have been brought in and made to feel welcome.”

SOURCE





New British defamation bill ‘will put a stop to libel tourism’ by shaking up old laws

Long overdue

A law to end ‘libel tourism’ and protect free speech will be published today.  The Defamation Bill will shake up antiquated libel laws to prevent wealthy individuals and corporations – often based abroad – using courts here to silence critics.

In recent years London has become the libel capital of the world. Critics say this is because existing regulations favour claimants and that the very high costs involved in defending a claim mean many publications are forced to settle out of court, even when they believe what they published was true.

In an attempt to end trivial claims, future claimants will have to show that material has caused them ‘serious harm’.  And those from outside the EU will face new hurdles before they can bring a claim in London.

Journalists will be allowed defences against defamation where they can show the material is based on ‘honest ­opinion’ or is in the public interest. And ­websites will be protected if they publish readers’ comments.

Scientific journals will have a right to publish peer-reviewed studies, even if they are critical of products made by wealthy corporations.

Last night the Libel Reform Campaign lobby group said: ‘The Bill will open the way to ending libel tourism and protecting free expression for journalists, writers, bloggers and scientists around the world.’

The Libel Reform Campaign - made up of Index on Censorship, English Pen and Sense About Science - which has been calling for legislation to reform the libel law since 2009, hailed the announcement as a victory.

A spokesman for the campaign said: ‘The Bill will open the way to ending libel tourism and protecting free expression for journalists, writers, bloggers and scientists around the world.

‘However, there is still work to be done and we will carry on campaigning to make sure that the detail in the final Bill will truly deliver reform.’

Sense About Science managing director Tracey Brown said the current libel laws had had a ‘bullying and chilling effect on discussions about health, scientific research, consumer safety, history and human rights’.

Welcoming the announcement, she added: ‘This opens the way to developing a law guided by public interest not powerful interests.’

Cardiologist Dr Peter Wilmshurst, who was sued by an American medical device company, said: ‘Patients have suffered because the draconian defamation laws were used to silence doctors with legitimate concerns about medical safety.’

Justine Roberts, co-founder and chief executive of the Mumsnet website, welcomed the proposed new protections for websites.

She said: ‘Websites and hosts of user-generated comment risk becoming tactical targets for those who wish to clamp down on criticism or investigation of their activities.’

The Bill will also end the presumption in favour of jury trial in defamation cases, which currently adds significantly to the cost of cases and the time taken to resolve claims.

In future, most cases could be settled by a judge sitting alone.

SOURCE





Wasteful British immigration control

British Border staff search white air passengers to 'even up racial mix'  -- at a time when the border agency is seriously understaffed and many passengers are let through without basic checks

White air passengers are routinely stopped and searched by customs officials simply to ensure the right racial ‘mix’ of travellers are being  approached, a report reveals today.

It found staff searching for illegal goods at Gatwick Airport selected white passengers to balance the numbers against black and other ethnic minorities they suspected to help avoid race discrimination complaints.

Details of the practice are exposed in one of two highly critical reports by John Vine, chief inspector of the UK Border Agency, who said it was unlawful and must stop.

The second, criticising Heathrow Terminal 3, raised concerns about queues at the borders and found staff were allowed to clock off at some of the busiest times, resulting in long delays for passengers.

Targets for queuing  times for passengers from outside the European Economic Area were breached 62 times between September 18 and 30 last year.  The longest wait was two hours and 15 minutes.

The racial scanning, seemingly widespread at Gatwick, involved pulling out white passengers when officials wanted to question a black passenger.

One official told inspectors he and his colleagues ‘specifically detained a number of white passengers’ from one flight so they could ‘show that white people were also being questioned’.

He said that when they saw arrivals they ‘knew they had a problem’ because the person they wanted to intercept was the only black passenger on the flight.

The inspectors added: ‘The officer also reported that this practice ... is also used for Caribbean flights to reduce the potential for future race claims.’

At Heathrow Terminal 3, inspectors found two-thirds of passenger searches were ‘neither justified nor proportionate or in line with legislation and agency guidance’.

The reports reveal a number of other areas where the border controls at Britain’s two biggest airports are failing.

At Heathrow Terminal 3, they raised questions over immigration controls, with the number of people refused entry by border staff falling by 20 per cent from 2009/10 to last year.

The numbers kicked out of the country after being blocked at the terminal border fell by one third.

Mr Vine questioned whether the UK Border Agency was still able to maintain ‘an effective and efficient border control’.

At Gatwick’s North Terminal, inspectors found passengers arriving from outside the EU were routinely allowed to enter through the ‘nothing to declare’ channel with too much alcohol and up to three times the legal amount of cigarettes.

Staggeringly, customs officers waved through passengers found with cannabis in their luggage, instead of arresting them.  The report said they had failed to follow ‘appropriate procedures’ and the passengers should have been arrested.

Inspectors reported ‘an almost total lack of visible detection presence’ in customs for ‘large parts of the day’.

And too many suspected illegal migrants were being allowed through, including cases where attempted deception and breaches of immigration rules were clear, it found.

The reports are published today as two major immigration unions – the PCS and Immigration Services Union – walk out on strike.

SOURCE





"Violent" American banned from Britain

Even though what he teaches is self defense.  British authorities hate self-defense.  You are lucky to get away with it

Tim Larkin, a former Navy SEAL and self-defense instructor, has been banned from entering the U.K. because, in the words of the MP Rosie Cooper: “He teaches extreme and violent self-defense that is unwelcome [in Britain].”

One of Larkin’s philosophies, according to the Telegraph, is: “violence is rarely the answer, but when it is, it’s the only answer.”  His website elaborates:

The truth is… your best self defense in a life-or-death confrontation is injuring the other guy. And it’s the one thing that makes us so different.

Because, when you…

* Try to keep yourself from being stabbed – you’ll get stabbed.

* Try to avoid being shot – and you’ll get shot.

It’s the dirty little secret every predator knows but no one in the self defense world talks about.  When facing violence on the street today, the only thing guaranteed to get you out alive is injuring your assailant.

Larkin was planning on teaching a number of seminars in the London-area, particularly in Tottenham, where the worst of the riots were located last summer.  He was also due to be the keynote speaker at the Martial Arts Show in Birmingham on the 12th and 13th of May.

“It’s a gross overreaction, especially with some of the people who are allowed to come in and out of the UK,” Larkin commented to the BBC.

“There are those rare, rare black swan occasions – like the riots – where law-abiding citizens are put in situations where they are facing grievous bodily harm and they hesitate because they are afraid of being prosecuted. That is a very real thing,” he explained.

Even British citizens are seemingly finding the exclusion order a little ridiculous, with the story being featured in the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, the Guardian, and the BBC.

But is there something more to the story?  Or has the Home Office decided that they overreacted?  At this point, it seems they’ve actually doubled-down.

Larkin’s presence is “not conducive to the public good” and could encourage vigilantism, a Home Office representative declared.  MP Cooper added: “I would [like] to thank the member of the public who alerted me to the threat that Mr. Larkin poses.”

Tim Larkin, on the other hand, believes he is being penalized for criticizing the Britain’s self-defense laws.

“I am not advocating that the UK should be like the US.  What am advocating is that the UK should go back to laws it had, prior to 1920,” he clarified.  Prior to 1920, there were far fewer gun-control laws in Britain.

This leaves many asking: is Larkin‘s story just the equivalent of Britain’s gun-control crowd going too far, or is there validity to the claim that self-defense training leads to increased violence?  And if America’s gun control crowd succeeds in villainizing firearms– will basic self-defense be next?

SOURCE





Australia: In hiring, bosses  tend to look for people with a similar cultural background

It makes understanding one-another so much easier. The importance of common culture is well documented in personal relationships and business relationships can be very  involving too

Who would you most probably give a job to: Lisa Johnson, Andrew Robinson, Ping Huang or Hassan Baghdadi?  Odds are in Canberra Lisa and Andrew will be interviewed, regardless of their suitability for the job.

Ping and Hassan will need to send out twice as many job applications before they'll see an employer.

Canberra business consultant Peter Gordon is stunned at how often bright young job seekers are overlooked because of their non-Anglo sounding names in a city with a skills crisis.

He said hundreds of thousands of international students propped up the budgets of Australian universities and in Canberra more than 10,000 of them contributed $300 million annually to the ACT economy.  Their money was eagerly welcomed, but not their offer of skills in the workforce, said Mr Gordon, a director of Economic Futures Australia.

"I met this bloke, a charming Pakistani who had worked for the last seven years in the Middle East. English brilliant, charming, good looking, in his 30s, with his wife, sponsored here by the ACT government under a skilled migration program, with excellent information technology qualifications," Mr Gordon said.

The man applied for a job at his appropriate level, could not get an interview and dropped to entry level applications, only to be told he was over-qualified. Not being a permanent resident ruled him out of the Commonwealth public service, as well as major firms providing goods and services to the government.

Australian National University researchers sent out 4000 fictional applications in 2009 for entry-level jobs in major cities and found people with Chinese and Middle Eastern names needed to submit up to 68 per cent more applications to secure an interview.

Mr Gordon said despite the government's best efforts, he had long been frustrated by the lack of interest among ACT businesses in available talent from overseas.

"I would hesitate using the word racism but I think it is a complete lack of understanding of what it means to be a person with a different background in Canberra. We are ignoring a real, and vital and economic opportunity on our doorstep. It really is incredible."

SOURCE



10 May, 2012

Homosexual advocates  in the bureaucracy do an end-run around Congress

A major plank in the Gay Bill of Special Rights has just been enacted by Federal bureaucratic decree!  That’s right -- the Homosexual Lobby has found a way around the Constitution and the U.S. Congress to give special employments privileges to transsexuals.

Just a few days ago, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) decided to redefine the rules already on the books to make it nearly impossible for any employers to ever turn down or fire a transsexual person.

No new law was passed by Congress.  And no one had any say in this but the Obama-appointed bureaucrats who have allied themselves with the Homosexual Lobby.

As you know, special employment rights are at the heart of the Gay Bill of Special Rights.  The Homosexual Lobby wants to make it impossible for any company, church or even daycare center to ever fire homosexuals or transsexuals.

Public Advocate has steadfastly opposed the Gay Bill of Special Rights every time it has been brought up in Congress -- countless times over the decades.  But in just the past few months Obama has started threatening to pass key elements of the bill by Executive Order.

He’s declared that he has the power to make “homosexual preferred employment policies” a reality for all Federal departments and any company doing business with the Federal government.

And now the EEOC is going even further.  They are reinterpreting current laws to reflect their idea of what fair employment should be.  And now business and churches are risking a Federal lawsuit anytime they fire or refuse to hire a transsexual.

We are coming dangerously close to a de facto passage of the Gay Bill of Special Rights and the creation of a superior class of Americans.

SOURCE





Creating a Risk-Free World

A child leaving home alone for the first time takes a risk. So does the entrepreneur who opens a new business. I no more want government to prevent us from doing these things than I want it to keep us in padded cells.
Everyone has a different tolerance for risk. One person takes out a second mortgage to start a business. Another thinks that sounds nerve-racking, if not insane. Neither person is wrong. Government cannot know each person's preferences, or odds of success.

Even if it did, what right does it have to tell them what to do?

When government gets in the business of deciding which risks are acceptable and which aren't, nasty things happen.

This includes government's attempt to improve life by regulating gambling and the use of medicine, banning recreational drugs and mandating safety devices in cars.

In what sense are we free if we can't decide such things for ourselves?

Through the Food and Drug Administration, the government claims to protect us. But some people suffer because of that protection: Some die waiting for drugs to be approved.

Don't we own our own bodies? Why, in a supposedly free country, do Americans, even when dying, meekly stand aside and let the state limit our choices?

The Drug Enforcement Administration jails pain-management doctors who prescribe quantities of painkillers that the DEA considers "inappropriate." It's true that some people harm themselves with Vicodin and OxyContin, but it's hard for doctors to separate "recreational" users from people really in pain. Some cancer patients need large amounts of painkillers.

After the DEA jailed doctors, some pain specialists began to underprescribe. The website of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons warns doctors: Don't go into pain management. "Drug agents now set medical standards. ... There could be years of harassment and legal fees." Today, even old people in nursing homes sometimes don't get pain relief they need.

Even the best safety regulations have unexpected costs. Seat belts save 15,000 lives a year, but it's possible that they kill more people than they save.

University of Chicago economist Sam Peltzman argues that increased safety features on cars have the ironic effect of encouraging people to drive more recklessly. It's called the Peltzman Effect -- a variation on what insurance experts call "moral hazard." Studies show that people drive faster when they are snugly enclosed in seat belts.

Also, while passengers were less likely to die, there were more accidents and more pedestrians were hit.

Perhaps the best safety device would be a spike mounted on the steering wheel -- pointed right at the driver's chest.

There's another reason to think seat belt laws have been counterproductive. Before government made seat belts mandatory, several automakers offered them as options. Volvo ran ads touting seat belts, laminated glass, padded dashboards, etc., as the sort of things that responsible parents should want. I concede that government action expanded seat belt use faster than would have otherwise happened, but by interfering with the market, government also stifled innovation. That kills people.

Here's my reasoning: The first government mandate created a standard for seat belts. That relieved auto companies of the need to compete on seat belt safety and comfort. Drivers and passengers haven't benefitted from improvements competitive carmakers might have made.

If every auto company were trying to invent a better belt, today, instead of one seat belt, I bet there'd be six, and all would be better and more comfortable than today's standard. Because they would be more comfortable, more passengers would wear them. Over time, the free market in seat belts would save more lives.

We don't know what good things we might have if the heavy foot of government didn't step in to limit our options.

In a free country, it should be up to adult individuals to make their own choices about risk. Patrick Henry didn't say, "Give me safety, or give me death." Liberty is what America is supposed to be about.

Let's start treating people as though their bodies belong to them, not to a controlling and "protective" government.

SOURCE




Racial privilege

For many generations, America, land of the free and home of the brave, has sought to retain a fluid class system which has ensured that aristocratic, predetermined privileges do not remain with one race, group or class.  The civil rights movement of the 1960s was based on the premise that everyone, regardless of race or class, should have access to the American dream of climbing the social and economic ladder.  In fact, the great human rights movements of the past have been based on the concept of equality before the law and equality of opportunity regardless of gender, religion, social class or race.

Until recent times, that is.  For since the advent of affirmative action and multi-culturalism, both of which initially were supposed to be ways of making sure all races and classes had access to social and economic advancement, America is increasingly aristocratic in its composition, with privileges being handed out according to race and class rather than according to merit.

The weird case of Elizabeth Warren is a classic example of privilege according to bloodline gone amok.  Though a pink skinned, blue eyed blonde, Ms. Warren has ludicrously claimed that because she has 1/32 or 1/64 Native American blood in her veins, she therefore is Native American/Indian.  Therefore she is entitled to privileges.  As Victor David Hanson observes:

"The trivial Elizabeth Warren "high cheekbones" fraud nonetheless offered a draw-back-the-curtain look into the gears and levers of our national race industry. The real story is not that the multimillionaire liberal (and one-percenter) Warren fabricated a Cherokee identity for over a decade (to the delight of her quota-thirsty universities), but rather the notion that if a pink blond at Harvard can get away with faking a career-enhancing minority identity, then anyone, anywhere, can -- or rather often has."

Warren's attempt at fakery is nothing new.  How often have pretenders to royal thrones come forth?  How many people claimed they were the offspring of a king, a duke, a baron or a prince? Some forty candidates for the throne of Louis XVII, deceased son of Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI, claimed to be the dead dauphin.  A similar mob of pretenders, among them Anna Tchaikovsky (aka Anna Anderson), claimed they were the lost Anastasia of the Romanovs.

How many in South Africa and in the United States once attempted to pass for white in order they gain access to privileges denied them for no other reason than race?

One can scarcely blame them for so doing.  Apartheid in any form is a wretched and dehumanized business, but the point is that it is also tragic to see the achievements of the civil rights movement have now been turned so topsy-turvy that claim to minority racial status is a way to attain privileges not necessarily earned nor merited.  It is sad to see so much pretending and fakery substituted for the American ladder of opportunity.  Too many are, yes, great pretenders.

But today's pretenders have their avid supporters, as have pretenders of the past.   Elizabeth Warren, self-proclaimed Native American, has had the full support of Harvard University, whose officials were anxious to prove they were interested in fulfilling their minority quotas.  

In another travesty, politically correct toadies allowed the ritual slaughter of an American eagle as a tribute to ethnic diversity, thus granting hunting rights to new aristocrats while declaring such rights off limits to the rest of US commoners without the proper bloodlines and religious rituals.  One is reminded of the hunting rights for royalty declared, for instance, by Henry VII's first Parliament in 1485, which made unauthorized hunting in prívate forests a felony punishable by death, fine or imprisonment.

The politically correct in favor of ethnic privilege in turn were followed by the avaricious and pompously self-righteous UN, which proclaimed the lands of America, including Mount Rushmore, should be restored to native tribes, who are now to be heirs because of their ancestors' previous occupancy.  Should the UN's wishes prevail, one can only imagine the ethnic Gold Rush as platinum blondes and pale redheads stampede to stake out claims to Native American ethnicity.

The new royalty comprised of exotic genetic pedigrees including fake Native Americans like Warren has largely been achieved by another pillar used by royalty for centuries, namely, an appointed bureaucracy characterized by nepotism and corruption, an organization which has a vested interest in maintaining the privileges of a royal few at the expense of many.

Included in a mix which is a sure recipe for the demolition of the fluid and merit based American social and economic ladder is a large dose of guilt handed out to those deemed unjustly privileged because of past and present social and economic sins, real or perceived.

For at the heart of the attempt to create a new royal class based on ethnic bloodlines is the desire to punish the largely white majority for its sins, past and present.  There is a desire among some like Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan  to eliminate the bloodline of the "oppressor" by turning the tables on the race now automatically deemed guilty because of skin color. This generation and those of the future are to pay for the sins of the fathers, a concept once alien to America, but which has gained traction over the last generation.

The Judeo/Christian theological principle that every human being is capable of good or evil and that each person, no matter what tribe, race or class he or she belongs to, is accountable to God for his or her sins is to be jettisoned.  Classes deemed virtuous by reason of ethnicity are to prevail over guilty majorities. The result of the race industry may turn out to be a new royal order in America, a right to elevation above other races and classes because of bloodline.

In other words, the detested concept and actuality of privileged hierarchy will not disappear.  It will just assume a new multi-cultural, minority identity.

This is not the American way or dream.  This is the attempt to say DNA trumps merit.  This is ossified aristocracy revived.

SOURCE





California to Ban Therapies That Try to Turn Gay People Straight

A 1st Amendment violation?

 California lawmakers are poised to vote Tuesday on a first-of-its-kind ban on a controversial form of psychotherapy aimed at making gay people straight.  Supporters say the legislation is necessary because such treatments are ineffective and harmful.  “This therapy can be dangerous,” said the bill’s author Sen. Ted Lieu.

He added the treatments can “cause extreme depression and guilt” that sometimes leads to suicide.

Conservative religious groups emphatically reject that view of sexual orientation therapy and say the California bill would interfere with parents’ rights to seek appropriate psychological care for their children.  “While this is a direct assault on everyone’s freedom it is also a not so subtle attack on religious liberty,” the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality said in a statement.

The debate comes as gay rights issues take the spotlight around the nation.  Over the weekend, Vice President Joe Biden said he is “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex couples getting the same rights as heterosexual couples.  In North Carolina on Tuesday, voters are expected to decide whether to make it the 29th state to pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as solely between a man and a woman.  And in Colorado, a measure to extend civil union protections to gay couples faces a looming deadline in the state Legislature.

The California bill would prohibit so-called reparative therapy for minors and force adults who chose to undergo the treatment to sign a release form that states that the counseling is ineffective and possibly dangerous.

AB1172, sponsored by Equality California, was expected to go to its final committee hearing Tuesday afternoon and will go to the full Senate if approved.

Lieu says attempts to pathologize and change people’s sexual orientation should be treated akin to smoking and drinking: harmful activities that adults can choose to participate in, but children cannot.   “We let adults do all sorts of stupid and risky things, but we ban dangerous things for young people,” Lieu, D-Torrance, said in a telephone interview.

He was inspired to take up the issue by a cable news documentary featuring people whose parents had attempted to change their sexual orientation. The doctor featured in the show “was evil,” he said.

Interest in the religion-based therapy appears to have surged in recent years.  Exodus International, the world’s largest Christian referral network dealing with homosexuality, now refers people to 260 groups across the country, up from about 100 a decade ago. The organization has 35 ministries and churches scattered around California, from the Central Valley to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Mainstream mental health organizations say people shouldn’t be seeking out groups like Exodus at all.  The American Psychological Association said in 2009 that mental health professionals should not tell gay clients they can become straight through therapy.

The association cited research suggesting that efforts to produce the change could lead to depression and suicidal tendencies, and stated that no solid evidence exists that such change is possible.

The American Counseling Association and American Psychiatric Association have also disavowed the therapy. And the psychiatric association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders nearly 30 years ago.

Conversion therapy penetrated the national consciousness last year when former Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann was questioned over whether the Christian counseling business of her husband provided therapies that attempted to change gays and lesbians.

Last month, psychiatrist Bob Spitzer retracted his widely-cited 2001 study that found that “highly motivated” people could change their sexual orientation, and apologized to the gay community.

The measure would likely face legal challenges from opponents who say it is unconstitutional.   Lieu says he addressed free speech issues by excluding clergy from the legislation.

Gay rights advocates say such a ban would constitute a major milestone, and could lead to similar legislation across the country.

SOURCE



9 May, 2012

Rochdale grooming trial: Police accused of failing to investigate paedophile gang for fear of appearing racist

Police and social workers were last night accused of failing to investigate an Asian [Pakistani] paedophile gang for fear of being perceived as racist, allowing them to prey on up to 50 young white girls.

The nine men from Rochdale were yesterday convicted of abusing five vulnerable teenagers after plying them with alcohol, food and small sums of money in return for sex.  However, the true number of victims, who were "passed around" by the gang, is likely to be nearer to 50, police have admitted.

Greater Manchester Police and the Crown Prosecution Service have now apologised after they failed to bring the case of the first victim - Girl A - to trial following her cry for help in August 2008.

One 13 year-old victim became pregnant and had the child aborted while another was forced to have sex with 20 men in one night, Liverpool Crown Court heard.

Complaints to social workers and the police were ignored because they were "petrified of being called racist", former Labour MP for Keighley Ann Cryer said.  Mrs Cryer, who has campaigned to bring the issue of Asian sex gangs to light, said the girls had been "betrayed" and condemned to "untold misery" by the police and social services.

"This is an absolute scandal. They were petrified of being called racist and so reverted to the default of political correctness," she said.  "They had a greater fear of being perceived in that light than in dealing with the issues in front of them."

Girl A told police that she had been raped and provided DNA evidence from her attacker, however the CPS twice decided not to prosecute him.

The 15 year-old's abuse continued and at its height she was being driven to flats and houses to be raped by up to five men a night, four or five days a week. She was singled out because she was white, vulnerable and under-age.

Her ordeal only ended when her teachers forced social workers to intervene after she fell pregnant and they became concerned by the number of Asian men picking her up from school.

Girl A said that in a six-hour interview she gave police details about her abusers and where the attacks took place. Crucially, too, she handed officers underwear that proved she had been raped by two men in a single attack. 

"I hoped they were going to do something and it would stop," she said.  "But it just carried on. It just started again with different men and more men this time, and that's when it started becoming up to five men a day".

Kabeer Hassan, Abdul Aziz, Abdul Rauf, Mohammed Sajid, Adil Khan, Abdul Qayyum, Mohammed Amin, Hamid Safi and a 59-year-old man who cannot be named for legal reasons were yesterday found guilty of running a child exploitation ring at Liverpool Crown Court.

Greater Manchester Police is now being investigated by the IPCC over the failings of its first investigation in 2008.

When GMP did finally pass a file on Girls A's rape to the CPS the following year, a Crown lawyer decided not to charge anyone because he said she would not be a sufficiently credible witness to put before a jury. A second CPS lawyer backed that opinion.

It was only after social workers notice an upsurge in cases of child grooming that police reinvestigated and made a series of arrests which led to yesterday's convictions.

Assistant Chief Constable Steve Heywood acknowledged that officers could have dealt with the case "better than we did".  But he denied that the girl's complaints had been "brushed under the carpet" because officers were reluctant to confront the issue of race.  "At the time we did what we thought was best," he said. "We have learned a lot of lessons.  "The issue here is genuinely about vulnerability. It just happens that they are Asian men. In no way did we sweep it under the carpet."

Steve Garner, head of children's services at Rochdale Council, denied the teenager had been let down by his department.  "No," he said. "I think it's really important to remember that what we know now and what we knew in 2008 is very, very different and what we have done is put the lessons in place".

Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk said: "What's become clear is that if police had acted seriously on these concerns in 2008 many of the victims of this appalling case would not have had to go through such horrific trauma.  "It is simply unacceptable that these young women were let down in this way by people they should have been able to trust."

SOURCE





British Labour party leader has some balls after all

NHS 'skivers' should be fired, says Ed Miliband

Hospital workers who “skive” off by taking sick leave when they are not really ill should be sacked, Ed Miliband has said.  The Labour leader warned that money in the NHS was too “tight” to waste and called for a crackdown on people who fake sickness to gain more time off.

He also criticised unemployed young people who prefer to sit at home and take state benefits rather than go to work.  Mr Miliband stressed benefit claimants must show “responsibility”, as he sought to portray Labour as the party for “aspirational” voters.

He made his remarks during a visit to Harlow, Essex, where his party gained control in last week’s council elections, and which is a key target seat for Labour at the next general election.

Taking questions from members of the public, Mr Miliband was told that some staff at local hospitals were abusing the system by claiming they were ill on Mondays and Fridays or after returning from holiday.

The Labour leader replied: “We should be totally intolerant of people who are skiving off”.  He added: “I want a health service where if people aren’t doing their jobs properly, they aren’t doing their jobs any more. We should find a way to crack down on this and stop it happening.

“If people aren’t really sick then something should be done about it because the resources can’t be spared in the health service, certainly not spared on people who could be in work and aren’t.”

He was also told of the frustrations of local college graduates in their 20s who work hard but cannot afford to get onto the property ladder, while some of their contemporaries are content to live off benefits.  Mr Miliband said: “I said we would create jobs for young people but they have to take the jobs. It’s a really important principle. They have to take responsibility.”

The Labour leader was visiting Essex to stress the importance of helping voters meet their “aspirations” for a good quality of life.

He acknowledged that the last Labour government had made too many interventions in running the NHS and had not done enough to create more affordable homes.

But, in an echo of President Obama’s 2008 election slogan, he promised Labour would deliver “change you can believe in”, by making modest plans and not “grandiose” election pledges which are broken later.

He warned that the low turnout at last week’s local elections, in which 71% of voters in Harlow stayed at home, indicated a “crisis of politics” in Britain.  “I know we have a lot more to do to rebuild that trust,” he said. “I want to reach out and understand why you don’t trust any politicians, why you don’t believe any of us can answer the questions that you are facing in your life.”

SOURCE





Who dares put Britain's  regiments to the sword?

The scrapping of historic regimental names as part of defence cuts is a senseless body blow to the Army

At the Battle of Dettingen in 1743, Sir Andrew Agnew of the Royal Scots Fusiliers developed a new tactic based on the courage of his men. Instead of standing to face a cavalry charge, as was the norm, they would create a gap to allow the enemy in. They would then close again to destroy the surrounded foe.

When the test came, it was the elite French Maison du Roi they faced. Later in the day, King George II, who commanded the Army, rode up and said: “So, Sir Andrew, I hear the cuirassiers rode through your regiment today.” “Oh aye, yer Majestee,” was the reply, “but they dinna get oot again.” Such courage could only be expected from men who knew and trusted each other.

The news that historic regimental names are to disappear thanks to the Government’s controversial defence cuts, along with at least one infantry battalion, ends a process that began under Labour to move towards a more European army system. Today, Sir Andrew’s regiment has been swallowed by one of the new “super regiments”, the Royal Regiment of Scotland, whose battalions retain a name recalling the old system, such as 3rd Battalion “The Black Watch”. The officers and men cycle through on a career and convenience basis; highlanders with lowlanders, Glaswegians mixed with Edinburgh men, but at least the name is there to stir memories of glory. Now that is also to end.

To many in politics, and particularly on the Left, the county regiment system smacked of privilege, largely because the method by which we, on these islands, have raised fighting forces for a thousand years was outside state control. There was a unique mix of the sons of the gentry – and the Royal family – subsumed into an organisation with the sons of the middle classes, working classes and the poorest immigrants, all bound together by a badge for which they would die. But their success, often in the face of overwhelming odds, was down to banding together like Sir Andrew’s men in a manner no conscript could ever be taught.

In my own regiment, the Royal Irish, this feeling of clan identity is important: men would rather die than be thought of as shirkers. When one of my soldiers expressed doubt about crossing the border into Iraq in March 2003, I agreed it might be better for him to remain behind. I had already said that I wanted no man by my side who did not want to be there. With Sir Colin Campbell’s threat at Sevastopol to “post the name of any man that ran on the door of his kirk” in mind, I warned the men that it would be on their mothers queuing at the Co-op that the real shame would fall. It was the soldier’s brother and his friends in the battalion who insisted that he go, to protect the regiment and the family’s honour; one and the same. And so he went.

There is another benefit of the old system that is as important as fighting well in the face of the enemy. When my grandfather returned from the horrors of the First World War, there were no combat stress charities to help ease the scars of what he had seen. Therapy was delivered by the regiment: neighbours and family, folk who had been there. Right up to the modern day, this benefit has been of huge value to those lucky enough to be in one of these regiments. Even today, the wives of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders who live in Canterbury (and some wits describe it as being 320 miles behind enemy lines) rely on other Army wives when they arrive to settle in. An effective, volunteer – and free – welfare service that works. It’s a rare thing.

My own belief is that poor regional recruiting has been exacerbated by Labour’s reforms. The evidence is there. The Royal Irish retain their identity (and are even oversubscribed) as boys follow friends and neighbours. Meanwhile, the new regiments struggle to recruit. As the informal welfare system both in the barracks and back in the home towns is eroded, wives urge husbands to leave the Army and return home. Charities such as Combat Stress are overwhelmed by ex-soldiers in grim circumstances and where jobs are few.

Admittedly, there is pressure on the Government and the military command to reduce costs. Sir Peter Wall, who is recognised as probably the best chief of the general staff of recent years, must play the hand he has been given. His duty is to deliver military effect within a tight budget, and at least there is no political agenda at play any more – at least in uniform. But with the coffers empty, the options are stark. We could carry on down this path, but there has to be recognition that we have become too European. An answer might be a US-style GI bill to protect servicemen and offer incentives for service, such as education and preferential health care. The alternative is to retain the regimental system but have fewer regiments. The question then is, “Who will jump and who needs pushing?” One thing is for sure, the traditional regiment has had its day.

SOURCE





British luvvies' anti-Israel stance achieves nothing

by Brendan O'Neill

A NEW ailment is spreading through the chattering classes. Symptoms include an aversion to art or literature created in Israel, an intolerance of all foodstuffs produced in Israel, and an allergy to the Israeli flag, the Israeli football team and Israeli professors. If you or any of your friends have those symptoms, get help: it is possible you're suffering from Israel Sensitivity Disorder.

This most middle-class of maladies is widespread in respectable circles. It has flared up very badly in Britain during the past week, with some of the most prominent carriers seeking to keep an Israeli theatre company off this sceptred isle.

Habima, Israel's national theatre company, is due to perform at the World Shakespeare Festival at London's famous Globe Theatre. Theatre troupes from every corner of the earth will be there, including from the new nation of South Sudan (whose actors will perform Cymbeline in Juba Arabic) and from New Zealand (in the first Maori-language performance of Troilus and Cressida). Some authoritarian states are involved, too, including China and Zimbabwe.

But it is Habima's involvement, and Habima's involvement alone, that has riled Britain's luvvies and liberals. In a letter to The Guardian, actress Emma Thompson and others said they were "dismayed" at the inclusion of Habima in this global festival. Apparently, by inviting Habima, the Globe is "associating itself with policies of exclusion practised by the Israeli state".

That is, it is infecting itself with the Israeli toxin; it is failing in its duty to keep itself clean of any contact with Israel and Israeli artists, as every member of decent society apparently must now do.

This extraordinary (and thankfully failed) attempt to ban a theatre company from a global festival follows on from last year's ugly interruption of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra at the Proms, an eight-week season of classical music that takes place at the Royal Albert Hall every summer. Musicians from across the world take part. But when the influential Israel-bashers heard that an orchestra from that country was taking part, their hives started to itch.

And so these "philistines for Palestine" (as an editorial in The Australian labelled them) jeered and shouted "shame" as the orchestra started to play. Watch the video on YouTube. It's a truly depressing spectacle, as the orchestra's solo violinist tries to make his music heard above the din of those who think that nothing Israeli should be seen or heard in polite society.

These censorious attacks on Israel's art fit neatly with broader campaigns to boycott its academics and produce.

Across the West, anti-Israel agitators demand that universities refuse to have any dealings with their Israeli counterparts while right-on shoppers make a virtue of the fact they never buy Israeli oranges or coffee.

There's something very ugly in this PC loathing of everything Israeli-made. You don't have to look far into the historical records, certainly here in Europe, to see that nothing good comes from the boycotting of shops run by "those people" or the attempted ghetto-isation of their culture and practices. Surely Britain's anti-Israel luvvies have at least watched Roman Polanski's The Pianist, the Holocaust-based tale of a man deprived of his true love - making music - because of what he is?

Of course the drowning out of Israeli music at the Royal Albert Hall and the attempted exclusion of an Israeli theatre company from the Globe are nothing like putting Jews into a real, walled-off ghetto. But all involve a process of ghetto-isation, a process of marginalising people on the basis of their origins.

The aversion to all things Israeli has gone way beyond a normal political boycott. The obsession with avoiding Israeli stuff has nothing in common with the positive boycotts carried out by political radicals in the past, whether it was suffragettes boycotting Britain's 1911 census or blacks in the American south boycotting buses with segregationist seating.

Rather, the avoidance of Israel and all its ideas and wares has become a weird way of life for some people, where the aim isn't to achieve tangible political goals but rather an inner sensation of super moral smugness.

Hating Israel is no longer a serious political stance so much as a cultural signifier. It's one of the key ways through which the chattering classes now advertise their decency, their caring streak, their loathing of "evil" and their pity for "victims".

And therefore, the more conspicuous they can make their loathing of Israel, the more loudly and colourfully they can declare it, the better. That is why they constantly write letters to newspapers, tell everyone that they studiously avoid Israeli shops, and wear the Yasser Arafat-inspired keffiyeh - because these are all signifiers of moral worth and thus must be made visible to all and sundry.

Hating Israel is now like wearing a red ribbon for AIDS or making a virtue of eating only organic foodstuffs.

Its consequences, however, are far more dire than donning a ribbon. For the end result of all these self-serving anti-Israel antics is that one tiny country is singled out for chattering-class opprobrium and in the process is transformed into a pariah state. These anti-Israel activists claim to be concerned that Israel is becoming an apartheid state, yet they themselves practice cultural apartheid against Israel.

Habima has come in for some flak in Israel, too, because at the Globe's festival it is planning to perform what some consider to be Shakespeare's anti-Semitic play, The Merchant of Venice.

Yet that play also contains a profound plea for tolerance that the anti-Israel lobby would do well to heed: "Hath not a Jew eyes? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?"

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

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8 May, 2012

Deep hatred for Israel in Norway

In January 2006, Socialist politician Kristin Halvorsen proposed a boycott of Israeli products, while insisting that her views did not reflect the government. Oslo may have distanced itself from Halvorsen’s controversial remarks, but it has refused to follow the United States and European Union’s classification of Hamas as a designated terrorist organization.

“We condemn organizations that are involved in terrorism,” said Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, “but Norway has considered the situation as such that having lists where we put an organization and call it a terrorist organization will not serve our purposes.”

Støre has also insisted that Israel dismantle its security wall built in response to the wave of suicide bombings from the West Bank.

Additional anti-Israel actions further raises the question of whether Norway objects to specific Israeli policies or is anti-Jewish. In 2008, Socialist politician Ingrid Fiskaa asserted to a Norwegian newspaper that the United Nations should fire “precision guided missiles against Israeli targets.”

Trine Lilleng, a Norwegian diplomat to Saudi Arabia, emailed dozens of pictures to friends of Holocaust pictures juxtaposed with images from Israel’s war with Hamas in December 2008 to portray Jews as Nazis.

Moreover, during Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israel tirade at the Durban II Conference in Geneva, Norway remained in attendance while most other Western nations either boycotted the conference or walked out.

NORWEGIAN ANTI-ISRAEL and anti-Jewish sentiment appears to be a “top-down” phenomenon. A 2010 report from NGO Monitor which provides information on organizations claiming to advance human rights revealed that Oslo provides tens of millions of kroner annually to West Bank and Gaza NGOs. Some of these organizations are blatantly anti-Israel and promote anti- Israel boycotts.

Norwegian Church Aid denounced Oslo’s decision to withhold aid to the Hamas regime in Gaza in 2006, and has met with senior Hamas leader Ahmed Yousef.

The Norwegian People’s Aid, funded by the Foreign Ministry, described Israel as “apartheid” and accused it of “war crimes.”

The University of Trondheim in Norway tried to impose an academic boycott against Israeli universities in 2009, but the motion ultimately failed. On November 9, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology hosted a six-session seminar featuring Norwegian scholars on Israel’s alleged use of anti-Semitism as a political tool. In a letter to Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, the Simon Wiesenthal’s director for international relations Shimon Samuels described the seminar as “a new stage in Norwegian incitement to Jew hatred.”

In October 2010, Norway’s Foreign Ministry announced that it would not permit the German shipbuilder HDW to test its Dolphin class submarine, built for the Israeli navy, in Norwegian territorial waters.

This despite the fact that HDW leases a base from Norway to test its submarines in deep water.

The most recent example of Norway’s genteel anti- Semitism was exemplified by Roar Arnstad, CEO of a Norwegian pharmaceutical chain called VITA, with his decision to boycott Ahava cosmetics manufactured in West Bank settlements. Arnstad justified the decision based on the logic that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank was illegal and that therefore it would be immoral to purchase Israeli products from occupied territory. Arnstad denies holding anti-Semitic beliefs and claims his policy is only against the Israeli occupation, but if this was indeed sincere, he would apply the same boycott to other occupying nations.

But Norway does not propose academic boycotts against universities in China, Britain, Turkey, Armenia, India or Morocco, nor does it enact sanctions and divestment programs. Singling out Israel is anti-Semitism and this demonstrable fact cannot absolve the Norwegian government of its own bigotry.

I would like to remind the Norwegian government and corporate CEOs of the European Union’s examples of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself: “Claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor, applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded by any other democratic nation; and drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

So tell us, do you boycott cultural and academic events in Britain (occupier of the Falkland Islands), China (occupier of Tibet), Russia (occupier of the Kuril Islands), Iran (occupier of Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa Islands), Morocco (occupier of Western Sahara), Armenia (occupier of Nagorno-Karabakh) and Turkey (occupier of Northern Cyprus)? Do you ban imports from these countries? Moreover, do you criticize suicide bombings and rocket attacks against civilians with the same fervor with which you criticize Israeli policies? For many, regarding Norwegian policies – enough is enough. If Vidkun Quisling was alive today and read the anti-Israel an anti-Semitic statements that were coming out of Norway, a big smile would appear on his face.

SOURCE






Babies develop racist traits aged nine months, before coming into contact with other races

White babies aged just nine-months-old show signs of racial bias, according to a study in facial recognition.  Researchers at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst found that by the young age the babies were already discriminating against those of different races in their ability to recognise faces and emotional expressions.

They analysed 48 Caucasian babies with little to no experience of African-American or black individuals.  Split into a group of five-months-olds and another of babies aged nine months, they were tasked with differentiating between faces of their people within own race and then of those belonged to another, unfamiliar, race.

Babies from the five-month-old group were far more adept at distinguishing faces from different races, while the nine-month-olds were able to tell apart two faces within their own race with greater ease.

In a second experiment the babies' brain activity was detected using sensors.  They were shown images of faces of Caucasian or African-American races expressing emotions that either matched or did not match sounds they heard, such as laughing and crying.  Brain-activity measurements showed the nine-month-olds processed emotional expressions among Caucasian faces differently than those of African-American faces, while the 5-month-olds did not.  The shift in recognition ability was not a cultural thing, rather a result of physical development.

Researchers found that the processing of facial emotions moved from the front of the brain to regions in the back of the brain in the older age group.

'These results suggest that biases in face recognition and perception begin in preverbal infants, well before concepts about race are formed,' said study leader Lisa Scott in a statement.   'It is important for us to understand the nature of these biases in order to reduce or eliminate [the biases].'

This is similar to how babies learn language, medicalxpress.com reported. Early in infancy babies do not know yet which sounds are meaningful in their native language, so they treat all sounds similarly.   As they learn the language spoken around them, their ability to tell apart sounds within other languages declines and their ability to differentiate sounds within their native language improves.

The results further earlier research which found that adults have more difficulty recognizing faces that belong to people of another race, indicating that the disparity begins sooner than previously realised.
The report is published in the May issue of the journal Development Science.

SOURCE






 ‘Everyone Is a Child’: NYC Department of Health Allegedly Mulling ‘Happy Hour’ Ban

The New York Post is reporting that the Department of Health is considering a ban on beer and booze specials in New York City bars and restaurants, and the proposal is apparently serious enough that one source quipped: “the alcohol lobby better find itself a good lawyer.”

While a spokesman for the Department of Health has denied “plans to pursue any policy around discount-alcohol sale,” a source reportedly told the Post: “It’s absolutely been discussed.”

The source continued: “It goes to show you the spirit with which they operate. Everyone is a child.”

The Post elaborates:

    [Sources] said the anti-booze sentiment at the agency has reached a fever pitch, with officials recently asking state officials about the “legality of liquor in ice cream,” referring to potent products infused with bourbon, rum and tequila.

    A prohibition on discounted drinks is solidly in line with [Commissioner Thomas Farley's] goals, which he outlined in his “Take Care New York 2012” report.

    Farley said he aimed to “reduce risky alcohol use,” noting [that] alcohol-related hospitalizations in 2006 were roughly 209 per 100,000 people. His goal was to reduce this number to 170 per 100,000 by this year.

    “DOH will advocate for policies that reduce access to alcohol by adolescents and for limits on sales practices in communities and campuses that promote drinking among adolescents and heavy drinking among adults,” the document reads.

Those familiar with the potential policy say Farley is proceeding with caution after his plan to reduce the “density” of alcohol outlets backfired, with Bloomberg apparently furious that he was never informed of the scheme.

“It’s ridiculous,” one New  York bartender, whose bar takes $2 off the price of any beer or hard liquor between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m., remarked.  “With the economy the way it is right now, it’s good to see cheaper prices. We try to be generous to get a good clientele in the door.”

The potential ban leaves many in a state of shock.  Soon, they say, New York will be a ghost town full of skyscrapers, having driven everyone out through excessive taxation or outrageous legislation. Either that, or we’re heading back to the days of prohibition.  New York would be joining 19 other states that have “happy hour” bans.

“What’s next — brunch?,” Tom Shanahan, a lounge owner and lawyer who represents bars and nightclubs, asked.

A writer for MSN maintains: “It just SOUNDS wrong…Why not just cut out the middle man and just outlaw fun!”

SOURCE






'I’m Arab, a Muslim, and I vote Marine Le Pen'

If French Muslims are largely left-leaning in their voting preferences, there are exceptions. France24.com spoke to three French Muslims of Arab descent, all of whom vote for the far-right National Front party. Here are their testimonies.

Karima, policewoman: “Many of my colleagues of Arab descent vote far right, but don’t dare say so.”

A 33-year-old naturalised French citizen of Moroccan origin, Karima is a mother of three, married to a Frenchman. She arrived in France 15 years ago, and has a diploma in Computer Science from a French university. Now she works as a policewoman in Paris and declined to provide her last name.

Karima says she started becoming interested in the ideas of Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the extreme-right National Front party, in 2002. That was almost a decade before Le Pen handed over the party leadership to his youngest daughter, Marine, in 2011. These days, Karima says she regularly attends party meetings and votes for National Front candidates whenever she can.

“My vote is an expression of my rejection of certain Muslim Arabs [in France], whom I personally consider ‘thugs’. They’ve destroyed French society. At least in the old days, they lived in the same suburbs,” said Karima, referring to the largely immigrant, impoverished “banlieues” of major French metropolises. “But for the last several years, the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, has done everything in his power to house them in nice neighbourhoods – like the 15th district, where I live.”

She says she is generally furious at these French-born citizens of North African origin who show no consideration for their country. If the National Front ever gets a candidate elected to the presidency, she would like to see people who “don’t deserve” their French nationality stripped of their citizenship.

According to Karima, many of her “colleagues of Arab descent vote far right, but don’t dare say so”.

Farid Smahi, former National Front office employee: “I’m Arab, I celebrate Ramadan, and I vote Le Pen”

Farid Smahi, 59, is a Frenchman of Algerian descent, a father of three children, and graduate of a French university with a degree in French literature. He currently works for an association that offers aid to people in need in the Paris area. His father fought in the French army during World War II, before becoming an activist for Algerian independence.

“You can’t be both Algerian and French,” Smahi noted. His conversion to far-right politics occurred when he returned from a trip to the Palestinian Territories, which he describes as a giant open-air prison. His opposition to French citizens having two passports, coupled with his appreciation for Jean-Marie Le Pen’s criticism of Israel, led Smahi to join the National Front. Though he was once employed by one of the National Front’s bureaus, Smahi no longer works for the party; he was asked to leave after publicly denouncing Marine Le Pen’s “closeness with Zionists”.

Before he joined the party, Smahi confronted then-leader Jean-Marie Le Pen over his stance toward France’s black and Arab residents. He says he wanted to make sure that Le Pen was not planning to expel them. “I looked him in the eye, and he told me that was not his plan,” Smahi recalled. “I saw that he was an experienced and free-thinking politican.”

According to Smahi, most of the Arabs and Muslims who voted for Marine Le Pen in the first round of this year’s presidential election are those who arrived in France recently: doctors and engineers, for example, who had good jobs in their native countries, but decided to flee the repressive dictatorships of these countries.

“These are people who suffered to become French,” Smahi said. “Unlike those others who were born here and continue to vote for the left, when they still don’t understand that it’s the left that dumped them in the ghettos to begin with.”

Smahi expressed his distaste for Arabs and Muslims who have not yet adopted the ways of their country of residence. “I’m Arab, I celebrate Ramadan, and I vote National Front. I don’t like halal meat anymore. I can’t stand women who wear the headscarf, and even less, women who wear the burqa. France is a beautiful country,” he said. “In France, we drink wine and we eat pork. My Muslim compatriots need to calm down, and stop imposing their religion on society.” His bottom line: “We’re in France: love it or leave it.”

Myriam, hotel maid: “The day the National Front is in power, things will be different.”

Myriam, aged 45, is a French woman of Tunisian origin who also declined to provide her last name. Married, with four children, she has lived in the Parisian suburb of Melun for the past 20 years. After dropping out of school because of “family problems”, she began working as a maid in a Parisian hotel.

Myriam does not have kind things to say about her black and Arab compatriots. In her view, they are the cause of all of France’s problems. “If I could change my origins, I’d do it with pleasure,” she admitted.

“The only concern of Blacks and Arabs is looking for a way to get around French law to profit from the social benefits offered here, and to make money without making any effort. They’ve ruined our reputation,” she said. “It’s true that some of them struggle and work hard, but many others…take advantage of the help offered by the government. The day the National Front is in power, things will be different.”

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

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1 May, 2012

A moral tale from Mike Adams

Mike would make a great pastor.  This is a sermon worthy of  Spurgeon

One afternoon I stopped by the bank to make a few deposits. I was in a rush and needed to get in and out as soon as possible. I had places to go and things I had to do. I picked the worst possible time of day and the worst day of the week to do my banking. But I had been out of town and needed to catch up on errands before the weekend began.

There was only one teller working and the line was about fifteen people deep. After waiting patiently, I got close to the front of the line. Looking back at the dozen or so people who had entered the line after me, I was relieved that the wait was almost over. Unfortunately, the elderly woman who was making a deposit was requiring a lot more assistance than the others who had gone before her.

She must have been 85 years old. She held a cane in one hand and wore a thick pair of glasses that were visible only after she peeled away her sunglasses. They were the kind of sunglasses that fit over her regular glasses and were big enough to block harmful rays from even the nastiest of solar eclipses. They were the kind that retirees used to wear to watch shuttle launches in south Florida. The kind people older people wear when they are consumed by practicality and no longer care as much about fashion.

When she was finally finished with her transaction, she started to make small talk with the teller behind the counter. She did not seem to notice that there were so many people in line behind her. The teller smiled and nodded at everything she said. The old lady told her she reminded her of her daughter. Then she asked the teller whether she had children. She just kept making conversation while the young woman behind the counter provided her with full and undivided attention. She seemed to feel sorry for her. It was as if she appreciated sitting where she was rather than occupying the elderly woman’s shoes.

But there was a younger man in the line who did not feel the same sympathy for the old woman. He glared impatiently at the teller as if to say that she should tell the elderly woman she was holding up the line. He even held out one of his hands and waved at the teller. He was signaling that he had been waiting long enough and that it was time his needs were met. But the teller kept nodding politely and giving the elderly woman her undivided attention.

Someone should have said something to the younger man who was so impatient. He should have understood why the elderly woman was clinging on to the conversation with the young teller. It was probably more than a reminder of her children. More likely, it was a reminder that she had not seen them or talked to them in quite some time.

As soon as she finished talking to the teller, the elderly woman walked out of the bank and headed across the parking lot towards her car. She was walking slowly and labored with every step as she leaned upon her cane for support. She had no one to help her. No husband. No son. No daughter. There was nothing to lean on but a cane.

The younger man who had been so impatient with her needed to hear my pastor talk about the time our church went caroling at the old folks’ home about a year and a half ago. He needed to hear the stories of the elderly people whose lives had been enriched by hearing songs sung to them by people who had never met them before. He needed to hear that elderly people are a treasure and not an inconvenience.

Of course, my pastor was not there to tell him. But I was in the bank that day. In case you haven’t figured it out, the impatient man in the line was me.

I should have dropped what I was doing and given the woman a hand as she made her way across the parking lot. I should have made plans to go back to the retirement home to spend a few hours of visitation. Like you, I probably won’t make it back until Christmas. I have places to go and things I have to do.

SOURCE




The Utterly Horrifying English Welfare State

I’ve occasionally commented on foolish public policy in the United Kingdom, including analysis on how the welfare state destroys lives and turns people into despicable moochers.

But if you really want to understand the horrifying absurdity of the welfare state, check out these passages from  a report in the Daily Mail.

Carl Cooper thought he was doing a public service by offering seven benefits claimants the chance to work for him. But the company boss was flabbergasted when none of them turned up on the first day. Astonishingly, not a single one even had the courtesy to tell the marketing firm boss they would not be coming in. Mr Cooper and other staff members called the new employees to ask them where they were. Initially, some refused to answer their phones  when they recognised the number calling them. When the staff finally got through, five said they would be better off staying on state benefits rather than doing the commission-based work. Four of the seven also claimed  torrential rain had put them off.

Wow. Five out of seven admitted that mooching off the taxpayers was a better way to live. What does that tell us about the over-generosity of handouts?  Let’s continue.

Mr Cooper, who runs Car Smart, a marketing firm for independent car dealers in Canterbury, Kent, criticised the benefits system and said it rewarded people for doing nothing. He added: ‘I was left stunned when none of the new recruits turned up for work. They are a bunch of workshy layabouts. ‘These are people who are so morally twisted that they would rather stay on the dole than work. ‘People keep saying there are not enough jobs in the UK but the real problem is that there are not enough determined or ambitious people. ‘The benefit system is too generous and encourages the unemployed to stay unemployed and just breeds more laziness.’

But it’s even worse than Mr. Cooper realizes. He’ll still be paying these people, but in the form of taxes that then get redistributed to subsidize idleness.

You might think the moochers would lose their benefits because they chose laziness over work, but you would be wrong.

Mr Cooper said all his employees received a basic retainer of £100 a week initially and are enrolled on to the company’s commission structure, which could see earnings rise to up to £400 a week. The jobseekers who failed to turn up will not lose their benefits because the basic pay is under the minimum wage.

I found the above story via Kyle Smith, who also cites a story from the Times about a crazy proposal to have bureaucrats scrub floors and serve as human alarm clocks for the welfare class.

Town hall officials have been told to get down on their hands and knees and “clean the floors” of the homes they visit under David Cameron’s Troubled Families programme. They have also been urged to turn up at family homes at 7am if necessary to get parents out of bed and children ready for school on time. The orders were issued by the programme head, Louise Casey… “I want to see people rolling up their sleeves and getting down and cleaning the floors if that is what needs to be done. If a family needs to be shown how to heat up a pizza, show them how to do it. If it takes going round three times a week at 7am to get Mum up, then do it.”

I have three quick reactions to this bit of foolishness.

1. I’d like to see the head bureaucrat, Ms. Casey, spend a month scrubbing floors and waking people up at 7:00 a.m. She strikes me as the typical leftist clown, sitting in an office enjoying a cushy and overpaid job while dreaming up absurd ideas on how to waste taxpayer money. Maybe if she gets her hands dirty by “rolling up [her] sleeves,” she’ll learn the difference between blackboard theorizing and the real world.

2. My gut reaction is that the government should cut the handouts to these dysfunctional households. For every day the welfare bums aren’t up on time to get their kids to school, they lose 10 percent of their loot. If their floors are dirty, that’s another 10 percent. If you want to change their behavior, start cutting into the budget for cigarettes and booze.

3. More realistically, we’re dealing with a problem of people who have little if any self-respect, and they pass horrible habits to their children. Kicking them off the dole might wake up some of them, but I suspect more than a few of them are past the point of no return. Society would probably be better off if their kids were put in foster homes, but I’m sure government would screw that up as well.

Stories like this leave me increasingly convinced that the only good approach is radical decentralization. Get these programs out of capital cities like Washington and London. The U.S. welfare reform was a decent start, but get responsibility to the local level. And in cities, put neighborhoods in charge. Have those small communities in charge of raising the money and spending the money.

That approach is far more likely to generate good ideas and good solutions, though I confess I’m pessimistic about anything working.

But we should figure out ways to stop inter-generational poverty and welfare. I gather it’s considered bad form to suggest mandatory birth control for welfare recipients, so has anyone proposed a different approach that might work?

SOURCE






 Senior British family court judge campaigns to break Britain's 'divorce addiction'

Britons have an addiction to divorce fuelled by a 'Hello! magazine' attitude to marriage, a top judge has warned.  Sir Paul Coleridge said family breakdown was 'one of the most destructive scourges of our time'.

Citing growing evidence of harm to a generation of children, he said youngsters whose parents separated saw their educational achievements and job prospects damaged.

In a highly unusual move for a serving judge, Sir Paul will tomorrow launch a campaign – backed by senior legal figures and Church leaders – to promote marriage.  There was 'incontrovertible' proof that married couples were more likely to stay together, he said.

Sir Paul, one of the most senior family court judges, voiced particular concern over what he called the 'Hello! magazine, Hollywood image' of marriage, saying: 'The more we have spent on weddings, the greater the rate of family breakdown.'

And he also warned that a trend for older couples to split once children leave home was having an 'extremely emotionally disturbing' impact on families.

Sir Paul's campaign is expected to be supported by the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu and the Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, while patrons of the campaign include former chief family law judge Baroness Butler-Sloss, family lawyer and academic Baroness Deech and Baroness Shackleton, the divorce lawyer who acted for Prince Charles and Sir Paul McCartney.

The judge warned that courts had 'streamlined' family cases to contend with the growing numbers, making it too easy for couples to split – suggesting they should be required to go through counselling and mediation.

'We don't traditionally comment on matters of policy, but there are very few people who have had as much experience of what is going on as the family judiciary,' he told the Daily Mail.  'We have watched it get worse and worse and worse. The time for sucking our teeth is over. Waiting for government or others to take action is merely an excuse for moaning and inactivity.'

According to official figures, there were 400,000 cases heard in the family courts in 2010 and 120,000 divorces, up 5 per cent on the previous year.  There were 241,000 marriages in 2010, a near 100-year low. Some 22 per cent of marriages in 1970 had ended in divorce by the 15th wedding anniversary, whereas 33 per cent of marriages now end in the same period.  Cohabitation, meanwhile, rose from a million couples in 2001 to 2.9million in 2010 – and it is projected to rise to 3.7million by 2031.

Referring to the 'Hello! magazine' attitude, he said: 'Marriage is not something that falls out of the sky ready-made on to beautiful people in white linen suits.  'It involves endless hard work, compromises, forgiveness and love. However right the person is, they might not be right two years later. It doesn't matter how wonderful you appear to be to your partner at the beginning, you will begin to display faults that we all have.

'In order for a relationship to last, you have to hang in there and adjust and change and alter and understand. Long, stable marriages are carved out of the rock of human stubbornness and selfishness and difficulties.'

Sir Paul, 62, who has been married for nearly 40 years and has three children and three grandchildren, also warned of the rise in so-called 'silver splitters' – couples who separate late in life, often when their children leave home. In the past decade divorce among the over-50s has risen by 10 per cent. 

'It is very sad that we now see such a huge number of people in their 50s, 60s and 70s getting divorced and carving up their estates and their lives,' he said.  'There has been a dramatic increase. The truth is that people think it's fine to do that once children are grown up. It probably isn't as destructive as when as child is 12, but if you speak to those in their 20s or 30s who experience their parents breaking up long after they have left home, they will tell you almost always that it's an extremely emotionally disturbing thing for them, and indeed for any grandchildren. It creates huge sensitivities. The tectonic plates of a family shift.'

Sir Paul said he backed proposals to make it compulsory for anyone wishing to apply to the courts over an acrimonious separation to attend mediation or counselling.  Tory ministers have suggested that separating couples should be made to understand the impact of conflict on children.

But the judge suggested a wider shake up of the law, which he said dated back to the 1950s. 'The law and the courts have undoubtedly played a part, because in order to manage the enormous flood of cases we have had to streamline the law and the process. There is no such thing as a defended divorce any longer. We see that the fight is no longer over the divorce itself, but over money and children,' he said.

Sir Paul said he was not interested in 'preaching' or pronouncing moral judgments. And he defended the right of judges to speak out on issues of concern in which they had expertise.  It was the same, he said, as doctors alerting the public to an epidemic they had detected. 'It would be irresponsible to remain quiet. This is an exceptional situation,' he said.

The Marriage Foundation, the new campaign group he will lead, will accept divorce is sometimes unavoidable and will not argue that those who make a sustained commitment to one another outside marriage are in some way inferior.

'This is not going to be a cosy club for the smug and self-satisfied of middle England but, we hope, the start of a national movement with the aim of changing attitudes across the board from the very top to the bottom of society, and thus improve the lives of us all, especially children,' the judge said.  Instead, the campaign will seek to promote marriage as the 'gold standard' for relationships that benefit couples, children and wider society.

A report to be published by the foundation will say there is now overwhelming evidence that married relationships are more stable and the children of such relationships fare better.

A baby born to cohabiting parents is more than ten times more likely to see its parents separate than one born to married parents.

Among natural parents, almost 90 per cent of married couples were still together when their children were seven compared with just 69 per cent of couples who were cohabiting. Almost one in four children living with cohabiting parents as a baby, meanwhile, was in lone-mother families by the age of seven compared with only one in ten living with married parents.

The costs and consequences for society, the foundation will say, are unsustainable.  Half a million children and adults are drawn into the family law and justice system every year, with 3.8million children currently caught up in the family justice system.

The financial cost to society of broken relationships is estimated to be £44billion a year. Research by the Youth Justice Board suggests 70 per cent of young offenders are from broken families.

The positive benefits of marriage include higher incomes and greater accumulation of wealth, avoiding the loss of income that tends to follow a breakdown.

Marriage also improves health, with one study suggesting the health gain may be as large as the benefit from giving up smoking.

SOURCE





The New Nazis

There was a time when Jewish children were hunted down and killed in France. Their killers believed themselves to be members of a superior group that was destined to rule the world and enslave or exterminate members of inferior groups. The cowardice and appeasement of the French authorities allowed them to operate freely, to kill Jews and launch attacks on other countries.

What was then is now again. The occupying army doesn't wear uniforms, it wears keffiyahs. It doesn't speak German, it speaks Arabic. It doesn't believe that it is superior for reasons of race as much as for reasons of religion. It does not view all others as Untermenschen, but as infidels. It looks forward not to a thousand year Reich, but to a thousand year Caliphate.

Mohammed Merah did not chase down a French-Jewish seven year old girl, put a gun to her head and pull the trigger because he came from an economically depressed area or any of the other media spin. He was only doing what Muslims had been doing to non-Muslims for over a thousand years. He didn't do what he did because he was "radicalized", he did it because he became a fully committed Muslim.

It won't end with taking down one man and it won't end with Jewish children. When your ideology believes that it is in a zero-sum struggle with the rest of the world and that membership means that you are a superior breed of human being because you worship the Fuhrer or Allah, then it won't stop. It won't ever stop. Not until the figurehead is toppled, the creed is humiliated and the supermen are shown to be cowards, neurotics, pedophiles, insecure men dressing up their weaknesses in power fantasies.

Between all the non-stop coverage, the expressions of grief, the political pandering, no one is stating the obvious. France has been occupied all over again. Once again the occupation has been carried out with the consent of the authorities who have decided that cowardice is the only way.  It is Vichy France all over again

It's not Neo-Nazis that are the threat to Jews today. It's the new Nazis and the old Nazis who were rounding up Jews into ghettos and murdering their children long before a thousand years before Hitler. The Neos are pathetically longing for the return of a genocidal state that isn't coming back, while the Muslims are actually working to bring back their genocidal state. They are doing it in Egypt, in Libya, in Pakistan and in England, France and Spain.

Muslims have hated Jews before the telephone, the telegraph, the steam engine, gunpowder, movable type and paper currency. And now surrounded by smartphones, credit cards and jet planes, they still hate them. That simple undeniable fact is denied by government, in every university and in every center of culture. And every one of those deniers has blood on his hands.

Not only the blood of the Jewish children murdered by Mohammed Merah. Not only the blood of Jews murdered by Muslims in France. But the blood of all those who have been killed by Muslim immigrants, no matter of what generation, in the name of Islam.

The names of Chamberlain, Petain and Quisling have become eternally infamous because they stand for appeasement and collaboration. But then what do we make of the names Blair, Sarkozy and Stoltenberg? What have the latter done differently from their predecessors? The left likes to pretend that its collaboration with Islam is moral, while the collaboration with Nazism was immoral. It's a distinction without a difference.

Does it really matter whether the men murdering children in the name of their Fuhrer call him Adolf or Mohammed? Does it matter whether they call themselves Hans or Mohammed? Does it matter whether their fantasies of superiority are based on bad science or bad religion? What matters is the end result. A foreign enemy controls your cities, murders at will and takes your future for his own.

The Tolouse Massacre did not come out of the blue, it follows decades of Muslim violence in France-- a Kristalnacht that has been going on year after year. It will not stop here. Not while there are five million Muslim in France, some of whom are bound to pick up the Koran and take it seriously. The "radical" clerics that Mohammed Merah listened to did not innovate a new religion, there has never been any basis to the teachings of the so-called radicals other than the Koran. The only book more popular in the Muslim world than Mein Kampf.

"O Muslims, O Servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." That is what Muslims look forward to in their end times. Rocks and trees that tell them where the Jews are so that the fat faithful servants of Allah don't have to spend too much time and energy searching for their victims. Mohammed Merah did not have any trees or rocks to tell him where to find Jews to kill. But he had a compliant French state which tolerated a known Jihadist to the detriment of his victims. 

The question, as always, after every act of Muslim terror is how many more must die? How many? Because the killing will continue. It has gone on for over a thousand years. It is not about to stop now. Muslim leaders who condemn these acts do it for tactical reasons, not moral ones. They don't believe it's wrong to kill rebellious non-Muslims... unless the act rebounds against Muslims.

The difference between the "radicals" and the "moderates" is that the radicals want to engage in genocide even while they are a minority, while the moderates want to wait until they are a majority. The radicals are satisfied with killing a few Hindus, Christians, Jews, here and there. The moderates want to wait and kill millions. Neither are our allies. Both are our murderers.

There is no peaceful way forward here. Carving up Czechoslovakia, Cyprus or Israel will not sate the blood lust of people whose egos are fed by hate, who treat every concession as proof of their own superiority, who love nothing so much as for others to fear them. There is no peace to be had with a creed that defines peace exclusively in terms of its own dominance over others.

Islam, like Nazism, is a disease of the soul, a twin sense of superiority and victimhood possessed by the angry corner dwellers of the world, who are certain that they would rule if only it wasn't for all the others holding them back. To understand a Nazi or a Muslim, you don't need to learn their creeds, just stare into the eyes of a wife beater, a pedophile or any bully and you will see that same smirk which easily transforms into outrage, the arrogant tone that turns unctuous when it is set back on its heels, the flickering eyes that are always looking at what they can't have.

You don't need to read the Koran to understand Mohammed Merah, you can just as easily understand the Koran by reading about what Mohammed Merah did. Nothing much has changed in all the centuries, except that Mohammed Merah didn't get to rape the girl he murdered, because the French state was still functional enough to keep him on the run. The day will however come when it won't be and then the peoples of the free world will learn what true Muslim terror really is, as the peoples of Africa and Asia, as the many other religions of the Middle East, including the Jews learned, in the day of the original Mohammed.

There is nothing extraordinary about what Mohammed Merah did. You may think that there is, but that is because you are a citizen of the free world and you have become used to that rare thing known as civilized behavior. But when your nations opened their borders to people who consider your infidel lands, the Dar Al-Harb, the House of the Sword, then civilization gets its throat cut, it gets chased down at a school, has a gun put to its head and the trigger gets pulled.

Killing children is not a shocking act in the Middle East, except when CNN points its cameras the right way. Parents routinely kill their own children for minor offenses that would hardly get an American child grounded. When they move to America or Canada, they kill their children there too and we considerately look away. If they do that to their children, why do you think they will have any more mercy on yours?

There is no point in holding Mohammed Merah accountable for what he did, just as there was no point in bringing Nazi leaders to trial for crimes against humanity. Mohammed recognizes no form of law other than the law of Islam, just as the Nazis recognized no other form of humanity than their own. There is no common moral or legal system that we share with Islam. Equality before the law, the cornerstone of our system, is so much noise in the windy corridors of the mosque. How can the Subhuman be equal to the Aryan, how can the Infidel be equal to the Muslim?

Mohammed Merah is a mad dog and should be treated as what he is. Accountability is for those who share our moral system. It is for our own leaders who continue perpetuating the macabre myth of a religion of peace, even while attending the funerals of tis victims. Accountability is for the Petains, the Chamberlains and the Quislings who have led us into this hole and keep waving in more Mohammeds to come and join the party.

The old Nazis marched in at the head of an army. The new Nazis bought a plane ticket. The old Nazis had to get by the French Armed Forces and the Royal Air Force. The new Nazis are welcomed in and anyone who says a word otherwise faces trials and jail sentences. The old Nazis deported Jews to camps. The new Nazis kill them right in the cities. And the killing will not stop until we face what Islam is.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

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Examining political correctness around the world and its stifling of liberty and sense. Chronicling a slowly developing dictatorship


BIO for John Ray


Sarah Palin is undoubtedly the most politically incorrect person in American public life so she will be celebrated on this blog


I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling.


I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take chidren away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass


Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action"


Postmodernism is fundamentally frivolous. Postmodernists routinely condemn racism and intolerance as wrong but then say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. They are clearly not being serious. Either they do not really believe in moral nihilism or they believe that racism cannot be condemned!


Postmodernism is in fact just a tantrum. Post-Soviet reality in particular suits Leftists so badly that their response is to deny that reality exists. That they can be so dishonest, however, simply shows how psychopathic they are.


Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."


The Supreme Court of the United States is now and always has been a judicial abomination. Its guiding principles have always been political rather than judicial. It is not as political as Stalin's courts but its respect for the constitution is little better. Some recent abuses: The "equal treatment" provision of the 14th amendment was specifically written to outlaw racial discrimination yet the court has allowed various forms of "affirmative action" for decades -- when all such policies should have been completely stuck down immediately. The 2nd. amendment says that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed yet gun control laws infringe it in every State in the union. The 1st amedment provides that speech shall be freely exercised yet the court has upheld various restrictions on the financing and display of political advertising. The court has found a right to abortion in the constitution when the word abortion is not even mentioned there. The court invents rights that do not exist and denies rights that do.


Consider two "jokes" below:

Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals?

A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis"

Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one:

Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban?

A. They are both religious fundamentalists"

The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth".


One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran.


It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life.


The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin


On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.


I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!


Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds